Once more on his weary way to London went Karl Andinnian, on the same weary business that he had gone before; but this time he was proceeding direct to the place he had hitherto shunned--Scotland Yard.
The extreme step, taken by the detective Tatton, in searching the Maze, had alarmed Karl beyond measure. True, the unfortunate fugitive, hiding there, had managed to elude detection: but who could say that he would be able to do so another time, or how often these men of the law might choose to go in? The very fact of their not being actually in search of Sir Adam, but of a totally different individual, made it seem all the more unbearably cruel.
In Mrs. Grey's dire distress and perplexity, she had sent that same night for Karl--after the search--and he heard the whole that had taken place. Adam confessed he did not know what was to be done, or how avert the fate--recapture--that seemed closely impending; and Rose almost fell on her knees before Karl, imploring him with tears to try and save her husband from the danger. Karl took his remorse home with him: remorse arising from the knowledge that he had brought all this about, he, himself, in his insane inquiries after Salter: and, after much anxious consideration, he resolved to go on the morrow to Scotland Yard.
It was past noon when he reached his destination. After he had stated confidentially the nature of his business--that it was connected with the search after Philip Salter, then being carried on at Foxwood by Detective Tatton--he was told that it was Mr. Superintendent Game who must see him upon the point: but that at present the superintendent was engaged. Karl had to wait: and was kept waiting a considerable time.
Could Karl's eyes have penetrated through two walls and an intervening room, he might have been greatly astonished to see the person with whom the superintendent was occupied. It was no other than Tatton himself. For the detective, taking a night after the search to think over matters, just as Karl had done, had come to the determination of placing the history of his doings at Foxwood before his superiors, and to leave with them the decision whether he should go on with his search, or abandon it. Accordingly, he also had proceeded to London that morning, but by an earlier train; and he was now closeted with Mr. Superintendent Game--who had given him his original instructions, and had, specially, the Salter affair in hand--and was laying before him a succinct narration of facts, together with his various suspicions and his bafflings. Before the interview was over, the superintendent was as well acquainted with the Maze, its rumours and its mysteries and with sundry other items of Foxwood gossip, as Tatton himself could be.
"A gentleman waiting--had been waiting some time--to see Mr. Game on the Foxwood business," was the interruption that was first brought to them: and both Mr. Game and Tatton felt somewhat surprised thereby. What gentleman could be engaged on the Foxwood business, except themselves?
"Who is it?" asked the superintendent. And a card was handed in.
"Sir Karl Andinnian."
A moment's pause to revolve matters, and then the superintendent issued his fiat.
"See him in five minutes."
The five minutes were occupied with Tatton; but, he was safely away ere they had expired, carrying with him his orders to wait; and Sir Karl Andinnian was shown in. The superintendent and the visitor met for the first time, and glanced at each other with some curiosity. The officer saw, in the brother of the noted and unfortunate criminal, a pale, refined, and essentially gentlemanly man, with a sad but attractive face that seemed to tell of sorrow; the other saw a spare man of middle height, who in age might have been his father, and whose speech and manners betokened a cultivation as good as his own.
Taking the seat offered him, Karl entered at once upon his business. Explaining shortly and truthfully the unfortunate suspicion on his own part, that had led to his inquiries about Salter of Mr. Burtenshaw, and to the subsequent dispatch of Tatton to Foxwood. He concealed nothing; not even the slight foundation for those suspicions--merely the having seen the name of Philip Salter in a pocket-book that was in the possession of Philip Smith; and related his recent explanation with Smith; when he learnt that he and Salter were cousins. Karl told it all: and the officer saw, and believed, that he was telling it truly. Karl then went on to relate how he had himself sought an interview with Tatton on his last return from London--whither he had gone to try and convince Mr. Burtenshaw that it was not Salter; that he had learnt from Tatton then that his suspicions were directed to a house called the Maze, as the place of Salter's concealment, and that he, Sir Karl, had assured Tatton on his word of honour as a gentleman that it was altogether a mistaken assumption, for that Salter was not at the Maze, and never had been there. He had believed that Tatton was convinced by what he said: instead of which, he had taken the extreme and, under the circumstances, most unjustifiable step of proceeding to the house with a search warrant and two policemen, to the terror of the lady inhabiting it, Mrs. Grey, and her two old servants. It was to report this to Tatton's superiors at headquarters that he had now come up from Foxwood, Sir Karl added; not, he emphatically said, to complain of Mr. Tatton or to get him reprimanded, for no doubt the man, in doing what he had done, had believed it was but his duty: but to request that instructions might be given him to leave Mrs. Grey in tranquillity for the future. She, feeling much outraged and insulted by the suspicion that she could have a common criminal like Philip Salter concealed in her home, had sent for him, Sir Karl, as her landlord, to beg him to protect her if in his power, and to secure her from further molestation.
