When Simon Rattar came to his present villa, he brought from his old house in the middle of the town (which had been his father's before him) a vast accumulation of old books and old papers. Being a man who never threw away an opportunity or anything else, and also a person of the utmost tidyness, he compromised by keeping this litter in the spare rooms at the top of the house. In fact Simon was rather pleased at discovering this use for his superfluous apartments, for he hated wasting anything.
On this same morning, just before he started for his office, he had again called his housemaid and given her particular injunctions that these rooms were not to be disturbed during the day. He added that this was essential because he expected a gentleman that evening who would be going through some of the old papers with him.
Perhaps it was the vague feeling of disquiet which possessed Mary MacLean this morning that made his injunction seem a little curious. She had been with the master three years and never presumed or dreamt of presuming to touch his papers. He might have known that, thoughtshe, without having to tell her not to. Indeed, she felt a little aggrieved at the command, and in the course of the morning she made a discovery that seemed to her a further reflection on her discretion.
When she came to dust the passage in which these rooms opened her eye was at once caught by a sheet of white paper pinned to each of the three doors. On each of these sheets was written in her master's hand the words "This room not to be entered. Papers to be undisturbed." The result was a warning to those who take superfluous precautions. Under ordinary circumstances Mary would never have thought of touching the handles of those doors. Now, she looked at them for a few moments and then tried the handle nearest to her. The door was locked. She tried the second and the third, and they stood locked too. And the three keys had all been removed.
"To think of the master locking the doors!" said she to herself after failing at each in turn. "As if I'd have tried to open them!"
That top storey was of the semi-attic kind, with roofs that sloped and a sky-light in one of them and the slates close overhead. It was a grey windy morning, and as she stood there, alone in that large house save for the cook far away in the kitchen, with a loose slate rattling in the gusts, and a glimpse of clouds driving over the sky-light, she began all at once to feel uncomfortable. Those locked doors were uncanny—somethingwas not as it should be; there was a sinister moan in the wind; the slate did not rattle quite like an ordinary slate. Tales of her childhood, tales from the superstitious western islands, rushed into her mind. And then, all at once, she heard another sound. She heard it but for one instant, and then with a pale face she fled downstairs and stood for a space in the hall trembling and wondering.
She wondered first whether the sound had really come from behind the locked doors, and whether it actually was some one stealthily moving. She wondered next whether she could bring herself to confide in cook and stand Janet's cheerful scorn. She ended by saying not a word, and waiting to see what happened when the master came home.
He returned as usual in time for a cup of tea. It was pretty dark by then and Mary was upstairs lighting the gas (but she did not venture up to the top floor). She heard Mr. Rattar come into the hall, and then, quite distinctly this time, she heard overhead a dull sound, a kind of gentle thud. The next moment she heard the master running upstairs, and when he was safely past she ran even more swiftly down and burst into the kitchen.
"There's something in yon top rooms!" she panted.
"There's something in your top storey!" snapped cook; and poor Mary said no more.
When she brought his tea in to Mr. Rattar,she seemed to read in his first glance at her the same expression that had disturbed her in the morning, and yet the next moment he was speaking in his ordinary grumpy, laconic way.
"Have you noticed rats in the house?" he asked.
"Rats, sir!" she exclaimed. "Oh, no, sir, I don't think there are any rats."
"I saw one just now," he said. "If we see it again we must get some rat poison."
So it had only been a rat! Mary felt vastly relieved; and yet not altogether easy. One could not venture to doubt the master, but it was a queer-like sound for a rat to make.
Mr. Rattar had brought back a great many papers to-day, and sat engrossed in them till dinner. After dinner he fell to work again, and then about nine o'clock he rang for her and said:
"The gentleman I expect this evening will probably be late in coming. Don't sit up. I'll hear him and let him in myself. We shall be working late and I shall be going upstairs about those papers. If you hear anybody moving about, it will only be this gentleman and myself."
This was rather a long speech for silent Simon, and Mary thought it considerate of him to explain any nocturnal sounds beforehand; unusually considerate, in fact, for he seldom went out of his way to explain things. And yet those few minutes in his presence made her uncomfortable afresh. She could not keep her eyes away from that red cut on his chin. It made him seem odd-like,she thought. And then as she passed through the hall she heard faintly from the upper regions that slate rattling again. At least it was either the slate or—she recalled a story of her childhood, and hurried on to the kitchen.
She and the cook shared the same bedroom. It was fairly large with two beds in it, and along with the kitchen and other back premises it was shut off from the front part of the house by a door at the end of the hall. Cook was asleep within ten minutes. Mary could hear her heavy breathing above the incessant droning and whistling of the wind, and she envied her with all her Highland heart. In her own glen people would have understood how she felt, but here she dared not confess lest she were laughed at. It was such a vague and nameless feeling, a sixth sense warning her that all was not well; thatsomethingwas in the air. The longer she lay awake the more certain she grew that evil was afoot; and yet what could be its shape? Everything in that quiet and respectable household was going on exactly as usual; everything that any one else would have considered material. The little things she had noticed would be considered absurd trifles by the sensible. She knew that as well as they.
She thought she had been in bed about an hour, though the time passed so slowly that it might have been less, when she heard, faintly and gently, but quite distinctly, the door from the hall into the back premises being opened. It seemed to be held open for nearly a minute, asthough some one were standing there listening. She moved a little and the bed creaked; and then, as gently as it had been opened, the door was closed again.
Had the intruder come through or gone away? And could it only be the master, doing this curious thing, or was it some one—or something—else? Dreadful minutes passed, but there was not a sound of any one moving in the back passage, or the kitchen, and then in the distance she could hear the grating noise of the front door being opened and the rush of wind that accompanied it. It was closed sharply in a moment and she could catch the sound of steps in the hall and the master's voice making some remark. Another voice replied, gruff and muffled and indistinct, and then again the master spoke. Evidently the late caller had arrived, and a moment later she heard the library door shut, and it was plain that he and Mr. Rattar were closeted there.
