CHAPTER XIV
AN ANSWER
The girl made no motion to obey and the knocking was repeated; mechanically she moved toward the threshold. "Yes?" All the color had left her face. "What--what is it?"
"Don't mean to alarm you, my dear, but Mr. Gillett thinks the convict might be concealing himself somewhere in the house; indeed, that it is quite likely. So we are making a little tour of inspection. Shall we not go through your rooms? There! don't be frightened!" quickly, "only as a matter of precaution, you know."
"I," she seemed to catch her breath, "it is really quite unnecessary. I have been through them myself."
"Might have known that!" with an attempt at jocoseness. "But thought we would make sure. Your balcony, you have looked there?"
"Yes."
"Very well; lock your window leading to it. Only as a matter of precaution," he repeated hastily. "No need of our coming in, I fancy. You had retired?"
"I--was about to."
"Quite right." A moment the party lingered. "Shall I send one of the maids to sleep in your dressing-room? Company, you know! Your voice sounds a little nervous."
"Does it? Not at all!" she said hastily. "I am--not in the least nervous."
"Good night, then!" They went. "One of my men in the garden felt sure he had seen him return toward the house," Mr. Gillett's voice was wafted back, became fainter, died away.
The man in the room stood motionless now, his face like that of a statue save for the light and life of his eyes. The clock beat the moments; he looked at her. The girl was almost turned from him; he saw more of the bright hair than the pale profile, so still against the delicately carved arabesques of the panel.
"The other way would have been--preferable!"
There was nothing reckless or bold in his bearing now; but, looking away, she did not see. Was he tempted, if only in an infinitesimal degree, to suggest a plea of mitigating circumstances--not for his own sake but for hers; that she might feel less keenly that sense of hurt, of outraged pride, for having smiled on him, admitted him to a certain frank, free intimacy? Before the words fell from his lips, however, she turned; her gaze arrested his purpose, made him feel poignantly, acutely, the distance now between them. "What were you," she hesitated, emphasized over-sharply the word, "transported for?"
An instant his eyes flashed suddenly back at her, as if he were on the point of answering, telling her all, disavowing; but to what end? To ask more of her than of others, throw himself on her generosity?
"What does it matter?"
True; what did it matter to her; he had been in prisons before, by his own words.
"Your name, of course, is not John Steele?"
He confessed it a purloined asset.
"What was it?"
He looked at her--beyond! To a storm-tossed ship, a golden-haired child, her curls in disorder, moving with difficulty, yet clinging so steadfastly to a small cage. His name? It may be he heard again the loud pounding and knocking; held her once more to his breast, felt the confiding, soft arms.
"What does it matter?" he repeated.
What, indeed? That which she had not been able to penetrate, to understand in him, this was it! This!
"But why"--fragments of what he had said recurred to her; she spoke mechanically--"when you found yourself recognized, did you not leave England; why did you come here--to Strathorn House; incur the danger, the risk?"
"Why?" He still continued to look straight before him. "Because you--were here!" He spoke quietly, simply.
"Oh, you need not fear!" quickly. "You!" a bitter smile crossed his face. "One may see a star and long to draw nearer it, though one knows it is always beyond reach, unattainable! May even stumble forward, led by its light--bright, beautiful! Whither?" He laughed abruptly. "One has not asked, nor cared."
"Cared?" Her figure swayed; he too stood uncertainly; the lights seemed to tremble.
The man suddenly straightened; then turned. "And now," his voice sounded harsh, tense; he stepped toward the balcony.
His words, the abrupt action--what it portended, aroused her.
"No; no!" The exclamation broke from her involuntarily; she seemed to waken as from something unreal that had momentarily held her. "There--there may be a safer way!" She hardly knew what she was saying; one thought alone possessed her mind; she looked with strained, bright glance before her. "The Queen Elizabeth staircase leading into the garden from my--" The words were arrested; her blue eyes, dark, dilated, lingered on him in an odd, impersonal way. "Wait!" Bright spots of color now tinted her cheeks; she went quickly toward the door she had left, her manner that of one who hastens to some course on impulse, without pausing to reason. "A few minutes!" She listened, turned the key; then opening the door, stepped hastily out into the hall.
