Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles Part 91

"I don't know what it is," replied Mr. Dare, from between his white lips. "Go upstairs! Adelaide, go up with your mother."

Mr. Dare was stopped by more screams. Whilst he was preventing immediate terror to his wife and daughter, the lady's maid, her curiosity excited beyond repression, had slipped into the dining-room, and peeped over Joseph's shoulder. What she had expected to see she perhaps could not have stated; what she did see was so far worse than her wildest fears, that she lost sense of everything, except the moment's fear; and shriek after shriek echoed from her.

A scene of confusion ensued. Mrs. Dare tried to force her way to the room; Adelaide followed her; Betsy began bewailing Mr. Anthony, by name, in wild words. And the sleepers, above, came flocking out of their chambers, with trembling limbs and white faces.

Mr. Dare put his back against the dining-room door. "Girls, go back!

Julia, go back, for the love of Heaven! Mademoiselle, is that you? Be so good as to stay where you are, and keep Rosa and Minny with you."

"Mais, qu'est-ce que c'est, donc?" exclaimed mademoiselle, speaking, in her wonder, in her most familiar tongue, and, truth to say, paying little heed to Mr. Dare's injunction. "Y a-t-il du malheur arrive?"

Betsy went up to her. Betsy recognised her as one not of the family, to whom she could ease her overflowing mind. The same thought had occurred to Betsy as to Joseph. "Poor Mr. Anthony's lying in there dead, mamzel,"

she whispered. "Mr. Herbert must have killed him."

Unheeding the request of Mr. Dare, unmindful of the deficiences or want of elegance in her costume, which consisted of what she called a _peignoir_, and a borderless calico nightcap, mademoiselle flew down to the hall and slipped into the dining-room. Some of the others slipped in also, and a sad scene ensued. What with wife, governess, servants, and children, Mr. Dare was powerless to end it. Mademoiselle went straight up, gave one look, and staggered back against the wall.

"C'est vrai!" she muttered. "C'est Monsieur Anthony."

"It is Anthony," s.h.i.+vered Mr. Dare, "I fear--I fear violence has been done him."

The governess was breathing heavily. She looked quite as ghastly as did that up-turned face. "But why should it be?" she asked, in English. "Who has done it?"

Ah, who had done it! Joseph's frightened face seemed to say that he could tell if he dared, Cyril bounded into the room, and clasped one of the arms. But he let it fall again. "It is rigid!" he gasped. "Is he dead? Father! he can't be dead!"

Mr. Dare hurried Joseph from the room--hurried him across the hall to the door. He, Mr. Dare, seemed so agitated as scarcely to know what he was about. "Make all haste," he said; "the nearest surgeon."

"Sir," whispered Joseph, turning when he was outside the door, his agitation as great as his master's: "I'm afraid it's Mr. Herbert who has done this."

"Why?" sharply asked Mr. Dare.

"They had a dreadful quarrel this evening, sir, after you left. Mr.

Herbert drew a knife upon his brother. I got in just in time to stop bloodshed, or it might have happened then."

Mr. Dare suppressed a groan. "Go off, Joseph, and bring a doctor here.

He may not be past reviving, Milbank is the nearest. If he is at home, bring him; if not, get anybody."

Joseph, without his hat, sped across the lawn, and gained the entrance gate at the very moment that a gig was pa.s.sing. By the light of a lamp, Joseph saw that it contained Mr. Glenn, the surgeon, driven by his servant. He had been on a late professional visit into the country.

Joseph shouted running before the horse in his excitement, and the man pulled up.

"What's the matter, Joseph?" asked Mr. Glenn. "Any one ill?"

Somewhat curious to say, Mr. Glenn was the usual medical attendant of the Dares. Joseph explained as well as he could. Mr. Anthony had been found lying on the dining-room carpet, to all appearance dead. Mr. Glenn descended.

"Anything up at your place?" asked a policeman, who had just come by, on his beat.

"I should think there is," returned Joseph. "One of the gentlemen's been found dead."

