CHAPTER CV.

MRS. OAKLEY ESCAPES, AND TAKES A DIFFERENT VIEW OF THINGS IN GENERAL.

Mrs. Oakley nearly fainted herself at this juncture, but she felt that

her life was in jeopardy, and by a strong mental effort, such as she

could hardly have supposed herself capable of making, she sustained

herself, and preserved her senses.

Lupin lay for some minutes quite insensible upon the floor, but he did

not lie long enough for Mrs. Oakley to take advantage of his temporary

swoon and leave the place. Had she perhaps been very prompt and

resolute, and self-possessed, she might have done so, but under the

whole of the circumstances, it was not to be supposed that such could be

her state of mind; so the slight opportunity, for, after all, it was

only a slight one, if one at all, was let slip by her.

She was just beginning to ask herself if there was a chance of getting

away before Lupin should recover, when he uttered a hideous groan, and

moved slightly.

After these indications of recovery, Mrs. Oakley was afraid to move; and

certainly, the slightest indication of her being otherwise than in the

state of insensibility which Lupin believed to be her condition, there

is very little doubt it would have been the signal for her death.

The man who commits a murder for the attainment of any object of

importance to him, will not scruple to commit another to hide the first

deed from the eyes of the world.

And now Lupin slowly rose to a sitting posture, and glared around him

for a few moments in silence. Then he spoke.

"What is this?" he said. "What is all this? What is the meaning of all

this? Blood!--blood! Is this blood upon my hands? No--no--yes, it is--it

is. Ah! I recollect."

He held his blood-stained hands to his eyes for a few moments, and then

as he withdrew them, he slowly turned his eyes to where the body lay.

With a shudder he dragged himself along the floor further off from it,

gasping out as he did so--

"Off--off, horrible object!--off--off!"

His distempered imagination, no doubt, pictured the body as following

him. Is there not, indeed, a prompt retribution in this world?

"Off--off, I say! No further!--Not dead?--not dead yet? How much blood

have you in you now to shed? Off--off!"

He reached the wall. He could get no further, and thus pursued still by

the same wild insane idea, he sprung to his feet, and uttering a loud

cry, he caught up a chair and held it out at arm's length before him,

shouting--

"Keep away--keep away! Keep off, I say--I--I did not do it. Who shall

say I did it? Who saw me do it?"

He slowly dropped the chair, and then in a more composed voice he said--

"Hush! hush! I am mad to raise these cries. They will alarm the court. I

am mad--mad!"

Mrs. Oakley had hoped that his ravings would reach some other ears then

hers, and that his apprehension, with the bleeding witness of his crime

close at hand, would follow as a thing of course, and then how gladly

would she have flown from her place of concealment, and cried out--

"He did it! I saw him! That is the man!"

But such was not the case. Either he really did not call out loud enough

to make himself heard, or the inhabitants of the court were too much

accustomed to all sorts of sounds to pay any attention even to the

ravings of a murderer!

No one came. No one even knocked at the chapel-door to know if anything

was amiss, and when she saw him calm, and in a measure self-possessed

again, her heart died within her.

"Murder! murder!" he said; "I have done murder! Yes, I have steeped my

hands in blood--again--again! It is not the first time, but one does not

become familiar with murder. I did not feel as I feel now when I took a

life before. Oh, horror! horror!"

He shook, but soon again recovered himself.

"The vaults! The vaults!" he said. "They will hide the dead. Who will

look for this woman? What friends has she? Is there one in all the world

who cares if she be alive or dead? Not one. Is there one who will stir

six steps to find out what has become of her? Not one."

Again he solaced himself with a draught of brandy, and then he set about

making his preparations for disposing of the dead body of his

slaughtered victim.

From a drawer in the room he took a large sheet, and spread it upon the

floor. Then he kicked and pushed the dead body with his feet on to it,

and then he deliberately rolled it up round and round in the sheet, and

at each fold feeling that it was further removed from his sight, he

seemed to breathe more and more freely.

He spoke in something like his old tones.

"That will do--that will do. The vaults will be the place. Was there

ever such a cunning place for murder to be done in as a chapel, with its

ready receptacles of the dead beneath it? There let her rot. She will

never come up in judgment against me from there. It is done now. The

deed that I often thought of doing, and yet never had the courage, nor

the opportunity at the same time, to accomplish until to-night. The

vaults--the vaults. Ay, the vaults!"

He lit a lantern that he took from the cupboard, and then he opened the

door that communicated with the staircase terminating in the chapel. He

listened as though he fancied that some one might be below listening to

the deed of blood above.

"All is still," he muttered, "so very still. It is providential. It is

the will of Heaven that this woman should die to night, and after all I

am but the instrument of its decrees--nothing more. That is comforting."

He now dragged the body to the door he had opened, but he did not carry

it. When he got it there he overbalanced it, and let it fall down. Mrs.

Oakley, even from where she was, heard the horrible smash with which it

reached the bottom of the stairs.

Lupin followed with the lantern.

And now it would seem as if another opportunity had presented itself to

Mrs. Oakley to escape. The staircase down which Lupin had gone

communicated with the chapel. It was another flight that led to the

ordinary door through which any one passed who might be coming to the

private part of the house. That staircase of course she expected to

reach without going through the room in which the murder was committed,

as her room and the adjoining one both opened upon its landing as well

as into each other.

Mrs. Oakley slowly rose from her knees.

