XXII
EXTREMITIES
That same evening (it was on the Thursday), on his return from shooting,Dick Edmonstone found, among the other letters on the table in thepassage, one addressed to himself in a strange hand. The writing wasbad, but characteristic in its way; Dick had certainly never seen itbefore. The envelope bore a London postmark. He took the letter into thelittle back room, the gunroom, and sat down to read it alone.
Twilight was deep in this room, for the window was in an angle of thehouse, facing eastward, and was overshadowed by the foliage of afair-sized oak. Some out-lying small branches of this tree beat gentlyagainst the upper pane; the lower sash was thrown up. The window wasseveral feet above the ground. The corner below was a delightful spot,shaded all day from the sun; a basket-work table and chair were alwaysthere, for the nook was much affected by Mrs. Parish, and even by Alice,in the hot, long, sleepy afternoons.
Edmonstone had read to the end of his letter, when the door opened andMiles entered the room. Dick looked up and greeted him: "This is lucky.I was just coming to look for you. I want to speak to you."
The other's astonishment was unconcealed. Since the small hours ofTuesday the two had not exchanged a dozen words. Edmonstone had avoidedMiles on the moor, and elsewhere watched him as a terrier watches a ratin a trap. Miles could not guess what was coming.
"I have a letter here that will interest you," said Dick. "Listen tothis:
"'Dear Edmonstone,--I thought I'd look you up yesterday, as I had nothing on, but, like my luck, I found you away. Your people, however, treated me handsomely, and I stayed all the afternoon. We talked Australia; and this brings me to the reason of my writing to you. Your people told me of a rather mysterious Australian who stayed some time with the people you are with now, and went out again very suddenly at the beginning of last month. His name was Miles; your sister described him to me, and the description struck me as uncommon like that of a well-known gentleman at present wanted by the police of the Colony. The fact is, I have stumbled across an old mate of mine (a sergeant in the mounted police), who is over here after this very gent, and who I am helping a bit in the ready-money line. As he is working on the strict q.t., I must not tell you whom he's after. In fact, it's all on my own account I am writing you. I haven't told him anything about it. It's my own idea entirely, and I want you to tell me just this: Have your friends heard anything of this Miles since he left them? because I've been making inquiries, and found that no such name as Miles has been booked for a passage out at any of the London offices during the past two months! Of course I may have got hold of a wild-goose notion; but Miss Edmonstone told me that your friends made this Miles's acquaintance in an offhand kind of a way, and nobody else knew anything about him. Anyway, I'll wait till I hear from you before telling Compton, who's down at the seaside on a fresh clue.--Yours faithfully, Stephen Biggs.'"
"What name was that?" asked Miles quickly. He had listened calmly to theend. But at the very end the colour had suddenly fled from his face.
"Biggs--the Hon. Stephen, M. L. C. A warm man for a campaign, rich asCroesus. If he's set his heart upon having you, he'll chase you roundand round the world----"
"No. I mean the other man--the name of the sergeant."
Dick referred to the letter.
"Compton," he said.
"Compton!" repeated Miles in a whisper. "The only 'trap' in Australia Iever feared--the only man in the world, bar Pound, I have still to fear!Compton! my bitterest enemy!"
Edmonstone rose from the armchair in which he had been sitting, sat downat the table, opened a blotter, and found a sheet of notepaper.
"Must you answer now?" cried Miles.
"Yes; on the spot."
"What do you mean to say?"
"I have not decided. What would you say in my place? I am a poor liar."
"If we changed places, and I had treated you as you have treated methese two days--since our compact--I should write them the worst, andhave done with it," said Miles, in a low tone of intense bitterness."You professed to trust me. Yet you won't trust yourself near me on themoors; you fear foul play at my hands. You watch me like a lynx here atthe house; yet I swear man never kept promise as I am keeping mine now!You do things by halves, Edmonstone. You had better end the farce, andwire the truth to your friend."
Reproach mingled with resignation in the last quiet words. Edmonstoneexperienced a twinge of compunction.
"Nonsense!" he said. "I should be a fool if I didn't watch you--worsethan a fool to trust you. But betraying you is another matter. I don'tthink of doing that, unless----"
"I can keep my word, Edmonstone, bad as I may be! Besides, I am not afool."
"And you are going on Monday?"
"Yes--to sail on Tuesday; you have seen my ticket."
"Then you shall see my answer to this letter."
Dick then dashed off a few lines. He handed the sheet, with the inkstill wet, to Miles, who read these words:
"Dear Biggs,--A false scent, I am afraid. Ladies are never accurate; you have been misinformed about Miles. I knew him in Australia! He cannot be the man you want.--Yours sincerely, "R. Edmonstone."
The sheet of writing paper fluttered in Miles's hand. For one moment anemotion of gratitude as fierce as that which he himself had onceinspired in the breast of Edmonstone, swelled within his own.
"You are a friend indeed," he murmured, handing back the letter. "Andyet your friendship seems like madness!"
"My old mate swears that I am mad on the subject!"
Dick folded and enclosed his note in an envelope, directed it, and gotup to go. Miles followed him to the door and wrung his hand in silence.
When the door was closed upon Edmonstone, Miles sank into the armchair,and closed his eyes.
His expression was human then; it quickly hardened, and his faceunderwent complete transformation. A moment later it was not a pleasantface to look upon. The ugliness of crime had disfigured it in a flash.The devils within him were unchained for once, and his looks were asugly as his thoughts.