The latch clicked; the man stood alone. Whatever her purpose, only the desire to act quickly, to have done with an intolerable situation moved him. Once more he looked toward the window through which he had entered; first, however, before going, he bethought himself of something, an answer to one of her questions. She should find the answer after he was gone! His fingers thrust themselves into a breast-pocket; he took out a small object, wrapped in velvet. An instant his eyes rested upon it; then, stooping, he picked up the bit of lace handkerchief from the floor and laying the dark velvet against it placed the two on the table.
Would she understand? The debt he had felt he owed her long before to-night, that sense of obligation to the child who had reached out her hand, in a different life, a different world! No; she had, of course, forgotten; still he would leave it, that talisman so precious, which he had cherished almost superstitiously.
When a few minutes later the girl hastily reëntered the room, she carried on her arm a man's coat and hat; her appearance was feverish, her eyes wide and shining.
"Your clothes are torn--would attract attention! These were on the rack--I don't know whose--but I stole them!--stole them!"
She spoke quickly with a little hard note of self-mockery. Her voice broke off suddenly; she looked around her.
The coat and hat slipped from her arm; she looked at the window; the curtain still moved, as if a hand had but recently touched it. She stared at it--incredulously. He had gone; he would have none of her assistance then; preferred--She listened, but caught only the rustling of the heavy silk. When? Minutes passed; at her left, a candle, carelessly adjusted by the maid, dripped to the dresser; its over-long wick threw weird, ever-changing shadows; her own silhouette appeared in various distorted forms on hangings and wall.
Still she heard nothing, nothing louder than the faint sounds at the window; the occasional, mysterious creakings of old woodwork. He must have long since reached the ground--the bottom of the old moat; perhaps, as the police agent and several of his men were in the house, he might even have attained the fringe of the wood. It was not so far distant,--the space intervening from the top of the moat contained many shrubs; in their friendly shadows--
She stole to the corner of the window now and cautiously peered out. The sky was overcast; below, faint markings could just be discerned; beyond, Cimmerian gloom--Strathorn wood.
Had he reached, could he reach it? A cool breeze fanned her cheeks without lessening the flush that burned there; her lips were half-parted. She stepped uncertainly back; a reaction swept over her; the most trivial thoughts came to mind. She remembered that she had not locked the door of her boudoir; that Sir Charles had told her to do so. She almost started to obey; but laughed nervously instead. How absurd! What, however, should she do? She looked toward the next room. Go to bed? It seemed the commonplace, natural conclusion, and, after all, life was very commonplace. But the coat and hat she had brought there? Consideration of them, also, came within the scope of the commonplace.
It did not take her long to dispose of them, not on the rack, however. Standing again, a few moments later, at the head of the stairway, in the upper hall, she heard voices approaching. Whereupon she quickly dropped both hat and coat on a chair near-by and fled to her room.
None too soon! From above footsteps were descending; people now passed by; they evidently had been searching the third story. She could hear their low, dissatisfied voices; the last persons to come she at once recognized by their tones.
"You have made a bungling job of it," said Lord Ronsdale. There was a suppressed fierce bitterness in his accents, which, however, in the excitement of the moment, the girl failed to notice.
"He had made up his mind not to be taken alive, my Lord."
"Then--" The other interrupted Mr. Gillett harshly, but she failed to catch more of his words.
"We've not lost him, my Lord," Mr. Gillett spoke again. "If he's not in the house, he's near it, in the garden, and we have every way guarded."
"Every way guarded!" The girl drew her breath; as they disappeared, the striking of the clock caused her to start. One! two! About four hours of darkness, hardly that long remained for him! And yet she would have supposed it later; it had been after one o'clock when she had come to her room.
She became aware of a throbbing in her head, a dull pain, and mechanically seating herself near one of the tables, she put up her hand and started to draw the pins from her hair, but soon desisted. Again she began to think, more clearly this time, more poignantly, of all she had experienced--listened to--that night!
She, a Wray, sprung from a long line of proud, illustrious folk! And he? The breath of the roses outside was wafted upward; her eyes, deep, self-scoffing, rested, without seeing, on a small dark object on a handkerchief on the table. What was it to her if they took him?--What indeed? Her fingers played with the object, closed hard on it. Why should she care if he paid the penalty; he, a self-confessed---
Something fell from the velvet covering in her hand and struck with a musical sound on the hard, polished top. Amid a turmoil of thoughts, she was vaguely aware of it gleaming there on the cold white marble, a small disk--a gold coin. At first it seemed only to catch without interesting her glance; then slowly she took it, as if asking herself how it came there, on her handkerchief, which, she dimly remembered, had been lying on the floor. Some one, of course, must have picked up the handkerchief; but no one had been in the room since she had noticed it except--
Her gaze swung to the window; he, then, had left it. Why? What had she to do with anything that had been his?
