CHAPTER VI.

VAN DUREN IN WALES.

In the dusk of a sweet May evening a man slipped quietly out of the back door of the "Ring of Bells" tavern--a low public-house, frequented chiefly by fishermen and labourers, in the village of Marhyddoc, and shunning the more frequented neighbourhoods, found himself presently in a pretty winding lane that seemed to lead to nowhere in particular, and was quite given over to solitude. Here the man sat down for a while on the trunk of a fallen tree. The house had become intolerable to him: he could stay in it no longer; so he had strolled out to this quiet nook, there to wait till dusk had deepened into dark. Not without difficulty would even Jonas Pringle have recognized in this man Max Van Duren. Hands and face had been stained till they were the colour of a gipsy's, and his hair had been dyed jet black. He had only been twelve hours in Marhyddoc, but he had already found out a great deal that it behoved him to know. Fortunately for Van Duren, the landlord of the "Ring of Bells" spoke English fluently, and was very fond of airing his accomplishment, besides being naturally of a garrulous turn of mind. As a consequence, Van Duren had very soon extracted from him all that he had to tell--more than enough to confirm his worst fears.

In the portraits which the landlord drew of two of the strangers who were staying at the big hotel on the cliff, he had no difficulty in recognizing Byrne and Miriam. He could no longer doubt that he had been duped by these two; that they had only hired his rooms, and wormed themselves into his confidence, in order to extract from him a secret which, up to that time, he could have sworn would never be whispered by him in mortal ears. And they had succeeded but too well. What a weak fool he had been! How easily that girl had twined him round her finger! How well he could see the sneer that would curve her beautiful lips when she spoke of him to her father! He hated her now with as much intensity as he had loved her before. Had Miriam Byrne come walking down that lane in the May twilight--had she and Max Van Duren met face to face with no third person by, the chances that her father would ever have seen his daughter alive again would have been very problematical indeed.

But with Byrne and his daughter at the hotel was another individual, according to the landlord's account--an elderly gentleman, whom Van Duren altogether failed to recognize. Not that he was greatly troubled thereby: he had far more important matters to occupy his thoughts.

For the landlord had other news--news that he was in no wise loth to impart, that for Van Duren was full of intense significance. He knew all about the divers and their strange apparatus and dresses. He told his hearer how, in the first place, someone had come down to Marhyddoc, and, after some difficulty, had found out the exact spot where the schooner _Albatross_ had foundered twenty years before. The place was then marked with a buoy, and soon after that the divers had come. Everybody in the village had asked themselves what there was in the cargo of the _Albatross_ that could be worth the trouble and expense of recovery after having been for twenty years at the bottom of the sea: and for a long time the question asked by everybody had remained unanswered. But at last it had oozed out, nobody seemed to know exactly how, that the particular object for which the divers were instructed to search was a small oaken box, clamped with silver. The box was said by some to contain certain documents and title-deeds of immense value, for lack of which the rightful heir to a great property had been kept out of his own for years. Others knew for a fact that the box was full of sovereigns which were being sent out to America to buy slaves with. Others there were who averred that inside the silver-clamped box would be found the evidence of a terrible murder that had remained undetected all this long time.

"But of course they have not succeeded in finding the box?" Van Duren had said to the landlord, burning with a terrible anxiety to know the worst.

"But they have. Yes, indeed," said the man with a chuckle. Van Duren, on hearing this, got up abruptly and went to the window. His face was ghastly; his mouth twitched nervously in a way that he could not control; his staring eyes saw nothing that was before them. "The divers had been down three times without success," continued the man. "They went down again very early this morning, and in less than an hour they found the box. I saw it with my own eyes when they came ashore:--a small oak box, clamped at the corners, and with two letters on the lid."

Van Duren tried to speak, but he was like a man under the influence of a nightmare. The words died away in his parched-up throat. Happily the landlord took his listener's silence as a sign that his narrative was interesting, and went on without noticing him.

"When the box was brought ashore it was given into the custody of John Williams, the policeman. Yes, indeed. John took it up to the hotel on the cliff where the gentlemen are staying, and there he waited with the box on his knees till Mr. Davies of St. Owens, who is a magistrate, came, three hours later, and then they all went into a room together, the divers and the gentlemen, and the door was locked, and there the box was opened."

Van Duren would have liked to say, "And what did they find in the box when they opened it?" but not for the life of him could he have put the question. He knew quite well--no one better--what would be found in the box; but none the less did he hunger to hear every detail from the landlord's lips. However, he had only to wait and say nothing; his host's natural garrulity would do the rest.

