CHAPTER XXIII.
Deborah had scarcely got outside the door when she perceived that something more than moral force would be wanted to keep Sep Jocelyn up to the simple task she wished him to perform. The mere thought of intruding unbidden upon Amos Goodhare caused him so much trepidation that she was able to measure the awful extent of the influence the old man had established over the younger ones. When, therefore, Sep had stopped and hesitated half-a-dozen times, she put her hand through his arm and gently urged him forward.
“You had better go back; let me take you back,” he whispered, afraid of the strength of her compelling will.
“Not until you have shown me Goodhare’s hiding-place, and I have assured myself that Lord St. Austell is safe,” she answered firmly.
Sep took a few steps forward with a groan, and stopped short in some relief a couple of feet from the wall at the turn in the passage.
“You’ll have to come back now,” he whispered; “and I’ll try to find out another way round. You can’t get over this wall.”
“Can’t I?” said the country girl contemptuously. “You go first and just give me a hand on the other side.”
He obeyed very reluctantly, and he scarcely got over the wall himself when the athletic young girl was by his side. After that, with a sort of dismal acquiescence in the fact that she must have her own way, he led her without further pause to the door of the house which they had made their hiding-place.
Here at last for a moment the girl’s brave spirit seemed to fail her. For Sep removed the lower boards of the door noiselessly, and she saw that the house was as black as night inside, and felt the hot fumes of stifling smoke which, coming up through the hole made in the floor of what had once been the back-shop, spread slowly through the whole house, and escaped, through what cracks and crevices it could find, into the open air.
Sep snatched at the opportunity of persuading her to go back.
“Listen,” he whispered. “Can’t you hear him singing to himself down there?”
Deborah bent forward, and caught certain fitful, crooning sounds, which, rising from time to time to a loud, savage note, made her shiver.
“He sings like that when he has done some diabolical thing,” Sep went on. And Deborah heard his teeth chatter. “It would not be safe for you to go near him now.”
“But Lord St. Austell! What can have become of him?” asked Deborah with a sudden impulse of alarm stronger than any she had felt yet.
“Well, you can’t help him, anyhow,” said Sep shuddering.
“And Rees?”
Sep did not answer. They were inside the house now, listening to that terrible crooning.
“I must find out what has happened—what is going on,” said Deborah suddenly, with decision.
“You can’t see anything unless you go down into the first cellar,” said Sep, sulkily. “And then, if he heard you go, or saw you through the door, it would be all up with you.”
“Won’t you come down with me?”
He hesitated, and then said pettishly, “Why can’t you come back?”
“I can’t till I am sure that no harm has happened to Lord St. Austell. Will you come!”
“I suppose so—if you won’t be persuaded,” said Sep, sullenly.
It was easy to descend without noise, as every precaution to deaden sound had been taken by the three confederates. The ladder was fixed quite firmly, and the rungs of it were covered with felt. Deborah went down first, and waited at the bottom of the ladder for Sep, not knowing which way to move in the darkness. But he did not come. She did not dare to call to him, and while she was debating with herself whether she should creep up the ladder again and shame him into accompanying her, a very faint sound above told her that he had broken faith and gone back, leaving her to face alone whatever danger might be awaiting her.
Her first impulse on making this discovery was indignation, not with the trembling wretch who had failed her, but with herself for her own folly in trusting him. Then immediately she set about devising what she could do. She heard a cork drawn in the lower cellar, the door of which was shut, and it seemed to her that the weird, droning sound which Amos Goodhare was making grew gradually louder. Was Lord St. Austell hiding somewhere, on the watch like herself, she wondered. Her eyes were getting accustomed to the gloom, and she now perceived, some way to the left, a faint light from above. Moving very cautiously in that direction she perceived that there was a boarded-up-window, and that a few rays of what murky daylight was left filtered through the cracks from a grating above.
As she crossed the floor her boot struck against a couple of boards that were lying there, and made a little clatter. Instantly the crooning in the next room stopped, and Deborah heard sounds as of a seat pushed back. She had time to get close to the wall under the boarded window, and to crouch down, when the door was pushed open, and against a ruddy glow of fire-light she saw the figure of Amos Goodhare.
She kept quite still.
“Rees!” called he, not loud but imperatively. A pause. He repeated the name savagely. Then, between his teeth, he muttered, “D—n the young whelp,” and took a few steps into the room.
Deborah could hear her own heart beating.
But Goodhare had not found her out. The next moment she heard the clank of glass, and as he returned to the lower cellar she saw that he carried a bottle of wine under his arm. This time he pulled the door after him, but it rebounded a little way and stood ajar. After a few more minutes of silent apprehension, during which Goodhare’s savage droning went on again, Deborah felt sufficiently secure to indulge the overwhelming anxiety and curiosity which prompted her to look at him in his den and discover whether he was really alone.
She crept over the floor, cautiously feeling with her feet before every step she took, and reaching the half-open door, found it easy to peep into the lower cellar without being seen by Goodhare. For he was sitting on the opposite side of the square grate, leaning on his elbow along one of the wooden benches, with a great pewter tankard beside him and two or three empty bottles at his feet. He was reaching the sleepy stage of intoxication, she thought, for his face wore an expression of dull ferocity as he stared into the fire.
Suddenly he lifted his head and assumed a listening attitude, becoming on the instant alert and fierce. Deborah withdrew at once from the door, afraid that he had seen her. But the next moment she heard sounds on the floor above, and a step which she thought was Rees Pennant’s. Creeping back to the wall she listened intently, and heard Goodhare push the door of the inner cellar wide open, just as some one began to climb down the ladder.