"God help us," she said, "and give me strength to make an attempt to

leave this frightful place. There will surely be time while Lupin is in

the vaults. Oh, yes, there will surely be time."

She tottered along with as little strength as though she had been lying

for weeks upon a bed of sickness, so completely had she been unnerved by

what she had seen.

She touched the handle of the door. Even that was support. And then, she

turned it. The door did not open. It was locked!

Mrs. Oakley felt as if at that moment all her chance of escape was gone.

She felt as though she were given over by providence to Lupin to be

murdered. Why had he locked the door, but that if by any rare chance she

should awaken from the lethargic sleep into which he supposed her to be

plunged, she should have no outlet but through the room in which he

would be? But he was not there now, and the door of communication

between her room and that in which the murder had been done might not be

fast.

To try it was the work now of a moment; Mrs. Oakley felt a little more

self-possessed with the knowledge that Lupin was not close at hand, and

she opened the door. It yielded readily enough to her touch.

She was in the room of murder--in the very atmosphere of blood. She

glanced around her, and, although she had seen all through the opening

in the canvas partition, yet she was horrified to find herself closer to

the spot upon which the fearful deed had been done. Lupin, when he had

lit his lantern with which to go to the vaults, had not extinguished the

ordinary light that burnt in his room. That had a long spectral-looking

wick; but it gave sufficient light to enable Mrs. Oakley to see the

blood upon the floor.

She sickened at the sight.

But if she were to escape, it must be done at once. Lupin would not be

likely to linger longer by one brief moment in the vaults than was

absolutely necessary; and he might return before she had effected her

purpose yet.

She flew to the door of his room, which opened on to the landing. She

made an effort to open it. Alas! it was in vain; it, too, was locked,

and the key was gone!

"I am a prisoner!" said Mrs. Oakley, as she clasped her hands; "I am a

prisoner to this dreadful man!"

For some few moments now she felt completely overwhelmed by this

misfortune. The only outlet from the room that was not fast, was that

which Lupin himself had taken, and which led to the chapel. Should she

venture that way or not?--that was the question. Could she resolve upon

staying where she was, and trusting to an escape in the morning? No, no;

she told herself that would be too horrible. She would have, then, to

look at Lupin in the face, and to talk to him.

"No--no--no! I cannot do that," she said. "I will go down the staircase

that he has gone down--I will pass through the chapel--I will try to

open the chapel door, and then I will rush out with the cry of murder

upon my lips."

It was a trembling anxious thing to follow the murderer and his victim

down that staircase; but having found all other mode of egress denied to

her, Mrs. Oakley attempted it.

Slowly she went, step by step; and ever and anon she paused to listen

for any sound that should be indicative of Lupin's whereabouts--but she

heard nothing.

"He must be deep beneath the chapel," she said, "among the vaults--that

is where he must be. I shall be safe if I hasten now. Oh, so safe--quite

safe!"

She did hasten, and another moment brought her to the foot of the

stairs. A door in the chapel-wall terminated them. That was the door

against which Mrs. Oakley had heard the dead body strike with such a

frightful crash when Lupin had cast it down the stairs. It was swinging

open now.

Another moment and she was in the chapel.

From out of the aperture, occasioned by the lifting up of a large square

trap-door in the centre of the chapel floor, there came a faint stream

of light. Mrs. Oakley knew that that trap-door led to the vaults. She

knew that a flight of steps was immediately beneath it which lead to the

loathsome receptacles of the dead, where the pious members of Mr.

Lupin's flock were laid when they and this world had bidden each other

adieu. She knew that he derived no despicable revenue from letting such

lodgings to the dead.

And he was down there with his victim--the first person that he ever

permitted to lie there without a fee!

Mrs. Oakley, to reach the chapel door, must needs pass quite close to

the open trap-door; and as she neared it, a terrible curiosity took

possession of her--it was to see what Lupin was doing below--it was to

ascertain in what way he disposed of his victim's body. She thought that

she ought to see that. She thought, then, that she could tell all, and

bring the hounds of justice to the very spot where the murdered woman

lay.

She paused for a moment upon the brink of the trap, and then, by an

impulse that at the moment seemed, and was, irresistible, she began the

descent among the vaults.

These vaults were quite dignified by being so called. They were nothing

but cellars--nothing in the world but damp gloomy cellars--and Lupin

made as much of them as he did of the chapel overhead. The corpses lay

there thick and three-fold. A ghostly company! and yet Lupin had many

underground lodgings to let.

What cared he if the fumes from the dead came up, and made havoc upon

hot Sundays among the living? What cared he what mischief the

charnel-house beneath the planks did to the old and to the young? His

own constitution, he had a strong impression, could be fortified by

copious libations of brandy. Probably he was wrong in his practice, but

he had faith in his remedy, and that was a great thing--a very great

thing, indeed.

Mrs. Oakley slowly crept down the steps leading to the vaults. She was

guided by the faint light of Lupin's lantern, which was she knew not

where. Twice she paused to listen if he were coming, as in such a case

she would have flown back upon the wings of terror, but she heard

nothing, and she passed onward.

Twelve steps led to the lowest depth upon which the vaults were

situated. Then there was a kind of passage, upon which were flag stones

very roughly and clumsily laid down. Right and left of this passage the

vaults were. It wound completely round the chapel, but she had not to go

very far to ascertain where Lupin was at work. The light of the lantern

guided her to the half-open door of the vault, within which he was at

work.