CHAPTER IV. A WOMAN WEEPS
Cautiously he glided nearer, moving as noiselessly as any shadow,seeming indeed but one shadow the more in the heavy surroundingdarkness.
The persistent scratching noise continued, and Dunn was now so close hecould have put out his hand and touched the shoulder of the man who wascausing it and who still, intent and busy, had not the least idea of theother's proximity.
A faint smile touched Dunn's lips. The situation seemed not to bewithout a grim humour, for if one-half of what he suspected were true,one might as sensibly and safely attempt to break into the condemnedcell at Pentonville Gaol as into this quiet house.
But then, was it perhaps possible that this fellow, working away sounconcernedly, within arm's-length of him, was in reality one of them,seeking to obtain admittance in this way for some reason of his own,some private treachery, it might be, or some dispute? To Dunn thatdid not seem likely. More probably the fellow was merely anordinary burglar--some local practitioner of the housebreaking art,perhaps--whose ill-fortune it was to have hit upon this house to robwithout his having the least idea of the nature of the place he wastrying to enter.
"He might prove a useful recruit for them, though," Dunn thought, and asudden idea flashed into his mind, vivid and startling.
For one moment he thought intently, weighing in his mind this idea thathad come to him so suddenly. He was not blind to the risks it involved,but his eager temperament always inclined him to the most direct andoften to the most dangerous course. His mind was made up, his plan ofaction decided.
The scratching of the burglar's tool upon the glass ceased. Already hehad smeared treacle over the square of glass he intended to remove andhad covered it with paper so as to be able to take it out easily and inone piece without the risk of falling fragments betraying him.
Through the gap thus made he thrust his arm and made sure there were noalarms fitted and no obstacles in the way of his easy entrance.
Cautiously he unfastened the window and cautiously and silently liftedthe sash, and when he had done so he paused and listened for a space tomake sure no one was stirring and that no alarm had been caused withinthe house.
Still very cautiously and with the utmost precaution to avoid makingeven the least noise, he put one knee upon the window-sill, preparatoryto climbing in, and as he did so Dunn touched him lightly on theshoulder.
"Well, my man, what are you up to?" he said softly. And without aword, without giving the least warning, the burglar, a man evidentlyof determination and resource, swung round and aimed at Dunn's head atremendous blow with the heavy iron jemmy he held in his right hand.
But Dunn was not unprepared for an attack and those bright, keen eyes ofhis seemed able to see as well in the dark as in the light. He threw uphis left hand and caught the other's wrist before that deadly blow heaimed could descend and at the same instant he dashed his own clenchedfist full into the burglar's face.
As it happened, more by good luck than intended aim, the blow took himon the point of the chin. He dropped instantly, collapsing in on himselfas falls a pole-axed bullock, and lay, unconscious, in a crumpled heapon the ground.
For a little Dunn waited, crouching above him and listening for theleast sound to show that their brief scuffle had been heard.
But it had all passed nearly as silently as quickly. Within the houseeverything remained silent, there was no sound audible, no gleam oflight to show that any of the inmates had been disturbed.
Taking from his pocket a small electric flash-lamp Dunn turned its lighton his victim.
He seemed a man of middle age with a brutal, heavy-jawed face and a low,receding forehead. His lips, a little apart, showed yellow, irregularteeth, of which two at the front of the lower jaw had been broken, andthe scar of an old wound, running from the corner of his left eye downto the centre of his cheek, added to the sinister and forbidding aspecthe bore.
His build was heavy and powerful and near by, where he had dropped itwhen he fell, lay the jemmy with which he had struck at Dunn. It wasa heavy, ugly-looking thing, about two feet in length and with one endnearly as sharp as that of a chisel.
Dunn picked it up and felt it thoughtfully.
"Just as well I got my blow in first," he mused. "If he had landed thatfairly on my skull I don't think anything else in this world would everhave interested me any more."
Stooping over the unconscious man, he felt in his pockets and found anugly-looking revolver, fully loaded, a handful of cartridges, a coilof thin rope, an electric torch, a tiny dark lantern no bigger than amatch-box, and so arranged that the single drop of light it permittedto escape fell on one spot only, a bunch of curiously-shaped wires Dunnrightly guessed to be skeleton keys used for opening locks quietly,together with some tobacco, a pipe, a little money, and a few otherpersonal belongings of no special interest or significance.
