The Bittermeads Mystery Part 9

"If you could do what you're told you certainly might be useful," said Deede Dawson slowly. "And I don't know that it would do me any good to send you off to prison--you deserve it, of course. Still--you talk sometimes like an educated man?"

"I had a bit of education," Dunn answered.

"I see," said Deede Dawson. "Well, I won't ask you any more questions, you'd probably only lie. What's your name?"

With that sudden recklessness which was a part of his impulsive and pa.s.sionate nature, Dunn answered:

"Charley Wright."

The effect was instantaneous and apparent on both his auditors.

Ella gave a little cry and started so violently that she dropped the bottle of eau-de-Cologne she had in her hands.

Deede Dawson jumped to his feet with a fearful oath. His face went livid, his fat cheeks seemed suddenly to sag, of his perpetual smile every trace vanished.

He swung his revolver up, and Dunn saw the crooked forefinger quiver as though in the very act of pressing the trigger.

The pressure of a hair decided, indeed, whether the weapon was to fire or not, as in a high-pitched, stammering voice, Deede Dawson gasped:

"What--what do you mean? What do you mean by that?"

"I only told you my name," Dunn answered. "What's wrong with it?"

Doubtful and afraid, Deede Dawson stood hesitant. His forehead had become very damp, and he wiped it with a nervous gesture.

"Is that your name--your real name?" he muttered.

"Never had another that I know of," Dunn answered.

Deede Dawson sat down again on the chair. He was still plainly very disturbed and shaken, and Ella seemed scarcely less agitated, though Dunn, watching them both very keenly, noticed that she was now looking at Deede Dawson with a somewhat strange expression and with an air as though his extreme excitement puzzled her and made her--afraid.

"Nothing wrong with the name, is there?" Dunn muttered again.

"No, no," Deede Dawson answered. "No. It's merely a coincidence, that's all. A coincidence, I suppose, Ella?"

Ella did not answer. Her expression was very troubled and full of doubt as she stood looking from her stepfather to Dunn and back again.

"It's only that your name happens to be the same as that of a friend of ours--a great friend of my daughter's," Deede Dawson said as though he felt obliged to offer some explanation. "That's all--a coincidence. It startled me for the moment." He laughed. "That's all. Well, my man, it happens there is something I can make you useful in. If you do prove useful and do what I tell you, perhaps you may get let off. I might even keep you on in a job. I won't say I will, but I might. You look a likely sort of fellow for work, and I daresay you aren't any more dishonest than most people. Funny how things happen--quite a coincidence, your name. Well, come on; it's that packing-case you saw in the attic upstairs. I want you to help me downstairs with that--Charley Wright."

CHAPTER IX. THE ATTIC OF MYSTERY

Robert Dunn was by no means sure that he was not going to his death as he went out of Ella's room on his way to the attics above, for he had perceived a certain doubt and suspicion in Deede Dawson's manner, and he thought it very likely that a fatal intention lay behind.

But he obeyed with a brisk prompt.i.tude of manner, like one who saw a prospect of escape opening before him, and as he went he saw that Ella had relapsed into her former indifference and was once more giving all her attention to bathing her wrists with eau-de-Cologne; and he saw, too, that Deede Dawson, following close behind, kept always his revolver ready.

"Perhaps he only wants to get me out of her way before he shoots," he reflected. "Perhaps there is room in that packing-case for two. It will be strange to die. Shall I try to rush him? But he would shoot at once, and I shouldn't have a chance. One thing, if anything happens to me, no one will ever know what's become of poor Charley."

And this seemed to him a great pity, so that he began to form confused and foolish plans for securing that his friend's fate should become known.

With a sudden start, for he had not known he was there, he found himself standing on the threshold of that attic of death. It was quite dark up here, and from behind Deede Dawson's voice told him impatiently to enter.

He obeyed, wondering if ever again he would cross that threshold alive, and Deede Dawson followed him into the dark attic so that Dunn was appalled by the man's rashness, for how could he tell that his victim would not take this opportunity to rise up from the place where he had been thrust and take his revenge?

"What an idea," he thought to himself. "I must be going dotty, it's the strain of expecting a bullet in my back all the time, I suppose. I was never like this before."

Deede Dawson struck a match and put it to a gas-jet that lighted up the whole room. Between him and Dunn lay the packing-case, and Dunn was surprised to see that it was still there and that nothing had changed or moved; and then again he said to himself that this was a foolish thought only worthy of some excitable, hysterical girl.

"It's being too much for me," he thought resignedly. "I've heard of people being driven mad by horror. I suppose that's what's happening to me."

"You look--queer," Deede Dawson's voice interrupted the confused medley of his thoughts. "Why do you look like that--Charley Wright?"

Dunn looked moodily across the case in which the body of the murdered man was hidden to where the murderer stood.

After a pause, and speaking with an effort, he said:

"You'd look queer if some one with a pistol was watching you all the time the way you watch me."

"You do what I tell you and you'll be all right," Deede Dawson answered.

"You see that packing-case?"

Dunn nodded.

"It's big enough," he said.

"Would you like to know?" asked Deede Dawson slowly with his slow, perpetual smile. "Would you like to know what's in it--Charley Wright?"

And again Dunn was certain that a faint suspicion hung about those last two words, and that his life and death hung very evenly in the balance.

"Silver, you said," he muttered. "Didn't you?"

"Ah, yes--yes--to be sure," answered Deede Dawson. "Yes, so I did.

Silver. I want the lid nailed down. There's a hammer and nails there.

Get to work and look sharp."

Dunn stepped forward and began to set about a task that was so terrible and strange, and that yet he had, at peril of his life--at peril of more than that, indeed--to treat as of small importance.

Standing a little distance from the lighted gas-jet, Deede Dawson watched him narrowly, and as Dunn worked he was very sure that to betray the least sign of his knowledge would be to bring instantly a bullet cras.h.i.+ng through his brain.

It seemed curious to him that he had so carefully replaced everything after making his discovery, and that without any forethought or special intention he had put back everything so exactly as he had found it when the slightest neglect or failure in that respect would most certainly have cost him his life.

And he felt that as yet he could not afford to die.

One by one he drove in the nails, and as he worked at his gruesome task he heard the faintest rustle on the landing without--the faintest sound of a soft breath cautiously drawn in, of a light foot very carefully set down.

Deede Dawson plainly heard nothing; indeed, no ear less acute and less well-trained than Dunn's could have caught sounds that were so slight and low, but he, listening between each stroke of his hammer, was sure that it was Ella who had followed them, and that she crouched upon the landing without, watching and listening.