CHAPTER IX.

VAN DUREN'S FLIGHT.

When Max Van Duren came to his senses he found himself in darkness and alone. A low damp wind was blowing in from the sea, sighing and groaning as if burdened with messages from the dying to loved ones at home. The tide had come to its height, and was now flowing out again, with deep muttered undertones that lent solemnity to the darkness. Van Duren's first thought was that he had died and was coming to life again in another world. Presently he felt something trickling slowly and softly down his face, and his finger, following the tiny stream to its source, found that it proceeded from a huge gash in the side of his head. Then in a flash the whole circumstances of the evening came back to him--the scene in the room at the hotel, his attempt to steal the casket, the sudden apparition of Ambrose Murray, the scene in the balcony, and his own wild leap out into the darkness. Whither had that leap landed him? He was now lying on his side, and he contrived to raise himself on one elbow and look round, but only to fall back next minute with a groan. He could see the sky and he could hear the sea, and he could make out that his body seemed to be lying among some large stones or pieces of rock, but beyond that he could tell nothing. He lay very quiet for a little while, thinking with all his might. What troubled him most of all--far more than his own present condition--was the doubt as to whether the vision of Ambrose Murray, which he had seen in the room was that of a real man or was merely a spectre. He was no believer in ghosts--or he told himself that he was not, despite his strange experience of the face in the glass--but for all that, he was inclined to doubt the bodily existence of Murray. "I was weak and ill and excited," he said to himself "I had eaten nothing for four-and-twenty hours. My nerves were in a state of tension that had become almost unbearable. I was just in a condition to see or imagine anything. I had been thinking of Murray, and I imagined that I saw him there bodily before me. If my brain had only been as cool then as it is now, I should never have seen him. With the daylight these silly fancies will vanish--but will it ever be daylight again?"

Even while he was reasoning with himself, a thin streak of pallid grey was beginning to lighten in the east, though he saw it not for a little while. He was weak with long fasting and loss of blood. The calmness of despair had settled down upon him. He neither knew where he was nor cared greatly to know. Had anyone been there to whom he could have given himself up, he would have yielded himself willingly. "The game's played out and I have lost it," he muttered to himself again and again.

But little by little the dawn broadened, and the stars paled one by one, and with the slow coming of the daylight there grew upon Van Duren a restless desire to know what it was that had really befallen him. His mood changed. The wish to live, to escape, began to grow again within him. But first to ascertain where he was and what had happened to him. Bit by bit, as the daylight deepened, and first one object and then another shaped itself faintly out of the darkness, he began to realize his position. There below him was the sea, there above shone the white buildings of the hotel--there, in fact, was the very balcony over which, in his fright, he had so madly leaped. He had come down on his head and had at once been rendered insensible, and his senseless body had begun to turn over and over in its rapid progress down the steep face of the cliff to the wild waves lapping at its feet, for at that time it was nearly high water. But about two-thirds of the way down his body had been caught by two projecting boulders, and there held, and there it was now. The box for which he had risked so much had been dashed from his arms in the fall, and, rolling down the cliff, had doubtless been carried far out to sea by the refluent tide.

Van Duren did not know--he never knew--that the people of the hotel, urged on by Ambrose Murray after his return to consciousness, had come out with lanterns to search for him, but without much expectation of being able to find him. They knew well what a little chance of life anyone would have who leaped over that balcony, either by day or night. Had the tide been out, they would have gone down to the sands, in the full expectation of finding the stranger's body at the foot of the cliff. But the tide was up at the time, and, if not killed by the fall, Van Duren would undoubtedly be drowned and his body carried out to sea. It seemed useless to make any prolonged search, and they quickly took themselves and their lanterns indoors.

As daylight advanced, the necessity of getting away from so dangerously prominent a position to some place of shelter and security impressed itself with increasing force on Van Duren's attention. Besides which, he was the prey to a burning thirst. When he began to move, it seemed as if every bone in his body were bruised--but move he must. There was now a broad stretch of brown sand at the foot of the cliff. If he could only reach that, he could manage to crawl along it, and so, in time, reach the inn where he had taken shelter yesterday. He was dreadfully weak and ill, but the effort must be made. He got down to the sands at last, but how he could not have told anyone--he hardly knew himself; and so, by about half-past six, he found himself once more in the shelter of the little inn.

