The Bittermeads Mystery

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

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So it was all through the night.

His utter and complete exhaustion compelled him to sleep, and every
time some fresh, fantastic dream in which Ella and the huge motor-car
and the dreadful burden she had with her always figured, awoke him
with a fresh start.

But towards morning he fell into a heavy sleep from which presently
he awoke to find it broad daylight and Deede Dawson standing on the
threshold of the shed with his perpetually smiling lips and his
cold, unsmiling eyes.

"Well, my man; had a good sleep?" he said.

"I was tired," Dunn answered.

"Yes, we had a busy night," agreed Deede Dawson. "I slept well,
too. I've been wondering what to do with you. Of course, I ought
to hand you over to the police, and it's rather a risk taking on a
man of your character, but I've decided to give you a chance.
Probably you'll misuse it. But I'll give you an opportunity as
gardener and chauffeur here. You can drive a car, you say?"

Dunn nodded.

"That's all right," said Deede Dawson.

"You shall have your board and lodging, and I'll get you some decent
clothes instead of those rags; and if you prove satisfactory and
make yourself useful you'll find I can pay well. There will be
plenty of chances for you to make a little money--if you know how
to take them."

"When it's money," growled Dunn, "you give me the chance, and see."

"I think," added Deede Dawson, "I think it might improve your looks
if you shaved."

Dunn passed his hand over the tangle of hair that hid his features
so effectually.

"What for?" he asked.

"Oh, well: please yourself," answered Deede Dawson; "I don't know
that it matters, and perhaps you have reasons of your own for
preferring a beard. Come on up to the house now and I'll tell Mrs.
Dawson to give you some breakfast. And you might as well have a
wash, too, perhaps--unless you object to that as well as to shaving."

Dunn rose without answering, made his toilet by shaking off some of
the dust that clung to him, and followed his new employer out of the
tool-house into the open air.

It was a fresh and lovely morning, and coming towards them down one
of the garden paths was Ella, looking as fresh and lovely as the
morning in a dainty cotton frock with lace at her throat and wrists.

That she could possibly have spent the night tearing across country
in a powerful car conveying a dead man to an unknown destination,
appeared to Dunn a clean impossibility, and for a moment he almost
supposed he had been mistaken in thinking he recognized her voice.

But he knew he had not, that he had made no mistake, that it had
indeed been Ella he had seen dash away into the darkness on her
strange and terrible errand.

"Oh, my daughter," said Deede Dawson carelessly, noticing Dunn's
surprise. "Oh, yes, she's back--you didn't expect to see her this
morning. Well, Ella, Dunn's surprised to see you back so soon,
aren't you, Dunn?"

Dunn did not answer, for a kind of vertigo of horror had come upon
him, and for a moment all things revolved about him in a whirling
circle wherein the one fixed point was Ella's gentle lovely face
that sometimes, he thought, had a small round hole with blue edges
in the very centre of the forehead, above the nose.

It was her voice, clear and a little loud, that called him back to
himself.

"He's not well," she was saying. "He's going to faint."

"I'm all right," he muttered. "It was nothing, nothing, it's only
that I've had nothing to eat for so long."

"Oh, poor man!" exclaimed Ella.

"Come up to the house," Deede Dawson said.

"Breakfast's ready," Ella said. "Mother told me to find you."

"Has the woman come yet?" Deede Dawson asked. "If she has, you
might tell her to give Dunn some breakfast. I've just been telling
him I'm willing to give him another chance and to take him on as
gardener and chauffeur, so you can keep an eye on him and see if he
works well."

Ella was silent for a moment, but her expression was grave and a
little puzzled as though she did not quite understand this and
wondered what it meant, and when she looked up at her stepfather,
Dunn was certain there was both distrust and suspicion in her manner.

"I suppose," she said then, "last night seemed to you a good
recommendation?" As she spoke she glanced at her wrists where the
bruises still showed, and Deede Dawson's smile broadened.

"One should always be ready to give another chance to a poor fellow
who's down," he said. "He may run straight now he's got an
opportunity. I told him he had better shave, but he seems to think
a beard suits him best. What do you say?"

"Breakfast's waiting," Ella answered, turning away without taking
any notice of the question.

"I'll go in then," said Deede Dawson. "You might show Dunn the way
to the kitchen--his name's Robert Dunn, by the way--and tell Mrs.
Barker to give him something to eat."

