The Bittermeads Mystery

E >> E. R. Punshon >> The Bittermeads Mystery

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He no longer doubted, and for a moment all things swam together
before him and he felt dizzy and a little sick, and so weak he
staggered and nearly fell, but recovered himself in time.

The sensation passed and he saw Deede Dawson as it were a long way
off, and between them the packing-case, huge, monstrous, and evil,
like a thing of dread from some other world. Violent shudderings
swept though him one after the other, and he was aware that Deede
Dawson was speaking again.

"What did you say?" he asked vacantly, when the other paused.

"You look ill," Deede Dawson answered. "Anything wrong? Why have
you come back so soon? Have you failed?"

Rupert passed his hand before his eyes to clear away the mist that
hung there and that hampered his sight.

He perceived that Deede Dawson held his right hand in the pocket
of his coat, grasping something that bulged out curiously.

He divined that it was a pistol, and that Deede Dawson was ready
to shoot at any moment, but that he wished very greatly to know
first of all what had happened and why Rupert had returned so soon
and whether there was immediate necessity for flight or not.

That he was uneasy was certain, for his cold eyes showed a
hesitation and a doubt such as Rupert had never seen in them before.

"I'll tell you what's happened," Rupert heard himself saying
hoarsely. "If you'll tell me what's in there."

"A bargain, eh?" Deede Dawson said. "It's easy enough. You can
look for yourself if you unscrew the lid, but then, after all, why
should we take all that trouble?"

As he spoke his pistol showed in his hand, and at once the heavy
glass inkpot Rupert had held all this time flew straight and true,
and with tremendous force, at Deede Dawson's head.

He avoided it only by the extreme rapidity with which he dropped
behind the packing-case, and it flew over his head and crashed
against the centre panel of a big wardrobe that stood in one
corner of the room, splitting the panel it struck from top to
bottom.

Following it, Rupert hurled himself forward with one great spring,
but agile as a cat that leaps away from the mastiff's teeth, Deede
Dawson slipped from his grasp to the other side of the room. In
doing so he knocked his arm against the corner of the packing-case,
so that his revolver fell to the ground.

With a shout Rupert stooped and seized it, and straightened himself
to see that Deede Dawson had already another revolver in his hand
--a second one that he had drawn from an inner pocket.

They remained very still, watching each other intently, neither
eager to fire, since both wished first to make the other speak. For
Rupert desired very greatly that Deede Dawson should tell him where
Ella was, and Deede Dawson needed that Rupert should explain what
had gone wrong, and how imminent and great was the danger that
therefore most likely threatened him.

Each knew, too, that the slightest movement he made would set the
other shooting, and each realized that in that close and narrow
space any exchange of shots must almost of necessity mean the death
of both, since both were cool and deadly marksmen, well accustomed
to the use of the revolver.

Deede Dawson was the first to speak.

"Well, what next?" he said. "If that inkpot of yours had hit me it
would pretty well have knocked my brains out, and if I hadn't hit
my elbow against the corner of the packing-case I would have had you
shot through with holes like a sieve by now. So far the score's
even. Let's chat a bit, and see if we can't come to some arrangement.
Look, I'll show I trust you."

As he spoke he laid down, much to Rupert's surprise, and to his
equal suspicion, his revolver on the top of a moth-eaten roll of
old carpet that leaned against the wall near where he was standing.

"You see, I trust you," he said once more.

"Take your pistol up again," answered Rupert grimly. "I do not
trust you."

"Ah, that's a pity." Deede Dawson smiled, making no effort to do as
the other said. "You see, we are both good shots, and if we start
blazing away at each other up here we shall both be leaking pretty
badly before long. That's a prospect that has no attraction for me;
I don't know if it has for you. But there are things I can tell you
that might be interesting, and things you can tell me I want to know.
Why not exchange a little information, and then separate calmly,
rather than indulge in pistol practice that can only mean the death
of us both? For if your first bullet goes though my brain I swear
my first will be in your heart."

"Likely enough," agreed Rupert, "but worth while perhaps."

"Oh, that's fanaticism," Deede Dawson answered. "Flattering perhaps
to me, but not quite reasonable, eh?"

"There's only one thing I want to know from you," Rupert said slowly.

"Then why not ask it, why not agree to the little arrangement I
suggest, eh? Eh, Rupert Dunsmore?"

"You know me, then?"

"Oh, long enough."

"Where is Ella?"

Deede Dawson laughed again.

"That's a thing I know and you don't," he said. "Well, she's safe
away in London by this time."

"That's a lie, for her mother's here still," answered Rupert, even
though his heart leapt merely to hear the words.

"Unbelieving Thomas," smiled the other. "Well, then, she is where
she is, and that you can find out for yourself. But I'll make
another suggestion. We are both good shots, and if we start to fire
we shall kill each other. I am certain of killing you, but I shan't
escape myself. Well, then, why not toss for it? Equal chances for
both, and certain safety for one. Will you toss me, the one who
loses to give up his pistol to the other?"

