CHAPTER XXXV

TIME passed, and April came to London, lighting the crocuses like little lamps along the borders of the parks. Nothing could have been kindlier than her coming or more cruel than her going, for it froze hard during the last few days of her month; buds were brought to untimely ruin and the ice on the ponds was sufficiently thick almost for skating.

But the first of May broke cloudless and warm, the herald of three weeks of perfect weather.

Mademoiselle Lefarge had gone back to France, and Hellier ought to have been on circuit.

But he was not in the mood for business. His mind was occupied by one thing, the Gyde case. A month had passed since the murder of Mr Goldberg and the occurrence in St Ann’s Road, yet not a word of the solution of the mystery had come to the public ears as to Sir Anthony Gyde; the public were beginning to forget him.

Occasionally some old clubman, a once friend of his, would remember the fact of his existence, wonder why the police had not caught him, and damn them for their inefficiency.

Up in Cumberland, where things, little or big, are not so easily forgotten, the affair was still being discussed in market-square and village ale-house. The Cottage on the Fells was deserted, and not for many decades could the most astute land-agent hope to let it again.

One night, it was the 8th of May, exactly a month and ten days after the murder, or the supposed murder, of Klein, a strange thing occurred.

A man named Davis, journeying from Alston to Langwathby on foot, lost his way upon the fells, at dusk, and wandered for several hours, till the rising moon showed him a few broken walls and remains of houses, and he knew that he had come to the old ruined fell village of Unthank.

In the time of the Plague a fugitive from London sought refuge in this village, and the inhabitants of it showed their hospitality by moving out of it en masse and leaving the plague-stricken one in undisputed possession. They built themselves another village, lower down, which they also labelled Unthank and which remains to this day.

Davis, recognizing the ruins, took them for a point of departure, and at last struck the road at the foot of the fells, which runs through Gamblesby and Melmerby to Blencarn.

Hopeless of reaching Langwathby that night, he determined to make for Blencarn and put up with a relation of his who lived there.

He was nearing the place and the moon was high in the sky, making the roadway as clear as if viewed by daylight, when, on the road right before him, he saw the figure of a man walking also in the direction of Blencarn.

It was just now that Davis remembered that he was close to the cottage where the murder was committed, and he increased his pace, hoping to overtake the man and walk with him for company’s sake. As he drew closer, he recognised that the person before him was not an ordinary countryman or farmer, but evidently a man used to the pavement of a town and seemingly well dressed.

Then, to his astonishment, Davis saw the stranger pause at a gate on the left of the road, unchain it and walk through, carefully putting the chain up again.

Instantly Davis recognized the gate, and the fact that it was the gate that gave entrance to the field beyond which, hidden by a dip of the fells, lay the cottage of the murder.

He was passing the gate, when the stranger, who was only twenty paces or so away in the field, turned, saw Davis and beckoned to him to follow him.

The moonlight was full on the stranger’s face, and, horrified, Davis recognized that the man before him in the field was Sir Anthony Gyde.

As he stood spellbound, gazing at the murderer, a cloud passed over the moon, and the shadow of the cloud, like a black handkerchief, swept over the field and seemed to sweep Sir Anthony Gyde away. For when the moon returned he was gone.

Then Davis ran, and he did not stop running until he reached the door of his relative. The accounts he gave of the occurrence were so confused as to cast discredit on his narrative, and he was put down as a liar for the strange reason that he was not gifted with the power of story-telling.

Had he seen, or pretended to have seen, the ghost of Klein, every one would have believed him, for every one knew that Klein was dead. But Sir Anthony Gyde was alive, and the countryside were waiting to see him caught and hanged, and no one wished to believe in his ghost for that very reason.