They seemed to remain in the library about a quarter of an hour before the door opened again, and in a moment the stairs were creaking faintly. Evidently one or both were going up for the old papers.
All this was exactly what she had been led to expect, and ought to have reassured her, yet, for no reason at all, the conviction remained as intense and disturbing as ever, that something unspeakable was happening in this respectable house. The minutes dragged by till quite half an hour must have passed, and then she heard thesteps descending. They came down very slowly this time, and very heavily. The obvious explanation was that they were bringing down one of those boxes filled with dusty papers which she had often seen in the closed rooms; yet though Mary knew perfectly that this was the common sense of the matter, a feeling of horror increased till she could scarcely refrain from crying out. If cook had not such a quick temper and such a healthy contempt for this kind of fancy, she would have rushed across to her bed; but as it was, she simply lay and trembled.
The steps sounded still heavy but more muffled on the hall carpet, though whether they were the steps of one man or two she could not feel sure. And then she heard the front door open again and then close; so that it seemed plain that the visitor had taken the box with him and gone away. And with this departure came a sense of relief, as devoid of rational foundation as the sense of horror before. She felt at last that if she could only hear the master going upstairs to bed, she might go to sleep.
But though she listened hard as she lay there in the oppressive dark, she heard not another sound so long as she kept awake, and that was for some time, she thought. She did get off at last and had been asleep she knew not how long when she awoke drowsily with a confused impression that the front door had been shut again. How late it was she could but guess—about three or four in the morning her instinct told her. Butthen came sleep again and in the morning the last part of her recollections was a little uncertain.
At breakfast the master was as silently formidable as ever and he never said a word about his visitor. When Mary went to the top floor later the papers were off the doors and the keys replaced.
Under the grey autumnal sky Miss Cicely Farmond drove out of the town wrapped in Ned Cromarty's overcoat. He assured her he never felt cold, and as she glanced a little shyly up at the strapping figure by her side, she said to herself that he certainly was the toughest looking man of her acquaintance, and she felt a little less contrition for the loan. She was an independent young lady and from no one else would she have accepted such a favour, but the laird of Stanesland had such an off-hand authoritative way with him that, somewhat to her own surprise, she had protested—and submitted.
The trap was a high dog cart and the mare a flier.
"What a splendid horse!" she exclaimed as they spun up the first hill.
"Isn't she?" said Ned. "And she can go all the way like this, too."
Cicely was therefore a little surprised when at the next hill this flier was brought to a walk.
"I thought we were going all the way like that!" she laughed.
Ned glanced down at her.
"Are you in a hurry?" he enquired.
"Not particularly," she admitted.
"No more am I," said he, and this time he smiled down at her in a very friendly way.
So far they had talked casually on any indifferent subject that came to hand, but now his manner grew a little more intimate.
"Are you going to stay on with the Cromartys long?" he asked.
"I am wondering myself," she confessed.
"I hope you will," he said bluntly.
"It is very kind of you to say so," she said smiling at him a little shyly.
"I mean it. The fact is, Miss Farmond, you are a bit of a treat."
The quaintness of the phrase was irresistible and she laughed outright.
"Am I?"
"It's a fact," said he, "you see I live an odd lonely kind of life here, and for most of my career I've lived an odd lonely kind of life too, so far as girls were concerned. It may sound rum to you to hear a backwood hunks of my time of life confessing to finding a girl of your age a bit of a treat, but it's a fact."
"Yes," she said. "I should have thought I must seem rather young and foolish."
"Lord, I don't mean that!" he exclaimed. "I mean thatImust seem a pretty uninteresting bit of elderly shoe-leather."
"Uninteresting? Oh no!" she cried in protest, and then checked herself and her colour rose a little.
He smiled humorously.
"I can't see you out of this glass eye unless I turn round, so whether you're pulling my leg or not I don't know, but I was just saying to old Simon that the only kind of lady likely to take an interest in me was a female collector of antique curiosities, and you don't seem that sort, Miss Farmond."
She said nothing for a moment, and then asked:
"Were you discussing ladies then with Mr. Rattar?"
He also paused for a moment before replying.
"Incidentally in the course of a gossip, as the old chap hadn't got my business ready for me. By the way, did you get much change out of him?"
She shook her head a little mournfully.
"Nothing at all. He just asked questions instead of answering them."
"So he did with me! Confound the man. I fancy he has made too much money and is beginning to take it easy. That's one advantage of not being too rich, Miss Farmond; it keeps you from waxing fat."
"I'm not likely to wax fat then!" she laughed, and yet it was not quite a cheerful laugh.
He turned quickly and looked at her sympathetically.
"That your trouble?" he enquired in his outspoken way.
Cicely was not by way of giving her confidences easily, but this straight-forward, friendly attack penetrated her reserve.
"It makes one so dependent," she said, her voice even lower than usual.
"That must be the devil," he admitted.
"It is!" said she.
He whipped up the mare and ruminated in silence. Then he remarked:
"I'm just wondering."
Cicely began to smile.
"Wondering what?"
"What the devil there can be that isn't utterly uninteresting about me—assuming you weren't pulling my leg."
"Oh," she said, "no man can be uninteresting who has seen as much and done as much as you have."
"The Lord keep you of that opinion!" he said, half humorously, but only half, it seemed. "It's true I've knocked about and been knocked about, but I'd have thought you'd have judged more by results."
She laughed a little low laugh.
"Do you think yourself the results are very bad?"
"Judging by the mirror, beastly! Judging by other standards—well, one can't see one's self in one's full naked horror, thank Heaven for it too! But I'm not well read, and I'm not—but what'sthe good in telling you? You're clever enough to see for yourself."
For a man who had no intention of paying compliments, Ned Cromarty had a singular gift for administering the pleasantest—because it was so evidently the most genuine—form of flattery. In fact, had he but known it, he was a universal favourite with women, whenever he happened to meet them; only he had not the least suspicion of the fact—which made him all the more favoured.
"I don't know very many men," said Cicely, with her serious expression and a conscientious air, "and so perhaps I am not a good judge, but certainly you seem to me quite unlike all the others."
