Chapter 22: The Telegram

Mr Arnecliffe regarded the girl, in silence, for a second or two, as if puzzled; when he did speak it seemed, from the question he put, that he had not grasped her meaning.

“Then, from your post of vantage, you did not see all that occurred?”

“I saw you hit him.”

“And with that blow I killed him. If, by your words, you mean that this was a case in which killing was no murder--that’s another story. Should I be asked, in the dock, if my intent were homicidal, I doubt if, even with the rope dangling in front of me, I should be able to say that it was not. With a clear conscience I could not confidently assert that the design to kill him did not come into my heart the moment Billson told me that he was at ‘The Bolton Arms Hotel.’”

“All the same, you did not kill him.”

“You say that, having seen me? I am not afraid to bear the consequences of what I did; I am even not ashamed of what I did. I will certainly not seek salvation by attempting to conceal plain facts.”

“But you have your facts all wrong. You know only half the story; I know it all. I doubt if I’m not as much responsible for his death as you are.”

“Child, you’re dreaming. How can that be, since, when I found him he was alive, and when I left him he was dead?”

“In the first place, I believe I knew, all along, that you were going to kill him; I had, in a way I can’t describe, a premonition of what was going to happen.”

“So, even from behind your curtain, you perceived, from the first, my homicidal intention--which makes it bad for me.”

“But still worse for me; because I might have saved him had I chose; but I didn’t choose. My one feeling was that you were going to help me to escape; and--I was glad.”

“Is that what you meant when you said that part of the responsibility was yours, you fantastic child?”

“No; I will tell you what I meant, if you will listen--and you will see that I’m not fantastic.”

She told him what had happened after he left the sitting-room, having propped George Emmett up in his chair. Of how the supposed dead man had been laid on the table; of how, when she was left alone with him in the darkness, she had heard sounds which unmistakably showed that he was coming back to life; and of how, in his struggles, he had fallen from the table on to the floor. He heard her with growing amazement; interrupting her now and then with exclamations. When she had finished he was silent; as if he were turning over what she had said in his mind; then, looking her very straight in the face, he asked her, with that queer smile of his:

“Are you quite sure that imagination played no part in this strange story; and that you’ve not told it me in the hope that it might do me a service?”

As she answered him her manner was disdainful.

“In other words, you are asking if I have not deliberately told you what I know to be false. It is no use your pretending that is not what you asked; because, as you’re very well aware, that’s what your question comes to. It so happens that there’s a sequel to what you call my strange story which may perhaps convince even you. That person in the boat who just now advised us to take refuge here was the one who took me from Newcaster to Mrs Vernon’s house. It was he who gave me shelter when at last I escaped from ‘The Bolton Arms.’”

“Then in that case he’s a man I should very much like to know. What is his name?”

“He told me, Eric Frazer; but it seems that, really and truly, he’s the Earl of Strathmoira.”

She spoke as if she felt that such a style and title only ought to be uttered in tones of reverential awe--but it was not with any show of reverence that he heard it.

“Strathmoira? I know something of the man. He’s an eccentric.”

“Pray what do you mean by that?”

This sterner manner suggested something very like indignation; as if she resented what she suspected might be an imputation. He laughed at her.

“I assure you that I mean nothing to his disadvantage; only that he’s a person who has ideas of his own, and who puts them into practice.”

“Well, and why shouldn’t he? If the ideas are not bad ones?”

“Why shouldn’t he--indeed! If more of us followed his example we might be both happier and wiser. But--what’s that sequel you were speaking of?”

She eyed him as if she were still in doubt as to whether or not he hinted depreciation of the absent Mr Frazer.

“I’m coming to it, if you’ll have a second’s patience. Yesterday morning, early, he went into Newcaster, and there he learnt not only that Mr Emmett had fallen from the table to the floor--in fact, and not in my imagination only--but also that it was the fall which had actually killed him, and not your blow at all.”

“How came Strathmoira to discuss the subject with you?”

“He knew all; and I told him everything.”

“Wasn’t that rather a risky thing to do?”

“I didn’t tell him anything till he had found out for himself all that I had to tell. Besides, are you hinting that he might have betrayed me? You say you know something of him; you can’t know much! So far from betraying me he nearly got himself into the most frightful trouble through trying to keep me what he thought safe. I don’t know what he wouldn’t have done rather than let any what he would have called harm come to me. It frightens me when I think of it now.”