A Traitor's Wooing
by Headon Hill · English · Gutenberg #33453 · 489,504 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: A Traitor's Wooing
Author: Headon Hill
Release date: August 17, 2010 [eBook #33453]
Most recently updated: December 29, 2015
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TRAITOR'S WOOING ***
Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)
A
TRAITOR'S WOOING
By
HEADON HILL
_Author of "Her Splendid Sin," "The Hidden Victim,"
"A Race with Ruin," etc. etc._
ILLUSTRATED
LONDON
WARD LOCK & CO. LTD
1909
[Illustration: "'Is that all you have to say to me?' asked Violet quietly."
(Page 168)
_A Traitor's Wooing_] [_Frontispiece_]
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
THE AVENGERS.
THE TRIBUNE.--Mr. Headon Hill's new book, "The Avengers," has not a dull
line, and one's pulse is kept on the jig all the time. He deserves the
highest admiration for the consistent way in which he has avoided the
slightest suspicion of probability.
THE LIVERPOOL COURIER.--We can strongly recommend the story. It is one
of the best things Mr. Hill has done.
THE DUNDEE ADVERTISER.--"The Avengers" maintains the highest reputation
of Mr. Headon Hill as a novelist. The story is crowded with incident,
and, unlike many novels of its class, commands the closest interest of
the reader from start to finish.
MILLIONS OF MISCHIEF.
THE GLOBE.--Ingenuity could no further go; and besides its ingenuity the
story can boast of some clever and effective writing.
THE STAGE.--Not even the late Guy Boothby imagined anything more
magnificently preposterous than the motive of Mr. Headon Hill's
"Millions of Mischief."
MORNING LEADER.--Mr. Hill has woven a clever and dramatic plot. He has
seldom put greater finish into his work, and the result is a striking
and vigorous book.
HER SPLENDID SIN.
THE PERTHSHIRE COURIER.--Headon Hill is a master hand at devising and
unravelling mysteries. He always gives us good reading with plenty of
thrilling incident. He has never told an intensely absorbing story with
more dramatic directness than this one. The story is admirably written,
the interest never flagging.
THE NORTHERN WHIG.--Her Splendid Sin stands for sensationalism of a
decidedly striking sort. The novel is written with vigour and is based
on ideas which go to the making of a rattling good story.
THE DUNDEE COURIER.--The reader is hurried breathless from one exciting
situation to another, till in the end the nefarious schemes of a
syndicate of villains are checkmated, and virtue is rewarded. The book
is written in the author's best style.
UNMASKED AT LAST.
THE MORNING LEADER.--Mr. Headon Hill is a past master of thrills and,
like Mr. Holmes, causes us almost to believe that the most innocent
professions are really dangerous.
THE CHRISTIAN WORLD.--The various sensations are very cleverly devised
and Mr. Headon Hill knows how to hold one's attention. The motor car
race, which is the closing episode of a well conceived plot, is full of
sport, from start to finish.
THE LIVERPOOL COURIER.--The Author has never told an intensely absorbing
story with more dramatic directness, and none who once dip into its
pages can lay it down willingly until the last chapter has been read.
A RACE WITH RUIN.
THE MORNING ADVERTISER.--A book by Headon Hill may always be relied on
to provide good reading with plenty of incident. In "A Race with Ruin"
he fully maintains his reputation, and readers will not be disappointed
in their expectation of finding a good, stirring story with an admirable
and well-worked out plot.
THE LEICESTER POST.--It is an admirable sporting story, and should not
only enhance the reputation of its Author, but materially enlarge the
circle of his readers. The plot is deftly planned, and not only soon
arouses interest, but broadens and deepens it until the close.
THE HIDDEN VICTIM.
THE MORNING LEADER.--A fine story of blackmail and plotting. "The Hidden
Victim" abounds in unusual and surprising situations.
THE NORTHERN WHIG.--Mr. Headon Hill handles his chosen topics with great
facility and a commendable degree of craftsmanship. In this novel there
is an amazing series of entanglements.
THE LIVERPOOL COURIER.--It is quite equal to anything the writer has
done. The plot is skilfully devised to carry a weighty load of exciting
episode. The narrative goes forward breathlessly and holds the
attention.
RADFORD SHONE.
THE LEICESTER POST.--Radford Shone is another very welcome volume from
an accomplished pen. The exploits at once rivet attention and hold it
spellbound to the end. Once begun it will be eagerly read right through
to the end.
THE STANDARD.--This novelist has a real genius for the constructional
stories. He knows to a hair's-breadth the best theme to select, and
almost unerringly what details to omit. His power of invention is
remarkable.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I TWO VILLAINS AND THE HEROINE 9
II "A SCREW LOOSE SOMEWHERE" 18
III PRESAGE OF STORM 31
IV NUGENT MOVES A PAWN 42
V UNDER THE SEARCHLIGHT 50
VI THE CRY FROM THE TRAIN 60
VII THE FACE IN THE POOL 71
VIII INTERCEPTED 80
IX THE INQUISITIVE FOREMAN 90
X THE LURE OF LOVE 102
XI THE PEERING EYES 109
XII THE _Cobra's_ SAILING ORDERS 120
XIII FOOL'S PARADISE LOST 128
XIV THE CREAKING STAIR 139
XV A COUNCIL OF THREE 147
XVI BARBED SHAFTS 156
XVII "THE BOOTLACE MAN" 169
XVIII THE TRAP IS SET 178
XIX THE SLEEPING SNAKE 185
XX BLUE LIGHT AND GREEN 195
XXI THE TRAP CLOSES 204
XXII THE SHADOW OF HORROR 213
XXIII IN THE STONE GROTTO 223
XXIV IN THE TOILS 234
XXV THE LAST CHANCE FAILS 243
XXVI ENID IS "MIXED UP" 254
XXVII PURSUIT 263
XXVIII TRAVERS NUGENT PAYS 274
XXIX THE STING OF THE NETTLE 287
XXX AFTERMATH OF STORM 296
A TRAITOR'S WOOING
CHAPTER I
TWO VILLAINS AND THE HEROINE
"Your Highness will find your opportunity now; Miss Maynard is for the
moment alone," Mr. Travers Nugent whispered to his companion.
A guttural "Ah!" was the only answer as the individual addressed left
the speaker's side and made his way through the crush towards a tall
girl who had just dismissed her partner in the last dance. The ball-room
at Brabazon House was almost inconveniently crowded on the occasion of
this, the first great function of the London season, and progress was a
little difficult. A gleam of satisfaction crept into Mr. Nugent's
steadily following eyes when at length the Maharajah stood bowing before
the fair young Englishwoman.
The Indian Prince, a notable figure by reason of the jewelled turban
that crowned his otherwise orthodox European evening dress, gave his arm
to the girl, who greeted him with a pleasant smile of recognition, and
together the pair strolled out through one of the French windows into
the vast tropical winter-garden for which Brabazon House is celebrated.
The dusky face of the Maharajah as it disappeared from view wore an
expression of ecstatic rapture that caused Mr. Nugent's thin lips to
curl in the ghost of a sneer.
"His Highness won't look like that when he comes back," the watcher
muttered under his breath, as he leaned against a pillar and composed
himself to wait. Mr. Travers Nugent spent much of his life in
waiting--with the consolation of knowing that there was generally a big
stake to wait for. He was a well-built man of middle age and height,
wearing a long, fair moustache that at first sight gave him rather a
distinguished air--an impression that was, however, negatived for any
student of character by a hint of shiftiness in the close-set blue eyes.
A bachelor of good family, and of no visible occupation, Travers Nugent
moved easily in the orbit of West End society. He occupied a luxurious
flat in Jermyn Street, and rented besides a pretty cottage in
Devonshire, to which he retired after the fatigues of the season. He had
a host of acquaintances, but very few intimates, and even to these
latter the source of his income was a mystery. He was vaguely supposed
to have inherited a small patrimony from an adventurous uncle who had
died in America, and to whom he sometimes jocularly referred as his
"avuncular oof-bird." As a matter of fact, there was a substratum of
truth in this, to the extent of about a hundred a year, but as Mr.
Nugent usually spent L2,000 in that period some other explanation was
needed.
He could have furnished one readily, had he been so minded. He lived,
and lived well, upon the best asset with which kindly Nature can endow
a man not otherwise provided for--a clever, subtle brain, prompt to
seize every chance that may come to it, and, failing such fortuitous
aid, equally prompt to manufacture the chances for itself. To put it
plainly, Travers Nugent lived upon his wits. A soldier of fortune, he
belonged to the commissioned ranks of the great predatory army which
sacrifices nothing to scruple, to compassion, or to honour. As cruel and
as secret as the grave, he made a very good thing of it, and on its
profits fed several unholy vices which no one knew that he possessed.
For the last three months he had been acting as self-appointed
bear-leader to the arrogant Indian prince who had gone out into the
winter garden with the loveliest of all the budding debutantes of the
year upon his arm. There are many ways in which a not too scrupulous man
of the world can be of use to an Oriental potentate whose civilization
is only skin deep, and Travers Nugent had already established many
claims upon the exalted visitor's gratitude.
His prophecy was quickly verified. Black thunder lowering on his swarthy
brows, the Maharajah of Sindkhote came back through the window into the
ball-room, and he came alone. Another dance was in progress now, but the
Eastern barbarian, under the veneer of Western polish, had broken loose.
Like one demented, yet with some remnants of savage dignity clinging to
him, he strode straight across the floor to where Nugent still leaned
against the pillar. The amused dancers who had to steer clear of his
imperious path forgave much for the priceless jewels in his turban.
"Come away before I kill some one, Nugent," he said in a furious
undertone. "Come round to my rooms at once. I must consult you on a
matter of the utmost importance, in which I need your help."
Travers Nugent's help was always at the disposal of those who were
willing, or could be forced, to pay for it. With the adroit tact for
which he was noted he contrived to get the excited prince out of
Brabazon House without a scene, forbearing to question him till a motor
car had borne them swiftly to the great hotel where the Maharajah was
staying. But as soon as they were alone in the dining-room of the suite
which his patron for the time being rented there escaped him the two
words--
"She refused?"
Bhagwan Singh, Maharajah of Sindkhote, walked unsteadily to the
sideboard and poured out half a tumbler of neat brandy. He drank it at a
gulp, and then turned to his European mentor, restored to the outward
semblance of his customary Oriental calm. A good-looking man with a pale
olive complexion, jet black moustache and features of the full-faced
Eastern type, he was by no means ill-favoured, though in his lazy eyes
there were infinite possibilities of malevolent cruelty.
