Love in fetters

Front matter

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Contents

I. Awaking from Sleep i

3. Fortune's Favours lo

4. Dkimking her Health 29

Chapter I ; Awaking Prom Sleep

He could not think what had happened. He woke with a start, a most amazing start, out of the strangest dream — a dream of happiness in which, surely, he told himself, his eyes scarcely yet wide open, Elsie had been with him. And now — where was he ? What had happened ?

It was a second or two — so profound had his slumber been, so startling the shock which had broken it — before he could remember where he was. Then, with a start, he tried to get up, to find that he could not.

He made an effort to realise the situation. He had been travelling from Marseilles to Paris in a first-class compartment, with Inspector Jenner as his sole companion. They had not long passed Lyons when he went to sleep. Where were they now? What was the matter with the train ?

It broke upon him by degrees that isomething must be the matter with the train — or, at least, with that part of it in which he was. The carriage seemed to be standing up on end. Instead of there being a level seat on which he had been reclinitig, he was down at one door, and the seat on which he had lain down to sleep rose at an acute angle towards the other. The train seemed to be standing still. What did it mean ?

Then it dawned on him that something had happened to the compartment. Surely it was narrower than it had been when he lay down to sleep ? Where was Inspector Jenner? Something was wrong with the lamp in what he took to be the roof, though it seemed to be in an odd position. The glass seemed to be broken ; the jet of gas was flaring unprotected, licking the woodwork, .scarring it, blackening it. If something were not done presently it would be in flames.

There must have been an accident to the train while he slept. The shock had awakened him. Why had it not awakened Inspector Jenner ? Where was be? He tried to stand up. As he did so be came into contact with something. It was a hand, which was visible between the seats ; he tiad been lying on it. The compartment had telescoped; the seats had been jammed together j Inspector Jenner was between them. He was lying on what was left of him. The inspector must have been thrown off his seat just in time to be crushed to death.

Moving as well as he was able, he saw the upper part of the inspector's body — his head, his shoulders,

Awaking from Sleep

nearly down to his waist. Fate had been so far merciful that death must have been instantaneous.

What an awful thing to have occurred. What a dreadful situation he was in. Ronald, still trying to collect his thoughts and to realise his surroundings, awoke to the presence of the handcuffs on his wrists. When he went to sleep he was the dead man's prisoner. And now was he hts prisoner still ?

In an emergency Ronald's wits moved quickly; sometimes too quickly, so that he acted first and repented afterwards. Shut up in the wrecked compartment of the ruined train, he began to appreciate the situation with almost eerie clearness. He had seen the inspector put the key of the handcuffs in a side pocket of his jacket. Could he get at it ? Kneeling, he dragged at the dead man's clothing. One side of the jacket came loose ; it proved to be the one in the pocket of which was the key. How was he going to unlock those handcuffs ? He put the cross-bar of the key between his teeth and gripped it firmly; then tried to insert it into one of the locks. Several seconds passed before he succeeded ; then he thrust it home. Then, gripping the metal as well as he could with his fingers, he twisted his wrist in an endeavour to induce the lock to open. He had seen the trick done upon the stage, when he had been struck by its simplicity; he did not find it so easy in practice. He tried, and tried, and tried, but the lock would not be persuaded to yield. What was he to do? Someone might come at any moment; be would be interrupted. Then what would be the use of doing anything? He would have to continue his journey as someone else's prisoner instead of Inspector Jennet's.

If his teeth would only grip the cross-bar better I If only his fingers would not slip I If he could but persuade the thing to yield I He made one more almost despairing effort. The thing did yield I The key turned; he had but to give a jerk; the gyve fell open. One hand was free! Perspiration stood upon his brow; the sensation of relief was so great that he reeled. Then his wits quickly cleared again, his presence of mind returned. Unfastening the other wrist, he slipped the handcuffs into his pocket. It would never do to leave them in the compartment. An explanation might be required of their presence.

