Mr. Budge had been spending an edifying evening. Three nights a month he had to himself. Two of these he generally contrived to spend at the motion pictures in Lincoln, watching people being placed on the spot with gratifying regularity, and refreshing his memory anew with such terms as "scram," "screwey," and other expressions which might be useful to him in his capacity as butler at the Hall. His third evening out he invariably spent with his good friends, Mr. and Mrs. Rankin, butler and housekeeper at the home of the Paynes in Chatterham.
In their snug rooms downstairs, the Rankins greeted him with a hospitality whose nature rarely varied. Mr. Budge had the best chair, a squeaky rush rocker whose top towered far above the head of any sitter. Mr. Budge was offered a drop of something-port from upstairs, from the Paynes' own table, or a hot toddy in wet weather. The gaslights would sing comfortably, and there would' be the usual indulgent baby-talk to the cat. Three rocking-chairs would swing in their separate tempos — Mrs. Rankin's quick and sprightly, her husband's more judicially, and that of Mr. Budge with a grave rolling motion, like an emperor being carried in his litter.
The evening would be spent in a discussion of Chatterham and the people of Chatterham. Particularly, when the pretence of formality was dropped about nine o'clock, the people of the big houses. At shortly after ten they would break up. Mr. Rankin would recommend to Mr. Budge's attention some worth-while book which his master had mentioned in the course of the week; Mr. Budge would gravely "make note of, it, put on his hat with the exactitude of a war helmet, button up his coat, and go home.
This evening, he reflected as he started up the High Street towards the Hall, had been unusually refreshing. The sky had cleared, pale and polished and gleaming, and there was a bright moon. Over the lowlands hung a faint smokiness, and the moist air smelt of hay. On such a night the soul of Mr. Budge became the soul of D'Artagnan Robin Hood Fairbanks Budge, the warrior, the adventurer, the moustache-twister — even, in mad moments, Budge the great lover. His soul was a balloon, a captive balloon, but still a balloon. He liked these long walks, where the stars were not merry at the antics of the other Budge; where a man could take a savage pass at a hayrick with an imaginary sword, and no housemaid the wiser.
But, while his footfalls were ringing on the hard white road he was delaying these pleasant dreams as a luxury for the last mile of his walk. He reflected on the evening. He reflected particularly on the enormous news at the end of it….
There had been at first the usual talk. He himself had discussed Mrs. Bundle's lumbago with affection. On the other hand, there had been the news that Mr. Payne was going on another of his trips to London for a legal conference. Mr. Rankin had dwelt upon this fact in the most impressive terms, and mentioned mysterious brief-cases which were as awesome as the wigs of judges. What impressed them all most about the legal profession was that you had to read so many books in order to become a member of it. Mrs. Payne was in a rare bad temper, but what could you expect, she being her?
Then, again, it had been bruited about the village that — the rector's uncle from Auckland was coming to visit him.
One of Sir Benjamin Arnold's oldest friends, he was; got the rector his appointment, he did; and he (the uncle) and Sir Benjamin had been with Cecil Rhodes in the Kimberley diamond-fields years ago. There was speculation about that. There was also a little speculation about the murder, but a very little, because the Rankins respected Mr. Budge's feelings. Budge felt grateful for that. He was morally certain Mr. Herbert had committed the murder, but he refused to think about it. Each time the ugly subject popped up in his mind, he closed it like the lid of a jack-in-the-box repressed, but it could be held down….
No, what he was thinking about most concerned the rumour of an Affair. The capital letter was logical; it had a much more sinister sound, even in the imagination, and sounded almost French. An affair between Miss Dorothy and the young American who was stopping at Dr. Fell's.
At first Budge had been shocked. Not about the affair, but about the American. Odd — very odd, Budge reflected with a sudden start. Walking here, under the swishing tireless trees in the moonlight, things seemed different from their normal appearance at the Hall. Possibly it was Budge the swashbuckler, who could wink at an indiscretion as easily as ("canaille!") he spitted a varlet on a rapier-point. The Hall was as stuffy and orderly as a game of whist. Here you wanted to kick over the table and sweep off the cards. It was only… well, these confounded Americans, and Miss Dorothy!
Good Lord! Miss Dorothy!
His earlier words came back to him, as they had formed in his mind that night Mr. Martin was murdered. Miss Dorothy: he had almost said a cold little piece. Dominating everything, what would Mrs. Bundle say? The idea would have turned him cold at the Hall. But here the beams of the silver screen made the soul of Mr. Budge gleam like armour.
He chuckled.
Now he was passing some hayricks, monstrous black shadows against the moon, and he wondered that he had come so far. His boots must be covered with dust, and his blood was heating from the rapid walk. After all, the young American had seemed a gentleman. There had been moments, certainly, when Budge had suspected him of the murder. He came from America;. Mr. Martin had spent several years in America; there was an ominous inference. Even, for a delightful moment, there had been the suspicion that he might have been what Mrs. Bundle described as a gunster.
