The Devil's Garden by W. B. Maxwell

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Then there came a brief pause of extraordinary deep quiet, a sudden
cessation of all perceptible sounds and movements. Dale was confused,
dazed, breathing hard. That was a dead man sprawling there--what you
call a corpse, a bleeding carcass. Dale looked at him. Beneath his
last kick, the skull had cracked like a well-tapped egg.

As abruptly as if his legs had been knocked from under him Dale sat
down, and endeavored to think.

Then it was as if all his thought and the action resulting from his
thought were beyond his control. In all that he did he seemed to be
governed by instinct.

At any minute some one might pass by. He must drag the body out of
sight. And the instinctive thoughts came rapidly, each one as the
necessity for it arose. He must leave no foot-prints, or as few as
possible. He unlaced and pulled off his boots, and, noticing the blood
on them, made a mental note to wash them as soon as he could find time
to do so.

He took the dead man by the heels, and dragged him cautiously toward
the rocks--seeking the zigzag line taken by the galloping horse. That
was the chance. Instinct directed and explained the task--to make it
seem that the horse had dragged him, and battered his life out over
the rocks. A good chance. Those stirrups didn't come out. He might
truly have been dragged by one of them.

The track of the horse was lost directly the rocks began. Dale left
the body, and cautiously clambered upon the rocks to see if any living
thing observed him.

Then he took the corpse by the heels again, and hauled it over the
jagged surfaces and through the hollows--conscious all the while of
great pain--and finally left it in a cleft, staring stupidly upward.
He hurried back to the ride, and sat down by the rank-smelling bracken
where he had left his boots. He was startled when he looked at his
feet--their soles were covered with blood. He thought it was the dead
man's blood, but then discovered it was his own. He had torn his feet
to pieces on the rocks. He put on his boots in agony, picked up his
hat, and limped away through the hollies into the gloom of the pines.
Down in the stream, with the water rippling over his ankles, he stood
and listened.

What to do next? They had not yet discovered the dead man; but it
seemed to him that they would do so in another minute or two. He tried
to think logically, but could not. It seemed now necessary to get
clear away before the body was seen--get as far off as possible.
Vaguely it occurred to him that he should wait here till night, and it
was still only dusk. But then he had a clear vision of the wood at
night--lanterns moving in every direction, men's voices, a cordon of
men all round the wood. Yes, that would be the state of affairs when
they had found the body and were beginning to look for the murderer.
This wood was a death-trap. He forgot the pain in his feet, and began
to run with the long trotting stride of a hunted stag, careless now of
the crash of the bushes and fern as he swung through them.

He paused crouching on the edge of the wood, then came out over the
bank, across a road, and into the fields. With arched back he went
along the deep ditch of the first field, through a gap, and into the
ditch of the next field. To his right lay Vine-Pits Farm; to his left
lay the Cross Roads, the Barradine Arms, the clustered cottages. He
ran on, in ditch after ditch, under hedges and banks, swinging
left-handed in a wide detour till he came to the last of the fields
and the highroad to Old Manninglea.

But he had to wait here. He saw laborers on the road, and waited till
they were gone. Then he crept through the gap where the ditch went
under the road culvert, crossed this second road, and ran stooping on
the open heath.

The sky was red, with terrible clouds; and a wind followed him,
keeping his spine cold, although all the rest of him was burning. When
he looked back he fancied that he saw men moving, and that he heard
distant shoutings from Beacon Hill. Rain fell--not much of it, just
showers, wetting his hands, and mingling with the perspiration in
front, but making him colder behind; and he muttered to cheer himself.
"That's luck. That'll wash away the blood. Yes, that's luck. Yes, I
must take it for a good sign--bit o' luck."

He walked and ran for miles--over the bare downs, through the fertile
valleys, and alongside the other railway line; and late that night he
got into a feeding train for Salisbury, where, he was told, he would
catch a West of England express for London.

There was delay at Salisbury, and he ate some food and drank some
brandy.

Then at last he found himself in the London train, in an empty
compartment of a corridor coach. He sat with folded arms, his hat
pulled low on his forehead, his eyes peering suspiciously out of the
window, or at the door of the corridor. Whenever anybody went by in
the corridor, he stooped his head lower and pretended to be asleep.

