Blind Policy

“Where are they?” he whispered sharply to the maid, who was wondering at the undue excitement displayed.

“In the hall, sir.”

Chester’s mind was made up on the instant, and he turned to Isabel.

“Heaven bless you for this!” he cried passionately. “I cannot explain now, only that it is a case of great emergency. Take Miss Clareborough with you, and keep her until I write or come. I do not deserve this at your hands, but your presence here is like that of some good angel. You will take her home?”

“Yes,” she said softly, as she avoided his eyes.

“Listen, then,” he whispered anxiously.

“These people below have come in search of her, and she must not fall into their hands. I will go and keep, them in conversation, while you get her away at once.”

“I will,” replied Isabel, calmly.

“Heaven bless you!” he cried passionately, and then he turned to Marion, who looked quite exhausted.

“Go with her,” he said – “at once. You will be safe there until I come.”

“No,” she replied despairingly. “It would be better for you – for her – that we never meet again.”

He caught her hand in his.

“Refuse this, and I will not answer for the consequence,” he whispered angrily. “Remember you are mine.”

He hurried out, trying to be perfectly calm, met the representatives of the law in the hall, and signed to them to come into the consulting-room, and closed the door.

Chapter Thirty Five.

The Climax of a Madness

“One minute. Sit down while I attend to this.”

The inspector took a chair, but his follower, evidently a plain clothes’ officer, remained standing by the door; while, as if bound to make a memorandum of some important case, Chester took ink and paper and began writing rapidly for a few minutes, listening intently the while for the sound of steps upon the stairs, every nerve on the strain, as he wondered at the patience with which the two men waited.

At last, with his heart throbbing painfully, Chester heard a faint rustling sound outside, and the front door close, just as the inspector broke the silence.

“Beg pardon, sir,” he said, “but this is a case of emergency. I should be glad if you can come at once.”

“Come at once?”

“Yes,” said the inspector, coolly. “Only in the next street. Case of attempted suicide. Doctor with the party wants a second opinion.”

Chester drew a deep breath, wrote another line of incoherent words, and then, having hard work to speak composedly, he rose and said —

“I am at your service now.”

He followed the inspector to the door, and feeling half stunned at what seemed like so strange an escape, he went to the house where, in a mad fit, the occupant had taken desperate measures to rid himself of a life which had grown hateful; and while Chester aided his colleagues for the next hour in the difficult task of trying to combat the poison taken, he could not help feeling that this might have been his own case if matters had gone otherwise, for despair would have prompted him also to take a life that had become horrible – an existence that he could not have borne.

He went back home at last, but he made no attempt to see sister or aunt, his anger for the time being was too hot against them, and he was in no disposition to make any excuse. His next step was, he felt, to set Marion’s mind at rest regarding the police, and he was about to start for Isabel’s temporary London home, when he hesitated, shrinking from meeting her again. He felt that his position was despicable, and now the danger was past he mentally writhed at the obligation which he had so eagerly embraced.

“What a poor, pitiful, contemptible object I must seem in her eyes,” he muttered as he paced the room.

But he grew cooler after a time. Marion’s happiness must stand first. She was prostrate with horror and despair, and at any cost he felt that he must preserve her from danger, and set her mind at rest.

“But I cannot go,” he muttered – “I cannot face her again.” Then, half mad with himself for his miserable cowardice, he cast aside the pen with which he was about to write, and determined to go.

“She will forgive me,” he said; and he hurried into the hall, took up his hat, and then stopped short, aghast at his helplessness.

Where was he going? He had not the most remote idea as to where Isabel was staying, and maddened by his position, he forced himself to go up to the drawing-room and ask his sister for the address.

“I must be half mad,” he muttered.

He threw open the drawing-room door and, strode in, determined to insist upon the address being given him if Laura should refuse.

But the room was empty, and, staggered by this fresh surprise and with ominous thoughts beginning to arise, he went out on to the landing to call his sister by name. Then he called aloud to his aunt, with the result that an answer to his shouts came from below in the servant’s voice —

“Beg pardon, sir; Miss Laura and Mrs Crane went out more than an hour ago.”

“What! Where did they go?”

“I don’t know, sir. I had to whistle for a cab, and they each took a travelling bag.”

Chester went down to his consulting-room, checkmated, and feeling completely stunned at his position.

What was he to do? He might set a detective to try and find the cabman who took them away, but it would be days before he could have the man traced.

Then came a bright idea.

The hotel where Isabel had been staying – the manager there would know where she and her father and mother went on leaving.

He took a cab there, but the manager did not know. He thought the old people went abroad, and the young lady went into private apartments.

“But their letters – where were their letters to be addressed?”

“To their country house, sir.”

Chester hurried away again. Perhaps something might be made of that, and he went to the first post-office and telegraphed down to the person in charge of the house, paying for a reply to be sent to Raybeck Square, to which place he returned, and paced his room for two hours before he obtained the brief reply: —

“Address not known. They have not written yet. – Susan.”

“Was any poor wretch ever so tortured by fate?” he muttered; and he threw himself into a chair to try and think out some way of finding out the address to which he had sent Marion.

At last, faint, and with his brain in a whirl, he sought for temporary release from his sufferings in one of the bottles of drugs in his consulting-room.

But the ordinary dose seemed to have no effect, and he repeated it at intervals twice before he sank into a state of lethargy from which he did not awaken till morning, to find himself lying back in a corner of the couch, with the three servants gathered in consultation.

“Yes,” he cried wildly, “what is it? – what is the matter?”