HUNTED DOWN.

Southern Cross, Volume 13, Issue 13, 24 June 1905, Page 13

HUNTED DOWN.

By ANNIE O. TIBBITS, Author of “Her Last Adventure,” “ The Shadows Between,” „ The Mystery of Iris Grey,” “ The Romance of Gladys Elton,” &0., &o. ■

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

[COPYRIGHT.]

CHAPTER XXI. The Way oe Escape, Marjorie stood for a moment on the landing, listening. No one was abont, but somewhere down the long corridor one of the servants was busy lighting up. She saw the lights flash out, and throw a glimmer over the oak panelled walls, but this end ef the great square building was still in darkness.

She groped her way to the stairs, and hesitated. She had seen so little of the house that she did not know how to get out. Scairs there were as she knew in every direction—carious old stairs, some of them leading to disused rooms and out of the way passages. Hut the principal staircase was in the centre of the building. That she wished to avoid, and she looked kown this one now, wondering where it would lead. She decided suddenly to chance it. It ran down one side of the house. It seemed to her that it would take her to that side which backed on to the corner of the garden by the lake. If it did, it was all she wanted. Once out in the wide grounds, under the shadow of the great trees she could get away. No one would ssarch for her. After Humphrey read her letter he would leave her alone. Only the police would be looking for her now. It seemed that she was right about the staircase. She found herself at last on the ground floor. A corridor ran away from her to the left, but on her right stood an open door. She ran towards it with a breath of relief, and looked out. It lay open to the ,great square garden, and between her and it was the moat and a low iron railing. The moat was empty now, and covered with soft close-cut brass. A few bushes grew on the steep banks ; ivy clung about the short iron railing at the top, and spread up the walls of the house from the bottom of the moat.

She stood for a moment. The scent of an early summer rose that climbed round a window a yard away was wafted to her as she stood, and there came to her with it a sudden bitter pang, a full realisation of all she was leaving. She stretched out her hand to the wooden, unfeeling door. It was part of Humphrey’s home. She touched it for the last time, and it was a white miserable face that looked out into the night a moment later. She was about to mount the steps when a voice behind her made her start. Someone was coming from the house—someone speaking in a whisper. If she mounted the steps to the path she might be heard, and with her breath in her throat she ran swiftly, over the soft bottom of the moat, round the corner of the great house. There at the corner, flat against the ivy, she stood, so close to a window that anyone in the corridor looking that way would have seen her, so trembling that she rustled the ivy like a bird. The whispering voice came on, then ceased. Marjorie heard the sound of footsteps on the stone floor, and then they ceased, too, as if someone had come to the door and was looking out at the night. For an instant they stood so, and then came the whispering voice again, and Marjorie recognised it with a faint throb at heart as Laura’s.

‘ Humphrey won’t let him search the house,’ she was saying ; ‘the fool hasn’t a warrant —he couldn’t get =one, I expect. I was a fool, too. If

