Chapter 20

I left him after that and went home. Jenny was friendly enough and Tom Bond was so meek and mild that butter wouldn't have melted in his mouth. So the time passed till Wednesday and the footman was off for his afternoon out; and at my usual hour, forbidding Jenny to seek me that afternoon, I went my way. We were quiet for the minute with a week between guns at Oakshotts. A still evening with the reds in the sky and frost promising. My thoughts were difficult, because the more I turned over what Owlet had told me, the more mad it sounded; but I couldn't get any line on Bond and I couldn't get any line on Jenny, though I had a fancy she was pretty miserable and inclining a bit more towards me. For that walk, however, I concentrated on self-preservation, because if the man really thought to slay me, 'twas up to me to get in first, of course. So I went mighty wary when I came to the trees, and being blessed with amazing good long sight, used it. And I also pricked my ears and had my gun in my pocket and my hand upon it. A shot I heard, but it was dull and far off and didn't sound no ways different from the usual shots you always heard in Oakshotts. Then, after going without any event for half a mile or more, I saw the woodstack ahead on my way, and that minded me of Owlet's warning and the chance it might be true. A very handy place for any man to lie in wait for an enemy on the woodman's path; so I stopped, crept off into the undergrowth and reckoned to come up behind the stack, so as if there was to be any surprises, I'd give 'em. But the surprise was mine notwithstanding. I stalked the stack as cautious as though it had been an elephant, and crept up inch by inch through the laurels with my blood warm and my senses very much alive and my revolver at full cock. And at last I was parted from the danger-point by no more than a screen of leaves. But not a soul I saw, and I was just pushing out with a good bit of relief in my mind, when my eyes fell on the ground and I marked a man lying so still as a snake behind the pile with his head not a yard from the path that ran alongside of it! He was waiting and watching; but he'd not heard me; so there lay Tom Bond sure enough, looking for me to come along; and there stood I behind him not ten yards distant. The dusk was coming down by now and the wind sighing in the naked branches overhead, and I didn't see no use in wasting time. I couldn't have wished to get him in a more awkward position for himself; so I covered him with my revolver and I stepped out quick as lightning, and afore he could move, my muzzle was at his ear.

"Now, you damned scoundrel," I said, "the boot is on the other leg, I reckon!"

But not a muscle of the man twitched, and then I got the horror of my life, for Tom Bond was dead. He lay flat on his face with his hands stretched afore him, and a revolver, the daps of mine, had fallen from his hand and dropped a foot away from it. And, looking close, I saw a big dabble of blood about him, that had come from his body and his mouth.

'Twas a very ugly situation for me, and nobody saw that quicker than what I did; but I kept my nerve and didn't lift a finger to the man after I was satisfied that not a spark of life remained in him. I said to myself as I ran home that all I could do was to tell naked truth and hope for the best, though at that moment I couldn't fail to see the truth as I told it was bound to look a thought fanciful to the unbiased eye. But I went straight to Sir Walter, and gave him word for word, leaving out no item of the story and putting my revolver on his desk for him to guard after he'd heard all.

He was a lot shocked, of course, and awful sorry to lose Tom Bond; but he believed every word I told him and knew the facts must be exactly as I revealed 'em. Then he sent post-haste for the police and a doctor, and I took 'em to the scene, and men fetched a hurdle and the body of Bond was brought down to the garage and treated with all due respect. The doctor examined him then and found he'd been shot through the back at tolerable close range; and the ball had gone through heart and lung and killed him instantly. 'Twas dark by now, and Dr. James said as how he'd be back with another surgeon next morning. But one mighty strange thing increased my difficulties, because, when we came to hunt for it, the weapon I marked a foot from the dead man's hand was there no longer. And that meant two things. It meant, to me, that somebody had been beside Bond after I left him; and it meant to the police a tidy big question as to whether my word could be depended upon. Nought was done until the next day and then the inquest was arranged for and a police inspector spent a long time in my company and finished by telling me straight that I was in a tolerable tight place. We knew each other as friends in Little Silver, but the inspector--Bassett he was called--felt terrible disposed to arrest me, and only when Sir Walter went bail I wouldn't run away did he abstain from getting a warrant.

