Miss Arnott's Marriage

"I don't understand."

"I think you do. Gilbert's position is that he finds himself unable to retain your money when his duty to Baker may necessitate his putting you in the dock on the capital charge."

"Mr Morice! It's-it's not true!"

"Unfortunately, it is true. Lest, however, you should think the position worse than it actually is, part of my business here is to reassure your mind on at least one point."

"Reassure my mind! Nothing will ever do that-ever! ever! And reassurance from you! – from you!"

"If matters reach a certain point-before they go too far-it is my intention to surrender myself-say, to Granger-our local representative of law and order-as having been guilty of killing that man in Cooper's Spinney."

"Mr Morice! Do you-do you mean it?"

"Certainly I mean it. Then you will have an opportunity of going into the witness-box and giving that testimony of which you have spoken. That in itself ought to be sufficient to hang me."

"Mr Morice!"

"What we have principally to do is to render it impossible that the case against me shall fail. A very trifling accident may bring the whole business to an end; especially if Ernest Gilbert puts ever such a distant finger in the pie. Against the possibility of such an accident we shall have to guard. For instance, by way of a beginning, where's that knife?"

"Knife?"

"The knife."

"I've lost the key."

"Lost the key? of what?"

"I put it in a wardrobe drawer with my-my things, and locked it, and, somehow, I lost the key."

"I don't quite follow. Do you mean that, having locked up my knife in a drawer with some other articles, you have mislaid the key of the lock?"

"Yes, that's what I mean."

"Then in that case, you had better break that lock open at the earliest possible moment."

"Why?"

"The answer's obvious, in order that you may hand me back my knife. If I'm to be the criminal it will never do for my knife to be found in your possession. It would involve all sorts of difficulties which we might neither of us find it easy to get over. Give me the knife. I will hide it somewhere on my own premises, where I'll take care that, at the proper moment, it is found. Properly managed, that knife ought to make my guilt as plain as the noonday sun; mismanaged, the affair might assume quite a different complexion."

For the first time a doubt entered the girl's mind.

"Mr Morice, do you wish me to understand that you propose to surrender merely to save me?"

"I wish you to understand nothing of the sort. The position is-in its essence-melodrama; but do let us make it as little melodramatic as we conveniently can. Someone must suffer for the-blunder. It may as well be me. Why not?"

"Do you wish me-seriously-to believe that it was not you who-blundered?"

"Of course I blundered-and I've kept on blundering ever since. One blunder generally does lead to another, don't you know. Come-Miss Arnott" – each time, as she noticed, there was a perceptible pause before he pronounced the name to which she still adhered-"matters have reached a stage when, at any moment, events may be expected to move quickly. Your first business must be to get that drawer open-key or no key-and let me have that knife. You may send it by parcel post if you like. Anyhow, only let me have it. And, at latest, by tomorrow night. Believe me, moments are becoming precious. By the way, I hope it hasn't been-cleaned."

"No, it hasn't been cleaned."

"That would have been to commit a cardinal error. In an affair of this sort blood-stains are the things we want; the pièces de conviction which judge and jury most desire. Give me the knife-my knife-that did the deed, with the virginal blood-stains thick upon it. Let it be properly discovered by a keen-nosed constable in an ostentatious hiding-place, and the odds are a hundred to one as to what the verdict will be. A hundred? a million! I assure you that I already feel the cravat about my neck." Hugh Morice put his hand up to his throat with a gesture which made Miss Arnott shiver. "Only, I do beg of you, lose no time. Get that drawer open within the hour, and let me have my hunting-knife before you have your dinner. Let me entreat you to grasp this fact clearly. At any moment Jim Baker may be out of Winchester Gaol; someone will have to take his place. That someone must be me."

CHAPTER XXVI

THE TWO MAIDS

After Hugh Morice had left her, Miss Arnott had what was possibly the worst of all her bad half hours. The conviction of his guilt had been so deeply rooted in her mind that it required something like a cataclysm to disturb its foundations. She had thought that nothing could have shaken it; yet it had been shaken, and by the man himself. As she had listened to what he had been saying, an impression had been taking hold of her, more and more, that she had misjudged him. If so, where was she herself standing? A dreadful feeling had been stealing on her that he genuinely believed of her what she had believed of him. If such was the case, what actually was her position.