More closely she scrutinized it, the shining disk on her rosy palm; a King George gold piece! Above the monarch's face and head with its flowing locks, appeared a tiny hole, as if some one had once worn it; beneath, just discernible, was the date, 1762. She continued to regard it; then looked again at the bit of velvet, near-by. It had been wrapped in that, carefully; for what reason? Like something more than what it seemed--a mere gold piece!
"1762." Why, even as she gazed at the cloth, felt it, did the figures seem to reiterate themselves in her brain? "1762." There could be nothing especially significant about the date; yet even as she concluded thus, by some introspective process she saw herself bending over, studying those figures on another occasion. Herself--and yet--
She was looking straight before her now; suddenly she started and sprang up. "A King George gold piece!" Her hair, unbound, fell around her, below her waist; her eyes like sapphires, gazed out from a veritable shimmer of gold. "Date--" She paused. "Why, this belonged to me once, as a child, and I--"
The blue eyes seemed searching--searching; abruptly she found what she sought. "I gave it to the convict on the Lord Nelson." She almost whispered the words. "The brave, brave fellow who sacrificed his life for mine." Her warm fingers closed softly on the coin; she seemed wrapped in the picture thus recalled.
"Then how--" Her brows knitted, she swept the shining hair from her face. "If he were drowned, how could it have been left here by--" Her eyes were dark now with excitement. "Him? Him?" she repeated. "Unless," her breast suddenly heaved--"he was not drowned, after all; he--"
A sudden shot from the park rang out; the coin fell from the girl's hand; other shots followed. She ran out upon the balcony, a stifled cry on her lips; she stared off, but only the darkness met her gaze.
CHAPTER XV
CURRENTS AND COUNTER CURRENTS
Not far from one of the entrances to Regent's Park or the hum of Camden Town's main artery of traffic, lay a little winding street which, because of its curving lines, had long been known as Spiral Row. Although many would not deign in passing to glance twice down this modest thoroughfare, it presented, nevertheless, a romantic air of charm and mystery. The houses nestled timidly behind time-worn walls; it was always very quiet within this limited precinct, and one wondered sometimes, by day, if the various secluded abodes were really inhabited, and by whom? An actress, said vague rumor; a few scribblers, a pair of painters, a military man or two. Here Madam Grundy never ventured, but Calliope and the tuneful nine were understood to be occasional callers. One who once lived in the Row has likened it to a tiny Utopia where each and every one minded his own business and where the comings and goings of one's neighbor were matters of indifference.
Into this delectable byway there turned, late in the night of the second day after that memorable evening at Strathorn House, a man who, looking quickly around him, paused before the closed gate of one of the dwellings. The street, ever a quiet one, appeared at that advanced hour absolutely deserted, and, after a moment's hesitation, the man pulled the bell; for some time he waited; but no response came. He looked in; through the shrubbery he could dimly make out the house, set well back, and in a half uncertain way he stood staring at it, when from the end of the street, he heard a vehicle coming rapidly toward him.
More firmly the man jerked at the handle of the bell; this time his efforts were successful; a glimmer as from a candle appeared at the front door, and a few minutes later a dark form came slowly down the graveled walk. As it approached the vehicle also drew nearer; the man regarded the latter sidewise; now it was opposite him, and he turned his back quickly to the flare of its lamps. But in a moment it had whirled by, with a note of laughter from its occupants, light pleasure seekers; at the same time a key turned in a lock and the gate swung open.
"Good evening, Dennis," said the caller. The faint gleam of the candle revealed the drowsy and unmistakably Celtic face of him he addressed, a man past middle age, who regarded the new-comer with a look of recognition. "I'm afraid I've interrupted your slumbers. This is rather a late hour at which to arrive."
"No matter, sir. Sure and I sat up expecting you, Mr. Steele, until after midnight, and had only just turned in when--"
"What--?" The new-comer, now fairly within the garden, could not suppress a start of surprise, which however the other, engaged in relocking the gate, did not appear to notice. "Expecting--?"
