CHAPTER XL.
MRS. HOLDFAST INSISTS UPON BECOMING AN ACTIVE PARTNER--(CONTINUED).
Richard Manx, as a man of gallantry, was generally ready for anyadventure with the fair sex which offered itself, but on the presentoccasion, despite his disposition to be amiable, he shrank withinhimself at being thus suddenly accosted. The intrusion of an unexpectedvoice--which at the moment he did not recognise--upon his thoughts awokehim to a sense of danger. He therefore walked on without replying,shaking the woman's hand from his arm; but was almost immediatelybrought to a standstill by the sound of the woman's steps hurrying afterhim.
She wore a cloak, with a hood to it, which was thrown over her head; inher haste the hood fell back, and her fair face, no longer hidden, shoneout from masses of light hair, in the disorder of which was a certainpicturesqueness which heightened the effect of her beauty. As her hoodfell back, Richard Manx turned and recognised her.
It was Mrs. Holdfast, the widow of the murdered man.
He uttered an exclamation of alarm, and with a frightened look around,pulled the hood over her head to hide her face.
"You mad woman!" he exclaimed; "do you want to ruin us? What brings youhere?" Then a sudden thought drove all the blood from his face. "Hasanything happened?" he asked, in a whisper.
She laughed at his agitation. "Nothing has happened," she replied,"except that I am worn out with sameness."
"Then what in the devil's name brings you here?" he asked again.
"For shame, Pelham," she said, lightly, "to be so rude to a lady! Whatbrings me here? I have told you. I am worn out with sameness. Sittingdown with nothing to do, without excitement, in a house as dull andquiet as a doll's cradle, doesn't suit me. I was not cut out for thatsort of life!"
"You could have waited a little," he grumbled, somewhat reconciled tofind that they were not being observed; "you were sure of another sortof life presently."
"I'll have it, thought I to myself, without waiting," she said,recklessly, "and I feel better already. Running away from my doll'scradle without preparation, with an idea in my head I am going to carryout, has put new life into me. My blood isn't creeping through my veins;it is dancing, and I am alive once more. Really now I feel as if Ishould like to waltz with you round the Square!"
"Are you quite mad?" he cried, holding her still by force, but unable torefrain from admiration of her wild flow of spirits. "We have but a fewhours to wait. Can't you content yourself for a little while? What isthis insane idea of yours which you are going to carry out!"
"To spend the evening with you, my dear," she replied gaily.
"Where?"
"In Great Porter Square. Where else?"
While this conversation was proceeding, he had led her in an oppositedirection from the house in which he lodged, and they were now on theother side of the Square.
"Now I am sure you are mad," he said. "Do you know what I have to doto-night?"
"No," she replied, "and I am curious to know."
"I keep it to myself; but you will hear of it, and when you do you willlaugh. Shall I leave behind me a danger hanging over my head--and yours?A secret that one day may be discovered, and bring ruin and death tome--and you? No, no; they make a mistake in the mettle of Dick Pelhamif they think he is going to leave a trap-door open for himself to fallinto."
"I should fall also, Pelham!" she said half-questioningly.
"Why, yes; you would come down with me. It couldn't be helped, I fear.I have a kind of dog-in-the-manger feeling for you. If I can't have youmyself, I'll not leave you to another man."
"It _can't_ be helped, I suppose," she said, shrugging her shoulders;"but it doesn't matter to me so long as I am enjoying myself."
"Very well, then," said he, in a decided tone; "go home now, and getyour trinkets and dresses in order, for by to-day week we'll be out ofthis dull hole. We'll live where the sun shines for the future. Hurrynow, and off with you. I have a serious night's work before me."
"I will help you in it," she said, in a tone as decided as his own. "Itisn't a bit of use bullying, Pelham. I've made up my mind. I haven'tseen your room in No. 118, and I intend to see it. I have a right to,haven't I? The wonder is I have kept away so long; and this is the lastnight I shall have the chance. I was curious before, but I'm a thousandtimes more curious now, and if you were to talk all night you wouldn'tput me off. You are going to do something bold--all the better; I'll bethere to see, and I dare say I can be of assistance to you. We are inpartnership, and I insist upon being an active partner. How do I knowbut that you have been deceiving me all this while?"