I had said definitely that she was here it would have been all right. But I didn’t give them enough to go upon, and Humphrey laughed at GrigS- I heard everything from behind the screen. Oh, how I hate Humphrey ! He said Grigg shouldn’t search the house, but he could stay to dinner if he -liked and see what , women folks he had in the house, and he said that the detective could keep him in sight the whole time if he liked he had no objection to that, in fact he meant to keep Grigg himself in sight. A search without a warrant he wouldn’t hear of. He is clever, is Humphrey. He knows she won t stir out of that room where she has been all the week, and who knows, by to-morrow he may be able to get her away. But we’ll see. He has no doubt given a hint to his his mother and Freda not to speak of Miss Martell to-night, so no one will mention her name.’ ‘ But you will ?’ asked another voice, and Laura laughed, a harsh, sharp laugh. ‘ Do you think I’m an idiot ?’ she cried,‘of course. He doesn’t know that I have heard of her. I have laid low and said nothing. But they will to-night, but before I speak Humphrey must have his coffee. You understand P If there is any commotion before that he won’t drink it or something and we shan’t have a chance. But if he has drunk it it won’t matter what row there is. He’ll be done for, and she ’ Her voice dropped suddenly, and then once more Marjorie heard her faint cruel laugh. ‘ You’re cold-blooded as a frog ’ the other vo'ce began, but Laura interrupted. ‘ Hush, Arthur, don’t speak so loud. Your voice carries—and don’t call me names, but listen, and be sure you make no mistake, I shall serve the coffee, and give it to you to band round. I shall give you Humphrey’s last of all. It will be safe enough. Nothing will come of it for hours, and before that the cups will have been washed up, she will be gone, and it will all be put down to the bother and worry of things. Oh, it will be safe enough. I know what I am doing. It will leave no traces, and arose no suspicion. I know exactly how it will act. I know ’ She broke off, and Marjorie, flat back against the corner, heard her draw her breath sharply between her teeth as if something had startled her. Perhaps indeed she saw something—a ghost of her own creating. 1 I thought—l thought,’ she said, unsteadily, ‘ that someone moved — is that only a bush on the bank P’ ‘ Yes, a bush, that’s all,’ said Arthur, jerkily. He seemed incapable of spaeon, and Laura remained silent, perhaps seeing something more in the darkness than a ghost—seeing perhaps the ghost of some one who had long ago drunk of her cup. Presently Arthur turned to her. ‘ You’re —you’re a dangerous woman, by Jove,’ Marjorie heard him say. 4 You make me nervous of you sometimes.’ ‘ Not you, Arthur, not you,’ Laura’s voice came soft and seductive as she knew how to make it, through the darkness ; her cheek rested on his shoulder, her beautiful face that he could not see smiled a cruel smi’e to the night that lay dark ahead. Arthur felt the soft touch of her, of her warm hands, her smooth cheek,, and he caught her to him

suddenly. ‘Swear to me,’he cried. ‘ Swear —you will never lie to me, never betray me —never,’ * Oh, yes—oh, hush, Arthur,’ she cried, hurriedly. ‘You hurt me. and someone will hear. You are shouting. Oh, do for goodness sake be quiet.’ Apparently he loosed her, for once again her voice came soft and calm. ‘ Arihur, take my hands—now—yon have me now, and 1 am yours for all time —yours, Arthur, as I was nevtr any other man’s. Don’t you believe ,me. now ? If you could see my face, Arthur. Ah ! you must say you believe me ? Kiss me, Arthur, and say so.’ ‘Yes,yes, I believe you,’ he cried , hoarsely. CHAPTER XXII. Her Lips for His. With the sound of their vanishing footsteps Marjorie raised herself from her position against (he wall. She was cold. The night was not as warm as a summer night ought to be, but it did not account for the strange icy feeling that numbed her, that held her rigid beneath the steep bank' of the moat, that made her draw her breath in a queer shuddering way as if water had been dashed in her face. She stood still and frozen for a moment, then looked slowly round. The house had been lighted now, and broad yellow gleams fell upon the garden from the windows. The gravel showed yellow in patches. Deep shadows were cast into the moat where there was no light, and beyond, the square garden, with its high beds, lay dark and mysterious. Out —beyond it, lay freedom, at any rate for a time ; freedom, to be caught when she was caught, in her own way, liberty for a while. But behind in the house was Humphrey, and while she was running through the night, he would be raising a bitter cup to his lips—a cup (hat was ‘ safe enough,’ that* nothing would come of for hours,’ and that would then ‘ leave no traces and arouse no suspicion.’ Marjorie shuddered in the darkness against the ivy. Somewhere over her head nestled the swallows. They loved Priern Court. Xever anywhere else were there such great crowds of them, to fly and float and drift on still wings in the sunshine above the quaint and beautiful old house, and they were asleep now in the ivy above her head. Why did she think of them now ? Why did she turn up her face to the strange shadows under the eaves and listen for their dreamy twitter, when this other, this ghastly thing was going to be ? At critical moments one’s thoughts fly to trivial things, and for a moment Marjorie stood, thinking only of the swallows. Then back came the horror of everj thing—Laura’s hideous whispered words, and the replies of the man whom Marjorie knew to be Humphrey’s cousin Arthua, plotting what P Humphrey’s death without a doubt. What else could the references to coffee mean ? A drug, of course. Poison, The thought was in Marjorie’s mind, and it almost seemed as if the trees were whispering it, A light summer breeze had sprung up, stirring faintly the roses on the pagoda a short distance away, and drifting about the great garden like a living thing. Poison ! Mai jorie grew colder still as she stood. And inside someone — a detective —wanted to search the house. What for ? Marjorie knew well enough, and perhaps in all. her life there was no more hideous moment than that, w< en she stood knowing that the police were close upon her heels at last. She stood breathless. She could yet escape. The road lay empty before her, the grey stone steps to the path on the top of the moat, the sweep of grass beyond, that would silence her footsteps, the great dark shielding clumps of clipped yew, the steps to the terrace, and then beyond that the long straight grass-fringed path up to the park, and after that the open country.

