Mysterious Mr. Sabin by E. Phillips Oppenheim (read novel full .TXT) 📖

into darkness, when he had seen, or fancied that he had seen, a woman’s skirts fluttering there. Up to the present his father’s attention had been wholly riveted upon the other end of the room; yet he was filled with a nervous dread lest at any moment that revolver might change its direction. His ears were strained to the uttermost to catch the slightest sign of any movement.

At last the silence was broken; there was a faint movement near the window, and then again, without a second’s hesitation, there was that level line of fire and loud report from the Admiral’s revolver. There was no groan, no sign of any one having been hit. The Admiral began to move slowly in the direction of the window; Wolfenden remained where he was, listening intently. He was right, there was a smothered movement from behind the screen. Some one was moving from there towards the door, some one with light footsteps and a trailing skirt. He drew back into the doorway; he meant to let her pass whoever it might be, but he meant to know who it was. He could hear her hurried breathing; a faint, familiar perfume, shaken out by the movement of her skirts, puzzled him; it’s very familiarity bewildered him. She knew that he was there; she must know it, for she had paused. The position was terribly critical. A few yards away the Admiral was groping about, revolver in hand, mumbling to himself a string of terrible threats. The casting of a shadow would call forth that death-dealing fire. Wolfenden thrust out his hand cautiously; it fell upon a woman’s arm. She did not cry out, although her rapid breathing sank almost to a moan. For a moment he was staggered—the room seemed to be going round with him; he had to bite his lips to stifle the exclamation which very nearly escaped him. Then he stood away from the door with a little shudder, and guided her through it. He heard her footsteps die away along the corridor with a peculiar sense of relief. Then he thrust his hand into the pocket of his dinner coat and drew out a box of matches.

“I am going to strike a light,” he whispered in his father’s ear.

“Quick, then,” was the reply, “I don’t think the fellow has got away yet; he must be hiding behind some of the furniture.”

There was the scratching of a match upon a silver box, a feeble flame gradually developing into a sure illumination. Wolfenden carefully lit the lamp and raised it high over his head. The room was empty! There was no doubt about it! They two were alone. But the window was wide open and a chair in front of it had been thrown over. The Admiral strode to the casement and called out angrily—

“Heggs! are you there? Is no one on duty?”

There was no answer; the tall sentry-box was empty.

Wolfenden came over to his father’s side and brought the lamp with him, and together they leaned out. At first they could see nothing; then Wolfenden threw off the shade from the lamp and the light fell in a broad track upon a dark, motionless figure stretched out upon the turf. Wolfenden stooped down hastily.

“My God!” he exclaimed, “it is Heggs! Father, won’t you sound the gong? We shall have to arouse the house.”

There was no need. Already the library was half full of hastily dressed servants, awakened by the sound of the Admiral’s revolver. Pale and terrified, but never more self-composed, Lady Deringham stepped out to them in a long, white dressing-gown.

“What has happened?” she cried. “Who is it, Wolfenden—has your father shot any one?”

But Wolfenden shook his head, as he stood for a moment upright, and looked into his mother’s face.

“There is a man hurt,” he said; “it is Heggs, I think, but he is not shot. The evil is not of our doing!”

CHAPTER XXIX “IT WAS MR. SABIN”

It was still an hour or two before dawn. No trace whatever of the marauders had been discovered either outside the house or within. With difficulty the Earl had been persuaded to relinquish his smoking revolver, and had retired to his room. The doors had all been locked, and two of the most trustworthy servants left in charge of the library. Wolfenden had himself accompanied his father upstairs and after a few words with him had returned to his own apartment. With his mother he had scarcely exchanged a single sentence. Once their eyes had met and he had immediately looked away. Nevertheless he was not altogether unprepared for that gentle knocking at his door which came about half an hour after the house was once more silent.

He rose at once from his chair—it seemed scarcely a night for sleep—and opened it cautiously. It was Lady Deringham who stood there, white and trembling. He held out his hand and she leaned heavily on it during her passage into the room.

He wheeled his own easy chair before the fire and helped her into it. She seemed altogether incapable of speech. She was trembling violently, and her face was perfectly bloodless. Wolfenden dropped on his knees by her side and began chafing her hands. The touch of his fingers seemed to revive her. She was not already judged then. She lifted her eyes and looked at him sorrowfully.

“What do you think of me, Wolfenden?” she asked.

“I have not thought about it at all,” he answered. “I am only wondering. You have come to explain everything?”