"Sit down, my dear Nugent, and talk," he said, tossing a gold
cigarette-case across the table. "Yes, she not only refused my offer of
marriage, but laughed at me--treated me, the descendant of a hundred
kings, as a joke. By God! I could have killed her twenty minutes ago,
as she stood smiling disdainfully at me among the palms. But that brandy
has steadied me for a better way. She shall be mine yet, though not as
Maharanee now. I will have my way with her, and then she shall sweep out
the harem."
"That is rather a tall order, Prince," rejoined Nugent, watching the
other narrowly. "You will never accomplish that unless you kidnap her,
and to convey an unwilling maiden from England to India presents, to my
prosaic mind, a good many initial difficulties."
"Difficulties? Yes, but I will give you twenty thousand pounds to help
me to surmount them. And I do not even ask you to devise the scheme for
humbling this proud Englishwoman to the dust. When you told me that
Violet Maynard would laugh me to scorn I did not believe you, but all
the same I, Bhagwan Singh, prepared a plan for meeting the contingency.
It depends, however, on one point. Has the girl a lover already?"
"No; I can reassure you as to that. She has admirers, of course--with
her attractions that goes without saying. But she is perfectly
heart-whole--so far," was Nugent's reply.
"Then success is certain, for I will provide her with a lover," the
Maharajah rejoined, evidently expecting an outburst of surprise at the
apparent paradox.
But his cunning eyes searched Travers Nugent's face in vain for signs of
any such emotions. It was not that astute gentleman's way to show his
inmost feelings, which at the moment were an intense curiosity to learn
what was expected of him in return for the enormous bribe. It was
characteristic of him that it was in his most indifferent manner that he
said:--
"You are altogether too subtle for me, Maharajah, and I cannot think
that you are quite serious. If you have finished poking fun at a jaded
man about town, I think I'll go home to bed."
He half rose, as if to suit the action to the word, and that was the
precise moment when the Hindoo once for all assumed the lead in the
infamous partnership that was to bind them. And Bhagwan Singh gained and
kept that mastery by the simple but efficacious expedient of throwing
off all semblance of the equality on which they had muck-raked London
together. In a blaze of haughty contempt he let his jackal see that he
was understood and appreciated at his proper value.
"You are never jaded when there is plunder in view, and you have no
intention of going from here till you have heard the proposal to which
you will sit still and listen," said Bhagwan Singh, waving him with a
commanding gesture back to his chair. "It comes natural to those of
Royal blood, Mr. Nugent, to estimate truly those who serve them, and I
know that you are a useful but expensive tool, as willing to be bought
as I am to buy you. You have taught me some of your slang. I will act on
the square with you if you will act on the square with me. If I pay you
L20,000, and show you how to do it, will you, without any personal risk
to yourself, aid me in achieving the desire of my heart?"
In a matter of business, and when there were no witnesses, there was
not much pride about Travers Nugent. He tacitly waived his position as
friend of the prince, and became his subordinate by replying:
"I should like to hear your plan before I commit myself, your Highness."
Now the project which the Maharajah of Sindkhote, after further recourse
to the brandy decanter, proceeded to unfold, if put forward by any
ordinary man, would have seemed on the face of it too wildly
preposterous to be entertained for a moment. But Travers Nugent was
aware that his patron's wealth was almost boundless, and that the lavish
expenditure he was prepared to incur would discount most of the
obstacles to the amazing abduction contemplated.
Bhagwan Singh, it transpired, had in his service as commander of his
native body-guard a young Englishman who had been compelled by his
extravagant follies to leave the British regiment in which he had
formerly held a commission. He had incurred such debts in India that he
would have been unable to leave that country even if he had possessed
the price of a passage home, and, being thus stranded and penniless, he
had accepted a mere pittance to drill the semi-barbarous matchlockmen of
Sindkhote.
"He is mine body and soul, and the wretch is nearly desperate with
home-sickness and misery," the Maharajah went on, warming as he saw that
he had gripped Nugent's attention. "There are no Europeans for him to
associate with in Sindkhote, and before his fall he was the most popular
young officer at Simla and Calcutta--a good dancer, a crack shot and a
grand polo player. He is as strong and as handsome as one of the ancient
gods, and all the ladies adored him. I propose to return to India by the
next mail boat, and I shall send him home to England, so that Violet
Maynard may fall in love with him."
"What good is that going to do you?" asked Nugent, though his agile mind
was already grasping the germ of the idea.
"It will be the task of this Leslie Chermside to induce Miss Maynard to
elope with him on a fast steamer, ostensibly his own yacht, which I will
furnish you with the funds to charter," the Maharajah continued. "It
will be for you to select the crew and make all the arrangements, as
well as secretly supervising Chermside's courtship and diplomatically
working old Maynard so as to drive his daughter to consent to elope.
Once on board, the rest will be easy, provided the embarkation is
skilfully managed. She will make all speed round the Cape for Sindkhote,
which is a maritime state, and the thing is done."
"And my twenty thousand will be paid--when?"
"It will be placed to your credit the day Violet Maynard sets foot in my
dominions. In any case, you will at once be supplied with the necessary
money for preliminary expenses."
Nugent rapidly reflected. Win or lose the main stake, there should be
some pretty pickings out of those preliminary expenses, and it ought not
to be difficult in the event of failure so to cover up his own
connection with the dastardly project as to escape unpleasant
consequences for himself. It was a tempting prospect, but there was a
flaw in the scheme from the point of view of one who would have sold his
best friend for a song.
"You are sure of this fellow Chermside?" he said. "He won't play fast
and loose with you, and chuck the whole job as soon as he gets quit of
India and his embarrassments there?"
Bhagwan Singh's sensual lips creased in a cruel smile. "My dear Nugent,"
he said, "Mr. Leslie Chermside will not really be quit of his Indian
debts till he has served my purpose. I shall buy them up, and hold them
over him as a bond of good faith. If he shows signs of kicking over the
traces it will be for you to put on the screw--in your own way. Not that
I anticipate anything of the sort from one who has sunk as low as he
has, and I shall further secure his loyalty by the promise of a small
pension contingent on his success."
Travers Nugent hesitated no longer. "Here is my hand on it," he
exclaimed with an admiration that was not wholly feigned. "It would be
flying in the face of Providence to stand out of a campaign planned on
such masterly lines. Your Highness has supplied the strategy; I will
devise the tactics."
CHAPTER II
"A SCREW LOOSE SOMEWHERE"
A smiling expanse of summer sea; hedges ablaze with wild flowers; the
distant moorland one vast carpet of purple heather; and near at hand,
dotted up and down on either side of a gently sloping coombe, some
scores of pretty houses set in gardens of almost tropical luxuriance.
Towards the lower end of the hill the private residences yielded pride
of place to a little main street of more commercial aspect, which
terminated in an unpretentious esplanade backed by a row of
lodging-houses fronting the beach.
Westward from this spot the red cliffs shelved steadily upward till they
culminated a mile and a half away in the Flagstaff Hill, a bold headland
so called from the coastguard signal station thereon. Eastward of the
esplanade, but hidden from it by a slight eminence, lay the marsh,
formerly a broad estuary through which the river, then navigable for
several miles inland, had emptied into the sea. In these later days the
once broad river's mouth has become a mere stream by the action of a
great storm which many years ago hurled a mighty dam of pebbles across
all but a few yards of the outlet.
But the banks of the older watercourse remain, their steep red sides all
verdure-clad and scored with cavities, hardly to be dignified as caves,
concealed in the trailing undergrowth.
Such was the general configuration of the little town of Ottermouth in
South Devon, for no fault of its own not quite a first-class seaside
resort as yet, but slowly and surely worming its way into the affections
of those who had discovered it. There was no pier, and therefore there
were but few "trippers." But in the curious blend of brand-new brick
villas and old-world houses of "cob" there dwelt men of varying
fortunes, who in their time had helped to make history, and who had
chosen this peaceful spot on the Devon coast as the one in which to end
their strenuous days.
In one house you would have found a grey-headed veteran who rode into
the valley of death at Balaclava; from another there strolled out on to
the cliff front every morning to turn his dimmed eyes seaward one of the
fast dwindling band who defended the Residency at Lucknow. And there
were others of a younger generation, though also with finished careers,
who had had their share in the Empire-building of the last half-century.
There was, too, a sprinkling of rich business men, who only came to
Ottermouth in the summer time to refresh themselves after toil in great
cities.
In such an earthly paradise, where no one but the clergyman and the
doctor ever pretended to do any work, there was naturally a club--as
cosy and well-managed a rendezvous of the kind as could be found in many
more populous resorts. The permanent members were all proud of it, and
in their jealousy for its good repute were apt to regard stray visitors
admitted to temporary membership with cold criticism till they had
proved their title to more cordial consideration.
The club was the last building on the seaward side of the main street--a
commanding position whence its windows on one side raked the esplanade,
while those at the rear looked out to sea. About noon on a morning
towards the middle of August three gentlemen were lounging in the
general room, smoking and chatting in desultory fashion over the latest
atrocities in _Punch_.
To them suddenly entered the club steward, who approached a tall,
sun-burnt young man sitting a little apart from the others with the
announcement: "There is some one who would like to see you, sir, at the
door. I asked him into the hall, but he preferred to wait outside."
"Didn't he give his name?"
"No, sir; but I think he's a gentleman who has been staying at the
_Plume Hotel_ for the last week. I've seen him going in and out."
The tall young man reared his flannel-clad limbs from the depths of his
comfortable chair, and went out, a half-stifled expression of annoyance
escaping him. He had no sooner disappeared than one of the two remaining
members, who had been leaning against the mantelpiece, with his back to
the fireless grate, strolled over to one of the French windows
overlooking the esplanade. He was an elderly man, very well groomed as
to his person and clothes, and with a pair of alert, all-devouring eyes
set in an ascetic face. Mr. Vernon Mallory had put in forty years at
the Foreign Office and was now, in honourable retirement, reaping the
reward of much useful work. He was known as a shrewd observer and a keen
judge of character. It was now his pleasure, as it had once been his
business, to know all things about all men.
"Chermside did not appear to be best pleased at the interruption," Mr.
Mallory remarked. "Ah, there he goes, with the disturber of his peace,
towards the marsh. I can understand his annoyance, for the man who
called him out is a most unsavoury-looking person."
The other member, a fresh, clean-shaven youngster of not more than
three-and-twenty, got up and joined his senior at the window.
"Who and what is this Mr. Leslie Chermside, anyhow?" he asked, after a
prolonged stare at the two receding figures. "I rather like the chap,
somehow, and yet there is a sort of shy constraint about him that is not
altogether satisfactory."
"He arrived a month ago, bringing an introduction to our worthy honorary
secretary from Nugent, on the strength of which he became a temporary
member," Mr. Mallory replied, with a slight shrug of his shoulders.