"I told you," he laughed, "that the female would have to be a bit of a collector."
"Oh," she cried, quite serious still, "I don't mean that in the least. I don't like freaks a bit myself. I only mean—well, people do differ in character and experience, don't they?"
"I guess you're pretty wise," said he simply. "And I'm sized up right enough. However, the trouble at present is this blamed mare goes too fast!"
On their left, the chimneys and roof of a large mansion showed through the surrounding trees. In this wind-swept seaboard country, its acres of plantation were a conspicuous landmark and marked it as the seat of some outstanding local magnate. These trees were carried down to theroad in a narrow belt enclosing an avenue that ended in a lodge and gates. At the same time that the lodge came into view round a bend in the road, a man on a bicycle appeared ahead of them, going in the same direction, and bent over his handle-bars against the wind.
"Hullo, that's surely Malcolm Cromarty!" said Ned.
"So it is!" she exclaimed, and there was a note of surprise in her voice. "I wonder where he has been."
The cyclist dismounted at the lodge gates a few moments before the trap pulled up there too, and the young man turned and greeted them. Or rather he greeted Miss Farmond, for his smile was clearly aimed at her alone.
"Hullo! Where have you been?" he cried.
"Where have you?" she retorted as she jumped out and let him help her off with the driving coat.
They made a remarkably good-looking young couple standing together there on the road and their manner to one another was evidently that of two people who knew each other well. Sitting on his high driving seat, Ned Cromarty turned his head well round so as to bring his sound eye to bear and looked at them in silence. When she handed him his coat and thanked him afresh, he merely laughed, told her, in his outspoken way, that all the fun had been his, and whipped up his mare.
"That's more the sort of fellow!" he said to himself gloomily, and for a little the thoughtseemed to keep him depressed. And then as he let the recollections of their drive have their own way undisturbed, he began to smile again, and kept smiling most of the way home.
The road drew ever nearer to the sea, trees and hedgerows grew even rarer and more stunted, and then he was driving through a patch of planting hardly higher than a shrubbery up to an ancient building on the very brink of the cliffs. The sea crashed white below and stretched grey and cold to the horizon, the wind whistled round the battlements and sighed through the stunted trees, and Ned (who had been too absorbed to remember his coat) slapped his arms and stamped his feet as he descended before a nail-studded front door with a battered coat of arms above it.
"Lord, what a place!" he said to himself, half critically, half affectionately.
The old castle of Stanesland was but a small house as castles, or even mansions, go, almost devoid of architectural ornament and evidently built in a sterner age simply for security, and but little embellished by the taste of more degenerate times. As a specimen of a small early 15th Century castle it was excellent; as a home it was inconvenience incarnate. How so many draughts found their way through such thick walls was a perennial mystery, and how to convey dishes from the kitchen to the dining room without their getting cold an almost insoluble problem.
The laird and his sister sat down to lunch and in about ten minutes Miss Cromarty remarked,
"So you drove Cicely Farmond home?"
Her brother nodded. He had mentioned the fact as soon as he came in, and rather wondered why she referred to it again.
Miss Cromarty smiled her own peculiar shrewd worldly little smile, and said:
"You are very silent, Ned."
Lilian Cromarty was a few years older than her brother; though one would hardly have guessed it. Her trim figure, bright eyes, vivacity of expression when she chose to be vivacious, and quick movements might have belonged to a woman twenty years younger. She had never been pretty, but she was always perfectly dressed and her smile could be anything she chose to make it. Until her youngest brother came into the property, the place had been let and she had lived with her friends and relations. She had had a good time, she always frankly confessed, but as frankly admitted that it was a relief to settle down at last.
"I was thinking," said her brother.
"About Cicely?" she asked in her frankly audacious way.
He opened his eyes for a moment and then laughed.
"You needn't guess again, Lilian," he admitted.
"Funny little thing," she observed.
"Funny?" he repeated, and his tone brought an almost imperceptible change of expression into his sister's eye.
"Oh," she said as though throwing the subject aside, "she is nice and quite pretty, but very young, and not very sophisticated; is she? However, I should think she would be a great success as a man's girl. That low voice and those eyes of hers are very effective. Pass me the salt, Ned."
Ned looked at her in silence, and then over her shoulder out through the square window set in the vast thickness of the wall, to the grey horizon line.
"I guess you've recommended me to marry once or twice, Lilian," he observed.
"Don't 'guess' please!" she laughed, "or I'll stick my bowie knife or gun or something into you! Yes, I've always advised you to marry—if you found the right kind of wife."
She took some credit to herself for this disinterested advice, since, if he took it, the consequences would be decidedly disconcerting to herself; but she had never pointed out any specific lady yet, or made any conspicuous effort to find one for him.
"Well——" he began, and then broke off.
"You're not thinking of Cicely, are you?" she asked, still in the same bright light way, but with a quick searching look at him.
"It seems a bit absurd. I don't imagine for an instant she'd look at me."
"Wouldn't look——!" she began derisively, and then pulled herself up very sharply, and altered her tactics on the instant. "She mightthink you a little too old for her," she said in a tone of entire agreement with him.
"And also that I've got one too few eyes, and in fact several other criticisms."
His sister shrugged her shoulders.
"A girl of that age might think those things," she admitted, "but it seems to me that the criticism ought to be on the other side. Who is she?"
Ned looked at her and she broke into a laugh.
"Well," she said, "I suppose we both have a pretty good idea. She's somebody's something—Alfred Cromarty's, I believe; though of course her mother may have fibbed, for she doesn't look much like the Cromartys. Anyhow that pretty well puts her out of the question."
"Why?"
"If you were a mere nobody, it mightn't make so much difference, but your wife must have some sort of a family behind her. One needn't be a snob to think that one mother and a guess at the father is hardly enough!"
"After all, that's up to me. I wouldn't be wanting to marry her great-mothers, even if she had any."
She shrugged her shoulders again.
"My dear Ned, I'm no prude, but there's always some devilment in the blood in these cases."
