CHAPTER VIII.

INSPECTOR KEENE SEES DAYLIGHT AT LAST.

"And pray, may I ask who was left executor in this wonderful will, since that item seems to have been omitted from an otherwise well-concocted story?" said Mr. Walker, as soon as the housekeeper had been carried out of the room, and order restored.

"Mr. Atherton and myself were named executors."

"For which little business," he continued with unutterable irony, "you were doubtless to receive some _small_ compensation?"

"You are mistaken," I replied quietly; "my name is not otherwise mentioned than as being appointed to act with Hugh Atherton. No legacy was left to me, and I did not even receive the usual fee for drawing up the will. I mention this to remove any false impression which my previous statement may have given."

"Most disinterested conduct on your part, I am sure, Mr. Kavanagh," was the reply in the same sarcastic tones. "It was, however, probably understood that the securing £10,000 a year to your friend would not pass unrewarded by him."

I was losing my temper under the man's repeated insults, and an angry reply had risen to my lips, when Wilmot interposed. He had entirely regained his usual self-possession, and more than his usual confidence. Evidently, he had resolved to change his tactics, and treat me civilly.

"We don't wish to dispute your word, Kavanagh, but you must own there is some excuse for our unbelief. Here are all three of us--Smith, Walker, and myself--ready to take oath that no other will save the document just read was or is to be found amongst my late uncle's papers; not so much as a hint of such a thing existing. And here are you, without a shadow of proof in your hand, stating that a will, posterior to this one lying here, was made by you on the evening previous to my uncle's death. The natural inference drawn is, that that will must now exist; we know it does not exist, or we must have found it, unless my uncle _destroyed it_ immediately {745} after it was made, namely, before he went to bed this day week. Do I put the case clearly and fairly, gentlemen?" he continued, turning to the assembled company.

The same old gentleman who had spoken before now again advanced. "I have known Gilbert Thorneley," he said, "more than thirty years; but that he was ever married, or had a child living, is as great news to me as to any here present who had known him but as a recent acquaintance. Still, if what Mr. Kavanagh says be true--and no offence to him--that son of whom he speaks must be living now, and must be found. You, Mr. Wilmot, have asked, as proof of this strange statement being true, where is the will? I now ask likewise, as proof of its genuineness, where is the _heir_? Where is the son of my old friend? Where is Francis Gilbert Thorneley?"

I was fearfully staggered by the question. Never before had it occurred to me that there would be a difficulty in finding the poor idiot when the time came for him to enter upon his inheritance. No doubt, no passing misgiving, had crossed my mind but that, along with the will I had drawn up, papers would be left and found, giving all-sufficient information of his whereabouts. For the first time the thought flashed across me that perhaps, after all, I had not acted wisely in maintaining the silence which had been exacted from me by solemn promise. And that solemn promise! What had been old Thorneley's motive in exacting it? Why should he wish such inevitable risks to be run, as he, a shrewd man of the world, would know must be run, of that final will being suppressed by the parties interested in the other one lodged at his lawyers'? Of what, of whom, had he been afraid? Was the secret and mystery of the will in any way connected with the secret and mystery of the murder? As these questions crowded themselves upon me during the brief moment which succeeded the last speaker's queries, I looked round unconsciously on the eager, curious faces turned upon us, the actors in this scene; and suddenly my eye lighted upon a little man dressed in a dapper black suit, with a profusion of curly brown hair, and long beard, standing behind a group near the door. His eyes were fixed on mine--sharp, intelligent, piercing, black eyes--with an expression in them which plainly bespoke a desire of attracting my attention; eyes that were familiar to me, whilst the rest of the man's face and appearance was that of a stranger. Then one hand was lifted to his lips, and I saw him give a voracious bite at his nails. In a moment light broke upon darkness, and I knew him in spite of flowing wig and beard, in spite of funeral black and well-fitting clothes, to be Inspector Keene. I suppose he saw a gleam of intelligence pass over my countenance, for he began a series of evolutions on his closely-cropped fingers, and I, luckily, could spell the words: "Close this; see Merrivale." I seized the idea, and turning to Wilmot and his lawyers, I said, "This matter is too serious to be dealt with otherwise than in legal form and place. Mr. Merrivale or myself will communicate with Messrs. Smith and Walker. There is nothing further to be said at present;" and I left the room, exchanging another glance with the inspector, who I knew would quickly follow me.

