Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles Part 101

He arose unrefreshed. The vision of that possible future was not a pleasant one. Herbert remembered once, when he had been a college boy, that the Sat.u.r.day morning's occasional drama had been enacted for the warning and edification of the town, and of the country people flocking into it for market. The college boys had determined for once in their lives to see the sight--if they could accomplish it. The ceremony was invariably performed at eight o'clock; the exhibition closed at nine; and the boys' difficulty was, how to arrive at the scene in time, considering that it was only at the striking of the latter hour that they were let loose down the steps of the school. They had tried the _time_ between the cloisters and the county prison; and found that by dint of taking the shorter way through the back streets, tearing along at the fleetest pace, and knocking over every obstruction--human, animal, or material--that might unfortunately be in their path, they could do the distance in four minutes. Arriving rather out of wind, it's true: but that was nothing.

Four minutes! they did not see their way. If the curtain descended at nine, sharp, as good be forty minutes after the hour, as four, in point of practical effect. But the Helstonleigh college boys--as you may sometimes have heard remarked before--were not wont to allow difficulties to overmaster them. If there was a possible way of overcoming obstacles, they were sure to find it. Consultations had been anxious. To request the head-master to allow them as a favour to depart five or ten minutes before the usual time, would be worse than useless.

It was a question whether he ever would have accorded it; but there was no chance of it on _that_ morning. Neither could the whole school be taken summarily with spasms, or croup, or any other excruciating malady necessitating compa.s.sion and an early dismissal.

They came to the resolve of applying to the official who had the cathedral clock under his charge: or, as they phrased it, "coming over the clock-man." By dint of coaxing, or bribery, or some other element of persuasion, they got this functionary to promise to put the clock on eight minutes on that particular morning. And it was done. And at eight minutes before nine by the sun, the cathedral clock rang out its nine strokes. But, instead of the master lifting his finger--the signal for the boys to tear forth--the master sat quiet at his desk, and never gave it. He sat until the eight minutes had gone by, when the other churches in the town gave out their hour; he sat _four minutes after that_: and then he nodded them their dismissal.

The twelve minutes had seemed to the boys like twelve hours. Where the hitch was, they never knew; they never have known to this day; as they would tell you themselves. Whether the master had received an inkling of what was in the wind; or whether, by one of those extraordinary coincidences that sometimes occur in life, he, for that one morning, allowed the hour to slip by unheeded--had not heard it strike--they could not tell. He gave out no explanation, then or afterwards. The clock-man protested that he had been true; had not breathed a hint to any one living of the purposed advancement; and the boys had no reason to disbelieve him.

However it might have been, they could not alter it. It was four minutes past nine when they clattered _pele-mele_ down the school-room steps.

Away they tore, full of fallacious hope, out at the cloisters, through the cathedral precincts, along the nearest streets, and arrived within the given four minutes, rather than over it.

Alas, for human expectations! The prison was there, it is true, formidable as usual; but all trace of the morning's jubilee had pa.s.sed away. Not only had the chief actor been removed, but also that ugly apparatus which Herbert Dare had dreamt of. _That_ might have afforded them some gratification to contemplate, failing the greater sight. The college boys, dumb in the first moment of their disappointment, gave vent to it at length with three dismal groans, the echoes of which might have been heard as far off as the cathedral. Groans not intended for the unhappy mortal, then beyond hearing of that or any other earthly sound; not for the officials of the county prison, all too quick-handed that morning; but given as a compliment to the respected gentleman at that time holding the situation of head-master.

Herbert Dare remembered this: it was rising up in his mind with strange distinctness. He himself had been one of the deputation chosen to "come over" the clock-man; had been the chief persuader of that functionary.

Would the college boys hasten down if _he_ were to----In spite of his bravery, he broke off the speculation with a shudder; and, calling the turnkey to him, he despatched a message for Mr. Winthorne. Was it the remembrance of his old school-fellows, of what _they_ would think of him, that brought about what no other consideration had been able to effect?

As much indulgence as it was possible to allow a prisoner was accorded to Herbert Dare. Indeed, it may be questioned whether any previous prisoner, incarcerated within the walls of the county prison, had ever enjoyed so much. The governor of the prison and Mr. Dare had lived on intimate terms. Mr. Dare and his two elder sons had been familiar, in their legal capacity, with both its civil and criminal prisoners; and the turnkeys had often bowed Herbert in and out of cells, as they now bowed out Mr. Winthorne. Altogether, what with the governor's friendly feeling, and the turnkey's reverential one, Herbert Dare obtained more privileges than the ordinary run of prisoners. The message was at once taken to Mr. Winthorne, and it brought that gentleman back again.

"I have made up my mind to tell," was Herbert's brief salutation when he entered.

"A very sensible resolution," replied the lawyer. Doubts, however, crossed his mind as he spoke, whether the prisoner was not about to set up some plea which had never had place in fact. In like manner to Sergeant Delves, Mr. Winthorne had arrived at the firm belief that there was nothing to tell. "Well?" said he.