"Rot!" said he.
"Well, rot if you like, but I know more than one instance."
He said nothing for a moment and as he sat in silence, a look of keen anxiety came into her eye. She hid it instantly and compressed her lips, and then abruptly her brother said:
"I wonder whether she's at all taken up with Malcolm Cromarty!"
She ceased to meet his eye, and her own became expressionless.
"They have spent some months in the same house. At their age the consequences seem pretty inevitable."
She had contrived to suggest a little more than she said, and he started in his chair.
"What do you know?" he demanded.
"Oh, of course, there would be a dreadful row if anything was actually known abroad. Sir Reginald has probably other ideas for his heir."
"Then thereissomething between them?"
She nodded, and though she still did not meet his eye, he accepted the nod with a grim look that passed in a moment into a melancholy laugh.
"Well," he said, rising, "it was a pretty absurd idea anyhow. I'll go and have a look at myself in the glass and try to see the funny side of it!"
His sister sat very still after he had left the room.
Cicely Farmond and Malcolm Cromarty walked up the avenue together, he pushing his bicycle, she walking by his side with a more than usually serious expression.
"Then you won't tell me where you've been?" said he.
"You won't tell me where you've been!"
He was silent for a moment and then said confidentially:
"We might as well say we've been somewhere together. I mean, if any one asks."
"Thank you, I don't need to fib," said she.
"I don't mean I need to. Only——" he seemed to find it difficult to explain.
"I shall merely say I have been for a walk, and you need only say you have been for a ride—if you don't want to say where you have really been."
"And if you don't want to mention that you were driving with Ned Cromarty," he retorted.
"He only very kindly offered me a lift!"
She looked quickly at him as she spoke and as quickly away again. The glint in her eye seemed to displease him.
"You needn't always be so sharp with me, Cicely," he complained.
"You shouldn't say stupid things."
Both were silent for a space and then in a low mournful voice he said:
"I wish I knew how to win your sympathy, Cicely. You don't absolutely hate me, do you?"
"Of course I don't hate you. But the way to get a girl's sympathy is not always to keep asking for it."
He looked displeased again.
"I don't believe you know what I mean!"
"I don't believe you do either."
He grew tender.
"Yoursympathy, Cicely, would make all the difference to my life!"
"Now, Malcolm——" she began in a warning voice.
"Oh, I am not asking you to love me again," he assured her quickly. "It is only sympathy I demand!"
"But you mix them up so easily. It isn't safe to give you anything."
"I won't again!" he assured her.
"Well," she said, though not very sympathetically, "what do you want to be sympathised with about now?"
"When you offer me sympathy in that tone, I can't give you my confidence!" he said unhappily.
"Really, Malcolm, how can I possibly tell what your confidence is going to be beforehand? Perhaps it won't deserve sympathy."
"If you knew the state of my affairs!" he said darkly.
"A few days ago you told me they were very promising," she said with a little smile.
"So they would be—so they are—if—if only you would care for me, Cicely!"
"You tell me they are promising when you want me to marry you, and desperate when you want me to sympathise with you," she said a little cruelly. "Which am I to believe?"
"Hush! Here's Sir Reginald," he said.
The gentleman who came through a door in the walled garden beside the house was a fresh-coloured, white-haired man of sixty; slender and not above middle height, but very erect, and with the carriage of a person a little conscious of being of some importance. Sir Reginald Cromarty was, in fact, extremely conscious of his position in life, and the rather superior and condescending air he was wont to assume in general society made it a little difficult for a stranger to believe that he could actually be the most popular person in the county; especially as it was not hard to discover that his temper could easily become peppery upon provocation. If, however, the stranger chanced to provide the worthy baronet with even the smallest opening of exhibiting his extraordinary kindness of heart—were it only by getting wet in a shower or mislaying a walking stick, he would quickly comprehend. And the baronet's sympathy never waited to be summoned;it seemed to hover constantly over all men and women he met, spying for its chance.
He himself was totally unconscious of this attribute and imagined the respect in which he was held to be due to his lineage, rank, and superior breeding and understanding. Indeed, few people in this world can have cut a more dissimilar figure as seen from his own and from other men's eyes; though as both parties were equally pleased with Sir Reginald Cromarty, it mattered little.
At the sight of Cicely his smile revealed the warmth of his feelings in that direction.
"Ah, my dear girl," said he, "we've been looking for you. Where have you been?"
"I've been having a walk."
She smiled at him as she answered, and on his side it was easy to see that the good gentleman was enraptured, and that Miss Farmond was not likely to be severely cross-examined as to her movements. Towards Malcolm, on the other hand, though his greeting was kindly enough, his eye was critical. The young author's tie seemed to be regarded with particular displeasure.
"My God, Margaret, imagine being found dead in such a thing!" he had exclaimed to his wife, after his first sight of it; and time had done nothing to diminish his distaste for this indication of a foreign way of life.
Lady Cromarty came out of the garden a moment later; a dark thin-faced lady with a gracious manner when she spoke, but with lipsthat were usually kept very tight shut and an eye that could easily be hard.
"Nearly time for lunch," she said. "You two had better hurry up!"
The young people hurried on to the house and the baronet and his lady walked slowly behind.
"So they have been away all morning together, Reginald," she remarked.
"Oh, I don't think so," said he. "He had his bicycle and she has been walking."
"You are really too unsuspicious, Reggie!"
"A woman, my dear, is perhaps a little too much the reverse where a young couple is concerned. I have told you before, and I repeat it now emphatically, that neither Cicely nor Malcolm is in a position to contemplate matrimony for an instant."
"He is your heir—and Cicely is quite aware of it."
"I assure you, Margaret," he said with great conviction, "that Cicely is not a girl with mercenary motives. She is quite charming——"
"Oh, I know your opinion of her, Reggie," Lady Cromarty broke in a trifle impatiently, "and I am fond of her too, as you know. Still, I don't believe a girl who can use her eyes so effectively is quite as simple as you think."
Sir Reginald laughed indulgently.
