wilfrid had walked into oldborough with beatrice and returned to maldon grange. the night promised to be long and dull; but there was always the feeling of restlessness and uncertainty as to what might happen before morning. wilfrid sat in the dining-room smoking cigarettes and trying to interest himself in a book until the hour for bed came. about eleven o'clock the nurse came into the dining-room with an expression of annoyance on his face.
"is anything wrong, mason?" wilfrid asked.
"well, yes, sir," mason said in an aggrieved tone. "i ordered certain things from castlebridge and the people have forgotten to send them. mr. cotter said he was going to town about seven o'clock this evening and would bring the things back with him. now he wires that he is summoned to london on important business, and that if i want the goods i shall have to send for them. it is most annoying. there is a certain food dr. shelton said the patient must have. i don't know what to do."
"there is no one we can send," wilfrid said. "you must bike into castlebridge, late as it is. i will look after your patient."
"i know you can do that," mason replied. "and, really, there doesn't seem to be any other way."
wilfrid hesitated and then made some excuse to leave the room. recalling the conversation he had overheard between cotter and the man who called himself jansen, a sudden idea crossed his mind. he went straight to cotter's room and opened the door without ceremony. it was very much as he had expected. the wardrobe was open and most of the drawers had been pulled out and lay upon the floor. not so much as a pocket-handkerchief remained in any of them. there was no sign of a portmanteau or dressing-basket, either. wilfrid smiled cynically as he looked round the dismantled room. the first of the rats had left the sinking ship. beyond question, cotter had stolen away, and maldon grange would see him no more. the telegram he had sent from castlebridge was probably the last communication that maldon would ever receive again from samuel flower's confidant and factotum.
no doubt he had feathered his nest. possibly he had laid his hands upon everything available. he had fled from the terror to come before it was too late. he had been wise in his choice of time.
"i think you had better go!" wilfrid said when he had returned to the dining-room. "everybody has gone to bed and your patient will be safe in my hands. you ought not to be more than an hour away. the road is a good one and you can't go wrong."
a few minutes later and mason was speeding off to castlebridge on his bicycle. wilfrid laid his book aside and pitched his cigarette into the grate. he must sit in the sick-room and watch till mason returned. flower lay quiet and still as death. he hardly seemed to breathe. there was a good fire in the room and the atmosphere inclined wilfrid to drowsiness, and presently he shut his eyes.
he was aroused a little later by the sounds of muttering from the bed. flower's eyes were closed and seemed to be dreaming about something in which the name of cotter was mixed up.
"why doesn't he come back?" he was saying. "what a time he is! he promised me to see the matter through this afternoon. i was a fool to trust him. i am a fool to trust anybody but myself, and some day he will desert me and i shall have to bear it all myself. but he doesn't know everything; nobody knows the secret that lies hidden in maldon grange."
the speaker broke off into a feeble chuckle. there was something sinister in this senile mirth, something that caused wilfrid to turn away in disgust. the voice ceased a moment later and all was still.
surely mason was a long time. more than an hour had passed and there was no sign of the nurse's return. wilfrid closed his eyes just for a moment, or so it seemed to him, and when he looked again he saw the clock was pointing to half-past two.
he jumped to his feet with a start. for nearly two hours he had utterly forgotten his duty to the patient! he turned to the bed to see if flower required anything, then a startled cry came from his lips. the bed was empty!
wilfrid gazed at the sheets and pillows with a feeling of stupefaction. at first he thought some one must have stolen into the bedroom and kidnapped his patient. but the idea was abandoned as absurd. wilfrid knew himself to be a light sleeper, and it would have been impossible for two men or more to enter the bedroom and carry off a heavy man like flower. besides, he would have offered some sort of resistance. he must face the matter calmly and find out without delay what had become of the patient. most of his clothes no longer hung over the chair by the bedside where they had been thrown and even the slippers were gone.
wilfrid dashed from the room and made a tour throughout the house. he had taken the precaution before the nurse left to see that every door and window was rigidly fastened, but though he ranged from the top to the bottom of the mansion there was not a bolt out of place or a single catch neglected.
obviously, flower must be somewhere on the premises. quickly and quietly wilfrid went from room to room starting with the top floor and working down to the basement. he came at length to the cellars and there he hesitated. it seemed almost a waste of time to scour those dingy chambers, but flower was nowhere to be found upstairs, and if the man were roaming about in a state of delirium there was no telling where he might wander. from the kitchen wilfrid procured a candle and set out on his errand. it was cold and damp down here, for the cellars were all beneath the house. white fungus grew on the walls and clammy moisture oozed from the ceilings. there were certain cell-like structures closely barred and locked, and these, wilfrid concluded, contained wine. he emerged presently into a wider, drier space, at the end of which were three small, insignificant-looking doors approached by a short flight of steps. wilfrid paused and held the candle above his head, for he could see a figure crouching on the top of one of the flights of stairs. he fancied he could hear the click of a key in the door.
somebody was there, beyond all doubt. wilfrid advanced cautiously until he ascertained that somebody was really there. whoever it was took no heed of the approaching light. wilfrid called out to flower by name. he had found the missing man.
"come away," he said. "what madness is this! you will catch your death of cold. what are you doing here?"
flower turned a blank face on the questioner. he was only dressed in his trousers and shirt. his face was begrimed with dirt and cobwebs, and his white linen had assumed a dingy hue.
"go away," he said sullenly. "what are you doing here? it is no business of yours. now that cotter is gone none shall share the secret. but i forgot—not even cotter knows of this. i had sense enough to keep this to myself. come and open the door for me. it will be worth your while."
flower's manner had changed all at once to a fawning civility. his truculent manner had vanished. he was like one in deadly fear who welcomes a friend.
"i can't get the key in the lock," he whined. "perhaps you can do it. the door hasn't been opened for eleven years, and the key has got rusty. you try it."
"we must oil it first," wilfrid said. "come upstairs and get some oil. you can't expect to use a key after all that time. then we will return and you shall show me your treasures."
flower obeyed instantly. his limbs staggered under him. it was as much as wilfrid could do to get him upstairs and into the bed-room again. for a moment flower clung tenaciously to his keys, but they dropped unheeded on the floor and his eyes closed again, as if his exertions had overpowered him. when he was between the sheets, the strange look of coma came over him again. how quiet the house seemed! then, as he was feeling the tense stillness of it all, his ear caught the sound of a footstep on the gravel and a moment later there was a tinkle of pebbles on the window.