Nor was I mistaken. I drove to Merrivale's, and whilst in full tide of relating what had transpired in Wimpole street, the little man arrived, still in mourning trim, but minus his wig and beard; and I am bound to confess that, despite the seriousness of the moment, I was almost overpowered by the ludicrous change which the doffing of those appendages had wrought in him--he looked so like a broom that had had its bristles cut short off.

"You are a clever fellow, Keene," said Merrivale; "how upon earth did you contrive to pass muster amongst those city swells?"

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The inspector bowed to the compliment, but seemed no way abashed. "I showed the inside of your purse, Mr. Merrivale, There was no difficulty in sight of _that_. Please go on, Mr. Kavanagh, and I'll wait."

I concluded in as few words as possible, anxiously desiring to hear what Keene had to say; and immediately that I had finished, Merrivale turned toward him:

"What do you think of it all, in heaven's name?"

Mr. Inspector scraped his chin, and waited some moments before replying, his bright keen eyes glancing alternately from one to another of us. "If I were to tell you, sirs, all I _think_, you'd be tired of hearing me, for I've been thinking as hard as my brains could go for the last week past. If you'd have made a friend, Mr. Kavanagh, of Mr. Merrivale or your humble servant in the matter you just now revealed, it might have helped me not a trifle--not a trifle. However, I believe you did it for the best; and after all I think we'll be even with them yet. But it is as confoundedly black a business as it ever fell to my lot to deal with; and I've had businesses, gentlemen, as black as--well, as old Harry himself. You see there's three points to follow up; and if we can tackle _one_ securely, why, I consider we shall tackle all, for I believe they hang together. First," checking it off on his thumb, "there's the murder; and the point there is to find _who_ really bought that grain of strychnine which the chemist has booked. It rests between master and man to reveal; and I incline to the latter, and have my eye on him. Never tell me," said the detective, warming with his subject, "that neither of them don't know; I tell you one of them _does_ know, and my name's not Keene if I don't have it out of them yet. That's one point, an't it, Mr. Merrivale?" Merrivale assented. "Then the second," checking number two off on his stumpy fore-finger, "includes four parties, and their connection with each other; the man De Vos or Sullivan, the man O'Brian, Mr. Lister Wilmot, and the housekeeper."

"The housekeeper, Mrs. Haag!" I exclaimed.

"Yes, sir; Mrs. _Haag_, if that's her name."

"You think it is not?"

"I _know_ it isn't."

"You know it?"

"I do. When Jones showed me his notes, and repeated to me what you and he had heard in Blue-Anchor Lane last Thursday night, I _smelt_ a rat, Mr. Kavanagh, and I followed my nose, sir. When I said I was on the scent, I meant it. From that hour I wrote down in my note-book, 'Mrs. Haag, _alias_ Bradley--Bradley, _alias_ O'Brian; her husband, escaped convict from New South Wales.' For Jones identified that man by a description in the hands of all of us in the force. To have taken him there and then would simply have been madness, and insured your both being murdered in that villainous hole. But to follow out the connection between the housekeeper and him, him and Sullivan, Sullivan and Mr. Wilmot, is another point, an't it, Mr. Merrivale?"

Again Merrivale assented, his usually impassible face now stirred with the deepest, most anxious interest.

"Is 'Sullivan' De Vos's right name?" he asked.

"I believe it is, sir. He's thoroughly Irish; but O'Brian isn't, though he's taken an Irish name. Sullivan's been known to the police also in his time, and I fancy there's a little matter in the wind which might introduce him again to us. They've both had their warning, though, from some quarter, and are in safe hiding somewhere or other as yet."

"Have you more to tell us about O'Brian?"

"Nothing more, sir, at present. There's some dark secret and mystery hanging over him--a terrible story, I am afraid; but I can't speak for certain just now.--Mr. Kavanagh," suddenly glancing up at me, "did you never see a likeness to any one in Mr. Wilmot?"

