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The Stowmarket Mystery; Or, A Legacy of Hate

by Louis Tracy · English · Gutenberg #14853 · 397,863 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Stowmarket Mystery; Or, A Legacy of Hate

Author: Louis Tracy


        
Release date: February 1, 2005 [eBook #14853]
                Most recently updated: December 28, 2020

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STOWMARKET MYSTERY; OR, A LEGACY OF HATE ***




Produced by Bill Tozier, Barbara Tozier, and the PG Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.






THE STOWMARKET MYSTERY

Or A Legacy of Hate


By LOUIS TRACY


AUTHOR OF

"Wings of the Morning,"
"The Final War,"
"An American Emperor,"
"Disappearance of Lady Delia," etc., etc.


1904




CONTENTS

         I. "THE STOWMARKET MYSTERY"
        II. DAVID HUME'S STORY
       III. THE DREAM
        IV. THROUGH THE LIBRARY WINDOW
         V. FROM BEHIND THE HEDGE
        VI. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
       VII. HUSBAND AND WIFE
      VIII. REVELATIONS
        IX. THE KO-KATANA
         X. THE BLACK MUSEUM
        XI. MR. "OKASAKI"
       XII. WHAT THE STATIONMASTER SAW
      XIII. TWO WOMEN
       XIV. MARGARET SPEAKS OUT
        XV. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR
       XVI. THE COUSINS
      XVII. "CHERCHEZ LA FEMME"
     XVIII. FURTHER COMPLICATIONS
       XIX. THE THIRD MAN APPEARS
        XX. THE TRAIL
       XXI. CONCERNING CHICKENS, AND MOTIVES
      XXII. THE SECOND ATTACK
     XXIII. MARGARET'S SECRET
      XXIV. THE MEETING
       XXV. WHERE DID MARGARET GO?
      XXVI. MR. OOMA
     XXVII. HOLDEN'S STORY
    XXVIII. MR. AND MRS. JIRO
      XXIX. MARGARET'S SECRET
       XXX. HUSBAND AND WIFE
      XXXI. TO BEECHCROFT
     XXXII. THE FIGHT
    XXXIII. THE LAST NOTE IN BRETT'S DIARY




A LEGACY OF HATE




CHAPTER I

"THE STOWMARKET MYSTERY"


"Mr. David Hume."

Reginald Brett, barrister-detective, twisted round in his easy-chair to
permit the light to fall clearly on the card handed to him by his
man-servant.

"What does Mr. David Hume look like, Smith?" he asked.

"A gentleman, sir."

Well-trained servants never make a mistake when they give such a
description of a visitor. Brett was satisfied.

"Produce him."

Then he examined the card.

"It is odd," he thought. "Mr. David Hume gives no address, and writes his
own cards. I like his signature, too. Now, I wonder--"

The door was thrown open. A tall, well-proportioned young man entered. He
was soberly attired in blue serge. His face and hands bore the impress of
travel and exposure. His expression was pleasing and attractive. In repose
his features were regular, and marked with lines of thought. A short,
well-trimmed beard, of the type affected by some naval men, gave him a
somewhat unusual appearance. Otherwise he carried himself like a British
cavalry officer in mufti.

He advanced into the room and bowed easily. Brett, who had risen,
instantly felt that his visitor was one of those people who erect
invisible barriers between themselves and strangers.

"My errand will occupy some time, perhaps half an hour, to permit of full
explanation," said Mr. Hume. "May I ask--"

"I am completely at your service. Take that chair. You will find it
comfortable. Do you smoke? Yes. Well, try those cigarettes. They are
better than they look."

Mr. Hume seemed to be gratified by this cordial reception. He seated
himself as requested, in the best light obtainable in a north-side
Victoria Street flat, and picked up the box of cigarettes.

"Turkish," he announced.

"Yes."

"Grown on a slope near Salonica."

"Indeed? You interest me."

"Oh, I know them well. I was there two months ago. I suppose you got these
as a present from Yildiz Kiosk?"

"Mr. Hume, you asked for half an hour, Make it an hour. You have touched
upon a subject dear to my heart."

"They are the best cigarettes in the world. No one can buy them. They are
made for the exclusive use of the Sultan's household. To attempt to export
them means the bastinado and banishment, at the least. I do not credit you
with employing agents on such terms, so I assume an Imperial gift."

The barrister had been looking intently at the other man during this short
colloquy. Suddenly his eyes sparkled. He struck a match and held it to his
visitor, with the words:

"You are quite right, Mr. David Hume-Frazer."

The person thus addressed neither started, nor sprang to his feet, nor
gasped in amazement He took the match, lit a cigarette, and said:

"So you know me?"

"Yes."

"It is strange. I have never previously met you to my knowledge. Am I
still a celebrity?"

"To me--yes."

"A sort of distinguished criminal, eh?"

"No man could be such a judge of tobacco and remain commonplace."

"'Pon my honour, Mr. Brett, I think you deserve your reputation. For the
first time during eighteen months I feel hopeful. Do you know, I passed
dozens of acquaintances in the streets yesterday and none of them knew me.
Yet you pick me out at the first glance, so to speak."

"They might do the same if you spoke to them, Mr.--"

"Hume, if you please."

"Certainly. Why have you dropped part of your surname?"

"It is a long story. My lawyers, Flint & Sharp, of Gray's Inn, heard of
your achievements in the cases of Lady Lyle and the Imperial Diamonds.
They persuaded me to come to you."

"Though, personally, you have little faith in me?"

"Heaven knows, Mr. Brett, I have had good cause to lose faith. My case
defies analysis. It savours of the supernatural."

The barrister shoved his chair sideways until he was able to reach a
bookcase, from which he took a bulky interleaved volume.

"Supernatural," he repeated. "That is new to me. As I remember the affair,
it was highly sensational, perplexing--a blend of romance and Japanese
knives--but I do not remember any abnormal element save one, utter absence
of motive."

"Do you mean to say that you possess a record of the facts?" inquired
Hume, exhibiting some tokens of excitement in face and voice as he watched
Brett turning over the leaves of the scrap-book, in which newspaper
cuttings were neatly pasted, some being freely annotated.

"Yes. The daily press supplies my demands in the way of fiction--a word,
by the way, often misapplied. Where do you find stranger tales than in the
records of every-day life? Ah, here we are!"

He searched through a large number of printed extracts. There were
comments, long reports, and not a few notes, all under the heading: "The
Stowmarket Mystery."

Hume was now deeply agitated; he evidently restrained his feelings by
sheer force of will.

"Mr. Brett," he said, and his voice trembled a little, "surely you could
not have expected my presence here this morning?"

"I no more expected you than the man in the moon," was the reply; "but I
recognised you at once. I watched your face for many hours whilst you
stood in the dock. Professional business took me to the Assizes during
your second trial. At one time I thought of offering my services."

"To me?"

"No, not to you."

"To whom, then?"

"To the police. Winter, the Scotland Yard man who had charge of the
business, is an old friend of mine."

"What restrained you?"

"Pity, and perhaps doubt. I could see no reason why you should kill your
cousin."

"But you believed me guilty?"

The barrister looked his questioner straight in the eyes. He saw there the
glistening terror of a tortured soul. Somehow he expected to find a
different expression. He was puzzled.

"Why have you come here, Mr. Hume?" he abruptly demanded.

"To implore your assistance. They tell me you are the one man in the world
able to clear my name from the stain of crime. Will you do it?"

Again their eyes met. Hume was fighting now, fighting for all that a man
holds dear. He did not plead. He only demanded his rights. Born a few
centuries earlier, he would have enforced them with cold steel.

"Come, Mr. Brett," he almost shouted. "If you are as good a judge of men
as you say I am of tobacco, you will not think that the cowardly murderer
who struck down my cousin would come to you, of all others, and reopen the
story of a crime closed unwillingly by the law."

Brett could, on occasion, exhibit an obstinate determination not to be
drawn into expressing an opinion. His visitor's masterful manner annoyed
him. Hume, metaphorically speaking, took him by the throat and compelled
his services. He rebelled against this species of compulsion, but mere
politeness required some display of courteous tolerance.

"It seems to me," he said, "that we are beginning at the end. I may not be
able to help you. What are the facts?"

The stranger was so agitated that he could not reply. Self-restrained men
are not ready with language. Their thoughts may be fiery as bottled
vitriol, but they keep the cork in. The barrister allowed for this
drawback. His sympathies were aroused, and they overcame his slight
resentment.

"Try another cigarette," he said, "I have here a summary of the evidence.
I will read it to you. Do not interrupt. Follow the details closely, and
correct anything that is wrong when I have ended."

Hume was still volcanic, but he took the proffered box.

"Ah," cried Brett, "though you are angry, your judgment is sound. Now
listen!"

Then he read the following statement, prepared by himself in an idle
moment:--

"The Stowmarket Mystery is a strange mixture of the real and the unreal.
Sir Alan Hume-Frazer, fourth baronet, met his death on the hunting-field.
His horse blundered at a brook and the rider was impaled on a hidden
stake, placed in the stream by his own orders to prevent poachers from
netting trout. His wife, née Somers, a Bristol family, had pre-deceased
him.

"There were two children, a daughter, Margaret, aged twenty-five, and a
son, Alan, aged twenty-three. By his will, Sir Alan left all his real and
personal estate to his son, with a life charge of £1,000 per annum for the
daughter. As he was a very wealthy man, almost a millionaire, the
provision for his daughter was niggardly, which might be accounted for by
the fact that the girl, several years before her father's death,
quarrelled with him and left home, residing in London and in Florence.
Both children, by the way, were born in Italy, where Sir Alan met and
married Miss Somers.

"The old gentleman, it appeared, allowed Miss Hume-Frazer £5,000 per annum
during his life. His son voluntarily continued this allowance, but the
brother and sister continued to live apart, he devoted to travel and
sport, she to music and art, with a leaning towards the occult--a woman
divorced from conventionality and filled with a hatred of restraint.

"Beechcroft, the family residence, is situated four miles from Stowmarket,
close to the small village of Sleagill. After his father's death, the
young Sir Alan went for a protracted tour round the world. Meanwhile his
first cousin, Mr. David Hume-Frazer, lived at Beechcroft during the
shooting season, and incidentally fell in love with Miss Helen Layton,
daughter of the rector of Sleagill, the Rev. Wilberforce Layton."

Hume stirred uneasily in his chair, and the barrister paused, expecting
him to say something. But the other only gasped brokenly: "Go on; go on!"

"Love lasts longer than death or crime," mused Brett.

He continued:

"In eighteen months Sir Alan the fifth--all heirs had same name--returned
to Beechcroft, about Christmas. His cousin had been called away on family
business, but returned for a New Year's Eve ball, given by Mrs. Eastham, a
lady of some local importance. Sir Alan and Helen Layton had followed the
hounds together three times during Christmas week. They were, of course,
old friends.

"David sent from Scotland--his father's estate was situated close to
Inverness--some presents to his future wife, his cousin, and others. The
gift to Sir Alan was noteworthy and fatalistic--a handsomely inlaid
Japanese sword, with a small dagger inserted in a sheath near the top of
the scabbard. David reached Beechcroft on the day of the ball. Relations
between the cousins seemed to the servants to be cool, though the coolness
lay rather with the baronet, and David, a year older, it may be here
stated, was evidently taken by surprise by Sir Alan's attitude.

"The three young people went to the ball, and shortly after midnight there
was something in the nature of a scene. Sir Alan had been dancing with
Miss Layton. They were in the conservatory when the young lady burst into
tears, hurried to find David, and asked him to take her at once to her
carriage. Mrs. Eastham was acting as chaperon to the girl, and some heated
words passed between her and the two young men.

"Evidence showed that Sir Alan had bitterly upbraided Miss Layton on
account of her engagement, and hinted that David had taken an unfair
advantage of his (Alan's) absence to win her affections. This was
absolutely untrue. It was denied by the two most concerned, and by Mrs.
Eastham, who, as a privileged friend, knew all the facts. The young men
were in a state of white heat, but David sensibly withdrew, and walked to
the Hall.

"Mrs. Eastham's house was close to the lodge gates, and from the lodge a
straight yew-shaded drive led to the library windows, the main entrance
being at the side of the house.

"In the library a footman, on duty in the room, maintained a good fire,
and the French windows were left unfastened, as the young gentlemen would
probably enter the house that way. David did, in fact, do so. The footman
quitted the room, and a few minutes later the butler appeared. He was an
old favourite of David's. He asked if he should send some whisky and soda.

"The young man agreed, adding:

"'Sir Alan and I have commenced the year badly, Ferguson. We quarrelled
over a silly mistake. I have made up my mind not to sleep on it, so I will
await his arrival. Let me know if he comes in the other way.'

"The butler hoped that the matter was not a serious one.

"'Under other circumstances it might be,' was the answer, 'but as things
are, it is simply a wretched mistake, which a little reasonable discussion
will put right.'

"The footman brought the whisky and soda.

"Twenty minutes later he re-entered the room to attend to the fire. Mr.
David Hume-Frazer was curled up in an arm-chair asleep, or rather dozing,
for he stirred a little when the man put some coal in the grate. This was
at 1 a.m. exactly.

"At 1.10 a.m. the butler thought he heard his master's voice coming from
the front of the house, and angrily protesting something. Unfortunately he
could not catch a single word. He imagined that the 'quarrel' spoken of by
David had been renewed.

"He waited two minutes, not more, but hearing no further sounds, he walked
round to the library windows, thinking that perhaps he would see Sir Alan
in the room.

"To his dismay he found his young master stretched on the turf at the side
of the drive, thirty feet from the house. He rushed into the library,
where David was still asleep and moving uneasily--muttering, the man
thought:

"'Come quickly, sir,' he cried, 'I fear something has happened to Sir
Alan. He is lying on the ground outside the house, and I cannot arouse
him.'

"Then David Hume-Frazer sprang to his feet and shouted:

"'My God! It was not a dream. He is murdered!'

"Unquestionably--"

But the barrister's cold-blooded synopsis of a thrilling crime proved to
be too much for his hearer's nerves. Hume stood up. The man was a born
fighter. He could take his punishment, but only on his feet.

Again he cried in anguish:

"No! It was no dream, but a foul murder. And they blame me!"




CHAPTER II

DAVID HUME'S STORY


Brett closed the book with a snap.

"What good purpose can it serve at this time to reopen the miserable
story?" he asked.

Curiously enough, Hume paid no heed to the question. His lips quivered,
his nostrils twitched, and his eyes shot strange gleams. He caught the
back of his chair with both hands in a grasp that tried to squeeze the
tough oak.

"What else have you written there?" he said, and Brett could not help but
admire his forced composure.

"Nothing of any material importance. You were arrested, after an interval
of some days, as the result of a coroner's warrant. You explained that you
had a vivid dream, in which you saw your cousin stabbed by a stranger whom
you did not know, whose face even you never saw. Sir Alan was undoubtedly
murdered. The dagger-like attachment to your Japanese sword had been
driven into his breast up to the hilt, actually splitting his heart. To
deliver such a blow, with such a weapon, required uncommon strength and
skill. I think I describe it here as 'un-English.'"

Brett referred to his scrap-book. In spite of himself, he felt all his old
interest reawakening in this remarkable crime.

"Yes?" queried Hume.

The barrister, his lips pursed up and critical, surveyed his concluding
notes.

"You were tried at the ensuing Assizes, and the jury disagreed. Your
second trial resulted in an acquittal, though the public attitude towards
you was dubious. The judge, in summing up, said that the evidence against
you 'might be deemed insufficient.' In these words he conveyed the popular
opinion. I see I have noted here that Miss Margaret Hume-Frazer was at a
Covent Garden Fancy Dress Ball on the night of the murder. But the tragic
deaths of her father and brother had a marked influence on the young lady.
She, of course, succeeded to the estates, and decided at once to live at
Beechcroft. Does she still live there?"

"Yes. I am told she is distinguished for her charity and good works. She
is married."

"Ah! To whom?"

"To an Italian, named Giovanni Capella."

"His stage name?"

"No; he is really an Italian."

Brett's pleasantry was successful in its object. David Hume regained his
equanimity and sat down again. After a pause he went on:

"May I ask, Mr. Brett, before I tell you my part of the story, if you
formed any theories as to the occurrence at the time?"

The barrister consulted his memoranda. Something that met his eyes caused
him to smile.

"I see," he said, "that Mr. Winter, of Scotland Yard, was convinced of
your guilt. That is greatly in your favour."

"Why?"

Hume disdained the police, but Brett's remark evoked curiosity.

"Because Mr. Winter is a most excellent officer, whose intellect is
shackled by handcuffs. 'De l'audace!' says the Frenchman, as a specific
for human conduct. 'Lock 'em up,' says Mr. Winter, when he is inquiring
into a crime. Of course, he is right nine times out of ten; but if, in the
tenth case, intellect conflicts with handcuffs, the handcuffs win, being
stronger in his instance."

Hume was in no mood to appreciate the humours of Scotland Yard, so the
other continued:

"The most telling point against you was the fact that not only the butler,
footman, and two housemaids, but you yourself, at the coroner's inquest,
swore that the small Japanese knife was in its sheath during the
afternoon; indeed, the footman said it was there, to the best of his
belief, at midnight. Then, again, a small drawer in Sir Alan's
writing-table had been wrenched open whilst you were alone in the room. On
this point the footman was positive. Near the drawer rested the sword from
which its viperish companion had been abstracted. Had not the butler found
Sir Alan's body, still palpitating, and testified beyond any manner of
doubt that you were apparently sleeping in the library, you would have
been hanged, Mr. Hume."

"Probably."

"The air of probability attending your execution would have been most
convincing."

"Is my case, then, so desperate?"

"You cannot be tried again, you know."

"I do not mean that. I want to establish my innocence; to compel society
to reinstate me as a man profoundly wronged; above all, to marry the woman
I love."

Brett amused himself by rapidly projecting several rings of smoke through
a large one.

"So you really are innocent?" he said, after a pause.

David Hume rose from his chair, and reached for his hat, gloves, and
stick.

"You have crushed my remaining hope of emancipation," he exclaimed
bitterly. "You have the repute of being able to pluck the heart out of a
mystery, Mr. Brett, so when you assume that I am guilty--"

"I have assumed nothing of the kind. You seem to possess the faculty of
self-control. Kindly exercise it, and answer my questions, Did you kill
your cousin?"

"No."

"Who did kill him?"

"I do not know."

"Do you suspect anybody?"

"Not in the remotest degree."

"Did he kill himself?"

"That theory was discussed privately, but not brought forward at the
trial. Three doctors said it was not worthy of a moment's consideration."

"Well, you need not shout your replies, and I would prefer to see you
comfortably seated, unless, of course, you feel more at ease near the
door."

A trifle shamefacedly, Hume returned to his former position near the
fireplace--that shrine to which all the household gods do reverence, even
in the height of summer. It is impossible to conceive the occupants of a
room deliberately grouping themselves without reference to the grate.

Brett placed the open scrap-book on his knees, and ran an index finger
along underlined passages in the manner of counsel consulting a brief.

"Why did you give your cousin this sword?"

"Because he told me he was making a collection of Japanese arms, and I
remarked that my grandfather on my mother's side, Admiral Cunningham, had
brought this weapon, with others, from the Far East. It lay for fifty
years in our gun-room at Glen Tochan."

"So you met Sir Alan soon after his return home?"

"Yes, in London, the day he arrived. Came to town on purpose, in fact.
Afterwards I travelled North, and he went to Beechcroft."

"How long afterwards? Be particular as to dates."

"It is quite a simple matter, owing to the season. Alan reached Charing
Cross from Brindisi on December 20. We remained together--that is, lived
at the same hotel, paid calls in company, visited the same restaurants,
went to the same theatres--until the night of the 23rd, when we parted. It
is a tradition of my family that the members of it should spend Christmas
together."

"A somewhat unusual tradition in Scotland, is it not?"

"Yes, but it was my mother's wish, so my father and I keep the custom up."

"Your father is still living?"

"Yes, thank goodness!"

"He is now the sixth baronet?"

"He is not. Neither he nor I will assume the title while the succession
bears the taint of crime."

"Did you quarrel with your cousin in London?"

"Not by word or thought. He seemed to be surprised when I told him of my
engagement to Helen, but he warmly congratulated me. One afternoon he was
a trifle short-tempered, but not with me."

"Tell me about this."

"His sister is, or was then, a rather rapid young lady. She discovered
that certain money-lenders would honour her drafts on her brother, and she
had been going the pace somewhat heavily. Alan went to see her, told her
to stop this practice, and sent formal notice to the same effect through
his solicitors to the bill discounters. It annoyed him, not on account of
the money, but that his sister should act in such a way,"

"Ah, this is important! It was not mentioned at the trial."

"Why should it be?"

"Who can say? I wish to goodness I had helped your butler to raise Sir
Alan's lifeless body. But about this family dispute. Was there a
scene--tears, recriminations?"

"Not a bit. You don't know Rita. We used to call her Rita because, as
boys, we teased her by saying her name was Margharita, and not Margaret"

"Why?"

"She has such a foreign manner and style."

"How did she acquire them?"

"She was a big girl, six years old, and tall for her age, when her parents
settled down in England. She first spoke Italian, and picked up Italian
ways from her nurse, an old party who was devotedly attached to her. Even
Alan was a good Italian linguist, and given to foreign manners when a
little chap. But Harrow soon knocked them out of him. Rita retained them."

"I see. A curious household. I should have expected this young lady to
upbraid her brother after the style of the prima donna in grand opera."

"No. He told me she laughed at him, and invited him to witness the trying
on of a fancy dress costume, the 'Queen of Night,' which she wore at a
_bal masqué_ the night he was murdered."