Mr. Superintendent Game listened to Sir Karl's narrative as attentively and with as much apparent interest as though it comprised information that he had never in all his life heard of: whereas, in point of fact, Tatton had just been going over the same facts with him, or nearly the same. He admitted to Sir Karl that it no doubt did seem to Mrs. Grey an unjustifiable step, an unaccountable intrusion; if indeed Salter were not concealed there and she knew nothing of him.
"I assure you, as I assured Tatton, that she does not," spoke Karl, with almost painful earnestness. "There is not an iota of foundation for supposing Salter ever was at Foxwood; certainly he was never at the Maze."
"Tatton is an experienced officer, Sir Karl. You may depend upon it that he had good reasons for what he did."
"That he fancied he had: I admit that. But they were utterly groundless. I should have thought that had any one lady, above another, been exempt from suspicion of any kind, it was Mrs. Grey. She lives a perfectly retired life at the Maze during her husband's absence, giving offence to none. To suppose she would allow the fugitive Salter, a man whom she never knew or saw, to be concealed within her domains is worse than preposterous."
"It is hazardous to answer so far for any one, Sir Karl," was the rejoinder--and Karl thought he detected a faint smile on the speaker's lips. "Especially for a woman. The best of them have their tricks and turns."
"I can answer for Mrs. Grey."
Mr. Superintendent Game, whose elbow as he faced Sir Karl was leaning on a desk-table, took it off and fell to pushing together some papers, as though in abstraction. He was no doubt taking time mentally to fit in some portions of Karl's narrative with the information possessed by himself. Karl waited a minute and then went on.
"I am sure that this lady would be willing to make a solemn affidavit that she knows nothing of Salter; and that he is not, and never has been, concealed there; if by so doing it would secure her exemption from intrusion for the future."
"Yes, no doubt," said the officer somewhat absently. "Sir Karl Andinnian," he added, turning briskly to face him again after another pause, "I assume that your own part in this business was confined to the sole fact of your entering on the misapprehension of taking your agent Smith to be Salter."
"That's all. But do you not see how I feel myself to be compromised: since it was my unfortunate endeavour to set the doubt at rest, by applying to Burtenshaw, that has originated all the mischief and brought the insult on Mrs. Grey!"
"Of course. But for that step of yours we should have heard nothing of Salter in connection with Foxwood."
Karl maintained a calm exterior: but he could have ground his teeth as he listened. It was too true.
"Then, with that one exception, Sir Karl, I am right in assuming that you personally hold no other part or interest in this affair, as regards Salter?"
"As regards Salter? None whatever."
"Well now," resumed the superintendent, in a confidential kind of tone, "we can talk at our ease for a minute. Does it not strike you, Sir Karl, as an impartial and impassioned looker-on, that there is something rather curious in the affair, taking one thing with another?"
"I fail to catch your meaning, sir," replied Karl, gazing at the superintendent. "I confess no such idea has occurred to me. Curious in what way?"
"We shall come to that. Philip Smith has been your agent about six months, I believe."
"About that."
"Whence did you have him? Where did he live before?"
"I really do not know. My mother, the late Mrs. Andinnian, who was occupying Foxwood Court during my absence abroad, engaged him. She became ill herself, was unable to attend to anything, and deemed it well to employ someone to look after my interests."
"Report runs in Foxwood--all kinds of gossip have come up to me from the place." The superintendent broke off to add--"that Smith is only your honorary agent, Sir Karl; that he gives it out he is an old friend of the Andinnian family."
"I can assure you that Smith is my paid agent. He has a house to live in, and takes his salary quarterly."
"The house is exactly opposite the Maze gates?"
"Yes," said Karl, beginning to feel somewhat uncomfortable at the drift the conversation appeared to be taking.
"Is there any truth in the statement that your family knew him in earlier days? You will see in a minute, Sir Karl, why I ask you all this. I conclude there is not."
"I understood my mother to imply in her last illness that she had known something of him: but I was not sure that I caught her meaning correctly, and she was too ill for me to press the question. I had never heard of any Smith myself, and the chances were that I misunderstood her. He makes himself useful about the estate, and that is all I have to look to."
"Report says also--pardon me for recurring to it, Sir Karl--that he makes himself a very easy kind of agent; seems to do as he likes, work or play, and spends most of his time smoking in his front garden, exchanging salutations with the passers-by and watching his neighbour's opposite gate."
Had it been to save his life, Karl Andinnian could not have helped the change that passed over his countenance. What was coming? He strove to be cool and careless, poor fellow, and smiled frankly.