She shuddered. Explain everything! That was a task indeed. When the heart is young and life is a full and generous thing; in the days of romance, when adventures and love-making come as a natural heritage and form part of the order of things, then the words which the woman had to say would have come lightly enough from her lips, less perhaps as a confession than as a half apologetic narration. But in the days when youth lies far behind, when its glamour has faded away and nothing but the bare incidents remain, unbeautified by the full colouring and exuberance of the springtime of life, the most trifling indiscretions then stand out like idiotic crimes. Lady Deringham had been a proud woman—a proud woman all her life. She had borne in society the reputation of an almost ultra-exclusiveness; in her home life she had been something of an autocrat. Perhaps this was the most miserable moment of her life. Her son was looking at her with cold, inquiring eyes. She was on her defence before him. She bowed her head and spoke:

“Tell me what you thought, Wolfenden.”

“Forgive me,” he said, “I could only think that there was robbery, and that you, for some sufficient reason, I am sure, were aiding. I could not think anything else, could I?”

“You thought what was true, Wolfenden,” she whispered. “I was helping another man to rob your father! It was only a very trifling theft—a handful of notes from his work for a magazine article. But it was theft, and I was an accomplice!”

There was a short silence. Her eyes, seeking steadfastly to read his face, could make nothing of it.

“I will not ask you why,” he said slowly. “You must have had very good reasons. But I want to tell you one thing. I am beginning to have grave doubts as to whether my father’s state is really so bad as Dr. Whitlett thinks—whether, in short, his work is not after all really of some considerable value. There are several considerations which incline me to take this view.”

The suggestion visibly disturbed Lady Deringham. She moved in her chair uneasily.

“You have heard what Mr. Blatherwick says,” she objected. “I am sure that he is absolutely trustworthy.”

“There is no doubt about Blatherwick’s honesty,” he admitted, “but the Admiral himself says that he dare trust no one, and that for weeks he has given him no paper of importance to work upon simply for that reason. It has been growing upon me that we may have been mistaken all along, that very likely Miss Merton was paid to steal his work, and that it may possess for certain people, and for certain purposes, a real technical importance. How else can we account for the deliberate efforts which have been made to obtain possession of it?”

“You have spent some time examining it yourself,” she said in a low tone; “what was your own opinion?”

“I found some sheets,” he answered, “and I read them very carefully; they were connected with the various landing-places upon the Suffolk coast. An immense amount of detail was very clearly given. The currents, bays, and fortifications were all set out; even the roads and railways into the interior were dealt with. I compared them afterwards with a map of Suffolk. They were, so far as one could judge, correct. Of course this was only a page or two at random, but I must say it made an impression upon me.”

There was another silence, this time longer than before. Lady Deringham was thinking. Once more, then, the man had lied to her! He was on some secret business of his own. She shuddered slightly. She had no curiosity as to its nature. Only she remembered what many people had told her, that where he went disaster followed. A piece of coal fell into the grate hissing from the fire. He stooped to pick it up, and catching a glimpse of her face became instantly graver. He remembered that as yet he had heard nothing of what she had come to tell him. Her presence in the library was altogether unexplained.

“You were very good,” she said slowly; “you stayed what might have been a tragedy. You knew that I was there, you helped me to escape; yet you must have known that I was in league with the man who was trying to steal those papers.”

“There was no mistake, then! You were doing that. You!”

“It is true,” she answered. “It was I who let him in, who unlocked your father’s desk. I was his accomplice!”

“Who was the man?”

She did not tell him at once.

“He was once,” she said, “my lover!”

“Before——”

“Before I met your father! We were never really engaged. But he loved me, and I thought I cared for him. I wrote him letters—the foolish letters of an impulsive girl. These he has kept. I treated him badly, I know that! But I too have suffered. It has been the desire of my life to have those letters. Last night he called here. Before my face he burnt all but one! That he kept. The price of his returning it to me was my help—last night.”

“For what purpose?” Wolfenden asked. “What use did he propose to make of the Admiral’s papers if he succeeded in stealing them?”

She shook her head mournfully.

“I cannot tell. He answered me at first that he simply needed some statistics to complete a magazine article, and that Mr. C. himself had sent him here. If what you tell me of their importance is true, I have no doubt that he lied.”

“Why could he not go to the Admiral himself?”

Lady Deringham’s face was as pale as death, and she spoke with downcast head, her eyes fixed upon her clenched hands.

“At Cairo,” she said, “not long after my marriage, we all met. I was indiscreet, and your father was hot-headed and jealous. They quarrelled and fought, your father wounded him; he fired in the air. You understand now that he could not go direct to the Admiral.”

“I cannot understand,” he admitted, “why you listened to his proposal.”

“Wolfenden, I wanted that letter,” she said, her voice dying away in something like a moan. “It is not that I have anything more than folly to reproach myself with, but it was written—it was