Lieutenant Reginald Beauchamp, at present commanding a "destroyer"
stationed at Plymouth, but spending his leave with his mother, was prone
to merriment at all times and seasons. There was a dryness in the elder
gentleman's tone which caused him to chuckle.
"You were never keen on Travers Nugent, I know," he said. "But you have
not answered my question about Chermside with your customary
enlightenment, Mr. Mallory. I asked who and what he is. My mother tells
me that he has been making strong running with a pretty girl--Miss
Maynard, I think, the name was--whose people have taken the Manor House
for the summer. You see, I only turned up last night for a short respite
from my little tin ship, so I'm all agog for the local gossip."
At that moment the subject of their discussion and the man who had
called for him disappeared from view, having rounded the corner of the
slight eminence. The pair had struck into the footpath which would lead
them along the marsh under the nearer bank of the vanished estuary. Mr.
Mallory turned away from the window with an enigmatic smile for his
young naval friend.
"I cannot tell you what Mr. Chermside is," he said when he had produced
his cigar-case and selected a weed. "But the official Army lists--not
the ones that are quite up to date, mind you--record what he was. There
seems to be an unexplained gulf between the termination of his military
career and his presence in our midst. A hiatus, so to speak, of nearly
two years since he was an officer in the 24th Lancers undoubtedly
exists. His own account of himself is that he has recently come into
money, and that he is playing about here while awaiting the arrival of a
steam yacht on which he means to take an extended cruise. Beyond that,
both my opinion and my scanty information coincide with yours. He
strikes one as unobjectionable but reserved, and he has certainly been
dangling after the daughter of old Maynard, who has rented the Manor
House furnished for the season."
"What is Maynard?" demanded Reggie Beauchamp with persistent interest.
"A millionaire maker of screws in Birmingham."
"Then it would be queer if there was a loose screw somewhere about his
daughter's admirer," Reggie rejoined, and with a boyish laugh for his
own jest he strolled off to the billiard-room in quest of a game.
In the meanwhile Leslie Chermside and his companion had reached the
seclusion of the marshland path, at the same time plunging into a more
private conversation than was advisable on the frequented sea-front. On
their immediate left rose the tree-covered side, almost a miniature
cliff, of the ancient river-bed; to the right of them there stretched to
the opposite bank a quarter of a mile away the osiers and reeds that
carpeted the mud-flats. There was no one to see or hear.
It did not need the presentation of a visiting card with his name on it
to disclose Mr. Levi Levison's nationality. The moment he opened his
mouth to speak he stood revealed as a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and even
before then, for apart from his lisping utterance he had all the bodily
peculiarities of his race. The full red lips, the beaky nose, and the
large conciliatory eyes that seemed to veil so much, could have belonged
to no one but a Jew. His clothes were flashy, but none too clean. In age
he was probably about thirty.
"I don't want to be harsh, but s'help me, Mr. Chermside, I ain't got any
option in the matter," he was saying. "I've bought up your Indian debts
in the ordinary courthe of business, and I can't afford to lose on the
transaction. Here are the papers that you wanted to see. You'll find
they're all ship-shape enough. And you must pardon my remarking that
when you agreed to--er--act for the Maharajah in a certain delicate
matter I suppothe you intended to keep faith with him."
Chermside took the proffered papers, glanced through and returned them.
"Oh, yes; I intended to keep faith right enough," he replied rather
wearily. "And I haven't said that I don't mean to do so, have I?"
"No, you'd hardly be such a juggins as that," Mr. Levison leered,
exasperatingly. "But I've been here a week, Mr. Chermside, and kept my
eyes and ears open. I can find that things from his Highness's point of
view are 'anging fire. What's a poor struggling feller to do? I bought
up your little indiscretions in the Shining East, you see, on the
understanding that his Highness, who sold them to me, would redeem them
at a hundred per cent. advance on what I paid, directly you carried out
his wishes; but that if not I was to put the screw on in the ordinary
courthe of business. It wouldn't be nice for you to be therved with
writs and things--judgment summonses they'd soon blossom into--just when
you're enjoying yourself in a pretty place like this."
Mr. Levison rolled his dark eyes over the picturesque landscape as if he
had no thought but for the beauties of Nature.
Leslie Chermside made no reply, but paced on with downcast gaze.
"You see, I'm a little bit in the know," Levison went on, after a
furtive glance at his tall companion's bronzed face. "Mr. Travers Nugent
came down by the late train last night, and I've had a chat with him
this morning up at that sweet little place of his--'The Hut,' he calls
it. The steamer is lying at Portland, not thirty miles away, only
waiting for you to throw your handkerchief to the girl, which, from what
I've seen, she'll pick up fast enough. And, though expense is no object,
it don't do to keep a crew of fifty toughs in harbour wondering why they
don't start on a cruise that's to end in a pile of dollars for all of
them."
A spasm crossed Chermside's face, and he dug the nails of his right hand
into the palm as though he restrained some emotion with difficulty.
"There was no time limit mentioned in my engagement with the Maharajah,"
he said hoarsely. "Nor did his Highness inform me that he had had my
debts assigned to him. He gave me to understand that he had paid them."
Levison emitted a tantalizing laugh. "That's where the wily Hindoo had
you on toast," he rejoined. "A wise precaution in case you should for
any reason throw him over, as it begins to look as if you meant to. Your
little affair with the lady seems to blow hot and cold, Mr. Chermside,
which is why I'm pressing you a bit. Not that I'm 'ard-'earted by any
means. Take till to-morrow night to think it over, and then, if you can
give me a definite assurance that it will be all right in a week or so,
I'll 'old my 'and."
Leslie Chermside breathed a sigh of relief. "Very well," he said, "by
that time I may have news for you. Where shall we meet? It had better be
somewhere where there is no risk of our being overheard."
The Jew glanced round the lonely landscape. Even at mid-day the marsh
was deserted in favour of the superior attractions of the shore, the
golf links, and the tennis field.
"We couldn't better this," he said. "There'll be a moon up, and there
won't be a soul about at ten o'clock."
"That will suit excellently. I will meet you here at ten o'clock
to-morrow night," replied Chermside. "And now as I am going on to lunch
at the Manor House----"
"You will be glad to get rid of yours truly," Mr. Levison interrupted.
"Righto! Mr. Chermside. I'll go back the way we came, hoping that you
will enjoy a sumptuous meal, and afterwards get a chance to put in some
vicarious courtship. So long."
He turned on his heel, waving a be-ringed hand of insanitary aspect, and
Leslie Chermside strode forward along the grassy footpath. His brows
were knitted in a frown, and from time to time he shook his broad
shoulders as though to free himself from an influence that oppressed the
natural vigour of his strong frame.
He was well aware that he stood at the parting of the ways, with the
disadvantage of not knowing where either of the two roads open to him
would lead, except that they pointed to dishonour and misery. It was
nearly three months now since he had been summoned to the Maharajah's
presence in the tawdry palace at Sindkhote, and had been offered by his
employer a way of escape from the bonds that held him in exile, in a
position little better than that of a tinselled head flunkey--an
appanage of Bhagwan Singh's barbaric splendour.
The task set him had been revolting enough; it had filled him with
loathing for the gross libertine who was his tempter; but, homesick for
England and wretched in the miserable life he was leading, he had in
reckless humour yielded, hating himself while doing so even more than
the sardonic prince who was sending him home to England to commit such
an outrage on an Englishwoman. After all, he had told himself, he didn't
know the girl. Very likely she had brought her fate on herself by
flirting with Bhagwan Singh in London. So he pledged himself to the foul
errand, and sailed by the next mail-boat with a letter of introduction
to Travers Nugent.
On his presenting it, Nugent had apprised him of the progress already
made in the plot, and it was by no means inconsiderable. The Manor House
at Ottermouth being to let furnished for the summer, it had not been
difficult for the Maharajah's astute agent, who had a cottage in the
little resort, to persuade Mr. Montague Maynard to take it. Indeed, the
prospect of having the brilliant Travers Nugent as a neighbour during
his holiday was in itself sufficient inducement to the wealthy screw
manufacturer to fall into the trap. All that remained for the present
was for Chermside to go down and commence operations by laying siege to
Violet Maynard's heart, Nugent promising to follow later, when he had
perfected the arrangements for manning and victualling the swift turbine
steamer he had chartered.
In sullen mood, and with rage in his heart against the cruel fate that
had made a blackguard of him, Chermside had set out on his despicable
mission. And from the very moment he had looked into Violet Maynard's
pure eyes his purpose had begun to weaken, giving place to a greater
horror of himself and the vile thing he had consented to do. If, in the
depths of his misery out yonder, he had considered the matter at all, he
had considered it in the shadowy abstract, as a means of escape from the
hell-upon-earth exile he was enduring. But here in England, and in touch
with the charming personality of his intended victim, the scales were
lifted from his moral vision, and he was left face to face with the
enormity of his contemplated offence.
Yet his honour, if the word could be used in such a connexion, "rooted
in dishonour stood," for he had pledged himself for what he believed to
be valuable consideration to go through with the iniquity. For the first
few days of his stay in Ottermouth he adhered rigidly to his contract.
He presented the letters of introduction with which Travers Nugent had
furnished him, and freely accepted Montague Maynard's lavish
hospitality. He posed as a gallant gentleman, and paid attentions to
Violet which the gossips of the links and the tennis field described as
"marked." And then as suddenly as he had apparently caught fire he
apparently cooled. The spurious, perverted sense of duty which for a
week or two kept him loyal to his tempter was shattered by a stronger
force that would not be denied.
Violet's friendship, frankly given as to an equal properly accredited,
her winsome ways, the careless abandon of a girl who trusted and
evidently liked him, had conquered his heart.
Leslie Chermside was honestly in love with the woman whom he was pledged
to entrap for delivery like a bale of goods to that sinister Oriental
satyr, waiting in the palace at Sindkhote seven thousand miles away for
the fulfilment of his mission. By the irony of fate, his love for the
girl whom he had been hired to destroy was the first true passion of his
life, and by the same strange kink in fortune's chain the first effect
was to cause him to repress all semblance of love.
How could he do otherwise, when by no possibility could the suit of such
a penniless wastrel as himself be crowned with success? And as to
continuing his attentions on behalf of Bhagwan Singh--well, he felt that
he would cheerfully give many years of his life to wipe that vile
episode from the page of his memory. So for the past week he had just
drifted, avoiding any approach to more intimate relations, but loth to
leave altogether the shrine at which it had been balm to his bruised
heart to worship.
And now in some shape the end must come to the bitter-sweet interlude.
