Chapter Five.The Enquiry.About lunch-time a smart dogcart came bowling along the snow covered road, and from it descended the doctor and the police inspector, likewise a constable: old Joe, with his slower conveyance, had been left to follow on. Dr Sandys was a good representative of the prosperous G.P. in practice in a prosperous market town; genial, hearty, and prepared to be surprised at nothing which came in his way professionally. The inspector likewise was a good type of his kind; tall, alert, rather soldierly in countenance and bearing.“Well, Mr Mervyn, this is a strange sort of happening, isn’t it?” began the former. “However, the first thing to do is to get to work.”“Will you look at the—er—the body first, or the locality?” said Mervyn.“The locality?”“Yes. I mean where I first picked him up. I suppose Joe told you all about it, didn’t he?”“Yes, he told us all about it—after a fashion,” said the inspector with a slight smile. “But I needn’t remind you Mr Mervyn, what sort of a ‘telling all about it,’ one would be likely to get from a man of old Joe’s stamp. So the first thing to do is for you to give us your account of what happened,” and the speaker’s hand instinctively dived for his notebook.“I rather think I had better inspect the ‘subject’ the first thing, Nashby,” struck in the doctor.“Of course. This way.”Mervyn showed them into the room and raised the blinds, which he had lowered again after the first discovery. The constable was left in charge of the dogcart. The doctor bent over the dead man and proceeded to make his first examination. The bystanders could not but notice that he looked more than a little puzzled.“We shall have to strip him,” he said, looking up. This was done, the police inspector giving his aid. Mervyn stood and looked on.The body was that of a well-knit, well-proportioned man, probably on the right side of forty.“No sign of injury, none whatever,” pronounced the doctor, “and his heart is as sound as a bell. Here is something, but it seems of no importance. At one time or other, he was addicted to the drug habit,” pointing to the left arm, which he had raised. “But—not lately.”“Not lately?” echoed the inspector, whose notebook was in full swing. “Now to be precise, doctor, up to how lately should you say?”“It’s impossible to be precise,” was the answer, “if by that you mean exactly how many years ago he discontinued the habit—and from all appearances he needn’t have been very greatly addicted to it even then. Certainly not less than five or six years ago, possibly longer; indeed, I should say longer.”The inspector nodded, and for a minute or two his stylo was very busy indeed. The puzzled frown on the surgeon’s face grew deeper and deeper, and well it might. Here was a strong, well-built, healthy man in the prime of life, dying in his sleep, and no sign whatever to guide Science towards the discovery of the cause.“We shall have to make an exhaustive postmortem,” said the doctor at last, covering the dead man again, “and to this end I must take steps for having the body removed to Clancehurst, for I propose to call in first-rate expert assistance.”“Very good, sir,” assented the inspector briskly, relieved that he was now going to get his own innings, and also all his professional keenness to the fore over the prospect of being put in charge of a very out-of-the-way case. “And now, with Mr Mervyn’s permission, I will take his statement as to the whole of last night’s occurrence.”“You shall have it to the full,” was the answer. “But first of all had you not better go through the poor chap’s clothes—they are hanging up in the kitchen where I put them to dry, those he has on now are mine, which I rigged him out with as a change. Needless to say I haven’t touched a thing of his, pending your arrival. You may find some clue to identification there.”“We’ll do so at once,” said the police officer, and they adjourned forthwith to the kitchen.The clothes were hanging where they had been placed the night before, and were now quite dry. But mystery seemed likely to be piled on mystery. Except some sovereigns and silver change amounting to something over five pounds in all, the pockets were absolutely empty. Not a scrap of paper, no card-case or pocket-book, not even a purse. Besides the money, an old Waterbury watch, attached to a leather guard, made up the entire contents.Furthermore the clothes themselves afforded no clue. The buttons were plain horn ones, and bore the name of no tailor, nor was there any shop mark upon any article of hosiery; and now the police inspector warmed to his work, for he could see that all such indications had been carefully and deliberately removed. But by whom, and with what object? That was his business to find out.“Now Mr Mervyn, if you please. I should like your statement.”“Certainly. Let’s go back into the other room and I’ll get you some foolscap to take it down on. It’ll ease your notebook—eh, inspector?”Mervyn told his story, plainly and concisely, as we know it—not omitting any detail. Any detail? Yes. He omitted just one—the finding of the metal disk. But at that part of the narrative which related to the apparition—or hallucination—of the opening door, both his auditors looked up keenly. For they were acquainted with the weird legends which popular belief hung around Heath Hover.“As sure as I sit here,” went on the narrator, “that manifestation—delusion, if you like—was the means of saving the man’s life, for if I hadn’t seen it I should have finished dropping off to sleep in my chair, and had I done so, why he might have shouted till doomsday without my hearing him. However, it didn’t seem much good, as things turned out.”The inspector laid down his stylo.“Now, Mr Mervyn, if you will be so good. We will examine that door, and what lies beyond it.”“Certainly,” and Mervyn, unlocking a drawer in his writing table produced a long, brown, heavy key.“See,” he went on, “it was under this pile of papers. I always keep it there. Yet that door opened of itself, just as I have described. I’d swear to that as positively as I could swear to anything in my life.”“You have strong nerves, Mr Mervyn,” said the inspector, a thought drily, perhaps, as he took the key which the other tendered to him.The lock, though a trifle stiff, turned without difficulty. A black gap yawned in front, and a close yet chilly, fungus-laden air greeted their faces.“Hold hard now till I get some candles,” went on Mervyn. In a moment these were obtained and lighted, each carrying one. “I’d better lead,” he appended, perhaps anticipating the thought that flitted through the mind of the police officer. It would be so easy otherwise to spring back, and locking the pair securely in that vault, thus obtain for himself a start of several hours. Such things had happened.A good bit of a shiver ran through the trio as they descended into the dank mustiness of the vault. The walls glistened with moisture, so did the stone floor. But there was no break in the solid masonry, save for one hole, barely four inches across, which admitted air from the outside but no light. The inspector made a minute and exhaustive examination of both walls and flooring, but there was no sign of either having been disturbed, perhaps for centuries.“My belief is that this place was nothing more than a common or homely wine cellar,” said Mervyn, as having found nothing whatever to reward their investigation they took their way up the stone steps again. “The fact of the existence of a disused empty vault like this under a house is enough to give rise to all sorts of weird beliefs centring round it. But yet—that door business of last night—well, if that was an optical delusion I’ll never believe in my own eyesight again. And now,” as they regained the outer day, “before we start to look at the hole in the ice, how about a little something stimulating after your drive. Eh?”The doctor was agreeable, in fact quite willing, but the cautious police officer declined. Mervyn, seeing through this thought too, got out a new bottle with the seal intact, and drew the cork. Likewise he placed an unbroken syphon on the table, perhaps rather ostentatiously. While thus engaged, the pony-cart rumbled up, bringing the returning Joe.He, too, now the inspector desired to question. Possibly because disregarding his master’s parting injunction, the old rustic had been imbibing some Dutch courage in the shape of a couple of “goes” of square Hollands on the way back at theDog and Partridge, the same number of miles distant upon the road, he was able to answer these questions in a straight and fairly lucid manner, though he would more than once revert—as his mind misgave him—to his stock declaration! “I didn’t see no strange gemmun ’ere last night. You’ll mind I said so, Mus’ Mervyn. I didn’t see he.”“Nobody said you did, Joe,” reassured the inspector. “You only saw him this morning, after he was dead.”“That’s Gawd’s truth, I reckon, Mr Nashby, zur,” was the fervent rejoinder.“One thing more, if you’ll excuse me, Mr Mervyn,” said Nashby. “I’ll just examine this room a little.”He looked on the floor, under the couch, in cupboards, and drawers; not omitting the old vases of quaint ware that stood on the mantelpiece. The owner, watching with outward indifference, had his own thoughts. So had the inspector. Whoever had been the cause of this unknown stranger’s death, it had been no one entering the house from outside, determined the latter.Then they adjourned to view the scene of the rescue. Along the path through the wood Mervyn pointed out the footprints—half obliterated by subsequent snow—left by himself and the rescued stranger, likewise those quite fresh, made by himself and old Joe that morning on their respective and independent progresses to the spot. Of these Nashby took careful measurements.“There you are,” went on Mervyn, as they arrived at the place. “You’ll see the hole is newly frozen over, but the ladder’s just where I left it. The water’s over twenty feet deep there, but what the deuce started the poor chap on the ice at all is what bangs me. Seems to me we’re up against a very tall thing in mysteries.”“I shouldn’t wonder if we were, Mr Mervyn,” rejoined the inspector, again rather drily.“Couldn’t we trace his footmarks back?” suggested the doctor. “It would show the direction he had come from, and then we could make enquiries. Eh, Nashby?”“The very thing I was going to do,” answered the latter.But the plan, though good, was difficult of execution. The footmarks were almost obliterated by the more recent snowfall, in places quite so. And they led from nowhere direct. They zigzagged and twisted, as though their perpetrator were wandering at random and round and round, then lost themselves altogether in a sort of small ravine. But the very incoherency of their course suggested a reason for the stranger plunging into the peril he had done. Clearly he had got lost in the thick woods and had welcomed this long, broad stretch of open, and apparently strong ice, as a way out.“Now I would suggest an adjournment for lunch,” said Mervyn. “We can take up the trail afterwards where we left it.”“That’s not half a bad idea,” assented the doctor heartily. “Thanks very much, Mr Mervyn. I’d been about a bit before I started for here, and after a drive through this invigorating air, it seems a long while ago since breakfast time.”Inspector Nashby raised no objection. A stalwart police officer, even though on an interesting case, and prospectively a case for advancement, is not proof against the pangs of deferred appetite on a crisp, keen, frosty day. But even while discussing good cheer in an impromptu way in Mervyn’s kitchen—for they left the living-room in silent possession of the dead—Nashby kept his eyes about him and his perceptions at full cock. For Nashby had his theories already forming. The doctor as yet had formed none.While thus engaged, they missed the fact that the sun-bright day had overclouded. They were awakened to it, however, by the discovery that it had begun to snow again. More than begun indeed, for the snow was coming down, not merely in flakes, but almost in slabs. A little more of it and they would hardly be able to get back to Clancehurst. The Inspector jumped to his feet.“Heavens!” he ejaculated, going to the window. “Why, this’ll cover up all and any footprints there may be to find beyond where we left off.”“Shouldn’t wonder if it did. Well, it can’t be helped,” said Mervyn coolly. He had by now quite got behind the policeman’s suspicions, and was taking rather a half-hearted delight in teasing that worthy. “Have another whisky and soda, inspector?”“Thanks, no. I’ll go and take up the track where we left it.”“If you’ll take my advice you won’t,” said Mervyn. “In fact you’ll get back to Clancehurst as soon as possible, and come back here when all’s clear again. Why, you’ve seen how even a moderate snowdrift can pile up. If you get caught in the middle of this deluge of it, right out in the thick of the woods, why I shouldn’t wonder if you’re as stiff as our poor friend there, before many hours are gone. What do you say, doctor?”“What do I say? Why that I can’t afford to get snowed up right away in the country for days. What price my practice? So if it’s all the same to you, Mr Mervyn, I’ll ask you to have my cart hitched up and start before it gets worse.”Nashby had not waited to hear this decision. He had gone outside to see if it really was impracticable to pursue the search. But even before he had reached the top of the path which led to the sluice, the rush of the blinding cold flakes into his eyes drove him back.“No, it’d be quite useless,” he said, by no means pleased. “Couldn’t do anything in the teeth of this. But it won’t be dead against us going back, rather behind us, that’s one thing.”So they started, the inspector very dissatisfied and very suspicious. He questioned the doctor all the way along the road, under difficulties certainly, because of the blinding sheets of snow which drove in upon them, rendering breathing—let alone conversation—difficult—as to Mervyn, his circumstances and his antecedents—above all, his antecedents. But on this point the doctor was able to give no information—only that he knew no more on the subject than did his questioner.And Mervyn was left alone with the dead, in solitary, haunted Heath Hover—yet not quite alone, for the police constable was left too; and perhaps he was not sorry for the man’s companionship. For the snow whirled down in masses for the best part of the night, blocking the road in huge drifts, and the wind howled dirgefully round the gables of the house, where lay the living and the man who had come there to meet his strange, mysterious death.