To the landlord, his statement that while walking in the dark he had slipped over the edge of the cliff seemed by no means improbable. Such slips had happened before to strangers, and in more cases than one with fatal results. So his head was washed and strapped up, his clothes well brushed, and some breakfast put before him. He tried to eat but could not; he could only drink. But while thus left alone for awhile he had to consider what his next step ought to be. It seemed by no means improbable that his enemies might come to the conclusion that he had lost his life through his mad leap from the balcony. In that case they would probably trouble themselves no further about him. But in so serious an affair it would not do to leave anything to chance. Now that their business at Marhyddoc was at an end, they would hasten back to London; and it was just as likely as not that one of the first things they would do would be to obtain a warrant for his arrest, and send some one to Spur Alley in search of him. In such a case his only chance of safety lay in being beforehand with his enemies. If he could only reach Spur Alley before them, he could possess himself of the money in the safe, and then, leaving Pringle in charge of the premises, seek some secure hiding place, and there await the progress of events. Even with a start of one or two days only, there were a good many things that he could turn into cash; and, if the worst came to the worst, why there was that other world across the Atlantic, where energy and talent never fail to attain their meed of reward. To catch the next train back to London was evidently the first step that it behoved him to take. An hour later he was at the station.

As a slight measure of precaution, in case there should be any inquiry made after him at Marhyddoc, he took a ticket as far as Crewe only. Arrived at that station, it would be an easy matter for him to book to any point he liked. He had not been in the train more than five minutes before he fell into a deep sleep, and remembered nothing more till he was roused to give up his ticket at Crewe. He got out of the carriage giddy, dazed--staggering like a man the worse for drink. He had evidently-lost a great quantity of blood while lying-exposed on the cliff. A cup of coffee and cognac revived him in some degree. He was determined to get forward to London at all risks, and he now rebooked to Euston. He was fortunate enough this time to get a compartment to himself. The giddiness in his head still continued, and to this was now added a strange, surging noise in his ears. When travelling in former days he had often amused himself by fancying that, underlying the roar and rattle of the train, there was a kind of rude articulate voice, and by trying to find out the words that the voice said to him. To-day he heard this voice clearly enough, and clearly enough he understood the two words that it said to him--that it kept on repeating with a kind of rhythmic iteration, hundreds, nay, thousands of times--two words only without change or variation: "Stop, murderer!" At first it was a relief when the train halted for a minute or two at a station; for a minute or two the voice ceased to stab him with a repetition of its dull, passionless cry. But by-and-by, to his previous torment there was added this other, that the moment the train came to a standstill at a station he heard voices, at first far away in the distance, then gradually coming nearer, the voices of men in pursuit, eager, full of menace, always crying aloud the same two words, "Stop, murderer!" He knew quite well, and it was a fact that he kept repeating to himself as earnestly as though he were striving to impress it upon some second person, that these voices were altogether imaginary--a delusion of his own weakened brain. But that did not prevent the illusion from growing on him to such an extent that, after a time, he found himself getting quite excited lest the train should not start again before the pursuing voices, growing momentarily louder, should come yelling on to the platform itself, and proclaim his terrible secret to the world at large.

What an everlasting journey it seemed to the poor, haunted wretch! At length Willesden was reached, and there Van Duren alighted. There was some sort of vague idea floating in his brain that at every London terminus there might already be some one on the look-out for him, and he would not venture into Euston. He chose rather to make his way on foot through the starlit lanes--for it was dark again by this time--as far as Cricklewood. There he found a return cab, and into that he got and was driven to town.

In the streets of London, busy even at that late hour, there seemed shelter and protection for him. Here he was only one atom among four million others. What place could there be to hide in like London itself? He still heard the voices in the distance, but the roar and rattle of the streets partially drowned them. He discharged his cab at the corner of Eastcheap, and made his way towards Spur Alley on foot.

It was necessary to use most extreme caution in approaching his house. For aught he knew to the contrary, there might have been some one set to watch it already. For fully half an hour he lingered about it, without daring to go too near to it. There was no light in it visible from the street, except in Bakewell's underground kitchen. Everything looked as quiet, dark, and secure as usual. Suddenly a happy thought struck him. He knew the tavern that Pringle was in the habit of frequenting. Perhaps Pringle was there now. It was worth while to go and see. From his clerk he could at once learn whether any particular inquiries had been made after him during his absence.