Could she have done the thing which he believed her to have done? It was not only, moreover, what he believed; there were others. An array of witnesses was gathering round her, pointing with outstretched fingers. There was Jim Baker-it seemed that he was honestly persuaded that, with his own eyes, he had seen her kill her husband. So transparent was his honesty that he had succeeded-whether intentionally or not she did not clearly understand-in imparting his faith to the indurated lawyer to such a degree, that he had actually thrown her money back at her, as if it had been the price of blood. She had little doubt that if her own retainers were polled, and forced to vote in accordance with the dictates of their consciences, merely on the strength of the evidence they believed themselves to be already in possession of, they would bring her in as guilty. She had had this feeling dimly for some time-she had it very clearly then.

And now she was walking in her sleep. That thing of which she had read and heard, but never dreamt to be-a somnambulist. It seemed that her conscience drove her out at dead of night to revisit-unwittingly-the scene of the crime which stained her soul.

Could that be the interpretation of the stories which Mrs Forrester had told her? and Hugh Morice? She had been seen, it would appear, by half the countryside, clad-how? wandering-conscience-driven-on what errand?

The more she thought, however, of the tale which Briggs the postman had retailed to Mrs Forrester, not to speak of Hugh Morice's strange narrative-the more she doubted-the more she had to doubt. They might have the evidence of their own eyes, but it seemed to her that she had evidence which was at least equally conclusive. It was incredible-impossible that she could have tramped through the rain and the mire, among the trees and the bushes, in the fashion described, and yet have found no traces of her eccentric journeyings either on her clothes or on her person. But in that matter measures could-and should-be taken. She would soon learn if there was any truth in the tales so far as they had reference to her. Evans should be installed in her room that night as watchman. Then, if she attempted to get out of bed while fast asleep, the question would be settled on the spot. The question of the knife-Hugh Morice's knife-was a graver one. But as regards that also steps should be promptly taken. Whether it should be returned to its owner as he suggested, or retained in her possession, or disposed of otherwise. These were problems which required consideration. In the meanwhile, she would have it out of its hiding-place at once. She went upstairs to force open that wardrobe drawer. So soon as she entered her bedroom she perceived that she had been forestalled, and that, in consequence, a lively argument was going on. The disputants were two-her own maid, Evans, and Wilson, the housemaid, who had been supposed to have been in part responsible for the disappearance of the key. Miss Arnott was made immediately conscious-even before she opened the door-that the pair were talking at the top of their voices. Evans's was particularly audible. She was pouring forth on to her fellow-servant a flood of language which was distinctly the reverse of complimentary. So occupied, indeed, were they by the subject under discussion that, until Miss Arnott announced her presence, they were not conscious that she had come into the room.

Their young mistress paused on the threshold, listening, with feelings which she would have found it difficult to analyse, to some of the heated observations which the disputants thought proper to fling at each other. She interrupted Evans in the middle of a very warmly coloured harangue.

"Evans, what is the meaning of this disturbance? and of the extraordinary language you are using?"

The maid, though evidently taken by surprise by the advent of her mistress, showed very few of the signs of shame and confusion which some might have considered would have become a person in her position. Apparently she was much too warm to concern herself, at anyrate for the moment, with matters of etiquette. She turned to Miss Arnott a flushed and angry face, looking very unlike the staid and decorous servant with whom that young lady was accustomed to deal. Hot words burst from her lips, -

"That there Wilson had the key all the time. I knew she had."

To which Wilson rejoined with equal disregard of ceremonial usages, -

"I tell you I hadn't! Don't I tell you I hadn't! At least, I didn't know that I had, not till five minutes ago."

Evans went on, wholly ignoring her colleague's somewhat singular disclaimer, -

"Then if she didn't use it to unlock your drawer with-your private drawer-and to take liberties with everything that was inside it. I daresay if I hadn't come and caught her she'd have walked off with the lot. And then to have the face to brazen it out!"

To which Wilson, in a flame of fury, -

"Don't you dare to say I'd have taken a single thing, because I won't have it. I'm no more a thief than you are, nor perhaps half so much, and so I'll have you know. You're a great deal too fond of calling names, you are; but if you call me a thief I'll pay you for it. You see!"

Evans turned again to her adversary, eager for a continuance of the fray.

"If you weren't going to take them what did you go to the drawer for?"

"I tell you I went to the drawer to see if it was the key.

"Why didn't you bring the key to me?"

"I would have brought it, if you'd given me a chance."

"You would have brought it! Didn't I catch you-"