To Joshua Owlet, of course, they went; but there a shocking thing happened, for the man swore I was lying and that he knew nought about the affair and that he had never warned me nor nothing like that. He said how Bond had come to him with his tale about loving Jenny, and he'd only told him same as he'd told me, that Jenny's duty would lie with her father and he didn't wish her to marry anybody. So it looked as if the only one who knew the truth must be the dead man, and he was gone beyond recall. They found he'd been shot by an army revolver with a ball of the usual pattern, and more they didn't know; and when Sir Walter pointed out that my revolver was loaded in all chambers and hadn't been fired, all the police said was I'd had plenty of time to fire it and clean it and load it again afore I gave it to him.

And the next thing that happened to me was that I was locked up, tried afore the justices and committed for trial at the Assizes for the murder of Tom Bond.

Of course nobody who knew me believed such a fearful thing, but seeing how it stood and how the details looked to the public, I didn't blame any for doubting except Joshua Owlet; and even in my nasty fix I couldn't but admire the devilish craft of that man. Of course I knew from the first he'd done the trick; and more I knew, because I'd seen his far-reaching reasons and his cunning, to use Bond against me and so plot that we should wipe out each other and leave Jenny free. I could see it all; and when Sir Walter had one of the big swells from Scotland Yard to investigate the murder from the beginning, and when that man heard all I'd got to say, he saw it too.

A mean little build of chap, but properly bursting with intellect, was Detective-Inspector Bates; and after hearing Sir Walter and after hearing me, he never felt no doubt himself about my innocence.

"'Tis like this," I said. "You can see what Owlet did. He told me Bond meant to take my life; and no doubt he told Bond I meant to take his life; and the difference was this; Bond did mean to shoot me that afternoon, doubtless believing that if he didn't, I'd be the death of him later. He could get me when he liked. But I never meant to do more than prove he was a rascal, or satisfy myself that he was not. For the rest, and as to details, only Owlet can tell 'em; but it's very clear to me he did what they say I did. He knew where Bond was going to lie for me, and he was there hid afore Bond came and slew him and left him so as it should be shown, as it has been shown, that I slew him. Very like he watched the whole thing and was hid at my elbow somewhere when I found Bond; and then, after I'd gone, he got Bond's revolver and took it away so as I should be catched in a lie and prove the only one that was armed. And more than that: he may have lent Bond the revolver himself."

I think the Detective-Inspector felt very pleased with my view; and there was another good point for me, because, afore they buried him, they took the dead man's fingerprints and found he'd been in prison before. In fact he was a bad 'un--a juvenile adult that had served two years for three burglaries; and so Owlet had told me a bit of truth mixed up with his lies. But of course poor Bond might have meant to run straight after he fell in love with Jenny, till Owlet tackled him and encouraged him to try and murder me. Nobody will ever know what his game at Oakshotts was, for he died before he'd played it. Anyway, he was gone, and all that mattered to me remained to get my neck out of the noose if it could be done.

And it was done, though more by the act of God than any particular cleverness of man. But, primed with what I'd told him, Mr. Bates got up Owlet's sleeve and, little by little, wormed out the truth. And Owlet, who'd been on the razor edge over the job for a good bit with a mind tottering, lost his nerve at last and gave himself away. He'd got in some queer fashion to believe Bates was his friend and on his side, for these deep detective chaps have a way often to show friendship to them they most suspect; and so it happened; for Joshua let it out at last, finding the other knew very near as much about it as he did. And then the darbies were on him, and soon after they were off me.

He'd done it with a madman's cleverness, to free his girl and get her back; and he went to a criminal lunatic asylum for his bit of work and bides there yet. And as for Jenny, I left the rest to her and didn't lift a finger to draw her to me no more. She came, however, and felt the Lord had saved not only me alive, but her also.

