Chapter Five.

Chapter Five.Puts Certain Questions.Rarely have I felt more put out, or more bitterly disappointed, than I did when I hurried into my flat, expecting to come face to face with Vera, my beloved, and longing to take her in my arms to kiss and comfort her.Instead, I was confronted by a spinster aunt of Vera’s whom I had met only three times before, and to whom I had, the first time I was introduced to her—she insisted upon never remembering me either by name or by sight, and each time needing a fresh introduction—taken an ineradicable dislike.“Ah, Mr Ashton, I’m so glad you’ve come,” she said without rising. “I have called to talk to you about a great many things—I daresay you can guess what they are—about all this dreadful affair at Houghton.”Now the more annoyed I feel with anybody of my own social standing, the more coldly polite I invariably become. It was so on this occasion.“I should love to stay and talk to you, Miss Thorold,” I answered, after an instant’s pause, “but I have just been sitting at the bedside of a sick friend. To-day is the first day he has been allowed to see anybody. The doctor said he ought not to have allowed me in so soon, and he warned me to go straight home, take off every stitch of clothing I have on, and send them at once to be disinfected.”“Oh, indeed?” she said rather nervously. “And what has been the matter with your friend?”It was the question I wanted.“Didn’t I tell you?” I said. “It was smallpox.”My ruse proved even more successful than I had anticipated. Miss Thorold literally sprang to her feet, gathered up her satchel and umbrella, and with the hurried remark: “How perfectly monstrous—keep well away from me!” she edged her way round the wall to the door, and, calling to me from the little passage: “I will ring you on the telephone,” went out of the flat, slamming the door after her.But where was Vera? How could I discover her? I was beside myself with anxiety.The Houghton affair created more than a nine days’ wonder. The people of Rutland desperately resent anything in the nature of a scandal which casts a disagreeable reflection upon their county. I remember how some years ago they talked for months about an unpleasant affair to do with hunting.“Even if it were true,” some of the people who knew it to be true said one to another, “it ought never to have been exposed in that way. Think of the discredit it brings upon our county, and what a handle the Radicals and the Socialists will be able to make of it, if ever it is discovered that it really did occur.”And so it came about that, when I was called back to Oakham two days later, to attend the double inquest, many of the people there, with whom I had been on quite friendly terms, looked at me more or less askance. It is not well to make oneself notorious in a tiny county like Rutland, I quickly discovered, or even to become notorious through no fault of one’s own.Shall I ever forget how, at the inquest, questions put to me by all sorts of uneducated people upon whom the duty devolved of inquiring into the mysterious affair connected with Houghton Park?I suppose it was because there was nobody else to question, that they cross-examined me so closely and so foolishly.Their inquiries were endless. Had I known the Thorolds long? Could I name the date when I first became acquainted with them? Was it a fact that I rode Sir Charles’ horses while I was a guest at Houghton? About how often did I ride them? And on how many days did I hunt during the fortnight I spent at Houghton?All my replies were taken down in writing. Then came questions concerning my friendship with Miss Thorold, and these annoyed me considerably. Was the rumour that I was engaged to be married to her true? Was there any ground for the rumour? Was I at all attached to her? Was she attached to me? Had we ever corresponded by letter? Was it a fact that we called each other by our Christian names? Was it not true, that on one evening at least, we had smoked cigarettes together, alone in her boudoir?It was. This admission seemed to gratify my cross-questioners considerably.“And may I ask, Mr Ashton,” asked a legal gentleman with a most offensive manner, as he looked me up and down, “if this took place with Sir Charles’ knowledge?”“Oh, yes it did. With his full knowledge and consent!”“Oh, really. And you will pardon my asking, was Lady Thorold also aware that you and her daughter sat alone together late at night, smoking cigarettes and addressing each other by your Christian names?”Now I am fairly even-tempered, but this local solicitor’s objectionable insinuations ended by stirring me up. This, very likely, was what he desired that they should do.“My dear sir,” I exclaimed, “will you tell me if these questions of yours have any bearing at all upon the matter you are inquiring into, and if your very offensive innuendoes are intended as veiled, or rather as unveiled, insults to Miss Thorold or to myself?”I heard some one near me murmur, “Hear, hear,” at the back of the room. The comment encouraged me.“You will not address me in that fashion again, please,” my interlocutor answered hotly, reddening.“In what fashion?”“You will not call me ‘your dear sir.’ I object. I strongly object.”A titter of amusement trickled through the room. My adversary’s fingers—for he had become an adversary—twitched.“I was under the impression,” he remarked pompously, “that I was addressing a gentleman.”I am not good at smart retorts, but I got one in when I answered him.“A gentleman—I?” I exclaimed blandly. “I assure you, my dear sir, that I don’t pose as a gentleman. I am quite a common man—just like yourself.”Considerable laughter greeted this remark, but it was at once suppressed. Still, I knew that this single quick rejoinder had biased “the gallery” in my favour. Common people enjoy witnessing the discomfiture of any individual in authority.Two days later, I left Oakham and returned to London, feeling like a schoolboy going home for Christmas.The days went by. On the following week I again went to Oakham to attend the adjourned inquest. In the case of the butler, an open verdict was returned, but in the case of the driver, one of murder by some person unknown.Of Vera I had had no news.“Twenty-six Upper...” That might be in London, or in Brighton. It might even be in some other town. I thought it probable, however, that the address she had been about to give was a London address, so I had spent the day before the inquest in trying the various London “Uppers” contained in “Kelly’s Directory.”Heavens, what an array! When my eyes fell upon the list, my heart sank. For there were no less than fifty-four “Uppers” scattered about the Metropolis. Some, obviously, might be ruled out at once, or so I conjectured. Upper Street, Islington, for instance, close to theAngel, did not sound a likely “residential locality”—as the estate agents say—for people of Sir Charles and Lady Thorold’s position to be staying in. Nor did Upper Bland near theElephant and Castle, nor Upper Grange Road, off the Old Kent Road; nor Upper Chapman Street, Shadwell. On the other hand, Upper Brook Street; Upper George Street, Sloane Square; Upper Grosvenor Street, Park Lane; even Upper Phillimore Gardens, Kensington, seemed possible spots, and these and many other “Uppers” I tried, spinning from one to another in a taxi, until the driver began to look at me as though he had misgivings as to my sanity.“Twenty-six don’t seem to be your lucky number, sir,” he said jocularly, when he had driven me to thirty-seven different “Uppers” and called in each at the house numbered twenty-six. “It wouldn’t be twenty-six in some ‘Lower’ Street, or Place, or Road, or Gardens, would it, sir?”He spoke only half in jest, but I resented his familiarity, and I told him so. His only comment, muttered beneath his breath, but loud enough for me to hear, was—“Lummy! the cove’s dotty in ’is own ‘upper,’ that’s what’eeis.”On my return from Oakham I went to Brighton, wandering aimlessly about the streets and on the esplanade, hoping against hope that some fortunate turn in the wheel of Fate might bring me unexpectedly face to face with my sweet-faced beloved, whose prolonged and mysterious absence seemed to have made my heart grow fonder. Alas! fate only grinned at me ironically.Vera had vanished with her family—entirely vanished.But not wholly ironically. I had been distressed to find that the little silver flask picked up at Houghton had been mislaid. For hours I had hunted high and low for it in my flat. John had turned out all my clothes, and pulled the pockets inside out, and I had bullied him for his carelessness in losing it, and almost accused him of stealing it.It was while in the train on my way back to London, after my second futile visit to Brighton, that I sat down on something hard. Almost at once I guessed what it was. Briefly, there had been a hole in the inside breast-pocket of my overcoat. It had been mended by John’s wife—whose duty it was to keep all my clothes in order—before I knew of its existence. Therefore, when I had naturally enough suspected there being a hole in one of my pockets, and sought one, I had found all the pockets intact. The woman had mended the hole without noticing that the little flask, which had dropped through it, lay hidden in the bottom of the lining.I ripped open the lining at once, and pulled out the flask, delighted at the discovery. And, as soon as I reached town, I took the flask to a chemist I knew and asked him to analyse its contents. He would do so without delay, he said, and let me know on the following morning the result of his analysis.“It’s a mixture of gelsiminum and ether,” he said, as soon as I entered his shop next day.“Poison, of course,” I remarked.He smiled.“Well, I should rather think so,” he answered drily. “A few drops would send a strong man to sleep for ever, and there is enough of the fluid here to send fifty men to sleep—for ever. Therefore one wouldn’t exactly take it for one’s health.”So here was a clue—of a sort. The first clue! My spirits rose. My next step must be to discover the owner of the flask, presumably some one with initials “D.P.,” and the reason he—or she—had carried this fluid about.I lunched at Brooks’s, feeling more than usually bored by the members I met there. Several men whom I had not seen for several weeks were standing in front of the smoking-room fire, and as I entered, and they caught sight of me, they all grinned broadly.”‘The accused then left the Court with his friends,’” one of them said lightly, as I approached. ”‘He was granted a free pardon, but bound over in his own recognisances to keep the peace for six months.’”“Youhavebeen getting yourself into trouble, Dick, and no mistake,” observed his neighbour—I am generally called Dick by my friends.“Into trouble? What do you mean?” I retorted, nettled.“Why—you know quite well,” he answered. “This Houghton affair, the scandal about the Thorolds, of course. How came you to get mixed up in it? We like you, old man, but you know it makes it a bit unpleasant for some of us. You know what people are. They will talk.”“I suppose you mean that men are judged by the company they keep, and that because I happened to be at Houghton at the time of that affair, and was unwillingly dragged into prominence by the newspapers, therefore that discredit reflects on me.”“Well, I should not have expressed it precisely in that way, but still—”“Still what?”“As you ask me, I suppose I must answer. I do think it rather unfortunate you should have got yourself mixed up in the business, and both Algie and Frank agree with me—don’t you, Algie?” he ended, turning to his friend.“Awe—er—awe—quite so, quite so. We were talking of you just as you came in, my dear old Dick, and we all agreed it was, awe—er—was—awe—a confounded pity you had anything to do with it. Bad form, you know, old Dick, all this notoriety. Never does to be unusual, singular, or different from other people—eh what? One’s friends don’t like it—and one don’t like it oneself—what?”Their shallow views and general mental vapidity, if I may put it so, jarred upon me. After spending ten minutes in their company, I went into the dining-room and lunched alone. Then I read the newspapers, dozed in an armchair for half-an-hour, and finally, at about four o’clock, returned to my flat in King Street. John met me on the stairs.“Ah! there you are, sir,” he exclaimed. “Did you meet them?”“Meet whom?”“Why, they haven’t been gone not two minutes, so I thought you might have met them in the street, sir. They waited over half-an-hour.”“But who were they? What were their names?” I asked, irritated at John for not telling me at once the names of the visitors.“A young lady and a gentleman—there’s a card on your table, sir; I can’t recall the names for the moment,” he said, wrinkling his forehead as he scratched his ear to stimulate his memory. “The gentleman was extremely tall, quite a giant, with a dark beard.”I hurried up the stairs, for the lift was out of order, and let myself into my flat with my latch key. On the table, in my sitting-room, was a lady’s card on a salver.“Miss Thorold.”In Vera’s handwriting were the words, scribbled in pencil across it—“So sorry we have missed you.”