The appearance of the Jew Levison on the scene left no room for doubt
that if he refused to proceed with the Maharajah's dirty work, he would
not be allowed to strut in false feathers much longer.
"I can have but one answer for that swine to-morrow night, and then he
will take measures to wreak upon me Bhagwan Singh's revenge," he told
himself, as he quitted the marshland and struck into the road that
presently brought him to the lodge gates of the Manor House.
CHAPTER III
PRESAGE OF STORM
Ottermouth Manor was a place of importance in the county, and was only
let furnished because its noble owner possessed so many other seats in
different parts of the kingdom that for the moment he had no use for it.
It is a practical age, and no one is so highly placed that he cannot
without loss of dignity turn the nimble sixpence. The genial peer who
had recently inherited the Manor, together with most of the ground-rents
of the surrounding district, was no exception to the rule, and he had no
objection to having his great rambling mansion and its appurtenances
"kept up" at some one else's expense.
The consequence was that Mr. Montague Maynard found himself housed for
the summer almost _en prince_. Not that he was unaccustomed to luxury.
Both in his splendid modern villa at Harborne, whence a thousand pound
Mercedes car rushed him daily to his office in Birmingham, and at his
London house in Park Lane, where he spent six weeks in the spring, he
wanted for nothing that money can do for the assuagement of the sordid
side of a commercial magnate's life. But at neither of those palatial
abodes could he enjoy the sense of space, the glamour of feudal
importance, and the pretence at majestic isolation which were included
in the heavy rental he paid for the privilege of occupying Ottermouth
Manor House.
It was approached on one side by a long carriage-drive under an avenue
of ancient elms, and halfway up this Leslie Chermside saw three people
advancing towards him--a rather incongruous trio. No need for him to
look twice at the tall girl in the simple white blouse swinging along
with the graceful vigour of youth a little behind the other two. The
sight of her set his pulses beating, for it was Violet Maynard herself,
and Leslie felt sick with remorse at the glad smile of recognition she
gave him. The remaining pair in this strangely-assorted party consisted
of a diminutive old lady severely dressed in black, and of a
foreign-looking man wearing ragged blue cotton trousers, who slouched
along barefooted, carrying over his shoulder a stick from which
depended several strings of onions.
The old lady appeared to be driving the foreigner before her at the
point of her sunshade, while Violet entered an occasional half-laughing
protest against her proceedings.
Chermside raised his hat as he drew near, and with a torrent of abuse
and a final prod of her sunshade, the owner of the latter abandoned
the pursuit, the two ladies turning to walk back to the house with the
invited guest.
"No wonder you are astonished at Aunt Sarah's behaviour, Mr. Chermside,"
said Violet gaily. "She has been frightening that poor French
onion-seller out of his wits and warning him off the premises for some
reason that I have been unable to prevail on her to disclose."
"I am quite sure that Miss Dymmock would be actuated by no reason but a
good one," Chermside replied politely. "I will wager that she had
received strong provocation, and that the castigation I was privileged
to witness was thoroughly deserved."
The little old lady, who was rapidly regaining her temper, cast a
grateful glance at the speaker. At the commencement of their as yet
short acquaintance she had taken a genuine liking for the handsome young
soldier, and she had the firmest faith in her intuitions. Miss Sarah
Dymmock was a personage to be reckoned with in the Maynard household.
The aunt of Violet's mother, Montague Maynard's late wife, she had
brought the girl up from childhood, and had incidentally governed the
screw manufacturer's establishment with a rod of iron. Having a large
fortune in her own right, and being suspected of a carefully-veiled
kindness, her many eccentricities were forgiven her by those who knew
her best.
"That's right, Mr. Chermside; I like a man who can stick up for an ugly
old woman," she chuckled. "It's a pity a gallant gentleman of your sort
didn't come my way when I was a lass, for I might have been a
great-grandmother, instead of only great-aunt, to an impudent chit of a
girl who has no respect for age--and venerableness. Well, I am
venerable, ain't I?" she added, stopping and stamping her foot at
Violet's merry laugh.
"Oh, yes, dearest Auntie; you are more than that--you are truly
terrible at times," said the girl.
"I mean to be," Miss Dymmock continued austerely, resuming her progress.
"As to my reason for chasing that monkey-faced Frenchy out of the
grounds, I shall say nothing--nothing at all till I have laid the facts
before Mr. Travers Nugent, who is, I believe, to join us at lunch. I
don't like Travers Nugent, mind you. But he is a man of the world, and I
value his opinion as such. Personally, I wouldn't trust him with a
shilling."
This was evidently the old lady's last word on the subject, but the
rather awkward silence that ensued was due chiefly to the manner of her
allusion to Nugent. Violet was rendered uncomfortable by her outspoken
bluntness, because she knew that Leslie Chermside owed his presence
amongst them to the introduction he had brought from the man so openly
disparaged. And Leslie was ill at ease from the immediate prospect of
having to meet one whom he had hitherto regarded as his partner in
infamy, but from whom in his awakened repentance it would be his duty to
dissociate himself at the earliest possible moment.
During the two or three days he had spent in London on his arrival from
India he had neither been repelled nor attracted by the smooth-spoken
gentleman who had taken him in tow. Beyond the brief discussion
necessary to the elaboration of their arrangements Nugent had been far
too wary to indulge in useless harping on the scheme in hand. It was not
his cue to emphasize the heartless villainy of their compact. Indeed, he
dismissed the moral aspect of the affair in a slurred and utterly
mendacious justification, hinting that Violet Maynard had only herself
to thank for having played fast and loose with the Maharajah. He even
suggested that she had been really partial to the handsome Oriental, and
would speedily become reconciled.
The black business being thus by mutual consent relegated to the
background, Nugent had laid himself out to be a pleasant host without
allowing it to be seen that he was making a minute study of the young
man upon whom his own bribe would so largely depend. Leslie had not
thought very much about him, except as one of the figures in what seemed
more like a bad dream than reality.
But now all that was changed, and the personality of Bhagwan Singh's
English wire-puller had for him a sinister significance. He had no doubt
that the Cockney Jew Levison was acting in collusion with the more
cultured scoundrel, and he wondered how the latter would take his
revolt. Not kindly, that was fairly certain; but Leslie could not see
how Nugent could injure him beyond inflicting the cunningly-provided
punishment of financial ruin which he was powerless to resist. He could
not expose the conspiracy without confessing his own part in it, and he
felt that he would cheerfully prefer death to so abasing himself in
Violet's eyes. At present his intention was to bask in the sunshine of
fictitious happiness for one more day and then vanish to South America,
New Zealand--anywhere where a pair of strong arms could provide him with
bread.
The opportunity for revolt was on him sooner than he expected. When they
reached the Manor House Mr. Maynard was at the hall door in the act of
welcoming Nugent, who had arrived in his car, entering the park by the
north lodge. The brilliant man-about-town turned to the ladies with
effusion, receiving a courteous greeting from Violet and a sniff from
Aunt Sarah, who, however, as she passed into the hall deigned to fling
back at him: "You are as full of mischief as a ripe cheese is of
maggots. I am going to take your opinion on a piece of mischief
presently."
Mr. Maynard, a stout, florid man of sixty, gave a great guffaw. "The old
girl always had her knife into you, Nugent," he roared, "but, like all
the rest of 'em, she can't do without you. Maggots in cheese! Lord love
me, what'll she say next."
He turned away to direct the chauffeur to the stable-yard, and Chermside
drew Nugent aside, saying, in a rapid whisper--
"I am not going on with the damned thing!"
Travers Nugent, if he felt surprise, did not show it; nor was there any
annoyance in his gently-murmured question: "You have counted the cost, I
presume? You understand what defection will entail?"
"Oh, yes; that beast Levison has taken care of that," replied Chermside.
"I am to meet him to-morrow night on the marsh at ten o'clock to give
him my final answer. But that was only to secure a day's respite,
and--and take leave of my friends. My mind is quite made up. I shall
withdraw, and let him do his worst."
Again there was no trace of disappointment in Nugent's reception of this
definite retirement. For an instant his right hand caressed his long,
fair moustache, while his cold blue eyes rested meditatively on the
slightly-flushed face of the recalcitrant, but the only note in his
voice was one of unselfish concern as he said----
"I am afraid you will find it very unpleasant, but I suppose that if you
have scruples you are right to act on them."
There was no time for more, for Montague Maynard, having seen to the
bestowal of the car and the chauffeur, came bustling back and conducted
his two guests to the dining-room, where the ladies joined them at the
luncheon table. Chermside managed to secure a seat next Violet, but in
such a small party there was no chance for intimate conversation. On the
whole, he was glad of it, for after to-day--to-morrow at latest--it was
improbable that he would ever see again the girl upon whom he would have
inflicted such deadly wrong. Even now, in the midst of lightest chatter,
she stabbed him over and over again with the frank confidence in her
trusting eyes. He felt with a shudder that if he had pursued his fell
mission to the end it would have been crowned with a horrible success.
Already his punishment had begun; he loved the woman whom he would have
destroyed, and in a few hours he must say good-bye to her for ever. Yes,
he was thankful that Aunt Sarah's quips and cranks, and Travers Nugent's
scintillating small-talk rattled like musketry fire to the exclusion of
all else.
Once or twice he stole a look at the man to whom Bhagwan Singh had
accredited him--natty in his grey summer tweeds, perfectly
self-possessed and brimming over with tit-bits of harmless society
gossip. Nugent's eyes were not prone to laughter, but his lips were, and
they were laughing almost unceasingly now. Leslie Chermside wondered if
this was altogether natural, or was it a pose designed to cover deeper
emotions? The man had undoubtedly received a set-back in the last
half-hour in the displacement of a programme that must have cost him
much intricate scheming. The chartering of that steamer lying at
Portland ready for her prey, and the engagement of a crew sufficiently
unscrupulous, could have been no light work. How was it, then, that
Nugent could accept with complacency the overthrow of the plan? Had he
still hopes of success by some devious method at present carefully
concealed?
Leslie comforted himself that that could not be. The steamer might rot
at her moorings and the crew mutiny before any signal for her movement
should come from him, and he would take good care before he vanished
into the unknown that the same game should not be played with some pawn
less susceptible than himself. He would anonymously warn Mr. Maynard of
the Maharajah's design to kidnap his daughter, doing it in such a way
that he should not be identified with the first abortive attempt. He
clung desperately to the hope that he might remain a congenial memory to
the unsuspecting girl at his side.
As soon as the butler and his satellites had served coffee and retired,
Miss Sarah Dymmock straightened herself in her chair, and, with a
bird-like glance and a shake of her grey curls, prodded her finger at
Nugent.