For three year we worked at Oakshotts after that, as man and wife; and then I took my pension and went into Little Silver to live. Because Sir Walter got it into his head to marry again before it was too late, and his new lady never liked me so well as he did. He'd applauded me far too much to her, and 'tis always a fatal fact in human nature, that if you hear a fellow-creature praised up to the sky, your mind takes an instant set against 'em.

No. XV

THE NIGHT-HAWK

I

There's no doubt that a man's opinions change with his business, because the point of view's just everything. What be good to you is what you want to happen and think ought to happen; and if it don't happen, then you'm a bit fretful about it, and reckon there's a screw loose somewhere in the order of things. For instance, I be a gamekeeper to-day, and I take a view of fish and birds according; but once on a time I was a fly-by-night young rip of a poacher, and had a very different idea about feathers and fins.

"A fish be no more the bank-owner's fish than the water in the river be his water!" That's what I used to say. Because a salmon--he's a sea-fish, and free as air and his own master. Same with a bird. How do I know whether 'twas Squire Tom, or Squire Dick, or Squire Harry as reared a pheasant I happen to knock over on a moony night? Birds will fly, as Nature meant 'em; and, again, it may be just a wild bird, as never came out of no boughten egg at all, but belonged to the country, like his father and his grandfather afore him. And so 'tis common property, same as the land did ought to be, and if I be clever enough to catch 'un and kill 'un--why, so much the better for me! All for free trade you see I was. And in a poacher that must be the point of view. But time and chance play all manner of funny pranks with a man; and time and chance it were that turned me from this dangerous walk of life into what I be now. The way of it was simple enough, in a manner of speaking, yet I'm sure no such thing happened afore, or be like to hap again.

Woodcotes was a very great estate on the brink o' Dartmoor. In fact, the covers crept up the hills as far as the fierce winds would let 'em; and they was cold woods up over--cold and rocky and better liked by the foxes than the pheasants. But the birds done very well half a mile lower down, and the river that run through Woodcotes carried a lot of salmon at the proper time. A ten-pound fish was no wonder, and more'n one twenty-pounder have left it in my memory.

I was twenty-five on the night this tale begins--twenty-five year old, and a proper night-hawk of a chap, as loved the hours of darkness and gloried in the shedding of blood. Sport was in my veins, so to say, handed down from father to son, for my grandfather had been a gamekeeper, and my father a water-bailiff, and my uncle--my father's brother--a huntsman. That was the line of life I'd thirsted for, or even to go for a jockey. But Nature weren't of the same mind. I growed six foot tall afore I was seventeen--my mother's family was all whackers--and so riding was out of the question, and I went on the land and worked behind the horses instead of on 'em.

Well, the river ran very suent through the water-meadows below my village, and there was wonnerful fine stickles and reaches for trout, and proper deep pools for salmon. And on a fine night in June, with the moonlight bright as day, I was down beside it a bit after one o'clock, busy about a little matter of night-lines. I meant to make an experiment, too, because I'd read in a book how the salmon will come up to stare if you hold a bright light over 'em. They'll goggle up at you and get dazed by the light, and then you can spear 'em as easy as picking blackberries. 'Twas news to me, but a thing very well to know if true, and I got a bull's-eye lantern to prove it.

Through a hayfield--half cut, 'twas--I went, where the moon throwed a shadow beside each uplifted pook, and the air was heavy with the scent, and a corncrake somewhere was making a noise like sharpening a scythe. A few trout were rising at the night moths, but nothing moved of any account in the open, and I pushed forward where the hayfield ended at the edge of the woods. There, just fifty yards inside the trees, was one of the properest pools on the river; and, having set my night-lines for a trout or two higher up, I came down to the salmon pool, spear in hand, and lit my lantern and got on a rock in the mid-channel, where 'twas clear and still, with nought but the oily twist and twirl of the currents running deep beneath me.

