CHAPTER III.

MALACHITE AND GOLD.

Of all days in the week, Saturday was the one most longed for by Ella Winter. The reason was that it always--or nearly always, for now and then there was a breakdown or a delay somewhere--brought her a letter from Edward Conroy. These letters were her greatest comfort in her perplexities and troubles. She read them and re-read them till she knew all their sweetest passages by heart. How she longed for his return that she might tell him everything!--for in truth she sometimes felt that the burden laid upon her was almost more than she could bear without help. Were he but here to share it with her! Absence had enabled her to read her heart in all its entirety, had endeared his image to her more day by day. Mr. Conroy was not expected in England until spring; but towards the end of November there came a letter, the contents of which filled his mistress with unexpected delight. Conroy's mission in Spain was nearly at an end, and he might be expected home in three or four weeks--in time, it might be, to eat his Christmas dinner. He did not tell her that latterly her letters had filled him with so much uneasiness that he had requested his employers to relieve him of his duties abroad, or that he had wisely made up his mind to ascertain for himself, and as quickly as possible, the exact state of affairs at Heron Dyke.

Little by little the popular excitement in connection with the murder and robbery at Heron Dyke began to subside, especially as all the efforts of the police resulted in no fresh discoveries. People had talked and wondered till there was nothing left to talk and wonder about. Fresh topics and other interests began to claim their attention. The newspapers had ceased to comment on the case, and there seemed every probability of its adding one more to the long list of undiscovered crimes.

One day Mrs. Toynbee, who had been shopping in the town, brought home a piece of news. Some one had told her that Dr. Jago was about to leave Nullington, the reason for his departure being that he had bought a more lucrative practice elsewhere. This set Ella thinking. Would it not be well, she asked herself, to see this man before he went away, and try whether she could not elicit from him something of that which she wanted to know? He had attended her uncle to the last; he must be acquainted with all that took place inside Heron Dyke during the time she was away; if any fraud had been at work it could hardly have been kept a secret from him. She disliked Dr. Jago, but it seemed to her that she ought not to let him go away without seeking an interview with him.

Next morning she finally made up her mind; so the pony-chaise was ordered round, and she was driven into Nullington. Calling at the Vicarage on her way, she took Miss Kettle into her confidence.

"Am I doing right, Maria, think you?"

"Yes, I think you are."

"Then you must accompany me. You have no objection?"

"Not the least in the world."

Dr. Jago was at home; and the young ladies, leaving the carriage with the groom, were shown into his consulting-room. Turning round from a case he was packing, the doctor changed colour, as if from annoyance, when he saw his visitors. The transitory expression passed, however; he greeted them civilly, apologising for the disorder of the place, and invited them to sit.

"I hear that you are about to quit Nullington, Dr. Jago," began Miss Winter, as she took the chair he placed.

"True, madam," he replied. "I have purchased a more lucrative practice in London. What can I have the honour of doing for you?"

"I have called to ask you a few questions, Dr. Jago. I hope you will be able to answer them."

The Doctor bowed.

"I was abroad, as you are aware, at the time my uncle died," she began; "but you saw him, I believe, in your medical capacity, up to the day of his death?"

"Yes," he replied. "I saw Mr. Denison daily; and I was with him when he died."

"The end, when it did come, was very sudden."

"Both sudden and unexpected," returned the Doctor. "I was utterly taken by surprise. I knew, of course, that Mr. Denison's disorder could have but one termination, but I had no thought that the end was so near. The heart suddenly failed in its action, and--and all was over. Only a few hours before, when I was with him, I had detected no cause for fear."

"You are aware that previously to last Christmas--in October I think it was--Dr. Spreckley, who had attended my uncle for twenty years, and who ought to have known his constitution if it were possible for anyone to know it, gave it as his decided opinion that Mr. Denison could not live far into the new year--if so long as that."

"Mr. Denison himself informed me of that opinion."

"And yet your skill prolonged his life until nearly the end of May?"

Dr. Jago bowed again, but said nothing.