"In what way?" he demanded fiercely.
"I will make sure," she said, "that you haven't a pretty girl hiddenin that garret of yours, and that you don't want to run away with herinstead of me?"
"Jealous!" he cried, with a gratified laugh; "after telling me a dozentimes lately that you hated the sight of me!"
"That's a woman's privilege. If you don't understand us by this time, itis too late for you to begin to learn. Pelham, I am coming up with you."
"You are determined?"
"As ever a woman was in this world. If you run from me now, and enterthe house without me, I'll follow you, and knock at the door, andinquire for Mr. Richard Manx; and if they ask me who I am, I'll say Iam _Mrs._ Richard Manx."
"I believe you would," he said, looking down into her face, and notknowing whether to feel angry or pleased.
"I would, as truly as I am a woman."
"There's no help for it, then," he said; "but I don't know how to getyou into the house without being observed."
"Nothing easier. All the time we've been talking I haven't seenhalf-a-dozen people. Choose a moment when nobody's about; open the doorquickly, and I'll slip in like an eel. Before you shut the door, I'll beat the top of the house."
"Let me warn you once more; there is danger."
"All the better; there's excitement in danger."
"And if I don't find what I've been hunting for these weeks past, Iintend to carry out a desperate design, which if successful--and itmust be; I'll make it so--will place us in a position of perfectsafety."
"Bravo, Pelham; I never thought you had so much pluck. I will helpyou in everything you have to do. Now let us get into the house. I amdrenched through. You can make a fire, I suppose."
He cautioned and instructed her how to proceed, and they walked toNo. 118, he leading, and she but a step or two behind. Seeing no personnear, he opened the door with one turn of the key, and she glidedrapidly past him, and was on the stairs, and really nearly at the top ofthe house, feeling her way along the balustrades, before he was up thefirst flight. Safely within the miserable room he had hired, he turnedthe key, and lighted a candle; then, pointing to wood and coals, hemotioned her to make a fire. The stove was so small she could not helplaughing at it, but he whispered to her savagely to stop her merriment,and not to utter a sound that could be heard outside the room. The firelighted, she sat before it, and dried her clothes as well as she could,while he busied himself about the room. Then he sat down by her side,and explained his plans. As long as suspicion could be averted fromthem, and as long as they were sure that no document written by Mr.Holdfast between the date of his taking lodgings in No. 119 Great PorterSquare, and the date of his death, could be produced against them--solong were they safe. Suspicion was averted from them, as they believed,and they had every reason to believe that the murder would take itsplace, nay, had already taken its place, upon the list of monstrouscrimes, the mystery of which would never be brought to light. Their onlydanger, then, lay in the probable discovery of the supposed document forwhich Pelham, as Richard Manx, had so long been searching. From what hadbeen made known by the press and the police of Mr. Holdfast's movementsafter his taking up his residence in No. 119, and from what theythemselves knew, it was almost impossible that such a document, if ithad existence, could have been taken out of the house. Pelham had soughtfor it unsuccessfully. What then, remained to be done for safety? To s
etfire to the house in which it was hidden, to burn it to the ground, andthus blot out from existence all knowledge of their crime.
This was Pelham's desperate plan, and this deed it was he intended toperpetrate to-night. For a few hours longer he would search the room inwhich Mr. Holdfast was murdered, and then, everything being prepared toprevent failure, he would fire the house, and in the confusion make hisescape, and disappear for ever from the neighbourhood. Mrs. Holdfast'sunexpected appearance on the scene complicated matters--the chiefdifficulty being how to get her away, during the confusion produced bythe fire, without being observed. But when, unwillingly, he had givenan enforced consent to her wild whim of keeping in his company on thiseventful night, he had thought of a way to overcome the difficulty. Inher woman's dress, and with her attractive face, he could scarcely hopethat she would escape observation; but he had in his room a spare suitof his own clothes, in which she could disguise herself, and with herface and hands blackened, and her hair securely fastened and hiddenbeneath a soft felt wideawake hat which hung in his garret, he had nofear that she would be discovered.
