Kitabı oku: «The Sign of the Stranger», sayfa 9
Chapter Seventeen
Which Concerns a Guest at the Hall
The old fellow’s recognition of the name made it clear that the mysterious Mademoiselle, on her escape from Chelsea, had taken refuge in that house, together with certain other persons who were either accomplices, or who had formed some conspiracy in which she was implicated.
To the doctor, of course, this declaration of the man Hayes conveyed but little, but to me it threw an entirely fresh light upon the extraordinary affair. To Pink I gave a false explanation of the reason of my question. Some cunning plot seemed to be in progress, until the attack upon the young Frenchwoman and its subsequent exposure had, it appeared, put them all to flight.
Richard Keene had apparently gone straight from the Stanchester Arms and taken up his abode in that lonely house, ingratiating himself with the old people, in order, it seemed, to obtain a safe retreat for Mademoiselle, the man Logan and his two companions.
For what reason? Was this man Logan the same person who had walked with Lolita when I had discovered her after the tragedy?
I endeavoured to obtain a minute description of him from both the doctor and the farmer, but somehow his appearance, as described by my friend, was not as I had met him in those exciting moments on the Chelsea Embankment. Yet, perhaps, on that night, when he was secretly returning to Britten Street, his countenance might have been disguised. If he suspected that the police were watching, he would, no doubt, try and alter his personal appearance.
We both questioned old Mrs Hayes, a white-faced old woman in a silk cap with faded ribbon, but we could get nothing very intelligible from her, for she seemed upset and nervous regarding the hurried departure of the mysterious foreigners.
“I’m very sorry, sir, we ’ad anything to do with ’em,” she declared, shaking her head. “Only the first gentleman ’as come was so nice, an’ made us laugh so much with ’is funny stories that we thought any friends of ’is’n must be just so nice. He’d been at sea, and told us a lot about places abroad.”
“Oh! he’d been at sea, had he?” I remarked, as that statement confirmed the suspicion that the man called Dick was actually Richard Keene – the person whose return had struck terror in the heart of both Lolita and the Countess.
“He said so,” was her answer. “’E also said that he knew something of these parts, and made a lot of inquiries about the death of old Lord Stanchester, the present Earl’s marriage and all that. In fact it somehow struck me that he had known the family long ago, and was anxious to hear about the recent happenings over at the Hall.”
“He made no remark about the man found dead in the park?” asked the doctor.
“No. Not to my recollection. But Mr Logan did. He seemed very concerned about it, and I believe he went over to Sibberton one evening to see the spot. Only he didn’t tell us. We knew from the ostler at the Fox and Hounds in Brigstock, where he hired a trap.”
This negatived the theory that Logan was the man I had met in Chelsea, for if he were, he would surely not have wished to visit a place he had already seen. Indeed, he would, no doubt, have kept away from it as far as possible.
Compelled as I was to veil from my companion the reason of my inquiries, he regarded them, of course, as unnecessary, and did not fail to tell me so in his plain blunt fashion.
“There’s one thing quite certain,” he remarked as we cantered home together in the crimson sundown, “there’s a lot of mystery connected with those people. I wonder if there really has been a tragedy, and if the man Logan actually made an attempt upon the young fellow, as the girl had declared. It’s a great pity,” he added, “that we don’t know their surnames.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “If we did, we might perhaps establish their connexion with the affair in Sibberton Park.”
“Is it wise to tell Redway what we’ve heard?” he suggested.
In an instant I saw that to do such a thing would be to break my promise to Mademoiselle, therefore I expressed myself entirely against such a course, saying —
“My own idea is that if we conduct our inquiries carefully and in secret, we’ll be able to learn much more than the police. Personally, I’ve no faith in Redway at all.”
“I haven’t much, I confess,” he laughed. “Very well. We’ll keep our own counsel, and find out all we can further.”
To me the enigma had assumed utterly bewildering proportions. The mystery of it all, combined with the distinct suspicion resting upon the woman I loved so fondly, was driving me to madness. Sleeping or waking, my one thought – the one object of my life – was the solution of this problem that now constituted my very existence.
