The Moon Rock by Arthur J. Rees (e novels to read TXT) 📗

Mr. Turold returned upstairs, and some time afterwards we heard him go down again and out.

“I was so upset that I arose and dressed myself to await Mr. Turold’s return. I thought he might like a cup of coffee when he returned, so I decided to go downstairs myself and prepare it. As I passed the passage which led to Mr. Charles Turold’s room, I noticed a light underneath his door. I rather wondered, as he was still up, why he had not gone with his father, but I was passing on without thinking any more about it when I happened to notice that the light beneath the door was fluctuating in the strangest way. First it was very bright, then it became quite dim, but the next moment it would be bright again.

“That alarmed me so much that I walked along the passage to see what it meant. I thought perhaps the young man had fallen asleep with the window open and left the gas flaring in the wind. I stood for a moment outside the door wondering what I ought to do. Then I heard a crackling sound, and smelt something burning. That alarmed me still more, because I knew no fire had been lit in the room that day. I wondered if the bedroom was on fire, and I knelt down and tried to see through the keyhole.

“At first I could see nothing except a bright light and the shadow of a form on the wall. Then I made out the form of Charles Turold, standing in his dressing-gown in front of the fireplace, in which a fire of kindling wood was leaping and blazing. I could not make out at first what he was doing. He seemed to be stooping over the fire, moving something about. Then I saw. He was drying his clothes—the suit he had worn that day. They must have been very wet, for the steam was rising from them.

“I must have made a noise which startled him, for I saw him turn quickly and stare at the closed door, then walk towards it. I went away as quickly and noiselessly as I could, and as I turned the corner of the passage, out of sight, his door opened, and then closed again. He had looked out and, seeing nobody, gone back into his room.

“I went downstairs to make the coffee and wait for Mr. Turold. I had to wait some time. When I did hear the sound of his key in the door, I went up the hall with a cup of coffee in my hand. Mr. Turold seemed surprised to see me. He looked at me in a questioning sort of way as he took the coffee, and stood there sipping it. As he handed me back the cup he told me in a low voice that his brother was dead. I said that was why I had waited up—because I had heard the knock and the dreadful news. Mr. Turold, in the same low voice, then said he was very much afraid his brother had taken his own life.

“He then went upstairs. I again retired shortly afterwards, but I could not sleep. I was too upset—too nervous. I could not get Mr. Robert Turold’s suicide out of my head. It seemed such a dreadful thing for a wealthy man to do—so common and vulgar! Suicide sticks to a family so—it is never really forgotten. It is much easier to live down an embezzlement or misappropriation of trust funds. The thought of it put the other thing—the fire and young Mr. Turold and his wet clothes—out of my head completely, for the time.

“As I was lying there tossing and thinking I heard a light footstep pass my door. I slipped out of bed, and opening the door a little, looked out. I saw Mr. Turold, fully dressed, a light in his hand, turning down the passage which led to his son’s room. Then I heard the sound of a creaking door, the murmur of a low conversation, cut short by the shutting of the door. I stood there for a few minutes, and then went back to my bed and fell asleep.

“The next day it all came back to me. I had gone into Charles Turold’s room for some reason when he was out, and there, on the hearth, I could see the remains of the fire he had lit overnight to dry his clothes. He had made some clumsy man-like attempt to clean up the grate, but he left some ends of the charred kindling wood lying about.”

This final revelation brought a silence between Mrs. Brierly and the lawyer; a silence broken only by the distant deep call of the sea beneath the open window. The silence lengthened into minutes before Mr. Brimsdown found his voice.

“You have said nothing to anybody else about this?” He spoke almost abstractedly, but she chose to regard this question in the light of a reproach. She hurriedly rejoined—

“I did not see the necessity—then. If young Mr. Turold got caught in the storm, and chose to dry his clothes in his room, instead of putting them out for the maid, why should I tell anybody? I did not connect it with his uncle’s death. I was under the impression that Mr. Robert Turold had taken his own life. It was not until the detective called to see Mr. Austin Turold that I learnt there was a suspicion of—murder. My maid overheard the detective say something while she was in and out of the room serving tea, and she told me what she had heard. I saw things in a new light then, and I was terribly upset. But I could not see my way clear until you came to the house to-day. Then I decided to tell you.”

“Can you tell me what time Charles Turold came in that night?”

“I have no idea. He and his father have separate keys of the front door.”

It was evident that she had told all she knew. She rose to her feet in agitation.

“I must go. My husband will be wondering where I am. But tell me, Mr. Brimsdown, do you imagine … Is it possible …” Her voice dropped to the ghost of a frightened whisper.

He evaded this issue with legal caution.

“You have done quite right in coming to me,” he replied, as he opened the door for her departure. He held out his hand.

She touched it with trembling fingers, and went away.

