The Shadow of the Rope Read online

  CHAPTER IV

  THE MAN IN THE TRAIN

  Rachel fought her weakness with closed eyes, and was complete mistressof herself when those about her thought that consciousness alone wasreturning. She recognized the chamber at a glance; it was the one inwhich generations of metropolitan malefactors, and a few innocentpersons like herself, had waited for the verdict of life or death. Forher it was life, life, life! And she wondered whether any other of thefew had ever come back to life with so little joy.

  The female warders were supporting her in a chair; the prison doctorstood over her with a medicine glass.

  "Drink this," said he, kindly.

  "But I have been conscious all the time."

  "Never mind. You need it."

  And Rachel took the restorative without more words.

  It did its work. The color came back to her face. The blood ran hot inher veins. In a minute she was standing up without assistance.

  "And now," said Rachel, "I shall not trespass further on your kindness,and I am sure that you will not wish to detain me."

  "We cannot," said the doctor, with a broad smile and a bow; "you are asfree as air, and will perhaps allow me to be the first to congratulateyou. At the same time, my dear madam, and quite apart from yourcondition--which is wonderful to me after what you've been through--atthe same time, and even with your fortitude, I think it would beadvisable to--to wait a little while."

  The doctor raised his eyes, and all at once Rachel heard.Overheard--outside--in the world--there was the brutal hooting of athoughtless mob.

  "So that is for me!"

  Rachel set her teeth.

  "On the contrary," said the kindly doctor, "it may be for the witnesses;but crowds are fickle things; and I should strongly urge you not tocourt a demonstration of one sort or the other. You are best where youare for the time being, or at all events somewhere within the precincts.And meanwhile your solicitor is waiting to add his congratulations tomine."

  "Is he, indeed!" cried Rachel, in a voice as hard as her eye.

  "Why, to be sure," rejoined the other, taken somewhat aback. "Theremust be many matters for discussion between you, and he at least seemsvery anxious to discuss them. In fact, I may say that he is onlyawaiting my permission for an immediate interview."

  "Then let him await mine!" exclaimed Rachel, in a vindictive voice forwhich she was apologizing in the next breath. "I owe you much," sheadded, "if only for your kindness and sympathy during these few minutes.But to him I owe nothing that I cannot pay in cash. He tried to keep mefrom telling my own story in the box--they all did--but he was the worstof all. So I certainly do not owe him my life. He came to me and he saidwhat he liked; he may have forgotten what he said, but I never shall."

  "He would be the first to admit his error now."

  "Perhaps; but he believed me guilty to the very end; and I utterlyrefuse to see him to-night."

  "Then I shall tell him so."

  And the good doctor disappeared for the nonce, but was back in a coupleof minutes, full of the lawyer's expostulations. What did Mrs. Minchinintend to do? Where did she propose to go? There were a hundred mattersfor explanation and arrangement. Her solicitor said she had no friends,and seemed himself most anxious to act in that capacity. Rachel's lipscurled at the thought.

  "At least," said she, "I have the friends who guaranteed his bill, ifthat has anything to say to his anxiety! But what I mean to do and whereI may go, are entirely my own affair. And as for the hundred matters hementions, he might have spoken of them during the week. Perhaps hethought it would be waste of breath, but I should have appreciated therisk."

  So her solicitor was beaten off, with all the spirit which was one ofRachel's qualities, but also with the rashness which was that quality'sdefect. The man was indeed no ornament to his profession, but apolice-court practitioner of the pushing order, who had secured the casefor notoriety and nothing else. Rachel's soul sickened when she thoughtof her interviews, and especially her most recent interviews, with onewhom she had never seen before her trouble, and whom she devoutly hopednever to see again. She did not perceive that the time had come when thelawyer might have been really useful to her. Yet his messages left hermore alive to the difficulties that lay before her as a free woman, andto the immediate necessity of acting for herself once more.

