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THE BITTERMEADS
MYSTERY


By the Same Author:
THE SOLITARY HOUSE
“A good story to start reading about 9:00 P. M.
if you want to mke a night of it in the old
armchair." -- Boston Evening Transcript
OLD FIGHTING DAYS
A thrilling story of the ring, adventure, mys-
tery and love. "Full of stirring incidents."
-New York Tribune
NEW YORK: ALFRED · A · KNOPF


THE
BITTERMEADS
MYSTERY
By
E. R. PUNSHON
NEW YORK
ALFRED · A · KNOPF
MCMXXII


?4;?,'!..!!..
A 2997. 3.10
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
E. R. PUNSHON
Published, August, 1923
OCT 18.1922)
LIBRARY
Set up, electrotyped, and printed by the Poil-Ballou Co., Binghamton, N. Y.
Paper furnished by W. F. Etherington & Co., New York, N. Y.
Bound by the H. Wolf Estate, New York, N. Y.
MANUTAOTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA


CONTENTS
I THE LONE PASSENGER
II THE FIGHT IN THE WOODS
III A COINCIDENCE
IV A WOMAN WEEPS
V A WOMAN AND A MAN
VI A DISCOVERY
VII QUESTION AND ANSWER
VIII CAPTIVITY CAPTURE
IX THE ATTIC OF MYSTERY
X THE NEW GARDENER
XI THE PROBLEM
XII An AvowAL
XIII INVISIBLE WRITING
XIV LOVE-MAKING AT NIGHT
XV THE SOUND OF A SHOT
XVI IN THE WOOD
XVII A DECLARATION
XVIII ROBERT DUNN'S ENEMY
XIX THE VISIT TO WRESTE ABBEY
XX ELLA'S WARNING
117
128
134
142
151
159
165


CONTENTS
175
186
193
202
XXI DOUBTS AND FEARS
XXII PLOTS AND PLANS
XXIII COUNTER PLANS
XXIV AN APHORISM
XXV THE UNEXPECTED
XXVI A RACE AGAINST TIME
XXVII FLIGHT AND PURSUIT
XXVIII BACK AT BITTERMEADS
XXIX THE ATTIC
XXX SOME EXPLANATIONS
XXXI CONCLUSION
210
218
226
234
242
251
259
LANATIONS


THE BITTERMEADS
MYSTERY





CHAPTER I
THE LONE PASSENGER
That evening the down train from London depos-
ited at the little country station of Ramsdon but a
single passenger, a man of middle height, shabbily
dressed, with broad shoulders and long arms and a
most unusual breadth and depth of chest.
Of his face one could see little, for it was covered
by a thick growth of dark curly hair, beard, mous-
tache and whiskers, all overgrown and ill-tended, and
as he came with a somewhat slow and ungainly walk
along the platform, the lad stationed at the gate to
collect tickets grinned amusedly and called to one of
the porters near :-
“Look at this, Bill; here's the monkey-man escaped
and come back along of us.”
It was a reference to a travelling circus that had
lately visited the place and exhibited a young chim-
panzee advertised as “the monkey-man,” and Bill
guffawed appreciatively.
The stranger was quite clore and heard plainly, for
indeed the youth at the gate had made no special
attempt to speak softly.
The boy was still laughing as he held out his hand
for the ticket, and the stranger gave it to him with
one hand and at the same time shot out a long arm,


10 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
caught the boy—a well-grown lad of sixteen-by the
middle and, with as little apparent effort as though
lifting a baby, swung him into the air to the top of
the gate-post, where he left him clinging with arms
and legs six feet from the ground.
“Hi, what are you a-doing of?” shouted the por-
ter, running up, as the amazed and frightened youth,
clinging to his gate-post, emitted a dismal howl.
“Teaching a cheeky boy manners," retorted the
stranger with an angry look and in a very gruff and
harsh voice. “Do you want to go on top of the
other post to make a pair?”.
The porter drew back hurriedly.
“You be off," he ordered as he retreated. “We
don't want none of your sort about here."
“I certainly have no intention of staying,” re-
torted the other as gruffly as before. “But I think
you'll remember Bobbie Dunn next time I come this
way.”
“Let me down; please let me down,” wailed the
boy, clinging desperately to the gate-post on whose
top he had been so unceremoniously deposited, and
Dunn laughed and walked away, leaving the porter
to rescue his youthful colleague and to cuff his ears
soundly as soon as he had done so, by way of a relief
to his feelings.
“That will learn you to be a bit civil to folk, I
hope," said the porter severely. “But that there
chap must have an amazing strong arm,” he added
thoughtfully. “Lifting you up there all the same as
you was a bunch of radishes.”


12 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
fore now. Only then, of course, one knew what to
expect, whereas now—And I was a silly ass to lose
my temper with that boy at the station. You aren't
making a very brilliant start, Bobby, my boy.”
By this time he had left the little town behind him
and he was walking along a very lonely and dark road.
On one side was a plantation of young trees, on the
other there was the open ground, covered with furze
bush, of the village common.
Where the plantation ended stood a low, two-storied
house of medium size, with a veranda stretching its
full length in front. It stood back from the road some
distance and appeared to be surrounded by a large
garden.
At the gate Dunn halted and struck a match as if
to light a pipe, and by the flickering flame of this
match the name “Bittermeads,” painted on the gate
became visible.
“Here it is, then," he muttered. “I wonder—".
Without completing the sentence he slipped through
the gate, which was not quite closed, and entered the
garden, where he crouched down in the shadow of
some bushes that grew by the side of the gravel path
leading to the house, and seemed to compose himself
for a long vigil.
An hour passed, and another. Nothing had hap-
pened-he had seen nothing, heard nothing, save for
the passing of an occasional vehicle or pedestrian on
the road, and he himself had never stirred or moved,
80 that he seemed one with the night and one with the
shadows where he crouched, and a pair of field-mice
that had come from the common opposite went to and


THE LONE PASSENGER
13
fro about their busy occupations at his feet without
paying him the least attention.
Another hour passed, and at last there began to be
signs of life about the house.
A light shone in one window and in another, and
vanished, and soon the door opened and there
appeared two people on the threshold, clearly visible
in the light of a strong incandescent gas-burner just
within the hall.
The watcher in the garden moved a little to get a
clearer view.
In the paroxysm of terror at this sudden coming
to life of what they had believed to be a part of the
bushes, the two little field-mice scampered away, and
Dunn bit his lip with annoyance, for he knew well
that some of those he had had traffic with in the past
would have been very sure, on hearing that scurrying-
off of the frightened mice, that some one was lurking
near at hand.
But the two in the lighted doorway opening on the
veranda heard and suspected nothing.
One was a man, one a woman, both were young,
both were extraordinarily good-looking, and as they
stood in the blaze of the gas they made a strikingly
handsome and attractive picture on which, however,
Dunn seemed to look from his hiding-place with
hostility and watchful suspicion.
“How dark it is, there's not a star showing,” the
girl was saying. “Shall you be able to find your
way, even with the lantern? You'll keep to the road,
won't you ?”
Her voice was low and pleasant and so clear Dunn


14 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
heard every word distinctly. She seemed quite young,
not more than twenty or twenty-one, and she was slim
and graceful in build and tall for a woman. Her
face, on which the light shone directly, was oval in
shape with a broad, low forehead on which clustered
the small, unruly curls of her dark brown hair, and
she had clear and very bright brown eyes. The
mouth and chin were perhaps a little large to be in
absolute harmony with the rest of her features, and
she was of a dark complexion, with a soft and delicate
bloom that would by itself have given her a right to
claim her possession of a full share of good looks.
She was dressed quite simply in a white frock with a
touch of colour at the waist and she had a very flimsy
lace shawl thrown over her shoulders, presumably in-
tended as a protection against the night air.
Her companion was a very tall and big man, well
over six feet in height, with handsome, strongly-
marked features that often bore an expression a little
too haughty, but that showed now a very tender
and gentle look, so that it was not difficult to guess
the state of his feelings towards the girl at his side.
His shoulders were broad, his chest deep, and his
whole build powerful in the extreme, and Dunn,
looking him up and down with the quick glance
of one accustomed to judge men, thought that
he had seldom seen one more capable of holding his
own.
Answering his companion's remark, he said
lightly :
“Oh, no, I shall cut across the wood, it's ever so
much shorter, you know.”


THE LONE PASSENGER
15
“But it's so dark and lonely," the girl protested.
“And then, after last week—"
He interrupted her with a laugh, and he lifted his
head with a certain not unpleasing swagger.
“I don't think they'll trouble me for all their
threats,” he said. “For that matter, I rather hope
they will try something of the sort on. They need a
lesson.”
“Oh, I do hope you'll be careful,” the girl ex-
claimed.
He laughed again and made another lightly-con-
fident, almost-boastful remark, to the effect that he did
not think any one was likely to interfere with him.
For a minute or two longer they lingered, chatting
together as they stood in the gas-light on the veranda,
and from his hiding-place Dunn watched them
intently. It seemed that it was the girl in whom he
was chiefly interested, for his eyes hardly moved
from her and in them there showed a very grim and
hard expression.
“Pretty enough,” he mused. “More than pretty.
No wonder poor Charles raved about her, if it's the
same girl-if it is, she ought to know what's become
of him. But then, where does this big chap come
in?”
The “big chap" seemed really going now, though
reluctantly, and it was not difficult to see that he
would have been very willing to stay longer had she
given him the least encouragement.
But that he did not get, and indeed it seemed as if
she were a little bored and a little anxious for him to
say good night and go.


16 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
At last he did so, and she retired within the house,
while he came swinging down the garden path, pass-
ing close to where Dunn lay hidden, but without any
suspicion of his presence, and out into the high road.


CHAPTER II
THE FIGHT IN THE WOOD
From his hiding-place in the bushes Dunn slipped
out, as the big man vanished into the darkness down
the road, and for the fraction of a second he seemed
to hesitate.
The lights in the house were coming and going after
a fashion that suggested that the inmates were prepar-
ing for bed, and almost at once Dunn turned his back
to the building and hurried very quickly and softly
down the road in the direction the big man had just
taken.
“After all,” he thought, “the house can't run e-
way, that will be still there when I come back, and I
ought to find out who this big chap is and where he
comes from.”
In spite of the apparent clumsiness of his build
and the ungainliness of his movements it was extra-
ordinary how swiftly and how quietly he moved, a
shadow could scarcely have made less sound than this
man did as he melted through the darkness and a
swift runner would have difficulty in keeping pace
with him.
An old labourer going home late bade the big man
a friendly good night and passed on without seeing
or hearing Dunn following close behind, and a sol-


18 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
itary woman, watching at her cottage door, saw
plainly the big man's tall form and heard his firm
and heavy steps and would have been ready to swear
no other passed that way at that time, though Dunn
was not five yards behind, slipping silently and
swiftly by in the shelter of the trees lining the road.
A little further beyond this cottage a path, reached
by climbing a stile, led from the high road first across
an open field and then through the heart of a wood
that seemed to be of considerable extent.
The man Dunn was following crossed this stile and
when he had gone a yard or two along the path he
halted abruptly, as though all at once grown uneasy,
and looked behind.
From where he stood any one following him across
the stile must have shown plainly visible against the
sky line, but though he lingered for a monent or two,
and even, when he walked on, still looked back very
frequently, he saw nothing.
Yet Dunn, when his quarry paused and looked back
like this, was only a little distance behind, and when
the other moved on Dunn was still very near.
But he had not crossed the stile, for when he came
to it he realized that in climbing it his form would be
plainly visible in outline for some distance, and so
instead, he had found and crawled through a gap in
the hedge not far away.
They came, Dunn so close and so noiseless behind
his quarry he might well have seemed the other's
shadow, to the outskirts of the wood, and as they en-
tered it Dunn made his first fault, his first failure in
an exhibition of woodcraft that a North American


THE FIGHT IN THE WOOD 19
Indian or an Australian “black-fellow” might have
equalled, but could not have surpassed.
For he trod heavily on a dry twig that snapped
with a very loud, sharp retort, clearly audible for
some distance in the quiet night, and, as dry twigs
only snap like that under the pressure of considerable
weight, the presence of some living creature in the
wood other than the small things that run to and fro
beneath the trees, stood revealed to all ears that could
hear.
Dunn stood instantly perfectly still, rigid as a
statue, listening intently, and he noted with satisfac-
tion and keen relief that the regular heavy tread of
the man in front did not alter or change.
“Good,” he thought to himself. “What luck, he
hasn't heard it."
He moved on again, as silently as before, perhaps
a little inclined to be contemptuous of any one who
could fail to notice so plain a warning, and he sup-
posed that the man he was following must be some
townsman who knew nothing at all of the life of the
country and was, like so many of the dwellers in cities,
blind and deaf outside the range of the noises of the
streets and the clamour of passing traffic.
This thought was still in his mind when all at once
the steady sound of footsteps he had been following
ceased suddenly and abruptly, cut off on the instant
as you turn off water from a tap.
Dunn paused, too, supposing that for some reason
the other had stopped for a moment and would soon
walk on again.
But a minute passed and then another and there


20 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
was still no sound of the footsteps beginning again.
A little puzzled, Dunn moved cautiously forward.
He saw nothing, he found nothing, there was no
sign at all of the man he had been following.
It was as though he had vanished bodily from the
face of the earth, and yet how this had happened, or
why, or what had become of him, Dunn could not
imagine, for this spot was, it seemed, in the very
heart of the wood, there was no shelter of any
sort or kind anywhere near, and though there
were trees all round just the ground was fairly
open.
“Well, that's jolly queer,” he muttered, for indeed
it had a strange and daunting effect, this sudden dis-
appearance in the midst of the wood of the man he
had followed so far, and the silence around seemed
all the more intense now that those regular and heavy
footsteps had ceased.
“Jolly queer, as queer a thing as ever I came
across,” he muttered again.
He listened and heard a faint sound from his right.
He listened again and thought he heard a rustling
on his left, but was not sure and all at once a great
figure loomed up gigantic before him and the light of
a lantern gleamed in his face.
“Now, my man,” a voice said, “you've been fol-
lowing me ever since I left Bittermeads, and I'm
going to give you a lesson you won't forget in a
hurry."
Dunn stood quite still. At the moment his chief
feeling was one of intense discomfiture at the way in


THE FIGHT IN THE WOODS 21
which he had been outwitted, and he experienced, too,
a very keen and genuine admiration for the woodcraft
the other had shown.
Evidently, all the time he had known, or at any
rate, suspected, that he was being followed, and
choosing this as a favourable spot he had quietly
doubled on 'his tracks, come up behind his pursuer,
and taken him unawares.
Dunn had not supposed there was a man in Eng-
land who could have played such a trick on him, but
his admiration was roughly disturbed before he could
express it, for the grasp upon his collar tightened and
upon his shoulders there alighted a tremendous, sting-
ing blow, as with all his very considerable strength,
the big man brought down his walking-stick with a
resounding thwack.
The sheer surprise of it, the sudden sharp pain,
jerked a quick cry from Dunn, who had not been in
the least prepared for such an attack, and in the dark-
ness had not seen the stick rise, and the other laughed
grimly.
“Yes, you scoundrel,” he said. “I know very well
who you are and what you want, and I'm going to
thrash you within an inch of your life.”
Again the stick rose in the air, but did not fall, for
round about his body Dunn laid such a grip as he had
never felt before and as would for certain have
crushed in the ribs of a weaker man. The lantern
crashed to the ground, they were in darkness.
“Ha! Would you ?” the man exclaimed, taken by
surprise in his turn, and, giant as he was, he felt


22 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
himself plucked up from the ground as you pluck
a weed from a lawn and held for a moment in mid-air
and then dashed down again.
Perhaps not another man alive could have kept his
footing under such treatment, but, somehow, he man-
aged to, though it needed all his great strength to
resist the shock.
He flung away his walking-stick, for he realized
very clearly now that this was not going to be, as he
had anticipated, a mere case of the administration of
a deserved punishment, but rather the starkest, fiercest
fight that ever he had known.
He grappled with his enemy, trying to make the
most of his superior height and weight, but the long
arms twined about him, seemed to press the very
breath from his body and for all the huge efforts he
put forth with every ounce of his tremendous
strength behind them, he could not break loose from
the no less tremendous grip wherein he was taken.
Breast to breast they fought, straining, swaying a
little this way or that, but neither yielding an inch.
Their muscles stood out like bars of steel, their breath
came heavily, neither man was conscious any more
of anything save his need to conquer and win and
overthrow his enemy.
The quick passion of hot rage that had come upon
Dunn when he felt the other's unexpected blow still
burned and flamed intensely, so that he no longer
remembered even the strange and high purpose which
had brought him here.
His adversary, too, had lost all consciousness of all


THE FIGHT IN THE WOOD 23
other things in the lust of this fierce physical battle,
and when he gave presently a loud, half-strangled
shout, it was not fear that he uttered or a cry for
aid, but solely for joy in such wild struggle and efforts
as he had never known before.
And Dunn spake no word and uttered no sound,
but strove all the more with all the strength of every
nerve and muscle he possessed once again to pluck
the other up that he might dash him down a second
time.
In quick and heavy gasps came their breaths as
they still swayed and struggled together, and
though each exerted to the utmost a strength few
could have withstood, each found that in the other
he seemed to have met his match.
In vain Dunn tried again to lift his adversary up
so that he might hurl him to the ground. It was an
effort, a grip that seemed as though it might have torn
up an oak by the roots, but the other neither budged
nor flinched beneath it.
And in vain, in his turn, did he try to bend Dunn
backwards to crush him to the earth, it was an effort
before which one might have thought that iron and
stone must have given away, but Dunn still sustained
it.
Thus dreadfully they fought, there in the darkness,
there in the silence of the night.
Dreadfully they wrestled, implacable, fierce, deter-
mined, every primeval passion awake and strong
again, and slowly, very slowly, that awful grip laid
upon the big man's body began to tell.


24 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
His breathing grew more difficult, his efforts seemed
aimed more to release himself than to overcome his
adversary, he gave way an inch or two, no more,
but still an inch or two of ground.
There was a sharp sound, like a thin, dry twig
snapping beneath a careless foot.
It was one of his ribs breaking beneath the dread-
ful and intolerable pressure of Dunn's enormous grip.
But neither of the combatants heard or knew, and
with one last effort the big man put forth all his vast
strength in a final attempt to bear his enemy down.
Dunn resisted still, resisted, though the veins stood
out like cords on his brow, though a little trickle of
blood crept from the corner of his mouth and though
his heart swelled almost to bursting.
There was a sound of many waters in his ears,
the darkness all around grew shot with little flames,
he could hear some one breathing very noisily and he
was not sure whether this were himself or his ad-
versary till he realized that it was both of them.
With one sudden, almost superhuman effort, he
heaved his great adversary up, but had not strength
enough left to do more than let him slip from his
grasp to fall on the ground, and with the effort he
himself dropped forward on his hands and knees,
just as a lantern shone at a distance and a voice
cried :-
“This way, Tom. Master John, Master John,
where are you?”


CHAPTER III
A COINCIDENCE
Another voice answered from near by and Dunn
scrambled hurriedly to his feet.
He had but a moment in which to decide what to
do, for these new arrivals were coming at a run and
would be upon him almost instantly if he stayed where
he was.
That they were friends of the man he had just
overthrown and whose huge bulk lay motionless in the
darkness at his feet, seemed plain, and it also seemed
plain to him that the moment was not an opportune
one for offering explanations.
Swiftly he decided to slip away into the darkness.
What had happened might be cleared up later when
he knew more and was more sure of his ground; at
present he must think first, he told himself, of the
success of his mission.
Physically, he was greatly exhausted and his gait
was not so steady nor his progress so silent and skil-
ful as it had been before, as now he hurried away
from the scene of the combat.
But the two new-comers made no attempt to pursue
him and indeed did not seem to give his possible
presence in the vicinity even a thought, as with many
25


26 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
muttered exclamations of dismay and anger, they
stooped over the body of his prostrate enemy.
It was evident they recognized him at once, and
that he was the “Mr. John” whose name they had
called, for so they spoke of him to each other as they
busied themselves about him.
"I expect I've been a fool again,” Dunn thought
to himself ruefully, as from a little distance, well-
sheltered in the darkness, he crouched upon the
ground and listened and watched. “I may have
ruined everything. Any one but a fool would have
asked him what he meant when he hit out like that
instead of flying into a rage and hitting back the way
I did. Most likely it was some mistake when he said
he knew who I was and what I wanted—at least if
it wasn't-I hope I haven't killed him, anyhow."
Secure in the protection the dark night afforded
him, he remained sufficiently near at hand to be able
to assure himself soon that his overthrown adversary
was certainly not killed, for now he began to express
himself somewhat emphatically concerning the man-
ner in which the two new-comers were ministering
to him.
Presently he got to his feet and, with one of them
supporting him on each side, began to limp away, and
Dunn followed them, though cautiously and at a dis-
tance, for he was still greatly exhausted and in neither
the mood nor the condition for running unnecessary
risks.
The big man, Mr. John, as the others called him,
seemed little inclined for speech, but the others talked


A COINCIDENCE
27
a good deal, subsiding sometimes when he told them
gruffly to be quiet but invariably soon beginning again
their expressions of sympathy and vows of vengeance.
against his unknown assailant.
“How many of them do you think there were, Mr.
John, sir?” one asked presently. “I'll lay you
marked a fair sight of the villains.”
“There was only one man,” Mr. John answered
briefly.
"Only one?” the other repeated in great surprise.
“For the Lord's sake, Mr. John-only one? Why,
there ain't any one man between here and Lunnon
town could stand up to you, sir, in a fair tussle.
"Well, he did,” Mr. John answered. “He had the
advantage, he took me by surprise, but I never felt
such a grip in my life.”
“Lor', now, think of that,” said the other in tones
in which surprise seemed mingled with a certain
incredulity. “It don't seem possible, but for sure,
then, he don't come from these here parts, that I'll
stand to.”
“I knew that much before,” retorted Mr. John.
“I said all the time they were outsiders, a London
gang very likely. You'll have to get Dr. Rawson,
Bates. I don't know what's up, but I've a beast of
a pain in my side. I can hardly breathe.”.
Bates murmured respectful sympathy as they came
out of the shelter of the trees, and crossing some open
ground, reached a road along the further side of which
ran a high brick wall.
In this, nearly opposite the spot where they emerged


28 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
on the road, was a small door which one of the men
opened and through which they passed and locked it
behind them, leaving Dunn without.
He hesitated for a moment, half-minded to scale
the wall and continue on the other side of it to follow
them.
Calculating the direction in which the village of
Ramsdon must lie, he turned that way and had gone
only a short distance when he was overtaken by a
pedestrian with whom he began conversation by ask-
ing for a light for his pipe.
The man seemed inclined to be conversational, and
after a few casual remarks, Dunn made an observ-
ation on the length of the wall they were passing
and to the end of which they had just come.
“Must be a goodish-sized place in there,” he said.
“Whose is it?"
“Oh, that there's Ramsdon Place," the other an-
swered. “Mr. John Clive lives there now his father's
dead."
Dunn stood still in the middle of the road.
“Who? What?” he stammered. “Who—who did
you say?"
“Mr. John Clive,” the other repeated. “Why-
what's wrong about that?"
"Nothing, nothing," Dunn answered, but his voice
shook a little with what seemed almost fear, and be-
hind the darkness of the friendly night his face had
become very pale. “Clive-John Clive, you say?
Oh, that's impossible.”
"Needn't believe it if you don't want to," grumbled


30 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
recently happened. Mr. Clive, finding himself being
followed, had supposed it was one of his poaching
enemies and had at once attempted to carry out his
threat he had made.
Dunn told himself, at any rate, the error would
have the result of turning all suspicion away from
him, and yet he still seemed very disturbed and ill at
ease.
“Has Mr. Clive been here long?” he asked.
“It must be four or five years since his father
bought the place,” answered his new acquaintance.
“Then, when the old man was killed a year ago, Mr.
John inherited everything."
“Old Mr. Clive was killed, was he?" asked Dunn,
and his voice sounded very strange in the darkness.
“How was that?”
“Accident to his motor-car," the other replied.
“I don't hold with them things myself—give me a
good horse, I say. People didn't like the old man
much, and some say Mr. John's too fond of taking the
high hand. But don't cross him and he won't cross
you, that's his motto and there's worse."
Dunn agreed and asked one or two more questions
about the details of the accident to old Mr. Clive, in
which he seemed very interested.
But he did not get much more information about
that concerning which his new friend evidently knew
very little. However, he gave Dunn a few more facts
concerning Mr. John Clive, as that he was unmarried,
was said to be very wealthy, and had the reputation
of being something of a ladies' man.


