Mr. Nugent did not seek further private speech with Leslie Chermside while he remained at the Manor House. He acted in every respect as though he accepted the young man's renunciation as final, and after a saunter through the exquisite gardens with his host, asked that his car might be brought round. Having only reached Ottermouth the previous evening, he explained there were many things that claimed his attention at home.
"All right, dear boy," said Montague Maynard in his loud jolly voice. "Run out and see us whenever you can tear yourself away from golf and the delights of the Ottermouth Club. Old Sarah Dymmock hates you like the devil, but she don't bite so long as people don't want to hurt my little Violet, and she's a good sportswoman. And you're too good a sportsman yourself to mind an old woman's whims."
"I thoroughly understand Miss Dymmock, and I have the most profound regard for her," responded Nugent cordially. "There is never likely to be any serious matter at issue between us, but if therewere I should be very sorry to have to cross swords with her."
Yet his thin lips curled in a dreamy smile as he was whirled away in the serviceable little Darracq which had been presented to him by a titled idiot in gratitude for an introduction that had eventually ruined him.
"I hardly think that Miss Sarah Dymmock, useful as she has proved this morning, will loom on the horizon of present interests," he murmured softly to himself when he had directed his chauffeur to drive him home.
During the six minutes which it took to cover the distance from the Manor House into the town Nugent closed his eyes and leaned back, indifferent to the autumn glories of the fair Devon landscape. The fern-girt lanes, with occasional peeps of the blue sea and the red point at the mouth of the river, the golden harvest-fields, the lush orchards with their drooping loads of cider apples, the old cob-built farmsteads—all these flashed past him unheeded as he sat with folded arms wrapped in deepest reverie.
But when the car took the steep dip at the eastern end of the parade, and the road, first on one side only and then on both, became flanked with houses, he braced himself for social amenities. People were about in plenty, mostly known to him, and many of them eager for recognition by the cool-looking gentleman in the car who had the reputation of being a personage in London society. Nearly all the ladies of Ottermouth, at any rate, were proud of their Travers Nugent, and rejoiced greatly thatfor a month or two in the year he deigned to sojourn in their midst. And the dowdier the ladies and the less he had to do with them the prouder were they.
But the dowdy ladies at Ottermouth were an insignificant minority. Certainly not to be classed in that category was the winsome maiden, dressed in immaculate white flannel and carrying a tennis racquet, to whom Nugent raised his soft grey hat as the car struck into the main street. A vision of dainty, if very youthful, loveliness, Enid Mallory was smart from the crown of her well-poised little head to the soles of her natty shoes. She returned Nugent's bow with a trace of brusqueness, and immediately turned and made a grimace at the clean-shaven young fellow who was with her. Nugent, though not intending to do so, saw the grimace out of the tail of his eye, and frowned slightly when the car had passed.
"Old Mallory's daughter," he murmured. "She has done her hair up and lengthened her dress since last year, and she appears to have been infected with the paternal antipathy. I must not forget that Mr. Vincent Mallory, formerly of the Foreign Office, is a resident in this Arcadian spot. He might, under certain circumstances, become a factor to be reckoned with."
Aloud he said to his chauffeur, who had come down with the car some days in advance: "Dixon, do you know who that young gentleman was who was walking with Miss Mallory?"
"It's Mr. Beauchamp, sir," was the reply. "Son of Mrs. Beauchamp, who lives in Lorne Villas.He's a lieutenant in the Navy, I've heard, commanding a torpedo-boat at Plymouth. He is at home on leave just at present, sir."
"Thank you, Dixon; you are always a mine of information," Nugent said with the suave urbanity he always used towards inferiors.
But under his breath he added, "A curious combination, and one that may be worth watching."
The house in which Mr. Travers Nugent enjoyed his summer leisure lay on the hill beyond the western limits of the town. Though he spoke of it as a cottage, it was really a luxurious bachelor abode, standing in a secluded garden and removed from the main road to Exmouth by a serpentine drive, not, of course, to be compared with the noble avenue at the Manor House, but long enough to separate the owner of The Hut from the madding crowd by quite a respectable distance.
Descending at his front door, Mr. Nugent passed through a porch smothered in purple clematis into a small, square hall, deliciously cool and shaded. Here he was met by a quiet-looking man of middle age, with a face like a sphinx, and wearing a black cutaway coat. Nugent was not one to make his confidential servant the receptacle of more secrets than he could help, but he knew that if he chose to do so this personification of reticence and discretion would never betray them.
"Well, Sinnett?" he said. They neither of them wasted words at any time in their communications.
"I heard the car, sir," was the reply. "I know you like to be prepared for visitors. Mr. Levison is waiting to see you in the smoke-room."
"Good! I will see him directly," said Nugent, glancing at the closed door of the room indicated. Then, dropping his voice, he added, "Come out into the porch a moment."
The effect of this manœuvre was to place them beyond all chance of being overheard from the smoking-room, though the conversation was nevertheless continued with all precaution.
"I want you to go into Exmouth at once," said Nugent. "Dixon will take you in the car. At the quay you will find one of those French luggers which come over laden with onions to be peddled about the country by the crew. Inquire for a man named Pierre Legros, and tell him that I will buy as many strings of onions as he can carry if he will bring them over during the evening."
"Very good, sir," replied the manservant, who had absorbed the lucid but inexplicable instructions without the quiver of an eyelash. "Does Legros know you, sir?"
"He has never heard of me, nor I of him till this morning. I imagine, though, that the prospect of a good sale will bring him here. If, however, he demurs at all you might say that I have news to his advantage in connection with the Manor House. You understand, of course, Sinnett, that I am not really in need of onions?"
"You want the man, sir?"
"I must have the man."
With which the master of The Hut turned away in the certainty that he would get what he wanted, and, recrossing the hall, entered his cosy-smoking-room.
"Ah, Levison! Sorry to have kept you waiting," was his urbanely offhand greeting to the little Jew who rose obsequiously from a big easy-chair. "I have been lunching at the Manor House, and as I met Mr. Chermside there I am able to forestall your report. He tells me that he intends to kick over the traces."
"Prethithely what he told me, Mr. Nugent, sir," replied the Hebrew. "And I reckon he means it. Though I'm only in the pawnbroking line, and an assistant at that, I flatter mythelf I played the blooming financier up to the nines, but he was as stubborn as Balaam's talking moke. He ain't given me his final answer, yet, though. I'm to meet him to-morrow night for that."
"So he said, and you must keep the appointment and do your level best to make him change his mind," Nugent went on. "You are a clever little chap, and I shouldn't be surprised if you succeeded. Mr. Leslie Chermside is suffering from a qualm of conscience which may be only transitory if you paint the alternative in sufficiently lurid colours."
"S'elp me, sir, but you can rely on me to rub it in thick."
"I am sure of that, though, by the way, I heard to-day that you have not been without your relaxations here while acting as my spy-glass," rejoined Nugent with an amused laugh. "How about the pretty lady's-maid at the Manor House, eh?"
