_ CHAPTER THIRTY NINE. GUEST'S SUGGESTION
Stratton did not move, but stood as if lost in thought, while involuntarily Guest's eyes were directed toward the door on his left.
A key had always been visible, in old times, by the handle--a key about which Guest had bantered his friend and cut jokes in which the spirit-stand and Mrs Brade's name were brought into contact. But there was no key there now, and he recalled how Stratton had endeavoured to keep him away from that door. A trifle then, but looking singularly suggestive now.
A dozen little facts began to grow and spread into horrors, all pointing to the cause of Stratton's sudden change, and strengthening Guest's ideas that there must have been a quarrel on the morning appointed for the wedding, possibly connected with money matters, and then in a fit of rage and excitement--disappointment, perhaps, at not willingly receiving the help he had anticipated--a blow had been struck, one that unintentionally had proved fatal.
All Guest's ideas set in this direction, and once started everything fitted in exactly, so that at last he felt perfectly convinced that his friend had killed Brettison and in some way disposed of the body.
For a moment he was disposed to cast the ideas out as utterly absurd and improbable, but the ideas would flow back again; and, try how he would to find some better solution of the puzzle, there seemed to be only that one way.
Stratton stood there by the fireplace, pale, haggard, and wrapped in thought, apparently utterly unconscious of his friend's presence, till Guest took a step or two forward and rested his hand upon the table.
Here he remained for a few minutes, trying to think out his course. For he felt now full of a guilty knowledge, and in that knowledge, if he did not make it known, a sharer--an accomplice--in a murder. For so the law and the world would judge it. And then there was Edie!
A shiver of dread and misery ran through him as her bright little face crossed his mind, and he saw that by keeping silence till the discovery--for that must come--he would be so implicated that he would share his friend's arrest; and, even if matters did not turn out serious with him as far as the law was concerned, his position with the admiral's family would be the same as Stratton's--everything would be at an end--his love affair like that of the miserable man before him; the man who now turned to him with a scared, horrified, hunted look in his eyes, startled by Guest's advance.
It was time to speak, Guest thought, but the words would not come at first, and he could only gaze wildly at the wretched being before him, and think of their old schooldays together, then of their first fresh manhood, and always together, sharing purses, pleasures, troubles, full confidence always till this trouble had come.
For the moment he hated and loathed the man before him; but the feeling was momentary. Stratton would not wilfully have thrust himself into such a position. He felt that there must be something more than he knew, and, softening down, he said huskily:
"Well, Stratton, what have you to say?"
There was no answer. Stratton gazed at him with a far-off, fixed stare, full of helpless misery, which drew his friend far nearer in heart, and he spoke more freely now.
"Come," he said; "speak out. In spite of everything, I am your old friend. I want to help you. Will you trust me?"
"Trust you? Yes," said Stratton slowly.
"Tell me, then, everything, beginning from the morning when you were to be married."
Stratton slowly shook his head.
"Come, man; this is no time for reticence. Tell me all," cried Guest excitedly; and he spoke in a hoarse whisper, and glanced to door and window, as if afraid of being overheard.
There was the same desponding movement.
"Am I not worthy of your confidence? I tell you I am ready to share it--ready to help you if you will only be honest with me, and tell me frankly everything."
There was no reply.
"Stratton, old fellow," cried Guest piteously, "you must speak. I do not believe that you could have been intentionally guilty."
Stratton glanced at him quickly, but the eager look died out.
"I tell you that you are injuring me as well as yourself. You have blighted your life; for God's sake don't blight mine, too."
"What--what do you mean?" cried Stratton, who started as if stung at his friend's reference to his future, and when the appeal came, took a step or two forward.
"That, knowing what I do, compelled from our old associations to be silent, I cannot--dare not go near her again."
"Guest!"
"I have said it. How can I take her innocent hand?"
"Because you know nothing," cried Stratton excitedly; "because you shall know nothing. One is enough to bear a crime, if crime it was."