There were strange people in this train--soldiers and sailors from
Devonport; some foreigners too, or people dressed up to look like
foreigners; numbers of men also who kept their heads down as he was
doing, as if for some jolly good private reason. Who the hell were
they really? Detectives?

The train was going so fast now that it rocked to and fro, and hummed
and sang; but it seemed to Dale to be standing still--to be going
backward. This illusion was so strong for some moments that he jumped
up and went out into the corridor, to look down at the permanent way
on that side also. The lamplight from the train showed on both sides
that the sleepers, the chairs, the gravel, slipped and slid in the
correct direction. The train was flying, simply flying along the inner
up-track of the four sets of metals.

"I mustn't be so fullish," he kept saying to himself. "I'm all safe
now."

A sudden noise of voices drew him to the corridor; and he stood
holding a hand-rail, watching the leather walls and the gangway that
led into the next coach leap and dance and bob and sink, while he
listened eagerly. The roar of the train was so great here that he
could not catch what the hidden men were saying, but he understood
that they were sailors making too much noise and a railway guard
rebuking them. "It's nothing to do with me," he said to himself. "Why
_am_ I so fullish?"

He returned to the compartment, sat with his shoulder to the corridor,
and brooded dully and heavily. All that fiery trouble about Mavis and
her being dishonored had gone out of his mind as if forever; the
grievance and the rage and the hatred had gone too; temporarily there
was nothing but a most ponderous self-pity.

"What a mess this is," he thought. "What a hash I've made of it. What
a cruel thing to happen to me. What an awful hole I've put myself
into."

The train swept onward, and he began to doze. Then after a while he
slept and dreamed. He dreamed that he was here in this train, not
fettered, but spell-bound, unable to move and hide, only able to
understand what was happening and to suffer from his perception of the
hideous predicament that he was in. Another train, on another of the
four tracks, was racing after this train, was overhauling it, was
infallibly catching it. Mysteriously he could see into this following,
hunting train--it was a train full of policemen, magistrates, wardens,
judges, hangmen: all the offended majesty of the law.

He woke shivering, after this first taste of a murderer's dreams. His
punishment had begun.

It was daylight at Waterloo, and he slunk in terror; but things had to
be done. He washed himself as well as he could, took off his dirty
canvas, got his bag from the cloak-room and hurried away. No questions
were asked, no bones made about giving him a room at a house in
Stamford Street; and he at once went to bed and slept profoundly.

When he woke this time he was quite calm, and able to think clearly
again.

He went out late in the afternoon, and saw a message for him on
newspaper bills: "Fatal Accident to ex-Cabinet Minister." Then, having
bought a paper, he read the very brief report of the accident. He
stood gasping, and then drew deep breaths. The _Accident_. Oh, the joy
of seeing that word! No suspicion so far. It was working out just as
one might hope.

And it seemed that his courage, so lamentably shaken, began to return
to him. He felt more himself. He marched off to a post office, and
sent his telegram to Mavis: "Evening paper says fatal accident to Mr.
Barradine. Is this true?" The main purpose of the telegram was to
prove that here he was in London, where he had been last Friday, and
where he had remained during all the intervening time; its secondary
purpose was to put on record at the earliest possible moment his
surprise--surprise so complete that he could scarcely believe the sad
news. He gave his utmost care to the wording of the telegram and was
satisfied with the result. The turn of words seemed perfectly natural.

Then, having despatched his telegram, he hurried off to call at Mr.
Barradine's house in Grosvenor Place--to make some anxious inquiries.

There were people at the door, ladies and gentlemen among them, and
the servants looked white and agitated as they answered questions.
Dale pushed his way up the steps almost into the hall, acting
consternation and grief--the honest, rather rough country fellow, the
loyal dependent who forgets his good manners in his sorrow at the
death of the chieftain. He would not go away, when the other callers
had departed. He told the butler of the services rendered to him by
Mr. Barradine. "Not more'n ten days ago."

"Don't you remember me? I came here to thank him for his kindness."

"Ah, yes," said the agitated butler, "he was a kind gentleman, and no
mistake."

"_Kind!_ I should think he was. Well, well!" And Dale stood nodding
his head dolefully. Then he went away slowly and sadly, and he kept on
nodding his head in the same doleful manner long after the door was
shut--just on the chance that the servants might look out of the hail
windows and see it before he vanished round the corner.