A COINCIDENCE
31
A little further on they parted, and Dunn took a
side road which he calculated should lead him back
to Bittermeads.
“It may be pure coincidence,” he mused as he
walked slowly in a very troubled and doubtful mood.
“But if so, it's a very queer one, and if it isn't, it
seems to me Mr. John Clive might as well put his
head in a lion's jaws as pay visits at Bittermeads.
But of course he can't have the least suspicion of the
truth-if it is the truth. If I hadn't lost my temper
like a fool when he whacked out at me like that I
might have been able to warn him, or find out some-
thing useful perhaps. And his father killed re-
cently in an accident-is that a coincidence, too, I
wonder?”
He passed his hand across his forehead on which a
light sweat stood, though he was not a man easily af-
fected, for he had seen and endured many things.
His mind was very full of strange and troubled
thoughts as at last he came back to Bittermeads,
where, leaning with his elbows on the garden gate, he
stood for a long time, watching the dark and silent
house and thinking of that scene of which he had been
a spectator when John Clive and the girl had stood to-
gether on the veranda in the light of the gas from the
hall and had bidden each other good night.
“It seems,” he mused, “as though the last that was
seen of poor Charley must have been just like that.
It was just such a dark night as this when Simpson
saw him. He was standing on that veranda when
Simpson recognized him by the light of the gas be-


32 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
hind, and a girl was bidding him good night-a very
pretty girl, too, Simpson said.”
Silent and immobile he stood there a long time,
not so much now as one who watched, but rather as
if deep in thought, for his head was bent and sup-
ported on his hands and his eyes were fixed on the
ground.
“As for this John Clive,” he muttered presently,
rousing himself. “I suppose that must be a coinci-
dence, but it's queer, and queer the father should
have died-like that."
He broke off, shuddering slightly, as though at
thoughts too awful to be endured, and pushing open
the gate, he walked slowly up the gravel path to-
wards the house, round which he began to walk, go-
ing very slowly and cautiously and often pausing as
if he wished to make as close examination of the place
as the darkness would permit.
More by habit than because he thought there was
any need of it, he moved always with that extreme
and wonderful dexterity of quietness he could assume
at will, and as he turned the corner of the building
and came behind it, his quick ear, trained by many an
emergency to pick out the least unusual sound, caught
a faint, continued scratching noise, so faint and low it
might well have passed unnoticed.
All at once he understood and realized that some
one quite close at hand was stealthily cutting out the
glass from one of the panes of a ground-floor window.


CHAPTER IV
A WOMAN WEEPS
Cautiously he glided nearer, moving as noiselessly
as any shadow, seeming indeed but one shadow the
more in the heavy surrounding darkness.
The persistent scratching noise continued, and
Dunn was now so close he could have put out his
hand and touched the shoulder of the man who was
causing it and who still, intent and busy, had not the
least idea of the other's proximity.
A faint smile touched Dunn's lips. The situation
seemed not to be without a grim humour, for if one-
half of what he suspected were true, one might as
sensibly and safely attempt to break into the con-
demned cell at Pentonville Gaol as into this quiet
house.
But then, was it perhaps possible that this fellow,
working away so unconcernedly, within arm's-length
of him, was in reality one of them, seeking to obtain
admittance in this way for some reason of his own,
some private treachery, it might be, or some dispute ?
To Dunn that did not seem likely. More probably the
fellow was merely an ordinary burglar—some local
practitioner of the housebreaking art, perhaps—whose
ill-fortune it was to have hit upon this house to rob
without his having the least idea of the nature of the
place he was trying to enter.
33


34 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
“He might prove a useful recruit for them,
though,” Dunn thought, and a sudden idea flashed
into his mind, vivid and startling.
For one moment he thought intently, weighing in
his mind this idea that had come to him so suddenly.
He was not blind to the risks it involved, but his
eager temperament always inclined him to the most
direct and often to the most dangerous course. His
mind was made up, his plan of action decided.
The scratching of the burglar's tool upon the glass
ceased. Already he had smeared treacle over the
square of glass he intended to remove and had covered
it with paper so as to be able to take it out easily
and in one piece without the risk of falling fragments
betraying him.
Through the gap thus made he thrust his arm and
made sure there were no alarms fitted and no obstacles
in the way of his easy entranee.
Cautiously he unfastened the window and cau-
tiously and silently lifted the sash, and when he had
done so he paused and listened for a space to make
sure no one was stirring and that no alarm had been
caused within the house.
Still very cautiously and with the utmost precaution
to avoid making even the least noise, he put one knee
apon the window-sill, preparatory to climbing in, and
as he did so Dunn touched him lightly on the shoulder.
"Well, my man, what are you up to?” he said
softly. And without a word, without giving the least
warning, the burglar, a man evidently of determina-
tion and resource, swung round and aimed at Dunn's


A WOMAN WEEPS
35
head a tremendous blow with the heavy iron jemmy he
held in his right hand.
But Dunn was not unprepared for an attack and
those bright, keen eyes of his seemed able to see as well
in the dark as in the light. He threw up his left hand
and caught the other's wrist before that deadly blow
he aimed could descend and at the same instant he
dashed his own clenched fist full into the burglar's
face.
As it happened, more by good luck than intended
aim, the blow took him on the point of the chin.
He dropped instantly, collapsing in on himself as
falls a pole-axed bullock, and lay, unconscious, in a
crumpled heap on the ground.
For a little Dunn waited, crouching above him and
listening for the least sound to show that their brief
scuffle had been heard.
But it had all passed nearly as silently as quickly.
Within the house everything remained silent, there
was no sound audible, no gleam of light to show that
any of the inmates had been disturbed.
Taking from his pocket a small electric flash-lamp
Dunn turned its light on his victim.
He seemed a man of middle age with a brutal,
heavy-jawed face and a low, receding forehead. His
lips, a little apart, showed yellow, irregular teeth, of
which two at the front of the lower jaw had been
broken, and the scar of an old wound, running from
the corner of his left eye down to the centre of his
cheek, added to the sinister and forbidding aspect he
bore.


36 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
His build was heavy and powerful and near by,
where he had dropped it when he fell, lay the jemmy
with which he had struck at Dunn. It was a heavy,
ugly-looking thing, about two feet in length and with
one end nearly as sharp as that of a chisel.
Dunn picked it up and felt it thoughtfully.
“Just as well I got my blow in first,” he mused.
“If he had landed that fairly on my skull I don't
think anything else in this world would ever have
interested me any more."
Stooping over the unconscious man, he felt in his
pockets and found an ugly-looking revolver, fully
loaded, a handful of cartridges, a coil of thin rope,
an electric torch, a tiny dark lantern no bigger than
a match-box, and so arranged that the single drop of
light it permitted to escape fell on one spot only, a
bunch of curiously-shaped wires Dunn rightly guessed
to be skeleton keys used for opening locks quietly,
together with some tobacco, a pipe, a little money,
and a few other personal belongings of no special
interest or significance.
These Dunn replaced where he had found them,
but the revolver, the rope, the torch, the dark lantern,
and the bunch of wires he took possession of.
He noticed also that the man was wearing rubber-
soled boots and rubber gloves, and these last he also
kept. Stooping, he lifted the unconscious man on to
his shoulder and carried him with perfect ease and at
a quick pace out of the garden and across the road to
the common opposite, where, in a convenient spot, be-
hind some furze bushes, he laid him down.


A WOMAN WEEPS
37
“When he comes round,” Dunn muttered. “He
won't know where he is or what's happened, and prob-
ably his one idea will be to clear off as quickly as
possible. I don't suppose he'll interfere with me at
all."
Then a new idea seemed to strike him, and he
hurriedly removed his own coat and trousers and boots
and exchanged them for those the burglar was wear-
ing.
They were not a good fit, but he could get them
on and the idea in his mind was that if the police of
the district began searching, as very likely they would,
for Mr. John Clive's assailant, and if they had dis-
covered any clues in the shape of footprints or torn
bits of clothing or buttons—and Dunn knew his attire
had suffered considerably during the struggle—then
it would be as well that such clues should lead not
to him, but to this other man, who, if he were innocent
on that score, had at any rate been guilty of attempt-
ing to carry out a much worse offence.
“I'm afraid your luck's out, old chap,” Dunn mut-
tered, apostrophizing the unconscious man. “But
you did your best to brain me, and that gives me a
sort of right to make you useful. Besides, if the
police do run you in, it won't mean anything worse
than a few questions it'll be your own fault if you
can't answer. Anyhow, I can't afford to run the risk
of some blundering fool of a policeman trying to
arrest me for assaulting the local magnate."
Much relieved in mind, for he had been greatly
worried by a fear that this encounter with John


38 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
Clive might lead to highly inconvenient legal proceed-
ings, he left the unlucky burglar lying in the shelter
of the furze bushes and returned to the house.
All was as he had left it, the open window gaped
widely, almost inviting entrance, and he climbed si-
lently within. The apartment in which he found him
self was apparently the drawing-room and he felt his
way cautiously and slowly across it, moving with in-
finite care so as to avoid making even the least noise.
Reaching the door, he opened it and went out into
the hall. All was dark and silent. He permitted
himself here to flash on his electric torch for a mo-
ment, and he saw that the hall was spacious and used
as a lounge, for there were several chairs clustered in
its centre, opposite the fireplace. There were two or
three doors opening from it, and almost opposite
where he stood were the stairs, a broad flight leading
to a wide landing above.
Still with the same extreme silence and care, he
began to ascend these stairs and when he was about
half-way up he became aware of a faint and strange
sound that came trembling through the silence and
stillness of the night.
What it was he could not imagine. He listened
for a time and then resumed his silent progress with
even more care than previously, and only when he
reached the landing did he understand that this
faint and low sound he heard was caused by a woman
weeping very softly in one of the rooms near by.
Silently he crossed the landing in the direction
whence the sound seemed to come. Now, too, he saw


A WOMAN WEEPS
39
a thread of light showing beneath a door at a little
distance, and when he crept up to it and listened he
could hear for certain that it was from within this
room that there came the sound of muffled, passionate
weeping.
The door was closed, but he turned the handle so
carefully that he made not the least sound and very
cautiously he began to push the door back, the ti-
niest fraction of an inch at a time, so that even one
watching closely could never have said that it moved.
When, after a long time, during which the muffled
weeping never ceased, he had it open an inch or two,
he leaned forward and peeped within.
It was a bed-chamber, and, crouching on the floor
near the fireplace, in front of a low arm-chair, her
head hidden on her arms and resting on the seat of
the chair, was the figure of a girl. She had made no
preparations for retiring, and by the frock she wore
Dunn recognized her as the girl he had seen on the
veranda bidding good-bye to John Clive.
The sound of her weeping was very pitiful, her
attitude was full of an utter and poignant despair,
there was something touching in the extreme in the
utter abandonment to grief shown by this young and
lovely creature who seemed framed only for joy and
laughter.
The stern features and hard eyes of the unseen
watcher softened, then all at once they grew like
tempered steel again.
For on the mantlepiece, just above where the weep-
ing girl crouched, stood a photograph—the photo-


40 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
graph of a young and good-looking, gaily-smiling man.
Across it, in a boyish and somewhat unformed hand,
was written :-
“Devotedly yours,
Charley Wright."
It was this photograph that had caught Dunn's
eyes. Both it and the writing and the signature he
recognized, and his look was very stern, his eyes as
cold as death itself, as slowly, slowly he pushed back
the door of the room another inch or so.


CHAPTER V
WOMAN AND A MAN
The girl stirred. It was as though some knowl-
edge of the slow opening of the door had penetrated to
her consciousness before as yet she actually saw or
heard anything.
She rose to her feet, drying her eyes with her hand-
kerchief, and as she was moving to a drawer near to
get a clean one her glance fell on the partially-open
door.
“I thought I shut it,” she said aloud in a puzzled
manner.
She crossed the floor to the door and closed it with
a push from her hand and in the passage outside
Dunn stood still, not certain what to do next.
But for that photograph he might have gone quietly
away, giving up the reckless plan that had formed
itself so suddenly in his mind while he watched the
burglar at work.
That photograph, however, with its suggestion that
he stood indeed on the brink of the solution of the
mystery, seemed a summons to him to go on. It was
as though a voice from the dead called him to continue
on his task to punish and to save, and slowly, very
slowly, with an infinite caution, he turned again the
handle of the door and still very slowly, still with the
4)


42 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
same infinite caution, he pushed back the door the
merest fraction of an inch at a time so that not even
one watching could have said that it moved.
When he had it once more so far open that he could
see within, he bent forward to look. The girl was
beginning her preparations for the night now. She
had assumed a long, comfortable-looking dressing-
gown and, standing in front of the mirror, she had
just finished brushing her hair and was beginning to
fasten it up in a long plait. He could see her face in
the mirror; her deep, sad eyes, swollen with crying,
her cheeks still tear-stained, her mouth yet quivering
with barely-repressed emotion.
He was still watching her when, as if growing un-
easy, she turned her head and glanced over her shoul-
der, and though he moved back so quickly that she did
not catch sight of him, she saw that the door was open
once more.
“What can be the matter with the door?” she ex-
claimed aloud, and she crossed the room towards it
with a quick and somewhat impatient movement.
But this time, instead of closing it, she pulled it
open and found herself face to face with Dunn.
He did not speak or move, and she stood staring at
him blankly. Slowly her mouth opened as though
to utter a cry that, however, could not rise above her
fluttering throat. Her face had taken on the pallor of
death, her great eyes showed the awful fear she felt.
Still without speaking, Dunn stepped forward into
the room and, closing the door, stood with his back to
it.


A WOMAN AND A MAN
43
She shrank away and put her hand upon a chair,
but for the support of which she must certainly have
fallen, for her limbs were trembling so violently they
gave her little support.
“Don't hurt me,” she panted.
In truth he presented a strange and terrifying ap-
pearance. The unkempt hair that covered his face
and through which his keen eyes glowed like fire, gave
him an unusual and formidable aspect. In one hand
he held the ugly-looking jemmy he had taken from
the burglar, and the new clothes he had donned, ill-
fitting and soiled, served to accentuate the ungainli-
ness of his form.
The frightened girl was not even sure that he was
human, and she shrank yet further away from him
till she sank down upon the bed, dizzy with fear and
almost swooning.
As yet he had not spoken, for his eyes had gone to
the mantlepiece on which he saw that the photograph
signed with the name “Charley Wright," did not
now stand upright, but had fallen forward on its face
so that one could no longer see what it represented.
It must have fallen just as he entered the room and
this seemed to him an omen, though whether of good or
ill, he did not know.
“Who are you?” the girl stammered. “What do
you want?''
He looked at her moodily and still without answer-
ing, though in his bright and keen eyes a strange
light burned.
She was lovely, he thought, of that there could be


44 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
no question. But her beauty made to him small
appeal, for he was wondering what kind of soul lay
behind those perfect features, that smooth and del-
icate skin, those luminous eyes. Yet his eyes were
still hard and it was in his roughest, gruffest tones
that he said :-
“You needn't be afraid, I won't hurt you."
"I'll give you everything I have,” she panted, "if
only you'll go away.”
“Not so fast as all that,” he answered, coolly, for
indeed he had not taken so mad a risk in order to go
away again if he could help it. “Who is there in the
house besides you ?”.
“Only mother,” she answered, looking up at him
very pleadingly as if in hopes that he must relent
when he saw her in distress. “Please, won't you take
what you want and go away! Please don't disturb
mother, it would nearly kill her."
“I'm not going to hurt either you or your mother
if you 'll be sensible,” he said irritably, for, unreason-
ably enough, the extreme fear she showed and her
pleading tones annoyed him. He had a feeling that
he would like to shake her, it was so absurd of her to
look at him as though she expected him to gobble her
up in a mouthful.
She seemed a little reassured.
“Mother will be so dreadfully frightened,” she re-
peated, “I'll give you everything there is in the house
if only you'll go at once.”
“I can take everything I want without your giv-


A WOMAN AND A MAN
45
ing it me," he retorted. “How do I know you're tell-
ing the truth when you say there's no one else in the
house? How many servants have you?”
“None,” she answered. “There's a woman comes
every day, but she doesn't sleep here."
“Do you live all alone here with your mother?” he
asked, watching her keenly.
“There's my stepfather,” she answered. “But
he's not here tonight.”
“Oh, is he away?” Dunn asked, his expression
almost one of disappointment.
The girl, whose first extreme fear had passed and
who was watching him as keenly as he watched her,
noticed this manner of disappointment, and could
not help wondering what sort of burglar it was who
was not pleased to hear that the man of the house was
away, and that he had only two women to deal with.
And it appeared to her that he seemed not only dis-
appointed, but rather at a loss what to do next.
As in truth he was, for that the stepfather should
be away, and this girl and her mother all alone, was,
perhaps, the one possibility that he had never con-
sidered.
She noticed, too, that he did not pay any attention
to her jewellery, which was lying close to his hand on
the toilet-table, and though in point of actual fact
this jewellery was not of any great value, it was
exceedingly precious in her eyes, and she did not
understand a burglar who showed no eagerness to
seize on it.


46 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
"Did you want to see Mr. Dawson ?” she asked,
her voice more confident now and even with a ques-
tioning note in it.
“Mr. Dawson! Who's he?” Dunn asked, discon-
certed by the question, but not wishing to seem so.
“My stepfather, Mr. Deede Dawson," she
answered. “I think you knew that. If you want
him, he went to London early today, but I think it's
quite likely he may come back tonight.”.
“What should I want him for?” growled Dunn,
more and more disconcerted, as he saw that he was
not playing his part too well.
“I don't know," she answered. “I suppose you
do."
"You suppose a lot,” he retorted roughly. “Now
you listen to me. I don't want to hurt you, but I
don't mean to be interfered with. I'm going over
the house to see what I can find that's worth taking.
Understand?"
“Oh, perfectly,” she said.
She was watching him closely, and she noticed
that he still made no attempt to take possession of
her jewellery, though it lay at his hand, and that
puzzled her very much, indeed, for she supposed the
very first thing a burglar did was always to seize
such treasures as these of hers. But this man paid
them no attention whatever, and did not even notice
them.
He was feeling in his pockets now and he took
out the revolver and the coil of thin rope he had
secured from the burglar.


A WOMAN AND A MAN 47
“Now, do you know what I'm going to do?” he
asked, with an air of roughness and brutality that
was a little overdone. He put the revolver and the
rope down on the bed, the revolver quite close to her.
“I'm going,” he continued, "to tie you up to one
of those chairs. I can't risk your playing any tricks
or giving an alarm, perhaps, while I'm searching
the house. I shall take what's worth having, and
then I shall clear off, and if your sťepfather's coming
home tonight you won't have to wait long till he
releases you, and if he don't come I can't help it.”
He turned his back to her as he spoke and took
hold of one of the chairs in the room, and then of
another and looked at them as though carefully con-
sidering which would be the best to use for the
carrying out of his threat.
He appeared to find it difficult to decide, for he
kept his back turned to her for two or three minutes,
during all of which time the revolver lay on the bed
quite close to her hand.
He listened intently for he fully expected her
to snatch it up, and he wished to be ready to turn
before she could actually fire. But, indeed, nothing
was further from her thoughts, for she did not know
in the least how to use the weapon or even how to fire
it off, and the very thought of employing it to kill any
one would have terrified her far more even than had
done her experiences of this night.
So the pistol lay untouched by her side, while, very
pale and trembling a little, she waited what he would
do, and on his side he felt as much puzzled by her


48 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
failure to use the opportunity he had put in her way
as she was puzzled by his neglect to seize her jewellery
lying ready to his hand.
He was still hesitating, still appearing unable to
decide which chair to employ in carrying out his pro-
claimed purpose of fastening her up when she asked
a question that made him swing round upon her very
quickly and with a very startled look.
“Are you a real burglar?”' she said.