"Ah! You confess!" cried Guest; "then you did--kill him."
Stratton made no reply, but looked firmly and sorrowfully in his eyes.
"I knew it--I was sure--your manner betrayed you when we were in that room. I see all, now. You closed that door."
"I will not be dragged into any confession," said Stratton fiercely. "It is my secret, and I will tell it to none. I have a right to keep my own counsel. You have a right to denounce me if you like. If you speak, you can force me to no greater punishment than I suffer now."
"Then it is all true?" groaned Guest. "You killed him, and hid him there?"
Stratton uttered a mocking laugh.
"That door!" said Guest huskily. "Twice over you have stopped me from going there. Your manner has been that of a guilty man, and I am forced to share the knowledge of your crime."
"No," said Stratton, speaking now with a look of calm contempt; "you share no knowledge--you shall share no knowledge. You say I killed him and hid him there; where are your proofs? You have brought in the police, and they have searched. What have you found? Again, I say, where are your proofs?"
Guest looked at him wildly, and his lips parted, but he uttered no sound.
"Let me rest, my good fellow, let me rest. You are warring against your own happiness in trying to pry into matters that are naught to you. I will not blight your future, Percy Guest, by letting you share any secrets of mine. There, good-night. I want to be alone."
Guest tried to recommence the argument, and to master the man who looked so pitifully weak, but somehow the other's will was too powerful, and he had to yield, leaving the chambers at last with a shudder of horror, and feeling that he could never take Stratton by the hand again.
For the man seemed changed. There was a mocking, almost triumphant, look in his eyes as he took the lamp from the table, and followed Guest out on to the landing to stand there, holding the light over the massive balustrade for his friend to descend.
As Guest reached the bottom, he looked up, and there, by the light which fell full upon Stratton's face, was the strange, mocking air intensified, and with a shiver he hurried across the inn, feeling that the mystery had deepened instead of being cleared.
His intention was to hurry back to his own chambers, feeling that it was impossible for him to go near Bourne Square, knowing what he did, but the yearning for one to share his knowledge proved too strong.
"And I promised that she should share every secret," he said to himself. "Whom am I to trust if I don't trust her!"
The result was that, with his brain in a whirl of excitement, and hardly knowing what he did, he leaped into the first cab, and urged the man to drive fast, while he sank back into the corner, and tried to make plans.
"I won't tell her," he decided at last. "I'll see the admiral, and he will advise me what to do."
He altered his mind directly. "It will be betraying poor Malcolm," he thought; but swayed round again directly after.
"I ought to tell him," he said. "It is a duty. He stood to him almost in the position of a father, and, for Myra's sake, ought to know; and Heaven knows I want someone to advise me now."
He changed his plans half a dozen times before he reached the square; but that of telling the admiral under a pledge of secrecy was in the ascendant when the cab drew up at the door.
It was opened by Andrews.
"The admiral in?" he asked.
"Yes, sir, but he's asleep in the library. Miss Myra is in her chamber, sir--not very well to-night, but Miss Edith is in the drawing room."
Guest went upstairs, and, upon entering, Edie rushed at him, when all his plans went for naught.
"Oh, how long you have been," she panted, as she caught his hands. "Have you seen him?"
"Yes."
"Have you found out anything?"
"Yes."
"Is it dreadful?"
"Too dreadful to tell you, dearest," he replied sadly.
"Then I won't know," she said, with a sob. "Oh, my poor, darling Myra! She will die of a broken heart, I know, I know."
Guest tried to comfort her, and she grew more calm.
"It was good and honest of you to come straight to me, to tell me, Percy," she said, submitting to his embraces; and Guest felt horribly guilty, and wished he had not come. "It is dreadful, you say?"
"Terrible, little one," he whispered.
"Too terrible for me to know? Then I must not hear it, I suppose?"
"No."
"But you know it, Percy," she said piteously; "it's too terrible, then, for you."
"I have been trying hard to find out the cause of his conduct."
