CHAPTER XVIII.
In the weeks which followed Nell’s departure for London the spirits of her uncle declined day by day until the red-faced, genial innkeeper had become little more than the shadow of his former self.
He missed his niece more than he would admit even to himself. And although it is true that his mind had become tainted with suspicion of her truth and honesty, he would have been ready and willing to receive her back and to forget the doubts which he could not wholly stifle. But Nell was sharpsighted enough to understand this state of feeling, as revealed to her unconsciously by her uncle in his letters. So she made excuses for remaining in London, and George Claris was left lonely.
The innkeeper, although he did not share Clifford’s entire confidence in Nell, was grateful to the young barrister for it. But he said that Nell had forbidden him to divulge her address, and Mr. King must wait for the girl’s own time for making it known to him.
Just before Clifford left reluctantly for London, he had another interview with the detective Hemming, who, after having disappeared for a fortnight, had returned to the scene of his investigations.
Hemming was reticent, but gave the impression that he was more strongly convinced than ever that he was on the right track as to the perpetrator of the murder and of the robberies.
“Well, what are you going to do?” asked Clifford impatiently. “Are you going to set another decoy to work?”
Hemming looked at him shrewdly.
“It won’t be any use,” answered he dryly, “until—”
“Until what?”
“Well, sir, if I must say it—until Miss Claris comes back.”
Clifford controlled the anger he felt, since an exhibition of it would only have closed the detective’s lips more tightly.
“I should like you to make the experiment, though,” said he. “Will you make it on my account? I want it very well done, no matter what it costs.”
“You’re throwing your money away, sir,” replied Hemming, civilly. “Still, if you wish it, and choose to pay for it, of course it can be done.”
Clifford found a card, and gave it to the detective.
“There is my address,” said he. “I rely upon you to do your best.”
“And you won’t be dissuaded, sir, from a useless expense?”
“No.”
Before they parted, Clifford and the detective had arranged between them the details of a little plot which Clifford thought would certainly suffice to excite the appetite of the astute but daring thief who was at the bottom of all the mischief.
In the week following Clifford’s departure, therefore, there arrived at the Blue Lion a rough-looking person who gave himself out as a successful emigrant, who had returned to his native land with his pockets full of money. The man stayed at the inn for several days, boasted openly in the bar of his luck, showed the results of it in lavish “treating” and in the apparently careless exhibition of handfuls of gold.
But it was all in vain. Hemming had to report to Clifford, not without secret triumph, that the “wealthy emigrant” had been allowed, after a prolonged stay, to leave the inn without having received a visit from the midnight thief. Clifford was much chagrined, although he affected to think that it was only in common prudence that the thief, on whom at least the suspicion of murder now hung, had grown more careful.
But when Hemming had left him, Clifford began to think out a new problem which this last occurrence had presented to him. Was Jem Stickels the thief?
But then it was certainly not Jem Stickels whose hand he had caught under his pillow. And a shiver passed through the young fellow’s frame as he remembered the touch of the smooth skin, of the little slender fingers.
It was not until the first days of March, on a blustering, stormy morning, that Nell Claris, her resolution broken down by a pathetic appeal from her uncle, came back to Stroan.
George Claris met his niece at the station, and each was shocked at the changed appearance of the other. Nell seemed to have lost half her beauty; her cheeks had lost their roundness, and her eyes the look of child-like happiness which had been one of her greatest charms.
“Oh, uncle!” she cried softly, when she had received his silent kiss on her forehead, “you don’t look the same uncle! What have you been doing to yourself?”
“Oh, we’ve been pottering along much in the same old way,” answered the innkeeper, affecting an indifference which he was far from feeling. “Nothing’s happened in particular, since Mr. King went back to London. He wanted your address, as I told you in my letters. Why wouldn’t you let me give it to him?”
“Uncle, I like him too much,” answered the girl, steadily. “If it had been in the old time, now, he should have had it quickly enough. But until this miserable business, that’s been the ruin of everything to us all, is cleared up, I’ll not let any man I care about involve himself in my disgrace.”
“Disgrace, Nell!” echoed George Claris in a low voice. “Don’t say that, child, don’t say that.”
In his tone the girl detected all the emotions which the story and the rumors about it had set stirring in her uncle’s simple mind. She felt keenly the affection, the doubt, the anger, which had tortured him during the long weeks of the winter. She gave a little sigh, and tucking her hand under his arm, whispered:
“We won’t say disgrace, then, but misfortune.”
“Aye, that’s better, dear,” agreed the poor fellow mournfully.
