Eveline Mandeville The Horse Thief Rival

CHAPTER VI.

PLOTS DE­VEL­OP­ING.

“Charles, Charles! Where is Charles?”

This name and in­quiry were of­ten re­peat­ed by Miss Man­dev­ille as she still lay “be­tween life and death,” on her couch of fever, pain and un­con­scious­ness, and the tones of her voice were so full of sor­row, the fa­ther's heart melt­ed at last, and he be­gan to re­lent. And when, af­ter a pause, his daugh­ter would con­tin­ue:

“He is gone! gone!--gone for­ev­er!--ah, my poor heart!”--in ac­cents more sad­ly plain­tive than any words that had over fall­en up­on the par­ent's ear, he said to him­self:

“It must not be! Hadley shall be, sent for; she loves him, and his voice may call her back to con­scious­ness. I can­not bear to think of her leav­ing the world in ig­no­rance of her fa­ther's good will; bet­ter a thou­sand times that Hadley should be with her for a few hours. He may not be guilty af­ter all. Why ought I to be­lieve Duf­fel's word be­fore his? Yes, and be­fore that of my own daugh­ter, too? and that with­out a word of ex­pla­na­tion! No, it is un­nat­ural. I won­der I have been blind­ed so long! Yes, Hadley shall be heard, and if he can show a clean hand, Eve­line shall no longer mourn over his ab­sence and my rash­ness.”

This was go­ing a step far­ther than Mr. Man­dev­ille had ev­er gone be­fore: for he had nev­er been known to re­cede from a po­si­tion once tak­en or to change an opin­ion once formed, un­less the most pos­itive ev­idence com­pelled him to do so, and then it was a silent ac­qui­es­cence to the right rather than a will­ing change of opin­ion.

But a long con­tin­uance in the sick room, and the great dis­tress of his child, had had an ef­fect up­on his mind, which no amount of rea­son­ing could have pro­duced--he was con­strained to ac­knowl­edge him­self in er­ror, and brought his mind up to that point where he was will­ing to con­fess the wrong he had per­pe­trat­ed, by “un­do­ing what he had done amiss.” This was a great achieve­ment for one of his tem­per­ament--a con­quest over self in a very self­ish and stub­born na­ture--which gave ev­idence that there was yet an un­der stra­ta of good, a foun­da­tion to the char­ac­ter of the man, which, though cov­ered up by the rub­bish and rank growth of pride and oth­er un­ami­able dis­po­si­tions, still ex­ist­ed, and was ca­pa­ble of ex­cit­ing to good and no­ble deeds.

Hav­ing once gained the con­sent of his mind and formed a res­olu­tion to re­tract, he was not long in tak­ing the ini­tia­to­ry step to­ward amend­ment.

He in­quired of the maid and nurse if Hadley had been seen, and learned from them that he had been in the dai­ly prac­tice of ask­ing af­ter the con­di­tion of Eve­line, and that for this pur­pose he came to a cer­tain des­ig­nat­ed spot, where one of the two met him to im­part such in­for­ma­tion as he de­sired. No soon­er was Mr. Man­dev­ille put in pos­ses­sion of this piece of news, than he re­solved to meet Hadley at the place of con­fer­ence him­self, and then and there re­call his words and in­vite him to the house, from which he had been ex­clud­ed so un­just­ly. Ver­ily this was a change!

Act­ing up­on this re­solve, he walked out in the di­rec­tion of the place where Hadley was ex­pect­ed to make his ap­pear­ance. As he leisure­ly saun­tered down the path and neared the spot, his eye fell up­on a piece of pa­per fold­ed up in the shape of a let­ter. He picked the doc­ument up and ex­am­ined it. It was di­rect­ed in a bold hand to

“_Charles Hadley_, ---- ----, ----.”

On the back of the let­ter and above the seal were the words: “_Pri­vate and strict­ly con­fi­den­tial_,” placed in such a man­ner as to catch the eye at a first glance on ei­ther side of the let­ter. The seal was bro­ken and the let­ter bore am­ple ev­idences of hav­ing been care­ful­ly and re­peat­ed­ly read.

