The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 133

Haag, _alias_ Bradley--Bradley, _alias_ O'Brian; her husband, escaped convict from New South Wales.' For Jones identified that man by a description in the hands of all of us in the force. To have taken him there and then would simply have been madness, and insured your both being murdered in that villainous hole. But to follow out the connection between the housekeeper and him, him and Sullivan, Sullivan and Mr. Wilmot, is another point, an't it, Mr. Merrivale?"

Again Merrivale a.s.sented, his usually impa.s.sible face now stirred with the deepest, most anxious interest.

"Is 'Sullivan' De Vos's right name?" he asked.

"I believe it is, sir. He's thoroughly Irish; but O'Brian isn't, though he's taken an Irish name. Sullivan's been known to the police also in his time, and I fancy there's a little matter in the wind which might introduce him again to us. They've both had their warning, though, from some quarter, and are in safe hiding somewhere or other as yet."

"Have you more to tell us about O'Brian?"

"Nothing more, sir, at present. There's some dark secret and mystery hanging over him--a terrible story, I am afraid; but I can't speak for certain just now.--Mr. Kavanagh," suddenly glancing up at me, "did you never see a likeness to any one in Mr. Wilmot?"

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"No, not that I know of. We have often said he was like none of his relatives living, that was his uncle and cousin. Have you?"

"It's fancy, sir, no doubt. His mother died when he was very young, didn't she? and his father?"

"Mrs. Wilmot died soon after his birth. His father I never heard of.

He was a _mauvais sujet_, I believe."

"Ah! The inspector drew a long breath and relapsed into one of his silent moods, during which the process of sc.r.a.ping and gnawing was resumed with avidity.

"And your third point?" said I, to arouse him.

"My third point, gentlemen," waking up lively, and dabbing at his middle finger, "which, considering Mr. Atherton's position at the present moment, seems to be the least important or pressing, is, nevertheless, the one I am for pursuing immediately,--to find this heir of whom mention has been made, Mr. Thorneley's idiot son."

"Surely there is no hurry about that!" we both exclaimed.

"It would appear not, gentlemen, perhaps to you, but there does to me.

Supposing," said the detective, leaning forward, and speaking very much more earnestly than he had hitherto done--"supposing that the will you made, Mr. Kavanagh, was stolen, then secreted or destroyed on the night of Mr. Thorneley's death, that being what I might call the _dead_ evidence of the truth of what you stated publicly to-day, and supposing the parties who suppressed that will knew of the whereabouts of the heir, they would, I conclude, be equally anxious to suppress the _living_ evidence also--_to get him out of the way_. Do you follow me, gentlemen?"

"Yes, yes," we both exclaimed, for we felt he had a purpose in speaking; "you are right."

"Then, sirs, we must prosecute a search for this poor idiot fellow. I see my way at present very dimly and darkly; but something tells me that on our road to find Mr. Francis Gilbert Thorneley we shall find also other links in the broken chain we are trying to piece together."

"How do you propose setting to work, Keene?" asked Merrivale.

"Mr. Atherton, being situated as he is, cannot act; it is therefore for Mr. Kavanagh to take it upon himself, being named executor. I have ascertained that Mr. Thorneley never went near his place in Lincolns.h.i.+re. Why? Because his son lived there. Do you follow me, Mr.

Kavanagh?"

"I do. You think I must visit the Grange immediately?"

"Yes, sir."

Light then at last seemed to be gleaming on our darkness; not only a glimmer, but a full bright ray. There was consistency and connection in all that the inspector had put before us, though only as yet, to a great degree, in supposition. Merrivale, agreeing with me that he would send us on no wild-goose chase, it was settled I should go down by the five-o'clock express train.

In less than an hour I was standing at King's Cross Terminus, and five minutes past five I was whirling away from London at the rate of thirty miles an hour. At Peterborough we stopped for half-an-hour to change carriages, and I went into the waiting-room to get some refreshment. It was very full, for numbers of pa.s.sengers were travelling by that train to be present at some local races, and for some minutes I could not approach the counter. At last I contrived to edge in next to a rather tall man, very much enveloped in wraps, wearing a travelling-cap and blue spectacles. I asked for a cup of coffee and a sandwich. Every one knows the degree of heat to which railway coffee is brought; and waiting awhile for the sake of my throat before drinking it, I suddenly bethought myself of setting my watch by the clock in the room. I put up my gla.s.s to look for it; it {748} was at the opposite end, and I turned my back upon my tall neighbor whilst altering the watch. When I turned round he was gone. I finished my coffee and paid for it. Bah! how mawkish a taste it had left in my mouth; what stuff they sell in England for real Mocha! So I thought as I stepped out on the platform and walked up and down, awaiting the train and reading in a sort of dreamy, unconscious manner the advertis.e.m.e.nts and placards covering the walls. Taylor Brothers, Parkins and Gotto, Heal and Son, Mudie's Library, and all the rest, so well known Ha! what is this? "MURDER: 100 Reward," for information leading to the detection of the murderer of Mr. Gilbert Thorneley; and beneath, another, "Reward of 50 offered for the apprehension of Robert Bradley," _alias_ O'Brian, escaped convict, with a full description of his personal appearance appended. "Inspector Keene's work," thought I to myself. One solitary female figure stood before me, reading the placard; a neat trim figure, clad in deep mourning garments, motionless, mute, and absorbed as it were in the interest of what she was perusing. What was it that made me start and s.h.i.+ver as my eye fell upon that statue-like form? what was it that, amidst an overpowering and unaccountable drowsiness creeping over me, seemed to sting me into life and vigilance? The answer was plain before me: staring at me with wildly-gleaming eyes, with a face startled out of its habitual calmness and self-possession, with fear and rage and a hundred pa.s.sions at work in her countenance, was old Thorneley's housekeeper. "Mrs. Haag!" I exclaimed; and almost as I spoke, a change sudden and rapid as thought took place in her, and she regained the cold pa.s.sionless expression I had noticed that same afternoon.