"Although I'd given up thinking you'd be here to-night," the latter went on. "But won't you be stepping in, sir?"
The other silently followed, walking in the manner of one tired and worn; he did not, however, at that moment seem concerned with fatigue or physical discomfort; the uncertain light of the candle before him showed his brows drawn, his eyes questioning, as if something had happened to cause him to think deeply, doubtfully. At the door the servant stood aside to allow him to enter; then ushered him into a fairly commodious and comfortable sitting-room.
"My master did not come back with you, sir, from Strathorn House?"
"No; Captain Forsythe's gone on to Germany."
"To attend some court, I suppose. Sure, 'tis a dale he has done of that, Mr. Steele, after the both of us were wounded by those black devils in India and retired from active service." The servant's voice had an inquiring accent; his glance rested now in some surprise on the new-comer's garments,--a gamekeeper's well-worn coat and cap,--and on the dusty, almost shabby-looking shoes.
"A wager," said John Steele, noting the old orderly's expression. "From Strathorn House to London by foot, within a given time, don't you know; fell in with some rough customers last night who thought my coat and hat better than these."
"I beg your pardon, sir, but--" The man's apprehensive look fastened itself on a dark stain on the coat, near the shoulder.
"Just winged me--a scratch," replied John Steele with an indifferent shrug, sinking into a chair near the fire which burned low.
"It's lucky you came off no worse, sir, and you'll be finding a change of garments up-stairs; I put them out for you myself--"
"I'm afraid, Dennis, I'm rather large for your master's clothes," was the visitor's reply in a voice that he strove vainly to make light.
"Sure, they're your own, sir." The other looked up quickly. "I'll get everything ready for a bath, and if you've a mind for anything to eat afterward--"
"I think I'll have a little of the last, first," said the visitor slowly.
"Right you are, sir. You do look a bit done up, sir," sympathetically, "but there's a veal and 'ammer in the cupboard that will soon make you fit."
"One moment, Dennis." John Steele leaned back; the dying embers revealed a haggard face; his eyes half closed as if from lack of sleep but immediately opened again. "You spoke of expecting me; how," he stretched out his legs, "did you know--?"
"Sure, sir, by your luggage; it arrived with my master's heavier boxes that he didn't take along with him over the wather." The listener did not stir; was he too weary to experience surprise or even deeper emotion?
His luggage there!--where no one knew--could have known, he was going! The place he had selected, under what he had considered propitious circumstances, as a haven, a refuge; where he might find himself for a brief period comparatively safe, could he reach it, turn in, without being detected! This last he believed he had successfully accomplished; and then to be told by the man--All John Steele's excuses for coming in this unceremonious fashion that he had planned to put to the servant of Captain Forsythe were at the moment forgotten. Who could have guessed that he would make his way straight hither--or had any one? An enemy, divining a lurking place for which he was heading, would not have obligingly forwarded his belongings. What then? Had Jocelyn Wray ordered them sent on with Captain Forsythe's boxes and bags, in order that they might be less likely to fall into the hands of the police?
This line of reasoning seemed to lead into most unwonted channels; it was not probable she would concern herself so much further about a common fugitive. The cut and bruised fingers of the man before the fireplace linked and unlinked; an indefinable feeling of new dangers he had not calculated on assailed him. Suppose the police should have learned--should elect to trace, those articles of his? It was a contingency, a hazard to be considered; he knew that every possible effort would be made to find him; that if his antagonists were eager before, they would embark on the present quest with redoubled zeal. He had been in their hands and had got away; disappointment would drive them more fiercely on to employ every expedient. They might even now be at the gate; at the moment, however, he felt as if he hardly cared, only that he was very tired, too exhausted to move on. His exertions of the last few days had been of no ordinary kind; his shoulder was stiff and it pained.
"Here you are, sir." The servant had entered and reëntered, had set the table without the man in the arm-chair being conscious of his coming and going. "Remembered my master inviting you once, when you were here, to pitch your camp at Rosemary Villa any time you should be after yearning for that quietood essential for literary composition and to windin' up the campaign on your book. So when I saw your luggage--"
"Exactly." It was curious the man should have spoken thus, should have voiced one of the very subterfuges Steele had had in mind himself to utter, to show pretext for his too abrupt appearance. But now--?
