Kitabı oku: «The Mysterious Mr. Miller», sayfa 9
Chapter Twenty
Reveals the Truth
“They’re goin’ to a place called Upper Wooton, about half way between Saltash and Callington, on the Launceston road. I know the village – quite a tiny place,” Gibbs said, as we went up the picturesque street of Ashburton.
“Then we’d better go straight on there.”
“They’re goin’ through Plymouth, but the most direct way, and much shorter, is through Tavistock, which would bring us right into the cross-roads at Callington. We’d save a couple of hours by that, and, after all, they’ve got a ‘forty,’ you know, while ours is only a ‘sixteen’. They’ll make better pace than us up the hills.”
“Very well,” I said, “I leave it to you. We must be there first, in any case. Are they staying the night there?”
“Their man says so. ’E’s a stranger, however, and ’e says they’re a rum party.”
“Oh! Why?” I asked in quick surprise.
“Well – sir,” responded Gibbs, somewhat reluctantly, “it ain’t for me to repeat what ’e said, seein’ as they’re friends o’ yourn.”
“Oh! whatever you say will make no difference,” I assured him. “Besides, they’re not exactly my friends. Two of them I’ve never seen before in my life. So you can speak quite frankly. Indeed, I’m very anxious to hear what makes their man think they are mysterious.” I recollected that Murray’s reticence had aroused the curiosity of the hotel proprietor at Swanage, and wondered what else had occurred to cause the chauffeur to suspect that something was wrong.
“The car belongs to somebody named Rusden, who lives in Worcestershire, and the chauffeur is in his employ. Mr Rusden has lent the car to the party,” Gibbs explained. “The chauffeur started from Stourbridge yesterday morning, with orders to meet a lady and gentleman at Chippenham station at midnight last night, and take ’em on all through the night to Swanage. There ’e picked up the gentleman and the young lady, and after two hours’ rest was ordered to drive on down to Plymouth with all possible speed.”
“But what makes him think there’s any mystery about them? He, no doubt, received orders from his master.”
“No, ’e didn’t. That’s just it. Mr Rusden told him to go to Chippenham and take the lady and gentleman to Aylesbury, whereas they gave him orders entirely different. An’ besides that, the chauffeur overheard something this morning.”
“What did he overhear?”
“The two men were talking together, and the elder said ’e hoped as ’ow they wouldn’t be followed, or the whole show ’ud be give away.”
“Curious,” I remarked. “Very curious.”
“Yes, sir. ’E told me as ’ow all along the road they’ve been urgin’ ’im to go faster, but ’e wasn’t goin’ to risk being caught by a ‘heg’og’. ’E’s evidently rather troubled, because ’e don’t know what ’is master ’ull say at ’im comin’ down here. Perhaps they’re flyin’ from the police – who knows?”
I laughed his suggestion into ridicule, yet at heart I was much puzzled. What could it mean?
Why were they in such fear of being followed?
“Well,” I said, “at any rate we’ll push on to Upper Wooton, and see what they’re going to do there.”
“Then we’ll go by Tavistock. The road is just off on the right, about a mile or so farther on,” my companion said. “We ought to be there before dark, if we get no punctures,” and he drew down his goggles from his cap and increased the speed of the car.
Once or twice I looked back, but saw no sign of the blue car following us. Murray and his friends were, no doubt, quietly having their tea in that pretty old garden.
For nearly an hour I sat in rigid silence, as one so often does for long periods when motoring. Was that round-faced fellow upon whom Ella had smiled actually her lover? Who, I wondered, was the elder woman? And why had they come to Chippenham at midnight to be met by a motor-car and drive on through the night? There was certainly some motive in that long night ride.
Was it possible that they were really escaping? It certainly seemed very much like it.
Ella’s movements in leaving Lucie and her father so suddenly, and in flying from me when she had confessed that she still loved me, were all suspicious. Some very strong and sinister motive underlay it all – of that I felt absolutely convinced.
Darker clouds gathered over the hills between Two Bridges and Tavistock, and another sharp shower fell, making us uncomfortably wet, but we never, for one moment, slackened speed. The rain laid the dust, for which we were thankful. At Gunnislake, just as the twilight was falling, we crossed the Cornish border, and by lighting-up time we were at the cross-roads outside Callington, with only four miles farther to negotiate.
This we quickly accomplished, at last running into a quaint old-world Cornish village which Gibbs informed me was the destination of the suspicious quartette.