An ir­re­sistable de­sire to ex­am­ine the con­tents of this pa­per took pos­ses­sion of Mr. Man­dev­ille, and in spite of the breach of good man­ners, and the vi­ola­tion of ev­ery prin­ci­ple of hon­or, he re­tired to an ob­scure cor­ner of his gar­den, opened and read so much of the epis­tle as was in­tel­li­gi­ble to him, which ran as fol­lows:

“_Dear Hadley_:--Ac­cord­ing to agree­ment, as en­tered in­to by us at our con­fer­ence in old Mar­shall's gar­den, I now im­part to you the fol­low­ing in­for­ma­tion, which you will re­ceive at the hands of one of our most trust­wor­thy as­so­ciates. You will please note the con­tents of this com­mu­ni­ca­tion, so as not to fail in the ex­ecu­tion of that part of the trans­ac­tion as­signed to you, and then burn the let­ter im­me­di­ate­ly, that you may pre­vent the pos­si­bil­ity of its falling in­to oth­er hands, which would lead to the most dis­as­trous con­se­quences--per­haps to the de­struc­tion of our or­ga­ni­za­tion. When tak­en, bring the hors­es at once to the ren­dezvous, with such oth­er valu­ables as may come in your pos­ses­sion; and be sure that ev­ery­thing is done se­cret­ly, and in such a man­ner as to avoid de­tec­tion. Be bold and de­ter­mined in res­olu­tion, but cau­tious and guard­ed in ac­tion. Yours, ---- ----, Capt.”

The cap­tain's name was writ­ten in char­ac­ters, as well as all the body of the let­ter, which Mr. Man­dev­ille did not un­der­stand, and which were ev­ident­ly to be in­tel­li­gi­ble on­ly to the mem­bers of some band of vil­lains, by whom the signs had been adopt­ed as medi­ums of com­mu­ni­ca­tion. At the bot­tom of all was a line to this ef­fect:

“P.S. What will the old man say when he is gone? It will be us­ing him right for the scaly trick he served you so re­cent­ly; eh!”

What a change the pe­rusal of this doc­ument brought about in the mind of Mr. Man­dev­ille! The soft­ened ex­pres­sion of benev­olence, which had lit up his coun­te­nance with a glow, left it in a mo­ment. A dark frown set­tled up­on his brow and clouds of black­ness over his face.

All his for­mer prej­udice against Hadley re­turned in ten-​fold strength; for had he not the most pos­itive proof of his vil­lainy? Not a mo­ment longer wait­ed he for an in­ter­view, but with the let­ter care­ful­ly stowed away in a side pock­et for fu­ture ref­er­ence and use, he bent his steps back to his house, re­volv­ing in his mind how to pro­ceed in the present emer­gen­cy. That some great scheme of theft and rob­bery had been planned, with a de­sign to be speed­ily ex­ecut­ed, was ev­ident from the con­tents of the let­ter; but where and when the act or acts were to be com­mit­ted, it was im­pos­si­ble to tell, and con­se­quent­ly, a very dif­fi­cult mat­ter to de­cide up­on a course of pol­icy like­ly to thwart the de­signs of the rogues. Af­ter much re­flec­tion, Mr. Man­dev­ille con­clud­ed it was best to lay the case be­fore the mag­is­trate and take le­gal ad­vice how to pro­ceed He did so. In a pri­vate con­fer­ence with that func­tionary, they talked over the mat­ter. The jus­tice was a wor­thy man and a friend to Hadley, and though the ev­idence was over­whelm­ing and near­ly pos­itive of his guilt, yet he could not find it in his heart to con­demn the young man with­out a hear­ing, and was equal­ly un­able to get the con­sent of his mind to make the mat­ter pub­lic, there­by in­jur­ing the rep­uta­tion of his friend, un­til he could see and con­verse with him on the sub­ject. He ad­vised Mr. Man­dev­ille thus:

“I think the best thing we can do is to keep an eye on the move­ments of this young man, Hadley, as well as up­on oth­ers who may be as­so­ci­at­ed with him, if he is the vil­lain he is here made to ap­pear. If we in­sti­tute pro­ceed­ings against him, we have on­ly this let­ter to re­ly up­on, which is not suf­fi­cient to con­vict him, as there is no leg­ible name at the bot­tom of it, and no wit­ness to cor­rob­orate the state­ments. If he is guilty, pre­ma­ture ac­tion will give him all ad­van­tages, and en­able him to clear him­self; where­as, by in­sti­tut­ing a strict surveil­lance over his acts, we may be able to get at the truth of the mat­ter, and can then act un­der­stand­ing­ly in the case.”

