"The treacherous little cat!" he murmured, caressing his long fair moustache. "Bereft of one lover, and on her way to get number two hanged, she was not too busy to make eyes at a possible third. With all your faults, Travers Nugent, you have cause to be thankful that a weakness for women is not among them."
Reggie Beauchamp's mother, the widow of the late Admiral Beauchamp, R.N., lived in a small detached house prettily situated on the main road that extended from the High Street westward. A stout, comfortable-looking lady of some fifty years, she had but one aim in life—the happiness and advancement of her sailor son. Following on his two years' absence in the China seas, she was having a glorious time this eventful summer, with her boy stationed at Plymouth, and able to run over to the little Devonshire resort as frequently as he could obtain leave.
As mother and son sat together at breakfast on the morning after the picnic tea she noticed with maternal solicitude that he seemed somewhat preoccupied. The town was in a ferment over the discovery of Levison's body, and though it was not like Reggie to take anything seriously she could only suppose that he was brooding over the small part he had played in that episode.
"When does the inquiry into this horrible affair take place, dear?" she asked, as she handed him his second cup of coffee.
He started as though she had read his thoughts."At two o'clock this afternoon, I believe," he replied. And then, knowing from experience that he could not deceive those loving eyes, he added: "I was just wondering if I should have to give evidence. I hardly expect to be called, as it was Mr. Mallory who was the first to actually find the body."
"Even if you were called it would not be much of an ordeal, I suppose—little more than a mere formality?" persisted Mrs. Beauchamp, not wholly reassured by the shade of anxiety in his answer.
"How could it be, mother, when I didn't know the chap from Adam, and was not present when he was killed," was the reply which was hardly out of the lieutenant's mouth when he sprang to his feet and made for the door. "Excuse me," he said, stifling an exclamation of relief, "there is Enid Mallory coming up the garden path. I have finished breakfast, and I'll go and see what she wants."
Mrs. Beauchamp smiled indulgently, and straightway forgot the momentary qualm of uneasiness called up by the half-tone of irritation in her son's reply to her questions about the inquest. Like the fond match-making mother she was, she had immediately jumped to the conclusion that her first diagnosis had been wrong, and that the boy's wool-gathering was really due to the sprightly maiden whose knock was even now resounding on the front door. For the Admiral's widow, with happy memories of her own gallant husband to egg her on, had woven all sorts of fairy visions round the two young people who were now meeting on her doorstep. She approved of the lively Enid, was thedevoted friend of her blind mother, and had the most profound respect for Mr. Vernon Mallory himself.
"It is as it should be; they are outgrowing the old playmate stage, and are honestly falling in love with each other," the good lady murmured as she caught a glimpse through the venetians of the pair strolling side by side across the dewy little lawn.
For, with set purpose, Reggie had not invited Enid into the house, but had suggested that they should betake themselves to a garden seat under the branches of a great horse-chestnut that grew in the boundary hedge. Mrs. Beauchamp, however, would have heard no lover-like phrases could she have listened to their matter-of-fact conversation.
"Well, have you decided what it is best for us to do?" said the girl, as soon as they were seated.
"For goodness sake don't screech like that," Reggie reproved her, with an apprehensive glance at the thick privet hedge that separated his mother's premises from those next door. "That beast Lowch is probably on the prowl over there, listening for all he's worth."
"That's where you're wrong," retorted Enid promptly, but, nevertheless, lowering her voice. "As I came up the street Mr. Lowch was up to his old game—walking up and down in front of the police station so as to get spotted for the jury by the sergeant."
Mr. Lazarus Lowch, Mrs. Beauchamp's nearest neighbour, was one of those freaks of humanity intended by an all-wise Providence to be as a thornin the flesh of his fellow-men. His one idea of enjoying life was to creep about endeavouring to catch people doing wrong. He was known to carry a stop-watch for timing the speed of motor cars; he spent hours in "shadowing" small boys whom he hoped to detect stealing apples; he followed the municipal labourers about to see that they did not scamp their work; he had a finger in every one's pie, always with the intention of spoiling it; he was never really happy, but his nearest approach to the beatific state was when he was doing his level best to make some one else miserable.
A lean, cadaverous, lantern-jawed creature, more resembling the galvanized corpse of a dyspeptic ourang-outang than a man, he stalked the earth full of petty guile and mischief. His origin and reason for settling in the place were veiled in obscurity, though naturally there were many legends on the subject. Equally of course, he was not a favourite locally, and he would have been sorry to have it so. A man whose hand is raised against everybody neither courts nor expects popularity.
One of the eccentricities of this peculiar being was a morbid love of anything pertaining to the realm of the King of Terrors. He doted on funerals, and was always present at the cemetery when these solemn functions were being performed. Though somewhat stiff in the joints, he would run a mile to see a drowned man taken out of the sea; he had been heard to lament the fact that murderers were not hanged in public nowadays, and that he was consequently deprived of a spectacle that would have been as meat and drink to a starving man.
But his great opportunity came whenever it was necessary to hold an inquest in the bright little resort. On these occasions he would thrust himself under the notice of the police with a view to getting summoned on the jury, and, as it saved trouble, his tactics were always successful. Moreover, since he occupied a superior social position to the general ruck of jurymen he was invariably chosen foreman, with the result that he reaped a double joy—that of viewing the corpse and of making himself disagreeable to every one concerned.
Reggie Beauchamp, therefore, on learning how their uncongenial neighbour was occupied emitted a chuckle of mingled disgust and amusement.
"Up to his old tricks, is he?" he said. "Well, the coast being clear, let's consider what course to pursue. If we look at it from the point of view of what we ought to do there is no question but that we ought to come forward and say that we were on the marsh that night, and that shortly after hearing a blood-curdling scream we saw Chermside in the rays of the searchlight hurrying towards the town."
Enid's face fell. There was no heinous fault in her evening walk with her old playmate, and she did not in the least mind that coming to light, but she shrank from the publicity of having to appear as a witness whose evidence would be almost in the nature of an implied accusation against a man whom she could not regard for an instant as having anything to do with the crime. She had played tennis with Leslie Chermside, and liked him; besides which she had conceived a romanticaffection for beautiful Violet Maynard, and had watched the undeclared love idyll between the young Indian officer and the millionaire's daughter with lively interest.
Possibly the cloud on Enid's frank face prompted Reggie to come to a decision more than half formed already.
"But," he went on without giving her time to reply, "one doesn't in this wicked world always do what one ought, Pussy."
"I never do," rejoined the girl, omitting to pretend to resent the use of the once familiar nickname. "I don't see why we should now."