He could think now, as well as he had ever done. It was of prime
importance that no outsiders should ever learn that Everard Barradine
had injured him. This guided him henceforth. It settled the course of
his life there and then. He must return to Mavis; he must by his
demeanor cover the intrigue--or so act that if people came to know of
it, they would suppose either that he was ignorant of his shame or
that he was a complaisant husband, taking advantage of the situation
and pocketing all gifts from his wife's protector. No motive for the
crime. That was his guide-post.

In the night he got rid of the canvas suit and slouch hat. Next day he
went home to Rodchurch Post Office, and, speaking to Mavis of Mr.
Barradine's death, uttered that terrific blasphemy. "_It is the finger
of God._"

XXXI

He acted his part well, and everything worked out easily--more easily
than one could have dared to hope for.

Not a soul was thinking about him. He had to assert himself, thrust
himself forward, before people in the village would so much as notice
that he had come back among them again. The inquest, as he gathered,
was going to be a matter of form: it seemed doubtful if the
authorities would even make an examination of the ground over there.
All was to be as nice as nice for him.

Yet he was afraid. Fear possed him--this sneaking, torturing,
emasculating passion that he had never known hitherto was now always
with him. He lay alone in the camp-bedstead sweating and funking. The
events of the day made him seem safe, but he felt that he would not be
really safe for ages and ages. Throughout the night he was going over
the list of his idiotic mistakes, upbraiding himself, cursing himself
for a hundred acts of brainless folly. The plan had been sound enough:
it was the accomplishment of the plan that had been so damnably
rotten.

Why had he changed his addresses in that preposterous fashion? Instead
of providing himself with useful materials for an alibi, he had just
made a lot of inexplicable movements. Then the pawning of the
watch--in a false name. How could he ever explain _that_? Anybody
short of money may put his ticker up the spout, but no one has the
right to assume an alias. And the buying of the clothes and hat.
Instead of bargaining, as innocent people do, however small the price
demanded, he just dabbed down the money. He must have appeared to be
in the devil's own hurry to get the things and cut off with them. The
two men at that shop must have noticed his peculiarities as a
customer. They would be able to pick him out in the biggest crowd that
ever assembled in a magistrate's court.

But far worse had been his watchings and prowlings round and about the
house in Grosvenor Place. Could he have blundered upon anything more
full of certain peril? Why, to stand still for ten minutes in London
is to invite the attention of the police. Their very motto or
watchword is "Move on;" and for every policeman in helmet and buttons
there are three policemen in plain clothes to make sure that people
_are_ moving on. While watching that house he had been watched
himself.

Then, again, the insane episode of the eating-house--the wild
hastening of his program, the untimely change of appearance in that
thronged room--and his rudeness to the woman behind the counter. With
anguish he remembered, or fancied he remembered, that she had looked
at him resentfully seeming to say as she studied his face. "I'm sizing
you up. Yes, I won't forget you--you brute."

His bag too--left by him at Waterloo for a solid proof that he was
_not_ in London as he pretended. The bag was at the cloak-room all
right when he came to fetch it, but perhaps in the meantime it had
been to Scotland Yard and back again. Besides, Waterloo was a station
he should never once have showed his nose in; the link between
Waterloo and home was too close--his own line--the railway whose staff
was replenished by people from his own part of the country. While he
was feeling glad that the passengers were strangers, perhaps a porter
was saying to a mate: "There goes the postmaster of Rodchurch. He and
I were boys together. I should know him anywhere, though it's ten
years since I last saw William Dale." He ought to have used Paddington
Station--he could have got to Salisbury that way, and gone into the
woods the way he came out of them.

Last of all, that child in the glade--a child strayed from one of the
cottages, or the child of some woodcutter who had brought her with
him, who was perhaps a very little way off, who listened to the tale
of what the child had seen five minutes after she had seen it. Of
course nothing much would be thought of the child's tale at first; but
it would assume importance directly suspicion had been aroused; it
would link up with other circumstances, it would suggest new ideas and
further researches to the minds of detectives, it might be the clue
that eventually hanged him.

It seemed to Dale as he went over things in this quivering, quaking
manner that, from the little girl weaving flowers back to the two Jews
selling slops, he had recruited an army of witnesses to denounce and
destroy him.

