CHAPTER XVII
THE MOST DANGEROUS FOR OF ALL
Mr. Paxton withdrew his face from the window. He turned towards thedoor, his ears wide open. The speakers were talking so loudly that hecould hear distinctly, without moving from his post of vantage on theshelf, every word which was uttered. They seemed to be in a state ofgreat excitement.
The first voice he heard belonged evidently to the quick-wittedindividual who had fastened him in the trap which he himself hadentered.
"There he is--inside there he is--ran in of his own accord he did, soI shut the door, and I slipped the bolt before he knowed where he was.The winder's only a little 'un--if he gets hisself out, you can callme names."
The second voice was one which Mr. Paxton did not remember to havepreviously noticed.
"Blast him!--what do I care where he is? He ain't no affair of mine!There's the Toff, and a crowd of 'em down there--you come and lend ahand!"
"Not me! I ain't a-taking any! I ain't going to get myself choked, notfor no Toff, nor yet for any one else. I feel more like cutting mylucky--only I don't know my way across these ---- hills."
"You ain't got no more pluck than a chicken. Go and put the 'orse in!Me and them other two chaps will bring 'em up. We shall have to putthe whole lot aboard, and make tracks as fast as the old mare willcanter."
A third voice became audible--a curiously husky one, as if its ownerwas in difficulties with his throat.
"Here's the Toff--he seems to be a case. I ain't a-going down no more.It's no good a-trying to put it out--you might as well try to put out'ell fire!"
Then a fourth voice--even huskier than the other.
"Catch 'old! If some one don't catch 'old of the Baron I shall drop'im. My God! this is a pretty sort of go!"
There was a pause, then the voice of the first speaker again.
"He do look bad, the Baron do--worse nor the Toff, and he don't seemtoo skittish!"
"Strikes me he ain't far off from a coffin and a six-foot 'ole. Youwouldn't look lively if you'd had what he 'as. That there ---- brained'im, and now he's been burned alive. I tell you what it is, we shallhave to look slippy if we want to get ourselves well out of this. Themothers will have to scorch--it's no good trying to get 'em out--nomortal creature could live down there--it'll only be a bit sooner,anyhow. The whole ---- place is like a ---- tinder-box. It'll all beafire in less than no time, and it'll make a bonfire as'll be seenover all the countryside; and if we was seen a-making tracks away fromit, there might be questions asked, and we mightn't find that pretty!"
"Where's the ---- as done it all?"
"In there--that's where he is!"
"In there? Sure? My----! wouldn't I like to strip his skin from offhis ---- carcase!"
"He'll have his skin stripped off from him without your doing nothing,don't you be afraid--and made crackling of! He'll never get outside ofthat--he'll soon be warm enough--burnt to a cinder, that's what he'llbe!"
Suddenly there was a tumult of exclamations and of execrations, soundof the opening of a door, and of a general stampede. Then silence.
And Mr. Paxton realised to the full what had happened. For into theplace of his imprisonment there penetrated, all at once, the fumes ofsmoke--fumes which had an unpleasantly irritating effect upon thetonsils of his throat.
The house was on fire! The hanging-lamp which he had sent crashing tothe floor had done its work--had, indeed, plainly, done more than heintended. Nothing so difficult to extinguish as the flames of burningoil. Nothing which gets faster, fiercer, more rapidly increasinghold--nothing which, in an incredibly short space of time, causes morewidespread devastation.
The house was on fire! and he was caged there like a rat in a trap!The smoke already reached him--already the smell of the fire was inhis nostrils. And those curs, those cowards, those nameless brutes,thinking only of their wretched selves, had left their comrades inthat flaming, fiery furnace, to perish by the most hideous of deaths,and had left him, also, there to burn.
In a sudden paroxysm of rage, leaping off the shelf, he rushed to theopposite end of what, it seemed, bade fair to be his crematorium, andflung himself with all his weight and force against the door. It neveryielded--he might as well have flung himself against the wall. Heshouted through it, like a madman--
"Open the door! Open the door, you devils!"
In his frenzy a stream of oaths came flooding from his lips. In suchsituations even clean-mouthed men can swear. There are not many of uswho, brought suddenly, under such circumstances, face to face with thehereafter, can calm our minds and keep watch and ward over ourtongues. Mr. Paxton, certainly, was not such an one. He was, rather,as one who was consumed with fury.
What was that? He listened. It was the sound of wheels and of ahorse's hoofs. Those scoundrels were off--fleeing for their lives. Andhe was there--alone! And in the dreadful furnace, at the bottom ofthat narrow flight of steps, the miserable creatures with whom he hadhad such a short and sharp reckoning were being burned.