"Nor, on the whole, do I," Reggie relieved her with his assent. "You see, it might put Chermside into the deuce of a hole, since he was undoubtedly acquainted with this chap Levison. He will have to own to that, anyhow, as he called on Levison once or twice at thePlume, and the police are sure to have got hold of that. But, though there's something mysterious about him, Chermside is a gentleman. I cannot imagine him carving a little Jew all to pieces simply because of a difference of opinion. He couldn't have had any real motive for doing such a horrible thing, since they say at the club that he's simply rolling in coin. And I don't suppose Levison can have been a rival for the hand of the peerless Violet."
"That suggestion is nothing short of sacrilege, you rude, crude sailor-man!" protested Enid. "Well, we are to lie low, then, and keep a stiff upper lip?"
"That's about the ticket," Reggie agreed, risingand stretching himself. "I don't see that one is even called upon to mention that we were on the marsh and heard that scream. Come, let's clear out of this and go up to the links. A little golf will be a tonic after the gruesome parliament we have been having."
So they went together, dismissing the unpleasant subject with the facility of youth, and in happy ignorance that a pair of sunken, hungry orbs were glaring after them from a tiny flaw in the privet hedge—a spy-hole which Mr. Lazarus Lowch had specially constructed for the purpose of keeping an eye on the comings and goings of his neighbour. He had returned from achieving his purpose of being summoned on the jury in time to hear the last words spoken by Reggie. The contortion which did duty with him for a saturnine smile creased his facial muscles.
"So they heard a scream on the marsh and don't mean to say anything about it, eh? I'll see about that," he muttered, rubbing his scraggy hands in a transport of malevolent triumph.
The inquest on Levi Levison was held that afternoon in the long room at thePlume Hotel—an apartment in much request for public functions of all kinds, from Volunteer dinners to sombre occasions like the present. According to precedent Mr. Lowch was chosen foreman, and, licking his lips with anticipation, went away with his brother jurors to gloat over the corpse of the little Hebrew. On their return the coroner at once announced that an adjournment would be necessary, as it had been found impossible as yet to trace the relations, ifany, of the deceased. He would, however, take such evidence as was forthcoming that day, and leave the police to complete their investigations before the next occasion.
The first witness was the landlord of thePlume, who identified the body as that of a guest who had been stopping at the hotel for a week. Mr. Levison, he avowed, had been very reticent about the reason of his coming to Ottermouth, and he seemed to know nobody except a gentleman—a visitor of the name of Chermside—who had called on him twice during the week. The deceased had spent a good deal of time out of the hotel, especially in the evenings.
Leslie Chermside was then called and sworn. In answer to the coroner, he stated that he knew very little of Levison, but that the latter had made certain business proposals to him, and had, he believed, come down to Ottermouth with the express purpose of making them. Levison came from London, but he did not know his address there.
"Have you any objection to informing the jury of the nature of the business he had with you?" asked the coroner suavely.
Leslie faced his interrogator squarely, a slight frown of intelligible annoyance contracting his brows. "I should prefer not to," he made answer. "The business was of a very private nature."
"You can, perhaps, at least state to the Court what his occupation was?"
"I believe he called himself a financial agent," was the reply.
"One more question I am bound to ask you, Mr.Chermside," pursued the coroner with a deprecatory wave of his hand: "Were you in the company of the deceased on Wednesday evening last?"
"Most certainly I was not," said Leslie firmly. "I have not spoken to or been with Levison since the morning of the previous day, when he called for me at the club, and we discussed our business during a short walk."
The word had gone round that the bronzed young soldier from India, who occupied the best-furnished apartments in the town, was very wealthy, with a steam yacht lying at Portland, and this had been communicated to the coroner by the police sergeant. Leslie was therefore politely informed that he might stand down, though it might be necessary to recall him at the adjournment.
The next witness was Mr. Mallory. In brief snappy sentences he briefly described how he had found the body in the pool on the marsh while strolling about after the picnic-tea given by the tenant of the Manor House. Mr. Mallory's manner was distinctly that of the old official, who was aware of the fact that he was a merely formal witness. If only the coroner could have penetrated the thoughts which that sphinxlike demeanour veiled he would have started his officer hot-foot to fetch certain witnesses who were not in the room, even as spectators. Travers Nugent was playing pool at the club, and Mademoiselle Louise Aubin was attending to her young mistress's wardrobe a couple of miles away at the Manor.
Then followed the doctor, who described the dead man's injuries, and in doing so cleared the groundof all doubt as to it being a case of murder. Not only had Levi Levison been slain, but he had fallen by the hand of some one who had literally "savaged" him to death. For the gash in the throat was but an item in a whole series of wounds inflicted on the hapless Jew's body. He had been stabbed three times in the back and once in the chest, any one of the wounds being in itself sufficient to kill.
Sergeant Bruce, in charge of the local force, and a singularly intelligent specimen of the provincial police officer, added his testimony, most of it being concerned with the condition of the ground. A careful examination had led him to adopt the theory that the fatal blows had been struck while the victim was on the footpath, and that the murderer had then carried the body across the swamp to the foot of the railway embankment, and had there flung it into the pool.
"That," said the coroner, "is as far as I propose to take the case to-day."
But it was not, it appeared, as far as Mr. Lazarus Lowch proposed to take it. Bobbing up from his seat like a jack-in-the-box, the foreman wagged a minatory finger at Reggie Beauchamp, whom he had singled out among the audience.
"Before we adjourn, sir, I should like to ask Mr. Beauchamp there a question. I have reason to know that he is concealing a material piece of evidence," Lowch declaimed in his husky voice, lowering at his prey.
Mr. Mallory, wedged in, alert and watchful, near the door, gazed thoughtfully across at hisyoung friend. The lieutenant was already shouldering his way towards the witness-stand, and the old diplomatist noted not only a burning anger in the usually good-humoured boyish face, but a trace of something like consternation. The former sentiment he could understand, for it was nothing new for the methods of Lazarus Lowch to provoke wrath, but what could account for the dashing sailor's palpable nervousness?
At a nod from the coroner Reggie was sworn, and confronted the foreman with a defiant: "Well, sir, I presume that you were eavesdropping behind my mother's garden hedge this morning?"
Lowch ignored the innuendo. "Were you on the marsh late on Wednesday evening, Mr. Beauchamp?" he demanded, in the tone of a grand inquisitor.
"I was," admitted Reggie, shrugging his shoulders.
"In the company of a young lady?"
"Yes," with a scowl for the friendly titter that ran round the room.
"As a gentleman, I abstain from pressing for the lady's name, though doubtless it can be guessed by many in this assemblage," proceeded Lowch pompously. "Let me ask if you and your companion heard a scream on the marsh that night?"
"I am glad you labour the point of your being a gentleman," said Reggie sweetly. "Yes, we heard some kind of a cry. I thought it was a sea-bird, or possibly a snared rabbit."
"Then why did you not come forward when you knew that a murder had been committed andinform the police of what you had heard?" came the supplementary query.
Mr. Mallory's wise old head was cocked a little on one side to catch the answer. From his attitude he seemed to set considerable store by it.