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"No, not that I know of. We have often said he was like none of his relatives living, that was his uncle and cousin. Have you?"

"It's fancy, sir, no doubt. His mother died when he was very young, didn't she? and his father?"

"Mrs. Wilmot died soon after his birth. His father I never heard of. He was a _mauvais sujet_, I believe."

"Ah! The inspector drew a long breath and relapsed into one of his silent moods, during which the process of scraping and gnawing was resumed with avidity.

"And your third point?" said I, to arouse him.

"My third point, gentlemen," waking up lively, and dabbing at his middle finger, "which, considering Mr. Atherton's position at the present moment, seems to be the least important or pressing, is, nevertheless, the one I am for pursuing immediately,--to find this heir of whom mention has been made, Mr. Thorneley's idiot son."

"Surely there is no hurry about that!" we both exclaimed.

"It would appear not, gentlemen, perhaps to you, but there does to me. Supposing," said the detective, leaning forward, and speaking very much more earnestly than he had hitherto done--"supposing that the will you made, Mr. Kavanagh, was stolen, then secreted or destroyed on the night of Mr. Thorneley's death, that being what I might call the _dead_ evidence of the truth of what you stated publicly to-day, and supposing the parties who suppressed that will knew of the whereabouts of the heir, they would, I conclude, be equally anxious to suppress the _living_ evidence also--_to get him out of the way_. Do you follow me, gentlemen?"

"Yes, yes," we both exclaimed, for we felt he had a purpose in speaking; "you are right."

"Then, sirs, we must prosecute a search for this poor idiot fellow. I see my way at present very dimly and darkly; but something tells me that on our road to find Mr. Francis Gilbert Thorneley we shall find also other links in the broken chain we are trying to piece together."

"How do you propose setting to work, Keene?" asked Merrivale.

"Mr. Atherton, being situated as he is, cannot act; it is therefore for Mr. Kavanagh to take it upon himself, being named executor. I have ascertained that Mr. Thorneley never went near his place in Lincolnshire. Why? Because his son lived there. Do you follow me, Mr. Kavanagh?"

"I do. You think I must visit the Grange immediately?"

"Yes, sir."

Light then at last seemed to be gleaming on our darkness; not only a glimmer, but a full bright ray. There was consistency and connection in all that the inspector had put before us, though only as yet, to a great degree, in supposition. Merrivale, agreeing with me that he would send us on no wild-goose chase, it was settled I should go down by the five-o'clock express train.

In less than an hour I was standing at King's Cross Terminus, and five minutes past five I was whirling away from London at the rate of thirty miles an hour. At Peterborough we stopped for half-an-hour to change carriages, and I went into the waiting-room to get some refreshment. It was very full, for numbers of passengers were travelling by that train to be present at some local races, and for some minutes I could not approach the counter. At last I contrived to edge in next to a rather tall man, very much enveloped in wraps, wearing a travelling-cap and blue spectacles. I asked for a cup of coffee and a sandwich. Every one knows the degree of heat to which railway coffee is brought; and waiting awhile for the sake of my throat before drinking it, I suddenly bethought myself of setting my watch by the clock in the room. I put up my glass to look for it; it {748} was at the opposite end, and I turned my back upon my tall neighbor whilst altering the watch. When I turned round he was gone. I finished my coffee and paid for it. Bah! how mawkish a taste it had left in my mouth; what stuff they sell in England for real Mocha! So I thought as I stepped out on the platform and walked up and down, awaiting the train and reading in a sort of dreamy, unconscious manner the advertisements and placards covering the walls. Taylor Brothers, Parkins and Gotto, Heal and Son, Mudie's Library, and all the rest, so well known Ha! what is this? "MURDER: £100 Reward," for information leading to the detection of the murderer of Mr. Gilbert Thorneley; and beneath, another, "Reward of £50 offered for the apprehension of Robert Bradley," _alias_ O'Brian, escaped convict, with a full description of his personal appearance appended. "Inspector Keene's work," thought I to myself. One solitary female figure stood before me, reading the placard; a neat trim figure, clad in deep mourning garments, motionless, mute, and absorbed as it were in the interest of what she was perusing. What was it that made me start and shiver as my eye fell upon that statue-like form? what was it that, amidst an overpowering and unaccountable drowsiness creeping over me, seemed to sting me into life and vigilance? The answer was plain before me: staring at me with wildly-gleaming eyes, with a face startled out of its habitual calmness and self-possession, with fear and rage and a hundred passions at work in her countenance, was old Thorneley's housekeeper. "Mrs. Haag!" I exclaimed; and almost as I spoke, a change sudden and rapid as thought took place in her, and she regained the cold passionless expression I had noticed that same afternoon.