Mr. Man­dev­ille co­in­cid­ed with the mag­is­trate, and then they agreed to keep the mat­ter strict­ly to them­selves for the present.

“Shall I re­tain the let­ter?” in­quired the jus­tice.

“No, I wish to use it, first, and will then leave it with you,” was the re­ply--and thus the mat­ter was set­tled be­tween them.

While the events just re­lat­ed were tran­spir­ing, and at the very hour when Mr. Man­dev­ille was con­sult­ing the man of law, Duf­fel was en­gaged with his two ruf­fi­an as­so­ciates in a plot of vil­lainy, which, for deep cun­ning and cal­cu­la­tion, was su­pe­ri­or to any­thing he had yet con­ceived and car­ried out, though it was but a link in the chain of crim­inal acts he had forged out and was about to fol­low up. The two held their con­sul­ta­tion in the tongue­less and ear­less soli­tude of a dense swamp, where none could hear their words or learn the pur­port of their schemes and give warn­ing.

“You un­der­stand about the hors­es, do you?” queried Duf­fel, af­ter he had been ex­plain­ing some in­tend­ed op­er­ation, in which hors­es were to be stolen.

“Yes, ful­ly,” was the re­ply.

“Well, the hors­es will be missed, and, of course, it will be known that _some­body_ has tak­en them. I have a mea­sure to pro­pose which will throw sus­pi­cion on the wrong track and re­lieve us from any fear of be­ing charged with the theft or even sus­pect­ed of guilt.”

“That's the sort! do the killing and get the hal­ter around some oth­er ras­cal's neck. Let us hear your propo­si­tion, lieu­tenant.”

“You have not for­got­ten that I men­tioned to you in the cave the oth­er evening, that I might need your ser­vices in get­ting rid of a trou­ble­some fel­low who was in my way. I did not then ex­pect to need your ser­vices so soon, if at all, in this branch of our agree­ment; but, as the horse busi­ness is agreed up­on, and as the fel­low may pos­si­bly be some­thing of a hin­drance to my plans of op­er­ation in the fu­ture, I think this will be a first-​rate oc­ca­sion on which to dis­pose of him. As I said, some­body will be ac­cused of steal­ing the hors­es, and as it is known that you, gen­tle­men, have re­cent­ly been in these parts, and as sus­pi­cion has long since point­ed to you as hav­ing had a hand in sev­er­al trans­ac­tions held to be un­law­ful, you will, as a mat­ter of cer­tain­ty, be des­ig­nat­ed as the thieves in this in­stance, un­less, by some mas­ter-​stroke of pol­icy, you can fair­ly show that you are not guilty. Do you see this?”

“It all looks mighty like­ly, cer­tain.”

“Don't it look more than like­ly? Don't it look just as if it could not be oth­er­wise?”

“Why, yes; it does look so, that's a fact.”

“Of course you would like to cast the blame some­where else?”

“We would, that's cer­tain.”

Well, you can do it. I have al­ready pre­pared the way, and if you will fol­low my in­struc­tions to the let­ter, the thing is done?"

“Give us our parts and we will act them to the life,” said Bill, who had been spokesman for both, as was usu­al at such times.

“Ay,” said Dick, “and to the death, too, I guess.”

“Quite like­ly, quite like­ly!” re­joined Duf­fel. “Do you think you will have the nerve to per­form this ex­treme act Should it be­come nec­es­sary?”

“Does Lieu­tenant Duf­fel take us to be cow­ards, that he makes such a white-​liv­ered in­sin­ua­tion?”

“By no means; I on­ly wished to know if you were _now_ pre­pared for any emer­gen­cy that might come up?”

“Yes, any time and al­ways. Go on.”