CHAPTER VI
A DISCOVERY
"What do you mean?” Dunn asked quickly.
The matted growth of hair on his face served well
to hide any change of expression, but his eyes be-
trayed him with their look of surprise and discom-
fiture, and in her own clear and steady glance
appeared now a kind of puzzled mockery as if she
understood well that all he did was done for some pur-
pose, though what that purpose was still perplexed
her.
“I mean,” she said slowly, “well—what do I mean?
I am only asking a question. Are you a burglar-
or have you come here for some other reason ?”.
“I don't know what you're getting at," he grum-
bled. “Think I'm here for fun! Not me. Come
and sit on this chair and put your hands behind you
and don't make a noise, or scream, or anything, not if
you value your life.”
“I don't know that I do very much," she answered
with a manner of extreme bitterness, but more as if
speaking to herself than to him.
She did as he ordered, and he proceeded to tie her
wrists together and to fasten them to the back of the
chair on which she had seated herself. He was care-
49


50 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
ful not to draw the cords too tight, but at the same
time he made the fastening secure.
“You won't disturb mother, will you ?” she asked
quietly when he had finished. “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 off quietly. I won't gag you, but
don't you try to make any noise, if you do I'll come
back. Understand ?"
"Oh, perfectly," she answered. “May I ask one
question? Do you feel very proud of yourself just
80.
now?"
He did not answer, but went out of the room
quickly, and he had an impression that she smiled as
she watched him go, and that her smile was bitter and
a little contemptuous.
“What a girl,” he muttered. “She scored every
time. I didn't find out a thing, she didn't do any.
thing I expected or wanted her to. She seemed as if
she spotted me right off—I wonder if she did ? I
wonder if she could be trusted ?”
But then he thought of that photograph on the
mantelpiece and his look grew stern and hard again.
He was careful to avoid the room the girl had in-
dicated as occupied by her mother, but of all the
others on that floor he made a hasty search without
discovering anything to interest him or anything 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 it at first, led above


52 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
the beam of his electric torch showed the pale and
dreadful features of a dead man-of a man, the
center of whose forehead showed the small round hole
where a bullet had entered in; of a man whose still-
recognizable features were those of the photograph on
the mantel-piece of the room downstairs, the photo-
graph that was signed :-
“Devotedly yours,
Charley Wright.”
For a long time Robert Dunn stood, looking down
in silence at that dead face which was hardly more
still, more rigid than his own.
He shivered, for he felt very cold. It was as though
the coldness of the death 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, then carefully 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 entered the attic, and stood for a time,
trying to collect his thoughts which the shock of this
dreadful discovery had so disordered, and to decide
what to do next.
“But, then, that's simple," he thought. “I must
go straight to the police and bring them here. They
said they wanted proof; they said I had nothing
to go on but bare suspicion. But that's evidence


54 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
“Only,” he muttered, “if she knew the attic almost
over her head held such a secret, why, didn't she take
the chance I gave her of getting hold 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 remembered that agony of grief to which
she had been surrendering herself when he first saw
her. Now those passionate tears of hers seemed to
him like remorse.
“I'll leave her where she is,” he decided again.
“I can't help it; I mustn't run any risks. My first
duty is to get the police here and have Deede Dawson
arrested.”
He went down the stairs still deep in thought, and
when he reached the landing below he would not even
go to make sure that his captive was still secure.
An obscure feeling that he did not wish to see her,
and still more that he did not wish her to see him,
prevented him.
He descended the second flight of steps to the hall,
taking fewer precautions to avoid making a noise and
still very deep in thought.
For some time he had had but little hope that
young Charley Wright still lived.
Nevertheless, the dreadful discovery he had made
in the attic above had affected him profoundly, and
left his mind in a chaos of emotions so that he was for
the time much less acutely watchful than usual.
They had spent their boyhood together, and he
remembered a thousand incidents of their childhood.
They had been at school and college together. And


A DISCOVERY
55
how brilliantly Charley had always done at work and
play, surmounting every difficulty with a laugh, as if
it were merely some new and specially amusing jest !
Every one had thought well of him, every one had
believed that his future career would be brilliant.
Now it had ended in this obscure and dreadful
fashion, as ends the life of a trapped rat.
Dunn found himself hardly able to realize that it
was really so, and through all the confused medley of
his thoughts there danced and flickered his memory
of a young and lovely face, now tear-stained, now
smiling, now pale with terror, now calmly disdainful.
“Can she have known?” he muttered. “She must
have known she can't have known—it's not possible
either way."
He shuddered and as he put his foot on the lowest
stair he raised his hands to cover his face as though
to shut out the visions that passed before him.
Another step forward he took in the darkness, and
all at once there flashed upon him the light of a strong
electric torch, suddenly switched on.
“Put up your hands,” said a voice sharply. “Or
you're a dead man.”
He looked bewilderedly, taken altogether by sur-
prise, and saw he was faced by a fat little man with a
smooth, chubby, smiling face and eyes that were cold
and grey and deadly, and who held in one hand a
revolver levelled 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."


CHAPTER VII
QUESTION AND ANSWER
Dunn obeyed promptly.
There was that about this little fat, smiling man
and his unsmiling eyes which proclaimed very plainly
that he was quite ready to put his threat into execu-
tion.
For a moment or two they stood thus, each regard-
ing the other very intently. Dunn, his hands in the
air, the steady barrel of the other's pistol levelled at
his heart, knew that never in all his adventurous life
had he been in such deadly peril as now, and the gro-
tesque thought came into his mind to wonder if there
were room for two in that packing-case in the attic.
Or perhaps no attempt would be made to hide his
death since, after all, it is always permissible to
shoot an armed burglar.
The clock on the stairs began to strike the hour, and
he wondered if he would still be alive when the last
stroke sounded.
He did not much think so for he thought he could
read a very deadly purpose in the other's cold grey
eyes, nor did he suppose that a man with such a se-
cret as that of the attic upstairs to hide was likely to
stand on any scruple.
And he thought that if he still lived when the clock
56


QUESTION AND ANSWER 57
finished striking he would take it for an omen of good
hope.
The last stroke sounded and died away into the
silence of the night.
The revolver was still levelled at his heart, the grim
purpose in the other's eyes had not changed, and yet
Dunn drew a breath of deep relief as though the
worst of the danger was past.
Through his mind, that had been a little dulled by
the sudden consciousness of so extreme a peril, thought
began again to race with more than normal rapidity
and clearness.
It occurred to him, with a sense of the irony of the
position, that when he entered this house it had been
with the deliberate intention of getting himself dis-
covered by the inmates, believing that to show himself
to them in the character of a burglar might gain him
their confidence.
It had seemed to him that so he might come to be
accepted as one of them and perhaps learn in time the
secret of their plans.
The danger that they might adopt the other course
of handing him over to the police had not seemed to
him very great, for he had his reasons for believing
that there would be no great desire to draw the atten-
tion of the authorities to Bittermeads for any reason
whatever.
But the discovery he had made in the attic changed
all that. It changed his plans, for now he could go
to the police immediately. And it changed also his
conception of how these people were likely to act.


58 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
Before, it had not entered his mind to suppose that
he ran any special risk of being shot at sight, but now
he understood that the only thing standing between
him and instant death was the faint doubt in his cap-
tor's mind as to how much he knew.
It seemed to him his only hope was to carry out his
original plan and try to pass himself off as the sort
of person who might be likely to be useful to the
master of Bittermeads.
“Don't shoot, sir," he said, in a kind of high whine.
“I ain't done no harm, and it's a fair cop-and me
not a month out of Dartmoor Gaol. I shall get a hot
’un for this, I know.”.
The little fat man did not answer; his eyes were
as deadly, the muzzle of his pistol as steady as before.
Dunn wondered if it were from that pistol had
issued the bullet that had drilled so neat and round
a hole in his friend's forehead. He supposed so.
He said again :-
“Don't shoot, Mr. Deede Dawson, sir; I ain't done
no harm."
“Oh, you know my name, do you, you scoundrel?”
Deede Dawson said, a little surprised.
“Yes, sir,” Dunn answered. “We always find out
as much as we can about a crib before we get to work."
“I see,” said Mr. Dawson. “Very praiseworthy.
Attention to business and all that. Pray, what did
you find out about me?"
“Only as you was to be away tonight, sir,” an-
swered Dunn. “And that there didn't seem to be
any other man in the house, and, of course, how the


QUESTION AND ANSWER 59
house lay and the garden, and so. But I didn't know
as you was coming home so soon.”
“No, I don't suppose you did,” said Deede Dawson.
"No."
“I ain't done no harm,” Dunn urged, making his
voice as whining and pleading as he could. “I've
only just been looking round the two top floors—I
ain't touched a thing. Give a cove a chance, sir.”
“You've been looking round, have you ?” said
Deede Dawson slowly. “Did you find anything to
interest you?”
"I've only been in the bedrooms and the attics,”
answered Dunn, changing not a muscle of his coun-
tenance and thinking boldness his safest course, for he
knew well the slightest sign or hint of knowledge that
he gave would mean his death. “I'd only just come
downstairs when you copped me, sir; I ain't touched
a thing in one of these rooms down here."
“Haven't you?” said Deede Dawson slowly, and
his face was paler, his eyes more deadly, the muz-
zle of his pistol yet more inflexibly steady than before.
More clearly still did Dunn realize that the faint-
est breath of suspicion stirring in the other's mind
that he knew of what was hidden in the attic would
mean certain death and just such another neat little
hole bored through heart or brain as that he had seen
showing in the forehead of his dead friend."
“Haven't you, though?” Deede Dawson repeated.
“The bedrooms—the attics—that's all ?”
“Yes, sir, that's all, take my oath that's all,”
Dunn repeated earnestly, as if he wished very much


60 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
to impress on his captor that he had searched bed-
rooms and attics thoroughly, but not these downstairs
rooms.
Deede Dawson was plainly puzzled, and for the first
time a little doubt seemed to show in his hard grey
eyes.
Dunn perceived that a need was on him to know for
certain whether his dreadful secret had been discov-
ered or not.
Until he had assured himself on that point Dunn
felt comparatively safe, but he still knew also that
to allow the faintest suspicion to dawn in Deede Daw-
son's mind would mean for him instant death.
He saw, too, watching very warily and ready to take
advantage of any momentary slip or forgetfulness,
how steady was Deede Dawson's hand, how firm and
watchful his eyes.
With many men, with most men indeed, Dunn
would have seized or made some opportunity to dash
in and attack, taking the chance of being shot down
first, since there are few indeed really skilled in the
use of a revolver, the most tricky if the most deadly
of weapons.
But he realized he had small hope of taking
unawares this fat little smiling man with the unsmil-
ing eyes and steady hand, and he was well convinced
that the first doubtful movement he made would
bring a bullet crashing through his brain.
His only hope was in delay and in diverting suspi-
cion, and Deede Dawson's voice was very soft and
deadly as he said :-


QUESTION AND ANSWER
61
“So you've been looking in the bedrooms, have you !
What did you find there?”
“Nothing, sir, not a thing," protested Dunn. “I
didn't touch a thing, I only wanted to look round
before coming down here to see about the silver."
"And the attics?” asked Deede Dawson. “What
did you find there?”
“There wasn't no one in them,” Dunn answered.
“I only wanted to make sure the young lady was
telling the truth about there being no servants in the
house to sleep."
“Did you look in all the attics, then ?” asked Deede
Dawson.
“Yes,” answered Dunn. "There was one as was
locked, but I tooked the liberty of forcing it just to
make sure. I ain't done no harm to speak of.”
“You found one locked, eh?” said Deede Dawson,
and his smile grew still more pleasant and more
friendly. “That must have surprised you a good
deal, didn't it?”
“I thought as perhaps there was some one waiting
already to give the alarm,” answered Dunn. “I
didn't mind the old lady, but I couldn't risk there be-
ing some one hiding there, so I had to look, but I ain't
done no damage to speak of, I could put it right for
you myself in half-an-hour, sir, if you'll let me.”
“Could you, indeed!” said Deede Dawson. “Well,
and did you find any one sleeping there?”
But for that hairy disguise upon his cheeks and
chin, Dunn would almost certainly have betrayed him-
self, so dreadful did the question seem to him, so


62 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
poignant the double meaning that it bore, so clear his
memory of his friend he had found there, sleeping in.
deed.
But there was nothing to show his inner agitation,
as he said, shaking his head :-
“There wasn't no one there, any more than in the
other attics, nothing but an old packing-case."
“And what ?''said Deede Dawson, his voice so soft
it was like a caress, his smile so sweet it was a veri-
table benediction. “What was in that packing-
case ?"
“Didn't look," answered Dunn, and then, with a
sudden change of manner, as though all at once under-
standing what previously had puzzled him. “Lum-
me,” he cried, “is that where you keep the silver ?
Lor', and to think I never even troubleď to look."
“You never looked ?” repeated Deede Dawson.
Dunn shook his head with an air of baffled regret.
“Never thought of it,” he said. "I thought it was
just lumber like in the other attics, and I might have
got clear away with it if I had known, as easy as not.”
His chagrin was so apparent, his whole manner so
innocent, that Deede Dawson began to believe he
really did know nothing.
“Didn't you wonder why the door was locked?”
he asked.
“Lor'," answered Dunn, “if you stopped to won-
der about everything you find rummy in a crib you're
cracking, when would you ever get your business
done?"


QUESTION AND ANSWER 63
“So you didn't look-in that packing-case ?”
Deede Dawson repeated.
“If I had,' answered Dunn ruefully, “I shouldn't
be here, copped like this. I should have shoved with
the stuff and not waited for nothing more. But I
never had no luck."
“I'm not so sure of that,” said Deede Dawson
grimly, and as he spoke a soft voice called down from
upstairs.
“Is there any one there?” it said. “Oh, please,
is any one there?”
“Is that you, Ella ?” Deede Dawson called back.
“Come down here."
"I can't,” she answered. “I'm fastened to a
chair."
"I didn't hurt the young lady,” Dunn interposed
quickly. “I only tied her up as gentle as I could to
a chair so as to stop her from interfering.”
“Oh, that's it, is it?” said Deede Dawson, and
seemed a little amused, as though the thought of his
stepdaughter's plight pleased him rather than not
“Well, if she can't come down here, we'll go up there.
Turn round, my man, and go up the stairs and keep
your hands over your head all the time. I shan't
hesitate to shoot if you don't, and I never miss."
Dunn was not inclined to value his life at a very
high price as he turned and went awkwardly up the
stairs, still holding his hands above his head.
But he meant to save it if he could, for many things
depended on it, among them due punishment to be


64 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
exacted for the crime he had discovered this night;
and also, perhaps, for the humiliation he was now
enduring.


CHAPTER VIII
CAPTIVITY CAPTIVE
Up the stairs, across the landing, and down the
passage opposite Dunn went in silence, shepherdcd by
the little man behind whose pistol was still levelled
and still steady.
His hands held high in the air, he pushed open with
his knee the door of the girl's room and entered,
and she looked up as he did so with an expression
of pure astonishment at his attitude of upheld hands
that changed to one of comprehension and of faint
amusement as Deede Dawson followed, revolver in
hand.
“Oh,” she murmured. “Captivity captive, it
seems."
At the fireplace Dunn turned and found her look-
ing at him very intently, while from the doorway
Deede Dawson surveyed them both, for once his eyes
appearing to share in the smile that played about his
lips as though he found much satisfaction in what he
saw.
“Well, Ella,” he said. “You've been having
adventures, it seems, but you don't look too comfort-
able like that.”
"Nor do I feel it,” she retorted. “So please set
me free."
65


66 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
“Yes, so I will," he answered, but he still hesitated,
and Dunn had the idea that he was pleased to see the
girl like this, and would leave her so if he could, and
that he was wondering now if he could turn her pre-
dicament to his own advantage in any way.
“Yes, I will," he said again. “Your mother— ?”
“She hasn't wakened,” Ella answered. “I don't
think she has heard anything. I don't suppose she
will, for she took two of those pills last night that Dr.
Rawson gave her for when she couldn't sleep."
“It's just as well she did,” said Deede Dawson.
“Yes, but please undo my hands," she asked him.
“The cords are cutting my wrists dreadfully."
As she spoke she glanced at Dunn, standing by
the fireplace and listening gravely to what they said,
and Deede Dawson exclaimed with an air of great
indignation :-
"The fellow deserves to be well thrashed for treat-
ing you like that. I've a good mind to do it, too,
before handing him over to the police.”
“But you haven't released me yet,” she remarked.
“Oh, yes, yes,” he said, starting as if this were
quite a new idea. “I'll release you at once-but I
must watch this scoundrel. He must have frightened
you dreadfully."
“Indeed he did not,” she answered quickly, again
looking at Dunn. “No, he didn't,” she said again
with a touch of defiance in her manner and a certain
slightly lifting her small, round chin. “At least
not much after just at first,” she added.
“I'll loose you,” Deede Dawson said once more,


CAPTIVITY CAPTIVE 67
and coming up to her, he began to fumble in a feeble,
ineffectual way at the cords that secured her wrists.
“Jove, he's tied you up pretty tight, Ella!” he
said.
"He believes in doing his work thoroughly, I sup-
pose,” she remarked, lifting her eyes to Dunn's with
a look in them that was partly questioning and partly
puzzled and wholly elusive. “I daresay he always
likes to do everything thoroughly.”
“Seems so," said Deede Dawson, giving up his
fumbling and ineffectual efforts to release her.
He stepped back and stood behind her chair, look-
ing from her to Dunn and back again, and once more
Dunn was conscious of an impression that he wished
to make use for his own purposes of the girl's position,
but that he did not know how to do so.
“You are a nice scoundrel,” said Deede Dawson
suddenly, with an indignation that seemed to Dunn
largely assumed. “Treating a girl like this. Ella,
what would you like done to him? He deserves
shooting. Shall I put a bullet through him for you?”
“He might have treated me worse, I suppose,"
said Ella quietly. “And if you would be less indig-
nant with him, you might be more help to me. There
are scissors on the table somewhere."
“I'll get them,” Deede Dawson said. "I'll get
them,” he repeated, as though now at last finally
making up his mind.
He took the scissors from the toilet-table where they
lay before the looking-glass and cut the cords by
which Ella was secured.


68 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
With a sigh of relief she straightened herself from
the confined position in which she had been held and
began to rub her wrists, which were slightly inflamed
where the cords had bruised her soft skin.
“Like to tie him up that way now!” asked Deede
Dawson. “You shall if you like.”
She turned and looked full at Dunn and he looked
back at her with eyes as steady and as calm as her
own.
Again she showed that faint doubt and wonder
which had flickered through her level gaze before as
though she felt that there was more in all this than
was apparent, and did not wish to condemn him
utterly without a hearing.
But it was plain also that she did not wish to say
too much before her stepfather and she answered
carelessly :
“I don't think I could tie him tight enough, be-
sides, he looks ridiculous enough like that with his
hands up in the air.”
It was her revenge for what he had made her suffer.
He felt himself flush and he knew that she knew that
her little barbed shaft had struck home.
"Well, go and look through his pockets,” Deede
Dawson said. “And see if he's got a revolver. Don't
be frightened ; if he lowers his hands he'll be a dead
man before he knows it.”.
"He has a pistol," she said. “He showed it me,
it's in his coat pocket.”.
“Better get it then," Deede Dawson told her.
She obeyed and brought him the weapon, and he


CAPTIVITY CAPTIVE
69
nodded with satisfaction as he put it in his own
pocket.
“I think we might let you put your hands down
now," he remarked, and Dunn gladly availed himself
of the permission, for every muscle in his arms was
aching badly.
He remained standing by the wall while Deede Daw-
son, seating himself on the chair to which Ella had
been bound, rested his chin on his left hand and, with
the pistol still ready in his right, regarded Dunn
with a steady questioning gaze.
Ella was standing near the bed. She had poured a
few drops of eau-de-Cologne on her wrists and was
rubbing them softly, and for ever after the poignant
pleasant odour of the scent has remained associated in
Robert Dunn's mind with the strange events of that
night so that always even the merest whiff of it con-
jures up before his mind a picture of that room with
himself silent by the fireplace and Ella silent by the
bed and Deede Dawson, pistol in hand, seated be-
tween them, as silent also as they, and very watch-
ful.
Ella appeared fully taken up with her occupation
and might almost have forgotten the presence of the
two men. She did not look at either of them, but con-
tinued to rub and chafe her wrists softly.
Deede Dawson had forgotten for once to smile, his
brow was slightly wrinkled, his cold grey eyes intent
and watchful, and Dunn felt very sure that he was
thinking out some plan or scheme.
The hope came to him that Deede Dawson was


70 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
thinking he might prove of use, and that was the
thought which, above all others, he wished the other
to have. It was, indeed, that thought which all his
recent actions had been aimed to implant in Deede
Dawson's mind till his dreadful discovery in the
attic had seemed to make at last direct action possible.
Now, in his present plight that thought, if Deede Daw-
son should come to entertain it, might yet prove his
salvation. Now and again Deede Dawson gave him
quick, searching glances, but when at last he spoke it
was Ella he addressed.
“Wrists hurt you much ?” he asked.
“Not so much now,” she answered. “They were
beginning to hurt a great deal, though."
“Were they, though ?” said Deede Dawson. “And
to think you might have been like that for hours if I
hadn't chanced to come home. Too bad, what a brute
this fellow is.”
“Men mostly are, I think,” she observed indiffer-
ently.
“And women mostly like to get their own back
again,” he remarked with a chuckle, and then turned
sharply to Dunn. “Well, my man,” he asked,
"what have you got to say for yourself?”.
“Nothing," Dunn answered. “It was a fair cop."
“You've had a taste of penal servitude before, I
suppose ?” Deede Dawson asked.
“Maybe.” Dunn answered, as if not wishing to
betray himself. “Maybe not.”
“Well, I think I remember you said something


72 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
“I had a bit of education," Dunn answered.
"I see,” said Deede Dawson. “Well, I won't ask
you any more questions, you'd probably only lie.
What's your name?”.
. With that sudden recklessness which was a part of
his impulsive and passionate nature, Dunn an-
swered:-
“Charley Wright."
The effect was instantaneous and apparent on both
his auditors.
Ella gave a little cry and started so violently that
she dropped the bottle of eau-de-Cologne she had in
her hands.
Deede Dawson jumped to his feet with a fearful
oath. His face went livid, his fat cheeks seemed
suddenly to sag, of his perpetual smile every trace
vanished.
He swung his revolver up, and Dunn saw the
crooked forefinger quiver as though in the very act of
pressing the trigger.
The pressure of a hair decided, indeed, whether the
weapon was to fire or not, as in a high-pitched, stam-
mering voice, Deede Dawson gasped :-
“What-what do you mean? What do you mean
by that?"
“I only told you my name," Dunn answered.
“What's wrong with it?”
Doubtful and afraid, Deede Dawson stood hesitant.
His forehead had become very damp, and he wiped
it with a nervous gesture.


CAPTIVITY CAPTIVE 73
“Is that your name your real name?” he mut-
tered.
“Never had another that I know of,” Dunn an-
swered.
Deede Dawson sat down again on the chair. He
was still plainly very disturbed and shaken, and Ella
seemed scarcely less agitated, though Dunn, watching
them both very keenly, noticed that she was now look-
ing at Deede Dawson with a somewhat strange expres-
sion and with an air as though his extreme excitement
puzzled her and made her-afraid.
“Nothing wrong with the name, is there?” Dunn
muttered again.
“No, no,” Deede Dawson answered. “No. It's
merely a coincidence, that's all. A coincidence, I
suppose, Ella ?”
Ella did not answer. Her expression was very
troubled and full of doubt as she stood looking from
her stepfather to Dunn and back again.
"It's only that your name happens to be the same
as that of a friend of ours-a great friend of my
daughter's,” Deede Dawson said as though he felt
obliged to offer some explanation. “That's all—a
coincidence. It startled me for the moment." He
laughed. “That's all. Well, my man, it happens
there is something I can make you useful in. If you
do prove useful and do what I tell you, perhaps you
may get let off. I might even keep you on in a job.
I won't say I will, but I might. You look a likely sort
of fellow for work, and I daresay you aren't any more


74 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
dishonest than most people. Funny how things hap-
pen-quite a coincidence, your name. Well, come on;
it's that packing-case you saw in the attic upstairs.
I want you to help me downstairs with that-Charley
Wright.”