Mr. Brimsdown closed the door behind her, and wearily sat down. He had been prepared to do much to shield the name of Turold, but he had not bargained for this. He did not doubt the truth of the story he had just heard, and it gave him a feeling of nausea. What a revelation of the infamy of human nature! The stupendous depth of such villainy overwhelmed him with dismay. The extent of the criminal understanding between father and son he did not attempt to fathom. His mind was filled with the monstrous audacity by which Charles Turold, apparently at the dictate of remorse, had sought to convince him of Sisily’s innocence by directing attention to the marks on the dead man’s arm which he had probably made himself. Could human cynicism go farther than that? A great wave of pity swept over the lawyer as he thought of the unhappy Sisily, and all that she had been compelled to endure. But why had she fled?

Long he sat there without stirring, until the shadows deepened and the grey surface of the sea dissolved in blackness.

“The police must be told of this,” he said at last, in an almost voiceless whisper.

Chapter XXIII

“And suppose the police call during your absence?” said Austin Turold, glancing sharply at his son.

“Then you had better tell the truth. I am tired of it all.”

“I might ask, with Pilate, What is truth?—in your case.”

“You know it already, father, whether you believe me or not.”

Austin Turold looked strangely at him—a look in which anger was mingled with something deeper and more searching, as though he sought to reach some secret in the depth of his soul. Impatiently he crossed the room to the fireplace, and stood with his back to the fire, facing his son.

“I do not see that there’s any more risk than there was before,” said Charles gloomily.

“I say there is,” returned his father sharply. “What! Do you suppose you can go off to London like this, leaving me here alone, at such a moment? Do you not see that your unexplained absence, in itself, is likely to bring suspicion upon you, indeed, upon both of us?”

“I cannot help that,” returned the young man desperately. “I must go and find Sisily.”

“You are not likely to find her. You do not even know that she has gone to London.”

“Yes. I have found out that much. She took a ticket by the midday train on the day after—it happened.”

“And why do you wish to find her?”

“Because she is deeply wronged—she is innocent.”

“You should be able to speak with authority on that point,” said Austin, with a cold glance, which the other did not meet. “You are acting very foolishly, rushing off to London on this quixotic mission. You won’t find her. Besides, no woman is worth what you are risking in this wild-goose chase. You are jeopardizing your future by an act of the maddest folly.”

“There is nothing in life for me but the shadow of things—now,” returned the young man in low tones. “I want nothing except to find Sisily and prove her innocence. I’m going to look for her, whatever you say.”

Austin Turold made an impatient gesture.

“Very well,” he said. “If Providence has made you a fool you must fulfil Providence’s decree. Only, I warn you, I think you are going the right way to bring trouble on yourself. That lawyer who was here to-day—what’s his name, Brimstone, Brimsdown?—has his suspicions, unless I’m very much mistaken.”

Charles turned pale. “What makes you think that?” he asked.

“By the way he watched both of us.”

“That accounts for his attitude when I saw him afterwards,” said Charles in a startled voice.

“Afterwards—where?”

“I went after him to tell him that Sisily was innocent.”

“And what else did you tell him?”

“Nothing but that—nothing that counted, at least.”

“Really, Charles, your lack of intelligence is a distinct reflection on me as a parent. Fancy a son of mine trying to make a lawyer’s bowels yearn with compassion! I’m positively ashamed of you. Why are you so elementary? The situation must have contained some elements of humour, though. I should like to have witnessed it. Did you call down Heaven’s vengeance on the murderer in approved fashion? How did the man of parchments take it?”

“You have no heart,” said his son, flushing darkly under this sarcasm. He walked towards the door as he spoke. “I am going,” he said. “There is an excursion train through to Paddington to-night, and I shall catch it.”

“You are determined on it, then?”

“I should be in an unendurable position if I didn’t,” replied the young man, and without another word he left the room.

Austin looked after him a little wistfully, as though remembering that the other was, after all, his son. He remained motionless for a moment, then crossed over to the window and looked out. As he stood so his eye was caught by two figures beneath. One was his son, walking down the garden path. The other was Mrs. Brierly, returning to the house. She walked past Charles with downcast eyes, but Austin from the window saw her turn and cast a frightened fluttering glance at the young man’s retreating figure. She had seen him, then, but did not want to recognize him. As she hurried up the garden path Austin caught a glimpse of her face, and observed that it was white and drawn.

“What’s the matter with my estimable landlady?” he murmured as he withdrew from the window.

His quick intelligence, playing round this incident and seeking to pierce its meaning, grew alarmed. There seemed to be a menace in it. Did she know or guess something of the hidden events of that night, or had she played the spy since? He turned pale as he considered these possibilities. Women had an unerring instinct for a secret once their curiosity was aroused. But he had been careful, very careful. What did she suspect?

He thought over this problem until night fell, and retired to bed with it still unanswered.

But the solution flashed into his mind at breakfast next morning, suddenly, like light in a dark place. He was amazed that he had not seen it before. “If it is that …” he whispered. But he knew it was that; knew also, that it meant the