“My plan is this: So soon as the hors­es are in our pos­ses­sion, we must con­vey them to the mid­dle of the 'Swamp,' and be back by morn­ing, or noon at fur­thest, _and show our­selves_. If we are about ear­ly, say as soon as pos­si­ble af­ter the an­imals are missed, and _take part in the search_, few, if any, will think of us as be­ing the thieves, as they are pleased to term such op­er­ators, while we can, at the same time, turn the hunt af­ter the hors­es in the di­rec­tion in which they are not to be found, if we can do so with­out ex­cit­ing sus­pi­cions of our aims. Mark that! we must be cau­tious and not over­do the thing, or it will be worse for us than to do noth­ing.”

“We un­der­stand.”

“Well, that is all on that point; but there is some­thing more to be done; we must di­rect sus­pi­cion to some one else; some one must be ac­cused, and _he must not be about_. You com­pre­hend?”

“Per­fect­ly.”

“Well, I have the sheep al­ready pre­pared for the sac­ri­fice.”

“Who is he, and where will we find him?”

“_Charles Hadley_ is the man, and you will find him just in the right place--the dark pas­sage in the road to C----; he pass­es that point ev­ery night about nine or ten o'clock. You know what to do with him.”

“Would it not be as well to car­ry him to the save and im­prison him? You know, it would not be mur­der, then.”

“I had thought of that; but if we take him there, it will not do to let him out again, for, if we did, it would be the end of us all; so we should have to both im­prison and mur­der him in the end, which would be much worse than to put him out of the way at once, let alone the risk at­tend­ing the plan you sug­gest.”

“Right.”

“You see, then, we will have some one on whom to lay the theft?”

“Ex­act­ly! Huz­za for Lieu­tenant Duf­fel!”

“Si­lence!”

“I beg par­don.”

“Re­mem­ber the time, next Thurs­day night, and don't fail to be at the 'dark pas­sage' in time.”

“We'll be there, don't fear; and the thing shall be done up hand­some­ly.”

“But what's to be done with the feller's body when he's dead, I'd like to know?” in­ter­posed Dick.

“Sure enough,” replied Duf­fel; “I had for­got­ten to in­struct you on that point. Take him to the sink in that black swamp, and be sure to make him _stay un­der_. We want no tell-​tale car­cass­es show­ing them­selves.”

“You need have no fears on that point; once there and he'll nev­er see the light again, nor the light him.”

“I will now leave you to make such ar­range­ments be­tween your­selves as may be nec­es­sary for the work be­fore you. Leave noth­ing in­com­plete, and be punc­tu­al to the very minute in ev­ery in­stance.”

With this part­ing in­junc­tion, Duf­fel left his vil­lain­ous com­pan­ions, who be­gan at once to pre­pare them­selves for the das­tard­ly busi­ness their su­pe­ri­or had al­lot­ted to them in his schemes of ras­cal­ity and black-​heart­ed crime. This was Mon­day, in the af­ter­noon, and con­se­quent­ly, but three days un­til Hadley was to be way­laid and slain, and im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter­ward some­body's hors­es stolen and run off, the crime of steal­ing which was to be laid up­on the mur­dered man. This was a plot wor­thy of the wretch who con­ceived it, and, with the aid of vil­lains as un­scrupu­lous as him­self, was about to be put in ex­ecu­tion.

From the mo­ment the com­mand of the “_Or­der of the League of In­de­pen­dents_” (it ought have been named the Or­der of the League of Mur­der­ers and Horse-​Thieves) was vest­ed in him, dur­ing the cap­tain's ab­sence, he had re­solved to make the most of his time and au­thor­ity to bring all his plans to a cri­sis and an is­sue. Hadley was to be dis­posed of; Man­dev­ille was to be blind­ed, his daugh­ter, through him, forced to wed the ras­cal, or, fail­ing in this, _she_ was to be forced in­to mea­sures, by fair means or foul, of which here­after.

* * * * *

Fri­day morn­ing was ush­ered in amid clouds and storm. The heav­ens were shroud­ed in a pall of dark­ness and the rain came down in tor­rents. Mr. Man­dev­ille had spent most of the night with his daugh­ter, and did not re­tire un­til some hours past mid­night. Hav­ing been de­prived of so much rest, dur­ing the pre­vi­ous two weeks and more, his slum­bers were un­usu­al­ly heavy, and it was a late hour in the morn­ing when he awoke, and the dis­mal weath­er adding to his drowsi­ness, he con­tin­ued to lay and rest af­ter con­scious­ness had re­turned. His half-​wak­ing, half-​dream­ing med­ita­tions were bro­ken in up­on by a gen­tle tap at his bed-​room door. In a mo­ment he was wide awake, care for his child hav­ing quick­ened his sens­es, and de­mand­ed if Eve­line was any worse.

