CHAPTER XII. Baffled.

The Maze, in all its ordinary quietness, was lying at rest under the midday sun. That is, as regards outward and visible rest: of inward rest, the rest that diffuses peace in the heart, there was but little. It was the day following the expedition of Mr. Strange to the house of Bull the stonemason.

Mrs. Grey's baby was lying in its cot. Mrs. Grey, who had been hushing it to sleep, prepared to change her morning wrapper for the gown she would wear during the day. A bouquet of fresh-cut flowers lay on the dressing-table, and the chamber window stood open to the free, fresh air. Ann Hopley was in the scullery below, peeling the potatoes for dinner, and the old man servant was out somewhere over his work. As the woman threw the last potato into the pan, there came a gentle ring at the gate bell. She turned round and looked at the clock in the kitchen.

"Who's that, I wonder? It's too early for the bread. Any way, you'll wait till I've got my potatoes on, whoever you may be," concluded she, addressing the unknown intruder.

The saucepan on, she went forth. At the gate stood an inoffensive-looking young man with a large letter or folded parchment in his hand.

"What do you want?" asked Ann Hopley.

"Is this the Maze?"

"Yes."

"Does a lady named Grey live here?"

"Yes."

"Then I've got to leave this for her, please."

Taking the key from her pocket, Ann Hopley unsuspiciously opened the gate, and held forth her hand to take the parchment. Instead of giving it to her, the man pushed past, inside; and, to Ann Hopley's horror, Mr. Strange and a policeman suddenly appeared, and followed him. She would have closed the gate upon them; and she made a kind of frantic effort to do so: but one woman cannot effect much against three determined men.

"You can shut it now," said Mr. Strange, when they were inside. "Don't be alarmed, my good woman: we have no wish to harm you."

"What do you want?--and why do you force yourselves in, in this way?" she inquired, frightened nearly to death.

"I am a detective officer belonging to the London police force," said Mr. Strange, introducing himself in his true character. "I bring with me a warrant to search the house called the Maze and its out-door premises"--taking the folded paper from the man's hand. "Would you like me to read it to you before I go on?"

"Search them for what!" asked Ann Hopley, feeling angry with herself for her white face. "I don't want to hear anything read. Do you think we have got stolen goods here?--I'm sure you are enough to scare a body's senses away, bursting in like this!"

Mr. Strange slightly laughed. "We are not looking for stolen goods," he said.

"What for then!" resumed the woman, striving to be calm.

"For some one whom I believe is concealed here."

"Some one concealed here! Is it me?--or my mistress?--or my old husband?"

"No."

"Then you won't find anybody else," she returned with an air of relief. "There's no soul in the place but us three, and that I'll vow: except Mrs. Grey's baby. And we had good characters, sir, I can tell you, both me and my husband, before Mrs. Grey engaged us. Would we harbour loose characters here, do you suppose?"

It was so much waste of words. Mr. Strange went without further parley into the intricacies of the Maze, calling to the policeman to follow him, and bidding the other--who was a local policeman also in plain clothes: both of them from Basham--remain near the gate and guard it against anybody's attempted egress. All this while the gate had been open. Ann Hopley locked it with trembling fingers, and then followed the men through the maze, shrieking out words of remonstrance at the top of her voice. Had there been ten felons concealed within, she made enough noise to warn them all.

"For goodness sake, woman, don't make that uproar!" cried the detective. "We are not going to murder you."

The terrified face of Mrs. Grey appeared at her chamber window. Old Hopley was gazing through the chink of the door of the tool-house, which he was about to clean out. The detective heeded nothing. He went straight to the house door and entered it.

"Wait here at the open door, and keep a sharp look round inside and out," were his orders to the policeman. "If I want you, I'll call."

But Ann Hopley darted before Mr. Strange to impede his progress--she was greatly agitated--and seized hold of his arm.

"Don't go in," she cried imploringly; "don't go in, for the love of heaven! My poor mistress is but just out of her confinement and the fever that followed it, and the fright will be enough to kill her. I declare to you that what I have said is true. There's nobody on these premises but those I've named: my mistress and us two servants, me and Hopley. It can't be one of us you want!"

"My good woman, I have said that it is not. But, if it be as you say--that there's no one else, no one concealed here--why object to my searching?"

"For her sake," reiterated the agitated woman; "for the poor lady's sake."

"I must search: understand that," said Mr. Strange. "Better let me do it quietly."

As if becoming impressed with this fact, and that it was useless to contend further, Ann Hopley suddenly took her hands off the detective, leaving him at liberty to go where he would. Passing through the kitchen, she began to attend to her saucepan of potatoes.