"Then you, although a much younger practitioner than Dr. Spreckley, must have pursued a very much more efficient mode of treatment with your patient than that adopted by him?"

Dr. Jago shrugged his shoulders, leaned forward in his chair, and smiled faintly. "I have not the slightest wish in the world to disparage Dr. Spreckley," he said, "but it may be that he is a little old-fashioned in his ideas; it may be that he has hardly grown with the times. Medicine has made great strides during the last twenty years, and a middle-aged country practitioner, unless he be a great reader and a man of inquiring mind, would find many things taught, and many theories demonstrated in the schools of London and Paris, which were hardly as much as mooted when he was a young man."

All this seemed only fair and reasonable. In any case, Miss Winter was not prepared to refute it. She paused for a moment or two before she spoke again.

"It may or it may not have come to your notice, Dr. Jago," she said, eyeing him steadily as she spoke, "that there are certain reports flying about the neighbourhood--reports unpleasant to all concerned, but which you could no doubt put an end to if you chose to do so."

"Reports! About what, Miss Winter?" he asked quickly.

Ella paused: it seemed somewhat difficult to frame words for what she wanted to say.

"I hardly know how to put it," she said with a frank smile. "People have in some way picked up a notion that there was some deceit or fraud at work in connection with my uncle's death."

"Oh, have they?" was all the answer the Doctor made, speaking carelessly.

"It is said that for some months before Mr. Denison died he was immured away from everyone except three or four people; that he was kept under lock and key; that all his old friends were denied access to him. Also, that at the very time my letters from home informed me he was growing stronger day by day and week by week, a strange woman, some London nurse, was in the house, in regular attendance on him. People naturally ask why there should have been all this mystery unless there was something to hide. They even go so far as to hint that the master of Heron Dyke did not live to see his seventieth birthday."

Dr. Jago, despite his evident efforts, could not avoid changing countenance as Miss Winter spoke. His face turned sallow; his eyes fell. Suddenly he rose and opened the door.

"Is that you, James?" he called out. But no one answered.

"I beg your pardon," he said, resuming his seat, and quite calm now, "I thought I heard my servant knock. About this business, Miss Winter. If one were to take heed of all the idle tales set afloat by ignorant and foolish people, one would have little else to do. The late Mr. Denison was an eccentric man in many ways, as you yourself must be well aware. He was a man of strong individuality and of crotchety temper; a man who did very few things in quite the same way as ordinary people do them. There were, besides, certain peculiar features in connection with the disposition of his property, which were well known in the neighbourhood, and which acted as a magnet to the curiosity of the world. These points being granted, we have at once a foundation for the most ridiculous fancies and the most exaggerated gossip; but if we quietly set ourselves to sift these rumours, what do we find?"

Ella did not speak.

"If you will allow me, Miss Winter, I will take the case as stated in your own words. You say that for some months before Mr. Denison died he was immured away from everyone except three or four people, and kept, as it were, under lock and key. Granted; but it was done entirely at his own request. You perhaps remember something of that queer crotchet he had in his head that the precincts of the Hall, and even the Hall itself, were haunted by spies set on to watch him by certain people--his relatives, I believe, but of that I know little. This notion seemed to take fuller hold of him as his birthday drew nearer. He insisted on having his rooms shut in from the rest of the house; he decreed that only a very few individuals, those whom he could implicitly trust, should have access to him. None of the ordinary servants were to go near him; for aught he knew, he would declare, they might be spies. It was an hallucination I combated as far as I was able; but contradiction, especially on this point, only irritated him. More than once it brought on one of his fits of passion, and so undid, or partially undid, the good I was striving to do him in other ways."

This was quite feasible, probably true, and Miss Winter bowed her head in acquiescence. The Doctor resumed.

"As regards Mr. Denison's old friends being denied access to him, I must take on myself a certain measure of blame for what may seem a somewhat arbitrary proceeding. From the first I gave Mr. Denison to understand that if he adopted my mode of treatment, perfect quiet and seclusion were essential to its success, and he agreed with me without the slightest demur. But I did not at first deny him the sight of friends: it was only after the visits of some of them, when I saw how much it excited him, that I was obliged to do so. I begged him to allow his rooms to be closed to all visitors: had he admitted one he must have admitted others: I showed him how essential it was that he should be kept strictly, perfectly quiet; and he agreed. He would agree to anything, he said, if I could only succeed in keeping him alive over his seventieth birthday; and I certainly did succeed in doing that."