There was but one inn, “The Crown,” and putting the car into the coach-house there, we ordered dinner. Cold meat and beer were all that the landlord could offer, but I ate ravenously, my ears all the while keenly on the alert for the hum of the car which we had outstripped.
After I had eaten I went out into the semi-darkness and looked round the quiet peaceful old village street of snug thatched cottages, the row broken by a red brick chapel and a corrugated iron church-room.
Only one gentleman lived in the vicinity, so the landlord informed me. His name was Mr Gordon-Wright, a London gentleman, and he lived at the “Glen,” which we had passed about half a mile before entering the village. Gordon-Wright! And this was his hiding-place!
Twilight had deepened into night as I sat upon a rough bench outside the inn, my ears still strained in order to catch sound of the approach of the car.
Gibbs’ theory was that they had probably stopped to dine in Plymouth, and certainly that seemed a very feasible one.
Would they put up at the inn, I wondered? Or were they making their way to Gordon-Wright’s? Out of curiosity, and in order to kill time, I rose and strolled along the village across the bridge and up the steep hill on to the road down which we had descended.
In passing in the car I had no recollection of having noticed a house, but as I now approached on foot I saw on the left a large clump of trees, surrounding a big white house.
On nearer approach the “Glen” proved to be one of those ugly, inartistic, early Georgian structures which a later generation had covered with stucco, surrounded by a large but ill-kept flower-garden, and beyond a thick spinney, all being allowed to run wild and unattended.
The garden was shut off from the high-road by a high wall of red brick, but the gates were iron, and through them, as I passed, I could obtain a good view of the house, inasmuch as the drawing-room windows were open, and the lamps beneath their white silk shades revealed that the place was cheaply upholstered in a rather gaudy chintz. The hall door, too, was open, and within I recognised an air of need. The hall of every house is an index to the state of the finances of its owner.
I halted for a moment and peered through the gate. From what I saw I at once concluded that either the house had been let furnished for the summer or that Mr Gordon-Wright, alias Lieutenant Shacklock, was not overburdened with surplus wealth.
As I looked, a middle-aged and most respectable, but round-shouldered old man-servant crossed the hall, carrying a tray. He was evidently laying the dinner table.
A moment later a shadow within the drawing-room betrayed the presence of some one there, while to my nostrils came the fragrant smell of a very good cigar.
A suit-case had been deposited in the hall, and the man-servant, on his return, caught it up and disappeared with it up the red-carpeted stairs.
All this I was watching with idle curiosity, having nothing better to do, when of a sudden the distant note of a motor-horn reached my ear, causing me to start away from where I stood and turn back a few steps in the direction of the village.
My heart leaped within me. Far off I could see the reflection of the head-lights as the car came tearing through the village and up the road at headlong pace.
Was it the blue car? Would it pass on, and leave me behind, after all?
In a few moments the white lights swept into full view, and I stepped to the side of the road to allow them to pass, when, to my joy, the driver began to blow his horn violently, as though to announce his approach.
Yes! They were halting at the “Glen,” after all!
With loud trumpeting that echoed among the trees the car flashed past me, and came to a sudden stop before the iron gates, but ere it did so the gates were flung open wide by the servant, and a man came out of the house shouting them a warm and cheery welcome.
The bright rays from the head lamps shone full upon him, dazzling him and preventing my presence being revealed.
I saw his face, and my eyes became riveted upon it.
And while I stood there, breathless and stupefied, the party descended, laughing boisterously and exchanging greetings.
I looked again. Was it only some strange chimera of my vision? Could it be the amazing truth? What further bitterness had life in store for me?
My Ella was standing enfolded in the arms of the man who had greeted them, and he was at that moment kissing her fondly upon the lips before them all.
And the man? His countenance was, alas! only too familiar to me.
He was the fellow I had met only that very morning under Miller’s roof – the man whom I had known in Nervi as Lieutenant Shacklock, R.N.!
Chapter Twenty One
The Peril of Ella Murray
In an instant the bewildering mystery of it all became apparent.
The fellow Shacklock, the dark-faced man whom I could at once denounce to the police as a rogue and a thief, held her enthralled!
“Welcome, dearest!” he said, as his lips touched hers. “I hope you are not too tired.”
But I saw that she was pale, and that she shrank from his touch. Ah! yes! she loathed him.
Standing there in the shadow of the overhanging trees, I watched them all disappear into the house.
The servant in black, after carrying up their luggage, shut the gate, therefore I crept forward and peered into the drawing-room. It was, however, empty, for they had all passed upstairs to remove the stains of travel before sitting down to dinner.
A thousand weird thoughts surged through my brain. That man Gordon-Wright was my enemy, and I intended that he should not win my love.