Rarely have I felt more put out, or more bitterly disappointed, than I did when I hurried into my flat, expecting to come face to face with Vera, my beloved, and longing to take her in my arms to kiss and comfort her.

Instead, I was confronted by a spinster aunt of Vera’s whom I had met only three times before, and to whom I had, the first time I was introduced to her—she insisted upon never remembering me either by name or by sight, and each time needing a fresh introduction—taken an ineradicable dislike.

“Ah, Mr Ashton, I’m so glad you’ve come,” she said without rising. “I have called to talk to you about a great many things—I daresay you can guess what they are—about all this dreadful affair at Houghton.”

Now the more annoyed I feel with anybody of my own social standing, the more coldly polite I invariably become. It was so on this occasion.

“I should love to stay and talk to you, Miss Thorold,” I answered, after an instant’s pause, “but I have just been sitting at the bedside of a sick friend. To-day is the first day he has been allowed to see anybody. The doctor said he ought not to have allowed me in so soon, and he warned me to go straight home, take off every stitch of clothing I have on, and send them at once to be disinfected.”

“Oh, indeed?” she said rather nervously. “And what has been the matter with your friend?”

It was the question I wanted.

“Didn’t I tell you?” I said. “It was smallpox.”

My ruse proved even more successful than I had anticipated. Miss Thorold literally sprang to her feet, gathered up her satchel and umbrella, and with the hurried remark: “How perfectly monstrous—keep well away from me!” she edged her way round the wall to the door, and, calling to me from the little passage: “I will ring you on the telephone,” went out of the flat, slamming the door after her.

But where was Vera? How could I discover her? I was beside myself with anxiety.

The Houghton affair created more than a nine days’ wonder. The people of Rutland desperately resent anything in the nature of a scandal which casts a disagreeable reflection upon their county. I remember how some years ago they talked for months about an unpleasant affair to do with hunting.

“Even if it were true,” some of the people who knew it to be true said one to another, “it ought never to have been exposed in that way. Think of the discredit it brings upon our county, and what a handle the Radicals and the Socialists will be able to make of it, if ever it is discovered that it really did occur.”

And so it came about that, when I was called back to Oakham two days later, to attend the double inquest, many of the people there, with whom I had been on quite friendly terms, looked at me more or less askance. It is not well to make oneself notorious in a tiny county like Rutland, I quickly discovered, or even to become notorious through no fault of one’s own.

Shall I ever forget how, at the inquest, questions put to me by all sorts of uneducated people upon whom the duty devolved of inquiring into the mysterious affair connected with Houghton Park?

I suppose it was because there was nobody else to question, that they cross-examined me so closely and so foolishly.

Their inquiries were endless. Had I known the Thorolds long? Could I name the date when I first became acquainted with them? Was it a fact that I rode Sir Charles’ horses while I was a guest at Houghton? About how often did I ride them? And on how many days did I hunt during the fortnight I spent at Houghton?

All my replies were taken down in writing. Then came questions concerning my friendship with Miss Thorold, and these annoyed me considerably. Was the rumour that I was engaged to be married to her true? Was there any ground for the rumour? Was I at all attached to her? Was she attached to me? Had we ever corresponded by letter? Was it a fact that we called each other by our Christian names? Was it not true, that on one evening at least, we had smoked cigarettes together, alone in her boudoir?

It was. This admission seemed to gratify my cross-questioners considerably.

“And may I ask, Mr Ashton,” asked a legal gentleman with a most offensive manner, as he looked me up and down, “if this took place with Sir Charles’ knowledge?”

“Oh, yes it did. With his full knowledge and consent!”

“Oh, really. And you will pardon my asking, was Lady Thorold also aware that you and her daughter sat alone together late at night, smoking cigarettes and addressing each other by your Christian names?”

Now I am fairly even-tempered, but this local solicitor’s objectionable insinuations ended by stirring me up. This, very likely, was what he desired that they should do.

“My dear sir,” I exclaimed, “will you tell me if these questions of yours have any bearing at all upon the matter you are inquiring into, and if your very offensive innuendoes are intended as veiled, or rather as unveiled, insults to Miss Thorold or to myself?”

I heard some one near me murmur, “Hear, hear,” at the back of the room. The comment encouraged me.

“You will not address me in that fashion again, please,” my interlocutor answered hotly, reddening.

“In what fashion?”

“You will not call me ‘your dear sir.’ I object. I strongly object.”

A titter of amusement trickled through the room. My adversary’s fingers—for he had become an adversary—twitched.

“I was under the impression,” he remarked pompously, “that I was addressing a gentleman.”

I am not good at smart retorts, but I got one in when I answered him.

“A gentleman—I?” I exclaimed blandly. “I assure you, my dear sir, that I don’t pose as a gentleman. I am quite a common man—just like yourself.”

Considerable laughter greeted this remark, but it was at once suppressed. Still, I knew that this single quick rejoinder had biased “the gallery” in my favour. Common people enjoy witnessing the discomfiture of any individual in authority.

Two days later, I left Oakham and returned to London, feeling like a schoolboy going home for Christmas.

The days went by. On the following week I again went to Oakham to attend the adjourned inquest. In the case of the butler, an open verdict was returned, but in the case of the driver, one of murder by some person unknown.

Of Vera I had had no news.

“Twenty-six Upper...” That might be in London, or in Brighton. It might even be in some other town. I thought it probable, however, that the address she had been about to give was a London address, so I had spent the day before the inquest in trying the various London “Uppers” contained in “Kelly’s Directory.”

Heavens, what an array! When my eyes fell upon the list, my heart sank. For there were no less than fifty-four “Uppers” scattered about the Metropolis. Some, obviously, might be ruled out at once, or so I conjectured. Upper Street, Islington, for instance, close to theAngel, did not sound a likely “residential locality”—as the estate agents say—for people of Sir Charles and Lady Thorold’s position to be staying in. Nor did Upper Bland near theElephant and Castle, nor Upper Grange Road, off the Old Kent Road; nor Upper Chapman Street, Shadwell. On the other hand, Upper Brook Street; Upper George Street, Sloane Square; Upper Grosvenor Street, Park Lane; even Upper Phillimore Gardens, Kensington, seemed possible spots, and these and many other “Uppers” I tried, spinning from one to another in a taxi, until the driver began to look at me as though he had misgivings as to my sanity.

“Twenty-six don’t seem to be your lucky number, sir,” he said jocularly, when he had driven me to thirty-seven different “Uppers” and called in each at the house numbered twenty-six. “It wouldn’t be twenty-six in some ‘Lower’ Street, or Place, or Road, or Gardens, would it, sir?”

He spoke only half in jest, but I resented his familiarity, and I told him so. His only comment, muttered beneath his breath, but loud enough for me to hear, was—

“Lummy! the cove’s dotty in ’is own ‘upper,’ that’s what’eeis.”

On my return from Oakham I went to Brighton, wandering aimlessly about the streets and on the esplanade, hoping against hope that some fortunate turn in the wheel of Fate might bring me unexpectedly face to face with my sweet-faced beloved, whose prolonged and mysterious absence seemed to have made my heart grow fonder. Alas! fate only grinned at me ironically.

Vera had vanished with her family—entirely vanished.

But not wholly ironically. I had been distressed to find that the little silver flask picked up at Houghton had been mislaid. For hours I had hunted high and low for it in my flat. John had turned out all my clothes, and pulled the pockets inside out, and I had bullied him for his carelessness in losing it, and almost accused him of stealing it.

It was while in the train on my way back to London, after my second futile visit to Brighton, that I sat down on something hard. Almost at once I guessed what it was. Briefly, there had been a hole in the inside breast-pocket of my overcoat. It had been mended by John’s wife—whose duty it was to keep all my clothes in order—before I knew of its existence. Therefore, when I had naturally enough suspected there being a hole in one of my pockets, and sought one, I had found all the pockets intact. The woman had mended the hole without noticing that the little flask, which had dropped through it, lay hidden in the bottom of the lining.

I ripped open the lining at once, and pulled out the flask, delighted at the discovery. And, as soon as I reached town, I took the flask to a chemist I knew and asked him to analyse its contents. He would do so without delay, he said, and let me know on the following morning the result of his analysis.

“It’s a mixture of gelsiminum and ether,” he said, as soon as I entered his shop next day.

“Poison, of course,” I remarked.

He smiled.

“Well, I should rather think so,” he answered drily. “A few drops would send a strong man to sleep for ever, and there is enough of the fluid here to send fifty men to sleep—for ever. Therefore one wouldn’t exactly take it for one’s health.”

So here was a clue—of a sort. The first clue! My spirits rose. My next step must be to discover the owner of the flask, presumably some one with initials “D.P.,” and the reason he—or she—had carried this fluid about.

I lunched at Brooks’s, feeling more than usually bored by the members I met there. Several men whom I had not seen for several weeks were standing in front of the smoking-room fire, and as I entered, and they caught sight of me, they all grinned broadly.

