"Because," replied Leslie, who had expected the question. "I consented, under stress of peculiar circumstances, to aid and abet a base conspiracy for doing a great injury to an innocent person. It is true that I repented and left my tempters in the lurch, but I cannot hold myself white-washed on that account."
Miss Sarah Dymmock, not having a barrister's gown to hitch up, adjusted her mushroom hat before returning to the charge. "Has this piece of villainy you set out to do since been accomplished by the people who tried to mislead you?" she demanded.
"It has not," rejoined Leslie firmly. "And please God it never will. They have not, I believe, abandoned it; but I am devoting such feeble powers as I possess to thwarting them. I claim no leniency on that score. I tell you, Miss Dymmock, as I have told Violet, that the thing was a horrible thing, and that no decent woman ought to be joined to a man who, even in a mad lapse born of unspeakable misery, could have become a consenting party to it for a single minute."
Aunt Sarah nodded sagely once or twice, and lether keen old eyes rest for a while on the red cliffs past which the boat was gliding. "Reverting to the question of means," she resumed at length, "if you went to that greedy nephew of mine—not a bad sort, but a money-grubber—you would have to confess that you had no steam yacht to your name, or any of the other trimmings with which the Ottermouth wiseacres have credited you?"
"I should have to confess that I haven't a blessed stiver," said Leslie grimly.
Aunt Sarah's stern features relaxed, and her smile could be very charming when she chose. "In that case, Mr. Chermside," she said, "you would be adding the sin of falsehood to your other real or imaginary iniquities. I yesterday arranged the preliminaries of a transfer to you of securities worth, roughly speaking, two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. I had an inkling that you were an attractive but quite harmless fraud, and as the present interview has confirmed that belief I shall wire my brokers to complete the transfer. I was aware that my dear girl's happiness was bound up in your ability to satisfy her father of your good faith, and I decided to place you in a position to do so. There is no need to thank me. It is only a little juggle with money for which an old woman has no use. In any case it would have been Violet's when I die."
"And you suggested a sail in order to tell us this?" Violet gasped.
"Yes; you see it is really a sort of plot in which we three must remain the only conspirators," the old lady beamed at the fair young face flushed withjoy. "A boat seemed the safest place for such business."
"You dear!" was all Violet could answer as she strove to keep back the happy tears.
As for Leslie, his first impulse was to reject the good fortune thrust upon him. The "coals of fire" heaped upon his head burned his brain and filled him with a greater shame; for he could not but think that if the real enormity of his offence were known this generosity would never have been shown him. His proper course, he felt, was to make still fuller confession, but that would be to stab his darling to the heart in the hour of triumphant love. All he could do then was to begin to stammer inconsequent but grateful protests which Aunt Sarah stopped at once with masterful insistence.
"Nonsense!" she snapped at him. "Just look to the sail and do what's necessary to put us ashore again as quick as may be. I've got but a short patience with folk who don't know the butter side of a slice of bread."
So the boat was turned and went gaily dancing over the summer sea, under the red cliffs, and round the headland, to the beach. After the discussion on the outward run it was but natural that words should be few, and Leslie was glad of it for more reasons than one. They had the wind against them now, and the sailing of the boat claimed all his attention. A succession of short tacks was necessary before he landed his precious freight.
The motor car was waiting for the ladies, and when he had bestowed them in it, and given a promise to come out to the Manor House later in the day,Leslie turned in the opposite direction to go to his rooms for lunch. As he neared the end of the parade, he saw Travers Nugent watching him from one of the windows of the club, and he averted his gaze so as not to catch the eye of his enemy. But the elementary tactics were of no avail. Nugent came out of the front door before he could pass.
"Come inside; there is need for a consultation," said the Maharajah's agent.
Leslie angrily shook off the detaining hand which had been laid upon his arm. "I don't wish to have anything to do with you. I'll be hanged if I come in," he said.
Nugent laughed—the little musical laugh that women loved and men loathed. "My dear fellow, you have used an apt term in the reverse sense," he cooed. "You will certainly be hanged if you don't come in and listen to what I have to say."
For the second time that morning Leslie Chermside paled beneath his Eastern tan, and he meekly followed Nugent into the club.
Throughout the bewildering excitement in the boat consequent on Miss Dymmock's benevolence, Leslie had been conscious of a weak spot in his armour, which, if it had been detected by his antagonist, might prove his undoing. Nugent's ominous rejoinder suggested that the weak spot had been found, and that he was being led into the comfortable seclusion of the Ottermouth Club for the purpose of having it pierced.
"We had better go into the card-room," said Nugent. "There will be less chance of interruption there, though at present there is no one in the club. Every one has gone home to lunch."
The card-room was on the first floor, with a window overlooking the sea. Leslie remained standing just inside the door, but Nugent sat down at one of the card tables, his fingers drawing fantastic patterns on the green cloth as he seemed to consider how best to open the subject. Suddenly he raised his eyes, and Leslie saw with surprise that there was no hostility in them—only a look of deep concern.
"You are in a tight place, my friend," he said. "Are you aware that you are under the gravest suspicion of having murdered Levi Levison?"
"I am not surprised to hear it, since you knew of my engagement to meet Levison on the marsh that night," replied Leslie. "I had more than half expected that you would give evidence to that effect at the inquest."
Nugent brushed the insinuation aside with a contemptuous gesture. "My dear Chermside, if you are going to approach the matter in that spirit, we shall come to grief," he said. "Can't you see that our interests are absolutely identical—that if you fall I fall too. Not quite so far perhaps, but a good deal further than I care to contemplate. I don't pretend to any affection for you, after the way you have played the mischief with everything, but your arrest on this charge would mean my social ruin—if nothing worse. The motive for your crime, and all that led up to it, would be sure to come to light—even if you did not plead guilty and put forward the motive as an extenuating circumstance."
This was selfish villainy, naked and unashamed, but it sounded like honest villainy. Leslie had realized from the first that if his appointment with Levison transpired, the case against him would be black indeed, but he had expected that Nugent would rejoice in that fact. It had not occurred to him that his former accomplice would be dragged down in his fall.
"It will be time enough to talk of motive when I admit that I killed Levison," he said, in a burst of indignation.
"You didn't kill him? There are no witnesses. Straight now, as from man to man, standing on the brink of the same precipice?"
"I'll swear I didn't."