CHAPTER IX
THE ATTIC OF MYSTERY
Robert Dunn was by no means sure that he was
not going to his death as he went out of Ella's
room on his way to the attics above, for he had per-
ceived a certain doubt and suspicion in Deede Daw-
son's manner, and he thought it very likely that a
fatal intention lay behind.
But he obeyed with a brisk promptitude of man-
ner, like one who saw a prospect of escape opening
before him, and as he went he saw that Ella had re-
lapsed into her former indifference and was once more
giving all her attention to bathing her wrists with eau-
de-Cologne; and he saw, too, that Deede Dawson,
following close behind, kept always his revolver ready.
“Perhaps he only wants to get me out of her way
before he shoots,” he reflected. "Perhaps there is
room in that packing-case for two. It will be strange
to die. Shall I try to rush him? But he would shoot
at once, and I shouldn't have a chance. One thing,
if anything happens to me, no one will ever know
what's become of poor Charley."
And this seemed to him a great pity, so that he
began to form confused and foolish plans for secur-
ing that his friend's fate should become known.
76


76 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
With a sudden start, for he had not known he was
there, he found himself standing on the threshold of
that attic of death. It was quite dark up here, and
from behind Deede Dawson's voice told him impa-
tiently to enter.
He obeyed, wondering if ever again he would cross
that threshold alive, and Deede Dawson followed him
into the dark attic so that Dunn was appalled by
the man's rashness, for how could he tell that his
victim would not take this opportunity to rise up from
the place where he had been thrust and take his
revenge!
“What an idea,” he thought to himself. “I must
be going dotty, it's the strain of expecting a bullet
in my back all the time, I suppose. I was never like
this before.”
Deede Dawson struck a match and put it to a gas-
jet that lighted up the whole room. Between him
and Dunn lay the packing-case, and Dunn was sur-
prised to see that it was still there and that nothing
had changed or moved; and then again he said to him-
self that this was a foolish thought only worthy of
some excitable, hysterical girl.
“It's being too much for me," he thought
resignedly. “I've heard of people being driven mad
by horror. I suppose that's what's happening to
me.”
“You look_queer,” Deede Dawson's voice inter-
rupted the confused medley of his thoughts. “Why
do you look like that-Charley Wright?”.
Dunn looked moodily across the case in which the


THE ATTIC OF MYSTERY 77
body of the murdered man was hidden to where the
murderer stood.
After a pause, and speaking with an effort, he
said:
“You'd look queer if some one with a pistol was
watching you all the time the way you watch me.”
“You do what I tell you and you'll be all right,"
Deede Dawson answered. “You see that packing.
case ?"
Dunn nodded.
“It's big enough,” he said.
“Would you like to know?” asked Deede Dawson
slowly with his slow, perpetual smile. “Would you
like to know what's in it-Charley Wright?”
And again Dunn was certain that a faint suspicion
hung about those last two words, and that his life and
death hung very evenly in the balance.
“Silver, you said,” he muttered. “Didn't you?”
“Ah, yes yes—to be sure,'' answered Deede Daw-
son. “Yes, so I did. Silver. I want the lid nailed
down. There's a hammer and nails there. Get to
work and look sharp.”
Dunn stepped forward and began to set about a
task that was so terrible and strange, and that yet he
had, at peril of his life—at peril of more than that,
indeed—to treat as of small importance.
Standing a little distance from the lighted gas-
jet, Deede Dawson watched him narrowly, and as
Dunn worked he was very sure that to betray the
least sign of his knowledge would be to bring instantly
a bullet crashing through his brain.


78 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
It seemed curious to him that he had so carefully
replaced everything after making his discovery, and
that without any forethought or special intention he
had put back everything so exactly as he had found it
when the slightest neglect or failure in that respect
would most certainly have cost him his life..
And he felt that as yet he could not afford to die.
One by one he drove in the nails, and as he worked
at his gruesome task he heard the faintest rustle on
the landing without-the faintest sound of a soft
breath cautiously drawn in, of a light foot very care-
fully set down.
Deede Dawson plainly heard nothing; indeed, no
ear less acute and less well-trained than Dunn's could
have caught sounds that were so slight and low, but
he, listening between each stroke of his hammer, was
sure that it was Ella who had followed them, and that
she crouched upon the landing without, watching and
listening.
Did that mean, he wondered, that she, too, knew?
Or was it merely natural curiosity; hostile in part,
perhaps, since evidently the relations between her
and her stepfather were not too friendly—a desire
to know what task there could be in the attics so
late at night for which Deede Dawson had such need
of his captive's help?
Or was it by any chance because she wished to
know how things went with him, and what was to
be his fate?
In any case, Dunn was sure that Ella had followed
then, and was on the landing without.


THE ATTIC OF MYSTERY 79
He drove home the last nail and stood up.
“That's done,” he said.
“And well done,” said Deede Dawson. “Well
done—Charley Wright."
He spoke the name softly and lingeringly, and
then all at once he began to laugh, a low and some-
what dreadful laughter that had in it no mirth at
all, and that sounded horrible and strange in the
chill emptiness of the attic.
Leaning one hand on the packing-case that
served as the coffin of his dead friend, Dunn swore
a silent oath to exact full retribution, and hence-
forth to put that purpose on a level with the mission
on which originally he had come.
Aloud, and in a grumbling tone he said :-
“What's the matter with my name? It's a name
like any other. What's wrong with it?”.
“What should there be?" flashed Deede Dawson
in reply.
"I don't know," Dunn answered. “You keep re-
peating it so, that's all.”
“It's a very good name,” Deede Dawson said.
“An excellent name. But it's not suitable. Not
here.” He began to laugh again and then stopped
abruptly.
“Do you know, I think you had better choose an-
cther?” he said.
“It's all one to me," declared Dunn. “If Charley
Wright don't suit, how will Robert Dunn do? I
knew a man of that name once."
“It's a better name than Charley Wright," said


80 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
unn shook marley Wrighton, why I ca
Deede Dawson. “We'll call you Robert Dunn,
Charley Wright. Do you know why I can't have you
call yourself Charley Wright?”
Dunn shook his head.
“Because I don't like it,” said Deede Dawson.
“Why, that's a name that would drive me mad,” he
muttered, half to himself.
Dunn did not speak, but he thought this was a
strange thing for the other to say and showed that
even he, cold and remorseless and without any natural
feeling, as he had seemed to be, yet had about him
still some touch of humanity.
And as he mused on this, which seemed to him so
strange, though really it was not strange at all, his
attentive ears caught the sound of a soft step with-
out, beginning to descend the stairs.
Had that name, then, been more than she also
could bear!
If so, she must know.
“I don't see why, I don't see what's wrong with
it,” he said aloud. “But Robert Dunn will suit
me just as well.”
“All a matter of taste," said Deede Dawson, his
manner more composed and natural again.
“It's a funny thing now-suppose my name was
Charley Wright, then there would be two Charley
Wrights in this attic, eh? A coincidence, that would
be?"
“I suppose so," answered Dunn. “I knew another
man named Charley Wright once."
“Did you? Where's he?"


THE ATTIC OF MYSTERY
“Oh, he's dead," answered Dunn.
Deede Dawson could not repress the start he gave
and for a moment Dunn thought that his suspicions
were really roused. He came a little nearer, his pis-
tol still ready in his hand.
“Dead, is he?" he said. “That's a pity. He's not
here, then; but it would be funny wouldn't it, if
there were two Charley Wrights in one room?"
“I don't know what you mean,” Dunn answered.
“I think there are lots of funnier things than that
would be.”
“That's where you're wrong,” retorted Deede
Dawson, and he laughed again, shrilly and dreadfully,
a laughter that had in it anything but mirth.
"Can you carry that packing-case downstairs if
I help you get it on your shoulder ?” he asked
abruptly.
“It's heavy, but I might,” Dunn answered.
He supposed that now it was about to be hidden
somewhere and he felt that he must know where, since
that knowledge would mean everything and enable
him to set the authorities to work at once imme-
diately he could communicate with them.
The weight of the thing taxed even his great
strength to the utmost, but he managed it somehow,
and bending beneath his burden, he descended the
stairs to the hall and then, following the orders
Deede Dawson gave him from behind, out into the
open air.
He was nearly exhausted when at last his task-
master told him he could put it down as he stood


82 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
still for a minute or two to recover his breath and
strength.
The night was not very dark, for a young moon
was shining in a clear sky, and it appeared to Dunn,
as he felt his strength returning, that now at last he
might find an opportunity of making an attack upon
his captor with some chance of success.
Hitherto, in the house, in the bright glare of the
gas lights, he had known that the first suspicious
movement he made would have ensured his being
instantly and remorselessly shot down, his mission
unfulfilled.
But here in the open air, in the night that the
moon illumined but faintly, it was different, and as
he watched for his opportunity he felt that sooner
or later it was sure to come.
But Deede Dawson was alert and wary, his pistol
never left his hand, he kept so well on his guard he
gave Dunn no opening to take him unawares, and
Dunn did not wish to run too desperate a chance,
since he was sure that sooner or later one giving a
fair chance of success would present itself.
“Do you want it carried any further ?” he asked.
“It's very heavy."
“I suppose you mean you're wondering what's
in it?” said Deede Dawson sharply.
“It's nothing to me what's in it-silver or anything
else,” retorted Dunn. “Do you want me to carry
it further, that's all I asked ?”.
“No," answered Deede Dawson. "No, I don't.


THE ATTIC OF MYSTERY 83
Do you know, if you knew what was really in it, you'd
be surprised?"
“Very likely," answered Dunn. “Why not?”
“Yes, you would be surprised,” Deede Dawson
repeated, and suddenly shouted into the darkness :
“Are you ready? Are you ready there!”.
Dunn was very startled, for somehow, he had sup-
posed all along that Deede Dawson was quite alone.
There was no answer to his call, but after a minute
or two there was the sound of a motor-car engine
starting and then a big car came gliding forward
and stopped in front of them, driven by a form so
muffied in coats and coverings as to be indistin-
guishable in that faint light.
“Put the case inside,” Deede Dawson said. “I'll
help you."
With some trouble they succeeded in getting the
case in and Deede Dawson covered it carefully with a
big rug.
When he had done so he stepped back.
“Ready, Ella ?” he said.
“Yes,' answered the girl's soft and low voice that
already Dunn could have sworn to amidst a thousand
others.


CHAPTER X
THE NEW GARDENER
. “Go ahead, then,” said Deede Dawson, and the
great car with its terrible burden shot away into the
night.
For a moment or two Deede Dawson stood looking
after it, and then he turned and walked slowly to-
wards the house, and mechanically Dunn followed, the
sole thought in his mind, the one idea of which he was
conscious, that of Ella driving away into the darkness
with the dead body of his murdered friend in the car
behind her.
Did she-know? he asked himself. Or was she
ignorant of what it was she had with her?
It seemed to him that that question, hammering
itself so awfully upon his mind and clamouring for
an answer, must soon send him mad.
And still before him floated perpetually a picture
of long, dark, lonely roads, of a rushing motor-car
driven by a lovely girl, of the awful thing hidden in
the car behind her.
Dully he recognized that the opportunity for which
he had watched and waited so patiently had come and
gone a dozen times, for Deede Dawson had now quite
relaxed his former wary care.
84


THE NEW GARDENER
85
It was as though he supposed all danger over, as
though in the reaction after an enormous strain he
could think of nothing but the immediate relief.
He hardly gave a single glance at Dunn, whose
faintest movement before had never escaped him.
He had even put his pistol back in his pocket, and
at almost any moment Dunn, with his unusual
strength and agility, could have seized and mastered
him.
But for such an enterprise Dunn had no longer any
spirit, for all his mind was taken up by that one
picture so clear in his thoughts of Ella in her great
car driving the dead man through the night.
“She must know," he said to himself. “She must,
or she would never have gone off like that at that time
she can't know, it's impossible, or she would never
have dared.”
And again it seemed to him that this doubt was
driving him mad.
Deede Dawson entered the house and got a bottle
of whisky and a syphon of soda-water and mixed him-
self a drink. For the first time since Ella's departare
he seemed to remember Dunn's presence.
“Oh, there you are,” he said.
Dunn did not answer. He stood moodily on the
threshold, wondering why he did not rush upon the
other, and with his knee upon his chest, his hands
about his throat, force him to answer the question
that was still whispering, shouting, screaming itself
into his ears :-
“Does she know what it is she drives with her on


86 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
that big car through the black and lonely night?”
“Like a drink?" asked Deede Dawson.
Dunn shook his head, and it came to him that he
did not attack Deede Dawson and force the truth from
him because he dared not, because he was afraid,
because he feared what the answer might be.
“There's a tool-shed at the bottom of the garden,”
Deede Dawson said to him. “You can sleep there,
tonight. You'll find some sacks you can make a bed
of."
Without a word in reply Dunn turned and stum-
bled away. He felt very tired-physically exhausted
-and the idea of a bed, even of sacks in an outhouse,
became all at once extraordinarily attractive.
He found the place without difficulty, and, making
a pile of the sacks, flung himself down on them and
was asleep almost at once. But almost as promptly
he awoke again, for he had dreamed of Ella driving
her car through the night towards some strange peril
from which in his dream he was trying frantically
and ineffectively to save her when he awoke.
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 day-
light and Deede Dawson standing on the threshold of


THE NEW GARDENER
87
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 use-
ful 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.


88 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
Come on up to the house now and I'll tell Mrs. Daw-
son 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 to-
wards 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 sup-
posed he had been mistaken in thinking he recognized
her voice.
But he knew he had not, that he had made no mis-
take, 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 hor-
ror 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 some-


THE NEW GARDENER
89
times, 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 gar-
dener 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 broad-
ened.


90 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
“One should always be ready to give another
chance to a poor fellow who's down,” he said. “Ho
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 him-
self," 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 back of the house.
Once she stopped and looked back. 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 Daw-
son 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


92 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
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.."


94 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
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


THE PROBLEM
95
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 smil-
ing 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 repug-
nant 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 be-
fore him.
Only a very few visitors came to Bittermeads, espe
cially 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


96 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
with Deede Dawson, but in reality, Dunn thought,
drawn there by Ella, who, however, seemed quite un-
aware 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 occa-
sionally Deede Dawson would come into the garden
and chat with him idly for a few minutes on indiffer-
ent 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 Daw-
son 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."


98 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
Of one thing he was certain—her mind was trou-
bled 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, chuck-
ling 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 gos-
sip, 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 num-
ber—but was making good progress towards recovery.


THE PROBLEM
99
Also, he found that Mr. John Clive's visits to
Bittermeads had not gone unremarked, or wholly un-
criticized, 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 al-
lowed 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 ap-
parent 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 at-
tacked you.'


100 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
“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 pre-
tence 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."


102 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
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 Cay-
ley."
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 mean?” she asked. “Of
course I do; I helped to get it ready-what's the mat-
ter?”
“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


AN AVOWAL
103
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 con-
firmed, 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?"


104 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
“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.


AN AVOWAL
105
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, hang-
ing about in their vicinity, watched gloomily their
friendly intercourse.
That Clive was in love with Ella seemed fairly cer-
tain; 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,


106 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
and found pleasure in having him there. Dunn, mov-
ing about near at hand, was aware of an odd impres-
sion 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.
This gift or power of Dunn's he had acquired in
far-off lands, where life may easily depend on the
snapping of a twig or the right interpretation of a
trampled grass-blade, and he was using it now, almost
unconsciously, so as to make his presence near Ella
and Clive as unobtrusive as possible, when his keen
eye caught sight of a bush, of which leaves and
branches were moving against the wind.
For that he knew there could be but one expla-
nation, and when he walked round, so as to get behind
this bush, he was not surprised to see Deede Dawson
crouching there, his eyes very intent and eager, his
unsmiling lips drawn back to show his white teeth in
a threatening grin or snarl.
Near by him was his little chess-board and men, and
as Dunn came up behind he looked round quickly and
saw him.
For a moment his eyes were deadly and his hand
dropped to his hip-pocket, where Dunn had reason to
believe he carried a formidable little automatic pistol.
But almost at once his expression changed, and with


AN AVOWAL
107
a gesture he invited Dunn to crouch down at his side.
For a little they remained like this, and then Deede
Dawson moved cautiously away, signing to Dunn to
follow him.
When they were at a safe distance he turned to
Dunn and said:
"Is he serious, do you think, or is he playing with
her? I'll make him pay for it if he is.”
“How should I know?” answered Dunn, quite cer-
tain it was no such anxiety as this that had set Deede
Dawson watching them so carefully.
Deede Dawson seemed to feel that the explanation
he had offered was a little crude, and he made no
attempt to enlarge on it.
With a complete change of manner, with his old
smile on his lips and his eyes as dark and unsmiling
as ever, he said:
“Pretty girl, Ella-isn't she?”
“She is more than pretty, she is beautiful,” Dunn
answered with an emphasis that made Deede Dawson
look at him sharply.
“Think so ?” he said, and gave his peculiar laugh
that had so little mirth in it. “Well, you're right,
she is. He'll be a lucky man that gets her—and she's
to be had, you know. But I'll tell you one thing, it
won't be John Clive.”.
“I thought it rather looked,” observed Dunn, "as
if Miss Cayley might mean,"
Deede Dawson interrupted with a quick jerk of
his head.
“Never mind what she means, it'll be what I


CHAPTER XIII
INVISIBLE WRITING
It was the next day that there arrived by the morn-
ing post a letter for Dunn.
Deede Dawson raised his eyebrows slightly when he
saw it, and he did not hand it on until he had made
himself master of its contents, though that did not
prove to be very enlightening or interesting. The
note, in fact, merely expressed gratification at the
news that Dunn had secured steady work, a some-
what weak hope that he would keep it, and a still
fainter hope that now perhaps he would be able to
return the ten shillings borrowed, apparently from
the writer, at some time in the past.
Mr. Deede Dawson, in spite of the jejune nature
of the communication, read it very carefully and in-
deed even went so far as to examine the letter through
a powerful magnifying-glass.
But he made no discovery by the aid of that instru-
ment, and he neglected, for no man thinks of every-
thing, to expose the letter to a gentle heat, which was
what Dunn did when, presently, he received it,
apparently unopened and with not the least sign to
show that it had been tampered with in any way
whatever.
Gradually, however, as Dunn held it to the fire,
109


110 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
there appeared between the lines fresh writing, which
he read very eagerly, and which ran :-
“Jane Dunsmore, born 1830, married, against
family wishes, 'John Clive and had one son, John,
killed early this year in a motor-car accident, leaving
one son, John, now of Ramsdon Place and third in
line of succession to the Wreste Abbey property."
When he had read the message thus strangely and
with such precaution conveyed to him, Dunn burnt
the letter and went that day about his work in a very
grave and thoughtful mood.
“I knew it couldn't be a mere coincidence," he
mused. “It wasn't possible. I must manage to warn
him, somehow; but, ten to one, he won't believe a
word, and I don't know that I blame him—I shouldn't
in his place. And he might go straight to Deede
Dawson and ruin everything. I don't know that it
wouldn't be wiser and safer to say nothing for the
present, till I'm more sure of my ground—and then
it may be too late.”
“Just possibly," he thought, "the job Deede Daw-
son clearly thinks he can make me useful in may have
something to do with Clive. If so, I may be able to
see my way more clearly.”
As it happened, Clive was away for a few days on
some business he had to attend to, so that for the
present Dunn thought he could afford to wait.
But during the week-end Clive returned, and on
the Monday he came again to Bittermeads.
It was never very agreeable to Dunn to have to
stand aloof while Clive was laughing and chatting


INVISIBLE WRITING
111
and drinking his tea with Ella and her mother, and
of those feelings of annoyance and vexation he made
this time a somewhat ostentatious show.
That his manner of sulky anger and resentment did
not go unnoticed by Deede Dawson he was very sure,
but nothing was said at the time.
· Next morning Deede Dawson called him while he
was busy in the garage and insisted on his trying to
solve another chess problem.
“I haven't managed the other yet,” Dunn pro-
tested. “It's not too easy to hit on these key-
moves."
“Never mind try this one,” Deede Dawson said;
and Ella, going out for a morning stroll with her
mother, saw them thus, poring together over the
travelling chess-board.
"They seem busy, don't they?” she remarked.
“Father is making quite a friend of that man."
“I don't like him," declared Mrs. Dawson, quite
vigorously for her. “I'm sure a man with such a
lot of hair on his face can't be really nice, and I
thought he was inclined to be rude yesterday.”
“Yes," agreed Ella. “Yes, he was. I think Mr.
Clive was a little vexed, though he took no notice, I
suppose he couldn't very well.”
“I don't like the man at all,” Mrs. Dawson
repeated. “All that hair, too. Do you like him ?”
“I don't know,” Ella answered, and after she and
her mother had returned from their walk she took
occasion to find Dunn in the garden and ask him some
trifling question or another.


INVISIBLE WRITING
.. 113
thought that a long time. Will you tell me one
thing —Are you his friend or not?”.
There was no need for Dunn to ask to whom the
pronoun she used referred.
“I am so much not his friend,” he answered as
quietly and deliberately as she had spoken. “That
it's either his life or mine."
At that she drew back in a startled way as though
his words had gone beyond her expectations.
“How do I know I can trust you?” she said pres-
ently, half to herself, half to him.
“You can," he said, and it was as though he flung
the whole of his enigmatic and vivid personality into
those two words.
“You can," he said again. “Absolutely."
“I must think,” she muttered, pressing her hands
to her head. “So much depends—how can I trust
you! Why should I-why?!
“Because I'll trust you first,” he answered with a
touch of exultation in his manner. “Listen to me
and I'll tell you everything. And that means I put
my life in your hands. Well, that's nothing; I
would do that any time; but other people's lives will
be in your power, too_yes, and everything I'm here
for, everything. Now listen."
"Not now,” she interrupted sharply. “He may
be watching, listening-he generally is.” Again
there was no need between them to specify to whom
the pronoun referred. “Will you meet me tonight
near the sweet-pea border—about nine?”