"Because," said Reggie slowly, "I didn't think that the cry necessarily had anything to do with the case. I know from experience that there are all sorts of queer noises on the marsh after dark—hooting owls, barking foxes, and a hundred things."
Lazarus Lowch subsided suddenly into his seat with an air of great achievement, and Reggie, perceiving that he had exhausted his capacity for making himself disagreeable, turned with an engaging smile to the coroner. "I hope I have done nothing serious, sir," he said cheerily. "This person seems to accuse me of some terrible misdemeanour, but you will understand that unless one's evidence is really vital to the issue one doesn't want to be needlessly dragged into these little turn-ups."
The coroner, a good fellow with a taste for saltwater "breeziness," smiled in friendly fashion, and promptly adjourned the Court.
But Mr. Vernon Mallory was not so easily satisfied. "The boy is concealing something," he muttered as he allowed himself to be carried with the human stream out into the sunlight.
Leslie Chermside walked away from the inquest like a man in a dream. It was only a few steps to the house where he lodged, and he at once sought the seclusion of his own sitting-room—a shady apartment with long windows opening on to a cool verandah, whence there was a distant view of the headland at the river's mouth and of the sea beyond.
"At any rate, I do not think that I am an object of suspicion—yet," he murmured with a bitter laugh when he had stood staring from one of the windows with unseeing eyes for some minutes. "And, as I more than half expected, Travers Nugent did not disclose my appointment with that wretched little scally-wag."
Turning away, he lit his pipe and flung himself into a long chair to review the situation. At the best his position was a perilous one, and he was very conscious of the necessity of not lulling himself into a false security because of that day's immunity. But he had at least obtained a reprieve, and for the present he was free to concentrate all his energies on keeping watch and ward over Violet. That Travers Nugent had not abandoned his compact withthe Maharajah because of his own defection he felt sure. For, looked at by the light of the event of that afternoon, the inactivity of Bhagwan Singh's agent seemed ominously sinister—the more so as it was entirely problematical.
If Nugent had played the obvious card of revealing what he knew about the meeting on the marsh arranged between Levison and Leslie, the latter would almost certainly have been arrested, and so had his wings clipped for further opposition to Nugent's plans. But this obvious and drastic course would have laid Nugent's flank open to the counter-attack of full confession by a desperate man, and he had been far too cunning to run that risk. No, he must be working by subtler and more tortuous methods towards the attainment of his purpose—the embarkation of Violet Maynard on board the turbine yachtCobra.
Leslie gave his antagonist full credit for cold calculation of all the chances. He was under no illusion as to the apparent complaisance with which his rebellion had been accepted, and as to Nugent's quiescence in the matter of Levison's murder. He was assured that he was only sitting there at liberty because he was of more use to Mr. Travers Nugent in the freedom of that comfortable room than he would have been in a cell at the police-station charged with murder.
Rising from his chair with a sudden impulse, Leslie knocked the ashes out of his pipe. As always happens to the man in love, he had persuaded himself that the wisest course to pursue was the one which jumped with his inclinations.
"I will force his hand," he said half aloud. "I will spend all the time I can with Violet, and I will begin at once. My constant presence will be the best safeguard she can have."
Mounting his bicycle, he made short work of the two miles to the lodge gates of the Manor House, and as luck would have it whom should he see coming towards him along the drive but Violet herself. She was looking deliciously cool and dainty in a coat and skirt of white drill, which set off her tall, graceful figure to perfection. Leslie's pulses quickened at sight of the pleased surprise and heightened colour in her face as she saw him.
"I didn't expect you to-day," she said, when he had jumped off his machine. "I thought that you would be kept by that horrid affair in the town, but I suppose you couldn't shed any light on it."
"It was soon over—adjourned for a week," replied Leslie. "As I was able to get away, I saw no reason why this should be a day entirely wasted."
Violet shot a glance at him from under the deep-fringed lids which had given the critics their cue for their ravings over her Academy picture. There was a warmth in the tone of the neatly-turned little speech that had been lacking in their intercourse of late. The millionaire's daughter had never disguised from herself the singular attraction which this sun-browned, well-knit young soldier from India had for her from the moment of their first meeting a month ago. And he had begun to woo her so bravely and openly, only to slacken his ardour after a week into an indifference which was almost insult after such warm beginnings.
No woman of spirit cares to be treated like goods sent out "on approval"—to be analytically inspected and then cast aside as not quite up to the mark. Especially if she happens to be the acknowledged beauty of the London season, and so lavishly dowered as to have had half the bachelor peerage at her feet. It speaks wonders, therefore, for the efficiency as a lover which Leslie Chermside had shown when he wasn't in love, that now, when he was, Violet should have behaved as she did.
"Let us go and be lazy on that seat by the sundial in the rose garden," she said, with a smile of invitation.
It was all that Leslie asked for—to be near her, to worship her, to feel her gracious presence, and, above all, by his unceasing watchfulness, to avert the peril of the steamer with the giant horse-power lurking thirty miles away along the coast. That was all that was in his mind as he wheeled his bicycle at her side over the turf that lay between the drive and the rosery. But half an hour amid the late blooms of the old world pleasaunce was to alter all that modest scheme. Leslie Chermside had made the mistake of reckoning without heed to the power that had them in thrall—the mighty power of love.
Neither of them ever knew how it came about. When they first sat down there was a shy constraint between them that seemed to hold them apart. They talked at random of trifles, with an obvious effort at searching for subjects. Violet even referred to the inquest on Levison, though in such a manner as to show that she plainly took only a superficial interest in it. It made Leslie shudder to hear hertouch so lightly on a matter in which, though she was not aware of it, she was so nearly concerned.
Gradually and imperceptibly the awkward attempt at making conversation ceased, and the silence that supervened was threatening to become more awkward still, when Violet said suddenly:
"I believe that your heart is in India, Mr. Chermside—anywhere but in Ottermouth. You always—latterly at least—seem to me to be living in the past, or, perhaps, in the future. When your yacht is ready for sea, I suppose that you will lose no time in going back to the East?"
Leslie started, and came back to earth. "If you only knew the price I paid to get out of India you would not say that," he answered gravely. "And I am afraid that you are incorrect in your other surmises, Miss Maynard. I am neither living in a past which has nothing to recommend it, or in a future which is not alluring. As a matter of fact, I am just drifting—and revelling in the present."
He did not look at her as he spoke. He was staring straight before him at a trellis arch groaning under a weight of crimson rambler roses, but at the suggestion of trouble in his voice the girl swayed nearer to him.
"I wish you would be as frank with me as I am with you," she said. "A woman's sympathy counts for much sometimes. Forgive me for saying that you puzzle me, and one isn't puzzled where one isn't interested. You don't convey the impression of a man with a discreditable career behind him, and from the accepted accounts of your position your prospects are assured from a worldly point of view. Amonth ago I thought—I hoped—that we were going to be friends. We had begun to exchange confidences in a mild sort of way. Will you not confide in me now more fully, and tell me if there is anything in which I can help?"