Mr. Levison gazed at the speaker in blind consternation, but, finding nothing but playful tolerance in his employer's manner, he admitted the soft impeachment—boastfully, as is the way of such vulgar lady-killers.
"You're a fair caution, sir," he sniggered. "It licks me how you got hold of that; but there! you get hold of most things. The time was 'anging a bit 'eavy, you see, sir, and she's a dressy little bit of French goods. No 'arm done, I spothe, as it didn't interfere with business?"
"No harm whatever, Levison," said Nugent kindly. "I only mentioned it to show you what a paternal interest I take in your doings. Those who serve me well have no cause to be dissatisfied with the rewards they earn, and you will be no exception to the rule. Only don't relax your efforts with Chermside. Keep the appointment with him to-morrow night, and turn the screw till he squirms. Maybe he'll see reason yet."
And having fortified his visitor with whisky and a good cigar, Mr. Nugent put a graceful finish to his hospitality by conducting him to a side gate that led from the garden on to the moor.
"You came in this way?" he said carelessly as he opened the gate. "That is right. I want you to be particular about that whenever you have occasion to see me. It might complicate matters if your connection with me got to be talked of in this gossipy place."
"Dull little 'ole, I call it," commented Mr. Levison as he prepared to cross the purple heather. "Couldn't have stuck it for a week, I don't think, if it hadn't have been for Louise Aubin. A gent must amuse himself, and one misses the music-'alls. Well, so long, sir; I'll let Chermside 'ave it 'ot to-morrow night."
Nugent watched the mean-looking figure go stumbling along the moorland track on a detour towards the town, and then, the acid smile on his lips in curious contrast with the thoughtful frown on his brows, he turned back into the house. He was the most abstemious of men, but on reaching his den he poured out a fairly strong brandy and soda and drank it at a draught.
"It's a big stake for reclaiming the rebel," he muttered. "But I think it will work out right if Sinnett's mission pans out properly."
But presently, when the laconic manservant returned with his report that Pierre Legros would deliver several strings of onions during the evening, there was nothing in the manner of the master to denote whether he was satisfied or not.
"Thank you, Sinnett. Take care that he does not go away without my seeing him," was all that Mr. Travers Nugent vouchsafed in reply.
"So that is Nugent, the London chap who lives at The Hut?" said Lieutenant Beauchamp, when the car had flashed past. "Why do you accentuate the information by making such disgustingly ugly faces, Pussy?"
Miss Enid Mallory tossed her dainty head in mock indignation. "You are perfectly horrid, Mr. Beauchamp," she snapped at him. "As if I could make an ugly face if I tried ever so. And I won't have you calling me Pussy—now that I'm grown up."
"Grown up, is it, the little spitfire?" grinned the young sailor. "And I am to be Mr. Beauchamp, am I? Well, we used to be Reggie and Pussy when I was at home last, and, whatever you may do, the force of habit will be too strong for me. Even if I try to conquer it, which I shan't."
"That was three years ago, before you went to China," retorted Enid with dignity.
"What's the difference? We're neither of us very old yet, though I'm not sure I didn't like you better with a pigtail down your back than with all that crinkly bulge round your ears. However, tobe serious, and stick to our muttons—what's the matter with Nugent?"
"Father doesn't like him," replied Enid, still inclined to ride the high horse.
"I know that Mr. Mallory doesn't like him, but why not?" persisted Reggie. "I have the greatest regard for your father's judgment in all things. He is invariably right in his conclusions, but he is so jolly reticent as to how he arrives at them. I saw in the club this morning, when Nugent's name cropped up, that he didn't cotton to the johnny, but he refused to be drawn on the subject."
Enid was mollified at last, as she always was by any tribute to the acumen of the parent whom she adored.
"I don't know his reason," she said, as they turned to retrace their steps along the parade. "But father, till he retired, was at the Foreign Office, as you are aware, and in the course of his duties he learned all sorts of secrets and came in contact with all sorts of shady men. I fancy his antipathy dates back to something that occurred during his official career, but you might as well try to open an oyster with your fingers as induce him to divulge what he knows."
Reggie Beauchamp nodded, really more interested in the sprightly hoyden he was talking to than in the subject of their conversation. "I see," he said. "If that's the way you figure it out, I shall be aware of Mr. Travers Nugent when I meet him at the club. If he's a dark horse he might rook me at billiards or bridge. I am obliged to you for this warning, Miss Mallory. You have probably saved an unsophisticated sailor from premature ruin and a suicide's grave."
Enid glanced up at him, her eyes dancing with mischief. "Bother Mr. Nugent!" she exclaimed. "Now that you have addressed me with proper respect, you may call me Pussy again if you wish—till you misbehave again."
So for the next half-hour they reverted to earlier nomenclature, and forgot to play at quarrelling as they wandered up and down by the summer sea. And when at length they parted, Enid to go home to pour out tea for her blind mother, and Reggie to enter the club, they lightly made an appointment which was to have its grim bearing on the tale that has yet to be told.
"Look here, Miss Mallory," said the Lieutenant, with feigned solemnity. "I have to go into Exeter to-morrow to try on some new uniforms, and to-night I must stay at home and help the mater entertain a wretched curate whom she has invited to dinner. But I shall be at large to-morrow evening. What about a prowl along the shore or up the marsh? We might renew hostilities, and get some sort of a notion which of us is really right in the matter of our Christian names. I may change my mind, and come to the conclusion that you are, after all."
"Oh, may you, indeed, Reggie?" replied the girl, and with a roguish laugh she ran away without saying whether or no she would meet him. But he was familiar with his former playmate's impish ways, and it was in sublime confidence that the appointment would be kept that he loitered about on the seafront on the evening of the following day.
Sure enough, a little after nine, when the sunset glow still lingered in the western sky, Miss Enid's white-clad figure was seen threading its way through the loungers on the parade. It was a beautiful evening, and the junior section of residents and visitors were about in plenty. Young men and maidens, hatless and in evening dress, strolled up and down the asphalte side-walk between the coastguard station and the club, for the most part chattering of the handicaps in the forthcoming tennis tournament, while some few exceptions, too busy making eyes at each other for such frivolity, worshipped at the love-god's shrine. Such public worship, however, has ever been considered bad form at Ottermouth, except among septuagenarians and the rosy-cheeked couples who on Sundays "walk out" together in the country lanes.
Perhaps it was because of this unwritten law of the place that Reggie Beauchamp and Enid Mallory, having duly greeted each other with flippant discourtesy, but having the germ of quite another sentiment in their irresponsible hearts, intuitively turned their steps to the further end of the parade, and came to a halt at the spot where the struggle between the feeble efforts of the urban council and the giant forces of nature ceased. In front lay the bank of shingle across the former river's mouth; to the left stretched the sedge-covered, dyke-sected bed of the old estuary.