I would have followed Mademoiselle at once, and questioned her further, had I known her whereabouts. But, unfortunately, she had again escaped me, and I still remained powerless and in ignorance of the truth, which proved afterwards to be so utterly astounding.
We passed through Brigstock, and cantering on set out along the long white highway. Both of us were silent, deep in thought. From the west poured an infinite volume of yellow-gold light. A wonderful transfiguring softness covered the earth. Far above the transfiguring gold in the west was a calm clear-shining blue, and into the blue softly blended colour into colour so artistically that any painter’s brush would be defied.
Suddenly, the rays of the sun stretched up from behind the dark hill-tops and the whole became an illimitable blaze of gold and crimson. The sun seemed standing on the edge of the world, and its mystery was mirrored upon my heart.
The life of the day was nearing its end, and in the hush of silence we went onward, onward – towards home. And as we rode on I reflected that life was like an April day of alternate showers and sunshine, laughter and tears, flashes of woe and spasms of pain. One sun alone can brighten our gloom, and that sun is love. Without it, we have only the darkness of desolation.
Lolita! Lolita! The pale troubled refined face arose ever before me, haunting me sleeping or waking; that terrified look that had settled upon her matchless countenance at the moment when she had told me in her desperation that Keene’s return meant death to her, I could by no means efface from my mind. It had been photographed indelibly upon my memory.
I received a letter from her next morning, a brief friendly note containing, as usual, no words of affection, only an expression of intimate friendship and trust. Was she guilty? If so, of what?
Could such a woman be really guilty of a crime?
In my quiet room at the Hall I sat with a pile of the Earl’s correspondence before me. The letter-bag always contained a strange assortment of communications; some pathetic, many amusing, and at rare intervals notes on coloured paper in a feminine hand which, not being for my eyes, I re-enclosed in a plain envelope without reading.
Sibberton had had before his marriage what is known in club parlance as “a good time.” His name had been coupled with more than one lady; he had driven a coach, given wonderful luncheons at the Bachelors’, kept a house-boat up at Bray, was a well-known man about town, and an equally well-known figure at the tables at Monte Carlo. He had shot big game on the Zambesi, caught tarpon in Florida, potted tiger in the Himalayas, and had otherwise run the whole gamut of the pleasures of life as are opened to the wealthy young Englishman. On the day of his marriage with Marigold, he became a changed man, and now having assumed the responsibilities of an enormous estate, he declared himself to be gradually developing into an old fogey.
I had at last managed to stifle down my conflicting thoughts, and was busy replying to the pile of letters before me, when the Earl, in riding breeches, strode in from “cubbing.” He had been out at five, and now, at eleven, had finished the day’s sport and returned to his guests.
“Want to see me, Willoughby?” he asked, for it was usual for him to look in each morning to see whether I wished for any directions upon matters which I could not decide myself.
“Nothing of urgent importance,” was my reply. “Benwell, the agent at Brockhurst, suggests buying about a thousand acres that adjoin the estate and are in the market.”
“He means Haughmond Manor, I suppose?”
I replied in the affirmative.
“Tell him to buy if he can at a reasonable price. I fancy the Manor House isn’t let just now. Tell him to get a good tenant for it.”
I knew the place, a fine old sixteenth-century house, with beautiful terraces and gardens, one of the prettiest places in all Shropshire.
“What about visitors? Who’s coming?” he asked. “Has Marigold given you another list?”
“Yes,” I responded, taking out a slip of paper the Countess had handed me on the previous day, giving the names of some thirty persons, with the dates of their arrival and departure.
Having scanned them down quickly he gave a grunt of distinct dissatisfaction, for certain of the names were of persons of whom I knew he did not approve.
