Trevlyn Hold Part 75

"But I can't see what business it is of yours."

"People are taking up odd notions about it," said Bowen.

"People be hanged! It's no concern of theirs."

"But if they come to me and oblige me to make it my concern?" returned the officer, in significant tones. "If it's all fair and above-board, you had better tell me, Mr. Chattaway. If it's not, perhaps the less you say the better."

It was a hint not calculated to conciliate a chafed spirit, and Mr.

Chattaway resented it. "How dare you presume to throw out insinuations to me?" he cried, s.n.a.t.c.hing his riding-whip off the desk, where he had laid it, and stalking towards the door. "I'll tell you nothing; and you may make the best and the worst of it. Find Rupert Trevlyn, if you must know, and get it out of him. I ask you who has been spreading the rumour that I met Rupert Trevlyn last night?"

Bowen saw no reason why he should not disclose it. "Jim Sanders," he replied.

"Psha!" contemptuously e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Chattaway: and he mounted his horse and rode away.

So that after this colloquy, Chattaway was in a degree prepared to find unpleasant rumours had reached the Hold. When he entered he could not avoid seeing the shrinking, timid looks cast on him by his children; the haughty, questioning face of Miss Diana; the horror in that of Mrs.

Chattaway. He took the same sullen, defiant tone with them that he had taken with Bowen, denying the thing by implication more than by direct a.s.sertions. He asked them all whether they had gone out of their minds, that they should listen to senseless tales; and threatened the most dire revenge against Rupert when he was found.

Thus matters went on for a few days. But the rumours did not die away: on the contrary, they gathered strength and plausibility. Things were in a most uncomfortable state at the Hold: the family were tortured by dread and doubt they dared not give utterance to, and strove to hide; the very servants went about with silent footsteps, casting covert glances at their master from dark corners, and avoiding a direct meeting with him. Mr. Chattaway could not help seeing all this, and it did not tend to give him equanimity.

The only thing that could clear up this miserable doubt was to find Rupert. But Rupert was not found. Friends and foes, police and public, put out their best endeavours to accomplish it; but no more trace could be discovered of Rupert than if he had never existed--or than if, as many openly said, he were buried in some quiet corner of Mr. Chattaway's grounds. To do Mr. Chattaway justice, he appeared the most anxious of any for Rupert's discovery: not with a view to clearing himself from suspicion; _that_ he trampled under foot, as it were; but that Rupert might be brought to justice for burning the ricks.

Perhaps Mr. Chattaway's enemies may be pardoned for their doubts. It cannot be denied that there were apparent grounds for them: many a man has been officially accused of murder upon less. There was the well-known ill-feeling which had long existed on Mr. Chattaway's part towards Rupert; there was the dread of being displaced by him, which had latterly arisen through the visit of Mr. Daw; there was the sore feeling excited on both sides by the business of the rick-yard and the subsequent examination; there was the night contest spoken of by Jim Sanders, which Mr. Chattaway did not deny; there were the scratches and bruises visible on that gentleman's face; and there was the total disappearance of Rupert. People could remember the blank look which had pa.s.sed over Mr. Chattaway's countenance when Rupert ran into the circle gathered round the pit at Blackstone. "He'd ha' bin glad that he were dead," they had murmured then, one to another. "And happen he have put him out o' the way," they murmured now.

Perhaps they did not all go so far as to suspect Mr. Chattaway of the crime of premeditated murder: he might have killed him wilfully in the pa.s.sion of the moment; or killed him accidentally by an unlucky blow that had done its work more effectually than he had intended. The fruitless search was no barrier to these doubts; murdered men had been hidden away before, and would be again.

I have not yet mentioned the last point of suspicion, but it was one much dwelt upon--the late return of Mr. Chattaway to his home on the night in question. The servants had not failed to talk of this, and the enemies outside took it up and discussed it eagerly. It was most unusual for Mr. Chattaway to be away from home at night. Unsociable by nature, and a man whose company was not sought by his neighbours--for they disliked him--it was a rare thing for Mr. Chattaway to spend his evenings out. He attended evening parties now and then in the company of his wife and Miss Trevlyn, but not once a year was he invited out alone.