In his narrow chamber the presence of smoke was becoming moreconspicuous. He could hear the crackling of fire. It might have beenimagination, but it seemed to him that already the temperature wasincreasing. What was he to do? He recollected the window--clamberedback upon the shelf, and thrust his face out into the open air. Howsweet it was! and fresh, and cool! Once more he listened. He couldhear, plainly enough, the noise of wheels rolling rapidly away, butnothing more. With the full force of his lungs he repeated hisprevious cry, with a slight variation--
"Help! Fire! Help!"
But this time there came no answering "Hollo!" There was no reply.Again he shouted, and again and again, straining his throat and hislungs to bursting-point, screaming himself hoarse, but there was nonethat answered. It seemed that this was a case in which, if he couldnot help himself, he, in very deed and in very truth, was helpless.
He set himself to remove the sashes from their places, feeling that ifhe only could, small even then though the space would be, he might, atsuch a pinch as this, be able to squeeze his body through. But thething was easier essayed than done. The sashes were small, stronglyconstructed, and solidly set in firmly fashioned grooves. He attackedthem with his hands; he hammered them with the Baron's revolver andthe branding-iron, but they remained precisely where they were. He hada suspicion that they were looser, and that in time, say in an hour orso, they might be freed. But he had not an hour to spare. He had notmany minutes, for while he still wrestled with their obstinacy therecame from behind him a strange, portentous roar. His prison becamedimly, fitfully illuminated with a dreadful light--so that he couldsee.
What he could see through the cracks in the bolted door were tonguesof fire, roaring in the room beyond--roaring as the waves roar overthe stones, or as the sound of a high wind through the tops of trees.The suddenness of the noise, disturbing so unexpectedly the previousstillness, confused him. He remained on the shelf, looking round.Then, oblivious for the moment of the danger which so swiftly wascoming nearer, he was filled with admiration. What a beautiful ruddylight it was, which was making the adjacent chamber to gleam likeglowing gold! How every instant it was becoming ruddier and ruddier,until, with fairylike rapidity, it became a glorious blaze of colour!The whole place was transfigured and transformed. It was radiant withthe splendours of the Fairy Queen's Palace of a Million Marvels.
The crackling noise which fire makes when its hungry tongues lickwoodwork brought him back to a sense of stern reality. He becameconscious of the strong breeze which was blowing through the openwindow. It was coming from the house, and was bearing with ita rush as of heated breath. Already it seemed to scorch hischeeks--momentarily it seemed to scorch them more and more. The air,as he drew it into his lungs, was curiously dry. He had to draw twobreaths where before he had drawn one. It parched his throat. Whatwould he not have given to have been able to glue his lips to cool,fresh water! As in a vision he pictured himself laving his face,splashing in the crystal wat
ers of a running stream, with the trees inleaf above his head.
Escape was hopeless. Neither on the one side nor on the other couldsalvation be attained. Other men, he told himself, with a sardonictwitching of the corners of his lips, had been burnt alive beforeto-day--then why not he? He, at any rate, could play the man. Toattempt to strive against the inevitable was puerile. Better, if onemust die, "facing fearful odds," to die with one's arms folded, andwith one's pulse marking time at its normal pace. What must be, mightbe; what cared he?
Confound the smoke! It came in thicker and thicker wreaths through theinterstices in the panels of the door. It was impossible to continuefacing it; it made him cough, and the more he coughed the more he hadto. It got into his mouth and up his nose; it made his eyes tingle. Tocough and cough until, like a ramshackle cart, one shook oneself topieces, was not the part of dignity.
He turned his back to the door. He thrust his face again through thewindow. With his lips wide open he gulped in the air with a sense ofrapture which amounted to positive pain. What a feeling of life and offreedom there seemed to be under the stars and the far-reaching sky!What a spirit of solitude was abroad on the hills, in the darkness ofthe night! What a lonely death this was which he was about to die! Noone there but God and the fire to see if he died like a man!
He tried to collect his thoughts. As he did so, there was borne tohim, on a sudden overwhelming flood of recollection, the woman whom heloved. He seemed to see her there in front of him--her very face. Whatwas she doing now? What would she do if she had an inkling of hisplight? What, when she knew that he had gone? If he had only had timeto hand over to her all the fruits of that rise in the shares of theTrumpit Gold Mine!
How hot it was! And the smoke--how suffocating! How the fire roaredbehind him! The bolted door had been stout enough to keep him captive,but against the fury of the flames it would be as nothing. Any momentthey might be through. And then?