“I see she’s asked Goffe, after all – hang the fellow. You must put him off, Willoughby. I won’t have such a blackguard under my roof – and I told her I wouldn’t! I’m no saint myself, but I’m not going to ask my guests to meet such a person. It’s simply a marvel to me,” he added, striding up and down the room, his spurs clinking as he walked, “how the papers talk about him. To-day you read he is staying with Lord This, and to-morrow he is at the Duchess of That’s house-party, and the next day he meets the King at Doncaster. People must really think he’s the most popular man alive.”
“Sends the paragraphs to the editor himself, I suppose,” I remarked.
“Suppose so. There’s Marigold’s friend Lady Laxton, who boasts that she pays two hundred a year to some poor devil of a journalist up in town to puff her every other day in the papers, and scatter her portraits about in the ladies’ journals. That’s why you see ‘Lady Laxton at Home,’ ‘Lady Laxton on her motor,’ ‘Lady Laxton and her Chow,’ ‘Lady Laxton walking,’ ‘Lady Laxton riding,’ and all the rest of it,” he laughed. “The Laxton boom costs a couple of hundred a year, but it’s cheap to a draper’s wife, for it’s put her into a good set where she wouldn’t otherwise have been.”
I joined in his laughter, for like all his class he hated cheap notoriety, and was far too conservative to discern that no success, social or commercial, is achieved in these modern days without judicious advertising.
“Oh, by the way!” he exclaimed suddenly. “I see she hasn’t put Smeeton on the list – write it down, David Smeeton. You’ve never met him, I think. He’s a good fellow. I asked him down for a fortnight’s shooting. He’s a magnificent shot – was with me up the Zambesi.”
“When does he come?”
“To-morrow – five-forty at Kettering. See after him, won’t you? Introduce him, and all that. I shall shoot over at Harringworth, and can’t be back till late.”
“Very well,” I said, for it usually fell to me to put guests in the ways of that enormous house.
That day, and the following, passed uneventfully, and I heard nothing of any tragic discovery being made beyond Brigstock, therefore the suspicion that a second crime had been committed seemed negatived. I had driven over to Gretton in the afternoon to give instructions to one of the keepers, and returning about seven o’clock, was walking along the corridor to my room when, at the further end, in the fading light, I saw two figures, one a guest, and the other Slater, the butler.
“This is Mr Smeeton, sir,” the old servant explained. “He’s just arrived, and been shown his room. His lordship said you would entertain him until he and her ladyship returned.”
The newly-arrived guest came forward from the shadow to greet me, and as he did so the light fell straight across his face.
I stood open-mouthed, unable to utter a word in response.
The guest was none other than Richard Keene himself!
Chapter Eighteen
Which Teaches the Value of Silence
The man’s audacity in coming there openly and boldly as Lord Stanchester’s guest so utterly astounded me that my very words froze upon my lips. Was this some further development of the intrigue in which one man had already lost his life?
Yet the visitor, bluff and hearty of speech, stood smiling at me with a calmness that was absolutely amazing. In the first instant, I wondered whether the dim light of the corridor had deceived me, or whether his face only resembled in a marked degree the dusty wayfarer who had refreshed himself with such gusto at the Stanchester Arms. Suddenly I recollected that although I had watched him on that hot afternoon, he had been unable to see me where I remained in the publican’s back parlour. There was a screen on purpose to hide any person seated in the little low inner room from the vulgar gaze of those in the tap-room, and at the moment he had faced me I had been peeping round the corner watching him. As I crossed the room he had seen my back, of course, but his self-assurance at the moment of our meeting made it quite plain that he did not recognise me.
The dim light having concealed my surprise, I quickly regained my self-possession, and with effusive greeting asked him into my room.
“Lord Stanchester, her ladyship, and most of the party are still out,” I explained. “There’s been a big shoot to-day. He asked me to entertain you until he returned,” I said, when he had seated himself in an armchair.
His tall figure seemed somewhat accentuated; his dark face, however, no longer wore that expression of weariness, but on the other hand he seemed hale and hearty, and had it not been for his rather rough speech, he might, in his well-cut suit of grey tweed, have passed for a gentleman.