"When did she get married?"

"Last January, at Naples, very suddenly, and without the knowledge of any
of her relatives."

"She had been living at Beechcroft nearly a year, then?"

"Yes, she went South in the winter. The reason she gave was that the Hall
would be depressing on the anniversary of her brother's death. She had
become most popular in the district. Helen is very fond of her, and was
quite shocked to hear of her marriage. The local people do not like Signor
Capella."

"Why?"

"It is difficult to give a reason. Miss Layton does not indulge in
details, but that is the impression I gather from her letters."

Hume paused, and Brett shot a quick glance at him.

"Finish what you were going to say," he said.

"Only this--Helen and I have mutually released each other from our
engagement, and in the same breath have refused to be released. That is,
if you understand--"

The barrister nodded.

"The result is that we are both thoroughly miserable. Our respective
fathers do not like the idea of our marriage under the circumstances. We
are simply drifting in the feeble hope that some day a kindly Providence
will dissipate the cloud that hangs over me. Ah, Mr. Brett, I am a rich
man. Command the limits of my fortune, but clear me. Prove to Helen that
her faith in my innocence is justified."

"For goodness' sake light another cigarette," snapped the barrister. "You
have interfered with my line of thought. It is all wriggly."

Quite a minute elapsed before he began again.

"What caused the trouble at Mrs. Eastham's ball?"

"I think I can explain that. It seems that Alan's father told him to get
married--"

"Told him!"

"Well, left instructions."

"How?"

"I do not know. I only gathered as much from my cousin's remarks. Well, it
was not until his final home-coming that he realised what a beautiful
woman the jolly little girl he knew as a boy had developed into. She was
just the kind of wife he wanted, and I fancy he imagined I had stolen a
march on him. But he was a thoroughly straightforward, manly fellow, and
something very much out of the common must have upset him before he vented
his anger on me and Helen."

"Have you any notion--"

"Not the least. Pardon me. I suppose you were going to ask if I guessed
the cause?"

"Yes."

"It is quite unfathomable. We parted the best of friends in London,
although he knew all about the engagement. We met again at 6 p.m. on New
Year's Eve, and he was very short with me. I can only vaguely assume that
some feeling of resentment had meanwhile been working up in him, and it
found expression during his chat with Helen in the conservatory."

"Did you use threats to him during the subsequent wrangle?"

"Threats! Good gracious, no. I was angry with him for spoiling Miss
Layton's enjoyment. I called him an ass, and said that he had better have
remained away another year than come back and make mischief. That is all.
Mrs. Eastham was far more outspoken."

"Indeed. What did she say?"

"She hinted that his temper was a reminiscence of his Southern birth,
always a sore point with him, and contrasted me with him, to his
disadvantage. All very unfair, of course, but, you see, she was the
hostess, and Alan had upset her party very much."

"So you walked home, and resolved to hold out the olive branch?"

"Most decidedly. I was older, perhaps a trifle more sedate. I knew that
Helen loved me. There were no difficulties in the way of our marriage,
which was arranged for the following spring. Indeed, my second trial took
place on the very date we had selected. It was my duty to use poor Alan
gently. Even his foolish and unreasonable jealousy was a compliment."

Brett threw the scrap-book on to the table. He clasped his hands in front
of his knees, tucking his heels on the edge of his chair.

"Mr. Hume," he said slowly, gazing fixedly at the other, "I believe you.
You did not kill your cousin."




CHAPTER III

THE DREAM


"Thank you," was the quiet answer.

"You hinted at some supernatural influence in relation to this crime. What
did you mean?"

"Ah, that is the unpublished part of the affair. We are a Scots family, as
our name implies. The first Sir Alan Frazer became a baronet owing to his
services to King George during the '45 Rebellion. There was some trouble
about a sequestered estate--now our place in Scotland--which belonged to
his wife's brother, a Hume and a rebel. Anyhow, in 1763, he fought a duel
with Hume's son, his own nephew by marriage, and was killed."

"Really," broke in Brett, "this ancient history--"

"Is quite to the point. Sir Alan the first fought and died in front of the
library at Beechcroft."

The barrister commenced to study the moulding in the centre of the
ceiling.

"He was succeeded by his grandson, a little lad of eight. In 1807, after a
heavy drinking bout, the second Sir Alan Hume-Frazer cut his throat, and
chose the scene of his ancestor's duel for the operation."

"A remarkable coincidence!"

"In 1842, during a bread riot, the third baronet was stabbed with a
pitchfork whilst facing a mob in the same place. Then a long interval
occurred. Again a small child became the heir. Three years ago the fourth
baronet expired whilst the library windows were being opened to admit the
litter on which he was carried from the hunting-field. The fate of the
fifth you know."

Brett's chair emitted a series of squeaks as he urged it closer to the
wall. At the proper distance he stretched out his leg and pressed an
electric bell with his toe.

"Decanters and syphons, Smith," he cried, when the door opened.

"Which do you take, whisky or brandy, Mr. Hume?" he inquired.

"Whisky. But I assure you I am quite serious. These things--"

"Serious! If my name were Hume-Frazer, nothing less than a runaway
steam-engine would take me to Beechcroft. I have never previously heard
such a marvellous recital."

"We are a stiff-necked race. My uncle and cousin knew how strangely Fate
had pursued every heir to the title, yet each hoped that in his person the
tragic sequence would be broken. Oddly enough, my father holds that the
family curse, or whatever it is, has now exhausted itself."

"What grounds has he for the belief?"

"None, save a Highlander's readiness to accept signs and portents. Look at
this seal."

He unfastened from his waistcoat his watch and chain, with a small bunch
of pendants attached, and handed them to Brett. The latter examined the
seal with deep interest. It was cut into a bloodstone, and showed a stag's
head, surmounted by five pointed rays, like a crown of daggers.

"I cannot decipher the motto," he said; "what is it?"

"Fortis et audax."

"Hum! 'Strong and bold.' A stiff-necked legend, too."

He reached to his bookcase for Burke's "General Armoury." After a brief
search, he asked:

"Do you know anything about heraldry?"

"Nothing whatever."

"Then listen to this. The crest of your, house is: 'A stag's head, erased
argent, charged with a star of five rays gules.' It is peculiar."

"Yes, so my father says; but why does it appeal to you in that way?"

"Because 'erased' means, in this instance, a stag's head torn forcibly
from the body, the severed part being jagged like the teeth of a saw. And
'gules' means 'red.' Now, such heraldic rays are usually azure or blue."

"By Jove, you have hit upon the old man's idea. He contends that those
five blood-coloured points signify the founder of the baronetcy and his
four lineal descendants. Moreover, the race is now extinct in the direct
succession. The title goes to a collateral branch."

Brett stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"It is certainly very strange," he murmured, "that the dry-as-dust
knowledge of some member of the College of Heralds should evolve these
armorial bearings with their weird significance. Does this account for
your allusion to the supernatural?"

"Partly. Do not forget my dream."

"Tell it to me."

"During the trials, my counsel, a very able man, by the way--you know him,
of course, Mr. Dobbie, K.C.--only referred to the fact that I dreamed my
cousin was in some mortal danger, and that my exclamation 'He is
murdered!' was really a startled comment on my part induced by the
butler's words. That is not correct. I never told Mr. Dobbie the details
of my dream, or vision."

"Oh, didn't you? Men have been hanged before to-day because they thought
they could construct a better line of defence than their counsel."

"I had nothing to defend. I was innocent. Moreover, I knew I should not be
convicted."

The barrister well remembered the view of the case taken by the Bar mess.
Even the redoubtable Dobbie was afraid of the jury. His face must have
conveyed dubiety with respect to Hume's last remark, for the other
continued eagerly:

"It is quite true. Wait until I have concluded. After the footman brought
the whisky and soda to the library that night I took a small quantity, and
pulled an easy-chair in front of the fire. I was tired, having travelled
all the preceding night and part of the day. Hence the warmth and comfort
soon sent me to sleep. I have a hazy recollection of the man coming in to
put some coal on the fire. In a sub-conscious fashion I knew that it was
not my cousin, but a servant. I settled down a trifle more comfortably,
and everything became a blank. Then I thought I awoke. I looked out
through the windows, and, to my astonishment, it was broad daylight. The
trees, too, were covered with leaves, the sun was shining, and there was
every evidence of a fine day in early summer. In some indefinite way I
realised that the library was no longer the room which I knew. The
furniture and carpets were different. The books were old-fashioned. A very
handsome spinning-wheel stood near the open window. There was no litter of
newspapers or magazines.

"Before I could begin to piece together these curious discrepancies in the
normal condition of things, I saw two men riding up the avenue, where the
yew trees, by the way, were loftier and finer in every way than those
really existing. The horsemen were dressed in such strange fashion that,
unfortunately, I paid little heed to their faces. They wore frilled
waistcoats, redingotes with huge lapels and turned-back cuffs,
three-cornered hats, and gigantic boots. They dismounted when close to the
house. One man held both horses; the other advanced. I was just going to
look him straight in the face when another figure appeared, coming from
that side of the hall where the entrance is situated. This was a gentleman
in very elegant garments, hatless, with powdered queue, pink satin coat
embroidered with lace, pink satin small-clothes, white silk stockings, and
low shoes. As he walked, a smart cane swung from his left wrist by a silk
tassel, and he took a pinch of snuff from an ivory box.

"The two men met and seemed to have a heated argument, bitter and
passionate on one side, studiously scornful on the other. This was all in
dumb show. Not a word did I hear. My amazed wits were fully taken up with
noting their clothes, their postures, the trappings of the horses, the
eighteenth century aspect of the library. Strange, is it not, I did not
look at their faces?"

Hume paused to gulp down the contents of his tumbler. Brett said not a
word, but sat intent, absorbed, wondering, with eyes fixed on the speaker.

"All at once the dispute became vehement. The more stylishly attired man
disappeared, but returned instantly with a drawn sword in his hand. The
stranger, as we may call him, whipped out a claymore, and the two fought
fiercely. By Jove, it was no stage combat or French duel. They went for
each other as if they meant it. There was no stopping to take breath, nor
drawing apart after a foiled attack. Each man tried to kill the other as
speedily as possible. Three times they circled round in furious
sword-play. Then the stranger got his point home. The other, in mortal
agony, dropped his weapon, and tried with both hands to tear his
adversary's blade from his breast. He failed, and staggered back, the
victor still shoving the claymore through his opponent's body. Then, and
not until then, I saw the face of the man who was wounded, probably
killed. It was my cousin, Alan Hume-Fraser."

David Hume stopped again. His bronzed face was pale now. With his left
hand he swept huge drops of perspiration from his brow. But his class
demands coolness in the most desperate moments. He actually struck a match
and relighted his cigarette.

"I suppose you occasionally have a nightmare after an indigestible supper,
Mr. Brett," he went on, "and have experienced a peculiar sensation of dumb
palsy in the presence of some unknown but terrifying danger? Well, such
was my exact state at that moment. Alan fell, apparently lifeless. The
stranger kissed his blood-stained sword, which required a strong tug
before he could disengage it, rattled it back into the scabbard, rejoined
his companion, and the two rode off, without once looking back. I can see
them now, square-shouldered, with hair tied in a knot beneath their quaint
hats, their hips absurdly swollen by the huge pockets of their coats,
their boots hanging over their knees. They wore big brass spurs with
tremendous rowels, and the cantles of their saddles were high and
brass-bound.

"Alan lay motionless. I could neither speak nor move. Whether I was
sitting or standing I cannot tell you, nor do I know how I was supposed to
be attired. A darkness came over my eyes. Then a voice--Helen's
voice--whispered to me, 'Fear not, dearest; the wrong is avenged.' I
awoke, to find the trembling butler shouting in my ear that his master was
lying dead outside the house. Now, Mr. Brett, I ask you, would you have
submitted that fairy tale to a jury? I was quite assured of a verdict in
my favour, though the first disagreement almost shook my faith in Helen's
promise, but I did not want to end my days in a criminal lunatic asylum."

He did not appear to expect an answer. He was quite calm again, and even
his eyes had lost their intensity. The mere telling of his uncanny
experience had a soothing effect. He nonchalantly readjusted his watch and
chain, and noted the time.

"I have gone far beyond my stipulated half hour," he said, forcing a
deprecatory smile.

"Yes; far beyond, indeed. You carried me back to 1763, but Heaven alone
knows when you will end."

"Will you take up my case?"

"Can you doubt it? Do you think I would throw aside the most remarkable
criminal puzzle I have ever tackled?"

"Mr. Brett, I cannot find words to thank you. If you succeed--and you
inspire me with confidence--Helen and I will strive to merit your lifelong
friendship."

"Miss Layton knows the whole of your story, of course?"

"Yes; she and my father only. I must inform you that I had never heard the
full reason of the duel between the first Sir Alan and his nephew. But my
father knew it fairly well, and the details fitted in exactly with my
vision. I can hardly call it a dream."

"What was the nephew's name?"

"David Hume!"

Brett jumped up, and paced about the room.

"These coincidences defy analysis," he exclaimed. "Your Christian name is
David. Your surname joins both families. Why, the thing is a romance of
the wildest sort."

"Unhappily, it has a tragic side for me."

"Yes; the story cannot end here. You and your _fiancée_ have suffered.
Miss Layton must be a very estimable young lady--one worth winning. She
will be a true and loyal wife."

"Do you think you will be able to solve the riddle? Someone murdered my
cousin."

"That is our only solid fact at present. The family tradition is passing
strange, but it will not serve in a court of law. I may fail, for the
first time, but I will try hard. When can you accompany me to Stowmarket?"

The question disconcerted his eager auditor. The young man's countenance
clouded.

"Is it necessary that I should go there?" he asked.

"Certainly. You must throw aside all delicacy of feeling, sacrifice even
your own sentiments. That is the one locality where you don't wish to be
seen, of course?"

"It is indeed."

"I cannot help that. I must have the assistance of your local and family
knowledge to decide the knotty points sure to arise when I begin the
inquiry. Can you start this afternoon?"

"Yes."

"Very well. Come and lunch with me at my club. Then we will separate, to
meet again at Liverpool Street. Smith! Pack my traps for a week."

Brett was in the hall now, but he suddenly stopped his companion.

"By the way, Hume, you may like to wire to Miss Layton. My man will send
the telegram for you."

David Hume's barrier of proud reserve vanished from that instant. The
kindly familiarity of the barrister's words to one who, during many weary
days, suspected all men of loathing him as a murderer at large, was
directed by infinite tact.

Hume held out his hand, "You _are_ a good chap," he said.




CHAPTER IV

THROUGH THE LIBRARY WINDOW


Hume did not send a telegram to the Sleagill Rectory. He explained that,
owing to the attitude adopted by the Rev. Wilberforce Layton, Helen
avoided friction with her father by receiving his (Hume's) letters under
cover to Mrs. Eastham.

The younger man was quick to note that Brett did not like this
arrangement. He smilingly protested that there was no deception in the
matter.

"Helen would never consent to anything that savoured of subterfuge," he
explained. "Her father knows well that she hears from me constantly. He is
a studious, reserved old gentleman. He was very much shocked by the
tragedy, and his daughter's innocent association with it. He told me quite
plainly that, under the circumstances, I ought to consider the engagement
at an end. Possibly I resented an imputation not intended by him. I made
some unfair retort about his hyper-sensitiveness, and promptly sent Helen
a formal release. She tore it up, and at the same time accepted it so far
as I was concerned. We met at Mrs. Eastham's house--that good lady has
remained my firm friend throughout--and I don't mind telling you, Brett,
that I broke down utterly. Well, we began by sending messages to each
other through Mrs. Eastham. Then I forwarded to Helen, in the same way, a
copy of a rough diary of my travels. She wrote to me direct; I replied.
The position now is that she will not marry me without her father's
consent, and she will marry no one else. He is aware of our
correspondence. She always tells him of my movements. The poor old rector
is worried to know how to act for the best. His daughter's happiness is at
stake, and so my unhappy affairs have drifted aimlessly for more than a
year."

"The drifting must cease," said Brett decisively. "Beechcroft Hall will
probably provide scope for activity."

They reached Stowmarket by a late train. Next morning they drove to
Sleagill--a pretty village, with a Norman church tower standing squarely
in the midst of lofty trees, and white-washed cottages and red-tiled
villa-residences nestling in gardens.

"A bower of orchards and green lanes," murmured the barrister as their
dog-cart sped rapidly over the smooth highway.

Hume was driving. He pointed out the rectory. His eyes were eagerly
searching the lawn and the well-trimmed garden, but he was denied a sight
of his divinity. The few people they encountered gazed at them curiously.
Hume was seemingly unrecognised.

"Here is Mrs. Eastham's house," he said, checking the horse's pace as they
approached a roomy, comfortable-looking mansion, occupying an angle where
the village street sharply bifurcated. "And there is Beechcroft!"

The lodge faced the road along which they were advancing. Beyond the gates
the yew-lined drive, with its selvages of deep green turf, led straight to
the Elizabethan house a quarter of a mile distant. The ground in the rear
rose gently through a mile or more of the home park.

Immediately behind the Hall was a dense plantation of spruce and larch.
The man who planned the estate evidently possessed both taste and spirit.
It presented a beautiful and pleasing picture. A sense of homeliness was
given by a number of Alderney cattle and young hunters grazing in the park
on both sides of the avenue. Beechcroft had a reputation in metropolitan
sale-rings. Its two-year-olds were always in demand.

"We will leave the conveyance here," announced Brett "I prefer to walk to
the house."

The hotel groom went to the horse's head. He did not hear the barrister's
question:

"I suppose both you and your cousin quitted Mrs. Eastham's house by that
side-door and entered the park through the wicket?"

"Yes," assented Hume, "though I fail to see why you should hit upon the
side-door rather than the main entrance."

"Because the ball-room is built out at the back. It was originally a
granary. The conservatory opens into the garden on the other side. As
there was a large number of guests, Mrs. Eastham required all her front
rooms for supper and extra servants, so she asked people to halt their
carriages at the side-door. I would not be surprised if the gentlemen's
cloak-room was provided by the saddle-room there, whilst the yard was
carpeted and covered with an awning."

Brett rattled on in this way, heedless of his companion's blank amazement,
perhaps secretly enjoying it.

Hume was so taken aback that he stood poised on the step of the vehicle
and forgot to slip the reins into the catch on the splashboard.

"I told you none of these things," he cried.

"Of course not. They are obvious. But tell this good lady that we are
going to the Hall."

Both the main gate and wicket were fastened, and the lodge-keeper's wife
was gazing at them through the bars.

"Hello, Mrs. Crowe, don't you know me?" cried Hume.

"My gracious, It's Mr. David!" gasped the woman.

"Why are the gates locked?"

"Mrs. Capella is not receiving visitors, sir."

"Is she ill?"

"No, sir. Indisposed, I think Mr. Capella said."

"Well, she will receive me, at any rate."

"No doubt, sir, it will be all right."

She hesitatingly unbarred the wicket, and the two men entered. They walked
slowly up the drive. Hume was restless. Twice he looked behind him.

He stopped.

"It was here," he said, "that the two men dismounted."

Then a few yards farther on:

"Alan came round from the door there, and they fought here. Alan forced
the stranger on to the turf. When he was stabbed he fell here."

He pointed to a spot where the road commenced to turn to the left to clear
the house. Brett watched him narrowly. The young man was describing his
dream, not the actual murder. The vision was far more real to him.

"It was just such a day as this," he continued. "It might have been almost
this hour. The library windows--"

He ceased and looked fixedly towards the house. Brett, too, gazed in
silence. They saw a small, pale-faced, exceedingly handsome Italian--a
young man, with coal-black eyes and a mass of shining black hair--scowling
at them from within the library.

A black velvet coat and a brilliant tie were the only bizarre features of
his costume. They served sufficiently to enhance his foreign appearance.
Such a man would be correctly placed in the marble frame of a Neapolitan
villa; here he was unusual, _outré_, "un-English," as Brett put it.

But he was evidently master. He flung open the window, and said, with some
degree of hauteur:

"Whom do you wish to see? Can I be of any assistance?"

His accent was strongly marked, but his words were well chosen and civil
enough, had his tone accorded with their sense. As it was, he might be
deemed rude.

Brett advanced.

"Are you Signor Capella?" he inquired.

"Mr. Capella. Yes."

"Then you can, indeed, be of much assistance. This gentleman is Mrs.
Capella's cousin, Mr. David Hume-Frazer."

"Corpo di Baccho!"

The Italian was completely taken by surprise. His eyebrows suddenly stood
out in a ridge. His sallow skin could not become more pallid; to show
emotion he flushed a swarthy red. Beyond the involuntary exclamation in
his own language, he could not find words.

"Yes," explained the smiling Brett, "he is a near relative of yours by
marriage. We were told by the lodge-keeper that Mrs. Capella was
indisposed, but under the circumstances we felt assured that she would
receive her cousin--unless, that is, she is seriously ill."

"It is an unexpected pleasure, this visit."

Capella replied to the barrister, but looked at Hume. He had an unpleasant
habit of parting his lips closely to his teeth, like the silent snarl of a
dog.

"Undoubtedly. We both apologise for not having prepared you."

Brett's smooth, even voice seemed to exasperate the other, who continued
to block the library window in uncompromising manner.

"And you, sir. May I ask who you are?"

"My name is Brett, Reginald Brett, a friend of Mr. Hume's--who, I may
mention, does not use his full surname at present."

The Italian was compelled to turn his glittering eyes upon the man who
addressed him so glibly.

"I am sorry," he said slowly, "but Mrs. Capella is too unwell to meet
either of you to-day."