”‘The accused then left the Court with his friends,’” one of them said lightly, as I approached. ”‘He was granted a free pardon, but bound over in his own recognisances to keep the peace for six months.’”

“Youhavebeen getting yourself into trouble, Dick, and no mistake,” observed his neighbour—I am generally called Dick by my friends.

“Into trouble? What do you mean?” I retorted, nettled.

“Why—you know quite well,” he answered. “This Houghton affair, the scandal about the Thorolds, of course. How came you to get mixed up in it? We like you, old man, but you know it makes it a bit unpleasant for some of us. You know what people are. They will talk.”

“I suppose you mean that men are judged by the company they keep, and that because I happened to be at Houghton at the time of that affair, and was unwillingly dragged into prominence by the newspapers, therefore that discredit reflects on me.”

“Well, I should not have expressed it precisely in that way, but still—”

“Still what?”

“As you ask me, I suppose I must answer. I do think it rather unfortunate you should have got yourself mixed up in the business, and both Algie and Frank agree with me—don’t you, Algie?” he ended, turning to his friend.

“Awe—er—awe—quite so, quite so. We were talking of you just as you came in, my dear old Dick, and we all agreed it was, awe—er—was—awe—a confounded pity you had anything to do with it. Bad form, you know, old Dick, all this notoriety. Never does to be unusual, singular, or different from other people—eh what? One’s friends don’t like it—and one don’t like it oneself—what?”

Their shallow views and general mental vapidity, if I may put it so, jarred upon me. After spending ten minutes in their company, I went into the dining-room and lunched alone. Then I read the newspapers, dozed in an armchair for half-an-hour, and finally, at about four o’clock, returned to my flat in King Street. John met me on the stairs.

“Ah! there you are, sir,” he exclaimed. “Did you meet them?”

“Meet whom?”

“Why, they haven’t been gone not two minutes, so I thought you might have met them in the street, sir. They waited over half-an-hour.”

“But who were they? What were their names?” I asked, irritated at John for not telling me at once the names of the visitors.

“A young lady and a gentleman—there’s a card on your table, sir; I can’t recall the names for the moment,” he said, wrinkling his forehead as he scratched his ear to stimulate his memory. “The gentleman was extremely tall, quite a giant, with a dark beard.”

I hurried up the stairs, for the lift was out of order, and let myself into my flat with my latch key. On the table, in my sitting-room, was a lady’s card on a salver.

“Miss Thorold.”

In Vera’s handwriting were the words, scribbled in pencil across it—

“So sorry we have missed you.”

Chapter Six.The House in the Square.I admit that I was dumbfounded.Vera and her mysterious friend were together, calling in the most matter-of-fact way possible, and just as though nothing had happened! It seemed incredible!All at once a dreadful thought occurred to me that made me catch my breath. Was it possible that my love was an actress, in the sense that she was acting a part? Had she cruelly deceived me when she had declared so earnestly that she loved me? The reflection that, were she practising deception, she would not have come to see me thus openly with the man with the black beard, relieved my feelings only a little. For how came she to be with Davies at all? And again, who was this man Davies? Also that telephone message a fortnight previously, how could I account for it under the circumstances?“Oh, come to me—do come to me! I am in such trouble,” my love had cried so piteously, and then had added: “You alone can help me.”Some one else, apparently, must have helped her. Could it have been this big, dark man?And was he, in consequence, supplanting me in her affection? The thought held me breathless.At times I am something of a philosopher, though my relatives laugh when I tell them so, and reply, “Not a philosopher, only a well-meaning fellow, and extremely good-natured”—a description I detest. Realising now the uselessness of worrying over the matter, I decided to make no further move, but to sit quiet and await developments.“If you worry,” I often tell my friends, “it won’t in the least help to avert impending disaster, while if what you worry about never comes to pass, you have made yourself unhappy to no purpose.”A platitude? Possibly. But two-thirds of the words of wisdom uttered by great men, and handed down as tradition to a worshipping posterity, are platitudes of the most commonplace type, if you really come to analyse them.Time hung heavily. It generally ends by hanging heavily upon a man without occupation. But put yourself for a moment in my place. I had lost my love, and those days of inactivity and longing were doubly tedious because I ached to bestir myself somehow, anyhow, to clear up a mystery which, though gradually fading from the mind of a public ever athirst for fresh sensation, was actively alive in my own thoughts—the one thought, indeed, ever present in my mind. Why had the Thorolds so suddenly and mysteriously disappeared?Thus it occurred to me, two days after Davies and Vera had called at my flat, to stroll down into Belgravia and interview the caretaker at 102, Belgrave Street. Possibly by this time, I reflected, he might have seen Sir Charles Thorold, or heard from him.When I had rung three times, the door slowly opened to the length of its chain, and I think quite the queerest-looking little old man I had ever set eyes on, peered out. He gazed with his sharp, beady eyes up into my face for a moment or two, then asked, in a broken quavering voice—“Are you another newspaper gen’leman?”“Oh, no,” I answered, laughing, for I guessed at once how he must have been harassed by reporters, and I could sympathise with him. “I am not a journalist—I’m only a gentleman.”Of course he was too old to note the satire, but the fact that I wore a silk hat and a clean collar, seemed to satisfy him that I must be a person of some consequence, and when I had assured him that I meant him no ill, but that, on the contrary, I might have something to tell him that he would like to hear, he shut the door, and I heard his trembling old hands remove the chain.“And how long is it since Sir Charles was last here?” I said to him, when he had shown me into his little room on the ground floor, where a kettle purred on a gas-stove. “I know him well, you know; I was staying at Houghton Park when he disappeared.”He looked me up and down, surprised and apparently much interested.“Were you indeed, sir?” he exclaimed. “Well, now—well, well!”“Why don’t you sit down and make yourself comfortable, my old friend,” I went on affably. I drew forward his armchair, and he sank into it with a grunt of relief.“You are a very kind gen’leman, you are, very kind indeed,” he said, in a tone that betrayed true gratitude. “Ah! I’ve known gen’lemen in my time, and I know a gen’leman when I sees one, I do.”“What part of Norfolk do you come from?” I asked, as I took a seat near him, for I knew the Norfolk brogue quite well.He looked at me and grinned.“Well, now, that’s strange you knowing I come from Norfolk! But it’s true. Oh, yes, it is right. I’m a Norfolk man. I was born in Diss. I mind the time my father—”“Yes, yes,” I interrupted, “we’ll talk about that presently,” for I could see that, once allowed to start on the subject of his relatives and his native county, he would talk on for an hour. “What I have come here this afternoon to talk to you about is Sir Charles Thorold. When was he last here?”“It will be near two years come Michaelmas,” he answered, without an instant’s hesitation. “And since then I haven’t set eyes on him—I haven’t.”“And has this house been shut up all the time?”“Ay, all that time. I mind the time my father used to tell me—”I damned his father under my breath, and quickly stopped him by asking who paid him his wages.“My wages? Oh, Sir Charles’ lawyers, Messrs Spink and Peters, of Lincoln’s Inn, pays me my wages. But they are not going to pay me any more. No. They are not going to pay me any more now.”“Not going to pay you any more? What do you mean?”“Give me notice to quit, they did, a week ago come Saturday.”“But why?”“Orders from Sir Charles, they said. Would you like to see their letter, sir?”“I should, if you have it by you.”It was brief, curt, and brutally frank—“From Messrs Spink and Peters, Solicitors, 582, Lincoln’s Inn, W.C.“To William Taylor, Caretaker,—“102, Belgrave Street, S.W.“Messrs Spink and Peters are instructed by Sir Charles Thorold to inform William Taylor that owing to his advanced age his services will not be needed by Sir Charles Thorold after March 25. William Taylor is requested to acknowledge the receipt of this letter.”“They don’t consider your feelings much,” I said, as I refolded the letter and handed it back to him.He seemed puzzled.“Feelings, sir? What are those?” he asked. “I don’t somehow seem to know.”“No matter. Under the circumstances it is, perhaps, as well you shouldn’t know. Now, I want to ask you a few questions, my old friend—and look here, I am going, first of all, to make you a little present.”I slipped my fingers into my waistcoat pocket, produced a half-sovereign, and pressed it into the palm of his wrinkled old hand.“To buy tobacco with—no, don’t thank me,” I said quickly, as he began to express gratitude. “Now, answer a few questions I am going to put to you. In the first place, how long have you been in Sir Charles’ service?”“Sixteen years, come Michaelmas,” he answered promptly. “I came from Diss. I mind the time my father—”“How did Sir Charles, or Mr Thorold as he was then, first hear of you?”“He was in Downham Market. I was caretaker for the Reverend George Lattimer, and Sir Charles, I should say, Mr Thorold, came to see the house. I think he thought of buying it, but he didn’t buy it. I showed him into every room, I remember, and as he was leaving he put his hand into his pocket, pulled out a sov’rin’, and gave it to me, just as you have done. And then he said to me, he said: ‘Ole man,’ he said, ‘would you like a better job than this?’ Those were his very words, ‘Ole man, would you like a better job than this?’”He grinned and chuckled at the reflection, showing his toothless gums.“And then he took you into his service. Did you come to London at once?”“Ay, next week he brought me up, and I’ve been here ever since—in this house ever since. The Reverend George Lattimer wor vexed with Sir Charles for a ‘stealing’ me from his service, as he said. I mind in Diss, when—”“Was there any reason why Mr Thorold should engage you in such a hurry? Did he give any reason? It seems strange he should have engaged a man of your age, living away in Norfolk, and brought you up to London at a few days’ notice.”“Oh, yes there was reason—there was a reason.”“And what was it?”“Well, well, it was not p’raps ’xactly what you might call a ‘reason,’ it was what Sir Charles he calls a ‘stipilation.’ ‘I have a stipilation to make, Taylor,’ he said, when he engaged me. ‘Yes, sir,’ I said, ‘and what might this, this stipilation be?’ I said. ‘It’s like this, Taylor,’ he said. ‘I’ll engage you and pay you well, and you will come with me to Lundon to-morrow, and you shall have two comfortable rooms in my house,’ those were his very words, sir, ‘and you will have little work to do, ’cept when I am out of Lundon, and you have to look after the house and act as caretaker. But there be a stipilation I must make.’ ‘And what might that stipilation be, sir?’ I asked him. ‘It’s like this,’ he said, a looking rather hard at me. ‘You must never see or know anything that goes on in my Lundon ’ouse, when I am there, or when I am not. If you see or hear anything, you must forget it. Do you understand? Do we understand each other?’ he said. And I have done that, sir, ever since Sir Charles engaged me. Never have I seen what happened in this house, nor have I heard what happened in this house, nor known what happened in this house. I have kep’ the stipilation, and I’ve served the master well.”“And for serving your master well, and doing your duty, you are rewarded by getting kicked out at a month’s notice because of your ‘advanced age.’”The old man’s eyes became suddenly moist as I said this, and I felt sorry I had spoken.“Did you see or hear much you ought to have forgotten?” I hazarded, after a brief pause.He peered up at me with an odd expression, then slowly shook his head.“Have you actually forgotten all you saw and heard?” I inquired carelessly, as I lit a cigarette, “or do you only pretend?”“I dusn’t say, sir,” he answered. “I dusn’t say.”He looked to right and left, as it seemed to me instinctively, and as though to assure himself that no one else was present, that no one overheard him. It was evident to me that there was somebody he feared.Several times I tried tactfully to “draw” him, but to no purpose.“I should like to look over the house again,” I said at last. “I know it well, for I stayed here often in days gone by, though I don’t recollect ever seeing you here. How long is it since Sir Charles stayed here?”“Three years come Lady Day,” he answered.“And has the house been empty ever since? Has it never been sub-let?”“Never. Sir Charles never would sub-let it, though there were some who wanted it.”“Well, I will look over it, I think,” I said, moving to rise. “I’m inclined to rent it myself; that’s really why I am here.”He may, or may not, have believed the lie. Anyway, my suggestion filled him with alarm. He got up out of his chair.“You can’t, you can’t,” he exclaimed, greatly perturbed. He pushed his skinny hand into his jacket-pocket, and I heard him clutch his bunch of keys. “The doors are all locked—all locked.”“You have the keys; give them to me.”“I dusn’t, I dusn’t, indeed. All, you are a gen’leman, sir, you won’t take the keys from an old man, sir, I know you won’t.”“Sit down,” I said, sharply.Idle curiosity had prompted me to wish to go over the house. The old man’s anxiety that I should not do so settled my determination. My thought travelled quickly.“Have you a drop of anything to drink that you can give me?” I asked suddenly. “I should like a little whisky—or anything else will do.”Again the expression of dismay came into his old eyes.“Don’t tempt me, sir, ah, don’t tempt me!” he exclaimed. “Sir Charles made me promise as long as I was with him I wouldn’t touch a drop. I did once. Oh, I did once.”“And what happened?”He hid his face in his hands, as if to shut out some horrid memory.“Don’t ask me what happened, sir, don’t ask me. And I swore I wouldn’t touch a drop again. And I haven’t got a drop—except a cup of tea.”The kettle on the gas-stove had been boiling for some time. My intention—an evil one—when I had asked for something alcoholic, had been to induce the old man to drink with me until the effects of the whisky should cause him to overcome his scruples and hand over his keys. But tea!At that moment my elbow rested on something hard in my pocket. Almost at the same moment an idea flashed into my brain. I tried to dispel it, but it wouldn’t go. I allowed my mind to dwell upon it, and quickly it obsessed me.Why, I don’t know, but since the chemist had returned the little flask to me, after analysing its contents, I had carried it in my pocket constantly. It was there now. It was the flask that my elbow had pressed, recalling it to my mind.“Twenty drops will send a strong man to sleep—for ever,” he had said.The words came back to me now. If it needed twenty drops to kill a strong man, surely a small dose could with safety be administered to a wiry little old man who, though decrepit, seemed still to possess considerable vitality. But would it be quite safe? Did I dare risk it?“A cup of tea will do just as well,” I said carelessly, tossing aside my cigarette. “No, don’t you move. I see you have everything ready, and there are cups up on the shelf. Let me make the tea. I like tea made in one way only.”I felt quite guilty when he answered—“You are very kind, sir; you are very kind; you are a gen’leman.”It was easily and quickly done. I had my back to him. I poured the tea into the cups. Then I let about five drops of the fluid in the flask fall into a spoon. I put the spoon into his cup, and stirred his tea with it.In a few moments I saw he was growing drowsy. His bony chin dropped several times on to his chest, though he tried to keep awake. He muttered some unintelligible words. In a few minutes he was asleep.I took his pulse. Yes, it was still quite strong. I waited a moment or two. Then, slipping my hand into his jacket-pocket, I took out the bunch of keys noiselessly, turned out the gas-stove, and stepped quietly out of the room, closing the door behind me.