Only in one respect had he not bungled. He got rid of the clothes and
hat all right. Cut and torn into narrow stripes they had gone
comfortably down the drains of the temperance hotel in Stamford
Street. That was a night's wise labor. But the labor and thoughtful
care had come too late, on top of all the previous folly.

And he said to himself, "It's prob'ly all up with me. This quiet is
the usual trick of the p'lice to throw you off the scent. They're
playin' wi' me. They let me sim to run free, because they know they
can 'aarve me when they want me."

With such thoughts, he went down-stairs of a morning to talk jovially
with Ridgett, to chaff Miss Yorke; and with the thoughts unchanged he
came up-stairs to glower at Mavis across the breakfast-table.

His thoughts in regard to Mavis were extraordinarily complicated. At
first he had been horribly afraid of her--dreading their meeting as a
crisis, a turning-point, an awful bit of touch-and-go work. It seemed
that she of all people would be the one to suspect the truth. When she
heard of the man's death, surely the idea _must_ have flashed into her
mind: "This is Will's doing." But then perhaps, when no facts appeared
to support the idea, she might have abandoned it. Nevertheless it
would readily come flashing back again--and again, and again.

To his delight, however, he saw that she did not suspect now, and
there was nothing to show that she ever had suspected. And he thought
in the midst of his great relief: "How stupid she is really. Any other
woman would have put two and two together. But she is a stupid woman.
Stupidity is the key-note to her character--and it furnishes the
explanation of half her wrong-doing."

This reflection was comforting, but he still considered her to be a
source of terrible danger to him. For the moment at least, all his
resentment about her past unchasteness and her recent escapade was
entirely obliterated; it was a closed chapter; he did not seem to care
two pence about it--that is, he did not feel any torment of jealousy.
The offense was expiated. But he must not on any account let her see
this--no, because it might lead her, stupid as she was, to trace the
reason. He knew himself that if Mr. Barradine had died otherwise than
by his blows, he would have felt quite differently toward Mavis. He
would have felt then "The swine has escaped me. We are not quits. That
dirty turn is not paid for." He would have continued to smart under
the affront to his pride as a man, and association with Mavis would
have still been impossible.

Logically, then, he must act out these other feelings; Mavis must see
him as he would have been under those conditions. But it made it all
so difficult--two parts to render adequately instead of one. In the
monstrous egotism produced by his fear, he thought it uncommonly rough
luck that the wife who ought to have been dutifully assisting him
should thus add to his cares and worries. Sometimes he had to struggle
against insane longings to take her into his confidence, and compel
her to do her fair share of the job--to say, slap out, "It's you, my
lady, who've landed me in this tight place; so the least you can do is
to help pull me into open country."

Moreover, as the days and nights passed, instincts that were more
human and natural made him crave for re-union. He yearned to be
friends with her again. He felt that if he could safely make it up,
cuddle her as he used to do, hold her hands and arms when he went to
sleep, he would derive fortitude and support against his fear, even
if he obtained no aid from her in dodging the law.

He thought during the inquest that the fear had reached its climax.
Nothing that could come in the future would be as bad as this. Yet all
the time he was telling himself, "There is no cause for the fear. It
is quite baseless. All is going as nice as nice."

Indeed, if he had conducted the proceedings himself, he could not have
wished to arrange anything differently. The whole affair was more like
a civilian funeral service--a rite supplemental to the church
funeral--than a businesslike inquiry into the circumstances and
occasion of a person's death. A sergeant and constable were present,
but apparently for no reason whatever. Allen talked nonsense, grooms
and servants talked nonsense, everybody paid compliments to the
deceased--and really that was all. At last Mr. Hollis, the coroner,
said the very words that Dale would have liked to put into his
mouth--something to the effect that they had done their melancholy
duty and that it would be useless to ask any more questions.

But Dale, sitting firmly and staring gloomily, felt an internal
paroxysm of terror. Near the lofty doors of the fine state room common
folk stood whispering and nudging one another--cottagers, carters,
woodcutters; and Dale thought "Now I'm in for it. One of those chaps
is going to come forward and tell the coroner that his little girl saw
a strange man in the wood." He imagined it all so strongly that it
almost seemed to happen. "Beg pardon, your honor, I don't rightly know
as, it's wuth mentionin', but my lil' young 'un see'd a scarecrow sort
of a feller not far from they rocks, the mornin' afore."

It did not, however, happen. Nothing happened.

And nothing happened when he came to the Abbey again to attend the
real burial service--except that he found how wrong he had been in
supposing that the fear had reached its highest point. He nearly
fainted when he saw all those policemen--the entire park seeming to be
full of them, a blue helmet under every tree, a glittering line of
buttons that stretched through the courtyards and right round the
church. Inside the church he said to himself, "They've got me now.
They'll tap me on the shoulder as I come out."

Standing in the open air again he wondered at the respite that had
been allowed, and thought, "Yes, but that is always their way. They
never show their hand until they have collected all the evidence. The
detectives, who've been on my track from the word 'go,' prob'ly
advised the relatives to accept the thing as an accident in order to
hoodwink the murderer. The tip was given to that coroner not to probe
deep, because they weren't ready yet with their case;" and it suddenly
occurred to him that he had left deep footsteps in the wood, and that
plaster casts had been made of all these impressions.

He looked across a gravestone in the crowded churchyard and saw a
strange man who was staring at the ground. A detective? He believed
that this man was watching his feet, measuring them, saying to
himself, "Yes, those are the feet that will fit my plaster cast."

After the funeral he began to grow calmer, and soon he was able to
believe during long periods of each day that the most considerable
risks were now over.

Then came news of the legacy to Mavis--the cursed money that he
hated, that threw him back into the earlier distress concerning his
wife's shame, that restored vividness to the thoughts which had faded
in presence of the one overpowering thought of his own imminent peril.

But here again he was governed by what he had set before himself as
his unfailing guide-post--the necessity to conceal any motive for an
act of vengeance. What would people think if he refused the money? It
was a question not easy to answer, and the guide-post seemed to point
in two opposite directions. He was harassed by terrible doubt until he
and Mavis went to see the solicitor at Old Manninglea. During the
conversation over there he assured himself that the solicitor saw
nothing odd in the legacy, and made no guess at there having been an
intrigue between Mavis and the benefactor; and further he ascertained
that this was only one of several similar legacies. All was clear
then: the guide-post pointed one way now: they must take the money.

But this necessity shook Dale badly again. It seemed as if the man so
tightly put away in his lead coffin and stone vault was not done with
yet. It was as if one could never be free from his influence, as if,
dead or alive, he exercised power over one. Dale resisted such
superstitious fancies in vain. They upset him; and the fear returned,
bigger than before.

It was irrational, bone-crumbling fear--something that defied
argument, that nothing could allay. It was like the elemental passion
felt by the hunted animal--not fear of death, but the anguish of the
live thing which must perforce struggle to escape death, although
prolonged flight is worse than that from which it flies.

Dale had no real fear of death--nor even fear of the gallows. If the
worst came, he could face death bravely. He was quite sure of that.
Then, as he told himself thousands of times, it was absurd to be so
shaken by terror. Terror of what? And he thought, "It is because of
the uncertainty. But there too, how absurdly fullish I am; for there
is no _real_ uncertainty. My crime can not and will not be discovered.
If I were to go now and accuse myself, people would not credit me."

He thought also, in intervals between the paroxysms, "I suppose what
I've been feeling is what all murderers feel. It is this that makes
men go and give themselves up to the police after they have got off
scot free. They are safe, but they never can believe they're safe;
they can't stand the strain, and if they didn't stop it, they'd go
mad. So they give themselves up--just go get a bit o' quiet. And that
is what I shall do, if this goes on much longer. I'd sooner be turned
off short and sharp with a broken neck than die of exhaustion in a
padded cell."

Then suddenly chance gave the hateful money an immense value,
converted it into a means of escape from the outer life whose monotony
and narrowness were assisting the cruelly wide inner life to drive him
mad.

He went to Vine-Pits, and the strangeness of his surroundings, the
difficulties, the hard work, produced a salutary effect upon him; but
most of all he drew strength and courage from the renewal of love
between Mavis and himself. That was most wonderful--like a new birth,
rather than a reanimation. They loved each other as a freshly married
couple, as a boy and girl who have just returned from their
honeymoon, and who say, "We shall feel just the same when the time
comes to keep our silver wedding."

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