"Ah! We share your regrets. Nevertheless, as a preliminary to our purpose,
you will serve our needs equally well. May we not come in?"

Capella was faced with difficult alternatives. He must either be
discourteous to two gentlemanly strangers, one of them his wife's
relative, or admit them with some show of politeness. An Italian may be
rude, he can never be _gauche_. Having decided, Capella ushered them into
the library with quick transition to dignified ease.

He asked if he might ring for any refreshments. Hume, who glared at his
host with uncompromising hostility, and had not taken any part in the
conversation, shook his head.

Brett surprised both, for different reasons, by readily falling in with
Capella's suggestion.

"A whisky and soda would be most grateful," he said.

The Italian moved towards the bell.

"Permit me!" cried Brett.

He rose in awkward haste, and upset his chair with a loud crash on the
parquet floor.

"How stupid of me!" he exclaimed, whilst Hume wondered what had happened
to flurry the barrister, and Capella smothered a curse.

A distant bell jangled. By tacit consent, there was no further talk until
a servant appeared. The man was a stranger to Hume.

Oddly enough, Brett took but a very small allowance of the spirit. In
reality, he hated alcohol in any form during the earlier hours. He was
wont to declare that it not only disturbed his digestion but destroyed his
taste for tobacco. Hume did not yet know what a concession to exciting
circumstances his new-found friend had made the previous day in ordering
spirits before luncheon.

When the servant vanished, Capella settled himself in his chair with the
air of a man awaiting explanations. Yet he was restless and disturbed. He
was afraid of these two. Why? Brett determined to try the effect of
generalities.

"You probably guess the object of our visit?" he began.

"I? No. How should I guess?"

"As the husband of a lady so closely connected with Mr. Hume--"

But the Italian seemed to be firmly resolved to end the suspense.

"Caramba!" he broke in. "What is it?"

"It is this. Mr. Hume has asked me to help him in the investigation of
certain--"

The library door swung open, and a lady entered. She was tall, graceful,
distinguished-looking. Her cousinship to Hume was unmistakable. In both
there was the air of aristocratic birth. Their eyes, the contour of their
faces, were alike. But the fresh Anglo-Saxon complexion of the man was
replaced in the woman by a peach-like skin, whilst her hair and eyebrows
were darker.

She was strikingly beautiful. A plain black dress set off a figure that
would have caused a sculptor to dream of chiselled marble.

"A passionate, voluptuous woman," thought Brett. "A woman easily swayed,
but never to be compelled, the ready-made heroine of a tragedy."

Her first expression was one of polite inquiry, but her glance fell upon
Hume. Her face, prone to betray each fleeting emotion, exhibited surprise,
almost consternation.

"You, Davie!" she gasped.

Hume went to meet her.

"Yes, Rita," he said. "I hope you are glad to see me."

Mrs. Capella was profoundly agitated, but she held out her hand and
summoned the quick smile of an actress.

"Of course I am," she cried. "I did not know you were in England. Why did
you not let me know, and why are you here?"

"I only returned home three days ago. My journey to Beechcroft was a hasty
resolve. This is my friend, Mr. Reginald Brett. He was just about to
explain to Mr. Capella the object of our visit when you came in."

Neither husband nor wife looked at the other. Mrs. Capella was flustered,
indulging in desperate surmises, but she laughed readily enough.

"I heard a noise in this room, and then the bell rang. I thought something
had happened. You know--I mean, I thought there was no one here."

"I fear that I am the culprit, Mrs. Capella. Your husband was good enough
to invite us to enter by the window, and I promptly disturbed the
household."

Brett's pleasant tones came as a relief. Capella glared at him now with
undisguised hostility, for the barrister's adroit ruse had outwitted him
by bringing the lady from the drawing-room, which gave on to the garden
and lawn at the back of the house.

"Please do not take the blame of my intrusion, Mr. Brett," said Margaret,
with forced composure. "You will stay for luncheon, will you not? And you,
Davie? Are you at Mrs. Eastham's?"

Her concluding question was eager, almost wistful. Her cousin answered it
first.

"No," he said. "We have driven over from Stowmarket."

"And, unfortunately," put in the barrister, "we are pledged to visit Mrs.
Eastham within an hour."

The announcement seemed to please Mrs. Capella, for some reason at present
hidden from Brett. Hume, of course, was mystified by the course taken by
his friend, but held his peace.

Capella brusquely interfered:

"Perhaps, Rita, these gentlemen would now like to make the explanation
which you prevented."

He moved towards the door. So that his wife could rest under no doubt as
to his wishes, he held it open for her.

"No, no!" exclaimed Brett. "This matter concerns Mrs. Capella personally.
You probably forget that we asked to be allowed to see her in the first
instance, but you told us that she was too unwell to receive us."

For an instant Margaret gazed at the Italian with imperious scorn. Then
she deliberately turned her back on him, and seated herself close to her
cousin.

Capella closed the door and walked to the library window.

Hume openly showed his pained astonishment at this little scene. Brett
treated the incident as a domestic commonplace.

"The fact is," he explained, "that your cousin, Mrs. Capella, has sought
my assistance in order to clear his name of the odium attached to it by
the manner of Sir Alan Hume-Frazer's death. At my request he brought me
here. In this house, in this very room, such an inquiry should have its
origin, wherever it may lead ultimately."

The lady's cheeks became ashen. Her large eyes dilated.

"Is not that terrible business ended yet?" she cried. "I little dreamed
that such could be the object of your visit, Davie. What has happened--"

The Italian swung round viciously.

"If you come here as a detective, Mr. Brett," he snapped, "I refer you to
the police. Mr. Hume-Frazer is known to them."




CHAPTER V

FROM BEHIND THE HEDGE


The man's swarthy rage added force to the taunt. David Hume leaped up, but
Brett anticipated him, gripping his arm firmly, and without ostentation.

Margaret, too, had risen. She appeared to be battling with some powerful
emotion, choking back a fierce impulse. For an instant the situation was
electrical. Then the woman's clear tones rang through the room.

"I am mistress here," she cried, "Giovanni, remain silent or leave us. How
dare you, of all men, speak thus to my cousin?"

Certainly the effect of the barrister's straightforward statement was
unlooked-for. But Brett felt that a family quarrel would not further his
object at that moment. It was necessary to stop the imminent outburst, for
David Hume and Giovanni Capella were silently challenging each other to
mortal combat. What a place of ill-omen to the descendants of the Georgian
baronet was this sun-lit library with its spacious French windows!

"Of course," said the barrister, speaking as quietly as if he were
discussing the weather, "such a topic is an unpleasant one. It is,
however, unavoidable. My young friend here is determined, at all costs, to
discover the secret of Sir Alan's murder. It is imperative that he should
do so. The happiness of his whole life depends upon his success. Until
that mystery is solved he cannot marry the woman he loves."

"Do you mean Helen Layton?" Margaret's syllables might have been so many
mortal daggers.

"Yes."

"Is David still in love with her?"

"Yes."

"And she with him?"

David Hume broke in:

"Yes, Rita. She has been faithful to the end."

A very forcible Italian oath came from Capella as he passed through the
window and strode rapidly out of sight, passing to the left of the house,
where one of the lines of yew trees ended in a group of conservatories.

Margaret was now deadly white. She pressed her hand to her bosom.

"Forgive me," she sobbed. "I do not feel well. You will both be always
welcome here. Let no one interfere with you. But I must leave you. This
afternoon--"

She staggered to the door. Her cousin caught her.

"Thank you, Davie," she whispered. "Leave me now. I will be all right
soon. My heart troubles me. No. Do not ring. Let us keep our miseries from
the servants."

She passed out, leaving Hume and the barrister uncertain how best to act.
The situation had developed with a vengeance. Brett was more bewildered
than ever before in his life.

"That scoundrel killed Alan, and now he wants to kill his own wife!"
growled Hume, when they were alone.

Brett looked through him rather than at him. He was thinking intently. For
a long time--minutes it seemed to his fuming companion--he remained
motionless, with glazed, immovable eyes. Then he awoke to action.

"Quick!" he cried. "Tell me if this room has changed much since you were
last here. Is the furniture the same? Is that the writing-table? What
chair did you sit in? Where was it placed? Quick, man! You have wasted
eighteen months. Give me no opinions, but facts."

Thus admonished, scared somewhat by the barrister's volcanic energy, Hume
obeyed him.

"There is no material change in the room," he said. "The secretaire is the
same. You see, here is the drawer which was broken open. It bears the
marks of the implement used to force the lock. I think I sat in this
chair, or one like it. It was placed here. My face was turned towards the
fire, yet in my dream I was looking through the centre window. The
Japanese sword rested here. I showed you where Alan's body was found."

The young man darted about the room to illustrate each sentence. Brett
followed his words and actions without comment. He grabbed his hat and
stick.

"We will return later in the day," he said. "Let us go at once and call on
Mrs. Eastham."

"Mrs. Eastham! Why?"

"Because I want to see Miss Helen Layton. The old lady can send for her."

Hume needed no urging. He could not walk fast enough. They had gone a
hundred yards from the house when Brett suddenly stopped and checked his
companion.

Behind the yew trees on the left, and rendered invisible by a stout hedge,
a man was running--running at top speed, with the labouring breath of one
unaccustomed to the exercise. The barrister sprang over the strip of turf,
passed among the trees, and plunged into the hedge regardless of thorns.
He came back instantly.

"There is a footpath across the park, leading towards the lodge gates.
Where does it come out?" he asked, speaking rapidly in a low tone.

"It enters the road near the avenue, close to the gates. It leads from a
farmhouse."

"A lady is walking through the park towards the lodge. Capella is running
to intercept her. Come! We may hear something."

Brett set off at a rapid pace along the turf. Hume followed, and soon they
were near the lodge. Mrs. Crowe saw them, and came out.

"Stop her!" gasped Brett.

Hume signalled the woman not to open the gate. She watched them with
open-mouthed curiosity. The barrister slowed down and quietly made his way
to the leafy angle where the avenue hedge joined that which shut off the
park from the road.

He held up a warning hand. Hume stepped warily behind him, and both men
looked through a portion of the hedge where briars were supplanted by
hazel bushes.

Capella was standing panting near a stile. A girl, dressed in muslin, and
wearing a large straw hat, was approaching.

"Great Heavens! It is Helen!" exclaimed Hume.

Brett grasped his shoulder.

"Restrain yourself," he whispered earnestly. "Luckily, Capella has not
heard you. I regret the necessity which makes us eavesdroppers, but it is
a fortunate accident, all the same. Not a word! Remember what is at
stake."

They could not see the Italian's face. His back was heaving from the
violence of his exertion. Miss Layton was walking rapidly towards the
stile. Obviously she had perceived the waiting man, and she was not
pleased.

Her pretty face, flushed and sunburnt, wore the strained aspect of a woman
annoyed, but trying to be civil.

It was she who took the initiative.

"Good day, Mr. Capella," she said pleasantly. "Why on earth did you run so
fast?"

"Because I wished to be here before you, Miss Layton," replied the man,
his voice tremulous with excitement.

"Then I wish I had known, because I could have beaten you easily if you
meant to race me."

"That was not my object."

"Well, now you have attained it, whatever it may have been, please allow
me to get over the stile. I will be late for luncheon. My father wished me
to ascertain how Farmer Burton is progressing after his spill. He was
thrown from his dog-cart whilst coming from the Bury St. Edmund's fair."

It was easy for the listeners behind the hedge to gather that the girl's
affable manner was affected. She was really somewhat alarmed. Her eyes
wandered to the high road to see if anyone was approaching, and she kept
at some distance from the Italian.

"Do not play with me, Nellie," said Capella, in agonised accents. "I am
consumed with love of you. Can you not, at least, give me your pity?"

"Mr. Capella," she cried, and none but one blind to all save his own
passionate desires could fail to note her lofty disdain, "how can you be
so base as to use such language to me?"

"Base! To love you!"

"Again I say it--base and unmanly. What have I done that you should
venture to so insult your charming wife, not to speak of the insult to
myself? When you so far forgot yourself a fortnight ago as to hint at your
outrageous ideas regarding me, I forced myself to remember that you were
not an Englishman, that perhaps in your country there may be a social code
which permits a man to dishonour his home and to annoy a defenceless
woman. I cannot forgive you a second time. Let me pass! Let me pass, I
tell you, or I will strike you!"

Brett, in his admiration for the spirited girl who, notwithstanding her
protestations, seemed to be anything but "defenceless," momentarily forgot
his companion.

A convulsive tightening of Hume's muscles, preparatory to a leap through
the hedge, warned him in time.

"Idiot!" he whispered, as he clutched him again.

Were not the others so taken up with the throbbing influences of the
moment they must have heard the rustling of the leaves. But they paid
little heed to external affairs. The Italian was speaking.

"Nellie," he said, "you will drive me mad. But listen, carissima. If I may
not love you, I can at least defend you. David Hume-Frazer, the man who
murdered my wife's brother, has returned, and openly boasts that you are
waiting to marry him."

"Boasts! To whom, pray?"

"To me. I heard him say this not fifteen minutes since."

"Where? You do not know him. He could not be here without my knowledge."

"Then it is true. You do intend to marry this unconvicted felon?"

"Mr. Capella, I really think you are what English people call 'cracked.'"

"But you believe me--that this man has come to Beechcroft?"

"It may be so. He has good reasons, doubtless, for keeping his presence
here a secret. Whatever they may be, I shall soon know them."

"Helen, he is not worthy of you. He cannot give you a love fierce as mine.
Nay, I will not be repelled. Hear me. My wife is dying. I will be free in
a few months. Bid me to hope. I will not trouble you. I will go away, but
I swear, if you marry Frazer, neither he nor you will long enjoy your
happiness!"

The girl made no reply, but sprang towards the stile in sheer desperation.
Capella strove to take her in his arms, not indeed with intent to offer
her any violence; but she met his lover-like ardour with such a vigorous
buffet that he lost his temper.

He caught her. She had almost surmounted the stile, but her dress hampered
her movements. The Italian, vowing his passion in an ardent flow of words,
endeavoured to kiss her.

Then, with a sigh, for he would have preferred to avoid an open rupture,
Brett let go his hold on Hume. Indeed, if he had not done so, there must
have been a fight on both sides of the hedge.

He turned away at once to light a cigarette. What followed immediately had
no professional interest for him.

But he could not help hearing Helen's shriek of delighted surprise, and
certain other sounds which denoted that Giovanni was being used as a
football by his near relative by marriage.

Mrs. Crowe came out of her cottage.

"What's a-goin' on in the park, sir?" she inquired anxiously.

"A great event," he said. "Faust is kicking Mephistopheles."

"Drat them colts!" she cried, adding, after taking thought; "but we
haven't any horses of them names, sir."

"No! You surprise me. They are of the best Italian pedigree."

Meanwhile, he was achieving his object, which was to drive Mrs. Crowe back
towards the wicket.

Helen's voice came to them shrilly:

"That will do, Davie! Do you hear me?"

"Why, bless my 'eart, there's Miss Layton," said Mrs. Crowe.

"What a fine little boy this is!" exclaimed Brett, stooping over a
curly-haired urchin. "Is he the oldest?"

"Good gracious, sir, no. He's the youngest."

"Dear me, I would not have thought so. You must have been married very
early. Here, my little man, see what you can buy for half-a-crown."

"What a nice gentleman he is, to be sure," thought the lodge-keeper's
wife, when Brett passed through the smaller gate, assured that the
struggle in the park had ended.

"Just fancy 'im a-thinkin' Jimmy was the eldest, when I will be a
grandmother come August if all goes well wi' Kate."

The barrister signed to the groom to wait, and joined the young couple,
who now appeared in the roadway. A haggard, dishevelled, and furious man
burst through the avenue hedge and ran across the drive.

"Mrs. Crowe," he almost screamed, "do you see those two men there?"

"Yes, sir."

The good woman was startled by her master's sudden appearance and his
excited state.

"They are never to be admitted to the grounds again. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

Capella turned to rush away up the avenue, but he was compelled to limp.
Mrs. Crowe watched him wonderingly, and tried to piece together in her
mind the queer sounds and occurrences of the last two minutes.

She had not long been in the cottage when the butler arrived.

"You let two gentlemen in a while ago?" he said.

"I did."

"One was Mr. David and the other a Mr. Brett?"

"Oh, was that the tall gentleman's name?"

"I expect so. Well, here's the missus's written order that whenever they
want to come to the 'ouse or go anywheres in the park it's O.K."

Mrs. Crowe was wise enough to keep her own counsel, but when the butler
retired, she said:

"Then I'll obey the missus, an' master can settle it with her. I don't
hold by Eye-talians, anyhow."




CHAPTER VI

AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE


Helen was very much upset by the painful scene which had just been
enacted. Its vulgarity appalled her. In a little old-world hamlet like
Sleagill, a riotous cow or frightened horse supplied sensation for a week.
What would happen when it became known that the rector's daughter had been
attacked by the Squire of Beechcroft in the park meadow, and saved from
his embraces only after a vigorous struggle, in which her defender was
David Hume-Frazer, concerning whom the villagers still spoke with bated
breath?

Of course, the girl imagined that many people must have witnessed the
occurrence. The appearance of Brett, of the waiting groom, and of a chance
labourer who now strode up the village street, led her to think so.

She did not realise that the whole affair had barely lasted a minute, that
Brett was Hume's friend, the man-servant a stranger who had seen nothing
and heard little, whilst the villager only wondered, when he touched his
cap, "why Miss Layton was so flustered like."

Brett attributed her agitation to its right cause. He knew that this
healthy, high-minded, and athletic young woman went under no fear of
Capella and his ravings.

"What happened when you jumped the hedge?" he said to Hume.

"I handled that scoundrel somewhat roughly," was the answer. "It was
Nellie here who begged for mercy on his account."

"Ah, well, the incident ended very pleasantly. No one saw what happened
save the principals, a fortunate thing in itself. We want to prevent a
nine days' wonder just now."

"Are you quite sure?" asked Miss Layton, overjoyed at this expression of
opinion, and secretly surprised at the interest taken by the barrister in
the affair, for Hume had not as yet found time to tell her his friend's
name.

"Quite sure, Miss Layton," he said, with the smile which made him such a
prompt favourite with women. "I had nothing to do but observe the
_mise-en-scène_. The stage was quite clear for the chief actors. And now,
may I make a suggestion? The longer we remain here the more likely are we
to attract observation. Mr. Hume and I are going to call on Mrs. Eastham.
May we expect you in an hour's time?"

"Can't you come in with us now?" exclaimed David eagerly.

She laughed excitedly, being yet flurried. The sudden appearance of her
lover tried her nerves more than the Italian's passionate avowal.

"No, indeed," she cried. "I must go home. My father will forget all about
his lunch otherwise, and I am afraid--I--w--ant to cry!"

Without another word she hurried off towards the rectory.

"My dear fellow," murmured Brett to the disconsolate Hume, "don't you
understand? She cannot bear the constraint imposed by my presence at this
moment, nor could she meet Mrs. Eastham with any degree of composure. Now,
this afternoon she will return a mere iceberg. Mrs. Eastham, I am sure,
has tact. I am going to the Hall. You two will be left alone for hours."

He turned aside to arrange with the groom concerning the care of the
horse, as they would be detained some time in the village. Then the two
men approached Mrs. Eastham's residence.

That good person, a motherly old lady of over sixty, was not only
surprised but delighted by the advent of David Hume.

"My dear boy," she cried, advancing to meet him with outstretched hands
when he entered the morning-room. "What fortunate wind has blown you
here?"

"I can hardly tell you, auntie," he said--both Helen and he adopted the
pleasing fiction of a relationship that did not exist--"you must ask Mr.
Brett."

Thus appealed to, the barrister set forth, in a few explicit words, the
object of their visit.

"I hope and believe you will succeed," said Mrs. Eastham impulsively.
"Providence has guided your steps here at this hour. You cannot imagine
how miserable that man Capella makes me."

"Why?" cried Hume, darting a look of surprise at Brett.

"Because he is simply pestering Nellie with his attentions. There! I must
speak plainly. He has gone to extremes that can no longer be
misinterpreted. In our small community, Mr. Brett," she explained, "though
we dearly love a little gossip, we are slow to believe that a man married
to such a charming if somewhat unconventional woman as Margaret
Hume-Frazer--I cannot train my tongue to call her Mrs. Capella--would
deliberately neglect his wife and dare to demonstrate his unlawful
affection for another woman, especially such a girl as Helen Layton."

"How long has this been going on?" inquired Brett, for Hume was too
furious to speak.

"For some months, but it is only a fortnight ago since Helen first
complained of it to me I promptly told Mr. Capella that I could not
receive him again at my house. He discovered that Nellie came here a good
deal, and managed to call about the same time as she did. Then he found
that she was interested in Japanese art, and as he is really clever in
that respect--"

"Clever," interrupted the barrister. "Do you mean that he understands
lacquer work, Satsuma ware, painting or inlaying? Is he a connoisseur or a
student?"

"It is all Greek to me!" exclaimed the old lady, "but unquestionably the
bits of china and queer carvings he often brought here were very
beautiful. Nellie did not like him personally, but she could not deny his
knowledge and enthusiasm. Margaret, too, used to invite her to the Hall,
for Miss Layton has great taste as an amateur gardener, Mr. Brett. But
this friendship suddenly ceased. Mr. Capella became very strange and
gloomy in his manner. At last Nellie told me that the wretched man had
dared to utter words of love to her, hinting that his wife could not live
long, and that he would come in for her fortune. Now, as my poor girl has
been the most faithful soul that ever lived, never for an instant doubting
that some day the cloud would lift from Davie, you may imagine what a
shock this was to her."