"It seems to me a good idea," Deede Dawson argued. "Here we are
watching each other like cats, and knowing that the least movement
of either will start the other off, and both of us pulling trigger
as hard as we can. My idea would mean a chance for one. Well,
let's try another way; the best shot to win. You don't trust me,
but I will you."

Leaving his pistol lying where he had put it down, he crossed the
attic, and with a pencil he took from his pocket drew a circle on
the panel of the wardrobe door that Rupert had split with the
inkpot he had thrown.

In the centre of the circle he marked a dot, and turned smilingly
to the frowning and suspicious Rupert.

"There you are," he said, and made another circle near the first
one. "Now you put a bullet into the middle of this circle and I'll
put one afterwards through the second circle, and the one who is
nearest to the dots I've marked, wins. What have you to say to that?
Seems to me better than our killing each other. Isn't it?"

"I think you're playing the fool for some reason of your own,"
answered Rupert. "There's only one thing I want to know from you.
Where is Ella?"

"Let me know how you can shoot," answered Deede Dawson, "and I'll
tell you, by all that's holy, I will."

Rupert hesitated. He did not understand all this, he could not
imagine what motive was in Deede Dawson's mind, though it was
certainly true enough that once they began shooting at each other
neither man was at all likely to survive, for Rupert knew he would
not miss and he did not think Deede Dawson would either.

Above all, there was the one thing he wished to know, the one
consideration that weighed with him above all others--what had
become of Ella? And this time there had been in Deede Dawson's
voice an accent of twisted and malign sincerity that seemed to
say he really would be willing to tell the truth about her if
Rupert would gratify his whim about this sort of shooting-match
that he was suggesting.

The purpose of it Rupert could not understand, but it did not seem
to him there would be any risk of harm in agreeing, for Deede
Dawson was standing so far away from his own weapon he could not
well be contemplating any immediate mischief or treachery.

It did occur to him that the pistol he held might be loaded in one
chamber only and that Deede Dawson might be scheming to induce him
to throw away his solitary cartridge.

But a glance reassured him on that point.

"Let me see how you can shoot," Deede Dawson repeated, leaning
carelessly with folded arms against the wall a little distance away.
"And I promise you I'll tell you where Ella is."

Rupert lifted his pistol and was indeed on the very point of firing
when he caught a glimpse of such evil triumph and delight in Deede
Dawson's cold eyes that he hesitated and lowered the weapon, and at
the same time, looking more closely, searching more intently for
some indication of Deede Dawson's hidden purpose, he noticed, caught
in the crack of the wardrobe door, a tiny shred of some blue material
only just visible.

He remembered that sometimes of an afternoon Ella had been accustomed
to wear a frock made of a material exactly like that of which so tiny
a fragment showed now in the crack of the wardrobe door.

CHAPTER XXX

SOME EXPLANATIONS

He turned quickly towards Deede Dawson. Their eyes met, and in that
mutual glance Rupert Dunsmore read that his suspicions were correct
and Deede 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
to seize again the revolver he had laid down in the hope of enticing
Rupert into the awful snare prepared for him.

But quick as he was, Rupert was quicker still, and as Deede Dawson
leaped he lifted his pistol and fired, though his aim was not at
the man, but at the revolver lying on the top of the roll of carpet
where Deede Dawson had placed it.

The bullet, for Rupert was a man who seldom missed, struck the
weapon fair and whirled it, shattered and useless, to the floor.
Deede Dawson, whose hand had been already outstretched to seize it,
drew back with a snarl that was more like the cry of a trapped wolf
than any sound produced from human lips.

Still, Rupert did not speak. With the smoking pistol in his hand
he watched silently and steadily his helpless enemy who, for his
part, was silent, 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
sullen defiance.

"Shoot away, why don't you shoot?" he sneered. "Mind you don't miss.
I trusted you when I put my revolver down and I was a fool, but I
thought you 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
the sound of the revolver striking the outhouse roof twenty feet
below and rebounding thence to the paved kitchen yard beneath, and
then all was quiet again.

"I only need my hands for you," said Rupert softly, as softly as a
mother coos to her drowsy babe. "My hands for you."

For the first time Deede Dawson seemed to fear, for, indeed, there
was that in Rupert Dunsmore's eyes to rouse fear in any man. With
a sudden swift spring, Rupert leaped forward and Deede Dawson, not
daring to abide 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 that upper 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 had they gone a second time about that room before Rupert had
Deede Dawson in a fast embrace, his arms about the other's middle.

One last great cry Deede Dawson gave when Rupert seized him, and
then was 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
Dawson twice about his head, round and round and then loosed him
so that he went hurling through the air with awful force, like a
stone shot from a catapult, clean through the window through which
Rupert had the moment before tossed his pistol with but little
more apparent effort.