About lunch-time a smart dogcart came bowling along the snow covered road, and from it descended the doctor and the police inspector, likewise a constable: old Joe, with his slower conveyance, had been left to follow on. Dr Sandys was a good representative of the prosperous G.P. in practice in a prosperous market town; genial, hearty, and prepared to be surprised at nothing which came in his way professionally. The inspector likewise was a good type of his kind; tall, alert, rather soldierly in countenance and bearing.
“Well, Mr Mervyn, this is a strange sort of happening, isn’t it?” began the former. “However, the first thing to do is to get to work.”
“Will you look at the—er—the body first, or the locality?” said Mervyn.
“The locality?”
“Yes. I mean where I first picked him up. I suppose Joe told you all about it, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he told us all about it—after a fashion,” said the inspector with a slight smile. “But I needn’t remind you Mr Mervyn, what sort of a ‘telling all about it,’ one would be likely to get from a man of old Joe’s stamp. So the first thing to do is for you to give us your account of what happened,” and the speaker’s hand instinctively dived for his notebook.
“I rather think I had better inspect the ‘subject’ the first thing, Nashby,” struck in the doctor.
“Of course. This way.”
Mervyn showed them into the room and raised the blinds, which he had lowered again after the first discovery. The constable was left in charge of the dogcart. The doctor bent over the dead man and proceeded to make his first examination. The bystanders could not but notice that he looked more than a little puzzled.
“We shall have to strip him,” he said, looking up. This was done, the police inspector giving his aid. Mervyn stood and looked on.
The body was that of a well-knit, well-proportioned man, probably on the right side of forty.
“No sign of injury, none whatever,” pronounced the doctor, “and his heart is as sound as a bell. Here is something, but it seems of no importance. At one time or other, he was addicted to the drug habit,” pointing to the left arm, which he had raised. “But—not lately.”
“Not lately?” echoed the inspector, whose notebook was in full swing. “Now to be precise, doctor, up to how lately should you say?”
“It’s impossible to be precise,” was the answer, “if by that you mean exactly how many years ago he discontinued the habit—and from all appearances he needn’t have been very greatly addicted to it even then. Certainly not less than five or six years ago, possibly longer; indeed, I should say longer.”
The inspector nodded, and for a minute or two his stylo was very busy indeed. The puzzled frown on the surgeon’s face grew deeper and deeper, and well it might. Here was a strong, well-built, healthy man in the prime of life, dying in his sleep, and no sign whatever to guide Science towards the discovery of the cause.
“We shall have to make an exhaustive postmortem,” said the doctor at last, covering the dead man again, “and to this end I must take steps for having the body removed to Clancehurst, for I propose to call in first-rate expert assistance.”
“Very good, sir,” assented the inspector briskly, relieved that he was now going to get his own innings, and also all his professional keenness to the fore over the prospect of being put in charge of a very out-of-the-way case. “And now, with Mr Mervyn’s permission, I will take his statement as to the whole of last night’s occurrence.”
“You shall have it to the full,” was the answer. “But first of all had you not better go through the poor chap’s clothes—they are hanging up in the kitchen where I put them to dry, those he has on now are mine, which I rigged him out with as a change. Needless to say I haven’t touched a thing of his, pending your arrival. You may find some clue to identification there.”
“We’ll do so at once,” said the police officer, and they adjourned forthwith to the kitchen.
The clothes were hanging where they had been placed the night before, and were now quite dry. But mystery seemed likely to be piled on mystery. Except some sovereigns and silver change amounting to something over five pounds in all, the pockets were absolutely empty. Not a scrap of paper, no card-case or pocket-book, not even a purse. Besides the money, an old Waterbury watch, attached to a leather guard, made up the entire contents.
Furthermore the clothes themselves afforded no clue. The buttons were plain horn ones, and bore the name of no tailor, nor was there any shop mark upon any article of hosiery; and now the police inspector warmed to his work, for he could see that all such indications had been carefully and deliberately removed. But by whom, and with what object? That was his business to find out.
“Now Mr Mervyn, if you please. I should like your statement.”
“Certainly. Let’s go back into the other room and I’ll get you some foolscap to take it down on. It’ll ease your notebook—eh, inspector?”
Mervyn told his story, plainly and concisely, as we know it—not omitting any detail. Any detail? Yes. He omitted just one—the finding of the metal disk. But at that part of the narrative which related to the apparition—or hallucination—of the opening door, both his auditors looked up keenly. For they were acquainted with the weird legends which popular belief hung around Heath Hover.
“As sure as I sit here,” went on the narrator, “that manifestation—delusion, if you like—was the means of saving the man’s life, for if I hadn’t seen it I should have finished dropping off to sleep in my chair, and had I done so, why he might have shouted till doomsday without my hearing him. However, it didn’t seem much good, as things turned out.”
The inspector laid down his stylo.
“Now, Mr Mervyn, if you will be so good. We will examine that door, and what lies beyond it.”
“Certainly,” and Mervyn, unlocking a drawer in his writing table produced a long, brown, heavy key.
“See,” he went on, “it was under this pile of papers. I always keep it there. Yet that door opened of itself, just as I have described. I’d swear to that as positively as I could swear to anything in my life.”
“You have strong nerves, Mr Mervyn,” said the inspector, a thought drily, perhaps, as he took the key which the other tendered to him.
The lock, though a trifle stiff, turned without difficulty. A black gap yawned in front, and a close yet chilly, fungus-laden air greeted their faces.
“Hold hard now till I get some candles,” went on Mervyn. In a moment these were obtained and lighted, each carrying one. “I’d better lead,” he appended, perhaps anticipating the thought that flitted through the mind of the police officer. It would be so easy otherwise to spring back, and locking the pair securely in that vault, thus obtain for himself a start of several hours. Such things had happened.
A good bit of a shiver ran through the trio as they descended into the dank mustiness of the vault. The walls glistened with moisture, so did the stone floor. But there was no break in the solid masonry, save for one hole, barely four inches across, which admitted air from the outside but no light. The inspector made a minute and exhaustive examination of both walls and flooring, but there was no sign of either having been disturbed, perhaps for centuries.
“My belief is that this place was nothing more than a common or homely wine cellar,” said Mervyn, as having found nothing whatever to reward their investigation they took their way up the stone steps again. “The fact of the existence of a disused empty vault like this under a house is enough to give rise to all sorts of weird beliefs centring round it. But yet—that door business of last night—well, if that was an optical delusion I’ll never believe in my own eyesight again. And now,” as they regained the outer day, “before we start to look at the hole in the ice, how about a little something stimulating after your drive. Eh?”
The doctor was agreeable, in fact quite willing, but the cautious police officer declined. Mervyn, seeing through this thought too, got out a new bottle with the seal intact, and drew the cork. Likewise he placed an unbroken syphon on the table, perhaps rather ostentatiously. While thus engaged, the pony-cart rumbled up, bringing the returning Joe.
He, too, now the inspector desired to question. Possibly because disregarding his master’s parting injunction, the old rustic had been imbibing some Dutch courage in the shape of a couple of “goes” of square Hollands on the way back at theDog and Partridge, the same number of miles distant upon the road, he was able to answer these questions in a straight and fairly lucid manner, though he would more than once revert—as his mind misgave him—to his stock declaration! “I didn’t see no strange gemmun ’ere last night. You’ll mind I said so, Mus’ Mervyn. I didn’t see he.”
“Nobody said you did, Joe,” reassured the inspector. “You only saw him this morning, after he was dead.”
“That’s Gawd’s truth, I reckon, Mr Nashby, zur,” was the fervent rejoinder.
“One thing more, if you’ll excuse me, Mr Mervyn,” said Nashby. “I’ll just examine this room a little.”
He looked on the floor, under the couch, in cupboards, and drawers; not omitting the old vases of quaint ware that stood on the mantelpiece. The owner, watching with outward indifference, had his own thoughts. So had the inspector. Whoever had been the cause of this unknown stranger’s death, it had been no one entering the house from outside, determined the latter.
Then they adjourned to view the scene of the rescue. Along the path through the wood Mervyn pointed out the footprints—half obliterated by subsequent snow—left by himself and the rescued stranger, likewise those quite fresh, made by himself and old Joe that morning on their respective and independent progresses to the spot. Of these Nashby took careful measurements.
“There you are,” went on Mervyn, as they arrived at the place. “You’ll see the hole is newly frozen over, but the ladder’s just where I left it. The water’s over twenty feet deep there, but what the deuce started the poor chap on the ice at all is what bangs me. Seems to me we’re up against a very tall thing in mysteries.”
“I shouldn’t wonder if we were, Mr Mervyn,” rejoined the inspector, again rather drily.
“Couldn’t we trace his footmarks back?” suggested the doctor. “It would show the direction he had come from, and then we could make enquiries. Eh, Nashby?”
“The very thing I was going to do,” answered the latter.
But the plan, though good, was difficult of execution. The footmarks were almost obliterated by the more recent snowfall, in places quite so. And they led from nowhere direct. They zigzagged and twisted, as though their perpetrator were wandering at random and round and round, then lost themselves altogether in a sort of small ravine. But the very incoherency of their course suggested a reason for the stranger plunging into the peril he had done. Clearly he had got lost in the thick woods and had welcomed this long, broad stretch of open, and apparently strong ice, as a way out.
“Now I would suggest an adjournment for lunch,” said Mervyn. “We can take up the trail afterwards where we left it.”
“That’s not half a bad idea,” assented the doctor heartily. “Thanks very much, Mr Mervyn. I’d been about a bit before I started for here, and after a drive through this invigorating air, it seems a long while ago since breakfast time.”
Inspector Nashby raised no objection. A stalwart police officer, even though on an interesting case, and prospectively a case for advancement, is not proof against the pangs of deferred appetite on a crisp, keen, frosty day. But even while discussing good cheer in an impromptu way in Mervyn’s kitchen—for they left the living-room in silent possession of the dead—Nashby kept his eyes about him and his perceptions at full cock. For Nashby had his theories already forming. The doctor as yet had formed none.
While thus engaged, they missed the fact that the sun-bright day had overclouded. They were awakened to it, however, by the discovery that it had begun to snow again. More than begun indeed, for the snow was coming down, not merely in flakes, but almost in slabs. A little more of it and they would hardly be able to get back to Clancehurst. The Inspector jumped to his feet.
“Heavens!” he ejaculated, going to the window. “Why, this’ll cover up all and any footprints there may be to find beyond where we left off.”
“Shouldn’t wonder if it did. Well, it can’t be helped,” said Mervyn coolly. He had by now quite got behind the policeman’s suspicions, and was taking rather a half-hearted delight in teasing that worthy. “Have another whisky and soda, inspector?”
“Thanks, no. I’ll go and take up the track where we left it.”
“If you’ll take my advice you won’t,” said Mervyn. “In fact you’ll get back to Clancehurst as soon as possible, and come back here when all’s clear again. Why, you’ve seen how even a moderate snowdrift can pile up. If you get caught in the middle of this deluge of it, right out in the thick of the woods, why I shouldn’t wonder if you’re as stiff as our poor friend there, before many hours are gone. What do you say, doctor?”
“What do I say? Why that I can’t afford to get snowed up right away in the country for days. What price my practice? So if it’s all the same to you, Mr Mervyn, I’ll ask you to have my cart hitched up and start before it gets worse.”
Nashby had not waited to hear this decision. He had gone outside to see if it really was impracticable to pursue the search. But even before he had reached the top of the path which led to the sluice, the rush of the blinding cold flakes into his eyes drove him back.
“No, it’d be quite useless,” he said, by no means pleased. “Couldn’t do anything in the teeth of this. But it won’t be dead against us going back, rather behind us, that’s one thing.”
So they started, the inspector very dissatisfied and very suspicious. He questioned the doctor all the way along the road, under difficulties certainly, because of the blinding sheets of snow which drove in upon them, rendering breathing—let alone conversation—difficult—as to Mervyn, his circumstances and his antecedents—above all, his antecedents. But on this point the doctor was able to give no information—only that he knew no more on the subject than did his questioner.
And Mervyn was left alone with the dead, in solitary, haunted Heath Hover—yet not quite alone, for the police constable was left too; and perhaps he was not sorry for the man’s companionship. For the snow whirled down in masses for the best part of the night, blocking the road in huge drifts, and the wind howled dirgefully round the gables of the house, where lay the living and the man who had come there to meet his strange, mysterious death.