At that moment they emerged from the shelter afforded by the trees of Stroan Court, the mansion which stood just outside of the walls of the old town. They were within sight of the spot where the body of Jem Stickels had been discovered; but any emotions they might have felt at the recollection were overpowered by a sense of actual physical danger. For the wind, which had been boisterous all the morning, was now so strong that they were afraid that the dog-cart would be blown over; while at the same time a blinding snow-fall made it almost impossible for them to discern the road a yard in front of the horse’s head.
“It blows straight on the shore,” said George Claris. “It’ll be a lucky thing if none of the ships in the channel get drove out of their course to-night.”
Nell shuddered. Living as she did by the sea-shore, she was accustomed to storms and the horrors attendant upon them to the ships at sea. Every gale brought disaster; and although, the inn being on the shore of a bay, most of the accidents of which Nell heard happened some few miles away, yet she and her uncle were always among the first to hear of them, from the lips of the frequenters of the inn.
Both Nell and her uncle thought it prudent to finish their short journey on foot, leading the horse, and finding their way with some difficulty through the snow storm.
It was about eight o’clock that night when they learned that a schooner had gone ashore in the bay itself, within a mile of the inn. She had lost her steering-gear in the storm, and the force of the wind had driven her upon the sands at the edge of the marsh. It was high tide when the disaster happened, but it was thought that the ship was in no danger of breaking up, and that her crew would all be got off in safety as the tide went down. The life-boat from Courtstairs was already on its way to the wrecked vessel when the news came to the inn.
Through the snow, which the wind blew straight into their faces, Nell and half a dozen of her neighbors made their way across the marsh, the men carrying ropes and lanterns and the women restoratives for the half-frozen crew. It was a long and weary mile. The ground was hard with frost, the snow-drifts were already getting deep; the flares set burning from time to time by the crew of the wrecked ship flickered uncannily in the darkness whenever the snow ceased for a short time.
But the journey was not a fruitless one. The men of the party, seafarers themselves for the most part, and all used to the sea, succeeded, up to their waists in water, in launching a boat and bringing the crew safely to land.
The men were so benumbed by the cold that they had to be helped along as they limped and stumbled over the snow to the inn. There, however, they were soon restored through the kindly offices of a host of willing hands.
Every creature in the neighborhood had heard by this time of the unusual event of a ship wrecked in their own bay, and it was through quite a large crowd that the sailors made their way into the little Blue Lion.
Even Mrs. Lansdowne, the wife of the most prominent country gentleman of the neighborhood, had heard of the new excitement, and had driven over, having picked up the colonel and Miss Bostal on her way. On hearing that there was little hope of saving the schooner, and that in any case the sailors would lose their kit, Mrs. Lansdowne put into George Claris’s hands, for the benefit of the men, a sum of money which at once became the starting point of a collection, to which most of the crowd contributed something. Even the colonel, whose poverty was proverbial, gave a shilling, although his daughter watched his hand with anxious eyes as he volunteered the coin. Altogether between five and six pounds was collected; and George Claris tied the money up in a canvas bag, and locked it up in the till behind the bar. There were whispers in the crowd that George Claris’s house was not the safest place in the world to keep money in, but even the whisperers had no doubt of the honesty of Claris himself, while many were even glad of the opportunity of showing their confidence in a man who had undoubtedly been for some time under a cloud.
It was Nell, however, who watched this proceeding with the deepest anxiety. Her agitation was so evident, as she stood just within the doorway which led from the bar to the back of the inn, staring at her uncle, that one or two of the crowd looked at each other significantly. Suddenly the girl took a few rapid steps forward and touched the innkeeper’s arm.
“Uncle,” said she, in a low voice, “Uncle George, wouldn’t it be better to send the money into Stroan by—” She glanced at the men who were crowding in, and noticed one of the tradesmen of the town, “by Mr. Paramor?”
Her uncle frowned and Mr. Paramor shook his head, with the kindly intention of showing George Claris that his friends were on his side.
“No, no, Miss Claris, leave it where it is, where it’ll be ready to hand,” said he.
As Nell drew back, without a word, but with a curious look of constraint and trouble on her face, a little figure appeared at the door, and in her prim tones Miss Bostal, whom no emergency could induce to step over the threshold of an inn, called to her:
“Nell, Nell, come out here, and speak to me.”
Nell looked at her, hesitated, and was on the point of disappearing into the interior of the house, when Meg, who was passing towards the bar-parlor, with a tray full of hot drinks, officiously dragged her forward with one strong hand, while she carefully balanced the glasses on the tray with the other.