The shrug and the raised eyebrows with which Nugent received the denial made Leslie itch to hit him, but his anger passed with the prompt semi-withdrawal of the implied accusation.
"If you didn't someone else did. Let me think a moment," said Nugent, and again he fell to tracing invisible patterns on the card table. Leslie leaned against the wall by the door, and stared vacantly through the window at faint specks on the horizon of the sunlit sea—Brixham trawlers on the fishing-grounds twenty miles away. The dapper man in the immaculate grey suit, solving unseen problems on the green cloth, had disarmed him. Nugent's belief in his guilt, he told himself, had been genuine, but Nugent had been shaken in that belief. He was striving for some other explanation of the Jew's death. At last he raised his eyes.
"I have been trying to overhaul my knowledge of Levison's past in order to account for his murder by some other means than the obvious," he said. "And, with every desire to fit him with an appropriate murderer, I have entirely failed. There is no need to disguise the fact that he was my tool—a dirty little shyster who has done odd jobs for me—but he was not the sort of person to inspire a thirst for bloodshed. A mean-spirited little rascal, with no ideas beyond the price of a bill-stamp and overcharging what he called his 'exes.' There was no one to kill him but you, my friend."
"Don't call me that," said Leslie hotly. "I repeat that I did not kill him."
Nugent shook his head with an incredulity themore exasperating because it seemed so thoroughly genuine. "At any rate, a judge and jury would find a difficulty in believing to the contrary. Let me state the case just to show you your danger. You have yourself admitted acquaintance and business relations with Levison—a stranger in the place, who is not known to have had dealings with any one else. Point one for the prosecution. It can further be proved that you had arranged to meet him at that lonely spot——"
"Pardon me," interrupted Leslie hoarsely. "That cannot be proved unless you volunteer as a witness, and give away the whole vile story of the plot to abduct Miss Maynard."
The gentle tolerance of Nugent's smile was harder to bear than abuse would have been. "Really, Chermside, you are an impossible fellow to have as a partner in a losing game," he said. "At the risk of being wearisome, let me repeat that your trial would spell ruin for me. It is Louise Aubin, Miss Maynard's French maid, who is at the bottom of the trouble. Levison, like the vulgar wretch he was, amused himself with a flirtation with her. It seems that, most indiscreetly, he confided to her that he had some hold on you, and that it was either to be tightened or relaxed after an interview arranged for that night. Point two for the prosecution."
Leslie's heart sank as the remorseless indictment against him was unfolded. He had been naturally disposed to mistrust Nugent's profession of mutual interests, but with the introduction of this new and independent witness into the case this was explained. Louise Aubin, if she had been confided in by Levison, was certainly in a position to wreck the two of them. Yet once more his doubt surged up, and he put the quick question—
"Why has this woman imparted her suspicion to you? Why did she not take it to the police, and appear at the inquest?"
"Because, by the greatest good luck, I met her on her way to do so," answered Nugent promptly. "It was on the day of the picnic—immediately after the discovery of the body. I was aware of her relations with the dead man, from what was said when we lunched at the Manor, and I guessed what she was up to. I managed to throw dust in her eyes for the time, and have contrived to hold her in check since, but she is growing restive, and threatens to appear at the adjourned inquest."
Leslie stared dully at the speaker. He could almost feel the hangman's noose at his neck. The bright vision of an hour ago had faded into Cimmerian gloom. Nugent's clever face suggested the only possible source of the advice of which he stood in such urgent need, and, almost against his will, the question escaped him—
"What had I better do?"
"Cut and run for it. Avoid arrest at any price," was the ready reply.
"But I am not guilty. I did not murder the little Jew."
"You cannot prove that," Nugent rejoined, with a flicker of his hateful smile. "Besides," he added, "consider the execration you would incur in attempting to do so. What would your life beworth to you if you managed to save it by confessing your share in the Violet Maynard project?"
Leslie could frame no reply, and while he sought for one, a tiny sound, that under other circumstances would have been disregarded, reached his ears. Nugent, who was further from the door, evidently had not heard it. Somewhere about half-way up the staircase a loose board creaked, but the sound had been preceded by no footfall, nor, though he listened intently, could Leslie detect that it was followed by one. Some instinct, which he did not attempt to analyse then, but which he afterwards knew was a desire to dissociate himself from Nugent in any danger which that creaking stair might portend, prompted him not to call attention to it. But, to prevent any chance of the remainder of their conversation being overheard, he turned and closed the door smartly.
"If I make a bolt of it, where am I to bolt to?" he asked, lowering his voice and stepping to the table.
A gleam of triumph, instantly suppressed, flashed in Nugent's eyes. "I have considered that most carefully," he replied. "At the first hint of your departure, in the ordinary way, Louise Aubin would go to the police, and you would be traced and arrested. I propose, if you assent, to utilize theCobrafor your flight. She is the property of the Maharajah, and Bhagwan Singh is as much interested in covering up his attempt to gain an English bride by force as we are ourselves. Now that the vessel won't be wanted for her original purpose, she may as well earn her upkeep by helping to preservethe secret of our abortive scheme. Once smuggled aboard safely, she could put you ashore at some South American port, where you might carve out a new career, though you must forgive my saying that I doubt your success in any undertaking."
Leslie allowed the gibe to pass. He was prepared to make allowances for Nugent's disappointment, now that he was persuaded that he had definitely abandoned the plot against Violet, and was only concerned in hiding all traces of it. On the whole, the plan for evading arrest rather appealed to him. With a dull despair at his heart, he had already realized that the vengeful Frenchwoman had shattered his day-dream. Of what use to him would be good old Aunt Sarah's benefaction, when there was hanging over his head a murder charge which, even if he could refute it, would remove Violet beyond his pale for ever?
"I suppose you're right," he gave his tardy consent. "And if I have got to go, the sooner the better. When do you propose that I should start?"
Travers Nugent rose with a sigh of unaffected relief. "I expect it will be the day after to-morrow," he made answer. "But we will meet again to arrange final details. In the meanwhile, my dear fellow, let me congratulate you on the one gleam of common-sense you have shown throughout our disastrous association. All my energies must now be directed to chaining up that wild-cat of a French maid till you are safely on board."
Nodding curtly, he walked to the door, opened it, and, passing down the stairs, left the club. Leslie, following more leisurely, was moved by a great curiosity to see if he could account for that ominous creak. He glanced into the reading-room, but there was no one there. It was too early in the afternoon for the assembly of members who came to chat and see the papers.
