Recalled to Life by Grant Allen (best historical fiction books of all time TXT) 📖

two, and three, and four, and five, had first been photographed. We've only got the last--and least useful for our purpose. There must have been five earlier ones, showing every stage of the crime, if only we'd known it."

I was worked up now to a strange pitch of excitement.

"And how did this one come into your possession?" I asked, all breathless. "If you managed to lay your hands on one, why not on all six of them?"

The Inspector drew a long breath.

"Ah, that's the trouble!" he replied, still gazing at me hard. "You see, it was this way. As soon as we found the camera was missing, we came to the conclusion the murderer must have returned to The Grange to fetch it. But it was a large and heavy box, and the only one of its kind as yet manufactured; so, to carry it away in his hands would no doubt have led to instant detection. I concluded, therefore, the man would take off the box entire, so as to prevent the danger of removing the plates on the spot; and as soon as he reached a place of safety in the shrubbery, he'd fling away the camera, either destroying the incriminating negatives then and there or carrying them off with him. The details of the invention had already been explained to me by your father's instrument-maker, who set up the clockwork for him from his own designs; and I knew that the removal of the plates from the box was a delicate, and to some extent a difficult, operation. So I felt sure they could only have been taken out in a place of comparative safety, not far from the house; and I searched the shrubbery carefully, to find the camera."

"And you found it at last?" I asked, unable to restrain my agitation.

"I found it at last," he answered, "near the far end of the grounds, just flung into the deep grass, behind a clump of lilacs. The camera was there intact, but five plates were missing. The sixth, from which the positive you hold in your hand was taken, had got jammed in the mechanism in the effort to remove it. Evidently the murderer had tried to take out the plates in a very great hurry and with trembling hands, as was not unnatural. He had succeeded with five, when the sixth stuck fast in the groove of the clockwork. Just at that moment, as we judged, either an alarm was raised in the rear, or some panic fear seized on him. Probably the fellow judged right that the most incriminating pictures of all had by that time been removed, and that the last would only show his back, if it included him at all, or if he came into focus. Perhaps he had even been able unconsciously to count the flashes at the moment, and knew that before the sixth flash arrived he was on the ledge of the window. At any rate, he clearly gave up the attempt to remove the sixth, and flung the whole apparatus away from him in a sudden access of horror. We guessed as much both from the appearance of the spot where the grass was trampled down, and the way the angle of the camera was imbedded forcibly in the soft ground of the shrubbery."

"And he got away with the rest!" I exclaimed, following it up like a story, but a story in which I was myself an unconscious character.

"No doubt," the Inspector answered, stroking his chin regretfully. "And what's most annoying of all, we've every reason to suppose the fellow stole the things only a few minutes before we actually missed them. For we saw grounds for supposing he jumped away from the spot, and climbed over the wall at the back, cutting his hands as he went with the bottle-glass on the top to prevent intruders. And what makes us think only a very short time must have elapsed between the removal of the plates and the moment we came upon his tracks is this--the blood from his cut hands was still fresh and wet upon the wall when we found it."

"Then you only just missed him!" I exclaimed. "He got off by the skin of his teeth. It's wonderful, when you were so near, you shouldn't have managed to overtake him! One would have thought you must have been able to track him to earth somehow!"

"One would have thought so," the Inspector answered, rather crestfallen. "But policemen, after all, are human like the rest of us. We missed the one chance that might have led to an arrest. And now, what I want to ask you once more is this: Reflecting over what you've heard and read to-day, do you think you can recollect--a very small matter--whether or not there were SEVERAL distinct flashes?"

I shut my eyes once more, and looked hard into the past. Slowly, as I looked, a sort of dream seemed to come over me. I saw it vaguely now, or thought I saw it. Flash, flash, flash, flash. Then the sound of the pistol. Then the Picture, and the Horror, and the awful blank. I opened my eyes again, and told the Inspector so.

"And once more," he went on, in a very insinuating voice. "Shut your eyes again, and look back upon that day. Can't you remember whether or not, just a moment before, you saw the murderer's face by the light of the flashes?"

I shut my eyes and thought. Again the flashes seemed to stand out clear and distinct. But no detail supervened--no face came back to me. I felt it was useless.

"Impossible!" I said shortly. "It only makes my head swim. I can remember no further."

"I see," the Inspector answered. "It's just as Dr. Wade said. Suggest a fact in your past history, and you may possibly remember it; but ask you to recall anything not suggested or already known, and all seems a mere blank to you! You haven't the faintest idea, then, who the murderer was or what he looked like?"

