The Bittermeads Mystery Part 27

"I am certainly mad or you are," he muttered, staring at her with eyes in which such wonder and horror showed that it seemed there really was a touch of madness there.

"What is the matter?" she asked.

"You heard from him last week," he said again, and again she answered:

"Yes--last week. Why not?"

He leaned forward, and before she knew what he intended to do he kissed her pale, cool cheek.

Once more she stood still and immobile, her hands loosely clasped before her. It might have been that he had kissed a statue, and her perfect stillness made him afraid.

"Ella," he said. "Ella."

"Why did you do that?" she said, a little wildly now in her turn. "It was not that you were going to do to me before."

"I love you," he muttered excusingly.

She shook her head.

"You know too little of me; you have too many doubt and fears," she said. "You do not love me, you do not even trust me."

"I love you all the same," he a.s.serted positively and roughly. "I loved you--it was when I tied your hands to the chair that night and you looked at me with such contempt, and asked me if I felt proud. That stung, that stung. I loved you then."

"You see," she said sadly, "you do not even pretend to trust me. I don't know why you should. Why are you here? Why are you disguised with all that growth of hair? There is something you are preparing, planning. I know it. I feel it. What is it?"

"I told you once before," he answered, "that the end of this will be Deede Dawson's death or mine. That's what I'm preparing."

"He is very cunning, very clever," she said. "Do you think he suspects you?"

"He suspects every one always," answered Dunn. "I've been trying to get proof to act on. I haven't succeeded. Not yet. Nothing definite. If I can't, I shall act without. That's all."

"If I told him even half of what you just said," she said, looking at him. "What would happen?"

"You see, I trust you," he answered bitterly.

She shook her head, but her eyes were soft and tender as she said:

"It wasn't trust in me made you say all that, it was because you didn't care what happened after."

"No," he said. "But when I see you, I forget everything. Do you love me?"

"Why, I've never even seen you yet," she exclaimed with something like a smile. "I only know you as two eyes over a tangle of hair that I don't believe you ever either brush or comb. Do you know, sometimes I am curious."

He took her hand and drew her to sit beside him on the bench under a tree near by. All his doubts and fears and suspicions he set far from him, and remembered nothing save that she was the woman for whom yearned all the depths of his soul as by pre-ordained decree. And she, too, for man, to her strange, aloof, mysterious, but dominating all her life as though by primal necessity.

When they parted, it was with an agreement to meet again that evening, and in the twilight they spent a halcyon hour together, saying little, feeling much.

It was only when at last she had left him that he remembered all that had pa.s.sed, that had happened, that he knew, suspected, dreaded, all that he planned and intended and would be soon called upon to put into action.

"She's made me mad," he said to himself, and for a long time he sat there in the darkness, in the stillness of the evening, motionless as the tree in whose shade he sat, plunged in the most profound and strange reverie, from which presently his quick ear, alert and keen even when his mind was deep in thought, caught the light and careful sound of an approaching footstep.

In a moment he was up and gliding through the darkness to meet who was coming, and almost at once a voice hailed him cautiously.

"There you are, Dunn," Deede Dawson said. "I've been looking for you everywhere. Tomorrow or next day we shall be able to strike; everything is ready at last, and I'll tell you now exactly what we are going to do."

"That's good news," said Dunn softly.

"Come this way," Deede Dawson said, and led Dunn through the darkness to the gate that admitted to the Bittermeads grounds from the high road.

Here he paused, and stood for a long time in silence, leaning on the gate and looking out across the road to the common beyond. Close beside him stood Dunn, controlling his impatience as best he could, and wondering if at last the secret springs of all these happenings was to be laid bare to him.

But Deede Dawson seemed in no hurry to begin. For a long time he remained in the same att.i.tude, silent and sombre in the darkness, and when at last he spoke it was to utter a remark that quite took Dunn by surprise.

"What a lovely night," he said in low and pensive tones, very unlike those he generally used. "I remember when I was a boy--that's a long time ago."

Dunn was too surprised by this sudden and very unexpected lapse into sentiment to answer. Deede Dawson went on as if thinking to himself:

"A long time--I've done a lot--seen a lot since then--too much, perhaps--I remember mother told me once--poor soul, I believe she used to be rather proud of me--"

"Your mother?" Dunn said wondering greatly to think this man should still have such memories.

But Deede Dawson seemed either to resent his tone or else to be angry with himself for giving way to such weakness. In a voice more like his usual one, he said harshly and sneeringly:

"Oh, yes, I had a mother once, just like everybody else. Why not? Most people have their mothers, though it's not an arrangement I should care to defend. Now then, Ella was with you tonight; you and she were alone together a long time."

"Well," growled Dunn, "what of it?"

"Fine girl, isn't she?" asked Deede Dawson, and laughed.

Dunn did not speak. It filled him with such loathing to hear this man so much as utter Ella's name, it was all he could do to keep his hands motionless by his side and not make use of them about the other's throat.

"She's been useful, very useful," Deede Dawson went on meditatively.

"Her mother had some money when I married her. I don't mind telling you it's all spent now, but Ella's a little fortune in herself."

"I didn't know we came to talk about her," said Dunn slowly. "I thought you had something else to say to me."

"So I have," Deede Dawson answered. "That's why I brought you here. We are safe from eavesdroppers here, in a house you can never tell who is behind a curtain or a door. But then, Ella is a part of my plans, a very important part. Do you remember I told you I might want you to take a second packing-case away from here in the car one night?"

"Yes, I remember," said Dunn slowly. "I remember. What would be in it?

The same sort of thing that was in--that other?"

"Yes," answered Deede Dawson. "Much the same."

"I shall want to see for myself," said Dunn. "I'm a trustful sort of person, but I don't go driving about the country with packing-cases late at night unless I've seen for myself what's inside."

CHAPTER XXII. PLOTS AND PLAYS