She could get away yet, for a while at least. She could postpone for a time the ugly horror that awaited her, and cheat the detectives again. She had only to mount the steps and go on. And yet she hesitated. Behind, in the house, Laura was getting ready to play her diabolical part. In another hour Humphrey would be drinking his coffee. She turned with sudden quick steps. To go back meant certain discovery, yet she had to go back. With trembling hands she groped her way along the bottom of the moat to the door. There she paused. The corridor beyond lay in darkness, but a dim light showed her the oak stairs before her.

She climbed them slowly. Her breath seemed very short when she reached the top, and no landing surely had ever been as wide as the one that lay between her room and the last stair.

She reached it and pushed open the door. The nurse, standing irresolute in the middle of the room, turned and ran towards her when she saw her.

‘ Oh,’ she cried, ‘ where did you go to ? I feel quite alarmed, though the doctor did say you could go downstairs if you wished. But you seemed so late —why, you are stone cold ! Where have you been to P Tour hands are like ice and you are trembling. Ob, you foolish girl, you know very well you are nob strong enough to bear much ; Sir Humphrey shouldn’t have taken you. But sit down this minute and let me take off your shoes.’ Marjorie fell helplessly into a chair. She was cold—cold on a summer night. Her face looked blue in the gaslight, and the nurse looked at her in alarm and with a certain amount of suspicion. It seemed strange that she should have dressed, and put on her hat and coat. She had been out, of course, into the garden, but Freda’s tea-gown would have done well enough for the short distance she was fit to walk. She took the things, shaking her head emphatically.

‘ I think I shall lie down for a ■while,’ Marjorie said, ‘ and 1 should like —presently —something to drink. I wonder if it would be good for me to have a little brandy ?’ The nurse stared again. 1 Ob, yes, I daresay if you fancy it,’ she began. ‘ Yes, yes—a little brandy—just now,’ Marjorie put in hurriedly, ‘ and then perhaps —I could be left for a while.’

The nurse thought the request curious enough, but she was used to the fads and fancies of invalids, and Marjorie was curious enough for anything. Besides, she had evidently overtired herself in some way, and the brandy would do her no harm. It was m t for her to ask questions, and it would pay her best, since Sir Humphrey thought so much of the strange little girl with the sad white face, not to be curious. So she bustled off to get it, noticing that she did not meet Sir Humphrey as usual at the bottom of the

stairs to ask eagerly how Miss Martell was, to inquire, still more eagerly, if she wanted to see him.

Well, there was no accounting for the taste of men. They feel in love with the plainest women and Sir Humphrey seemed to see something wondtrful in Marjorie, who wasn’t a beauty by any manner of means, though she might, and probably would, look better when she was well. It did not take her long to get the brandy. She added to the tray a few sandwiches and biscuitsand came back with it, Marjorie was sitting np in her chair doing something to an envelope when she came in. She had only just time to see that she appeared to be putting in a letter when she turned and pushed it out of sight. Whether the nurse was curious or not, and much as she might he used to the ways of patients, she would have been rather surprised if she could have seen to whom it was addressed. But Marjorie had turned it over. She had broken open the letter she had left and added something to it, and now it was ready for Sir Humphi ey. ‘ You must try to eat these sandwiches now,’ the nurse said, ‘ and I’ll bring you a bit of chicken at dinner time. Or would you like some fish F’ ‘No, no,’ Marjorie cried, hurriedly. ‘ I’d rather not have anything. I want to lie down. If you like—if you care, perhaps, something at ten o’clock—not before.’