His absence therefore on this night, coupled with his late entrance, close upon midnight, was the more remarkable. Where had he been until that hour? Everyone wondered: everyone asked it. Mr. Chattaway carelessly answered his wife and Miss Diana that he had been on business at Barbrook, but condescended to give no reply whatever to any other living mortal amongst the questioners.

As the days went on without news of Rupert, Mr. Chattaway expressed a conviction that he had made his way to Mr. Daw, and was being sheltered there. A most unsatisfactory conviction, if he really and genuinely believed it. With those two hatching plots against him, he could never know a moment's peace. He was most explosive against Rupert; at home and abroad he never ceased to utter threats of prosecution for the crime of which he had been guilty. He rode every other day to the station, worrying Bowen, asking whether any traces had turned up: urged--this was in the first day or so of the disappearance--that houses and cottages should be searched. Bowen quite laughed at the suggestion. If Mr.

Chattaway had reason to suspect any particular house or cottage, they might perhaps go the length of getting a search warrant; but to enter dwellings indiscriminately would be an intolerable and unjustifiable procedure.

Mr. Chattaway was unable to say that he had especial cause to suspect any house or cottage: unless, he added in his temper, it might be Trevlyn Farm. Jim Sanders had, it appeared, hidden there in an outbuilding: why not Rupert Trevlyn? But Bowen saw and knew that Mr.

Chattaway had only spoken in exasperation. Trevlyn Farm was not more likely to conceal Rupert Trevlyn than any other house of its standing--in fact less; for Mrs. Ryle would not have permitted it. Her dislike to any sort of underhand dealing was so great, that she would not have concealed Rupert, or countenanced his being concealed, had it been to save him from hanging. In that she resembled Miss Diana Trevlyn.

Miss Diana would have spent her last s.h.i.+lling n.o.bly to defend Rupert on his trial--had it come to a trial--but ignominiously conceal him from the reach of the law, that she would never have done. Chattaway's remark travelled to George Ryle: George happened to meet Bowen the same day, not an hour after, and spoke of it. He told Bowen that the bare idea of Rupert's being concealed on their premises was absurd, and added, on his word of honour, not only that he did not know where Rupert was, but where he was likely to be: the thing was to him a complete mystery.

Bowen nodded. In Bowen's opinion the idea of his being concealed in any house was all moons.h.i.+ne.

The days went on and on, and it did appear very mysterious where Rupert could be, or what his fate. His clothes, his effects, remained unclaimed at Trevlyn Hold. When Mrs. Chattaway came unexpectedly upon anything that had belonged to him, she turned sick with the fears that darted across her heart. A faint hope arose within her at times that Rupert had gone, as Mr. Chattaway loudly, and perhaps others more secretly, surmised, to Mr. Daw in his far-off home, but it was rejected the next moment. She knew, none better, that Rupert had no means to take him there. Oh, how often did she wish, in her heart of hearts, that they had never usurped Trevlyn Hold! It seemed they were beginning to reap all the bitter fruits, which had been so long ripening.

But this supposition was soon to be set aside. Two letters arrived from Mr. Daw: one to Mr. Freeman, the other to Rupert himself; and they completely did away with the idea that Rupert Trevlyn had found his way to the Pyrenees.

It appeared that Rupert had written an account to Mr. Daw of these unhappy circ.u.mstances; his setting the rick on fire in his pa.s.sion, and his arrest. He had written it on the evening of the day he was discharged from custody. And by the contents of his letter, it was evident that he then contemplated returning to the Hold.

"These letters from Mr. Daw settle the question: Rupert has not gone there," observed Mr. Freeman. "But they only make the mystery greater."

Yes, they did. And the news went forth to the neighbourhood that Rupert Trevlyn had written a letter subsequent to the examination at Barmester, wherein he stated that he was going straight home to the Hold. Gossip never loses in the carrying, you know.

