The Coward Behind the Curtain

"Few men were better known on Newcaster Heath than George Emmett. His tragic fate, on the eve of the meeting at which he had been such a prominent figure for so many years, was the theme of general conversation." Then the writer proceeded to give some facts about George Emmett. Miss Vernon took them in with her eye without at all appreciating their meaning. One fact she did grasp-that the man seemed dead.

"George Emmett? – I am sure her guardian's name was Emmett; but Strathmoira told mother that he'd brought her here because her guardian wasn't very well; but this Emmett's dead, according to the paper-it talks about his 'tragic fate'-I wonder in what way his fate was tragic. It can't be the same man; why did Mrs Purchas associate Dorothy with Newcaster?"

Miss Vernon's glance passed down the racing columns, to be arrested by a paragraph at the foot.

"The historic inn, 'The Bolton Arms,' at Newcaster," it began, "was on Monday night the scene of an occurrence which will probably hold a prominent place in the future annals of the house." Then it proceeded to give, in brief outline, and in the baldest possible language, the story with which we already are familiar. It said that suspicion pointed at the lady by whom Mr Emmett had been accompanied; that her mysterious disappearance was certainly difficult to reconcile with entire innocence; concluding with the pregnant sentence-"The police are offering a reward for Dorothy Gilbert's apprehension." It was on those words that Frances Vernon's eyes fastened. She read the paragraph again and again, reading into it a deeper meaning with each perusal; each time, the part of it which held her, whether she would or would not, was the sentence at the end.

When at last she lowered the paper, such understanding as had come to her had brought bewilderment; although she had the printed words nearly by heart, they were beyond her comprehension. Mr Emmett had been murdered, and Dorothy-her Dorothy! – was suspected of having killed him; was that what it meant? It was impossible-out of the question-absurd. Yet-there were those last words-"The police are offering a reward for Dorothy Gilbert's apprehension." Was that what Mrs Purchas had meant by her reference to Dorothy Gilbert of Newcaster? Was it why Dorothy had behaved so strangely?

As she put to herself these questions, which she dared not answer, it seemed to Frances Vernon that the world had changed all at once; as if, as a child would have put it, something had gone wrong with the works, so that it had suddenly got jarred, and was no longer just as it was a few moments ago. For the first time in her short life she was brought into contact with the tragedy of crime; so that, as it seemed, she had to inhale its atmosphere into her lungs. It is a result of such a training as she had received that, when crime did come to have a personal application, the revelation of the existence of the thing, from the knowledge of which she had been carefully screened, stunned as it never would have done had she been brought up with her eyes wide open. Murder? All she knew of murder she had learnt from the commandments. Her guardian? Dorothy? She could have screamed aloud because of the agony which came to her with the thought that there could be any association between Dorothy's guardian, and Dorothy, and murder.

She stayed there, in a sort of stupor, longer than she knew; and was only roused from it by her mother's coming into the room through the open French window.

"Frances! Where have you been? Do you know that all the people have gone? If Dorothy has been keeping you, you ought not to have let her; you ought to have been there to say good-bye." She perceived that there was something unusual in her daughter's attitude. "Frances! What is the matter with you? Why are you staring at me like that? What is that you have in your hand? The Times! Do you mean to say that you have been reading the newspaper and forgetting what you owe to your friends? What will your father say? Frances, speak to me! What is the matter with the girl?"

Frances did speak; or, rather, she tried to speak; seeming to find as much difficulty in producing articulate sounds as Dorothy Gilbert had done a little time before.

"Mother, look-look at the paper!"

She held it out stiffly, as some lay figure might have done. Not unnaturally her mother observed her with surprise.

"Frances, I insist upon your telling me what is the matter with you; why should I look at the paper? You know very well that your father doesn't like you to read newspapers."

Frances said her four words over again:

"Look at the paper!"

"Why do you wish me to do so? What am I to look at?" She took the paper from her daughter's outstretched hand. Frances pointed to a part of it. Mrs Vernon began to read aloud: "'The historic inn, "The Bolton Arms," at Newcaster, was on Monday night-' What stuff is this?"

"Go on!"

Mrs Vernon did read on; but to herself. Presently there broke from her what seemed to be an involuntary exclamation; then another; then she lowered the paper, with a face which was almost as white as her daughter's.

"Frances! It's-it's not true!" The girl said nothing; she went on: "Emmett? Wasn't that the name of Dorothy's guardian? Frances! You-you don't think that-that this-means Dorothy?"

"How can I tell? You heard what Mrs Purchas said about Dorothy Gilbert of Newcaster?"

"Did she-do you think-she referred to this? If she did, then-others may have known."

"I believe they did-I believe Mr Denman knew-Jim's friend."

"That boy! Do-do you think-Strathmoira knew?" The girl said nothing. Mother and daughter were still staring at each other, in silence, when Mr Vernon entered by the same route as his wife had come. Mrs Vernon turned towards him. "Harold, read this in The Times; tell me what it means."

Mr Vernon put on his glasses with an air of deliberation for which his wife, in her new state of nervous tension, could almost have shaken him. By the time he had got the glasses to his liking he had lost the place.

"What is it I'm to read? Is it anything remarkable? Show me where it is." She showed him again. "Races? What have I to do with races? Oh, there! – I see!" He read the paragraph conscientiously through; then looked over the top of the paper at his womenfolk. "Well? It's a commonplace and disagreeable story; what special interest is it supposed to have for me? You know I don't care to read about such things. What is there about this that you should thrust it on my attention?"

His mental processes never were of the quickest. On occasions his family had a feeling that his wits needed oiling; they seemed to be moving slower than ever just then. His wife exclaimed:

"Don't you see the names?"

"Names? Emmett? – Emmett? I seem to have heard the name before; now in what connection have I heard it?"