"Really, my love, even the best of women are sometimes a trifle uncharitable! But in any case Malcolm has quite enough sense of his future position to realise that his wife must be somebodywithout the blemish on her birth, which is no fault of dear Cicely's, but—er—makes her ineligible for this particular position."
"I wish I could think that Malcolm is the kind of young man who would consult anything but his own wishes. I have told you often enough, Reggie, that I don't think it is wise to keep these two young people living here in the same house for months on end."
"But what can one do?" asked the benevolent baronet. "Neither of them has any home of their own. Hang it, I'm the head of their family and I'm bound to show them a little hospitality."
"But Malcolm has rooms in town. He needn't spend months on end at Keldale."
The baronet was silent for a moment. Then he said:
"To tell the truth, my dear, I'm afraid Malcolm is not turning out quite so well as I had hoped. He certainly ought to be away doing something. At the same time, hang it, you wouldn't have me turn my own kinsman and heir out of my house, Margaret; would you?"
Lady Cromarty sighed, and then her thin lips tightened.
"You are hopeless, Reggie. I sometimes feel as though I were here merely as matron of a home for lost Cromartys! Well, I hope your confidence won't be abused. I confess I don't feel very comfortable about it myself."
"Well, well," said Sir Reginald. "My own eyes are open too, I assure you. I shall watchthem very carefully at lunch, in the light of what you have been saying."
The baronet was an old Etonian, and as his life had been somewhat uneventful since, he was in the habit of drawing very largely on his recollections of that nursery of learning. Lunch had hardly begun before a question from Cicely set him going, and for the rest of the meal he regaled her with these reminiscences.
After luncheon he said to his wife:
"Upon my word, I noticed nothing whatever amiss. Cicely is a very sensible as well as a deuced pretty girl."
"I happened to look at Malcolm occasionally," said she.
Sir Reginald thought that she seemed to imply more than she said, but then women were like that, he had noticed, and if one took all their implications into account, life would be a troublesome affair.
During luncheon an exceedingly efficient person had been moving briskly behind the chairs. His face was so expressionless, his mouth so tightly closed, and his air of concentration on the business in hand so intense, that he seemed the perfect type of the silent butler. But as soon as lunch was over, and while Cicely still stood in the hall listening with a dubious eye to Malcolm's suggestion of a game of billiards, Mr. James Bisset revealed the other side of his personality. He came up to the young couple with just sufficient deference, but no more, and in an accent which experts would have recognised as the hall mark of the western part of North Britain, said:
"Excuse me, miss, but I've mended your bicycle and I'll show it you if ye like, and just explain the principle of the thing."
There was at least as much command as invitation in his tones. The billiard invitation was refused, and with a hidden smile Cicely followed him to the bicycle house.
Expert knowledge was James Bisset's foible. Of some subjects, such as buttling, carpentry, and mending bicycles, it was practical; of others,such as shooting, gardening, and motoring, it was more theoretical. To Sir Reginald and my lady he was quite indispensable, for he could repair almost anything, knew his own more particular business from A to Z, and was ready at any moment to shoulder any responsibility. Sir Reginald's keeper, gardener, and chauffeur were apt however to be a trifle less enthusiastic, Mr. Bisset's passion for expounding the principles of their professions sometimes exceeding his tact.
In person, he was an active, stoutly built man (though far too energetic to be fat), with blunt rounded features, eyes a little protruding, and sandy hair and a reddish complexion which made his age an unguessable secret. He might have been in the thirties or he might have been in the fifties.
"With regard to these ladies' bicycles, miss—" he began with a lecturer's air.
But by this time Cicely was also an expert in side-tracking her friend's theoretical essays.
"Oh, how clever of you!" she exclaimed rapturously. "It looks as good as ever!"
The interruption was too gratifying to offend.
"Better in some ways," he said complacently. "The principle of these things is——"
"I did miss it this morning," she hurried on. "In fact I had to have quite a long walk. Luckily Mr. Cromarty of Stanesland gave me a lift coming home."
"Oh, indeed, miss? Stanesland gave ye a lift, did he? An interesting gentleman yon."
This time she made no effort to divert Mr. Bisset's train of thought.
"You think Mr. Cromarty interesting, then?" said she.
"They say he's hanged a man with his ain hands," said Bisset impressively.
"What!" she cried.
"For good and sufficient reason, we'll hope, miss. But whatever the way of it, it makes a gentleman more interesting in a kin' of way than the usual run. And then looking at the thing on general principles, the theory of hanging is——"
"Oh, but surely," she interrupted, "that isn't the only reason why Mr. Cromarty—I mean why you think he is interesting?"
"There's that glass eye, too. That's very interesting, miss."
She still seemed unsatisfied.
"His glass eye! Oh—you mean it has a story?"
"Vera possibly. He says himself it was done wi' a whisky bottle, but possibly that's making the best of it. But what interests me, miss, about yon eye is this——"
He paused dramatically and she enquired in an encouraging voice:
"Yes, Bisset?"
"It's the principle of introducing a foreign substance so near the man's brain. What's glass? What's it consist of?"
"I—I don't know," confessed Cicely weakly.
"Silica! And what's silica? Practically the same as sand! Well now if ye put a handful of sand into a man's brain—or anyhow next door to it, it's bound to have some effect, bound to have some effect!"
Bisset's voice fell to a very serious note, and as he was famous for the range of his reading and was generally said to know practically by heart "The People's Self-Educator in Science and Art," Cicely asked a little apprehensively:
"But what effect can it possibly have?"
"It might take him different ways," said the philosopher cautiously though sombrely. "But it's a good thing, anyway, Miss Farmond, that the laird of Stanesland is no likely to get married."
"Isn't he?" she asked, again with that encouraging note.
Bisset replied with another question, asked in an ominous voice:
"Have ye seen yon castle o' his, miss?"
Cicely nodded.
"I called there once with Lady Cromarty."
"A most interesting place, miss, illustrating the principle of thae castles very instructively."