The situation was changed; yet he felt too exhausted to disavow the servant's conclusion. Certainly the episode of the luggage had made his task easier at this point; only, however, to enhance the greater hazards, as if fate were again laughing at him, offering him too much ease, too great comfort, seeking to allure him with a false estimate of his security. As he ate, mechanically, but with the zest of one who had long fasted, he listened; again a vehicle went by; then another.
"Rather livelier than usual to-night?" he observed and received an affirmative answer. Some evenings now you'd hardly ever hear anything passing from sunset to sunrise and find it as quiet as the tomb.
Who lived on the right, on the left? The visitor asked several questions casually; the house to the right, the man thought, might be vacant; no one appeared to live in it very long. At least the moving van seemed to have acquired a habit of stopping there; the one on the left had a more stable tenant; a lady who appeared in the pantomime, or the opera, he wasn't sure which,--only, foreign people sometimes went in and out.
John Steele rose with an effort; no, there was nothing more he required, except rest! Which room would he prefer, he was asked when he found himself on the upper landing; the man had put his things in a front chamber; but the back one was larger. John Steele forced himself to consider; he even inspected both of the rooms; that on the front floor had one window facing the Row; the second chamber looked out over a rear wall separating the vegetable garden of Rosemary Villa from the shrub-adorned confines of a place which fronted on the next street.
The visitor decided on the former chamber; he carefully closed the blinds and drew across the window the dark, heavy curtains. This would answer very well; excellent accommodations for a man whose own chambers in the city were now in the hands of renovators--the painters, the paper-hangers, the plumbers. And the back room? He paused, as if considering the servant's assumption of his purpose in coming hither. He might as well let the fellow think--
Yes, he would venture to make use of that for his work; could thus take advantage of the force of circumstances that had arisen to alienate him from prosaic citations, writs or arraignments. But he must, with strained lightness, emphasize one point; for a brief spell he did not wish to be disturbed. People might call; people probably would, anxious clients, almost impossible to get rid of, unless--
No one must know where he was, under any circumstances; his voice sounded almost jocular, at singular variance with the heaviness, the weariness of his face. He, the old servant, had been a soldier; knew how to fulfil, then, a request or an order. Something crinkled in the speaker's hand, passed to the other who was now busying himself with the bath; the man's moist fingers did not hesitate to close on the note. He had been a hardened campaigner and incidentally a good forager; he remarked at once he would carry out to the letter all his master's visitor asked.
Half an hour later, John Steele, clad in his dressing-gown, sat alone near the fire in his room; every sound had ceased save at intervals a low creaking of old timber. Now it came from overhead, then from the hall or near the window, as if spirit feet or fingers were busy in that venerable, quaint domicile. But these faint noises, inseparable from houses with a history, John Steele did not hear; the food and the bath had awakened in him a momentary alertness; he seemed waiting--for what? Something that did not happen; heaviness, depression again weighed on him; to keep awake he stirred himself and again glanced about. Here were evidences of odd taste on the part of the tenant in the matter of household decoration; a chain and ball that had once been worn by a certain famous convict reposed on an étagère, instead of the customary vase or jug of pottery; other souvenirs of prisons and the people that had been in them adorned a few shelves and brackets.
John Steele smiled grimly; but soon his thoughts seemed floating off beyond control, and rising suddenly, he threw himself on the bed. For a moment he strove to consider one or two tasks that should have been accomplished this night but which he must defer; was vaguely conscious of the slamming of a blind next door; then over-strained nature yielded.
Hours passed; the sun rose high in the heavens, began to sink; still the heavy sleep of utter exhaustion claimed him. Once or twice the servant came to the door, listened, and stole away again. The afternoon was well advanced when, as half through a dream, John Steele heard the rude jingling of a bell,--the catmeat man, or the milkman, drowsily he told himself. In fancy he seemed to see the broad, flowing river from a window of his own chambers, the dawn stealing over, marshaling its tints,--crimson until--
Slowly through the torpor of his brain realization began also to dawn; this room?--it was not his. The gleaming lances of sunlight that darted through the half-closed shutters played on the strange wall-paper of a strange apartment; no, he remembered it now--last night!
The loud and emphatic closing of the front gate served yet more speedily to arouse him; hastily he sat up; his head buzzed from a long-needed sleep that had been over sound; his limbs still ached, but every sense on an instant became unnaturally keen. Footsteps resounded on the gravel; he heard voices; those of two men, who were coming toward the house.
