'Now, you see, Glascock's dead, and can't tell tales no more nor Mr. Beauclerc, and Dr. Sturk's a dead man too, you may say; and I think he knew—that is—brought to mind somewhat. He lay, you see, on the night Mr. Beauclerc lost his life, in a sort of a dressing-room, off his chamber, and the door was open; but he was bad with a fall he had, and his arm in splints, and he under laudanum—in a trance like—and on the inquest he could tell nothing; but I think he remembered something more or less concerning it after.' And Mr. Irons took a turn, and came back very close to Mervyn, and said very gently, 'and I think Charles Archer murdered him.'
'Then Charles Archer has been in Dublin, perhaps in Chapelizod, within the last few months,' exclaimed Mervyn, in a sort of agony.
'I didn't say so,' answered Irons. 'I've told you the truth—'tis the truth—but there's no catching a ghost—and who'd believe my story? and them things is so long ago. And suppose I make a clean breast of it, and that I could bring you face to face with him, the world would not believe my tale, and I'd then be a lost man, one way or another—no one, mayhap, could tell how—I'd lose my life before a year, and all the world could not save me.'
'Perhaps—perhaps Charles Nutter's the man; and Mr. Dangerfield knows something of him,' cried Mervyn.
Irons made no answer, but sat quite silent for some seconds, by the fire, the living image of apathy.
'If you name me, or blab one word I told you, I hold my peace for ever,' said he, slowly, with a quiet oath, but very pale, and how blue his chin looked—how grim his smile, with his face so shiny, and his eyelids closed. You're to suppose, Sir, 'tis possible Mr. Dangerfield has a guess at him. Well, he's a clever man, and knows how to put this and that together; and has been kind to Dr. Sturk and his family. He's a good man, you know; and he's a long-headed gentleman, they say; and if he takes a thing in hand, he'll be as like as another to bring it about. But sink or swim my mind's made up. Charles Archer, wherever he is, will not like my going—he'll sniff danger in the wind, Sir. I could not stay—he'd have had me—you see, body and soul. 'Twas time for me to go—and go or stay, I see nothing but bad before me. 'Twas an evil day I ever saw his face; and 'twould be better for me to have a cast for my life at any rate, and that I'm nigh-hand resolved on; only you see my heart misgives me—and that's how it is. I can't quite make up my mind.'
For a little while Mervyn stood in an agony of irresolution. I'm sure I cannot understand all he felt, having never been, thank Heaven! in a like situation. I only know how much depended on it, and I don't wonder that for some seconds he thought of arresting that lank, pale, sinister figure by the fire, and denouncing him as, by his own confession, an accessory to the murder of Beauclerc. The thought that he would slip through his fingers, and the clue to vindication, fortune, and happiness, be for ever lost, was altogether so dreadful that we must excuse his forgetting for a moment his promise, and dismissing patience, and even policy, from his thoughts.
But 'twas a transitory temptation only, and common sense seconded honour. For he was persuaded that whatever likelihood there was of leading Irons to the critical point, there was none of driving him thither; and that Irons, once restive and impracticable, all his hopes would fall to the ground.
'I am going,' said Irons, with quiet abruptness; 'and right glad the storm's up still,' he added, in a haggard rumination, and with a strange smile of suffering. 'In dark an' storm—curse him!—I see his face everywhere. I don't know how he's got this hold over me,' and he cursed him again and groaned dismally. 'A night like this is my chance—and so here goes.'
'Remember, for Heaven's sake, remember,' said Mervyn, with agonised urgency, as he followed him with a light along the passage to the back-door.