But the hayricks had turned to castles for the Due de Guise's cannon, and the night as soft as the velvet a swordsman wore; — and Mr. Budge grew sentimental. He remembered Tennyson. He could not at the moment think of anything Tennyson said, but he was sure Tennyson would have approved a love-affair between Miss Dorothy and the Yankee. Besides, Lord! what a secret satisfaction to see somebody bring her to life! — Ah! She had been absent from the Hall that afternoon, saying she wanted no tea. She had been absent from tea-time almost until the hour Budge had left for Chatterham. Ha! Budge was her protector by this time. (Had she been absent, demanded the police magistrate, deadly notebook at attention. And the dauntless Budge smiled at disaster, and replied, No.
He stopped. He stopped exactly in the middle of the road, and a trembling quivered down one knee, and he was looking across the meadows to his left.
Ahead of him towards the left, clear against the moonlit sky, rose Chatterham prison. The light was so pale-sharp that he could even distinguish the trees of the Hag's Nook. A yellow gleam was moving among those trees.
For a long time Budge stood motionless in the middle of the white road. He had some vague idea that if there were dangers ahead, and you stood absolutely still, they could not hurt you-as, they said, a fierce dog would not attack a motionless man. Then, very meticulously, he moved his bowler hat and wiped his forehead with a clean pocket handkerchief. One queer- little idea was twisting through his brain, almost pathetic in its intensity. Over there, where the goblin-light fluttered, was a test for the adventurer Budge. He had come home in the high night with the swagger within him. So, later on, the butler Budge must look at his white bed with a small shame, and realize that he was only the butler Budge, after all….
Whereupon Mr. Budge did what, for his butler-self majestically moving in the Hall, would have seemed an insane thing. He climbed the stile, bending low, and began to move up across the slope of the meadow towards the Hag's Nook. And it is to be recorded that his heart suddenly sang.
It was still squashy from the recent rain. He had to climb the slope in full moonlight, and too late he remembered that he could have approached the Hag's Nook by a more circuitous route. Still, it was done now. He found himself puffing, with little saw-like cuts being drawn up and down in his throat; and he was hot and damp. Then, with an obedience which an eighteenth-century Budge would have accepted without thanks and even without comment, the moon slid behind a cloud.
He found himself on the edge of the Hag's Nook. There was a beech tree ahead, against which he leaned with a feeling as though his bowler were tightening against his brain, and a throat sore from running. He panted now.
This was mad.
Never mind the adventurer Budge. This was mad.
Ahead, the gleam showed again. He could see it near the well, some twenty or thirty feet ahead, through the twisted boles of trees. It flashed as though for a signal. Evidently in reply, another gleam winked out high above and away. Budge, craning his neck upwards, could have no doubt: it was from the balcony of the Governor's Room. Somebody had set down a light there. He saw the shadow of a very stout man bending over the railing, and this shadow seemed to be doing something to the rail.
A rope shot downwards, curling and darting with such suddenness that Budge jumped back. Hitting the side of the well with a dull plop, it straggled and then slid over the edge. Fascinated, Budge poked his head forward again. Now the light beside the well had turned into a steady beam; it seemed to be held by a small figure-almost, he thought, like a woman. A face moved into the beam; a face craning upwards, and a hand was waved towards the balcony far above.
The Yankee.
Even at that distance, there could be no doubt about it. The Yankee, with his strange, grinning, reckless face. His name was — Mr. Rampole. Yes. Mr. Rampole seemed to be testing the rope. He swung round on it, drawing up his legs. Climbing a few feet up the rope, he hung there with one hand and pulled at it with the other. Then he dropped to the ground and waved his hand again. Another light, like a bull's-eye lantern, flashed on. He hitched it to his belt, and into that belt he seemed to be thrusting other things — a hatchet and an instrument like a diminutive pick.
Sliding his body between two of the wide spikes on the edge of the well, he sat on the inner edge for a moment, holding the rope. He was grinning again, at the small figure which held the other light. Then he swung off the edge.and down into the well; his lamp was swallowed. But not before the small figure had darted to the edge, and, as the beam of Rampole's lamp struck upwards for an instant, Budge saw that the face bending over the well was the face of Miss Dorothy….
The watcher at the edge of the Hag's Nook was not now the adventurer Budge or even the butler Budge. He was simply a stooping, incredulous figure who tried to understand these amazing things. Frogs complained loudly, and there were bugs brushing about his face. Edging forward between the trees, he crept closer. Miss Dorothy's light went out. The thought went through his head that he would have a rare wild story to tell to the Rankins a month hence, over the port.