"I fancy he is rather idle--and given to smoke too much. But he does well what he has to do for me, for all that. Mine is not a large estate, as you may be aware, and Sir Joseph left it in first-rate condition. There is very little work for an agent."
"Well, now, I will ask you a last question, Sir Karl. Do you think Smith's residence at Foxwood is in any way connected with the Maze!"
"Connected with the Maze!" echoed Sir Karl, his face never betraying the uneasiness that his beating and terrified heart was beginning to feel all too keenly.
"That is, connected with its tenants."
"In what way would it be possible?"
"Look here. Philip Smith presents himself at Foxwood Court about six months ago, soliciting the agency of your estates from Mrs. Andinnian--as there is little doubt he did so present himself to her, and solicit. Now it was a very singular thing for him to do, considering that his previous life (as I happen to know) had in no way whatever qualified him for the situation. He knew no more of land or the duties of a land-agent than does this inkstand on my table. Why did he attempt to take such a place?"
"For the want of something else to do, probably," replied Karl. "He told me himself the other day, that his cousin's fall ruined him also, by causing him to be turned from his situation. As to the duties he has to perform for me, a child might be at home in them in a week."
"Granted. Let us go on. Mr. Smith's installation at your place as agent was closely followed by the occupancy of the Maze, Mrs. Grey and her servants arriving as its tenants. Was it not so, Sir Karl?"
"I--think it was," assented Karl, appearing to be recalling the past to his memory, and feeling himself in a bath of horror as he saw that the all-powerful man before him, powerful to know, to rule, and to act, was quite at home behind the scenes.
"Well, I cannot help thinking that the one may have been connected with the other; that Smith's appearance at your place, and the immediately-following occupancy of the Maze, may have been, so to say, connecting links in the same chain," continued the superintendent. "A doubt of it was floating in my mind before I had the honour of seeing you, Sir Karl: but I failed to detect any adequate cause; there was none on the surface. You have now supplied that, by telling me who Smith is--Salter's relative."
"Indeed I cannot understand you," said Karl, turning nevertheless from hot to cold.
"The Maze is a place--what with its surrounding labyrinth of trees and its secret passages and outlets--unusually favourable for concealment. A proscribed man might hide himself there for years and years, and never be discovered unless suspicion were accidentally drawn on him. I think the chances are that Salter is there; and that his cousin, Smith, is keeping guard over him for his protection, while ostensibly fulfilling only the duties of your agency. They may have discovered in some way the desirable properties of the Maze and laid their plans to come to it accordingly."
It was so faithful a picture of what Smith was really doing at Foxwood--though the one he was watching over was a very different man from Salter--that Karl Andinnian almost thought some treacherous necromancy must have been at work. All he could do was, to speak forcibly against the view, and to declare that there could not be any foundation for it.
"That is only your opinion against mine, Sir Karl," observed the superintendent courteously. "You may rely upon it, I think, that the fact of Salter's being there would be kept from you, of all people."
"Do you forget the slur you would cast on Mrs. Grey?"
"As to that, Salter may be some relative of hers. Even her husband--even her brother. I remember it was said, at the time his case fell, that he had one sister. In either case, of course Mrs. Grey--the name she goes under--would not allow the fact of his concealment there to transpire to you."
How could Karl meet this? Sitting there, in his perplexity and pain, he could not see a step before him.
"You have forgotten that Tatton has searched the Maze from roof to basement, Mr. Superintendent."
"Not at all. It tells nothing. There are no doubt other hidden places that he did not penetrate to in that first search. At best, it was but a superficial one."
That "first" search. Was all security slipping from Karl's feet, inch by inch?
"Believe me, you are wrong," he said; "your notion is an utterly mistaken one. I assure you on my word of honour, as truly and solemnly as I shall ever testify to any fact in this world, that Salter is not within the Maze, that he never has been. Mind you, sir, I know this. I go over occasionally to see poor Mrs. Grey in her loneliness, and am in a position to speak positively."
An unmistakable smile sat on the officer's face now. "Ay," he said, "I have heard of your occasional nocturnal visits to her, Sir Karl. The young lady is said to be very attractive."
At the first moment, Sir Karl did not detect the covert meaning. It came to him with a rush of indignation. The superintendent had rarely seen so haughty a face.
"No offence, Sir Karl. 'Twas but a joke."
"A joke I do not like, sir. I am a married man."
"Est-ce que cela empêche"--the other was beginning: for the conclusion he had drawn, on the score of Sir Karl's evening visits, was a very decided one; but Karl put a peremptory stop to the subject. He deemed the superintendent most offensively familiar and unwarrantably foolish; and he resented in his angry heart the implied aspersion on his brother's wife, the true Lady Andinnian, than whom a more modest and innocent-natured woman did not exist. And it never entered into the brain of Karl Andinnian to suspect that the same objectionable joke might have been taken up by people nearer home, even by his own wife.