She entered into his plans with eagerness, and the adventure in whichshe was engaged imparted a heightened colour to her face and a deeperbrilliancy to her eyes. As she leant towards the fire, with thereflection of its ruddy glow in her features, an uninformed man, gazingat her only for a moment, would have carried away with him a pictureof beauty and innocence so enduring that his thoughts would often havewandered to it.
"Here are your clothes," said Pelham; "when we are ready I will mount tothe roof, and wait till you are dressed. Then I will come and assist youup. I have two or three journeys to make to the next house before were-commence the search. See what I have here."
He unlocked the box in the corner which Becky had vainly tried toopen, and took from it a tin can filled with pitch, two small cans ofinflammable oil, and a packet of gunpowder.
"These will make the old place blaze," he said, laughing. "It will be agood job done if all Great Porter Square is burnt down. The landlady ofthis house ought to pay me a per-centage upon her insurance. The firewill be the making of her."
"When do we begin?" asked Grace.
"Sooner than usual," he replied. "At about half-past ten. The night isso bad that the Square will be pretty well deserted; and there is no onein this house to disturb us."
He did not neglect the precaution of going to the door occasionallyand listening, but he saw and heard nothing to alarm him. Exactly athalf-past ten he bade Grace dress as quickly as possible in the suit ofhis clothes, and to disguise herself to the best of her ability. Herown woman's dress she was to tie up in a bundle and bring with her intothe next house. He mounted to the roof, and she handed him the cans andthe packet which were to ensure the destruction of No. 119. Then sheproceeded to disguise herself.
It was a task exactly to her taste. She took the greatest pleasure inmaking herself look as much as possible like a young man, and as shegazed at herself in the broken bit of looking-glass fastened to thewall, she said aloud,
"Upon my word, Gracie, you make a very pretty boy!"
She wore a great many trinkets, which she wrapped in paper, and put intoher pockets, but the novelty of her disguise, and the inconvenient spacein which she effected it, caused her to drop two of these, a ring and anearring, and although she searched the floor carefully, she could notfind them. Her hair she twisted into a tight knot at the top of herhead, and the wideawake completely covered it. Richard Manx made hisappearance at the trap-door above, and asked if she was ready. Sheanswered that she was, and he assisted her up, lifting her, indeed,almost bodily from the chairs upon which she stood.
"What a little lump of weakness you are!" he exclaimed. "You can't weighabove a hundred pounds."
Carefully he led her over the roof, and down the trap-door, intothe next house. Standing in the dark with him in the garret of thistenement, he felt that she trembled.
"If you are going to show the white feather," he whispered, "you hadbetter turn back. There is time even now."
Little did she imagine how much hung upon the opportunity offered her.She refused it, saying that she had experienced a slight chill, andthat she would go on; so he led her, white-faced now and shaking inevery limb, down the stairs to the room in which her husband had beenmurdered.
Its appearance, while it bewildered, afforded her relief. Had it been inorder, as she had seen it when her husband had occupied it, she couldnot have controlled her agitation; but it was so torn up, the work ofdestruction had been so wanton, that she could scarcely recognise it asthe same room.
"Have you any brandy, Pelham?" she asked, careful, as he had directedher, not to raise her voice.
He had a bottle with him, and he gave her some in a glass, upon whichher courage returned, and she shook her head defiantly, as much as tosay, "Who cares?"
"I haven't been idle, you see," said Pelham, pointing around. "Amuseyourself while I do what is necessary."
What was "necessary" was the villainous work of scattering the gunpowderabout, disposing of the pitch, and pouring the oil upon the walls andflooring of the passage. At the conclusion of this part of his schemethere was still a great deal of inflammable material left, and thesehe placed aside, the pitch and the oil in the tins, and the gunpowder,loose, in its paper packet, in the room in which he was at work.
"Are you sure there is no one but ourselves in the house?" asked Grace.
"Listen for yourself," replied Pelham. "If you like you can godownstairs and look. I'll ensure you against anything but ghosts andfire."
She shuddered, and, to divert her thoughts, endeavoured to take apractical interest in the search for the hidden document. It wasdifficult, in the state of the room, to move about, and she soon grewwearied. She threw herself upon the bed, and longed impatiently for thetime when the crowning touch would be given to the wicked work in whichshe had insisted upon becoming an active partner.
[Decoration]