In that moment, listening to her sweet proffer of womanly aid, Leslie suffered the most exquisite torture. This was the girl whom he had lightly condemned to a fate worse than death—a fate which he had pledged himself to compass by deceitfully gaining her love. He turned and looked at her, and he knew that the priceless guerdon which he had played for as a mere counter in a disgraceful game had been won. And now that it was his—now that he valued it for its own sake more than all the treasures in the world—he could not take it. His reawakened sense of honour forbade him to think of such desecration. How could he, wastrel and pauper, have aspired to this queenly maiden, even if his soul had not been soiled by the memory of his infamous bargain?
"I am not worthy one passing thought from you—still less to give you my confidence," he faltered. "Confidence!" he went on, with something like a groan of anguish. "Why, I would rather lose the power of speech for ever than befoul your ears with the record of my shame."
Her eyes, like twin pools of shining radiance, were searching his face. "That is for me to judge," she said softly. "But I do not, on second thoughts, ask you for your confidence, Mr. Chermside. I have faith in my instinct. I do not believe that you have done anything really base—whatever, perhaps,after sore temptation, you may have contemplated. You would have stopped short when you realized that you were on the brink of an evil deed. And—and if you hadn't stopped short I—well, I, perhaps, should have tried to make allowances. So, if you cannot give me your confidence, at least let me give you my help."
"Help?" came the man's sobbing cry, as the blood surged into his brain, and all barriers of conscience, expedience, and common-sense were swept away in a whirlpool of riotous passion—"it is your love I want, my darling. The love of such as you means not only help but regeneration, life itself, to such as I."
By the great laws that govern us, these things happen so, and the love of Leslie Chermside and Violet Maynard had passed beyond the region of words and of petty sophistries. They were locked in each other's arms, eye to eye and lip to lip, at that moment of glad surrender in the solitude of the rose garden—a solitude that was not entirely solitary.
For from behind the high box-hedge that hemmed them in, the French maid, Louise Aubin, glided across the silent turf back to the house, her piquant features contracted in a venomous frown. She had come out to seek her young mistress on some trifling errand, but, having found her, decided to retreat without fulfilling it.
Rumour at Ottermouth had a trick of travelling as quickly as it does through the bazaars of the East. When the French maid turned away from the rose garden, after seeing Violet Maynard in Leslie Chermside's arms, she was already aware of the proceedings at the inquest held earlier in the afternoon. She knew, therefore, that the gentleman whose love affair seemed to be prospering so gaily had been called as a witness, and had owned to an acquaintance with her deceased admirer.
Now mademoiselle was an adept at swift deduction, and, putting two and two together, she had arrived at the conclusion that this Mr. Chermside, who had admitted having business relations with Levi Levison, must be the individual whom Mr. Travers Nugent suspected. Mr. Nugent had assured her that he had ascertained that Levison had appointed to meet some one on the marsh on the fatal evening. It followed as almost a certainty that the appointment must have been with the gentleman who had a mysterious connexion with Levison, the nature of which he refused to divulge.
And now thisscélérat, this assassin who had ruinedher prospects by untimely removing the amorous "financial agent," was making successful love to Miss Violet. It was preposterous, and not to be countenanced for a moment, that the murderer should carry off the great heiress, while his cruel crime had relegated her, Louise Aubin, to a probable future of celibate poverty. If only in her young mistress's interest, the atrocious thing must be nipped in the bud.
But mademoiselle was endowed with a fair share of French caution, the quality which kindly Nature supplies to balance French impulse, and she was not going to jeopardize a comfortable and lucrative situation by making a premature move. She must first put it beyond all doubt that the man whom Mr. Levi Levison had arranged to meet on the marsh was the man whom she had just seen in the rose garden, and to that end she must take counsel with that dear gentleman who had saved her from the error of denouncing Pierre Legros.
"Ce cher Monsieur Nugent—'e admire me just a leetle himself, I think," she murmured, as she tripped back to the house across the lawn. "I make 'im tell me all he knows."
Whereby Mademoiselle Louise Aubin showed herself to be of sanguine temperament, but a poor student of the art of reading men.
Nevertheless, when Mr. Travers Nugent was sitting in his cosy dining-room at The Hut that evening, peeling peaches and sipping his claret in the soft glow of shaded lamps, his sphinx-like manservant, Sinnett, entered, and, without a word, handed him a folded slip of paper. Nugent readit with a twitch at the corner of his mouth, and looked up sharply.
"Did any one beside yourself see this lady come?" he asked.
"Can't have, sir," was the reply. "She came to the front door, and I admitted her myself. It is pitch-dark outside, so none of the maids can have seen her walking up the drive."
"Then you can show her in," said Nugent. "It is business, Sinnett, but we don't want any village scandal. There are a score of gossiping old women in this place who would give their wigs to know that I had received a smart Frenchwoman in the seclusion of my dining-room, eh?"
A grim smile was the only answer, and presently the man of few words returned, ushering in Mademoiselle Louise. Faithful to his policy of treating her with all respect, Nugent rose with outstretched hand as she minced towards him. There was just enough pleased surprise in his manner to conceal the fact that by paying him this visit she was only fulfilling his calculated expectations.
"This is good of you, mademoiselle," he said in his soft accents. "You will be fatigued after your long walk from the Manor House. Sit down and let me give you a glass of wine from your own sunny France before you tell me how I can be of service to you."
The fair Louise simpered, and seated herself at the well-appointed dessert table. For that night, if for no longer, she had mounted several rungs in the social ladder, and in that thought was compensation for the loss of her "financial agent"—also encouragement for the future. This kindly-spokengentleman of middle-age was evidently "taken" with her, and there could be no better way, she told herself, of winning and clinching his further regard than by professing a whole-hearted devotion to her last lover.
"I have some news for you, monsieur," she said, when she had sipped the claret poured out by her host. "And, in return, I come to demand, nay, to implore, some information from you."
"Then it must be my privilege to oblige you first, if it is in my power," smiled Nugent. "I trust, however, that you do not still suspect your fellow-countryman, Legros, of the foul deed that robbed you of your friend. Believe me, he is guiltless."
"It is not Pierre Legros that I suspect, monsieur, thanks to your guidance the other day," replied Louise coquettishly. "I was convinced then that the murderer of the poor Levison was the man who was to meet him on the marsh, and now—to-day, at the inquest, comes the straw that makes to show the blow of the wind. Monsieur Chermside was a witness, and admitted that he had affairs of business with Levison."
"Well?" Nugent purred gently at his pretty visitor.
"My little stupid wits figure from that, monsieur, that it was Chermside who was to meet the unfortunate one on the marsh. I have paid you this call, at so great risk to my reputation, to find out if for once my little stupid wits are right. You will not disappoint me. Say, I beseech you, if Chermside was the man with whom my poor one hadarranged the rendezvous in that so desolate spot."
