The Betrayal - E. Phillips Oppenheim (the snowy day read aloud txt) 📗

I essayed to move him. It was utterly in vain. Such nerve as I possessed had left me wholly and altogether. A sense of repulsion, nauseating, invincible, made a child of me. I stood up and looked around wildly. It was then for the first time I saw what my right foot had trodden into the sand.

I picked it up, and a little cry, unheard save by the sea-birds which circled about my head, broke from my lips. It was a man's signet ring, thin and worn smooth with age. It was quaintly shaped, and in the centre was set a small jet-black stone. The device was a bird, and underneath the motto—"Vinco!"

My hand closed suddenly upon it, and again I looked searchingly around. There was not a soul in sight. I slipped the ring into my waistcoat pocket and moved back to the white railings. I leaned against them, and, taking a pipe and tobacco from my pocket, began to smoke.

Strangely enough, I had now recovered my nerve. I was able to think and reason calmly. The woman at the lodge had taken it for granted that this man's body had been thrown up by the sea. Was that a possible conclusion? There was a line all down the sands where the tide had reached, a straggling uneven line marked with huge masses of wet seaweeds, fragments of timber, the flotsam and jetsam of the sea. The creek where the man's body was lying was forty yards above this. Yet on such a night who could say where those great breakers, driven in by the wind as well as by their own mighty force, might not have cast their prey? Within a few yards of him was a jagged mass of timber. The cause of those wounds would be obvious enough. I felt the ring in my waistcoat pocket—it was there, safely enough hidden, and I looked toward the lodge. As yet there were no signs of John or the cart.

But behind me, coming from the village, I heard the sound of light and rapid footsteps. I turned my head. It was Blanche Moyat, short-skirted, a stick in her hand, a feather stuck through her Tam-o'-Shanter.

"Good-morning," she cried out heartily; "I've been to call at your cottage."

"Very kind of you," I answered, hesitatingly. Miss Moyat was good-hearted, but a little overpowering—and in certain moods she reminded me of her father.

"Oh, I had an errand," she explained, laughing. "Father said if I saw you I was to say that he has to call on the Duke this afternoon, and, if you liked, he would explain about your lecture last night, and try and get the village hall for you for nothing. The Duke is very good-natured, and if he knows that he spoilt your evening, father thinks he might let you have it for nothing."

"It is very kind of your father," I answered. "I do not think that I shall ever give that lecture again."

"Why not?" she protested. "I am sure I thought it a beautiful lecture, and I'm not keen on churches and ruins myself," she added, with a laugh which somehow grated upon me. "What are you doing here?"

"Watching the dead," I answered grimly.

She looked at me for an explanation. I pointed to the dark object by the side of the creek. She gave a violent start. Then she screamed and caught hold of my arm.

"Mr. Ducaine!" she cried. "What is it?"

"A dead man!" I answered.

Her face was a strange study. There was fear mingled with unwholesome curiosity, the heritage of her natural lack of refinement. She leaned over the palings.

"Oh, how horrible!" she exclaimed. "I don't know whether I want to look or not. I've never seen any one dead."

"I should advise you," I said, "to go away."

It was apparently the last thing she desired to do. Of the various emotions which had possessed her, curiosity was the one which survived.

"You are sure he is dead?" she asked.

"Quite," I answered.

"Was he drowned, then?"

"I think," I replied, "that he has been washed up by the tide. There has probably been a shipwreck."

"Gracious!" she exclaimed. "It is just a sailor, then?"

"I have not looked at his face," I answered, "and I should not advise you to. He has been tossed about and injured. His clothes, though, are not a seaman's."

She passed through a gap in the palings.

"I must look just a little closer," she exclaimed. "Do come with me,
Mr. Ducaine. I'm horribly afraid."

"Then don't go near him," I advised. "A dead man is surely not a pleasant spectacle for you. Come away, Miss Moyat."

But she had advanced to within a couple of yards of him. Then she stopped short, and a little exclamation escaped from her lips.

"Why, Mr. Ducaine," she cried out, "this is the very man who stopped me last night outside our house, and asked the way to your cottage."

CHAPTER IV MISS MOYAT'S PROMISE

We stood looking at one another on the edge of the marsh. In the clear morning sunlight I had no chance of escape or subterfuge. There was terror in my face, and she could see it.

"You—you cannot be sure!" I exclaimed. "It may not be the same man."

"It is the same man," she answered confidently. "He stopped me and asked if I could direct him to your house. It was about half an hour after you had gone. He spoke very softly and almost like a foreigner. I told him exactly where your cottage was. Didn't he come to you?"

"No," I answered. "I have never seen him before in my life."

"Why do you look—so terrified?" she asked. "You are as pale as a ghost."

I clutched hold of the railings. She came over to my side. Up the road I heard in the distance the crunching of heavy wheels. A wagon was passing through the lodge gates. John, the woodman, was walking with unaccustomed briskness by the horses' heads, cracking his whip as he came. I looked into the girl's face by my side.