"Shall we go back to the parade or take a turn up the marsh?" asked Reggie. And then, without waiting for a reply, he added, "By Jingo! Look out to sea. There is a cruiser—theTerrible, I think, or one of her class."
Enid followed the direction of his pointing finger, and in the fast-fading twilight saw the great four-funnelled monster steaming slowly about two miles out at sea. Even as they looked, the big warship became little more than a huge blurred shape, barely discernible in the darkness that was swiftly blotting out land and sea.
"Well, she won't bite, I suppose," said the girl carelessly.
"No, but she might bark," laughed the Lieutenant. "I expect she's out for night practice with her heavy guns—with blank charges, of course."
The young people quickly lost interest in the ship, and, turning aside, struck into the path traversed by Leslie Chermside and Levison on the morning of the preceding day. It was raised above the level of the mud-flats which skirted it on the right; on the other side rose the umbrageous bank of the old water-course, increasing the shadows in which they walked.
Presently Enid's hand stole under her companion's arm, and they glided naturally into the frank comradeship which had prevailed between them long before the mutual banter which they had lately affected, and which was probably due to a desire to conceal the first stirrings of something stronger than a boy-and-girl attachment. They were both of the age when young folk are supremely susceptible, but have a self-conscious dread of being thought so. Out here on the marsh, in the kindly mantle of a moonless summer night, they could enjoy the pleasure of propinquity without fear of being laughed at.
"Let's sit down here for a bit while I smoke a cigarette," said Reggie, when they had gone half a mile along the marsh. "It is the old ambush, as we called it, where we used to picnic when I was a middy and you were a kid."
He ran down the side of the raised path into a little glade formed by some dwarf oaks at the base of the miniature cliff, and Enid followed, seating herself on the low-growing branch of one of the trees. It was quite dark now—so dark that though they were very close to the path they had quitted, they could not be seen from it. Even in daylight they would have been invisible behind their leafy screen.
"I suppose you executed that manœuvre because you heard the footsteps behind us," said Enid in a whisper.
"Footsteps? I didn't hear any," replied Reggie.
"Hush! Don't speak. You can hear them now."
The sound of hurrying feet was distinctly audible now from the path, and a moment later a man—the heavy tread left no doubt that it was a man—went by. He was almost running, and they could hear his quick breathing, but it was impossible to tell whether he was tall or short, young or old, rich or poor, in the inky blackness that had swallowed up the marsh.
"A telegraph boy taking a short cut to the Manor House," suggested Enid when the steps had died away.
"Too late for that—the office closed two hours ago," replied Reggie Beauchamp carelessly. "Morelikely some poacher who has been setting snares for rabbits, and thought he heard a keeper behind him. The Ottermouth fishermen used to be precious handy with a bit of copper wire and a bootlace."
The brief interruption passed from their minds, and they had been chattering for about ten minutes when once again the silence of the marsh was broken by the sound of advancing steps. This time the wayfarer came along in more leisurely fashion, and in this case also it was possible to guess from the heavy footfall that the passer by was a man. Perhaps a minute elapsed, and then, just as the young people were becoming absorbed in each other again, there came from further along the marsh—that is to say, from the direction to which both the successive pedestrians had been proceeding—a sudden sharp cry, ending in a long-drawn wail.
"What on earth was that?" exclaimed Enid, jumping down from her bough.
"Goodness knows," laughed the careless sailor. "Either a bereaved cow or a curlew suffering from nightmare. Sit down again, Pussy; it was nothing to worry about."
"It struck me as being distinctly human," said Enid doubtfully, but she swung herself back into the tree, willing to be convinced that there was nothing wrong, rather than terminate atête-à-têtethat was rapidly gliding into a flirtation. Another pleasant quarter of an hour slipped by, and then at the beats of a distant clock in the town striking half-past ten she dropped from her perch.
"I must be getting back, or father will be wondering what has become of me," she said as she made for the entrance of their lair.
Reggie's detaining hand fell on her arm.
"Half a second," he said. "There is some one coming along the path—one of those chaps who went by returning, perhaps. Better let him get ahead, whoever he is, before we break cover. We don't want company on our way back."
So they waited in the shadows, listening to the oncoming footsteps till the man who caused them was nearly opposite their hiding-place in the little glade. His identity was nothing to them; they had no thought but to enjoy their homeward stroll without having to tread too closely on the heels of any inconvenient outsider.
And then, suddenly, far out at sea a great shaft of light shot skyward, and, after steadying itself in a perpendicular gleam, swooped down upon the marsh, moving to and fro across the broad expanse, prying out its secret places and showing up each reed and sedge in an electric glare, that was twice as effective as lightning because it dwelt longer on its objectives. At first the radiant tongue played on the opposite side of the marsh, then it flickered on the central wastes, and finally darted on to the path close to Reggie and Enid just as the man they had heard advancing passed by.
Unseen themselves in the thicket, they had a clear view of him as he strode along the path, for, the latter being raised several feet above their level, his face was silhouetted against the dark sky beyond the electric beam. Their glimpse was only momentary, because as though dazzled, he raised his handto his eyes, and altogether he was not ten seconds within the range of their vision, but it lasted long enough to enable Enid to whisper her companion—
"That was Mr. Chermside, the young officer from India who has been staying down here for the last month. He's supposed to be awfully gone on Violet Maynard, the daughter of the rich Birmingham man who has taken the Manor House for the summer."
"Then I expect that is where he was coming from," suggested Reggie. "I met him in the club yesterday. Your father introduced him. He seemed a decent sort of chap, but down on his luck I thought."
"You have made two blunders in one statement," was Miss Enid's pert retort. "He can't have been coming from the Manor House because he wasn't in evening dress. And he can't be down on his luck because he's got heaps of money. Why, he's going to start on a cruise round the world soon in a steam yacht that is fitting out at Portland."
"Sorry I spoke," said Reggie. "Come, he's far enough ahead not to be a nuisance now; let me give you a hand up on to the path. I suppose that Mr. Mallory is prejudiced against Chermside, since he's a friend of Travers Nugent, eh?"
Disdaining the offer of assistance, Enid ran lightly up the slope on to the path before replying.
"Their glimpse was only momentary, because, as though dazzled, he raised his hand to his eyes."
"On the contrary," she said as Reggie joined her, "I can't quite make father out on the subject of Mr. Leslie Chermside. For once in a way the dear old man is inconsistent, or so he seems to me. He won't commit himself to a definite opinion, but Ican see that he is deeply interested in Mr. Nugent's friend, and in the relations existing between the pair. I think, from signs and portents known only to myself, that father rather likes Mr. Chermside."
"Lucky for Chermside," Reggie absently mused aloud. "There!" he added with a quick return to nautical briskness. "Thank goodness that infernal searchlight has moved off us and found the town at last. I prefer being at the other end of the beastly thing to having it in one's eyes. There goes the first gun from the cruiser."
And under cover of the restored darkness arms were clasped again, and the young heads fell very close together for the rest of the way back to the town that was now being vigorously bombarded in mimic warfare.