He had an inspiration. He began to feel in his pockets. Those rogueshad stripped them, only leaving, so far as in his haste he couldjudge, two worthless trifles, which probably had been overlookedbecause of their triviality. In one pocket was the back of an oldletter, in another a scrap of pencil. They were sufficient to servehis purpose. Spreading the half-sheet of notepaper out on the shelf infront of him, he wrote, as well as he could for the blinding, stiflingsmoke, with the piece of pencil--
"I give and bequeath all that I have in the world to my dear love,Daisy Strong, who would have been my wife. God bless her!--CYRILPAXTON."
CHAPTER XVIII
THE LAST OF THE DATCHET DIAMONDS
They found him, with the half-sheet of notepaper all crushed in hishand.
At the police station, acting on the hints dropped by Mr. Cooper, Mr.Ireland had enlisted the aid of a dozen constables. He had chartered alarge waggonette, and with Mr. Cooper and a sergeant beside him on thebox-seat had started off for an evening drive across the Downs. MissStrong had, perforce, to content herself with a seat with MissWentworth and Mr. Franklyn in a fly behind.
The weather had cleared. By the time they reached the open country thestars were shining, and when they found themselves following thewinding road among the hills it was as fine a night as one could wish.Suddenly the occupants of the fly became conscious that the waggonettein front had stopped. A constable, hurrying back, checked the flyman.Miss Strong leant over the side of the vehicle to address him.
"What is the matter?"
"We don't know yet, miss. Only there's something coming along theroad, and we want to see what they look like. They seem to be in a bitof a hurry."
As the man said, whoever it was who was approaching did seem to be ina "bit of a hurry." Evidently the horse in the advancing vehicle wasbeing urged to a breakneck gallop. Where the waggonette had stoppedthe ground rose abruptly on either side. The road turned sharply justin front. The constables, alighting, formed in double line across it.Suddenly the people who were hastening Brightonwards found themselvesquite unexpectedly surrounded by the officers of the law. There wasthe liveliest five minutes Miss Strong had ever known. At the end ofit the police found themselves in possession of three prisoners, whohad fought as well as, under the circumstances, they knew how, andalso of a fly with two men lying apparently dead inside it.
When Miss Strong learnt this, she came hurrying up.
"Is Cyril there?"
Mr. Ireland shook his head.
"You are telling me the truth?"
"If you doubt it, Miss Strong, you may look for yourself."
Just then a constable who, for purposes of observation, had climbedthe sloping ground on one side of the road, gave a great shout.
"Fire! There's a house on fire on the hills!"
Mr. Cooper, who, while his former friends were being captured, had,much against his will, been handcuffed to a policeman, called to Mr.Ireland.
"I reckon it's the crib. They been and set it afire, and left thebloke as they calls Paxton to burn inside of it. See if they ain't!"
* * * * *
It was Miss Strong who found him. Running round the burning building,she came to a little open window through which a man's hand wasstretched. The window was too high above the ground to enable her tosee into it. Only the hand was visible. She thought it belonged tosome one who was seeking to escape.
"Who are you?" she cried.
None answered. She touched the hand, supposing its owner did not hear.As she did so a piece of crumpled paper fell out of it. She caught atit as it fluttered through the air; looked at it--there was asufficiency of artificial light to enable her to see--saw her ownname--"my dear love, Daisy Strong"--staring her in the face; perceivedthat it was in the writing which she knew so well.
"Cyril, Cyril!"
She snatched at the hand which had held that paper--testimony of alove which was resolute to live even beyond the grave--sprang up atthe window, through which the smoke was streaming, with the flamesbeginning to follow after--broke into shrieks. They brought tools, andhaving by their aid removed the sashes, they dragged him by main forcethrough the window, through which he himself had vainly endeavoured toescape. And slowly, enduring as he went not a little agony, he wentthrough the Valley of the Shadow, branching out of it after allthrough a pass which led, not unto Death, but back again to the Plainof Life.
When, weeks after, he opened his eyes to consciousness, the firstthing he saw was, leaning over him, the face of the woman he loved.
"Daisy!"
In an attenuated whisper the name came from his lips. And, forgettingherself, she fell on his breast and kissed him, and in the tumult ofher joy cried as if her heart would break. While still his life was inthe balance, never once had she lost her self-control, fearing that ifshe did she might be banished from his presence. Now that the eventseemed clear, the cisterns of her heart were opened, and she wept asone distraught.
As the days went by Mr. Paxton understood not only that he was in abedroom in Miss Wentworth's house, but also that in the adjacentapartment there was something, or some one, whose presence MissStrong, at any rate, was desirous should be concealed from him. Thething becoming more and more conspicuous, Mr. Paxton insisted at laston having the mystery explained to him. With flashing eyes andfaltering lips Miss Strong explained.
