Fantômas - Pierre Souvestre (books to read for self improvement TXT) 📗

laid a hand upon her head as if in blessing, and said gently:

"Good night; God bless you, dear child!"

XXI. Lord Beltham's Murderer

It was on the point of midnight, and absolute stillness reigned throughout the house.

But Lady Beltham had not gone to bed. Although she had remained in the great hall where she did her work, she had been unable to settle down to any occupation. She had read a little, and begun a letter, got up and sat down; and finally, beginning to feel chilly, she had drawn an easy chair up to the hearth, where a log was just burning out, and stretching out her slippers to the warmth had fallen into a waking dream.

A sound caught her ear and she sat upright. At first she thought it was some trick of the imagination, but in another minute the noise grew louder; there was the hurrying of feet and voices, muffled at first but rapidly becoming louder, and at last a regular uproar, doors banging, glass breaking, and shouts from all parts of the house. Lady Beltham jumped up, nervous and trembling; she was just going to the window when she heard a shot and stopped dead where she stood. Then she rushed out into the vestibule.

"Help!" she screamed. "What on earth is the matter?" and remembering the girls for whom she had assumed responsibility, she called out anxiously for them. "Lisbeth! Thérèse! Susannah! Come to me!"

Doors upstairs were flung open, and with their hair streaming over their night-dresses Thérèse and Susannah rushed downstairs and crouched down by her side, stifling moans of terror.

"Lisbeth? Where is Lisbeth?" Lady Beltham asked sharply.

At the same moment she appeared, her face distorted with fright.

"Oh, Lady Beltham, it's dreadful! There's a man, a burglar in the garden! And Walter is throttling him! They are fighting dreadfully! They'll kill one another!"

Silbertown, the major-domo, came rushing in just then. Seeing the three girls in their night-dresses he made as if to draw back, but Lady Beltham called him in and demanded explanations.

"We had just finished our rounds," he answered breathlessly, "when we caught sight of a man hiding in the shadows, a thief probably. When we shouted to him he ran away, but we ran after him and seized him; he resisted and there was a fight. But we have got him and the police will take him away in a few minutes."

Lady Beltham listened, with jaw set and hands clenched.

"A thief?" she said, controlling her emotion. "How do you know he is a thief?"

"Well," stammered the major-domo, "he is very poorly dressed, and besides, what was he doing in the garden?"

Lady Beltham was recovering her calm.

"What excuse did he give for being there?" she asked coldly.

"We didn't give him time to invent one," said the major-domo. "We collared him almost as soon as we saw him. And you know, madame, how tremendously powerful Walter is: Walter gave him all he deserved!" and the major-domo clenched his fists and made an expressive exhibition of the porter's reception of the stranger.

Lisbeth was still overcome by what she had seen.

"Oh, the blood!" she muttered hysterically; "it was streaming!"

Lady Beltham spoke angrily to the major-domo.

"I hate brutality: is the man seriously hurt? I hope not. You ought to have questioned him before assaulting him. No one in my house has a right to use violence. 'Whoso smites with the sword shall perish by the sword'!"

The major-domo heard her in silent astonishment: it was not at all what he expected to be told, in view of all the circumstances.

Lady Beltham went on more gently:

"I suppose I shall have to apologise to this man for your wrong and thoughtless behaviour."

"Apologise?" exclaimed Silbertown in amazement. "Surely your ladyship will not do that?"

"One must not shrink from humiliation when one has been in the wrong," said Lady Beltham, in the pulpit manner she affected. "Tell Walter to come to me."

A few minutes later the porter, a muscular giant of a man, came into the room and made a clumsy bow.

"How was it possible for anyone to get into the house at this time of night?" his mistress enquired coldly.

Walter dropped his eyes and twisted his cap nervously.

"I hope your ladyship will forgive me. I caught the fellow, and as he was struggling I hit him. Then two of the footmen came, and they are looking after him in the kitchen."

"Has he given any explanation of his presence here since you assaulted him—at which I am very angry?" said Lady Beltham.

"He hasn't said anything; at least——"

"Well?"

"I don't like to tell you."

"Please do like!" said Lady Beltham irritably.

"Well," Walter replied, overcoming his nervousness with an effort, "he says your ladyship is well known for your charity to everybody, and—he wants to see you."

There was a moment's pause.

"I will see him," said Lady Beltham at last, in a half-stifled voice.

"Will your ladyship allow me to point out the danger of doing any such thing?" Silbertown exclaimed. "Very likely the man is a lunatic! Or it may be a trick: Lord Beltham was murdered, and perhaps——"

Lady Beltham looked intently at the major-domo, seemingly trying to read his thoughts. Then she answered slowly:

"I will see him. I will be more pitiful than you," and as the major-domo and the porter made a gesture of futile protest, she added peremptorily: "I have given my orders: kindly obey."

When the two men had reluctantly left the room, Lady Beltham turned to the three girls.

"You had better leave me, darlings," she said, kindly but firmly. "Run away: excitement is bad for you. Go back to bed. No, I assure you I shall be in no danger whatever," and for a few minutes she was left alone.

"Speak," said Lady Beltham in a toneless voice.