Jonas Pringle, in the act of conveying a glass of hot rum-and-water to his mouth, had never been more startled in his life than he was when his eyes met those of Max Van Duren staring fixedly at him through the glass door of the tavern. He put down his glass untasted, and for a moment or two he thought that his master was dead, and that he had seen his ghost. But presently the face appeared again, and beckoned him to go out into the street. Then, when he had got outside under the gaslight, he saw that it was indeed his master, but terribly changed. Half a dozen eager questions satisfied Van Duren that no particular inquiry had been made after him, and that Pringle knew nothing. It was hardly likely, at so late an hour of the night, that anyone would come and ask for him. He might utilise the next few hours in making his preparations and getting clear away. So Pringle was sent first to open the door, and then, two minutes later. Van Duren slid in like a shadow, and heard, with a sigh of relief, the heavy door locked and bolted behind him. For a few hours to come there would be rest and safety.

He said nothing to Pringle explanatory of his sudden appearance, or of the condition in which he was--unshaven, haggard, and with a great wound on one side of his head. He flung himself on to a couch, and told Pringle to lower the gas and order some coffee. He hardly seemed to hear his clerk's explanation that the Bakewells had gone out for a holiday, but that he, Pringle, would make him some coffee. Five minutes later, when Pringle came to ask him whether he would not like some toast with his coffee, he was fast asleep on the sofa.

Pringle went back to his coffee-making, chuckling to himself, "What a fool he was to come in search of me, if he only knew! What a fool he is to let me make his coffee for him! Why shouldn't I put a dose of poison in it? That wouldn't be such a bad sort of revenge; and if I hadn't decided on something different, I might perhaps have adopted it. He looks half crazy to-night. Something queer has happened to him while he's been away. How did he come by that gash in his head? But all that matters nothing to me. It only matters to me that he's here, under this roof, in my power. Better, far better for him had he never set foot across this threshold again!"

He was wide awake when Pringle took in the coffee. "This is kind of you, Pringle," he said, and he began to drink it eagerly.

"I find that I shall have to leave home again the first thing in the morning," he said. "I shall sit up a great part of the night arranging matters, as I may have to go away for some considerable time. You, however, may go to bed. I will call you about six, and will then give you all needful instructions before going away."

Pringle nodded his usual careless goodnight, and went. But instead of going upstairs to the room he usually occupied, he took off his shoes and stole down to the basement floor. He had put out the kitchen gas before taking up the coffee, but a few embers still glowed in the grate.

In the passage that led from the foot of the stairs to the strong-room there was still a faint glimmer of gas, as there was in the strong-room itself, in which the gas was seldom turned entirely off. The safe was locked as usual, and seemed never to have been touched since Van Duren left home.

"He's nearly sure to come down here some time in the night, and here I'll wait for him," muttered Pringle to himself.

He groped about in the dark till he had found Bakewell's easy-chair, in which he established himself comfortably in front of the fire, with his feet on another chair, and there in the dark he waited. He could hear Van Duren moving about occasionally, and two or three times he seemed to pace the room for several minutes. The fire slowly burnt itself out, the crickets chirped loudly in the silence, the city clocks clanged out the hours one after one, some lightly and carelessly as it seemed, others solemnly and slowly, as though warning all who might hear them that they were another hour nearer eternity. Still Jonas Pringle sat waiting, nor ever closed an eye.

At length, about three o'clock of the early summer morning, he heard footsteps slowly descending the stone stairs, and he knew that the occasion for which he had waited so long had come at last. The kitchen door was shut, but not latched, so that he could hear but not see anything that might happen outside. The footsteps came slowly and deliberately downstairs, and then went along the passage towards the strong-room. Then Pringle, listening intently, heard the bolts of the great iron door shoot back as the key was turned, and next moment he knew that Max Van Duren had entered the strong-room. He was still without his shoes, and rising from his seat he stepped noiselessly across the floor, and opening the door a little way, looked out. There was still the same faint glimmer of light in the passage, but the brighter glare that issued through the open door of the strong-room showed that Van Duren had turned up the gas inside. As quietly and stealthily as a tiger creeps on its prey, Pringle stole along the passage, and only paused when he reached the fringe of stronger light that issued from the room.