In the room adjoining that in which he lay was a policeman. He hadbeen there all the time. He intended to remain, at least, as long asMr. Paxton stayed. Mr. Paxton was, in fact, a prisoner--a prisoner inMiss Wentworth's house. Since it had seemed likely that he would die,the authorities had suffered him to be committed to the hands offriends, in order that, if they could, they might nurse him back tohealth and strength. But not for an instant had he been out ofofficial supervision. Egress from the sick-chamber was only possibleby passing through the adjoining room; in that adjoining room apoliceman had been stationed night and day. Now that he was mending,at any moment rough, unfeeling hands might drag him off to ga
ol.
Miss Strong's manner, as she made the situation clear to Mr. Paxton,was reminiscent of the Tragic Muse. Her rage against Mr. Ireland wasparticularly fierce. When she spoke of him it was with clenched fistsand knitted brows and eyes like flaming coals.
"He actually dares to pretend to think that you had something to dowith the stealing of the Datchet diamonds."
Mr. Paxton seemed to hesitate; then took her breath away with hisanswer.
"He is right in thinking so; I had."
She was standing at his bedside. When he said that, she looked down athim as if she felt either that her ears must be playing her false orthat he must be still delirious. Yet he seemed to speak rationally,and although pale and wan and but the shadow of his old self, he didnot look as if he were insane.
"Cyril! You don't understand me. I say that he thinks that you hadsomething to do with the stealing of the Datchet diamonds--someimproper connection with the crime, I mean."
"I understand you perfectly well, my dear. I repeat, I had."
She sat down on a chair and gasped.
"You had! Goodness gracious! What?"
"After they had been stolen. The diamonds came into my possessionowing to an accident."
"Cyril! Whatever did you do with them?"
"They are in my possession now."
"The Datchet diamonds! In your possession! Where?"
Her eyes, opened at their widest, were round as saucers. She was aliving note of exclamation. Obviously, though he did not seem asthough he were, she felt that he must be still delirious. He quicklymade it plain to her, however, that he was nothing of the kind. Hetold her, clearly and succinctly, the whole strange history--nothingextenuating, attempting in no whit to whitewash the blackness of hisown offending--precisely as it all occurred. And when his tale was atan end, instead of reproaching him by so much as a look, she kissedhim, and, pillowing her lovely head upon his undeserving breast,anointed him with her tears, as if by what his criminality had costhim he had earned for himself a niche in hagiology. Later, he repeatedthe story to Mr. Franklyn and to Mr. Ireland. Neither of them weremoved to show signs of sympathy. Plainly his friend was of opinionthat, at the very least, he had played the fool; while the detective,whose moral sensibilities had perhaps been dulled by his constantcontact with crime, seemed to be struck rather by his impudence thanby anything else.
Mr. Paxton having voluntarily furnished Mr. Ireland with sufficientauthority to enable him to gain access to the safe which he rented inthat stronghold in Chancery Lane, the diamonds were found reposingsecurely in its fastnesses, exactly as he had described. Her Grace ofDatchet's heart was gladdened by the knowledge that her pricelesstreasures would be returned to her in the same condition in which theyleft her. And the thing, being noised abroad, became a nine days'wonder.
The law is very beautiful in its tender mercies. The honest man, beingsick, may die in a ditch, and no one cares. On the ailing criminal arelavished all the resources of medical science. Mr. Lawrence and hisfriend the Baron were far too precious in the eyes of the law to beallowed to die. It was absolutely indispensable that such unmitigatedscoundrels should be kept alive. And they were. Although, had not thenicest skill been continually at their disposal, they had been dead adozen times. Not only had Mr. Paxton broken both their skulls--wellbroken them too--with a breaking that required not a little mending;but, as if that were not enough, they had been nearly incinerated ontop of it. However, the unremitting attention with which the lawprovided them, because they were such rogues, sufficed to pull themthrough. And at last there came a day on which they were sufficientlyrecovered to permit of their taking their places in the dock in orderthat they might be charged with their offences.
The prisoners who stood before the magistrates, charged with variousdegrees of complicity in the robbery of the Duchess of Datchet'sdiamonds, were, to begin with, six in number. First and foremost wasReginald Hargraves, _alias_ Arthur Lawrence, _alias_ "The Toff,"_alias_, in all probability, twenty other names. From the beginning tothe end he bore himself with perfect self-possession, never leadingany one to suppose, either by look or gesture, that he took anyparticular amount of interest in what was going on. A second was IsaacBergstein, _alias_ "The Baron." His behaviour, especially when thechief and most damning testimony was being given against him, wascertainly not marked by the repose which, if we are to believe thepoet, is a characteristic of the caste of Vere de Vere. Cyril Paxtonwas a third; while the tail consisted of the three gentlemen who hadfallen into the hands of the Philistines on the road to Brighton.
