CHAPTER VI
Up the path came Tom Barnard, wheeling the somewhat old-fashioned bicycle, which he had bought second hand. From behind the saddle dangled two or three little brown paper parcels which he had brought back from London (whither he journeyed very seldom), to give pleasure to Rose and Poppet.
At sight of the familiar and well-loved figure, Mrs. Barnard's self-control suddenly snapped, and she broke into hysterical crying as she ran down the path, holding out both hands like a child, to the one she best loved and trusted.
"Why, little woman!" exclaimed the farmer, alarmed at such an unaccustomed display of emotion. "Nothing wrong with the baby?"
"No—no," and then the story came tumbling from her lips anyhow, in strange confusion, choked with sobs. How Poppet had screamed, and the Colonel was there, covered with blood—no, not covered, but there was a lot. And he could hardly speak, so she dared not ask questions; but he said her ladyship was dead, and he wanted Tom; and Jimmy Russell had gone on her (Rose's) bicycle for the doctor and the police—yes, the police; she wasn't mistaken. And whatever it was, was up by the Tower. She wanted the Colonel to stop; but he wouldn't, so she supposed
Tom waited for no more. Leaving the bicycle with its dangling parcels, against the arbour, without another question or word to his wife, he turned on his heel and ran down the path with great loping strides which would take him up the hill to the Tower at the rate of a mile in eight minutes. It was enough for him that his adored Colonel was in trouble, and was to be found near the Tower: he wanted to know nothing further, for it was dreadful to Tom Barnard that Sir Ian had come in vain to seek his help. If he could have been transported in that instant to the Tower, without having to waste a moment by the way, in getting there, he would have given months of his life, even months of happiness with Rose and the child; for Tom owed the good fortune of years past and present to Sir Ian, and no sacrifice would be sacrifice, if made for him.
On the side of the road opposite the farmhouse gate, was a gate which led to a private path through the woods. There was a notice tacked to a tree near by, stating that trespassers would be prosecuted; but nobody ever had been prosecuted, within the memory of man. The gate was kept locked, but it was easy for a man to vault over it. Sir Ian Hereward had no doubt done so, in coming to the farm with his tragic news, and again on returning to the woods. Tom Barnard followed his example, for though he had a key which fitted the rusty padlock, it did not even occur to him to stop and get it.
The narrow path was made narrower still by the intrusion of bracken from either side, and was over hung by the branches of low-growing beech and ash trees. A little distance from the road it divided, going to the right toward the cottage of the head keeper, and mounting the hill straight ahead, with few windings toward the Tower. The windless air seemed, to Barnard, to be pressed down by the trees, until it weighed heavy as a pall upon his head. He had looked forward to the refreshment of coming back into the country after the heat and dust of London; and he had come to this! His temples throbbed, and the green light in the silent woods gave no ease to his eyes, which saw red, as if they peeped through a net work of bloodshot veins. The crackling of tiny branches and last year's pine-cones under his feet only emphasized the stillness and made it terrible to him for the first time in his recollection. It was as if the woods whispered of the secret that he was on his way to find out, a secret of horror, which it seemed unnatural that such a fairy place should harbour.
Barnard did not consciously think these thoughts, yet they beat in his brain, and it was the hammering of them against his temples which made his head throb as if it might burst.
Fast as he walked, crashing through all obstacles such as flowering bushes and boughs of young trees, the time he took in gaining the top of the hill was almost interminable to him. But at last he reached the plateau where, seen down a green vista between two evenly planted avenues of pines, rose the stone tower. Beyond there was a drop, which gave to the hill an effect of great height, as if it stood like a great ship in the midst of the billowy blue sea which meant the rising and falling land of three counties. As Barnard entered the avenue of trees, a figure moved at the far end, showing black for an instant against the faint violet drop-curtain of mingling sky and landscape. Others might not have recognized it at that distance, but Tom did. It was the form of Sir Ian Hereward; and Tom called encouragingly, "I'm coming, sir!" Then he started to run faster, breathing hard; and the sweat that came out on his forehead felt cold, not hot, as he ran, though the air was dead even on the height.
Sir Ian came to meet him, with long steps, and though he was very pale, with set jaws, the curious nightmare-dread of what he might have to find at the Tower suddenly became less acute for Barnard as he saw his old Colonel's face.
"I wanted you, Tom," said Sir Ian. "You were the only man I" he could not finish.
"I'm here, sir," answered Barnard. "I came the instant I got home."
"Yes. I knew you would. Your wife told you what"
"As well as she could, sir. Something has happened to her ladyship"
"She is dead. I came to look for her, and I found—this."
He turned, facing toward the Tower as if by an effort, and walking with his head down. Tom followed, catching up with him, and keeping by his side.
The door leading into the ground-floor room of the Tower was open, though it was supposed to be locked always, as Tom Barnard well knew. He went into the small, square room, close on Sir Ian's heels, and saw Lady Hereward lying along the floor on her back. She lay so that, as they entered, the top of her head was turned toward them; and they saw her face, as it were, upside down. An expression of agony and despair seemed to be carved upon the stony features, and so terrible was it to see, that Barnard cried out. Sir Ian made no sound, but a slight shudder convulsed his muscles.
There was blood on the floor and on her delicate gray dress, a little, too, on her soft brown hair, which was scarcely disarranged, but none on the marble-white face. Her eyes were wide open, and raised, as if she had died looking at something above her head, and gazing down into them it was as if they stared up with an expression of anguish straight into Tom Barnard's.
Involuntarily he started back, but controlled himself directly. At first, he saw no wound; then, a second look showed a blackened mark low down in the side of the throat, from which blood had poured, but had now ceased to flow.
"Shot!" he ejaculated, half under his breath.
"Shot," Sir Ian echoed.
"My God, sir, who could have done it?"
"Who, indeed!" the other echoed again.
"You found her like this?"
"Yes. Except that—she was almost on her face. I—turned her over to see—to find out—if she were dead, or only"
"I understand, sir. What a ghastly, what an unbelievable thing! I don t believe it now. We shall wake up, sir. It must be some dream."
"Would to God it were," said Sir Ian. "I would die the same death she has died, a hundred times over, if I could bring her back to life. But I can't. That's the horror of it."
"It's enough to drive a man mad, sir," stammered Barnard. "But bear up. At least we'll have revenge on the brute who has done this thing."
"Revenge!" the other man repeated bitterly.
"Oh, I know that won't give her back to you, sir, but flesh and blood is flesh and blood, and it would be a satisfaction. What beast, what maniac is there vile enough to murder her ladyship, good to every one, loved by every one? It's beyond reason. It's the act of a monster. Why, sir"—and Barnard stooped lower—"did you see—did you notice—her ladyship's rings are gone, the beautiful rings she always wore, and her brooch"
"Yes, I saw," Sir Ian answered, his voice breaking as if at the recollection of that first awful moment when he had seen what there was to see.
"Then it was a robbery"
"It looks like it."
"Some tramp—hiding here in the Tower. The brute—the unspeakable brute! I hope to heaven they'll catch him. I wish I"
The muffled sound of feet on the carpet of pine-needles outside broke short Tom s sentence. The doctor had arrived at the same time with a superintendent of police and a constable.