  After all there had been a silver lining to the cloud under which shehad lain so long. Others had acted for her. It had been a rest. But,conscious of her innocence, and serene in that consciousness, she hadprepared herself rather for another life than for a new lease of thisone; and, while seeking to steel her soul to the awful sequel of aconviction, in the other direction she had seldom looked beyond theconsummate incident of an acquittal. Life seems a royal road when it isdeath that stares one in the face; but already Rachel saw the hills andthe pitfalls; for indeed they began under her nose.

  She had no plans, nor a single soul to help her to make any. In all theworld she had no real friend. And yet, with the very independence towhich this isolation was largely due, she must pick and choose, andreject, in the hour when any friend would have been better than none!

  In the first ten minutes of the new life which Rachel Minchin began withher acquittal, she had refused to see her own solicitor, and an unknowngentleman whose card was brought to her by the Chief Warder himself.With the card was a message which might have inspired confidence, andthe same might be said of the address. But it was enough for Rachel thatshe knew no one of the name. The Chief Warder, one of the kindliestmortals, displayed no little irritation under her repeated refusals; butit was the agent, and not the principal, who was so importunate; and themessage was not repeated once the former could be induced to bear Mrs.Minchin's answer. The Chief Warder did indeed return, but it was not tomake any further reference to the mysterious Mr. Steel who had craved aninterview with Mrs. Minchin. And now the good fellow was all smiles.

  "Feeling more yourself?" said he; and, when Rachel said she was, heasked her to listen now; and there was nothing to listen to. "Thecoast's as clear as the Criminal Court," explained this pleasantofficial. "A closed cab did it, with an officer on the box; and I'llcall you another as soon as you like."

  Rachel rose at once.

  "It was kind of you to let me stay so long," she said. "But I don'tthink I will take a cab, thank you, if there's an underground stationwithin reach, and you will kindly tell me the way."

  "There's Blackfriars Bridge within five minutes. But you will have morethan you can carry--"

  "I have nothing worth taking away with me," said Rachel, "except thethings I stand up in; but you may give what I leave to any poor womanwho cares to have them. And I hope you will accept this trifle foryourself, with my deep gratitude for all your kindness."

  Indeed, the man had been kind, and his kindness would have continued tothe last had the trial ended differently. Nevertheless, Rachel's triflewas a piece of gold, and one of her last. Nor was this pure generosity.There was an untold joy in being able to give again. It was the firstreal taste of freedom; and in another minute Rachel was free.

  Oh, but what a miracle to hear her feet on the now deserted pavement, tosee her breath in the raw November night, and the lights of Ludgate Hillbeyond! Rachel raised her veil to see them better. Who would look forher afoot so near the scene of her late ordeal? And what did it matterwho saw her and who knew her now? She was innocent; she could look thewhole world in the face once more. Oh, to rub shoulders with the worldagain!

  A cab came tinkling up behind her, and Rachel half thought of hailingit, and driving through the lighted town after all; but the hansom wasoccupied, and the impulse passed. She put down her veil and turned intothe stream without catching a suspicious eye. Why should they suspecther? And again, what did it matter if they did?

  "Trial an' verdic'! Trial an' verdic'! Acquittal o' Mrs. Minchin! Trialan' verdic'!"

  Everybody was buying the damp, pink sheets. Rachel actually bought oneherself; and overheard the opinion of the man in the s
treet without apang. So she might think herself lucky! But she did, she did; in thereaction that had come upon her with the first mouthful of raw air, inthe intoxication of treading the outer world again, she thought herselfthe luckiest woman in London, and revelled rather than otherwise in thevery considerations which had appalled her in the precincts of thecourt. How good, after all, to be independent as well as free! How greatto drift with the tide of innocent women and law-abiding men, once moreone of themselves, and not even a magnet for morbid curiosity! Thatwould come soon enough; the present was all the more to be enjoyed; andeven the vagueness of the immediate future, even the lack of definiteplans, had a glamor of their own in eyes that were yet to have theirfill of street lamps and shop windows and omnibuses and hansom cabs.