Chapter Six.“The Key of the Street.”“For the third and last time, I say—will you hand me that letter or will you not?”“No, I will not.” And the speaker’s lips tightened, and her blue eyes met the angry red brown ones calm and full, and the coronal of golden hair shone upon a very erect head indeed.The parties to this dialogue were a girl and a woman, the latter middle-aged, not to say elderly. She had a hooked, commandeering nose and a hard mouth turning down at the corners. Now they were turning down very much indeed. It may be hardly necessary to explain that these two occupied the position of employer and employed.“Now mark my words, Miss Seward,” went on the first speaker, fast getting into the tremulous stage of white anger. “I’ll give you just one more chance, and only one. Hand me over that letter, or—out of my house you go. Without references mind—and this very day at that. Now—take your choice.”There was some excuse for the irritation displayed by the older woman, in that she had surprised the other in the act of reading a letter—a fairly closely written one too, and that in the handwriting of her only son, a young subaltern not long gazetted, and only recently gone out to India. She had suspected something between them prior to his departure; and this girl was a mere paid teacher of French and music to her own two—then in the “flapper” stage. As a matter of fact there had been, but it was all on one side—on that of the boy.“There’s really nothing in it,” was the answer, “I didn’t want him to write to me, and told him so more than once. But as he has, well I can’t show private correspondence to a third person, even though it be the correspondent’s mother.”In hard reality the speaker was more than half inclined to comply—more to put an end to the whole bother than anything. But there were two obstacles in the way of such a safe and easy course; first her own pride, of which she had all her share—in spite of her dependent position—not that she considered it a dependent one as long as she gavequid pro quo, and who shall say that she was altogether wrong? And Mrs Carstairs had put on a tone that was raspingly dictatorial and commandeering. The second lay in the fact that the writer had particularly requested that all knowledge of her having received the letter should be withheld from his mother. Equally, as a matter of fact, even as she had said—there was nothing in it. It was a very harmless effusion. It contained vehement declarations of devotion, but such were merely unsophisticated and doglike. When at home the boy had fallen violently in love with her, but though kind to him in a sisterly way, she had not reciprocated, and while sorry for him had pointed out plainly to him more than once that this was so. She was older than him too, and could not look upon him from the point of view he wanted—and this she also pointed out to him plainly.In view of all this it seemed rather hard lines now that his mother should swoop down upon her in this fashion as though she were a mere designing intriguing adventuress, instead of being, as it happened, of considerably older descent than this family of two generations of worthy and successful manufacturers, among whom perforce for the time being, she was earning her daily bread, and perhaps it was a little of this sense of contrast that raised that gold-crowned, well-poised, thoroughbred head somewhat higher in the air during the gathering storm of the interview. But here were two angry women, rapidly becoming more angry still—the one steadfastly refusing what the other as equally steadfastly imagined she had every right in the world to demand. What sort of outcome was this likely to yield?The elder woman’s normally rubicund cheeks had now gone nearly white.“So that’s your last word?” she panted.“I’m afraid so.”“Then go. D’you hear. Go upstairs and pack, and leave this house at once. That is the return I get for my kindness—my charity—in ever taking you into it at all.”Melian Mervyn Seward threw back her head, and straightened herself still more at the ugly word.“Excuse me, Mrs Carstairs,” she said, a small red circle coming into each of her likewise paled cheeks, “but I think you used the wrong word. You have had your full money value from me, fair work for fair wage. So I don’t see where the word ‘charity’ comes in at all.”The other could only sputter, she was simply speechless with wrath. The girl went on:“Not only that, but I am entitled to some notice. I refuse to be thrown out in the street without any at all. Remember, I have to make my own arrangements as to my next plans. So I will take your notice now if you like.”You see there was the element of a capable business woman about this thoroughbred, self possessed orphan girl, who had hardly a friend in the world and that not capable of being of any use to her in a stress like the present. She, calm, because with the power to control her white anger, held the other at a disadvantage, who had not.“Oh, well,” the latter managed to stutter. “I will pay you your month’s wages, and—”“Quarter’s,” corrected the girl quietly. “I am not a servant, let me remind you, but teacher of French and music to your children. Therefore I am entitled to a quarter’s notice.”“Why, this is blackmailing,” blared the woman furiously. “Sheer blackmailing.”“Don’t keep on using ugly words. You know it’s nothing of the kind—only a sheer matter of business.” And then somehow the mere mention of the word seemed to be effectual in calming the speaker’s restrained math. “I have got to take care of myself, you know. There’s no one else in this wide world to do it for me. So I must have my contract carried out, or take steps to enforce it if necessary. There is no blackmailing in that.”“Oh, that’s a threat, is it?”“Not a bit. I am merely putting the situation before you from both sides.”“You shall have your quarter, then,” said the other, after a moment of silence. “But—leave this house by to-night.”“If I can, I will,” answered the girl. “But I must first make sure that I have somewhere to go to. So if you will kindly have a telegram dispatched for me, and the reply is satisfactory, I shall be prepared to do as you wish.Ifit is not, I fear I shall have to burden you until to-morrow morning.”The other gasped in speechless amazement. But she knew what was in the speaker’s mind. If the latter were to go out herself with the object of sending the telegram, who knew but that she might not find herself refused re-admission? In justice it is only fair to say that such an extreme measure would not have been adopted. Still, as the girl had said, she had got to take care of herself.“Very well, write your telegram then,” she snapped, and rustled out.Melian went over to a writing table, found a telegraph form, and having filled it in, rang the bell and dispatched it. Then she went up to her room.So she had lost her means of livelihood. It was not a very congenial means of livelihood, still it might have been worse—infinitely worse—and this she candidly acknowledged. There was little sympathy between herself and her employer. The latter had treated her with a certain courtesy, but she was a hard, dictatorial, narrow minded type of woman, and utterly intolerant of contradiction in any shape or form. As for the nominal head of the house he was a mere nonentity, a mere cipher. Outside its limits he was a fairly prosperous stockbroker, and only returned home to dine and sleep, and seldom speak. Her charges were not particularly interesting or engaging children; empty-headed, selfish, and thoroughly spoilt. Still she managed to get on with them—and what was more—to get them on. And now she had to leave; to lose her means of livelihood for the time being—and Heaven only knew where and how she was going to obtain another—and all because a silly boy now at the other end of the world had chosen to fall in love with her at this.Yet as she caught her three parts length reflection in the glass, Melian Mervyn Seward would have been no woman had she not known that upon that account the boy was not so silly after all. For it framed a really exquisite picture—that of a beautifully proportioned figure, neither tall nor short, in fact exactly the right height for a woman. The well-poised head, gleaming gold under the electric light was set upon a full, rounded throat. The blue eyes, beneath their well marked brows were steadfast, and full of character, and even more so if possible the set of the mouth. But the contour of cheeks and chin was perfect, and now that the reaction after the strife had brought an unusual glow of colour to the former the face was absolutely lovely. Here was a girl who well and tastefully dressed would have created more than a sensation in any big ballroom, and now she stood there realising more and more how utterly helpless and alone in the world she was, with her only means of livelihood taken from her, and with very precarious chances of finding another.“Little fool!” she muttered with a stamp of the foot against the fender bar; the exclamation not being directed against herself but against her absent adorer. “Little fool! I expect he’ll feel pretty sick when he hears what he’s been the means of doing—if he ever does hear. Still—he couldn’t help it, I suppose.”Looking up, the blue eyes suddenly filled, then overflowed, for they had encountered a portrait of her dead father. She caught up the frame from the mantelpiece, and pressed her red warm lips passionately against the cold glass, murmuring words of love and tenderness. Then she sank into a low chair and sobbed unrestrainedly—it may be that the reaction of the nervous system after her late passage of arms had something to do with the breakdown. There came a knock at the door. Instantly she sprang to her feet, dashing the tears away. Heavens! they would be attributed to grief and fear over her dismissal. That would not do—no not for anything. It was difficult, however, to regain her self command at a brace of seconds’ notice, and the maid who now entered with a telegram, subsequently and as a matter of course did set them down to that very cause.The wire was a reply from her friend, a girl who made a living as a typist, and hardly comes within the scope of our story except in so far that now she wired that she could take Melian into her modest quarters for a night or two while the latter “looked about her.” This was so far satisfactory. Melian wrote out another telegram in reply, saying she was coming on in a couple of hours, and gave it to the maid, which message of course supplied that young person with something to talk about, and conjecture about, below stairs. Then she set to work to pack in earnest.Mrs Carstairs was not quite happy in her mind, while sitting in her morning-room waiting for her dischargedemployéeto come and take her leave—and her salary. She was not a bad hearted womanau fond, only there were times when the “fond” took a good deal of getting at. Now she had qualms. Miss Seward had not been wrong in saying she had given her good money’s worth. She certainly had done that, and now the woman was already consumed with misgivings as to how she was going to supply her place. But as Miss Seward entered, this misgiving merged into a feeling of vague self-gratulation that it had turned out for the best. The girl was looking lovely. Quietly but tastefully dressed, her patrician blood and bearing was never so manifest. She wore a large black hat—large without exaggeration—which framed and set off the beautiful refined face, and the velvety blue eyes. No, assuredly she was too dangerously pretty to keep; otherwise there is no telling that she would not have climbed down even at the eleventh hour.“Here is your cheque, Miss Seward,” she said, “and there is the receipt form.” Then having seen this duly signed, she added stiffly—“And now, good-bye.”“Good-bye, Mrs Carstairs. I’ll just repeat to you. There was no harm whatever in that letter. I did not feel justified in showing you—only on principle, mind. Good-bye, children.”For the two girls had just come in. There was, as we said, nothing engaging about them. They were gawky plain girls, sallow faced and inclined to be hook-nosed too, with a skimpy black pigtail hanging down each of their backs. They showed no more feeling on parting with Melian than if she were just getting up from an afternoon call. They each stuck a limp bony paw into her palm, and there was an end of it.She went downstairs. Her luggage—by no means the traditional, and feminine, “mountain of luggage”—was being stowed in and on a cab. A door on the ground floor opened into the hall. Within this stood the—nominal—master of the house.“I hear you’re leaving us, Miss Seward. I’m sorry,” he began rather jerkily. “Will you kindly step in here for a moment?”Melian wondered, but complied. Seen in the full light, he was a quiet looking, keen faced man, keen as to the upper part of his face—that represented his moderate success on the Stock Exchange—falling away in the lower—that represented his subsidiary position as merely nominal master in his own house.“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “You’re very young, and I understand, alone in the world. This fuss, whatever it’s about, is clean outside my department, but remember, if ever you want a friend—either to speak a good word for you—or what not—remember me. Good-bye, child.”She flashed a bright smile at him as she took the hand which jerkily shot forth at her. Then she went out.“By gad, she’s lovely!” exclaimed Carstairs, staring after her, “and the very perfection of a lady too. What a fool Adelina is to have got rid of one like that.”And Adelina, who from the upper landing was privily assisting auricularly at this scene, was for once, inclined to agree with the submissive one. Certainly it would not be easy to find an adequate substitute.“Still—she’s too pretty,” she told herself with something of a sigh. “Too pretty, and—too proud. Yes—far too proud.”And this reflection seemed to carry something of consolation as her mind went back to that scene in the forenoon, and how the girl had uncompromisingly declined to capitulate, while she herself had come out of it with far from flying colours.
“For the third and last time, I say—will you hand me that letter or will you not?”
“No, I will not.” And the speaker’s lips tightened, and her blue eyes met the angry red brown ones calm and full, and the coronal of golden hair shone upon a very erect head indeed.
The parties to this dialogue were a girl and a woman, the latter middle-aged, not to say elderly. She had a hooked, commandeering nose and a hard mouth turning down at the corners. Now they were turning down very much indeed. It may be hardly necessary to explain that these two occupied the position of employer and employed.
“Now mark my words, Miss Seward,” went on the first speaker, fast getting into the tremulous stage of white anger. “I’ll give you just one more chance, and only one. Hand me over that letter, or—out of my house you go. Without references mind—and this very day at that. Now—take your choice.”
There was some excuse for the irritation displayed by the older woman, in that she had surprised the other in the act of reading a letter—a fairly closely written one too, and that in the handwriting of her only son, a young subaltern not long gazetted, and only recently gone out to India. She had suspected something between them prior to his departure; and this girl was a mere paid teacher of French and music to her own two—then in the “flapper” stage. As a matter of fact there had been, but it was all on one side—on that of the boy.