The interview came to an end. Karl went away, uncertain whether he had made sufficient impression, or not, to ensure the Maze against intrusion for the future. The superintendent did not say anything decisive, one way or the other, except that the matter must be left for his consideration. It might all have been well yet, all been well, but for this new complication, this suspicion rather, touching Smith and Salter jointly! He, Karl, had given the greatest rise to this, he and no other, by stating that day that the men were cousins. He asked himself whether Heaven could be angry with him, for whatever step he took for good only seemed to lead to mischief and make affairs worse. One assurance he did carry away with him: that the young lady at the Maze might rest content: her peace personally should not be molested. But that was not saying that the house should not be.
After Sir Karl's departure, the superintendent's bell rang and Tatton was recalled. A long conversation ensued. Matters known were weighed; matters suspected were looked at: and Mr. Tatton was finally bidden back to Foxwood.
Karl had gone direct from Scotland Yard to take the train. A fast one, which speedily conveyed him home. He walked from the station, and was entering his own gates when Hewitt--who seemed to have been gossiping at the lodge with the gardener's wife, but who had probably been lingering about in the hope of meeting his master--accosted him; and they went up the walk together.
"I am afraid something is amiss at the Maze, sir," began the man, looking cautiously around and speaking in a low tone.
"Something amiss at the Maze!" echoed Karl, seized with a terror that he did not attempt to conceal.
"Not that, sir; not the worst, thank Heaven! Sir Adam has been taken ill."
"Hush, Hewitt. No names. Ill in what way I How do you know it?"
"I had been to carry a note for my lady to old Miss Patchett, Sir Karl. Coming back, Ann Hopley overtook me; she was walking from the station at a fine rate. Her master had been taken most alarmingly ill, she said; and at any risk a doctor must be had to him. They did not dare to call in Mr. Moore, lest he might talk to the neighbours, and she had been to the station then to telegraph for a stranger."
"Telegraph where!"
"To Basham, sir. For Dr. Cavendish."
Karl drew a deep breath. It seemed to be perplexity on perplexity: and he saw at once how much danger this step must involve.
"What is the matter with him, Hewitt? Do you know?"
"It was one of those dreadful fainting-fits, sir. But they could not get him out of it, and for some time thought he was really dead. Mrs. Grey was nearly beside herself, Ann said, and insisted on having a doctor. He is better now, sir," added Hewitt, "and I think there's no need for you to go over unless you particularly wish. I went strolling about the road, thinking I might hear or see something more, and when Ann Hopley came to the gate to answer a ring, she told me he was quite himself again but still in bed. It was the pain made him faint."
"I cannot think what the pain is," murmured Karl. "Has the doctor been?"
"I don't think he has yet, Sir Karl."
Karl lifted his hat to rub his aching brow. He saw his wife sitting under one of the trees, and went forward to join her. The wan, weary look on her face, growing more wan, more weary, day by day, struck on him particularly in the waning light of the afternoon.
"Do you do well to sit here, Lucy?" he asked, as he flung himself beside her, in utter weariness.
"Why should I not sit here?"
"I fancy the dew must be already rising."
"It will not hurt me. And if it did--what would it matter?"
The half reproaching, half indifferent accent in which it was uttered, served to try him. He knew what the words implied--that existence had, through him, become a burden to her. His nerves were strung already to their utmost tension; the trouble at his heart was pressing him sore.
"Don't you, by your reproaches, make matters worse for me, Lucy, to-day. God knows that I have well-nigh more than I can bear."
The strangely-painful tone, so full of unmistakable anguish, aroused her kindly nature. She turned to him with a sigh.
"I wish I could make things better for both of us, Karl."
"At least, you need not make them worse. What with one thing and another--"
"Well?" she said, her voice softened, as he paused.
"Nothing lies around me, Lucy, but perplexity and dread and pain. Look where I will, abroad or at home, there's not as much as a single ray of light to cheer my spirit, or the faintest reflection of it. You cannot wonder that I am sometimes tempted to wish I could leave the world behind me."
"Have you had a pleasant day in town?" she asked, after a little while.
"No, I have had an unsatisfactory and trying day in all ways. And I have come home to find more to try me: more dissatisfaction here, more dread abroad. 'Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards.' Some of us are destined to realise the truth in ourselves all too surely."
He looked at his watch, got up, and walked indoors without another word. Lucy gazed after him with yearning eyes; eyes that seemed to have some of the perplexity he spoke of in their depths. There were moments when she failed to understand her husband's moods. This was one.