The click of balls, unusual at that hour, attracted him to the billiard-room, and, entering, he was confronted with an enigma. The lean, ascetic form of Mr. Mallory was bending over the table, poising his cue for a difficult cannon, which he delayed for an instant because of the interruption, and then made with an unerring precision. His antagonist was the burly and rubicund General Kruse, who had his nose buried in a whisky and soda. On the lounge, watching the game with sardonic contempt, sat the cadaverous Mr. Lazarus Lowch, the foreman of the jury at the inquest on Levison, and but a rare visitor to the billiard-room.
Leslie walked to the scoring-board and noted the state of the game. It stood at 5-2, and could therefore have been only just begun. It followed that any one of these three gentlemen, so oddly occupied at an unaccustomed hour, when they ought to have been enjoying an after-luncheon siesta at home, might have caused the sound on the stairs a few minutes before.
Which of them could it have been? How much of that momentous interview, on which his liberty and his life might depend, had been overheard?
The handsome pension which Mr. Vernon Mallory drew as a distinguished servant of the Foreign Office, added to considerable private means, enabled him to occupy one of the most important residences in the place. It had large, well-shaded tennis and croquet lawns, and here, later on that same afternoon, Mr. Mallory was sitting under a copper beech with his wife, a gentle, patient lady, who had the misfortune to be blind.
At the other side of the croquet lawn Lieutenant Reginald Beauchamp and Miss Enid Mallory were leaning on their mallets with every appearance of being engaged in a violent quarrel. The girl's face was flushed, and now and again she tapped the close-cropped turf impatiently with a neat brown shoe. The young sailor, viewed from the distance, had the air and attitude of saying rude things in a provoking manner.
"What are those two doing, dear?" Mrs. Mallory asked presently. "My ears tell me that they have stopped playing."
"They look," replied her husband, "as if they were hurling invectives at each other over a foulstroke. Knowing them as I do, my impression is that they are occupied in coming to an understanding. Their ideas of love-making are of the kittenish order—a pat and a scratch, and a pat again. But I think that they are both in earnest."
"Reggie has been suddenly recalled to his ship, has he not?"
"Yes, he has to rejoin at Plymouth to-morrow morning for some sort of manœuvres or gun practice. That may account for the affair having come to a head to-day."
The blind lady sighed with contentment. "He is a brave, good lad, Vernon," she said. "You must be kind to him, and say 'Yes' nicely when he asks you for our darling. They have been fond of each other since they were babies almost."
The ghost of a tender smile quivered at the corner of Mr. Mallory's stern mouth. "I shall not be rough with him, Margaret," he said gently, "but I am going to make a bargain with him for all that. He has—I believe both the young rascals have it—the key to something I want very badly."
Mrs. Mallory's sightless eyes turned towards her husband, and her voice spoke the affection they could not express. "The key to a secret, dear. To some mystery that is no concern of yours? When shall I be able to persuade you that you retired from the public service years ago? But they are coming this way, I think."
Her acute hearing, that blessed compensation granted to the blind, had told her truly. Reggie and Enid were crossing the lawn towards them—a picturesque whirlwind of white flannel and flappingstraw hats. Mr. Mallory composed his features into an acid contemplation of the approaching couple, though he had much ado to succeed. No sentimental nonsense here, but earnest, cocksure intent, after his own heart.
"We've come to ask your permission," Reggie began.
"Will you hold your tongue, sir? We have come to do nothing of the kind," Enid interrupted him. "We've come to give information, that's all. Father, dear, we have had an awful row about details, but we've patched it up, and are engaged to be married. You haven't any objection, I suppose? Of course Reggie is no great shakes, and I might have done better, but he suits me." And, after a pause, the minx added, with an impudentmoueat her lover, "on the whole."
Mr. Mallory reared his tall, spare frame from the basket-chair in which he had been lounging, and, having pressed his wife's hand to reassure her that all would be well, turned with mock severity to the culprits.
"Come into the study," he said in his most judicial tone. "The remarks I have to make are not for the benefit of any chance passer-by, or of Mr. Lazarus Lowch if he is on the prowl."
The three passed into the house, and as soon as the door of Mr. Mallory's sanctum was shut upon them he laid an affectionate hand on the shoulder of each of his young companions. "Your little affair will be all right," he smiled at them, laying aside his judicial manner. "You were born to keep each other in order, and we old folks should havebeen disappointed had it been otherwise. But in return for my easy sanction, I want your fullest confidence about something very different. I was watching you the other day at the inquest, Reggie. What really happened that night when you two were sweethearting on the marsh?"
Two pairs of youthful eyes questioned each other, and each gave a mutely tentative answer in the affirmative.
"We saw something that night that might get some one into trouble," Reggie took upon himself to say. "Some one who—well, didn't strike us as the sort of chap to deserve it. So we decided to keep quiet about it."
"I am inclined to think that your discretion was praiseworthy," said Mr. Mallory gravely. "I hope, however, that for that some one's sake I may be honoured by your confidence. It was Leslie Chermside, was it not?"
"Well, yes; as you seem to be omniscient, sir, and friendly to him, we did see Chermside on the marsh that night," Reggie admitted.
"But we didn't see him murdering anybody," interposed Enid; adding inconsequently, "Dear Violet Maynard wouldn't be so keen on him if he was a murderer."
"You were not, I presume, an actual witness of the crime," Mr. Mallory said drily. He remained silent for a minute, walking up and down the room, and then continued—
"Now, look here, you two. There is some ugly mischief going on here, and it is my belief that Chermside, though mixed up in it, is more sinned againstthan sinning. You will best serve him by being perfectly frank with me, and if it will induce you to be so, let me say that the wire-puller in the business is Mr. Travers Nugent. You are both of you aware of my opinion of that gentleman, based on grounds of former official experience. I am certain that there is some deep-laid plot afoot in which Chermside is a mere pawn—a plot which I somehow vaguely deem to be directed against the good people who have rented the Manor House. I have utterly failed so far to gain the slightest inkling of the nature or object of Nugent's machinations, but I have gathered this—that whether Chermside killed that little Jew or not Nugent is holding over him, as a means to effect his purpose, the probability of imminent arrest."