Nugent was moved with inward laughter at the impressive speech, at the ogling glances accompanying it. He was quite aware of the personal element the minx was endeavouring to import into their relations. Outwardly his face wore the semblance of a severe mental struggle.
"I cannot resist your appeal, Mademoiselle Aubin," he said at last, sighing a little as if in regret that his better judgment should be vanquished by the feminine charms across the table. "I had hoped to keep it to myself a little longer, while prosecuting inquiries which will bring the crime home to this black-hearted villain without allowing an outlet for escape. But I cannot deny you the solace of sharing the secret with me, knowing that, our aims being identical, you will preserve it till the time comes to strike. Yes, Leslie Chermside was the man who had promised to complete a certain transaction with Levi Levison at the spot where the latter was foully done to death."
It is easy to speak with your tongue in your cheek, and if the cheek is large enough no one need catch a glimpse of the tongue. At any rate, Louise Aubin did not. Confident in her potent fascinations, she swallowed the purposely grandiose words like so much milk and honey, and beamed ecstatically on the wily orator, more in delight at the sentiments she believed the communication to denote than at the communication itself. Levi Levison was beginning to take a very shadowy back seat in the affections of Mademoiselle Louise Aubin.
"Then, monsieur," she said, gracefully quaffingher glass at him, "I shall not be behindhand in civeelity. I shall—what you call it—place myself in your hands for the right time to punish Chermside, and in the meanwhile the secret is buried deep in my heart. Now for your repayment for your kind help, though it is only a tiny piece of news. The villain so despicable, upon whom we desire the avenge, is in love with my—with Miss Maynard. I come from observing them this very afternoon, monsieur, in the rose garden, where they were embracing and using words of endearment."
And mademoiselle draped her eyes with their long, dark lashes, as though her maiden modesty quailed before the reminiscence.
As for Nugent, he did not disguise the fact that the information had for him the keenest interest. Rising from his chair, he lit a cigarette and began to pace the room.
"Really, I am greatly indebted to you for this information," he said. "The knowledge of Miss Maynard's infatuation for a man so utterly unworthy of her will alter my plans, or rather, hurry them to a crisis. I am, as perhaps you are aware, mademoiselle, a friend of Mr. Montague Maynard. I have, therefore, now a double incitement to bring Chermside to justice—that of saving my friend's daughter from a horrible mésalliance, and of securing for you the satisfaction which you so justly desire."
"Mr. Chermside is very rich, is he not?" asked Louise, her cunning but unequal brain beginning to weave an entirely new web, in which she was ultimately to entangle herself.
Travers Nugent shot a glance at her as she toyedwith the stem of her wine-glass. For the moment her question caused him a trifling embarrassment. He would have liked to have answered it differently, but he reflected that it would be dangerous to do so, for this woman was by no means a fool. He was credited, rightly, with the introduction at Ottermouth of Leslie Chermside as a man of wealth. His letter to the secretary of the club would be on file to prove it, and by that he must abide—for the present.
"Mr. Chermside has the command of vast resources," was his guarded answer. "But I do not think that he will need to plead that argument with a girl of Miss Maynard's character. His worldly position will not weigh with her for an instant if she loves him. She is rich enough for two, you see."
But apparently mademoiselle did not see. Just then she had lost the thread of that newly-woven web on which her busy wits had set to work, and she was staring at one of the long windows. Travers Nugent was something of an artist by temperament, and on sitting down to dinner he had had the blinds left up so as to enjoy the dying after-glow in the western sky.
"The eyes! The peering eyes!" Louise exclaimed in a tense whisper.
Following the direction of her gaze, Nugent in four rapid strides reached the window, and, flinging it open, dragged into the well-lit room the lithe and sinewy form of a man dressed in blue jean. It was the French onion-seller whom Aunt Sarah Dymmock had driven from the precincts of theManor House at the point of her sunshade. Louise uttered a suppressed shriek as Nugent released his grip on the Frenchman's collar and carefully closed the window.
"Mon Dieu!it is Pierre Legros," she cried, looking from one to the other of the two men in sheer bewilderment, in which there was a trace of fear.
"Yes, it is I—Pierre," said the onion-seller in his native tongue, scowling at his fair compatriot. "Is it that you have acquired the habit of supping alone with gentlemen above your station, as well as of meeting them in the lonely places of the country? You have sadly changed, Louise, since we played barefoot together among the rocks of Dicamp."
In the dawn of her new ambition the reminder of her humble origin goaded the girl to a fury that dispelled her temporary fear. "Barefoot!" she shrilled. "Miserable one, you know quite well that I was never so, and that if you had the presumption to worship me it was from down below—as a pig may gaze at the stars. I came to this English gentleman to help me punish the murderer of my dear friend Monsieur Levison."
There was malice in every spitting syllable of the tirade, and more than malice in the baleful look she cast at the sullen Frenchman. Travers Nugent glanced at her a little anxiously, and hastened to intervene. It would not suit his book at all for Louise to revert, out of petty spite, to her original suspicion—to the prejudice of the later one he had been at such pains to inspire.
"What mademoiselle asserts is absolutely true," he said in French, fixing Pierre's fierce eyes in ahypnotic stare. "She is greatly concerned to catch the murderer, and I hope to hand over to justice the English rascal who committed the crime on the marsh. And just a word of advice to you, Legros. You had better keep a civil tongue in your head, or you may find yourself in trouble. Mademoiselle Aubin and I, of course, know that you had nothing to do with the matter, but the police might think differently if they got wind of your jealous ravings."
Pondering on, and impressed by, the slight emphasis put on the word English, the onion-seller hung his head, muttering to himself. Nugent took the opportunity to touch the bell, and having done so turned to Louise.
"I think that we have concluded our affairs for this evening, mademoiselle," he said with a cool politeness, the purport of which the clever Frenchwoman was quick to appreciate. "You shall be kept informed of the latest developments, and now my servant shall escort you to the road, for I must have a private word with Legros. Sinnett," to the silent henchman who had appeared, "accompany this lady down the drive, please."
Sinnett understood by the ocular signal that his master flashed at him that Mademoiselle Aubin's departure from the premises was to be accomplished without witnesses, and he gravely followed the somewhat mystified visitor out. Neither by look or gesture did he express the slightest surprise at seeing an unkempt and none too clean foreigner in the room. Ten years in the service of Mr. Travers Nugent had killed the faculty of astonishment, or, at any rate, had taught him thatthe outward and visible signs thereof were inadvisable.