"Did he require the services of a nurse?"

"Undoubtedly."

"And was it necessary that she should be a stranger?"

"In my opinion he ought to have been supplied with a properly trained nurse long before I sent for one. An old woman, had in haphazard from the neighbourhood, would have been useless. No one, except we medical men and those invalids who have tried them, know how invaluable is a really qualified nurse in a sick-room."

"I believe that," said Ella, hastily. "But--why was it that the fact of this nurse having been at Heron Dyke was never mentioned to me? Neither in the letters I received from home, nor when I returned to it, close upon the departure of the nurse, was she as much as named to me."

Dr. Jago shook his head.

"I cannot enlighten you there," he answered. "_I_ did not keep the fact from you. I neither wrote you letters nor saw you on your return. There could be no reason whatever, so far as I know, why you should not have been privy to it. What reason could there be? Possibly it may have been one of old Aaron's crotchets--for he had as many as his master--that you should not be told."

Possibly it had been: but Miss Winter still felt in a fog, plausible though all this was.

"Can you assure me, Dr. Jago, that the seeing one or two of his oldest friends would have been absolutely detrimental to my uncle? Say--for instance--the Vicar."

"Papa thought it very strange: he thinks it so still, that he was always denied admittance," interposed Maria, speaking for the first time. And the Doctor turned sharply to her with a slight frown, as though he had forgotten her presence.

"I cannot say it would have been fatally detrimental, but it might have been," he observed, in answer to Miss Winter. "He himself knew the danger of excitement, and he was as anxious as I was to guard against the possibility of it. With regard to the other report you have mentioned, Miss Winter--that Mr. Denison did not live over his seventieth birthday--it is, upon my word, too ridiculous a one to refute. Mr. Denison was seen by many people later and talked with--talked with face to face. Webb the lawyer saw him, and spoke with him about his will. Those other lawyers, men from London, had an interview with him. He was seen by no end of people, musicians and others, on his birthday night. In the face of these facts, how is it possible--pardon me the remark, Miss Winter--for you to give ear for a moment to so absurd a rumour?"

She sat in thought, not answering.

"Where was the deception--where the fraud?" he resumed. "Indeed, where was the necessity for employing any? The great object of Mr. Denison's life was attained. He had outlived his seventieth birthday, and the property was his own to will away. Fraud! It is an assertion that brings with it its own contradiction."

There was nothing more to be said, nothing more, evidently, to be learned from Dr. Jago: and with civil adieux on both sides, the ladies took their departure, the Doctor attending them to the pony-carriage and handing them into it. At that moment Dr. Spreckley passed on horseback; he stared profoundly, as much as to say, "What on earth do you do at that man's house?"--and he almost forgot to salute them.

Miss Winter sat in deep thought as they drove away. That Dr. Jago had displayed nervousness, not to say agitation, when spoken to, she had not failed to observe; it had served to deepen her conviction that something was hidden which it was intended that she, of all people in the world, should never know. And although his assertions afterwards had seemed perfectly reasonable and convincing, she could not get rid of an uneasy suspicion that the Doctor, metaphorically speaking, had been throwing dust in her eyes. Any way, she was as far off as ever, if not farther, from arriving at the truth.

"What do you think of Dr. Jago?" she abruptly asked Maria.

"I don't like him at all, Ella. His words are plausible enough, indeed too plausible, but he seems thoroughly insincere. He is a man whom I should always mistrust. Have you questioned your servants?"

"Only old Aaron. And I can get nothing from him. His reasoning is in substance the same as Dr. Jago's. Maria, I feel _sure_ that some trickery was at work."

"I should ask the maids, Phemie and Eliza, whether they noticed anything strange. They must have been about the house much during all the time."

