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

girl were a thing to be ashamed of. I'm going to stay in England. I sha'n't come near you. You needn't be afraid of that. I shall be too proud of my wife to bring her among people who would look down upon her. And perhaps you'd better not inquire where I live or what I'm doing, for we sha'n't be able to live in a fashionable neighborhood, nor to be too particular about what we turn our hands to."

While Max made this speech very slowly, very deliberately, his father listened to him with ever-increasing anger and disgust, and his mother, not daring to come too close while he was right under the paternal eye, hung over the table in the background, with yearning, tremulous love in her eyes, and with her lips parted, ready to utter the tender words of a pleading peacemaker.

But the tone Mr. Wedmore chose to take was that of utter contempt, complete irresponsibility. When his son had finished speaking he waited as if to hear whether there was any more to come, and then abruptly turned his back upon him and began to poke the fire.

"Very well," said he, with an affectation of extreme calmness. "Since you have made up your mind, the sooner you begin to carry out your plans the better. I'm very glad to see that you have a mind to make up."

"Thank you, sir," said Max.

And he was turning to leave the room, when his mother sprang forward and stopped him.

"No, no! Don't go like that! My boy! George! Don't say good-bye yet. Take a little time. Let him try a little trouble of his own for a change. He has made up his mind, he says. I'm sure he's old enough. Leave him alone."

Max put his arm round his mother, gave her a warm kiss, disengaged himself, and left the room.

The poor woman was almost hysterical.

"He means it, George! He means it this time!" she moaned.

And her husband, though he laughed at her, and though he said to himself that he did not care, was inclined to agree with her.

Max went straight up to his own room, and began to do his packing with much outward cheerfulness. Indeed he felt no depression over the dashing step he was taking, although he felt sore over the parting with home and his mother and sisters.

He was debating within himself whether he should try to see Carrie before he went, or whether he should only leave a note to be given to her after he was gone, when he heard the voice of his sister Doreen calling him. He threw open the door and shouted back.

She was in the hall.

"Max," cried she, in a hissing whisper, "I want to speak to you. Make haste!"

He ran downstairs and found her standing with two of the maids, both of whom looked rather frightened.

"Max," said Doreen, "there's an old woman hanging about the place--" Max started. He guessed what was coming. "The same old woman that came at Christmas time. She jumped up in the well-house at Anne, and sent her into hysterics. And now they've lost sight of her, just as they did last time, and we want you to help to ferret her out and send her away."

"All right," said Max. "We'll pack her off."

He was at the bottom of the staircase by this time, and was starting on his way to the yard, when a little scream from one of the two maids, as she glanced up the stairs, made him look around. Carrie had come down so lightly and so swiftly that she was upon the group before they had heard a sound. She beckoned to Max, who came back at once.

Carrie was shaking like a leaf; her eyes were wide with alarm, with terror. Max went up a few stairs, to be out of hearing of the others, as she seemed to wish. Then she whispered:

"You know who it is. I saw her. Leave her alone. I implore you to leave her alone! She'll do no harm. Let her rest. Let the poor creature rest. If--if the police--"

At that moment there was a shout from the yard outside. Carrie sprang like a hare up the stairs to the window, and looked out with straining eyes.

The afternoon was one of those dull misty winter days, with a leaden sky and an east wind.

"I'll see that she isn't hurt!" called out Max, as he bounded down the stairs and ran into the yard behind the house.

Here he found a motley group--the stablemen, the laundry-maids and the gardeners--all hunting in the many corners and crannies of the outbuildings for the old woman who had alarmed Anne.

Max spoke sharply to the men.

"Here, what are you about?" said he. "Hunting a poor old woman as if she were a wild animal? Go back to your work. She'll never dare to show her face while you are all about!"

"She's left the well-house, sir, and, we think, she's got into the big barn," explained one of the lads, with the feeling that Mr. Max himself would want to join in the chase when he knew that the game was to hand.

"Well, leave her there," answered Max, promptly. "She'll come out when you've all gone, and I'll send her about her business."

Max saw, as he spoke, that there was a man standing at a little distance just outside the stable-gate, whom he did not recognize. Before he could ask who he was, however, the man had disappeared from view. He remembered what Carrie had said about the presence of a policeman, and he thought the time was come to take the bull by the horns.