Mr. Bisset had evidently been studying architecture as well as science, and no doubt would have given Miss Farmond some valuable information on the subject. But she seemed to lack enthusiasm for it to-day.
"But will the castle prevent him marrying?" she enquired with a smile.
"The lady in it will," said the philosopher with a sudden descent into worldly shrewdness.
"Miss Cromarty! Why?"
"She's mair comfortable there than setting off on her travels again. That's a fac', miss."
"But—but supposing he——" Cicely began and then paused.
"Oh, the laird's no the marrying sort anyhow. He says to me himself one day when I'd taken the liberty of suggesting that a lady would suit the castle fine—we was shooting and I was carrying his cartridges, which I do for amusement, miss, whiles—'Bisset,' says he, 'the lady will have to be a damned keen shot to think me worth a cartridge. I'm too tough for the table,' says he, 'and not ornamental enough to stuff. They've let me off so far, and why the he—' begging your pardon, miss, but Stanesland uses strong expressions sometimes. 'Why the something,' says he, 'should they want to put me in the bag now? I'm happier free—and so's the lady.' But he's a grand shot and a vera friendly gentleman, vera friendly indeed. It's a pity, though, he's that ugly."
"Ugly!" she exclaimed. "Oh, I don't think him ugly at all. He's very striking looking. I think he is rather handsome."
Bisset looked at her with a benevolently reproving eye.
"Weel, miss, it's all a matter of taste, but to my mind Stanesland is a fine gentleman, but the vera opposite extreme from a Venus." He brokeoff and glanced towards the house. "Oh, help us! There's one of thae helpless women crying on me. How this house would get on wanting me——!"
He left Miss Farmond to paint the gloomy picture for herself.
It was a few days later that Cicely looked up from the local paper she was reading and asked:
"Who was George Rattar?"
Sir Reginald laid down his book and looked at her in some surprise.
"George Rattar? What do you know about him?"
"I see the announcement of his death. 'Son of the late John Simon Rattar' he's called."
"That's Silent Simon's brother!" exclaimed Sir Reginald. "Where did he die?"
"In New York, it says."
Sir Reginald turned to his wife.
"We can hardly send our sympathies to Simon on this bereavement!"
"No," she said significantly. "I suppose congratulations would be more appropriate."
The baronet took the paper from Cicely and studied it himself.
"Died about a fortnight ago, I see," he observed. "I wonder whether Simon put this announcement in himself, or whether brother George arranged it in his will? It would be quite like the fellow to have this posthumous wipe at Simon. George had a certain sense ofhumour—which Simon lacks. And there was certainly no love lost between them!"
"Why should it annoy Mr. Rattar?" asked Cicely.
"Because brother George was not a member of his family he would care to be reminded of. Though on the other hand, Simon is as hard as whinstone and has as much sentiment as this teapot, and he may have put the notice in himself simply to show the world he was rid of the fellow."
"What was George Rattar then?" enquired Cicely.
"He was once Simon Rattar's partner, wasn't he, Reginald?" said Lady Cromarty. "And then he swindled him, didn't he?"
"Swindled several other people as well," said Sir Reginald, "myself included. However, the thing was hushed up, and brother George disappeared. Then he took to forgery on his own account and among other people's signatures he imitated with remarkable success was Simon's. This let old Simon in for it again and there was no hushing it up a second time. Simon gave evidence against him without mercy, and since then George has been his Majesty's guest for a number of years. So if you meet Mr. Simon Rattar, Cicely, you'd better not tell him how sorry you are to hear of poor George's decease!"
"I wish I could remember him more distinctly," said Lady Cromarty. "I'm afraid I always mix him up with our friend Mr. Simon."
"It's little wonder," her husband replied. "They were twins. George was the one with a moustache; one knew them apart by that. Extraordinary thing, it has always seemed to me, that their natures should have been so different."
"Perhaps," suggested Cicely compassionately, with her serious air, "it was only that George was tempted."
Sir Reginald laughed heartily.
"You little cynic!" he cried. "You mean to insinuate that if you tempted Simon, he'd be as bad a hat as his brother?"
"Oh, no!" cried Cicely. "I meant——"
"Tempt him and see!" chuckled the baronet. "And we'll have a little bet on the result!" He was glancing at the paper as he laughed, and now he suddenly stopped laughing and exclaimed, "Hullo! Here's a much more serious loss for our friend. Would you like to earn £1, Cicely?"
"Very much," said she.
"Well then if you search the road very carefully between Mr. Simon Rattar's residence and his office you may find his signet ring and obtain the advertised, and I may say princely, reward of one pound."
"Only a pound!" exclaimed Lady Cromarty, "for that handsome old ring of his?"
"If he had offered a penny more, I should have taken my business out of his hands!" laughed Sir Reginald. "It would have meant that Silent Simon wasn't himself any longer. Apound is exactly his figure; a respectable sum, but not extravagant."
"What day did he lose it?" asked Cicely.
"The advertisement doesn't say."
"He wasn't wearing it——" Cicely pulled herself up sharply.
"When?" asked Lady Cromarty.
"Where can I have seen him last?" wondered Cicely with an innocent air.
"Not for two or three weeks certainly," said Lady Cromarty decisively. "And he can't have lost it then if this advertisement is only just put in."
"No, of course not," Cicely agreed.
"Well," said Sir Reginald, "he'll miss his ring more than his brother! And remember, Cicely, you get a pound for finding the ring, and you win a pair of gloves if you can tempt Simon to stray from the paths of honesty and virtue! By Jingo, I'll give you the gloves if you can even make him tell a good sporting lie!"
When the good baronet was in this humour no man could excel him in geniality, and, to do him justice, a kindly temper and hearty spirits were the rule with him six days out of seven. On the other hand, he was easily ruffled and his tempers were hot while they lasted. Upon the very next morning there arose on the horizon a little cloud, a cloud that seemed at the moment the merest fleck of vapour, which upset him, his family thought, quite unduly.
It took the form of a business letter from Mr.Simon Rattar, a letter on the surface perfectly innocuous and formally polite. Yet Sir Reginald seemed considerably disturbed.