At that Reggie described fully how he and Enid had been "resting" in the bushes at the side of the marshland path, and how at short intervals two men, whom it was too dark to recognize, had passed by. He went on to repeat the evidence dragged from him at the inquest as the result of the eavesdropping of Mr. Lazarus Lowch, telling over again of the weird scream that had startled them a few minutes after the passing of the second unseen pedestrian. And he finished his narrative with the hurried return along the path of a man who, as he passed their lair, was shown by the searchlight on the battleship to be none other than Leslie Chermside.
Mr. Mallory pondered the statement, then asked suddenly, "Did you notice any peculiarity in the footfall of the invisible pedestrians?"
"Yes, we did," Enid answered quickly. "The first to come along was going rapidly, as though hewas late for an appointment—almost running, in fact. We could quite plainly hear him puffing and blowing."
"Humph! Cannot you be a little more exact as to the time that elapsed between these four different incidents—the passing of the two unseen wayfarers, the scream, and the disclosure of Chermside by the searchlight? For instance, could the second of the two invisible passers-by have reached the spot where the body was found, when you heard the scream?"
"I couldn't say, sir," replied Reggie with a faint grin at his companion of the fatal night.
"Or whether, after the scream, there had been sufficient time for Chermside to traverse the distance from the same spot to where you were?"
"You see, father," Enid took up her parable as Reggie shook his head, "we didn't know then of any reason for paying attention to these matters. We were discussing things that seemed of far greater importance," she added demurely.
The old diplomatist was in too serious mood to give rein to his sense of humour just then. He allowed his daughter's naïve confession to pass unheeded, and, walking to the window, tried, as men do when face to face with a knotty problem, to concentrate his thoughts by fixing his gaze on some immaterial object. The study window was at the side of the house, with a distant view of the red point at the mouth of the river, and his eyes unconsciously sought that soothing picture without causing any reflex action on the clever brain busy with affairs of more human interest. Close under the windowran the path leading from the tradesmen's entrance to the back door.
"Your vagueness as to time makes it uncertain," Mr. Mallory said presently, "whether Chermside was one of the two men who passed you in the first instance, going outwards from the town. By the way, was he in evening dress?"
"No," replied Reggie and Enid in unison. "He was wearing flannels."
"Then," mused Mr. Mallory aloud, "it is conclusive that he was not returning from dining at the Manor—a point which could of course have been easily ascertained. He may have been one of those who passed you, but—No, my good man, go away! We don't require any."
The sudden break-off, which drew Reggie and Enid's eyes to the window, was caused by a shabby, down-at-heels individual who was holding up a bunch of dangling bootlaces with the stereotyped smirk and inviting gesture of the street hawker. Accepting his dismissal meekly, he went shambling off to the side entrance from the road.
"Reggie!" cried Enid.
"Madam to you."
"Did you twig who that was?"
"Can't say I did."
"He was the man who looked out of the train on the day of the picnic, and who called out about 'the face in the pool.'"
Mr. Mallory turned sharply round. He had been watching the exit of the tramp from the premises. "Are you sure of that?" he asked.
"Now that Enid has reminded me I am sure of it,"Reggie replied. "He is dressed differently, but I remember the bloated, drinky face perfectly. And, by the way, I saw him coming out of the gates of The Hut this morning. Can it be that he was not in that train by chance, but was travelling at the instance of Nugent in order to ensure that the body of Levison should not remain there undiscovered?"
"Precisely what was in my mind," Mr. Mallory rejoined. "And he was probably hanging about this house as a spy in the interests of his employer, for I can see a connexion by which Nugent may have become aware of my active opposition. You went far to confirm my suspicions, my boy, when you told me of Nugent's journey to Weymouth the other day; what has just transpired is finally convincing that there is some villainy hatching with Chermside either as victim or catspaw."
"But you are entirely in the dark as to the purport of all this plot and counterplot?" said Reggie.
"Entirely; all I have been able to elucidate is that Nugent finds it necessary to threaten Chermside with implication in a murder which he may or may not have committed."
"Can't Reggie and I capture The Bootlace Man and stick red-hot needles into him till he confesses?" suggested Enid.
But her father smiled with grim tolerance. "You don't know Mr. Travers Nugent, my child," he said. "You may be very sure that 'the bootlace man,' as you call him, has not been admitted to the inner precincts of the mystery. Nugent, while pretending to trust his agents, never does so really. He is even capable of wiping them out of existencewhen they have served their purpose—or failed in it."
"Then what is your game, sir? I should like to take a hand in it, whatever it is," said Reggie with the zest of the good sportsman he was. "To head off Nugent and give a shake up to old Lazarus Lowch too would afford me the greatest pleasure."
Mr. Mallory took a turn up the room and came back. "The game," he said slowly, "is to find proof against the actual slayer of Levison before Nugent's blow, whatever it is, falls. As your leave is up to-morrow morning I am afraid there will be no time for you to help me in that."
"I hope that your researches won't lead you into danger, sir."
"Oh dear no," rejoined Mr. Mallory carelessly. "They are chiefly concerned with the movements on the night in question of a French onion vendor belonging to a lugger lying at Exmouth."
"Why not drop a hint to the sergeant of police?"
But Mr. Mallory made a gesture of dissent. "Because I am far from sure that I am right," he said. "If the police were to push inquiries in that direction Nugent would get wind of it and make a counter-move. It isn't as if the catching of Levison's murderer was the chief desideratum. It is the cunningly veiled scheme in which that crime was only a detail that I have set myself to discover and foil. Given positive proof against the murderer, be he Chermside or any one else, and I would be at the police station with it inside five minutes. But it must be clear evidence, justifying an immediate arrest."
Louise Aubin stood behind her young mistress's dressing chair, brushing the glorious tresses which her deft fingers would presently coil and coax into the latest fashionable mode. There was to be a small dinner party at the Manor House that evening. Mr. Vernon Mallory and his daughter were coming, also Leslie Chermside and Travers Nugent, as well as a few local people in whom we are not interested. It was the day following that on which Aunt Sarah had raised hopes for her protégées, which, so far as one of them was concerned, were so rudely dashed in the card-room at the club.
The maid glanced furtively at the beautiful face in the mirror opposite, and took note of the dreamy happiness in Violet Maynard's eyes. Violet had been consistently kind to her, and Louise, selfish though she was to the core, was not wholly ungrateful. She had deceived herself into the belief that she was about to do her mistress a genuine service, but it was characteristic of her that she rather enjoyed the prospect of inflicting pain in the process.