"I think I will. It has crossed my mind to do so, but I feared they would only make my questions into a source of gossip."

Miss Kettle paused.

"Tell me exactly what it is that you suspect."

"I do not know what to suspect, except that I have a strong idea of some unfair play having been enacted. There lies my difficulty. But that it seems so impossible, and so dreadful an idea besides, I might say that my uncle did _not_ live to see his birthday."

Maria shivered slightly.

"Oh, Ella!"

"It is the bent my fears are taking," whispered Miss Winter. "And in that case, you know, I am not the owner of Heron Dyke."

"No, no, Ella, I cannot believe that," said Maria. "Your fears are making you fanciful."

That same evening, Miss Winter had the two maids, Phemie and Eliza, before her, and questioned them of matters respecting the Squire's last illness. What they had to tell was little more than she had heard from Priscilla Peyton. For several weeks or months previously to the 24th April, no one in the house, except the four people who were admitted behind the green baize doors, ever saw or heard anything of the Squire.

"Had you reason to think he was _very_ ill?" asked Miss Winter.

"Ma'am, we could tell nothing," replied Phemie. "He might have been dead and buried for weeks and weeks, for all we saw or heard of him. Eliza and I used to say how strange it was: often we listened, often and often, but never got to hear him; never so much as heard him cough. Before that Mrs. Dexter came in November, I sometimes took his sago or his beef-tea to him, but never afterwards."

"How was it that you never mentioned to me that Mrs. Dexter had been here? Was it accident?

"No, ma'am, it was Aaron;" and Miss Winter could not help smiling at the turn of the sentence. "The day before you were expected home, he ordered all in the house not to talk of Mrs. Dexter: he thought it might trouble you to hear that the Squire was so ill as to need a nurse from London."

"I suppose you never penetrated beyond the green baize doors, after they were put up?"

Phemie glanced at her fellow-servant.

"Eliza did, ma'am, once. You had better tell of it, Eliza."

"Tell me all, Eliza; do not be afraid," said Miss Winter kindly, for the girl looked confused.

"If you please, ma'am, I was in the passage one day, and saw both the doors on the jar," began Eliza. "I thought it no harm to go in a few steps; but I went cautiously, thinking Mr. Stone must be there. However, I saw nobody; and then I thought Mrs. Dexter must have left them open by mistake, before she went out. She had gone into Nullington in a hurry, saying she must see Dr. Jago."

"Well? Go on, Eliza."

"I ventured in a little farther, and a little farther," continued Eliza, speaking freely now. "Everything was silent. I said to myself that perhaps the Squire was asleep, and then I thought that I should like to see him once again. The first room I came to was Mrs. Dexter's; it had been made into a chamber for her. I turned the handle softly, pushed open the door, and peeped in. There was her bed in one corner, and by the fire-place was her little round table and an easy-chair. From this room I went to the next, which was Mr. Denison's sitting-room. The door opened without making any noise. I peeped in. There was no one there. The Squire's chair stood by the hearth, but it was empty, and there was no fire in the grate; it had the look of a room, ma'am, that had not been occupied for ever so long, and somehow I turned away with a chill at my heart. The next room was the Squire's bedroom. I don't think I should have ventured to open the door of this, but I found it open already. It was standing ajar. I listened for the sound of Mr. Denison's breathing, supposing that he was asleep, but I could hear nothing. Then I pushed the door a little further open and looked in. If you'll believe me, ma'am, he was not there. No one was there."

"He must have been somewhere in the room, Eliza."

"He was not, indeed, ma'am. The room was empty. I could hardly believe my eyes. I walked across it to the window and back again. The room was all tidy, like one that is not in use; not as much as a book was about, or a chair out of place. The bed was made and the curtains folded upon it."

This news sounded wonderful. Ella could not speak.

"I felt quite frightened, ma'am. I said to myself what has become of the master? and I can't fathom the mystery of where he could be, to this day."

"There was a room beyond my uncle's--a dark, unused room," spoke Miss Winter. "Did you enter that?"