"Damn the man!" he exclaimed as he cast it on the breakfast table.
"Reggie!" expostulated his wife gently. "What's the matter?"
"Matter?" snapped her husband. "Simon Rattar has the impudence to tell me he is letting the farm of Castleknowe to that fellow Shearer after all!"
"But why not? You meant to some time ago, I know."
"Some time ago, certainly. But I had a long talk with Simon ten days ago and told him what I'd heard about Shearer and said I wouldn't have the fellow on my property at any price. I don't believe the man is solvent, in the first place; and in the second place he's a socialistic, quarrelsome, mischievous fellow!"
"And what did Mr. Rattar think?"
"He tried to make some allowances for the man, but in the end when he saw I had made up my mind, he professed to agree with me and said he would look out for another tenant. Now he tells me that the matter is settled as per my instructions of the 8th. That's weeks ago, and not a word does he say about our conversation cancelling the whole instructions!"
"Then Shearer gets the farm?"
"No, he doesn't! I'm dashed if he does! I shall send Mr. Simon a letter that will make himsit up! He's got to alter the arrangement somehow."
He turned to Malcolm and added:
"When your time comes, Malcolm, beware of having a factor who has run the place so long that he thinks it's his own property! By Gad, I'm going to tell him a bit of my mind!"
During the rest of breakfast he glanced at the letter once or twice, and each time his brows contracted, but he said nothing more in presence of Cicely and Malcolm. After he had left the dining room, however, Lady Cromarty followed him and said:
"Don't be too hasty with Mr. Rattar, Reggie! After all, the talk may have slipped his memory."
"Slipped his memory? If you had heard it, Margaret, you'd know better. I was a bit cross with him for a minute or two then, which I hardly ever am, and that alone would make him remember it, one would think. We talked for over an hour on the business and the upshot was clear and final. No, no, he has got a bit above himself and wants a touch of the curb."
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
"I'm going to send in a note by car and tell him to come out and see me about the business at once."
"Let me see the letter before you send it, Reggie."
He seemed to growl assent, but when she next saw him the letter had gone; and from the baronet's somewhat crusty explanation, she suspectedthat it was a little sharper than he knew she would have approved.
When the car returned his annoyance was increased again for a space. Mr. Rattar had sent a brief reply that he was too busy to come out that afternoon, but he would call on Sir Reginald in the morning. For a time this answer kept Sir Reginald in a state of renewed irritation, and then his natural good humour began to prevail, till by dinner time he was quite calm again, and after dinner in as genial humour as he had been in the day before.
He played a game of pyramids with Cicely and Malcolm in the billiard room, and then he and Cicely joined Lady Cromarty in the drawing room while the young author went up to his room to work, he declared. He had a large bedroom furnished half as a sitting room where he retired each night to compose his masterpieces as soon as it became impossible to enjoy Miss Farmond's company without having to share it in the drawing room with his host and hostess. At least, that was the explanation of his procedure given by Lady Cromarty, whose eye was never more critical than when it studied her husband's kinsman and heir.
Lady Cromarty's eye was not uncritical also of Cicely at times, but to-night she was so relieved to see how Sir Reginald's temper improved under her smiles and half shy glances, that she let her stay up later than usual. Then when she and thegirl went up to bed, she asked her husband if he would be late.
"The magazines came this morning," said he. "I'd better sleep in my dressing room."
The baronet was apt to sit up late when he had anything to read that held his fancy, and the procedure of sleeping in his dressing room was commonly followed then.
He bade them good-night and went off towards the library, and a few minutes later, as they were going upstairs, they heard the library door shut.
When they came to Lady Cromarty's room, Cicely said good-night to her hostess and turned down the passage that led to her own bedroom. A door opened quietly as she passed and a voice whispered:
"Cicely!"
She stopped and regarded the young author with a reproving eye.
"Is anything the matter?" she asked.
"I just wanted to speak to you!" he pleaded.
"Now, Malcolm," she said severely, "you know quite well that Lady Cromarty trusts usnotto do this sort of thing!"
"She's in her room, isn't she?"
"What does that matter?"
"And where's Sir Reginald?"
"Still in the library."
"Sitting up late?"
"Yes, but that doesn't matter either. Good night!"
"Wait just one minute, Cicely! Come into my room—I won't shut the door!"
"Certainly not!" she said emphatically.
"Well then, don't speak so loudly! I must confide in you, Cicely; I'm getting desperate. My position is really serious. Something's got to happen! If you would only give me your sympathy——"
"I thought you were writing," she interrupted.
"I've been trying to, but——"
"Well, write all this down and read it to me to-morrow," she smiled. "Good night!"
"The blame be on your head!" began the author dramatically, but the slim figure was already moving away, throwing him a parting smile that seemed to wound his sensitive soul afresh.
Even in that scattered countryside of long distances by windy roads, with scarcely ever a village as a focus for gossip, news flew fast. The next morning Ned Cromarty had set out with his gun towards a certain snipe marsh, but while he was still on the high road he met a man on a bicycle. The man had heard strange news and stopped to pass it on, and the next moment Ned was hurrying as fast as his long legs could take him back to the castle.
He saw his sister only for a moment.
"Lilian!" he cried, and the sound of his voice made her start and stare at him. "There's a story that Sir Reginald was murdered last night."
"Murdered!" she repeated in a low incredulous voice. "Ridiculous, Ned! Who told you?"
"I only know the man by sight, but he seemed to believe it right enough."
"But how—who did it?"
Her brother shook his head.
"Don't know. He couldn't tell me. My God, I hope it's not true! I'm off to see."
A few minutes later he was driving his mare headlong for his kinsman's house. It had begunto rain by this time, and the mournful wreaths of vapour that swept over the bare, late autumnal country and drove in fine drops against his face sent his spirits down ever lower as the mare splashed her way along the empty miles of road. The melancholy thrumming of the telegraph wires droned by his side all the while, and as this dirge waxed for the moment as they passed each post, his eye would glance grimly at those gaunt poles. Very suitable and handy for a certain purpose, they struck him—if by any possibility this tale were true.