“No, sir,” was the re­ply, “it is on­ly Mr. Duf­fel, who has called and in­quired for you.”

“Tell him I will be down in a few min­utes.”

Won­der­ing what could bring his vis­itor at such an ear­ly hour, Mr. Man­dev­ille hasti­ly dressed and went in­to the par­lor, where he met and was salut­ed by Duf­fel in the most cor­dial man­ner.

“I reached home at a late hour last night,” said the hyp­ocrite, “and felt so great an anx­iety to hear from you and your daugh­ter, I could not wait for the storm to abate, but has­tened at this un­sea­son­able hour to in­quire af­ter her wel­fare and yours. I hope I have not in­trud­ed so far but that you will par­don my un­fash­ion­able call and seem­ing im­pa­tience. How is Eve­line?”

“You are al­ways wel­come, come at what hour you may. I can hard­ly an­swer your last ques­tion; I think Eve­line is bet­ter in some re­spects, but she is great­ly re­duced, and when the fever leaves, will, doubt­less, be very weak.--I both hope and fear for her. The fever will run its course, and if she has con­sti­tu­tion enough to out­live it and re­cu­per­ate, she will re­cov­er; oth­er­wise the re­sult will be fa­tal.”

“It is im­pos­si­ble, then, for the most skill­ful and far-​see­ing to fore­tell the is­sue?”

“Quite im­pos­si­ble. Will you now ex­cuse me for a short time? I have not looked af­ter my stock this morn­ing.”

“With plea­sure.”

Mr. Man­dev­ille left his guest around whose mouth a pe­cu­liar smile was play­ing as he passed out at the door. That smile had a mean­ing.

Af­ter a brief ab­sence the host re­turned, and in some con­ster­na­tion an­nounced that his best horse had been stolen dur­ing the night.

“Is it pos­si­ble!” said Duf­fel, feign­ing the ut­most sur­prise. “What vil­lain could take ad­van­tage of the sick­ness of your daugh­ter, to plan and ex­ecute such a cow­ard­ly act?”

“I am per­suad­ed there are more than one con­nect­ed with these thefts; in­deed, I may say, I know there are num­bers of thieves in­fest­ing the coun­try. They are reg­ular­ly band­ed to­geth­er; and, would you be­lieve it, that Hadley, of whom we were once speak­ing, is an of­fi­cer in the band, as I have ev­ery rea­son to be­lieve.”

“That will ex­act­ly cor­re­spond with what I told you in the in­ter­view to which you al­lude.”

“True.”

“Have you seen him late­ly?”

“I have not.”

“Can he be found this morn­ing?”

“Ah, I per­ceive your thoughts are run­ning in the same di­rec­tion as my own. We will in­quire af­ter him.”

The in­quiries were in­sti­tut­ed, but no Hadley was to be found; he had left the day pre­vi­ous, but no one could tell whith­er he had gone, or what had called him away. When these facts were as­cer­tained, Man­dev­ille and Duf­fel ex­changed a sig­nif­icant glance, as much as to say: “Just as we ex­pect­ed!”

The horse stolen was one of great val­ue, and Mr. Man­dev­ille was re­solved to make a des­per­ate ef­fort to re­cov­er him; and he was the more fixed in this de­ter­mi­na­tion, be­cause the horse was in­tend­ed as a gift to Eve­line on her re­cov­ery, in case she _did_ re­cov­er, and, al­so, be­cause, as he be­lieved, the de­tec­tion of the cul­prit would ex­pose the base­ness of her lover to his daugh­ter, and cause her to dis­card him at once from her thoughts.--Full of these thoughts, he of­fered a hand­some re­ward for the horse, and a very large one for the ap­pre­hen­sion of the thief. In prospect of ob­tain­ing these re­wards, as well as to ren­der a ser­vice to com­mu­ni­ty, some six in­di­vid­uals band­ed them­selves to­geth­er with the avowed in­ten­tion of fer­ret­ing out the mat­ter, and im­me­di­ate­ly set out for that pur­pose.