Two miles out at sea the big guns flashed and boomed, and ahead of them on the marshland path the footsteps of the man they had seen in the rays of the searchlight were dying away, so quickly had he outpaced the lingerers. But Lieutenant Beauchamp and Miss Enid Mallory took no heed of either, little dreaming of the terrible significance that attached to what they had seen and heard that night.
"Oh, good morning, Chermside. So you have not, after all, left Ottermouth yet, as you led me to infer would be the case."
Leslie Chermside looked up from his newspaper to meet the steady gaze of Travers Nugent, who had just entered the reading room at the club. It was before the hour when the morning frequenters were wont to assemble, and for the moment they had the apartment to themselves.
"No," said Leslie shortly. "I have changed my mind, and shall stay on for a while."
Nugent carefully closed the door and came and stood with his back to the mantelpiece looking down at his late accomplice. "Does that mean that you have returned to your allegiance?" he asked softly.
"Certainly not," came Leslie's flash of indignation.
"Ah! then I presume that you found Levison amenable to reason, or, at least, that you persuaded him to grant you a reprieve when you kept your appointment with him last night?" said Nugent. Though he spoke with a great assumption of carelessness, applying a light to his cigarette the while,his eyes never left the younger man's face for an instant, seeming to burn with a snake-like glitter.
Under this keen scrutiny Leslie reddened, and his reply came haltingly at first, as though he picked his words with deliberation. "I asked no favours of Levison. He—he can do his worst for all I care." And then, moved by a sudden impulse, the ex-Lancer added hotly: "See here, Mr. Nugent. My association with you, which I deeply regret, has not been an honourable one. It is not my province to blame you, seeing how culpable I have been myself, but the subject is distasteful to me, and at least I have the right to ask that you will not again refer to the disgraceful affair that brought us together. I shall hope shortly to obtain employment which will enable me to repay the money advanced by the Maharajah for my passage home, and, so far as I am concerned, that will be an end of the business. I do not consider that I am legally or morally bound to recognize the debts which his Highness gave me to understand he had paid voluntarily. As the bribe with which he tempted me was only a sham, I owe him no allegiance whatever."
Nugent listened with upraised brows to the angry outbreak, the flicker of a frosty smile playing about his lips. But if he had meditated a rejoinder he checked it. His quick ears had caught the click of the hall door, and the hum of voices in the ante-room. He merely shrugged his shoulders, and was ready with a genial greeting for the members who trooped in. They were three in number—Mr. Montague Maynard, who had motored in from the Manor House; Mr. Vernon Mallory, whose pale,ascetic face reflected nothing of the interest inspired by finding Nugent and Chermside, obviously to his shrewd vision, concluding a heated discussion; and, lastly, but by no means least in his own estimation, General Kruse, formerly of the Indian Staff Corps.
The last-mentioned was somewhat unkindly behind his back called "the widow's Kruse," the nickname being founded on an erroneous rumour that he was pursuing with matrimonial intentions the wealthy relict of a London tradesman, who had settled in the neighbourhood. There was a still more unkind version of the origin of the nickname, and one in which there was, unfortunately, just a spice of truth—that he was "always full." He was a big, burly man, with a rubicund complexion and a voice like a thunderstorm.
The three gentlemen had chanced to meet on the doorstep of the club, and the General had already commenced to impart to the other two an item of news which he had picked up on the way from his house. He now began it all over again for the benefit of the larger audience.
"Most extraordinary thing," he bellowed in his foghorn tones. "As I was just telling these fellows, Nugent, I looked in at thePlume Hotelas I came through the town, and they're in a rare pucker there. A chap staying at the hotel went out last night after dinner, saying he was going for a walk, and he hasn't come back."
"Bolted to save paying his bill, I suppose," suggested Nugent, stealing a glance at Leslie Chermside, who, however, was invisible behind his newspaper. "It is not an unprecedented occurrence at a seaside resort in the summer season, is it?"
But General Kruse with great gusto proceeded to demolish any such commonplace theory. "It wasn't that," he roared. "The chap—Levison his name was—had paid his charges pretty near up to the hilt. It is the custom to render bills weekly, and as he had been at thePlumea week yesterday, his account was presented to him. He paid it like a shot. There is only his last night's dinner owing for, and he has left luggage that would square that twenty times over."
"I expect he will turn up before the day is over," said Nugent, with the air of becoming bored with all this fuss about a stranger. And, as if to put an end to the General's prosing, he turned to Montague Maynard.
"When I was lunching with you the other day, Miss Violet consulted me about a picnic tea she was thinking of giving," he said. "Your daughter was good enough to want my advice as to a good camping-ground, and I told her I would take time to consider. Will you tell her from me that I should recommend that grassy patch on the marsh, half-way between the beach and the Manor House? It is sheltered from the sun at four o'clock in the afternoon, and that means everything at this time of year."
"Thanks very much; I'll tell Vi; she's sending out short invitations for to-morrow," replied Mr. Maynard, wondering why, in making a communication that concerned him alone of those present in the room, the speaker should have been looking at some one else. For, after claiming the screwmanufacturer's attention, Nugent allowed his eyes to wander to Leslie Chermside, who was still hidden by the newspaper.
Mr. Vernon Mallory, of whom it had once been remarked that he noticed everything while appearing to notice nothing, happened to choose this moment for addressing a trivial but direct question to the diligent reader, calling him by his name, and leaving him no alternative but for an equally direct answer. Leslie laid aside the paper and replied courteously, but in doing so disclosed a twitching mouth, and a face from which every drop of red blood had fled, leaving it ashen grey.
Mr. Mallory did not pursue the subject of his interrogation further, but, turning to General Kruse, started a fresh and congenial topic by suggesting that that thirsty old warrior would be the better for a whisky and soda. The invitation being promptly accepted, Mr. Mallory, who eschewed spiritual indulgence in the morning, ordered a cigar for himself, and plunged into a discussion of the delinquencies of the urban district council, in which Travers Nugent and Mr. Maynard were presently included.
Under cover of these amenities Leslie Chermside rose and, followed by two pairs of observant eyes, left the club. Avoiding the crowded parade, he crossed the pebbly beach to an upturned and discarded boat, and flinging himself down in the shade of it, abandoned himself to his thoughts. Gradually the colour came back to his cheeks, and the agonized expression which Mr. Mallory had surprised yielded to one of dogged determination.
"The prospect of the picnic at that spot is simplyhorrible, but after all it is a mere detail, and I must go through with it," he murmured presently. "The fact remains that, within limits, I am now free to stay here and thwart the new scheme which I am convinced that Nugent is hatching. If I could have but one glimpse at the cards he holds."