“It’s Miss Theodora, don’t you see, Miss Nell?” said she in a loud whisper.
And Nell, unable now to pretend that she never heard nor saw, went out into the road.
“Why, Nell, how is this? Is this the way you treat your old friend? I didn’t even know you were back again, and I haven’t heard a word from you for all these weeks and weeks. What does it mean, my dear? Now tell me what it means? I am afraid you are not happy. I am afraid you bear me malice about—Mr. King.”
Nell was cold, shy, awkward, a different creature altogether from the girl Miss Bostal had known and loved.
“Oh, that is all over,” she answered quickly. “I don’t suppose I shall ever see Mr. King again.”
Miss Theodora seemed rather distressed to hear this. Now that her protégée, Jem Stickels was dead, she could afford to withdraw her objection to his rival.
“But why not, but why not, my dear?” she urged earnestly. “I thought you were so fond of him!”
And the little woman, who had got out of the carriage to go in search of her neglectful friend, drew round her more closely the woollen shawl which was hardly sufficient protection against the falling snow.
“You had better get into the carriage, Miss Theodora,” suggested Nell, coldly, ignoring the lady’s question.
“But I want an answer first, my dear. Never mind the snow. I only shiver because I am not used to the night air. You know I never go out after sundown, and not often before.”
But Nell would give her no answer. And Miss Theodora, when she was at last constrained to get into the carriage then, regretted to Mrs. Lansdowne that London had spoiled her dear little girl.
It was now past closing time at the inn, and George Claris, with great difficulty, was clearing his house of its crowd of customers. Those three of the sailors who had suffered most from cold and exposure were to spend the night under his roof, while the rest were taken to Stroan by new-found friends who offered them hospitality. George Claris locked up his house, having already sent his niece and Meg to bed; and, thoroughly tired out, went up to his own room.
He had had a very hard day, and he had finished up with an extra glass of rum and water. The consequence was that he fell off to sleep as soon as he sat down on the edge of his bed to take his boots off, and did not wake up until some hours later, when he sat up suddenly, and remembered, at the moment of waking, that he had forgotten to take the money, both his own takings, and the collection for the sailors, out of the till in the bar.
Opening the door of his room softly, in order not to disturb the sleepers, he went downstairs.
It was half-past five on the following morning when the nearest neighbors were startled by a loud knocking at their door, followed by the abrupt in-rush of Meg, the inn servant, in a state of frantic excitement.
“Oh, come, some of ye; do come! There’s been awful doings in our house!” she cried, scarcely articulate between her fright and want of breath. “There’s somebody hiding in the bar, and I can’t get him out; and Mr. Claris is nowhere to be found; and Miss Nell’s fainted when I told her; and, oh, dear, do come!”
The woman whom she was addressing was at first too much alarmed to come; but two men, who were not far off, hearing the commotion, offered to go back with Meg, and in a few minutes the whole party were at the inn.
There was somebody behind the bar, certainly—somebody down on the floor. The men stood hesitating at the door. The sounds which came to their ears from behind the bar were more like the gruntings and growlings of a beast than the voice of a man.
“It’s not a man you’ve got there. It’s an animal,” said one of the men.
And shouldering the pitchfork he was carrying, he made a dash into the building.
But as he entered, a wild figure sprang up from behind the bar and faced the intruder, glaring and raging. It seized one of the earthenware jugs which stood on a shelf against the wall, and brandishing it above his head, gave forth an unearthly howl.
“Who is it? What is it?” screamed Meg.
“Stand back! stand back!” roared the creature, stamping and whirling its arms about. “Stand back! I won’t be robbed! I’ll serve you as I’ve served it—as I’ve served the devil! the devil! the devil!”
And with more stamping, more shouting, the creature hurled the jug, aiming at the head of the intruder.
It was dashed into a thousand pieces against the door, which shook and rattled under the blow.
“Why, it’s—it’s George Claris himself!” faltered the second man, who kept outside, too much alarmed to go beyond the door.
“Master?” cried Meg, indignantly. “Why, he don’t drink! He’s as sober a man as there is in the place!”
She was sobbing, and trembling, and clinging to the man.
“He ain’t drunk,” replied the man shortly. “He’s gone mad, my girl. Look at his eyes.”
And as the girl looked fearfully through the window at her unhappy master, she could not doubt the truth of the man’s words.
At eleven o’clock on the previous night George Claris had been as sane a man as any in the county. At six o’clock in the morning he was a raving madman.