A Dead Reckoning

by T. W. Speight

[CHAPTER IX.]

Gerald Brooke bade farewell to his wife, and quitted Beechley Towers about an hour after midnight. There was no moon; but the clouds had dispersed after the rain, and the stars shone brightly. His object was to make his way to Penrhyn Court, the seat of Sir John Starkie, the justice of the peace who had signed the warrant for his arrest. It seemed like walking into the lion's den; but it was probably the wisest thing he could have done under the circumstances. Penrhyn Court was one of the last places in the world where anybody would think of looking for him. Mr. Tom Starkie had offered to find a secure hiding-place for him for the time being; and after he had once consented to yield to his wife's entreaties and keep out of the way for the present, while awaiting the course of events, it seemed to him that he could not do better than accept his friend's offer. For one thing, he would be on the spot, should anything turn up necessitating his immediate presence; for another, he would be able to communicate with his wife without risk, through the medium of kind-hearted Tom.

Over the parting of husband and wife we need not linger; but it was with a sad heart that Gerald quitted the threshold of the pleasant home where, but such a little time ago, he had looked forward to spending many happy years.

Skirting coppice and hedgerow, and keeping as much as possible in the black shade of the tree; he sped swiftly on his way. The distance from the Towers to the Court was about three miles as the crow flies; and almost as straight as the crow flies went Gerald, taking hedge and ditch and stone wall on his way, and allowing no obstacle to turn him from his course. Once, as he was on the point of emerging from a coppice of nut-trees, he came upon two keepers, armed with guns, who were crossing a meadow not many yards away, evidently on the lookout for poachers. He shrank back on his footsteps as silent as a shadow, and waited for fully ten minutes before he ventured to proceed. Again, at a point where it was necessary for him to cross the high-road, he had a narrow escape from coming face to face with a mounted constable who was riding leisurely along on his solitary round. He had just time to sink back into the hedge-bottom and lie there as motionless as a log till the danger was past.

Mr. Tom Starkie had described the position of his rooms to Gerald, so that the latter had no difficulty in making his way to them. He was to be guided by a lighted window the blind of which showed a transverse bar of a darker shade. As soon as he found this window, Gerald gave utterance to a low whistle. The light was at once withdrawn, as a token that his signal had been heard; and two minutes later he found himself safely in his friend's rooms.

So far all had gone well; but only the preliminary step had been taken as yet. Not a soul in Penrhyn Court but Tom himself must know or even suspect the presence there of Gerald Brooke. But Tom had thought of all this when he first urged his friend to come to the Court, and had in his mind's eye a certain safe hiding-place, known to him and his father alone, where Gerald could lie by and await the course of events. The hiding-place in question was known as "The Priest's Hole," and was an integral part of the oldest portion of the house. A sliding panel in the library, held in its place by a concealed spring, gave admission to a narrow passage built in the thickness of one of the outer walls, down from which access was obtained, by means of a steep flight of steps, to two small chambers hollowed out of the very foundations of the house. These rooms were shut out from all daylight, the walls were unplastered, and the floors of hard dry earth. In the larger of the two was a small fireplace, but without any grate in it, the chimney of which opened into one of the main stacks of the Court. In one corner was a tressel bedstead of black worm-eaten oak, which would seem to indicate that the place had not been without an occasional occupant in days gone by.

The first two hours after Gerald's arrival were spent by Tom in victualling and furnishing this place of refuge. Having encased his feet in a pair of list slippers, his first visit was to the larder, where he requisitioned bread, cheese, butter, tea, coffee, sardines, and sundry other comestibles, greatly to the perplexity of the worthy cook when she came to look over her stores next morning. His next raid had for its objects candles, matches, and crockery. Then came a folding-chair and a spirit-lamp from his own rooms; and so on till he possessed himself of as many articles as he required. Tom took immense delight in these stealthy raids during the small-hours of the morning; and more than once he was compelled to come to a stand with his arms full of things and indulge in a silent laugh, which shook him from head to foot, when he thought of worthy Sir John asleep, and of what his feelings would have been could he have seen how his first-born was just then occupied.

The June sun was high above the horizon before Tom's preparations were completed. It was time for Gerald to vanish like a ghost at cockcrow. The two friends shook hands and parted for a little while; but when Gerald heard the click of the sliding panel as it was pushed back into its place, and when he had shut the door at the bottom of the stairs and had glanced once again round the dismal dungeon that was to be his home for he knew not how long a time to come, he felt as if he were buried alive and should never see daylight again. His heart sank lower, if that were possible, than it had sunk before, and for a few moments he felt as if his fortitude must give way. But this mood was not of long duration; he buoyed himself up with the thought that another day was already here, and that in a few hours more his innocence would doubtless be proved. Presently he lay down on his pallet, utterly worn out in body and mind, and five minutes later was fast asleep.

Of Gerald Brooke's life during the next few weeks it is not needful to speak in detail; indeed, each day that came was so much a repetition of the one that had gone before it, that there would be but little to record. Tom rarely ventured to visit his friend till after his father and the rest of the household had retired for the night. It was a joyful sound to Gerald when he heard the click of the panel and knew that for two or three hours to come he should be a free man. Then through the silent shut-up house the two men would steal like burglars to Tom's room. Once there, they felt safe; for the rest of the family and the servants slept in different wings of the rambling old house. On nights when there was no moon, or when it was overcast, the two friends paced a certain pleached alley of the lower garden for an hour at a time; it was the only exercise Gerald was able to obtain. After that they sat and smoked and talked in Tom's room till the clock struck three, which was the signal for Gerald's return to his dungeon. Twice each week Mr. Starkie rode over to the Towers, acting the part of postman between husband and wife, in addition to that of general purveyor of news.

So day after day passed without bringing the murderer of Von Rosenberg to light or tending in anyway to weaken the force of the circumstantial evidence accumulated against Gerald. It seemed, indeed, as if the police had made up their minds that Mr. Brooke, and he alone, must be the guilty man, directing all their efforts towards his capture, and listening with incredulous ears to such persons as suggested that, after all, it was just possible he might not be the individual they wanted.