"Mrs. Eastham," said Brett, suddenly switching the conversation away from
the Italian's fantasy, "you are well acquainted with all the circumstances
connected with Sir Alan's murder. Have you formed any theory about the
crime, its motive, or its possible author?"

"God forgive me if I do any man an injury, but in these last few days I
have had my suspicions," she exclaimed.

"Tell me your reasons."

"It arose out of a chance remark by Nellie. She was discussing with me her
inexplicable antipathy to Mr. Capella, even during the time when they were
outwardly good friends. She said that once he showed her a Japanese sword,
a most wonderful piece of workmanship, with veins of silver and gold let
into the handle and part of the blade. To the upper part of the scabbard
was attached a knife--a small dagger--similar--"

"Yes, I understand. An implement like that used to kill Sir Alan
Hume-Frazer."

"Exactly. Nellie at first hardly realised its significance. Then she
hastily told Capella to take it away, but not before she noticed that he
seemed to understand the dreadful thing. It is fastened in its sheath by a
hidden spring, and he knew exactly how to open it. Any person not
accustomed to such weapons would endeavour to pull it out by main force."

Brett did not press Mrs. Eastham to pursue her theory. It was plain that
she regarded the Italian as a man who might conceivably be the murderer of
his wife's brother. This was enough for feminine logic.

Hume, too, shared the same belief, and had not scrupled to express it
openly.

There were, it was true, reasons in plenty, why Capella should have
committed this terrible deed. He was, presumably, affianced to Margaret at
the time. Apparently her father's will had contemplated the cutting down
of her annual allowance. The young heir had, on the other hand, made up
the deficit. But why did these artificial restrictions exist? Why were
precautions taken by the father to diminish his daughter's income? She had
been extravagant. Both father and brother quarrelled with her on this
point. Indeed, there was a slight family disturbance with reference to it
during Sir Alan's last visit to London. Was Capella mixed up with it?

At last there was a glimmering perception of motive for an otherwise
fiendishly irrational act. Did it tend to incriminate the Italian?

A summons to luncheon dispelled the momentary gloom of their thoughts.
Before the meal ended Miss Layton joined them.

Brett looked at his watch. "Fifty minutes!" he said.

Then they all laughed, except Mrs. Eastham, who marvelled at the coolness
of the meeting between the girl and David. But the old lady was
quick-witted.

"Have you met before?" she cried.

"Dearest," said the girl, kissing her; "do you mean to say they have not
told you what happened in the park?"

"That will require a special sitting," said Brett gaily. "Meanwhile, I am
going to the Hall. I suppose you do not care to accompany me, Hume?"

"I do not."

The reply was so emphatic that it created further merriment.

"Well, tell me quickly what this new secret is," exclaimed Mrs. Eastham,
"because in five minutes I must have a long talk with my cook. She has to
prepare pies and pastry sufficient to feed nearly a hundred school
children next Monday, and it is a matter of much calculation."

Brett took his leave.

"I knew that good old soul would be tactful," he said to himself. "Now I
wonder how Winter made such a colossal mistake as to imagine that Hume
murdered his cousin. He was sure of the affections of a delightful girl;
he could not succeed to the property; he has declined to take up the
title. What reason could he have for committing such a crime?"

Then a man walked up the road--a man dressed like a farmer or grazier,
rotund, strongly-built, cheerful-looking. He halted opposite Mrs.
Eastham's house, where the barrister still stood drawing on his gloves on
the doorstep.

"Yes," said Brett aloud, "you _are_ an egregious ass, Winter."

"Why, Mr. Brett?" asked the unabashed detective. "Isn't the make-up good?"

"It is the make-up that always leads you astray. You never theorise above
the level of the _Police Gazette_."

Mr. Winter yielded to not unnatural annoyance. With habitual caution, he
glanced around to assure himself that no other person was within earshot;
then he said vehemently:

"I tell you, Mr. Brett, that swine killed Sir Alan Hume-Frazer."

"You use strong language."

"Not stronger than he deserves."

"What are you doing here?"

"I heard he was in London, and watched him. I saw him go to your chambers
and guessed what was up, so I came down here to see you and tell you what
I know."

"Out of pure good-nature?"

"You can believe it or not, Mr. Brett. It is the truth."

"He has been tried and acquitted. He cannot be tried again. Does Scotland
Yard--"

"I'm on my holidays."

Brett laughed heartily.

"I see!" he cried. "A 'bus-driver's holiday! For how long?"

"Fourteen days."

"You are nothing if not professional. I suppose it was not your first
offence, or they might have let you off with a fine."

The detective enjoyed this departmental joke. He grinned broadly.

"Anyhow, Mr. Brett," he said, "you and I have been engaged on too many
smart bits of work for me to stand quietly by and let you be made a fool
of."

The barrister came nearer, and said, in a low tone:

"Winter, you have never been more mistaken in your life. Now, attend to my
words. If you help me you will, in the first place, be well paid for your
services. Secondly, you will be able to place your hand on the true
murderer of Sir Alan Hume-Frazer, or I will score my first failure.
Thirdly, Scotland Yard will give you another holiday, and I can secure you
some shooting in Scotland. What say you?"

The detective looked thoughtful. Long experience had taught him not to
argue with Brett when the latter was in earnest.

"I will do anything in my power," he said, "but there is more in this
business than perhaps you are aware of--more than ever transpired at the
Assizes."

"Quite so, and a good deal that has transpired since. Now. Winter, don't
argue, there's a good fellow. Go and engage the landlord of the local inn
in a discussion on crops. I am off to Beechcroft Hall. Mr. Hume and I will
call for you on our way back to Stowmarket. In our private sitting-room at
the hotel there I will explain everything."

They parted. Brett was promptly admitted by Mrs. Crowe, and walked rapidly
up the avenue.

Winter watched his retreating figure.

"He's smart, I know he's smart," mused the detective. "But he doesn't know
everything about this affair. He doesn't know, I'll be bound, that David
Hume-Frazer waited for his cousin that night outside the library. I didn't
know it--worse luck!--until after he was acquitted. And he doesn't know
that Miss Nellie Layton didn't reach home until 1.30 a.m., though she left
the ball at 12.15, and her house is, so to speak, a minute's walk distant.
And she was in a carriage. Oh, there's more in this case than meets the
eye! I can't say which would please me most, to find out the real
murderer, if Hume didn't do it, or prove Mr. Brett to be in the wrong!"




CHAPTER VII

HUSBAND AND WIFE


Brett did not hurry on his way to the Hall. Already things were in a
whirl, and the confusion was so great that he was momentarily unable to
map out a definite line of action.

The relations between Capella and his wife were evidently strained almost
to breaking point, and it was this very fact which caused him the greatest
perplexity.

They had been married little more than six months. They were an
extraordinarily handsome couple, apparently well suited to each other by
temperament and mutual sympathies, whilst their means were ample enough to
permit them to live under any conditions they might choose, and gratify
personal hobbies to the fullest extent.

What, then, could have happened to divide them so completely?

Surely not Capella's new-born passion for Helen Layton. Not even a
hot-blooded Southerner could be guilty of such deliberate rascality, such
ineffable folly, during the first few months after his marriage to a
beautiful and wealthy wife.

No, this hypothesis must be rejected. Margaret Capella had drifted apart
from her husband almost as soon as they reached England on their return as
man and wife. Capella, miserable and disillusioned, buried alive in a
country place--for such must existence in Beechcroft mean to a man of his
inclinations--had discovered a startling contrast between his passionate
and moody spouse, and the bright, pleasant-mannered girl whose ill-fortune
it was to create discord between the inmates of the Hall.

This theory did not wholly exonerate the Italian, but it explained a good
deal. The barrister saw no cause as yet to suspect Capella of the young
baronet's murder. Were he guilty of that ghastly crime, his motive must
have been to secure for himself the position he was now deliberately
imperilling--all for a girl's pretty face.

The explanation would not suffice. Brett had seen much that is hidden from
public ken in the vagaries of criminals, but he had never yet met a man
wholly bad, and at the same time in full possession of his senses.

To adopt the hasty judgment arrived at by Hume and Mrs. Eastham, Capella
must be deemed capable of murdering his wife's brother, of bringing about
the death of his wife after securing the reversion of her vast property to
himself, and of falling in love with Helen--all in the same breath. This
species of criminality was only met with in lunatics, and Capella
impressed the barrister as an emotional personage, capable of supreme good
as of supreme evil, but quite sane.

The question to be solved was this: Why did Capella and his wife quarrel
in the first instance? Perhaps, that way, light might come.

He asked a footman if Mrs. Capella would receive him. The man glanced at
his card.

"Yes, sir," he said at once. "Madam gave instructions that if either you
or Mr. David called you were to be taken to her boudoir, where she awaits
you."

The room was evidently on the first floor, for the servant led him up the
magnificent oak staircase that climbed two sides of the reception hall.

But this was fated to be a day of interruptions. The barrister, when he
reached the landing, was confronted by the Italian.

"A word with you, Mr. Brett," was the stiff greeting given to him.

"Certainly. But I am going to Mrs. Capella's room."

"She can wait. She does not know you are here. James, remain outside until
Mr. Brett returns. Then conduct him to your mistress."

Capella's tone admitted of no argument, nor was it necessary to protest.
Brett always liked people to talk in the way they deemed best suited to
their own interests. Without any expostulation, therefore, he followed his
limping host into a luxuriously furnished dressing-room.

Capella closed the door, and placed himself gently on a couch.

"Does your friend fight?" he said, fixing his dark eyes, blazing with
anger, intently on the other.

"That is a matter on which your opinion would probably be more valuable
than mine."

"Spare me your wit. You know well what I mean. Will he meet me on the
Continent and settle our quarrel like a gentleman, not like a hired
bravo?"

"What quarrel?"

"Mr. Brett, you are not so stupid. David Hume, notwithstanding his past,
may still be deemed a man of honour in some respects. He treated me
grossly this morning. Will he fight me, or must I treat him as a cur?"

Brett, without invitation, seated himself. He produced a cigarette and lit
it, adding greatly to Capella's irritation by his provoking calmness.

"Really," he said at last, "you amuse me."

"Silence!" he cried imperatively, when the Italian would have broken out
into a torrent of expostulations. "Listen to me, you vain fool!"

This method of address had the rare merit of achieving its object. Capella
was reduced to a condition of speechless rage.

"You consider yourself the aggrieved person, I suppose," went on the
Englishman, subsiding into a state of contemptuous placidity. "You neglect
your wife, make love to an honourable and pure-minded girl, stoop to the
use of unworthy taunts and even criminal innuendos, lose such control of
your passion as to lay sacrilegious hands upon Helen Layton, and yet you
resent the well-merited punishment administered to you by her affianced
husband. Were I a surgeon, Mr. Capella, I might take an anatomical
interest in your brain. As it is, I regard you as a psychological study in
latter-day blackguardism. Do you understand me?"

"Perfectly. You have not yet answered my question. Will Hume fight?"

"I should say that nothing would give him greater pleasure."

"Then you will arrange this matter? I can send a friend to you?"

"And if you do I will send the police to you, thus possibly anticipating
matters somewhat."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that my sole purpose in life just now is to lay hands on the man
who killed Sir Alan Hume-Frazer. Until that end is achieved, I will take
good care that your crude ideas of honour are dealt with, as they were
to-day, by the toe of a boot."

Capella was certainly a singular person. He listened unmoved to Brett's
threats and insults. He gave that snarling smile of his, and toyed
impatiently with his moustache.

"Your object in life does not concern me. Your courts tried their best to
hang the man who was responsible for his cousin's death, and failed. I
take it you decline this proffered duel?"

"Yes."

"Then I will fight David Hume in my own way. You have rejected the fair
alternative on his behalf. Caramba! We shall see now who wins. He will
never marry Helen."

"What did you mean just now when you said that he was 'responsible for his
cousin's death'? Is that an Italian way of describing a cold-blooded
murder?"

Capella leaned back and snarled silently again. It was a pity he had
cultivated that trick. It spoilt an otherwise classically regular set of
features.

"James!" he shouted.

The footman entered.

"Take this gentleman to your mistress. I have done with him."

"For the present, James," said Brett.

The astonished servant led him along a corridor and knocked at a door
hidden by a silk curtain. Mrs. Capella rose to receive her visitor. She
was very pale now, but quite calm and dignified in manner.

"Davie did not come with you?" she said when Brett was seated near to her
in an alcove formed by an oriel window.

"No. He is with Miss Layton."

"Ah, I am not sorry, I prefer to talk with you alone."

"It is perhaps better. Your cousin is impulsive in some respects, though
self-contained enough in others."

"It may be so. I like him, although we have not seen much of each other
since we were children. I knew him this morning principally on account of
his likeness to Alan. But you are his friend, Mr. Brett, and I can discuss
with you matters I would not care to broach with him. He is with Helen
Layton now, you say?"

"Yes, and let me add an explanation. Those two young people are devoted to
each other. No power on earth could separate them."

"Why do you tell me that?"

"Because I think you wished to be assured of it?"

"You are clever, Mr. Brett. If you can interpret a criminal's designs as
well as you can read a woman's heart you must be a terror to evil-doers."

A slight colour came into her cheeks. The barrister leaned forward, his
hands clasped and arms resting on his knees.

"I have just seen your husband," he said.

She exhibited no marked sign of emotion but he thought he detected a
frightened look in her eyes.

"Again I ask," she exclaimed, "why do you tell me?"

"The reason is obvious. You ought to know all that goes on. There was a
quarrel this morning between him and David Hume. Your husband wished me to
arrange a duel. I promised him a visit from the police if I heard any more
of such nonsense."

"A duel! More bloodshed!" she almost whispered.

"Do not have any alarm for either of them. They are quite safe. I will
guarantee so much, at any rate. But your husband is a somewhat curious
person. He is prone to strong and sudden hatreds--and attachments."

Margaret pressed her hands to her face. She could no longer bear the
torture of make-believe quiescence.

"Oh, what shall I do!" she wailed. "I am the most miserable woman in
England to-day, and I might have been the happiest."

"Why are you miserable, Mrs. Capella?" asked Brett gently.

"I cannot tell you. Perhaps it is owing to my own folly. Are you sure that
David and Helen intend to get married?"

"Yes."

"Then, for Heaven's sake, let the wedding take place. Let them leave
Beechcroft and its associations for ever."

"That cannot be until Hume's character is cleared from the odium attached
to it."

"You mean my brother's death. But that has been settled by the courts.
David was declared 'Not guilty.' Surely that will suffice! No good purpose
can be gained by reopening an inquiry closed by the law."

"I think you are a little unjust to your cousin in this matter, Mrs.
Capella. He and his future wife feel very grievously the slur cast upon
his name. You know perfectly well that if half the people in this county
were asked, 'Who killed Sir Alan Hume-Frazer?' they would say 'David
Hume.' The other half would shake their heads in dubiety, and prefer not
to be on visiting terms with David Hume and his wife. No; your brother was
killed in a particularly foul way. He died needlessly, so far as we can
learn. His death should be avenged, and this can only be done by tracking
his murderer and ruthlessly bringing the wretch to justice. Are not these
your own sentiments when divested of all conflicting desires?"

Brett's concluding sentence seemed to petrify his hearer.

"In what way can I help you?" she murmured, and the words appeared to come
from a heart of stone.

"There are many items I want cleared up, but I do not wish to distress you
unduly. Can you not refer me to your solicitors, for instance? I imagine
they will be able to answer all my queries."

"No. I prefer to deal with the affair myself."

"Very well. I will commence with you personally. Why did you quarrel with
your brother in London a few days before his death?"

"Because I was living extravagantly. Not only that, but he disapproved of
my manner of life. In those days I was headstrong and wilful. I loved a
Bohemian existence combined with absurd luxury, or rather, a wildly
useless expenditure of money. No one who knows me now could picture me
then. Yet now I am good and unhappy. Then I was wicked, in some people's
eyes, and happy. Strange, is it not?"

"Not altogether so unusual as you may think. Was any other person
interested in what I may term the result of the dispute between your
brother and yourself?"

"That is a difficult question to answer. I was very careless in money
matters, but it is clear that the curtailment of my rate of living from
£15,000 to £5,000 per annum must make considerable difference to all
connected with me."

"Had you been living at the former rate?"

"Yes, since my father's death. What annoyed Alan was the fact that I had
borrowed from money-lenders."

"Who else knew of your disagreement with him besides these money-lenders
and his solicitors?"

"All my friends. I used to laugh at his serious ways, when I, older and
much more experienced in some respects, treated life as a tiresome joke.
But none of my friends were commissioned to murder my brother so that I
might obtain the estate, Mr. Brett."

"Not by you," he said thoughtfully.

He knew well that to endeavour to get Margaret to implicate her husband
would merely render her an active opponent. She loved this Italian scamp.
She was profoundly thankful that David Hume had come back to claim the
hand of Helen Layton, the woman who had been the unwilling object of
Capella's wayward affections. She would be only too glad to give half her
property to the young couple if they would settle in New Zealand or
Peru--far from Beechcroft.

Yet it was impossible to believe that she could love a man whom she
suspected of murdering her brother. Why, then, had husband and wife
drifted apart? Assuredly the pieces of the puzzle were inextricably mixed.

"Where did you marry Mr. Capella?" asked Brett suddenly.

"At Naples--a civil ceremony, before the Mayor, and registered by the
British Consul."

"Had you been long acquainted"

"I met him, oddly enough, in Covent Garden Theatre, the night my brother
was killed"

It was now Brett's turn to be startled.

"Are you quite certain of this?" he asked, his surprise at the turn taken
by the conversation almost throwing him off his guard.

"Positive. Were you led to believe that Giovanni was the murderer?"

Her voice was cold, impassive, marvellously under control. It warned him,
threw him back into the safe rôle of Hume's adviser and friend.

"I am led to believe nothing at present," he said slowly. "This inquiry
is, as yet, only twenty-four hours old so far as I am concerned. I am
seeking information. When I am gorged with facts I proceed to digest
them."

"Well, what I tell you is true. There are no less than ten people, all
living, I have no doubt, who can testify to its correctness. I had a box
at the Fancy Dress Ball that New Year's Eve. I invited nine guests. One of
them, an attaché at the Italian Embassy, brought Giovanni and introduced
him to me. We were together from midnight until 4.30 a.m. Whilst poor Alan
was lying here dead, I was revelling at a _bal masqué_. Do you think I am
likely to forget the circumstances?"

The icy tones thrilled with pitiful remembrance. But the barrister's task
required the unsparing use of the probe. He determined, once and for all,
to end an unpleasant scene.

"Will you tell me why you and your husband have, shall we say, disagreed
so soon after your marriage? You were formed by Providence and nature to
be mated. What has driven you apart?"

The woman flushed scarlet under this direct inquiry.

"I cannot tell you," she said brokenly, "but the cause--in no
way--concerns--either my brother's death--or David's innocence. It is
personal--between Giovanni and myself. In God's good time, it may be put
right."

Brett, singularly enough, was a man of quick impulse. He was moved now by
a profound pity for the woman who thus bared her heart to him.

"Thank you for your candour, Mrs. Capella," he exclaimed, with a fervour
that evidently touched her. "May I ask one more question, and I have done
with a most unpleasant ordeal. Do you suspect any person of being your
brother's assassin?"

"No," she said. "Indeed I do not."




CHAPTER VIII

REVELATIONS


Hume and Winter did not meet on terms that might be strictly described as
cordial.

Brett, on quitting the Hall, had surrendered himself to a spell of vacant
bewilderment. He haled the unwilling Hume from Helen's society, and picked
up the detective at the Wheat Sheaf Inn. Then the barrister, from sheer
need of mental relief, determined to have some fun with them.

"You two ought to know each other," he said good-humouredly. "At one time
you took keen interest in matters of mutual concern. Allow me to introduce
you. Hume--this is Mr. Winter, of Scotland Yard."

David was quite unprepared for the meeting.

"What?" he exclaimed, his upper lip stiffening, "the man who concocted all
sorts of imaginary evidence against me!"

"'Concocted' is not the right word, nor 'imaginary' either," growled
Winter.

"Quite right," said Brett. "Really, Hume, you should be more careful in
your choice of language. Had Winter been as careless in his statements at
the Assizes, he would certainly have hanged you."

Hume was too happy, after a prolonged _tête-à-tête_ with his beloved, to
harbour malice against any person.

"What are we supposed to do--shake hands?" he inquired blandly.

"It might be a good preliminary to a better understanding of one another.
You think Winter is an unscrupulous ruffian. He described you to me as a
swine not two hours ago. Now, you are both wrong. Winter is the best
living police detective, and a most fair-minded one. He will be a valuable
ally. Before many days are over you will be deeply in his debt in every
sense of the word. On the other hand, you, Hume, are a much-wronged man,
whom Winter must help to regain his rightful position. This is one of the
occasions when Justice is compelled to take the bandage off her eyes. She
may be impartial, but she is often blind. Now be friends, and let us start
from that basis."

Silently the two men exchanged a hearty grip.

"Excellent!" cried the barrister. "Hume, take Winter with you in front. I
will seat myself beside the groom, and please oblige me, both of you, by
not addressing a word to me between here and Stowmarket."

Hume and the detective got along comfortably once the ice was broken.
Naturally, they steered clear of all reference to the tragedy in the
presence of the servant. Their talk dealt chiefly with sporting matters.

Brett, carried swiftly along the level road, kept his eyes fixed on
Beechcroft and its contiguous hamlet until they vanished in the middle
distance.