114 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
She glided away as she spoke without waiting for
him to answer, and as soon as he was free from the
magic of her presence, reaction came and he was torn
by a thousand doubts and fears and worse.
“Why, I'm mad, mad,” he groaned. “I've no
right to tell what I said I would, no right at
all."
And again there returned to him his vivid, dread-
ful memory of how she had started on that midnight
drive with her car so awfully laden.
And again there returned to him his old appalling
doubt:
“Did she not know?”
And though he would willingly have left his life
in her hands, he knew he had no right to put that of
others there, and yet it seemed to him he must keep
the appointment and the promise he had made.
About nine that evening, then, he made his way to
the sweet-pea border, though, as he went, he resolved
that he would not tell her what he had said he would.
Because he trusted his own strength so little when
he was with her, he confirmed this resolution by an
oath he swore to himself: and even that he was not
certain would be a sure protection against the
witchery she wielded.
So it was with a mind doubtful and troubled more
than it had ever been since the beginning of these
things that he came to the border where the sweet-
peas grew, and saw a dark shadow already close by
them.
But when he came a little nearer he saw that it was


CHAPTER XIV
LOVE-MAKING AT NIGHT
Dunn went to his room that night with the feeling
that a crisis was approaching. And he wished very
greatly that he knew how much Ella had overheard of
his talk with her stepfather, and what interpretation
she had put upon it.
He determined that in the morning he would take
the very first opportunity he could find of speaking to
her.
But in the morning it appeared that Mrs. Dawson
had had a bad night, and was very unwell, and Ella
hardly stirred from her side all day.
Even when Clive called in the afternoon sho
would not come down, but sent instead a message beg-
ging to be excused because of her mother's indisposi-
tion, and Dunn, from a secure spot in the garden,
watched the young man retire, looking very disconso-
late.
This day, too, Dunn saw nothing of Deede Dawson,
for that gentleman immediately after breakfast disap-
peared without saying anything to anybody, and by
night had still not returned.
Dunn therefore was left entirely to himself, and to
him the day seemed one of the longest he had ever
spent.
117


118 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
That Ella remained so persistently with her mother
troubled him a good deal, for he did not think such
close seclusion on her part could be really necessary.
He was inclined to fear that Ella had overheard
enough of what had passed between him and Deede
Dawson to rouse her mistrust, and that she was there-
fore deliberately keeping out of his way.
Then too, he was troubled in another fashion by
Deede Dawson's absence, for he was afraid it might
mean that plans were being prepared, or possibly
action being taken, that might mature disastrously
before he himself was ready to act.
All day this feeling of unrest and apprehension
continued, and at night when he went upstairs to bed
it was stronger than ever. He felt convinced now
that Ella was deliberately avoiding him. But then,
if she distrusted him, that must be because she
feared he was on her stepfather's side, and if it
seemed to her that who was on his side was of neces-
sity an object of suspicion to herself, then there could
be no such bond of dread and guilt between them as
any guilty knowledge on her part of Wright's death
would involve.
The substantial proof this exercise in logic appeared
to afford of Ella's innocence brought him much com-
fort, but did not lighten his sense of apprehension and
unrest, for he thought that in this situation in which
he found himself his doubts of Ella had merely been
turned into doubts on Ella's part of himself, and that
the one was just as likely as the other to end dis-
astrously.


LOVE-MAKING AT NIGHT 119
“Though I don't know what I can do," he muttered
as he stood in his attic, “if I gain Deede Dawson's
confidence I lose Ella's, and if I win Ella's, Deede
Dawson will at once suspect me.”
He went over to the window and looked out, sup-
porting himself on his elbows, and gazing moodily into
the darkness.
As he stood there a faint sound came softly to his
ear through the stillness of the quiet night in which
nothing stirred.
He listened, and heard it again. Beyond doubt
some one was stirring in the garden below, moving
about there very cautiously and carefully, and at once
Dunn glided from the room and down the stairs with
all that extraordinary lightness of tread and agility of
movement of which his heavy body and clumsy-look-
ing build gave so small promise.
He had not been living so many days in the house
without having taken certain precautions, of which
one had been to secure for himself a swift and silent
egress whenever necessity might arise.
Keys to both the front and back doors were in his
possession, and the passage window on the ground
floor he could at need lift bodily from its frame,
leaving ample room for passage either in or out.
This was the method of departure he chose now
since he did not know but that the doors might be
watched.
Lifting the window down, he swung himself out-
side, replacing behind him the window so that it
appeared to be as firmly in position as ever, but


120 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
could be removed again almost instantly should need
arise.
Once outside he listened again, and though at first
everything was quiet, presently he heard again a cau-
tious step going to and fro at a little distance.
Crouching in the shadow of the house, he listened
intently, and soon was able to assure himself that
there was but one footstep and that he would have
only one individual to deal with.
"It won't be Deede Dawson's,” he thought to him-
self, “but it may very likely be some one waiting for
him to return. I must find out who—and why."
Slipping through the darkness of the night, with
whose shadows he seemed to melt and mingle, as
though he were but another one of them, he moved
quickly in the direction of these cautious footsteps he
had listened to.
They had ceased now, and the silence was profound,
for those faint multitudinous noises of the night that
murmur without ceasing in the woods and fields are
less noticeable near the habitations of men.
A little puzzled, Dunn paused to listen again and
once more crept forward a careful yard or two, and
then lay still, feeling it would not be safe to venture
further till he was more sure of his direction, and till
some fresh sound to guide him reached his ears.
He had not long to wait, for very soon, from quite
close by, he heard something that surprised and per-
plexed him equally—a deep, long-drawn sigh.
Again he heard it, and in utter wonder asked him-
self who this could be who came into another person's


LOVE-MAKING AT NIGHT 121
garden late at night to stand and sigh, and what such
a proceeding could mean.
Once more he heard the sigh, deeper even than be-
fore, and then after it a low murmur in which at
first he could distinguish nothing, but then caught
the name of Ella being whispered over and over again.
He bent forward, more and more puzzled, trying in
vain to make out something in the darkness, and then
from under a tree, whose shadow had hitherto been a
complete concealment, there moved forward a form so
tall and bulky there could be little doubt whom it
belonged to.
"John Clivewhat on earth~!” Dunn muttered,
his bewilderment increasing, and the next moment he
understood and had some difficulty in preventing
himself from bursting out laughing as there reached
him the unmistakable sound of a kiss lightly blown
through the air.
Clive was sending a kiss through the night towards
Ella's room and his nocturnal visit was nothing more
than the whim of a love-sick youth.
With Dunn, his first amusement gave way almost
at once to an extreme annoyance.
For, in the first place, these proceedings seemed to
him exceedingly impertinent, for what possible right
did Clive imagine he had to come playing the fool
like this, sighing in the dark and blowing kisses like
a baby to its mammy?
And secondly, unless he were greatly mistaken,
John Clive might just as sensibly and safely have
dropped overboard from a ship in mid-Atlantic for


124 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
continue this strange and puzzling conversation or
break it off.
“There are many accidents,” said Dunn. “And
that may have been one, for all I know, or it may not.
Well, I've warned you. I had to do that. You'll
probably go on acting like a fool and believing that
nowadays murders don't happen, but if you're wise,
you'll go home to bed and run no more silly risks."
“Of course I'm not going to pay the least atten-
tion,” began Clive, when Dunn interrupted him
sharply.
“Hush! hush!” he said sharply. “Crouch down:
don't make a sound, don't stir or move. Hush!”
For Dunn's sharp ear had caught the sound of
approaching footsteps that were drawing quickly
nearer, and almost instantly he guessed who it would
be, for there were few pedestrians who came along
that lonely road so late at night.
There were two of them apparently, and at the
gate of Bittermeads they halted.
“Well, good night," said then a voice both Dunn
and Clive knew at once for Deede Dawson's.”—That
was a pretty check by the knight I showed you, wasn't
it?”
A thin, high, somewhat peculiar voice cursed Deede
Dawson, chess, and the pretty mate by the knight very
comprehensively.
“It's young Clive that worries me," said the voice
when it had finished these expressions of disapproval.
“No need," answered Deede Dawson's voice with


126 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
was to find out who Deede Dawson's new companion
was, and, if possible, overhear anything they might
have to say to each other.
That, and the discovery of the new-comer's identity,
might prove to be of the utmost importance.
“I can't explain now,” he said hurriedly. “I'll
see you tomorrow sometime. Don't do anything till
you hear from me. Your life may depend on it,
and other people's lives that matter more.”
“Tell me who you are first,” Clive said quickly,
incautiously raising his voice. “I can manage to take
care of myself all right, I think, but I want to know
who you are.”
“H-ssh !” muttered Dunn. “Not so loud.”
“There was a fellow made an attack on me one
night a little while ago," Clive went on unheedingly.
“You remind me of him somehow. I don't think I
trust you, my man. I think you had better come
along to the police with me.”
But Dunn's sharp ears had caught the sound of the
house door opening cautiously, and he guessed that
Deede Dawson had taken the alarm and was creeping
out to see who invaded so late at night the privacy of
his garden.
Most likely the man they had seen in his company
would be with him, and both of them would be armed.
Neither Clive nor Dunn had a weapon, and Dunn saw
the danger of the position and took the only course
available.
“Go," he whispered fiercely into Clive's ear.


LOVE-MAKING AT NIGHT 127
“Clear out quick! Quiet! If you want to go on
living. I'll stop them from following if I can. If
you make the least noise you're done for."


CHAPTER XV
THE SOUND OF A SHOT
He melted away into the darkness as he spoke, and
through the night he slipped, one shadow more
amongst many, from tree to bush, from bush to tree.
Across a patch of open grass he crawled on his hands
and knees; and once lay flat on his face when against
the skyline he saw a figure he was sure was Deede
Dawson's creep by a yard or two on his right hand.
On his left another shadow showed, distinguishable
in the night only because it moved.
In a moment both shadows were gone, secret and
deadly in the dark, and Dunn was very sure that
Clive's life and his own both hung upon a slender
chance, for if either of them was discovered the leap-
ing bullet would do the rest.
It would be safe and easy-suspected burglars in a
garden at midnight—nothing could be said. He lay
very still with his face to the dewy sod, and all the
night seemed full to him of searching footsteps and
of a swift and murderous going to and fro.
He heard distinctly from the road a sudden, muffled
sound as Clive in the darkness blunderingly missed his
footing and fell upon one knee.
"That's finished him," Dunn thought grimly,
his ears straining for the sharp pistol report that
128


THE SOUND OF A SHOT 129
would tell Clive's tale was done, and then he was
aware of a cat, a favourite of Ella's and often petted
by himself, that was crouching near by under a tree,
most likely much puzzled and alarmed by this sudden
irruption of hurrying men into its domain.
Instantly Dunn saw his chance, and seizing the
animal, lifted it and threw it in the direction where
he guessed Deede Dawson to be.
His guess was good and fortune served him well,
for the tabby flying caterwauling through the air
alighted almost exactly in front of Deede Dawson on
top of a small bush. For a moment it hung there,
quite unhurt, but very frightened, and emitted a yell,
then fled.
In the quietness the tumult of its scrambling flight
sounded astonishingly loud, so that it sounded as
through a miniature avalanche had been let loose in
the garden.
“Only cats,” Deede Dawson exclaimed disgustedly,
and from behind, nearer the house, Dunn called :-
“Who's there? What is it? What's the matter!
Is it Mr. Dawson? Is anything wrong?"
“I think there is," said Deede Dawson softly. “I
think, perhaps, there is. What are you doing out
here at this time of night, Charley Wright?”
“I heard a noise and came down to see what
it was,” answered Dunn. "There was a light in the
breakfast-room, but I didn't see any one, and the
front door was open so I came out here. Is any-
thing wrong?”
“That's what I want to know,” said Deede Dawson.


THE SOUND OF A SHOT 131
quite innocent, or that the noise heard there was due
solely to cats.
Dunn answered as best he could, and Deede Dawson
listened and smiled, and smiled again, and watched
him from eyes that did not smile at all.
“Oh, well,” Deede Dawson said at last, with a
yawn. “Anyhow, it's all right now. You had better
get along back to bed, and I'll lock up."
He accompanied Dunn into the hall and watched
him ascend the stairs, and as Dunn went slowly up
them he felt by no means sure that soon a bullet
would not come questing after him, searching for
heart or brain.
For he was sure that Deede Dawson still suspected
him, and he knew Deede Dawson to be very sudden
and swift in action. But nothing happened, he
reached the broad, first landing in safety, and he was
about to go on up to his attic when he heard a door
at the end of the passage open and saw Ella appear
in her dressing-gown.
“What is the matter?” she asked, in a low voice.
“It's all right,” he answered. “There was a noise.
in the garden, and I came down to see what it was,
but it's only cats.'
“Oh, is that all?" she said distrustfully.
“Yes,” he answered, in a lower voice still, he
said:
“Will you tell me something? Do you know any
one who talks in a very peculiar shrill high voice?”
She did not answer, and, after a moment's hesi-


132 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
tation, went back into her room and closed the door
behind her.
He went on up to his attic with the feeling that she
could have answered if she had wished to, and lay
down in a troubled and dispirited mood.
For he was sure now that Ella mistrusted him and
would give him no assistance, and that weighed upon
him greatly, as did also his conviction that what it be-
hoved him above all else to know-the identity of the
man who, in this affair, stood behind Deede Dawson
and made use of his fierce and fatal energies he had
had it in his power to discover and had failed to make
use of the opportunity.
“I would rather know that,” he said to himself,
“than save a dozen Clives ten times over.” Though
again it occurred to him that on this point Clive
might hold another opinion. “If he hadn't made
such a blundering row I might have got to know who
Deede Dawson's visitor was. I must try to get a
word with Clive tomorrow by hook or crook, though I
daresay Deede Dawson will be very much on the look-
out."
However, next morning Deede Dawson not only
made no reference to the events of the night, but had
out the car and went off immediately after breakfast
without saying when he would be back.
As soon after his departure as possible, Dunn also
set out and took his way through the woods towards
Ramsdon Place on the look-out for an opportunity to
speak to Clive unobserved.
He thought it most likely that Clive would be
-- -
-
-
-


CHAPTER XVI
IN THE WOOD
There had been an air of haste, almost of furtive-
ness, about this swift appearance and more swift
vanishing of Ella, that made Dunn ask himself un-
easily what errand she could have been on.
He hesitated for a moment, half expecting to see
her return again, or that there would be some other
development, but he heard and saw nothing.
He caught no further glimpse of Ella, whom the
green depths of the spinney hid well; and he heard
no more shots.
After a little, he left the spot where he had been
waiting and went across to where he had seen her.
The exact spot where she had entered the spinney
was marked, for she had broken the branch of a young
tree in brushing quickly by it, and a bramble she had
trodden on had not yet lifted itself from the earth to
which she had pressed it.
By other signs like these, plain enough and easy
to read-for she had hurried on in great haste and
without care, almost, indeed, as one who fled from
some great danger or from some dreadful sight, and
who had no thought to spare save for flight alone
he followed the way she had gone till it took him to a
beaten public path that almost at once led over a stile
134


IN THE WOOD
135
to the high road which passed in front of Bittermeads.
Along this beaten path, trodden by many, Ella's
light foot had left no perceptible mark, and Dunn
made no attempt to track her further, since it seemed
certain that she had been simply hurrying back home.
“She was badly frightened over something or an-
other," he said to himself. “She never stopped once,
she went as straight and quick as she could. I wonder
what upset her like that!!!
He went back the way he had come, and at the
spot where he had seen her enter the spinney he set
to work to pick up her trail in the direction whence
she had appeared, for he thought thať if he followed
it he might find out what had been the cause of her
evident alarm.
The ground was much more open here, and the
trail correspondingly more difficult to follow, for often
there was little but a trodden blade of grass to show
where she had passed; and sometimes, where the
ground was bare and hard, there was no visible sign
left at all.
Once or twice at such places he was totally at fault,
but by casting round in a wide circle like a dog scent-
ing his prey he was able to pick up her tracks again.
They seemed to lead right into the depths of the
wood, through lonely spots that only the keepers knew,
and where others seldom came.
But that he was on the right trail he presently had
proof, for on the bank of a lovely and hidden dell
he picked up a tiny embroidered handkerchief with
the initials “E. C.” worked in one corner.


136 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
It had evidently been lying there only a very short
time, for it was perfectly clean and fresh, and he
picked it up and held it for a moment in his hands,
smiling to himself with pleasure at its daintiness and
smallness, and yet still uneasily wondering why she
had come here, and why she had fled away again so
quickly.
The morning was very fine and calm, though in the
west heavy clouds were gathering and seemed to
promise rain soon. But overhead the sun shone
brightly, the air was calm and warm, and the little
dell on whose verge he stood a very pretty and pleas-
ant place.
A small stream wandered through it, the grass that
carpeted it was green and soft, near by a great oak
stood alone and spread its majestic branches far out
on every side to give cool shelter from the summer
heat.
The thought occurred to Dunn that this was just
such a pretty and secluded spot as two lovers might
choose to exchange their vows in, and the thought
stung him intolerably as he wondered whether it was
for such a reason that Ella had come here.
But if so, why had she fled away again in such
strange haste!
He walked on slowly for a yard or two, not now
attempting to follow Ella's trail, for he had the im-
pression that this was her destination, and that she
had gone no further than here.
All at once he caught sight of the form of a man
lying hidden in the long grass that nearly covered


IN THE WOOD
137
him from view just where the far-spreading branches
of the great oak ceased to give their shade.
At first Dunn thought he was sleeping, and he was
just about to call out to him when something in the
rigidity of the man's position and his utter stillness
struck him unpleasantly.
He went quickly to the man's side, and the face
of dead John Clive, supine and still, stared up at
him from unseeing eyes.
He had been killed by a charge of small shot fired
at such close quarters that his breast was shot nearly
in two and his clothing and flesh charred by the burn-
ing powder.
But Dunn, standing staring down at the dead man,
saw not him, but Ella. Ella fleeing away silently and
furtively through the trees as from some sight or scene
of guilt and terror.
He stooped closer over the dead man. Death had
been instantaneous. Of course there could be no
doubt. From one hand a piece of folded paper had
fallen.
Dunn picked it up, and saw that there was writing
on it, and he read it over slowly.
“Dear Mr. Clive,-Can you meet me as before by the
oak tomorrow at eleven! There is something I very much
want to say to you.-Yours sucerely,
"ELLA CAYLEY."
Was that, then, the lure which had brought John
Clive to meet his death? Was this the bait that had
made him disregard the warnings he had received,


138 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
and come alone to so quiet and solitary a spot!
Dunn had a moment of quick envy of him; he lay
so quiet and still in the warm sunshine, with nothing
to trouble or distress him any more for ever.
Then, stumblingly and heavily, Dunn turned and
went away, and his eyes were very hard, his bearded
face set like iron.
Like a man in a dream, or one obsessed by some
purpose before which all other things faded into noth-
ingness, he went his way, the way Ella had taken in
her flight—through the wood, through the spinney to
the public foot-path, and then out on the road that
led to Bittermeads.
When he entered the garden there, he saw Ella sit-
ting quietly on a deck-chair close to her mother,
quietly busy with some fancy work.
He could not believe it; he stood watching in be-
wilderment, appalled and wondering, watching her
white hands flashing busily to and fro, hearing the
soft murmur of her voice as now and then she ad-
dressed some remark to her mother, who nodded drow-
sily in the sunshine over a book open on her knees.
Ella was dressed all in white; she had flung aside
her hat, and the quiet breeze played in her fair hair,
and stirred gently a stray curl that had escaped across
her broad low brow.
The picture was one of gentleness and peace and an
innocence that thought no wrong, and yet with his
own eyes he had seen her not an hour ago fleeing with
hurried steps and fearful looks from the spot where
lay a murdered man.


IN THE WOOD
139
Somewhat unsteadily, for he felt so little master
of himself, it was as though he had no longer even con-
trol of his own limbs, Dunn stumbled forward, and
Ella looked up and saw him, and saw also that he was
looking at her very strangely.
She rose and came towards him, her needlework
still in her hands.
“What is the matter?” she said in a voice of some
concern. “Are you ill ?”.
“No," he answered. “No. I've been looking for
Mr. Clive."
“Have you ?” she said, a little surprised appar-
ently, but in no way flustered or disturbed. “Did
you find him ?”
Dunn did not answer, for indeed he could not, and
she said again :-
“Did you find him?"
Still he made no answer, for it seemed to him those
four words were the most awful that any one had ever
uttered since the beginning of the world.
“What is the matter?” she said again. “Is any.
thing the matter?”
“Oh, no, no,” he said, and he gave himself a little
shake like a man wakening from deep sleep and trying
to remember where he was.
"Well, then,” she said.
“I found Mr. Clive,” he said hardly and abruptly.
And he repeated again: “Yes, I found him.”
They remained standing close together and facing
each other, and he saw her as through a veil of red,
and it was as though a red mist enveloped her, and


140 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
where her shadow lay the earth was red, he thought,
and where she put her foot it seemed to him red tracks
remained, and never before had he understood how
utterly he loved her and must love her, now and for
evermore.
But he uttered no sound and made no movement,
only stood very still, thinking to himself how dreadful
it was that he loved her so greatly.
She was not paying him any attention now. A rose
bush was near by, and she picked one of the flowers,
and arranged it carefully at her waist.
She said, still looking at him:-
“Do you know I wish you would shave yourself?”
“Why?'' he mumbled.
“I should like to see you," she answered. “I think
I have a curiosity to see you."
“I should think you could do that well enough,"
he said in the same low, mumbled tones.
"No," she answered. “I can only see some very
untidy hair and a pair of eyes—not very nice eyes,
rather frightening eyes. I should like to see the rest
of your face some day so as to know what it's like."
"Perhaps you shall—some day,” he said.
“Is that a threat ?" she asked. “It sounded like
one."
“Perhaps," he answered.
She laughed lightly and turned away.
“You make me very curious," she said. "But
then, you've always done that.”
She went back to her seat by her mother, and he
walked on moodily to the house.


IN THE WOOD
141
Mrs. Dawson said to Ella :-
“How can you talk to that man, my dear? I think
he looks perfectly dreadful-hardly like a human be-
ing.”
“I was just telling him he ought to shave him-
self,” said Ella. “I told him I should like to know
what he was really like.”
"I shall ask father," said Mrs. Dawson sternly,
"to make it a condition of his employment here."