"The same, Mr. Kavanagh;" and, inclining her head, she was passing on.

"Stay!" I said, catching her by the arm. "What are you doing here? Where are you going?"

"By what right do you ask me, sir?" was the reply in very calm and perfectly respectful tones.

"By what right!" I cried with headlong impetuosity. "By the best right that any man could have--the right of asking, or saying, or doing anything that may help me to detect the guilty and clear the innocent. Woman, there is some deadly mystery hanging around yon, some guilty secret in which you have played your part, and which, by the heavens above us, I will unearth and bring to light! I will, I will!"

What was the matter with me? My brain was dizzy; the lights, the station, the faces around me, the woman I was addressing, seemed to be going round and round, and I became conscious that my speech was getting incoherent.

"You have been drinking, Mr. Kavanagh," I heard a hard voice saying to me, with a slight foreign accent. Then a bell rang, and I was hurried forward by the crowd who were flocking on the platform; hurried on toward a train that had come into the station whilst I had been engaged with the housekeeper. I remember entering a carriage and sinking down on a cushioned seat; then I lost all consciousness, until I heard a voice shouting in my ear, "Your ticket, sir, please."

I started up.

"Where am I?"

"Lincoln; ticket--quick, sir."

I handed out my ticket.

"This is for Stixwould, four stations back on the line. Two extra shillings to pay."

"Good heavens! I must have been asleep. How am I to get back?"

"Don't know, sir; no train tonight."

The money is paid, the door banged to, and we are shot into Lincoln station at nine o'clock. There was no help for it now but to make my way to the nearest hotel, and see what {749} means were to be had of returning to Stixwould--the nearest station to the Grange, and that was ten miles from it--or else pass the night here and take the earliest train in the morning. I bade a porter take my bag, and show me to some hotel; and I followed him, shivering in every limb, my head aching as I had never felt it ache before--sick, giddy, and scarcely able to draw one foot after another. Then I knew what had happened to me; it flashed across me all in a moment. That man, disguised and in spectacles, standing next to me at the refreshment-counter at Peterborough, was De Vos, and he had dragged my coffee. I felt not a doubt of it.

In ten minutes we stopped at the Queen's Hotel, and after engaging a room, I despatched a porter for the nearest doctor. To him I confided the object of my journey, what I believed had occurred to me, and the necessity there was for my taking such prompt remedies as should enable me to recover my full strength, energies, and wits for the morrow. Following his advice, after swallowing his medicine, I relinquished all notion of proceeding that night on my journey, and went to bed. The next morning I awoke quite fresh and well; but what precious hours had been lost! hours sufficient to ruin all hope of my journey bearing any fruits, of finding even a shadowy clue to the tangled web that seemed closing in around us. And Hugh Atherton lay in prison and Ada, my poor sorrowful darling, was breaking her heart beneath the load of misery which had come upon her. By eight o'clock I had started for Stixwould, and in half an hour alighted at that small station. I was the only passenger for that place, and I had to wait whilst the train moved off for the solitary porter to take my ticket. Just as the bell had rung, a man passed out from some door and went up to one of the carriages. "Could you oblige me with a fusee, sir?" I heard him say.

Some one leaned forward and handed out what was asked for; it was the tall man in spectacles who had stood next to me at Peterborough station. The train moved off just as I rushed forward, rushed almost into the arms of the other man who had asked for the fusee. Wonders would never cease! It was Inspector Keene.

"Thank God, it is you!"

"Yes, sir--myself. In a moment--I must telegraph up to town;" and he ran into the office.