"Curse it!"--he was thinking--"I must be losing my nerve: I get heatedand flurried as I never did before. Yet it was not altogether put on, mygratitude to this young fellow: I do feel some of it. Nor were they alllies that I told him the other night; I am altered in some ways. Ibelieve it was that spice of truth that saved me--for saved I am so faras he is concerned. Anyway, I have fooled him rather successfully, andhe'll know it before he has done with me! True, I did not bargain tomeet him here, after what the Colonel wrote; but I flatter myself I madethe best of it--I can congratulate myself upon every step. No; one wasa false step: I was an idiot to show him the passage-money receipt; itwas telling him the name and line of the steamer and opening up thetrack for pursuit when we are gone. And yet, and yet--I could not havelaid a cleverer false scent if I had tried! Instead of money flung away,that passage-money will turn out a glorious investment; we'll show aclean pair of heels in the opposite direction, while our good friendshere think of nothing but that one steamer! And so, once more,everything is turning out well, if only I can keep this up three dayslonger; if only Jem Pound and Frank Compton do not trouble me; ifonly--if only I am not mistaken and misled as to the ease with which Imay carry off--my prize!"
And strange to say, as he thought of that final coup, the villainy fadedout of his face--though the act contemplated was bad enough, in allconscience!
All at once a creaking noise startled Miles. He rose from his chair, andcrossed with swift noiseless steps over to the window. A man was liftinghimself gingerly from the basket-work chair--the man was Philip Robson.
Miles leant out of the window, seized him by the collar, and drew himbackward with a thud against the wall below the window.
"Eavesdropper! listener!" hissed Miles; and quick as lightning hechang
ed his hold from the doctor's collar to the doctor's wrists, whichhe grabbed with each iron hand and drew upward over the sill.
The sill was more than six feet from the ground. The doctor stood ontiptoe--helpless--in a trap. The doctor's face was white and guilty.The doctor's tongue was for the moment useless.
"What were you doing there?" Miles demanded quietly, but with a nastylook about the eyes.
"I--I had been asleep. I came back early from the moors becauseEdmonstone insulted me. I was just awake. Let go my hands, will you? Iheard something--a very little--I could not help it. What do you mean byholding my wrists like this? Leave loose of them, I say!"
"Then tell me what you heard."
"Something that I could not understand. If you don't let me go thisinstant, I'll sing out!"
"Will you stand and talk sensibly, and listen to what I tell you?"
"Yes, I swear I will."
"There, then, you're free. Now I'll just tell you, in effect, what youdid hear," said Miles, whose inventive brain had been busy from themoment he had discovered Robson. "You heard Edmonstone speak to me asthough I was a villain: well, he firmly believes I am one. You heard himread me a letter from some one 'wanting' me: he has read me many suchletters. I believe you heard me asking him in effect not to tell anyone, and thanking him: this is what I make a point of doing. The factis, Edmonstone is under the delusion that I am a man who robbed him inAustralia. This is what's the matter!"
Miles tapped his forehead significantly.
"You don't mean it!" cried Robson, starting back.
"I do; but not so loud, man. His friends don't suspect anything; theyneedn't know; it's only on this one point. What, didn't you hear ourlast words? I said, 'It seems like madness.' He answered, 'My oldmate'--meaning the man who was with him at the time of the robbery--'myold mate,' he says, 'swears that I am mad on that subject.'"
"Whew!" whistled the doctor. "Yes, I heard that."
"It speaks for itself, eh? But I put it to you as a medical man," saidMiles, rising still more fully to the occasion, and remembering thedoctor's weak point: "I put it to you as a medical man--has there notbeen something strange about his manner?"
Robson thought at once of the disagreeable incident of the morning.
"There has, indeed," he said, without hesitation; "I have noticed itmyself!"
Even Miles marvelled at his own adroitness; he was elated, and showed itby fetching a deep sigh.
"Poor Edmonstone! he is quite touched on the point. Perhaps the affairbrought on a fever at the time, for he is an excitable fellow, and thatwould account for it."
"But is he safe?" asked Robson, eagerly. "He can't be!"
"Oh, yes, he is; quite. I repeat, it is only on that one point, andnobody knows it here. And, mind, you are not to breathe a word of it toany single soul!"
Philip was entirely taken in for the time being; but his silence wasanother matter. That could only be pardoned, even on short lease, by anapology from the rude Colonial. The doctor's wrists smarted yet; hisself-esteem was still more sore.
"I am so likely," said he, with fine irony, "to do your bidding afterthe manner in which you have treated me!"
"Call it taking my hint," said Miles, with a nasty expression in theeyes again. "You will find it a hint worth acting upon."
"You had no business to treat me as you did. It was a gross outrage!"said the doctor, haughtily.
"Come, now, I apologise. It arose from my irritation on Edmonstone'saccount, at the thing getting out. For his sake, you must indeed promiseto hold your tongue."
"Very well," said Philip Robson, reluctantly; "I--I promise."
And he meant at the time to keep his promise, if he could. In fact, hedid keep it. For a little calm reflection, away from the glamour thrownby Miles's plausibility, and in the sober light of Philip's ownprofessional knowledge, served to weaken the case of insanity againstDick Edmonstone. At the same time, reflection strengthened Edmonstone'scase against Miles, though Robson had only oblique information as to thespecific nature of that case. But at any rate there was no harm inopening the letter-box (which was cleared in the morning) late at night,and sending just one anonymous line to the same name and address asthose upon the envelope directed in Edmonstone's hand. If Miles wasreally a forger of some kind, and Edmonstone was really shielding him,then there was an excellent chance of scoring off them both at once.And Philip Robson had contracted a pretty strong grudge against boththese men since morning.
Meanwhile Miles remained subdued and pensive, furtively attentive, butextremely humble, towards Miss Bristo, and talkative to one persononly--Mrs. Parish. He was indeed, as he said, no fool. He was full ofcunning and coolness, foresight and resource. He was biding histime--but for what?