The Devil's Garden

by W. B. Maxwell

This reflection was comforting, but he still considered her to be a source of terrible danger to him. For the moment at least, all his resentment about her past unchasteness and her recent escapade was entirely obliterated; it was a closed chapter; he did not seem to care two pence about it—that is, he did not feel any torment of jealousy. The offense was expiated. But he must not on any account let her see this—no, because it might lead her, stupid as she was, to trace the reason. He knew himself that if Mr. Barradine had died otherwise than by his blows, he would have felt quite differently toward Mavis. He would have felt then "The swine has escaped me. We are not quits. That dirty turn is not paid for." He would have continued to smart under the affront to his pride as a man, and association with Mavis would have still been impossible.

Logically, then, he must act out these other feelings; Mavis must see him as he would have been under those conditions. But it made it all so difficult—two parts to render adequately instead of one. In the monstrous egotism produced by his fear, he thought it uncommonly rough luck that the wife who ought to have been dutifully assisting him should thus add to his cares and worries. Sometimes he had to struggle against insane longings to take her into his confidence, and compel her to do her fair share of the job—to say, slap out, "It's you, my lady, who've landed me in this tight place; so the least you can do is to help pull me into open country."

Moreover, as the days and nights passed, instincts that were more human and natural made him crave for re-union. He yearned to be friends with her again. He felt that if he could safely make it up, cuddle her as he used to do, hold her hands and arms when he went to sleep, he would derive fortitude and support against his fear, even if he obtained no aid from her in dodging the law.

He thought during the inquest that the fear had reached its climax. Nothing that could come in the future would be as bad as this. Yet all the time he was telling himself, "There is no cause for the fear. It is quite baseless. All is going as nice as nice."

Indeed, if he had conducted the proceedings himself, he could not have wished to arrange anything differently. The whole affair was more like a civilian funeral service—a rite supplemental to the church funeral—than a businesslike inquiry into the circumstances and occasion of a person's death. A sergeant and constable were present, but apparently for no reason whatever. Allen talked nonsense, grooms and servants talked nonsense, everybody paid compliments to the deceased—and really that was all. At last Mr. Hollis, the coroner, said the very words that Dale would have liked to put into his mouth—something to the effect that they had done their melancholy duty and that it would be useless to ask any more questions.

But Dale, sitting firmly and staring gloomily, felt an internal paroxysm of terror. Near the lofty doors of the fine state room common folk stood whispering and nudging one another—cottagers, carters, woodcutters; and Dale thought "Now I'm in for it. One of those chaps is going to come forward and tell the coroner that his little girl saw a strange man in the wood." He imagined it all so strongly that it almost seemed to happen. "Beg pardon, your honor, I don't rightly know as, it's wuth mentionin', but my lil' young 'un see'd a scarecrow sort of a feller not far from they rocks, the mornin' afore."

It did not, however, happen. Nothing happened.

And nothing happened when he came to the Abbey again to attend the real burial service—except that he found how wrong he had been in supposing that the fear had reached its highest point. He nearly fainted when he saw all those policemen—the entire park seeming to be full of them, a blue helmet under every tree, a glittering line of buttons that stretched through the courtyards and right round the church. Inside the church he said to himself, "They've got me now. They'll tap me on the shoulder as I come out."

Standing in the open air again he wondered at the respite that had been allowed, and thought, "Yes, but that is always their way. They never show their hand until they have collected all the evidence. The detectives, who've been on my track from the word 'go,' prob'ly advised the relatives to accept the thing as an accident in order to hoodwink the murderer. The tip was given to that coroner not to probe deep, because they weren't ready yet with their case;" and it suddenly occurred to him that he had left deep footsteps in the wood, and that plaster casts had been made of all these impressions.

He looked across a gravestone in the crowded churchyard and saw a strange man who was staring at the ground. A detective? He believed that this man was watching his feet, measuring them, saying to himself, "Yes, those are the feet that will fit my plaster cast."