Jim Sanders, who was discharged and at work again, became quite the lion of the day. He had never been made so much of in his life. Tea here, supper there, ale everywhere. Everyone was asking Jim the particulars of that later night, and Jim, nothing loth, gave them, with the addition of his own comments.

And the days went on, and the ferment and the doubts increased.

CHAPTER XLV

AN APPLICATION

The ferment increased. The arguments in the neighbourhood were worthy of being listened to, if only from a logical point of view. If Rupert Trevlyn had stated that he was going back to the Hold after the proceedings at Barmester; and if Rupert Trevlyn never reached the Hold, clearly Mr. Chattaway had killed and buried him. Absurd as the deduction may be from a dispa.s.sionate point of view, to those excited gentry it appeared not only a feasible but a certain conclusion. The thing could not rest; interviews were held with Mr. Peterby, who was supposed to be the only person able to take up the matter on the part of the missing and ill-used Rupert; and that gentleman bestirred himself to make secret inquiries.

One dark night, between eight and nine, the inmates of the lodge were disturbed by a loud imperative knocking at their door. Ann Canham--trying her poor eyes over some dark sewing by the light of the solitary candle--started from her chair, and remarked that her heart had leaped into her mouth.

Which may have been a reason, possibly, for standing still, face and hands uplifted in consternation, instead of answering the knock. It was repeated more imperatively.

Old Canham turned his head and looked at her, as he smoked his last evening pipe over the fire. "Thee must open it, Ann."

Seeing no help for it, she went meekly to the door, wringing her hands.

What she feared was best known to herself; but in point of fact, since Bowen, the superintendent, had pounced upon her a few days before, as she was going past the police-station, handed her inside, and put her through sundry questions as we put a boy through his catechism, she had lived in a state of tremor. She may have concluded it was Bowen now, with the fellow handcuffs to those which had adorned Jim Sanders.

It proved to be Mr. Peterby. Ann looked surprised, but lost three parts of her fear. Dropping her humble curtsey, she was about to ask his pleasure, when he brushed past her without ceremony, and stepped into the kitchen.

"Shut the door," were his first words to her. "How are you, Canham?"

Mark had risen, and stood with doubtful gaze, wondering, no doubt, what the visit could mean. "I be but middlin', sir," he answered, putting his pipe in the corner of the hearth. "We ain't none of us too well, I reckon, with this uncertainty hanging over our minds, as to poor Master Rupert."

"It is the business I have come about. Sit down, Ann," Mr. Peterby added, settling himself on the bench opposite Mark. "I want to ask you a few questions."

"Yes, sir," she meekly answered. But her hands shook, and she nearly dropped the work she had taken up.

"There's nothing to be afraid of," cried Mr. Peterby, noticing the emotion. "I am not going to accuse you of putting him out of sight, as it seems busy tongues are accusing somebody else. On the night the encounter took place between Mr. Chattaway and Rupert Trevlyn, you were pa.s.sing near the spot, I believe. You must tell me all you saw. First of all, as I am told, you encountered Rupert."

Ann Canham raised her shaking hand to her brow. Mr. Peterby had begun his questioning in a hard, matter-of-fact tone, as if he were examining a witness in court, and it did not tend to rea.s.sure her. Ann was often laughed at for her timidity. She gave him the account of her interview with Rupert as correctly as she could remember it.

"He said nothing of his intention of going off anywhere?" asked Mr.

Peterby, when she had finished.

"Not a word, sir. He said he had nowhere to go to; if he went to the Hold, Mr. Chattaway might be for horsewhipping him again. He thought he should lie under the trees till morning."

"Did you leave him there?"

"I left him sitting on the stile, sir, eating the bread. He had complained of hunger, and I got him to take a part of a cake Mrs.

Freeman had given me for my father."

"You told Bowen, the superintendent of the police-station, that you asked him to take refuge in the lodge for the night?"

"Yes, sir," after a slight pause. "Mr. Bowen put a heap of questions to me, and what with being confused, and the fright of his calling me into the place, I didn't well know what I said to him."

"But you did ask Rupert Trevlyn?"