The whole position of affairs was utterly incomprehensible. This man, whom I could prove to be a clever international thief, was the most intimate friend of James Harding Miller, gentleman, of Studland. While he had been visiting there, Ella had escaped from her father and gone to Studland, in all probability to see him, or to consult him upon some important matter. She had made no sign to the Millers that she was previously acquainted with their guest. The conclusion, therefore, was that both Lucie and her father were in utter ignorance of the curious truth. Ella had left suddenly and travelled by motor-car to Upper Wooton, while he must have left immediately after my departure from Studland, and travelled by train by way of Yeovil.
To Mr Murray and the rest of the party he appeared as though he had not been away from home. Only Ella knew the truth, and she was silent. That there was some extraordinary manoeuvre in progress I was convinced. The Murrays of Wichenford were one of the county families of Worcestershire, and Ella’s father had always been an upright, if rather proud man. He was, I knew, the very last person to associate with a man of Shacklock’s stamp had he but known his real character.
On the contrary, however, he had grasped the man’s hand warmly when he descended, saying: —
“Why, my dear fellow, it’s quite two months since we met! How are you?”
And the pseudo-lieutenant was equally enthusiastic in his welcome in return. He was the host; “the London gentleman” known locally as Mr Gordon-Wright.
This was by no means extraordinary. In our country villages and their vicinity hundreds of people are, at this moment, occupying big houses, and under assumed names passing themselves off for what they are not. Summer visitors to the rural districts are often a queer lot, and many a gentleman known as Mr Brown, the smug attendant at the village church, is in reality Mr Green whose means of livelihood would not bear looking into. From time to time a man is unmasked, and a paragraph appears in the papers, but such persons are usually far too wary when it is a matter of effacing their identity under the very nose of the police, and enjoy the confidence and esteem of both the villagers and “the county.”
So it evidently was with “Mr Gordon-Wright.”
Consumed by hatred, and longing to go forward and unmask him as the ingenious swindler who stole Blenkap’s money, I stood at the gate, eager to obtain another glimpse of the woman who he intended should be his victim.
What was the nature of his all-powerful influence over her, I wondered? She loved me still. Had she not admitted that? And yet she dare not break from this man whose life was one long living lie!
“Fortunately I’ve discovered you,” I said, between my teeth, speaking to myself. “You shall never wreck her happiness, that I’m determined! A word from me to Scotland Yard, and you will be arrested, my fine gentleman.” And I laughed, recollecting how entirely his future was in my hands.
He had already dressed for dinner before the arrival of the party, and I overheard him shouting to Murray not to trouble to change, it being so late. Then he came along the hall, and stood at the door, gazing straight in my direction, his hands in the pockets of his dinner-jacket, awaiting his guests.
He could not see me, I knew, for the roadway was rendered very dark at that point by the trees that almost met overhead. Therefore I watched his thin clean-shaven face, and saw upon its evil features an expression of intense anxiety which was certainly not there when we had met earlier that day in Dorsetshire.
Ella was the first to descend. She had exchanged her dark dress for a gown of pale blue Liberty silk, high at the throat, and, though simply made, it suited her admirably. The fellow turned at the sound of her footstep, and hurrying towards her, took her hand, and led her outside upon the gravelled drive.
“The others, of course, have no idea that I’ve been to Studland!” I heard him whisper to her anxiously as they stood there together in the shadow, away from the stream of light that shone from the open door.
“I told them nothing,” was her calm answer, in a voice that seemed inert and mechanical.
“I only arrived here an hour ago. I feared that you might be here before me. You, of course, delayed them by excuses, as I suggested.”
“Yes. We had tea on the way, and we came the longer way round, by Plymouth, as you told me.”
“It was lucky for you that you left the Millers as early as you did,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because they had a visitor. He came an hour or so after you’d gone. I found him talking to Lucie, and she introduced me. His name was Leaf.”
I saw that she started at mention of my name. But with admirable self-control she asked: —
“Well, and what did he want?”
“Wanted to see you. And what’s more, Lucie told me after he’d gone that he had once been engaged to you. Is that true?”
“I’ve known him a good many years,” was my loved one’s evasive answer, as though she feared to arouse his anger or jealousy by an acknowledgment of the truth.
“I ask you, Ella, a simple question – is what Lucie Miller has said true? Were you ever engaged to that man?” he asked very seriously.
“There was not an actual engagement,” was her answer, and I saw that she feared to tell him the truth.