For an hour Leslie lay in the shadow of the boat, vainly striving to penetrate the veil which he felt sure Nugent had thrown over his designs. It was futile to formulate plans for combating them till he had discovered what the designs were. That theCobra, the big turbine yacht that had been chartered, would still be retained as the principal feature in the programme was probable, since Nugent would naturally be reluctant to waste the expense already incurred, and, except on a vessel controlled by the Maharajah's emissaries, the abduction of Violet Maynard to India would be practically impossible. But how, without the co-operation which he had withdrawn, Nugent could hope to convey an unwilling passenger on board the steamer Leslie could not surmise. He could only wait and watch, in the full knowledge that his former colleague and present antagonist was a man of infinite resource, and endowed with an inborn cunning which it would be folly to despise.
One thing was certain, he told himself, as he rose and strolled back to his lodgings on the main street—day and night he must keep vigil for the appearance of theCobraoff the coast, and he must also cultivate close relations with Violet, so as to learn of anything that might indicate the ruse by which it was intended to inveigle her on board.
To sustain the pretence that he had recently inherited a fortune, and had means which would justify the possession of a large steam yacht, he had established himself, by the advice and introduction of Travers Nugent, at the best and most expensive rooms in the place. Here he shut himself up for the remainder of that day, refraining from going to the club or to the tennis field, and brooding over the resolves and apprehensions which unfitted him, as he knew, for the society of his fellow-men.
By the last post he received an informal note from Violet, inviting him to a picnic tea on the following day. The party was to assemble at the Manor at four o'clock, afterwards making its way on foot to the spot selected, which was within easy reach of the house. Leslie shuddered as he read the concluding words, but having braced himself to sit down and pen an acceptance, he went out in the dusk and posted it.
The next day was favoured with ideal weather for anal frescoentertainment, and when the guests assembled at the appointed hour it was at once evident that Violet's picnic tea had been hailed as a popular function. Every one who had been asked put in an appearance, to the number of about a hundred. Hired conveyances deposited a mixed assortment of residents and season visitors from Ottermouth; a few old-fashioned barouches brought representatives of such of the neighbouring county families as had deigned to recognize the Birmingham magnate; while motor cars in plenty accounted for many of the arrivals.
Among the latter was Mr. Travers Nugent, well-groomed and debonair in his grey suit, and wearing an orchid in his button-hole from one of his own glasshouses at The Hut. On descending from his car he exchanged his motor-cap for a feather-weight Panama, and smilingly confronted the group at the main entrance. Mr. Mallory, who had arrived earlier, took particular notice of that smile, which lasted only just so long as it was wanted for the purpose of responding to the welcome of his host and hostesses. As soon as he had shaken hands with Violet and Miss Sarah Dymmock and Mr. Maynard, Nugent effaced himself unobtrusively among the guests, and Mr. Mallory's observant eyes following him perceived that the smile had given place to a look of preoccupation.
This in turn was chased away by a sudden start and a gleam of satisfaction when, among the last arrivals, Leslie Chermside was seen making his way on foot up the drive. Thence onward Mr. Travers Nugent's air of self-absorption left him; turning to those of his acquaintances nearest him he laid himself out to amuse and interest.
"Now, what does that portend?" the keen old diplomatist muttered under his breath. "It was almost as though Nugent had been afraid that Chermside was not coming, and that he was gratified when at length he appeared. I wonder what is the bond, if bond it is, between the young soldier with the mysterious blank in his life and the clever gentleman with so many irons in the fire that he ought to have burned his fingers long ago. There is something in the wind, but is the youngster fromIndia a dupe or confederate? I would give a good deal to know."
At the word from jovial Montague Maynard the now completed party set out for the picnic ground, a chorus of approval going up at the announcement of the spot selected. Even on a hot summer day the laziest could not object, for, once outside the Manor demesne, a quarter of an hour's saunter through the delightful scenery at the head of the marsh brought them to the little strip of pasture land reclaimed from the swamps, where the tea-tables had been set out in the shade of a group of elms. Cavillers might have complained that the railway embankment skirting the place on one side marred the aesthetic harmony of the whole, but if there were any such they remained discreetly silent.
The snowy damask of the tables laden with dainties and surrounded by a bevy of smart maidservants from the Manor made an inviting picture on the strip of verdure, and Montague Maynard's guests renewed their acclamations. Reggie Beauchamp, who had, of course, annexed Enid Mallory as his partner for the afternoon, expressed the opinion that it was "simply ripping."
"And, by Jove!" he added of malice aforethought, "look at that girl bossing the other maids. She seems to be in charge of the show. She is ripping too. Just the style of beauty I admire."
Enid cocked a sly eye at him, and catching the gleam of mischief refused to be drawn. "Yes," she said, following his gaze to the graceful brunette in black silk who was directing operations at the tables, conspicuous by the absence of apron and cap-streamers, "that is Louise Aubin, Violet Maynard's maid. She is certainly pretty, but she looks as if she had a temper. I shouldn't dare to find fault with her if she belonged to me."
"A bit of a spitfire, perhaps," assented the Lieutenant, finding that his harmless shaft had missed its mark. "Might give you beans with the brush, eh, if you slanged her for pulling out your hair by the roots?"
Miss Mallory sniffed contemptuously at the implied familiarity with the sacred rites of the dressing-table, and she might have expressed herself strongly on the subject had not their attention been distracted by the approach of a train along the embankment above them. It was beginning to shut off steam for the stop at Ottermouth Station, a mile further on, and the people in the carriages were plainly distinguishable by the picnic party.
Just as the train was sweeping past a cry from one of the third-class compartments drew all eyes that way. Looking up, the picnickers saw a man leaning from the window and frantically gesticulating—or, rather, vehemently pointing at some object on the marsh below. To those on the lower ground there was nothing visible to cause his agitation.
"What was that lunatic up to, and what was he howling about?" asked Reggie as the train disappeared round a curve.
"It sounded like 'the face of a fool,' so far as I could make out," Enid laughed.
"I don't think it was that," said Violet Maynard, who, with Leslie and Mr. Mallory in attendance, hadcome up behind them. "It struck me that the excited passenger's cry was more like 'the face in the pool.'"
"That was it, I expect," said Reggie lightly. "He must have seen the reflection of his own in one of those puddles of tidal water. That was the Ottermouth section of the London corridor express, which has a luncheon car attached. The Johnny had probably been indulging too freely in the conveniences of modern travel."
Mr. Mallory said nothing. He was inwardly asking himself why Leslie Chermside, who, though obviously forcing himself to do so under intense nervous strain, had been pleasantly chatting all the way from the Manor House, should have suddenly turned pale, fiercely biting his underlip with strong white teeth.
Discussion as to the exact words of the cry from the train was cut short by a general adjournment to the tables, where for the next half-hour the guests did justice to their host's lavish hospitality. Mountains of sun-kissed peaches from the warm walls of the Manor gardens, gallons of fruit-salad and cakes in bewildering variety disappeared as by magic. The little green oasis at the brink of the marshes rang with laughter, presently blended with the strains of a small but select string band from London, hidden in a secluded nook behind the sheltering elms.
