Blind Policy Part 22

"Worse and worse!" wailed the old lady. "You must be getting as bad as your brother. Actually siding with him now!"

"No, aunt, only pitying him, for I am beginning to believe that he is suffering worse than we are."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

A DANGEROUS CASE.

"It's all over," said Chester to himself. "That doctor's correct, and I must not trifle or I shall be laid by with something wrong in the head.

That drugging began it, and I'm not right. I won't give up the quest, but I must get square first, and I can't do so here. I'll pack up and go on the Continent for a bit. Change may make me able to think consistently. Now my brain is in a whirl."

He tried to reason calmly, and at last, not feeling in the humour to see and explain to his sister, he wrote to her briefly, telling her that the anxiety and worry of the case to which he had been called that night had completely unhinged him, and he found that the only thing he could do to recover his tone was to get right away for a time. He was going, he said, to see a colleague that morning, who would come and take charge of the practice, and he would write again from abroad.

This done, he fastened down the envelope and left the letter upon the table, after which he went to his room, threw a few necessaries into a portmanteau, brought it down, with Aunt Grace carefully watching from the top of the staircase, and sent the servant for a cab.

Five minutes later he was on his way to his club to consult the time-tables and guide-book as to the route to take.

He was not long in deciding upon Tyrol as the starting-place for a long mountain tramp. There was a train at night, and without returning home he would dine at the club and start from there.

He followed out the earlier portion of his programme, even to dining at the club, but afterwards, upon entering the smoking-room and taking a cigar, he found the place half full, and, longing for solitude, he went out to stroll down the steps and into the Park for an hour, ending by taking one of the seats under an old elm in the Mall and sitting back thinking of all that had happened during the past few weeks.

He was once more going over the scenes by the wounded man's couch, and seeing again the every movement and look of his anxious sister, when he shrank back against the trunk of the great tree and let his chin sink upon his breast, for there were steps just to the right, and two gentlemen strolled by, one of them talking aloud angrily, and the following words smote like blows upon the listener's ears--

"Look here, if you want to quarrel, say so, Paddy. But you're no saint, so don't you begin preaching morality. I repeat I have taken a tremendous fancy to her; what then? As for Rob, curse him for a miserable prig! If it were not for the consequences I'm ready to wish that the shot had ended it, and I swear I'll--"

The last words died out into the night air, and, save for the preternaturally excited state of his brain, Chester would not have heard so much.

He sat up, and saw the figures of the brothers, who had pa.s.sed him, growing indistinct as they went beyond the next lamp; and then he rose and followed.

"'And I swear I'll--' what?" said Chester to himself. "Shoot me? Well, let him. There, it's all over. I can't go away; I must see this out to the very end."

Chester followed the pair with the full intention of demanding an explanation and having a scene with the elder brother, for his resentment seemed to be making the blood bubble up through his veins.

They were walking through the Palace Yard, and directly after they crossed the road and went up St James's Street, talking angrily; and he was just about to join them when he saw the younger turn angrily off into the road, as if about to separate, but in an instant the elder had him by the arm and after a faint resistance led him back on to the pavement, where Chester was awaiting them.

"Mr Clareborough," he said sharply, and both brothers turned upon him in surprise.

"Yes; what is it?" cried the elder. "Oh, the man in the wrong box!

Come along, boy."

He turned short off, and before Chester could recover from his surprise, the brothers had pa.s.sed through the swinging doors of one of the clubhouses and disappeared in the great hall.

Chester was about to follow, but checked himself upon the threshold as the question arose in his mind, What for?

To demand an explanation of their conduct toward him.

Well, he felt that he might demand it, but he knew that they would preserve the same att.i.tude as before, and treat him with contempt--treat him as if he were some half-witted being who claimed acquaintance; and how could he get people to believe in his strange story--how could he advance his position with respect to Marion?

He calmed down as quickly as he had grown excited and began to feel that to force a quarrel in the club to which these men belonged could have but one ending, that of the police being called in and his being ejected.

"And what then?" he asked himself. "Possibly the whole business would be dragged into the police court, then into the daily papers, and if Marion were ready to continue her intimacy with the man who had saved her brother's life, would she not be hurt and annoyed with him for forcing into publicity an affair which the conduct of all concerned showed them to be eager to keep hushed up?"