“Oh! her ladyship is at home, then?” exclaimed the man who called himself Smeeton. “I’ve not yet had the pleasure of meeting her. In fact I haven’t been in England since the Earl’s marriage.”
“You’re a big-game hunter, I hear,” I remarked.
“I shoot a little,” was his modest rejoinder. “I shot with Lord Stanchester in Africa, one season, and we had fair sport. I notice that he has some of his trophies in the hall. By Jove!” he added. “He’s a splendid sportsman – doesn’t know what fear is. When we were together he got in some very tight corners. More than once it was only by mere chance that there was an heir left to the title. It wasn’t through recklessness either, but sheer pluck.”
He at any rate seemed to possess an unbounded admiration for my friend.
“You spend most of your time abroad?” I remarked, hoping to be able to gather some further facts.
“Well, yes. I have a house abroad,” he answered. “I find England a nice place to visit occasionally. There’s no place in the world like London, and no street like Piccadilly. But I’m a born wanderer, and am constantly on the wing in one or other of the five continents, yet at infrequent intervals I return to London, stand for a moment beside the lions in Trafalgar Square, and thank my lucky planet that I’m born an Englishman.” He laughed in his own bluff hearty way.
And this was the man of whom both Lolita and Lady Stanchester lived in such mortal terror!
He took a cigarette, lit it, and leaned back in the chair with an easy air of comfort, watching the smoke ascend.
“Pretty country about here, it seems,” he remarked presently. “The drive from Kettering station is a typical bit of rural English scenery. The green of the fields is refreshing after the scorched lands near the Equator. What’s the partridge season like? It seems an age since I shot a bird in England.”
“Oh! They’re fairly strong,” I replied. “The spell of wet was against them in the early season, but I believe the bags are quite up to the average.”
“And who’s here just now?”
I enumerated a list of his fellow-guests, in which I saw he was greatly interested.
“There’s Lord and Lady Cotterstock, Sir Henry Kipton, General Bryan, Captain Harper, the Honourable Violet Middleton, Count Bernheim, the German Ambassador, Lady Barford, Mr Samuel Woodford – ”
“Sammy Woodford!” he exclaimed, interrupting me. “How long has he been here?”
“Ever since the opening of the season. Are you acquainted?”
“Well – not exactly,” he responded evasively. “I’ve heard a good deal about him from mutual friends. I’ll be glad to meet him. He’s the man who was in the Chitral affair. They swear by him in India.”
“So I believe,” I remarked, puzzled at the strange expression which crossed his features when I mentioned the name of the Earl’s very intimate friend. Mr Samuel Woodford, or “Sammy” to his intimates, was a district superintendent of Bengal Police, who was home on two years’ leave, a short well-preserved fair-headed man, a splendid athlete, a splendid shot, a splendid tennis and polo player. At Sibberton, where he had been a guest on several occasions, he was a great favourite, for he was always the merriest of the house-party and the keenest where sports or games were concerned.
Stanchester liked him because he was so perfectly honest and straight. The very look in his clear steel-grey eyes spoke truth, uprightness and a healthy life, and after their first meeting, one season at Cowes, his lordship had taken a great fancy to him.
“Anybody else I’m likely to know?” asked the visitor, with a carelessness which I knew was assumed.
“Well, there’s the Marchese Visconti, of the Italian Embassy, young Hugh Hibbert from Oxford, and ‘Poppa,’ as they call the newly-made Lord Cawnpore. And the honourable Lucy Whitwell, the daughter of Lady Drayton.”
“Is she here also?” he exclaimed, looking at me in quick surprise, which he did not attempt to disguise. “She’s with her mother, of course?”
I responded in the affirmative, and recognised by his manner that the presence of the lady in question somewhat nonplussed him. Possibly she might be acquainted with him as Richard Keene, seafarer, and he anticipated an awkwardness about his introduction as the celebrated big-game hunter.
I anticipated a scene when the Countess met him, and was inwardly glad that at least Lolita was absent.