The nurse thought her curiously breathless. She couldn’t quite understand her, and looked at her in a puzzled sort of way. Marjorie seeing her, hastened to allay her suspicions. ‘ I suppose I ought not to have gone out,’ she said. ‘ I expect it was too much, and my head aches--horribly.’ It was no lie. The old pain seemed to have corre back, that ugly weariness of everything was upon her, and all she wanted then was to lie down, all alone, in silence and in darkness. She managed to persuade the nurse to leave her at last, and in silence she lay, staring at the dim ceiling, at the dim light, at the furniture of the room that had become so familiar to her during these last few days. A clock struck somewhere at last, eight o’clock. Coffee would be taken into the drawing-room in about half an hour, and the deadly work would commence. She mnst get ready. She sprang up and brushed her hair —anything to keep herself from thinking. She only wanted to think of Humphrey Humphrey at the head of the table downstairs, the man she loved, who was hurrying to his death with every tick of the clock.

She did not think of what she was hurrying to, though she bad bard work to force back the thoughts that would rise of the detective and the ugly things that were to follow that night. She would not think. She could only remember that whatever it cost her Humphrey must be saved, and it seemed to her that the only way to do it was to prevent him at the last minute from drinking the coffee Laura had prepared for him. She might have warned him of it

perhaps beforehand, but there was in | her heart a vague hope that by the time the coffee was in the detective would have gone. It beat up steadily, that last forlorn hope. If she went down before she would go straight into his hands. If she waited, he might—he might have gone. It was with shaking limbs, with a heart that seemed not to beat at all, that she went out of the room at last. She had swallowed some of the b; aady, and tried to eat a biscuit, but it seemed scarcely to affect her. The wide landing rocked round her, the stairs lay dark and deep beneath her feet. Sight and hearing seemed to fail her for a moment, and then suddenly came back courage. It was to save Humphrey’s life ! She went on steadily now, down the corridor towards the place where she imagined the principal staircase to be. The way seemed endless, and now, though there was no fear in her heart, though the thought that she was saving Humphrey’s life blotted out everything else, yet every now and then the lights seemed to jump in a strange way before her eyes, and every now and then the way grew perilously dark to her. She reached the grand staircase at last. It lay before her wide and shallow, with great paintings of many dead and gone Leigh?, father and son, mother and daughter, on every side. Below, in the great hail, before the wide open fireplace, lay a couple of deer hounds. They were the only living things in sight. The dining-room on the other side was invisible from where she stood, but she could hear a jingle of glasses as if some one was carrying something out or in.

Where the drawing-room waa she could not teli ? and she looked round bewildered. On each side of her stretched the great corridors—corridors made for a queen once, and in the midst of everything, of her jumbled thoughts, of the aching at heart, there came an odd wonder how Elizabeth had looked as she paced those galleries, and with an odd sort of fancy she pictured her, in silk and ruff, walking with pattering shoes over the oaken boards.

Then, as suddenly, came back all the sickening reality, and instead of Queen Elizabeth a housemaid was coming towards her. Marjorie called her. ‘ Where are they sitting/ after dinner ?’ she asked. ‘ Will you please show me the way P’ ‘ They’ll be in the blue drawingroom I think, Miss,’ the girl said. ‘ I’ll take you. It’s downstairs, if you please.’ .Down the great staircase they went, and then they turned abruptly out of the hall, through a door on one side. The maid threw it open, and Marjorie walked in. ‘They’ll sit in the far room, overlooking the garden, I expect, Miss,’ the maid said. ‘ Mrs Stanham likes it.’

Marjorie went through. It was lighted but empty, and out of it led a smaller room to which she made her