“There’s really nothing in it,” was the answer, “I didn’t want him to write to me, and told him so more than once. But as he has, well I can’t show private correspondence to a third person, even though it be the correspondent’s mother.”
In hard reality the speaker was more than half inclined to comply—more to put an end to the whole bother than anything. But there were two obstacles in the way of such a safe and easy course; first her own pride, of which she had all her share—in spite of her dependent position—not that she considered it a dependent one as long as she gavequid pro quo, and who shall say that she was altogether wrong? And Mrs Carstairs had put on a tone that was raspingly dictatorial and commandeering. The second lay in the fact that the writer had particularly requested that all knowledge of her having received the letter should be withheld from his mother. Equally, as a matter of fact, even as she had said—there was nothing in it. It was a very harmless effusion. It contained vehement declarations of devotion, but such were merely unsophisticated and doglike. When at home the boy had fallen violently in love with her, but though kind to him in a sisterly way, she had not reciprocated, and while sorry for him had pointed out plainly to him more than once that this was so. She was older than him too, and could not look upon him from the point of view he wanted—and this she also pointed out to him plainly.
In view of all this it seemed rather hard lines now that his mother should swoop down upon her in this fashion as though she were a mere designing intriguing adventuress, instead of being, as it happened, of considerably older descent than this family of two generations of worthy and successful manufacturers, among whom perforce for the time being, she was earning her daily bread, and perhaps it was a little of this sense of contrast that raised that gold-crowned, well-poised, thoroughbred head somewhat higher in the air during the gathering storm of the interview. But here were two angry women, rapidly becoming more angry still—the one steadfastly refusing what the other as equally steadfastly imagined she had every right in the world to demand. What sort of outcome was this likely to yield?
The elder woman’s normally rubicund cheeks had now gone nearly white.
“So that’s your last word?” she panted.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Then go. D’you hear. Go upstairs and pack, and leave this house at once. That is the return I get for my kindness—my charity—in ever taking you into it at all.”
Melian Mervyn Seward threw back her head, and straightened herself still more at the ugly word.
“Excuse me, Mrs Carstairs,” she said, a small red circle coming into each of her likewise paled cheeks, “but I think you used the wrong word. You have had your full money value from me, fair work for fair wage. So I don’t see where the word ‘charity’ comes in at all.”
The other could only sputter, she was simply speechless with wrath. The girl went on:
“Not only that, but I am entitled to some notice. I refuse to be thrown out in the street without any at all. Remember, I have to make my own arrangements as to my next plans. So I will take your notice now if you like.”
You see there was the element of a capable business woman about this thoroughbred, self possessed orphan girl, who had hardly a friend in the world and that not capable of being of any use to her in a stress like the present. She, calm, because with the power to control her white anger, held the other at a disadvantage, who had not.
“Oh, well,” the latter managed to stutter. “I will pay you your month’s wages, and—”
“Quarter’s,” corrected the girl quietly. “I am not a servant, let me remind you, but teacher of French and music to your children. Therefore I am entitled to a quarter’s notice.”
“Why, this is blackmailing,” blared the woman furiously. “Sheer blackmailing.”
“Don’t keep on using ugly words. You know it’s nothing of the kind—only a sheer matter of business.” And then somehow the mere mention of the word seemed to be effectual in calming the speaker’s restrained math. “I have got to take care of myself, you know. There’s no one else in this wide world to do it for me. So I must have my contract carried out, or take steps to enforce it if necessary. There is no blackmailing in that.”
“Oh, that’s a threat, is it?”
“Not a bit. I am merely putting the situation before you from both sides.”
“You shall have your quarter, then,” said the other, after a moment of silence. “But—leave this house by to-night.”
“If I can, I will,” answered the girl. “But I must first make sure that I have somewhere to go to. So if you will kindly have a telegram dispatched for me, and the reply is satisfactory, I shall be prepared to do as you wish.Ifit is not, I fear I shall have to burden you until to-morrow morning.”
The other gasped in speechless amazement. But she knew what was in the speaker’s mind. If the latter were to go out herself with the object of sending the telegram, who knew but that she might not find herself refused re-admission? In justice it is only fair to say that such an extreme measure would not have been adopted. Still, as the girl had said, she had got to take care of herself.
“Very well, write your telegram then,” she snapped, and rustled out.
Melian went over to a writing table, found a telegraph form, and having filled it in, rang the bell and dispatched it. Then she went up to her room.
So she had lost her means of livelihood. It was not a very congenial means of livelihood, still it might have been worse—infinitely worse—and this she candidly acknowledged. There was little sympathy between herself and her employer. The latter had treated her with a certain courtesy, but she was a hard, dictatorial, narrow minded type of woman, and utterly intolerant of contradiction in any shape or form. As for the nominal head of the house he was a mere nonentity, a mere cipher. Outside its limits he was a fairly prosperous stockbroker, and only returned home to dine and sleep, and seldom speak. Her charges were not particularly interesting or engaging children; empty-headed, selfish, and thoroughly spoilt. Still she managed to get on with them—and what was more—to get them on. And now she had to leave; to lose her means of livelihood for the time being—and Heaven only knew where and how she was going to obtain another—and all because a silly boy now at the other end of the world had chosen to fall in love with her at this.
Yet as she caught her three parts length reflection in the glass, Melian Mervyn Seward would have been no woman had she not known that upon that account the boy was not so silly after all. For it framed a really exquisite picture—that of a beautifully proportioned figure, neither tall nor short, in fact exactly the right height for a woman. The well-poised head, gleaming gold under the electric light was set upon a full, rounded throat. The blue eyes, beneath their well marked brows were steadfast, and full of character, and even more so if possible the set of the mouth. But the contour of cheeks and chin was perfect, and now that the reaction after the strife had brought an unusual glow of colour to the former the face was absolutely lovely. Here was a girl who well and tastefully dressed would have created more than a sensation in any big ballroom, and now she stood there realising more and more how utterly helpless and alone in the world she was, with her only means of livelihood taken from her, and with very precarious chances of finding another.
“Little fool!” she muttered with a stamp of the foot against the fender bar; the exclamation not being directed against herself but against her absent adorer. “Little fool! I expect he’ll feel pretty sick when he hears what he’s been the means of doing—if he ever does hear. Still—he couldn’t help it, I suppose.”
Looking up, the blue eyes suddenly filled, then overflowed, for they had encountered a portrait of her dead father. She caught up the frame from the mantelpiece, and pressed her red warm lips passionately against the cold glass, murmuring words of love and tenderness. Then she sank into a low chair and sobbed unrestrainedly—it may be that the reaction of the nervous system after her late passage of arms had something to do with the breakdown. There came a knock at the door. Instantly she sprang to her feet, dashing the tears away. Heavens! they would be attributed to grief and fear over her dismissal. That would not do—no not for anything. It was difficult, however, to regain her self command at a brace of seconds’ notice, and the maid who now entered with a telegram, subsequently and as a matter of course did set them down to that very cause.
The wire was a reply from her friend, a girl who made a living as a typist, and hardly comes within the scope of our story except in so far that now she wired that she could take Melian into her modest quarters for a night or two while the latter “looked about her.” This was so far satisfactory. Melian wrote out another telegram in reply, saying she was coming on in a couple of hours, and gave it to the maid, which message of course supplied that young person with something to talk about, and conjecture about, below stairs. Then she set to work to pack in earnest.
Mrs Carstairs was not quite happy in her mind, while sitting in her morning-room waiting for her dischargedemployéeto come and take her leave—and her salary. She was not a bad hearted womanau fond, only there were times when the “fond” took a good deal of getting at. Now she had qualms. Miss Seward had not been wrong in saying she had given her good money’s worth. She certainly had done that, and now the woman was already consumed with misgivings as to how she was going to supply her place. But as Miss Seward entered, this misgiving merged into a feeling of vague self-gratulation that it had turned out for the best. The girl was looking lovely. Quietly but tastefully dressed, her patrician blood and bearing was never so manifest. She wore a large black hat—large without exaggeration—which framed and set off the beautiful refined face, and the velvety blue eyes. No, assuredly she was too dangerously pretty to keep; otherwise there is no telling that she would not have climbed down even at the eleventh hour.
“Here is your cheque, Miss Seward,” she said, “and there is the receipt form.” Then having seen this duly signed, she added stiffly—“And now, good-bye.”
“Good-bye, Mrs Carstairs. I’ll just repeat to you. There was no harm whatever in that letter. I did not feel justified in showing you—only on principle, mind. Good-bye, children.”
For the two girls had just come in. There was, as we said, nothing engaging about them. They were gawky plain girls, sallow faced and inclined to be hook-nosed too, with a skimpy black pigtail hanging down each of their backs. They showed no more feeling on parting with Melian than if she were just getting up from an afternoon call. They each stuck a limp bony paw into her palm, and there was an end of it.
She went downstairs. Her luggage—by no means the traditional, and feminine, “mountain of luggage”—was being stowed in and on a cab. A door on the ground floor opened into the hall. Within this stood the—nominal—master of the house.
“I hear you’re leaving us, Miss Seward. I’m sorry,” he began rather jerkily. “Will you kindly step in here for a moment?”
Melian wondered, but complied. Seen in the full light, he was a quiet looking, keen faced man, keen as to the upper part of his face—that represented his moderate success on the Stock Exchange—falling away in the lower—that represented his subsidiary position as merely nominal master in his own house.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “You’re very young, and I understand, alone in the world. This fuss, whatever it’s about, is clean outside my department, but remember, if ever you want a friend—either to speak a good word for you—or what not—remember me. Good-bye, child.”
She flashed a bright smile at him as she took the hand which jerkily shot forth at her. Then she went out.
“By gad, she’s lovely!” exclaimed Carstairs, staring after her, “and the very perfection of a lady too. What a fool Adelina is to have got rid of one like that.”
And Adelina, who from the upper landing was privily assisting auricularly at this scene, was for once, inclined to agree with the submissive one. Certainly it would not be easy to find an adequate substitute.
“Still—she’s too pretty,” she told herself with something of a sigh. “Too pretty, and—too proud. Yes—far too proud.”
And this reflection seemed to carry something of consolation as her mind went back to that scene in the forenoon, and how the girl had uncompromisingly declined to capitulate, while she herself had come out of it with far from flying colours.
