CHAPTER XI
COALS OF FIRE
All this time there came no word from the master of the house, nor had the coach returned; but between nine and ten it did, and Mr. Harding was out and up the steps before it stopped.
In the hall he inquired for his daughter; she had gone upstairs; he rushed up instantly. Claire was waiting for him at her bedroom door. He thundered in and shut it behind him.
“They have got him!” cried Claire, with both hands to her heart.
“Got whom?” said her father, sharply. “Got whom, eh?”
Her face fell beneath the angry glitter in his eyes.
“The man—they want—for this frightful business,” said she lamely, and sank down upon a chair.
"And pray who is he? You seem to know!"
No answer, save twitching fingers, rocked body, lowered lids.
"If you were to hear it was that young Erichsen—would it surprise you very much? No, it would not!" It had only stilled her. "And now I intend to know why not! You have thrown sand enough in my eyes; but your manner this morning told me something, and I am determined to know all there is to know—before—I—leave—this—room."
And with no less emphatic deliberation the father strode to the door, locked it and pocketed the key; but was met on his return with such wild eyes and suppliant hands that even his harsh heart melted at the sight.
"Only tell me whether they have captured him," she said, "and I faithfully promise to tell you all."
"Well, then, they have not; but they precious soon will. Now keep your promise."
It was kept to the letter. She had been very wicked, she had deceived and disobeyed her father for months and years; but now she had her reward. She had been lonely at Winwood, so had Tom. They had just made friends when the fathers quarrelled; it was too hard for them to have to quarrel too; and Claire confessed that rough treatment had always stirred up rebellion within her, though never before to such purpose as then. So the friendship had continued, but had never been anything more until two years later, when Tom Erichsen was on the eve of sailing; and then—and then—
"I understand," said Mr. Harding, sarcastically; "that's quite enough. But why didn't he sail? How did you know he hadn't? And what was his connection with Blaydes?"
Claire told him of the chance meeting near the Park; of her letter, and the secret interview that was all her doing; of Blaydes’s perfidy to Tom, and of the latter’s quick discovery that his enemy was their friend; of her first refusal to give him the address, but her ultimate and fatal surrender of the same. All this she told without fear or further hesitation, extenuating nothing in her own defence, but as much as she could in defence of Tom. A true woman, she had her theory of the crime already, and was quite convinced it was correct. Tom had indeed killed his man—of that even she had never a moment’s doubt; but he had not killed him intentionally, or struck a blow until Blaydes had drawn his deadlier weapon. She simply did not believe that Tom had touched either his watch or his pin; somebody else had done that—very likely the man who found the body.
Mr. Harding quietly disabused her on these points. He had spent some time at Scotland Yard, as a friend of the deceased who could give information; but he had contrived to gain more. He had thus kept his lead of the town regarding the facts of the case; and Claire was struck dumb with horror when she heard of the guilty flight from the coachman’s house, and of the undoubted possession by Tom of the dead man’s watch and chain. The father put it plainly, but without unnecessary brutality; nor did he belabour her with reproaches now that he knew all. On the contrary, he spoke of the suspected murderer with none of the vituperative bitterness which she had often heard him lavish on the detested parson’s good-for-nothing son.
“But you see,” said he, “what has come of your folly! You have entangled yourself with a young fellow whose fate, if he be caught, one would rather not contemplate; you may even be called as a witness against him!”
“Against him!”
“You certainly would be if last night’s interview leaked out.”
“It never shall.”
“And if you told a jury all you have told me, about the address and all that, I am afraid it would hang him if nothing else did.”
“Hang Tom!”
“Well, Claire, it looks to me very like a hanging matter; it would need a very clever, and probably a very costly defence, to give him the ghost of a chance of having it brought in anything less.”
“Then he must have it!” cried Claire. “Oh, he never could have done it—wilfully! He must have the very best defence that can be got; but, oh! who will pay for it?”
“I am thinking of doing so myself,” replied Mr. Harding, quietly. “I don’t say I will, but I may.”
“You!”
And the girl was sobbing upon his breast, with her arms about his thick red neck, as they had not been for many a year now. He removed them, but almost gently, and told her not to jump at conclusions, as he had by no means made up his mind: indeed, let them first catch their man. But as the lad’s father had been his constituent as well as his enemy, on whom he had perhaps been a little hard, he thought that on the whole it might prove the right and proper thing to do. Claire was overwhelmed, not only with gratitude for a first gleam of comfort, but also with shame. All these years she had misjudged that magnanimous man, her own father; and what coals of fire was he heaping on her undutiful head! She cried herself to sleep with shame and hope; and that was when Tom Erichsen was flying south from Westbourne Park, with the police in full cry at his heels.
Next day was the Saturday, and Claire was almost herself again, to the outward eye. She was early afoot, and met the newspaper boy in the road; she had thus first sight of the Times; but it told her little that she had not learnt from Mr. Harding overnight. Tom was still at large, that was the chief thing; but to-day there was a full description of him, and its accuracy sickened the brave heart which beat and trembled for him every minute of every hour.