Right through the window, bearing panes and sash with him, Deede
Dawson flew 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 and be shattered like a piece of worthless crockery
on the stone threshold of the outhouse door.

Surprised to find himself alone, Rupert put his hand to his
forehead and looked vacantly around.

"My God, what have I done?" he thought.

He was trembling violently, and the fury of the passion that had
possessed 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
had happened 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
and gently he lifted down the half-swooning Ella who, securely
gagged and tightly bound, had been thrust into its interior to
conceal her from him.

Hurriedly he freed her from her bonds and from the handkerchief that
was tied over her mouth and holding her in his arms like a child,
pressing her close to his heart, he carried her lightly out of that
dreadful room.

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 he just 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 a feeling of perfect security and safety.

He took her to her own room and left her with her mother, and then
went down 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 he had strained a muscle there rather badly.

His one desire was to rest, and he did not even trouble to go round
to the back of the house to see what had happened to Deede Dawson,
though indeed 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 in a motor-car from Wreste Abbey, together with a
police-inspector from the county town whom he had picked up on
the way.

Rupert took them into the room where Deede Dawson's chessmen and
the board were still standing and told them as briefly as he could
what had happened since the first day when he had left his home
to try to trace out and defeat the plot hatched by Walter Dunsmore
and Deede Dawson.

"You people wouldn't act," he said to the inspector. "You said
there was no evidence, no proof, and I daresay you were right
enough from the legal point of view. But it was plain enough to
me that there was some sort of conspiracy against my uncle's life,
I thought against my father's as well, but I was not sure of that
at first. It was through poor Charley Wright I became so certain.
He found out things and told me about them; but for him the first
attempt to poison my uncle would have succeeded. Even then we
had still no evidence to prove the reality of our suspicions, for
Walter destroyed it, by accident, I thought at the time, purposely,
as I know now. It was something Walter said that gave Charley the
idea of coming here. Then he vanished. He must have roused their
suspicions somehow, and they killed him. But again Walter put us
all off the scent by his story of having seen Charley in London,
so that it was there the search for him was made, and no one ever
thought of Bittermeads. I never suspected Walter, such an idea
never entered my head; but luckily I didn't tell him of my idea of
coming to Bittermeads myself to try to find out what was really
going on here. He knew nothing of where I was till I told him that
day at Wreste Abbey, then of course he came over here at once. I
thought it was anxiety for my safety, but I expect really it was
to warn his friends. When I saw him here that night I told him
every single thing, I trusted the carrying-out of everything I had
arranged to him. If it hadn't been for a note Miss Cayley wrote
me to warn me, I should have walked right into the trap and so would
my father too."

The police-inspector asked a few questions and then made a search
of the room which resulted in the discovery of quite sufficient
proof of the guilt of Deede Dawson and of Walter Dunsmore.

Among these proofs was also a hastily-scribbled note from Walter
that solved the mystery of John Clive's death. It was not signed,
but both General Dunsmore and Rupert knew his writing and were
prepared to swear to it. Beginning abruptly and scribbled on a
torn scrap of paper, it ran:

"I found Clive where you said, lucky you got hold of the note and
read it before she sent it, for no doubt she meant to warn him.
Take care she gets 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 the packing-case business, before I took it
out to sink it at sea. At any rate, she ran off in a great hurry.
If you aren't careful, she'll make trouble yet."

"Apparently," remarked the inspector when he had read this aloud,
"the young lady was very luckily not watched closely enough and
did make trouble for them. Could I see her, do you think?"

"I don't know, I'll go and ask," Rupert said.

Ella was still very shaken, but she consented to see the inspector,
and they all went together to her room where she was lying on her
bed with her mother fussing nervously about her.

She told them in as few words as possible the story of how she had
always disliked and mistrusted the man whom so unfortunately her
mother had married, and how gradually her suspicions strengthened
till she became certain that he was involved in many unlawful deeds.

But always her inner certainty had fallen short of absolute proof,
so careful had he been in all he did.

"I knew I knew," she said. "But there was nothing I really knew.
And he made me do all sorts of things for him. I wouldn't have
cared for myself, 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 of silver things he had, and he wouldn't tell
me where he had got them. I believe he stole them all, but I helped
him pack them, and I took them away 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 helping some friends in, and later on I
saw the same man in the woods near here one day--the day Mr. Clive
was killed by the poachers--and when he came another time to the
house I thought I must try to find out what he wanted. I listened
while they talked and they said such strange things I made up my
mind to try to warn Mr. Dunsmore, for I was sure there was something
they were plotting."

"There was indeed," said Rupert grimly. "And but for that warning
you sent me they would have succeeded."