I admit that I was dumbfounded.

Vera and her mysterious friend were together, calling in the most matter-of-fact way possible, and just as though nothing had happened! It seemed incredible!

All at once a dreadful thought occurred to me that made me catch my breath. Was it possible that my love was an actress, in the sense that she was acting a part? Had she cruelly deceived me when she had declared so earnestly that she loved me? The reflection that, were she practising deception, she would not have come to see me thus openly with the man with the black beard, relieved my feelings only a little. For how came she to be with Davies at all? And again, who was this man Davies? Also that telephone message a fortnight previously, how could I account for it under the circumstances?

“Oh, come to me—do come to me! I am in such trouble,” my love had cried so piteously, and then had added: “You alone can help me.”

Some one else, apparently, must have helped her. Could it have been this big, dark man?

And was he, in consequence, supplanting me in her affection? The thought held me breathless.

At times I am something of a philosopher, though my relatives laugh when I tell them so, and reply, “Not a philosopher, only a well-meaning fellow, and extremely good-natured”—a description I detest. Realising now the uselessness of worrying over the matter, I decided to make no further move, but to sit quiet and await developments.

“If you worry,” I often tell my friends, “it won’t in the least help to avert impending disaster, while if what you worry about never comes to pass, you have made yourself unhappy to no purpose.”

A platitude? Possibly. But two-thirds of the words of wisdom uttered by great men, and handed down as tradition to a worshipping posterity, are platitudes of the most commonplace type, if you really come to analyse them.

Time hung heavily. It generally ends by hanging heavily upon a man without occupation. But put yourself for a moment in my place. I had lost my love, and those days of inactivity and longing were doubly tedious because I ached to bestir myself somehow, anyhow, to clear up a mystery which, though gradually fading from the mind of a public ever athirst for fresh sensation, was actively alive in my own thoughts—the one thought, indeed, ever present in my mind. Why had the Thorolds so suddenly and mysteriously disappeared?

Thus it occurred to me, two days after Davies and Vera had called at my flat, to stroll down into Belgravia and interview the caretaker at 102, Belgrave Street. Possibly by this time, I reflected, he might have seen Sir Charles Thorold, or heard from him.

When I had rung three times, the door slowly opened to the length of its chain, and I think quite the queerest-looking little old man I had ever set eyes on, peered out. He gazed with his sharp, beady eyes up into my face for a moment or two, then asked, in a broken quavering voice—

“Are you another newspaper gen’leman?”

“Oh, no,” I answered, laughing, for I guessed at once how he must have been harassed by reporters, and I could sympathise with him. “I am not a journalist—I’m only a gentleman.”

Of course he was too old to note the satire, but the fact that I wore a silk hat and a clean collar, seemed to satisfy him that I must be a person of some consequence, and when I had assured him that I meant him no ill, but that, on the contrary, I might have something to tell him that he would like to hear, he shut the door, and I heard his trembling old hands remove the chain.

“And how long is it since Sir Charles was last here?” I said to him, when he had shown me into his little room on the ground floor, where a kettle purred on a gas-stove. “I know him well, you know; I was staying at Houghton Park when he disappeared.”

He looked me up and down, surprised and apparently much interested.

“Were you indeed, sir?” he exclaimed. “Well, now—well, well!”

“Why don’t you sit down and make yourself comfortable, my old friend,” I went on affably. I drew forward his armchair, and he sank into it with a grunt of relief.

“You are a very kind gen’leman, you are, very kind indeed,” he said, in a tone that betrayed true gratitude. “Ah! I’ve known gen’lemen in my time, and I know a gen’leman when I sees one, I do.”

“What part of Norfolk do you come from?” I asked, as I took a seat near him, for I knew the Norfolk brogue quite well.

He looked at me and grinned.

“Well, now, that’s strange you knowing I come from Norfolk! But it’s true. Oh, yes, it is right. I’m a Norfolk man. I was born in Diss. I mind the time my father—”

“Yes, yes,” I interrupted, “we’ll talk about that presently,” for I could see that, once allowed to start on the subject of his relatives and his native county, he would talk on for an hour. “What I have come here this afternoon to talk to you about is Sir Charles Thorold. When was he last here?”

“It will be near two years come Michaelmas,” he answered, without an instant’s hesitation. “And since then I haven’t set eyes on him—I haven’t.”

“And has this house been shut up all the time?”

“Ay, all that time. I mind the time my father used to tell me—”

I damned his father under my breath, and quickly stopped him by asking who paid him his wages.

“My wages? Oh, Sir Charles’ lawyers, Messrs Spink and Peters, of Lincoln’s Inn, pays me my wages. But they are not going to pay me any more. No. They are not going to pay me any more now.”

“Not going to pay you any more? What do you mean?”

“Give me notice to quit, they did, a week ago come Saturday.”

“But why?”

“Orders from Sir Charles, they said. Would you like to see their letter, sir?”

“I should, if you have it by you.”

It was brief, curt, and brutally frank—

“From Messrs Spink and Peters, Solicitors, 582, Lincoln’s Inn, W.C.

“To William Taylor, Caretaker,—

“102, Belgrave Street, S.W.

“Messrs Spink and Peters are instructed by Sir Charles Thorold to inform William Taylor that owing to his advanced age his services will not be needed by Sir Charles Thorold after March 25. William Taylor is requested to acknowledge the receipt of this letter.”