"Dead!" echoed the policeman. "Which of them is it?" he asked, after a pause.

"Mr. Anthony."

"Why, I saw him turn in here about half-past eleven!" observed the officer, "He is in a fit, perhaps."

"Why do you say that?" asked Joseph.

"Because he had been taking a drop too much. He could hardly walk.

Somebody brought him as far as the gate."

Mr. Glenn had hastened on. The policeman followed with Joseph. Followed, possibly, to gratify his curiosity; possibly, because he thought his services might be in some way required. When the two entered the dining-room, Mr. Glenn was kneeling down to examine Anthony, and sounds of distress came on their ears from a distance. They were caused by the hysterics of Mrs. Dare.

"Is he dead, sir?" asked the policeman, in a low tone.

"He has been dead these two or three hours," was Mr. Glenn's reply.

But it was not a fit. It was not anything so innocent. Mr. Glenn found that the cause of death was a stab in the side. Death, he believed, must have been instantaneous: and the hemorrhage was chiefly internal. There were very few stains on the clothes.

"What's this!" cried Mr. Glenn.

He was pulling at some large substance on which Anthony had fallen. It proved to be a cloak. Cyril--and some others present--recognised it as Herbert's cloak. Where was Herbert? In bed? Was it possible that he could sleep through the noise and confusion that the house was in?

"Can nothing be done?" asked Mr. Dare of the surgeon.

Mr. Glenn shook his head. "He is stone dead, you see; dead, and nearly cold. He must have been dead more than two hours. I should say nearer three."

From two to three hours! Then that would bring the time of his death to about half-past eleven o'clock; close upon the time that the policeman saw him returning home. Some one turned to ask the policeman a question, but he had disappeared. Mr. Glenn went to see what he could do for Mrs.

Dare, whose cries had been painful to hear, and Mr. Dare drew Joseph aside. Somehow he felt that he _dared_ not question him in the presence of witnesses, lest any condemnatory fact should transpire to bring the guilt home to his second son. In spite of the sight of Anthony lying dead before him, in spite of what he had heard of the quarrel, he could not bring his mind to believe that Herbert had been guilty of this most dastardly deed.

"What time did you let him in?" asked Mr. Dare, pointing to his ill-fated son.

Joseph answered evasively. "The policeman said it was about half after eleven, sir."

"And what time did Mr. Herbert come home?"

In point of fact, but for seeing the cloak where he did see it, Joseph would not have known whether Mr. Herbert was at home yet. He felt there was nothing for it but to tell the simple truth to Mr. Dare--that the gentlemen had been in the habit of letting themselves in at any hour they pleased, the dining-room window being left unfastened for them.

Joseph made the admission, and Mr. Dare received it with anger.

"I did it by their orders, sir," the man said, with deprecation. "If you think it was wrong, perhaps you'll put things on a better footing for the future. But, to wait up every night till its pretty near time to rise again, is what I can't do, or anybody else. Flesh and blood is but mortal, sir, and couldn't stand it."

"But you were not kept up like that?" cried Mr. Dare.

"Yes, sir, I was. If one of the gentlemen wasn't out, the other would be. I told them it was impossible I could be up nearly all night and every night, and rise in the morning just the same, and do my work in the day. So they took to have the dining-room window left open, and came in that way, and I went to rest at my proper hour. Mr. Cyril and Mr.

George, too, they are taking to stay out."

"The house might have been robbed over and over again!" exclaimed Mr.

Dare.

"I told them so, sir. But they laughed at me. They said who'd be likely to come through the grounds and up to the windows and try them? At any rate, sir," added Joseph, as a last excuse, "they _ordered_ it done. And that's how it is, sir, that I don't know what time either Mr. Anthony or Mr. Herbert came in last night."

Mr. Dare said no more. The fruits of the way in which his sons had been reared were coming heavily home to him. He turned to go upstairs to Herbert's chamber. On the bottom stairs, swaying herself to and fro in her _peignoir_, a staring print, all the colours of the rainbow, sat the governess. She lifted her white face as Mr. Dare approached.