"That is, conditionally," resumed Herbert Dare. "It would be of little use my saying I was at such and such a place, unless I could bring forward confirmatory evidence."

"Of course it would not."

"Well; there are witnesses who could give this satisfactory evidence: but the question is, will they be willing to do it?"

"What motive or excuse could they have for refusing?" returned Mr.

Winthorne. "When a fellow-creature's life is at stake, surely there is no man so lost to humanity as not to come forward and save it, if it be in his power."

"Circ.u.mstances alter cases," was the curt reply of Herbert Dare.

"Was it your doubt, as to whether they would come forward, that caused your hesitation to call on them to do so?" asked Mr. Winthorne, something not pleasant in his tones.

"Not altogether. I foresaw a difficulty in it; I foresee it still.

Winthorne, you look at me with a face full of doubt. There is no need for it--as you will find."

"Well, go on," said the lawyer; for Herbert had stopped.

"The thing must be gone about in a very cautious manner; and I don't quite see how it can be done," resumed Herbert slowly. "Winthorne, I think I had better make a confidant of you, and tell you the whole story from beginning to end."

"If I am to do you any good, I must hear it, I expect. A man can't work in the dark."

"Sit down then, and I'll begin. Though, mind--I tell it you in confidence. It's not for Helstonleigh. But you will see the expediency of being silent when you have heard it."

CHAPTER IX.

SERGEANT DELVES "LOOKS UP."

The following Sat.u.r.day was the day fixed for the opening of the commission at Helstonleigh. It soon came round, and the streets in the afternoon wore their usual holiday appearance. The high sheriff's procession went out to meet the judges, and groups stood about, waiting and watching for its return. Amongst other people blocking up the way, might be observed the portly person of Sergeant Delves. He strolled along, seeming to look at nothing, but his keen eye was everywhere. It suddenly fell upon Mr. Winthorne, who was picking his way through the crowd as fast as he could do so, apparently in a hurry. Hurry or not, Sergeant Delves stopped him, and drew him to a safe spot beyond the reach of curious ears.

"I was looking for you, Mr. Winthorne," said Delves in a confidential tone. "I say--this tale, that Dare will succeed in establis.h.i.+ng an _alibi_, is it reliable?"

"Why--who the mischief can have been setting that afloat?" returned the lawyer, in tones of the utmost astonishment, not unmixed with vexation.

"Dare himself was my informant," replied the sergeant. "I was in the prison just now, and saw him in the yard with the turnkey. He called me aside, and told me he was as good as acquitted."

"Then he is an idiot for his pains. He had no right to talk of it, even to you."

"_I_ am dark," carelessly returned Delves. "I don't wish ill to the Dares, and wouldn't work it to them; as perhaps some of them could tell you," he added significantly. "What about this acquittal that he talks of?"

"There's no doubt he will be acquitted. He will prove an _alibi_."

"Is it a got-up _alibi_?" asked the plain-speaking sergeant.

"No. And as far as I go, I would not lend myself to getting up anything false," observed the solicitor. "He has said from the first, you know, that he was not near the house at the time, and so it will turn out."

"Has he confessed where he was, after all his standing out?"

"Yes; to me: it will be disclosed at the trial."

"He was after no good, I know," nodded the sergeant oracularly.

Mr. Winthorne raised his eyebrows, and slightly jerked his shoulders.

The movement may have meant anything or nothing. He did not reply in words.

Sergeant Delves fell into a reverie. He roused himself from it to take a searching gaze at the lawyer. "Sir," said he, and he could hardly have spoken more earnestly had his life depended on it, "tell me the truth out-and-out. Do you, yourself, from the depths of your own judgment, believe Herbert Dare to have been innocent?"

"Delves, as truly as that you and I now stand here, I honestly believe that he had no more to do with his brother's death than we had."

"Then I'm blest if I don't take up the other scent!" exclaimed Mr.

Delves, slapping his thigh. "I did think of it once, but I dropped it again, so sure was I that it was Master Herbert."

"What scent is that?"

"Look here," said the sergeant--"but now it's my turn to warn you to be dark. There was a young woman met Anthony Dare the night of the murder, when he was going down to the Star and Garter. It's a young woman he did not behave genteel to some time back, as the ghost says in the song. She met him that night, and she gave him a bit of her tongue; not much, for he wouldn't stop to listen. But now, Mr. Winthorne, it has crossed my mind many times whether she might not have watched for his going home again, and followed him; followed him right into the dining-room, and done the mischief. I'll lay a guinea it was her!" added the sergeant, arriving at a hasty conclusion. "I shall look up again now."

"Do you mean that young woman in Honey Fair?" asked Mr. Winthorne.

"Just so. Her, and n.o.body else. The doubt has crossed me; but, as I say, I was so certain it was the brother, that I did not follow it up."