"I should so like to consult you, mees, about an affair of my own," she began hesitatingly. Therewas no need for the hesitation, mademoiselle having been carefully coached for the part she was to play no later than that afternoon, when she had paid another surreptitious visit to The Hut. But a shy modesty was a weapon in her equipment for the fray.
Violet looked up quickly. The note of diffidence was unusual. "Of course, Louise, you can ask me anything," she said, wondering why the Abigail's gaze was so swiftly averted. "I should have thought, though, that you are much more capable of managing your affairs than I am."
The Frenchwoman contrived to show deprecation in the twirl she gave to the silver hair-brush. "In small things, mees, perhaps," she answered. "But this is not small, the thing in which I beg you to advise. It is an affair of the 'eart, and an affair of murderre—the murderre of the gentleman who was killed on the marsh."
Violet with difficulty repressed a smile. The subject was a gruesome one, but, serene in her own love idyll, she had really paid very little attention to it. "You don't mean to tell me, Louise, that you killed that unfortunate man because he did not appreciate your charms?"
Mademoiselle was on her dignity at once; moreover, having marked down higher game, she could afford to be quite genuine in her repudiation of any partiality for Mr. Levi Levison.
"Mees will pardon her devoted maid for saying that it is hardly a subject for jest," came her prompt rebuke. "The shoe was what you call on the other foot. Mr. Levison, he admire me greatly, but Inot think ver' moosh of 'im. All the same, he tells me things, and among others he tell me who it was he going to meet on the marsh. I blame myself for not having approach the police about it, and I desire to ask you, mees, if it is now too late."
Violet grew suddenly grave. A responsibility was being thrust upon her which she would have avoided if she could, but she felt it her duty to accept. Louise was a stranger in a strange land, the laws of which she could not be expected to understand, and who was there to advise her if not her mistress? Violet had not much doubt as to what her advice would be, for she knew that it was a serious matter to withhold information that would tend to the conviction of a criminal. The maid would have to be told to take the course she ought to have taken at first—to give the police the name of the man Levison was to meet.
But Violet intuitively shrank from uttering the word which might be the first step towards condemning a fellow-creature to ignominious death, however well merited, and perhaps it was to gain time that she asked—
"How was it that you concealed this knowledge, Louise? Is the person whom you have been shielding a friend of yours?"
"On the contrary, mees, I 'ave neverre speak to 'im," came the glib reply. "I keep the secret because Mr. Travers Nugent, who I know to be honourable gentleman and well acquainted with m'sieu your father, because 'e guess I going to the police and persuade me to stop. 'E say it silly to stir up the mud for no good."
Now Violet Maynard had never yielded to the spell of Travers Nugent's social attractions. She had always been civil to him as one in whose well-informed society easy-going Montague Maynard found pleasure, but in her infrequent and superficial intercourse with the man-about-town she had been conscious of a vague mistrust. Quite naturally, therefore, she exclaimed—
"Mr. Nugent should not have interfered. It was very wrong of him, and though I do not know much about such matters I imagine that he may have made trouble for himself as well as for you. Who was this person whom Mr. Nugent was at such pains to protect, Louise? He is fond of currying favour with the natives of this place, I know, but I should hardly have thought that his thirst for popularity would have led him to incur the risk of personal unpleasantness."
Mademoiselle Louise stole one glance at the mildly indignant face in the glass, then dropped her eyes demurely before firing the shot with which she had been primed.
"It was not about what you call native of Ottermouth that he beg me to be silent, mees," she replied, using the hair-brush assiduously. "It was a visitor gentleman—very nice gentleman he seems and friendly with you, mees, and with m'sieu your father. But that I cannot 'elp. It was Mr. Chermside who arrange to meet Levison on the marsh at ten o'clock on the night when some one kill him."
Mademoiselle gave quite half a dozen strokes with the brush before she dared to look in the mirror again, and then she was impelled to do so by thequivering of the shapely shoulders. Was her mistress sobbing in silent anguish under the blow she had struck, or did the convulsion betoken restrained merriment? The glance into the glass settled it. The eyes of mistress and maid met, and Violet broke into a ripple of silvery laughter.
"Why, you foolish little goose!" she cried, "there is no harm done after all. You had better go to the police with your story as soon as you like, or as soon as Mr. Nugent permits. Mr. Chermside would no more dream of murdering anybody than would Mr. Nugent himself—not half so much, indeed. It was nice of Mr. Nugent to want to save his friend annoyance, but he might have had more faith in him. Once more, you are a goose, Louise."
The Frenchwoman bore the rebuke in silence. She had fulfilled the instructions so carefully instilled into her artful but shallow brain, and all her efforts just now being devoted to pleasing her newcher ami, as she considered the master of The Hut, she was content to leave it at that. Nugent had not confided to her how he expected or wished Miss Maynard to behave on hearing what he had instructed Louise to tell her.
As soon as her toilet was complete Violet descended to the drawing-room, where Aunt Sarah was talking to the Mallorys, who were the only guests who had as yet arrived. In spite of having parted with Reggie Beauchamp that morning Enid was in high spirits, and looked delightfully fresh in her dinner dress of virginal white. She was merrily receiving somewhat pessimistic congratulations on her engagement from Aunt Sarah, whowas laying it down that to marry a man liable to be drowned at any moment was simply flying in the face of Providence.
Nugent and Chermside arrived together, and when Montague Maynard came bursting in in the wake of the few remaining guests dinner was announced, and they adjourned to the dining-room. To Violet the meal was a tedious function that night. She was brimming over with mixed excitement over the implied aspersion cast by Louise on her lover, and she was longing to share the absurdity, as she considered it, with him. She had much ado to restrain herself from mentioning it at the dinner-table, but she realized that it was hardly a matter to be made fun of before the servants. Moreover, she noticed that Leslie was looking pale and preoccupied, and by no means in a mood to appreciate the humour of a jest so grimly personal. She was afraid he was going to be ill. On all accounts it would be wiser to postpone telling him till they were alone.