“They don’t consider your feelings much,” I said, as I refolded the letter and handed it back to him.

He seemed puzzled.

“Feelings, sir? What are those?” he asked. “I don’t somehow seem to know.”

“No matter. Under the circumstances it is, perhaps, as well you shouldn’t know. Now, I want to ask you a few questions, my old friend—and look here, I am going, first of all, to make you a little present.”

I slipped my fingers into my waistcoat pocket, produced a half-sovereign, and pressed it into the palm of his wrinkled old hand.

“To buy tobacco with—no, don’t thank me,” I said quickly, as he began to express gratitude. “Now, answer a few questions I am going to put to you. In the first place, how long have you been in Sir Charles’ service?”

“Sixteen years, come Michaelmas,” he answered promptly. “I came from Diss. I mind the time my father—”

“How did Sir Charles, or Mr Thorold as he was then, first hear of you?”

“He was in Downham Market. I was caretaker for the Reverend George Lattimer, and Sir Charles, I should say, Mr Thorold, came to see the house. I think he thought of buying it, but he didn’t buy it. I showed him into every room, I remember, and as he was leaving he put his hand into his pocket, pulled out a sov’rin’, and gave it to me, just as you have done. And then he said to me, he said: ‘Ole man,’ he said, ‘would you like a better job than this?’ Those were his very words, ‘Ole man, would you like a better job than this?’”

He grinned and chuckled at the reflection, showing his toothless gums.

“And then he took you into his service. Did you come to London at once?”

“Ay, next week he brought me up, and I’ve been here ever since—in this house ever since. The Reverend George Lattimer wor vexed with Sir Charles for a ‘stealing’ me from his service, as he said. I mind in Diss, when—”

“Was there any reason why Mr Thorold should engage you in such a hurry? Did he give any reason? It seems strange he should have engaged a man of your age, living away in Norfolk, and brought you up to London at a few days’ notice.”

“Oh, yes there was reason—there was a reason.”

“And what was it?”

“Well, well, it was not p’raps ’xactly what you might call a ‘reason,’ it was what Sir Charles he calls a ‘stipilation.’ ‘I have a stipilation to make, Taylor,’ he said, when he engaged me. ‘Yes, sir,’ I said, ‘and what might this, this stipilation be?’ I said. ‘It’s like this, Taylor,’ he said. ‘I’ll engage you and pay you well, and you will come with me to Lundon to-morrow, and you shall have two comfortable rooms in my house,’ those were his very words, sir, ‘and you will have little work to do, ’cept when I am out of Lundon, and you have to look after the house and act as caretaker. But there be a stipilation I must make.’ ‘And what might that stipilation be, sir?’ I asked him. ‘It’s like this,’ he said, a looking rather hard at me. ‘You must never see or know anything that goes on in my Lundon ’ouse, when I am there, or when I am not. If you see or hear anything, you must forget it. Do you understand? Do we understand each other?’ he said. And I have done that, sir, ever since Sir Charles engaged me. Never have I seen what happened in this house, nor have I heard what happened in this house, nor known what happened in this house. I have kep’ the stipilation, and I’ve served the master well.”

“And for serving your master well, and doing your duty, you are rewarded by getting kicked out at a month’s notice because of your ‘advanced age.’”

The old man’s eyes became suddenly moist as I said this, and I felt sorry I had spoken.

“Did you see or hear much you ought to have forgotten?” I hazarded, after a brief pause.

He peered up at me with an odd expression, then slowly shook his head.

“Have you actually forgotten all you saw and heard?” I inquired carelessly, as I lit a cigarette, “or do you only pretend?”

“I dusn’t say, sir,” he answered. “I dusn’t say.”

He looked to right and left, as it seemed to me instinctively, and as though to assure himself that no one else was present, that no one overheard him. It was evident to me that there was somebody he feared.

Several times I tried tactfully to “draw” him, but to no purpose.

“I should like to look over the house again,” I said at last. “I know it well, for I stayed here often in days gone by, though I don’t recollect ever seeing you here. How long is it since Sir Charles stayed here?”

“Three years come Lady Day,” he answered.

“And has the house been empty ever since? Has it never been sub-let?”

“Never. Sir Charles never would sub-let it, though there were some who wanted it.”

“Well, I will look over it, I think,” I said, moving to rise. “I’m inclined to rent it myself; that’s really why I am here.”

He may, or may not, have believed the lie. Anyway, my suggestion filled him with alarm. He got up out of his chair.

“You can’t, you can’t,” he exclaimed, greatly perturbed. He pushed his skinny hand into his jacket-pocket, and I heard him clutch his bunch of keys. “The doors are all locked—all locked.”

“You have the keys; give them to me.”

“I dusn’t, I dusn’t, indeed. All, you are a gen’leman, sir, you won’t take the keys from an old man, sir, I know you won’t.”

“Sit down,” I said, sharply.

Idle curiosity had prompted me to wish to go over the house. The old man’s anxiety that I should not do so settled my determination. My thought travelled quickly.

“Have you a drop of anything to drink that you can give me?” I asked suddenly. “I should like a little whisky—or anything else will do.”

Again the expression of dismay came into his old eyes.

“Don’t tempt me, sir, ah, don’t tempt me!” he exclaimed. “Sir Charles made me promise as long as I was with him I wouldn’t touch a drop. I did once. Oh, I did once.”

“And what happened?”

He hid his face in his hands, as if to shut out some horrid memory.

“Don’t ask me what happened, sir, don’t ask me. And I swore I wouldn’t touch a drop again. And I haven’t got a drop—except a cup of tea.”

The kettle on the gas-stove had been boiling for some time. My intention—an evil one—when I had asked for something alcoholic, had been to induce the old man to drink with me until the effects of the whisky should cause him to overcome his scruples and hand over his keys. But tea!

At that moment my elbow rested on something hard in my pocket. Almost at the same moment an idea flashed into my brain. I tried to dispel it, but it wouldn’t go. I allowed my mind to dwell upon it, and quickly it obsessed me.

Why, I don’t know, but since the chemist had returned the little flask to me, after analysing its contents, I had carried it in my pocket constantly. It was there now. It was the flask that my elbow had pressed, recalling it to my mind.

“Twenty drops will send a strong man to sleep—for ever,” he had said.

The words came back to me now. If it needed twenty drops to kill a strong man, surely a small dose could with safety be administered to a wiry little old man who, though decrepit, seemed still to possess considerable vitality. But would it be quite safe? Did I dare risk it?

“A cup of tea will do just as well,” I said carelessly, tossing aside my cigarette. “No, don’t you move. I see you have everything ready, and there are cups up on the shelf. Let me make the tea. I like tea made in one way only.”

I felt quite guilty when he answered—

“You are very kind, sir; you are very kind; you are a gen’leman.”

It was easily and quickly done. I had my back to him. I poured the tea into the cups. Then I let about five drops of the fluid in the flask fall into a spoon. I put the spoon into his cup, and stirred his tea with it.

In a few moments I saw he was growing drowsy. His bony chin dropped several times on to his chest, though he tried to keep awake. He muttered some unintelligible words. In a few minutes he was asleep.

I took his pulse. Yes, it was still quite strong. I waited a moment or two. Then, slipping my hand into his jacket-pocket, I took out the bunch of keys noiselessly, turned out the gas-stove, and stepped quietly out of the room, closing the door behind me.