"Somehow they found out what I had done," Ella continued. "As soon
as I got back he kept looking at me so strangely. I was afraid--I
had been afraid a long time, for that matter--but I tried not to
show it. In the afternoon he told me to go up to the attic. He
said he wanted me to help him pack some silver. It was the same
silver I had packed before; for some reason he had got it back again.
This time I had to pack it in the little boxes, and after I had
finished I waited up there till suddenly he ran in very quickly
and looking very excited. He said I had betrayed them, and should
suffer for it, and he took some rope and he tied me as tightly as
he could, and tied a great handkerchief over my mouth, and pushed
me inside the wardrobe and locked it. I think he would have
killed me then only he was afraid of Mr. Dunsmore, and very anxious
to know what had happened, and why Mr. Dunsmore had come home, and
if there was 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."

CHAPTER XXXI

CONCLUSION

Three months had passed, and in a quiet little cottage on the
outskirts of a small country town, situated in one of the most
beautiful and peaceful vales of the south-west country, Ella was
slowly recovering from the shock of the dreadful experiences
through which she had passed.

She had been ill for some weeks, but her mother, fussily
incompetent at most times, was always at her best when sickness
came, and she had nursed her daughter devotedly and successfully.

As soon as possible they had come to this quiet little place where
people, busy with their own affairs and the important progress of
the town, had scarcely heard of what the newspapers of the day
called "The Great Chobham Sensation."

But, in fact, very much to Rupert's relief, comparatively little
had been made known publicly, and the whole affair had attracted
wonderfully little attention.

The one public proceeding had been the inquest of Deede Dawson, and
that the coroner, at the request of the police eagerly searching for
Walter Dunsmore, had made as brief and formal as possible. Under his
direction the jury had returned a verdict of "justifiable homicide,"
and Ella's illness had had at least one good result of making it
impossible for her to attend to give her evidence in person.

At a trial, of course, everything would have had to be told in full,
but both Allen, Deede Dawson's accomplice, and Walter Dunsmore, his
instigator and employer, had vanished utterly.

For Walter the search was very hot, but so far entirely without
result. Now could Allen be found. He was identified with a fair
degree of certainty as an old criminal well known to the authorities,
and it was thought almost certain that he had had previous dealings
with Deede Dawson, and knew enough about him to be able to force
himself into Bittermeads.

Of the actual plot in operation there he most likely knew little
or nothing, but probably Deede Dawson thought he might be useful,
and the store of silver found in the attic that Ella had been
employed in packing ready for removal was identified as part of
the plunder from a recent burglary in a northern town.

It was thought, therefore, that both Allen and Deede Dawson might
have been concerned in that affair, that Deede Dawson had managed
to secure the greater share of the booty, and that Allen, on the
night when Rupert found him breaking into Bittermeads, was
endeavouring to get hold of the silver for himself.

But the actual facts are not likely now ever to be known, for from
that day to this nothing has been heard of Allen. His old haunts
know him no more, and to his record, carefully preserved at Scotland
Yard, there have been no recent additions.

One theory is that Deede Dawson, finding him troublesome, took
effectual steps to dispose of him. Another is that Deede Dawson
got him away by either bribes or threats, and that, not knowing
of Deede Dawson's death, he does not venture to return.

In any case, he was a commonplace criminal, and his fate is of
little interest to any one but himself.

It was Walter for whom the police hunted with diligence and effort,
but with a total lack of success, so that they began to think at
the end of three months that he must somehow have succeeded in
making his way out of the country.

During the first portion of this time Rupert had been very busy
with a great many things that needed his attention. And then Lord
Chobham, his health affected by the crimes and treachery of a
kinsman whom he had known and trusted as he had known and trusted
Walter, was attacked by acute bronchitis which affected his heart
and carried him off within the week. The title and estates passed,
therefore, to General Dunsmore, and Rupert became the Honourable
Rupert Dunsmore and the direct heir. All this meant for him a great
deal more to see to and arrange, for the health of the new Lord
Chobham had also been affected and he left practically everything
in his son's hands, so that, except for the letters which came
regularly but had been often written in great haste, Ella knew and
heard little of Rupert.

But today he was to come, for everything was finally in order, and,
though this she did not know till later, Walter Dunsmore had at
last been discovered, dead from poison self-administered, in a
wretched lodging in an East End slum. Rupert had been called to
identify the body and he had been able to arrange it so that very
little was said at the inquest, where the customary verdict of
"Suicide during temporary insanity" was duly returned by a quite
uninterested jury.

That the last had been heard of the tragedy that had so nearly
overwhelmed his life, Rupert was able now to feel fairly well
assured, and it was therefore in a mood more cheerful than he had
known of late that he started on his journey to Ella's new residence.

He had sent a wire to confirm his letter, and it was in a mood that
was more than a little nervous that she busied herself with her
preparations.

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