"Now, you high priest of intrigue, I will consult your judgment," was
her startling commencement. "The question is, was I right or wrong to
eject from the grounds of this mansion an unwashed foreigner whom I
caught using violent and insulting language to the French maid whose
services I share with my great-niece?"
"When I came upon the scene it was Auntie who was using violent and
insulting language to the unwashed foreigner," Violet remarked demurely.
"Silence, minx," the old lady retorted. "I found the maid, Louise Aubin,
in tears in the shrubbery walk, with the creature bullying and
threatening her. She explained that the fellow, who is one of the
onion-sellers from a French lugger recently arrived at Exmouth full of
similar vermin, knew her at her home in Normandy, and was, in fact, her
lover there. On discovering her here by accident while disposing of his
wares, he wanted to renew the old relations, and has been hanging about
for the last month with that intention. He has found out that during the
last week Louise has been coquetting with some summer visitor staying in
the town. She did not mention this second Lothario's name, but I
gathered that he was putting up at the _Plume Hotel_."
"Ah!" said Nugent, who had been listening politely, "that does not tell
us much, for I was informed this morning that the _Plume_ is full to
overflowing just now. Well, dear lady, I cannot presume to criticise
your drastic measures. It seems to me to depend on Mademoiselle Aubin's
inclinations. If she prefers the Frenchman, you have acted somewhat
severely; if the gentleman at the _Plume_ is the favoured swain, you
have played the good mistress in protecting your servant from a
nuisance."
Aunt Sarah, quaintly valuing the opinion of the man she disliked, nodded
reflectively. "I'll find out which she likes best," she said. "It won't
be the foreigner, I think, she being a girl of sense. She'd be as silly
as Violet would have been if she'd accepted that blackamoor who had the
impudence to propose to her at the beginning of the London season."
Montague Maynard let off one of his mighty bellows. "That was cheek if
you like," he said, "though my little girl very soon sent him off with a
flea in his ear. But you are forgetting, Aunt Sarah, that the boot was
on the other leg in the case that made the Maharajah of Sindkhote the
laughing-stock of London. The onion-seller is a compatriot of his
inamorata. By the way, Nugent--you were pretty thick with his
Highness--how did he take his knock-out?"
Travers Nugent looked across the table at Leslie Chermside through the
wealth of hot-house flowers, pondering his reply with greater
deliberation than it seemed to demand.
"As you know," he said at length, "the Maharajah left England within a
few days of the ball at Brabazon House, where I understood that his
discomfiture took place. I saw very little of him in the interval. Like
all men worthy of the name who have set out to win a great prize and
have met with failure, he was not one to admit defeat."
"Hear that, Vi?" said the screw manufacturer, rising. "His Highness
means to come back and have another try next season. There'll be a
chance for you to be the pride of the harem yet, if you choose to think
better of it."
Violet's laugh, as she also rose to join in the general movement, rang
out merrily, proving how lightly she had treated Bhagwan's wooing--how
little she realized the smouldering danger that lurked for her in the
steamer at Portland, lying ready to snatch her from peaceful Ottermouth
to undreamed of horrors in the unspeakable East.
"I hope he won't trouble," she said lightly. "I let him down easy last
time, but if it occurs again I shall have to be rude."
Leslie Chermside, following out of the dining-room, felt a prescience of
coming peril for the beautiful speaker, and it was apart and separate
from the plot in which he was to have taken such an ignoble part. From
himself he knew that she would never have aught but loving fealty, and,
so far as in him lay, protection. But in Nugent's words, uttered with
such seeming carelessness, yet so well considered, there had, he could
have sworn, sounded a note of menace, intended to be subtly conveyed to
himself, that defeat was not admitted.
And the pity of it was that in a day or two at most he must fly from
Ottermouth, unless he remained to be branded by that dirty little Jew as
an impostor. In either case, his championship would be a sorry thing to
stand between Violet Maynard and the fresh devices he feared were
already hatching in Travers Nugent's cunning brain.
CHAPTER IV
NUGENT MOVES A PAWN
Mr. Nugent did not seek further private speech with Leslie Chermside
while he remained at the Manor House. He acted in every respect as
though he accepted the young man's renunciation as final, and after a
saunter through the exquisite gardens with his host, asked that his car
might be brought round. Having only reached Ottermouth the previous
evening, he explained there were many things that claimed his attention
at home.
"All right, dear boy," said Montague Maynard in his loud jolly voice.
"Run out and see us whenever you can tear yourself away from golf and
the delights of the Ottermouth Club. Old Sarah Dymmock hates you like
the devil, but she don't bite so long as people don't want to hurt my
little Violet, and she's a good sportswoman. And you're too good a
sportsman yourself to mind an old woman's whims."
"I thoroughly understand Miss Dymmock, and I have the most profound
regard for her," responded Nugent cordially. "There is never likely to
be any serious matter at issue between us, but if there were I should
be very sorry to have to cross swords with her."
Yet his thin lips curled in a dreamy smile as he was whirled away in the
serviceable little Darracq which had been presented to him by a titled
idiot in gratitude for an introduction that had eventually ruined him.
"I hardly think that Miss Sarah Dymmock, useful as she has proved this
morning, will loom on the horizon of present interests," he murmured
softly to himself when he had directed his chauffeur to drive him home.
During the six minutes which it took to cover the distance from the
Manor House into the town Nugent closed his eyes and leaned back,
indifferent to the autumn glories of the fair Devon landscape. The
fern-girt lanes, with occasional peeps of the blue sea and the red point
at the mouth of the river, the golden harvest-fields, the lush orchards
with their drooping loads of cider apples, the old cob-built
farmsteads--all these flashed past him unheeded as he sat with folded
arms wrapped in deepest reverie.
But when the car took the steep dip at the eastern end of the parade,
and the road, first on one side only and then on both, became flanked
with houses, he braced himself for social amenities. People were about
in plenty, mostly known to him, and many of them eager for recognition
by the cool-looking gentleman in the car who had the reputation of being
a personage in London society. Nearly all the ladies of Ottermouth, at
any rate, were proud of their Travers Nugent, and rejoiced greatly that
for a month or two in the year he deigned to sojourn in their midst. And
the dowdier the ladies and the less he had to do with them the prouder
were they.
But the dowdy ladies at Ottermouth were an insignificant minority.
Certainly not to be classed in that category was the winsome maiden,
dressed in immaculate white flannel and carrying a tennis racquet, to
whom Nugent raised his soft grey hat as the car struck into the main
street. A vision of dainty, if very youthful, loveliness, Enid Mallory
was smart from the crown of her well-poised little head to the soles of
her natty shoes. She returned Nugent's bow with a trace of brusqueness,
and immediately turned and made a grimace at the clean-shaven young
fellow who was with her. Nugent, though not intending to do so, saw the
grimace out of the tail of his eye, and frowned slightly when the car
had passed.
"Old Mallory's daughter," he murmured. "She has done her hair up and
lengthened her dress since last year, and she appears to have been
infected with the paternal antipathy. I must not forget that Mr. Vincent
Mallory, formerly of the Foreign Office, is a resident in this Arcadian
spot. He might, under certain circumstances, become a factor to be
reckoned with."
Aloud he said to his chauffeur, who had come down with the car some days
in advance: "Dixon, do you know who that young gentleman was who was
walking with Miss Mallory?"
"It's Mr. Beauchamp, sir," was the reply. "Son of Mrs. Beauchamp, who
lives in Lorne Villas. He's a lieutenant in the Navy, I've heard,
commanding a torpedo-boat at Plymouth. He is at home on leave just at
present, sir."
"Thank you, Dixon; you are always a mine of information," Nugent said
with the suave urbanity he always used towards inferiors.
But under his breath he added, "A curious combination, and one that may
be worth watching."
The house in which Mr. Travers Nugent enjoyed his summer leisure lay on
the hill beyond the western limits of the town. Though he spoke of it as
a cottage, it was really a luxurious bachelor abode, standing in a
secluded garden and removed from the main road to Exmouth by a
serpentine drive, not, of course, to be compared with the noble avenue
at the Manor House, but long enough to separate the owner of The Hut
from the madding crowd by quite a respectable distance.
Descending at his front door, Mr. Nugent passed through a porch
smothered in purple clematis into a small, square hall, deliciously cool
and shaded. Here he was met by a quiet-looking man of middle age, with a
face like a sphinx, and wearing a black cutaway coat. Nugent was not
one to make his confidential servant the receptacle of more secrets than
he could help, but he knew that if he chose to do so this
personification of reticence and discretion would never betray them.
"Well, Sinnett?" he said. They neither of them wasted words at any time
in their communications.
"I heard the car, sir," was the reply. "I know you like to be prepared
for visitors. Mr. Levison is waiting to see you in the smoke-room."
"Good! I will see him directly," said Nugent, glancing at the closed
door of the room indicated. Then, dropping his voice, he added, "Come
out into the porch a moment."
The effect of this manoeuvre was to place them beyond all chance of
being overheard from the smoking-room, though the conversation was
nevertheless continued with all precaution.
"I want you to go into Exmouth at once," said Nugent. "Dixon will take
you in the car. At the quay you will find one of those French luggers
which come over laden with onions to be peddled about the country by the
crew. Inquire for a man named Pierre Legros, and tell him that I will
buy as many strings of onions as he can carry if he will bring them over
during the evening."
"Very good, sir," replied the manservant, who had absorbed the lucid but
inexplicable instructions without the quiver of an eyelash. "Does Legros
know you, sir?"
"He has never heard of me, nor I of him till this morning. I imagine,
though, that the prospect of a good sale will bring him here. If,
however, he demurs at all you might say that I have news to his
advantage in connection with the Manor House. You understand, of course,
Sinnett, that I am not really in need of onions?"
"You want the man, sir?"
"I must have the man."
With which the master of The Hut turned away in the certainty that he
would get what he wanted, and, recrossing the hall, entered his
cosy-smoking-room.
"Ah, Levison! Sorry to have kept you waiting," was his urbanely offhand
greeting to the little Jew who rose obsequiously from a big easy-chair.
"I have been lunching at the Manor House, and as I met Mr. Chermside
there I am able to forestall your report. He tells me that he intends to
kick over the traces."
"Prethithely what he told me, Mr. Nugent, sir," replied the Hebrew. "And
I reckon he means it. Though I'm only in the pawnbroking line, and an
assistant at that, I flatter mythelf I played the blooming financier up
to the nines, but he was as stubborn as Balaam's talking moke. He ain't
given me his final answer, yet, though. I'm to meet him to-morrow night
for that."
"So he said, and you must keep the appointment and do your level best to
make him change his mind," Nugent went on. "You are a clever little
chap, and I shouldn't be surprised if you succeeded. Mr. Leslie
Chermside is suffering from a qualm of conscience which may be only
transitory if you paint the alternative in sufficiently lurid colours."