From the well a few broken reflections glimmered, as of a lamp sizzling out in water, but never quite extinguished. Momentarily the pointed leaves of a beech tree were outlined, and once (Budge thought) Miss Dorothy's face. But the cool moon had come out again, ghostly against the wall of the prison. Afraid of making a noise, tight-chested and sweating, Budge moved still closer. The chorus of frogs, crickets, God knew what! — this chorus was so loud that Budge wondered how any noise could be heard. It was cold here, too.
Now, it is to be urged that Budge was not, and never has been, an imaginative man. Circumstances do not permit it. But when he glanced away from the flickers of light dancing deep in the well, and saw a figure standing motionless in the moonlight, he knew it was an alien presence. Deep within him Budge knew that the presence of Miss Dorothy and the American was right, as right as gravy over roast beef, and that the other presence was wrong
It was — Budge tells it to this day — a small man. Standing some distance behind Miss Dorothy, a crooked shadow among the shadows of the trees against the moon, he seemed to grow into weird proportions, and he-had something in his hand.
A muffled noise bubbled up from the well. There had been other noises, but this was definitely a cry or a groan or a strangling of breath….
For a time Budge remembered nothing very clearly. Afterwards he tried to determine how long a time had elapsed between that booming echo and the time that a head appeared over the edge of the well once more, but he could never be sure. All he could be sure of was that Miss Dorothy, at some period or other, had snapped on her light. She did not point it down into the well. She kept it steady, across the mouth of the rusty spikes…. And up from the well, now, another lamp was strengthening as somebody climbed….
A head appeared, framed between the spikes. At first Budge did not see it very clearly, because he was trying to peer into the darkness to find that alien figure on the outer edge; that motionless figure which somehow gave an impression of wire and hair and steel, like a monster. Failing to see it, Budge looked at the head framed between the spikes, coming higher and higher above the well.
It was not Mr. Rampole's face. It was the face of Mr. Herbert Starberth, rising up over the spikes of the well; and the jaw was fallen, and by this time Budge was so close he could see the bullet-hole between the eyes.
Not ten feet away from him he saw this head rising, horribly, as though Mr. Herbert were climbing out of the well. His sodden hair was plastered down over his forehead; the eyelids were down and the eyeballs showed white beneath; and the colour of the bullet-hole was blue. Budge staggered, literally staggered, for he felt one knee jerk sideways beneath him, and he thought he was going to be sick.
The head moved. It turned away from him, and a hand appeared over the edge of the well. Mr. Herbert was dead. But he seemed to be climbing out of the well.
Miss Dorothy screamed. Just before her lamp went out, Budge saw another thing which loosened his horror like a tight belt, and saved him from being sick. He saw the young American's head propped under Mr. Herbert's shoulder; and he saw that it was the Yankee's hand which had seized the wall, carrying a stiff corpse up out of the depths.
Silver-blue like the glow for a pantomime, the moonlight etched a Japanese tracery of trees. All of it had been done in pantomime. Budge never knew about the other figure, the alien figure he had seen standing beyond the well and peering towards the spikes. He never knew whether this man had seen the young American's head beneath Mr. Herbert's body at all…. But he did hear a flopping and stumbling among the brush, a wild rush as of a bat banging against walls to get out of a room. Somebody was running, with inarticulate cries, through the Hag's Nook.
The gauzy dimness of the pantomime was ripped apart. Far above, from the balcony of the Governor's Room, glared a bright light. It cut down through the trees, and the boom of a voice roared out from the balcony.
"There he goes! Grab him!"
Wheeling, the light made a green and black whirlpool among the trees. Saplings crackled, and feet sloshed on marshy ground. Budge's thoughts, in this moment, were as elementary as the thoughts of an animal. The only distinct impression in his mind was that here, crackling through these bushes, ran Guilt. He had a confused idea that there were several flash-lamps darting beams around the runner.
A head and shoulders were suddenly blocked out against the moon. Then Budge saw the runner
Budge, fat and past fifty, felt the flesh shaking on his big body. He was neither Budge the swashbuckler nor Budge the butler; he, was only an unnerved man leaning against a tree. Now, when the moonlight fell as with a shining of raindrops, he saw the other man's hand; it was encased in a big gardener's glove, and the forefinger was jammed through the trigger-guard of a long-barrelled pistol. Through Budge's mind went a vision of youth, of standing on a broad football field, wildly, and seeming to see figures coming at him from every direction. It was as though he were naked. The other man plunged.
Budge, fat and past fifty, felt a great pain in his lungs. He did not drop behind the tree. He knew what he had to do; he was solid, with a quiet brain and a very clear eye.
"All right," he said aloud. "All right!" and dived for the other man.
He heard the explosion. There was a yellowish spurt, like a bad gas-range when you apply a match to it. Something hit him in the chest, swirling him off balance as his fingers ripped down the other man's coat. He felt his finger nails tear in cloth, falling, and his hip was suddenly twisted into weakness. There was a sensation as though he were flying through the air. Then his face squashed into dead leaves, and he dimly heard a thud as of his own body hitting the ground.
That was how Budge the Englishman went down.