What was he to do next? He remembered that he had no money. The inspector had all his; he had taken charge of it when arresting him at Nice. He knew that some of the notes were in the letter-case in the breast-pocket of the inspector's jacket. He had seen him put them there. It was a horrible thing to have to do : to rob the dead — every nerve in his body told him so — but for him it was a question of life or death. He had to. He got at the pocket somehow, emptying it of its contents. Among them was the warrant for his own arrest. What a lucky thing he had found it I What should he do with it ? He had better put it in his own pocket and get rid of it, tc^tber with the handcuffs, at the first con- 4

Awaking from Sleep

venient moment. He also bad the letter-case ; it was stuffed with French bank-notes. He himself had had nearly thirty thousand francs. The inspector had arrested him as he was leaving the Casino after a lucky afternoon at the tables. That part of his money which was not in' the letter-case must be in the inspector's bag. The inspector's bag had been thrown off the rack on to the seat. Should he open it? It was locked. The key was somewhere in one of the inspector's pockets. He would have to get it. His own bag was locked also; the inspector had his key — the inspector had all that was his, including his watch and chain, his cigarettes and matches. He recollected, also, that the inspector had in his bag such papers as had been found in his possession. He certainly ought to have them. He would have to find those two keys for his own bag and the inspector's.

Yet, when it came to the point, he could not; it must needs be such a hideous quest, with most of the man jammed to a jelly between those seats. He would have to take the bags, and trust to fortune to provide him with the means of getting at their contents.

It now became a question of how he was to escape from that compartment. Although probably only a very few minutes had elapsed since he had awakened to the realisation of what had happened, already the bared jet of gas was bidding fair to make what was left of the compartment a mass of flames. The wood- 5 work of the roof was crackling, tongues of fire were licking it. He could not get out of the door near which he was; that, apparently, ^{15 pinned to the ground. He would have to get out of the door at the other end, which rose ahove him at an angle of probably more than fifty degrees. He would have to reach it by the aid of what was left of the luggage rack, with the probability of finding, when he got there, that it was jammed.

He did reach it. He had to pass that gas-jet to do so, and the atmosphere up there was unpleasantly hot. The door was jammed, as he had expected ; the handle, when he tried it, refused to budge. The glass in the window was splintered; long, sharp points remained in the frame. He had brought the two bags up with him somehow. He thrust the inspector's through what was left of the window, dashing it against the bar without, which gave way as if it had been made of straw. Clearly it had suffered with the rest of the train. He sent his own bag after it. Then he followed. He was slenderly built; it was easy (or him to pass through the window frame ; but he caught his hand on a splinter of glass, which cut him severely. He raised himself as he gained a precarious footing on the side of the upturned carriage ; then dropped on to the line. As he dropped he was conscious that a tongue of flame rose into the air from the compartment which he had just now quitted.

The drop was longer than he had expected. The carriage had been thrown on to a bank at the side. 6

A-waking from Sleep

The end fi4m which he dropped had been raised several feet above the permanent way. He feil awkwardly, almost stunned. So nearly were his senses driven out of him that the original business had to be done all over again. He had to realise where he was, and what was happening about him. This time it was not easy. It had been bad enough within the compartment; without it was like pandemonium let loose. The night air was full of dreadful sounds. Steam escaped with an extraordinary hissing noise from the broken engine. The hot water which heated the compartments hissed with it. Human beings shrieked and wailed and shouted; men, women, children, some in an agony of pain, some in a frenzy of terror. How the tragedy had come about he did not understand — no one seemed to understand. He rose to uncertain feet with a feeling that all these things must be happening in a nightmare, the most dreadful of all his dreadful dreams. Not all of the train had fared equally badly. People who had escaped from some of the compartments were running up and down, aimlessly shouting something to they alone knew whom. It was dark ; the sky was clouded ; it was not easy to see anything. He heard a voice say to someone he could not see, speaking in French :

"The train has been thrown across the down line — the express is coming from Dijon — I am going to try to stop it with my lantern. The good God help us I "

T

Someone ran off. He could see he was carrying a l^bt. He supposed that one guard had been speaking to another, and that one of them was about to make a forlorn effort to stop an approaching train by using his lantern as a danger signal. If an express train came into them as they were lying helpless there, would anyone be alive to tell the tale ?