Directly the door was shut on them Nugent's manner underwent a rapid transformation. All the suave polish was gone. He became the brute and the bully—the man with the whip-hand. He was not in the least handicapped by having to express himself in French, because he spoke all European languages as fluently as his own. He showered every vile epithet he could think of on the onion-seller, calling him fool, dolt, and everything by turn, and then, when he had pulverized the still scowling but crest-fallen sailor into abject humiliation he demanded—
"Why, in the name of all that is idiotic, did you disregard my instructions and come here to the house? I told you that nothing but the last extremity would warrant any intercourse between us."
Pierre Legros raised his bloodshot eyes in half-defiant remonstrance. "I came because I thought it was what you call the last extremity," he said. "There has been some one on the quay at Exmouth to-day asking questions of me. He also go on board our vessel and speak with my captain."
"You think he was a detective?"
"No, monsieur; he was not of the police. I believe him to be a gentleman. He lives here in Ottermouth. I see him often when I sell my onions up the street—an old man with no hair on his face, dressed in fine clothes, and having eyes that pierce like needles. Though of so great age, he walks very quick and upright."
Nugent took a turn up the room, frowning andbiting his lips. "So!" he murmured to himself. "Mr. Vernon Mallory has to be reckoned with as still on the active list, eh?" And coming back to where Legros was standing, he added aloud, in more conciliatory tones: "You did right in bringing me this news, my friend. The gentleman is meddlesome, but there is no reason why he should become dangerous if you are discreet."
"I was discreet, monsieur," rejoined Legros. "The grey-headAnglaisset springes as one sets them for birds, but I was wary, and walked all round. And Jules Epitaux, my captain, he make fool of the old man."
"I hope so," said Nugent drily. "But if it is a sample of your discretion that we have been having in this room to-night, my opinion of it is not high, Pierre Legros. You must learn to curb that insane jealousy of yours, or you will have Louise on to you like a wild cat. Your conduct was base ingratitude, seeing that I stopped her from setting the police at you."
"I am sorry, monsieur; I was taken by surprise, and I did not understand," replied the onion-seller submissively, as he passed out of the window which Nugent held significantly open.
But once outside in the darkness, setting out on the four-mile trudge back to his ship, he began to mutter to himself, and the refrain of the inaudible babble was always the same, recurring a hundred times as he stumbled along the moorland track—
"Louise goes to console herself, but not with Pierre. Poor Pierre! He will have to strike—always strike—if he is betrayed."
Nine o'clock in the morning was a busy time in a mild way at the Ottermouth Railway Station. The budding resort was served by only a branch line with a single set of rails, and at this hour the first two trains of the day in each direction passed each other here.
Mr. Travers Nugent stood at the window of the booking office, waiting till the slide should be raised, and biting his long fair moustache in annoyance because out of the tail of his eye he had just discovered that the next intending passenger in the row behind him was Lieutenant Reginald Beauchamp. He had quite a poor opinion of the lieutenant's intelligence, but he was aware of his close acquaintance with the Mallorys, and there were reasons why he would have preferred to conceal his destination that day from the shrewd old civil servant.
However, the wooden slide was raised, and Nugent could not avoid asking for his ticket—a first-class return to Weymouth. It was not till he had picked up his change and passed on that he affected to notice his successor at the window.
"Ah, Beauchamp! Going my way I hope?" he said genially. "I am compelled to go to Weymouth for the day, to look up a sick relative. Beastly nuisance having to play the good Samaritan in such hot weather."
Reggie, before replying, planked down his money and asked for a return ticket to Plymouth. "No," he replied as he joined Nugent. "As you heard, I am going in the opposite direction. My little torpedo craft requires my attention."
"Sorry I'm not to have the pleasure of your company," said the elder man courteously. "Surely your leave isn't up yet?"
"No," Reggie replied. "I have another ten days to run, but I have to see about one or two little matters of shipping stores and ammunition. I hope to be back to-night or to-morrow morning."
On the platform the two separated, Reggie getting into the train which would take him to the western naval seaport, and Nugent crossing the line by the footbridge to the east-bound train.
"I trust that that nautical noodle will have forgotten all about our meeting by to-morrow," Nugent communed with himself as he chose a corner seat in an unoccupied compartment. "It would not be advisable for Mallory, with his wonderful faculty for piecing trifles together, to know that I had paid a flying visit to the port where Chermside's alleged yacht is fitting out."
He leaned back in his cushioned corner and further reflected that even if Mr. Mallory was informed by young Beauchamp that he had been to Weymouth no irremediable harm could come of it. It was evenpossible that the incident might be converted into an advantage. He had good reason not to despise Mr. Mallory's capabilities, but that astute old gentleman could not thwart his scheme without a fuller knowledge of it, and that could only be gained from Leslie Chermside, who in his present circumstance as Violet Maynard's accepted lover would probably prefer death to confession.
"My immediate policy must be to preserve the renegade's life at all hazards, while threatening it by means of the fair Louise," Nugent smiled contemptuously. "Though what Bhagwan Singh will do to him when he is delivered at Sindkhote is another matter," the arch plotter added under his breath as he unfolded his newspaper and resigned himself to the tedium of the journey.
He reached Weymouth at noon, and at once made his way into the old town, where he turned to the left down the one-sided street of shipping offices and public houses that faces the harbour. The brick and mortar side of the street had no interest for him. His gaze was always for the long row of vessels moored to the quay wall. He walked on, past the wharf where the red-funnelled Great Western boats lay, and came to a halt opposite a large 2,000 ton steam yacht. A handsomely appointed craft she was, with something of the snake in her long, low, graceful lines, and evidently built for speed as well as comfort. The heavy gilt lettering on her stern proclaimed to all and sundry that she was called theCobra.
The gang plank was down, and Nugent stepped lightly across it on to the main deck, where hisfurther progress was promptly barred by a bullet-headed ship's officer in a smart blue suit and a brass-banded cap.
"Here! you don't own the bally vessel," said this individual rudely. "Not quite so fast, if you please. What's your business?"
"I am a friend of Captain Brant's; if he is on board and if you will kindly have my card taken to him I have no doubt that he will see me," replied Nugent with his usual suave politeness.
The officer called a seaman, and, having dispatched him with the card, became roughly apologetic. "That's a horse of another colour," he growled. "Strict orders against strangers on this ship. Couldn't let you on if you were the skipper's own brother, and the skipper's the devil."
"My dear sir, I congratulate you on your discretion," rejoined Nugent affably. "I don't mind telling you that if you had let me on without orders you wouldn't have enjoyed your billet another hour. As it is, you will be like the nice little boy in the Sunday school who had a good mark put against his name."
The bullet-headed mate spat thoughtfully over the bulwarks, and then, as he realized the position, broke into an evil grin.
"I see," he chuckled. "You're the power behind the throne, eh? I guess if I'd known that I'd have given you a bit of stronger lip. What the blooming game is I don't want to know, but I can see it's going to be a funny sort of cruise."