"So it's the meter man you are?" John Steele recognized the inquiring voice as that of the caretaker. "Sure, you're a new one from the last that was here."
"Yes; we change beats occasionally," was the careless answer, as the men passed around the side of the house and entered a rear door. For a time there was silence; John Steele sprang from his bed and crept very softly toward the hall. "A new man--" He heard them talking again after a few minutes; he remained listening at his door, now slightly ajar.
"There must be a leak somewhere from the quantity you've burned. I'll have a look around; might save your master a few shillings."
The man moved from room to room and started, at length, up the stairs. John Steele closed and noiselessly locked his door; the "meter man" crossed the upper hall and stepped, one after the other, into the several rooms. Having apparently made there the necessary examination, he walked over and tried the door of John Steele's room.
"This room's occupied by a visitor," interposed the servant quickly in a hushed voice. "And he's asleep now; he wouldn't thank you for the disturbing of his repose."
"All right." Did the listener detect an accent of covert satisfaction in the caller's low tones? "I'll not wake him. Don't find the leak I was looking for; will drop in again, though, when I have more time."
Their footsteps receded and shortly afterward, the man left the house; as he did so, John Steele, pushing back the blinds a little, looked out of his room; the man who had reached the front of the place glanced back. His gaze at that instant, meeting the other's, seemed to betray a momentary eagerness; quickly Steele turned away; no doubt now lingered in his mind as to the purpose of the visit.
CHAPTER XVI
FLIGHT
The half-expected had happened; bag and baggage had led his pursuers hither; the fellow could now go back and report. After his bath, before lying down, John Steele had partly dressed in the garments laid out for him; now he threw the dressing-gown from his shoulders and hastily put on the rest of his clothes. He felt now only the need for action--to do what? Impatience was capped by the realization of his own impotence; Rosemary Villa was, no doubt, at that very moment, subjected to a close espionage. He heard the man-servant in the garden, and unable to restrain a growing restlessness to know the worst, Steele mounted the stairs to the attic.
From the high window there he could see, around a curve in the Row, a loitering figure; in the other direction a neighboring house concealed the byway, but he could reasonably conclude that some one also sauntered there, sentinel at that end of the street. Quickly coming down to the second story, he began cautiously to examine from the windows the situation of the house, in relation to adjoining grounds and neighboring dwellings.
To the right, the top of the high wall shone with the customary broken bits of glass; the rear defenses glistened also in formidable fashion. He noted, however, several places where this safeguard against unwonted invasion showed signs of deterioration; in one or two spots the jagged fragments had been broken, or had fallen off. These slight breaks in the continuity of irregular, menacing glass bits, he fixed in mind by a certain shrub or tree. Against the rear wall, which was of considerable height, leaned his neighbor's low conservatory, almost spanning it from side to side.
"Sure, sir, I don't know whether it's breakfast or supper that's waiting for you." Captain Forsythe's man had reappeared and stood now at the top of the landing looking in at him. "It's a sound sleep you've had."
John Steele glanced at the clock; the afternoon was waning. Why did not his enemies force their way in, surround him at once? Unless--and this might prove a momentary saving clause!--these people without were but an advance guard, an outpost, awaiting orders. In this event Gillett would hastily be sent for; would soon be on his way---
"'Tis a rasher of real Irish bacon that is awaiting your convenience, sir."
The servant was now eying the visitor dubiously; John Steele wheeled, a perfunctory answer on his lips, and going to the dining-room swallowed hastily a few mouthfuls. From where he sat he could command a view of the front gate, and kept glancing toward it when alone. To go now,--or wait? The daylight did not favor the former course unless his pursuers should suddenly appear before the locked gate, demanding admission.
He made up his mind as to his course then, the last desperate shift. Amid a turmoil of thoughts a certain letter he had had in mind to send to Captain Forsythe occurred to him, and calling for paper and pen, he wrote there, facing the window, feverishly, hastily, several pages; then he gave the letter to the servant for the postman, whose special call at the iron knocker without had just sounded. The letter would have served John Steele ill had it fallen into his enemies' hands, but once in the care of the royal mails it would be safe. If it were, indeed, that person at the gate, and not some one--
"One moment, Dennis!" The man paused. "Of course you will make sure it is the postman--?"
The servant stared at this guest whose demeanor was becoming more and more eccentric. "As if I didn't know his knock!" he said, departing.