As it happened, it was not to Leslie that she was destined to first moot the subject of Louise's treacherous confidence. When the gentlemen joined the ladies in the drawing-room after dinner the human pack chanced to get so shuffled that Violet found herself for the moment paired off with Travers Nugent, and unable to obtain speech with her lover. It was not for her to know that Nugent had carefully arranged his entry into the drawing-room with a view to securing atête-à-têtewith her. Eagerly awaiting Leslie's appearance, she had seated herself alone near the door, and Nugent, coming in ahead of the rest of the men, at once monopolized her.
"The Queen of the Manor is looking radiant," he said in his silky accents, assuming the air of deference which carried him far with most of his female acquaintances.
"I am not feeling very radiant, or even good-tempered—with you," replied Violet. Baulked of her wish to have it out with Leslie, she was seized with a desire to rend in pieces, figuratively, of course, this debonair gentleman who had busied himself to shield one who by no possible chain of circumstances could need any shielding.
"Is it permitted to inquire, fair lady, what has caused me to fall under the ban of your displeasure?" said Nugent smilingly. The smile was well managed, seeing that he was at the same time assuring himself that Leslie and Mr. Mallory, convoyed by their host, had passed on with the other men to where Aunt Sarah was holding a miniature court at the far end of the room. The smile deepened a little as he noticed that Mr. Mallory palpably overcame an impulse to join them.
"Yes," said Violet in answer to his question. "If you had not inquired I should have mentioned the matter myself. What is the meaning of this preposterous story brought to me by my maid—that you prevented her from going to the police about Mr. Chermside's appointment with that poor man?"
The start which Nugent gave, if not natural, at any rate looked the genuine thing. He bit his lips as though annoyed and disconcerted, and an anxious expression crept into his eyes.
"So that stupid French girl has been frighteningyou," he said softly. "My dear Miss Maynard, I would not have had this happen for worlds."
"That is not an answer to my question," Violet persisted hotly. "Why did you pursue a course which may very likely get the girl into trouble? If you did it to save Mr. Chermside from unpleasantness your motive was all right, though I should have thought that a man of the world would have known that your action was very likely to have the opposite effect. If the police had been informed at once of this appointment on the marsh they would have laughed at the idea of a gentleman in Mr. Chermside's position having anything to do with the crime. But now, when they are informed of it, they will probably attach an exaggerated importance to the incident, and worry for explanations."
Travers Nugent sighed the sigh of the man who had been misunderstood. "I am glad that you give me credit for having acted from loyalty to my friend, even if you accuse me of folly," he replied.
"Why did you commit that folly?" demanded Violet, tapping her dainty shoe in imperious insistence.
The answer came as though dragged out by force and in the face of better judgment. "You leave me no option," said Nugent slowly, waving his soft white hand in a deprecatory gesture. "I took the course I did—that of persuading Louise Aubin not to rush off to the police—because—well, because——" He stopped abruptly, and then added with a strained little laugh, "I find this a difficult thing to say, Miss Maynard."
"I am waiting for you to say it," came Violet's inexorable rejoinder.
"Well, then, has it not occurred to you that if Chermside had wanted his appointment with Levison to be known to the police he would himself have informed them of it, whereas, though he was called as a witness at the inquest, he preserved silence about it?"
Violet Maynard was a beautiful woman, and she had never looked more beautiful than when she rose, majestic in her wrath, to champion the man she loved.
"Mr. Nugent," she suppressed her voice with an effort, "that implies doubt—almost accusation. I am ashamed of you. How dare you think such an impossible thing—to say nothing of putting it into words, to me of all people, who am his affianced wife!"
Nugent bowed as before an offended goddess, and a little flush came into his face—an unusual phenomenon in one whose emotions were so well controlled. "I somehow seem not to be able to express myself clearly to-night," he murmured plaintively. "You must forgive me if I point out that the suggestion—the perfectly horrible suggestion—came from you, and not from me. I was not charging Chermside with murder. The bare idea is ridiculous. I like the boy, and he brought me the best introductions from India, though personally he has not been communicative about his private affairs. I know this much, however—that he had business with Levison, as he admitted at the inquest, which he does not want to be noised abroadand mouthed over by the wiseacres of Ottermouth. I surmise that he was to meet Levison on the marsh that night to discuss that business, and I therefore deemed it advisable in his interest to suppress all publicity about the intended meeting."
"You are inferring that the business, as you call it, was discreditable?" said Violet, mystified, and only half mollified.
"Not in the very least," rejoined Nugent glibly. "I do not know what the transaction was, but it is impossible to associate anything discreditable with Chermside. If I might make a suggestion it would be that you should yourself ask Chermside for enlightenment."
"Thank you, I shall certainly inform him of what has happened," said Violet coldly. "But it must rest with him whether he offers an explanation of his relations with Levison. I am content to trust the man who is to be my husband. In the meanwhile, Mr. Nugent, it is but fair that you should know that I have advised my maid to lose no further time in communicating with the police. It will be the shortest and most satisfactory way of getting this absurdity wiped out once for all."
Nugent bowed and stood looking after the graceful figure of the girl as she sailed away from him across the room. His long moustache hid the wicked curl at the corner of his mouth. "Ah, my lady," he murmured under his breath, "you will find that it is one thing to tender advice and quite another to get it acted on. The fair and flighty Louise is receiving her orders from your humble servant at present, and they will certainly not include aninjunction to call at the police-station. But that bogey has been effectually set up, I think."
Leslie Chermside had been covertly watching from afar Violet's animated interview with Nugent, and seeing her coming towards him he hastened to meet her. That evening he grudged every moment not spent in her society, for on the morrow he would assuredly see her for the last time. Unless some miracle intervened there would be nothing for it, if he was to avoid arrest for murder and its consequent exposure, but to assent to Nugent's plan for flight on theCobra. He had postponed giving his final decision, hoping against hope that something might turn up to save him, and also because at the back of his mind there still lurked the suspicion that Nugent's account of his danger might have been trumped up for some cunning purpose. But now he was to receive confirmation of the story of Louise Aubin's suspicions from a source there was no gainsaying.
"Take me into the orangery; I want to speak to you," said Violet, laying her hand on his sleeve.
The orangery at Ottermouth Manor was a huge glass structure in which oranges may have been grown in Georgian days after the prevailing fashion, but which in modern times sheltered a wealth of tropical shrubs. In the great aisles of luxuriant foliage it was possible to lose oneself, as Violet and Leslie, after passing through one of the long windows, proceeded to do now. They halted at last under the spreading fronds of a giant palm, from a branch of which depended one of the electriclamps which the millionaire had installed in the old mansion.