The bluejacket, whose brutal features, Nugent observed with cynical satisfaction, were at curiousvariance with his trim, yacht-like attire, returned, and said that Captain Brant would receive the visitor at once. Nugent followed his conductor to a cabin under the bridge, the occupant of which, a little wisp of a man with an elongated, pear-shaped cranium, prominent teeth, and a yellow complexion, advanced with a strange, hopping gait to greet his guest.
"Ah!" he said with an uncanny hissing intake of breath, "I am charmed to see you, Mr. Nugent. The honour of your visit means that we are to get a move on us at last, I hope?"
"It points that way," replied Nugent guardedly as he took the seat offered him. "Your anxiety to be off means that you are having trouble with the crew, I am afraid, Brant?"
The repulsive captain twisted his features into a grimace that would have curdled milk, at the same time emitting a sound like the snarl of a wolf. "The maintenance of discipline among a lot of toughs like those I selected isn't child's play," he said. "It only wants a rule of three sum to find out how soon I shall have no crew at all if we are to lay idle here much longer. I've had to shoot one as dead as Queen Anne and crack the heads of four others for kicking over the traces."
The answer, delivered coolly and as a matter of course, seemed ludicrous coming from the undersized, deformed creature with the top-heavy head. But Nugent evidently knew his man, for he merely nodded comprehension and approval. "It is because you are such a holy terror, Brant, that I selected you for the job," he said. "There was bound to be trouble, at the start of a cruise for whichthe hands were induced to join by the promise of a rich reward, if any hitch occurred."
"It is entirely the delay that caused the ructions," the captain assented. "You see, they don't know whether they're on a treasure hunt or what, and they're in a hurry to finger the pieces. To keep 'em from letting their jaw tackle run in the pubs I didn't allow much shore liberty—none at all since I had to pump Black Jake, a fireman, full of lead for inciting to mutiny."
"But how about the—er—necessary formalities?" asked Nugent, genuinely interested in the drastic methods of his instrument.
Captain Brant uttered the unpleasant combination of croak and wheeze that did duty with him for a laugh. "You mean the inquest and funeral? We have no use for little extras like them on theCobra. I'm the law on this ship. I took a kind of a trial trip out to sea for a couple of hours, and cremated Black Jake in his own furnace. That put the fear of the devil into the rest, and we're a happy family now. I wouldn't guarantee to hold 'em for more than a fortnight, though, tied up to this cursed quay. The officers are right enough. Bully Cheeseman, the chap who was at the gangway when you boarded us, is a fair scorcher. Twenty years ago he was suspected of being Jack the Ripper; and Wiley the second mate, as you know, has done time for manslaughter."
Travers Nugent gazed thoughtfully through the circular window of the deck-cabin at the teeming quay-side, and the array of public-houses across the road. He was not at all dissatisfied with thestate of things prevailing on theCobra. It had justified his choice of a skipper. If this frail little atomy with the body of an imp and the soul of a Thug, could isolate and hold in check a crew of cut-throats recruited from the slums of Limehouse, within sight of the drink-shops over the way, he was not likely to fail at the crucial moment.
And it was to expedite that crucial moment that Nugent had paid his surprise visit to theCobra.
"I'm not finding fault, Brant," he said. "At least, not with you and your management of affairs. The blame rests on the mean-spirited cur who has kept the ship dallying here in port while he was going back on his bargain and playing a double game with me. However, you'll have him on board in a few days, I hope, and among your final instructions will be one to let him have a particularly warm time of it."
"I'll keel-haul the swine morning and evening if you like," growled Brant, "or give him a taste of the cat."
"Well, I don't want you to be tender with him," laughed Nugent, "so long as you leave enough of him for delivery to the consignee. But here is what I ran over to tell you. On receipt of a wire containing the one word 'Advance,' you will leave port and steam to the westward at such a speed as will take you abreast of Ottermouth after sundown. Don't bring the ship nearer inshore than three miles, but lay to till you see a blue light, and then a green, shown about half a mile to the west of the town."
"Just a moment. Let's fix it up accurate,"interrupted the captain. "We mustn't have any such words as 'about' in a job of this kind. Point out the exact place on this ordnance map, please."
"There, at the foot of that cleft in the cliff marked Coldbrook Chine," said Nugent, placing his finger on the map section which Captain Brant spread before him on the cabin table. "I have chosen the spot because it is hidden from the coast-guard station by this jutting angle in the wall of cliff."
"The signal wouldn't be visible from the station?" croaked Brant.
"Quite impossible. When you see the blue and green lights, all you have to do is to send the electric launch, manned by three trustworthy and well-armed men, to the beach at the foot of the chine. The launch will pick up a passenger, and as soon as he has been put aboard the steamer, will return to the same spot and pick up another. On the second occasion I myself shall be there, and will hand your officer a sealed packet containing your final instructions. It is even possible that I may come aboard and hand them to you in person."
The weird little deformity laughed his horrible laugh. "Pleased to see you, I'm sure," he responded, when the convulsions in his throat had ceased. "You might be making the voyage with us, I reckon?"
"God forbid!" exclaimed Travers Nugent fervently.
Leslie Chermside walked out of his lodgings in the Ottermouth main street and struck downwards towards the parade. He had promised to take Violet Maynard and Aunt Sarah Dymmock out for a sail in a boat he had hired, and, lover-like, he was nearly an hour ahead of the appointment he had made with the two ladies to meet him on the beach.
Three days had passed since the unpremeditated avowal of his love for the millionaire manufacturer's daughter. They slipped by like a happy dream, no care for the future, or the deadlock to which the future must inevitably bring him, disturbing the sweet dalliance of the present till the previous evening. He had dined at the Manor House alone with the family and, as they sat over their wine after the departure of Violet and Aunt Sarah, Montague Maynard had, quite kindly, put to him some pertinent questions, the drift of which there was no mistaking. Mr. Maynard would not have attained to his position in the commercial world had he not been a student of men and things, and, without definitely stating as much, he let itbe clearly understood that he was not blind to what was going on. His manner implied that he was not unfriendly, but, at the same time, in asking about the young ex-Lancer's resources, he spoke as if he had a right to the information.
He opened the battle in his usual blunt, jovial fashion, without any beating about the bush—
"So, my young friend, you're a warm man, Travers Nugent tells me. Lucky chap, to possess inherited wealth, though I'm not sure that I wouldn't have preferred you to have made a pile by hard work, as I have."
Leslie suddenly finding himself on the edge of a precipice, clutched for the only available support—a deprecating and rather shamefaced laugh. "Mr. Nugent must be given to exaggeration, sir," he said. "I have never represented myself as a rich man. As a matter of fact I am—not by any means what you would consider rich."
He thought grimly of the few £5 notes left to him out of the sum advanced by Nugent for current expenses during the bogus courtship of the girl now dearer to him than life. Something of the rueful irony in his mind must have been reflected in his face, for Mr. Maynard, after a sidelong glance at him and a sip of port, continued—
"Now, my lad, I've been and set your back up by hinting that you didn't earn your money. At any rate, you must be pretty well lined to be able to chuck the army at your age, and to possess such a steam yacht as Nugent has described to me."