CHAPTER XVII
A DECLARATION
t still for that and hat nothin.
Dunn knew very well that he ought to give imme-
diate information to the authorities of what had hap-
pened.
But he did not. He told himself that nothing could
help poor John Clive, and that any precipitate action
on his part might still fatally compromise his plans,
which were now so near completion.
But his real reason was that he knew that if he came
forward he would be very closely questioned, and
sooner or later forced to tell the things he knew so
terribly involving Ella.
And he knew that to surrender her to the police
and proclaim her to the world as guilty of such things
were tasks beyond his strength; though, to himself,
with a touch of wildness in his thoughts, he said that
no proved and certain guilt should go unpunished
even though his own hand- It was a train of ideas
he did not pursue.
“Charley Wright first and now John Clive," he
said to himself. “But the end is not yet."
Again he would not let his thoughts go on but
checked them abruptly.
In this dark and troubled mood he went out to
142


146 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
He put up his hand instinctively for them to stop,
and Deede Dawson at once obeyed the gesture.
Dunn noticed that the smile upon his lips was more
gentle and winning than ever, the look in his eyes
more dark and menacing.
“Well, Dunn, what is it?” he said as pleasantly
as he always spoke. “Mr. Allen,” he added to his
companion, “this is my man, Dunn, I told you about,
my gardener and chauffeur, and a very industrious
steady fellow—and quite trustworthy."
He seemed to lay a certain emphasis on the last
two words, and Allen put his head on one side and
looked at Dunn with an odd mixture of familiarity.
suspicion, hesitation, and an uncertain assumption
of superiority, but with no hint of recognition show-
ing.
“Glad to hear it,” he said. “You always want to
know whom you can trust.”
“Mr. Clive has been murdered,” Dunn said ab-
ruptly. “Poachers, it is said. Did you know?”
“We heard about it as we came through the vil-
lage," answered Deede Dawson. Very sad, very
dreadful. It will be a great shock to poor Ella, I
fear. Take the car on to the garage, will you ?” he
added.
He drove on 'up the drive, and at the front door
they alighted and entered the house together. Dunn
followed, and getting into the car, drove it to the
garage, where he busied himself cleaning it. As he
worked he wondered very much what was the meaning
of this sudden appearance on terms of friendship


A DECLARATION
147
with Deede Dawson of this man Allen, whom he had
last seen trying to break into the house at night.
Was Allen an accomplice of Deede Dawson, or a
dupe, or, more probably, a new recruit?
At any rate, to Dunn it seemed that the crisis he
had expected and prepared for was now fast approach-
ing, and he told himself that if he had failed in Clive's
case, those others he was working for he must not
fail to save.
“Looks as if Dawson's plans were nearly ready,”
he said to himself. “Well, so are mine."
He finished his work and shutting the garage door,
he was turning away when he saw Ella coming to-
wards him.
She was extremely pale, and her eyes seemed
larger than ever, and very bright against the deathly
whiteness of her cheeks.
She was wearing a blouse that was cut a little low,
and he noticed with a kind of terror how soft and
round was her throat, like a column of pale and per-
fect ivory.
He hoped she would not speak to him, for he
thought perhaps he could not bear it if she did, but
she halted near by, and said:
“This is very dreadful about poor Mr. Clive."
“Very,” he answered moodily.
“Why should poachers kill him?" she asked.
“Why should they want to?"
“I don't know," he answered, watching not her
but her soft throat, where he could see a pulse flutter-
ing. "Perhaps it wasn't poachers,” he added.


148 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
She started violently, and gave a quick look that
seemed to make yet more certain the certainty he
already entertained.
“Who else could it be?” she asked in a low voice.
He did not answer.
After what seemed a long time she said :-
“You asked me a question once-do you remem-
ber?'
He shook his head.
“Why don't you speak? Why can't you speak ?”
she cried angrily. “Why can't you say something
instead of just shaking your head?”
“You see, I've asked you so many questions,” he
said slowly. “Perhaps I shall ask you some more
some day—which question do you mean?”
"I mean when you asked me if I had ever met any
one who spoke in a very shrill, high whistling sort of
voice? Do you remember?”
“Yes," he said. “You wouldn't tell me."
“Well, I will now,” she said. “I did meet a man
once with a voice like that. Do you remember the
night you came here that I drove away in the car with
a packing-case you carried downstairs ?”
“Do I-remember?” he gasped, for that memory,
and the thought of how she had driven away into the
night with that grisly thing behind her on the car had
never since left his mind by night or by day.
“Yes,” she exclaimed impatiently. “Why do you
keep staring so? Are you as stupid as you choose to
look? Do you remember?"


A DECLARATION
149
“I remember,” he answered heavily. “I remem-
ber very well."
“Well, then, the man I took that packing-case
to had a voice just like that,high and shrill, whis-
tling almost.”
"I thought as much," said Dunn. “May I ask
you another question ?”
She nodded.
“May I smoke?”.
She nodded again with a touch of impatience.
He took a cigarette from his pocket and put it in
his mouth and lighted a match, but the match, when
he had lighted it, he used to put light to a scrap of
folded paper with writing on it, like a note.
This piece of paper he used to light his cigarette
with and when he had done so he watched the paper
burn to an ash, not dropping it to the ground till the
little flame stung his fingers.
The ash that had fallen he ground into the path
where they stood with the heel of his boot.
“What have you burned there?” she asked, as if
she suspected it was something of importance he had
destroyed.
In fact it was the note that had fallen from dead
John Clive's hand wherein Ella had asked him to
meet her at the oak where he had met his death.
That bit of paper would have been enough, Dunn
thought, to place a harsh hempen noose about the soft
white throat he watched where the little pulse still
fluttered up and down. But now it was burnt and


150 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
utterly distroyed, and no one would ever see it.
At the thought he laughed and she drew back, very
startled.
“Oh, what is the matter?” she exclaimed.
"Nothing," he answered. “Nothing in all the
world except that I love you."


CHAPTER XVIII
ROBERT DUNN'S ENEMY
When he had said this he went a step or two aside
and sat down on the stump of a tree. He was very
agitated and disturbed, for he had not in the very
least meant to say such a thing, he had not even
known that he really felt like that.
It was, indeed, a rush and power of quite un-
expected passion that had swept him away and made
him for the moment lose all control of himself.
Ella showed much more composure. She had be-
come extraordinarily pale, but otherwise she did not
appear in any way agitated.
She remained silent, her eyes bent on the ground,
her only movement a gesture by which she rubbed
softly and in turn each of her wrists as though they
hurt her.
“Well, can't you say something ?” he asked
roughly, annoyed by her persistent silence.
“I don't see that there's anything for me to say,”
she answered.
“Oh, well now then," he muttered, quite discon-
certed.
She raised her eyes from the ground, and for the
first time looked full at him, in her expression both
curiosity and resentment.
151


ROBERT DUNN'S ENEMY 153
looking so closely into hers, of his strong arms hold-
ing her so firmly.
He released her, or rather she at last freed herself
by an effort he did not oppose, and she fled away down
the path.
She had an impression that her hair would come
down and that that would make her look a fright,
and she put up her hands hurriedly to secure it.
She never looked back to where he stood, breath-
ing heavily and looking after her and thinking not of
her, but of two dead men whom he had seen of late.
“Shall I make the third ?” he wondered. “I do
not care if I do, not I.”
The path Ella had fled by led into another along
which when she reached it she saw Deede Dawson
coming.
She stopped at once and began to busy herself with
a flower-bed overrun with weeds, but she could not
entirely conceal her agitation from her stepfather's
cold grey eyes.
“Oh, there you are, Ella, he said, with all that false
geniality of his that filled the girl with such loathing
and distrust. “Have you seen Dunn? Oh, there
he is, isn't he? I wanted to ask you, Ella, what do
you think of Dunn?”
She glanced over her shoulder towards where Dunn
stood, and she managed to answer with a passable
air of indifference.
“Well, I suppose,” she said, “that he is quite the
ugliest man I ever saw. Of course, if he cut all of
that hair off-"


154 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
Deede Dawson laughed though his eyes remained
as hard and cold as ever.
“I shall have to give him orders to shave,” he said.
“Your mother was telling me I ought to the other
day, she said it didn't look respectable to have a man
about with all that hair on his face. Though I don't
see myself why hair isn't respectable, do you?”
“It looks odd,” answered Ella carelessly.
Deede Dawson laughed again, and walked on to
where Dunn was standing waiting for him. With
his perpetual smile that his cold and evil eyes so
strangely contradicted, he said to him:
“Well, what have you and Ella been talking
about?”
“Why do you ask?” growled Dunn.
“Because she looks upset," answered Deede Daw-
son. “Oh, don't be shy about it. Shall I give you a
little good advice?”
“What?"
“Never shave.”
“Why not?”
“Because that thick growth of hair hiding your
face gives you an air of mystery and romance no
woman could possibly resist. You're a perpetual puz-
zle, and to pique a woman's curiosity is the surest way
to interest her. Why, there are plenty of women who
would marry you simply to find out what is under all
that hair. So never you shave."
“I don't mean to."
“Unless, of course, you have to—for purposes of
disguise, for example.


ROBERT DUNN'S ENEMY 155
“I thought you were hinting that the beard itself
was a disguise,” retorted Dunn.
“Removing it might become a better one,” an-
swered Deede Dawson. “You told me once you
knew this part fairly well. Do you know Wreste
Abbey ?”
Dunn gave his questioner a scowling look that
seemed full of anger and suspicion.
“What about it if I do?” he asked.
“I am asking if you do know it,” said Deede Daw-
son.
“Yes, I do. Well?”
“It belongs to Lord Chobham, doesn't it?"
Dunn nodded.
"Old man, isn't he ?”
"I'm not a book of reference about Lord Chob-
ham," answered Dunn. “If you want to know his
age, you can easily find out, I suppose. What's the
sense of asking me a lot of questions like that?”
“He has no family, and his heir is his younger
brother, General Dunsmore, who has one son, Rupert,
I believe. Do you know if that's so ?”
“Look here,” said Dunn, speaking with a great
appearance of anger. “Don't you go too far, or
maybe something you won't like will happen. If
you've anything to say, say it straight out. Or
there'll be trouble.”
Deede Dawson seemed a little surprised at the
vehemence of the other's tone.
“What's the matter?” he asked. “Don't you like
the family, or what's upsetting you?”


ROBERT DUNN'S ENEMY 157
with each word he uttered till the last was a scarce-
audible whisper.
Dunn stopped and picked up a hoe that was lying
near by. He placed the tough ash handle across his
knee, and with a movement of his powerful hands, he
broke the hoe across.
The two smashed pieces he dropped on the ground,
and looking at Deede Dawson, he said :-
“Like that-if ever Rupert Dunsmore and I meet
alone, only one of us will go away alive."
And he confirmed it with an oath.
Deede Dawson clapped him on the shoulder, and
laughed.
“Good !” he cried. “Why, you're the man I've
been looking for for a long time. The fact is, Rupert
Dunsmore played me a nasty trick once, and I want to
clear accounts with him. Now, suppose I show him
to you—?"
“You do that,” said Dunn, and he repeated the
oath he had sworn before. “You show him to me,
and I'll take care he never troubles any one again."
"That's the way I like to hear a man talk," cried
Deede Dawson. “Dunsmore has been away for a
time on business I can make a guess at, but he is com-
ing back soon. Should you know him if you saw
him?"
“Should I know him?” repeated Dunn contemp-
tously. “Should I know myself ?”
“That's good,” said Deede Dawson again. "By
the way, perhaps you can tell me, hasn't Lord Chob
ham a rather distant cousin, Walter Dunsmore, liv-


CHAPTER XIX
THE VISIT TO WRESTE ABBEY
It was a little later when Deede Dawson returned to
the subject of Wreste Abbey.
“Lord Chobham has a very valuable collection of
plate and jewellery and so on, hasn't he?” he asked.
“Oh, there's plenty of the stuff there," Dunn an-
swered. “Why?”.
“Oh, I was thinking a visit might be made fairly
profitable,” Deede Dawson said carelessly, for the
first time definitely throwing off his mask of law-
abiding citizen under which he lived at Bittermeads.
“It would be a risky job," answered Dunn, show-
ing no surprise at the suggestion. “The stuff's well-
guarded, and then, that's not what I'm thinking
about-it's meeting Rupert Dunsmore, man to man,
and no one to come between us. If that ever hap-
pens—"
Deede Dawson nodded reassuringly.
“That'll be all right,” he said. “So you shall, I
promise you that. But we might as well kill two
birds with one stone and clear a bit of profit, too.
I've got to live, like any one else, and I haven't five
thousand a year of my own, so I get my living out of
those who have, and I don't see who has any right to
blame me. Mind, if there was any money in chess, I
159


160 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
should be a millionaire, but there isn't, and if a man
can make a fortune on the Stock Exchange, which
takes no more thought or skill than auction-bridge,
why shouldn't I make a bit when I can? There's
the 'D. D.'gambit I've invented, people will be study.
ing and playing for centuries, but it'll never bring
me a penny for all the brain-work I put into it, and
so I've got to protect myself, haven't I ?”
“It's what I do with less talk about it," answered
Dunn contemptuously. “Why, I've guessed all that
from the first when you weren't so all-fired keen on
seeing me in gaol, as most of your honest, hard-work-
ing lot, who only do their swindling in business-hours,
would have been. And I've kept my eyes open, of
course. It wasn't hard to twig you did a bit on the
cross yourself. Well, that's your affair, but one thing
I do want to know-how much does Miss Cayley
know?"
For all his efforts he could not keep his anxiety
entirely out of his voice as he said this, and recogniz-
ing that thereby he had perhaps risked rousing some
suspicion in the other's mind, he added :-
“And her mother—the young lady and her mother,
how much do they know?”
“Oh," answered Deede Dawson, with his false
laugh and cold-watchful eyes. “My wife knows
nothing at all, but Ella's the best helper I've ever had.
She looks so innocent, she can take in any one, and she
never gives the show away, she acts all the time. A
wonderful girl and useful-you'd hardly believe how
useful.”


THE VISIT TO WRESTE ABBEY 161
Dunn did not answer. It was only by a supreme
effort that he kept his hands from Deede Dawson's
throat. He did not believe a word of what the other
said, for he knew well the utter falseness of the man.
None the less, the accusation troubled him and chilled
him to the heart, as though with the touch of the fin-
ger of death.
“You remember that packing-case," Deede Dawson
added. “The one you helped me to get away from
here the night you came. Well, she knew what was
in it, though you would never have thought so, to look
at her, would you ?”
His cold eyes were very intent and keen as he said
this, and Dunn thought to himself that it had been
said more to test any possible knowledge or suspicion
of his own than for any other reason. With a man-
ner of only slight interest, he answered carelessly :-
“Did she? Why? Wasn't it your stuff! Had it
been pinched? But she was safe enough, the police
would never stop a smart young lady in a motor-car,
except on very strong evidence.”
“Perhaps not,” agreed Deede Dawson. “That's
one reason why Ella's so useful. But I've been think-
ing things out, and trying to make them work in
together, and I think the first thing to do is for you to
drive Allen and Ella over to Wreste Abbey this after-
noon, so that they may have a good look around.”
“Oh, Miss Cayley and Allen,” Dunn muttered.
The new-comer, Allen, had been making himself
very much at home at Bittermeads since his arrival,
though he had not so far troubled to any great extent


162 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
either Ella in the house or Dunn outside. His idea
of comfort seemed to be to stay in bed very late, and
spend his time when he did get up in the breakfast-
room in the company of a box of cigars and a bottle
of whisky.
The suggestion that he and Ella should pay a visit
together to Wreste Abbey was one that greatly sur-
prised Dunn.
“All right,” he said. “This afternoon? I'll get
the car ready.”
“This is the afternoon the Abbey is thrown open
to visitors, isn't it?” asked Deede Dawson. “Allen
and Ella can get in as tourists, and have a good look
round, and you can look round outside and get to
know the lie of the land. There won't be long to wait,
for Rupert Dunsmore will be back from his little
excursion before long, I expect.”
He laughed in his mirthless way, and walked off,
and Dunn, as he got the car ready, seemed a good deal
preoccupied and a little worried.
“How can he know that Rupert Dunsmore is com-
ing back ?” he said to himself. “Can he have any
way of finding out things I don't know about? And
if he did, how could he know—that? Most likely it's
only a guess to soothe me down, and he doesn't really
know anything at all about it."
After lunch, Allen and Ella appeared together,
ready for their expedition. Ella looked her best in
a big motoring coat and a close-fitting hat, with a long
blue veil. Allen was, for almost the first time since
his arrival, shaved, washed and tidy.


164 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
Ella and Allen, in odd companionship, walked up to
the Abbey by the famous approach through the chest-
nut avenue.
Allen was quiet and surly, and much on his guard,
and very uncomfortable in Ella's company, and Ella
herself, though for different reasons was equally si-
lent.
But the beauty of the walk through the chestnut
avenue, and of the vista with the great house at the
end, drew from her a quick exclamation of delight
“How beautiful a place this is,” she said aloud.
“And how peaceful and how quiet.”
“Don't like these quiet places myself,” grumbled
Allen. “Don't like 'em, don't trust 'em. Give me
lots of traffic; when everything's so awful quiet
you've only got to kick your foot against a stone or
drop a tool, and likely as not you'll wake the whole
blessed place.”
“Wake?”' repeated Ella, noticing the word, and she
repeated it with emphasis. “Why do you say
'wake'q!


CHAPTER XX
ELLA'S WARNING
Ella did not say anything more, and in their char-
acter of tourists visiting the place, they were admit-
ted to the Abbey and passed on though its magnificent
rooms, where was stored a collection rich and rare
even for one of the stateliest homes of England.
“What a wonderful place!” Ella sighed wistfully.
Yet she could not enjoy the spectacle of all these
treasures as she would have done at another time, for
she was always watching Allen, who hung about a
good deal, and seemed to look more at the locks of
the cases that held some of the more valuable of the
objects shown than at the things themselves, and gen-
erally spent fully half the time in each room at the
window, admiring, the view, he said; but for quite
another reason, Ella suspected.
“I shall speak when I get back," she said to her-
self, pale and resolute. “I don't care what happens;
I don't care if I have to tell mother—perhaps she
knows already. Anyhow, I shall speak.”
Having come to this determination, she grew cheer-
ful and more interested apparently in what they were
seeing, as well as less watchful of her companion.
When, presently, they left the house to go into the
gardens, it happened that they noticed an old gentle-
165


168 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
“The fellow was a bit impudent; he made me
angry,' said Walter carelessly. He fingered the little
box in his waistcoat pocket and thought how one
tablet on his tongue would always end it all. “By
the way, oughtn't Rupert to be back soon ?” he asked.
“Yes, he ought,” said Lord Chobham severely.
“It's time he married and settled down—I shall speak
to his father about it. The boy is always rushing off
somewhere or another when he ought to be getting to
know the estate and the tenants."
Walter Dunsmore laughed.
“I think he knows them both fairly well already,"
he said. “Not a tenant on the place but swears by
Rupert. He's a fine fellow, uncle.”
“Oh, you always stick up for him; you and he were
always friends,” answered Lord Chobham in a
grumbling tone, but really very pleased. “I know
I'm never allowed to say a word about Rupert.”
“Well, he's a fine fellow and a good friend,” said
Walter, and the two disappeared into the house by a
small side-door as Dunn pushed his way through the
group of tourists who looked at him with marked and
severe disapproval.
“Disgraceful,” one of them said quite loudly, and
another added: “I believe he said something
impudent to that gentleman. I saw him go quite
white, and look as if he were in two minds about
ordering the fellow right out of the grounds." And
a third expressed the general opinion that the culprit
looked a real ruffian with all that hair on his face.
“Might be a gorilla," said the third tourist. “And


ELLA'S WARNING
169
look what a clumsy sort of walk he has; perhaps he's
been drinking."
But Dunn was quite indifferent to, and indeed un-
aware of, this popular condemnation as he made his
way back to the hotel garage where he had left their
car. He seemed rather well pleased than otherwise
as he walked on.
“Quite a stroke of luck for once,” he mused, and
he smiled to himself, and stroked the thick growth
of his untidy beard. “It's been worth while, for he
didn't recognize me in the least, and had quite a
shock, but, all the same, I shan't be sorry to shave
and see my own face again.”
He had the car out and ready when Ella and
Allen came back. Allen at once made an excuse to
leave them, and went into the hotel bar to get a drink
of whisky, and when they were alone, Ella, who
was looking very troubled and thoughtful, said to
Dunn:-
“We saw Lord Chobham in the garden with a gen-
tleman some one told us was a relative of his, a Mr.
Walter Dunsmore. Did you see them 9”.
“Yes," answered Dunn, a little surprised, and giv-
ing her a quick and searching look from his bright,
keen eyes. I saw them. Why,"
“I think I've seen the one they said was Mr. Walter
Dunsmore-before, and I can't think where," she an-
swered, puckering her brows. “I can't think-do
you know anything about him?”.
“I know he is Mr. Walter Dunsmore," answered
Dunn slowly, and I know he is one of the family,


170 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
and a great friend of Rupert Dunsmore's. Rupert
Dunsmore is Lord Chobham's nephew, you know, and
heir, after his father, to the title and estates. His
father, General Dunsmore, brought him and Walter
up together like brothers, but recently Walter has
lived at the Abbey as Lord Chobham's secretary and
companion. The general likes to live abroad a good
deal, and his son Rupert is always away on some
sporting or exploring expedition or another.”
“It's very strange,” Ella said again. “I'm sure
I've seen Walter Dunsmore before but I can't think
where."
Allen came from the bar, having quenched his
thirst for the time being, and they started off, arriv-
ing back at Bittermeads fairly early in the evening,
for Dunn had brought them along at a good rate, and
apparently remembered the road so well from the
afternoon that he never once had occasion to refer to
the map.
He took the car round to the garage, and Allen
and Ella went into the house, where Allen made his
way at once to the breakfast-room, searching for more
whisky and cigars, while Ella, after a quick word with
her mother to assure her of their safe return, went
to find Deede Dawson.
“Ah, dear child, you are back then," he greeted
her. “Well, how have you enjoyed yourself? Had
a pleasant time?”
“It was not for pleasure we went there, I think,”
she said listlessly.
He looked up quickly, and though his perpetual


ELLA'S WARNING
171
smile still played as usual about his lips, his eyes were
hard and daunting as they fixed themselves on hers.
Before that sinister stare her own eyes sank, and
sought the little travelling set of chessmen and board
that were before him.
“See,” he said, “I've just brought off a mate.
Neat isn't it? Checkmate."
She looked up at him, and her eyes were steadier
now.
“I've only one thing to say to you,” she said. “I
came here to say it. If anything happens at Wreste
Abbey I shall go straight to the police."
"Indeed," he said, “indeed.” He fingered the
chessmen as though all his attention were engaged by
them. “May I ask why?” he murmured. “For
what purpose?”
“To tell them,” she answered quietly, “what I
--know.” .
“And what do you know?” he asked indifferently.
“What do you know that is likely to interest the
police?”
“I ought to have said, perhaps,” she answered
after a pause, “what I suspect.”
“Ah, that's so different, isn't ?” he murmured
gently. “So very different. You see we all of us
suspect so many things.”
She did not answer, for she had said all she had
to say and she was afraid that her strength would not
carry her further. She began to walk away, but he
called her back.
“Oh, how do you think your mother is today?” he


172 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
asked.” Do you know, her condition seems to me
quite serious at times. I'wonder if you are over-
anxious?”
“She is better-much better!” Ella answered, and
added with a sudden burst of fiercest, white-hot pas-
sion: “But I think it would be better if we had both
died before we met you."
She hurried away, for she was afraid of breaking
down, and Deede Dawson smiled the more as he again
turned his attention to his chessmen, taking them
up and putting them down in turn.
“She's turning nasty," he mused. “I don't think
she'll dare—but she might. She's only a pawn, but
a pawn can cause a lot of trouble at times—a pawn
may become a queen and give the mate. When a
pawn threatens trouble it's best to-remove it."
He went out and came back a little late and busied
himself with a four-move chess problem which
absorbed all his attention, and which he did not solve
to his satisfaction till past midnight. Then he went
upstairs to bed, but at the door of his room he paused
and went on very softly up the narrow stairs that led
to the attics above.
Outside the one in which Dunn slept, he waited a
little till the unbroken sound of regular breathing
from within assured him that the occupant slept.
Cautiously and carefully he crept on, and entered
the one adjoining, where he turned the light of the
electric flashlight he carried on a large, empty pack-
ing-case that stood in one corner.
With a two-foot rule he took from his pocket he


ELLA'S WARNING
173
measured it carefully and nodded with great satis-
faction,
“A little smaller than the other," he said to him-
self. “But, then, it hasn't got to hold so much.”
He laughed in his silent, mirthless way, as at some-
thing that amused him. “A good deal less," he
thought. “And Dunn shall drive.”.
He laughed again, and for a moment or two stood
there in the darkness, laughing silently to himself,
and then, speaking aloud, he called out:-
“You can come in, Dunn.”
Dunn, whom a creaking board had betrayed, came
forward unconcernedly in his sleeping attire.
“I saw it was you," he remarked. “At first I
thought something was wrong.”
“Nothing, nothing," answered Deede Dawson.
“I was only looking at this packing-case. I may
have to send one away again soon, and I wanted
to be sure this was big enough. If I do, I shall want
you to drive.”
“Not Miss Cayley ?” asked Dunn.
“No, no," answered Deede Dawson. “She might
be with you perhaps, but she wouldn't drive. Night
driving is always dangerous, I think, don't you?”
“There's things more dangerous," Dunn remarked.
“Oh, quite true," answered Deede Dawson.
“Well, did you enjoy your visit to Wreste Abbey ?”
"No," answered Dunn roughly. “I didn't see
Rupert Dunsmore, and it wouldn't have been any
good if I had with all those people about."
“You're too impatient,” Deede Dawson smiled.