But if the episode of the excited passenger was generally forgotten it only remained in abeyance so far at least as the memory of one of Mr. Maynard's guests was concerned. It was not necessary for a man of Mr. Vernon Mallory's age to plead an excuse for an early desertion of the "aids to indigestion," as he called them, and he lighted a cigar and went off for a solitary stroll. Travers Nugent paused for a moment in his entertainment of a cluster of ladies to send a thoughtful glance after the tall, spare figure of the retired civil servant, and a curious gleam flittedover his inscrutable features. It could not have been wholly caused by dissatisfaction, for he resumed his amusing persiflage with enhanced sparkle.
Mr. Mallory's sauntering steps took him to the side of the reclaimed ground nearest to the railway line immediately under the embankment. To the casual observer his movements might have seemed somewhat erratic, and based only on a desire to get away from the chatter of the tea-tables and enjoy his cigar in peace. To any one really interested in his sudden detachment, however, it would have become apparent that there was system, carefully cloaked, perhaps, but none the less thorough, in every step he took.
The place where, by Travers Nugent's advice, the picnic camp had been pitched lay some two hundred yards beyond the little glade at the side of the raised marshland path where Reggie Beauchamp and Enid Mallory had rested on the occasion of their prowl in the dark two evenings ago. Here, for the purpose of raising the railway to the proper level, the bank of the old river bed had been destroyed for a short distance, and instead of the miniature red cliffs, with their leafy screen of brambles and dwarf oaks, the marsh was skirted by the ugly side of the embankment. This break in the beauties of nature caused by the exigencies of engineering was but a score or two of yards in length, and it was while the train had been in view on this short section that the third-class passenger had played such strange antics.
At the foot of the embankment the ground was swampy, nowhere yielding firm foothold, and hereand there deepening into pools formed by the brackish water that had drained in from the tidal dykes at the other side of the path. For the most part the pools were surrounded and studded with sedges, which concealed them from passers-by.
It was among these offshoots of the marsh that, at the risk of getting bogged in the quagmires, Mr. Mallory pottered about by himself. Poking and prying everywhere, he, however, devoted most attention to the pools in the ground nearest the fence at the base of the embankment, which were furthest removed, and therefore less visible, from the path. Ten minutes must have been spent in this apparently unprofitable employment when he suddenly straightened himself, and, regaining the firmer ground, made his way slowly back to the gay gathering under the trees.
Many of the people had left the vicinity of the tables and were promenading the grassy strip while listening to the band. Montague Maynard, assiduous in his care for his guests, was a difficult man to catch, but Mr. Mallory managed to pin him at last as he was leaving one group to join another. Poles apart in temperament and in their life's experience, the genial manufacturer and the reserved old diplomatist had nevertheless conceived a sincere regard for each other during the former's sojourn in the neighbourhood.
"Just a word with you," said Mr Mallory in a low voice, leading his host aside.
"My dear fellow, certainly; but what is it? You look as though you had seen a ghost," replied the other.
"You will have to get all these folk away quietly," said Mr. Mallory, after assuring himself that they were out of earshot. "I have not seen a ghost, but the next thing to it. There is the dead body of a man in one of those pools close under the railway fence. Some of these youngsters will be sure to stumble on it if we remain here. Besides, we can't keep it to ourselves for a minute. The authorities must be notified at once."
Maynard emitted a low whistle, and his face clouded at a contretemps which, whatever else it might portend, bade fair to spoil Violet's party. But his brow cleared again as his eyes rested on the sombrely-clad diminutive form of Miss Sarah Dymmock, who, with a vivacity wonderful for her years, was holding court under one of the trees.
"Old Aunt Sally will manage it," he said. "You're quite right about clearing 'em off, and I'm deeply indebted to you, Mallory, for not raising a hullabaloo. It would never do to scare all these butterflies with a discovery like that. And, as you say, the police must be informed and a doctor sent for without a moment's delay."
He hurried off, and Mr. Mallory watched from afar the result of the whispered communication which he made to the aged spinster. It did not transpire till afterwards how Aunt Sarah contrived it, but after one or two comprehending nods the old lady turned to the group of which she had been the centre, and almost at once an electric spark seemed to have been communicated to the whole festive assembly. In twos and threes and larger clusters the picnic party began to moveoff the ground back towards the Manor House.
Having assured himself that the main object was gained, Mr. Mallory was free to study the details of thedébâclehe had caused. Travers Nugent, without a break in the lively conversation he was holding with a smart lady of local importance, had apparently accepted unquestionably the situation as propounded by Aunt Sarah, and was following the remainder of the flock with sheep-like docility. After Nugent, Mr. Mallory's eyes sought and found Leslie Chermside, and in his case there was more food for reflection. Mr. Mallory was at once aware that Chermside was observing him with equal interest; in fact, their eyes actually met in a quick thrust and parry of unspoken question on one side, and something that was curiously akin to defiance on the other.
The ex-Lancer was for the moment standing alone, and Mr. Mallory moved towards him as if to speak. But he was forestalled by Violet, who came up and evidently claimed Leslie as escort on the homeward walk, for they started in the wake of the others before Mr. Mallory, if such had been his intention, could make any attempt to detain them.
He was more fortunate in the case of Reggie Beauchamp, and he had his daughter to thank for the capture. Enid, not having outgrown her schoolgirl devotion to sweets, had lingered round the tables for a final ice, and the young sailor was still in faithful attendance. Mr. Mallory pounced on the pair just as they had realized that a general stampede was in progress, and were preparing to follow.
"Beauchamp, I wish you would remain with Mr. Maynard and myself for a little," he said. "There is a point on which I want to fortify myself with your opinion. We can walk back to the Manor afterwards."
Enid began to pout and toss her head, but she knew every phase of her idolized father's moods, and one glance at the network of creases round the keen eyes was sufficient to quell her incipient mutiny. The appearance of those filaments on the stern, ascetic face was a sure danger-signal that her father was not to be trifled with—that the active brain was at work on some serious problem. She put her ice-plate down and, bidding the Lieutenant "make himself generally useful," ran away to overtake the fast-receding party.
She had hardly departed when Montague Maynard came bustling up, wiping his brow with a silk handkerchief. He stopped for an instant to order the wondering servants to pack up the crockery ready for the cart and to get home as quick as they could, and then he turned to Mr. Mallory, while Reggie, with instinctive modesty, fell back a pace or two.
"Aunt Sally is a masterpiece; I'll tell you how she did it later," he said, his eyebrows uplifted inquiringly in the direction of the young torpedo-boat commander.
"It is all right. He's wanted," interpolated Mr. Mallory shortly.
"Well, then this is what I have done," the screw magnate went on in a hoarse undertone. "I have sent a footman into the town direct for the police-sergeant, and another to hurry up one of the localmedicos. All these maids will have skedaddled before either the sergeant or the doctor can turn up. Now shall we go and have a look at the—the place? You have no idea who the poor fellow is, I suppose?"
