A DECLARATION
Dunn knew very well that he ought to give immediate information to the authorities of what had happened.
But he did not.He told himself that nothing could help poor John Clive, and that any precipitate action on his part might still fatally compromise his plans, which were now so near completion.
But his real reason was that he knew that if he came forward he would be very closely questioned, and sooner or later forced to tell the things he knew so terribly involving Ella.
And he knew that to surrender her to the police and proclaim her to the world as guilty of such things were tasks beyond his strength;though, to himself, with a touch of wildness in his thoughts, he said that no proved and certain guilt should go unpunished even though his own hand - It was a train of ideas he did not pursue.
"Charley Wright first and now John Clive," he said to himself."But the end is not yet."Again he would not let his thoughts go on but checked them abruptly.
In this dark and troubled mood he went out to busy himself with the garden, and all the time he worked he watched with a sort of vertigo of horror where Ella sat in the sunshine by her mother's side, her white hands moving nimbly to and fro upon her needlework.
It was not long, however, before the tragedy of the wood was discovered, for Clive had been seen to go in that direction, and when he did not return a search was made that was soon successful.
The news was brought to Bittermeads towards evening by a tradesman's boy, who came up from the village to bring something that had been ordered from there.
"Have you heard?" he said to Dunn excitedly."Mr.Clive's been shot dead by poachers.""Oh - by poachers?" repeated Dunn.
"Yes, poachers," the boy answered, and went on excitedly to tell his tale with many, and generally very inaccurate, details.
But that the crime had been discovered and instantly set down to poachers was at least certain, and Dunn realized at once that the adoption of this simple and apparently plausible theory would put an end to all really careful investigation of the circumstances and make the discovery of the truth highly improbable.
For the idea that the murder was the work of poachers would, when once adopted, fill the minds of the police and of every one else, and no suspicion would be directed elsewhere.
By the tremendous relief he felt, Dunn understood how heavy had been the burden of fear and apprehension that till now had oppressed him.
If he had not found that handkerchief - if he had not secured that letter - why, by now the police would be at Bittermeads.
"All the same," he thought."No one who is guilty shall escape through me."But what this phrase meant, and what he intended to do, he would not permit himself to think out clearly or try to understand.
The boy, having told his story, hurried off to spread the news elsewhere to more appreciative ears, for, he thought disgustedly, it might have been just nothing at all for all the interest the gardener at Bittermeads had shown.
As soon as he was gone, Dunn went across to the house, and going up to the window of the drawing-room where Ella and her mother were having tea, he tapped on the pane.
Ella looked up and saw him, and came at once to open the window, while from behind Mrs.Dawson frowned in severe disapproval of what she considered a great liberty.
"Mr.Clive has been shot," Dunn said abruptly."They say poachers did it.He was killed instantly."Ella did not seem at first to understand.She looked puzzled and bewildered, and did not seem to grasp the full import of his words.
"What - what do you say?" she asked."Mr.Clive - Who's killed?"Dunn thought to himself that her acting was the most wonderful thing he had ever seen.
It was extraordinary that she should be able to make that grey pallor come over her cheeks as though the meaning of what he said were only now entering her mind; wonderful that she should be able so well to give the idea of a great horror and a great doubt coming slowly into her startled eyes.
"Mr.Clive?" she said again.
"Yes, he's been killed," Dunn said."By poachers, apparently.""What is that? What is that man saying?" shrilled Mrs.Dawson from behind."Mr.Clive - John - why, he was here yesterday."Dunn turned his back and walked away.He heard Ella call after him, but he would not look back because he feared what he might do if he obeyed her call.
With an odd buzzing in his ears, with the blood throbbing through his brain as though something must soon break there, he walked blindly on, and as he came to the gate of Bittermeads he saw a motor-car coming up the road.
It was Deede Dawson's car, and he was driving it, and by his side sat a sulkily-smiling stranger, his air that of one not sure of his welcome, but determined to enforce it, in whom, with a quick start, Dunn recognized his burglar, the man whose attempt to break into Bittermeads he had frustrated, and whose place he had taken.
He put up his hand instinctively for them to stop, and Deede Dawson at once obeyed the gesture.