"This is the most curious inquiry I was ever engaged in," he communed.
"Winter, of course, will fasten on to Capella like a horse leech when he
knows the facts. Yet Capella is neither a coward nor an ordinary villain.
For some ridiculous reason, I have a sneaking sympathy with him. Had he
stormed and blustered when I pitched into him to-day I would have thought
less of him. And his wife! What mysterious workings of Fate brought those
two together and then disunited them? They become fascinated one with the
other whilst the brother's corpse is still palpitating beneath that
terrible stroke. They get married, with not unreasonable haste, but no
sooner do they reach Beechcroft, a house of evil import if ever bricks and
mortar had such a character, than they are driven asunder by some malign
influence.

"And now, after eighteen months, I am asked to take up the tangled clues,
if such may be said to exist. It is a difficult, perhaps an impossible,
undertaking. Yet if I have done so much in a day, what may not happen in a
fortnight!"

Long afterwards, recalling that soliloquy, he wondered whether or not,
were he suddenly endowed with the gift of prophecy, he would,
nevertheless, have pursued his quest. He never could tell.

Once securely entrenched in a private sitting-room of the Stowmarket
Hotel, the three men began to discuss crime and tobacco.

Mr. Winter commenced by being confidential and professional.

"Now, Mr. Hume," he said, "as misunderstandings have been cleared, to some
extent, by Mr. Brett's remarks, I will, with your permission, ask you a
few questions."

"Fire away."

"In the first place, your counsel tried to prove--did prove, in fact--that
you walked straight from the ball-room to the Hall, sat down in the
library, and did not move from your chair until Fergusson, the butler,
told you how he had found Sir Alan's body on the lawn."

"Exactly."

"So if a man comes forward now and swears that he watched you for nearly
ten minutes standing in the shadow of the yews on the left of the house,
he will not be telling the truth?"

"That is putting it mildly."

"Yet there is such a witness in existence, and I am certain he is not a
liar in this matter."

"What!"

Brett and Hume ejaculated the word simultaneously; the one surprised,
because he knew how careful Winter was in matters of fact, the other
indignant at the seeming disbelief in his statement.

"Please, gentlemen," appealed the detective, secretly gratified by the
sensation he caused, "wait until I have finished. If I did not fully
accept Mr. Brett's views on this remarkable case, I would not be sitting
here this minute. My conscience would not permit it"

"Be virtuous, Winter, but not too virtuous," broke in Brett drily.

"There you go again, sir, questioning my motives. But I am of a forgiving
disposition. Now, there cannot be the slightest doubt that a poacher named
John Wise, better known as 'Rabbit Jack,' who resides in this town, chose
that New Year's Eve as an excellent time to net the meadows behind the
Hall. He had heard about Mrs. Eastham's dance, and knew that on such a
night the estate keepers would have more liking for fun with the coachmen
and maids than for game-watching. He entered the park soon after midnight,
and saw a gentleman walk up the avenue towards the house. He waited a few
minutes, and crept quietly along the side of the hedge--in the park, of
course. Being winter time, the trees and bushes were bare, and he was
startled to see the same gentleman, with his coat buttoned up, standing in
the shade of the yews close to the Hall. 'Rabbit Jack' naturally thought
he had been spotted. He gripped his lurcher's collar and stood still for
nearly ten minutes. Then it occurred to him that he was mistaken. He had
not been seen, so he stole off towards the plantation and started
operations. He is a first-rate poacher, and always works alone. About
three o'clock he was alarmed by a policeman's lantern--the search of the
grounds after the murder, you see--and made off. He entered Stowmarket on
the far side of the town, and ran into a policeman's arms. They fought for
twenty minutes. The P.C. won, and 'Rabbit Jack' got six months' hard
labour for being in unlawful possession of game and assaulting the police.
Consequently, he never heard a syllable about the 'Stowmarket Mystery,' as
this affair was called by the Press, until long after Mr. Hume's second
trial and acquittal. Yet the first thing 'Rabbit Jack' did after his
release was to go straight to the police and tell them what he had seen. I
think, Mr. Hume, that even you will admit a good deal depended on the
result of the fight between the poacher and the bobby, for 'Rabbit Jack'
described a man of your exact appearance and dressed as you were that
night."

There was silence for a moment when Winter ended his recital.

"It is evident," said Brett, otherwise engaged in making smoke-rings,
"that 'Rabbit Jack' saw the real murderer."

"A man like me--in evening dress! Who on earth could he be?" was Hume's
natural exclamation.

"We must test this chap's story," said Brett.

"How?"

"Easily enough. There is a garden outside. Can you bring this human bunny
here to-night?"

"I think so."

"Very well. Stage him about nine o'clock. Anything else?"

Mr. Winter pondered a little while; then he addressed Hume hesitatingly:

"Does Mr. Brett know everything that happened after the murder?"

"I think so. Yes."

"Everything! Say three-quarters of an hour afterwards?"

The effect of this remark on Hume was very pronounced. His habitual air of
reserve gave place to a state of decided confusion.

"What are you hinting at?" he cried, striving hard to govern his voice.

"Well, it must out, sooner or later. Why did you go to meet Miss Helen
Layton in the avenue about 1.30 a.m.--soon after Sir Alan's body had been
examined by the doctor?'

"Oh, damn it, man, how did you ascertain that?" groaned Hume.

"I knew it all along, but I did not see that it was very material to the
case, and I wanted to keep the poor young lady's name out of the affair as
far as possible. I did not want to suggest that she was an accessory after
the crime."

Hume was blushing like a schoolboy. He glanced miserably at Brett, but the
barrister was still puffing artistic designs in big and little rings.

"Very well. My reason for concealment disappears now," he blurted out, for
the young man was both vexed and ashamed. "That wretched night, after she
returned home, Helen thought she had behaved foolishly in creating a
scene. She put on a cloak, changed her shoes, and slipped back again to
Mrs. Eastham's, where she met Alan just coming away. She implored him to
make up the quarrel with me. He apologised for his conduct, and promised
to do the same to me when we met. He explained that other matters had
upset his temper that day, and he had momentarily yielded to an irritated
belief that everything was against him. Helen watched him enter the park;
she pretended that she was going in to Mrs. Eastham's. She could see the
lighted windows of the library, and she wondered why he did not go inside,
but imagined that at the distance she might easily be mistaken. At last
she ran off to the rectory. Again she lingered in the garden, devoutly
wishing that all might be well between Alan and me. Then she became
conscious that something unusual had taken place, owing to the lights and
commotion. For a long time she was at a loss to conjecture what could have
happened. At last, yielding to curiosity, she came back to the lodge. The
gates were wide open. Mrs. Eastham's dance was still in progress. She is
not a timid girl, so she walked boldly up the avenue until she met
Fergusson, the butler, who was then going to tell Mrs. Eastham. When she
heard his story she was too shocked to credit it, and asked him to bring
me. I came. By that time I was beginning to realise that I might be
implicated in the affair, and I begged her to return home at once, alone.
She did so. Subsequently she asked me not to refer to the escapade, for
obvious reasons. It was a woman's little secret, Brett, and I was
compelled to keep it."

"Anything else, Winter?" demanded the barrister, wrapped in a cloud of his
own creation.

"That is all, sir, except the way in which I heard of Miss Layton's
meeting with Mr. Hume."

"Not through Fergusson, eh?"

"Not a bit. The old chap is as close as wax. He seems to think that a
Hume-Frazer must die a violent death outside that library window, and if
the cause of the trouble is another Hume-Frazer, it is their own blooming
business, and no other person's. Most extraordinary old chap. Have you met
him?"

"No. Indeed, I am only just beginning to hear the correct details of the
story."

Hume winced, but passed no remark.

"Well, my information came through an anonymous letter."

"You don't say so! How interesting! Have you got it?"

"I brought it with me, for a reason other than that which actuates me now,
I must confess."

He produced a small envelope, frayed at the edges, and closely compressed.
It bore the type-written address, "Police Office, Scotland Yard," and the
postal stamp was "West Strand, January 18, 9 p.m."

Within, a small slip of paper, also typed, gave this message:--

    "About Stowmarket. David Hume Frazer
    killed cousin. Cousin talked girl in road.
    Girl waited wood. David Hume Frazer met
    girl in wood after 1 a.m."

Brett jumped up in instant excitement. Ha placed the two documents on a
table near the window, where the afternoon sun fell directly on them.

"Written by the murderer!" he cried "The result of perusing the evening
papers containing a report of the first proceedings before the
magistrates! The production of an illiterate man, who knew neither the use
of a hyphen nor the correct word to describe the avenue! Not wholly exact
either, if your story be true, Hume."

"My story is true. Helen herself will tell it you, word for word."

"This is most important. Look at that broken small 'c,' and the bent
capital 'D.' The letter 'a,' too, is out of gear, and does not register
accurately. Do you note the irregular spacing in 'market,' 'Frazer,'
'talked'? You got that letter, Winter, and yet you did not test every
Remington type-writer in London."

"Oh, of course it's my fault!"

Mr. Winter's _coup_ has fallen on himself, and he knew it.

"Oh, Winter, Winter! Come to me twice a week from six to seven, Tuesdays
and Fridays, and I will give you a night-school training. Now, I wonder if
that type-writer has been repaired?"

The detective had seldom seen Brett so thoroughly roused. His eyes were
brilliant, his nose dilated as if he could smell the very scent of the
anonymous scribe.

"An illiterate man," he repeated, "in evening dress; the same height and
appearance as Hume; in a village like Sleagill on a New Year's Eve; four
miles from everywhere. Was ever clue so simple provided by a careless
scoundrel! And eighteen months have elapsed. This is positively
maddening!"

"Look here, old chap," said Hume, still smarting under the recollections
of Brett's caustic utterance, "say you forgive me for keeping that thing
back. There is nothing else, believe me. It was for Helen's sake."

"Rubbish!" cried the barrister. "The only wonder is that you are not long
since assimilated in quicklime in a prison grave. You are all cracked, I
think--living spooks, human March hares. As for you, Winter, I weep for
you."

He strode rapidly to and fro along the length of the room, smoking
prodigiously, with frowning brows and concentrated eyes. The others did
not speak, but Winter treated Hume to an informing wink, as one might say.

"Now you will hear something."




CHAPTER IX

THE KO-KATANA


Thinking aloud, rather than addressing his companions, Brett began
again:--

"The man must have had some place in which to change his clothes, for he
would not court attention by walking about in evening dress by broad
daylight He met and spoke with Alan Hume-Frazer that afternoon. The result
was unsatisfactory. The stranger resolved to visit him again at night--the
night of the ball. In a country village on such an occasion, a
swallow-tailed coat was a _passe-partout_, as many gentry had come in from
the surrounding district."

"Yes, that is so," broke in Hume.

Brett momentarily looked through him, and the detective shook his head to
deprecate any further interruption.

"He could not enter Mrs. Eastham's house, for there everybody knew
everybody else. He could not enter the library of the Hall, because the
footman was on duty for several hours. Is not that so?"

He seemed to bite both men with the question.

"Yes," they answered.

"Then he was compelled to hang about the avenue, watching his
opportunity--his opportunity for what? Not to commit a murder! He was
unarmed, or, at any rate, his implement was a haphazard choice, selected
on the spur of the moment. He saw David Hume leave the dance, and watched
his brief talk with the butler. He correctly interpreted Hume's
preparations to await his cousin's arrival. Did Hume's sleepiness suggest
the crime, and its probable explanation? Perhaps. I cannot determine that
point now. Assuredly it gave the opportunity to commit a theft. Something
was stolen from the secretaire. A bold rascal, to force a drawer whilst
another man was in the room! Did he fear the consequences if he were
caught? I think not. He succeeded in his object, and went off, but before
he reached the gates he saw Miss Layton, whom he did not know, talking to
the baronet. He secreted himself until the baronet entered the park alone.
For some reason, he made his presence known, and walked with Sir Alan to
the lawn outside the window, still retaining in his hand the small knife
used to prise open the lock. There was a short and vehement dispute.
Possibly the baronet guessed the object of this unexpected appearance.
There may have been a struggle. Then the knife was sent home, with such
singular skill that the victim fell without a word, a groan, to arouse
attention. The murderer made off down the avenue, but he was far too
cold-blooded to run away and encounter unforeseen dangers. No; he waited
among the trees to ascertain what would happen when his victim was
discovered, and frame his plans accordingly. It was then that he saw Helen
Layton and David Hume. As soon as the news of the murder spread abroad the
dance broke up. Amidst the wondering crowd, slowly dispersing in their
carriages, he could easily slip away unseen, for the police, of course,
were sure that David Hume killed his cousin. Don't you see, Winter?"

The inspector did not see.

"You are making up a fine tale, Mr. Brett," he said doggedly, "but I'm
blessed if I can follow your reasoning."

"No, of course not. Eighteen months of settled conviction are not to be
dispelled in an instant. But accept my theory. This man, the guilty man,
must have resided in Stowmarket for some hours, if not days. Many people
saw him. He could not live in Sleagill, where even the village dogs would
suspect him. But the addle-headed police, ready to handcuff David Hume,
never thought of inquiring about strangers who came and went at Stowmarket
in those days. Stowmarket is a metropolis, a wilderness of changeful
beings, to a country policeman. It has a market-day, an occasional drunken
man--life is a whirl in Stowmarket. Fortunately, people have memories. At
that time you did not wear a beard, Hume."

"No," was the reply, "though I never told you that."

"Of course you told me, many times. Did not your acquaintances fail to
recognise you? Had not Mrs. Capella to look twice at you before she knew
you? Now, Winter, start out. Ascertain, in each hotel in the town, if they
had any strange guests about the period of the murder. There is a remote
chance that you may learn something. Describe Mr. Hume without a beard,
and hint at a reward if information is forthcoming. Money quickens the
agricultural intellect."

The detective, doubting much, obeyed. Hume, asking if there was any reason
why he should not drive back to Sleagill for an hour before dinner, was
sarcastically advised to go a good deal farther. Indeed, the sight of that
tiny type-written slip had stirred Brett to volcanic activity.

He tramped backwards and forwards, enveloped in smoke. Once he halted and
tore at the bell.

A waiter came.

"Go to my room, No. 11, and bring me a leather dressing-case, marked
'R.B.' Run! I give you twenty seconds. After that you lose sixpence a
second out of your tip."

He pulled out his watch. The man dashed along the corridor, much to the
amazement of a passing chamber-maid. He returned, bearing the bag in
triumph.

"Seventeen seconds! By the law of equity you are entitled to
eighteenpence."

Brett produced the money and led the gaping waiter out of the room,
promptly shutting the door on him.

"He's a rum gentleman that," said the waiter to the girl.

"He must be, to make you hurry in such fashion. Why, you wouldn't have
gone faster for a free pint."

"I consider that an impertinent observation." With tilted nose the man
turned and cannoned against Hume.

"Here!" cried the latter. "Run to the stables and get me a horse and trap.
If they are ready in two minutes I'll give you two shillings."

"Talk about makin' money!" gasped the waiter, as he flew downstairs, "this
is coinin'. But, by gum, they _are_ in a hurry."

Brett unlocked his bag and took from it the book of newspaper cuttings.

"Ah!" he said, after a rapid glance at his concluding notes. "I thought
so. Here is what I wrote when the affair was fresh in my mind:--

"'Why were no inquiries made at Stowmarket to learn what, if any,
strangers were in the town on New Year's Eve?

"'Most minute investigations should be pursued with reference to Margaret
Hume-Frazer's friends and associates.

"'Has Fergusson ever been asked if his master received any visitors on the
day of the murder or during the preceding week? If so, who were they?

"What is the precise purpose of the knife attached to the Japanese sword?
It appears to be too small to be used as a dagger. In any case, the sword
scabbard would be an unsuitable place to carry an auxiliary weapon, to
European ideas.'

"Now, I wonder if Fergusson is still at the Hall? The other matters must
wait."

Winter returned about the same time as Hume. Brett and the latter dressed
for dinner, and the adroit detective, not to be beaten, borrowed a
dress-suit from the landlord, after telegraphing to London for his own
clothes.

During the progress of the meal the little party scrupulously refrained
from discussing business, an excellent habit always insisted on by Brett.

They had reached the stage of coffee and cigars when a waiter entered and
whispered something to the police officer.

"'Rabbit Jack' is here," exclaimed Winter.

"Capital! Tell him to wait."

When the servant had left, Brett detailed his proposed test. He and Hume
would go into the hotel garden, after donning overcoats and deer-stalker
hats, for Hume told him that both his cousin and he himself had worn that
style of headgear.

They would stand, with their faces hidden, beneath the trees, and Winter
was to bring the poacher towards them, after asking him to pick out the
man who most resembled the person he had seen standing in the avenue at
Beechcroft.

The test was most successful. "Rabbit Jack" instantly selected Hume.

"It's either the chap hisself or his dead spit," was the poacher's dictum.

Then he was cautioned to keep his own counsel as to the incident, and he
went away to get gloriously drunk on half-a-sovereign.

In the seclusion of the sitting-room, Winter related the outcome of his
inquiries. They were negative.

Landlords and barmaids remembered a few commercial travellers by referring
to old lodgers, but they one and all united in the opinion that New Year's
Eve was a most unlikely time for the hotels to contain casual visitors.

"I was afraid it would be a wild-goose chase from the start," opined
Winter.

"Obviously," replied Brett; "yet ten minutes ago you produced a man who
actually watched the murderer for a considerable time that night."

Whilst Winter was searching his wits for a suitable argument, the
barrister continued:

"Where is Fergusson now?"

"I can answer that," exclaimed Hume. "He is my father's butler. When
Capella came to Beechcroft, the old man wrote and said he could not take
orders from an Italian. It was like receiving instructions from a French
cook. So my father brought him to Glen Tochan."

"Then your father must send him to London. He may be very useful. I
understand he was very many years at Beechcroft?"

"Forty-six, man and boy, as he puts it."

"Write to-morrow and bring him to town. He can stay at your hotel. I will
not keep him long; just one conversation--no more. Can you or your father
tell me anything else about that sword?"

"I fear not. Admiral Cunningham--"

"I guess I'm the authority there," broke in Winter. "I got to know all
about it from Mr. Okasaki."

"And who, pray, is Mr. Okasaki?"

"A Japanese gentleman, who came to Ipswich to hear the first trial. He was
interested in the case, owing to the curious fact that a murder in a
little English village should be committed with such a weapon, so he came
down to listen to the evidence. And, by the way, he took a barmaid back
with him. There was rather a sensation."

"The Japs are very enterprising. What did he tell you about the sword?"

The detective produced a note-book.

"It is all here," he said, turning over the leaves. "A Japanese Samurai,
or gentleman, in former days carried two swords, one long blade for use
against his enemies, and a shorter one for committing suicide if he was
beaten or disgraced. The sword Mr. Hume gave his cousin was a short one,
and the knife which accompanied it is called the Ko-Katana, or little
sword. As well as I could understand Mr. Okasaki, a Jap uses this as a
pen-knife, and also as a queer sort of visiting-card. If he slays an enemy
he sticks the Ko-Katana between the other fellow's ribs, or into his ear,
and leaves it there."

"A P.P.C. card, in fact!"

"You always have some joke against the P.C.'s," growled the detective. "I
never--"

"You have just made a most excellent one yourself. Please continue,
Winter. Your researches are valuable."

"That is all. Would you like to see the Ko-Katana that killed Sir Alan?"

"Yes. Where is it?"

"In the Black Museum at Scotland Yard. I will take you there."

"Thank you. By the way, concerning this man, Okasaki. Supposing we should
want any further information from him on this curious topic, can you find
him? You say he indulged in some liaison with an Ipswich girl, so I assume
he has not gone back to Japan."

"The last I heard of him was at that time. Some one told me that he was an
independent gentleman, noted for his art tastes. The disappearance of the
girl created a rare old row in Ipswich."

"Make a note of him. We may need his skilled assistance. Was there any
special design on the Ko-Katana?"

"It was ornamented in some way, but I forget the pattern."

"I can help you in that matter," said Hume. "I remember perfectly that the
handle, of polished gun-metal, bore a beautiful embossed design in gold
and silver of a setting sun surmounted by clouds and two birds."

"Correct, Mr. Hume, I recall it now," said the detective. "The same thing
appears on the handle of the sword."

Brett ruminated silently on this fresh information. Like the other pieces
in the puzzle, it seemed to have no sort of connection with the cause of
the crime.

"Why do you say 'setting sun'? How does one distinguish it from the rising
sun in embossed or inlaid work?" he asked Hume.

"I do not know. I only repeat Alan's remark. I gave the beastly thing to
him because he became interested in Japanese arms during his Eastern tour,
you will recollect."

"Ah, well. That is a nice point for Mr. Okasaki to settle if we chance to
come across him. Don't forget, Winter, I want to see that Ko-Katana. Whom
did you meet at Sleagill, Hume?"

The young man laughed. "Helen, of course."

"Any other person?"

"No. I told her I might chance to drive out in that direction about five
o'clock, so--"

"Dear me! You were not at all certain."

"By no means. I am at your orders."

"Excellent! Then my orders are that you shall meet the young lady on every
possible occasion. You took her for a drive?"

"Well--er--yes, I did. You do not leave me much to tell."

"Did she say anything of importance--bearing upon our inquiry, I mean?"

"Nothing. She had not quitted the rectory since we came away. I asked her
to pick up any village gossip about the people at the Hall, and let us
know at the earliest moment if she regarded it as valuable in any way."

"That was thoughtful of you. A great deal may happen there at any moment."

A waiter knocked and entered. He handed a letter to Hume.

"From Nellie," said David hastily.

He opened the envelope and perused a short note, which he gave to Brett.
It ran:--

    "DEAREST,--I have just heard from Jane, our under-housemaid, that
    Mr. Capella is leaving the Hall for London by an early train
    to-morrow. Jane 'walks out' with Mr. Capella's valet, and is in
    tears. Tell Mr. Brett. I am going to help Mrs. Eastham to select
    prize books for the school treat to-morrow at eleven.