Armed with his full power, both of law and of will, Mr. Strange began his search. The warrant had not been obtained from Sir Karl Andinnian, but from a magistrate at Basham: it might be that he did not feel sufficiently assured of Sir Karl's good faith: therefore the Maze was not averted beforehand.

It was not a large house; the rooms were soon looked into, and nothing suspicious was to be seen. Three beds were made up in three different chambers: the one in Mrs. Grey's room and two others. Was one of these occupied by Salter? The detective could not answer the doubt. They were plain beds in plain rooms, and it might be that the two servants did not sleep together. Knocking at the door, he entered Mrs. Grey's chamber: the baby slept in its cot: she stood at the glass in her dressing-gown, her golden hair falling about her.

"I beg your pardon; madam; I beg your pardon a thousand times," said the detective, with deprecation, as he removed his hat. "The law sometimes obliges us to do disagreeable things; and we, servants of it, cannot help ourselves."

"At least tell me the meaning of all this," she said with ashy face and trembling lips. And he explained that he was searching the house with the authority of a search-warrant.

"But what is it you want? Who is it?"

Again he explained to her that they were looking after an escaped fugitive, who, it was suspected, might have taken refuge in the Maze.

"I assure you, sir," she said, her gentle manner earnest, her words apparently truthful, "that no person whatever, man or woman, has been in the Maze since I have inhabited it, save myself and my two servants."

"Nevertheless, madam, we have information that some one else has been seen here."

"Then it has been concealed from me," she rejoined. "Will you not at least inform me who it is you are searching for? In confidence if you prefer: I promise to respect it."

"It is an escaped criminal named Salter," replied the officer, knowing that she would hear it from Sir Karl Andinnian, and wishing to be as civil to her as he could.

"Salter!" returned Mrs. Grey, showing the surprise that perhaps she did not feel. "Salter! Why Salter--at least if it is Salter--is the man who lives opposite these outer gates, and goes by the name of Smith. Salter has never been concealed here."

The very assertion made by Sir Karl Andinnian. Mr. Strange took a moment to satisfy his keen sight that there was no other ingress to this room, save by the door, and no piece of furniture large enough to conceal a man in, and was then about to bow himself out. But she spoke again.

"On my sacred word of honour, sir, I tell you truth. Sir Karl Andinnian--my landlord--has been suspecting that his agent, Smith, might turn out to be Salter: I suspected the same."

"But that man is not Salter, madam. Does not bear any resemblance to him. It was a misapprehension of Sir Karl's."

"And--do I understand that you are still looking for him here--in the Maze? I do not understand."

"Not looking for that man Smith, madam, but for the real Salter. We have reason to think he is concealed here."

"Then, sir, allow me to affirm to you in all solemnity, that Salter is not, and never has been concealed here," she said with dignity. "Such a thing would be impossible without my knowledge."

He did not care to prolong the conversation. He had his work to do, and no words from her or anyone else would deter him from it. As he was quitting the room, he suddenly turned to ask a question.

"I beg your pardon, madam. Have you any objection to tell me whether your two servants, Hopley and his wife, occupy the same room and bed?"

For a moment or two she gazed at him in silence, possibly in surprise at the question, and then gave her answer almost indifferently.

"Not in general, I believe. Hopley's cough is apt to be troublesome at night, and it disturbs his wife. But I really do not know much about their arrangements: they make them without troubling me."

The detective proceeded on his mission. He soon discovered the concealed door in the evening sitting-room, and passed into the passage beyond it. Ah, if Salter, or any other criminal, were in hiding within its dark recesses, there would be little chance for him now! The passage, very close and narrow, had no egress on either side; it ended in a flight of nearly perpendicular stairs. Groping his way down, he found himself in a vault, or underground room. Mr. Strange was provided with matches, and lighted one. It was a bare place, the brick walls dripping moisture, the floor paved with stone. Here he discovered another narrow passage that led straight along, it was hard to say how far, and he had need to strike more than one match before he had traversed it. It ended in a flight of stairs: which he ascended, and--found himself in a summer-house at the extreme boundary of the garden.

So far the search had not realized his expectations. On the contrary, it was so unsatisfactory as to be puzzling to his experienced mind. There had been no tracks or traces of Philip Salter; no indication that the passages were ever used; and the doors had opened at his touch, unsecured by bolt or bar.

Taking a look round him while he strove to solve more than one problem, the detective slowly advanced along the garden. All the garden ground surrounding the house, it must be understood, whether useful or ornamental, was within the circle of the maze of trees. Turning a corner, after passing the fruit trees and vegetables, he came in view of the lawn and of the green-house; also of Ann Hopley, who was plucking some thyme from the herb bed.

"Have you found what you were looking for, sir!" she asked, every appearance of animosity gone, as she raised her head to put the question when he came near.

