Alone in the parlour, Beatrice, still mechanically grasping the handkerchief, suddenly remembered how she had found it, and at once examined the corners. It was with a gasp of terror that she realised to whom it belonged. "V.R.P." could only stand for Vivian Robert Paslow, and he--as she knew only too well--was the enemy of the deceased. Could it be that Vivian had killed the miser to settle the question of marriage, and secure his threatened property from getting into the cruel clutches of his victim? In that first moment of horror Beatrice was inclined to think so. Then, with a revulsion of feeling, she recoiled with horror from so base an idea. The man she loved was not a midnight assassin: however much he may have hated Alpenny, he certainly would not have put the old man to death in so barbarous a fashion. Finally, he had been with her under the Witches' Oak last night, and could not possibly be guilty.
Then, again, on further thought it occurred to her that such an alibi could scarcely serve in this case. The meeting at the haunted tree had taken place about seven o'clock, and had lasted, so far as she could reckon from confused recollection, for a quarter of an hour. Then had come the episode of the pursuit of the watcher by Paslow, her own flight through the woods, the breaking of the storm, and her fainting-fit. She might have been hours unconscious; she might have been hours getting home, for she had very little recollection of that mad passage through the furious wind and rain. Only she remembered reaching The Camp between the gates, and blindly falling into the arms of a lean, tall man with a black patch over his left eye. Had that man been Vivian? Was it truly her lover who, in the intervening time, had stolen to the deserted Camp, and using the key of the small gate (which she knew he possessed) had gained access to the dungeon, there to commit his crime? No! It was impossible. If she could only remember the time when she came back! This was hard to do, and yet it was done, for chance came to her aid.
Besides the cuckoo-clock which had awakened her, Beatrice possessed an old silver watch, given to her on some far-distant birthday by Durban. It stood on a small stand beside the bed, and she remembered that in slipping between the sheets, weary and half asleep, she had knocked this down between the table it stood on and the wall. Some instinct must have directed her to look for it at the moment. She thrust the incriminating handkerchief into her pocket, and ran to the bedroom carriage. There she found the watch--found also that it had stopped at the hour of nine o'clock. It was just possible that the stoppage had occurred when she had knocked it over. She certainly had wound it up as usual on the previous night, and twice before, when knocked off its stand, it had stopped dead.
"Yes," thought the girl, inspecting the yellow dial, "it must have been stopped by the fall, unless"--she shook it vigorously--"unless it has run down"; but a steady ticking told her that the main-spring was not yet fully unwound, and she replaced the watch on its stand, with a firm conviction that she had entered the bedroom at nine on the previous evening. Vivian had left her to follow the spy at a quarter past seven, so he could easily have committed the crime, so far as time and opportunity went, as one hour and three-quarters had been taken up by her in getting home. An alibi, therefore, was little good in this case, and on the evidence of the handkerchief he would assuredly be hanged.
"No! no! no!" murmured Beatrice with rising inflection, and speaking aloud in her agitation; "it is untrue. Vivian would never commit so cowardly a deed as to kill an old man of eighty, however much he may have hated him. I shall hide the handkerchief--but where? The police are sure to search the place, and--and----" A sudden thought struck her. "I'll keep it in my pocket," she decided, and thrust it, neatly folded up, to the very bottom of that receptacle. Later, she intended to cautiously question Paslow, and learn if he had been to The Camp on that night. But the conversation would be between their two selves. She would tell no one else of the handkerchief she had picked up, not even Durban, faithful servant though he was.
It was at this moment, and as though in response to her mental mention of his name, that Durban appeared. He looked much shaken by the tragedy, and was green with scarcely concealed fright. Beatrice eyed him with astonishment, as she had never deemed him to be much attached to the old tyrant who had gone so violently to his long rest. Durban evaded her searching glance, which was perhaps fortunate, as the girl herself did not wish her own countenance to be too closely scrutinised.
"I've shut it up in the counting-house," said Durban, his eyes on the ground, and jerking his thumb over his shoulder. "The police will be here soon. Mrs. Snow will tell them; she'll be glad of the chance."
"Why? Did she know my--the late Mr. Alpenny?"
"That's right, missy." Durban raised his eyes with approval, and dropped them again. "Never call him your father."
"He was my stepfather," Beatrice reminded him.