There, with his back towards him, stood Max Van Duren, peering into the open safe, some of the contents of which were already scattered on the floor. For a few seconds--while a clock might tick twenty times--he stood watching him with a devilish sneer on his face. Suddenly Van Duren turned, and his eyes met the eyes of Pringle. An exclamation of surprise burst from his lips; but before he had time to stir from the place where he was standing, Pringle had dashed forward, had seized the handle of the door, had pulled it to with all his might, and had turned the key. Max Van Duren was locked up in his own strong-room, ten feet below the surface of the earth.

"Caged at last!" muttered Pringle to himself, as he drew out the key and put it in his pocket. "Past three o'clock: it will be broad daylight soon. I think I could relish some breakfast. Pity old Mother Bakewell isn't here to get it ready for me." Whistling a tune under his breath, he went back into the kitchen, flung open the shutters, and began to set about lighting a fire. "Shall I have those two eggs boiled or poached?" he asked himself, as he prepared a foundation of firewood and paper. "I think I'll have 'em poached, just for variety. I'm sick of boiled eggs."

Van Duren had not been silent all this time. "Pringle! what devil's trick is this?" were his first words as he sprang at the closing door. "Pringle, Pringle, I say, you have fastened me in! Open the door, you fool, or it will be worse for you!" But Pringle was in the kitchen, cutting the string of a bundle of firewood.

"Come, now, Pringle, my good fellow, a joke's a joke, as everybody knows, but I've had enough of this. If you only knew how important is the business I've got to attend to, you wouldn't keep me here, I know." Pringle by this time was down on his knees, blowing away at the blaze like a pair of wheezy bellows.

"What do you want of me? What's your grudge against me?" cried Van Duren, behind the iron door. "Do you want an advance of salary? You shall have it. Twenty pounds a year advance. Do you hear that? Twenty pounds a year. If that's not enough--thirty. Only open the door, and I promise you fifty. Think of that--fifty pounds a year advance!" Still no answer, though he could plainly hear the rattle of crockery, as Pringle proceeded to set out the breakfast-tray. "Come, now, Pringle, we've had enough of this tomfoolery. I'd like to join you over breakfast. I want to tell you my plans. I want to talk things over with you before I go. Open the door, there's a good fellow."

The only notice Pringle took of this appeal was to turn the gas three parts off at the meter, the effect of which was to reduce the jet in the strong-room to a mere point of flame, and so leave Van Duren in almost total darkness. "One had need be economical in these days," muttered Pringle to himself. "Gas is very expensive."

For a few moments Van Duren was silent. It might be that he began to despair, that he began to see how useless any further appeals would be, that it began to dawn on his mind what Pringle's purpose really was. But in a little while he spoke again. "Pringle, Pringle, I say, where are you? What have I done to you that you should serve me like this? Fiend--monster--bloodthirsty villain! If you want to get rid of me, knock me on the head and have done with it. Don't leave me here to starve. That is too horrible!"

"These eggs are hardly as fresh as they might be, for all I gave twopence each for 'em," muttered Pringle! "But that's the worst of London eggs--you never can depend on 'em." Then he made himself some toast, taking care not to spare the butter, and presently everything was ready for him to begin. "I like my coffee made ally Frongsey," he said, contemplatively. "It's certainly an improvement on the old English style. Those Frenchmen don't know a great deal, but they do know how to make coffee."

When everything was ready for him to sit down to, he walked along the passage to the iron door and rapped at it with his knuckles. "Max Van Duren, are you there?" he said, simply and sternly.

Van Duren, who had been silent for some little while, responded eagerly. "Yes, yes, Pringle, I am here! I knew it was only one of your queer practical jokes."

"I am now going to get my breakfast, after which I shall smoke a pipe. When I have finished my pipe, I will come and have some talk with you. Till then you may as well be silent, and behave like a reasonable being." With that he turned on his heel.