The afternoon waned; the shadows began to fall; John Steele's pulses now throbbed expectantly. He called for a key to the gate and moved toward the front door; by this time the darkness had deepened, and, key in hand, he stepped out.
At first he walked toward the front on the gravel that the servant might hear him, but near the entrance he paused, hesitating, to look out. As he remained thus, some one, who had been standing not far off, drew near. This person steathily passed; in doing so he glanced around; but John Steele felt uncertain whether the fellow had or had not been able to distinguish him in the gloom. John Steele waited, however, until the other moved a short distance on; then he retraced his own way quietly, keeping to the grass, toward the house; near it he swerved and in the same rapid manner stole around the place until he reached the back wall.
There he examined his position, felt the top, then placed his fingers on the wall. It was about six feet high, but seizing hold, he was about to spring into the air, when behind him, from the direction of the Row, a low metallic sound caught his attention. The front gate to the Forsythe house had suddenly clicked; some one had entered,--not the servant; John Steele had seen him but a few moments before in the kitchen; some one, then, who had quietly picked the lock, as the surest way of getting in.
John Steele looked back; even as he did so, a number of figures abruptly ran forward from the gate. He waited no longer but drew himself up to a level with the top of the wall. The effort made him acutely aware of his wounded shoulder; he winced but set his teeth hard and swung himself over until one foot came in contact with the iron frame of the greenhouse next to the masonry. To crawl to the end of the lean-to, bending to hold to the wall, and then to let himself down, occupied but a brief interval.
As he stood there, trying to make out a path through shrubs and trees, he heard behind him an imperative knocking at the front door of Captain Forsythe's house; the expostulating tones of the serving-man; the half-indistinct replies that were succeeded by the noise of feet hastening into the house.
For some time nothing save these sounds was wafted to the listener; then a loud disappointed voice, sounding above another voice, came from a half-opened window. John Steele stood still no longer; great hazard, almost certain capture, lay before him in the direction he was going; the street this garden led to would be watched; but he could not remain where he was. Already his enemies were moving about in the neighboring grounds; soon they would flash their lights over the wall, would discover him, unless--He moved quickly forward. As he neared the house, more imposing than Captain Forsythe's, a stream of light poured from a window; through this bright space he darted quickly, catching a fleeting view of people within, several with their faces turned toward him. Close to a side of the square-looking house, he paused, his heart beating fast--not with fear, but with a sudden, fierce anger at the possibility that he would be caught thus; no better than a mere--
But needs must, when the devil drives; the devil was driving him now hard. To attempt to reach the gate, to get out to Surrey Road,--little doubt existed as to what awaited him there; so, crouching low, he forced himself to linger a little longer where he was. As thus he remained motionless, sharp twinges again shot through his shoulder; then, on a sudden, he became unmindful of physical discomfort; a plan of action that had flashed through his brain, held him oblivious to all else; it offered only the remotest chance of escape--but still a chance, which he weighed, determined to take! It had come to him while listening to the merry voices within the room near him talking of the gay dinner just ended, of the box party at the theater that was to follow.
Already cabs were at the door; the women and the men, several of the latter flushed with wine, were ready to go. A servant walked out and unlocked the gate and with light badinage the company issued forth. As they did so, John Steele, unobserved, stepped forward; in the semi-darkness the party passed through the entrance into the street. Taking his place among the last of the laughing, dimly-seen figures, John Steele walked boldly on and found himself a moment later on the sidewalk of Surrey Road. He was aware that some one, a woman, had touched his arm, as if to take it; of a light feminine voice and an abrupt exclamation of surprise, of the quick drawing back of fluttering skirts. But he did not stop to apologize or to explain; walking swiftly to one of the last cabs he sprang in.
"A little errand first, driver," he called out. "To--" and mentioned a street--"as fast as you can." His tone was sharp, authoritative; it implied the need for instant obedience, rang like a command. The man straightened, touched his horse with his whip, and wheeling quickly they dashed away.
As they did so, John Steele thought he heard exclamations behind; looking through the cab window he saw, at the gate, the company gazing after him, obviously not yet recovered from their thrill of surprise following his unexpected action. He observed, also, two men on the other side of the street who now ran across and held a brief altercation with one of the cabmen. As they were about to enter the cab several persons in the party apparently intervened, expostulating vigorously. It was not difficult to surmise the resentment of the group at this attempted summary seizure of a second one of their cabs. By the time the men had explained their imperative need, and after further argument were permitted to drive off, John Steele had gained a better start than he had dared to hope. But they would soon be after him, post-haste; yes, already they were dashing hard and furiously behind; he lifted the lid overhead, in his hand a sovereign.