"I am not sure; it is on that point that I want Beauchamp to corroborate me," was the reply. And, calling Reggie forward, Mr. Mallory told him, as the three went towards the swamps under the embankment, of the gruesome discovery he had made, and how he wished to learn if his view of the dead man's identity coincided with his own.
No more was said till they had picked their way over the firmest foothold they could find to the pool where the horrible sight awaited them. The body lay half in and half out of the water, the upturned face being afloat while the remains below the shoulders were embedded in the ooze at the brink and nearly concealed by the reeds.
"Miss Maynard was right, you see, as to what the passenger called out from the train—'the face in the pool,'" said Mr. Mallory. "The lower limbs were probably invisible up there. Now, Beauchamp; do you recognize the victim of this tragedy?"
Reggie looked blankly down at the features about which there lingered none of the majesty of death—mean, commonplace features, which nevertheless might have had their attraction for the unsophisticated by reason of a certain sensual fullness of lip and smoothness of the now marble-white skin. The wide-open eyes, staring skyward, conveyed the impression of sudden, awful fear.
"No, I can't put a name to him," said the lieutenant after a long scrutiny which he did not relax. "And yet there is a look about him that seems vaguely familiar. That, though, is not quite the word for it. I mean that I believe that I have seen him before."
"What about the French window in the reading room at the Club?" suggested Mr. Mallory. "Does that help your memory?"
"Of course!" came the quick rejoinder. "It is the chap who called for Chermside the other morning and walked away with him along the Parade. A cockney visitor, I should judge by his clothes. And, by Jove, I expect he's the man who is missing from thePlume Hotel. The club steward knew him by sight as staying there."
A frosty gleam shone in the old diplomatist's eyes. "You are probably correct in the latter surmise," he said. "But in any case we are in agreement as to his being Chermside's acquaintance. That was what I wanted to get from you."
"Not a very reputable acquaintance, I should imagine," said the great manufacturer, looking thoughtfully down at the bedraggled tawdriness of the dead man's attire. "If our young friend from India hadn't been vouched for by Travers Nugent, I should have put this poor creature down as a dun or a money-lender's tout. His features are distinctly Hebraic. I wonder how he got himself drowned in that shallow pool. A drop too much, eh, and a stumble in the dark?"
But Reggie Beauchamp, regardless of his immaculate flannels, had plunged knee-deep into the mire. His sailor's eye, used to note every detail,had perceived something that had escaped the two shore-going gentlemen with sight impaired by years of office work.
"He wasn't drowned!" he exclaimed, and then, moderating his voice so that it should not reach the maid-servants on the deserted picnic ground, he added: "His throat has been cut from ear to ear. By Jove——"
But Reggie pulled himself up all short, and had no more to say. He had remembered the cry, weird and long-drawn, which Enid and he had heard from their cosy retreat at the marsh-side two nights ago. And he had remembered something else of even graver and more personal import—a reminiscence of the prowl in the dusk which he discreetly forbore from disclosing till he should have had an opportunity for consulting his fair partner in that escapade.
Mademoiselle Louise Aubin possessed all the attributes of her Gallic blood. She was vain of her voluptuous charms, susceptible to flattery, and prone to blurt out on the least provocation the scanty ideas in her empty little head as soon as and whenever they entered it. She was further endowed with a fiery temper and an eager impetuosity, which often led her to act without thought of consequences.
In the last-named characteristics was to be found the reason why in the cool of the evening she set out to walk from the Manor House to Ottermouth in order to lay information with the police against the man she believed to be the slayer of Levi Levison. For once in a way she had said nothing of her purpose in the servants' hall, expecting to score a greater dramatic effect by announcing on her return that she had been the means of causing the murderer's arrest.
Long before the afternoon party had dispersed the reason for the hurried adjournment from the marsh back to the house had become known—first among the guests, from whom there was no longer anynecessity to keep secret what was bound to be noised abroad in an hour or two, and then among the members of the domestic staff, to whom the news spread like wildfire.
The earliest intelligence had been quickly supplemented by further details of description and identification which left no doubt in the mind of Louise that the dead man was the hero of her three weeks' flirtation. Equally sure was she that he had come by his death at the hands of that older lover, the Breton peasant and sailor who had adored her in her native village long before she had dreamed of becomingfemme de chambreto the daughter of an English millionaire.
Yes, she told herself, assuredly Pierre Legros, the French huckster of onions, had killed her latest admirer out of insensate jealousy, and he should suffer for it if there was any power in a woman's tongue. Mr. Levison had held out glittering prospects, which it was galling to have destroyed by a persistent boor such as Pierre. Travers Nugent's human tool had described himself as "a financial agent"—a phrase which to the French girl's ears sounded the brazen tocsin of untold wealth, and which she could not know covered as many iniquities as that other comprehensive term—"a resting actress." Pierre Legros must certainly pay the penalty for shattering her dreams of riches and luxury, and to secure that laudable vengeance she started for Ottermouth as soon as she had dressed her young mistress for dinner.
The path skirting the marshes was her nearest way, but she dared not pass the spot where the crimehad been committed, and where there would probably be a crowd of sightseers attracted to the scene. She chose the longer route along the high road, and by the time she had walked a mile between the leafy hedgerows she began to ask herself questions.
Coming of thrifty French parents, her first was: What was she to gain by making the disclosure and putting a noose round the neck of Pierre? Nothing at all, and, on the other hand, there was the chance that she might lose a situation in which she was extremely comfortable. Miss Sarah Dymmock, who was her virtual if not nominal mistress, would not be likely to tolerate lightly the scandal which she would bring upon Mr. Maynard's establishment. The old lady had shown her teeth the other day, when she had caught the onion-seller abusing her and had driven him out of the grounds at the point of her sunshade. Miss Dymmock's vituperations had not been all for the male delinquent. The rough side of Aunt Sarah's tongue was like a nutmeg-grater, and she had rasped out several rugged threats about not keeping a maid who was a bone of contention to violent "followers."
Again she was conscious, deep down in her fickle heart, of a soft spot for the faithful compatriot with whom she had scrambled about the rocks of her native village when he had been a sunburnt fisher-lad and she a bare-legged hoyden of fifteen. For Levi Levison she had cared not one jot. If it had not been for the overthrow of the brilliant prospect which she fondly believed a marriage with him would have implied she would have borne Pierre Legrosno ill-will for hacking his rival to death. It would indeed have been a delicate compliment.
So it was that as she walked the deserted country road she wavered, and as she wavered there came into view round a bend some way ahead a pedestrian sauntering so leisurely that he had more the appearance of keeping a tryst than of making for a destination. And, though the lady for whom he was waiting knew it not, Mr. Travers Nugent was, in a sense, keeping a tryst, and she was no less a personage than the damsel advancing to meet him—Mademoiselle Louise Aubin herself.
As they met Louise was surprised to see the English gentleman stop and raise his hat to her. She had never before exchanged a word with him, or so much as given him a thought, though she knew him by sight as an occasional caller at the Maynards' house in London, and had since learned that he had a summer retreat at Ottermouth.