"Pringle, my good fellow, don't leave me here all that time; don't leave me here in the dark in this horrible den!" But Pringle was gone already, and this time he shut behind him the wooden door at the foot of the stairs that opened into the passage, and then he shut the kitchen door, so as to ensure himself still further against being disturbed; then he rubbed his hands with an air of enjoyment, and proceeded to pour out his coffee.

He took half an hour for his breakfast, and another half-hour for the pipe that followed, and then he told himself that he was ready for business. All this time the prisoner in the strong-room had maintained the most perfect silence.

Opening the outer door, Pringle traversed the passage, and, as before, rapped with his knuckles on the inner door. As before, he said, "Max Van Duren, are you there?"

"I am here."

"Then listen; come closer to the door and listen. You would doubtless like to know why I have shut you up here. That is what I am going to tell you. But first you must answer me one or two questions. Do you know the village of Dunhope, in Berkshire?"

No answer.

Pringle repeated the question with more emphasis. "If you won't answer my questions, I can't tell you what you are so anxious to know."

"I did know a place of that name some years ago."

"Just so. You knew it some years ago. If we were to say seven or eight years ago, we should not be very wide of the mark. Knowing Dunhope so well, you perhaps knew a young girl who lived there once on a time--a girl whose name was Jessie Ember. Eh! am I right or wrong?"

"You are right; I did know a girl of that name."

"We are getting on famously. A little bird has whispered to me that you made love to this girl, that you persuaded her to leave her situation, and that, relying on your solemn promise to make her your wife, you brought her to London; but that when you had once got her here, you quite forgot your promise to marry her. Are these things true, or are they not?"

There was a long pause. Then came the answer, with a sort of groan--

"They are true."

"Soon tiring of the girl, you turned her adrift to starve or die, or--or to become one of earth's forlornest creatures; it mattered not to you."

He paused, overcome by an emotion that, despite all his efforts, would not be wholly suppressed.

"Am I not right?" he asked, a moment or two later. "Have you ever, from that day to this, troubled yourself to make one single inquiry after the girl whom you once swore that you loved better than life itself? Do you even know whether she is dead or alive?"

"Who are you that you talk to me in this way? By what right do you ask me these questions?"

"Who am I? I will tell you who I am. I am Jessie Ember's father! Who has more right to question you than I?"

"You her father! Oh, Heaven!"

It was little more than a whisper, that seemed instinct with surprise, terror, and anguish.

"Scoundrel! unmitigated scoundrel!" began Pringle. Then he paused. "But I only demean myself by calling you names. You are where you are--and I am satisfied."

"What do you want of me? I am rich, and----"

"Singular, isn't it, that I should have been with you all this time, and never have discovered till the other day that you are the man I have been looking for for years? But things do come about strangely in this world."

"Unlock the door, and I will make you rich for life."

"Ha! ha! I can be rich for life without unlocking the door."

"How?"

"By waiting till you are dead, and then constituting myself your heir. No will required. No legacy duty to pay. Funeral expenses next to nothing. I saw such a splendid grey rat leap from behind the old ledgers the other day."

"Villain! you would not murder me?"

"Murder you! Ha! ha! Certainly not. What put that idea into your head."

"Then why don't you open the door?"

"Now you are asking a leetle too much--just a leetle. I would do anything in the world for you except open this door. You know you robbed me of my child--you ruined her and deserted her. It was only one of your little practical jokes. It's my turn now. This is one of _my_ jokes. You don't object, I hope?"

"Then you are going to leave me hereto starve--to die?"

"Oh no, I'm not going to leave you. There you are mistaken. I shall come a dozen times a day to see you. These little dialogues are interesting. I'll bring my pipe after awhile, and come and keep you company; but on this side the door, you know--on this side the door."

"Have you no pity? Will nothing move you?"

"It will be quite a little holiday for you. Nothing to do--absolutely nothing to do. I will do all the business, attend to the letters, and answer all inquiries. 'Has Mr. Van Duren got back home yet?' 'No, sir, he is still in France, but I am expecting him every day.' Ha! ha! and you here all the time! Won't it be a lark, Van, my boy, eh?"

A deep groan was the only reply.

"And now I'm just going round the corner in search of an early nip to digest my breakfast. Don't get downhearted, because I shan't be long away. No, no, I value you too much to stay away from you for very long."

And, turning on his heel, Jonas Pringle walked leisurely away, whistling to himself as he went.