Under ordinary circumstances, Ronald Denton would have kept his head sufficiently to see in what direction his duty lay. Before this he would have realised that his first duty was towards his fellowsufferers. Exactly what had happened he still did not know ; but he did know that tbe train was wrecked, that he had got out of it practically uninjured, and that all about him were people in the direst need of help from someone. Unhesitatingly he would have strained every nerve and spared no pains to render all the help he could. But that was one of the supreme moments of his life. There had been first one, then another, and that was the third. In each of the other two moments he had failed, as he was to fail in the third. There might have been hope for him had he, to use an idiom, stayed to face the music and play the man. But he did not play the man. He thought only of how, a few minutes back, he was being taken, with gyves upon his wrists, to an ignominious fate, and of how, as by a miracle, he had been freed. It did not occur to him that freedom had come in this strange guise in order to give him an opportunity of rising on stepping-stones of his

A^^aking from Sleep

dead self to higher things; of proving that in him there was at least the material which goes to the making of a true, honest, single-hearted and unselfish man. Perhaps he was not quite himself in that wild hour, because he was only ahle to realise that it behoved him to take the greatest possible care to preserve the freedom which he had so strangely won. With the inspector's bag in one hand, his own in the other, he crossed the line, climbed the steep bank, which was on the other side, made the best of his way over what seemed open meadows, which were on the top, and left that ruined train behind.

CHAPTER n

Fortune continued to favour him. He had not gone far, picking his steps as well as he could over the uneven ground in the darkness, when he came to a road which, rough though it was, was better than the open ground. Just as he reached it the loud screech of a steam whistle rent the air. It was possibly the express from Dijon. Had that broken-voiced guard, using his lantern as a danger signal, warned it in time? Turning, he perceived that there was a signal which was much more obvious than any which could be given by the glimmer of a lamp. Flames rose in the direction from which he had come ; the ruined (rain was on hre. He realised, even then, that this suggested a rather horrible state of things; but, in spite of a dim consciousness that his point of view was a selfish one, the dominant feeling in his mind was that it would be all the better for him. If, for example, the compartment in which was the dead body of Inspector Jenner was consumed by flames, it might be taken for granted Ronald Denton was burnt with it; in which case he would be at liberty to begin his life over again, hampered by no past and by no ties. He told himself, with a grim sort of humour, that in that case that railway smash might turn out to be an excellent thing for him.

He was probably at a distance of nearly half a mile from the line. The wails and cries of people beside themselves with pain and terror which had dogged his footsteps had died away. But, as he stood there, reflecting on the ancient adage, which has it that one man's poison is another man's meat, the night was disturbed by a tumult of discord, which must have travelled far across the silent land. The whistling of the engine had not ceased. Now there came a grinding, rending noise, the ominous significance of which sent his heart up into his mouth.

"I believe the express has run into the wrecked train. What's to be done?"

Nothing by him. He paused, merely, it almost seemed, to make sure. Then, as if fearful that a claim might be made on him to help in the work of salvage, he moved with quickened steps along the road which he had found. He heartily wished, to do him justice, that such an uncomfortable noise would cease to come from the direction ot the line; it did suggest, to an imaginative person, so many disagreeable things.

Yet when he had gone perhaps another mile that noise was with him still, growing fainter, but uncomfortably perceptible to the dullest ear. He had been carrying the two bags, Inspector Jenner's in his right hand, his own in his left. In the sute of high tension at which his mind had been physical things bad gone unnoticed. He had been to all intents and purposes unconscious that he was carrying two bags ; now, all at once, the oinsciousness of their presence became overwhelming. He had to drop them both upon the roadway. He had had no idea that they were so heavy. They had taken so much out of him that he had positively to sit upon the inspector's bag, because his legs were so unsteady. He obviously would not be able to carry them very much farther. He was not used to bearing burdens. How he had got so far was a mystery ; and then his hand was bleeding. No doubt his blood had drabbled the inspector's bag — the handle of the bag had stuck to the wound. He took out his handkerchief, and bound it up as best he could. Then, after an interval, during which he endeavoured to recover from his state of breathless exhaustion, he pursued his way.

