A Dead Reckoning

by T. W. Speight

"If he isn't guilty, why don't he show up? Why has he gone and hid himself where nobody can find him?" was Mr. Drumley's invariable rejoinder, when any such suggestions happened to be ventilated in his presence. Such questions were difficult to answer.

Many a time during those weeks of slow torture, as he sat brooding in his underground chamber by the dismal light of a couple of candles, did Gerald wish with all his heart that he had not yielded to his wife's entreaties, but had stayed, and braved the thing out to the bitter end.

Clara, meanwhile, was doing all that it was possible for a woman, circumstanced as she was, to do. When a week had passed and nothing tending to prove her husband's innocence had been brought to light, she did that which Mr. George Crofton proposed doing, that is to say, she engaged the services of an experienced private detective. The man came, listened respectfully to all she had to say, and promised that his best endeavours should be at her service; but after his visit, day succeeded day without bringing any ray of comfort to the young wife's aching heart. Could it be possible, she sometimes asked herself, a little later on, that this astute individual, while to all appearance falling in with her views, really believed in her husband's guilt as strongly as Mr. Drumley did, and while quite willing to humour her and spend her money, was in his heart impressed with the futility of looking elsewhere for the criminal It was a weary time, full of heartache in the present, and with a future that began to loom more darkly as day followed day in slow and sad procession.

By-and-by there came a certain night when Tom Starkie met his guest with a very long and gloomy visage. His news was quickly told. His father had suddenly made up his mind to start at once for one of the German spas, and insisted upon Tom's accompanying him. "And if I go, my dear Brooke--and I'm afraid I can't get out of it--what's to become of you?"

"I must flit," answered Gerald with a shrug; "there's no help for it." He almost hailed the prospect as a relief, so unutterably weary was he becoming of the terrible monotony of his present mode of life; but the question of course was, Whither was he to go? At length, after the two men had smoked some half-dozen pipes each, a happy thought came to Gerald. He called to mind that he had another friend on whose secrecy and good faith he could rely, and who, he felt sure, would befriend him in his present strait, if it were in anyway possible for him to do so. The name of the friend in question was Roger Chamfrey.

A few hours later, Tom Starkie set out for London in search of Mr. Chamfrey, whom he fortunately found at his club. The latter had of course read everything that had appeared in the newspapers respecting Von Rosenberg's mysterious death, and Tom found him to be as firm a believer in Gerald's innocence as he himself was.

"I've got the very thing to suit poor Brooke," he said. "The situation of second-keeper is vacant on a certain moor which I rent in a wild and lonely part of Yorkshire and Brooke will be as safe there as he would be in the heart of Africa. I will give him a letter to Timley the head-keeper, who is a very decent sort of fellow, so worded that Brooke shall receive every possible consideration while yet ostensibly filling the part of assistant-keeper. What's more easy than to hint that our friend is a young gentleman of position who has quarrelled with his family, but that in the course of a little time he will come into a large property?" And Mr. Chamfrey laughed.

So the letter in question was written and given to Mr. Starkie, together with many kind messages for Gerald.

Four days later, Gerald reached his new refuge in safety. What means he adopted to escape recognition by the way, and by what circuitous routes he travelled, need not be specified here. It was indeed a wild and desolate tract of country in which he found himself; but in that fact lay his safety. Timley received him kindly; and when he had read and digested his employer's letter, he at once proceeded to turn himself and his wife out of the best bedroom in his cottage, and allotted the same to his new assistant, greatly to the surprise and disgust of his better-half, until he had pacified her by a few sentences whispered in her ear, after which she became all smiles and graciousness, and seemed as if she could not do enough to make Mr. Davis' comfortable. When they were alone, or when no one was within earshot, Timley invariably addressed Gerald as "Sir."

The free open-air life he now led did much towards improving Gerald's health and spirits. Once a week he wrote to his wife, and once a week he received a long letter in return. His letters to her were addressed under an assumed name to be left till called for at the post-office of a little town some dozen miles from the Towers. From this place they were fetched by Margery, who made the journey by rail, and who at the same time dropped a return letter into the box addressed to "Mr. Davis" the keeper.