"Pardon me for addressing you without formal introduction," said Nugent with the deference he would have used to a duchess, "but interest in this terrible murder must be my excuse. I recognize you, of course, as Miss Maynard's confidential companion. Can you inform me if any later intelligence has been received at the Manor House? There was nothing but vague rumour in the air when I left after the afternoon party."
He had to a nicety struck the correct note for "drawing" Mademoiselle Louise. The winning smile, the doffed hat would have gone far; but the promotion from lady's maid to "companion" made her conquest an easy matter. Yet, coquetteas she was, she delayed the intended surrender which in her folly she regarded as a victory. She promised herself the pleasure of looking important in this affable gentleman's eyes, but it was a situation that must be prolonged for proper enjoyment.
"But no, M'sieu," she replied. "It is not at the Manor House that you should inquire for news. They know nothing there, nor do they greatly care. How should they be distracted, my so kind friends, by a cr-rime which is to them but a bagatelle that has disturbed the pleasure of a summerre day? It is to the police in the town that you should apply."
Nugent's shoulders shrugged with Parisian eloquence. "I have already pursued inquiries in that quarter, but the police appear to be completely in the dark, except that they have verified the fact that the deceased had been staying at thePlume Hotel," he said, never forgetting for an instant to qualify the baldness of his statement with a respectfully admiring glance.
Mademoiselle's opportunity for dramatic effect had come. It would be far more interesting to startle this so polite "Milor" than to scarify the servants' hall at the Manor House, and she could do that later as well. To the winds with all caution! She must brave Aunt Sarah's wrath if the old lady took a harsh view of her conduct. The chance to pose was irresistible and she took the stage there and then.
"M'sieu has been premature," she said, heralding her bomb-shell with a flash of her fine eyes. "If he returns and puts his questions to thesergent-de-villelater in the evening he will doubtless bedifferently informed. For I, Louise Aubin, am now on my way to indicate to the authorities the assassin of that poor gentleman."
Travers Nugent's astonishment seemed to overwhelm him. He took a step back, eyed the girl with something like awe, and touched his lips with his tongue. "You are not serious?" he gasped. "Do you really mean that you witnessed the crime?"
The fair Louise lifted her hands in genuine horror. "Mon Dieu!Not so bad as that," she replied. "But it is all the same as if I had been there. It is the motive that I go to point out, and the name of the murderer that I go to give. I who speak to you was the motive, and the name is Pierre Legros. Thescélératis a seller of onions from a little French ship that is in the harbour of Exmouth."
And Mademoiselle Aubin proceeded to rattle off the history of her early courtship by Legros in her native village, and of his inopportune arrival while she was accepting the attentions of the "financial agent" from London. She volubly repeated her former lover's heated language to herself, and described the bloodthirsty threats he had used about his successful rival. His guilt was as clear as noonday, she avowed—as clear as if that dreadful thing M'sieu had suggested had been really true and she had seen the deed with her own eyes.
"Pierre killed Monsieur Levison for love of me," she concluded, with a gesture worthy of the great Bernhardt.
Nugent's manner and attitude had almost imperceptibly and very gradually altered during therecital, though the theatrical young Frenchwoman had been so absorbed in herself that it was only when she had sounded the final flourish that she noticed the change. The look of surprise—of almost alarmed surprise—which had come into his face at her first profession of knowledge was gone, and was now replaced by an expression of chivalrous sympathy blended with just a trace of dissent.
"I can well believe in the potency of the motive suggested by Mademoiselle," he said with a grave bow. "Any man might almost have free pardon for homicide committed for the sake of her favours. But it was not so in this case. The man whom I have good cause to suspect of having slain Mr. Levi Levison had never to my knowledge spoken with mademoiselle either in France or in England. That was why I was so astonished when you stated that though you had not witnessed the crime, you were on your way to denounce the criminal."
"Who, then, is it that you suspect, m'sieu?" Louise, all taken aback, demanded in a sibilant whisper. "After all, Pierre was the friend of my youth, and it would be sweeter to take vengeance on other than he."
Travers Nugent appeared to be about to speak, but to check himself as an afterthought. "I do not think that it would be quite in accordance with a spirit of justice if I mentioned the villain's name, even to you, just yet," he said, after a pause. "I am morally convinced of his guilt, but there are one or two points to be cleared up before it can be proved. If it leaked out that he was under suspicion before the police had been furnished with enough evidence to arrest him he might evade us altogether. This much, however, I can promise you, that as soon as I have linked up the chain you shall be the first to be informed of it. Surely you are entitled to be, as the adored ofce pauvreLevison. In the meanwhile, will you favour me with a description of Pierre Legros? I have a reason for asking which will commend itself to you."
Louise launched into an eloquent word-picture of the onion-seller, contriving with many deprecatory shrugs to convey her contempt for his rough appearance and for his humble calling, while taking full credit for having recognized him at all in her present exalted station. His fierce eyebrows, his swarthy skin, his blue jean garments were all in turn catalogued and tossed aside as so much rubbish not worthy of notice if their owner was not to achieve fame as a murderer.
"A thousand thanks! You are an artist in our language, mademoiselle, and have absolutely confirmed the innocence of your worthy fellow-countryman, though I commiserate with you on the reappearance in your life of one sogauche," said Nugent decisively. "You are entitled to my fullest confidence, but discretion confines me to this at present: Pierre Legros, so easily recognizable from your vivid description, could not have committed this crime. It would have been a physical impossibility. At the hour when the medical men say that Levison must have met his death Legros was creating a disturbance at the back door of my house because the cook would not purchase any of his wares. While I happen to know that the man Isuspect had an appointment to meet some one on the marsh about the same hour."
One glance at the French girl's face as he made the last assertion told him that he had scored one trick at least in the game he had set out to play. There was no incredulity in the stare with which she drank in his statement, nor was there affectation in the sigh which escaped her, due partly to relief at the established alibi of her former lover, and partly to disappointment that she was not to achieve fame as the heroine of a murder mystery.
"I shall hold you to your promise, M'sieu," she simpered at last. "And as you have rendered my journey into the town unnecessary I will now return to the Manor House. Accept my best thanks for preventing me from committing abêtisewhich would have anguished my soul. It would have desolated me to have accused that poor Pierre under a mistake."
So, after a few courtesies from Nugent, she turned and went back the way she had come, reflecting that, after all, there was compensation for her disappointment. Had she not been treated as an equal by a gentleman of position and fascinating manners? Certainly he was not so young as Levi Levison, but his eyes had rested on her charms with an admiration that seemed sincere. Who knew but what he might, after a little coy manipulation, step into the place in her affections vacated by the defunct Levi? But then she could not see the contemptuously satisfied smile on Mr. Nugent's face as he made his way back to the town, the contempt being for the fickle jade so easily duped, and the satisfaction for the complete success of the self-denial that had led him to postpone his dinner-hour and loiter about the country road on which an unerring instinct had told him that the dupe would be found.