"Leslie," said the girl, looking up into her lover's face, "I have done a strange thing to-night, as proof of my trust in you. That French maid of mine tells me that you had a rendezvous with the man who was murdered the other day, and that it was at or near to the spot where the body was found. I have been blaming her for withholding her knowledge from the authorities, and have advised her to rectify the omission without delay. You mustn't be angry with me if I have been unduly interfering, but I knew that you could have nothing to fear really in the matter of Levison's death, and that it would be better to scotch this ridiculous suspicion before it grows unmanageable."
Chermside laughed, keeping the bitterness out of the sound of it as best he could. To call it the irony of fate was beside the mark. It was really almost supernatural, the way he was being tossed hither and thither by the consequences of the crime he had abjured. Here was the woman who was all in all to him calmly telling him that she had taken a step which would snatch the last straw from his drowning hands. All hope was gone. He must run for it now, if the traces of his disgraceful lapse were to be covered.
"It is quite true," he said. "I had an appointment to meet Levison. But," and he laughed again as he made the addition, "I really didn't murder him, Violet."
The taper fingers, glittering with gems, closed on his arm. "Now don't be silly," came the quickanswer from sweetly protesting lips. "Every one seems to be trying to be silly over this horrible affair—Louise, Mr. Nugent, and now you yourself. I have just been calling Mr. Nugent over the coals for his preposterous counsel to that misguided French fool, and I told him what I now tell you—that my trust in your incapacity for such a deed is invincible. I burn with indignation that even a fool like Louise should have thought the contrary. That is why I chanced the risk of offending you, dear, by forcing the issue."
"You have indeed forced the issue, but there is nothing in all the wide world that you could do to offend me," said Leslie, and his half-strangled sob carried conviction.
But Violet Maynard wanted more than conviction on a point on which she was already convinced. She hungered for the confidence which she was too proud to demand as her right. Yet her lover showed no sign of according it. He just stood there staring at her, and looking half dazed in the electric glow, but he had evidently no intention of explaining why he was to have met Levison in the marsh, and why he had concealed the fact.
"Is that all you have to say to me?" asked Violet quietly.
And then, when her question evoked no reply, she turned and threaded her way back amid the tangle of exotic luxuriance to the drawing-room, leaving Leslie to follow like a man in a dream.
On the following morning Enid Mallory, clad in a serviceable jersey and a short skirt, and carrying her golf clubs, was walking up and down the lawn at her father's house, perusing a letter received from Reggie by the early delivery. She had already read it twice, once before and once after breakfast, but like all maidens in similar cases she wanted to make sure that she had missed none of its honey, implied or expressed.
She looked up as her father came out and joined her. "I have heard from my young man," she said, proffering the letter. "We don't indulge in sentiment or secrets. Read it and see how the poor boy is going to be worked to death in serving an ungrateful country."
But Mr. Mallory waved the letter aside with one of his fugitive smiles. "I will take your word for it, child," he said. "Those secrets used to be considered sacred in my courting days, but I am growing old-fashioned, I suppose. Reggie got back to his ship all right yesterday, then?"
"Yes, he is where he loves best to be I reallybelieve—on board his 'thirty-knot sardine-box,' as he calls it," Enid replied. "He seems very pleased with himself and with the prospect of having plenty to do. He has got to take the destroyer out for torpedo practice every day for a week, leaving port at four in the morning."
"Ah well!" sighed Mr. Mallory, gently, "there is nothing like the strenuous life for the young. I often wish I was back in harness again instead of rusting here."
Enid stole an affectionately impudent glance at her father's keen face. "Why, for the past week you have been simply revelling in the atmosphere of intrigue, which is the breath of life to you, dad," she said with a little laugh. "I am due at the links to play golf with Mona Dartring, but I had to wait and ask you if there are any new developments. I mean about the French onion-seller in whom you were interested?"
Mr. Mallory shook his head. "I seem to have run up against a dead wall in that direction," he replied. "I am utterly unable to trace a connexion between him and Nugent, yet I am morally certain that they are both concerned in the murder of Levison in greater or lesser degree. Last night at the Manor House the air was charged with mystery which I could not pierce. At dinner Chermside was silent and preoccupied, while Miss Maynard was almost hysterically vivacious. Afterwards, in the drawing-room, she had a long confabulation with Nugent of the latter's seeking; then she withdrew into the orangery with Chermside for an interview from which they both returned as glum as if they had been mourners at their own funerals. There is some devilish trickery going on, with Nugent pulling the strings, but I can do nothing but wait and watch."
"Watch Mr. Nugent?" suggested Enid with more than her usual gravity.
"Him and others. If one could spend a few hours inside The Hut in a state of invisibility much would be made clear. For instance, an unseen listener at a conference between either that coquettish maid of Miss Maynard's, or the onion-seller, or even Chermside himself, and Nugent would go far towards the solution I am striving for."
"What has Louise, the maid, got to do with it, father?"
"Possibly nothing. On the other hand, I think it extremely probable that she is the pivot of the whole situation—so far as the murder of Levison goes. It is established that the onion-seller, whom the worthy Miss Dymmock chastised out of the park, was jealous of some one in respect of the maid; but unfortunately unless one has a chance of cross-examining the maid herself there is no way of proving whether Levison was the unknown admirer who had excited her compatriot's jealousy."
"I'll take that in hand," came Enid's eager answer. "I often see Louise when I am with Violet Maynard at the Manor. I'll pump the hussey as limp as a punctured tyre the next time I'm over there, and it's sure to be in a day or two."
Mr. Mallory patted his daughter's shoulder in mock encouragement. "Go ahead, Miss Cocksure," he smiled at her. "But, if I am not mistaken, you will find that Mademoiselle Louise carriestoo many guns for an honest English craft like my little Enid. There! that's a nautical simile suitable for a sailor's bride. Now run away to your golf and leave an old fogey to worry the thing out as best he can. I am past the age for personal adventures in disguise, or I should be sorely tempted to explore The Hut in some other character than my own."
Enid pouted a little at the disparagement of her detective powers, and then, after a dutiful peck at the clean-shaven paternal cheek, shouldered her clubs and made for the garden gate. Half-way across the lawn she wheeled round and shouted back—
"Don't wait lunch for me. Mona and I have arranged to have a snack on the links and go out for another round in the afternoon."