He knew the worst when he saw Bisset at the door.
"Thank God, you've come, sir," said the butler devoutly. "The master would have expected it of you."
"How did it happen? What does it mean? Do you mean to say it's actuallytrue?"
Bisset shook his head sombrely.
"Ower true," said he. "But as to how it happened, come in to the library, sir. It was in his ain library he was killed! The Fiscal and Superintendent is there now and we've been going into the circumstantial evidence. Most extraordinary mystery, sir—most extraordinary!"
In the library they found Simon Rattar and Superintendent Sutherland. The Superintendent was a big burly red-moustached man; his face a certificate of honesty, but hardly of the intellectual type. Ned looked round him apprehensively for something else, but Bisset said:
"We've taken him upstairs, sir."
For a moment as he looked round that spacious comfortable room with its long bookcases and easy chairs, and on the tables and mantel-piece a hundred little mementoes of its late owner, the laird of Stanesland was unable to speak a word, and the others respected his silence. Then he pulled himself together sharply and asked:
"How did it happen? Tell me all about it!"
Perhaps there might have been for a moment in Simon's eye a hint that this demand was irregular, but the superintendent evidently took no exception to the intrusion. Besides being a considerable local magnate and a kinsman of the dead baronet, Stanesland had a forcible personality that stood no gainsaying.
"Well, sir," said the superintendent, "Mr. Rattar could perhaps explain best——"
"Explain yourself, Sutherland," said Simon briefly.
The superintendent pointed to a spot on the carpet a few paces from the door.
"We found Sir Reginald lying there," he said. "His skull had been fairly cracked, just over the right eye, sir. The blow would have been enough to kill him I'd think myself, but there were marks in his neck too, seeming to show that the murderer had strangled him afterwards to make sure. However, we'll be having the medical evidence soon. But there's no doubt that was the way of it, and Mr. Rattar agrees with me."
The lawyer merely nodded.
"What was it done with?"
The superintendent pursed his lips and shook his head.
"That's one of the mysterious things in the case, sir. There's no sign of any weapon in the room. The fire irons are far too light. But it was an unco' heavy blow. There was little bleeding, but the skull was fair cracked."
"Was anything stolen?"
"That's another mystery, sir. Nothing was stolen anywhere in the house and there was no papers in a mess like, or anything."
"When was he found?" asked Ned.
"Seven-fifty this morning, sir," said Bisset. "The housemaid finding the door lockit came to me. I knew the dining-room key fitted this door too, so I opened it—and there he lay."
"All night, without any one knowing he hadn't gone to bed?"
"That's the unfortunate thing, sir," said the superintendent. "It seems that Sir Reginald had arranged to sleep in his dressing room as he was going to be sitting up late reading."
"Murderer must have known that," put in Simon.
"Almost looks like it," agreed the superintendent.
"And nobody in the house heard or saw anything?"
"Nobody, sir," said the superintendent.
"That's their statement," added the lawyer in his driest voice.
"Was anybody sitting up late?"
"Nobody admits it," said the lawyer, again very drily.
"Thirteen," said Bisset softly.
They turned towards him, but it seemed that he was talking to himself. He was, in fact, quietly taking measurements with a tape.
"Go on," said Cromarty briefly.
"Well, sir," said the superintendent. "The body was found near the door as I was pointing out, but it's a funny thing that a small table had been upset apparently, and Bisset tells us that that table stood near the window."
"Humph," grunted Simon sceptically.
"I'm quite sure of it, Mr. Rattar," said Bisset confidently, looking round from his work of measurement.
"No positive proof it was upset," said the lawyer.
"Did you find it upset?" asked Ned.
The lawyer shook his head emphatically and significantly, and the superintendent agreed.
"No, it was standing just where it is now near the wall."
"Then why do you think it was upset?"
"I picked up yon bits of sealing wax and yon piece of India rubber," said Bisset, looking round again. "I know they were on the wee table yesterday and I found them under the curtain in the morning and the table moved over to the wall. It follows that the table has been cowpit and then set up again in another place, and theother things on it put back. Is that not a fair deduction, sir?"
Ned nodded thoughtfully.
"Seems to me so," he said.
"It seems likely enough," the superintendent also agreed. "And if that's the case there would seem to have been some kind of ongoings near the window."
The Procurator Fiscal still seemed unconvinced.
"Nothing to go on. No proper evidence. It leads nowhere definitely," he said.
"Well now," continued the superintendent, "the question is—how did the murderer get into the room? The door was found locked and the key had been taken away, so whether he had locked it from the inside or the outside we can't tell. There's small chance of finding the key, I doubt, for a key's a thing easy hidden away."
"So he might have come in by the door and then left by the door and locked it after him," said Ned. "Or he might have come in by the window, locked the door and gone out by the window. Or he might have come in by the window and gone out by the door, locking it after him. Those are all the chances, aren't they?"
"Indeed, that seems to be them all," said the superintendent with a note of admiration for this clear exposition that seemed to indicate he was better himself at details than deductions.
"And now what about the window? Was that open or shut or what?"
"Shut but not snibbed, sir."
Ned turned to Bisset.
"Did Sir Reginald ever forget to snib the windows, supposing one happened to be open?"
"Practically never, sir."
"Last thing before he left the room, I suppose?" said the lawyer.
The butler hesitated.
"I suppose so, sir," he admitted, "but of course I was never here to see."
"Exactly!" said Simon. "Therefore one can draw no conclusions as to whether the window had been standing all the time just as it is now, or whether it had been opened and shut again from the outside; seeing that Sir Reginald was presumably killed before his usual time for looking to the windows."
"Wait a bit!" said Ned. "I was assuming a window had been open. But were the windows fastened before Sir Reginald came in to sit here last thing?"
"Certainly they were that," said the butler emphatically.
"It was a mild night, he might have opened one himself," replied the Procurator Fiscal. "Or supposing the man had come in and left again by the door, what's more likely than that he unsnibbed the window to make people think he had come that way?"