Before the case was opened the counsel for the prosecution intimatedthat he proposed to offer no evidence against the defendant, CyrilPaxton, but, with the permission of the Bench, would call him as awitness for the Crown. The Bench making no objection, Mr. Paxtonstepped from the dock to the box, his whilom fellow-prisonersfollowing him on his passage with what were very far from being looksof love.
Mr. William Cooper and Mr. Paxton were the chief witnesses for theprosecution. It was they who made the fate of the accused a certainty.Mr. Cooper, in particular, had had with them such long and such anintimate acquaintance that the light which he was enabled to cast ontheir proceedings was a vivid one. At the same time, beyond all sortof doubt, Mr. Paxton's evidence was the sensation of the case. Seldomhas a more curious story than that which he unfolded been told, evenin that place in which all the strangest stories have been told, acourt of justice. He had more than one bad quarter of an hour,especially at the hands of cross-examining counsel. But, when he wasfinally allowed to leave the box, it was universally felt that, so faras hope of escape for the prisoners was concerned, already the casewas over. Their defenders would have to work something like a miracleif Mr. Paxton's evidence was to be adequately rebutted.
That miracle was never worked. When the matter came before the judgeat the assizes, his lordship's summing-up was brief and trenchant,and, without leaving their places, the jury returned a verdict ofguilty against the whole of the accused. Mr. Hargraves and Mr.Bergstein--who have figured in these pages under other names--was eachsent to penal servitude for twenty years, their colleagues beingsentenced to various shorter periods of punishment. Mr. Hargraves--orMr. Lawrence, whichever you please--bowed to the judge with quietcourtesy as he received his sentence. Mr. Bergstein, or the "Baron,"however, looked as if he felt disposed to signify his sentiments in analtogether different fashion.
CHAPTER XIX
A WOMAN'S LOGIC
The boom in the shares of the Trumpit Gold Mine continued long enoughto enable Mr. Paxton to realise his holding, if not at the topprice--that had been touched while he had been fighting for his lifein bed--still for a sum which was large enough to ensure his completecomfort, so far as pecuniary troubles were concerned, for the rest ofhis life. It was his final speculation. The ready money which heobtained he invested in consols. He lives on the interest, andprotests that nothing will ever again induce him to gamble in stocksand shares. Since a lady who is largely interested in his movementshas endorsed his promise, it is probable that he will keep his word.
Immediately after the trial Mr. Cyril Paxton and Miss Daisy Strongwere married quietly at a certain church in Brighton; if you findtheir names upon its register of marriages you will know which churchit was. In the first flush of his remorse and self-reproach--oneshould always remember that "when the devil was ill, the devil a saintwould be"--Mr. Paxton declared that his conduct in connection with theDatchet diamonds had made him unworthy of an alliance with a decentwoman. When he said this, urged thereto by his new-born humility andsense of shame, Miss Strong's conduct really was outrageous. Sheabused him for calling himself unworthy, asserted that all along shehad known that, when it came to the marrying-point, he meant to jilther; and that, since her expectations on that subject were now sofully realised, to her most desperate undoing, all that there remainedfor her to do was to throw herself into the sea from the end of thepier. She vowed t
hat everything had been her fault, exclaiming that ifshe had never fallen away from the high estate which is woman's properappanage, so far as to accept of the shelter of Mr. Lawrence'sumbrella in that storm upon the Dyke, but suffered herself to bedrowned and blown to shreds instead, nothing would have happened whichhad happened; and that, therefore, all the evil had been wrought byher. Though she had never thought--never for an instant--that hewould, or could, have been so unforgiving! When she broke into tears,affirming that, in the face of his hardheartedness, nothing was leftto her but death, he succumbed to this latest example of the beautifulsimplicity of feminine logic, and admitted that he might after all bea more desirable _parti_ than he had himself supposed.
"You have passed through the cleansing fires," she murmured, when, herreasoning having prevailed, a reconciliation had ensued. "And you haveissued from them, if possible, truer metal than you went in."
Mr. Paxton felt that that indeed was very possible. He allowed thecompliment to go unheeded--conscious, no doubt, that it wasundeserved.
"God grant that I may never again be led into such temptation!"
That was what he said. We, on our part, may hope that his prayer maybe granted.
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends