The Trees of Pride Page 12

asleep?"

  "Great heavens!" cried Paynter. "You don't dare suggest that she--"

  "No, I don't," said the lawyer, with composure, "but there are otherreasons.... I don't suggest anything fully, till we've had our interviewwith this poet of yours. I think I know where to find him."

  They found him, in fact, before they expected him, sitting on the benchoutside the Vane Arms, drinking a mug of cider and waiting forthe return of his American friend; so it was not difficult to openconversation with him. Nor did he in any way avoid the subject of thetragedy; and the lawyer, seating himself also on the long bench thatfronted the little market place, was soon putting the last developmentsas lucidly as he had put them to Barbara.

  "Well," said Treherne at last, leaning back and frowning at thesignboard, with the colored birds and dolphins, just about his head;"suppose somebody did kill the Squire. He'd killed a good many peoplewith his hygiene and his enlightened landlordism."

  Paynter was considerably uneasy at this alarming opening; but the poetwent on quite coolly, with his hands in his pockets and his feet thrustout into the street.

  "When a man has the power of a Sultan in Turkey, and uses it with theideas of a spinster in Tooting, I often wonder that nobody puts a knifein him. I wish there were more sympathy for murderers, somehow. I'm verysorry the poor old fellow's gone myself; but you gentlemen always seemto forget there are any other people in the world. He's all right;he was a good fellow, and his soul, I fancy, has gone to the happiestparadise of all."

  The anxious American could read nothing of the effect of this in thedark Napoleonic face of the lawyer, who merely said: "What do you mean?"

  "The fool's paradise," said Treherne, and drained his pot of cider.

  The lawyer rose. He did not look at Treherne, or speak to him; butlooked and spoke straight across him to the American, who found theutterance not a little unexpected.

  "Mr. Paynter," said Ashe, "you thought it rather morbid of me to collectmurderers; but it's fortunate for your own view of the case that Ido. It may surprise you to know that Mr. Treherne has now, in my eyes,entirely cleared himself of suspicion. I have been intimate with severalassassins, as I remarked; but there's one thing none of them ever did. Inever knew a murderer to talk about the murder, and then at once denyit and defend it. No, if a man is concealing his crime, why should he goout of his way to apologize for it?"

  "Well," said Paynter, with his ready appreciation, "I always said youwere a remarkable man; and that's certainly a remarkable idea."

  "Do I understand," asked the poet, kicking his heels on the cobbles,"that both you gentlemen have been kindly directing me toward thegallows?"

  "No," said Paynter thoughtfully. "I never thought you guilty; and evensupposing I had, if you understand me, I should never have thought itquite so guilty to be guilty. It would not have been for money or anymean thing, but for something a little wilder and worthier of a man ofgenius. After all, I suppose, the poet has passions like great unearthlyappetites; and the world has always judged more gently of his sins.But now that Mr. Ashe admits your innocence, I can honestly say I havealways affirmed it."

  The poet rose also. "Well, I am innocent, oddly enough," he said. "Ithink I can make a guess about your vanishing well, but of the death anddry bones I know no more than the dead; if so much. And, by the way, mydear Paynter"--and he turned two bright eyes on the art critic--"I willexcuse you from excusing me for all the things I haven't done; andyou, I hope, will excuse me if I differ from you altogether about themorality of poets. As you suggest, it is a fashionable view, but Ithink it is a fallacy. No man has less right to be lawless than a man ofimagination. For he has spiritual adventures, and can take his holidayswhen he likes. I could picture the poor Squire carried off to elflandwhenever I wanted him carried off, and that wood needed no crime to makeit wicked for me. That red sunset the other night was all that a murderwould have been to many men. No, Mr. Ashe; show, when next you sitin judgment, a little mercy to some wretched man who drinks and robsbecause he must drink beer to taste it, and take it to drink it. Havecompassion on the next batch of poor thieves, who have to hold things inorder to have them. But if ever you find ME stealing one small farthing,when I can shut my eyes and see the city of El Dorado, then"--and helifted his head like a falcon--"show me no mercy, for I shall deservenone."

  "Well," remarked Ashe, after a pause, "I must go and fix things up forthe inquest. Mr. Treherne, your attitude is singularly interesting; Ireally almost wish I could add you to my collection of murderers. Theyare a varied and extraordinary set."

  "Has it ever occurred to you," asked Paynter, "that perhaps the men whohave never committed murder are a varied and very extraordinary set?Perhaps every plain man's life holds the real mystery, the secret ofsins avoided."

  "Possibly," replied Ashe. "It would be a long business to stop the nextman in the street and ask him what crimes he never committed and whynot. And I happen to be busy, so you'll excuse me."

  "What," asked the American, when he and the poet were alone, "is thisguess of yours about the vanishing water?"

  "Well, I'm not sure I'll tell you yet," answered Treherne, somethingof the old mischief coming back into his dark eyes. "But I'll tell yousomething else, which may be connected with it; something I couldn'ttell until my wife had told you about our meeting in the wood." His facehad grown grave again, and he resumed after a pause:

  "When my wife started to follow her father I advised her to go backfirst to the house, to leave it by another door and to meet me in thewood in half an hour. We often made these assignations, of course,and generally thought them great fun, but this time the question wasserious, and I didn't want the wrong thing done in a hurry. It was aquestion whether anything could be done to undo an experiment weboth vaguely felt to be dangerous, and she especially thought, afterreflection, that interference would make things worse. She thought theold sportsman, having been dared to do something, would certainly notbe dissuaded by the very man who had dared him or by a woman whom heregarded as a child. She left me at last in a sort of despair, but Ilingered with a last hope of doing something, and drew doubtfully nearto the heart of the wood; and there, instead of the silence I expected,I heard a voice. It seemed as if the Squire must be talking to himself,and I had the unpleasant fancy that he had already lost his reason inthat wood of witchcraft. But I soon found that if he was talking he wastalking with two voices. Other fancies attacked me, as that the otherwas the voice of the tree or the voices of the three trees talkingtogether, and with no man near. But it was not the voice of the tree.The next moment I knew the voice, for I had heard it twenty times acrossthe table. It was the voice of that doctor of yours; I heard it ascertainly as you hear my voice now."

  After a moment's silence, he resumed: "I left the wood, I hardly knewwhy, and with wild and bewildered feelings; and as I came out into thefaint moonshine I saw that old lawyer standing quietly, but staring atme like an owl. At least, the light touched his red hair with fire, buthis square old face was in shadow. But I knew, if I could have read it,that it was the face of a hanging judge."

  He threw himself on the bench again, smiled a little, and added: "Only,like a good many hanging judges, I fancy, he was waiting patiently tohang the wrong man."

  "And the right man--" said Paynter mechanically. Treherne shrugged hisshoulders, sprawling on the ale bench, and played with his empty pot.

  IV. THE CHASE AFTER THE TRUTH

  Some time after the inquest, which had ended in the inconclusive verdictwhich Mr. Andrew Ashe had himself predicted and achieved, Paynter wasagain sitting on the bench outside the village inn, having on the littletable in front of it a tall glass of light ale, which he enjoyed muchmore as local color than as liquor. He had but one companion on thebench, and that a new one, for the little market place was empty atthat hour, and he had lately, for the rest, been much alone. He wasnot unhappy, for he resembled his great countryman, Walt Whitman, incarrying a kind of universe with him like an open umbrella; but he wasnot only
alone, but lonely. For Ashe had gone abruptly up to London,and since his return had been occupied obscurely with legal matters,doubtless bearing on the murder. And Treherne had long since taken uphis position openly, at the great house, as the husband of the greatlady, and he and she were occupied with sweeping reforms on the estate.The lady especially, being of the sort whose very dreams "drive atpractice," was landscape gardening as with the gestures of a giantess.It was natural, therefore, that so sociable a spirit as Paynter shouldfall into speech with the one other stranger who happened to be stayingat the inn, evidently a bird of passage like himself.