"Miss Moyat," I said hoarsely, "can't you forget that you saw this man?"

"Why?" she asked bewildered.

"I don't want to be dragged into it," I answered, glancing nervously over my shoulder along the road. "Don't you see that if he is just found here with his head and shoulders in the creek, and nothing is known about him, they will take it that he has been washed up by the sea in the storm last night? But if it is known that he came from the land, that he was seen in the village asking for me—then there will be many things said."

"I don't see as it matters," she answered, puzzled. "He didn't come, and you don't know anything about him. But, of course, if you want me to say nothing—"

She paused. I clutched her arm.

"Miss Moyat," I said, "I have strong reasons for not wishing to be brought into this."

"All right," she said, dropping her voice. "I will do—as you ask."

There was an absurd meaning in her little side-glance, which at another time would have put me on my guard. But just then I was engrossed with my own vague fears. I forgot even to remove my hand from her arm. So we were standing, when a moment later the silence was broken by the sound of a galloping horse coming fast across the marshes. We started aside. Lady Angela reined in a great bay mare a few yards away from us. Her habit was all bespattered with mud. She had evidently ridden across country from one of the private entrances to the Park.

"What is this terrible story, Mr. Ducaine?" she exclaimed. "Is there really a shipwreck? I can see no signs of it."

"No shipwreck that I know of, Lady Angela," I answered. "There is a dead man here—one only. I have heard of nothing else."

Her eyes followed my outstretched hand, and she saw the body half on the sands, half on the marsh. She shivered a little.

"Poor fellow!" she exclaimed. "Is it any one from the village, Mr.
Ducaine?"

"It is a stranger, Lady Angela," I answered. "We think that his body must have been washed in from the sea."

She measured the distance from high-water mark with a glance, and shook her head.

"Too far away," she declared.

"There was a wild sea last night," I answered, "and such a tide as I have never seen here before."

"What are you doing with it?" she asked, pointing with her whip.

"John Hefford is bringing a wagon," I answered. "I suppose he had better take it to the police station."

She wheeled her horse round.

"I am glad that it is no worse," she said. "There are reports going about of a terrible shipwreck. I trust that you are feeling better, Mr. Ducaine?"

"I am quite recovered—thanks to your kindness and Colonel Ray's," I answered.

She nodded.

"You will hear from my father during the day," she said. "He is quite anxious to come to your lecture. Good-morning."

"Good-morning, Lady Angela."

She galloped away. Miss Moyat turned towards me eagerly.

"Why, Mr. Ducaine," she exclaimed, "I had no idea that you knew Lady
Angela."

"Nor do I," I answered shortly. "Our acquaintance is of the slightest."

"What did she mean about the lecture?"

I affected not to hear. John the wagoner had pulled up his team by the side of the palings, and was touching his hat respectfully.

"Another job for the dead 'ouse, sir, my missis tells me."

"There is the body of a dead man here, John," I answered, "washed up by the tide, I suppose. It isn't an uncommon occurrence here, is it?"

"Lor bless you, no, sir," the man answered, stepping over the palings. "I had three of them here in one month last year. If you'll just give me a hand, sir, we'll take him down to the police station."

I set my teeth and advanced towards the dead man. John Hefford proved at once that he was superior to all such trifles as nerves. He lifted the body up and laid it for the first time flat upon the sands.

"My! he's had a nasty smash on the head," John remarked, looking down at him with simple curiosity. "Quite the gent too, I should say. Will you give me a hand, sir, and we'll have him in the wagon."

So I was forced to touch him after all. Nevertheless I kept my eyes as far as possible from the ghastly face with the long hideous wound across it. I saw now, however, in one swift unwilling glance, what manner of man this was. He had thin features, a high forehead, deep-set eyes too close together, a thin iron-grey moustache. Whatever his station in life may have been, he was not of the labouring classes, for his hands were soft and his nails well cared for. We laid him in the bottom of the wagon, and covered him over with a couple of sacks. John cracked the whip and strode along by the side of the horses. Blanche Moyat and I followed behind.

She was unusually silent, and once or twice I caught her glancing curiously at me, as though she had something which it was in her mind to say, but needed encouragement. As we neared my cottage she asked me a question.

"Why don't you want me to say that I saw this man in the village last night, and that he asked for you, Mr. Ducaine? I can't understand what difference it makes. He may have spoken to others besides me, and then it is bound to be known. What harm can it do you?"

"I cannot explain how I feel about it," I answered. "I am not sure that I know myself. Only you must see that if it were known that he set out from the village last night to call upon me, people might say unpleasant things."

She lowered her voice.

"You mean—that they might suspect you of killing him?"

"Why not? Nobody knows much about me here, and it would seem suspicious. It was I who found him, and only a few hundred yards from my cottage. If it were known that he had left the village last night to see me, don't you think that it would occur to any one to wonder if we had met—and quarrelled? There could be no proof, of course, but the mere