The Man of Silence.

Waipa Post, Volume VII, Issue 336, 31 July 1914, Page 2

The Man of Silence.

BY TOM GALLON,

(All Bights Resluveb.)

Author of “ My Lady of the Ruins,’’ “ Fate’s Beggar Maid,” etc.

CHAPTER XVL—(Continued.)

The coolness and effrontery of ■the man took away from the horror that was associated with the story he had told. As in all else that he did, Reuben Avondale carried tne matter off with a high hand; that craven creature, Clarence Westley, could but accept Reuben’s reading of the matter. More than that he knew his future depended upon it, and upon this man into whose net he had been slowly drawn. Arm, above all, the truth concerning u.e tragedy cou'.d never be discovered. Nevertheless, Clarence Westley, on leaving his friend that nignt, ,went down the staircase and out into the streets as much a haunted man as Reuben himscif. Murder seemed to stalk with him. Half a dozen times he could have sworn that someone had turned their head quickly and locked at him suspiciously as he passed. lie reached his club and got to bed, and strove to forget everything in sleep. It was late on the follcwi'-.g day when the two men travelled down together to Wood End Ferry, i hey .were in time only to dress lor dinner, and to put in an appearance in the drawing-room a few minutes before.the gong sounded. Reuben, advancing into the room, made straight for Madeline. But her hand, held out to him in greeting, held him away at the same time He laughed, and h:>!f-mockingly put it to his lips, and turned away. “Reuben and I had a long talk about you, Madeline,” said her father, with what cheerfulness he could muster.. “We tamed about a great many things.” “Thing's that quite surprised you, eh?” said Reuben, with a grin. And .the face of Clarence Westley pa'ed. Strangely enough, Wcst.cy did not scent to like tne idea of Idling his dear friend Reuben out ol his sight that night. He sat with him long after dinner; and later, when everyone had retired save these two, they sat together smoking, though with scarcely a word between them. A glance at the clock showed Reuben at last that it was near to midnight. He rose with a yawn, stretching his arms above his head. And in that attitude the yawn was arrested, and his arms came slowly down, and he stood listening, and watching the other man. ■ “Someone coming downstairs,” he said. “I wonder what’s the matter?”

It was a sound like the quick rustle of skirts. There was of course, nothing strange about it, because it might have been cnc of the women come down in search of a book; but to these two men it was ominous. More ominous still wh.cn the door slowly opened, and Lydia Murrell stepped into the room. “Who are you,” stammered Clarence Westley; for, of course, he had not seen her before.

“I am Miss Westlcy’s maid,” answered Lydia. “Mr. Avondale here knows me; it is to him I wish to speak. It is about my husband,” she added to Reuben. “What about him?” he demanded.

“I have found a man lurking about in the grounds here, a man I have never seen before,” said Lydia. “And he is wearing the clothes my,husband wore when he left home. He can give no account of himself.”

Reuben burst into a laugh. 2'You’re cracked about that husband of yours,” he said. ‘‘What is this strange man like?” Lydia had begun a halting description of him, when she suddenly caught sight of something that arrested her attention, and which stood on a little table near her. She snatched it up and cried out excitedly “This is: the man !”

The thing she held was a large p,anel photograph of Vincent Avondale.

CHAPTER XVII,

Reuben and Clarence Wcstley stood like men turned to stone, staring at the woman who held the photograph of the dead man. Her eyes were shining with excitement. She pointed in triumph to the pictured face, and cried again: “That is the man!” “You’re mad!” exclaimed Reuben, roughly. “That is a portrait jof my brother unfortunately drowned some litt'e time back, and now in his grave.”

“I tell you that that is the man!” she said. “I saw him in the grounds last night. I could make nothing of him, and he could not tell me who he was. He is here now.” “Here?” That exclamation came from both men in startling fashion, in the same breath. “Yes,” said Lydia. “He must know something about my husband, although he won’t tell me. I don’t mean to let him go until I’ve found out more about him. And I tell you,” she added again, holding out the portrait, “th'at he is just like this.” (That amazing statement seemed

to shake both men equally. With lhat guilty knowledge on his soul, it seemed to Reuben possible that the dead might so come back to confront him; to Clarence Westley anything seemed possible in this horrible affair in which he had been involved. There was silence between them for a moment or two, and then it was Clarence who blurted out a question. “Where—where is this man?”

‘‘l have shut him up in a place in the grounds. He’s there now. He is quite passive—like a child. One may do anything with him.” “Has anyone else seen him?” asked Reuben.

“No one at all. He came very late, and I took him there at once.” “It’s all absurd, of course,” said Reuben to Clarence Westley, with a little jerky laugh. “I mean about the likeness. But we’d better go and see him.”

“If you think so,” said tlj other, in a whisper. So, with Lydia leading the way, they set off across the groundsThey walked in silence for a moment or two, and then Reuben, striding along that he might get level with Lydia, put an abrupt question to her.

“You say you are Miss Westley’s itp't?” he asked. “How did that happen? I did not know that she had a maid at all.”

“I persuaded her to accept my services,” she answered, calmly. “I was anxious to get into the house. I’m rather glad now that I did so.”

No further word was said until they reached the old summerhouse. Lvdia fitted the rusty key into the ioek and turned it, and opened the door. All was in darkness. There was no sound anywhere about the place, save the sucklcn, quick scuttling of a mouse. Reuben’s heart was beating to suffocation, and Westley was standing just within the doorway, ready to make a hurried flight if the necessity arose. They heard the slow scratching cf a match, and then saw the face of t,he woman bending over the lantern.

