In the Dead of Night: A Novel. Volume 2 (of 3)

by T. W. Speight

Two other men, known both to Bolus and St. George, came up at this moment, and the tête-à-tête was at an end.

It was late that night when St. George, got home. He let himself in with his latch-key. Groping his way into the sitting-room, he struck a match, and turned on the gas. He was in the act of blowing out the watch when suddenly a hand was laid on his shoulder, and a voice whispered in his ear: “Come.” Simply that one word, and nothing more. Kester shivered from head to foot, and glanced involuntarily round. He knew that he should see no one—that there was no one to be seen: but all the same he could not help looking. Twice before he had felt the same ghostly hand laid on his shoulder: twice before he had heard the same ghostly whisper in his ear. Was it a summons from the other world, or what was it? There was a looking-glass on the chimney-piece, and, as he staggered forward a step or two, his eyes, glancing into it, saw there the reflection of a white and haggard face strangely unlike his own—the brow moist with sweat, the eyes filled with a furtive horror. Mr. St. George sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands.

CHAPTER VII.
GENERAL ST. GEORGE

General St. George’s departure from India had been accelerated by a slight attack of fever, which so far prostrated him that he was unable to write, or communicate in any way to his friends in England the fact that he was starting for home two months before the date previously fixed on by himself. As a consequence, the letters and newspapers addressed to him, which contained the account of his nephew Lionel Dering’s arrest and commitment for wilful murder, crossed him on the voyage, and he landed at Marseilles in happy ignorance of the whole affair.

His health had benefited greatly by the voyage, and he determined to strengthen it still further by lingering for a few weeks in the South of France before venturing to encounter the more variable and trying climate of his own country. It was while thus enjoying himself that the letters and papers sent back from India reached him. It was a terrible shock to the old soldier to read the news told therein. In his secret heart he had come to look upon Lionel with all the affection and yearning which he might have bestowed on a son.

Without the loss of a moment he started for Paris, en route for London.

But by the time he reached Paris he was so ill again that the doctor whom he called in ordered him at once to bed, and utterly forbade him even to think of venturing any farther on his journey for at least a fortnight to come. In this dilemma he telegraphed to Mr. Perrins, the family lawyer. That gentleman was by the old soldier’s bedside in less than twenty-four hours afterwards.

Mr. Perrins brought with him the startling news of Lionel’s escape from prison; but beyond the bare facts of the affair as detailed in the newspapers he knew nothing. With those bare facts the General was obliged to content himself for some time to come. He watched the newspapers from day to day with feverish anxiety, dreading each morning to find in them the news of Lionel’s recapture. But when a month had passed away, and the subject had begun to die out of people’s minds in the rush of newer interests, he took heart of grace and wrote to Perrins again, begging of him to go down to Duxley, and there ascertain, by cautious inquiries and the free use of his purse, whether it were not possible to obtain some clue, however faint, to Lionel’s whereabouts.

Mr. Hoskyns was the first person on whom Mr. Perrins called when he found himself at Duxley; but that gentleman professed to know very little more than was known to the public at large. Nor, in fact, did he. The annoyance he had felt at the time at having been so cleverly impersonated, and the trouble he had been put to to prove his non-complicity in the escapade, had soon been forgotten. He had learned to like and esteem Lionel as much as it was possible for him to like and esteem any one, and he was genuinely glad that he had escaped from prison. But it was no part of his business to pry into the details of the affair, nor did he ever attempt to do so; neither did Lionel nor Tom see any adequate motive for laying on his shoulders the burden of a secret which he could in nowise help to lighten for them.

Thus it fell out that he had nothing to tell Perrins. But he did the wisest thing that could be done under the circumstances: he took him straight to Tom Bristow, introduced him to that gentleman, and then left the two together.