"Those men must not overtake us, cabby. Go where you will! You understand?"
The man did; his fingers closed quickly on the generous tip and once more he lashed his horse. For some time they continued at a rapid pace, now skirting the confines of the park, now plunging into a puzzling tangle of streets; but wherever they went, the other cab managed always to keep them in sight. It even began to creep up, nearer. From his pocket John Steele drew a weapon; his eyes gleamed ominously. The pursuing hansom drew closer; casting a hurried glance over his shoulder, he again called up to the driver.
"It's no use, gov'ner," came back the reply. "This 'oss 'as been out longer than 'is."
"Then turn the first dark corner and slow up a bit,--for only a second; afterward, go on your very best as long as you can."
Another sovereign changed hands and shortly afterward the vehicle dashed into a side street. It appeared as likely a place as any for his purpose; John Steele, hardly waiting for the man to draw rein, leaped out as far as he might. He landed without mishap, heard a whip snap furiously, and darted back into a doorway. He had just reached it when the other cab drew near; for an instant he felt certain that he had been seen; but the pursuers' eyes were bent eagerly ahead.
"This'll mean a fiver for you, my man," he heard one of them shout to the driver. "We've got him, by--" A harsh, jubilant cry cut the air; then they were gone.
John Steele did not wait; replacing the weapon in his pocket he started quickly around the corner; his cabman could not lead them far; they would soon return. As fast as possible, without attracting undue attention, he retraced his way; passed in and out of tortuous thoroughfares; by shops from whence came the smell of frying fish; down alleys where squalor lurked. Although he had by this time, perhaps, eluded the occupants of the cab, he knew there were others keenly alert for his capture whom he might at any moment encounter. To his fancy every corner teemed with peril; he did not underestimate the resources of those who sought him or the cunning of him who was the chief among his enemies.
Which way should he move? At that moment the city's multitudinous blocks seemed like the many squares of an oriental checker-board; the problem he put to himself was how to cross the city and reach the vicinity of the river; there to make a final effort to look for--What? A hopeless quest!
His face burned with fever; he did not heed it. A long, broad thoroughfare, as he walked on, had suddenly unfolded itself to his gaze; one side of this highway shone resplendent with the flaring lights of numerous stands and stalls displaying vegetables and miscellaneous articles. A hubbub assailed the ear, the voices of hucksters and hawkers, vying with one another to dispose of their wares; like ants, people thronged the sidewalk and pavement near these temporary booths.
About to turn back from this animated scene, John Steele hesitated; the road ran straight and sure toward the destination he wished to reach, while on either hand lay a network of devious ways. Amid these labyrinths, even one familiar with the city's maze might go astray, and again he glanced down the single main road, cutting squarely through all intricacies; noted that although, on one side, the lamps and the torches flared high, revealing every detail of merchandise, and, incidentally, the faces of all who passed, the other side of the thoroughfare seemed the more murky and shadowy by comparison.
He decided, crossed the street; lights gleamed in his face. He pushed his way through the people unmolested and strode on, followed only by the noise of passing vehicles and carts; then found himself walking on the other side, apart from the headlong busy stream. A suspicion of mist hung over the city; through it, people afar assumed shapes unreal; above the jagged sky-line of housetops the heavens had taken on that sickly hue, the high dome's jaundiced aspect for London in autumn.
On!--on! John Steele moved; on!--on!--the traffic pounded, for the most part in the opposite direction; a vast, never-ending source of sound, it seemed to soothe momentarily his sense of insecurity. Time passed; he had, apparently, evaded his pursuers; he told himself he might, after all, meet the problem confronting him; meet and conquer. It would be a hard battle; but once in that part of the city he was striving to reach, he might find those willing to offer him shelter--low-born, miserable wretches he had helped. He would not disdain their succor; the end justified the way. In their midst, if anywhere in London, was the one man in the world who could throw a true light on the events of the past; enable him to---
Behind him some one followed; some one who drew ever nearer, with soft, skulking steps which now he heard--
"Mr. Steele!" Even as he wheeled, his name was called out.