The Wharf by the Docks by Florence Warden (novel24 TXT) 📖

his beautiful and brilliant daughter would easily give up the lover whom he considered unworthy of her. But he was wrong. Much too high-spirited and too happy in her temperament and surroundings to brood over her lover's late negligence, she was perhaps too vain to believe that she had lost her hold upon his heart. At any rate, she liked him too well to give him up in this off-hand fashion without making an effort to discover the reason of his present mysterious conduct.

That letter which he had used as an excuse for his sudden departure had arrived at The Beeches by the afternoon post. Doreen had seen it with her own eyes; had noted with some natural curiosity that the direction was ill-spelled, ill-written; that the chirography was that of an almost illiterate female correspondent; and that the post-mark showed that it came from the East End of London. Rather a strange letter for the smart young barrister to receive, perhaps. And the thought of it made Doreen pause when she had got outside the door on the broad drive between the lawns.

Only for the moment. The next she was flying across the rougher grass outside the garden among the oaks and the beeches of the park. She saw no one in front of her, and for a few seconds her heart beat very fast. She thought she had missed him.

There was no lodge at the park entrance; only a modest wooden gate in the middle of the fence. Doreen was hesitating whether to go through or to go back, when she saw the figure of Dudley Horne coming toward the gate from the stables.

So she waited.

As he came nearer, she, hidden from his sight by the trunk of an old oak-tree, grew uneasy and shy. Dark though it was, dimly as she could see him, Doreen felt convinced, from the rapid, steady pace at which he walked, that he was intent upon some set purpose, that he was not driven by pique at her father's words.

He came quite close to her, so that she saw his face. A dark-complexioned, strong face it was, clean-shaven, not handsome at all. But, on the other hand, it was just such a face as women admire; full of character, of ambition, of virility. Doreen had been debating with herself whether she dared speak to him; but the moment she got a full look at his face, her courage died away.

It was plain to her that, whatever might be the subject of the thoughts which were agitating his mind, she had no share in them.

So she let him pass out, and then crept back, downcast, shocked, ashamed, up the slope to the house.

She got in by the billiard-room, at the window of which she knocked. Max, her brother, who was playing a game with Queenie, his younger sister, let her in, and cried out at sight of her white face:

"Hello! Doreen, what's up? Had a row with Dudley? Or what?"

"I have had no 'row' with any one," answered the girl, very quietly. "But--you must all know all about it presently, so you may as well hear it at once--Dudley has gone away."

"What?"

Max stopped in the act of trying for a carom, and stared at his sister.

"Why, he only came when I did, ten minutes ago!"

"He's gone, I tell you!" repeated Doreen, stamping her foot. "And--and listen, Max, I'm frightened about him! He's got something on his mind. When he went away, I saw him; I was standing by the gate; he looked so--so _dreadful_ that I didn't dare to speak to him. _I!_ Think of that!"

"Had papa been speaking to him?" put in the shrewd younger sister, who was chalking her cue at the other end of the room.

The younger sister always sees most of the game.

"Ye--es, but--I don't know--I hardly think it was that," answered Doreen quickly. "At any rate, Max, I want you to do this for me; I want you to go up to town to-morrow and see him. I shan't rest until I know he's--he's all right--after what I saw of his face and the look on it. Now, you will do this, won't you, won't you? Without saying anything to anybody, mind. Queenie, you can hold your tongue, too. Now, Max, there's a dear, you'll do it, won't you?"

Max told her that she was "off her head," that he could do no good, and so on. But he ended in giving way to the will of his handsome sister, whom he adored.

Max Wedmore was a good-looking fellow of five-and-twenty, with a reputation as a ne'er-do-weel, which, perhaps, he hardly deserved. His father had a great idea of bringing the young man up to some useful calling to keep him out of mischief. Not very terrible mischief, for the most part: only the result of too much leisure and too much money in inexperienced hands. The upshot of this difference of opinion between father and son was that while Mr. Wedmore was always finding mercantile situations for his son, Max was always taking care to be thrown out of them after a few weeks, and taking a rest which was by no means well earned.

This errand of his sister's was by no means unwelcome to him, since it took him back to town, where he could amuse himself better than he could in the country.

So, on the following morning, he found some sort of excuse to take him up, and started on his journey with the blessings of Doreen, and with very little opposition from his father, who was subdued and thankful to have got rid of Dudley with so little trouble.