"No, ma'am. I tried the door of it, but it was locked, and the key gone. But the Squire, ma'am, would not be in there--in a locked-up lumber-room. I said to Phemie afterwards----"

Eliza stopped suddenly and coloured. Her mistress bade her continue.

"Well, ma'am, when I was telling Phemie of this strange thing, I said to her that the thought had come over me when I saw the empty bed and no trace of him in the room, that it looked just as if the master had been spirited away like Katherine Keen."

To this Miss Winter said nothing.

"Was it discovered that you had been in?" she asked.

"No, ma'am, never; and this is the first time I have talked of it, except to Phemie. I pulled the baize doors to after me when I came out, and they shut with a snap. By-and-by, back came Mrs. Dexter; she asked at once in the kitchen for the Squire's beef-tea, and took it away with her. But, ma'am, what I cannot imagine is, where the Squire was all the time."

Miss Winter could not imagine, either, and lost herself in unfathomable conjecture. After a few more questions, she dismissed the maids, charging them not to speak of this.

The girl, Betsy Tucker, grew worse rather than better; and, notwithstanding all that skill and good nursing could do for her, Dr. Spreckley began to despair of her recovery. Miss Winter was startled one afternoon when Adele came to her and said Mrs. Keen was asking to be admitted.

"Show her in, Adele," said Miss Winter, in a low tone. She was afraid the girl was dead.

"No, ma'am, and I don't think she is any worse," replied the landlady, in answer to the dread question. "If anything, she's perhaps a little better. She don't wander quite so much, and that I take to be a good sign. What I have made bold to interrupt you about, Miss Ella, is another thing."

"Sit down while you tell it me," said Ella.

"Thank you, ma'am. This morning, Betsy, who was quite herself, though very weak, asked me to put the small trunk, which came with her from the Hall, upon the bed, so that she might find something," began Mrs. Keen, taking the chair indicated. "It was a pocket she wanted; and we were some time finding it, what with her hands being feeble and me not knowing what it was like--white or coloured. Out of the pocket, when we had found it, she drew this tiny packet, ma'am, and asked me would I take it myself up to the Hall and give it safely to Miss Winter?"

The little packet was neatly folded in tissue-paper, tied round with narrow pink ribbon. Ella, rather wonderingly, opened it. Amidst some folds of cotton wool lay a gentleman's sleeve-link. It was of malachite and gold, of curious and very uncommon workmanship. Miss Winter had never, to her knowledge, seen it before. "What is it?" she asked. "Why do you bring it to me, Mrs. Keen?"

The landlady explained. "Betsy's mind is in trouble about it, Miss Ella," she began; "in great trouble. It seems that the morning poor Hubert Stone was found, Betsy, after all was quiet, and the police and other people had gone, was outside there. She saw something shining on the gravel, and picked it up. It was this trinket; she thought it very lovely, she tells me; and on the impulse of the moment she picked it up and put it in her pocket, thinking it would be a pretty present for her sweetheart, who is no other than David Beal, the joiner's son. And I suspect, ma'am, though she has not said as much, that it was just to be near him she took a situation over here."

"Very possibly," assented Miss Winter. "But she ought not to have concealed or kept this."

"It is that which is tormenting her now, ma'am. She couldn't rest till I had brought it to you and told you all. The girl says, and I can but believe her, that in the night, when she was in bed, she saw the wrong she had done, and repented of it, but was afraid then of confessing. All kinds of foolish fancies visit us in the night, as you know, Miss Ella, and she says an idea came into her mind that if she confessed what she had done and produced the trinket, she might, perhaps, be accused of having been mixed up with the robbery. So she wrapped and tied it up, and has kept it hidden in her pocket till now. All her cry since she came into her right mind is, 'If Miss Winter will but forgive me!'"

"Yes, yes; tell her I forgive her, Mrs. Keen. It seems to me that when we do wrong, our own conscience brings to us our worst punishment. And I am truly glad that the girl is getting better: I will call and see her to-morrow. Have you disclosed this to anyone, or shown the link?"

"Indeed no, ma'am; not even to Susan. It was not my place to do so."

