The Quiet Gentleman

Martin bent, and stepped over the skirting-board into the room. He started when Miss Morville moved from her station by the shadowed bed into the light, and stammered: "I didn't know! I thought—" He broke off, shrugging. "It's of no consequence. St. Erth, I had to see you! I beg pardon if I startled you, but I was determined to have speech with you!"

"Where does that passage lead?" interrupted the Earl, nodding towards the cavity.

"It isn't a passage: it's only the secret stair! It leads to the cupboard by the door out to the old bowling-green. You must know it!"

"You are mistaken. I neither knew, nor was I told, that a secret stair led directly to my room."

Miss Morville moved silently to the door into the dressing-room, which stood ajar, and closed it, and then went to turn up the lamp.

"I suppose you were thought to know of it," Martin said. "What's the odds? I want—"

"Who does know of it?"

"Why, everyone!" said Martin impatiently. "There's no secret about it nowadays! No one uses it, of course—"

"That does not seem to be true."

"Well, I mean in the general way! I had to see you!"

Miss Morville had trimmed the lamp, and its golden light grew stronger. Looking up, she now perceived that Martin was looking haggard, and unusually white. She made no comment, but picked up one of the spare pillows, and carried it to the bed. "Let me put this behind you, my lord," she said. "It will be better for you not to support yourself on your elbow."

He thanked her, and leaned back, with a sigh of relief. She glanced at Martin, and said composedly: "Your brother is still weak, and should not be talking at this hour. Pray do not prolong your visit!"

"I've no wish to do him any harm—though I daresay you won't believe that!"

She did not answer, but sat down beside the fire. He scowled at her, but she returned his look with one of her wide, direct stares. Flushing, he turned from her to his half-brother.

"Tell me!" said the Earl. "Why do you choose to enter my room by a secret stair rather than by the door?"

"Choose! They will not let me come near you!"

"Who will not let you?"

"Theo—Ulverston—that damned groom of yours!"

"Indeed! But has a sentry been posted at my door?"

"No! Not at your door, but at mine!" Martin said bitterly. "Chard is sitting outside my room. The only wonder is that he has not locked me in!"

"Dear me! How, may I ask, did you contrive to slip past him unnoticed? Or is there also a secret way into your room?"

"No, there is not! I climbed out of the window. I tell you, I had to see you!"

"Why, Martin?"

"They think I tried to kill you!"

"Have they said so?"

"Not in so many words, but the questions they have asked me—the way they look at me! I'm not a fool! I know what they think! They say my gun and my shot-belt were found where—where it happened, and that I had rounds of ball in my belt! I had not! It is a damned lie, St. Erth! Good God, what should I want with ball when all I went for was an accursed pair of kestrels, and perhaps a pigeon or two?"

"Did you get the kestrels?" enquired Gervase.

"No. I never got a sight of them."

"Or a pigeon?"

"No!"

"Did you not fire your gun at all?"

"Yes, at a rabbit," Martin muttered. "Oh, we have had all that out, never fear I The gun has been fired, and I don't deny it! I bagged a rabbit, but where it is now I don't know! I can't produce it! I never fired at you!"

The Earl's head lay back against the supporting pillow; from under drooping eyelids he was watching every change in Martin's face. "Martin, why did you run away?" he asked.

"I didn't run away!" Martin exclaimed.

"Hush! Not so loud! My valet is sleeping in the next room. Where, then, have you been?"

"I don't know!" He saw his brother's brows lift, and added, in a goaded tone: "Ask Chard! He will tell you fast enough! It was some village short of Wisbech where he picked me up: I don't know its name!"

"I hope you mean to tell me what he was doing there, for I have not the remotest guess."

"I'll tell you!" Martin threw at him. "He was set on by your friend Ulverston to look for me on the road to King's Lynn! Ulverston believed I should be found making for the nearest port! God, how I have kept my hands from Ulverston's throat I don't know!"

"Yes, I remember now that Lucy told me that," Gervase said thoughtfully.

"I was trying to get to Stanyon, not to the coast!" Martin said, taking an impetuous step nearer to the bed.

"That, also, he foretold," murmured Gervase.

Martin recoiled. "I might have spared myself the pains of coming to you! You won't believe me any more than he or Theo do! Very well! Have me arrested for murder!"

"But I am not dead," Gervase said, smiling faintly. "What is it that I shan't believe?"

"I was kidnapped!" said Martin belligerently.

Miss Morville, who had been gazing into the fire, apparently divorced from this interchange, raised her head, and looked curiously at him.

"Now tell me you don't believe me! I expect that!"

"Not at all. Where, when, and how?"