It was soon after three when Max arrived at Dudley Horne's chambers in Lincoln's Inn. Of course, Dudley was out; so Max scribbled a note for his friend and left it on the table while he went to the Law Courts to look for him. Not finding him anywhere about, Max filled up the day in his own fashion, and returned to Dudley's room at about seven o'clock, when he supposed that his friend would either return to dinner or look in on his way to dine elsewhere.

He waited an hour, then went away and filled up his time at a music-hall, and returned once more at a quarter to eleven. Dudley, so he was told by the old woman who gave him the information, had not, as far as she knew, been in his rooms since the morning.

Max, who was a great friend of Dudley's, and could take any liberty he pleased in his precincts, lit the gas and the sitting-room fire, and installed himself in an arm-chair with a book. He could not read, however, for he was oppressed by some of Doreen's own fears. He was well acquainted with all his friend's ways, and he knew that for him to be away both from his chambers and from the neighborhood of the Courts for a whole day was most unusual with that particularly steady, plodding young man. He began to worry himself with the remembrance that Dudley had not been himself of late, that he had been moody, restless and unsettled without apparent cause.

Finally, Max worked himself into such a state of anxiety about his friend that when he at last heard the key turned in the lock of the outer door, he jumped up excitedly and made a rush for the door.

Before he reached it, however, he heard footsteps in the adjoining bedroom, the heavy tread of a man stumbling about in the dark, the overthrowing of some of the furniture.

Surely that could not be Dudley!

Max stood still at the door, listening. He thought it might be a thief who had got hold of the key of the chambers.

As he stood still, close by the wall, the door which led from the one room to the other was thrown open from the bedroom, almost touching him as it fell back; and there staggered into the sitting-room, into the light thrown by the gas and the fire, a figure which Max could scarcely recognize as Dudley Horne. His face was the grayish white of the dead; his eyes were glassy; his lips were parted; while the grime of a London fog had left its black marks round his mouth and eyes, giving him an appearance altogether diabolical. He was shaking like a leaf as he stumbled against a chair and suddenly wheeled round to the light.

Then, unbuttoning his overcoat quickly, he looked down at his clothes underneath. He passed his hand over them and held it in the light, with a shudder.

Max uttered a sharp cry.

The stain on Dudley's hand, the wet patches which glistened on his dark clothes, were stains of blood.


CHAPTER III.

DUDLEY EXPLAINS.

As the cry of horror escaped the lips of Max, Dudley wheeled quickly round and met his eyes.

For a moment the two men stood staring at each other without uttering a word. It seemed to Max that his friend did not recognize him; that he looked like a hunted man brought to bay by his pursuer, with the furtive expression in his eyes of a creature trying to devise some means of escape.

It was the most shocking experience that Max had ever known, and the blood seemed to freeze in his veins as he stood by the table watching his friend, trying to conjure back a smile to his own face and look of welcome into his own eyes.

He found his voice at last.

"Why, Horne," cried he, and he was angry with himself as he noted that his voice was hoarse and tremulous, and that he could not manage to bring out his natural tones, "what have you been doing with yourself? I--I've been backward and forward here all day long, and now I've been waiting for you ever so long!"

There was a pause. Dudley was still staring at him, but there was gradually coming over his face a change which showed recognition, followed by annoyance. He drew himself up, and, after a pause, asked, stiffly:

"What did you want with me?"

He spoke more naturally than Max had managed to do, and as the latter replied, he took out his pocket-handkerchief very calmly and began to wipe the stain off his right hand.

Max shuddered.

"Why, is it such a very unusual thing for me to drop in upon you and to want to see you?" he asked, with another attempt at his ordinary manner, which failed almost as completely as the first had done.

There was another short pause. Dudley, without looking again at his friend, examined his hand, saw that it was now clean, and replaced the soiled handkerchief in his pocket. He seemed by this time to be thoroughly at his ease, but Max was not deceived.

"Of course not," said Dudley, quickly. "I only meant that--considering"--he paused, and seemed to be trying to recollect something--"considering what took place down at Datton yesterday and how anxious your father seemed to be rid of me--"

"But what has my father got to do with me, as far as you are concerned, Dudley, eh?" said Max.

There had come upon him suddenly such a strong impression that his friend was in some awful difficulty, some scrape so terrible as to make him lonely beyond the reach of help, that Max, who was a good-hearted fellow and a stanch friend, spoke with something which might almost be