"Keep it quite secret still," said Ella. "For aught we can tell this link may afford some clue to elucidate what is, as yet, so dark."

The landlady took her leave, and Ella locked the trinket safely up for the present. On the following morning Mrs. Toynbee received a letter calling her away from Heron Dyke. Her sister in London had met with an accident, and begged her to come up for a few days, if she could be spared.

"Go by all means," said Ella, in answer to Mrs. Toynbee's tearful looks, as she put the letter into her hand. "Take the mid-day train. Lonely? Well, perhaps I should feel a little lonely under recent circumstances if left to myself; but I will get Maria Kettle to stay with me. It will do her good: she is anything but well."

Maria was suffering from the effects of a severe cold, caught one bitter night when returning home from visiting a sick pensioner. Ella drove to the Vicarage and brought her away. Maria would have said no, but her father said yes.

The next day she seemed not at all better, but very poorly and feverish. Whilst Ella was dressing for dinner Maria came to her room, asking to be excused from dining: she felt hardly well enough to go down, especially as they should not be alone.

Only Mr. Daventry would be there. Ella had met him that morning and invited him to come: she was uneasy about many things, and wanted to talk to him. "You shall lie down here, Maria," said she, pushing her dressing-room sofa close to the fire, "and have some tea sent up. Adele shall get it for you."

Maria lay down on the sofa, wrapping a shawl about her head, and drank the tea. After that, she fell asleep. Ella was glad to hear it, as it left her evening free for Mr. Daventry.

The old lawyer took his departure at nine o'clock. For a few minutes Ella sat over the fire, musing on the advice he had given her--to be still for the present; not to take action on any point. From this reverie she was aroused by the sharp and sudden opening of the door. Maria Kettle stood there, staggering in, rather than walking, her face white, her eyes full of terror.

"Oh, Ella!" she gasped.

Ella sprang to her feet, her pulses quivering. "You are worse, Maria!" she cried, "sit down here."

"No, it is not that--not that," moaned Maria, sinking back in the large arm-chair, but recently vacated by Mr. Daventry. "I have seen Katherine Keen."

"Katherine Keen!" breathed Ella, her lips suddenly becoming dry. "Impossible!"

"I should have said the same myself ten minutes ago," returned the sick girl, as she strove for composure. "But when I tell you, Ella, that I have seen her, and that I am in possession of my senses, I think you must believe me."

Ella Winter shivered, as though a cold wind were passing over her. Kneeling down, she put her arm round Maria's waist. "Tell me about it," she whispered.

"I got warm after I had the tea, and soon fell fast asleep," said Maria, in a voice hushed and trembling. "I knew nothing more until I awoke, suddenly and completely, with the strange feeling, which most people have experienced at one time or another, that some one was bending over me. My eyes opened widely, as though of their own accord; and there, bending down and gazing earnestly into my face, was the face of Katherine Keen."

"Maria!"

"I recognised it in a moment. The room was bright with firelight, and I could not be mistaken. There was the fair hair, with the soft appealing eyes and the sad and serious look in them that I remember so well."

"Did you speak?"

"For a moment or two we gazed at each other; then I think my lips formed her name, but whether any sound came from them I cannot tell. The next thing I knew was that she was no longer there. I started up and saw a black-robed figure vanish through the open doorway and the door close noiselessly behind it. For an instant I thought I should have died."

"Black-robed," repeated Ella mechanically, remembering that this apparition had been always so described.

"She was in black from head to foot. Something black covered her head, which she held with the fingers of one hand under the chin. With her disappearance I sprang to the door, opened it, and rushed into the corridor."

"After her! You had courage, Maria."

"I had no courage. I was too terrified to remain alone, and was hastening to you. She was not to be seen; she had disappeared. A lamp was burning at the farther end of the passage, but the passage was quite empty, quite still; not a sound in it, save the beating of my own heart. Oh Ella! I have heard the mysteries of Heron Dyke spoken of, but I never thought to witness anything myself."

"Yes, Heron Dyke has no doubt its unhappy mysteries; has had them for some time now," sighed Ella, catching up her breath with a sob. "And I know not how to solve them."