"And you have found it out now?"
"Yes; and I'd give anything to be as ignorant as I was yesterday."
"Oh, but, Percy, dear," she whispered excitedly, "I must know that."
"I cannot--I dare not tell you."
"Not tell me--and you said you loved me!"
"As I do with all my heart."
"Then you cannot keep anything from me."
"I'll tell your uncle, and ask his opinion first."
"No, no, Percy. I must know now--I must, indeed. No matter how terrible, you cannot keep it from me."
"But it is like betraying the man whom I'd give anything to save."
"Save? Save from what?"
"Don't press me, dearest," he said tenderly. "Trust me that it is best for you not to know."
"Percy, dear," she said gently, as she laid her hand upon his arm; "you can trust me. I always knew there must be something very terrible to make Mr Stratton behave toward poor Myra as he did, and you and I have been plotting and planning to find it out, in the hope that it would prove to be a trouble we could bridge over, and bring them together again. You have discovered it all then at last?"
"Yes."
"Then tell me."
"I cannot--I dare not."
Edie was silent for a few moments, as she sat gazing straight before her into the dimly lit back drawing room, her eyes suffused with tears, as she at last said in a whisper:
"You asked me the other day if I would be your wife."
"And you promised me an answer when I knew all," said Guest, cutting the ground from beneath his feet.
"And now you know, and I'll tell you," she said, hardly above her breath. "Yes, Percy, some day when we have made poor Myra happy."
"Then it will never be," he said despairingly.
"Let me judge," she whispered. And he told her all.
"But--but I don't quite understand," she faltered; "you think, then--oh, it is too horrible--you think, then, he had killed poor Mr Brettison, his friend?"
"Yes," said Guest slowly and thoughtfully. "It must have been that. I cannot see a doubt."
"Ah!"
They started to their feet at the piteous sigh which came from the back drawing room, and it was followed by a heavy fall.
Myra had entered in time enough to hear the terrible charge, and for her life seemed to be at an end.
-----------------
Meanwhile Stratton had stood motionless, gazing down into the dark pit formed by the staircase, with the light of the lamp he held shining full on his haggard face, made more painful by the smile which contracted the lower parts of his countenance, till the last echo of his friend's steps died out, when he turned slowly and walked into his room, closing and fastening both doors.
Then his whole manner changed.
He rushed to the table, set down the lamp so that the glass shade rattled and nearly flew out of the holder; then, crossing quickly to a cabinet, he took out a decanter and glass, poured out a heavy draught of brandy, and gulped it down.
The glass almost dropped from his hand to the table, and he clasped his brow, to stand staring before him fighting to recall his thoughts.
Twice over he threw his head back, and shook it as if something compressed his brain and confused him. Then the stimulant he had taken began to act, and he went to a drawer and took out a new screw-driver, with which, after seeing that the blinds were down and the curtains drawn over the window, he crossed to the door on the left of the fireplace; but only to turn away again, and take up the lamp and place it on a stand, so that it should light him in the work he had in hand.
He was alert and eager now, as, with deft touches, he forced the screw-driver under a piece of moulding at the top and front edge of the door, wrenched them off, and bared some half dozen screw-heads. These he rapidly turned and withdrew, laying them down one by one till all were out, when, from an inner pocket, he took out a key, unlocked the door, threw it open, and went into the bathroom, lamp in hand.
Placing it on the polished lid, he rapidly toiled on till these screws were taken out in turn, when, lifting the lamp with his left hand, he threw up the lid with his right, and stood staring down into the bath with a shudder, which rapidly passed away.
The lid fell with a heavy, dull sound, and, with a curious, wondering look, he turned and went slowly back to his table, set down the lamp, caught it up again, and walked into the bathroom, where he again set down the lamp, tore a fly-leaf from a letter in his pocket, folded it into a spill, and lit it at the lamp chimney.
"Will it burn slowly or explode at once?" he said, with a reckless laugh. "Let's see!" and once more he threw up the lid. _