I way qu'ckly. A piir of heavy blue cu tains hong over the door which separated it and these she pulled aside and passed. She looked round nervously for some place in which to hide, and it was not difficult to fiud one. It wasfull of nooks and corners, the light was dull and there were plenty of shadows. Marjorie looked round hastily. There was one corner in the far window where there was no lamp; consequently, behind one of the heavy blue curtains she might hide in safety. She slipped across and into the window, trying to keep her heart from betting so furiously, and waiting, waiting with desperate patience for the terrible moment. It seemed an endless time before dinner was over, but it ended at last. There was a rustle of women’s dresses, the sound of a closing door, and then Mrs Stanham and Laura came in, followed by Freda. Marjorie, crouching behind her curtain, saw them turn the corner. She saw Laura sweep across the room, and drop into a chair so close to her that she caught her breath with a little choking sound that would have betrayed her if the curtain had not been so thick. She saw Freda turn over the music on the piano, and she saw Mrs Stanham drift to her needlework. ‘ They’re winter socks for the children,’ she explained to anyone who cared to listen. ‘l’ve begun early, because I suppose I shall have to knit socks for the Friern poor as well as u miner town now. I caa’t leave the old place altogether. They were so terribly poor, some of them. Laura made no reply, but Freda ran over to her. ‘ I wish you’d make me help you, mummy,’ she said. ‘ You spoil me I’m no good, and I never do anything useful.’ ‘ No, not even behave,’ Mrs Stanham replied smiling. ‘Go and play, child. Humphrey likes it.’ She opened the piano, and began playing softly. Through the soft light the notes floated to Marjorie,, outcast and waiting in her corner for the men to come. She waited, with her eyes fixed feverishly on the dark blue curtains that separated the one room from the other, waiting with only God knew what hideous pain at her heart. If the detective should be there still ! But she dared not think,. A voice somewhere sounded at last —-Humphrey saying something that Marjorie could not distinguish. The sound ■ reminded Mrs Stanham of something, for as Freda ceased playing she turned to her. ‘ What time did Humphrey say Mr Arkley would come, dear ?’ A little pink colour ran up into Freda’s cheeks. She tried to disguise it by yawning. ‘ Oh, not until late —twelve o’clock I think he said. I shall be in bed,, of course.’ A little twinkle appeared for a. moment in Mrs Stanham’s mild eye. ‘ Don’t you think he will be disappointed,’ she asked.

Freda gave her head a little jerk. ‘ Well, and if he is ?’ she asked with would-be indifference, and her mother laughed. 1 You. need not grin like that, Freda cried. ‘ He —he ’ But either words failed her, or the entrance of the men disturbed her, for she did not finish, but turned and began hastily rifling her music case. Arthur came in first, end made his way towards Laura. He seemed eurionsly grey, and Marjorie’s heart Stood still as she saw his face. Then it had been real that conversation that she had heard, no nightmare ! Ho horror she bad imagined, but real.

She sat quite still. Humphrey had lingered in the other room, and—there was someone with him ! Of the talk that ensued she heard nothing. Her eyes were fixed on the blue cirtains, her ears deaf to everything except those voices in the outer room. They came through at lasr, and Marjorie sank back. She had hoped in vain. The detective was there still ! He followed Humphrey over to a chair near Mrs Stanbam. There they both sat down —he and Humphrey, his sister and mother on one side of the , room, and Laura and Arthur and she on the other, separated not only by the few yards of carpet,] but by a hideous yawning chasm.

The butler brought in coffee almost immediately, and then .that Laura bad chosen her seat with an object. The coffee table was at her elbow, and the butler looked round questioningly as he deposited the silver tray. ‘ I’ll make it to-night, if I may,’ Laura said, and Freda, strumming softly again, nodded. Laura took up the silver pot, and filled the delicate dainty china.cups. The liquid made a faint but distinct sound above the piano and the conversation, and to Marjorie that sound of running liquid predominated, all others even the sound of Humphrey’s voice. Arthur took cup after cup. ‘ Kind friend,’ said Humphrey, ‘my mother takes five lumps —for energy.’ ‘ Goose,’ said Mrs Stanham, ’ but I have three, please-’ The lumps splashed inj and Arthur jeturned for another cup.

Humphrey came last. Arthur Beemed to go back a little slowly this time, and the pot in Laura’s hand slipped suddenly. Arthur placed himself before the table, and put out a shaking hand. Marjorie had a glimpse of a bottle lying on the table for an instant. Then it had gone, and Arthur was half-way across the room. She waited an instant, struggling with her choking breath. In that instant the room seemed to become to her feverish imagination suddenly still, and the only sound in it the splashing of a lump of sugar in the oup. Then she sprang; and before anyone realised anything of what had liappened, she had reached Humphi ey’s side, and had dashed the dainty oup from his hands. He looked up and started. The detective was on his feet. ‘By Jove ! At last! Miss Merton, I arrest and charge you with the murder of your husband, Horace Endeiby, at 15, Bloomsbury Square Gardens, on the night of May 7th last.* (To be Continued.)