"I should think he could find his way there himself," Ella remarked.

But though she made this protest, she obeyed at once, for though she
used a considerable liberty of speech to her stepfather, it was none
the less evident that she was very much afraid of him and would not
be very likely to disobey him or oppose him directly.

"This way," she said to Dunn, and walked on along a path that led
to the hack of the house. Once she stopped and looked hack. She
smiled slightly and disdainfully as she did so, and Dunn saw that
she was looking at a clump of small bushes near where they had been
standing.

He guessed at once that she believed Deede Dawson to be behind those
bushes watching them, and when she glanced at him he understood that
she wished him to know it also.

He said nothing, though a faint movement visible in the bushes
convinced him that her suspicions, if, indeed, she had them, were
well-founded, and they walked on in silence, Ella a little ahead,
and Dunn a step or two behind.

The garden was a large one, and had at one time been well cultivated,
but now it was neglected and overgrown. It struck Dunn that if he
was to be the gardener here he would certainly not find himself short
of work, and Ella, without looking round, said to him over her
shoulder:

"Do you know anything about gardening?"

"A little, miss," he answered.

"You needn't call me 'miss,'" she observed. "When a man has tied
a girl to a chair I think he may regard himself as on terms of some
familiarity with her."

"What must I call you?" he asked, and his words bore to himself a
double meaning, for, indeed, what name was it by which he ought to
call her?

But she seemed to notice nothing as she answered "My name is Cayley
--Ella Cayley. You can call me Miss Cayley. Do you know anything
of motoring?"

"Yes," he answered. "Though I never cared much for motoring at night."

She gave him a quick glance, but said no more, and they came almost
immediately to the back door.

Ella opened it and entered, nodding to him to follow, and crossing a
narrow, stone-floored passage, she entered the kitchen where a tall
gaunt elderly woman in a black bonnet and, a course apron was at
work.

"This is Dunn, Mrs. Barker," she called, raising her voice. "He is
the new gardener. Will you give him some breakfast, please?" She
added to Dunn:

"When you've finished, you can go to the garage and wash the car,
and when you speak to Mrs. Barker you must shout. She is quite deaf,
that is why my stepfather engaged her, because he was sorry for her
and wanted to give her a chance, you know . . . "

CHAPTER XI

THE PROBLEM

When he had finished his breakfast, and after he had had the wash
of which he certainly stood in considerable need, Dunn made his
way to the garage and there occupied himself cleaning the car.
He noticed that the mud with which it was liberally covered was of
a light sandy sort, and he discovered on one of the tyres a small
shell.

Apparently, therefore, last night's wild journey had been to the
coast, and it was a natural inference that the sea had provided a
secure hiding-place for the packing-case and its dreadful contents.

But then that meant that there was no evidence left on which he
could take action.

As he busied himself with his task, he tried to think out as clearly
as he could the position in which he found himself and to decide
what he ought to do next.

To his quick and hasty nature the swiftest action was always the
most congenial, and had he followed his instinct, he would have lost
no time in denouncing Deede Dawson. But his cooler thoughts told
him that he dared not do that, since it would be to involve risks,
not for himself, but for others, that he simply dared not contemplate.

He felt that the police, even if they credited his story, which he
also felt that very likely they would not do, could not act on his
sole evidence.

And even if they did act and did arrest Deede Dawson, it was certain
no jury would convict on so strange a story, so entirely
uncorroborated.

The only result would be to strengthen Deede Dawson's position by
the warning, to show him his danger, and to give him the
opportunity, if he chose to use it, of disappearing and beginning
again his plots and plans after some fresh and perhaps more deadly
fashion.

"Whereas at present," he mused, "at any rate, I'm here and he
doesn't seem to suspect me, and I can watch and wait for a time,
till I see my way more clearly."

And this decision he came to was a great relief to him, for he
desired very greatly to know more before he acted and in especial
to find out for certain what was Ella's position in all this.

It was Deede Dawson's voice that broke in upon his meditations.

"Ah, you're busy," he said. "That's right, I like to see a man
working hard. I've got some new things for you I think may fit
fairly well, and Mrs. Dawson is going to get one of the attics
ready for you to sleep in."

"Very good, sir," said Dunn.