"It's the name of Dorothy's guardian. Harold, read that paragraph again, and then say if nothing about it strikes you as being of interest to you."

Mr Vernon did as he was told. On a second reading it dawned on him what his wife alluded to-dawned on him with a sense of shock.

"God bless my soul! You-you don't mean to say that you for one moment imagine that anything about this painful story refers to Miss Gilbert? – to our Miss Gilbert? – to Frances' Miss Gilbert?"

Before his wife could answer, there came rushing into the room, with that unceremonious haste with which some young men will rush into rooms, his son-excitement writ large all over him; and a paper-which was not The Times-in his hand.

"I say, mater! – and dad! – this is a jolly pretty state of things! Have you heard about it? – everybody else has! – it seems we're the only people who haven't! I don't know what Strathmoira's thinking about! I call it pretty thick!"

Agitation made his meaning less clear than he appeared to think.

"James," observed his father, "if you will cease bounding about the room as if you were possessed; and will not bawl; and will be a little less idiomatic, it is possible that your mother and I will get some idea of what it is you are talking about."

"But, dad, Dorothy Gilbert-Miss Gilbert's wanted for murder!"

His meaning was clear enough then.

"Jim!"

His name came from his mother and sister in practically the same instant.

"It's no good you two looking at me like that! there's no getting away from the truth! – look at this!" He pointed to a staring headline which ran across two columns of the paper which he held in front of them: "Where Is Dorothy Gilbert?" "That's a nice thing for me to find glaring at me when I buy an evening paper to look at the cricket! I never felt anything like what I felt when I saw that! Yes, where is she? I can tell you this, there's scarcely a person who was here this afternoon who doesn't know! I expect it's all over the place by now! – at any moment you may have half-a-dozen policemen coming up the drive!"

"Jim, if-if you don't take care what you are saying I'll never speak to you again."

"Now, Frances, it's no use your putting on frills! – you simply don't know what you're talking about. Here's her description-read it for yourself; no one can read it and possibly mistake her. You told me yourself her guardian's name was Emmett; well, he was murdered the night before last-murdered, mind! – read about it yourself! the story's a curdler! – and they say she did it! – I don't say she did it-"

"You'd better not!"

"But they do; and they'll lock her up for it as sure as we are standing here! Anyway you look at it. We've nothing to thank Strathmoira for for getting us mixed up with a thing like this. My hat! I'd like to talk to him!"

"You talk to him! You don't know what you are talking about now! You've not the slightest right to take it for granted that-that my Dorothy has anything to do with the person in the papers."

"Don't talk stuff and nonsense! – it's you who're talking through your hat! – the whole thing's as plain as a pikestaff; do you suppose I don't wish it wasn't? – that I want us to be dragged into a mess of this sort? Oh yes, it's just the sort of thing I would like! Why, it tells you here how Strathmoira came across her; and how it is that she only knew him as Eric Frazer. He's been cruising about in that van of his-you know, mater, that rotten old caravan of his?"

"It's a rotten old caravan, is it, now? You were anxious enough to 'cruise about' with him in it!"

"I daresay! – never again! – no thank you! When she-or someone-had done for that poor beggar, Emmett, she bolted; she came on him in his van on Newcaster Heath; he gave her shelter for the night."

"Why shouldn't he? He's the most chivalrous of men!"

"All right; who said he wasn't? He seems to have been more chivalrous still next day, when he seems to have nearly killed a chap on his own account."

"My son, you let your tongue run away with you!"

"My dear mater, here it is in black and white! The chap, who seems to be something in the gipsy line, and rejoices in the name of Benjamin Hitchings, overheard her-that's Miss Gilbert-telling him the whole jolly tale-giving herself completely away in fact. Strathmoira-whom the paper calls Frazer-caught him listening, and seems to have as nearly as possible broken his neck for him-you know what a dab he is at those ju-jitsu tricks; I expect he played one of those pretty little capers off on Mr Hitchings. Anyhow, the police are after him as well as her; warrants are out for both of them. No wonder he preferred the middle of the night to dump her at our front door; goodness knows I don't set up to be a prophet, but I should like to know what the betting is that it's a good long time before we see or hear anything more of the Earl of Strathmoira."

"James, are you forgetting that the Earl of Strathmoira is a relative of mine and of your own?"

"That's what makes it too utterly too-too! – and Miss Gilbert is Frances' particular friend! Oh, we're quite in the thick of it!"

"Will you let me see the paper which you say contains that dreadful story?"

"Here it is, mater; you'll find it cheerful reading; there's a lot more to it than I've told you. There's one thing I haven't told you, and that is that unless we're uncommonly careful before very long there'll be warrants out for us."

"James, are you insane?"

"For aiding and abetting, which is what harbouring amounts to! People have been sent to penal servitude for covering a murderer."

A modest tapping was heard; the room door was opened; Parkes, the butler, entering, closed it softly behind him; there was perturbation on his face and in his bearing.

"Excuse me, sir; excuse me, madam; but there's a dreadful kettle of fish in the servants' hall. I felt I had to come to you. Taylor brought in an evening paper to look at the cricket; and in it there's all about the Newcaster murder; and the servants will have it that, from the description in the paper, Miss Gilbert upstairs is the young woman who did it; and I must say myself that the description is surprisingly like. I am very sorry, sir, and madam, and Miss Frances, but they are going on so, and there's even some talk of some of them not staying in the house. According to the paper there's a reward of a hundred pounds offered for her capture; and West, who's talking of getting married, says that if she had the hundred pounds she might get married at once, and that she doesn't see, if anyone is to have it, why it shouldn't be her; and, sir, and madam, and Miss Frances, I don't know what will happen if something isn't done to stop her."