I felt so bold as a lion that night, for Squire Champernowne, of Woodcotes, had died at dawn, and the countryside was all in a commotion, and I knowed, what with talking and drinking in the pubs and running about all day, that not a keeper would be to work after dark. A very good man had been the Squire, though peppery and uncertain in his temper, and quick to take offence, but honest and well-liked by all who worked for him. 'Twas one of they tragical moments, long expected but none the less exciting, when death came, and I felt certain sure that I should have the river to myself till morning.

But I was wrong. Looking upstream by good chance afore I got to work, I saw a man in the meadow moonlight. There he was, making for the woods. He was following the path I followed, and in five minutes I saw that he'd be on the river-bank within ten yards of me. Of course, I thought the chap was after me and had tracked me down. It astonished me a good bit to mark him, and I saw he was a tall, slim man, much lighter than me, though very near the same height. He didn't tally with my knowledge of any of the Woodcotes keepers, so I felt better and hoped as it might be a stranger, or a lunatic, or somebody as wouldn't be feeling any interest in me. But I had to shift, of course, so I nipped off my rock and went under the bank where the ivy fell over at the tail of the salmon pool. 'Twas a deep, sandy-bottomed reach, with the bank dipping in steeply o' one side and a shelving, pebbly ridge the other. The river narrowed at the bottom of the pool and fell over a fall. So there I went, and looked through the ivy unseen and watched my gentleman along the river-path.

He came, and the light of the moon shone on him between two trees, so that I could mark who 'twas; and then I seed the man of all others in the world I'd least have counted to see. For there, if you please, went young Mister Cranston Champernowne, the nephew of the dead man, and thought to be heir to Woodcotes! For Squire never married, but he had a good few nephews, and two was his special favourites: this one and his brother, young Lawrence Champernowne. They were the sons of General Sir Arthur Champernowne, a famous fighter who'd got the Victoria Cross in India, and carried half the alphabet after his name.

Well, there stood the young youth, and even in the owl-light I could see he was a bit troubled of spirit. He looked about him, moved nervously, and then fetched something out of his pocket. 'Twas black and shining, and I felt pretty sure 'twas a bottle; but I only had time to catch one glimpse of it, for he lifted his arm and flung it in the pool. It flashed and was gone, and then, before the moony circles on the water had got to the bank, the man was off. He walked crooked and shaky, and something told me as the young fellow had done terrible wrong and felt it.

Whatever 'twas he'd hid, it lay now in the deepest part of the river, and that, no doubt, he knew. But I knowed more. The bottom where his bottle was lying happened to be fine sand with a clear lift to the little beach; and so, given a proper tool, 'twas easy enough to rake over the river-bed and fetch up anything of any size on that smooth surface.

Of course, my first thought was to fetch that bottle out of the water; but then a cold shiver went through me, and I told myself to mind my own business and leave Cranston Champernowne to mind his. Yet somehow I couldn't do that. There was a sporting side to it, and a man like me wasn't the sort to sit down tamely afore such a great adventure. So I said to myself: "I'll have that bottle!"

My wits ran quick in them days, as was natural to a night-hawk, and I only waited till the young chap was off through the woods, and then nipped back into the grass field, fetched a haymaker's rake, made fast a brave stone to 'un, got my night-lines up, and soon lowered down the rake over the spot where the bottle went in. At the second drag I got him, and there, sure enough, was the thing that Mister Champernowne had throwed in the pool. But it weren't a bottle by no means. Instead, I found a black, tin, waterproof canister a foot long; and, working at it, the lid soon came off. Inside was one piece of paper and no more. That was all the canister hid; and the next thing I done was to light up my lantern and see what wonderful matter it could be as the young man was at such pains to do away with so careful. For Woodcotes House was two mile from the river, and Cranston Champernowne had been at all this trouble, you see, on the very day of his uncle's death.