Still fortune favoured him. Now that he bad become aware that he was carrying two good-sized bags, it was only with diEBculty that he could proceed with them at all. First one arm seemed to be coming out of its socket, then the other ; they banged against his legs. Every few yards he had to put them down and shift them, in the hope of getting a better balance. Just as he had decided that he would have to abandon one, and get along as best he could with the other, he became aware that, only a few yards in front, close to the roadside, loomed the shadow of a building which might be either a cottage or a shed. If it was the first, he might be able to obtain rest and shelter, perhaps food and drink ; if it was the second, it might still serve him as a haven of refuge for what was left of the night. It turned out to be an open shed. It was not easy to determine, in the bad light, exactly what kind of a shed it was ; but he surmised that it was possibly used as a shelter for cattle in inclement weather. He needed shelter as much as ever cattle did, so he went in. There seemed to be no floor beyond the bare ground, and that he had more than a suspicion was none too clean. One of the bags would have to be to him a seat.

He had taken a box of matches out of Inspector Jenner's pocket; the inspector had taken great care to see that not a match had been left in his possession. It was a wooden box, nearly full ; they would go only a very Httle way towards lighting him through the night, especially as there were matters, in which the bags had a prominent place, with which he wished to deal before the morning. He could not even open the bags without a light by which to see what he was doing. He struck a match. It was only a bare shed. A small heap of stones seemed to be its only contents ; that might be a better seat than the bag, which se«ned to him to be the acme of discomfort. He dragged the bag over to the heap of stones. As he did so his foot came into contact with something which was lying on the ground. He lighted another match to see what it was. It was a rusty piece of metal attached to a wooden handle, which might at one time have done duty as a billhook. Could he open one of the bags with that ? He had a notion that in Inspector Jenner's bag there were the remains of a packet of candles, to say nothing of a lantern. If he could only get at them they would be useful. Igniting a third match and picking up the ancient tool, he examined the lock of the inspector's bag to see in what way to deal with it. It w£is an ordinary Gladstone bag with two locks. The billhook would not be of much use in persuading them to open ; they would have to be prised, which would be a pity. It would look bad if he arrived at an hotel with a bag which had obviously been forced open. He wished that it would not be necessary to take the inspector's bag with him at all. Yet what was he to do with it if he did not? He could not leave it in that shed. It was of capital importance that there should be in existence nothing which could serve as a clue to his identity. A keen-witted individual, coming on that bag in that queer place, might draw his own conclusions. Ronald Denton wished to run no risks. He would have to take the bag, with the locks forced open.

It was not easy to force them open, even with the aid of the billhook. He was making a woeful mess of the thing; die frame gaped in more places than one, but the locks held. The state of that bag would need a good deal of explanation ; and jret the thing remained shut. The bad light was against him; he had to be chary with his matches. What was he to do? He had never forced a Gladstone bag open before ; he had had no notion that it was so difficult.

Short of tearing it to pieces, there seemed to be no way of getting at its contents with the tool he had. In his irritation he brought down the billhook on one of the locks as if it were a hatchet. Something gave way. The lock was open. The bag was damaged beyond repair. The curiosity of any landlord would be justified if a strange guest came to him with a bag like that. And yet the other lock continued firm.

That hatchet stroke would not do a second time what it had done the first; there must be some trick about it which he had caught by accident. He chopped, chopped, chopped. The lock held. He took the frame, which gaped at one end, in his two hands, and dragged it asunder. The bag was open at last, and also done for. So great was his annoyance at the trouble the thing had given him, and at the unsatisfactory nature of the result, that he swore aloud. While the words were still issuing from his lips he sprang to his feet and looked around. Someone was laughing.

That his solitude was likely to be disturbed was the last thing which would have occurred to him. In that seemingly unpeopled part of the world, who was likely to be abroad at that hour of the night— or was it morning? — except himself? Yet, here was someone laughing. He was not more startled by his first waking in the ruined train. He was not a nervous man ; but he was even terrified. There, on the open side of the shed, seen in shadowed outline, was a figure — the figure o( a woman. Was it hallucination or — was it a woman? How came a woman in such a place, then? Yet the figure kept on laughing, and it was feminine laughter.