He wondered which attic was to be assigned to him and if it would
be that one in which he had found his friend's body. He suspected,
too, that he was to be lodged in the house so that Deede Dawson
might watch him, and this pleased him, since it meant that he, in
his turn, would be able to watch Deede Dawson.

Not that there appeared much to watch, for the days passed on and
it seemed a very harmless and quiet life that Deede Dawson lived
with his wife and stepdaughter.

But for the memory, burned into Dunn's mind, of what he had seen
that night of his arrival, he would have been inclined to say that
no more harmless, gentle soul existed than Deede Dawson.

But as it was, the man's very gentleness and smiling urbanity
filled him with a loathing that it was at times all he could do
to control.

The attic assigned to him to sleep in was that where he had made
his dreadful discovery, and he believed this had been done as a
further test of his ignorance, for he was sure Deede Dawson
watched him closely to see if the idea of being there was in any
way repugnant to him.

Indeed at another time he might have shrunk from the idea of
sleeping each night in the very room where his friend had been
foully done to death, but now he derived a certain grim
satisfaction and a strengthening of his nerves for the task that
lay before him.

Only a very few visitors came to Bittermeads, especially now that
Mr. John Clive, who had come often, was laid up. But one or two
of the people from the village came occasionally, and the vicar
appeared two or three times every week, ostensibly to play chess
with Deede Dawson, but in reality, Dunn thought, drawn there by
Ella, who, however, seemed quite unaware of the attraction she
exercised over the good man.

Dunn did not find that he was expected to do very much work, and in
fact, he was left a good deal to himself.

Once or twice the car was taken out, and occasionally Deede Dawson
would come into the garden and chat with him idly for a few minutes
on indifferent subjects. When it was fine he would often bring out
a little travelling set of chessmen and board and proceed to amuse
himself, working out or composing problems.

One day he called Dunn up to admire a problem he had just composed.

"Pretty clever, eh?" he said, admiring his own work with much
complacence. "Quite an original idea of mine and I think the key
move will take some finding. What do you say? I suppose you do
play chess?"

"Only a very little," answered Dunn.

"Try a game with me," said Deede Dawson, and won it easily, for in
fact, Dunn was by no means a strong player.

His swift victory appeared to delight Deede Dawson immensely.

"A very pretty mate I brought off there against you," he declared.
"I've not often seen a prettier. Now you try to solve that problem
of mine, it's easy enough once you hit on the key move."

Dunn thought to himself that there were other and more important
problems which would soon be solved if only the key move could be
discovered.

He said aloud that he would try what he could do, and Deede Dawson
promised him half a sovereign if he solved it within a week.

"I mayn't manage it within a week," said Dunn. "I don't say I will.
But sooner or later I shall find it out."

During all this time he had seen little of Ella, who appeared to
come very little into the garden and who, when she did so, avoided
him in a somewhat marked manner.

Her mother, Mrs. Dawson, was a little faded woman, with timid eyes
and a frightened manner. Her health did not seem to be good, and
Ella looked after her very assiduously. That she went in deadly
fear of her husband was fairly evident, though he seemed to treat
her always with great consideration and kindness and even with a
show of affection, to which at times she responded and from which
at other times she appeared to shrink with inexplicable terror.

"She doesn't know," Dunn said to himself. "But she suspects
--something."

Ella, he still watched with the same care and secrecy, and sometimes
he seemed to see her walking amidst the flowers as an angel of
sweetness and laughing innocence; and sometimes he saw her, as it
were, with the shadow of death around her beauty, and behind her
gentle eyes and winning ways a great and horrible abyss.

Of one thing he was certain--her mind was troubled and she was not
at ease; and it was plain, also, that she feared her smiling
soft-spoken stepfather.

As the days passed, too, Dunn grew convinced that she was watching
him all the time, even when she seemed most indifferent, as closely
and as intently as he watched her.

"All watching together," Dunn thought grimly. "It would be simple
enough, I suppose, if one could hit on the key move, but that I
suppose no one knows but Deede Dawson himself. One thing, he can't
very well be up to any fresh mischief while he's lounging about here
like this. I suppose he is simply waiting his time."

As for the chess problem, that baffled him entirely. He said as
much to Deede Dawson, who was very pleased, but would not tell him
what the solution was.

"No, no, find it out for yourself," he said, chuckling with a
merriment in which, for once his cold eyes seemed to take full share.