Chapter Seven.Interim—“Flu.”The Carstairs abode was a large, dull, ugly villa in a large, dull, ugly suburb—one of those depressing suburbs that is neither town nor country but has the disadvantages of both and the advantages of neither. But it was cheerfulness itself compared with the locality through which Melian’s cab was now slowly jogging. The squalor of the greasy streets; the dank, thick atmosphere; the hoarse, scarcely human yells and the incessant rumble and clatter attendant on that sort of locality are too well known to need any describing.Leaning back in the mouldy vehicle, she set her mind to go over the events of the last few hours. Had she been ill advised, hasty—she asked herself? Their behaviour at the very last had seemed to show they were not such ill-meaning people. Yet, as she looked back she knew that relations between them had been getting more and more strained. For some reason or other Mrs Carstairs had been growing more and more short in her manner towards her, and now she knew that reason. The old woman had had her suspicions all along, but the discovery of the climax brought things to a head. But the whole thing was ludicrous, and all about a little booby like that—Melian’s lip curled as she thus rather unjustly characterised the distant cause of all the bother.The drive was long and the cab slow. She had time to let her thoughts go further back from her present troubles—the future was not a welcome subject, looked at sitting alone there in that mouldy box on wheels, and in the dark at that. Her earlier life had been a sufficiently happy one. She had seen a great deal of the world and developed her artistic instincts. Then had come losses; and speculations, instead of mending things, made them worse. Her father was lacking in the business capacity, while her other parent was under the impression that one pound sterling was endowed with the purchasing power of three, and acted consistently upon that conviction. So means dwindled till there was very little left.Things had reached this point when one day her father started off on a railway journey to a place some hours distant. He was mysterious as to the object of it, but declared that they would none of them be the worse if it failed, whereas if it succeeded, they would be considerably the better. He seemed in a hopeful mood, and in fairly good spirits, and when at the big, dingy terminus, where she was seeing him off, he handed her a couple of accident insurance tickets, which he had just purchased; he seemed fairly bubbling over with fun.“See these?” he had said. “All right. They cost a shilling apiece, and represent 1,000 pounds apiece if I’m—er—totally smashed up. So, you see, I’m more valuable to you dead than alive. I used to think it was the other way about. But take care of them, I’ve signed them, and all, so it’d be quite safe. Put them away carefully. Two thousand pounds, remember.”“I’ve a great mind to tear them across and throw them on to the line,” the girl had answered, looking at him with filling eyes and quivering lips. But he laughed gaily.“Don’t do that, little one. They cover minor injuries too, only those mean less dibs. You know. So much a leg, so much an arm, so much a finger—and so on. It’s a rum world—and you never can tell. So stick to those tickets till I come back. Now, good-bye, my darling little one. Here, let go—the train’s moving, by George!”She was very nearly tightening her hold, so that it would be physically impossible for him to free himself until the train had gone, but she did not. With eyes blinded with tears she waved to him from the platform as he leaned half out of the window watching to see the last of her, and he was gone. Yet he would be back the day after to-morrow at the latest. She had often seen him off on such journeys before.“Iama little fool,” she said to herself as she walked away.About two hours later, when in the middle of its longest non-stop run, Marston Seward fell from the train.There were headlines in the evening paper posters, but somehow or other Melian did not notice these. It was not until the next day, when they opened their morning paper, that the tragedy rose up and hit them between the eyes—name, description, everything, for by this time identification had been easily obtained. Melian hardly knew how she lived through that stunning blow—perhaps because it was a stunning one. But the shock was too much for her mother—the shock only, for there was little if any affection between her and the dead man. Brain fever supervened and she died.Her illness made an alarming inroad into the scanty resources remaining to them. Hard material necessities had to be met. Hitherto the girl had shrunk with shuddering horror from turning to account those fatal insurance tickets, the price of her father’s blood. She could not claim it. Oh God! the thought of it? But she might have spared herself any qualms on this head. The railway company flatly and uncompromisingly repudiated all liability. The insurance was againstaccidentnot suicide. They were in a position to prove, and to prove indisputably that for any one to have fallen from the particular coach of which Seward was an occupant, and that by accident, was a sheer impossibility. The door handles were all in good order; if anything, rather stiff to turn than otherwise. They could prove too, that the said door handles were properly secured at the last station the train had passed through. And worst of all, they were in a position to produce a platform inspector who had passed the pair at the moment of the utterance of those fatal words: “You see, I’m more valuable to you dead than alive. I used to think it was the other way about.” The official had heard the words distinctly, and after the tragedy had himself voluntarily come forward with the information. At the time they had struck him as uttered jokingly, but in the light of the subsequent event they took on a far different aspect. In short, Seward had bungled the whole business. He died as he had lived, and his last act was one of perfectly inexcusable bungle. “More valuable to you dead than alive,” had been his words, and in the result his daughter was left alone in the world, as nearly as possible penniless.Alone! Yes—for she had no relations, except one, away in India, and for certain reasons the last person on earth to whom she would apply under any circumstances whatever. She had no real friends, only acquaintances who could be of no great service to her, but eventually, thanks to the inherent spirit and pluck which buoyed her up, she managed to find means of supporting herself. And all this had befallen rather more than two years previously to when we first see her, being, more or less politely, shown the door at the Villa Carstairs.Now, shut up in the mouldy darkness of the slow, Jolting vehicle, it all came back to her again, and she had to hurriedly brush away the warm tears which the recollection—always vivid—had evoked, as the cab drew up with a jolt at her friend’s lodgings. But she met with what she most needed, a cordial welcome. Even the cabman, a rubicund old fellow with a bulbous nose and a rumbling voice, forebore to claim so much as a penny over his legal fare when he caught a full view of her face under the street lamp, and a gratuity of threepence, smilingly tendered, was met by a hearty “Thankee kindly, missie.”Cumnor Lodge, the Carstairs villa, though dull and heavy outside, within was characterised by a considerable degree of solid comfort. But this narrow hallway and the nondescript combination of smells of sink-cum-cabbage, with a slatternly landlady and a still more slatternly servant, waiting to give a hand upstairs with the luggage as well as to satisfy a natural curiosity as to what the visitor would be like, struck her with a very real chill. Would it be her lot to inhabit such a place, was the thought that instinctively shot through her mind? But the impression was partly neutralised when she found herself within her friend’s tiny but snug sitting-room, with its bright fire, and hissing kettle, and tea and its appurtenances all so dear to the feminine eye. Violet Clinock was a bright, pleasing type of girl, with dark hair, and honest grey eyes, not exactly pretty, but rather near being so. But with all her natural cheerfulness, there was intertwined an impression of one who was perfectly well able to take care of herself. In fact she rather prided herself upon this, and upon being an independent bachelor girl who could always make her own way. She was a country parson’s daughter—one of many—under which circumstances she flattered herself she had done the right thing in striking out on her own.“This shop’s rather dingy in the daytime, dear,” she explained as the two were seated comfortably in the really cosy little room, and the tea and muffins and other things dear to the feminine appetite were in full force. “But I’m not much here in the daytime, and at night, once I get inside it doesn’t matter. The main thing is it’s cheap—very. Not nasty either, for I do every mortal thing for myself. Heaven help me if I left it to anybody else. Well, I’ve been saving up, with an eye to running a typing shop on my own. It isn’t my ambition to remain for ever in a position to take orders from other people, I can tell you. Well, and why did you leave your last crowd? Had a row?”“Sort of. It takes two to make a row, and there wasn’t much of that on my side,” answered Melian. “I just let the old woman talk, but she didn’t get what she wanted. I got the key of the street instead—so, here I am. By the way,” she added, waxing grave. “I don’t know where I’m going to be. That’s a pair of shoes of another pattern.”“Oh, with all your high accomplishments,” laughed the other. “Why any one would jump at you.”“Would they? They’re welcome to skip, then. But even ‘high accomplishments’ are no good without references.”“Without references? But you can get—Oh, I see. The old cat won’t give you any.”Melian nodded.“The beastly old cat!” pronounced Violet. “She ought to be compelled to.”“Well, she can’t be, and that’s all I’ve got to do with it. So there you are.”“Let’s see. You’re no good at our job, are you, Melian?” said the other, drumming the tips of her fingers together meditatively.“Unfortunately I’ve never learned it.”“That’s a pity.” In her romantic little soul she was beginning to weave a web of destiny for Melian, and the meshes thereof were glittering. A secretarial post in some flourishing office, and if her beautiful friend did not promptly enslave an opulent junior partner, why then it was her own fault. But then, unfortunately, her said “beautiful friend” had never learned typing.They chatted on, about everything and nothing, and bedtime came.“I turn in early,” explained Violet, “because I have to turn out early, and get to my job. You’ll have to turn in with me, dear, to-night at any rate. To-morrow, if you want a room to yourself, I dare say Mrs Seals can fix you up. But they’re all rather kennels I’m afraid. I’ve got the pick of the basket.”“Don’t you worry about me, Violet. It’s something to have some one to come to when you get the key of the street door given you, I can tell you,” answered Melian, seriously. And then they went to bed and talked each other to sleep.There followed then, sad, disappointing, heart weary days for poor Melian. She answered advertisements in person, and by letter. She went to all sorts of places, in and around London, in course of such answers. Sometimes she was sympathetically received, twice she was insulted, but that was where she found the dominant male had been advertiser under cover of what looked like one of her own sex. But in the genuine cases disappointment awaited—and but that she was free from vanity or self-consciousness she might easily have read the real nature of the verdict—“Far too pretty.”Oh, the weariness of those daily tramps, and bus and tram journeys, through more or less hideous, drab, depressing streets in the dull, deadly depressing winter murk invariably characteristic of London during the young end of the year! Oh, the weight of it upon the mind, as she realised, instinctively, that it was not a case of try again, but that for some reason or other her case seemed utterly hopeless. She put it to her friend. But the latter, though she shrewdly suspected the reason, shrank from saying so.Of her, Melian saw little or nothing during the daytime, Violet Clinock was thorough, and stuck to her job, with an eye to material improvement. But in the evening they would foregather, and the daily tale of worn out disappointment would unfold itself, and after the wretched, soul-wearying effort of the day Melian could not but realise the warmth and comfort and companionship which it ended up with; and this in a measure heartened her for the next.She had taken a small bedroom at the top of the squalid house—a mere attic, but the two girls “chummed” together for the rest of their arrangements. But a fortnight went by, then three weeks, and still with the same result. Melian Seward was just where she was at the time of leaving Cumnor Lodge. There seemed to be no room in the world for her. Her slender savings, in spite of every possible economy, were dwindling. When they had done dwindling—what then?And then the result of the cold, dank, and often wet, questings around after a means of livelihood, combined with lowness of spirits, and a sorely disturbed mind, came. She was laid low with a bad bout of influenza. The hydra-headed fiend was hard on the ramp, seeking whom he might devour, and finding it too in plenty. And among his countless victims was Melian Mervyn Seward.And she could not afford to be ill; for is not illness a luxury for the rich?But through it all her friend tended her with wholehearted and loyal camaraderie. Of course she suggested a doctor.“A doctor? Heavens, Violet! I can’t afford such luxuries,” Melian burst forth fiercely. “The only thing I can afford is to die—and the sooner the better.” And then she became delirious, and imagined she was standing on the platform of the gloomy, dingy terminus, amid its vibration of hissing, shrieking engines, discussing those hateful, fateful railway insurance tickets with her dead father. But whether she would have a doctor or not, Violet was determined she should, and sent for one accordingly.He, on arrival, looked grave.“Has she any relations, Miss Clinock?”“Oh, good Heavens! You don’t say it means that?” And the business girl was startled for the moment out of her normal take-things-as-they-come attitude.“No, no, no. But—they ought to know. She’s in a very low state, I’m bound to inform you. There’s something on her mind—something hard and heavy on her mind—and that’s all against her—all against everything.”“Lord! I wish I knew what to do. But she’s very ‘close.’ Between ourselves, doctor—of course, strictly between ourselves—” The other nodded. “I believe she has one or two. But she must have quarrelled with them, or they with her, for if ever I got on to the subject she takes me up mighty sharp, I can tell you. And I don’t believe in forcing people’s confidences or prying into their affairs.”“No, no. Of—course not. Still, do all you can in that direction. You may find opportunities, you know—or make them. Good-evening, I am very busy just now, there’s a record lot of ‘flu’ about, as I dare say you know. I’ll look round in the morning.”
The Carstairs abode was a large, dull, ugly villa in a large, dull, ugly suburb—one of those depressing suburbs that is neither town nor country but has the disadvantages of both and the advantages of neither. But it was cheerfulness itself compared with the locality through which Melian’s cab was now slowly jogging. The squalor of the greasy streets; the dank, thick atmosphere; the hoarse, scarcely human yells and the incessant rumble and clatter attendant on that sort of locality are too well known to need any describing.
Leaning back in the mouldy vehicle, she set her mind to go over the events of the last few hours. Had she been ill advised, hasty—she asked herself? Their behaviour at the very last had seemed to show they were not such ill-meaning people. Yet, as she looked back she knew that relations between them had been getting more and more strained. For some reason or other Mrs Carstairs had been growing more and more short in her manner towards her, and now she knew that reason. The old woman had had her suspicions all along, but the discovery of the climax brought things to a head. But the whole thing was ludicrous, and all about a little booby like that—Melian’s lip curled as she thus rather unjustly characterised the distant cause of all the bother.
The drive was long and the cab slow. She had time to let her thoughts go further back from her present troubles—the future was not a welcome subject, looked at sitting alone there in that mouldy box on wheels, and in the dark at that. Her earlier life had been a sufficiently happy one. She had seen a great deal of the world and developed her artistic instincts. Then had come losses; and speculations, instead of mending things, made them worse. Her father was lacking in the business capacity, while her other parent was under the impression that one pound sterling was endowed with the purchasing power of three, and acted consistently upon that conviction. So means dwindled till there was very little left.
Things had reached this point when one day her father started off on a railway journey to a place some hours distant. He was mysterious as to the object of it, but declared that they would none of them be the worse if it failed, whereas if it succeeded, they would be considerably the better. He seemed in a hopeful mood, and in fairly good spirits, and when at the big, dingy terminus, where she was seeing him off, he handed her a couple of accident insurance tickets, which he had just purchased; he seemed fairly bubbling over with fun.