"Whether they found title-deeds in the box, or whether they found sovereigns, or whether they found anything at all is more than I can exactly say. John Williams, the policeman, for all he's my own cousin's nephew, and I treated him to three glasses of brandy after he came down from the hotel, only shook his head and wouldn't say a word, though he knew very well that I wouldn't have whispered it to a soul. No, indeed. But John Williams will have no more of my brandy without paying for it like any other man."

Such was the story told Max Van Duren in the little Welsh inn. His worst fears were realized. The sea had given up its secret. Everything was known. He was stunned by the blow, and seemed for the time being to have lost all power of cool thought, all possibility of looking his position steadily in the face and of deciding as to what steps it behoved him to take next.

But even through the midst of the vague, unreasoning terror that now possessed him, through the ghastly dread that now held him as with a hand of iron, he could not help wondering by what means, through what special agencies, this unlooked for and terrible result had been brought about. Who forged the first link of evidence tending to implicate him in a crime committed so long ago that at times it almost seemed as if no such deed had ever really been done--as if it were nothing more than a distempered dream of his own imagining? What first induced Byrne and Miriam to come to his house and worm themselves into his confidence on purpose to elicit from him the particulars of the shipwreck of the _Albatross?_ How did Byrne first come to connect him, Max Van Duren, with the murder of Paul Stilling? And, which was more mysterious still, whence and how did he derive the knowledge which enabled him to connect the story of the shipwreck with that crime? Never once during all the intervening years had Van Duren troubled himself to make any inquiry after Ambrose Murray. He had never cared to ascertain whether the man he had so foully wronged were alive or dead, whether he had been pardoned and set at liberty, or whether he was still shut up in his living tomb. But now, to-day, it did occur to him to ask himself whether it was in anyway possible that it was the hand of Ambrose Murray which had linked together the fatal chain of evidence--a chain that would prove strong enough to hang him unless he took particular care what he was about. But he scouted the idea almost as soon as it came to him. If Ambrose Murray were still alive, it was merely as a harmless lunatic--as a melancholy madman whom one might perhaps afford to pity, but could certainly have no cause to fear.

But it was certainly not the hand of a harmless lunatic that was at the bottom of this plot to bring his long-hidden guilt home to him. It was the hand, rather, of a man as strong, cunning, and unscrupulous as himself--a hand that, so far, had won every point of the game against him--a hand that would succeed in tying a halter firmly round his neck, unless--unless what? he asked himself, with a mixture of terror and despair. He did not know who his enemy was, where to look for him, or how best to confront him. He had got a sort of vague notion in his mind that Byrne was merely the puppet of a firmer will and a stronger hand; that his real enemy was lurking out of sight in the background, weaving round him, thread by thread, the meshes of a net from which in the end he would find it impossible to escape.

Not till dusk had fairly set in did Van Duren venture outside the inn door. He seemed to have lost his appetite entirely; but he kept up his strength, and in some small way his courage also, by repeated doses of the inn's fiery spirits. When, at last, he did leave the house, he had no settled intention in doing so. The place for hours had been full of noisy, half-drunken company, all of whom, as he could not help hearing through the thin lath-and-plaster wall that divided his room from the tap-room, were loudly discussing some important topic in their native Welsh. That topic, as the landlord took care to inform him more than once, was neither more nor less than the finding of the long-sought-for box by the divers. At last he felt that he must either leave the house or go mad. So he wandered out into a quiet lane at the back of the village, and there sat down on the trunk of a felled tree.

What should he do? What ought his next step to be? His mind was all in amaze of doubt and terror and perplexity. Should he hurry off to London by the first train, secure all his available property, shut up his house in Spur Alley, and drop quietly out of sight where no possible search for him could be made? Or should he stay and brave out everything?

Presently he began to feel very lonely among the dim shadows of the silent lane. He fancied that he heard voices whispering, and the faint rustle of garments, as if someone were watching him stealthily through the foliage at his back. He looked round with a shudder, and then he rose and walked swiftly forward. In a little while the lane took him to a rising ground that overlooked the village and the sea. On his right, and no great distance away, rose the cliff on the summit of which was built the hotel where Byrne and Miriam were staying. Several of the windows were lighted up. Which were the windows of Miriam's room, he wondered? In the midst of all his doubts and fears for his own safety, he could not help thinking about the girl who had played such a short but important part in the strange drama of his life. He had no bitterer thought, even at this bitter hour, than the knowledge that this girl, whom he had learnt to love so passionately, had not only never cared for him, but had duped him from the very first; that all her smiles and looks and words had been utterly false; that it was her hand, and hers alone, that had struck him down; that but for her no harm could have happened to him; that but for her, the silver-clamped box, with its damning evidence, would have rested till doomsday at the bottom of the sea.