The major-domo and the porter had led in, and placed before her, a man with unkempt hair and ragged beard; he was dressed entirely in black, and his face was tired and haggard. Lady Beltham, ghastly pale, was leaning for support against the back of an arm-chair. The man did not raise his eyes to her.

"I will not speak unless we are alone," he answered dully.

"Alone?" said Lady Beltham, fighting down her emotion. "Then it is something serious you have to tell me?"

"If you know anything of people in misfortune, Madame," the man answered gently, "you know that they do not like to humiliate themselves before—before those who cannot understand," and he nodded towards the major-domo and the porter.

"I do know something of misfortune," Lady Beltham replied, in firmer tones; "and I will hear you alone." She looked at her two servants. "Leave us, please."

The major-domo started.

"Leave you alone with him? It's madness!" and as Lady Beltham merely looked at him in haughty surprise, he began to withdraw in confusion, but still protesting. "It's—it's—— Your ladyship has no idea what this fellow wants: do please——"

But Lady Beltham curtly cut him short.

"That is enough!"

A heavy velvet curtain fell over the closing door, and in the room, that was dimly lighted by a small electric lamp, Lady Beltham was alone with the strange individual to whom she had so readily, so oddly, consented to accord a private interview. She followed her servants to the door and locked it after them. Then with a sudden movement she sprang towards the man, who was standing motionless in the middle of the room following her with his eyes, and flung herself into his arms.

"Oh, Gurn, my darling, my darling!" she cried. "I love you! I love you, darling!" She looked up at him and saw blood upon his forehead. "Good God! The brutes have hurt you! What pain you must be in! Give me your eyes, your lips!" With kisses from her own lips she stanched the blood that was trickling down his cheeks, and with her fingers she smoothed his hair. "I am so happy!" she murmured, and broke off again. "But you are mad! Why, why come here like this, and let yourself be caught and tortured so?"

Moodily Gurn answered, returning kiss for kiss.

"Time has been so long without you! And this evening I was prowling round and saw a light. I thought that every one would be asleep—except you, of course. And so I came straight to you, over walls, and gates—drawn to you like a moth to a candle: and that is all!"

With shining eyes and heaving breast Lady Beltham clung to her lover.

"I love you so! How brave you are! Yes, I am wholly, only yours. But this is madness! You might be arrested and given up to no one knows what horror, without my knowing!"

Gurn seemed to be hypnotised by the fierce and passionate love of this great lady.

"I never gave that a thought," he murmured. "I only thought of you!"

Silence fell upon these tragic lovers as they stood reading love in one another's eyes, and recalling memories common to both, utterly unlike as they were to outward seeming, yet linked by the strongest bond of all, the bond of love.

"What happy hours we lived together out there!" Lady Beltham whispered. Her thoughts had wandered to the far Transvaal and the battle-field where first she had set eyes on Gurn, the sergeant of artillery with powder-blackened face; and then to the homeward voyage on the mighty steamer that bore them across the blue sea, towards the dull white cliffs of England.

Gurn's thoughts followed hers.

"Out there! Yes; and then on the vast ocean, on the ship homeward bound! The quiet and peace of it all! And our meetings every day: our long, long talks, and longer silences—in the clear starlight of those tropical skies! We were learning to know each other——"

"We were learning to love each other," she said. "And then—London, and Paris, and all the fever of life threatening our love. But that is the strongest thing in the world: and—do you remember? Oh, the ecstasy of it all! But, do you remember too what you did for me—through me—thirteen months ago?"

She had risen, and with white lips and haggard eyes held Gurn's hands within her own in an even tighter grip. Emotion choked her further utterance.

"Yes, I remember," Gurn went on slowly: "it was in our little room in the rue Lévert, and I was on my knees beside you when the door opened quietly, and there stood Lord Beltham, mad with rage and jealousy!"

"I don't know what happened then," Lady Beltham whispered in a hopeless undertone, drooping her head again.

"I do," muttered Gurn. "His eyes sought you, and a pistol was pointed at your heart! He would have fired, but I sprang and struck him down! And then I strangled him!"

Lady Beltham's eyes were fixed on the man's hands, that she still held between her own.

"And I saw the muscles in these hands swell up beneath the skin as they tightened on his throat!"

"I killed him!" groaned the man.

But Lady Beltham, swept by a surge of passion, sprang up and sought his lips.

"Oh, Gurn!" she sobbed—"my darling!"

"Listen," said Gurn harshly, after a pause of anxious silence. "I had to see you to-night, for who knows if to-morrow——" Lady Beltham shrank at the words, but Gurn went on unheeding. "The police are after me. Of course I have made myself almost unrecognisable, but twice just lately I have been very nearly caught."

"Do you think the police have any accurate idea of what happened?" Lady Beltham asked abruptly.

"No," said Gurn after a moment's hesitation. "They think I killed him with the mallet. They have not found out that I had to strangle him. As far as I know, they found no marks of my hands on his throat. At all events, they could not have been clear, for his collar—you understand." The man spoke of his crime without the least sign of remorse or repugnance now; his only dread was lest he should be caught. "But, none the less, they have identified