“See these?” he had said. “All right. They cost a shilling apiece, and represent 1,000 pounds apiece if I’m—er—totally smashed up. So, you see, I’m more valuable to you dead than alive. I used to think it was the other way about. But take care of them, I’ve signed them, and all, so it’d be quite safe. Put them away carefully. Two thousand pounds, remember.”
“I’ve a great mind to tear them across and throw them on to the line,” the girl had answered, looking at him with filling eyes and quivering lips. But he laughed gaily.
“Don’t do that, little one. They cover minor injuries too, only those mean less dibs. You know. So much a leg, so much an arm, so much a finger—and so on. It’s a rum world—and you never can tell. So stick to those tickets till I come back. Now, good-bye, my darling little one. Here, let go—the train’s moving, by George!”
She was very nearly tightening her hold, so that it would be physically impossible for him to free himself until the train had gone, but she did not. With eyes blinded with tears she waved to him from the platform as he leaned half out of the window watching to see the last of her, and he was gone. Yet he would be back the day after to-morrow at the latest. She had often seen him off on such journeys before.
“Iama little fool,” she said to herself as she walked away.
About two hours later, when in the middle of its longest non-stop run, Marston Seward fell from the train.
There were headlines in the evening paper posters, but somehow or other Melian did not notice these. It was not until the next day, when they opened their morning paper, that the tragedy rose up and hit them between the eyes—name, description, everything, for by this time identification had been easily obtained. Melian hardly knew how she lived through that stunning blow—perhaps because it was a stunning one. But the shock was too much for her mother—the shock only, for there was little if any affection between her and the dead man. Brain fever supervened and she died.
Her illness made an alarming inroad into the scanty resources remaining to them. Hard material necessities had to be met. Hitherto the girl had shrunk with shuddering horror from turning to account those fatal insurance tickets, the price of her father’s blood. She could not claim it. Oh God! the thought of it? But she might have spared herself any qualms on this head. The railway company flatly and uncompromisingly repudiated all liability. The insurance was againstaccidentnot suicide. They were in a position to prove, and to prove indisputably that for any one to have fallen from the particular coach of which Seward was an occupant, and that by accident, was a sheer impossibility. The door handles were all in good order; if anything, rather stiff to turn than otherwise. They could prove too, that the said door handles were properly secured at the last station the train had passed through. And worst of all, they were in a position to produce a platform inspector who had passed the pair at the moment of the utterance of those fatal words: “You see, I’m more valuable to you dead than alive. I used to think it was the other way about.” The official had heard the words distinctly, and after the tragedy had himself voluntarily come forward with the information. At the time they had struck him as uttered jokingly, but in the light of the subsequent event they took on a far different aspect. In short, Seward had bungled the whole business. He died as he had lived, and his last act was one of perfectly inexcusable bungle. “More valuable to you dead than alive,” had been his words, and in the result his daughter was left alone in the world, as nearly as possible penniless.
Alone! Yes—for she had no relations, except one, away in India, and for certain reasons the last person on earth to whom she would apply under any circumstances whatever. She had no real friends, only acquaintances who could be of no great service to her, but eventually, thanks to the inherent spirit and pluck which buoyed her up, she managed to find means of supporting herself. And all this had befallen rather more than two years previously to when we first see her, being, more or less politely, shown the door at the Villa Carstairs.
Now, shut up in the mouldy darkness of the slow, Jolting vehicle, it all came back to her again, and she had to hurriedly brush away the warm tears which the recollection—always vivid—had evoked, as the cab drew up with a jolt at her friend’s lodgings. But she met with what she most needed, a cordial welcome. Even the cabman, a rubicund old fellow with a bulbous nose and a rumbling voice, forebore to claim so much as a penny over his legal fare when he caught a full view of her face under the street lamp, and a gratuity of threepence, smilingly tendered, was met by a hearty “Thankee kindly, missie.”
Cumnor Lodge, the Carstairs villa, though dull and heavy outside, within was characterised by a considerable degree of solid comfort. But this narrow hallway and the nondescript combination of smells of sink-cum-cabbage, with a slatternly landlady and a still more slatternly servant, waiting to give a hand upstairs with the luggage as well as to satisfy a natural curiosity as to what the visitor would be like, struck her with a very real chill. Would it be her lot to inhabit such a place, was the thought that instinctively shot through her mind? But the impression was partly neutralised when she found herself within her friend’s tiny but snug sitting-room, with its bright fire, and hissing kettle, and tea and its appurtenances all so dear to the feminine eye. Violet Clinock was a bright, pleasing type of girl, with dark hair, and honest grey eyes, not exactly pretty, but rather near being so. But with all her natural cheerfulness, there was intertwined an impression of one who was perfectly well able to take care of herself. In fact she rather prided herself upon this, and upon being an independent bachelor girl who could always make her own way. She was a country parson’s daughter—one of many—under which circumstances she flattered herself she had done the right thing in striking out on her own.
“This shop’s rather dingy in the daytime, dear,” she explained as the two were seated comfortably in the really cosy little room, and the tea and muffins and other things dear to the feminine appetite were in full force. “But I’m not much here in the daytime, and at night, once I get inside it doesn’t matter. The main thing is it’s cheap—very. Not nasty either, for I do every mortal thing for myself. Heaven help me if I left it to anybody else. Well, I’ve been saving up, with an eye to running a typing shop on my own. It isn’t my ambition to remain for ever in a position to take orders from other people, I can tell you. Well, and why did you leave your last crowd? Had a row?”
“Sort of. It takes two to make a row, and there wasn’t much of that on my side,” answered Melian. “I just let the old woman talk, but she didn’t get what she wanted. I got the key of the street instead—so, here I am. By the way,” she added, waxing grave. “I don’t know where I’m going to be. That’s a pair of shoes of another pattern.”
“Oh, with all your high accomplishments,” laughed the other. “Why any one would jump at you.”
“Would they? They’re welcome to skip, then. But even ‘high accomplishments’ are no good without references.”
“Without references? But you can get—Oh, I see. The old cat won’t give you any.”
Melian nodded.
“The beastly old cat!” pronounced Violet. “She ought to be compelled to.”
“Well, she can’t be, and that’s all I’ve got to do with it. So there you are.”
“Let’s see. You’re no good at our job, are you, Melian?” said the other, drumming the tips of her fingers together meditatively.
“Unfortunately I’ve never learned it.”
“That’s a pity.” In her romantic little soul she was beginning to weave a web of destiny for Melian, and the meshes thereof were glittering. A secretarial post in some flourishing office, and if her beautiful friend did not promptly enslave an opulent junior partner, why then it was her own fault. But then, unfortunately, her said “beautiful friend” had never learned typing.
They chatted on, about everything and nothing, and bedtime came.
“I turn in early,” explained Violet, “because I have to turn out early, and get to my job. You’ll have to turn in with me, dear, to-night at any rate. To-morrow, if you want a room to yourself, I dare say Mrs Seals can fix you up. But they’re all rather kennels I’m afraid. I’ve got the pick of the basket.”
“Don’t you worry about me, Violet. It’s something to have some one to come to when you get the key of the street door given you, I can tell you,” answered Melian, seriously. And then they went to bed and talked each other to sleep.
There followed then, sad, disappointing, heart weary days for poor Melian. She answered advertisements in person, and by letter. She went to all sorts of places, in and around London, in course of such answers. Sometimes she was sympathetically received, twice she was insulted, but that was where she found the dominant male had been advertiser under cover of what looked like one of her own sex. But in the genuine cases disappointment awaited—and but that she was free from vanity or self-consciousness she might easily have read the real nature of the verdict—“Far too pretty.”
Oh, the weariness of those daily tramps, and bus and tram journeys, through more or less hideous, drab, depressing streets in the dull, deadly depressing winter murk invariably characteristic of London during the young end of the year! Oh, the weight of it upon the mind, as she realised, instinctively, that it was not a case of try again, but that for some reason or other her case seemed utterly hopeless. She put it to her friend. But the latter, though she shrewdly suspected the reason, shrank from saying so.
Of her, Melian saw little or nothing during the daytime, Violet Clinock was thorough, and stuck to her job, with an eye to material improvement. But in the evening they would foregather, and the daily tale of worn out disappointment would unfold itself, and after the wretched, soul-wearying effort of the day Melian could not but realise the warmth and comfort and companionship which it ended up with; and this in a measure heartened her for the next.
She had taken a small bedroom at the top of the squalid house—a mere attic, but the two girls “chummed” together for the rest of their arrangements. But a fortnight went by, then three weeks, and still with the same result. Melian Seward was just where she was at the time of leaving Cumnor Lodge. There seemed to be no room in the world for her. Her slender savings, in spite of every possible economy, were dwindling. When they had done dwindling—what then?
And then the result of the cold, dank, and often wet, questings around after a means of livelihood, combined with lowness of spirits, and a sorely disturbed mind, came. She was laid low with a bad bout of influenza. The hydra-headed fiend was hard on the ramp, seeking whom he might devour, and finding it too in plenty. And among his countless victims was Melian Mervyn Seward.
And she could not afford to be ill; for is not illness a luxury for the rich?
But through it all her friend tended her with wholehearted and loyal camaraderie. Of course she suggested a doctor.
“A doctor? Heavens, Violet! I can’t afford such luxuries,” Melian burst forth fiercely. “The only thing I can afford is to die—and the sooner the better.” And then she became delirious, and imagined she was standing on the platform of the gloomy, dingy terminus, amid its vibration of hissing, shrieking engines, discussing those hateful, fateful railway insurance tickets with her dead father. But whether she would have a doctor or not, Violet was determined she should, and sent for one accordingly.
He, on arrival, looked grave.
“Has she any relations, Miss Clinock?”
“Oh, good Heavens! You don’t say it means that?” And the business girl was startled for the moment out of her normal take-things-as-they-come attitude.
“No, no, no. But—they ought to know. She’s in a very low state, I’m bound to inform you. There’s something on her mind—something hard and heavy on her mind—and that’s all against her—all against everything.”
“Lord! I wish I knew what to do. But she’s very ‘close.’ Between ourselves, doctor—of course, strictly between ourselves—” The other nodded. “I believe she has one or two. But she must have quarrelled with them, or they with her, for if ever I got on to the subject she takes me up mighty sharp, I can tell you. And I don’t believe in forcing people’s confidences or prying into their affairs.”
“No, no. Of—course not. Still, do all you can in that direction. You may find opportunities, you know—or make them. Good-evening, I am very busy just now, there’s a record lot of ‘flu’ about, as I dare say you know. I’ll look round in the morning.”