Well, I soon found out all about it, for the thing was simple enough. The paper was a will, or, as I heard long after, a thing called a codicil--a contrivance what you add to a will. And it revoked and denied everything as the dead man had wrote before. In a few words the paper swept away Squire Champernowne's former wills and testaments, and left Woodcotes to Lawrence Champernowne, the son of General Sir Arthur and the brother of the chap as had just flung the paper in the river.

So there 'twas, and even a slower-witted man than me might have read the riddle in a moment. No doubt young Mister Cranston thought himself the heir, and reckoned 'twas all cut and dried. Then, rummaging here and there after his uncle was gone, he'd come upon this facer and found himself left in the cold. The paper was dated two year back, and signed by two names of women-servants at Woodcotes.

Well, I soon came to myself afore this great discovery, and though, no doubt, the right and natural thing for me to have done, as a sporting sort of blade always open to the main chance, would have been to go to Lawrence Champernowne or his father, yet I hesitated; because, though I held a poacher's ideas about game and such like, I wasn't different from other folk in other matters. I'd got religion from my mother, for she taught me the love of God, and father, the water-bailiff, he taught me the fear of God likewise; and if you've got them two things properly balanced in your intellects, you can't go far wrong. And at that moment the feeling in my mind was not to be on the make. No, I swear to you I only felt sorry for the young chap as had done this terrible deed. I was troubled for him, and considered very like the temptation was too great, that he'd just fallen into it in a natural fit of rage at his disappointment, and that presently, when he came to his senses, he'd bitterly mourn such a hookem-snivey deed. For, of course, Champernownes were great folk, high above any small or mean actions, and with the fame of the family always set up afore them. Yes, I thought it all out, and saw his mind working, and felt so sure as death that a time would come when he would regret the act and feel he'd ruined his life. "He'll return here some day afore 'tis too late, and seek to fetch up the paper," I thought. And with that I was just going to fling the canister back in the pool when a better idea took hold on me. I'd make it easier and quicker for the man, and even now, while he was smarting and doubtless battling with his better nature, I'd help him in secret to do the right thing. He'd think it was a miracle, too, for, of course, I wasn't going to give myself away over the business. And no doubt, if the young fellow saw a miracle worked on his behalf, he'd turn from his wickedness and repent.

In a word, my purpose was to put the paper back in his path again, afore he got home; and not only that, but I meant to speak a word or two--just a voice he should hear out of the night. I might save his soul, and, whether or no, 'twas a sporting idea to try to do so. So I set to work, and even in them exciting moments I thought what strange messengers the Lord do choose to run His Almighty errands.

I knowed the way the young chap had to go, and how long 'twould take. Two miles from the river lay Woodcotes, and, by following over a hill and dropping down t'other side, I could get in his track again and be at the edge of the home gardens where he'd come out. I saved half a mile going that way, and would be able to get there long afore him.

Of course, all this went through my head a lot quicker than I set it down. Like a flash came my determination, and I acted on it, and ran through the night and headed him off, and hid in a rhododendron bush just by the main drive, where he'd leave the woods on his way home. And right in his path, where his feet must go, I'd put the tin canister. 'Twas dry again, and flashed in the moonlight so bright that he couldn't miss it nohow.

Still as a mouse I waited for him, and just over my head hooted an owl. "Hoo-hoo-hoo! Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" he shouted out; and another, long ways off, answered to him.

What should I say? was the question in my mind while I waited for Mr. Champernowne. And first I thought I'd say nothing at all; but then I reckoned 'twould be more solemn and like a miracle if I did. I minded a thing my father used to speak when I was a li'l one. He'd tell it out very serious, and being poetry made it still more so. "Don't you do it, else you'll rue it!" That's what my father used to tell me a score of times a day, when I was a boy, and the words somehow came in my mind that night. Therefore I resolved to speak 'em and make 'em sound so mysterious as I could, just when the young fellow found the canister.