"S'elp me, sir, but you can rely on me to rub it in thick."
"I am sure of that, though, by the way, I heard to-day that you have not
been without your relaxations here while acting as my spy-glass,"
rejoined Nugent with an amused laugh. "How about the pretty lady's-maid
at the Manor House, eh?"
Mr. Levison gazed at the speaker in blind consternation, but, finding
nothing but playful tolerance in his employer's manner, he admitted the
soft impeachment--boastfully, as is the way of such vulgar
lady-killers.
"You're a fair caution, sir," he sniggered. "It licks me how you got
hold of that; but there! you get hold of most things. The time was
'anging a bit 'eavy, you see, sir, and she's a dressy little bit of
French goods. No 'arm done, I spothe, as it didn't interfere with
business?"
"No harm whatever, Levison," said Nugent kindly. "I only mentioned it to
show you what a paternal interest I take in your doings. Those who serve
me well have no cause to be dissatisfied with the rewards they earn, and
you will be no exception to the rule. Only don't relax your efforts with
Chermside. Keep the appointment with him to-morrow night, and turn the
screw till he squirms. Maybe he'll see reason yet."
And having fortified his visitor with whisky and a good cigar, Mr.
Nugent put a graceful finish to his hospitality by conducting him to a
side gate that led from the garden on to the moor.
"You came in this way?" he said carelessly as he opened the gate. "That
is right. I want you to be particular about that whenever you have
occasion to see me. It might complicate matters if your connection with
me got to be talked of in this gossipy place."
"Dull little 'ole, I call it," commented Mr. Levison as he prepared to
cross the purple heather. "Couldn't have stuck it for a week, I don't
think, if it hadn't have been for Louise Aubin. A gent must amuse
himself, and one misses the music-'alls. Well, so long, sir; I'll let
Chermside 'ave it 'ot to-morrow night."
Nugent watched the mean-looking figure go stumbling along the moorland
track on a detour towards the town, and then, the acid smile on his
lips in curious contrast with the thoughtful frown on his brows, he
turned back into the house. He was the most abstemious of men, but on
reaching his den he poured out a fairly strong brandy and soda and drank
it at a draught.
"It's a big stake for reclaiming the rebel," he muttered. "But I think
it will work out right if Sinnett's mission pans out properly."
But presently, when the laconic manservant returned with his report that
Pierre Legros would deliver several strings of onions during the
evening, there was nothing in the manner of the master to denote whether
he was satisfied or not.
"Thank you, Sinnett. Take care that he does not go away without my
seeing him," was all that Mr. Travers Nugent vouchsafed in reply.
CHAPTER V
UNDER THE SEARCHLIGHT
"So that is Nugent, the London chap who lives at The Hut?" said
Lieutenant Beauchamp, when the car had flashed past. "Why do you
accentuate the information by making such disgustingly ugly faces,
Pussy?"
Miss Enid Mallory tossed her dainty head in mock indignation. "You are
perfectly horrid, Mr. Beauchamp," she snapped at him. "As if I could
make an ugly face if I tried ever so. And I won't have you calling me
Pussy--now that I'm grown up."
"Grown up, is it, the little spitfire?" grinned the young sailor. "And I
am to be Mr. Beauchamp, am I? Well, we used to be Reggie and Pussy when
I was at home last, and, whatever you may do, the force of habit will be
too strong for me. Even if I try to conquer it, which I shan't."
"That was three years ago, before you went to China," retorted Enid with
dignity.
"What's the difference? We're neither of us very old yet, though I'm not
sure I didn't like you better with a pigtail down your back than with
all that crinkly bulge round your ears. However, to be serious, and
stick to our muttons--what's the matter with Nugent?"
"Father doesn't like him," replied Enid, still inclined to ride the high
horse.
"I know that Mr. Mallory doesn't like him, but why not?" persisted
Reggie. "I have the greatest regard for your father's judgment in all
things. He is invariably right in his conclusions, but he is so jolly
reticent as to how he arrives at them. I saw in the club this morning,
when Nugent's name cropped up, that he didn't cotton to the johnny, but
he refused to be drawn on the subject."
Enid was mollified at last, as she always was by any tribute to the
acumen of the parent whom she adored.
"I don't know his reason," she said, as they turned to retrace their
steps along the parade. "But father, till he retired, was at the Foreign
Office, as you are aware, and in the course of his duties he learned all
sorts of secrets and came in contact with all sorts of shady men. I
fancy his antipathy dates back to something that occurred during his
official career, but you might as well try to open an oyster with your
fingers as induce him to divulge what he knows."
Reggie Beauchamp nodded, really more interested in the sprightly hoyden
he was talking to than in the subject of their conversation. "I see," he
said. "If that's the way you figure it out, I shall be aware of Mr.
Travers Nugent when I meet him at the club. If he's a dark horse he
might rook me at billiards or bridge. I am obliged to you for this
warning, Miss Mallory. You have probably saved an unsophisticated
sailor from premature ruin and a suicide's grave."
Enid glanced up at him, her eyes dancing with mischief. "Bother Mr.
Nugent!" she exclaimed. "Now that you have addressed me with proper
respect, you may call me Pussy again if you wish--till you misbehave
again."
So for the next half-hour they reverted to earlier nomenclature, and
forgot to play at quarrelling as they wandered up and down by the summer
sea. And when at length they parted, Enid to go home to pour out tea for
her blind mother, and Reggie to enter the club, they lightly made an
appointment which was to have its grim bearing on the tale that has yet
to be told.
"Look here, Miss Mallory," said the Lieutenant, with feigned solemnity.
"I have to go into Exeter to-morrow to try on some new uniforms, and
to-night I must stay at home and help the mater entertain a wretched
curate whom she has invited to dinner. But I shall be at large to-morrow
evening. What about a prowl along the shore or up the marsh? We might
renew hostilities, and get some sort of a notion which of us is really
right in the matter of our Christian names. I may change my mind, and
come to the conclusion that you are, after all."
"Oh, may you, indeed, Reggie?" replied the girl, and with a roguish
laugh she ran away without saying whether or no she would meet him. But
he was familiar with his former playmate's impish ways, and it was in
sublime confidence that the appointment would be kept that he loitered
about on the seafront on the evening of the following day.
Sure enough, a little after nine, when the sunset glow still lingered in
the western sky, Miss Enid's white-clad figure was seen threading its
way through the loungers on the parade. It was a beautiful evening, and
the junior section of residents and visitors were about in plenty. Young
men and maidens, hatless and in evening dress, strolled up and down the
asphalte side-walk between the coastguard station and the club, for
the most part chattering of the handicaps in the forthcoming tennis
tournament, while some few exceptions, too busy making eyes at each
other for such frivolity, worshipped at the love-god's shrine. Such
public worship, however, has ever been considered bad form at
Ottermouth, except among septuagenarians and the rosy-cheeked couples
who on Sundays "walk out" together in the country lanes.
Perhaps it was because of this unwritten law of the place that Reggie
Beauchamp and Enid Mallory, having duly greeted each other with flippant
discourtesy, but having the germ of quite another sentiment in their
irresponsible hearts, intuitively turned their steps to the further end
of the parade, and came to a halt at the spot where the struggle between
the feeble efforts of the urban council and the giant forces of nature
ceased. In front lay the bank of shingle across the former river's
mouth; to the left stretched the sedge-covered, dyke-sected bed of the
old estuary.
"Shall we go back to the parade or take a turn up the marsh?" asked
Reggie. And then, without waiting for a reply, he added, "By Jingo! Look
out to sea. There is a cruiser--the _Terrible_, I think, or one of her
class."
Enid followed the direction of his pointing finger, and in the
fast-fading twilight saw the great four-funnelled monster steaming
slowly about two miles out at sea. Even as they looked, the big warship
became little more than a huge blurred shape, barely discernible in the
darkness that was swiftly blotting out land and sea.
"Well, she won't bite, I suppose," said the girl carelessly.
"No, but she might bark," laughed the Lieutenant. "I expect she's out
for night practice with her heavy guns--with blank charges, of course."
The young people quickly lost interest in the ship, and, turning aside,
struck into the path traversed by Leslie Chermside and Levison on the
morning of the preceding day. It was raised above the level of the
mud-flats which skirted it on the right; on the other side rose the
umbrageous bank of the old water-course, increasing the shadows in which
they walked.
Presently Enid's hand stole under her companion's arm, and they glided
naturally into the frank comradeship which had prevailed between them
long before the mutual banter which they had lately affected, and which
was probably due to a desire to conceal the first stirrings of something
stronger than a boy-and-girl attachment. They were both of the age when
young folk are supremely susceptible, but have a self-conscious dread of
being thought so. Out here on the marsh, in the kindly mantle of a
moonless summer night, they could enjoy the pleasure of propinquity
without fear of being laughed at.
"Let's sit down here for a bit while I smoke a cigarette," said Reggie,
when they had gone half a mile along the marsh. "It is the old ambush,
as we called it, where we used to picnic when I was a middy and you were
a kid."
He ran down the side of the raised path into a little glade formed by
some dwarf oaks at the base of the miniature cliff, and Enid followed,
seating herself on the low-growing branch of one of the trees. It was
quite dark now--so dark that though they were very close to the path
they had quitted, they could not be seen from it. Even in daylight they
would have been invisible behind their leafy screen.
"I suppose you executed that manoeuvre because you heard the footsteps
behind us," said Enid in a whisper.
"Footsteps? I didn't hear any," replied Reggie.
"Hush! Don't speak. You can hear them now."
The sound of hurrying feet was distinctly audible now from the path, and
a moment later a man--the heavy tread left no doubt that it was a
man--went by. He was almost running, and they could hear his quick
breathing, but it was impossible to tell whether he was tall or short,
young or old, rich or poor, in the inky blackness that had swallowed up
the marsh.
"A telegraph boy taking a short cut to the Manor House," suggested Enid
when the steps had died away.
"Too late for that--the office closed two hours ago," replied Reggie
Beauchamp carelessly. "More likely some poacher who has been setting
snares for rabbits, and thought he heard a keeper behind him. The
Ottermouth fishermen used to be precious handy with a bit of copper wire
and a bootlace."
The brief interruption passed from their minds, and they had been
chattering for about ten minutes when once again the silence of the
marsh was broken by the sound of advancing steps. This time the wayfarer
came along in more leisurely fashion, and in this case also it was
possible to guess from the heavy footfall that the passer by was a man.