"I am afraid, sir, that Nugent's imagination has run away with him," Leslie replied, flushinghotly. "The yacht at Weymouth, in which I had been going to travel, is not my own property."
"You have abandoned your intention?"
"Entirely."
A constrained silence fell upon the two men. The blue smoke of their cigars floated over the array of decanters, the luscious fruits and glittering plate. On one the demon of distrust had been unchained; on the other, a cloud of apprehension, threatening the short-lived bliss of the last few days, had swooped from an azure sky. It was Montague Maynard who broke the spell, going, as was his way, direct to the point.
"Look here, Chermside," he blurted out. "I like you, and so does old Sally Dymmock—'cute observers, both of us. But there's something not quite above-board—I don't say about you, but about your circumstances. I'm the last man to judge anybody hastily, and you may have the best of reasons for reticence; but I just want to warn you that if you come to me with a proposal which I need not define I shall expect perfect frankness."
Leslie's heart sank within him, for perfect frankness was what he would never be able to accord. How was he to explain the fact that he was a penniless man without prospects, in face of the impression which, if not actually inspired by him, he allowed to remain, that he was rolling in money? Still less could he explain the motive which had prompted him to acquiescence in Nugent's description of him. And the only alternative to explanation was once for all to abandon hopes of Violet, and to bear his loss as manfully as he could, accepting it as a punishment for his contemplated evil-doing.
"When I come to you with a definite proposal, sir, I shall naturally endeavour to satisfy you," was his long-delayed reply.
It was lame enough, but it served its immediate purpose of staving off the day of reckoning. For Montague Maynard rose abruptly from the table, flinging down his napkin with a gesture of impatience, and obviously restraining an impulse to press his guest for a declaration of his intentions.
"Come and join the ladies," he said curtly.
An uncomfortable half-hour had followed in the drawing-room, the air vibrant with an electric tension which all were conscious of, and, as is customary on such occasions, increased by their fatuous efforts to relieve it. Violet talked brilliantly—more brilliantly than usual, perhaps—of things that did not matter, watching her father and lover with a pained surprise which her brave efforts could not wholly conceal. Aunt Sarah seized such opportunities as were offered to her of being openly rude to every one in turn, nodding her priceless lace cap to emphasize her points, stabbing her lean fingers at the successive victims of her caustic tongue, and galvanizing her mummy-like face into grimaces that would have terrified strangers.
But, so far as Leslie was concerned, it was reserved for the old lady to save the situation. When she got up to go she followed Mr. Maynard and Violet into the hall to speed the parting guest, winding up a stilted evening with the request that Mr. Chermside would take her and her great-niece on what she called "the water" the next day. She and Violet would motor out to the Ottermouth beach, and meet him there at 11.30 if "the elements were propitious."
Leslie had, of course, consented, though he had to conceal a certain amount of reluctance in doing so. After Mr. Maynard's plain speech he was not sure if it was not his duty to refrain from seeing Violet again. At any rate the time had come when he must quit the fool's paradise in which he had been living since the scene in the rose-garden, and seriously consider his position. But Miss Dymmock's request was a command, and it had this merit—that whatever course he decided on he would have one more hour in the company of his beloved.
Now, as he went to keep the appointment, he was no nearer a solution of his dilemma in spite of anxious deliberation through the long hours of a sleepless night. He was prepared to suffer the pain of giving Violet up, but from her own sweet confession he knew that in vanishing from her life he would inflict upon her a pain equal to his own. He shrank from dealing the cruel blow. And, again, the necessity of guarding her against the plot which he was all too sure was hatching in Nugent's brain was a strong inducement to remain on the spot as long as possible.
Racked with indecision, he loitered on the parade and absent-mindedly watched the bathers till one of the Maynard motor cars swept round the corner by the coastguard station, pulling up opposite the boat which the fisherman in his employ had in readiness. He thought that Violet looked pale and preoccupied as she stepped from the car, but Aunt Sarah was as alert and determined as ever, and, hardly deigning a word of greeting, started across the pebbly beach for the boat. Leslie and Violet followed, the sight of the little old lady's spindle shanks, as she trudged over the stones with skirts held high, for the moment taking them out of themselves.
A little later the boat was running eastward round the headland at the river's mouth before a gently favouring breeze. The wind being steady and the sea smooth, the boatman was left behind, Violet taking the helm and Leslie minding the sheet. Aunt Sarah, settled comfortably forward of the little stick of a mast, spent the first five minutes in a careful scrutiny of the sky, and then, finding that there were no outward evidences that she was to be drowned that morning, suddenly astounded her shipmates with the exclamation—
"You two are in love with each other, and you can't deny it!"
There succeeded ten seconds of intense silence, and then Violet, who was familiar with her aged relative's little ways, laughed at the consternation on her lover's bronzed face.
"It is no use, Leslie," she said. "Aunt Sarah is a witch, and knows the secrets of our inmost hearts. We may as well confess."
"I don't suppose it is a crime," Chermside murmured weakly, in his confusion taking an unnecessary pull at the sheet and sending a spray over Aunt Sarah's mantle.
"No, young man, it's not a crime," she snapped when she had recovered her balance and her equanimity. "I'm a bit of a character reader, and I don't think you're capable of crime—havn't got the backbone for it. But I know that you are weak, and that you're in some sort of a hobble that you ought to be pulled out of. Now just you be straight with me. If you had really been the man of the means you've been credited with in this gossipy little hole you'd have gone to my nephew Montague Maynard and asked him for his daughter three days ago, eh?"
"I admit that. There have been misunderstandings for which I am partly but not entirely responsible," said Leslie, marvelling at the almost uncanny insight with which the old lady had read between the lines, and wondering how much of his secret she had guessed.
She proceeded to cross-examine him after the fashion of a barrister handling a hostile witness. "Leaving aside for the moment the question of financial position," she continued, "is there any other cause or impediment why you should not be joined in holy matrimony to my great-niece? As a man of honour you will answer me truly and without reserve."
Leslie stole a glance at Violet and saw that she had become suddenly grave. Nurtured in the midst of luxury, she hardly knew the value of money, and had the most profound contempt for it; but she cherished the highest ideals of what a man's moral worth should be, and she was clearly awaiting his answer with eager interest.
"Yes," said Leslie, scarcely hesitating, "there isthe strongest possible reason why Violet should not marry me. I have already urged it upon her—that I am utterly unworthy."
"He is not so black as he would paint himself, Aunt Sarah," the girl pleaded. "Some quixotic idea——"
"Mind your steering or we shall all be in the water," the old lady cut her short. "Now, Mr. Chermside, be explicit, please. Why are you unworthy to marry my niece?"