The Mynns' Mystery

“Calm! How can a man be calm?”

“When he is goading himself on to an apoplectic fit? I don’t know, sir; but you have to be calm, or I must give you some drug that will make you.”

“No, no,” cried the young man, with a gesture full of horror.

“Then obey me. Your conduct is suicidal, and I feel as if I were assisting at a murder. You had better sleep here to-night.”

Saul turned upon him with so fierce a gesture that the doctor gave way.

“Very well; I will see you to your apartments in town. Good-night, Hampton. No fresh clue, I suppose?”

The lawyer shook his head as he walked down towards the gate with them.

“None whatever. It is a very mysterious affair; and I feel now as if we ought to place the matter in the hands of the police.”

“Feel giddy, Mr Saul?” said the doctor, for his companion had suddenly struck against his arm.

“I beg pardon, no; I nearly fell. The worst of these country places. I trod on a slug or toad, and only having one arm at liberty, I – ”

“Committed murder – involuntarily, of course,” said the doctor with a chucks. “Well, things that are in one’s way should get out of one’s way.”

Saul made no reply, but he breathed hard, went silently down the station road, and then to himself:

“Or be put out of one’s way,” and he started again as if fearful that his words had been heard.

Chapter Thirty Two

“Down, Bruno! Down!”

“No, Denton; he does not seem to get better,” said Gertrude, as she knelt beside Bruno in the stable, the dog resting his muzzle in her hand, while he blinked patiently; and, from time to time, uttered a very human sigh.

“Oh, but he is better, my dear, and gradually growing stronger. He ate quite a big basin of bread and milk this morning.”

“So cruel to injure a poor dumb beast like that.”

“Yes, my dear; but I’ll be bound to say Bruno left his mark upon whoever it was, and serve him right.”

The dog whined uneasily, and opened his eyes to stare about him, as if he had been half dreaming, and imagined there was something near.

“Poor Bruno, then?” said Gertrude caressingly. “Denton, doesn’t all this seem very strange to you about – about – ”

“Master George, my dear? Well, yes; but I can hardly forgive myself for thinking that other was the darling little fellow I was so proud to have in the house. But there, we are all right now.”

Gertrude signed.

“Why, my dear, you oughtn’t to do that. Now, if it was the other, with his dreadful ways of sitting up with Mr Saul over the whiskey, and the finding him asleep in his chair at seven o’clock in the morning, you might sigh.”

“Hush, Denton,” said Gertrude colouring, as she softly laid down the dog’s heavy head, with the effect that the poor beast whined.

“Now, I tell you what I should do if I were you, Miss Gertie,” continued the old woman. “Dogs are a deal like human beings when they’re ill.”

“What do you mean, Denton?”

“Why, poor Bruno has been shut up in this dark stable and wants fresh air. If I were you, I should go and get a book, and then lead the dog right down to the bottom of the garden, to the old seat under the yew hedge, and you could read in the shade while he lies down in the sun.”

“Denton, you ought to have been a duchess,” cried Gertrude; “you dear, clever old thing. Lie still, Bruno, and I’ll be back directly.”

Full of her idea, Gertrude ran into the drawing-room for a book; told Mrs Hampton, who was writing letters, what she was about to do; and, catching a sunshade from the hall-stand, she was back in the stable before five minutes had elapsed.

It was no easy task, though, to get the dog down to the bottom lawn. The poor beast, evidently in a drowsy way, approved of the change; but at the end of every few yards he lowered his head, and stood as if going to sleep on his outstretched legs. At such times Gertrude felt disposed to give up; but invariably as she came to this determination the dog seemed to revive, and slowly followed her again.

The old rustic chair was reached at last, and Bruno lay down, in the full sunshine, upon the soft turf; while his mistress settled herself in a well-clipped nook of the great yew hedge, which separated the bottom of the garden from the meadows, across which ran a footpath, forming a short cut to the station.

The flies troubled the dog a little, but he was soon apparently sleeping, basking in the sun; though the opening of one eye every time a leaf was turned over by his mistress told that he never lost consciousness.

Gertrude read a page or two of her book, and then began reading page after page of her life; and there was a curious feeling of wonderment as she went on, thinking of Saul’s advances, and the horror with which they had inspired her; then of the coming of him who called himself George Harrington, the man she had tutored herself that it was her duty to love, with the result that the chivalrous being she had expected to see had completely disillusionised her; and her duty had become a pain.

She wondered, as she thought of his embraces, of the drink-poisoned breath, and the horror of his self-inflicted illness, and what followed. It was all oppressive and strange. It had seemed as if her life was to be one long act of self-devotion, with clouds surrounding her, and her heart aching painfully over the fate from which there seemed to be no escape.

Then, all at once, in a way that seemed to frighten her, the sunshine had burst the clouds, and dazzled her with its effulgence. She felt a strange kind of joy, that the hero she had painted in her heart could not even compare with the frank, manly, chivalrous fellow who had come and boldly declared the other to be an impostor.

“Was this the first dawning of love?” she asked herself, as the warm blood mantled in her cheeks; and she wondered whether it was unmaidenly and strange to think so warmly of the man who had been selected to be her husband.

She had just come to the conclusion that it would be possible to love such a one as this, when there was a faint rustling sound beyond the hedge, as of a footstep in the grass, and a voice said thoughtfully:

“I wonder whether she ever comes down here.” A low, deep growl from Bruno followed; and, without thinking that her words might be heard, Gertrude cried:

“Down, Bruno! down!”

Chapter Thirty Three

Master’s Stick

“I beg your pardon. Really, Miss Bellwood, I did not expect to find you here.”

“Mr – ”

“Harrington,” he said, as she paused. “You need not be afraid to call me by that name; and George. They are mine, indeed.”

“I beg your pardon, Mr Harrington.”

Bruno uttered a low, ominous growl.

“Your dog does not like me,” he said.

“You are a stranger.”

“At present; but not for long, I hope.”