The Collected Works of J. S. Fletcher: 17 Novels & 28 Short Stories (Illustrated Edition). J. S. Fletcher
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killed him, possibly accidentally, in the course of the quarrel."
Tatfendale threw up his head and laughed sneeringly.
"Where's the man's body, then?" he asked.
"I said I would tell you plain facts," said Wroxdale. "Well, one plain fact is that there is a theory abroad that she concealed Perris's body somewhere on the premises, and that it was burned in the course of that fire. A wild theory, you may say—but a possible one, Mark, a very possible one. Remember, in all cases like this, cases of mystery, everybody will theorise. I dare say the wildest, the most extravagant theories have been made in the various bar-parlours, and round the inn kitchen fires. Folks will talk."
Taffendale picked up his gloves and his riding-whip.
"I wish it was all over," he said "I wish something would bring it to a head. It's like fighting something in the dark, a shadow, something that you can't get hold of. It's—awful!"
He rose to his feet, turning to the door, and Wroxdale rose, too. The solicitor trifled with the papers on his desk for a while before speaking again.
"Well, Mark," he said, at last, "perhaps it may come to a head sooner than you think. Between you and me, I've heard that there's been a Scotland Yard man down here for a week or two. My information may be wrong, but I have heard that he's working disguised as a labourer at Cherry-trees, on the cottages you're building If he and the local police get anything like a decent clue, a line to follow, they 'll act. And then—well, then a great deal of suspense will be over. At any rate, Mrs. Perris will know what she's called upon to face."
"Man, she's as innocent as a child!" exclaimed Taffendale. "Whatever her faults are or may have been, I'd stake all I've got in the world and whatever I hope for in whatever there is to come on her innocence. She knows no more of the death of that man Webster, nor where Perris is, dead or alive, than you do! By God!—I'm sure she doesn't. And see here, Wroxdale—supposing she is tried, and found innocent, as she must be—there's lots of 'em round here 'll go on saying she's guilty. Bah!—I wish I could shoot most of 'em—a pack of canting hypocrites!"
"Human nature, Mark, human nature! But you're right," said Wroxdale, "you're quite right. Nothing will make this matter clear, white, plain again until two things can definitely be proved—who killed Pippany Webster, and where is Abel Perris, dead or alive? That's the truth."
Taffendale turned to the door and hesitated before he had taken more than a step. He turned again, laughing bitterly.
"You see what a coward I've become, Wroxdale!" he said. "I hate the thought of going to the George for my horse, although it's dark, for I know that the very stable lads look at me with curiosity."
"Then don't go," said Wroxdale kindly. "I'll send for your horse round here, to my garden gate."
But Taffendale shook his head and put on his hat with a firmer pressure. No, he was going to keep a stiff upper lip through it all. And he strode away to the inn and got his horse and rode off into the darkness, breathing more freely when the lights of the little town were left behind.
It was half-past five o'clock when Taffendale reached the Limepits, and the land was lying under a wintry pall of drear blackness around the solidly built farmstead and its long range of gaunt buildings. There was not a sign of a star in the sky, but from the quarry a circling shaft of flame was shooting up to the night from a newly-lighted kiln. It made a pillar of fire in the gloom, and as Taffendale glanced that way, previous to passing in at his yard gate, he saw a dark figure standing outlined against it on the edge of the quarry at the spot where he and the gamekeeper had talked that morning which now seemed so far off. There was something curiously sinister in the sight of that figure, made preternaturally tall and spectral by the flame behind it, but Taffendale gave it no more than a glance. He took his horse to the stables, and going through the house went to the parlour, where he expected to find his housekeeper and Rhoda at tea. The housekeeper was alone, and as the door opened she looked up with something of anxiety.
"Where's Mrs. Perris?" asked Taffendale.
The housekeeper, an elderly woman, who had managed Taffendale's domestic affairs for many years, shook her head.
"I don't know," she answered. "She's been out nearly all this afternoon—at any rate, since long before it was dark. And, Mark—I'm beginning to get frightened about her."
"Frightened?" said Taffendale. "Why?"
"I don't know. She—she seems strange, abstracted in her manner," replied the housekeeper. "She never talks now, and she sits staring at—nothing. She oughtn't to be left alone, Mark. And I didn't mean to leave her alone this afternoon—she slipped off when my back was turned."
Taffendale stood for a moment trying to realise this new trouble. He suddenly remembered the dark figure outlined on the edge of the quarry, against the leaping pillar of flame.
"I'll go out and see if I can find her," he muttered.
He went across the garden and the land which separated the farmstead from the lime-pits with new sensations of fear in his heart. He was not unobservant and he had long known what Rhoda was suffering. She talked little: she never smiled; she had begged to be allowed to take part in the house-work, and the housekeeper, like a wise woman, had kept her fully employed. But Taffendale had seen that she was every day becoming more and more melancholy, and a vague dread, which he could not analyse, was springing up in his heart about her. What if—but at the first prompting of what was in his mind he tightened his hold upon himself and strode on.
The figure which he had seen on the edge of the quarry was no longer there, no longer, at any rate, between him and the leaping flame. He hurried on until he came to the very edge of the great chasm which many generations of the Taffendale lime-burners had made in the land; the yellow light from the newly-built kiln gleamed on the uneven flooring far below. And glancing anxiously about him, he was suddenly aware of a dark figure which sat, huddled up, in a little alcove cut out of the bank, and with a stride he reached and touched it.
"Rhoda!" he said fearfully. "Rhoda!"
And with a quick leaping of something that he could not explain, he dropped on his knees at her side and felt for her hands. In the light of the flame beneath them she lifted her face, and Taffendale groaned at the pain in it.
"Oh, Rhoda!" he cried. "What's this? Why are you here? Your hands—they're like ice. You'll catch your death of cold sitting here. Come away, Rhoda, come away!"
For a moment she made no answer, and in the stillness Taffendale heard two sounds. One was the cheery crackle and splutter of the fire burning merrily in the quarry; the other the onward rush of an express train tearing its way across the level land some miles off across country. In that train sat Perris, sucking stolidly at his pipe—but of that Taffendale knew nothing. He only knew that Rhoda was in the grip of a power beyond him.
She turned her face full upon him presently, and he saw that it was white and drawn, and that her eyes were full of something that he had never seen there before. And suddenly she disengaged one of her hands, and lifting it, smoothed the hair away from his forehead. Until then he had not realised that he had hurried out of the house without hat or cap.
"Mark!" she said quietly. "Mark!—I came out here to kill myself."
Taffendale, overwrought already by the conversation which he had had with Wroxdale, felt a great sickness break over him on hearing these words, spoken so calmly as to carry conviction of a sure purpose. He never afterwards heard the crackling of a kiln fire nor the roar of a distant train without remembering them and his own terrible sense of helplessness to answer them. He could say nothing, but he bent his head on the woman's shoulder and groaned.
"I didn't see aught else to do," Rhoda said, after a long silence. "I've laid awake at night and seen no other way. It's come up before me as I went about the house and did what bit of work I could find to do, and still there seemed nothing else—nothing. I know what they're all saying, and how they look at you and I've thought that if—if I was out of the way things might be different."
"No!" said Taffendale. "No!"
"And