    "--With love, yours,

    "NELLIE."

"Who brought this note?" inquired Hume from the waiter as he picked up pen
and paper.

"A man from Sleagill, sir. Any reply?"

"Certainly. Tell him to wait in the tap-room at my expense." He commenced
to write.

"Any message?" he asked Brett.

"Yes. Give Miss Layton my compliments, and say I regret to hear that Jane
is in tears. Ask her--Miss Layton--to get Jane to find out from the valet
what train his master will travel by."

"Why?"

"Because I will go by an earlier one, if possible."

"But what about me! Confound it, I promised--"

"To meet Miss Layton at eleven. Do so, my dear fellow. But come to town
to-morrow evening. Winter and I may want you."

So the detective sent another telegram to detain that dress suit, and Hume
seemed to have quickly conquered his disinclination to visit Stowmarket.




CHAPTER X

THE BLACK MUSEUM


Winter, who had never seen Capella, was so well posted by Brett as to his
personal appearance that he experienced no difficulty in picking out the
Italian when he alighted from the train at Liverpool Street Station next
morning.

Capella did not conduct himself like a furtive villain. He jumped into a
hansom. His valet followed in a four-wheeler with the luggage. In each
instance the address given to the driver was that of a well-known West End
hotel.

The detective's cab kept pace with Capella's through Old Broad Street,
Queen Victoria Street, and along the Embankment. At the Mansion House, and
again at Blackfriars, they halted side by side, and Winter noticed that
his quarry was looking into space with sullen, vindictive eyes.

"He means mischief to somebody," was Winter's summing up. "I wonder if he
intends to knife Hume?" for Brett had given his professional _confrère_ a
synopsis of all that happened before they met, and of his subsequent
conversation with the "happy couple" in Beechcroft Hall.

He repeated this remark to the barrister when he reached Brett's chambers.

"Capella will do nothing so crude," was the comment. "He is no fool. I do
not credit him with the murder of Sir Alan, but if I am mistaken in this
respect, it is impossible to suppose that he can dream of clearing his
path again by the same drastic method. Of course he means mischief, but he
will stab reputations, not individuals."

"When will you come to the Black Museum?"

"At once, if you like. But before we set out I want to discuss Mr. Okasaki
with you. What sort of person is he?"

"A genuine Jap, small, lively, and oval-faced. His eyes are like tiny
slits in a water melon, and when he laughs his grin goes back to his
ears."

"Really, Winter, I did not credit you with such a fund of picturesque
imagery. Would you know him again?"

"I can't be certain. All Japs are very much alike, to my thinking, but if
I heard him talk I would be almost sure. Why do you ask?"

"Because I have been looking up a little information with reference to the
Ko-Katana and its uses. Now, Okasaki is the name of a Japanese town.
Family names almost invariably have a topographical foundation, referring
to some village, river, street, or mountain, and there may be thousands of
Okasakis. Then, again, it was the custom some years ago for a man to be
called one name at birth, another when he came of age, a third when he
obtained some official position, and so on. For instance, you would be
called Spring when you were born, Summer when you were twenty-one, Autumn
when you became a policeman, and Winter when you reached your present
rank."

"Oh, Christopher!" cried the detective. "And if I were made Chief
Inspector?"

"Then your title would be 'Top Dog' or something of the sort."

Mr. Winter assimilated the foregoing information with a profound
thankfulness that we in England do these things differently.

"Why are you so interested in Mr. Okasaki?" he inquired.

"I will answer your question by another. Why was he so interested in the
Ko-Katana?"

"That is hardly what I told you, Mr. Brett. He professed to be interested
in the crime itself. But now I come to think of it, he did ask me to let
him see the thing."

"And did you?"

"Yes; I wanted all the information I could get."

"My position exactly. Let us go to Scotland Yard."

The famous Black Museum has so often been the subject of articles in the
public press that no detailed description is needed here. It contains, in
glass cases, or hanging on the walls, a weird collection of articles
famous in the annals of crime. It is not open to the public, and Brett,
who had not seen the place before, examined its relics with much
curiosity.

The detective exhibited a pardonable pride in some of them, but his
companion damped his enthusiasm by saying:

"This is a depressing sight."

"In what way?"

"British rogues are evidently of low intelligence in the average. A
bludgeon and a halter make up their history."

"There's more than that in a good many cases."

"Ah, I forgot the handcuffs."

"Well, here is the Ko-Katana," said Winter shortly.

The barrister took the fateful weapon, not more deadly than a paper-knife
in appearance, and scrutinised it closely.

"It has not been cleaned," he said.

"No, it was left untouched after the doctor withdrew it from the poor
young fellow's breast."

Brett produced a magnifying glass. Beneath the rust on the blade he
thought he could distinguish some Japanese characters in the quaint
pictorial script adapted by that singular people from the Chinese system
of writing.

He brought the knife nearer to the window and carefully focussed it. Then
he produced a note-book and made a pencil drawing of the following
inscription:

[Illustration]

Winter watched him with quiet agony. He had never noticed the signs
before.

"Mr. Okasaki did not tell you what these scratches meant?" inquired the
barrister.

"No. He did not see them."

"Sure?"

"Quite positive. Of course, it is very smart on your part to hit upon them
so quickly, but what possible purpose can it serve to find out the meaning
of something carved in Japan more than fifty years ago, at the very
least?"

"I do not know. It is very stupid of me, I admit, but I have not the
faintest notion."

"Does it make the finding of Okasaki more important?"

"To a certain extent. We want to have everything explained. At present we
have so little of what I regard as really definite evidence."

"May I ask what that little is?"

"Sir Alan Hume-Frazer was murdered with a knife produced by a man like
David Hume, whom 'Rabbit Jack' saw standing beneath the yews. Not much,
eh?"

Winter shook his head dubiously.

"If Sir Alan were shot instead of stabbed," went on the barrister, "the
first thing you would endeavour to determine would be the calibre and
nature of the bullet. Why not be equally particular about the knife?"

"But this weapon has been for fifty years in Glen Tochan. Its history is
thoroughly established."

"Is it? Who made it? Whose crest does it bear? What does this motto
signify? If you wanted to kill a man would you use this toy? Why was not
the sword itself employed?"

"That string of questions leaves me out, Mr. Brett."

"I am equally uninformed. I can only answer the last one. The sword is
intended for suicidal purposes, the Ko-Katana for an enemy. This is a case
of murder, not suicide."

The detective wheeled sharply on his heels, thereby upsetting Charles
Peace's telescopic ladder.

"You suspect Okasaki!" he cried.

"My dear fellow! Okasaki is, say, five feet nothing. The murderer is five
feet ten inches in height. Japanese are clever people, but they are
not--telescopes," and he picked up the ladder.

Winter grinned. "You always make capital out of my blunders," he said.

"Pooh! My banking account is limited. Let us go. The moral atmosphere in
this room is vile."

Outside the Central Police Office they separated, Brett to pay some
long-neglected calls, Winter to hunt up Capella's movements and initiate
inquiries about Okasaki.

The detective came to Brett's chambers at five o'clock, in a great state
of excitement.

"Thank goodness you are at home, sir." he cried, when Smith admitted him
to the barrister's sanctum. "Capella is off to Naples."

Naples, the scene of his marriage! What did this journey portend? Naught
but the gravest considerations would take him so far away from home when
he knew that David and Helen were reunited.

"How did you discover this fact?" asked Brett, awaking out of a brown
study.

"Easily enough, as it happened. Ninety-nine per cent. of gentlemen's
valets are keen sports. Barbers and hotel-porters run them close. I do a
bit that way myself--"

The barrister groaned.

"Not often, sir, but this is holiday time, you see. Anyhow, I gave the
hall-porter, whom I know, the wink to come to a neighbouring bar during
his time off for tea. He actually brought Capella's man--William his name
is--with him. I told them I had backed the first winner to-day, an eight
to one chance, and that started them. I offered to put them on a certainty
next week, and William's face fell. 'It's a beastly nuisance,' he said,
'I'm off to Naples with my boss to-morrow.' 'Well,' said I, 'if you're not
going before the night train, perhaps I may be able--' But that made him
worse, because they leave by the 11 A.M., Victoria."

Brett began to pace the room. He could not make up his mind to visit
Naples in person. For one thing, he did not speak Italian. But Capella
must be followed. At last he decided upon a course of action.

"Winter," he said, "do you know a man we can trust, an Italian, or better
still, an Italian-speaking Englishman, who can undertake this commission
for us?"

"Would you mind ringing for Smith, sir?" replied the detective, who seemed
to be mightily pleased with himself.

Smith appeared.

"At the foot of the stairs you will find a gentleman named Holden," said
Winter. "Ask him to come up, please."

Holden appeared, a sallow personage, long-nosed and shrewd-looking. The
detective explained that Mr. Holden was an ex-police sergeant, retained
for many years at headquarters on account of his fluency in the language
of Tasso. Winter did not mention Tasso. This is figurative.

An arrangement was quickly made. He was to start that evening and meet
Capella on arrival at Naples; Winter would telegraph the fact of the
Italian's departure according to programme. Holden was not to spare
expense in employing local assistance if necessary. He was to report
everything he could learn about Capella's movements.

Brett wanted to hand him £50, but found that all the money he had in his
possession at the moment only totalled up to £35.

Winter produced a small bag.

"It was quite true what I said," he smirked. "I did back the first winner,
and, what's more, I drew it--sixteen of the best."

"I had no idea the police force was so corrupt," sighed Brett, as he
completed the financial transaction, and Mr. Holden took his departure.
The detective also went off to search for Okasaki.

About nine o'clock Hume arrived.

"You will be glad to hear," he said, "that the rector invited me to lunch.
He approves of my project, and will pray for my success. It has been a
most pleasant day for me, I can assure you."

"The rector retired to his study immediately after lunch, I presume?"

"Yes," said David innocently. "Has anything important occurred in town?"

Brett gave him a resumé of events. A chance allusion to Sir Alan caused
the young man to exclaim:

"By the way, you have never seen his photograph. He and I were very much
alike, you know, and I have brought from my rooms a few pictures which may
interest you."

He handed to Brett photographs of himself and his two cousins, and of the
older Sir Alan and Lady Hume-Frazer, taken singly and in groups.

The barrister examined them minutely.

"Alan and I," pointed out his client, "were photographed during our last
visit to London. Poor chap! He never saw this picture. The proofs were not
sent until after his death."

Something seemed to puzzle Brett very considerably. He compared the
pictures one with the other, and paid heed to every detail.

"Let me understand," Brett said at last. "I think I have it in my notes
that at the time of the murder you were twenty-seven, Sir Alan
twenty-four, and Mrs. Capella twenty-six?"

"That is so, approximately. We were born respectively in January, October,
and December. My twenty-seventh birthday fell on the 11th."

"Stated exactly, you were two years and nine months older than he?"

"Yes."

"You don't look it."

"I never did. We were always about the same size as boys, but he matured
at an earlier age than I."

"It is odd. How old were you when this group was taken?"

The photograph depicted a family gathering on the lawn at Beechcroft.
There were eight persons in it, three being elderly men.

David reflected.

"That was before I left Harrow, and Christmas time. Seventeen almost,
within a couple of weeks."

"So your cousin Margaret was sixteen?"

"Yes."

"She was remarkably tall, well-developed for her age."

"That was a notable characteristic from an early age. We boys used to call
her 'Mama,' when we wanted to vex her."

"The three old gentlemen are very much alike. This is the baronet. Who are
the others?"

"My father and uncle."

"What! Do you mean to tell me there is another branch of the family?"

"Well, yes, in a sense. My uncle is dead. His son, my age or a little
older, for the youngest of the three brothers was married first, was last
heard of in Argentina."

Brett threw the photograph down with clatter.

"Good Heavens!" he vociferated, "when shall I begin to comprehend this
business in its entirety? How many more uncles, and aunts, and cousins
have you?"

Amazed by this outburst, Hume endeavoured to put matters right.

"I never thought--" he commenced.

"You come to me to do the thinking, Hume. For goodness' sake switch your
memory for five minutes from Miss Layton, and tell me all you know of your
family history. Have you any other relations?"

"None whatever."

"And this newly-arrived cousin, what of him?"

"He was in the navy, and being of a quarrelsome disposition, was
court-martialled for some small outbreak. He would not submit to
discipline, and resigned the service. Then his father died, and Bob went
off to South America. I have never heard of him since. I know very little
about my younger uncle's household. Indeed, the occasion recorded by the
photograph was the last time the old men met in friendship. There was a
dispute about money matters. My Uncle Charles was in the city, the two
estates being left by my grandfather to the two oldest sons. Charles
Hume-Frazer died a poor man, having lost his fortune by speculation."

"Have you seen your cousin Robert? Did he resemble Alan and you?"

"We were all as like as peas. People say that our house is remarkable for
the unchanging type of its male line. That is readily demonstrated by the
family portraits. You have not been in the dining-room or picture-gallery
at Beechcroft, or you must have noticed this instantly."

Brett flung himself into a chair.

"The Argentine!" he muttered. "A nice school for a 'quarrelsome'
Hume-Frazer."

He had calmed sufficiently to reach for his cigarette-case when Smith
entered with a note, delivered by a boy messenger.

It was from Winter:

"Have found Okasaki. His name is now Numagawa Jiro, so you were right, as
usual. He and Mrs. Jiro live at 17 St. John's Mansions, Kensington."




CHAPTER XI

MR. "OKASAKI"


In fifteen minutes Brett was bowling along Knightsbridge in a hansom,
having left Hume with a strict injunction to rack his brains for any
further undiscovered facts bearing upon the inquiry, and turn up promptly
at ten o'clock next morning.

Although the hour was late for calling upon a complete stranger, the
barrister could not rest until he had inspected the Jiro ménage. No. 17
was a long way from the ground level. Indeed, the cats of Kensington, if
sufficiently enterprising, inhabitated the floor above.

He rang, and was surveyed with astonishment by a very small maid-servant.

"Is Mr. Numagawa Jiro at home?" he inquired.

"No, sir, but Mrs. Jiro is."

An infantine wail from one of the apartments showed that there was also a
young Jiro.

The maid neither advanced nor retreated. She simply stood stock still,
petrified by the sight of a well-dressed visitor.

Brett suggested that she should inform her mistress of his presence.

"Please, sir," whispered the girl, "are you from Ipswich?"

"No; from Victoria Street."

"I only asked, sir, because master is particular about people from
Ipswich. They upset missus so."

She vanished into the interior, and came back to usher him into the
drawing-room. The flat was expensively furnished, but very untidy. He at
once perceived, however, that the "former" Mr. Okasaki was not romancing
when he boasted of his artistic tastes. The Japanese articles in the room
were gems of faience and lacquer work.

The entrance of Mrs. Jiro drew the barrister's eyes from surrounding
objects. He was momentarily stunned. The woman was almost a giantess, and
amazingly stout. In a tiny flat, waited on by a diminutive servant, and
married to a Japanese, she was grotesque.

Originally a very tall and fairly good-looking girl, she had evidently
blossomed out like one of the gorgeous chrysanthemums of her husband's
favoured land.

Assuredly she had acquired no Japanese traits either in manner or
appearance. At first she seemed to be in a genuinely British bad temper,
but Brett excelled in the art of smoothing the ruffled plumes of
femininity.

"What is it?" she demanded, surveying him suspiciously.

"I wish to see Mr. Jiro," he said, "but permit me to apologise for making
such an untimely call. As he is not at home, I must not trouble you beyond
inquiring a likely hour to see him to-morrow."

He smiled so pleasantly that the lady became more complaisant.

"He may not be very long--" she commenced, but the youthful Jiro's voice
was again heard in fretful complaint.

"My baby is not well to-night," she explained.

"Poor little darling!" said Brett.

He was tempted to add: "What is its name?" but refrained.

"Won't you sit down?" said Mrs. Jiro. "As I was saying, my husband may not
be very long--"

She was fated not to complete that doubly accurate sentence, for at that
moment a key rattled in the outer door.

"Here he is," she announced; and Mr. Jiro entered.

It was fortunate that the gravity of his errand, no less than his power of
self-control, kept Brett from laughing. As it was, he smiled very broadly
when he greeted the master of the flat, for the little man was small even
for a Japanese.

The contrast between him and his helpmate was ludicrous. He could not
possibly kiss her unless she stooped, nor would his arms encircle her
shoulders.

"And how is my pretty _karasu_?" he asked, regarding his wife fondly.

"Don't call me that, Nummie!" she cried.

Turning to Brett she explained: "He calls me a crow, and says it is a
compliment, but I don't like it."

"In Japan the clow speaks with the voice of love," grinned Jiro.

"Well, it sounds funny in London, so just attend to this gentleman. He has
come to see you on business."

Mrs. Jiro forthwith seated herself to listen to the conclave. Brett,
though warned by the maid's remark, could not help himself, so he went
straight to the point.

"Over a year ago," he said, "you were in Ipswich."

Instantly a severe chill fell upon his hearers. The man shrank, the woman
expanded, but before either could utter a word, the barrister continued:

"Personally, I know no one in Ipswich. I have only visited the town twice,
during an Assize week. It has come to my knowledge that you gave the
police some information with reference to a Japanese weapon which figured
in a noted crime, and I have ventured to come here to ask you for
additional details."

Mrs. Jiro heaved a great sigh of relief.

"My gracious!" she cried, "you did startle me. I can't bear to hear the
name of Ipswich nowadays. I was married from there."

"Indeed!" said Brett, with polite interest.

"Yes; and my people are always hunting me up and making a row because I
married Mr. Jiro. Sometimes they make me that ill that I feel half
inclined to go with him to Japan. He is always worrying me to leave
London, but the more I hear about Japan the less I fancy it."

"Ah, my own little _gan_--" broke in her husband.

"There you go again," she snapped. "Calling me a _gan_--a goose, indeed!
Now, Mr. Brett, how would you like to be called a wild goose?"

"I have often deserved it," he said.

"You do not understand," chirped Jiro. "In Japan the goose is beautiful,
elegant. It flies fast like a white spilit."

His English was almost perfect, but in words containing a rolled "r" he
often substituted an "l."

"I understand enough to keep away from Japan, a place where they have an
earthquake every five minutes, and people live in paper houses. Besides,
look at the size of your women-folk. Just imagine me, Mr. Brett, walking
about among those little dolls, like a turkey among tom-tits."

"We give fat people much admilation," said Jiro.

"Nummie, I do hate that word fat. I can't help being tall and well
developed; but it is only short women who become 'fat'."

She hissed the word venomously, as if she possessed the scorpion's fabled
power to sting herself. Evidently Mrs. Jiro dreaded corpulence more than
earthquakes.

Brett had never previously met such a strangely assorted couple. He would
willingly have prolonged his visit for mere amusement, but he was
compelled to return to the cause of his presence. Unless he asked direct
questions he would make no progress. He took from his pocket-book the
drawing made in the Black Museum, and handed it to the Japanese, saying:

"Would you mind telling me the meaning of that?"

Jiro screwed his queer little eyes upon the scrawling characters. The
methods of writing in the Far East, being pictorial and inexact, require
scrutiny of the context before a given sentence can be correctly
interpreted.

The little man made no trouble about it, however.

"They are old chalacters," he said. "In Japan we joke a lot. Evely sign
has sevelal meanings. This can be lead two ways. It is a plovelb, and
says, 'A new field gives a small clop,' or 'Human life is but fifty
years.' Where did you see it?"

"On the blade of the Ko-Katana that killed Sir Alan Hume-Frazer," answered
Brett.

And now he experienced a fresh difficulty. The Japanese face is
exceedingly expressive. When a native of the Island Empire smiles or
scowls, exhibits surprise or fear, he apparently does these things with
his whole soul. Such facial plasticity provides far more effective
concealment of real emotions than the phlegmatic indifference of the
Briton, who, in the words of Emerson, requires "pitchforks or the cry of
'fire!'" to arouse him.

It is possible to throw an Englishman off his guard by a shrewd thrust;
but Mr. Numagawa Jiro was one of those persons whose lineaments would
reveal the same amount of pain over a cut finger as a broken leg.

Nevertheless, Brett's reply did unquestionably make him jump, and even
Mrs. Jiro's bulging features became anxious.

"Is that possible?" said the Japanese. "It is velly stlange the police
gentleman did not tell me about it."

"He did not know of it until to-day," explained Brett, "and that is why I
am here now. It is the motto of some important Japanese family, is it
not?"

"It is a plovelb," repeated Jiro, who evidently intended to take thought.

"So I understand, but used in this way it represents a family, a clan?"

"I do not know."

"What! A man so interested in his country's art as to go to an
out-of-the-way English provincial town merely to see a small knife, must
surely be able to decide such a trivial matter as the use of mottoes on
sword blades!"

Mr. Jiro's excellent knowledge of English seemed to fail him, but his wife
took up the defence.

"My husband had more to think about in Ipswich than a small knife, Mr.
Brett."

"Very much more, but it was the knife which brought him to the place. He
carried the major attraction away with him."

Mrs. Jiro thought this sounded nice. She turned to her husband:

"Why don't you tell the gentleman all you know about it, Nummie?"

The little man looked at her curiously before he spoke to the barrister.

"I have nothing to tell," he said. "I told the police all that they asked
me. That was a velly old Ko-Katana, a hundred yeals old. It was made by a
famous altist. I have told you the meaning of the liting. That is all I
know."

"Why did you give your name at Ipswich as Okasaki?" demanded Brett.