Perhaps a minute elapsed, and then, just as the young people were
becoming absorbed in each other again, there came from further along the
marsh--that is to say, from the direction to which both the successive
pedestrians had been proceeding--a sudden sharp cry, ending in a
long-drawn wail.
"What on earth was that?" exclaimed Enid, jumping down from her bough.
"Goodness knows," laughed the careless sailor. "Either a bereaved cow or
a curlew suffering from nightmare. Sit down again, Pussy; it was nothing
to worry about."
"It struck me as being distinctly human," said Enid doubtfully, but she
swung herself back into the tree, willing to be convinced that there was
nothing wrong, rather than terminate a _tete-a-tete_ that was rapidly
gliding into a flirtation. Another pleasant quarter of an hour slipped
by, and then at the beats of a distant clock in the town striking
half-past ten she dropped from her perch.
"I must be getting back, or father will be wondering what has become of
me," she said as she made for the entrance of their lair.
Reggie's detaining hand fell on her arm.
"Half a second," he said. "There is some one coming along the path--one
of those chaps who went by returning, perhaps. Better let him get ahead,
whoever he is, before we break cover. We don't want company on our way
back."
So they waited in the shadows, listening to the oncoming footsteps till
the man who caused them was nearly opposite their hiding-place in the
little glade. His identity was nothing to them; they had no thought but
to enjoy their homeward stroll without having to tread too closely on
the heels of any inconvenient outsider.
And then, suddenly, far out at sea a great shaft of light shot skyward,
and, after steadying itself in a perpendicular gleam, swooped down upon
the marsh, moving to and fro across the broad expanse, prying out its
secret places and showing up each reed and sedge in an electric glare,
that was twice as effective as lightning because it dwelt longer on its
objectives. At first the radiant tongue played on the opposite side of
the marsh, then it flickered on the central wastes, and finally darted
on to the path close to Reggie and Enid just as the man they had heard
advancing passed by.
Unseen themselves in the thicket, they had a clear view of him as he
strode along the path, for, the latter being raised several feet above
their level, his face was silhouetted against the dark sky beyond the
electric beam. Their glimpse was only momentary, because as though
dazzled, he raised his hand to his eyes, and altogether he was not ten
seconds within the range of their vision, but it lasted long enough to
enable Enid to whisper her companion--
"That was Mr. Chermside, the young officer from India who has been
staying down here for the last month. He's supposed to be awfully gone
on Violet Maynard, the daughter of the rich Birmingham man who has taken
the Manor House for the summer."
"Then I expect that is where he was coming from," suggested Reggie. "I
met him in the club yesterday. Your father introduced him. He seemed a
decent sort of chap, but down on his luck I thought."
"You have made two blunders in one statement," was Miss Enid's pert
retort. "He can't have been coming from the Manor House because he
wasn't in evening dress. And he can't be down on his luck because he's
got heaps of money. Why, he's going to start on a cruise round the world
soon in a steam yacht that is fitting out at Portland."
"Sorry I spoke," said Reggie. "Come, he's far enough ahead not to be a
nuisance now; let me give you a hand up on to the path. I suppose that
Mr. Mallory is prejudiced against Chermside, since he's a friend of
Travers Nugent, eh?"
Disdaining the offer of assistance, Enid ran lightly up the slope on to
the path before replying.
[Illustration: "Their glimpse was only momentary, because, as though
dazzled, he raised his hand to his eyes."]
"On the contrary," she said as Reggie joined her, "I can't quite make
father out on the subject of Mr. Leslie Chermside. For once in a way the
dear old man is inconsistent, or so he seems to me. He won't commit
himself to a definite opinion, but I can see that he is deeply
interested in Mr. Nugent's friend, and in the relations existing between
the pair. I think, from signs and portents known only to myself, that
father rather likes Mr. Chermside."
"Lucky for Chermside," Reggie absently mused aloud. "There!" he added
with a quick return to nautical briskness. "Thank goodness that infernal
searchlight has moved off us and found the town at last. I prefer being
at the other end of the beastly thing to having it in one's eyes. There
goes the first gun from the cruiser."
And under cover of the restored darkness arms were clasped again, and
the young heads fell very close together for the rest of the way back to
the town that was now being vigorously bombarded in mimic warfare.
Two miles out at sea the big guns flashed and boomed, and ahead of them
on the marshland path the footsteps of the man they had seen in the rays
of the searchlight were dying away, so quickly had he outpaced the
lingerers. But Lieutenant Beauchamp and Miss Enid Mallory took no heed
of either, little dreaming of the terrible significance that attached to
what they had seen and heard that night.
CHAPTER VI
THE CRY FROM THE TRAIN
"Oh, good morning, Chermside. So you have not, after all, left
Ottermouth yet, as you led me to infer would be the case."
Leslie Chermside looked up from his newspaper to meet the steady gaze of
Travers Nugent, who had just entered the reading room at the club. It
was before the hour when the morning frequenters were wont to assemble,
and for the moment they had the apartment to themselves.
"No," said Leslie shortly. "I have changed my mind, and shall stay on
for a while."
Nugent carefully closed the door and came and stood with his back to the
mantelpiece looking down at his late accomplice. "Does that mean that
you have returned to your allegiance?" he asked softly.
"Certainly not," came Leslie's flash of indignation.
"Ah! then I presume that you found Levison amenable to reason, or, at
least, that you persuaded him to grant you a reprieve when you kept your
appointment with him last night?" said Nugent. Though he spoke with a
great assumption of carelessness, applying a light to his cigarette the
while, his eyes never left the younger man's face for an instant,
seeming to burn with a snake-like glitter.
Under this keen scrutiny Leslie reddened, and his reply came haltingly
at first, as though he picked his words with deliberation. "I asked no
favours of Levison. He--he can do his worst for all I care." And then,
moved by a sudden impulse, the ex-Lancer added hotly: "See here, Mr.
Nugent. My association with you, which I deeply regret, has not been an
honourable one. It is not my province to blame you, seeing how culpable
I have been myself, but the subject is distasteful to me, and at least I
have the right to ask that you will not again refer to the disgraceful
affair that brought us together. I shall hope shortly to obtain
employment which will enable me to repay the money advanced by the
Maharajah for my passage home, and, so far as I am concerned, that will
be an end of the business. I do not consider that I am legally or
morally bound to recognize the debts which his Highness gave me to
understand he had paid voluntarily. As the bribe with which he tempted
me was only a sham, I owe him no allegiance whatever."
Nugent listened with upraised brows to the angry outbreak, the flicker
of a frosty smile playing about his lips. But if he had meditated a
rejoinder he checked it. His quick ears had caught the click of the hall
door, and the hum of voices in the ante-room. He merely shrugged his
shoulders, and was ready with a genial greeting for the members who
trooped in. They were three in number--Mr. Montague Maynard, who had
motored in from the Manor House; Mr. Vernon Mallory, whose pale,
ascetic face reflected nothing of the interest inspired by finding
Nugent and Chermside, obviously to his shrewd vision, concluding a
heated discussion; and, lastly, but by no means least in his own
estimation, General Kruse, formerly of the Indian Staff Corps.
The last-mentioned was somewhat unkindly behind his back called "the
widow's Kruse," the nickname being founded on an erroneous rumour that
he was pursuing with matrimonial intentions the wealthy relict of a
London tradesman, who had settled in the neighbourhood. There was a
still more unkind version of the origin of the nickname, and one in
which there was, unfortunately, just a spice of truth--that he was
"always full." He was a big, burly man, with a rubicund complexion and a
voice like a thunderstorm.
The three gentlemen had chanced to meet on the doorstep of the club, and
the General had already commenced to impart to the other two an item of
news which he had picked up on the way from his house. He now began it
all over again for the benefit of the larger audience.
"Most extraordinary thing," he bellowed in his foghorn tones. "As I was
just telling these fellows, Nugent, I looked in at the _Plume Hotel_ as
I came through the town, and they're in a rare pucker there. A chap
staying at the hotel went out last night after dinner, saying he was
going for a walk, and he hasn't come back."
"Bolted to save paying his bill, I suppose," suggested Nugent, stealing
a glance at Leslie Chermside, who, however, was invisible behind his
newspaper. "It is not an unprecedented occurrence at a seaside resort
in the summer season, is it?"
But General Kruse with great gusto proceeded to demolish any such
commonplace theory. "It wasn't that," he roared. "The chap--Levison his
name was--had paid his charges pretty near up to the hilt. It is the
custom to render bills weekly, and as he had been at the _Plume_ a week
yesterday, his account was presented to him. He paid it like a shot.
There is only his last night's dinner owing for, and he has left luggage
that would square that twenty times over."
"I expect he will turn up before the day is over," said Nugent, with the
air of becoming bored with all this fuss about a stranger. And, as if to
put an end to the General's prosing, he turned to Montague Maynard.
"When I was lunching with you the other day, Miss Violet consulted me
about a picnic tea she was thinking of giving," he said. "Your daughter
was good enough to want my advice as to a good camping-ground, and I
told her I would take time to consider. Will you tell her from me that I
should recommend that grassy patch on the marsh, half-way between the
beach and the Manor House? It is sheltered from the sun at four o'clock
in the afternoon, and that means everything at this time of year."
"Thanks very much; I'll tell Vi; she's sending out short invitations for
to-morrow," replied Mr. Maynard, wondering why, in making a
communication that concerned him alone of those present in the room, the
speaker should have been looking at some one else. For, after claiming
the screw manufacturer's attention, Nugent allowed his eyes to wander
to Leslie Chermside, who was still hidden by the newspaper.
Mr. Vernon Mallory, of whom it had once been remarked that he noticed
everything while appearing to notice nothing, happened to choose this
moment for addressing a trivial but direct question to the diligent
reader, calling him by his name, and leaving him no alternative but for
an equally direct answer. Leslie laid aside the paper and replied
courteously, but in doing so disclosed a twitching mouth, and a face
from which every drop of red blood had fled, leaving it ashen grey.
Mr. Mallory did not pursue the subject of his interrogation further,
but, turning to General Kruse, started a fresh and congenial topic by
suggesting that that thirsty old warrior would be the better for a
whisky and soda. The invitation being promptly accepted, Mr. Mallory,
who eschewed spiritual indulgence in the morning, ordered a cigar for
himself, and plunged into a discussion of the delinquencies of the urban
district council, in which Travers Nugent and Mr. Maynard were presently
included.
Under cover of these amenities Leslie Chermside rose and, followed by
two pairs of observant eyes, left the club. Avoiding the crowded parade,
he crossed the pebbly beach to an upturned and discarded boat, and
flinging himself down in the shade of it, abandoned himself to his
thoughts. Gradually the colour came back to his cheeks, and the agonized
expression which Mr. Mallory had surprised yielded to one of dogged
determination.