“Rees!” whispered Amos rather huskily.
“All right.”
They disappeared together into the lower cellar, pulled the door after him, and drew the bolt.
Deborah crept close to the small nail-holes where once a lock had been fixed, hoping to learn what had become of Lord St. Austell, about whom she felt every minute more anxious. She could see nothing through the holes but the glow and flicker of the fire on the walls, but she was able to distinguish every word of the conversation.
“Well,” Rees began, in a spiritless and surly voice, “you seem to have been enjoying yourself.”
“I have,” assented the other, in a tone of such savage satisfaction that Deborah seemed to feel the blood grow suddenly cold in her veins. “There’s nothing else to be done till Sep comes back.”
“He has come back,” said Rees shortly.
“Come back!” echoed Goodhare in a tone of anger and consternation. “What the d—l has he come back for?”
“You’d better ask him. I met him just now standing shivering and hesitating at the outer door of our room.”
“But he never went then! He can’t have been to Amsterdam and back since yesterday!”
“I should say not.”
“Then what has the fool done with the jewels?” asked Amos, whose tones grew more furious every moment.
Already he had drawn the bolt of the door.
“From what I could make out, some woman’s got them. But the poor wretch was in such an abject state of funk that I couldn’t get much that was intelligible out of him.”
Goodhare stammered out an oath. He seemed to be choking with rage as he burst opened the door with a rough hand.
“A woman!” he growled out. “I’ll tear the heart out of her.”
“If you can get hold of her,” says Rees drily. “But as I thought you’d make things unpleasant for the poor chap, I pushed him out of the front door and told him to put a couple of miles between you and him as fast as possible.”
Goodhare turned, very slowly. The shock of this intelligence, imparted thus coolly, seemed for the moment to overwhelm him. Then, with a howl of rage, he sprang at Rees, who nimbly avoided him.
“You dare to defy me, to help this miserable cur to escape me!”
“Yes, I tell you I’m sick of the whole business, this dog’s life and all. And I’m not sorry the jewels are gone, that I can be quit of knavery and you together. You seem to be pretty well ‘on’ to-night, and in you’re true colors you’re by no means fascinating.”
Goodhare seemed, however, to perceive the need of pulling himself together. There was a short pause before he answered, in a quieter tone:
“Don’t you think you’re rather ungrateful? You must own that I’ve shown you how to enjoy yourself, and given you the means to do it, too.”
“A poor sort of enjoyment! I’m the wreck of what I was a year and a half ago!”
“Only shows how alluring you found pleasure, that you gave yourself up to it so completely.”
“Well, I’ve had enough of it now. I’m going back to Carstow, where I’ve left a good little girl dying for love of me. I’m going to settle down to quiet respectability and forget that I ever saw your cursed face.”
“And on what money do you propose to do this?”
“That’s my affair.”
“No; mine.”
Rees had miscalculated the old man’s activity, as well as his patience. Having been in the habit of treating Goodhare with impertinence, which the ex-librarian always bore without protest, the short-sighted and vain young man thought he need set no bounds to his pertness. But as a matter of fact, every insult, every slight which he had ever put upon his accomplished tutor in evil-doing, had been stored up in the mind of the latter, who only waited to destroy his tool until he should have no further need for it. That time he thought had now come.
Maddened by the shedding of blood—that last crime which he had tried within the past hour—Goodhare gave rein to the demoniacal side of his nature, and showed all the hatred and contempt, which had been gathering in his mind against the young man since their connection first began, in one look, one exclamation which turned the young man’s blood cold, even before he felt the sinewy grip of the lean fingers about his throat.
“I’ll serve you,” he growled, “as I’ve just served a better man.” And, drawing from one of his pockets the same knife with which he had stabbed Lord St. Austell, he made a dash at Rees Pennant’s breast. But the young man was more alert than the old one had been. He flung out his hands, struck, struggled, and writhed to such good purpose that his assailant could not despatch him with the neatness he had shown in his attack on the earl. It was not until the third stab that Rees fell back with a groan, and slipping from Goodhare’s murderous hands, sank on to the nearest bench, and thence in a heap on to the floor.
The sight of the young fellow’s body, and the red stain that was spreading on the matting at his feet, seemed to sober Goodhare and bring him for the first time to a knowledge of his position. He glanced at the door, for he thought he heard sounds outside. Then, kneeling hastily down by Rees Pennant’s motionless body, he ransacked all the pockets of the young man’s clothes with eager, swift fingers. He had fancied that in them he should find the jewels, believing that Rees had either gone shares with Sep in them, or appropriated them all, with the idea that such audacity would never be suspected. Finding no trace of either jewels or money, beyond a handful of loose silver, Goodhare started to his feet, for the first time utterly horror-struck and confounded. Had he really lost his best chance of recovering the jewels? For Rees Pennant’s influence over Sep was infinitely greater than his own; besides, the story of Sep’s escape might be true.
With real solicitude he stooped over the silent huddled-up figure on the floor.
“Rees, Rees, old boy!” he cried, in a voice full of anxiety.
But he got no answer.
Enraged beyond measure, and still too much excited to be quite master of himself, he gave the inanimate body an impatient kick, and rising hastily, drank the remains of a bottle of wine without taking the trouble to pour it into the tankard, climbed out of the room, and up the ladder on to the ground floor.
Here, however, he came to a sudden check. Somebody had begun to hammer violently at the back door and just as he was making for the front, resolved to try to burst it open, he heard the sound of somebody battering it from the outside.
A moment’s thought showed him the only course open. Just as he heard the sound of the first board giving way under the crashing blows which were being hailed upon it, he sprang up the rickety stairs.