CHAPTER VI. A DISCOVERY
"What do you mean?" Dunn asked quickly. The matted growth of hair on hisface served well to hide any change of expression, but his eyes betrayedhim with their look of surprise and discomfiture, and in her own clearand steady glance appeared now a kind of puzzled mockery as if sheunderstood well that all he did was done for some purpose, though whatthat purpose was still perplexed her.
"I mean," she said slowly, "well--what do I mean? I am only askinga question. Are you a burglar--or have you come here for some otherreason?"
"I don't know what you're getting at," he grumbled. "Think I'm here forfun? Not me. Come and sit on this chair and put your hands behind youand don't make a noise, or scream, or anything, not if you value yourlife."
"I don't know that I do very much," she answered with a manner ofextreme bitterness, but more as if speaking to herself than to him.
She did as he ordered, and he proceeded to tie her wrists together andto fasten them to the back of the chair on which she had seated herself.He was careful not to draw the cords too tight, but at the same time hemade the fastening secure.
"You won't disturb mother, will you?" she asked quietly when he hadfinished. "Her room's the one at the end of the passage."
"I don't want to disturb any one," he answered. "I only want to get offquietly. I won't gag you, but don't you try to make any noise, if you doI'll come back. Understand?"
"Oh, perfectly," she answered. "May I ask one question? Do you feel veryproud of yourself just now?"
He did not answer, but went out of the room quickly, and he had animpression that she smiled as she watched him go, and that her smile wasbitter and a little contemptuous.
"What a girl," he muttered. "She scored every time. I didn't find out athing, she didn't do anything I expected or wanted her to. She seemed asif she spotted me right off--I wonder if she did? I wonder if she couldbe trusted?"
But then he thought of that photograph on the mantelpiece and his lookgrew stern and hard again. He was careful to avoid the room the girl hadindicated as occupied by her mother, but of all the others on that floorhe made a hasty search without discovering anything to interest him oranything of the least importance or at all unusual.
From the wide landing in the centre of the house a narrow stairway,hidden away behind an angle of the wall so that one did not notice itat first, led above to three large attics with steeply-sloping roofs andevidently designed more for storage purposes than for habitation.
The doors of two of these were open and within was merely a collectionof such lumber as soon accumulates in any house.
The door of the third attic was locked, but by aid of the jemmy he stillcarried, he forced it open without difficulty.
Within was nothing but a square packing-case, standing in the middle ofthe floor. Otherwise the light of the electric torch he flashed aroundshowed only the bare boarding of the floor and the bare plastered walls.
Near the packing-case a hammer and some nails lay on the floor and thelid was in position but was not fastened, as though some interruptionhad occurred before the task of nailing it down could be completed.
Dunn noted that one nail had been driven home, and he was on the pointof leaving the attic, for he knew he had not much time and hoped thatdownstairs he would be able to make some discoveries of importance, whenit occurred to him that it might be wise to see what was in this case,the nailing down the lid of which had not been completed.
He crossed the room to it, and without drawing the one nail, pushed backthe lid which pivoted on it quite easily.
Within appeared a covering of coarse sacking. He pulled this away witha careless hand, and beneath the beam of his electric torch showed thepale and dreadful features of a dead man--of a man, the center of whoseforehead showed the small round hole where a bullet had entered in; ofa man whose still-recognizable features were those of the photograph onthe mantel-piece of the room downstairs, the photograph that was signed:
"Devotedly yours, Charley Wright."
For a long time Robert Dunn stood, looking down in silence at that deadface which was hardly more still, more rigid than his own.
He shivered, for he felt very cold. It was as though the coldness of thedeath in whose presence he stood had laid its chilly hand on him also.
At last he stirred and looked about him with a bewildered air, thencarefully and with a reverent hand, he put back the sackcloth covering.
"So I've found you, Charley," he whispered. "Found you at last."