"I'll go on trying," said Dunn, and it grew to be quite a custom
between them for Deede Dawson to ask him how he was getting on
with the problem; and for Dunn to reply that he was still searching
for the key move.

Several times little errands took Dunn into the village, where,
discreetly listening to the current gossip, he learned that Mr.
John Clive of Ramsdon Place had been injured in an attack made upon
him by a gang of ferocious poachers--at least a dozen in number
--but was making good progress towards recovery.

Also, he found that Mr. John Clive's visits to Bittermeads had not
gone unremarked, or wholly uncriticized, since there was a vague
feeling that a Mr. Clive of Ramsdon Place ought to make a better
match.

"But a pretty face is all a young man thinks of," said the more
experienced; and on the whole, it seemed to be felt that the open
attention Clive paid to Ella was at least easily to be understood.

Almost the first visit Clive paid, when he was allowed to venture
out, was to Bittermeads; and Dunn, returning one afternoon from an
errand, found him established on the lawn in the company of Ella,
and looking little the worse for his adventure.

He and Ella seemed to be talking very animatedly, and Dunn took the
opportunity to busy himself with some gardening work not far away,
so that he could watch their behaviour.

He told himself it was necessary he should know in what relation
they stood to each other, and as he heard them chatting and
laughing together with great apparent friendliness and enjoyment,
he remembered with considerable satisfaction how he had already
broken one rib of Clive's, and he wished very much for an opportunity
to break another.

For, without knowing why, he was beginning to conceive an intense
dislike for Clive; and, also, it did not seem to him quite good
taste for Ella to sit and chat and laugh with him so readily.

"But we were told," he caught a stray remark of Ella's, "that it
was a gang of at least a dozen that attacked you."

"No," answered Clive reluctantly. "No, I think there was only one.
But he had a grip like a bear."

"He must have been very strong," remarked Ella thoughtfully.

"I would give fifty pounds to meet him again, and have it out in
the light, when one could see what one was doing," declared Clive
with great vigour.

"Oh, you would, would you?" muttered Dunn to himself. "Well, one
of these days I may claim that fifty."

He looked round at Clive as he thought this, and Clive noticed him,
and said:

"Is that a new man you've got there Miss Cayley? Doesn't he rather
want a shave? Where on earth did Mr. Dawson pick him up?"

"Oh, he came here with the very best testimonials, and father
engaged him on the spot," answered Ella, touching her wrists
thoughtfully. "He certainly is not very handsome, but then that
doesn't matter, does it?"

She spoke more loudly than usual, and Dunn was certain she did so
in order that he might hear what she said. So he had no scruple
in lingering on pretence of being busy with a rose bush, and heard
Clive say:

"Well, if he were one of my chaps, I should tell him to put the
lawn-mower over his own face."

Ella laughed amusedly.

"Oh, what an idea, Mr. Clive," she cried, and Dunn thought to himself:

"Yes, one day I shall very certainly claim that fifty pounds."

CHAPTER XII

AN AVOWAL

When Clive had gone that afternoon, Ella, who had accompanied him
as far as the gate, and had from thence waved him a farewell, came
back to the spot where Dunn was working.

She stood still, watching him, and he looked up at her and then
went on with his work without speaking, for now, as always, the
appalling thought was perpetually in his mind: "Must she not have
known what it was she had with her in the car when she went driving
that night?"

After a little, she turned away, as if disappointed that he took no
notice of her presence.

At once he raised himself from the task he had been bending over,
and stood moodily watching the slim, graceful figure, about which
hung such clouds of doubt and dread, and she, turning around
suddenly, as if she actually felt the impact of his gaze, saw him,
and saw the strange expression in his eyes.

"Why do you look at me like that?" she asked quickly, her soft and
gentle tones a little shrill, as though swift fear had come upon her.

"Like what?" he mumbled.

"Oh, you know," she cried passionately. "Am I to be the next?" she
asked.

He started, and looked at her wonderingly, asking himself if these
words of hers bore the grim meaning that his mind instantly gave
them.

Was it possible that if she did know something of what was going on
in this quiet country house, during these peaceful autumn days, she
knew it not as willing accomplice, but as a helpless, destined victim
who saw no way of escape.

As if she feared she had said too much, she turned and began to
walk away.

At once he followed.

"Stop one moment," he exclaimed. "Miss Cayley."

She obeyed, turning quickly to face him. They were both very pale,
and both were under the influence of strong excitement. But between
them there hung a thick cloud of doubt and dread that neither could
penetrate.

