CHAPTER VIII.
THE SWINE THAT STANK.
When Amaryllis left her bedroom, having laid Melchard's letter on hertable, she had intended returning at once to pleasant and frivolousconversation with Dick Bellamy. For to-night she was nervous--a littleunstrung, it may be, by the pain she had given to his brother; and Dick,with his quiescent vitality, his odd phrases and uncompromisingdirectness of expression, seemed to her at that moment the most restfulcompanion in the world. If she could only get him started, he mightamuse and interest her as on the long drive the day before. And then, heseemed to be one of those people who understand even when you don'ttalk--and she remembered how he had cut into her father's chatter aboutMelchard by upsetting the candles.
But Sir Randal had met her between the door and the stairhead.
"Dick tells me I've got to play billiards all alone," he said; andthough his self-pity was merely playful, it struck the girl painfully.
"What a shame!" she began--and then a stupid lump came in her throat,and Randal saw the change in her face.
"My dear," he said, "you mustn't. I'm all right. Believe me, if it doeshurt a little, it won't spoil things for me as it might for a youngfellow. The world's a very interesting place, and I'm going to be jollyin it, just the same."
He looked at her for a moment anxiously.
"Be jolly too--there's a good girl. And, I say," he added with simpleeagerness, "you won't go running away from here to some dreadful aunt,will you?"
"I'll stay just as long as you and father want me to," she replied; but,finding speech difficult, finished with the best smile she couldcommand, and went down the stair, avoiding Dick and seeking refuge inRandal's study.
There the tears overcame her--though she tried to hide from herselftheir full reason.
Randal she had known for many weeks, and for Randal she was indeedtenderly grieved; but the other man, with his abruptness, his humour,and his lurking intensity, she had first seen the day before yesterday;and although she knew nothing of Mr. Richard Bellamy's opinion ofherself, and admitted in regard to her own future no more than that shefound him interesting, she was too well aware to deny, even to herself,that he had pushed his brother out of his chance.
To say this, she told herself, was but to confess that the younger manhad unconsciously reminded her of possibilities and dangers; but itseemed to be not only unkind but unjust that Sir Randal's misfortuneshould arise out of the very eagerness of his affection for this weirdbrother of his.
And then her father! He had said nothing, implied nothing, but sheforesaw disappointment.
It was all rotten, and the tears flowed.
Then came that hand on her shoulder, whose touch, although they hadnever, she remembered, even shaken hands, she knew before lifting hereyes to his.
When he had left her, although her tears were soon dry, she felt acurious restlessness of mind, and what she would have called "an excitedtiredness," and she stretched her body on the cushions of the settee fora moment's relaxation, which slipped at once into half an hour's sleep.
A whisper awoke her. She raised her head. The voice was behind her.Cautiously, kept silent between fear and curiosity, she rose and turnedher face to the alcove.
A man was there, with his back towards her--not one of her men. Hisclothes were grey; his right hand was on the open door of the safe, theleft holding a small parcel wrapped in white paper, and, separate, anenvelope.
Amaryllis knew what he held, and the courage rose in her to hold backthe scream which was coming, until she should have tight hold of thethief--the fingers of both hands, she hoped, fast in his collar.
She was close behind him, and he was locking the safe, when suddenly hefelt or heard her presence and swung round.
It was the face of Melchard; astonishment and disgust for a fatal momenttook away her breath. Before she could scream, his hands were on hermouth and naked neck, pushing her roughly backward until she was againstthe right-hand curtain and the corner of the wall. From behind thecurtain, it seemed, two small, soft hands stole over her shoulders andgripped her neck, squeezing it savagely.
Melchard took his left hand from her mouth, and as she tried in vain toscream in spite of the double grip on her throat, he crammed a handfulof the linen curtain between her tongue and palate with his longfingers.
"Take your cat's claws off her neck," she heard him mutter. "I'll keepher quiet."
And that was all before she fainted.
* * * * *
Her next sensation was of half-sitting, half-lying in an uneasyarm-chair--a chair which jolted, slid and swung, and then again glidedsmoothly. There was something hairy over her face, and she drew herbreath with difficulty.
She was in a car--the weight on her face was the hairy side of a rug.Movement seemed impossible, and the fur now and then hurt her eyes. Withan effort she managed to close the lids, and as tears slowly refreshedthe eye-balls, she was so much relieved that she might have fallenasleep, but for Melchard's detested voice sounding above her.
"I think that's Escrick we've just run through. York in ten minutesabout. When I say 'now,' down you go under the rug again. I'm the onlypassenger through the town."
"Why not go round York?" asked another voice, which Amaryllis had heardbefore; but where, she could not remember.
"We mustn't waste any time," answered Melchard. "Besides, if more peoplesee you in the streets of a town, fewer look at you than in the country.You'll have to duck in a minute, and I shall pile the bags and things ontop."
"They hurt me last time," said the softer voice.
"A thousand apologies," replied Melchard carelessly. "But it's all inthe good cause. By the way, you'd better have a look, and see if thegirl's all right before I cover you over."
"Oh, damn the girl!" answered the woman. "What's it matter if she dies?"
"If I'd wanted that, I'd have left her dead in her lover's study."
"Lover! Old Bellamy!" said the woman--and laughed.
"Not old enough, I guess, to help it."
"Nor you, Alban, to hide it," she retorted, groping at the rug whichcovered Amaryllis. "You gave her enough to keep her quiet another houror two, didn't you?"
"It's hard to tell with a new subject," he answered. "Morphine is trickyin opiate doses."
Then Amaryllis knew she had been drugged, and to appear as when theylast saw her, she half-opened her eyes, showed her teeth between drawnlips, and managed to keep her face rigid without even the quiver of aneyelid.
The rug was lifted for a moment and a face peered at hers; and she knewit for that of Sir Randal's late parlour-maid and lamented coffee-maker.
"She's just the same," said the woman. "Quite insensible, but not deadyet. Blast her!"
Melchard laughed. "The green-eyed monster as per usual," he said. "Youought to know me by this time, but you always mistake my universaladmiration of beauty for the tender passion."
"Don't be a fool," she answered. "What are you going to do with her?"
Melchard was silent, and the woman spoke again.
"Look here," she said, "I'm going to be right in this. I found thestuff for you. I got the key. And if I hadn't been with you to-nightyou'd have been lagged. I'm not so sure that you won't be, now, withthat ---- letter of yours from Paris."
"What's wrong with the letter?" asked Melchard.
"It would have done well enough if we hadn't had to bring thisred-haired wench of yours with us. Now that the girl's disappeared,it'll only attract attention."
"My sweet child," retorted Melchard, "that letter is a masterpiece. Idid leave a notebook behind. Legarde and Morneaux, besides swearing toit themselves, would bring a dozen others, all most respectable men, tosay that I did not leave Paris until the twenty-second, the day afterto-morrow."
"H'm!" said the woman. "M'yes, perhaps. And anyhow," she went on, with achuckle of relish, "by the time we've shipped the girl to Holland, shewon't remember her own name."
Then at last horror seize
d the soul of Amaryllis, and consciousness lefther.