"Not yet."

"Well, sir, I hope you are satisfied. You may take my word for it that you never will."

"Think not?" he carelessly said, looking about him.

"Any way, I am not sorry that you have been through them subterranean places underground," she resumed. "My mistress and I have never ventured to look what was in them, and she has not much liked the thought of their being there. We got Hopley to go down one day, but his shoulders stuck in a narrow part, and he had to force 'em back and come up again."

The detective stepped into the green-house, and stood a moment admiring the choice flowers and some purple grapes ripening above. Ann Hopley had gathered her herbs when he came out, and stood with them in her hand.

"If you'd like to take a few flowers' sir, I'm sure Mrs. Grey would not wish to object. Or a bunch of grapes. There's some ripe."

"Thank you, not now."

He pulled open the tool-house door, only partly closed, and looked in on Hopley. The old man was cleaning it out. Sweeping the floor with a besom and raising a cloud of dust enough to choke a dozen throats, he was hissing and fizzing over his work.

Hopley looked very decrepid to-day: his swollen knees were bent and tottering: his humped back was all conspicuous as he stood; while his throat was enveloped in some folds of an old scarlet comforter.

"Mr. Hopley, I think," said the detective, politely. "Will you please tell me the name of the gentleman that's staying here?"

But Hopley, bent nearly double over his work, took no notice whatever. His back was towards the detective; and he kept on his hissing and fizzing, and scattering his clouds of dust.

"He does not hear you, sir," said Ann Hopley, advancing. "He's as deaf as a post, and can make out no voice but mine: especially when he has one of his sore throats upon him, as he has to-day. For my part, I think these bad throats have to do with the deafness. He is always getting them."

Stepping into the midst of the dust, she shook her husband by the arm somewhat roughly, and he raised his head with a start.

"Here, Hopley, just listen a minute," she screamed at the top of her voice. "This gentleman is asking you to tell him the name of the gentleman who is staying here--that's it, is it not, sir?"--and Mr. Strange nodded acquiescence. "The name, Hopley, the name."

"I've never see'd no lady here but the missis," said old Hopley at length, in his imperfect articulation, caused by the loss of his teeth, as he touched his broad-brimmed hat respectfully to the stranger, and looked up, leaning on the besom.

"Not a lady, Hopley; a gentleman," bawled Ann.

"I've see'd no gentleman here at all."

"He is rather stupid as to intellect, is he not?" cried the detective to the wife.

She resented the imputation. "Not at all, sir; no more than deaf people always seem to be."

"What gentleman be it?" asked Hopley. "Smith the agent comes for the rent at quarter-day, and Sir Karl Andinnian came over one morning about the well."

"Neither of those," roared out Mr. Strange. "The gentleman that's hiding here."

"Not them, Hopley," called Ann in his ear. "The gentleman that's hiding here, he says."

"Hiding where?" asked Hopley. "In them underground places? I never know'd as anybody was hiding in 'em."

"Ask him if he'll swear that no man whatever is in hiding here, Mrs. Hopley."

"The gentleman says will you swear that no man is in hiding here at the Maze?" repeated Ann, somewhat improving upon the question.

"I'll swear that there's neither man nor woman in the place, sir, to my knowledge, hiding or not hiding, but us two and the missis," was the answer, given directly to Mr. Strange, and as emphatically as his utterly toothless mouth allowed. "I swear it to my God."

"And you may trust him, sir," said Ann quietly. "I don't believe he ever told a lie in his life: much less took an oath to one. Hopley's honest and straightforward as the day, though he is a martyr to rheumatism."

Mr. Strange nodded his head to the man and left him to his sweeping. The work and the hissing began again before he was clear of the door. In both the tool-house and the green-house no possible chance was afforded of concealment--to ascertain which had doubtless been the chief motive for the detective's invasion of them.

"I don't believe the old man knows about it," ran his thoughts; "but the woman does."

Ann Hopley carried her herbs indoors, and began picking them. Mr. Strange, calling the policeman to his aid, made as thorough a search out of doors as the nature of the premises and the puzzling maze of trees allowed. There was a closed-in passage of communication through the labyrinth, between the back of the house and the outer circle: but it was built solely with a view to convenience--such as the bringing in of coals or beer to the Maze; or, as Ann Hopley expressed it, the carrying of a coffin out of it. The detective had its doors unbolted and unbarred, and satisfied himself that it afforded no facility for concealment. Borrowing a candle of her, he went again to the secret passages underground, both policemen with him, to institute a more minute and thorough examination.

There ensued no result. And Mr. Detective Strange withdrew his men and finally departed himself; one mortifying word beating its unsatisfactory refrain on his brain:

"BAFFLED."