"Now, sir," he said when he came out, "what has happened to bring you here this morning from Lincoln?"

I told him, and expressed my astonishment at seeing him.

"We heard last night that Mrs. _Haag_ had left London and taken her ticket for this place. I took the night mail to look after the lady and warn you, sir. Now we had best post off directly for the Grange. I've already ordered a fly and a pair of horses. We'll bribe the man, and be there in something less than an hour and a half.

"That man you spoke to in the train was De Vos," I said when we had started.

"I know it, sir. He was sent to watch you, I suspect; and treat you to that little dose in your coffee."

"And the housekeeper?"

"Oh! she, I imagine, is safe ahead there at the Grange. At any rate, she has not returned up the line; every station has been watched, and they would have telegraphed to me."

O the dreariness of that drive! Rain poured down from the leaden, lowering sky and concentrated into a thick midst over the dismal wolds. Patter, patter, slush, slush, as we drove along the wet miry roads, the horses urged on to the utmost of their wretched, broken-down speed; and the damp chill air penetrating the old rotten vehicle and entering the very marrow of one's bones. So we arrived at last before a low stone lodge that guarded some ponderous iron gates. A gaunt ill-favored man came out at the sound of the wheels, and stared at us in no friendly manner.

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"Whar are ye from?" ho called out.

"From Mr. Wilmot," answered the inspector.

"Dunna b'lieve ye. Orders is for ne'run to go up to the house."

Keene opened the door of the fly and sprang out.

"Look here, my man," he said, producing his staff; "I'm a police-officer from London, and I've come down here about the murder of your master. Open the gate in the name of the law!"

The man stared, pulled the keys out of his pocket, unlocked the gates and threw them open. The inspector jumped up beside the driver and bade him go on.

A short avenue, lined on either side with magnificent trees, brought us to the gate of extensive but ill-kept pleasure-grounds, and so to the stone portico of the Grange. A peal of the bell brought an old woman to the door, who peered out suspiciously, and demanded what we wanted.

"I am a detective-officer from London, and have a warrant for searching this house;" and Keene putting the old hag aside, we passed into the hall.

"Ye mun show me yer warrant or I'll have ye put out agin in double-quick time," she said, scowling at the inspector. For reply the staff of office was again out of his pocket in a twinkling, and flourished before her eyes.

"You take yourself off and show us over the house instantly, or it will be the worse for you."

The woman cowered, and muttering to herself, led the way across the spacious hall, and threw open a door on the left. The house apparently was a low rambling building of ancient date, with panelled walls and high casement-windows. We traversed several rooms, bare in furniture and that struck one with a sense of utter cheerlessness and want of comfort. This, then, was the desolate isolated house which Gilbert Thorneley had owned and yet shunned so carefully during life; this was the place where his idiot boy had probably dragged on the greater number of his miserable years. But I need not dwell upon our search through the house.

High and low Inspector Keene ranged; looking into cupboards and dark closets, sounding the panelled walls and poking at imaginary trapdoors. With the exception of the old crone, who accompanied us, and a great tabby cat lying before the kitchen-fire, no trace of living soul was visible.

"Where's young Mr. Thorneley?" said the inspector to her when our visitation was made.

"Never heard on him."

"Who lives here?"

"Only myself."

"Where's the lady who came here yesterday evening?"

A curious gleam shot from the old woman's eyes.

"Dunno; no lady here."

"I shall take you into custody, if you won't tell."

"Then you mun do it--I'se nothing to say."

Keene turned to me.

"Our visit has been useless, sir. I used the threat, but I can't take the woman on no charge; there is nothing left but to--"

Hark! what sound was that which rang out upon our ears, which made our hair stand on end, and our hearts stand still! Shriek upon shriek of the most horrible, wild, unearthly laughter pealing from somewhere overhead. The old woman made a dash forward to the staircase, and called some name that was drowned in the echoes of that terrible mirth. But in a second we had bounded past her and up the flight of stairs, and there, at the far end of the corridor, gesticulating and jabbering at us as we approached him with all the fearful, revolting madness of idiocy, was the man in whose features was stamped the perfect likeness of old Gilbert Thorneley.

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