  The policeman under the bridge was a joy in himself; he refreshedRachel's memory as to the way, without giving her an unnecessary look;and he called her "madam" into the bargain! After all, it was not everypoliceman who had been on duty at the Old Bailey, nor one in manythousands of the population who had gained admission to the court.

  Yet if Rachel had relieved the tedium of her trial by using her eyes alittle more; if, for example, she had condescended to look twice at thehandful of mere spectators beyond the reporters on her right, she couldscarcely have failed to recognize the good-looking, elderly man who wasat her heels when she took her ticket at Blackfriars Bridge. His whitehair was covered by his hat, but the face itself was not one to beforgotten, with its fresh color, its small, grim mouth, and the deep-setglitter beneath the bushy eyebrows. Rachel, however, neither recognizednor looked again.

  In a few minutes she had a better chance, when, having entered an emptycompartment in the first class, she was joined by this gentleman as thetrain began to move.

  Rachel hid herself behind the newspaper which she had bought, not thatshe had looked twice at her companion, but because at such closequarters, and in the comparatively fierce light of the first-classcompartment, she was terribly afraid that he might look once too oftenat her. But this fear passed from her in the matchless fascination ofreading and re-reading five words in the stop-press column:--"MINCHINCASE--Verdict, Not guilty."

  Not guilty! Not guilty! And to see it in print! Her eyes filled at thesight, and she dried them to gloat again. There were columns and columnsabout the case, embellished with not unskilful sketches of counseladdressing the jury, and of the judge in the act of summing up. ButRachel had listened to every word from all three; and the professionalreport was less full and less accurate than the one which she carried inher brain and would carry to her grave. Not that the speeches matterednow. It was no speech that had saved her; it was her own story, from herown lips, that the lawyers would have closed! Rachel forgave them now;she was almost grateful to them for having left it to her to saveherself in spite of them all: so should her perfect innocence beimpressed upon the whole country as on those twelve fair minds. And oncemore she pored upon the hurriedly added and ill-printed line which gavetheir verdict to the world, while the train stopped and started, only tostop and start again.

  "And what do you think of it, madam?"

  The voice came from the opposite corner of the compartment, and Rachelknew it for that of the gentleman who had jumped in at the last momentat Blackfriars Bridge. It was Charing Cross that they were leaving now,and the door had not opened at that station or the last. Rachel satbreathless behind her evening paper. Not to answer might be to fastensuspicion upon her widow's weeds; and, for all her right to look mankindin the face, she shrank instinctively from immediate recognition. Thenin a clap came the temptation to discuss her own case with the owner ofa voice at once confident and courtly, and subtly reminiscent of hernative colony, where it is no affront for stranger to speak to strangerwithout introduction or excuse.

  Rachel's hesitation lasted perhaps a couple of seconds, and then herpaper lay across her lap.

  "Of what?" she asked, with some presence of mind, for she had never aninstant's doubt that the question referred to the topic of the hour.

  "We were reading the same paper," replied the questioner, with perfectcourtesy; "it only struck me that we might both be reading the samething, and feeling equally amazed at the verdict."

  "You mean in the Minchin case," said Rachel steadily, and without theleast interrogation in her tone. "Yes, I was reading it, as I supposeeverybody is. But I disagree with you about the verdict."

  The young widow's manner was as downright as her words. There was asudden raising of the bushy eyebrows in the opposite corner, a briefopening of the black eyes underneath.

  "Pardon me," said the gentleman, breaking into a smile; "I was not awarethat I had expressed an opinion on that point."

  "I understood you were amazed," said Rachel, dryly.

  "And are not you?" cried the other point-blank. "Do you mean to tell methat you were prepared for an acquittal?"

  "I was prepared for anything," replied Rachel, returning a peculiarlypenetrating stare with one at least as steady, and yet holding herbreath for very fear lest this stranger had found her out, until hisnext words allayed the suspicion.

  "Madam, have you followed the case?"

  "Indeed I have," sighed honest Rachel.

  "And as a woman you believe this woman innocent?"