Chapter Eight.Violet’s Discovery.“In the morning,” the doctor had said. What a deal of difference those three words can cover. In this instance Melian had passed a quiet night, thanks to his prescription, but was very down and listless. Violet Clinock had decided to take a day off on purpose to look after her, and with that intent had “expressed” a note down to her place of business to intimate that fact. Now she sat at breakfast, alone, with the morning paper propped up against her coffee pot.As she read, a name caught her eye. “Seward Mervyn.” She stared. “Seward Mervyn” again. Yes it was. And then running her glance down the paragraph and up again, she saw that it was headed: “Clancehurst—The Heath Hover Mystery.” Thus it ran:“The remains of the unidentified stranger, who met his death so mysteriously at Heath Hover, the residence of Mr Seward Mervyn, were buried yesterday afternoon in Clancehurst churchyard. No friends or relatives were forthcoming, but Mr Mervyn, unwilling that one who had been a guest of his—though from first to last unknown to himself—should be buried by the parish, generously came forward, and together with Dr Sandys and a few other generous leading townspeople, raised sufficient to cover all expenses, and also attended the funeral. Up till now no light whatever has been thrown upon this strange occurrence which has baffled alike all the researches of medical science and the exhaustive investigations of the police. Inspector Nashby of Clancehurst, together with an official from Scotland Yard are in charge of the case from the latter point of view.”Violet stared at the paragraph and read it through again. Now it all came back. She had read about it before, but it had not fixed itself upon her memory. Even the name had failed to effect this then for she had not seen Melian for some time, and in the busy life she led, “out of sight out of mind” could not but hold good to a certain extent. But now the name seized her attention at once. “Seward Mervyn?” And she knew that Melian’s second name was Mervyn, Clearly this must be a relation. And the doctor had asked her about Melian’s relations.She read no more of the paper. Her shrewd, busy little brain was at work. This must be a relation, probably an uncle or a cousin. Clearly her duty was to communicate with him. Clancehurst was only about an hour and a half from London. The day was young—should she go down herself and interview him personally? But against that she did not care to leave her friend alone at this stage. Should she write? Perhaps that would be the best course. But she had better question Melian first as to her relative, while saying nothing about any intention on her part to communicate with him. Having thus decided, she went up to her friend’s room, taking the paper with her.Melian was awake, but drowsily so. Her blue eyes were wide open, but had a pathetic and lack-lustre look, and her hair, partly loosened, made a tumbled halo of gold against the pillow. Yes, she had slept well—she said—only rather wished she could go on sleeping for ever.“By the way,” went on Violet, casually, after having talked a little about things in general. “Have you got a relation named Seward Mervyn?”“Oh yes! He’s my uncle. He’s out in India.”“Is he? Well have you any other relation of the name?”“No. Not that I know of. In fact I can’t have—or I should have known it.”“Well then, this one isn’t out in India at all. He’s in England, and not very far from London at that. In fact, only about an hour and a half by rail, if as much.”Melian stared, then raised herself on one elbow.“What on earth are you talking about, Violet?” she said. “I tell you he’s in India.”“Well, people come back from India sometimes, don’t they?”“Yes. But I’ve no interest in this one, nor he in me. He has never shown any at any rate. I don’t want him to either. He wasn’t at all nice to my father. He disapproved of his sister marrying him, and, in fact, he disapproved of him entirely. No. I couldn’t bring myself to be civil even if I were to see him.”“Have you ever seen him?”“No.”The word jerked out fiercely. Violet Clinock could see that her friend was getting excited, and that was bad.“Then don’t be in too great a hurry to pass judgment. Life is—I’m not going to say, ‘too short,’ as the silly old chestnut runs, when if anything it’s long enough—but too busy, too hard, to keep grinding away at ancient grievances, even if they are not entirely or partly imaginary. It’s just possible that this relation of yours may have been a bit misunderstood. Anyway give him the benefit of the doubt.”“Where did you say he is?” said Melian listlessly.“Clancehurst—or near it, rather,” glancing again at the newspaper. “Heath Hover, they call his place.”“That sounds rather nice,” murmured the invalid.“It’s a jolly part of the country I can tell you,” went on Violet, emphatically. Her plot seemed somehow to look hopeful. “I’ve been near that part, and I’d give something for a week or two down there now with my bike, even though it is winter. The glow of the heather, and the green and gold of the waving woods is something to see, I tell you.”“In winter?” smiled Melian artlessly.“No, you goose. I’m talking about summer and autumn.”“Oh!”“Shall I read you the paragraph?”“Yes, do.”The other did so, and then went on to tell her all about the original mystery, which now came back to her memory. Melian listened, and grew more and more interested.“It’s funny how the thing should have escaped my attention,” she said. “But I didn’t see the papers regularly at the Carstairs’. Sometimes a day or two would go by—or even longer.”Melian grew no better. Violet could not stay in to look after her every day, for she was entirely dependent upon her work, and were she to lose this, why then they would both be in the same boat. So during the day she was dependent on the slatternly landlady—who though well meaning and kind according to her lights, was yet slatternly, and very vulgar in her ideas. So the girl would lie there by the hour, feeling too weak and listless even to read, with no more cheering a prospect to look out upon than a vista of black chimney stacks and chimney cowls, taking weird shapes against the grey murk of the London sky. And what was there to cheer her? Nothing. Even when she did get well her small savings would have vanished, or dwindled to vanishing point, in the incidental expenses of her illness alone, apart from the liquidation of her medical attendant’s claim. The girl felt very wretched, very despairing, as she lay there day after day in her loneliness. And in the evening when her friend returned and tried to cheer her, the process grew more and more difficult.“This won’t do,” said the doctor, one morning, coming into Violet’s little sitting-room with a very grave face. “Is there nowhere that Miss Seward could go to for a complete change of air and scene?”Violet shook her head sadly. She thought of the dwindling purse, and of her friend’s sinking despondency. She thought also of her friend’s pride. And then an idea came to her.“There is only one thing I can think of, doctor,” she said suddenly, “and even that may bring forth nothing. But if I tell you, it is entirely in confidence you understand.”“Why that of course,” answered the doctor. He was a youngish man, very hardworking, in a hard-worked and poorly paying practice, and like most members of his profession had more than an ordinary share of intelligent human sympathy. He guessed pretty accurately at one of the causes for worry which kept back his patient upstairs—in fact the main cause—and had been puzzling how to hint, delicately, that so far as he was concerned, that cause need not count.Then Violet told him of the existence of Melian’s unknown relative and how the girl refused to communicate with him, through some notion of—probably mistaken—pride. At the mention of the name and locality Dr Barnes brightened up at once.“By George, so that’s her relative!” he said. “I should think I had heard of that case. Why it was a puzzler—baffled all our people most effectually. It isn’t likely to be forgotten either in the profession. Here is a man who dies suddenly and mysteriously, and even our experts can find no definite cause of death. But, there. I’m talking ‘shop.’ Let’s get back to Miss Seward. She ought certainly to make herself known to this relative of hers—he seems a kind sort of man if only by the way he has interested himself in the burial of this unknown stranger. Her uncle too. That’s near enough. Make her write to him. I tell you in all seriousness that she is getting into a very critical state. The only thing for her is a thorough change of air and scene. You know what a hydra-headed beast ‘flu’ is, and its Protean after effects. Well, a splendid type of girl like Miss Seward is far too scarce to spare any effort to save from possible week of that sort. You must make her write to him.”“But if she won’t? She’s got a pretty strong will of her own, I can tell you.”The doctor looked at her for a moment in silence. Then he said:“In that case write yourself.”Violet clapped her hands.“Good—and good again?” she cried. “Just the very thing I’d thought of doing, and now I’ve got your authority behind me, why, I will.”Again the doctor looked at her in silence for a moment. Then he said:“I will take upon myself to advise you further, Miss Clinock. Do so at once, on your own responsibility. Say nothing to our patient—and so spare her the worry of argument and counter-argument, which would be in the last degree bad for her at this stage. She will thank you for it afterwards, believe me; and then, if the answer should not be satisfactory, which I can hardly think—she will be spared that additional disappointment too. But I tell you, purely professionally, that a change to a quiet country place like Clancehurst, and its pure, splendid air, would be the saving of her. Good-bye. I needn’t look round to-morrow unless you send for me.”“I’ll do it at once, this very night,” answered Violet briskly. “Good-bye, doctor. You have taken something of a weight off my mind.”The next day Violet Clinock took “off,” though not without some qualms of trepidation. She had been taking several “off” of late, and her employers were getting a bit short. They were rather “fed up” with her sick friend and the absences entailed, and half hinted that a typing secretary unburdened with sick friends was more in their line, and in fact plenty were there ready and waiting. But Violet was shrewd enough to know her own value, which was really considerably beyond that of salary received. However, she fingered the reins delicately.That day she devoted to Melian, and the general cheering of her up. The next or the one after that, at the furthest, should bring a reply to her diplomatically, but at the same time very humanly, expressed missive to a perfect stranger.“You must buck up, Melian,” she would say. “Why, if the worst came to the worst didn’t old Carstairs say that he would be a friend to you if ever you were in want of one?”“Pooh! He didn’t mean it. It was only something to say—a sort of well rounded figure of speech to get rid of me comfortably,” announced Melian cynically—her illness and growing straits had rendered her cynical. “And even if he did, that old cat of his would soon want to know the reason why, I can tell you.”“I don’t know. Very likely she has come round, since she’s had time to think things over.”“Come round! Let her come round—or square. Turning one out like that—at an hour’s notice and all about nothing. They’re a cad crowd anyhow, and as the old chestnut says—you can’t look for anything from a pig but a grunt. But even they may find their own turn come next. Old Carstairs’ job isn’t such a cocksure business, but very much ‘up to-day down to-morrow.’ I’ve heard him say so himself many a time, and give instances of it too.”“Well dear, it’s a rum world, and to quote another moss-grown chestnut—you never know your luck. Now I’ve got a notion things are going to turn for you, and in a little while you’ll be all on the up grade.”Melian did not answer. Even the up grade indicated meant a dreary vista of unceasing drudgery, giving the best of her life—her young life—to the totally unappreciated service of other people, and that for a mere living wage. Surely she was cut out for something rather different. But her friend would not allow her to get into a despondent vein. She switched the topic of conversation off to other matters, and her efforts were rewarded, for the invalid forgot the standing woes and grievances, and being of an imaginative temperament, soon found herself talking brightly, and even laughing. Decidedly here was a marked improvement, concluded the watcher, thankfully.In due course, and exactly to the time Violet had calculated, came a letter. The girl’s eyes brightened as they lit upon the Clancehurst postmark on the large square envelope, and she could only just restrain herself from rushing into her friend’s room, after the early morning postal delivery.“Melian, here’s a letter for you,”—throwing it down on the bed.“Letter? What? I’ve no one to get letters from—unless it’s another from that silly little booby, Dicky Carstairs,” she added bitterly. “Only, how should he write to me here? Oh, I suppose it’s only one of the deferred answers to one of my applications. ‘Will write and let you know.’ You know the rigmarole—‘Mrs Stick-in-the-mud is exceedingly sorry’—and all that sort of thing. Well, let’s see.”The while Violet had been on tenter-hooks lest the other should spot the Clancehurst postmark, and perhaps decline, in her absurd pride, to open the letter at all. But Melian tore open the envelope leisurely and listlessly, and then her brows contracted as she took in the contents of the large square sheet—and the excited watcher saw a flush of red suffuse the sweet, delicate face. This was what she read.“Heath Hover, Near Clancehurst.“My dear Melian,—“I am deeply distressed, and more than glad at what I hear about you; the first that you have been so ill, the second that it has given me the opportunity of coming into touch with you at all. I had no idea where you were—I have not been very long back from India, remember—and neither you nor anybody else has ever communicated with me, or given me any information at all with regard to you. But I am only too thankful that now—though late in the day—I have such.“Now I am losing no time in writing to say that you must pack up and come to me here, at once, and make this your home for as long as ever you like to make it so. I am getting an old man and am quite alone, so it may be dull for you, but at present, anyhow, a whiff of pure, fresh, country air, on top of that beastly London fog in winter, may well set you up after your illness. Although winter, you will enjoy it as a contrast to town smoke, I should think. So wire or write the train I shall expect you by at Clancehurst, and I will be there to meet you. There are reasons why I cannot leave home at present, so am unable to come up to town personally to fetch you, as I should otherwise have been glad to do.“Believe me, my dear child,—“Your affectionate uncle,—“John Seward Mervyn.“PS. Illness involves expense. You will accept a trifle towards such.”Two five pound notes remained in the envelope. The long white fingers took them out, and even in the act the girl appreciated the delicacy which should have placed them there until the letter should first have been read. She handed the letter to Violet, while the tears began to well forth from her wearied blue eyes.“Hurrah!” cried the latter, having read it. “This uncle of yours is a brick, Melian—a real hard, cemented brick.” Then growing serious. “Such a sweet letter too. There, I told you better times were coming, didn’t I?”“You had no business to have written to him. I never told you you might,” was the weakly reproachful reply.And then the two girls, the ill one and the well—the ill one because she was ill—the well one out of sympathy, had a good cry together, and there was much hugging and they were happy.
“In the morning,” the doctor had said. What a deal of difference those three words can cover. In this instance Melian had passed a quiet night, thanks to his prescription, but was very down and listless. Violet Clinock had decided to take a day off on purpose to look after her, and with that intent had “expressed” a note down to her place of business to intimate that fact. Now she sat at breakfast, alone, with the morning paper propped up against her coffee pot.
As she read, a name caught her eye. “Seward Mervyn.” She stared. “Seward Mervyn” again. Yes it was. And then running her glance down the paragraph and up again, she saw that it was headed: “Clancehurst—The Heath Hover Mystery.” Thus it ran:
“The remains of the unidentified stranger, who met his death so mysteriously at Heath Hover, the residence of Mr Seward Mervyn, were buried yesterday afternoon in Clancehurst churchyard. No friends or relatives were forthcoming, but Mr Mervyn, unwilling that one who had been a guest of his—though from first to last unknown to himself—should be buried by the parish, generously came forward, and together with Dr Sandys and a few other generous leading townspeople, raised sufficient to cover all expenses, and also attended the funeral. Up till now no light whatever has been thrown upon this strange occurrence which has baffled alike all the researches of medical science and the exhaustive investigations of the police. Inspector Nashby of Clancehurst, together with an official from Scotland Yard are in charge of the case from the latter point of view.”