174 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
“I'm getting everything ready; you can't properly
expect to win a game in a dozen moves. You must
develop your pieces properly and have all ready be
fore you start your attack. As soon as I'm ready-
why, I'll act-and you'll have to do the rest."
“I see,” said Dunn thoughtfully.


176 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
him greatly, for Mrs. Barker, the charwoman who
came each morning to Bittermeads, told them that
two men in the village-notorious poachers-had been
arrested by the police on a charge of being concerned
in Mr. Clive's death.
The news was a great shock to Dunn, for, knowing,
as he thought he did, that the police were working on
an entirely wrong idea, he had not supposed they
would ever find themselves able to make any arrest.
As a matter of fact, these arrests they had made were
the result of desperation on the part of the police, who,
unable to discover anything and entirely absorbed by
their preconceived idea that the crime was the work of
poachers, had arrested men they knew were poachers
in the vague hope of somehow discovering something
or of somehow getting hold of some useful clue.
But that Dunn did not know, and feared unlucky
chance or undesigned coincidence must have appeared
to suggest the guilt of the men and that they were
really in actual danger of trial and conviction. He
had, too, received that morning, through the secret
means of communication he kept open with an agent
in London, conclusive proof that at the moment of
Clive's death Deede Dawson was in town on business
that seemed obscure enough, but none the less in town,
and therefore undoubtedly innocent of the actual per-
petration of the murder.
Who, then, was left who could have fired the fatal
shot?
It was a question Dunn dared not even ask himself,
but he saw very plainly that if the proceedings


178 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
happy mood that she went into the garden after lunch
and met Dunn in a quiet, well-hidden corner, where
he had been waiting and watching for long.
His appearance startled her—his eyes were so wild,
his whole manner so strained and restless, and she
gave a little dismayed exclamation as she saw him.
“Oh, what's the matter?” she asked. “Aren't you
well? You look-"
She paused for she did not know exactly how it was
he did look; and he said in his harshest, most abrupt
manner :-
“Do you remember Charley Wright?”
“Why do you ask?” she said, puzzled. “Is any-
thing wrong?”
“Do you remember John Clive?” he asked, dis-
regarding this. “Have you heard two men have been
arrested for his murder?”.
“Mrs. Barker told me so,” she answered gravely.
He came a little nearer, almost threateningly
nearer.
“What do you think of that?” he asked.
She lifted one hand and put it gently on his arm.
The touch of it thrilled him through and through, and
he felt a little dazed as he watched it resting on his
coat sleeve. She had become very pale also, and her
voice was low and strained as she said :-
“Have you had suspicions too?”.
He looked at her as if fascinated for a moment,
and then nodded twice and very slowly.
“So have I," she sighed in tones so low he could
scarcely hear them.


180 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
Ever so slightly the pressure of his hands upon her
throat strengthened and increased. A very little
more and the lovely thing of life he watched would
be broken and cold for ever. Her eyes were steady,
she showed no sign of fear, she stood perfectly still,
her hands loosely clasped together before her. He
groaned, and his arms fell to his side, helpless.
Without the slightest change of expression, she
said :-
“What were you going to do?”.
“I don't know," he answered. “Do you ever go
mad? I do, I think. Perhaps you do too, and that
explains it. Do you know where Charley Wright
is ?”
“Yes,” she answered directly. “Why? Did you
know him, then?”
“You know where he is now?” Dunn repeated.
She nodded quietly.
“I heard from him only last week," she said.
“I am certainly mad or you are,” he muttered,
staring at her with eyes in which such wonder and
horror showed that it seemed there really was a touch
of madness there.
“What is the matter?” she asked.
“You heard from him last week,” he said again,
and again she answered:
“Yes—last week. Why not?”
He leaned forward, and before she knew what he in-
tended to do he kissed her pale, cool cheek.
Once more she stood still and immobile, her hands
loosely clasped before her. It might have been that


DOUBTS AND FEARS 181
he had kissed a statue, and her perfect stillness made
him afraid.
“Ella,” he said. “Ella.”
"Why did you do that?” she said, a little wildly
now in her turn. “It was not that you were going
to do to me before."
"I love you,” he muttered excusingly.
She shook her head.
“You know too little of me; you have too many
doubt and fears,” she said. “You do not love me,
you do not even trust me."
“I love you all the same,” he asserted positively
and roughly. “I loved you—it was when I tied your
hands to the chair that night and you looked at me
with such contempt, and asked me if I felt proud.
That stung, that stung. I loved you then."
"You see," she said sadly, you do not even pretend
to trust me. I don't know why you should. Why
are you here? Why are you disguised with all that
growth of hair? There is something you are pre-
paring, planning. I know it. I feel it. What is
it?"
“I told you once before,” he answered, “that the
end of this will be Deede Dawson's death or mine.
That's what I'm preparing.”
“He is very cunning, very clever," she said. “Do
you think he suspects you?”
"He suspects every one always,” answered Dunn.
“I've been trying to get proof to act on. I haven't
succeeded. Not yet. Nothing definite. If I can't,
I shall act without. That's all.”


182 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
“If I told him even half of what you just said,"
she said, looking at him. “What would happen ?”
“You see, I trust you," he answered bitterly.
She shook her head, but her eyes were soft and
tender as she said :-
"It wasn't trust in me made you say all that, it
was because you didn't care what happened after."
“No," he said. “But when I see you, I forget
everything. Do you love me?"
“Why, I've never even seen you yet,” she exclaimed
with something like a smile. “I only know you as
two eyes over a tangle of hair that I don't believe
you ever either brush or comb. Do you know, some-
times I am curious."
He took her hand and drew her to sit beside him
on the bench under a tree near by. All his doubts
and fears and suspicions he set far from him, and
remembered nothing save that she was the woman
for whom yearned all the depths of his soul as by
pre-ordained decree. And she, too, forgot all else
save that she had met her man-her man, to her
strange, aloof, mysterious, but dominating all her life
as though by primal necessity.
When they parted, it was with an agreement to
meet again that evening, and in the twilight they
spent a halcyon hour together, saying little, feeling
much.
It was only when at last she had left him that he
remembered all that had passed, that had happened,
that he knew, suspected, dreaded, all that he planned


DOUBTS AND FEARS
183
and intended and would be soon called upon to put
into action.
“She's made me mad," he said to himself, and for
a long time he sat there in the darkness, in the stillness
of the evening, motionless as the tree in whose shade
he sat, plunged in the most profound and strange
reverie, from which presently his quick ear, alert
and keen even when his mind was deep in thought,
caught the light and careful sound of an approaching
footstep.
In a moment he was up and gliding through the
darkness to meet who was coming, and almost at
once a voice hailed him cautiously.
“There you are, Dunn,” Deede Dawson said.
“I've been looking for you everywhere. Tomorrow
or next day we shall be able to strike; everything is
ready at last, and I'll tell you now exactly what we
are going to do.”
“That's good news,” said Dunn softly.
“Come this way,” Deede Dawson said, and led
Dunn through the darkness to the gate that admitted
to the Bittermeads grounds from the high road.
Here he paused, and stood for a long time in silence,
leaning on the gate and looking out across the road
to the common beyond. Close beside him stood Dunn,
controlling his impatience as best he could, and won-
dering if at last the secret springs of all these hap-
penings was to be laid bare to him.
But Deede Dawson seemed in no hurry to begin.
For a long time he remained in the same attitude, si-


184 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
lent and sombre in the darkness, and when at last he
spoke it was to utter a remark that quite took Dunn
by surprise.
“What a lovely night,” he said in low and pensive
tones, very unlike those he generally used. “I remem-
ber when I was a boy—that's a long time ago."
Dunn was too surprised by this sudden and very
unexpected lapse into sentiment to answer. Deede
Dawson went on as if thinking to himself:
“A long time-I've done a lot-seen a lot since
then—too much, perhaps—I remember mother told
me once-poor soul, I believe she used to be rather
proud of me"
“Your mother?” Dunn said wondering greatly to
think this man should still have such memories.
But Deede Dawson seemed either to resent his
tone or else to be angry with himself for giving way
to such weakness. In a voice more like his usual one,
he said harshly and sneeringly:-
“Oh, yes, I had a mother once, just like everybody
else. Why not? Most people have their mothers,
though it's not an arrangement I should care to de-
fend. Now then, Ella was with you tonight; you
and she were alone together a long time.”
“Well,” growled Dunn, "what of it?”
“Fine girl, isn't she?" asked Deede Dawson, and
laughed.
Dunn did not speak. It filled him with such loath-
ing to hear this man so much as utter Ella's name,
it was all he could do to keep his hands motionless


DOUBTS AND FEARS
185
by his side and not make use of them about the
other's throat.
“She's been useful, very useful,” Deede Dawson
went on meditatively. “Her mother had some money
when I married her. I don't mind telling you it's
all spent now, but Ella's a little fortune in herself.”
“I didn't know we came to talk about her,” said
Dunn slowly. “I thought you had something else
to say to me.”
“So I have,” Deede Dawson answered. “That's
why I brought you here. We are safe from eaves-
droppers here, in a house you can never tell who is
behind a curtain or a door. But then, Ella is a
part of my plans, a very important part. Do you
remember I told you I might want you to take a sec-
ond packing-case away from here in the car one
night?",
“Yes, I remember,” said Dunn slowly. “I remem-
ber. What would be in it! The same sort of thing
that was in that other?”
“Yes," answered Deede Dawson. “Much the
same.”
“I shall want to see for myself,” said Dunn. “I'm
å trustful sort of person, but I don't go driving
about the country with packing-cases late at night
unless I've seen for myself what's inside."


CHAPTER XXII
PLOTS AND PLANS
“Very wise of you,” yawned Deede Dawson.
“That's just what Ella said—what's that?”
For instinctively Dunn had raised his hand, but he
lowered it again at once.
“Oh, cut the cackle,” he said impatiently. “Tell
me what you want me to do, and make it plain, very
plain, for I can tell you there's a good deal about
all this I don't understand, and I'm not inclined to
trust you far. For one thing, what are you after
yourself? Where do you come in? What are you
going to get? And there's another thing I want to
say. If you are thinking of playing any tricks on me
don't do it, unless you are ready to take big risks.
There's only one man alive who ever made a fool of
me, and his name is Rupert Dunsmore, and I don't
think he's today what insurance companies call a
good risk. Not by any manner of means." He
paused to laugh harshly. “Let's get to business,''
he said. “Look here, how do I know you mean all
you say about Rupert Dunsmore? What's he to
you?”
“Nothing," answered Deede Dawson promptly.
“Nothing. But there's some one I'm acting for to
whom he is a good deal.”
186


188 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
that bore for him a very curious and ironic humour.
“All right,” he said. “You bring me face to face
with Rupert Dunsmore and you won't have to grum-
ble about the result, for I swear only one of us will
go away alive. But how are you going to do it?"
“I've my plan, and it's simple enough,' answered
Deede Dawson. “Though I can tell you it took some
working out. But the simplest problem is always the
best, whether in life or in chess.” Again he indulged
in a low and guarded outburst of his thin, mirthless
laughter before he continued: “I suppose you
know Rupert Dunsmore is one of those restless people
who are never content except when wandering about
in some out of the way place or another, as often as
not no one having the least idea of his whereabouts.
Then he turns up unexpectedly, only to disappear
again when the whim takes him. Lately he has been
away on one of these trips, but I happen to know he
is coming back almost at once what's the matter?”
“I was only wondering how you knew that,” an-
swered Dunn, who had given a sudden start.
“Oh, I know, never mind how," Deede Dawson
said. “I know that tomorrow afternoon at four
o'clock he will be waiting by the side of Brook Bourne
Spring in Ottom's Wood, near General Dunsmore's
place. Which is as out of the way and quiet and
lonely a spot as you could wish for.”
“And you have information that he will be there?”
Dunn said incredulously. “How can you possibly
be sure of that?”
“Never mind how," answered Deede Dawson. “I


PLOTS AND PLANS
189
am sure. That's enough. My information is cer-
tain."
“Oh, it is, is it?'' Dunn muttered. “You are a won-
derful man, Mr. Dawson. You know everything-
or nearly everything. You are sure of everything-
or nearly everything—but suppose he changes his
mind at the last moment and doesn't come after
all?'
“He won't," answered Deede Dawson. “You be
there and you'll find him there all right.”
“Well, perhaps,” said Dunn slowly. “But what I
want to know is why you are so sure? There's a good
deal hangs on your being right, you know.”
“I only wish I was as certain of everything else,"
Deede Dawson said.
“Oh, all right,” exclaimed Dunn. “I suppose you
know and you may be right.”
“I am,” Deede Dawson assured him. “Listen care-
fully now, there mustn't be any blunders. You are
to make an early start tomorrow. I don't want you
to take the car for fear of its being seen and identified.
You must take the train to London and then another
train back immediately to Delsby. From Delsby
you'll have an eighteen-mile walk through lonely
country where you aren't likely to meet any one, and
must try not to. The less you are seen the better.
You know that for yourself, and for your own sake
you 'll be careful. You'll have no time to spare, but
you will be able to get to the place I told you of by
four all right-no earlier, no later. You must arrange
to be there at four exactly. You may spoil all if you


190 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
are too early. Almost as soon as you get there,
Rupert Dunsmore will arrive. You must do the rest
for yourself, and then you must strike straight across
country for here. You can look up your routes on
the map. There will be less risk of attracting atten-
tion if you come and go by different ways. You
ought to be here again some time in the small hours.
I'll let you in, and you'll have cleared your own score
with Rupert Dunsmore and earned more money than
you ever have had in all your life before. Now,
can I depend on you?”.
“Yes—yes," answered Dunn, over whom there had
come a new and strange sense of unreality as he stood
and listened to cold blooded murder being thus calmly,
coolly planned, as though it were some afternoon's
pleasure trip that was being arranged, so that he
hardly knew whether he did, in fact, hear this smooth,
low, unceasing voice that from the darkness at his
side laid down such a bloody road for his feet to
travel.
“Oh, yes, you can depend on me," he said. “But
can I depend on you, when you say Rupert Dunsmore
will be there at that time and that place ?”
It was a moment or two before Deede Dawson an-
swered, and then his voice was very low and soft and
confident as he said:-
“Yes, you can-absolutely. You see, I know his
plans.”
“Oh, do you?” Dunn said as though satisfied.
“Oh, well then, it's no wonder you're so sure."
“No wonder at all," agreed Deede Dawson.


192 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
“What about Allen ?” he asked. “Does he take
any part in this show?”
“He and I are planning a little visit to Wreste
Abbey rather early the same night, during the dinner-
hour most likely," answered Deede Dawson carelessly.
“We can get in at one of the long gallery windows
quite easily, Allen says. He kept his eyes open that
day you all went there. It may be helpful to give
the police two problems to work on at once; and be-
sides, big as this thing is, there's a shortage of ready
money at present. But our little affair at Wreste
Abbey will have nothing to do with you. You mind
what you've got to do, and don't trouble about any-
thing else. See?"
“I see," answered Dunn slowly. “And if you can
arrange for Rupert Dunsmore to be there at that time
all right, I'll answer for the rest."
“You needn't be uneasy about that,” Deede Daw-
son said, and laughed. “You see, I know his plans,"
he repeated, and laughed again; and still laughing
that chill, mirthless way of his, he turned and walked
back towards the house.
Dunn watched him go through the darkness, and to
himself he muttered :-
“Yes, but I wonder if you do."


CHAPTER XXIII
COUNTER-PLANS
The hour was late by now, but Dunn felt no inclina-
tion for sleep, and there was no need for him to return
indoors as yet, since Deede Dawson, who always locked
up the house himself, never did so till past midnight.
Till the small hours, very often he was accustomed
to sit up absorbed in those chess problems, the com-
posing and solving of which were his great passion,
so that, indeed, it is probable that under other cir-
cumstances he might have passed a perfectly harmless
and peaceful existence, known to wide circles as an
extraordinarily clever problemist and utterly un-
known elsewhere.
But the Fate that is, after all, but man's own char-
acter writ large, had decreed otherwise. And the
little, fat, smiling man bending over his travelling
chess board on which he moved delicately to and fro
the tiny red and white men of carved ivory, now and
again removing a piece and laying it aside, had done
as much with as little concern to his fellow creatures
from the very beginning of his terrible career.
Outside, leaning on the gate where Deede Dawson
had left him, Dunn was deep in thought that was not
always very comforting, for there was very much in
193


194 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
all this laid out for him to accomplish that he did not
understand and that disturbed him a good deal.
A careful, cautious “Hist!” broke in upon his
thoughts, and in an instant he stiffened to close
attention, every nerve on the alert.
The sound was repeated, a faint and wary footstep
sounded, and in the darkness a form appeared and
stole slowly nearer.
Dunn poised for a moment, ready for attack or
retreat, and then all at once his tense attitude re-
laxed.
“You, Walter," he exclaimed. “That's good!
But how did you get here? And how did you know
where I was !!
The new-comer drew a little nearer and showed the
tall, thin form of Walter Dunsmore to whom Dunn
had spoken at Wreste Abbey.
“I had to come,” he murmured. “I couldn't rest
without seeing you. You upset me the other day,
saying what you did. Isn't it very dangerous your
being here? Suppose Deede Dawson-"
“Oh, if he suspected, there would soon be an end
of me," answered Dunn grimly. “But I think I'm
going to win at least, I did till tonight.'
“What's happened ?”' the other asked sharply and
anxiously.
“He has been telling me his plans," answered
Dunn. “He has told me everything—he has put him-
self entirely in my power—he has done what I have
been waiting and hoping for ever since I came here.
He has given me his full confidence at last, and I


196 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
“What do you mean?”' exclaimed Walter, starting.
“I've promised that if Deede Dawson will bring
me face to face with Rupert Dunsmore, I'll murder
him," answered Dunn, laughing softly.
"A fairly safe offer on your part, isn't it?” ob-
served Walter. “At least, unless there's any saving
clause about mirrors."
“Oh, none,” answered Dunn. “I told Deede
Dawson Rupert Dunsmore was my worst enemy, and
that's true enough, for I think every man's worst
enemy is himself.”
"I wish I had none worse," muttered Walter.
“I think you haven't, old chap,” Dunn said
smilingly. “But come across the road. It'll be
safer on the common. Deede Dawson is so cunning
one is never safe from him. One can never be sure
he isn't creeping up behind.”
“Well, I daresay it's wise to take every precau-
tion,” observed Walter. “But I can't imagine either
him or any one else getting near you without your
knowledge.”
Robert Dunn,-or rather, Rupert Dunsmore, as
was his name by right of birth-laughed again to
himself, very softly in the darkness.
"Perhaps not,” he said. “But I take no chances
I can avoid with Deede Dawson. Come along."
They crossed the road together and sat down on
the common at a open spot, where none could well
approach them unheard or unseen. Dunn laid his
hand affectionately on Walter's shoulder as they set-
tled themselves.


COUNTER-PLANS
197
“Old chap,” he said. “It was good of you to come
here. You've run some risk. It's none too safe near
Bittermeads. But I'm glad to see you, Walter. It's
a tremendous relief after all this strain of doubt and
watching and suspicion to be with some one I know
--some one I can trust-some one like you, Walter."
In the darkness, Walter put out his hand and took
Dunn's and held it for a moment.
“I have been anxious about you,” he said. Dunn
returned the pressure warmly.
"I know,” he said. “Jove, old chap, it's good
to see you again. You don't know what it's like
after all this long time, feeling that every step was
a step in the dark, to be at last with a real friend
again."
“I think I can guess," Walter said softly.
Dunn shook his head.
“No one could,” he said. “I tell you I've doubted,
distrusted, suspected till I wasn't sure of my own
shadow. Well, that's all over now. Tomorrow we
can act."
“Tell me what I'm to do," Walter Dunsmore said.
“There's a whole lot I don't understand yet,"
Dunn continued slowly. “I suppose it was that that
was making me feel so jolly down before you came.
* I don't feel sure somehow-not sure. Deede Daw-
son is such a cunning brute. He seems to have laid
his whole hand bare, and yet there may be cards up
his sleeve still. Besides, his plan he told me about
seems so bald. And I don't understand why he
should think he is so sure of what I - I mean, of


198 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
what Rupert—it's a bit confusing to have a double
identity—is going to do. He says he is sure Rupert
Dunsmore is to be at the Brook Bourne Spring to-
morrow at four. He says his information is certain,
and that he has full knowledge of what Rupert Duns-
more is going to do, which is more than I have. But
what can it be that's making him so sure?”
“That's probably simple enough,” said Walter.
“You said you suspected there was a leakage from
Burns & Swift's office, and you told Burns to make
misleading statements about your movements occa-
sionally when he was dictating his letters. Well, I
expect this is one.”
“That may be; only Deede Dawson seems so very
sure,” answered Dunn. “But what's specially im-
portant is his saying that his employer, whoever it
is, who is behind all this, will be there too."
“A meeting? Is that it?” exclaimed Walter.
“No, that's not the idea,” answered Dunn. “You
see, the idea is that Rupert Dunsmore will be there
at four, and that I'm to be there in ambush to murder
myself. Whoever is behind all this will be there too
-to see I carry out my work properly. And that
gives us our chance.''
“Oh, that's good,” exclaimed Walter. "We shall
have him for certain."
“That's what I want you to see to," said Dunn.
“I want you to have men you can trust well hidden
all round, ready to collar him. And I want you to
have all the roads leading to Ottam's Wood well


200 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
“A bit of bad luck,” Dunn agreed. “But ac-
cidents will happen. Anyhow, it was clear enough
some one was trying to make a jolly clear sweep. It
may be a madman; it may be some one with a grudge
against us; it may be, as poor Charley thought, some
one in the line of succession, who is just clearing the
way to inherit the title and estates himself. I wish
I knew what made Charley suspicious of Deede Daw-
son in the first place.”
“You don't know that?” Walter asked.
“No, he never told me," answered Dunn. “Poor
Charley, it cost him his life. That's another thing
we must find out—where they've hidden his body."
“He was sure from the first,” remarked Walter,
“that it was a conspiracy on the part of some one
in the line of succession !
“Yes," agreed Dunn. “It's likely enough, too.
You see, ever since that big family row and dispersion
eighty years ago, a whole branch of the family has
been entirely lost sight of. There may be half a
dozen possible heirs we know nothing about. Like
poor John Clive. I daresay if we had known of his
existence we should have begun by suspecting him.”
“There's one thing pretty sure," remarked Walter.
“If these pleasant little arrangements did succeed, it
would be a fairly safe guess that the inheritor of the
title and estates was the guilty person. It might
be brought home to him, too."
"Perhaps,'' agreed Dunn dryly. “But just a trifle
too late to interest me for one. And I don't mean to
let the dad or uncle be sacrificed if I can help it.