Mr. Mallory nodded and turned to re-enter the house. As a resident at a seaside resort where most people were engaged in amusing themselves, he had grown accustomed to the ordinary meals being movable feasts, sometimes omitted altogether so far as Enid was concerned. During the summer months she would frequently disappear after breakfast, and not be seen again till she arrived late but apologetic at the dinner table. Even that important function was occasionally allowed to go by the board when the popular little lady was intercepted on her way home and dragged into some neighbour's house to spend the evening.
To-day, keen sportswoman though she was, Enid's thoughts were chained quite as much by her father's self-imposed anxieties as by the game she loved. Passing by the entrance gates of The Hut, she lookedin vain up the drive for any signs of the persons enumerated by her father as probably connected with the case, and it was only when she had reached the links on the breezy moor and had been duly chid by her waiting friend for unpunctuality that she shook off her absorption and gave herself up to the game. Conscious of her slackness, she forced herself to play rather better than usual, but at the close of the afternoon round she allowed her obsession to resume its sway.
Concocting some frivolous pretext, she avoided walking down the road to the town with other homeward-bound golfers, and contrived to slip away unseen along a moorland path which led to the town by another and longer route at the edge of the cliff. It had in Enid's eyes the merit of passing quite close to the rear of The Hut, whereas the road was separated from the house by the whole extent of a fairly long carriage drive. Somehow the secluded abode of Mr. Travers Nugent had for her that day the attraction of a magnet. She simply could not keep away from it.
There was no definite plan in her head, only an intense longing that something might happen which would enable her to fill the gap in her father's investigations. Before it struck out on to the cliff the path led her through a maze of gorse bushes very near the back gate out of which Nugent had shown Pierre Legros on the night of his first interview with him. When Enid came opposite this gate, which was of oak set in an impenetrable hedge of blackthorn, she was seized with an irresistible impulse to see if the gate was fastened. She fought againstit for as long as it took her to walk resolutely ten paces by, and then there recurred to her her father's words—
"I am past the age for adventures, or I should be sorely tempted to explore The Hut in some other character than my own."
The temptation was too strong for her. Retracing her steps, she picked her way across the few intervening yards of heather and tried the gate. To her surprise it was neither locked nor bolted, but opened inwards to the extent of the couple of inches for which she only dared apply pressure at first. Growing bolder, she pushed the gate further open and peered in. The house was partly visible fifty yards away through a screen of copper beeches, but an intense silence brooded over it, nor in the foreground of garden was there any sign of human life.
"Dad was pleased to be sarcastic about my ability to find out things," she murmured to herself. "All the same I think I'll do a little scout on my own account. It would be good fun to take the old dear a tit-bit of information that he hadn't been able to ferret out himself."
So at first tentatively, and then more surely, the gate was pushed wider still, and the trim figure in the short skirt stood with bated breath in the quiet garden. The coy retreat of Mr. Travers Nugent was beautifully kept. Tall trees and winding shrubberies afforded a grateful shade, and the well-shaven turf of the lawn was dotted with beds ablaze with brilliant summer flowers. In the bright yellow of the gravel walks never a weed showed. But it was past six, and the gardener who had wrought allthis perfection was not there to make trouble for Enid on the threshold of her adventure.
Still without any definite plan except to "find out things," Miss Enid softly shut the gate and advanced a few steps towards the house, taking care to tread on the grass and not on the crunchy gravel. After all was said and done she could trump up an excuse if she was discovered. Mr. Nugent had always treated her with semi-paternal playfulness, and he was, ostensibly at any rate, on amicable terms with her father.
On the left the garden was bounded by a high brick wall covered with ripening peaches; on the right lay a thick belt of shrubbery, extending up to the house. Enid chose the latter as affording the best shelter from any one standing at the windows, and, darting into the friendly cover, she commenced her stealthy approach. With any luck, she told herself, Mr. Nugent might be in his library interviewing one or other of the people whom her father deemed his accomplices, and she might pick up some useful crumbs of information to take home.
She had traversed half the length of the shrubbery in safety when her heart was set thumping by a sound behind her. It was the click of the latch of the gate through which she had so recently entered the garden. Glancing over her shoulder she caught, through the foliage, a glimpse of a man who to her dismay was making straight for the shrubbery, taking a diagonal course across the lawn which would bring him to the very spot she had reached. Acting, as was her habit, on impulse, she did a thing the folly of which she only recognized when it was toolate to remedy it. Just ahead of her, almost hidden in a tangle of thicket, was a small, one-storied structure built of stone—a sort of grotto or summer-house. Its walls were covered with green mould, never a ray of sun reaching them, and it looked damp, disused and forgotten. The doorway stood open, and Enid darted through, finding herself almost in darkness, for the place was only furnished with a small circular window, nearly obscured by ivy and high up in the wall.
It would serve well enough as a refuge if the man had not seen the fluttering of her white skirt amid the leafy screen. He would pass on his way to the house and all would be well. But if he had seen her, and was of an inquisitive turn of mind, her retreat would be cut off, for there were no signs of an exit at the rear. It was sure to be some one belonging to the house, or at any rate a privileged person, for the gate was a private one, intended only for the use of the master of The Hut. Would the man pass by, or would he come in and tax her with unwarrantable trespass? Her hasty glance had not told her whether he had a right to do so, as it had not enabled her to recognize him.
But a moment later she did, when the doorway darkened and on the threshold there stood the individual whom she had dubbed "The Bootlace Man"—the seeming pedlar who had sneaked in and out of the side entrance at her father's house two days before, and who in other garb had called out of the train to draw the attention of Montague Maynard's picnic party to "the face in the pool."
He blinked in his efforts to pierce the gloom of thedim interior, and then with a muttered oath produced a box of wax matches and struck a light. As the tiny flame flared up and showed him the pale but defiant face of the girl, he gave a little cackling laugh and puffed out his bloated cheeks in evil triumph.
"Golly, but this is a bit of all right!" his alcoholic exclamation smote Enid's ears and nose. "The governor will chalk this up to my score like the generous patron he is. Now you stay there, Missy, and meditate on the sin of curiosity till—well, till some one comes and lets you out."
With which he stepped back and slammed the door in the girl's face. A moment later the grating of the key in the lock told her that she was a prisoner.