"Oh, that is vely easy. Okosaki is my family name. You English people say
it quicker than Numaguwa Jiro, so I give it. But when I got mallied I used
my light name. Japanese law does not pelmit the change of names now. My
ploper name is Numagawa Jiro"--which he pronounced "Jilo."

"You told the detective at Ipswich that the device on the handle
represented the setting sun. How did you know the sun was setting, and not
rising?"

It was a haphazard shot. The description was Hume's, not Winter's.

Again the Japanese paused before answering.

"It was shown by the way in which the gold was used. Japanese altists have
symbols for ideas. That is one."

"Thank you. I imagined you recognised the device, and could speak off-hand
in the matter. By the way, do you use a type-writer?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Jiro. "My husband is clever at all that sort of thing,
and when he found the people could not read his writing he bought a
machine."

"I have sold it again," interfered Jiro, after a hasty glance round the
room, "and I am going to buy another."

Mrs. Jiro rose to stir the fire unnecessarily.

"They are most useful," said Brett. "Which make do you prefer?"

"They are all vely much alike," answered the Japanese, "but I am going to
buy a Yost or a Hammond."

"I am very much obliged to you for receiving me at this late hour," said
the barrister, rising, "but before I go allow me to compliment you on your
remarkable knowledge of English. I am sure you are indebted to your good
lady for your idiomatic command of the language."

"I studied it for yeals in Japan--" began Jiro, but in vain, for his very
much better half resented the word "idiomatic."

"I don't know about that," she snorted. "He talked a lot of nonsense when
we were married, but I've made him drop it, and he is teaching me
Japanese."

"His task is a pleasant one. It is the tongue of poetry and love."

Again there was a pause. A minute later Brett was standing in the street
trying to determine how best to act.

He was fully persuaded that Jiro had, in the first place, identified the
crest as belonging to one of the many Samurai clans. But the motto was new
to him, and its discovery had revealed the particular family which claimed
its use.

Why did he refuse to impart his knowledge? There must be plenty of
Japanese in London who would give this information readily.

Again, why did he lie about the type-writer, and endeavour to mislead him
as to the make of the machine he used?

To-morrow, for a certainty, Jiro would dispose of the Remington which he
now possessed. Well, he should meet with a ready purchaser, if a letter
from Brett to every agency in London would expedite matters.

He did not credit Jiro with the death of Sir Alan Hume-Frazer, nor even
with complicity in the crime. The Japanese had acted as the unwitting tool
of a stronger personality, and the little man's brain was even at this
moment considering fresh aspects of the affair not previously within his
ken.

Moreover, how maddening the whole thing was! Beginning with Hume's
fantastic dream, he reviewed the hitherto unknown elements in the
case--Capella's fierce passion and queer behaviour, culminating in a
sudden journey to Italy, Margaret's silent agony, the existence of an
Argentine cousin, the evidence of "Rabbit Jack," the punning motto on the
Ko-Katana, Jiro's perturbation and desire to prevent his wife's
unconscious disclosures.

With the final item came the ludicrous remembrance of that ill-assorted
couple. Laughing, Brett hailed a hansom.




CHAPTER XII

WHAT THE STATIONMASTER SAW


The number of type-writer exchanges in London is not large. Impressing the
services of Smith and his wife as amanuenses, Brett despatched the
requisite letters before he retired for the night.

He was up betimes and out before breakfast, surprising the domestics of
his club by an early visit to the library. The Etona contained a great
many service members, and made a feature of its complete editions of Army
and Navy lists.

In one of the latter, eight years old, Brett found, among the officers of
the _Northumberland_, at that time in commission, "Robert Hume-Fraser,
sub-lieutenant." A later volume recorded his retirement from the service.

Hume and Winter reached Brett's flat together.

"Any luck with the Jap, sir?" asked the detective cheerily.

Brett told them what had happened, and Winter sighed. Here, indeed, was a
promising subject for an arrest. Why not lock him up, and seize the
type-writer? But he knew the barrister by this time, and uttered no word.

"And now," said Brett, after a malicious pause to enable Winter to declare
himself, "I am going back to Stowmarket. No, Hume, you are not coming with
me. When does Fergusson arrive here?"

The question drove from David's face the disappointed look with which he
received his friend's announcement.

"To-morrow evening," he replied. "My father thinks the old man should not
risk an all-night journey. He has also sent me every detail he can get
together, either from documents or recollection, bearing upon our family
history."

He produced a formidable roll of manuscript. The old gentleman had
evidently devoted many hours and some literary skill to the compilation.

"I will read that in the train," said Brett. "You must start at once for
Portsmouth. I have here a list of all the officers serving with your
cousin Robert on the _Northumberland_ immediately prior to his quitting
the Navy. Portsmouth, Devonport, Southsea, and the neighbourhood will
almost certainly contain some of them. If not, people there will know
where they are to be found. You must make yourself known to them, and
endeavour to gain any sort of news concerning the ex-lieutenant. Naval men
roam all over the world. Some of them may have met him in the Argentine,
or in any of the South American ports where British warships are
constantly calling. He was a sailor. He left the Navy under no cloud.
Hence, the presence of a British man-o'-war would draw him like a magnet.
Do not come back here until you bring news of him."

"Why is it so important? You cannot imagine--"

"No; I endeavour to restrain my imagination. I want facts. You are the
best person to obtain them. One relative inquiring for another is a
natural proceeding. It will not arouse suspicions that you are a
debt-collector."

"Suppose I obtain news of his whereabouts?"

"Telegraph to me and I will give you fresh instructions."

Hume walked to the door.

"Give my kind regards to Miss Layton," he said grimly.

"I will be delighted. Work hard. You will see her all the sooner."

"There goes a man in love," continued Brett, addressing the back of
Winter's skull, though looking him straight in the face. "His career, his
reputation, everything he values most in this world is at stake. He is a
sensible, level-headed fellow, who has become embittered by unjust
suspicion; yet he would unwillingly let a material item like his cousin's
proceedings sink into oblivion just for the sake of telling a girl that
she looks more charming to-day than she did yesterday, or some equally
original remark peculiar to love-making. How do you account for it,
Winter?"

"I give it up," sighed the detective. "We are all fools where women are
concerned."

"You surprise me," said the barrister sternly. "Such a personal confession
of weakness is unexpected--I may say distressing."

Winter shook his head.

"You're not married, Mr. Brett, or you wouldn't talk like that."

"Well, let it pass. I want you to make the acquaintance of that loving
couple, Mr. and Mrs. Numagawa Jiro. You must disguise yourself. Jiro is to
be shadowed constantly. Get any help you require, but do it. Be off,
Winter, on the wings of the wind. Fasten on to Jiro. Batten on him. Become
his invisible vampire. Above all else, discover his associates. Run now to
the bank and cash this cheque. It repays the sum you advanced last night,
and provides money for expenses."

"I must first see Capella off," gasped the detective.

"All the more reason that you should fly."

Left to himself, the barrister compiled memoranda for an hour or more. He
read through what he had written.

"The web is spreading quickly," he murmured. "I wonder what sort of fly we
shall catch! Is he buzzing about under our very noses, or will he be an
unknown variety? As they say in the Argentine--_Quien sabe?_"

During the journey to Stowmarket he mastered the contents of the bulky
document sent from Glen Tochan. It contained a great many irrelevant
details, but he made the following notes:--

    After the duel in 1763, David Hume, the man who avenged with his
    sword the supposed injury inflicted upon his father by the first
    Sir Alan Hume-Frazer, escaped to the Netherlands, and was never
    heard of again.

    There was a local tradition on the Scotch estate that five
    Hume-Frazers would meet with violent deaths in England. The reason
    for this singular belief was found in the recorded utterances of
    an old nurse, popularly credited with the gift of second sight,
    who prophesied, after the outlawry of the Humes in 1745, that
    there would be five long-lived generations of both families, and
    that five Frazers would die in their boots.

    "Curiously enough," commented the old gentleman who supplied this
    information, "Aunt Elspeth's prediction is capable of two
    interpretations, owing to the fact that the first Sir Alan Frazer
    assumed the additional surname of Hume. I have absolutely no
    knowledge of any distinct branch of the Hume family. David Hume's
    sister was married to my ancestor at the time of the duel."

    Admiral Cunningham, the hardy old salt who brought from Japan the
    sword used by a Samurai to commit _hari-kara_, or suicide by
    disembowelling, commanded the British vessels of the combined
    squadron which sailed up the Bay of Yedo on July 6, 1853, to
    intimidate the Mikado.

    He narrowly escaped assassination at the hands of a two-sword man,
    who was knocked down by a sailor and soundly kicked, after being
    disarmed.

    The Admiral brought home the two weapons taken from his assailant,
    and the larger sword was still to be seen in the armoury at Glen
    Tochan.

    The three brothers, of whom the writer alone survived, quarrelled
    over money matters about eight years before the murder of the
    fifth baronet. The youngest, Charles, had entangled himself in a
    disastrous speculation in the city, and bitterly reproached Alan
    and David (the narrator) because they would not come to his
    assistance.

The old gentleman laboured through many pages to explain the reasons which
actuated this decision, but Brett skipped all of them.

Finally, he suspected no one of committing the crime itself, which was
utterly inexplicable.

At Stowmarket the barrister sought a few minutes' conversation with the
stationmaster.

"Have you been long in charge of this station?" he asked, when the
official ushered him into a private office.

"Nearly five years, sir," was the surprised answer.

"Ah, then you know nearly all the members of the Hume-Frazer family?"

"Yes, sir. I think so."

"Do you remember the New Year's Eve when the young baronet was killed?"

"Yes, generally speaking, I do remember it."

The stationmaster was evidently doubtful of the motives which actuated
this cross-examination, and resolved not to commit himself to positive
statements.

"You recollect, of course, that Mr. David Hume-Frazer was arrested and
tried for the murder of his cousin?"

"Yes."

"Very well. Now I want you to search your memory well and tell me if you
saw anyone belonging to the family in the station on that New Year's Eve.
The terrible occurrence at Beechcroft the same night must have fixed the
facts in your mind."

The stationmaster, a cautious man of kindly disposition, seemed to be
troubled by the interrogatory.

"Do you mind if I ask you, sir, why you are seeking this information?" he
inquired, after a thoughtful pause.

"A very proper question. Mr. David Hume-Frazer is a friend of mine, and he
has sought my help to clear away the mystery attached to his cousin's
death."

"But why do you come to me?"

"Because you are a very likely person to have some knowledge on the point
I raised. You see every person who enters or leaves Stowmarket by train."

"That is true. We railway men see far more than people think," said the
official, with a smile. "But it is very odd that you should be the first
gentleman to think of talking to me in connection with the affair, though
I can assure you certain things puzzled me a good deal at the time."

"And what were they?"

"You are the gentleman who came here three days ago with Mr. David, whom,
by the way, I hardly recognised at first?"

"Exactly."

"Well, I suppose it is all right. I did not interfere because I could not
see my way clear to voluntarily give evidence. Of course, were I summoned
by the police, it would be a different matter. The incidents of that New
Year's Eve fairly bewildered me."

"Indeed!"

"It was stated at the trial, sir, that Mr. David came from Scotland that
morning, left Liverpool Street at 3.20 p.m., and reached Stowmarket at
5.22 p.m."

"Yes."

"Further, he was admittedly the second person to see his cousin's dead
body, and remained at the Hall until arrested by the police on a warrant."

Brett nodded. The stationmaster's statement promised to be intensely
interesting.

"Well, sir," continued the man excitedly, "I was mystified enough on New
Year's Eve, but after the murder came out I thought I was fairly
bewitched. That season is always a busy one for us, what between parcels,
passengers, and bad weather. On the morning of December 31, I fancied I
saw Mr. David leave the London train due here at 12.15 midday. I only
caught a glimpse of him, because there was a crowd of people, and he was
all muffled up. I didn't give the matter a second thought until I saw him
again step out of a first-class carriage at 2.20 p.m. I looked at him
rather sharp that time. He was differently dressed, and hurried off
without any luggage. He left the station quickly, so I imagined I had been
mistaken a couple of hours earlier. You could have knocked me down with a
feather when he appeared by the 5.22 p.m. This time he had several leather
trunks, and a footman from the Hall was waiting for him on the platform.
Excuse me, sir, but it was a fair licker!"

"It must have been. I wonder you did not speak to him!"

"I wish I had done so. Mr. David is usually a very affable young
gentleman, but, what between my surprise and the bustle of getting the
train away, I lost the opportunity. However, the queerest part of my story
is coming. I'm blest if he didn't leave here again by the last train at
5.58 p.m. I missed his entrance to the station, but had a good look at him
as the train went out. He showed the ticket-examiner at Ipswich a return
half to London, because I asked by wire. Now what did it all mean?"

"If I could tell you, it would save me much trouble," said Brett gravely.
"But why did you not mention these incidents subsequently?"

"Perhaps I was wrong, sir. I did not know what to do for the best. Every
one at the Hall, including Mr. David himself, would have proved that I was
a liar with respect to his two earlier arrivals and his departure by the
5.58. I did not see what I would accomplish except to arouse a strong
suspicion that I had been drinking."

"Which would be unjustifiable?"

The stationmaster regained his dignity.

"I have been a teetotaler, sir, for more than twenty years."

"You are sure you are making no mistake?"

"Nothing of the kind, sir. I must have been very much mistaken, but I did
not think so at the time, and it bothered me more than enough. If my
evidence promised to be of any service to Mr. David, no consideration
would have kept me back. As it was--"

"You thought it would damage him?"

"I'm afraid that was my idea."

"I agree with you. It is far better that it never came to the knowledge of
the police. I am greatly obliged to you."

"May I ask, sir, if what I have told you will be useful in your inquiry?"

"Most decidedly. Some day soon Mr. David Hume-Frazer will thank you in
person. I suppose you have no objection to placing your observations in
written form for my private use, and sending the statement to me at the
County Hotel?"

"Not the least, sir; good-day."

The barrister walked to the hotel, having despatched his bag by a porter.

"I suppose," he said to himself, "that when Winter came here he rushed
straight to the police-station. How his round eyes will bulge out of their
sockets when I tell him what I have just learnt."




CHAPTER XIII

TWO WOMEN


The surprising information given by the stationmaster impressed the
barrister as so much unexpected trover which would assert its value in the
progress of events. He certainly did not anticipate the discovery of three
David Humes, though he had hoped to find traces of two.

Before he reached his hotel he experienced a spasm of doubt. Was his
client telling the truth about his movements on that memorable Christmas
Eve? David's story was fully corroborated by the railway official and the
servants at the Hall, whose sworn evidence was in Brett's possession. But
how about Hume's counterfeit presentments arriving by the earlier
trains--coming from where and bound on what errands?

He resolutely closed down the trap-door opened by his imagination.

"The pit does not yawn for me," he communed, "but for the man who killed
Sir Alan. Assuredly he will fall into it before many days. Nothing on
earth can stop the meeting of two or more of the hidden channels now being
opened up, and when they do meet there must be a dramatic outcome."

His chief purpose in revisiting Stowmarket was to seek further confidences
from Mrs. Capella. He argued that the sudden journey of her husband to
Naples would cause her much uneasiness, and she might now be inclined to
reveal circumstances yet hidden.

He refused to take her at a disadvantage. From the hotel he sent a cyclist
messenger with a note asking for an interview, and within an hour he
received a cordial request to come at once.

Nevertheless, he was not a little astonished to find Helen Layton awaiting
him in Margaret's boudoir.

The girl showed signs of recent agitation, but she explained her presence
quietly enough.

"Mrs. Capella sent for me when your note reached her, Mr. Brett. She is
greatly upset by recent events, and was actually on the point of
telegraphing to Davie to ask him to bring you here at once when your
message was handed to her. She will be here presently. Please do not press
her too closely to reveal anything she wishes to withhold. She is so
emotional and excited, poor thing, that I fear her health may be
endangered."

Miss Layton's words were not well chosen. She was conscious of the fact,
and blushed furiously when Brett received her request with a friendly nod
of comprehension.

"I do not know what to say for the best," she went on desperately. "I am
so sorry for Margaret, and it seems to me to be a terrible thing that my
proposed marriage with her cousin should be the innocent cause of all this
trouble."

"Is it the cause?" he asked.

"What else can it be? Certainly not Mr. Capella's foolish actions. If
Davie and I were married, and far away from this neighbourhood, we would
probably never see him again. I assure you I attach no serious
significance to his mad fancy for me. The real reason for the present
bother is Davie's desire to reopen the story of the murder. Of that I am
convinced."

"Then what do you wish me to do?"

Helen's eyes became suspiciously moist.

"How am I to decide?" she said tremulously. "Naturally, I want the name of
my future husband to be cleared of the odium attached to it, but it is
hard that this cannot be done without driving a dear woman like Margaret
to despair, perhaps to the grave."

"I do not see why the one course should involve the other."

"Nor do I; but the fact remains. Mr. Capella's decision to go to Naples is
somehow bound up with it. Oh, dear! During the last two years a dozen or
more girls have been happily married in this village without any one being
killed, or running away, or dying of grief. Why should those things
descend upon my poor little head?"

"Perhaps you are mistaken. Events have conspired to point to you as the
unconscious source of a good deal that has happened. Personally, Miss
Layton, I incline to the belief that you are no more responsible than
David Hume-Frazer. If the mystery of Sir Alan's death is ever solved, I
feel assured that its genesis will be found in circumstances not only
beyond your control, but wholly independent, and likely to operate in the
same way if both you and your _fiancé_ had never either seen or heard of
Beechcroft Hall."

"Oh, Mr. Brett," she cried impulsively, "I wish I could be certain of
that!"

"Try and adopt my opinion," he answered, with a smile, for the girl's
dubiety was not very flattering.

"I know I am saying the wrong thing. I cannot help it. Margaret's distress
tried me sorely. Be gentle with her--that is all I ask."

The door opened, and Mrs. Capella entered. Helen's observations had
prepared Brett to some extent, yet he was shocked to see the havoc wrought
in Margaret's appearance by days of suffering and nights of sleepless
agony.

Her face was drawn and ivory-white, her eyes unnaturally brilliant, her
lips bloodless and pinched. She was again garbed in black, and the sombre
effect of her dress supplied a startling contrast to the deathly pallor of
her features.

She recognised Brett's presence by a silent bow, and sank on to a couch.
She was not acting, but really ill, overwrought, inert, physically weak
from want of food and sleep.

Helen ran to her side, and took her in a loving clasp.

"You poor darling!" she cried. "Why are you suffering so?"

Now there was nothing on earth Brett detested so thoroughly as a display
of feminine sentiment, no matter how spontaneous or well-timed. At heart
he was conscious of kindred emotions. A child's cry, a woman's sob, the
groan of a despairing man, had power to move him so strangely that he had
more than once allowed a long-sought opportunity to slip from his grasp
rather than sear his own soul by displaying callous indifference to the
sufferings of others.

The tears of these two, however, set his teeth on edge. What were they
whining about--the affections of a doll of a man whose antics had been
rightly treated by David when he proved to Capella that there is nothing
like leather.

For the barrister laboured under no delusions respecting either woman.
Margaret, who secretly feared her husband, was only pining for his
rekindled admiration, whilst Helen, though true as steel to David Hume,
could not be expected to regard the Italian's misplaced passion as utterly
outrageous. No woman can absolutely hate and despise a man for loving her,
no matter how absurd or impossible his passion may be. She may proclaim,
even feel, a vast amount of indignation, but in the secret recesses of her
soul, hidden perhaps from her own scrutiny, she can find excuses for him.

Brett regarded Capella as an impressionable scamp, endowed with a too
vivid imagination, and he determined forthwith to stir his hearers into
revolt, defiance--anything but languishing regret and condolence.

Margaret soon gave him an opportunity. Recovering her self-possession with
an effort, she said:

"I am glad you are here, Mr. Brett. Helen has probably told you that we
need your presence--not that I have much to say to you, but I must have
the advice of a wiser and clearer head than my own in the present position
of affairs."

"Exactly so," replied the barrister cheerily. "As a preliminary to a
pleasant chat, may I suggest a cup of tea for each of us?"

The ladies were manifestly astonished. Tea! When broken hearts were
scattered around! The suggestion was pure bathos.

Margaret, with a touch of severity, permitted Brett to ring, and coldly
agreed with Helen's declaration that she could not think of touching any
species of refreshment at such a moment.

"Then," said Brett, advancing and holding out his hand, "I will save your
servants from needless trouble, Mrs. Capella. I am equally emphatic in my
insistence on food and drink as primary necessities. For instance, a cup
of good tea just now is much more important in my eyes than your husband's
vagaries."

"Surely you will not desert me?" appealed Margaret.

"Mr. Brett, how can you be so heartless?" cried Helen.

"Your words cut me to the bone," he answered, with an easy smile, "but in
this matter I must be adamant. My dear ladies, pray consider. What a world
we should live in if people went without their meals because they were
worried. Three days of such treatment would end the South African War,
give Ireland Home Rule, bring even the American Senate to reason. A week
of it would extinguish the human race. If the system has such
potentialities, is it unreasonable to ask whether or not any single
individual--even Mr. Capella--is worth the loss of a cup of tea because he
chooses to go to Naples?"

A servant entered.

"Is it to be for three, or none?" inquired Brett, compelling Margaret to
meet his gaze.

"James, bring tea at once," said Mrs. Capella.

The barrister accepted this partial surrender. He looked out over the
park.

