Miss Arnott's Marriage

"Now, my man, do you want to hang?"

"Hang? me? No, I don't. Who does?"

"Then you'll tell me who stuck a knife into that fellow in Cooper's Spinney."

"Me tell you? What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean, and you know who handled that knife; and it's only by telling me that you'll save your neck from the gallows."

Baker stared with tightened lips and frowning brows. This spruce little gentleman was beyond him altogether.

"Here! you go too fast for me. I don't know who you are, not from Adam. Who might you be?"

"My name's Gilbert-I'm a lawyer-and I'm going to save you from the gallows, if I can."

"A lawyer?" Baker put up a gnarled hand to rasp his stubbly chin. He looked at the other with eyes which trouble had dimmed. "Has she sent you?"

"She? Who?"

"You know who I mean."

"I shall know if you tell me. How can I know if you don't tell me?"

"Has Miss Arnott sent you?"

"Miss Arnott? Why should Miss Arnott send me?"

"She knows if you don't."

"Do you think Miss Arnott cares if you were strung up to the top of the tallest tree to-morrow?"

"She mightn't care if I was strung up, but I ain't going to be strung up; and that she does know."

The lawyer looked keenly at the countryman. All at once he changed his tone, he became urbanity itself.

"Now, Baker, let's understand each other, you and I. I flatter myself that I've saved more than one poor chap from a hempen collar, and I'd like to save you. You never put that knife into that man."

"Of course I didn't; ain't I kept on saying so?"

"Then why should you hang?"

"I ain't going to hang. Don't you make any mistake about it, and don't let nobody else make any mistake about it neither. I ain't going to hang."

"But, my good fellow, in these kind of affairs they generally hang someone; if they can't find anyone else, it will probably be you. How are you going to help it?"

Baker opened and closed his mouth like a trap, once, twice, thrice, and nothing came out of it. There was a perceptible pause; he was possibly revolving something in his sluggish brain. Then he asked a question, -

"Is that all you've got to say?"

"Of course it's not. My stock of language isn't quite so limited. Only I want you to see just where you're standing, and just what the danger is that's threatening. And I want you to know that I know that you know who handled that knife; and that probably the only way of saving you from the gallows is to let me know. You understand that it doesn't necessarily follow that I'm going to tell everyone; the secret will be as safe with me as with you. Only this is a case in which, if I'm to do any good, I must know where we are. Now, Baker, tell me, who was it who used the knife?"

Again Baker's jaws opened and shut, as if automatically; then, after another interval, again he asked a question.

"You ain't yet told me if it was Miss Arnott as sent you?"

"And you haven't yet told me why Miss Arnott should send me?"

"That's my business. Did she? Do you hear me ask you-did she?"

Baker brought his fist down with a bang on to the wooden table by which he was standing. Mr Gilbert eyed him in his eager, terrier-like fashion, as if he were seeking for a weak point on which to make an attack. Then, suddenly, again his manner altered. Ignoring Baker's question as completely as if it had never been asked, he diverted the man's attention from the expected answer by all at once plunging into entirely different matters. Before he knew what was happening Baker found himself subjected to a stringent examination of a kind for which he was wholly unprepared. The solicitor slipped from point to point in a fashion which so confused his client's stupid senses that, by the time the interview was over, Jim Baker had but the vaguest notion of what he had said or left unsaid.

Mr Gilbert went straight from the gaol to a post-office from which he dispatched this reply-paid telegram: -

"To Hugh Morice, Oak Dene.

"When I was once able to do you a service you said that, if ever the chance offered, you would do me one in return. You can do me such a service by giving me some dinner and a bed for to-night.

    "Ernest Gilbert.

"George Hotel, Winchester."

He lunched at the George Hotel. While he was smoking an after-luncheon cigar an answer came. Hugh Morice wired to say that if he arrived by a certain train he would meet him at the station. Mr Gilbert travelled by that train, and was met. It was only after a tête-à-tête dinner that anything was said as to the reason why the lawyer had invited himself to be the other's guest.

"I suppose you're wondering why I've forced myself upon your hospitality?"

"I hope that nothing in my manner has caused you to think anything of the kind. I assure you that I'm very glad to see you."

"It's very nice of you to say so. Still, considering how I've thrown myself at you out of the clouds you can hardly help but wonder."

"Well, I have taken it a little for granted that you have some reason for wishing to pay me a visit at this particular moment."

"Exactly. I have. It's because I find myself in rather a singular situation."

"As how?"

The lawyer considered. He looked at his host across the little table, on which were their cups of coffee, with his bright eyes and the intensely inquisitive stare, which seemed to suggest that curiosity was his devouring passion. His host looked back at him lazily, indifferently, as if he were interested in nothing and in no one. The two men were in acute contrast. The one so tall and broad; the other so small and wiry-in the scales possibly not half Hugh Morice's size. The solicitor glanced round the room, inquiringly.

"I suppose we're private here?"

They were in the billiard-room. The doors were shut, windows closed, blinds drawn-the question seemed superfluous.

"Perfectly. No one would hear you if you shouted."

"It's just as well to be sure; because what I have to say to you is of a particularly private nature."

"At your leisure."

"You and I have had dealings before-you will probably remember that, under certain circumstances, I'm not a stickler for professional etiquette."