So he walked rapidly in the direction of the gate, and addressed the man whom he found there.

"Are you a policeman?" he asked, abruptly.

"Yes, sir," answered the man, touching his hat.

"What is your business here?"

"I'm on the lookout for some one I have a warrant for. Charge of murder, sir."

"Man or woman?"

"Man, sir."

"Will you tell me his name?"

"Horne, sir."

Max thought a moment.

"Why are you pottering about here, instead of going straight up to the house?"

"Well, sir, I'm obeying orders."

"Come with me," said Max suddenly. "There's an old hag hiding in the barn now, who knows more about this business than Mr. Horne."

Behind the young gentleman's back the detective smiled, but he professed to be ready to follow him.

"There's only one way out of this barn," explained Max, as he approached the door, beside which a groom was standing. "By this door, which is never locked. There is a window, but it's too high up for anybody to get out by."

Telling the groom to guard the door, Max went into the barn, followed by the detective. There was still light enough for them to find their way about among the lumber.

"Where's the window, sir?" asked the detective.

Max pointed to a speck of light high in the south wall of the barn.

"She couldn't get out there," said he, "even if she could climb up to it. Unless she could swarm a rope."

And he touched one of the ropes which dangled from a huge beam.

The detective, however, walked rapidly past him, and stopped short, pointing to something which was lying on the floor under the window.

It was the body of a man, lying in a heap.


CHAPTER XXV.

THE MYSTERY EXPLAINED.

Max helped the detective raise the man from the ground. He was quite dead, and from the position in which they had found him, both men concluded that he had been in the act of climbing up to the high window, when the rope by which he was holding broke under his weight. It was evident that he had fallen upon an old millstone which was among the lumber on the floor beneath, and that the shock of the fall had broken his neck.

They had found out all this before Max could form any opinion as to the identity of the dead man. He was short of stature, and apparently between fifty and sixty years of age, slightly built, but muscular. The body was dressed in the clothes of a respectable mechanic.

There was very little light in the barn by this time, and Max directed the groom, who had been standing outside, and who had entered, attracted by Max's shout of discovery, to bring a lantern.

"I suppose we'd better send for a doctor," said Max, "though the man's as dead as a doornail. In the meantime, just give a look around and see whether the woman is anywhere about."

The detective appeared to follow the suggestion, for he at once proceeded to a further inspection of the building by the aid of one of the two lanterns which the groom had by this time brought. And presently he came back to Max with a bundle in his hand.

Max, by the light of the lantern which the groom was holding for him, was looking at the face of the dead man, whom he guessed to be one of Mrs. Higgs's accomplices, perhaps the mysterious person whose influence over the old woman, according to Carrie, was so bad.

While he was staring intently at the dead face, he heard a stifled cry, and looking up, saw that Carrie had stolen into the barn behind the groom, and had her eyes fixed upon the body.

Max sprang up.

"Do you know him? Is it the man who used to get into the place by night?" asked he, eagerly.

Carrie, without answering, looked from the dead man to the detective, and from him to the bundle he was carrying.

"Ah!" exclaimed she.

Max looked in his turn. The detective was displaying, one by one, a woman's skirt, bodice, bonnet, shawl and a cap with a "front" of woman's hair sewn inside it.

"I think you can guess, sir, what's become of the woman now?" said the officer, grimly.

Max started violently, shocked by a surprise which, both for the detective and for Carrie, had been discounted some time ago.

"Mrs. Higgs" was a man.

Even with this knowledge to help him, Max, as he stared again at the dead face, found it difficult to recognize in the still features those which in life had inspired him with feelings of repulsion.

Just a quiet, inoffensive, respectable-looking man not coarse or low in type; this would have been his comment upon the dead man, if he had known nothing about him. Max shuddered as he withdrew his gaze; and, as he did so, he met the eyes of Carrie.

He beckoned to her to come away with him, and she followed him as far as the door, toward which some members of the household, to whom the news had penetrated, were now hastening.

"Carrie!" cried he, as he looked searchingly in her face, "you knew this? How long have you known it?"

She could scarcely answer. She was shaking from head to foot, and was evidently suffering from a great shock.

"Yes, I knew it, but only since I came here. It was part of what Mr. Dudley Horne let out in his raving."

"Only part of it?" cried Max.

But Carrie would confess nothing more. And, as Mr.