THORPE walked along, in the remoter out-of-the-way parts of the great gardens, as the first shadows of evening began to dull the daylight. For a long time he moved aimlessly about, sick at heart and benumbed of mind, in the stupid oppression of a bad dream.
There ran through all his confused thoughts the exasperating consciousness that it was nonsense to be frightened, or even disturbed; that, in truth, nothing whatever had happened. But he could not lay hold of it to any comforting purpose. Some perverse force within him insisted on raising new phantoms in his path, and directing his reluctant gaze to their unpleasant shapes.
Forgotten terrors pushed themselves upon his recollection.
It was as if he stood again in the Board Room, with the telegram telling of old Tavender's death in his hands, waiting to hear the knock of Scotland Yard upon the door.
The coming of Gafferson took on a kind of supernatural aspect, when Thorpe recalled its circumstances. His own curious mental ferment, which had made this present week a period apart in his life, had begun in the very hour of this man's approach to the house. His memory reconstructed a vivid picture of that approach--of the old ramshackle village trap, and the boy and the bags and the yellow tin trunk, and that decent, red-bearded, plebeian figure, so commonplace and yet so elusively suggestive of something out of the ordinary. It seemed to him now that he had at the time discerned a certain fateful quality in the apparition.
And he and his wife had actually been talking of old Kervick at the moment! It was their disagreement over him which had prevented her explaining about the new head-gardener. There was an effect of the uncanny in all this.
And what did Gafferson want? How much did he know? The idea that perhaps old Kervick had found him out, and patched up with him a scheme of blackmail, occurred to him, and in the unreal atmosphere of his mood, became a thing of substance.
With blackmail, however, one could always deal; it was almost a relief to see the complication assume that guise.
But if Gafferson was intent upon revenge and exposure instead? With such a slug-like, patient, tenacious fool, was that not more likely?
Reasonable arguments presented themselves to his mind ever and again: his wife had known of Gafferson's work, and thought highly of it, and had been in a position to learn of his leaving Hadlow. What more natural than that she should hasten to employ him? And what was it, after all, that Gafferson could possibly know or prove? His brother-in-law had gone off, and got too drunk to live, and had died. What in the name of all that was sensible had this to do with Thorpe? Why should it even be supposed that Gafferson associated Thorpe with any phase of the business? And if he had any notion of a hostile movement, why should he have delayed action so long? Why indeed!
Reassurance did not come to him, but at last an impulse to definite action turned his footsteps toward the cluster of greenhouses in the deepening shadow of the mansion.
He would find Gafferson, and probe this business to the uttermost. If there was discoverable in the man's manner or glance the least evidence of a malevolent intention--he would know what to do. Ah, what was it that he would do? He could not say, beyond that it would be bad for Gafferson. He instinctively clenched the fists in the pockets of his jacket as he quickened his pace.
Inside the congeries of glazed houses he was somewhat at sea.
It was still light enough to make one's way about in the passages between the stagings, but he had no idea of the general plan of the buildings, and it seemed to him that he frequently got back to places he had traversed before.
There were two or three subordinate gardeners in or about the houses, but upon reflection he forbore to question them.
He tried to assume an idly indifferent air as he sauntered past, nodding almost imperceptible acknowledgment of the forefingers they jerked upward in salutation.
He came at last upon a locked door, the key of which had been removed. The fact vaguely surprised him, and he looked with awakened interest through the panes of this door.
The air inside seemed slightly thickened--and then his eye caught the flicker of a flame, straight ahead.
It was nothing but the fumigation of a house; the burning spirits in the lamp underneath the brazier were filling the structure with vapours fatal to all insect life.
In two or three hours the men would come and open the doors and windows and ventilate the place. The operation was quite familiar to him; it had indeed interested him more when he first saw it done than had anything else connected with the greenhouses.
His abstracted gaze happened to take note of the fact that the door-key was hanging on a nail overhead, and then suddenly this seemed to be related to something else in his thoughts--some obscure impression or memory which evaded him.
Continuing to look at the key, a certain recollection all at once assumed great definiteness in his mind: it came to him that the labels on this patent fumigator they were using warned people against exposing themselves to its fumes more than was absolutely necessary. That meant, of course, that their full force would kill a human being.
It was very interesting. He looked through the glass again, but could not see that the air was any thicker.
The lamp still burned brightly.
He turned away, and beheld a man, in an old cap and apron, at the further end of the palm-house he was in, doing something to a plant. Thorpe noted the fact that he felt no surprise in seeing that it was Gafferson.
Somehow the sight of the key, and of the poison-spreading flame inside the locked door, seemed to have prepared him for the spectacle of Gafferson close at hand.