"What lovely weather!" Brett exclaimed. "How delightful it must be at the
sea-side just now! Really, I am greatly tempted to run up to Whitby for a
few days. Have you ever been there, Mrs. Capella? Or you, Miss Layton? No!
Well, let me recommend the north-east coast of Yorkshire as a cure for all
ills. Do you know that, within the next fortnight, you can, if energetic
enough, see from the cliffs at Whitby the sun rise and set in the sea? It
is the one place in England where such a sight is possible. And the breeze
there! When it blows from the north, it comes straight from the Polar Sea.
There is no land intervening. Naples--evil-smelling, dirty Naples! Pah!
Who but a lunatic would prefer Naples to Whitby in July!"

Margaret was now incensed, Helen surprised, and even slightly amused.

Brett rattled on, demanding and receiving occasional curt replies. The tea
came.

Whatever the failings of Beechcroft might be, they had not reached the
kitchen. Delightful little rolls of thin bread and butter, sandwiches of
cucumber and _paté de foie gras_, tempting morsels of pastry, home-made
jam, and crisp biscuits showed that the housekeeper had unconsciously
adopted Brett's view of her mistress's needs.

Margaret, hardly knowing what she did, toyed at first with these
delicacies, until she yielded to the demands of her stimulated appetite.
Helen and Brett were unfeignedly hungry, and when Brett rose to ring for
more cucumber sandwiches, they all laughed.

"The first time I met you," said Margaret, whose cheeks began to exhibit a
faint trace of colour, "I told you that you could read a woman's heart. I
did not know you were also qualified to act as her physician."

"If the first part of my treatment is deemed successful, then I hope you
will adopt the second. I am quite in earnest concerning Whitby, or Cromer,
if you do not care to go far north."

"But, Mr. Brett, how can I possibly leave Beechcroft now?"

"Did Mr. Capella consult you when he went to Naples? Are you not mistress
here? Take my advice. Give the majority of your servants a holiday. Close
your house, or, better still, have every room dismantled on the pretence
of a thorough renovation. Leave it to paperhangers, plasterers, and
caretakers. The rector may be persuaded to allow Miss Layton to come with
you to London, where you should visit your dressmaker, for you can now
dispense with mourning. When your husband returns from Naples, let him
rage to the top of his bent. By that time I may be able to spare Mr. Hume
to look after both of you for a week or so. Permit your husband to join
you when he humbly seeks permission--not before. Believe me, Mrs. Capella,
if you have strength of will to adopt my programme in its entirety, the
trip to Naples may have results wholly unexpected by the runaway."

"Really, Margaret, Mr. Brett's advice seems to me to be very sensible. It
happens, too, that my father needs a change of air, and I think we could
both persuade him to come with us to the coast."

Helen, like all well regulated young Englishwomen, quickly took a
reasonable view of the problem. Already Capella's heroics and his wife's
lamentations began to appear ridiculous.

Margaret looked wistfully at both of them.

"You do not understand why my husband has gone to Naples," she said
slowly, seemingly revolving something in her mind.

"I think I can guess his motive," said the barrister.

"Tell me your explanation of the riddle," she answered lightly, though a
shadow of fear crossed her eyes.

"Soon after your marriage he imagined that he discovered certain facts
connected with your family--possibly relative to your brother's
death--which served to estrange him from you. Whatever they may be,
whether existent or fanciful, you are in no way responsible. He has gone
to Naples to obtain proofs of his suspicions, or knowledge. He will come
back to terrorise you, perhaps to seek revenge for imaginary wrongs.
Therefore, I say, do not meet him half-way by sitting here, blanched and
fearful, until it pleases him to return. Compel him to seek you. Let him
find you at least outwardly happy and contented, careless of his neglect,
and more pleased than otherwise by his absence. Tell him to try Algiers in
August and Calcutta in September."

Margaret's eyes were widely distended. Her mobile features expressed both
astonishment and anxiety. She covered her face with her hands, in an
attitude of deep perplexity.

They knew she was wrestling with the impulse to take them wholly into
confidence.

At last she spoke:

"I cannot tell you," she said, "how comforting your words are. If you, a
stranger, can estimate the truth so nearly, why should I torture myself
because my husband is outrageously unjust? I will follow your counsel, Mr.
Brett. If possible, Nellie and I will leave here to-morrow. Perhaps Mrs.
Eastham may be able to come with us to town. Will you order my carriage? A
drive will do me good. Come with Nellie and me, and stay here to dinner.
For to-day we may dispense with ceremony."

She left the room, walking with a firm and confident step.

Brett turned to Miss Layton.

"Capella is in for trouble," he said, with a laugh. "He will be forced to
make love to his wife a second time."




CHAPTER XIV

MARGARET SPEAKS OUT


During the drive the presence of servants rendered conversation impossible
on the one topic that engrossed their thoughts.

The barrister, therefore, had an opportunity to display the other side of
his engaging personality, his singular knowledge of the world, his
acquaintance with the latest developments in literature and the arts, and
so much of London's _vie intime_ as was suited to the ears of polite
society.

Once he amused the ladies greatly by a trivial instance of his faculty for
deducing a definite fact from seemingly inadequate signs.

He was sitting with his back to the horses. They passed a field in which
some people were working. Neither of the women paid attention to the
scene. Brett, from mere force of habit, took in all details.

A little farther on he said: "Are we approaching a village?"

"Yes," answered Miss Layton, "a small place named Needham."

"Then it will not surprise me if, during the next two minutes, we meet a
horse and cart with a load of potatoes. The driver is a young man in his
shirt sleeves. Sitting by his side is a brown-eyed maid in a poke bonnet.
Probably his left arm follows the line of her apron string."

His hearers could not help being surprised by this prediction. Helen
leaned over the side and looked ahead.

"You are wrong this time, Mr. Brett," she laughed merrily. "The only
vehicle between us and a turn in the road is a dog-cart coming this way."

"That merely shows the necessity of carefully choosing one's words. I
should have said 'overtake,' not 'meet.'"

The carriage sped swiftly along. Helen craned her head to catch the first
glimpse of the yet hidden stretch of road beyond the turning.

"Good gracious!" she cried suddenly.

Even Margaret was stimulated to curiosity. She bent over the opposite
side.

"What an extraordinary thing!" she exclaimed.

Brett sat unmoved, anything in front being, of course, quite invisible to
him. On the box the coachman nudged the footman, as if to say:

"Did you ever! Well, s'elp me!"

For, in the next few strides, the horses had to be pulled to one side to
avoid a cart laden with potatoes, driven by a coatless youth who had one
arm thrown gracefully around the waist of a girl in a huge bonnet.

Nellie turned and stared at them in most unladylike manner, much to their
discomfiture.

"I do declare," she cried, "the girl has brown eyes! Mr. Brett, do tell us
how you did it."

"I will," he replied gaily. "Those labourers in a field half a mile away
were digging potatoes. Among the women sorters was a girl who was gazing
anxiously in this direction, and who resumed work in a very bad temper
when another woman spoke to her in a chaffing way. The gate was left open,
and there were fresh wheel-tracks in this direction. The men were all
coatless, so I argued a young man driving and a girl by his side, hence
the annoyance of the watcher in the field, owing particularly to the
position of his arm. The presence on the road of several potatoes, with
the earth still damp on them, added certainty to my convictions. It is
very easy, you see."

"Yes, but how about the colour of the girl's eyes?"

"That was hazardous, to an extent. But five out of every six women in this
county have brown eyes."

"Well, you may think it easy; to me it is marvellous."

"It is positively startling," said Margaret seriously; and if the
barrister indulged in a fresh series of deductions he remained silent on
the topic.

He tried to lead the conversation to Naples, but was foiled by Mrs.
Capella's positive disinclination to discuss Italy on any pretext, and
Miss Layton's natural desire not to embarrass her friend.

Indeed, so little headway did he make, so fully was Margaret's mind taken
up with the new departure he had suggested, that when the carriage stopped
at the rectory to drop Helen--who wished to tell her father about the
dinner and to change her costume--he was strongly tempted to wriggle out
of the engagement.

Inclination pulled him to his quiet sitting-room in the County Hotel;
impulse bade him remain and make the most of the meagre opportunities
offered by the drift of conversation.

"I hope," said Helen, at parting, "that I may persuade you to come here
and dine with my father some evening when Mrs. Capella and I are in town.
If you take any interest in old coins he will entertain you for hours."

"Then I depend on you to bring an invitation to the Hall this evening. I
expect to be in Stowmarket next week."

"Are you leaving to-morrow?" inquired Mrs. Capella.

"I think so."

"Would you care to walk to the house with me now?"

"I will be delighted."

So the carriage was sent off, and the two followed on foot. Brett thought
that impulse had led him aright.

Once past the lodge gates, Margaret looked at him suddenly, with a quick,
searching glance. Hume was not in error when he spoke of her "Continental
tricks of manner."

"You wonder," she said, "why I do not trust you fully? You know that I am
keeping something back from you? You imagine that you can guess a good
deal of what I am endeavouring to hide?"

"To all those questions, I may generally answer 'Yes.'"

"Of course. You observe the small things of life. The larger events are
built from them. Well, I can be candid with you. My husband believes that
I not only deceived him in regard to my marriage, but he is, or was, very
jealous of me."

She paused, apparently unable to frame her words satisfactorily.

"Having said so much," put in the barrister gently, "you might be more
specific."

His cool, even voice reassured her.

"I hardly know how best to express myself," she cried. "Question me. I
will reply so far as I am able."

"Thank you. You have told me that you first met Mr. Capella on New Year's
Eve two years ago, at Covent Garden?"

"That is so."

"Had you ever heard of him before?"

"Never. He was brought to my party by an Italian friend."

"Did the acquaintance ripen rapidly?"

"Yes. We found that our tastes were identical in many respects. I did not
know of my brother's death until the 2nd of January. No one in Beechcroft
had my address, and my solicitor's office was closed on the holiday. Mr.
Capella called on me, by request, the day after the ball, and already I
became aware of his admiration. Italians are quick to fall in love."

"And afterwards?"

"When poor Alan's murder appeared in the press, Giovanni was among the
first to write me a sympathetic letter. Later on we met several times in
London. I did not come to reside in the Hall until all legal formalities
were settled. A year passed. I went to Naples. He came from his estate in
Calabria, and we renewed our friendship. You do not know, perhaps, that he
is a count in his own country, but we decided not to use the title here."

"Then Mr. Capella is not a poor man?"

"By no means. He is far from rich as we understand the word. He is worth,
I believe, £1,500 a-year. Why do you ask? Had you the impression that he
married me for my money?"

"There might well be other reasons," thought Brett, glancing at the
beautiful and stately woman by his side. But it was no moment for idle
compliments.

"Such things have been done," he said drily.

"Then disabuse your mind of the idea. He is a very proud man. His estates
are involved, and in our first few days of happiness we did indeed discuss
the means of freeing them, whilst our marriage contract stipulates that in
the event of either of us predeceasing the other, and there being no
children, the survivor inherits. But all at once a cloud came between us,
and Giovanni has curtly declined any assistance by me in discharging his
family debt."

Brett could not help remembering Capella's passionate declaration to
Helen, but Margaret's words read a new meaning into it. Possibly the
Italian was only making a forlorn hope attack on a country maiden's
natural desire to shine amidst her friends. Well, time would tell.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Capella's outburst of confidence was valuable.

"A cloud!" he said. "What sort of a cloud?"

"Giovanni suddenly discovered that his father and mine were deadly
enemies. It was a cruel whim of Fate that brought us together. Poor
fellow! He was very fond of his father, and it seems that a legacy of
revenge was bequeathed to him against an Englishman named Beechcroft. I
remembered, too late, that he once asked me how our house came to be so
named, and I explained its English meaning to him. I joked about it, and
said the place should rightly be called Yewcroft. During our honeymoon at
Naples he learnt that my father, for some reason, had travelled over a
large part of Italy in an assumed name--"

"How did he learn this?" broke in Brett.

"I cannot tell you. The affair happened like a flash of lightning. We had
been to Capri one afternoon, and I was tired. I went to my room to rest
for a couple of hours, fell asleep, and awoke to find Giovanni staring at
me in the most terrifying manner. There was a fierce scene. We are both
hot-tempered, and when he accused me of a ridiculous endeavour to hoodwink
him in some indefinable way I became very indignant. We patched up a sort
of truce, but I may honestly say that we have not had a moment's happiness
since."

"But you spoke of jealousy also?"

"That is really too absurd. My cousin Robert--"

"What, the gentleman from the Argentine?"

"Yes; I suppose David told you about him?"

"He did," said the barrister grimly.

"Robert is poor, you may know. He is also very good-looking."

"A family trait," Brett could not avoid saying.

"It has not been an advantage to us," she replied mournfully.

They were standing now opposite the library, almost on the spot where her
brother fell. They turned and strolled back towards the lodge.

"Robert came to see me," she resumed. "He paid a visit in unconventional
manner--waylaid me, in fact, in this very avenue, and asked me to help
him. He declined to meet my husband, and was very bitter about my marriage
to a foreigner. However, I forgave him, for my own heart was sore in me,
and he also had been unfortunate in a different way. We had a long talk,
and I kissed him at parting. I afterwards found that Giovanni had seen us
from his bedroom. He thought Robert was David. I do not think he believed
me, even when I showed him the counterfoil of my cheque-book, and the
amount of a remittance I sent to Robert next day."

"How much was the sum?"

"Five hundred pounds."

"And where did you send it?"

"To the Hotel Victoria."

"In his own name?"

"Certainly."

"Have you ever met him since?"

"Yes, unfortunately. I was in London, driving through Regent Street in a
hansom, when I saw him on the pavement. I stopped the cab, and asked him
to come to luncheon. We have no town house, so I was staying at the
Carlton alone. Yet how stupidly compromising circumstances can
occasionally become! I returned to Beechcroft. I did not mention my
meeting with Robert because, indeed, Giovanni and I were hardly on
speaking terms. One day, in the library, I was sorting a number of
accounts, when I was summoned elsewhere for a few minutes. On top of the
pile was my receipted hotel bill. My husband came in, glanced at the
paper, and saw a charge for a guest. When I returned he asked me whom I
had been entertaining. I told him, and could not help blushing, the affair
being so flagrantly absurd."

"Is that all?"

"I declare to you, Mr. Brett, that you are now as well informed as I am
myself concerning our estrangement."

"There is, I take it, no objection on your part to the inquiry I have
undertaken--the fixing of responsibility for your brother's death, I
mean?"

Margaret was silent for a few seconds before she said, in a low and steady
voice:

"We are a strange race, we Hume-Frazers. Somehow I felt, when I first saw
you and Davie together, that you would be bound up with a crisis in my
life. I dread crises. They have ever been unfortunate for me. I cannot
explain myself further. I know I am approaching an eventful epoch. Well, I
am prepared. Go on with your work, in God's name. I cannot become more
unhappy than I am."




CHAPTER XV

AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR


A clock in the church tower chimed the half-hour.

"We dine at seven," said Mrs. Capella. "Let us return to the house. I told
the housekeeper to prepare a room for you. Would you care to remain for
the night? One of the grooms can bring from Stowmarket any articles you
may need."

Brett declined the invitation, pleading a certain amount of work to be
done before he retired to rest, and his expectation of finding letters or
telegrams at the hotel.

They walked more rapidly up the avenue, and the barrister noted the
graceful ease of Margaret's movements.

"Is it a fact" he asked, "that you suffer from heart disease?"

She laughed, and said, with a certain charming hesitation:

"You are both doctor and lawyer, Mr. Brett. My heart is quite sound. I
have been foolish enough to seek relief from my troubles in morphia. Do
not be alarmed. I am not a morphinée. I promised Nellie yesterday to stop
it, and I am quite certain to succeed."

The dinner passed uneventfully.

As Brett was unable to change his clothes, neither of the ladies, of
course, appeared in elaborate costumes.

Helen wore a simple white muslin dress, with pale blue ribbons. Margaret,
mindful of the barrister's hint concerning her attire, now appeared in
pale grey crêpe de chine, trimmed with cerise panne velvet.

When she entered the drawing-room she almost startled the others, so
strong was the contrast between her present effective garments and the
black raiment she had affected constantly since her return to Beechcroft
after her marriage.

"The reform has commenced," she cried gaily, seeing how they looked at
her. "My maid is in ecstasies about the proposed visit to my dressmaker's.
She insisted on showing me a study for an Ascot frock in the _Queen_."

"Ah, she is a Frenchwoman?" said Brett.

"Yes; and pray what mystery have you elucidated now?"

"Not a mystery, but a sober fact. A Frenchwoman must be in the mode.
Anybody else would have told you to copy yourself. Fashions are a sealed
book to me, but I do claim a certain taste in colour effect, and you have
gratified it."

"And have you nothing nice to say to me, Mr. Brett?" pouted Helen.

"So much that I must remain dumb. I have a vivid recollection of Mr.
Hume's tragic air when he asked me to give you 'his kind regards.'"

"The dear boy! You have not yet told us why you left him in London."

In view of Mrs. Capella's outspokenness concerning her cousin, this was a
poser. Brett fenced with the query, and the announcement of dinner stopped
all personal references. The barrister's eyes wandered round the
dining-room. The shaded candles on the table did not permit much light to
fall on the walls, but such portraits as were visible showed that David
was right when he said the "Hume-Frazers were all alike." They were a
handsome, determined-looking race, strong, dour, inflexible.

The night was beautifully fine. The day seemed loth to die, and the
twilight lingering on the pleasant landscape tempted them outside, after
the butler had handed Brett a box of excellent cigars.

They went through the conservatory into the park, and sauntered over the
springy pastureland, whilst Brett amused the ladies by a carefully edited
account of his visit to the Jiro family.

An hour passed in pleasant chat. Then Miss Layton thought it was time she
went home, and Brett proposed to escort her to the Rectory, subsequently
picking up his conveyance at the inn.

They walked obliquely across the park towards the house, regaining it
through a clump of laurels and the conservatory.

It chanced that for a moment they were silent. Margaret led the way. Helen
followed. Brett came close behind.

When the mistress of Beechcroft Hall stepped on to the turf in front of
the library, a man who was standing under the yews a little way down the
avenue moved forward to accost her.

She uttered a little cry of alarm and retreated quickly.

"Why, Davie," cried Helen, "surely it cannot be you!"

The stranger made no reply, but paused irresolutely. Even in the dim light
Brett needed no second glance to reveal to him the astounding coincidence
that this mysterious prowler was Robert Hume-Frazer.

"Good evening," he said politely. "Do you wish to see your cousin?"

"And who the devil may you be?" was the uncompromising answer.

"A friend of Mrs. Capella's."

"H'm! I'm glad to hear it. I thought you could not be that beastly
Italian."

"You are candour itself; but you have not answered me?"

"About seeing my cousin? No. I will call when she is less engaged."

He turned to go, but Brett caught him by the shoulder.

"Will you come quietly," he said, "or by the scruff of the neck?"

The other man wheeled round again. That he feared no personal violence was
evident. Indeed, it was possible Brett had over-estimated his own strength
in suggesting the alternative.

The Argentine cousin laughed boisterously.

"By the Lord Harry," he cried, "I like your style! I will come in, if only
to have a good look at you."

They approached the two frightened women. Margaret had recognised his
voice, and now advanced with outstretched hand.

"I am glad to see you, Robert," she said in tones that vibrated somewhat.
"Why did you not let me know you were coming?"

"Because I did not know myself until an hour before I left London.
Moreover, you might have wired and told me to stop away, so I sailed
without orders."

The position was awkward. The new-comer had evidently walked from
Stowmarket. He had the appearance of a gentleman, soiled and a trifle
truculent, perhaps, but a man of birth and good breeding.

Helen was gazing at him in sheer wonderment. He was so extremely like David
that, at a distance, it was easy to confuse the one with the other.

Brett, too, examined him curiously. He recalled "Rabbit Jack's"
pronouncement--"either the chap hisself or his dead spit."

But it behoved him to rescue the ladies from an _impasse_.

"When you reached Stowmarket did the stationmaster exhibit any marked
interest in you?" he inquired.

"Well, now, that beats the band," cried Robert. "He looked at me as though
I had seven heads and horns to match. But how did you know that?"

"Merely on account of your marked resemblance to David Hume-Frazer. It
puzzled the stationmaster some time ago. By the way, you appear to like
the shade of the yew trees outside. Do you always approach Beechcroft Hall
in the same way?"

The ex-sailor's bold eyes did not fall before the barrister's penetrating
glance.

"What the deuce has it got to do with you?" he replied fiercely. "Who has
appointed you grand inquisitor to the family, I should like to know?
Margaret, I beg your pardon, but this chap--"

"Is my friend, Mr. Reginald Brett. He is engaged in unravelling the manner
and cause of poor Alan's death. He has my full sanction, Robert, and was
brought here, in the first instance, by David. I hope, therefore, you will
treat him more civilly."

"I will treat him as he treats me. I owe him nothing, at any rate."

They were talking in the ill-fated library, having entered the house
through the centre window. The unbidden guest faced the others, and
although the cloud of suspicion hung heavily upon him, the barrister was
far too shrewd an observer of human nature to attribute his present
defiant attitude to other than its true origin--a feeling of humiliated
pride.

Brett understood that to question him further was to risk a scene--a thing
to be avoided at all costs.

"No doubt," he said, "you wish to speak privately to Mrs. Capella. I was
on the point of escorting Miss Layton to her house. Shall I return and
drive you back to Stowmarket? I will be here in fifteen minutes."

"It would be better than walking," replied Robert wearily, settling into a
chair with the air of a man physically tired and mentally perturbed.

Again there was a dramatic pause. Helen, more alarmed than she wished to
admit, gave Margaret a questioning look, and received a strained but
reassuring smile.

"Then I will go now--" she began, but instantly stopped. Like the others,
she heard the quick trot of a horse, and the sound of rapid wheels
approaching from the lodge.

"Who on earth can thi

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