All at once Dunn, unable to control himself longer, burst out with
that question which for so long had hovered on his lips.

"Do you know," he said, "do you know what you took away with you in
the car that night I came here?"

"The packing-case, you meant" she asked. "Of course I do; I helped
to get it ready--what's the matter?"

"Nothing," he muttered, though indeed he had staggered as beneath
some sudden and violent blow. "Oh--did you?" he said, with an
effort.

"Certainly," she answered. "Now I've answered your question, will
you answer me one? Why did you tell us your name was Charley Wright?"

"I knew a man of that name once," he answered. "He's dead now."

"I thought perhaps," she said slowly and quite calmly, "that it was
because you had seen the name written on a photograph in my room."

"No, it wasn't that," he answered gravely, and his doubts that for
a moment had seemed so terribly confirmed, now came back again, for
though she had said that she knew of the contents of the
packing-case, yet, if that were really so, how was it conceivable
that she should speak of such a thing so calmly?

And yet again, if she could do it, perhaps also she could talk of
it without emotion. Once more there was fear in his eyes as he
watched her, and her own were troubled and doubtful.

"Why do you have all that hair on your face?" she asked.

"Well, why shouldn't I?" he retorted. "It saves trouble."

"Does it?" she said. "Do you know what it looks like--like a
disguise?"

"A disguise?" he repeated. "Why should I want a disguise?"

"Do you think I'm quite a fool because I'm a woman?" she asked
impatiently. "Do you suppose I couldn't see very well when you
came that night that you were not an ordinary burglar? You had
some reason of your own for breaking into this house. What was
it?"

"I'll tell you," he answered, "if you'll tell me truly what was in
that packing-case?"

"Oh, now I understand," she cried excitedly. "It was to find that
out you came--and then Mr. Dawson made you help us get it away.
That was splendid."

He did not speak, for once more a kind of horror held him dumb, as
it seemed to him that she really--knew.

She saw the mingled horror and bewilderment in his eyes, and she
laughed lightly as though that amused her.

"Do you know," she said, "I believe I guessed as much from the
first, but I'm afraid Mr. Dawson was too clever for you--as he is
for most people. Only then," she added, wrinkling her brows as
though a new point puzzled her, "why are you staying here like
this?"

"Can't you guess that too?" he asked hoarsely.

"No," she said, shaking her head with a frankly puzzled air. "No,
I can't. That's puzzled me all the time. Do you know--I think
you ought to shave?"

"Why?"

"A beard makes a good disguise," she answered, "so good it's hardly
fair for you to have it when I can't."

"Perhaps you need it less," he answered bitterly, "or perhaps no
disguise could be so effective as the one you have already."

"What's that?" she asked.

"Bright eyes, a pretty face, a clear complexion," he answered.

He spoke with an extreme energy and bitterness that she did not in
the least understand, and that quite took away from the words any
suspicion of intentional rudeness.

"If I have all that, I suppose it's natural and not a disguise,"
she remarked.

"My beard is natural too," he retorted.

"All the same, I wish you would cut it off," she answered. "I
should like to see what you look like."

She turned and walked away, and the more Dunn thought over this
conversation, the less he felt he understood it.

What had she meant by that strange start and look she had given him
when she had asked if she were to be the next? And when she
asserted so confidently that she knew what was in the packing-case,
was that true, or was she speaking under some mistaken impression,
or had she wished to deceive him?

The more he thought, the more disturbed he felt, and every hour that
passed he seemed to feel more and more strongly the influence of her
gracious beauty, the horror of his suspicions of her.

The next day Clive came again, and again Ella seemed very pleased
to see him, and again Dunn, hanging about in their vicinity,
watched gloomily their friendly intercourse.

That Clive was in love with Ella seemed fairly certain; at any rate,
he showed himself strongly attracted by her, and very eager for
her company.

How she felt was more doubtful, though she made no concealment of
the fact that she liked to see him, and found pleasure in having
him there. Dunn, moving about near at hand, was aware of an odd
impression that she knew he was watching them, and that she wished
him to do so for several times he saw her glance in his direction.

He could always move with a most extraordinary lightness of foot,
so that, big and clumsy as he seemed in build, he could easily go
unheard and even unseen, and John Clive seemed to have little idea
that he remained so persistently near at hand.

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