Without knowing or caring whither it might lead him, he had unconsciously taken a footpath which brought him presently to a little side wicket that opened into the grounds of the hotel. From the wicket a winding path led upward through thick clumps of evergreens and brushwood to the house. There was for him, in his present mood, a sort of fascination, a grim satisfaction, in the thought of being so near these cunning enemies of his, who seemed so thoroughly bent on hunting him down, while all the time they believed him to be hundreds of miles away. He had little or no sense of present fear upon him. His dread lay in the unknown future. The next blow that would be struck at him would not be struck here, but in London. So long as these people stayed in Wales, he was safe. They had done their worst for a little time to come.

He passed through the wicket, but as soon as he found himself in the grounds of the hotel, he diverged from the pathway on to the grass, where his footsteps were inaudible, and where the evergreens would shelter him from the view of any passer-by. But perfect quiet reigned around; not a sign of life was anywhere visible. No portion of the hotel could be seen from where he was now, but he knew in which direction it lay; and without knowing or caring to think why he did so, he kept pressing slowly forward and upward, till at length he emerged from the shrubbery into a more open part of the grounds, and therein the starlight he could see the big white building straight before him.

On one side, the hotel was built close up to the edge of the cliff, which here sloped down to the beach, and the base of which was washed by every tide. Huge boulders and jagged pieces of rock protruded here and there from the face of the cliff; but these rugged features were softened and harmonized by the numerous tufts of broom and dwarf brushwood that grew among and around them, and by the soft, green mosses and many-coloured lichens that nestled between them, and crept lovingly over them, and made them beautiful with a beauty that was other than their own. Up the face of this cliff a goat or a chamois might probably have climbed by leaping from rock to rock, or from one clump of brushwood to another; but no human foot had ever been known to venture up or down it.

It was now dark, and these more minute features of the scene were invisible to Max Van Duren. All that he could discern was, that the hotel was built close to the edge of the cliff, at the bottom of which cliff the tide was now washing heavily in with the noise of low thunder.

Having satisfied himself that there was no one about, Van Duren left the shelter of the shrubbery through which he had hitherto crept, and swiftly crossing the intervening open space, he sought the shelter of another fringe of shrubbery which grew between the gradually rising edge of the cliff and the carriage-drive that led up to the main entrance of the hotel. Keeping well within the shade of the evergreens, and climbing higher step by step, a few minutes more brought him close up to one corner of the house. It was now requisite to move with extreme caution. Suddenly he heard the sound of voices, and two or three loud goodnights. Some one was evidently leaving the hotel, and would pass close by him in a few moments. It would never do to be found there; so he plunged deeper into the shrubbery, and presently found himself close to one of the lighted windows that he had seen from the valley below. He hardly knew whether to advance or retire. The question was. Who were the occupants of the room? If strangers only, he would go quietly back by the way he had come; but if there was a chance of seeing Miriam--well, to see her again, he was prepared to risk much. He hated her, or fancied that he did, and yet there was still a strange fascination for him in the thought that he was close to her, that he was only separated from her by the thickness of a wall. Had he met her there alone in the shrubbery, he would have strangled her, but after that he would have kissed her and wept over her, and would probably have ended all by jumping over the cliff.

He crept close up to the window and peered through the Venetians. Fortunately for his purpose, they were not very closely drawn, and he could see into the room without difficulty. It was a large room, and was lighted by another window opposite to that through which Van Duren was now looking. This second window--a French one, by the way--was wide open, for the evening was somewhat sultry. Beyond it was small balcony, and then the cliff, and, a hundred feet below, the white-lipped waves. Round a table in the middle of the room, four gentlemen were seated in earnest conversation. Three of them Van Duren had never seen before, but in the fourth he had no difficulty in recognizing his quondam lodger, Mr. Peter Byrne. It is true that the white locks, the hump, and the general air of feebleness and decrepitude had all disappeared; but Byrne's strongly-marked features could not be mistaken for those of any other man. But hardly had Van Duren time to notice all this, before his eyes were drawn to and concentrated on an object that was standing in the middle of the table. He shuddered from head to foot, and turned suddenly sick as he looked. He had recognized the object in a moment. It was the silver-clamped box which the divers had brought up from the bottom of the sea: it was the box for the sake of which Paul Stilling had been stabbed in his sleep.

Was the box full or empty? The lid was open, but Van Duren could not see inside. Anyhow, there was the box. What a host of terrible memories the sight of it called up in his mind! Trifling circumstances, all but forgotten, and that he had thrust persistently from his memory years ago, came back now with the vivid clearness of a photograph. Stilling's drunken laugh, the peculiar nervous twitching of his left eye, the broken nail on one of his fingers, the very patch on one of his boots, quizzically commented on by him as he was pulling on his slippers in front of the fire--how they all came back to Van Duren! As he stood there, it seemed to him but a few yesterdays, instead of twenty long years, since----

He drew out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead, and shut out the sight for a moment. When he looked again, Miriam was there. She was bending over the back of her father's chair and saying something in his ear. She had never looked sweeter, in Van Duren's eyes, than she looked to-night, with her soft flowing grenadine dress, and her bows of ribbon here and there, and a tea-rose in her hair.