I rose up before him solemnly, and stared him full in the face. I was wrought up by that time to a perfect pitch of excitement and interest.

"I haven't the faintest idea," I answered, feeling myself a woman at last, and realising my freedom; "I know and remember no more of it than you do. But from this moment forth, I shall not rest until I've found him out and tracked him down, and punished him. I shall never let my head rest in peace on my pillow until I've discovered my father's murderer!"

"That's well," the Inspector said sharply, shutting his notes up to go. "If you persevere in that mind, and do as you say, we shall soon get to the bottom of the Woodbury Mystery!"

And even as he spoke a key turned in the front door. I knew it was Aunt Emma, come in from her marketing.


CHAPTER V.

I BECOME A WOMAN


Aunt Emma burst into the room, all horror and astonishment. She looked at the Inspector for a few seconds in breathless indignation; then she broke out in a tone of fiery remonstrance which fairly surprised me:

"What do you mean by this intrusion, sir? How dare you force your way into my house in my absence? How dare you encourage my servants to disobey my orders? How dare you imperil this young lady's health by coming here to talk with her?"

She turned round to me anxiously. I suppose I was very flushed with excitement and surprise.

"My darling child," she cried, growing pale all at once, "Maria should never have allowed him to come inside the door! You should have stopped upstairs! You should have refused to see him! I shall have you ill again on my hands, as before, after this. He'll have undone all the good the last four years have done for you!"

But I was another woman now. I felt it in a moment.

"Auntie dearest," I answered, moving across to her, and laying my hand on her shoulder to soothe her poor ruffled nerves, "don't be the least alarmed. It's I who'm to blame, and not Maria. I told her to let this gentleman in. He's done me good, not harm. I'm so glad to have been allowed at last to speak freely about it!"

Aunt Emma shook all over, visibly to the naked eye.

"You'll have a relapse, my child!" she exclaimed, half crying, and clinging to me in her terror. "You'll forget all you've learned: you'll go back these four years again!--Leave my house at once, sir! You should never have entered it!"

I stood between them like a statue.

"No, stop here a little longer," I said, waving my hand towards him imperiously. "I haven't yet heard all it's right for me to hear.... Auntie, you mistake. I'm a woman at last. I see what everything means. I'm beginning to remember again. For four years that hateful Picture has haunted me night and day. I could never shut my eyes for a minute without seeing it. I've longed to know what it all meant; but whenever I've asked, I've been repressed like a baby. I'm a baby no longer: I feel myself a woman. What the Inspector here has told me already, half opens my eyes: I must have them opened altogether now. I can't stop at this point. I'm going back to Woodbury."

Aunt Emma clung to me still harder in a perfect agony of passionate terror.

"To Woodbury, my darling!" she cried. "Going back! Oh, Una, it'll kill you!"

"I think not," the Inspector answered, with a very quiet smile. "Miss Callingham has recovered, I venture to say, far more profoundly than you imagine. This repression, our medical adviser tells us, has been bad for her. If she's allowed to visit freely the places connected with her earlier life, it may all return again to her; and the ends of Justice may thus at last be served for us. I notice already one hopeful symptom: Miss Callingham speaks of going back to Woodbury."

Aunt Emma looked up at him, horrified. All her firmness was gone now.

"It's YOU who've put this into her head!" she exclaimed, in a ferment of horror. "She'd never thought of it herself. You've made her do it!"

"On the contrary, auntie," I answered, feeling my ground grow surer under me every moment as I spoke, "this gentleman has never even by the merest hint suggested such an idea to my mind. It occurred to me quite spontaneously. I MUST find out now who was my father's murderer! All the Inspector has told me seems to arouse in my brain some vague, forgotten chords. It brings back to me faint shadows. I feel sure if I went to Woodbury I should remember much more. And then, you must see for yourself, there's another reason, dear, that ought to make me go. Nobody but I ever saw the murderer's face. It's a duty imposed upon me from without, as it were, never to rest again in peace till I've recognised him."

Aunt Emma collapsed into an easy-chair. Her face was deadly pale. Her ringers trembled.

"If you go, Una," she cried, playing nervously with her gloves, "I must go with you too! I must take care of you: I must watch over you!"

I took her quivering hand in mine and stroked it gently. It was a soft and delicate white little hand, all marked inside with curious ragged scars that I'd known and observed ever since