“He’s up above,” she said, in a whisper. “Go up and look for yourself.” Reuben paused for a moment, and drew back, then, with a little contemptuous laugh, snatched the lantern from her hand, mounted the ladder, and disappeared into the ram above. Thev heard him tramp across the bare floor; then heatd an exclamation. He tramped back aga’n to the trap-door, and held dawn the lantern, so that his face showed clearly. “There’s no one here!” he cried. “You’ve fooled us!”

Lvdia nimbly ran up the ladder, ard" steeped into the room above. Wcstlcv waited below. To Westley’s mind this seemed to savour more of ghosts than ever —that a man should disappear in this fasli-

Lydia and Reuben, in the room above, stared at the empty couch. That it had been slept on was evident; there was the mark of the human body on the cushions, and one cushion had been tumbled over on to the floor- But no one was there save themselves. “But I left him here an hour ago asleep,” gasped the woman. “Where can he have gone?” Reuben laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “You’ve been dreaming dreams, my dear,” he said, “though for what purpose you told them to us I fail to understand. Come, why did you make up this tale?”

“It’s no tale—it’s true!” she exclaimed, fiercely, with a stamp of her foot. “I left him here asleep—you can see for yourself the remains of the food and wine I brought him. I got them from the house. How should it possibly serve me to lie to you and to tell you about this man, if there was no man at all?” “Sounds plausible,” said Reuben, glancing round the place. “Let’s see how your wonderful man managed to get away.” He raised the lantern above his head and began to examine the room. “Can’t you find him?” cried Clarence, absurdly enough from the foot of the ladder, but of him they took no notice. 'After a moment or two Reuben held the lantern against the window-sill, and, with a jerk of his head, summoned Lydia to inspect' what he found there. “Here’s the way,” he said. “The dust of years is on this windowsill—see where his hands have gripped it. Easy enough for a man to get over here; see where he rested for a moment on the window-sill before turning round to drop over. Your bird has flown, my dear Mrs. Murrell.”

Lydia stood there looking at him in a dazed fashion ; disappointment was writ large all over her face. If the truth be told, Reuben, on the other hand, even in the midst of the doubts which possessed him, was filled with a certain feeling of relief. Whatever terrors he had felt as he approached this place were now dissipated; he could afford to believe that the man Lydia Murrell had captured was some wandering tramp who bore some slight resemblance to Vincent Avondale, and no more than that. He waved his hand carelessly towards the staircase, and signed to her to go down. “As I’ve told you, my dear Ly-

dia,” he said, “you are mad about this husband of yours. You’ve got hold of some man in a tweed suit something like the one Julius wore; he happens to have been a little like my poor brother—instantly you talk in this insane fashion, and drag us out here on a fooFs errand.” “I tell you that the man wore my husband’s clothes, and that he was the man of the portrait,” she replied, steadily. “Take warning, my dear Lydia,” said Reuben, in a low voice, as he dropped a hand on her shoulder, “lest you lose an excellent situation. Miss Westley will not want a woman about her who gets wild ideas of this kind, and talks nonsense. Miss Westley is to be my wife within a very short time, and I shall see to it that she gets a new maid. Now go down.” She shot him a rebellious glance for a moment, . but finally turned and walked down the ladder. He followed quickly, and passed out of the place with Clarence Westley, taking that gentleman by the arm and marching off with him towards the house. Lydia blew out the light, and turned the key in the lock; tears of rage and mortification were i:i her eyes as she followed the men back to the house.

“What d ; you think she meant?” whispered Laurence. “1 don’t know —I can’t understand her at all,” said Reuben. “Someone has been there, and it seems strange that she should be so positive about that likeness. If one liked to be foolish about it one might almost imagine that she had seen a ghost, or that the dead man had come back from the river.” They walked on together in silence until they came to the house, and there they sat for a long time linking of this thing in whispers—now looking at it irom this point of view, and now from that; now seeing strange and weird possibilities in it —yet never, of course, reaching for an instant the real solution of the mystery.

As a matter of fact, Lydia had looked well after her prisoner, and it was just possible that, but for a moment of impulse on the part of Vincent Avondale, he might have been found lying there asleep by his brother. It was just that moment of impulse that had completely altered events.

Lydia had been careful to carry food to him secretly; she had been equally careful that no one should observe her coming and her going. And for a time the man —more than spent with his long journey and the want of food—had been content to eat and sleep, and to do no more than that.

But when the second night arrived, and she had left him there to s’.cep as before, a sudden wild longing to be out of the place, and to be free again upon the road, possessed him. Why was it that those he met desired always to keep him prisoner; why would no one leave him free, as the birds were free, to go whither he listed? The coming of this woman suddenly into his life had altered his plans; for had he not been near that point when he could have stepped back into the life he had forgotten? That resolve, coming upon him in the darkness, came with an appeal not to be resisted. He got up, found his cap, and went to the open window. It was an easy drop from there to the ground. After listening cautiously for a few moment, he got one leg over the sill, and then the other; twisted about, and lowered himself to the full stretch of his arms, and dropped. A moment after he was making his way stealthily through the grounds and out towards the river.

Something was stirring in the man; old memories were dimly awakening. In some far-off time, as it seemed, he had been in this place, or some place like it, on just such a night as this, and had walked and talked with someone whose very name he had long since forgotten. Still, like a man in the dark, he was groping to find his way out into the light, and was seeing a mere glimmer of it now and "then in the far-off distance.

It was a warm, still night, and he crept deep into the shelter of the woods, and lay down there contentedlv. ’ He had put a little of the food that was left into his pockets, and when morning came he ate that, grateful to think that he was free,’ and that the sun coming up in the sky could warm him, and send the blood as with new life tingling through his veins. From where he sat he could look down over the river and the towing-path; presently he could see people stirring about among the boats and in the grounds of the houses on the river bank. One such place in particular interested him and from his coign of vantage in the woods’he had a bird’s-eye view of what was going on there-

(To be Continued.)—M.S. 18