Ought I to warn the Countess, I wondered? She had, I remembered, appealed to me to assist her, and surely in this I might. Nevertheless, if her husband were in ignorance of the man’s real identity, it was not likely that he would expose it willingly, or seek to injure her ladyship, or make any demonstration before her guests. On the one hand, I felt it my duty to give her warning of the stranger’s arrival, while on the other I feared that by doing so I might be defeating the ends which the man Keene might have in view, namely, the discovery of the real author of the crime in Sibberton Park.
Thus I remained, undecided, continuing to chat with him, watching his attitude carefully, and seeking to learn from his conversation something regarding his intentions.
“I should imagine Lord Stanchester to be a very lucky fellow,” he remarked presently. “If the photographs one sees in the papers are any criterion, her ladyship must be a very beautiful woman.”
“Yes,” I answered, smiling. He was very cleverly trying to impress upon me the fact that they had never met. His shrewd cunning showed itself in the sidelong glance he gave me.
At that moment the door suddenly opened, and Lord Stanchester, in his rough shooting kit, came in.
“Halloa, Smeeton! Welcome, my dear fellow!” he cried, wringing his guest’s hands. “Excuse my being away, won’t you? I’ve got a lot of people here, you know, and had to go out with them. By Jove! When you said good-bye to me and left the boat at Zanzibar, I never expected to see you again?”
“Well, here I am – turned up in England again, you see!” he replied merrily. “When we parted I had no intention of coming back. But somehow, on occasions, a longing for home comes over me, and I’m drawn back to London irresistibly. I see,” he added, “some of the trophies are up in the hall.”
“Yes,” laughed his lordship. “I had them all mounted. And often when I look at them, they bring back pleasant recollections of those many weeks we were together. Well,” he added, “I’m very pleased, Smeeton, to see you here at Sibberton – very. My wife knows you’re here; she’ll be delighted to meet you. I’m sure. I’ve often spoken of you, and told her how you saved me from that lioness. By Jove! I was within an ace of being done – and should have been if you hadn’t been such a dead shot.”
“Oh, that’s enough,” laughed the guest, modestly. “I can’t shoot partridges – that you’ll see.”
The Earl walked to the mantelshelf, took a cigarette, and lit it, saying —
“I see Woodhouse has been making you at home. This is Willoughby Woodhouse, my friend as well as my secretary,” he exclaimed. “I spoke of him, I believe.”
“You did, on several occasions,” and turning, Smeeton added, “I’m delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr Woodhouse. His lordship said all sorts of kind things about you.”
But I scarcely heeded the newcomer’s remarks. I was wondering what would occur when he met her ladyship face to face.
“I want you to have a good time, my dear fellow,” exclaimed the Earl to his guest. “Just make yourself at home. You’ll find the house a big barrack of a place, too big in fact – but with the aid of the servants you’ll very soon discover the proper trails. If you don’t, just go into the nearest room, ring the bell and wait. That’s what most people do. My wife was fully six months before she could find her way about properly – it’s a fact! She wanted to shut up the place and live in the new wing. But,” he added, “the old guv’nor always kept it up properly, and I feel it my duty to do just as he did.”
That a cordial friendship existed between the pair was plain, and yet I had only once heard his lordship mention him, and that was in the smoking-room when daring feats of big-game hunting and the achievements of Selous and others were being discussed. Then he had declared that he knew a man that held his own with them all – a man named Smeeton, who had spent the greater part of his life exploring and hunting, some of whose trophies, sold to well-known dealers, were the finest in the world.
His lordship was never a boastful man, and had not referred at all to his acquaintance with this renowned hunter, nor to his own African exploits, which were in no way a mean achievement.
He had just ordered Slater to bring in whiskies-and-sodas, as it was his habit to have a “peg” before dressing, when there sounded out in the corridor a light quick footstep, and the scamper of a dog, and the next instant the door opened, and the Countess of Stanchester halted on the threshold, facing the man she held in such deadly fear – Richard Keene!
