CHAPTER XXX. SOME EXPLANATIONS
He turned quickly towards Deede Dawson. Their eyes met, and in thatmutual glance Rupert Dunsmore read that his suspicions were correct andDeede Dawson that his dreadful trap was discovered.
Neither spoke. For a brief moment they remained impassive, immobile,their eyes meeting like blows, and then Deede Dawson made one spring toseize again the revolver he had laid down in the hope of enticing Rupertinto the awful snare prepared for him.
But quick as he was, Rupert was quicker still, and as Deede Dawsonleaped he lifted his pistol and fired, though his aim was not at theman, but at the revolver lying on the top of the roll of carpet whereDeede Dawson had placed it.
The bullet, for Rupert was a man who seldom missed, struck the weaponfair and whirled it, shattered and useless, to the floor. Deede Dawson,whose hand had been already outstretched to seize it, drew back witha snarl that was more like the cry of a trapped wolf than any soundproduced from human lips.
Still, Rupert did not speak. With the smoking pistol in his hand hewatched silently and steadily his helpless enemy who, for his part, wassilent, too, and very still, for he felt that doom was close upon him.
Yet he showed not the least sign of fear, but only a fierce and sullendefiance.
"Shoot away, why don't you shoot?" he sneered. "Mind you don't miss. Itrusted you when I put my revolver down and I was a fool, but I thoughtyou would play fair."
Without a word Rupert tossed his pistol through the attic window.
They heard the tinkling fall of the glass, they heard more faintly thesound of the revolver striking the outhouse roof twenty feet below andrebounding thence to the paved kitchen yard beneath, and then all wasquiet again.
"I only need my hands for you," said Rupert softly, as softly as amother coos to her drowsy babe. "My hands for you."
For the first time Deede Dawson seemed to fear, for, indeed, there wasthat in Rupert Dunsmore's eyes to rouse fear in any man. With a suddenswift spring, Rupert leaped forward and Deede Dawson, not daring toabide that onslaught, turned and ran, screaming shrilly.
During the space of one brief moment, a dreadful and appalling moment,there was a wild strange hunting up and down the narrow space of thatupper attic, cumbered with lumber and old, disused furniture.
Round and round Deede Dawson fled, screaming still in a high shrill way,like some wild thing in pain, and hard upon him followed Rupert, nor hadthey gone a second time about that room before Rupert had Deede Dawsonin a fast embrace, his arms about the other's middle.
One last great cry Deede Dawson gave when Rupert seized him, and thenwas silent as Rupert lifted him and swung him high at arm's length.
As a child in play sports with its doll, so Rupert swung Deede Dawsontwice about his head, round and round and then loosed him so that hewent hurling through the air with awful force, like a stone shot from acatapult, clean through the window through which Rupert had the momentbefore tossed his pistol with but little more apparent effort.
Right through the window, bearing panes and sash with him, Deede Dawsonflew with the impetus of that great throw and out beyond and down,turning over and over the while, down through the empty air to fall andbe shattered like a piece of worthless crockery on the stone thresholdof the outhouse door.
Surprised to find himself alone, Rupert put his hand to his forehead andlooked vacantly around.
"My God, what have I done?" he thought.
He was trembling violently, and the fury of the passion that hadpossessed him and had given his mighty muscles a force more than human,was still upon him.
Going to the window, he looked out, for he did not quite know what hadhappened and from it he looked back at the wardrobe door.
"Oh, yes," he said. "Yes."
He ran to it and tore open the door and from within very tenderly andgently he lifted down the half-swooning Ella who, securely gagged andtightly bound, had been thrust into its interior to conceal her fromhim.
Hurriedly he freed her from her bonds and from the handkerchief that wastied over her mouth and holding her in his arms like a child, pressingher close to his heart, he carried her lightly out of that dreadfulroom.
Only once did she stir, only once did she speak, when lifting her pale,strained face to him she murmured very faintly something in which hejust caught the words:
"Deede Dawson."
"He'll trouble us no more nor any one else, I think," answered Rupert,and she said no more but snuggled down in his arms as though with afeeling of perfect security and safety.
He took her to her own room and left her with her mother, and then wentdown to the hall and took a chair and sat at the front door.
All at once he felt very tired and one of his shoulders hurt him, for hehad strained a muscle there rather badly.
His one desire was to rest, and he did not even trouble to go round tothe back of the house to see what had happened to Deede Dawson, thoughindeed that was not a point on which he entertained much doubt.
For a long time he sat there quietly, till at last his father arrived ina motor-car from Wreste Abbey, together with a police-inspector from thecounty town whom he had picked up on the way.