Chapter Seven.Treading among Shadows.The house was found very dirty and neglected. It contained but little furniture. Dust lay thickly upon everything. The windows, I was almost tempted to think, had not been opened since Sir Charles had last lived there three years ago. There was also a damp, earthy smell in the hall.As I went slowly up the stairs, bare of carpet or any other covering, they creaked and groaned in a way that was astonishing, for the houses in Belgrave Street are not so very old. The noises the stairs made echoed higher up.I had decided to enter the rooms on the ground floor last of all. The first floor looked strangely unfamiliar. When last I had been here the house had been luxuriously furnished, and somehow the landing, in its naked state, seemed larger than when I remembered it.Ah! What fun we had had in that house long ago!My friends the Thorolds had entertained largely, and their acquaintances had all been bright, amusing people, so different, as I had sometimes told my friends, from the colourless, stupid folk whose company one so often has to endure when staying in the houses of acquaintances. I often think, when mixing with such people, of the story of the two women discussing a certain “impossible” young man, of a type one meets frequently.“How deadly dull Bertie Fairbairn is,” one of them said. “He never talks at all.”“Oh, he is better than his brother Reggie,” the other answered. “Whenever you speak to Bertie he says, ‘Right O!’”The door of the apartment that had been the large drawing-room was locked. On the bunch of keys, I soon found the key that fitted, and I entered.Phew, what a musty smell! Most oppressive. The blinds were drawn half-way down the windows and, by the look of them, had been so for some considerable time. The furniture that remained was all hidden under holland sheets, and the pictures on the walls, draped in dust-proof coverings, looked like the slabs of salted beef, and the sides of smoke-cured pork one sees hung in some farmhouses. The carpets were dusty, moth-eaten and rotten.Gingerly, with thumb and forefinger, I picked up the corners of some of the furniture coverings. There was nothing but the furniture underneath, except in one instance, where I saw, upon an easy-chair, a plate with some mouldy remnants of food upon it. No wonder the atmosphere was foetid.I was about to leave the room, glad to get out of it, when I noticed in a corner of the ceiling a dark, yellow-brown stain, about a yard in circumference. This struck me as curious, and I went over and stood under it, and gazed up at it, endeavouring to discover its origin. Then I saw that it was moist. I pulled up one of the blinds in order to see better, but my scrutiny failed to give me any inkling as to the origin of the stain.I went out, shut and locked the door, and entered several other rooms, the doors of all of which I found locked. One room was very like another, the only difference being that the smell in some was closer and nastier than the smell in others, though all the smells had, what I may call the same “flavour”—a “taste” of dry rot. I wondered if Sir Charles knew how his house was being neglected, how dirt and dust were being allowed to accumulate.This was Lady Thorold’s boudoir, if I remembered aright. The inside of the lock was so rusty that I had difficulty in turning the key. Everything shrouded, as elsewhere, but, judging from the odd projections in the coverings, I concluded that ornaments and bric-à-brac had been left upon the tables.Nor was I mistaken. As I lifted the cloths and dust sheets, objects that I remembered seeing set about the room in the old days, became revealed. There were several beautiful statues, priceless pieces of antique furniture from Naples and Florence, curious carved wooden figures that Sir Charles had collected during his travels in the Southern Pacific, cloisonné vases from Tokio and Osaka, a barely decent sculpture bought by Sir Charles from a Japanese witch-doctor who lived a hermit’s life on an island in the Inland Sea—how well I remembered Lady Thorold’s emphatic disapproval of this figure, and her objection to her husband’s displaying it in the way he did—treasures from different parts of China, from New Guinea, Burmah, the West Indies and elsewhere.Another cloth I lifted. Beneath it were a number of photographs in frames, piled faces downward in heaps. I picked up some of them, and took them out to look at. A picture of Vera in a short frock, with a teddy-bear tucked under her arm, interested me; so did a portrait of Lady Thorold dressed in a fashion long since past; and so did a portrait of my old father in his Guards uniform. The rest were portraits of people I didn’t know. I looked at one or two more, and was about to replace the frames where I had found them, when I turned up one that startled me.It was a cabinet, in a bog-oak frame, of the man whose likeness had caused the commotion at Houghton, the man who had called himself Smithson. But it was not a portrait similar to the one I had taken away. The same man, undoubtedly, but in a different attitude, and apparently many years younger.Closely I scrutinised it.The enigma presented was complete. I am not a pilferer, but I considered that I should be justified in putting the portrait into my pocket, and I did so without another thought. Then I replaced all the frames where I had found them, and resumed my ramble over the house.In the rest of the rooms on that floor, I found nothing further of interest. On the floor above, however, a surprise was in store for me.The first two rooms were bedrooms, neglected-looking and very dusty. There were fewer coverings here. Dust was upon the floor, on the beds, on the chairs and tables, on the window-sills, on the wash-stands, on the chests of drawers, on the mantelpiece—everywhere. In the next room, the door of which I was surprised to find unlocked, just the same. A table of dark mahogany was thickly coated with dust.Hullo! Why, what was this? I thought at once of a detective friend of mine, and wondered what he would have said, what opinion he would have formed and what conclusion he would have come to, had he been in my place at that moment. For on the table, close to the edge of it, was the clear outline of a hand. Someone had quite recently—apparently within the last few hours, and certainly since the previous day—put his hand upon that dusty table. I scanned the outline closely; then suddenly I started.There could be no doubt whatever—it was not the outline of Taylor’s hand. The fingers that had rested there were long and tapering. This was not the impression of a man’s hand, but of a woman’s—of a woman’s left hand.Evidently some one had been in this room recently. From point to point I walked, looking for further traces, but there were none that I could see. What woman could have been in here so lately? And did the old man asleep downstairs know of her entry? He must have, for she could not have entered the house, had he not admitted her. I felt I was becoming quite a clever detective, with an exceptional gift for deduction from the obvious. Another gleam of intelligence led me to conclude that this woman’s presence in the house probably accounted for Taylor’s determination not to let me go over the house.I thought I heard a sound. I held my breath and stood still, listening intently, but the only sound that came to me was the distant shrill whistle of some one summoning a taxi. Outside in the passage, all was still as death. I walked to the end of the passage, peeped into other bedrooms, then returned to the room with the table bearing the imprint of the hand.The windows overlooked Belgrave Street—double windows, which made the sound of the traffic down below inaudible. Carelessly I watched for some moments the vehicles and passers-by, unconsciously striving to puzzle out, meanwhile, the problem of the hand. Suddenly, two figures approaching along the pavement from the direction of Wilton Street, arrested my attention. They seemed familiar to me. As they came nearer, a strange feeling of excitement possessed me, for I recognised the burly form of Davies, or “Smithson,” and as he had called himself, and, walking beside him, Sir Charles Thorold. The two appeared to be engaged in earnest conversation.They disappeared where the street turned, and as I came away from the window I noticed, for the first time, that the room had another door, a door leading presumably into a dressing-room. I went over to it. It was locked.I tried a key on the bunch, but at once discovered that a key was in the door. The door was locked on the inside!I knocked. There was no answer. And just then I distinctly heard a sound inside the room.“Who’s there?” I called out. “Let me in!”A sound, resembling a sob, reached me faintly. I heard light footfalls. The key turned slowly, and the lock clicked.I turned the handle, and went in.

The house was found very dirty and neglected. It contained but little furniture. Dust lay thickly upon everything. The windows, I was almost tempted to think, had not been opened since Sir Charles had last lived there three years ago. There was also a damp, earthy smell in the hall.

As I went slowly up the stairs, bare of carpet or any other covering, they creaked and groaned in a way that was astonishing, for the houses in Belgrave Street are not so very old. The noises the stairs made echoed higher up.

I had decided to enter the rooms on the ground floor last of all. The first floor looked strangely unfamiliar. When last I had been here the house had been luxuriously furnished, and somehow the landing, in its naked state, seemed larger than when I remembered it.

Ah! What fun we had had in that house long ago!

My friends the Thorolds had entertained largely, and their acquaintances had all been bright, amusing people, so different, as I had sometimes told my friends, from the colourless, stupid folk whose company one so often has to endure when staying in the houses of acquaintances. I often think, when mixing with such people, of the story of the two women discussing a certain “impossible” young man, of a type one meets frequently.

“How deadly dull Bertie Fairbairn is,” one of them said. “He never talks at all.”

“Oh, he is better than his brother Reggie,” the other answered. “Whenever you speak to Bertie he says, ‘Right O!’”

The door of the apartment that had been the large drawing-room was locked. On the bunch of keys, I soon found the key that fitted, and I entered.

Phew, what a musty smell! Most oppressive. The blinds were drawn half-way down the windows and, by the look of them, had been so for some considerable time. The furniture that remained was all hidden under holland sheets, and the pictures on the walls, draped in dust-proof coverings, looked like the slabs of salted beef, and the sides of smoke-cured pork one sees hung in some farmhouses. The carpets were dusty, moth-eaten and rotten.

Gingerly, with thumb and forefinger, I picked up the corners of some of the furniture coverings. There was nothing but the furniture underneath, except in one instance, where I saw, upon an easy-chair, a plate with some mouldy remnants of food upon it. No wonder the atmosphere was foetid.

I was about to leave the room, glad to get out of it, when I noticed in a corner of the ceiling a dark, yellow-brown stain, about a yard in circumference. This struck me as curious, and I went over and stood under it, and gazed up at it, endeavouring to discover its origin. Then I saw that it was moist. I pulled up one of the blinds in order to see better, but my scrutiny failed to give me any inkling as to the origin of the stain.

I went out, shut and locked the door, and entered several other rooms, the doors of all of which I found locked. One room was very like another, the only difference being that the smell in some was closer and nastier than the smell in others, though all the smells had, what I may call the same “flavour”—a “taste” of dry rot. I wondered if Sir Charles knew how his house was being neglected, how dirt and dust were being allowed to accumulate.

This was Lady Thorold’s boudoir, if I remembered aright. The inside of the lock was so rusty that I had difficulty in turning the key. Everything shrouded, as elsewhere, but, judging from the odd projections in the coverings, I concluded that ornaments and bric-à-brac had been left upon the tables.

Nor was I mistaken. As I lifted the cloths and dust sheets, objects that I remembered seeing set about the room in the old days, became revealed. There were several beautiful statues, priceless pieces of antique furniture from Naples and Florence, curious carved wooden figures that Sir Charles had collected during his travels in the Southern Pacific, cloisonné vases from Tokio and Osaka, a barely decent sculpture bought by Sir Charles from a Japanese witch-doctor who lived a hermit’s life on an island in the Inland Sea—how well I remembered Lady Thorold’s emphatic disapproval of this figure, and her objection to her husband’s displaying it in the way he did—treasures from different parts of China, from New Guinea, Burmah, the West Indies and elsewhere.

Another cloth I lifted. Beneath it were a number of photographs in frames, piled faces downward in heaps. I picked up some of them, and took them out to look at. A picture of Vera in a short frock, with a teddy-bear tucked under her arm, interested me; so did a portrait of Lady Thorold dressed in a fashion long since past; and so did a portrait of my old father in his Guards uniform. The rest were portraits of people I didn’t know. I looked at one or two more, and was about to replace the frames where I had found them, when I turned up one that startled me.

It was a cabinet, in a bog-oak frame, of the man whose likeness had caused the commotion at Houghton, the man who had called himself Smithson. But it was not a portrait similar to the one I had taken away. The same man, undoubtedly, but in a different attitude, and apparently many years younger.

Closely I scrutinised it.

The enigma presented was complete. I am not a pilferer, but I considered that I should be justified in putting the portrait into my pocket, and I did so without another thought. Then I replaced all the frames where I had found them, and resumed my ramble over the house.

In the rest of the rooms on that floor, I found nothing further of interest. On the floor above, however, a surprise was in store for me.

The first two rooms were bedrooms, neglected-looking and very dusty. There were fewer coverings here. Dust was upon the floor, on the beds, on the chairs and tables, on the window-sills, on the wash-stands, on the chests of drawers, on the mantelpiece—everywhere. In the next room, the door of which I was surprised to find unlocked, just the same. A table of dark mahogany was thickly coated with dust.

Hullo! Why, what was this? I thought at once of a detective friend of mine, and wondered what he would have said, what opinion he would have formed and what conclusion he would have come to, had he been in my place at that moment. For on the table, close to the edge of it, was the clear outline of a hand. Someone had quite recently—apparently within the last few hours, and certainly since the previous day—put his hand upon that dusty table. I scanned the outline closely; then suddenly I started.

There could be no doubt whatever—it was not the outline of Taylor’s hand. The fingers that had rested there were long and tapering. This was not the impression of a man’s hand, but of a woman’s—of a woman’s left hand.