Chester walked down St James's Street again, with the intention of cooling his burning head in the quiet gloom of the Park; but he altered his mind and turned off to his left, along Pall Mall, re-entered his club and went up to the smoking-room, which proved to be a little more full than before, but this did not trouble him now. He sat down and took a cigar and began smoking, thinking, trying to argue out the reason for the strange behaviour of these Clareboroughs. He could understand that there had been a desperate quarrel, resulting in the use of the revolver, and he was ready to grant that the elder brother's conduct toward Marion had been the moving cause for that. But he felt convinced that there was something more behind; else why all the secrecy?

Here they were, a wealthy family, evidently moving in good society, and living in a magnificently-appointed mansion; but during all the days of his enforced stay, with the exception of the old housekeeper, he had not seen a single servant, and nothing to suggest that any were in the place. That they kept domestics was plain enough, for he had since seen the butler and footman. Then, too, there had been the coachman who drove the carriage that night, though he, as an out-door servant, might easily have been kept in ignorance of all that took place in the house.

But where were the others, the staff which would be necessary for carrying on such an establishment?

There was no answer to the question, even at the finis.h.i.+ng of a second cigar, and he gave it up, and then smiled to himself as he rose.

"How absurd!" he muttered. "Everything else pa.s.sed out of my head. I meant to cross to-night. Well, it is not too late, is it? Pis.h.!.+ Two hours. Oh, impossible! I cannot leave town. How could I go knowing that even now she may be praying for my help?"

Chester pa.s.sed out again into the cool night, and involuntarily turned in the direction of the Park, crossed it, and walked slowly toward Highcombe Street, where, he hardly knew why, he began to promenade the pavement on the opposite side of the road, stopping at last just inside a doorway when a cab came sharply along; and his nerves began to thrill as he saw it pulled up at the door of the mansion.

Two gentlemen sprang out, and while one paid the driver, the other strolled up the steps, there was the rattle of the latch-key, the door was flung wide, and from where he stood Chester had a glimpse of the handsome hall, now looking sombre and strange with the lights half turned down.

Directly after the door was closed, and the chimes of the Palace clock rang out four times, followed by two deep, booming strokes on the great cracked bell.

"Two o'clock!" thought Chester, as he walked along past the house, fancying that there was a face at the open window of a room on the second floor, but he could not be sure, and as he turned back it was gone.

"Go abroad!" he said to himself. "At such a time. It would be madness."

Then giving way to a sudden impulse, he hurried back to the front of the house, went up to the door and rang the bell sharply.

"Fool!" he muttered. "Why did I not speak to them then? I will have an explanation. I have a right, and it is evident that I have the whip-hand of them, or they would not act their parts like this."

He knew that he was wildly excited and doing a foolish thing, but his actions were beyond his control now, and he was ready for Marion's sake to take the maddest steps on her behalf, or he would not have stood at that moment where he did.

"Too late," he muttered, as there was no reply. "I've let my opportunity slip."

But all the same he dragged sharply at the bell again, and as his hand fell to his side the door was opened and he found himself face to face with the man he sought.

"Yes, what is it?" cried James Clareborough, sharply. "What! you again?

Here, what the devil--Who are you? What do you want?"

"You," said Chester, firmly, "you and your brother. I will have an explanation with you both. I will see--I will not be put off like this."

"Confound him!" muttered James Clareborough between his teeth.

"Here, I say, old chap," growled his brother, who now appeared, "have you been dining somewhere and over-doing it a bit? Hadn't you better go home quietly? We don't want to whistle for a policeman and have you locked up."

"You hold your tongue!" cried James Clareborough. "I'll soon settle with this gentleman. Now then, my tipsy individual, you want a few words with me--an explanation?"

"Yes and at once," cried Chester, beside himself with rage at the very sight of the man whose conduct toward Marion absolutely maddened him.

As he spoke he pressed forward to enter, but the brothers barred the way.

"No, no," said the elder, "none of that. We're not going to have the house disturbed by your ravings. It's only a few minutes to the Park-- come on there and we'll have it out, and done with it."

"No; we won't," growled the younger brother, fiercely, and, placing his hands suddenly upon Chester's breast, he gave him a heavy thrust, drove him staggering back, and almost in the one effort s.n.a.t.c.hed his brother aside and banged to the door.