"The same, Mr. Kavanagh;" and, inclining her head, she was pa.s.sing on.

"Stay!" I said, catching her by the arm. "What are you doing here?

Where are you going?"

"By what right do you ask me, sir?" was the reply in very calm and perfectly respectful tones.

"By what right!" I cried with headlong impetuosity. "By the best right that any man could have--the right of asking, or saying, or doing anything that may help me to detect the guilty and clear the innocent.

Woman, there is some deadly mystery hanging around yon, some guilty secret in which you have played your part, and which, by the heavens above us, I will unearth and bring to light! I will, I will!"

What was the matter with me? My brain was dizzy; the lights, the station, the faces around me, the woman I was addressing, seemed to be going round and round, and I became conscious that my speech was getting incoherent.

"You have been drinking, Mr. Kavanagh," I heard a hard voice saying to me, with a slight foreign accent. Then a bell rang, and I was hurried forward by the crowd who were flocking on the platform; hurried on toward a train that had come into the station whilst I had been engaged with the housekeeper. I remember entering a carriage and sinking down on a cus.h.i.+oned seat; then I lost all consciousness, until I heard a voice shouting in my ear, "Your ticket, sir, please."

I started up.

"Where am I?"

"Lincoln; ticket--quick, sir."

I handed out my ticket.

"This is for Stixwould, four stations back on the line. Two extra s.h.i.+llings to pay."

"Good heavens! I must have been asleep. How am I to get back?"

"Don't know, sir; no train tonight."

The money is paid, the door banged to, and we are shot into Lincoln station at nine o'clock. There was no help for it now but to make my way to the nearest hotel, and see what {749} means were to be had of returning to Stixwould--the nearest station to the Grange, and that was ten miles from it--or else pa.s.s the night here and take the earliest train in the morning. I bade a porter take my bag, and show me to some hotel; and I followed him, s.h.i.+vering in every limb, my head aching as I had never felt it ache before--sick, giddy, and scarcely able to draw one foot after another. Then I knew what had happened to me; it flashed across me all in a moment. That man, disguised and in spectacles, standing next to me at the refreshment-counter at Peterborough, was De Vos, and he had dragged my coffee. I felt not a doubt of it.

In ten minutes we stopped at the Queen's Hotel, and after engaging a room, I despatched a porter for the nearest doctor. To him I confided the object of my journey, what I believed had occurred to me, and the necessity there was for my taking such prompt remedies as should enable me to recover my full strength, energies, and wits for the morrow. Following his advice, after swallowing his medicine, I relinquished all notion of proceeding that night on my journey, and went to bed. The next morning I awoke quite fresh and well; but what precious hours had been lost! hours sufficient to ruin all hope of my journey bearing any fruits, of finding even a shadowy clue to the tangled web that seemed closing in around us. And Hugh Atherton lay in prison and Ada, my poor sorrowful darling, was breaking her heart beneath the load of misery which had come upon her. By eight o'clock I had started for Stixwould, and in half an hour alighted at that small station. I was the only pa.s.senger for that place, and I had to wait whilst the train moved off for the solitary porter to take my ticket.

Just as the bell had rung, a man pa.s.sed out from some door and went up to one of the carriages. "Could you oblige me with a fusee, sir?" I heard him say.

Some one leaned forward and handed out what was asked for; it was the tall man in spectacles who had stood next to me at Peterborough station. The train moved off just as I rushed forward, rushed almost into the arms of the other man who had asked for the fusee. Wonders would never cease! It was Inspector Keene.

"Thank G.o.d, it is you!"

"Yes, sir--myself. In a moment--I must telegraph up to town;" and he ran into the office.

"Now, sir," he said when he came out, "what has happened to bring you here this morning from Lincoln?"

I told him, and expressed my astonishment at seeing him.

"We heard last night that Mrs. _Haag_ had left London and taken her ticket for this place. I took the night mail to look after the lady and warn you, sir. Now we had best post off directly for the Grange.

I've already ordered a fly and a pair of horses. We'll bribe the man, and be there in something less than an hour and a half.

"That man you spoke to in the train was De Vos," I said when we had started.

"I know it, sir. He was sent to watch you, I suspect; and treat you to that little dose in your coffee."

"And the housekeeper?"