Lady Audley's Secret Part 25

"And if you receive no answer?" asked Lady Audley.

"If I receive no answer I shall think that my fears have been not unfounded, and I shall do my best to act."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Ah, Lady Audley, you remind me how very powerless I am in this matter.

My friend might have been made away with in this very inn, and I might stay here for a twelvemonth, and go away at the last as ignorant of his fate as if I had never crossed the threshold. What do we know of the mysteries that may hang about the houses we enter? If I were to go to-morrow into that commonplace, plebeian, eight-roomed house in which Maria Manning and her husband murdered their guest, I should have no awful prescience of that bygone horror. Foul deeds have been done under the most hospitable roofs; terrible crimes have been committed amid the fairest scenes, and have left no trace upon the spot where they were done. I do not believe in mandrake, or in bloodstains that no time can efface. I believe rather that we may walk unconsciously in an atmosphere of crime, and breathe none the less freely. I believe that we may look into the smiling face of a murderer, and admire its tranquil beauty."

My lady laughed at Robert's earnestness.

"You seem to have quite a taste for discussing these horrible subjects,"

she said, rather scornfully; "you ought to have been a detective police officer."

"I sometimes think I should have been a good one."

"Why?"

"Because I am patient."

"But to return to Mr. George Talboys, whom we lost sight of in your eloquent discussion. What if you receive no answer to your advertis.e.m.e.nts?"

"I shall then consider myself justified in concluding my friend is dead."

"Yes, and then--?"

"I shall examine the effects he left at my chambers."

"Indeed! and what are they? Coats, waistcoats, varnished boots, and meerschaum pipes, I suppose," said Lady Audley, laughing.

"No; letters--letters from his friends, his old schoolfellows, his father, his brother officers."

"Yes?"

"Letters, too, from his wife."

My lady was silent for some few moments, looking thoughtfully at the fire.

"Have you ever seen any of the letters written by the late Mrs.

Talboys?" she asked presently.

"Never. Poor soul! her letters are not likely to throw much light upon my friend's fate. I dare say she wrote the usual womanly scrawl. There are very few who write so charming and uncommon a hand as yours, Lady Audley."

"Ah, you know my hand, of course."

"Yes, I know it very well indeed."

My lady warmed her hands once more, and then taking up the big m.u.f.f which she had laid aside upon a chair, prepared to take her departure.

"You have refused to accept my apology, Mr. Audley," she said; "but I trust you are not the less a.s.sured of my feelings toward you."

"Perfectly a.s.sured, Lady Audley."

"Then good-by, and let me recommend you not to stay long in this miserable draughty place, if you do not wish to take rheumatism back to Figtree Court."

"I shall return to town to-morrow morning to see after my letters."

"Then once more good-by."

She held out her hand; he took it loosely in his own. It seemed such a feeble little hand that he might have crushed it in his strong grasp, had he chosen to be so pitiless.

He attended her to her carriage, and watched it as it drove off, not toward Audley, but in the direction of Brentwood, which was about six miles from Mount Stanning.

About an hour and a half after this, as Robert stood at the door of the inn, smoking a cigar and watching the snow falling in the whitened fields opposite, he saw the brougham drive back, empty this time, to the door of the inn.

"Have you taken Lady Audley back to the Court?" he said to the coachman, who had stopped to call for a mug of hot spiced ale.

"No, sir; I've just come from the Brentwood station. My lady started for London by the 12.40 train."

"For town?"

"Yes, sir."

"My lady gone to London!" said Robert, as he returned to the little sitting-room. "Then I'll follow her by the next train; and if I'm not very much mistaken, I know where to find her."

He packed his portmanteau, paid his bill, fastened his dogs together with a couple of leathern collars and a chain, and stepped into the rumbling fly kept by the Castle Inn for the convenience of Mount Stanning. He caught an express that left Brentwood at three o'clock, and settled himself comfortably in a corner of an empty first-cla.s.s carriage, coiled up in a couple of railway rugs, and smoking a cigar in mild defiance of the authorities.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE WRITING IN THE BOOK.

It was exactly five minutes past four as Mr. Robert Audley stepped out upon the platform at Sh.o.r.editch, and waited placidly until such time as his dogs and his portmanteau should be delivered up to the attendant porter who had called his cab, and undertaken the general conduct of his affairs, with that disinterested courtesy which does such infinite credit to a cla.s.s of servitors who are forbidden to accept the tribute of a grateful public.

Robert Audley waited with consummate patience for a considerable time; but as the express was generally a long train, and as there were a great many pa.s.sengers from Norfolk carrying guns and pointers, and other paraphernalia of a critical description, it took a long while to make matters agreeable to all claimants, and even the barrister's seraphic indifference to mundane affairs nearly gave way.

"Perhaps, when that gentleman who is making such a noise about a pointer with liver-colored spots, has discovered the particular pointer and spots that he wants--which happy combination of events scarcely seems likely to arrive--they'll give me my luggage and let me go. The designing wretches knew at a glance that I was born to be imposed upon; and that if they were to trample the life out of me upon this very platform, I should never have the spirit to bring an action against the company."

Suddenly an idea seemed to strike him, and he left the porter to struggle for the custody of his goods, and walked round to the other side of the station.

He heard a bell ring, and looking at the clock, had remembered that the down train for Colchester started at this time. He had learned what it was to have an earnest purpose since the disappearance of George Talboys; and he reached the opposite platform in time to see the pa.s.sengers take their seats.

There was one lady who had evidently only just arrived at the station; for she hurried on to the platform at the very moment that Robert approached the train, and almost ran against that gentleman in her haste and excitement.

"I beg your pardon," she began, ceremoniously; then raising her eyes from Mr. Audley's waistcoat, which was about on a level with her pretty face, she exclaimed, "Robert, you in London already?"

"Yes, Lady Audley; you were quite right; the Castle Inn is a dismal place, and--"