Evidently some one had been in this room recently. From point to point I walked, looking for further traces, but there were none that I could see. What woman could have been in here so lately? And did the old man asleep downstairs know of her entry? He must have, for she could not have entered the house, had he not admitted her. I felt I was becoming quite a clever detective, with an exceptional gift for deduction from the obvious. Another gleam of intelligence led me to conclude that this woman’s presence in the house probably accounted for Taylor’s determination not to let me go over the house.

I thought I heard a sound. I held my breath and stood still, listening intently, but the only sound that came to me was the distant shrill whistle of some one summoning a taxi. Outside in the passage, all was still as death. I walked to the end of the passage, peeped into other bedrooms, then returned to the room with the table bearing the imprint of the hand.

The windows overlooked Belgrave Street—double windows, which made the sound of the traffic down below inaudible. Carelessly I watched for some moments the vehicles and passers-by, unconsciously striving to puzzle out, meanwhile, the problem of the hand. Suddenly, two figures approaching along the pavement from the direction of Wilton Street, arrested my attention. They seemed familiar to me. As they came nearer, a strange feeling of excitement possessed me, for I recognised the burly form of Davies, or “Smithson,” and as he had called himself, and, walking beside him, Sir Charles Thorold. The two appeared to be engaged in earnest conversation.

They disappeared where the street turned, and as I came away from the window I noticed, for the first time, that the room had another door, a door leading presumably into a dressing-room. I went over to it. It was locked.

I tried a key on the bunch, but at once discovered that a key was in the door. The door was locked on the inside!

I knocked. There was no answer. And just then I distinctly heard a sound inside the room.

“Who’s there?” I called out. “Let me in!”

A sound, resembling a sob, reached me faintly. I heard light footfalls. The key turned slowly, and the lock clicked.

I turned the handle, and went in.

Chapter Eight.More Mystery.I halted on the threshold, wondering and aghast.Vera, in her hat and jacket, stood facing me a few yards away. She was extremely pale. There were dark shadows under her eyes, and I saw at once she had been weeping.For a moment neither of us spoke. Then, pulling myself together—“Why, darling, what are you doing here?” I asked.She did not answer. Her big, blue, unfathomable eyes were set on mine. There was in them an expression I had not seen there before—an odd, unnatural look, which made me feel uncomfortable.“What are you doing here?” I repeated. “Why did you call upon me with Davies?”Her lips moved, but no words came. I went over and took her hand. It was quite cold.Suddenly she spoke slowly, and hoarsely, but like some one in a trance.“I cannot tell you,” she said simply. “I wanted to see you.”“Oh, but youmust!”Her eyes met mine, and I saw her arched brows contract slightly.“Nobody says, ‘must’ to me,” she answered, in a tone that chilled me.“Vera! Vera!” I exclaimed, dismayed at her strange manner, “what is the matter? What has happened to you, darling? Why are you like this? Don’t you need my help now? You told me on the telephone that you did.”“On the telephone? When was that?”“Why, not three weeks ago. Surely you remember? It was the last time we spoke to each other. You had begun to tell me your address, when suddenly we were cut off.”I saw her knit her brows, as though trying to remember. Then, all at once, memory seemed to return.“Ah, yes,” she exclaimed, more in her ordinary voice. “I recollect. I wanted your help then. I needed it badly, but now—”“Well, what?” I said anxiously, as she checked herself.“It’s too late—now,” she whispered. My arm was about her thin waist, and I felt that she shuddered.“Vera, what has happened? Tell me—oh, tell me, dearest!”I took both her small hands in mine. I was seriously alarmed, for there was a strange light in her eyes.“Why did you not come when I wanted you?” she asked, bitterly.“I would have, but how could I without knowing where you were?”She paused in indecision.“I’m sorry. You are too late, Dick,” and she shook her head mournfully.“Oh, don’t say that,” I cried, not knowing what to think. “Has some misfortune befallen you? Tell me what it is. You surely know that you can trust me.”“Trustyou!”There was bitterness, nay mockery, in her voice.“Good heavens, yes! Why not?” I cried.“There is no one in whom I can trust. I can trust you, Mr Ashton, least of all—now.”Evidently she was labouring under some terrible delusion. Had some one slandered me—poisoned her mind against me?“How long have you been here?” I asked suddenly, thinking it best to change the subject for the moment.“Since early this morning,” she answered at once.“Did you come here alone?”“Alone? No, he brought me.””‘He?’ Who is ‘he’?”“Dago Paulton.”“Dago Paulton?” I echoed. “Is he the man Smithson?” I asked shrewdly.“Of course. Who else did you suppose?” Then, suddenly, her expression changed to one of surprise.“But you don’t know him, surely,” she exclaimed. “You have never even met him. He told me so himself.”“No, but I know about him,” I said, with recollection crowding upon me.“You don’t! You cannot! Who told you about him? And what did they tell you? Oh, this is awful, it is worse than I feared,” she exclaimed, in great distress. “And now it is all too late.”“Too late for what? To do what?”“To help me. To save me from him.”“Does this man want to marry you?”“He is going to. Hemustmarry me. Ah! You don’t know—you—”My love shuddered, without completing her sentence.“Why? Is it to save your father?” I hazarded again.“To save my father—and my mother,” she exclaimed. And then, to my surprise, she sank upon a chair, flung her arms out upon the table in front of her, hid her face up on them, and began to sob hysterically.“Vera, my dearest, don’t—oh! don’t,” I said beseechingly, as I bent down, put an arm tenderly about her, and kissed her upon the cheek. “Don’t cry like that, darling. It’s never too late, until a misfortune has really happened. You are not married to him. There may be a way of escape. Trust me. Treat me as a friend—we have been friends so long—tell me everything, and I will try to help you out of all your trouble.”She started up.“Trust you!” she burst forth, her face flushed. “Can I trust any one?”“I’ve done nothing; I don’t know what you mean, or to what you refer!” I exclaimed blankly.“Can you look at me like that,” she said slowly, after a pause, “and tell me, upon your oath, that you did not reveal my father’s secret; that you have never revealed it to anybody—never in your life?”“I give you my solemn oath, Vera, that I have never in my life revealed it to anybody, or hinted at it, or said anything, either consciously or unconsciously, that might have led any one to suspect,” I answered fervently, with my eyes fixed on hers.Truth to tell, I had not the remotest idea what the secret was, nor, until this instant, had it ever occurred to me to think that Sir Charles possessed a secret. I felt, however, that I had a part to play, and I was determined to play it to the best of my ability. Vera seemed to take it quite for granted that I knew her father’s secret, and I felt instinctively that, were I to endeavour to assure her that I was in complete ignorance of everything, she would not, under the circumstances, believe a single word I said.“Do you believe me now?” I asked, as she did not speak.“Yes—I do believe you,” was her slow response. And then she let me take her in my ready arms again.She seemed to have been suddenly relieved of a great weight, and now she spoke in quite her ordinary way.“Where is Paulton now?” was my next question. At last there seemed to be some remote possibility of the tangle of past events becoming gradually unravelled. I knew, however, that I was treading thin ice. A single careless word might lead her to suspect my duplicity. In a sense, I was still groping in the dark, pretending that I knew a great deal, whereas I knew nothing.“He is coming to-night to fetch me.”“At what time?”“At ten o’clock.”“And you are to wait here until then?”“Yes.”“What have you had to eat?”“Some tea, and bread and butter,” and she glanced towards a table, on which stood a teapot and an empty plate.“You can’t subsist on that,” I said quickly.“More food is to be brought to me by old Taylor at five o’clock.”I glanced at my watch. It was a quarter-past four.“Why don’t you go out and go away?” I suggested. “There is surely nothing to prevent you. Why do you remain here in helpless inactivity?”“Where should I go? I haven’t any money. I haven’t a sou. Besides—besides—I dare not disobey. If I did, he—he’d—he’d bring disaster—terrible disaster, upon me!”“I can lend you some money,” I said. Then a thought struck me.“Why not come away with me?” I exclaimed. “I will get you a room at an hotel, see to you, provide you with money, and take care that nobody objectionable—neither this fellow Paulton, nor anybody else—molests you.”“Ah, Dick, if only I dared!” she exclaimed fervently, with shining eyes.“You love me, Vera—do you not?”“You know that I do, Dick.”“Then leave here. Who is to prevent you? Where are your father and mother?”She turned sharply.“How can you ask that?” she cried, with a quick glance. I pulled myself together on the instant. I was forgetting to be cautious.“Wouldn’t it be safe for you to appeal to them for help?” I asked vaguely.She paused, evidently reflecting, and I breathed more freely.“Under the circumstances—no,” she said at last, with decision. “They must await developments. I must remain here. Listen! What was that?” And she started in fear.The door stood ajar. The door of the room I had been in, which opened on to the passage, was also open. Both of us listened intently. The sound of men’s voices, somewhere in the house, became audible.I crept out into the passage on tiptoe, walked a little distance along it, stopped, and listened again. Yes, there were voices in the hall. Two men were talking. At once I recognised that Sir Charles Thorold, and the man known as Davies, were engaged in earnest conversation in low tones. In the otherwise silent and deserted house, their words were distinctly audible.“We must get a doctor—we must,” I heard the big fellow say deeply. “I thought at first the fellow was asleep, then that he was drunk. The pulse is hardly perceptible.”“But how can we?” Thorold answered. “It isn’t safe. There would be inquiries, and if he should die there would surely be an inquest, and then—”He dropped his voice, and I could not catch the last words. Then Davies again spoke.“I found this umbrella, and these gloves, on the table in his room,” I heard him say, “and there are two tea-cups on the table. Both have been used, used within the last half-hour, I should say. The tea in them is still warm, and the teapot is quite hot.” My heart stopped its beating. I put out an arm to support myself. A slight feeling of giddiness came over me. I broke out into a cold perspiration, for I had left my gloves and umbrella in the old man’s room!My mouth turned suddenly dry, as I thought of the tea I had doctored with the drops from the flask, of which only a little was needed to send “a strong man to sleep—for ever.”But Davies and Sir Charles were talking again, so I pulled myself together.“How do you account for this umbrella and the gloves?” I heard Davies ask, and Thorold answered: “Let me have a look at them.”They were silent for some moments.“He has had some one there, that’s evident,” Sir Charles said. “Who on earth can it have been? This is an expensive umbrella, silk, and gold-mounted, and these gloves, too, are good ones. It’s extraordinary their owner should have forgotten to take them with him.”“He may be in the house still,” answered Davies. “I hope, for his own sake, he isn’t,” Sir Charles said, in a hard voice. “Let us come and have a look at poor old Taylor. We shall find the keys in his pocket, anyway, and when we have attended to the other matter, we’ll go up and see Vera, and try to bring her to her senses with regard to Paulton. She must do it—hang it—shemust! I hate the thought of it, but it’s my only chance of escape from this accursed parasite!”Voices and footsteps died away. Once more the house was silent as death.Truly, that deserted house was a house of mystery.