CHAPTER XXIV
AN APHORISM
“No,” Dunn agreed after a long pause. "No, I
don't see myself how failure is possible; I don't see
what there is to go wrong. All the same, I shan't be
sorry when it's all over; I suppose I'm nervous, that's
the truth of it. But Deede Dawson's hardly the
sort of man I should have expected to lay all his
cards on the table so openly."
“Oh, I think that's natural enough," answered
Walter. “Quite natural—he thinks you are in with
him and he tells you what he wants you to do. But
I don't quite see the object of your visit to the Abbey
the other day. You gave me the shock of my life, I
think. I hadn't the least idea who you were that
beard makes a wonderful difference."
Dunn laughed quietly.
“It's a good disguise," he admitted. “I didn't
quite know myself first time I looked in a mirror.
We went to the Abbey to prepare for a burglary
there."
“Oh, is that on the cards, too?” exclaimed Walter.
“I didn't expect that."
“Yes,” answered Dunn. “My own idea is that
Deede Dawson sees an opportunity for making a bit
on his own. After all of us are disposed of and his
202


AN APHORISM
203
friend has got the title and estates, he won't dare
to prosecute of course, and so Deede Dawson thinks it
a good opportunity to visit the Abbey and pick up
any pictures or heirlooms or so-so he can that it would
be almost impossible to dispose of in the ordinary
way, but that he expects he will be able to sell back
at a good price to the new owner of the property. I
think he calculates that that gentleman will be ready
to pay as much as he is asked. I don't know, but I
think that's his idea from something he said the other
day about the uselessness of even good stuff from a
big house unless you knew of a sure market, or could
sell it back again to the owner.”
"Jolly clever idea if it works all right,” said Wal-
ter slowly. “I can see Mr. Deede Dawson is a man
who needs watching. And I suppose we had better be
on the look-out at the Abbey tomorrow night?”.
“Evening,” corrected Dunn. “It's planned for
the dinner-hour."
“Right,” said Walter. “We shall see some
crowded hours tomorrow, I expect. Well, it's like
this, as I understand it—we had better be sure every-
thing is quite clear. Their idea is that you will meet
and murder Rupert Dunsmore, who they have no
notion is really your own self, at Brook Bourne
Spring at four tomorrow afternoon, and the unknown
somebody who is behind all this business will be in
hiding there to make sure you do your work properly.
Our idea is to watch all the roads leading to Ottam's
Wood and to have men in ambush near the spring to
seize any one hiding there at that time. Then we shall


208 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
haven't noticed,” he said. “Black can push the
pawn at KB7 and make it, not a queen, but a knight,
giving check to your king and no mate for you next
move."
“Yes, that's so," agreed Dunn. “I hadn't
thought of that."
"Unexpected, eh? Making the pawn a knight?”
smiled Deede Dawson. “But in chess, and in life, it's
the unexpected you have to look out for.”
“That's quite an aphorism,” said Dunn. “It's
true, too."
He went up to bed, but did not sleep well, and when
at last he fell into a troubled slumber, it
seemed to him that Charley Wright and John Clive
were there, one on each side of him, and that they
had come, not because they sought for vengeance,
but because they wished to warn him of a doom like
their own that they could see approaching but he
could not.
Toward's morning he got an hour's sound rest,
and he was down stairs in good time. He did not see
Ella, but he heard her moving about, so knew that she
was safe as yet; and Deede Dawson gave him some
elaborate parting instructions, a little money, and a
loaded revolver.
“I don't know that I want that,” said Dunn.
“My hands will be all I need once I'm face to face
with Rupert Dunsmore.”
“That's the right spirit,” said Deede Dawson
approvingly. “But the pistol may be useful too.
You needn't use it if you can manage without, but


AN APHORISM
209
you may as well have it. Good-bye, and the best of
luck. Take care of yourself, and don't lose your
head or do anything foolish.”
“Oh, you can trust me,” said Dunn.
“I think I can,” smiled Deede Dawson. “I think
I can. Good-bye. Be careful, avoid noise and fuss,
don't be seen any more than you can help, and if you
shoot, aim low."
“There's a vade mecum for the intending as-
sassin,'' Dunn thought grimly to himself, but he said
nothing, gave the other a sullen nod, and started off on
his strange and weird mission of murdering himself.
He found himself wondering if any one else had
ever been in such a situation. He did not suppose so.


212 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
had an likely many of
he was not sure, he did not think any one was ob-
serving him now. Most likely his movements up
to the present had appeared satisfactory, and it
had not been thought necessary to watch him
longer.
But he was careful to do nothing to rouse suspicion
if he were still being spied upon, and after he had
eaten and had a smoke he started off on his long
tramp.
Even yet he was careful, and so long as he was near
the village he made a show of avoiding observation as
much as possible. Later on, when he had made cer-
tain he was not being followed, he did not trouble so
much, though he still kept it in mind that any one he
met or passed might well be in fact one of Deede Daw-
son's agents.
He walked on sharply through the crisp autumn
air, and in other circumstances would have found
the walk agreeable enough. It was a little curious
that as he proceeded on his way his chief preoccupa-
tion seemed to shift from his immediate errand and
intense eagerness to discover the identity of his un-
known foe, with whom he hoped to stand face to face
so soon, to a troubled and pressing anxiety about
Ella.
Up till now he had not thought it likely that she
was in the least real danger. He knew Simmonds,
the man Walter had promised to put on watch at
Bittermeads, and knew him to be capable and trust-
worthy. None the less, his uneasiness grew and
strengthened with every mile he traversed, till pres-


THE UNEXPECTED
215
with hair you couldn't see nothing of it no more’n you
can see a sheep's back for wool. As soon as I set eye
on 'ee, says I - 'That's him,' I says, and so 'twas.”
He grinned again and slouched away and Dunn
stood still, holding the letter in his hand and not open-
ing it at first. It was almost as though he feared to
do so, and when at last he tore the envelope open it
was with a hand that trembled a little in spite of all
that he could do.
For there was something about this strange com-
munication and the means adopted to deliver it to him
that struck him as ominous in the extreme. Some
sudden crisis must have arisen, he thought, and it
appeared to him that Ella's knowledge of where to
find him implied a knowledge of Deede Dawson's plans
that meant she was either his willing and active agent
and accomplice, or else she had somehow acquired
a knowledge of her stepfather's proceedings that must
make her position a thousand times more critical and
dangerous than before.
He flung the envelope aside and began to read the
contents. It opened abruptly, without any form of
address, and it was written in a hand that showed
plain signs of great distress and agitation:
“You are in great danger. I don't know what. I
heard them-talking. They spoke as though something
threatened you, something you could not escape. Be
careful, very careful. You asked me once if I had
ever heard a man with a high, squeaky voice, and I
did not answer. It was to a man with a voice like
that I gave the packing-case I took away from here
Ise she had sceedings that and


THE UNEXPECTED
217
brain no longer worked normally, and could not
interpret them.
“Oh, but that's absurd,” he said aloud.
He looked all around him, surprised to see that the
face of the country-side had not changed in any way,
but was all just as it had been before this letter had
been put into his hands.
He began to read a third, but stopped half-way
through the first sentence.
"Then it's Walter all the time,” he muttered.
"Walter-Walter!"


220 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
stood with the impact of the thought, Dunn realized
that all this implied that every one of his precautions
had been rendered futile, that of all his elaborate
plans not one would take effect since all had been
entrusted to the care of the very man against whom
they were aimed.
It was Walter for whom the net had been laid in
Ottam's Wood; and Walter to whom had been en-
trusted the task of drawing that net tight at the
right moment.
It was Walter's friends and agents who were to
break into Wreste Abbey, and Walter to whom had
been entrusted the task of defeating and capturing
them.
It was Walter from whom Ella stood in most
danger if her action that morning had been observed,
and it was Walter to whom he had given the task
of protecting her.
At this thought, he turned and began to run as
fast as he could in the direction of Bittermeads.
At all costs she must be saved, she who had exposed
the whole awful plot. For a hundred yards or so
he fled, swift as the wind, till on a sudden he stopped
dead with the realization of the fact that every yard
he took that way took him further and further from
Ottam's Wood.
For there was danger there, toomgrim and im-
minent—and sentences in Ella's hasty letter that bore
now to his new knowledge a deep significance she had
not dreamed of.
As when a flash of lightning lights all the land.


A RACE AGAINST TIME 221
scape up and shows the traveller dreadful dangers
that beset his path, so a wave of intuition told Dunn
clearly the whole conspiracy; so that he saw it all, and
saw how every detail was to be fitted in together.
His father, General Dunsmore, was to be murdered
first at the Brook Bourne Spring, to which he was
being lured; and afterwards, when Dunn arrived,
he was to be murdered, too. And on him, dead and
unable to defend himself, the blame of his father's
death would be laid. It would not be difficult to
manage. Walter would arrange it all as neatly as
he had been accustomed to arrange the Dunsmore
business affairs placed in his hands for settlement.
A forged letter or two, Dunn's own revolver used
to shoot the old man with and then placed in Dunn's
dead hand when his own turn had come, convincing
detail like that would be easy to arrange. Why, the
very fact of his disguise, the tangled beard that he
had grown to hide his features with, would appear
conclusive. Any coroner's jury would return a
verdict of wilful murder against his memory on that
one fact alone.
Walter would see to that all right. A little false
evidence apparently reluctantly given would be
added, and all would be kneaded together into the one
substance till the whole guilt of all that happened
would appear to lie solely on his shoulders.
As for motive, it would simply be put forward that
he had been in a hurry to succeed his uncle. And
very likely some tale of a quarrel with his father or
something of that sort would be invented, and would


A RACE AGAINST TIME 223
His one hope must be in his speed, his feet must be
swift to save, not only his own life and his father's,
but his honour, too, and Ella and his old uncle as
well; and all-all hung upon the speed with which he
could cover the eight long miles that lay between him
and Brook Bourne Spring in Ottam's Wood.
Even as he ran, as he thought of Ella, he came
abruptly to a pause, wrung with sudden anguish.
For each fleet stride he was making towards Brook
Bourne Spring was taking him further and further
away from Bittermeads just as before each step to
Bittermeads had been taking him further from
Ottam's Wood.
He began to run again, even faster than before,
and it was towards Ottam's Wood that he ran, each
step taking him further from Bittermeads and further
from the woman he loved in her bitter need and peril,
who looked to him for the help he could not give.
With pain and anguish he ran on, ran as men have
seldom run—as seldom so much was hung upon their
running.
On and on he sped, fleet as the wind, fleet as the
light breeze that blew lightly by. A solitary villager
trudging on some errand in this lonely place, tells
to this day the tale of the bearded, wild-eyed man who
raced so madly by him, raced on and down the long,
straight road till his figure dwindled and vanished in
the distance.
A shepherd boy went home with a tale of a strange
thing he had seen of a man running so fast it seemed
he was scarcely in sight before he was gone again.


224 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
And except for those two and one other none saw
him at all and he ran his race alone beneath the skies,
across the bare country side.
It was at a spot where the path ran between two
high hedges that he came upon a little herd of cows
a lad was driving home.
It seemed impossible to pass through that tangle
of horns and tails and plunging hoofs, and so indeed
it was, but Dunn took another way, and with one leap,
cleared the first beast clean and alighted on the back
of the second.
Before the startled beast could plunge away he
leaped again from the vantage of its back and landed
on the open ground beyond and so on, darting full
speed past the staring driver, whose tale that he told
when he got home caused him to go branded for years
as a liar.
On and on Dunn fled, without stay or pause, at the
utmost of his speed every second of time, every yard
of distance. For he knew he had need of every ounce
of power he possessed or could call to his aid, since he
knew well that all, all, might hang upon a second
less or more, and now four miles lay behind him and
four in front.
Still on he raced with labouring lungs and heart
near to bursting-onward still, swift, swift and sure,
and now there were six miles behind and only two
in front, and he was beginning to come to a part of
the country that he knew.
Whether he was soon or late he had no idea or how
long it was that he had raced like this along the


A RACE AGAINST TIME 225
lonely country road at the full extremity and limit
of his strength.
He dared not take time to glance at his watch,
for he knew the fraction of a second he would thus
lose might mean the difference between in time and
too late. On he ran still and presently he left the
path and took the fields.
But he had forgotten that though the distance
might be shorter the going would be harder, and on
the rough grass he stumbled, and across the bare
ground damp earth clung to his boots and hindered
him as though each foot had become laden with lead.
His speed was slower, his effort greater if possible,
and when he came to a hedge he made no effort to
leap, but crashed through it as best he could and
broke or clambered or tumbled a path for himself.
Now Ottam’s Wood was very near, and reeling and
staggering like a man wounded to the death but
driven by inexorable fate, he plunged on still, and
there was a little froth gathering at the corners of
his mouth and from one of his nostrils came a thin
trickle of blood.
Yet still be held on, though in truth he hardly
knew any longer why he ran or what his need for
haste, and as he came to the wood round a spur
where a cluster of young beeches grew, he saw a
tall, upright, elderly man walking there, well-dressed
and of a neat, soldier-like appearance.
“Hallo—there you are father—" he gasped and
fell down, prone unconscious.


230 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
he's cleared out, or I can't find him I'm going straight
on to Bittermeads. There's some one there who may
be in danger, so the sooner I am there the better."
“But wait a moment,” the general cried. “Are
you armed ?"
“Yes, with my hands, I shall want no more when
Walter and I meet again,” Rupert answered, and,
without another word, plunged into the wood at the
spot where Walter had vanished
At first the track of Walter's flying footsteps was
plain enough for he had fled full speed, panic having
overtaken him when he saw Rupert and his father
together and understood that in some way his deep
conspiracy had failed and his treachery become
known.
For a little distance, therefore, he had crashed
through bracken and undergrowth, heedless of all
but the one need that was upon him to flee away and
escape while there was yet time. But, after a while,
his first panic subsiding, he had gone more carefully,
and, as the weather had been very dry of late, when
he came to open ground his footmarks were scarcely
visible,
In such spots Rupert could make but slow progress,
and he was handicapped, too, by the fact, that all
the time he had to be on his guard lest from some un-
suspected quarter his enemy should come upon him
unawares.
For, indeed, this enterprise he had undertaken in
the flood tide of his passion and fierce anger was
dangerous enough since he, quite weaponless, was


CHAPTER XXVIII
BACK AT BITTERMEADS
When, riding fast, Rupert Dunsmore came in sight
of Bittermeads, he experienced a feeling of extreme
relief. Though what he had feared he did not quite
know, for he did not see that any alarm could have
reached here yet or any hint come to Deede Dawson of
the failure of all his plotting.
Even if Walter had had the idea of returning to
give his accomplice warning, he could not have come
by the road on his bicycle as quickly as Rupert had
ridden across country. And that Walter would
spend either time or thought on Deede Dawson did
not appear in any way probable.
To Rupert, therefore, it seemed certain that Deede
Dawson could know nothing as yet. But all the same
it was an immense relief to see the house again and
to know that in a few moments he would be there.
He tied up the mare to a convenient tree, and with
eyes that were quick and alert and every nerve and
muscle ready for all emergencies, he drew near the
house.
All was still and quiet, no smoke came from the
chimneys, there was no sign of life or movement
anywhere. For a moment he hesitated and then
vie,
234


236 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
ling chessboard stood on the table with pieces in posi-
tion on it.
There was a letter, too, he had begun but not fin-
ished, to the editor of a chess-column in some paper,
apparently to the effect that a certain problem
“cooked,” and that by such and such a move "the
mate for the first player that appeared certain was
unexpectedly and instantly transferred in this dra-
matic manner into a mate for his opponent."
The words seemed somehow oddly appropriate to
Rupert, and he smiled grimly as he read them and
then all at once his expression changed and his whole
attitude became one of intense watchfulness and
readiness.
For his quick eye had noted that the ink on the
nib of the pen that this letter had been written with,
was not yet dry.
Then Deede Dawson must have been here a mo-
ment or two ago and must have gone in a hurry.
That could only mean he was aware of Rupert's re-
turn and was warned and suspicious.
It is perhaps characteristic of Rupert's passion-
ate and eager temperament that only now did it occur
to him that he was quite unarmed and that without
a weapon of any kind he was matching himself against
as reckless and as formidable a criminal as had ever
lived.
For want of anything better he picked up the
heavy glass inkpot standing on the table, emptied
the contents in a puddle on the floor, and held the ink-
pot itself ready in his hand.


BACK AT BITTERMEADS 239
been standing there and had seen his approach, and
then had concealed herself for some reason.
But, if so, why and where was she hiding? And
where was Deede Dawson? And why was everything
so silent and so still ?
He turned from the window, and as he did so he
caught a faint Bound in the passage without.
Instantly he crouched behind the bed, the heavy
glass inkpot that was his one weapon poised in his
hand.
The sound did not come again, but as he waited,
he saw the door begin to open very slowly, very
quietly.
Lower still he crouched, the inkpot ready to throw,
every nerve taut and tense for the leap at his foe's
throat with which he meant to follow it up.
The door opened a little more, very slowly, very
carefully. It was wide enough now to admit of entry,
and through the opening there sidled, pale and red-
eyed, Ella's mother, looking so frail and feeble and
so ruffled and disturbed she reminded Rupert irresist-
ibly of a frightened hen.
She edged her way in as though she dared not open
the door too widely, and Rupert hesitated in great
perplexity and vexation, for he saw that he must
show himself, and he feared that she would announce
his presence by flight or screams.
But he could not possibly get away without her
knowledge; and besides, she might be able to give
him useful information.
He stood up quickly, with his finger to his lips.


THE ATTIC
243
ing by the attic was very badly-lighted by a small
and awkwardly-placed skylight, a scattered dozen or
so of hairpins, and a tortoiseshell comb such as he had
seen sometimes in Ella's hair, lying on the floor near
the door of the larger of the two attics, the one in
which he remembered well he had found Deede Daw-
son on a certain night busy measuring and examin-
ing and empty packing-case.
With one quick rush he crossed the landing and
flung himself at the door.
It opened at once, for it was not locked, and within
he saw Deede Dawson, screw-driver in his hand,
standing behind a large packing-case, the lid of which
he had apparently that minute finished fastening
down.
He looked up as Rupert entered thus precipitately,
and he showed no sign of surprise or alarm.
“You're back early," he said. “Something gone
wrong?”
“What are you doing? What's in there?” Rupert
asked, looking at the packing-case, his mouth and lips
so suddenly dry he found it difficult to speak at all.
Deede Dawson began to laugh, a low and dreadful
laughter that had in it no trace of merriment at all,
but only of mockery and malice.
It was such laughter as a devil from the nethermost
pit might give vent to when he saw at last a good
man yield to long temptation.
“What's in there?” Rupert said again, pointing to
the packing-case, and it was as though his soul
swooned within him for fear of what the answer
might be.


THE ATTIC
245
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 cor-
ner 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


246 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
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 accns-
tomed 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


THE ATTIC
247
come to some arrangement. Look, I'll show I trust
you."
As he spoke he laid down, much to Rupert's sur-
prise, 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, mak-
ing 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 dont know if it has for you. But
there are things I can tell you that might be interest-
ing, 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 reason-
able, 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


THE ATTIC
249
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 Daw-
son'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


CHAPTER XXX
SOME EXPLANATIONS
He turned quickly towards Deede Dawson. Their
eyes met, and in that mutual glance Rupert Duns-
more 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 revol-
ver 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, shat-
tered 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
251


252 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
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 fur-
niture.
Round and round Deede Dawson fled, screaming
softly, as as for you. Deede Dal Rupert Du


SOME EXPLANATIONS 253
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.


254 THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY
“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 dread-
ful room.
Only once did she stir, only once did she speak,
when lifting her pale, strained face to him she mur-
mured 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


SOME EXPLANATIONS 257
“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 un-
lawful 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 noth-
ing 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 be
made me go very late with a packing-case full of sil-
ver 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


THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY 261
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 Honour-
able 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


THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY 263
would be silly to take seriously what he said—there."
To Ella, now, Bittermeads was always“there," and
though she told herself several times that probably
Rupert had not the least idea of repeating what he
had said to her—there—and that most likely
he was coming today merely to make a friendly call,
and that it would never do for either of them to
think again of what they had said when they were
both so excited and overwrought, yet in her heart she
knew a great deal better than all that.
But she said to herself very often :-
“Anyhow, I shall certainly refuse him."
And on this point her mind was irrevocably made
up since, after all, whether Rupert would accept re-
fusal or not would still remain entirely for him to
decide.
At half-past three she heard the garden-gate creak,
and when she ran to the window to peep, she saw
with a kind of chill surprise that there was a stranger
coming through.
“Some one he's sent,” she said to herself. “He
doesn't want to come himself and so he has sent some
one else instead. I am glad.”
Having said this and repeated again the last three
words, and having gulped down a sobrpresumably
of joy—that unexpectedly fluttered into her throat,
she went quickly to open the door.
The newly-arrived stranger smiled at her as she
showed herself but did not speak. He was a man of
middle height, quite young, and wrapped in a big,
loose overcoat that very completely hid his figure.


THE BITTERMEADS MYSTERY 265
"Starving," he asserted, but held her to him as
closely as ever.
“I must get the tea,” she protested. She put one
cheek against his and sighed contentedly.
“It's nice to see the really you,” she murmured.
“But oh, Rupert, I do miss your dear bristly beard."
THE END