He replaced the lid, leaving everything as it had been when he enteredthe attic, and stood for a time, trying to collect his thoughts whichthe shock of this dreadful discovery had so disordered, and to decidewhat to do next.
"But, then, that's simple," he thought. "I must go straight to thepolice and bring them here. They said they wanted proof; they said I hadnothing to go on but bare suspicion. But that's evidence enough to hangDeede Dawson--the girl, too, perhaps."
Then he wondered whether it could be that she knew nothing and wasinnocent of all part or share in this dreadful deed. But how could thatbe possible? How could it be that such a crime committed in the house inwhich she lived could remain unknown to her?
On the other hand, when he thought of her clear, candid eyes; when heremembered her gentle beauty, it did not seem conceivable that behindthem could lie hidden the tigerish soul of a murderess.
"That's only sentiment, though," he muttered. "Nothing more. Beautifulwomen have been rotten bad through and through before today. There'snothing for me to do but to go and inform the police, and get them hereas soon as possible. If she's innocent, I suppose she'll be able toprove it."
He hesitated a moment, as he thought of how he had left her, bound and aprisoner.
It seemed brutal to leave her like that while he was away, for he wouldprobably be some time absent. But with a hard look, he told himself thatwhatever pain she suffered she must endure it.
His first and sole thought must be to bring to justice the murderers ofhis unfortunate friend; and to secure, too, thereby, the success almostcertainly of his own mission.
To release her and leave her at liberty might endanger the attainment ofboth those ends, and so she must remain a prisoner.
"Only," he muttered, "if she knew the attic almost over her head heldsuch a secret, why, didn't she take the chance I gave her of gettinghold of my revolver? That she didn't, looks as if she knew nothing."
But then he thought again of the photograph in her room and rememberedthat agony of grief to which she had been surrendering herself when hefirst saw her. Now those passionate tears of hers seemed to him likeremorse.
"I'll leave her where she is," he decided again. "I can't help it; Imustn't run any risks. My first duty is to get the police here and haveDeede Dawson arrested."
He went down the stairs still deep in thought, and when he reached thelanding below he would not even go to make sure that his captive wasstill secure.
An obscure feeling that he did not wish to see her, and still more thathe did not wish her to see him, prevented him.
He descended the second flight of steps to the hall, taking fewerprecautions to avoid making a noise and still very deep in thought.
For some time he had had but little hope that young Charley Wright stilllived.
Nevertheless, the dreadful discovery he had made in the attic above hadaffected him profoundly, and left his mind in a chaos of emotions sothat he was for the time much less acutely watchful than usual.
They had spent their boyhood together, and he remembered a thousandincidents of their childhood. They had been at school and collegetogether. And how brilliantly Charley had always done at work and play,surmounting every difficulty with a laugh, as if it were merely some newand specially amusing jest!
Every one had thought well of him, every one had believed that hisfuture career would be brilliant. Now it had ended in this obscure anddreadful fashion, as ends the life of a trapp
ed rat.
Dunn found himself hardly able to realize that it was really so,and through all the confused medley of his thoughts there danced andflickered his memory of a young and lovely face, now tear-stained, nowsmiling, now pale with terror, now calmly disdainful.
"Can she have known?" he muttered. "She must have known--she can't haveknown--it's not possible either way."
He shuddered and as he put his foot on the lowest stair he raised hishands to cover his face as though to shut out the visions that passedbefore him.
Another step forward he took in the darkness, and all at once thereflashed upon him the light of a strong electric torch, suddenly switchedon.
"Put up your hands," said a voice sharply. "Or you're a dead man."
He looked bewilderedly, taken altogether by surprise, and saw he wasfaced by a fat little man with a smooth, chubby, smiling face and eyesthat were cold and grey and deadly, and who held in one hand a revolverlevelled at his heart.
"Put up your hands," this newcomer said again, his voice level and calm,his eyes intent and deadly. "Put up your hands or I fire."