I halted on the threshold, wondering and aghast.

Vera, in her hat and jacket, stood facing me a few yards away. She was extremely pale. There were dark shadows under her eyes, and I saw at once she had been weeping.

For a moment neither of us spoke. Then, pulling myself together—

“Why, darling, what are you doing here?” I asked.

She did not answer. Her big, blue, unfathomable eyes were set on mine. There was in them an expression I had not seen there before—an odd, unnatural look, which made me feel uncomfortable.

“What are you doing here?” I repeated. “Why did you call upon me with Davies?”

Her lips moved, but no words came. I went over and took her hand. It was quite cold.

Suddenly she spoke slowly, and hoarsely, but like some one in a trance.

“I cannot tell you,” she said simply. “I wanted to see you.”

“Oh, but youmust!”

Her eyes met mine, and I saw her arched brows contract slightly.

“Nobody says, ‘must’ to me,” she answered, in a tone that chilled me.

“Vera! Vera!” I exclaimed, dismayed at her strange manner, “what is the matter? What has happened to you, darling? Why are you like this? Don’t you need my help now? You told me on the telephone that you did.”

“On the telephone? When was that?”

“Why, not three weeks ago. Surely you remember? It was the last time we spoke to each other. You had begun to tell me your address, when suddenly we were cut off.”

I saw her knit her brows, as though trying to remember. Then, all at once, memory seemed to return.

“Ah, yes,” she exclaimed, more in her ordinary voice. “I recollect. I wanted your help then. I needed it badly, but now—”

“Well, what?” I said anxiously, as she checked herself.

“It’s too late—now,” she whispered. My arm was about her thin waist, and I felt that she shuddered.

“Vera, what has happened? Tell me—oh, tell me, dearest!”

I took both her small hands in mine. I was seriously alarmed, for there was a strange light in her eyes.

“Why did you not come when I wanted you?” she asked, bitterly.

“I would have, but how could I without knowing where you were?”

She paused in indecision.

“I’m sorry. You are too late, Dick,” and she shook her head mournfully.

“Oh, don’t say that,” I cried, not knowing what to think. “Has some misfortune befallen you? Tell me what it is. You surely know that you can trust me.”

“Trustyou!”

There was bitterness, nay mockery, in her voice.

“Good heavens, yes! Why not?” I cried.

“There is no one in whom I can trust. I can trust you, Mr Ashton, least of all—now.”

Evidently she was labouring under some terrible delusion. Had some one slandered me—poisoned her mind against me?

“How long have you been here?” I asked suddenly, thinking it best to change the subject for the moment.

“Since early this morning,” she answered at once.

“Did you come here alone?”

“Alone? No, he brought me.”

”‘He?’ Who is ‘he’?”

“Dago Paulton.”

“Dago Paulton?” I echoed. “Is he the man Smithson?” I asked shrewdly.

“Of course. Who else did you suppose?” Then, suddenly, her expression changed to one of surprise.

“But you don’t know him, surely,” she exclaimed. “You have never even met him. He told me so himself.”

“No, but I know about him,” I said, with recollection crowding upon me.

“You don’t! You cannot! Who told you about him? And what did they tell you? Oh, this is awful, it is worse than I feared,” she exclaimed, in great distress. “And now it is all too late.”

“Too late for what? To do what?”

“To help me. To save me from him.”

“Does this man want to marry you?”

“He is going to. Hemustmarry me. Ah! You don’t know—you—”

My love shuddered, without completing her sentence.

“Why? Is it to save your father?” I hazarded again.

“To save my father—and my mother,” she exclaimed. And then, to my surprise, she sank upon a chair, flung her arms out upon the table in front of her, hid her face up on them, and began to sob hysterically.

“Vera, my dearest, don’t—oh! don’t,” I said beseechingly, as I bent down, put an arm tenderly about her, and kissed her upon the cheek. “Don’t cry like that, darling. It’s never too late, until a misfortune has really happened. You are not married to him. There may be a way of escape. Trust me. Treat me as a friend—we have been friends so long—tell me everything, and I will try to help you out of all your trouble.”

She started up.

“Trust you!” she burst forth, her face flushed. “Can I trust any one?”

“I’ve done nothing; I don’t know what you mean, or to what you refer!” I exclaimed blankly.

“Can you look at me like that,” she said slowly, after a pause, “and tell me, upon your oath, that you did not reveal my father’s secret; that you have never revealed it to anybody—never in your life?”

“I give you my solemn oath, Vera, that I have never in my life revealed it to anybody, or hinted at it, or said anything, either consciously or unconsciously, that might have led any one to suspect,” I answered fervently, with my eyes fixed on hers.

Truth to tell, I had not the remotest idea what the secret was, nor, until this instant, had it ever occurred to me to think that Sir Charles possessed a secret. I felt, however, that I had a part to play, and I was determined to play it to the best of my ability. Vera seemed to take it quite for granted that I knew her father’s secret, and I felt instinctively that, were I to endeavour to assure her that I was in complete ignorance of everything, she would not, under the circumstances, believe a single word I said.

“Do you believe me now?” I asked, as she did not speak.

“Yes—I do believe you,” was her slow response. And then she let me take her in my ready arms again.

She seemed to have been suddenly relieved of a great weight, and now she spoke in quite her ordinary way.

“Where is Paulton now?” was my next question. At last there seemed to be some remote possibility of the tangle of past events becoming gradually unravelled. I knew, however, that I was treading thin ice. A single careless word might lead her to suspect my duplicity. In a sense, I was still groping in the dark, pretending that I knew a great deal, whereas I knew nothing.

“He is coming to-night to fetch me.”

“At what time?”

“At ten o’clock.”

“And you are to wait here until then?”

“Yes.”

“What have you had to eat?”

“Some tea, and bread and butter,” and she glanced towards a table, on which stood a teapot and an empty plate.

“You can’t subsist on that,” I said quickly.

“More food is to be brought to me by old Taylor at five o’clock.”

I glanced at my watch. It was a quarter-past four.

“Why don’t you go out and go away?” I suggested. “There is surely nothing to prevent you. Why do you remain here in helpless inactivity?”

“Where should I go? I haven’t any money. I haven’t a sou. Besides—besides—I dare not disobey. If I did, he—he’d—he’d bring disaster—terrible disaster, upon me!”

“I can lend you some money,” I said. Then a thought struck me.

“Why not come away with me?” I exclaimed. “I will get you a room at an hotel, see to you, provide you with money, and take care that nobody objectionable—neither this fellow Paulton, nor anybody else—molests you.”

“Ah, Dick, if only I dared!” she exclaimed fervently, with shining eyes.

“You love me, Vera—do you not?”

“You know that I do, Dick.”

“Then leave here. Who is to prevent you? Where are your father and mother?”

She turned sharply.

“How can you ask that?” she cried, with a quick glance. I pulled myself together on the instant. I was forgetting to be cautious.

“Wouldn’t it be safe for you to appeal to them for help?” I asked vaguely.

She paused, evidently reflecting, and I breathed more freely.

“Under the circumstances—no,” she said at last, with decision. “They must await developments. I must remain here. Listen! What was that?” And she started in fear.

The door stood ajar. The door of the room I had been in, which opened on to the passage, was also open. Both of us listened intently. The sound of men’s voices, somewhere in the house, became audible.

I crept out into the passage on tiptoe, walked a little distance along it, stopped, and listened again. Yes, there were voices in the hall. Two men were talking. At once I recognised that Sir Charles Thorold, and the man known as Davies, were engaged in earnest conversation in low tones. In the otherwise silent and deserted house, their words were distinctly audible.

“We must get a doctor—we must,” I heard the big fellow say deeply. “I thought at first the fellow was asleep, then that he was drunk. The pulse is hardly perceptible.”

“But how can we?” Thorold answered. “It isn’t safe. There would be inquiries, and if he should die there would surely be an inquest, and then—”

He dropped his voice, and I could not catch the last words. Then Davies again spoke.

“I found this umbrella, and these gloves, on the table in his room,” I heard him say, “and there are two tea-cups on the table. Both have been used, used within the last half-hour, I should say. The tea in them is still warm, and the teapot is quite hot.” My heart stopped its beating. I put out an arm to support myself. A slight feeling of giddiness came over me. I broke out into a cold perspiration, for I had left my gloves and umbrella in the old man’s room!

My mouth turned suddenly dry, as I thought of the tea I had doctored with the drops from the flask, of which only a little was needed to send “a strong man to sleep—for ever.”

But Davies and Sir Charles were talking again, so I pulled myself together.

“How do you account for this umbrella and the gloves?” I heard Davies ask, and Thorold answered: “Let me have a look at them.”

They were silent for some moments.

“He has had some one there, that’s evident,” Sir Charles said. “Who on earth can it have been? This is an expensive umbrella, silk, and gold-mounted, and these gloves, too, are good ones. It’s extraordinary their owner should have forgotten to take them with him.”

“He may be in the house still,” answered Davies. “I hope, for his own sake, he isn’t,” Sir Charles said, in a hard voice. “Let us come and have a look at poor old Taylor. We shall find the keys in his pocket, anyway, and when we have attended to the other matter, we’ll go up and see Vera, and try to bring her to her senses with regard to Paulton. She must do it—hang it—shemust! I hate the thought of it, but it’s my only chance of escape from this accursed parasite!”

Voices and footsteps died away. Once more the house was silent as death.

Truly, that deserted house was a house of mystery.

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