What right had the fellow to question her? I had difficulty in restraining myself from rushing forward and boldly exposing him as the thief and adventurer he was.
“Lucie, in answer to my question, told me that you had lost sight of each other for several years, and that you believed him dead.”
“That is so.”
“And that he has been travelling on the Continent the whole time?”
“I believe he has,” was her reply, whereupon he remained in silence for some moments, as though reflecting deeply. Was it possible that, after all, he had recognised me as the man who he had intended should be his cat’s-paw in the Blenkap affair?
I felt certain that he was endeavouring to recall my face.
“Your father knows nothing of my friendship with Miller?” he asked suddenly, with some apprehension.
“I have told him nothing, as you forbade me.”
“Good. He must not know. It’s better not.”
“Why?”
“Well, because your father has a long-standing quarrel with Miller, has he not? If he knew we were friends he might not like it. Some men have curious prejudices,” he added.
His explanation apparently satisfied her, but he, on his part, returned to his previous questions regarding myself.
“Tell me,” he urged, “who is this fellow Leaf? If you were fond of him I surely have a right to know who and what he is?”
“He’s a gentleman whom I first knew years ago, soon after I came home from school.”
“And you fell in love with him, like every school-girl does, eh?”
She nodded in the affirmative, but vouchsafed no further information.
“Well,” he said, in a tone of authority, “you will not meet him again under any consideration. I forbid it. Remember that.”
She was silent, her head downcast, for in that man’s hands she was as wax. He held her in some thraldom that I saw was as complete as it was terrible. His very presence seemed to cause her to hold her breath, and to tremble.
“Last night,” he continued, “you crept downstairs after you had gone to your room, and you listened at the door of the smoking-room, where I was talking with Miller,” and he laughed as he saw how she started at his accusation. “Yes, you see I know all about it. The faithful Minton, who saw you, told me,” he went on in a hard voice. “You overheard something – something that has very much surprised you. Now there’s an old adage that says listeners never hear any good of themselves. Therefore we must come to a thorough understanding as soon as we can get a quiet half-hour alone together.”
“I think it is perfectly unnecessary,” she said, with some attempt at defiance.
“There, I beg to differ,” he answered. “You have learnt a secret, and I must have some adequate guarantee that that secret is kept – that no single word of it is breathed to a living soul. You understand, Ella,” he added, in a low, fierce half-whisper, lowering his dark clean-shaven face to hers. “You understand! My life depends upon it!”
Chapter Twenty Two
At Dawn
The dark-haired woman who had accompanied Ella in the motor-car came forth and joined the pair, preventing any further confidences, and a few minutes later the dinner-gong sounded, and all three went in to join Mr Murray and his companion.
The windows of the dining-room were closed almost immediately, therefore I neither saw nor heard anything more of that strange household.
My one desire was to see Ella alone, but how could I give her news of my presence?
I turned on my heel and strolled slowly back down the dark road in the direction of the village. The first suggestion that crossed my mind was to send her a telegram making an appointment for the following morning, but on reflection I saw that if they had fled in secret, as they seemed to have done, then the arrival of a telegram would arouse Mr Gordon-Wright’s suspicions. Indeed he might actually open it.
I was dealing with a queer fish, a man who was a past-master in alertness and ingenious conspiracy. As Minton, at the Manor, was in the confidence of Miller, so that round-shouldered old fellow was, no doubt, Gordon-Wright’s trustworthy sentinel.
A dozen different modes of conveying a note to her suggested themselves, but the one I adopted was, perhaps, the simplest of them all. I returned to the inn, scribbled upon a small piece of paper a few lines to my well-beloved asking her to meet me at a spot I indicated at six o’clock next morning, and then I called Gibbs, took him into my confidence, and gave him instructions to take the pair of lady’s gloves with fur gauntlets that I had found in one of the pockets of the car, go boldly to the house, ask to see “the young lady who had just arrived by motor-car,” and tell her a fictitious story how he had found the gloves where they had stopped at Plymouth, and as he was passing through Upper Wooton on the way to Launceston he thought he would like to restore them to her.
“She’ll, of course, at once deny that they are hers,” I said. “But in handing them to her you must contrive to slip this little bit of folded paper into her hand – so,” and I gave him a lesson in pressing the small note, folded until it was only the size of a sixpence, into her palm.
He quickly entered into the spirit of the adventure, and three-quarters of an hour later re-entered the low-ceilinged little sitting-room announcing triumphantly that he had been successful.