He would have given all he had in the world, everything save life itself, to have called this girl his own and have won one smile of real love from her beautiful lips. Presently she lifted up a face that was radiant with smiles, then she pinched her father's ear playfully, and turned and left the room. And that was the last time that Max Van Duren ever set eyes on Miriam Byrne.

A few minutes later the four gentlemen rose and left the room. They left the box behind them, still standing wide open in the middle of the table. From this Van Duren at once concluded that it must have been emptied of its contents. Had it not, they would hardly have left it there unguarded. Then all at once the thought struck Van Duren that if he could only obtain possession of the box, if he could only steal it away unknown to anyone, then would his enemies be deprived of the strongest link in their evidence against him--perhaps the only link of any value in a court of justice. The box could undoubtedly be sworn to as being that which had at one time belonged to Paul Stilling; but could the contents of the box, after twenty years' immersion in the sea, be sworn to with equal certainty? To him that seemed very doubtful indeed. In any case the chain of evidence against him would certainly be weakened in a material degree should the box not be producible by the prosecution. It would be worth risking much to obtain it. There it was within a few yards of him, in an empty room; why should he not take possession of it again, as he had done once before, long years ago? Not a sound could anywhere be heard save the low thunder of the incoming tide. But how was it possible for him to get into the room, unseen and unheard? He tried the sash of the window against which he was standing. Fortunately for his purpose, it proved to be unfastened. All that he had to do was to push up the sash sufficiently high, climb over the low windowsill, thrust aside the Venetians, and the box would be within reach of his hand. Five minutes would suffice for everything. If only he could make sure that no one would enter the room for five short minutes! But of that he could by no means make sure; he must run the risk of it. But even while these thoughts were in his mind, his hands had been busy with the window, and almost before he knew what had happened, he found that he had pushed up the sash high enough to admit of his ingress to the room.

A minute later, and his hand was on the box. Even at such a moment as that it thrilled him strangely to touch it. He glanced into it: it was empty, as he had felt sure that it would be. Then he shut down the lid, and taking up the box, he placed it under his arm and turned to go. But at this instant the door was quickly opened, and some one came into the room. Van Duren turned instinctively, and as his eyes met those of the man who had entered, he gave utterance to a low cry of terror and surprise.

There before him stood the man whom he had so terribly wronged--whom he had consigned without remorse to a living tomb--who would have become the hangman's prey had not his brain been too weak to bear the burden of his doom. This man, then, it was--who he had fondly believed in his heart must have died long ago--this man it was, who, like a sleuth hound, was now on his track, determined to hunt him down without mercy and without ruth. Ambrose Murray was but a wreck of his former self, but Max Van Duren knew him again the moment his eyes fell on him.

Murray, in his turn, did not fail to recognise Van Duren. "Wretch! what do you here?" he exclaimed, as he advanced into the room. His right hand was buried in the breast of his frock-coat--an habitual action with him; but Van Duren took it at once that his fingers were grasping some hidden weapon, and as Murray advanced he fell back step by step.

He did not answer Murray's question. He seemed, indeed, as though he had not heard it. His face worked with emotion. Surprise, and terror, and anger seemed to glare out of his eyes in turn; but still he did not speak.

On first entering the room Murray had not missed the box; but now his eyes travelled from Van Duren to the table, and then back again, and he understood everything.

"Villain! bloodthirsty villain!" he cried. "Would you steal that box a second time?" and with that he took two or three rapid strides towards Van Duren.

But the other, still without answering, and still facing his enemy, fell quickly back. Murray was now between him and the window by which he had entered; but he seemed to remember that there was another window behind him, and it was towards this that he was now making his way. He still evidently suspected that Murray's hand held a pistol, and that he might be fired at any moment.

The latter continued to advance. "Max Jacoby, I have you at last, and this time you shall not escape me!" he exclaimed, and therewith he strode swiftly to the bell-rope and pulled it violently.

But at the first sound of the bell, Van Duren turned quickly and made for the open French window. Before Murray had time to utter a single word of warning, he was on the balcony. Next moment his hand grasped the railing, and with a loud, mocking laugh he vaulted over and disappeared in the darkness below. He had either not known, or had forgotten, that the balcony was built immediately over the edge of the cliff.

A few moments later Peter Byrne and two or three others hurried into the room in response to the bell's imperative summons. Ambrose Murray was lying senseless on the floor, and the silver-clamped box was no longer there.