Rupert took them into the room where Deede Dawson's chessmen and theboard were still standing and told them as briefly as he could what hadhappened since the first day when he had left his home to try to traceout and defeat the plot hatched by Walter Dunsmore and Deede Dawson.
"You people wouldn't act," he said to the inspector. "You said therewas no evidence, no proof, and I daresay you were right enough from thelegal point of view. But it was plain enough to me that there wassome sort of conspiracy against my uncle's life, I thought against myfather's as well, but I was not sure of that at first. It was throughpoor Charley Wright I became so certain. He found out things and told meabout them; but for him the first attempt to poison my uncle would havesucceeded. Even then we had still no evidence to prove the reality ofour suspicions, for Walter destroyed it, by accident, I thought at thetime, purposely, as I know now. It was something Walter said that gaveCharley the idea of coming here. Then he vanished. He must have rousedtheir suspicions somehow, and they killed him. But again Walter put usall off the scent by his story of having seen Charley in London, so thatit was there the search for him was made, and no one ever thought ofBittermeads. I never suspected Walter, such an idea never entered myhead; but luckily I didn't tell him of my idea of coming to Bittermeadsmyself to try to find out what was really going on here. He knew nothingof where I was till I told him that day at Wreste Abbey, then of coursehe came over here at once. I thought it was anxiety for my safety, but Iexpect really it was to warn his friends. When I saw him here that nightI told him every single thing, I trusted the carrying-out of everythingI had arranged to him. If it hadn't been for a note Miss Cayley wroteme to warn me, I should have walked right into the trap and so would myfather too."
The police-inspector asked a few questions and then made a search of theroom which resulted in the discovery of quite sufficient proof of theguilt of Deede Dawson and of Walter Dunsmore.
Among these proofs was also a hastily-scribbled note from Walter thatsolved the mystery of John Clive's death. It was not signed, but bothGeneral Dunsmore and Rupert knew his writing and were prepared to swearto it. Beginning abruptly and scribbled on a torn scrap of paper, itran:
"I found Clive where you said, lucky you got hold of the note and readit before she sent it, for no doubt she meant to warn him. Take care shegets no chance of the sort again. I did Clive's business all right.She saw me and I think recognized me from that time she saw me over thepacking-case business, before I took it out to sink it at sea. At anyrate, she ran off in a great hurry. If you aren't careful, she'll maketrouble yet."
"Apparently," remarked the inspector when he had read this aloud, "theyoung lady was very luckily not watched closely enough and did maketrouble for them. Could I see her, do you think?"
"I don't know, I'll go and ask," Rupert said.
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Ella was still very shaken, but she consented to see the inspector, andthey all went together to her room where she was lying on her bed withher mother fussing nervously about her.
She told them in as few words as possible the story of how she hadalways disliked and mistrusted the man whom so unfortunately her motherhad married, and how gradually her suspicions strengthened till shebecame certain that he was involved in many unlawful deeds.
But always her inner certainty had fallen short of absolute proof, socareful had he been in all he did.
"I knew I knew," she said. "But there was nothing I really knew. Andhe made me do all sorts of things for him. I wouldn't have cared formyself, but if I tried to refuse he made mother suffer. She was very,very frightened of him, but she would never leave him. She didn't dare.There was one night he made me go very late with a packing-case full ofsilver things he had, and he wouldn't tell me where he had got them. Ibelieve he stole them all, but I helped him pack them, and I took themaway the night Mr. Dunsmore came and gave them to a man wearing a mask.My stepfather said it was just a secret family matter he was helpingsome friends in, and later on I saw the same man in the woods near hereone day--the day Mr. Clive was killed by the poachers--and when hecame another time to the house I thought I must try to find out what hewanted. I listened while they talked and they said such strange thingsI made up my mind to try to warn Mr. Dunsmore, for I was sure there wassomething they were plotting."
"There was indeed," said Rupert grimly. "And but for that warning yousent me they would have succeeded."
"Somehow they found out what I had done," Ella continued. "As soon asI got back he kept looking at me so strangely. I was afraid--I had beenafraid a long time, for that matter--but I tried not to show it. In theafternoon he told me to go up to the attic. He said he wanted me to helphim pack some silver. It was the same silver I had packed before; forsome reason he had got it back again. This time I had to pack it in thelittle boxes, and after I had finished I waited up there till suddenlyhe ran in very quickly and looking very excited. He said I had betrayedthem, and should suffer for it, and he took some rope and he tied me astightly as he could, and tied a great handkerchief over my mouth, andpushed me inside the wardrobe and locked it. I think he would havekilled me then only he was afraid of Mr. Dunsmore, and very anxious toknow what had happened, and why Mr. Dunsmore had come home, and if therewas any danger. And I was a long time there, and I heard a great noise,and then Mr. Dunsmore opened the door and took me out."