“At first, sir, their man said I could not see the lady, as she was at dinner, but on pressing him that I wished to see her particularly, he went an’ told her,” he explained. “My request seemed to create quite a hubbub among ’em, for as I stood in the ’all, I heard the conversation suddenly break off, and a chap with a clean-shaven face come to the door an’ had a good straight look at me. Seein’, however, that I was only a chauffeur, he went back, and a minute later the young lady herself appeared alone. I told ’er the story, slipped the bit o’ paper into her hand, and gave her the gloves. The instant she felt the paper in her palm she started and looked at me, surprised like. Then, carryin’ the gloves into the drawing-room, as if to examine them, she glanced at what you’d written, and when she returned a few seconds afterwards, she whispered: ‘Tell the gentleman all right’. Then, sayin’ aloud that the gloves wasn’t hers, she thanked me, an’ dismissed me.”
I congratulated him on his success. So far, so good. I had to wait in patience until six o’clock on the following morning.
That night I slept but little, but when daylight came a certain hope and gladness came with it. At half-past five I went out, and strolled along to the cross-roads I had noticed between the “Glen” and the village. The roads traversing the highway were merely green lanes leading to adjoining fields, and with high hedges on either side were admirably adapted for a secret meeting.
Not without fear of being noticed by some yokel on his way to work, I idled there until the clock from the old ivy-clad church tower below struck the hour. For the first ten minutes I saw no sign of her, and every moment increased my peril of being noticed and my presence commented upon. The villagers were certainly not used to seeing a gentleman wait at the cross-roads at six o’clock in the morning.
Presently, however, my heart leaped with sudden joy, for I saw her in a fresh pale blue cotton dress hurrying towards me, and in order not to be seen meeting her in the main road I withdrew into the lane.
Five minutes later we were standing side by side, in a spot where we could not be observed, she panting and breathless, and I full of eager questions as to the reason of her flight.
“So you actually followed me all the way here, Godfrey!” she exclaimed anxiously, turning those dear eyes upon me, those eyes the expression of which was always as wondering and innocent as a child’s.
“Because I am determined that you shall not again escape me, Ella,” was my answer, grasping her hand and raising it with reverence to my lips.
Are we ever truly read, I wonder, save by the one that loves us best? Love is blind, the phrase runs; yet, I would rather say Love sees as God sees, and with infinite wisdom has infinite pardon.
What was it I felt? I hardly know. I acted without knowing – only stung into a bitter, burning, all-corroding jealousy that drove me like a whip of scorpions.
“You should never have done this,” she answered calmly, though her voice trembled just a little. “Have I not already told you that – that our meeting was unfortunate, and that we must again part?”
“But why?” I demanded fiercely.
“It is imperative,” she faltered. “I can never be yours.”
“But you shall – Ella!” I cried fiercely, “in this past twenty-four hours I have discovered a great deal. Unknown to me there was a man staying with Miller at Studland. The real object of your visit there was to speak with him in secret. You did so and left by motor car, while he travelled here by train. Your father has no idea that he and Miller are friends nor has he any idea of his true identity. He believes him to be Gordon-Wright, yet I know him under the name of Lieutenant Harold Shacklock.”
“You – you know him?” she gasped.
“Yes. After you left the Manor I called, and Lucie introduced me – as though I needed any introduction to him,” I laughed bitterly.
“Then where have you met him before?” she asked, deeply anxious.
“Abroad. I know who and what he is, Ella,” I said determinedly. “And you shall never be his wife.”
“But I must,” she declared. “It is all arranged. I cannot break my engagement. I dare not.”
“Then I shall simply go to the police and tell them what I know. I will never allow you to wreck your happiness because this fellow holds some mysterious power over you. You are mine, Ella – remember – mine!”
“I know! I know!” she gasped, her face pale, her eyes terrified. “But you must not say a word. I beg you, if you really love me, not to say a word.”
“Why not?”
“Because he would revenge himself upon me. I know certain of his secrets – secrets that I discovered by the merest chance. Any information given to the police he would suspect of coming from me. Therefore, don’t you see that any such attempt to free me will only bring upon me disaster – even death!”
“You fear he may take your life!” I gasped. “Ah! I see! He might even kill you, in order to close your lips!”
And I recollected the fellow’s ominous words I had overheard on the previous night, when he had told her that upon her secrecy his very life depended.
He was as ingenious and unscrupulous a criminal as there was in the whole length and breadth of the kingdom.
I saw in what deadly peril was my sweet well-beloved. She was in fear of him. Perhaps he, on his part, held some secret of hers. From her attitude I suspected this. If so, then any word of mine to the police would bring to her only ruin and disgrace!