These Dunn replaced where he had found them, but the revolver, the rope,the torch, the dark lantern, and the bunch of wires he took possessionof.
He noticed also that the man was wearing rubber-soled boots and rubbergloves, and these last he also kept. Stooping, he lifted the unconsciousman on to his shoulder and carried him with perfect ease and at a quickpace out of the garden and across the road to the common opposite,where, in a convenient spot, behind some furze bushes, he laid him down.
"When he comes round," Dunn muttered. "He won't know where he is orwhat's happened, and probably his one idea will be to clear off asquickly as possible. I don't suppose he'll interfere with me at all."
Then a new idea seemed to strike him, and he hurriedly removed his owncoat and trousers and boots and exchanged them for those the burglar waswearing.
They were not a good fit, but he could get them on and the idea in hismind was that if the police of the district began searching, as verylikely they would, for Mr. John Clive's assailant, and if they haddiscovered any clues in the shape of footprints or torn bits of clothingor buttons--and Dunn knew his attire had suffered considerably duringthe struggle--then it would be as well that such clues should lead notto him, but to this other man, who, if he were innocent on that score,had at any rate been guilty of attempting to carry out a much worseoffence.
"I'm afraid your luck's out, old chap," Dunn muttered, apostrophizingthe unconscious man. "But you did your best to brain me, and that givesme a sort of right to make you useful. Besides, if the police do run youin, it won't mean anything worse than a few questions it'll be your ownfault if you can't answer. Anyhow, I can't afford to run the risk ofsome blundering fool of a policeman trying to arrest me for assaultingthe local magnate."
Much relieved in mind, for he had been greatly worried by a fear thatthis encounter with John Clive might lead to highly inconvenient legalproceedings, he left the unlucky burglar lying in the shelter of thefurze bushes and returned to the house.
All was as he had left it, the open window gaped widely, almost invitingentrance, and he climbed silently within. The apartment in which hefound himself was apparently the drawing-room and he felt his waycautiously and slowly across it, moving with infinite care so as toavoid making even the least noise.
Reaching the door, he opened it and went out into the hall. All was darkand silent. He permitted himself here to flash on his electric torch fora moment, and he saw that the hall was spacious and used as a lounge,for there were several chairs clustered in its centre, opposite thefireplace. There were two or three doors opening from it, and almostopposite where he stood were the stairs, a broad flight leading to awide landing above.
Still with the same extreme silence and care, he began to ascend thesestairs and when he was about half-way up he became aware of a faint andstrange sound that came trembling through the silence and stillness ofthe night.
What it was he could not imagine. He listened for a time and thenresumed his silent progress with even more care than previously, andonly when he reached the landing did he understand that this faint andlow sound he heard was caused by a woman weeping ver
y softly in one ofthe rooms near by.
Silently he crossed the landing in the direction whence the sound seemedto come. Now, too, he saw a thread of light showing beneath a door at alittle distance, and when he crept up to it and listened he could hearfor certain that it was from within this room that there came the soundof muffled, passionate weeping.
The door was closed, but he turned the handle so carefully that he madenot the least sound and very cautiously he began to push the door back,the tiniest fraction of an inch at a time, so that even one watchingclosely could never have said that it moved.
When, after a long time, during which the muffled weeping never ceased,he had it open an inch or two, he leaned forward and peeped within.
It was a bed-chamber, and, crouching on the floor near the fireplace, infront of a low arm-chair, her head hidden on her arms and resting onthe seat of the chair, was the figure of a girl. She had made nopreparations for retiring, and by the frock she wore Dunn recognized heras the girl he had seen on the veranda bidding good-bye to John Clive.
The sound of her weeping was very pitiful, her attitude was full of anutter and poignant despair, there was something touching in the extremein the utter abandonment to grief shown by this young and lovelycreature who seemed framed only for joy and laughter.
The stern features and hard eyes of the unseen watcher softened, thenall at once they grew like tempered steel again.
For on the mantlepiece, just above where the weeping girl crouched,stood a photograph--the photograph of a young and good-looking,gaily-smiling man. Across it, in a boyish and somewhat unformed hand,was written,
"Devotedly yours, Charley Wright."
It was this photograph that had caught Dunn's eyes. Both it and thewriting and the signature he recognized, and his look was very stern,his eyes as cold as death itself, as slowly, slowly he pushed back thedoor of the room another inch or so.