This day was complicated by the return from school of the elder children of the second family. Two were still in the nursery; but two were weekly boarders at a luxurious seminary at Gunnersbury, and the tragic fate of Captain Blaydes was ordered to be kept from their young ears. This was difficult. The children were in evidence from the Saturday afternoon until the Monday morning. Then they were very fond of Claire, in whom they discerned a difference, and she would not tell them what it was. But on the Sunday morning, when they were all ready for church, and only waiting for Mr. Harding, in he came at the gate with a newspaper in his hand; and Claire ran forward to meet him; and she did not go to church with them after all.
Thomas Erichsen had been apprehended at Kew on the Saturday evening, and lodged for that night in the local lockup. The bare fact was read by Mr. Harding in next day’s Dispatch, and by Claire in her father’s face, before she heard it from his lips at twenty minutes to eleven in the morning. The girl created no scene before the children, and thus made a still firmer friend of her father for the time being; but her mental torture admitted of no further surprise at his amazing attitude; she was grateful to him, but that was all. On the Sunday night he came to tell her that he had made inquiries, and that the prisoner had been removed to the cells at the Marylebone police-office, where he would come before the magistrate next day. On the Monday morning she gave him his breakfast early and alone; and he then assured her that he was going to see what could be done.
“But not a word of this to anybody,” he added, as the coach came around. “If I do anything, it may be best to do it secretly after all. But I shall first consult my lawyer. I don’t want Daintree, for instance, to know anything at all about it; he might misconstrue our interest in so near a neighbour; and I have already told him that we hardly ever saw and never spoke to young Erichsen in our lives. Do you hear me, Claire? You are to back me up in this, or I wash my hands of the whole affair. I have forgiven you freely for what is past; you must promise me to keep it rigorously to yourself, not only now, but hereafter always!” Claire promised.
Mr. Harding did not consult his own lawyer at all. But he went on foot to the purlieus of the Old Bailey, and there mounted to a noisome den, with his shoulders up and his hat well over his eyes. He departed as furtively some minutes later; and was followed down the breakneck stairs by an unclean vulture of a man, with snuffy beak and grimy talons, who skipped into a cabriolet and was driven at speed to the Marylebone office.
There was a dense crowd outside, but with the free use of his own elbows and Mr. Harding’s money, the Old Bailey lawyer fought and bought his way in. He was in time to witness the formal remand of Thomas Erichsen, and to draw his own conclusion from the bold fixed eyes and tremulously scornful lips behind the iron railing of the dock. That look was less for the magistrate than for the opera-glasses of the noble lord whom the magistrate had allowed upon the bench. But the Old Bailey lawyer read it his own way: here was a glaringly guilty man putting a face of brass upon a heart of putty: the very type with which he was best accustomed and most competent to deal. So the vulture took a pinch of snuff that resounded through the court, and, on the prisoner’s removal, squeezed out himself to make inquiries. It was as he expected. The prisoner would be conveyed immediately to the new prison at Clerkenwell. But the attorney managed to get away first through the swelling crowd now on tip-toe for the prison van; and in a neighbouring tavern he had his heartiest meal that year, also with Mr. Harding’s money.
Between three and four he presented himself, well primed, at Clerkenwell, and sent in a greasy card to the prisoner.
“He is much obliged, but he doesn’t want to see you,” said the turnkey, on his reappearance.
“Tell him I am commissioned by his friends to get up his defence. No expense to be spared. Tell him that.”
The turnkey was gone longer, but came back shaking his head.
“He says it is impossible. He has no friends. And you mention no name.”
“That is true; but my client’s name is the one thing my client will not give.”
This did it; the ambassador returned beckoning, and conducted the visitor to a narrow dark cell, at the end of which glowered the prisoner on his bed. Two more turnkeys joined them at the door.
“Do you want to be alone with him?” said they.
“It is absolutely necessary.”
“Very well. We wait outside.”
And the three officials withdrew across the corridor, and chatted a little, but kept an eye on the open door. They saw the lawyer seat himself upon the chair, at a gesture from the prisoner, who restrained him with another as he edged it nearer and nearer the bed. They heard the lawyer’s whisper, low and rapid, and saw his dirty gesticulating fingers; but not his face; only that of the prisoner, very calm and cold. Suddenly it flared up; and next instant the visitor was hurled through the open door, and Thomas Erichsen stood with the empty chair poised a moment, before dashing it after him with a yell of rage.
Two of the turnkeys rushed in and secured this caged tiger, while the third knelt over the Old Bailey lawyer, who lay moaning outside.
“It’ll be a strait-waistcoat for you, my beauty, after this.”
“You’ve half killed him!”
“Half killed him?” roared Tom. “Only let in another of them, to insult and threaten me, and I’ll kill him quite, and deserve all I get!”
And he tore away from them, and flung himself, unstrung and sobbing, upon the bed.