  "I do."

  It was hard enough to say no more than that; but Rachel was very freshfrom her great lesson in self-control.

  "It is easy to see that you do not," she merely permitted herself toadd.

  "On the contrary," said he, with great precision; "on the contrary, mydear madam, I believe this poor lady to be as innocent as yourself."

  Again their eyes were locked; again Rachel drew the only inference fromso pointed a pronouncement, and yet again was the impression shaken byher companion's next words.

  "But I really have no right to an opinion," said he; "since, unlike you,I cannot claim to have read the case. Nor is that the interesting thingnow." The stations had come and gone, until now they were at Victoria.The speaker looked out of the window, until they were off again, and offby themselves as before. "The interesting thing, to me, is not what thispoor lady has or has not done, but what on earth she is going to donow!"

  He looked at her again, and now Rachel was sure. But there was akindness in his look that did away both with resentment and regret.

  "They say she has literally no friends in England," he went on, withunconcealed concern. "That is incredible; and yet, if there be any truthin it, what a terrible position! I fear that everybody will not shareyour conviction, and, I may add, my own. If one can judge thus early bywhat one has heard and seen for oneself, this verdict is a personaldisappointment to the always bloodthirsty man in the street. Then, Godhelp the poor lady if he spots her! I only hope she will not give him achance."

  And now Rachel not only knew that he knew, but that he wished to appriseher of his knowledge without confessing it in so many words. So he wouldspare her that embarrassment, and would help her if he could, this utterstranger! Yet she saw it in his face, she heard it in his voice; andbecoming gradually alive to his will to help her, as she instinctivelywas to his power, she had herself the will to consult one whose goodintention and better tact were alike obvious. Mystery there was in hermeeting with this man; something told her that it was no accident on hisside; she began to wonder whether she had not seen him before; and whileshe wondered he came and sat opposite to her, and went on speaking in alower voice, his dark eyes fixed on hers.

  "If Mrs. Minchin wants a friend--and to-night I think she must--if evershe did or will! Well, if she does, I for one would be her friend--ifshe would trust me!"

  The last words were the lowest of all; and in the tone of them there wasa timbre which thrilled Rachel as the dark eyes fascinated her. Shebegan to feel a strange repugnance--and yet more strange attraction. Butto the latter her independence gave instant battle--a battle the easierto fight since the next station was Rachel's destination.

  "Do you think she would trust me?" he
almost whispered leaning towardsher. "As a woman--don't you think she might?"

  As Rachel hesitated the carriages began to groan beneath the brake; andher hesitation was at an end. So also was her limited capacity forpretence. She sat more upright in her corner, her shoulders fell inangles, and beneath the veil, which she had raised to read her paper,her eyes carried the war of interrogation into the enemy's country.

  "I seem to have seen you before," said Rachel, cool of tongue but hot atheart.

  "I think it very possible that you have."

  "Were you at the trial?"

  "From first to last!"

  The pause that followed was really broken by the lights of Sloane Squarestation.

  "You know me," said Rachel, hurriedly; "I have seen that for some time.May I ask if you are Mr. Steel?"

  "I am."

  "The Mr. Steel who sent me his card after the trial?"

  Steel bowed.

  "As a perfect stranger?"

  "As a perfect stranger who had watched you for a whole long week incourt."

  Rachel ignored the relative clause.

  "And because I would not see you, Mr. Steel, you have followed me, andforced yourself upon me!"

  The train stopped, and Rachel rose.

  "You will gather my motives when you recall our conversation," observedSteel; and he opened the door for her. But Rachel turned to him beforealighting.

  "Mr. Steel," said she, "I am quite sure that you mean kindly and well,and that I above all women should feel supremely grateful; but I cannothelp thinking that you are unjust to the man in the street!"

  "Better give him a trial," said Steel, coldly enough in his turn.

  "I should prefer to," rejoined Rachel, getting out; and there was nolittle sting in the intonation of the verb; but Mr. Steel was leftsmiling and nodding very confidently to himself.