Violet stared at the paragraph and read it through again. Now it all came back. She had read about it before, but it had not fixed itself upon her memory. Even the name had failed to effect this then for she had not seen Melian for some time, and in the busy life she led, “out of sight out of mind” could not but hold good to a certain extent. But now the name seized her attention at once. “Seward Mervyn?” And she knew that Melian’s second name was Mervyn, Clearly this must be a relation. And the doctor had asked her about Melian’s relations.
She read no more of the paper. Her shrewd, busy little brain was at work. This must be a relation, probably an uncle or a cousin. Clearly her duty was to communicate with him. Clancehurst was only about an hour and a half from London. The day was young—should she go down herself and interview him personally? But against that she did not care to leave her friend alone at this stage. Should she write? Perhaps that would be the best course. But she had better question Melian first as to her relative, while saying nothing about any intention on her part to communicate with him. Having thus decided, she went up to her friend’s room, taking the paper with her.
Melian was awake, but drowsily so. Her blue eyes were wide open, but had a pathetic and lack-lustre look, and her hair, partly loosened, made a tumbled halo of gold against the pillow. Yes, she had slept well—she said—only rather wished she could go on sleeping for ever.
“By the way,” went on Violet, casually, after having talked a little about things in general. “Have you got a relation named Seward Mervyn?”
“Oh yes! He’s my uncle. He’s out in India.”
“Is he? Well have you any other relation of the name?”
“No. Not that I know of. In fact I can’t have—or I should have known it.”
“Well then, this one isn’t out in India at all. He’s in England, and not very far from London at that. In fact, only about an hour and a half by rail, if as much.”
Melian stared, then raised herself on one elbow.
“What on earth are you talking about, Violet?” she said. “I tell you he’s in India.”
“Well, people come back from India sometimes, don’t they?”
“Yes. But I’ve no interest in this one, nor he in me. He has never shown any at any rate. I don’t want him to either. He wasn’t at all nice to my father. He disapproved of his sister marrying him, and, in fact, he disapproved of him entirely. No. I couldn’t bring myself to be civil even if I were to see him.”
“Have you ever seen him?”
“No.”
The word jerked out fiercely. Violet Clinock could see that her friend was getting excited, and that was bad.
“Then don’t be in too great a hurry to pass judgment. Life is—I’m not going to say, ‘too short,’ as the silly old chestnut runs, when if anything it’s long enough—but too busy, too hard, to keep grinding away at ancient grievances, even if they are not entirely or partly imaginary. It’s just possible that this relation of yours may have been a bit misunderstood. Anyway give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“Where did you say he is?” said Melian listlessly.
“Clancehurst—or near it, rather,” glancing again at the newspaper. “Heath Hover, they call his place.”
“That sounds rather nice,” murmured the invalid.
“It’s a jolly part of the country I can tell you,” went on Violet, emphatically. Her plot seemed somehow to look hopeful. “I’ve been near that part, and I’d give something for a week or two down there now with my bike, even though it is winter. The glow of the heather, and the green and gold of the waving woods is something to see, I tell you.”
“In winter?” smiled Melian artlessly.
“No, you goose. I’m talking about summer and autumn.”
“Oh!”
“Shall I read you the paragraph?”
“Yes, do.”
The other did so, and then went on to tell her all about the original mystery, which now came back to her memory. Melian listened, and grew more and more interested.
“It’s funny how the thing should have escaped my attention,” she said. “But I didn’t see the papers regularly at the Carstairs’. Sometimes a day or two would go by—or even longer.”
Melian grew no better. Violet could not stay in to look after her every day, for she was entirely dependent upon her work, and were she to lose this, why then they would both be in the same boat. So during the day she was dependent on the slatternly landlady—who though well meaning and kind according to her lights, was yet slatternly, and very vulgar in her ideas. So the girl would lie there by the hour, feeling too weak and listless even to read, with no more cheering a prospect to look out upon than a vista of black chimney stacks and chimney cowls, taking weird shapes against the grey murk of the London sky. And what was there to cheer her? Nothing. Even when she did get well her small savings would have vanished, or dwindled to vanishing point, in the incidental expenses of her illness alone, apart from the liquidation of her medical attendant’s claim. The girl felt very wretched, very despairing, as she lay there day after day in her loneliness. And in the evening when her friend returned and tried to cheer her, the process grew more and more difficult.
“This won’t do,” said the doctor, one morning, coming into Violet’s little sitting-room with a very grave face. “Is there nowhere that Miss Seward could go to for a complete change of air and scene?”
Violet shook her head sadly. She thought of the dwindling purse, and of her friend’s sinking despondency. She thought also of her friend’s pride. And then an idea came to her.
“There is only one thing I can think of, doctor,” she said suddenly, “and even that may bring forth nothing. But if I tell you, it is entirely in confidence you understand.”
“Why that of course,” answered the doctor. He was a youngish man, very hardworking, in a hard-worked and poorly paying practice, and like most members of his profession had more than an ordinary share of intelligent human sympathy. He guessed pretty accurately at one of the causes for worry which kept back his patient upstairs—in fact the main cause—and had been puzzling how to hint, delicately, that so far as he was concerned, that cause need not count.
Then Violet told him of the existence of Melian’s unknown relative and how the girl refused to communicate with him, through some notion of—probably mistaken—pride. At the mention of the name and locality Dr Barnes brightened up at once.
“By George, so that’s her relative!” he said. “I should think I had heard of that case. Why it was a puzzler—baffled all our people most effectually. It isn’t likely to be forgotten either in the profession. Here is a man who dies suddenly and mysteriously, and even our experts can find no definite cause of death. But, there. I’m talking ‘shop.’ Let’s get back to Miss Seward. She ought certainly to make herself known to this relative of hers—he seems a kind sort of man if only by the way he has interested himself in the burial of this unknown stranger. Her uncle too. That’s near enough. Make her write to him. I tell you in all seriousness that she is getting into a very critical state. The only thing for her is a thorough change of air and scene. You know what a hydra-headed beast ‘flu’ is, and its Protean after effects. Well, a splendid type of girl like Miss Seward is far too scarce to spare any effort to save from possible week of that sort. You must make her write to him.”
“But if she won’t? She’s got a pretty strong will of her own, I can tell you.”
The doctor looked at her for a moment in silence. Then he said:
“In that case write yourself.”
Violet clapped her hands.
“Good—and good again?” she cried. “Just the very thing I’d thought of doing, and now I’ve got your authority behind me, why, I will.”
Again the doctor looked at her in silence for a moment. Then he said:
“I will take upon myself to advise you further, Miss Clinock. Do so at once, on your own responsibility. Say nothing to our patient—and so spare her the worry of argument and counter-argument, which would be in the last degree bad for her at this stage. She will thank you for it afterwards, believe me; and then, if the answer should not be satisfactory, which I can hardly think—she will be spared that additional disappointment too. But I tell you, purely professionally, that a change to a quiet country place like Clancehurst, and its pure, splendid air, would be the saving of her. Good-bye. I needn’t look round to-morrow unless you send for me.”
“I’ll do it at once, this very night,” answered Violet briskly. “Good-bye, doctor. You have taken something of a weight off my mind.”
The next day Violet Clinock took “off,” though not without some qualms of trepidation. She had been taking several “off” of late, and her employers were getting a bit short. They were rather “fed up” with her sick friend and the absences entailed, and half hinted that a typing secretary unburdened with sick friends was more in their line, and in fact plenty were there ready and waiting. But Violet was shrewd enough to know her own value, which was really considerably beyond that of salary received. However, she fingered the reins delicately.
That day she devoted to Melian, and the general cheering of her up. The next or the one after that, at the furthest, should bring a reply to her diplomatically, but at the same time very humanly, expressed missive to a perfect stranger.
“You must buck up, Melian,” she would say. “Why, if the worst came to the worst didn’t old Carstairs say that he would be a friend to you if ever you were in want of one?”
“Pooh! He didn’t mean it. It was only something to say—a sort of well rounded figure of speech to get rid of me comfortably,” announced Melian cynically—her illness and growing straits had rendered her cynical. “And even if he did, that old cat of his would soon want to know the reason why, I can tell you.”
“I don’t know. Very likely she has come round, since she’s had time to think things over.”
“Come round! Let her come round—or square. Turning one out like that—at an hour’s notice and all about nothing. They’re a cad crowd anyhow, and as the old chestnut says—you can’t look for anything from a pig but a grunt. But even they may find their own turn come next. Old Carstairs’ job isn’t such a cocksure business, but very much ‘up to-day down to-morrow.’ I’ve heard him say so himself many a time, and give instances of it too.”
“Well dear, it’s a rum world, and to quote another moss-grown chestnut—you never know your luck. Now I’ve got a notion things are going to turn for you, and in a little while you’ll be all on the up grade.”
Melian did not answer. Even the up grade indicated meant a dreary vista of unceasing drudgery, giving the best of her life—her young life—to the totally unappreciated service of other people, and that for a mere living wage. Surely she was cut out for something rather different. But her friend would not allow her to get into a despondent vein. She switched the topic of conversation off to other matters, and her efforts were rewarded, for the invalid forgot the standing woes and grievances, and being of an imaginative temperament, soon found herself talking brightly, and even laughing. Decidedly here was a marked improvement, concluded the watcher, thankfully.
In due course, and exactly to the time Violet had calculated, came a letter. The girl’s eyes brightened as they lit upon the Clancehurst postmark on the large square envelope, and she could only just restrain herself from rushing into her friend’s room, after the early morning postal delivery.
“Melian, here’s a letter for you,”—throwing it down on the bed.
“Letter? What? I’ve no one to get letters from—unless it’s another from that silly little booby, Dicky Carstairs,” she added bitterly. “Only, how should he write to me here? Oh, I suppose it’s only one of the deferred answers to one of my applications. ‘Will write and let you know.’ You know the rigmarole—‘Mrs Stick-in-the-mud is exceedingly sorry’—and all that sort of thing. Well, let’s see.”
The while Violet had been on tenter-hooks lest the other should spot the Clancehurst postmark, and perhaps decline, in her absurd pride, to open the letter at all. But Melian tore open the envelope leisurely and listlessly, and then her brows contracted as she took in the contents of the large square sheet—and the excited watcher saw a flush of red suffuse the sweet, delicate face. This was what she read.
“Heath Hover, Near Clancehurst.
“My dear Melian,—
“I am deeply distressed, and more than glad at what I hear about you; the first that you have been so ill, the second that it has given me the opportunity of coming into touch with you at all. I had no idea where you were—I have not been very long back from India, remember—and neither you nor anybody else has ever communicated with me, or given me any information at all with regard to you. But I am only too thankful that now—though late in the day—I have such.
“Now I am losing no time in writing to say that you must pack up and come to me here, at once, and make this your home for as long as ever you like to make it so. I am getting an old man and am quite alone, so it may be dull for you, but at present, anyhow, a whiff of pure, fresh, country air, on top of that beastly London fog in winter, may well set you up after your illness. Although winter, you will enjoy it as a contrast to town smoke, I should think. So wire or write the train I shall expect you by at Clancehurst, and I will be there to meet you. There are reasons why I cannot leave home at present, so am unable to come up to town personally to fetch you, as I should otherwise have been glad to do.
“Believe me, my dear child,—
“Your affectionate uncle,—
“John Seward Mervyn.
“PS. Illness involves expense. You will accept a trifle towards such.”
Two five pound notes remained in the envelope. The long white fingers took them out, and even in the act the girl appreciated the delicacy which should have placed them there until the letter should first have been read. She handed the letter to Violet, while the tears began to well forth from her wearied blue eyes.
“Hurrah!” cried the latter, having read it. “This uncle of yours is a brick, Melian—a real hard, cemented brick.” Then growing serious. “Such a sweet letter too. There, I told you better times were coming, didn’t I?”
“You had no business to have written to him. I never told you you might,” was the weakly reproachful reply.
And then the two girls, the ill one and the well—the ill one because she was ill—the well one out of sympathy, had a good cry together, and there was much hugging and they were happy.