When the laughter ceased there was silence. As the ancient writers have it, his tongue seemed to be cleaving to the roof of his mouth, so that he could not speak. A light, flashing through the darkness, flared in his eyes with such sudden intensity that for a moment he was blinded. The figure on the threshold of the shed was holding what seemed to be an electric lamp, which was more perplexing than ever. In that corner of the world, who would be likely to have an electric lamp? Then a voice said, with an accent which was neither quite English nor quite French :

"I can see you quite plainly, but I do not think you can see me."

Then words came to him.

" Who the devil are you ? " he cried.

" Perhaps I am the devil, in the shape of a woman — who knows ? "

"Put down that lamp. You are blinding me with the infernal thing."

"What does it matter if I am? Is it not better that people like you should be blind?"

"Who are you? What do you want? What do you mean by coming here ? "

The laughter came again. It seemed that his questions were found amusing. i6

"My good sir, I am who I am. What I want is not yet your affair. I am here because who has a better right to be ? You certainly have not."

The lamp moved forward with the figure bearing it. She examined him all over. He resented the scrutiny, while realising that it was not in his power to prevent it.

"You do not seem to be an ill-looking person on the whole. Age, I should say, perhaps not more than twenty-five, with the bearing of what you in England call a gendeman. What explanation have you to offer of your presence in my shed ? "

" Your shed ? Is this your shed ? How am I to know it's your shed ? "

He was stumbling for words. What he wished to say was not what he was actually saying; yet, though his tongue was apt to be such a ready one, he could not help it.

" Your words hardly point to your being a gentleman; they hint that you are entitled to doubt my word. If I blow this whistle my servants will come and tie you hand and foot — though not with handcuffs." She paused, as it seemed to him, with such intention that his pulses quickened. "When they have lied you, then you will begin to learn that it is indeed my shed. Vou are the kind of person who needs to be taught a lesson very well; so that, sometimes before he has it well by heart, it has marked him as with a brand." She paused again before she added : "You — escaped felon I" c 17

i

Chapter III

That was for Ronald Denton a night of many emotions, but perhaps the strangest of them all came to him when the woman with the electric lantern uttered those three words: "You — escaped felon." And he had only a few moments before been congratulating himself that for him life was to begin all over again, with a clean slate to write on what he chose. He could not speak; he did not want to; he could not if he had wanted ; he stood stock still, trying to get the better of the something which seemed to be paralysing his whole being. At last the woman commented on his silence.

"You seem to be full of conversation." She came farther into the shed, continuing to cover him with the light as she moved ; to the man, blinded by the glare, she was invisible behind it. He only knew that the light came on. A voice came out of the blackness beyond. "I think I'U sit down on that heap of stones if you will have the goodness to take yourself farther from it."

He obediently moved away, but was all at once pulled up.

"Don't go too far, I've a gun in my hand — see." t8

He was conscious of the flash of metal as she held something across the face of the lamp. "I shan't hesitate to shoot if you do try to move too far, and you'll find that I'm a first-rate shot if I do."

What manner of woman was this, who went about with what she called a gun in such a place at that hour of the night, and talked so coolly of using it on him ? Perhaps it was because even his senses were partly blinded by the glare of the electric light that he began to have the feeling that, after all, he must be an actor in something that was very like a dream. Presently, however, her words drove such fancies from hint; he realised that he was wide awake enough, and so was she.

" I wonder if you were ever your mother's darling. You look as though you might be some girl's even now, though you are an escaped felon."

As she uttered that ugly word again he winced. She seemed to notic« it.

"You don't seem to like being what you are. That sort of thing is so silly 1 If you're a thief, it's because you choose to be a thief. Why resent being called what you choose to be ? Perhaps it surprises you to learn that I know you are a felon, and your unhappiness is because of that — ^because I can see you are unhappy. How odd I Did you think, when you got out of that carriage window, that you were going to be your own man for ever and evermore ? If so, bow silly you were. Perhaps it's just a fault of youth,"