"The prospect of the picnic at that spot is simply horrible, but after
all it is a mere detail, and I must go through with it," he murmured
presently. "The fact remains that, within limits, I am now free to stay
here and thwart the new scheme which I am convinced that Nugent is
hatching. If I could have but one glimpse at the cards he holds."
For an hour Leslie lay in the shadow of the boat, vainly striving to
penetrate the veil which he felt sure Nugent had thrown over his
designs. It was futile to formulate plans for combating them till he had
discovered what the designs were. That the _Cobra_, the big turbine
yacht that had been chartered, would still be retained as the principal
feature in the programme was probable, since Nugent would naturally be
reluctant to waste the expense already incurred, and, except on a vessel
controlled by the Maharajah's emissaries, the abduction of Violet
Maynard to India would be practically impossible. But how, without the
co-operation which he had withdrawn, Nugent could hope to convey an
unwilling passenger on board the steamer Leslie could not surmise. He
could only wait and watch, in the full knowledge that his former
colleague and present antagonist was a man of infinite resource, and
endowed with an inborn cunning which it would be folly to despise.
One thing was certain, he told himself, as he rose and strolled back to
his lodgings on the main street--day and night he must keep vigil for
the appearance of the _Cobra_ off the coast, and he must also cultivate
close relations with Violet, so as to learn of anything that might
indicate the ruse by which it was intended to inveigle her on board.
To sustain the pretence that he had recently inherited a fortune, and
had means which would justify the possession of a large steam yacht, he
had established himself, by the advice and introduction of Travers
Nugent, at the best and most expensive rooms in the place. Here he shut
himself up for the remainder of that day, refraining from going to the
club or to the tennis field, and brooding over the resolves and
apprehensions which unfitted him, as he knew, for the society of his
fellow-men.
By the last post he received an informal note from Violet, inviting him
to a picnic tea on the following day. The party was to assemble at the
Manor at four o'clock, afterwards making its way on foot to the spot
selected, which was within easy reach of the house. Leslie shuddered as
he read the concluding words, but having braced himself to sit down and
pen an acceptance, he went out in the dusk and posted it.
The next day was favoured with ideal weather for an _al fresco_
entertainment, and when the guests assembled at the appointed hour it
was at once evident that Violet's picnic tea had been hailed as a
popular function. Every one who had been asked put in an appearance, to
the number of about a hundred. Hired conveyances deposited a mixed
assortment of residents and season visitors from Ottermouth; a few
old-fashioned barouches brought representatives of such of the
neighbouring county families as had deigned to recognize the Birmingham
magnate; while motor cars in plenty accounted for many of the arrivals.
Among the latter was Mr. Travers Nugent, well-groomed and debonair in
his grey suit, and wearing an orchid in his button-hole from one of his
own glasshouses at The Hut. On descending from his car he exchanged
his motor-cap for a feather-weight Panama, and smilingly confronted the
group at the main entrance. Mr. Mallory, who had arrived earlier, took
particular notice of that smile, which lasted only just so long as it
was wanted for the purpose of responding to the welcome of his host and
hostesses. As soon as he had shaken hands with Violet and Miss Sarah
Dymmock and Mr. Maynard, Nugent effaced himself unobtrusively among the
guests, and Mr. Mallory's observant eyes following him perceived that
the smile had given place to a look of preoccupation.
This in turn was chased away by a sudden start and a gleam of
satisfaction when, among the last arrivals, Leslie Chermside was seen
making his way on foot up the drive. Thence onward Mr. Travers Nugent's
air of self-absorption left him; turning to those of his acquaintances
nearest him he laid himself out to amuse and interest.
"Now, what does that portend?" the keen old diplomatist muttered under
his breath. "It was almost as though Nugent had been afraid that
Chermside was not coming, and that he was gratified when at length he
appeared. I wonder what is the bond, if bond it is, between the young
soldier with the mysterious blank in his life and the clever gentleman
with so many irons in the fire that he ought to have burned his fingers
long ago. There is something in the wind, but is the youngster from
India a dupe or confederate? I would give a good deal to know."
At the word from jovial Montague Maynard the now completed party set out
for the picnic ground, a chorus of approval going up at the announcement
of the spot selected. Even on a hot summer day the laziest could not
object, for, once outside the Manor demesne, a quarter of an hour's
saunter through the delightful scenery at the head of the marsh brought
them to the little strip of pasture land reclaimed from the swamps,
where the tea-tables had been set out in the shade of a group of elms.
Cavillers might have complained that the railway embankment skirting the
place on one side marred the aesthetic harmony of the whole, but if
there were any such they remained discreetly silent.
The snowy damask of the tables laden with dainties and surrounded by a
bevy of smart maidservants from the Manor made an inviting picture on
the strip of verdure, and Montague Maynard's guests renewed their
acclamations. Reggie Beauchamp, who had, of course, annexed Enid Mallory
as his partner for the afternoon, expressed the opinion that it was
"simply ripping."
"And, by Jove!" he added of malice aforethought, "look at that girl
bossing the other maids. She seems to be in charge of the show. She is
ripping too. Just the style of beauty I admire."
Enid cocked a sly eye at him, and catching the gleam of mischief refused
to be drawn. "Yes," she said, following his gaze to the graceful
brunette in black silk who was directing operations at the tables,
conspicuous by the absence of apron and cap-streamers, "that is Louise
Aubin, Violet Maynard's maid. She is certainly pretty, but she looks as
if she had a temper. I shouldn't dare to find fault with her if she
belonged to me."
"A bit of a spitfire, perhaps," assented the Lieutenant, finding that
his harmless shaft had missed its mark. "Might give you beans with the
brush, eh, if you slanged her for pulling out your hair by the roots?"
Miss Mallory sniffed contemptuously at the implied familiarity with the
sacred rites of the dressing-table, and she might have expressed herself
strongly on the subject had not their attention been distracted by the
approach of a train along the embankment above them. It was beginning to
shut off steam for the stop at Ottermouth Station, a mile further on,
and the people in the carriages were plainly distinguishable by the
picnic party.
Just as the train was sweeping past a cry from one of the third-class
compartments drew all eyes that way. Looking up, the picnickers saw a
man leaning from the window and frantically gesticulating--or, rather,
vehemently pointing at some object on the marsh below. To those on the
lower ground there was nothing visible to cause his agitation.
"What was that lunatic up to, and what was he howling about?" asked
Reggie as the train disappeared round a curve.
"It sounded like 'the face of a fool,' so far as I could make out," Enid
laughed.
"I don't think it was that," said Violet Maynard, who, with Leslie and
Mr. Mallory in attendance, had come up behind them. "It struck me that
the excited passenger's cry was more like 'the face in the pool.'"
"That was it, I expect," said Reggie lightly. "He must have seen the
reflection of his own in one of those puddles of tidal water. That was
the Ottermouth section of the London corridor express, which has a
luncheon car attached. The Johnny had probably been indulging too freely
in the conveniences of modern travel."
Mr. Mallory said nothing. He was inwardly asking himself why Leslie
Chermside, who, though obviously forcing himself to do so under intense
nervous strain, had been pleasantly chatting all the way from the Manor
House, should have suddenly turned pale, fiercely biting his underlip
with strong white teeth.
CHAPTER VII
THE FACE IN THE POOL
Discussion as to the exact words of the cry from the train was cut short
by a general adjournment to the tables, where for the next half-hour the
guests did justice to their host's lavish hospitality. Mountains of
sun-kissed peaches from the warm walls of the Manor gardens, gallons of
fruit-salad and cakes in bewildering variety disappeared as by magic.
The little green oasis at the brink of the marshes rang with laughter,
presently blended with the strains of a small but select string band
from London, hidden in a secluded nook behind the sheltering elms.
But if the episode of the excited passenger was generally forgotten it
only remained in abeyance so far at least as the memory of one of Mr.
Maynard's guests was concerned. It was not necessary for a man of Mr.
Vernon Mallory's age to plead an excuse for an early desertion of the
"aids to indigestion," as he called them, and he lighted a cigar and
went off for a solitary stroll. Travers Nugent paused for a moment in
his entertainment of a cluster of ladies to send a thoughtful glance
after the tall, spare figure of the retired civil servant, and a curious
gleam flitted over his inscrutable features. It could not have been
wholly caused by dissatisfaction, for he resumed his amusing persiflage
with enhanced sparkle.
Mr. Mallory's sauntering steps took him to the side of the reclaimed
ground nearest to the railway line immediately under the embankment. To
the casual observer his movements might have seemed somewhat erratic,
and based only on a desire to get away from the chatter of the
tea-tables and enjoy his cigar in peace. To any one really interested in
his sudden detachment, however, it would have become apparent that there
was system, carefully cloaked, perhaps, but none the less thorough, in
every step he took.
The place where, by Travers Nugent's advice, the picnic camp had been
pitched lay some two hundred yards beyond the little glade at the side
of the raised marshland path where Reggie Beauchamp and Enid Mallory had
rested on the occasion of their prowl in the dark two evenings ago.
Here, for the purpose of raising the railway to the proper level, the
bank of the old river bed had been destroyed for a short distance, and
instead of the miniature red cliffs, with their leafy screen of brambles
and dwarf oaks, the marsh was skirted by the ugly side of the
embankment. This break in the beauties of nature caused by the
exigencies of engineering was but a score or two of yards in length, and
it was while the train had been in view on this short section that the
third-class passenger had played such strange antics.
At the foot of the embankment the ground was swampy, nowhere yielding
firm foothold, and here and there deepening into pools formed by the
brackish water that had drained in from the tidal dykes at the other
side of the path. For the most part the pools were surrounded and
studded with sedges, which concealed them from passers-by.
It was among these offshoots of the marsh that, at the risk of getting
bogged in the quagmires, Mr. Mallory pottered about by himself. Poking
and prying everywhere, he, however, devoted most attention to the pools
in the ground nearest the fence at the base of the embankment, which
were furthest removed, and therefore less visible, from the path. Ten
minutes must have been spent in this apparently unprofitable employment
when he suddenly straightened himself, and, regaining the firmer ground,
made his way slowly back to the gay gathering under the trees.
Many of the people had left the vicinity of the tables and were
promenading the grassy strip while listening to the band. Montague
Maynard, assiduous in his care for his guests, was a difficult man to
catch, but Mr. Mallory managed to pin him at last as he was leaving one
group to join another. Poles apart in temperament and in their life's
experience, the genial manufacturer and the reserved old diplomatist had
nevertheless conceived a sincere regard for each other during the
former's sojourn in the neighbourhood.
"Just a word with you," said Mr Mallory in a low voice, leading his host
aside.
"My dear fellow, certainly; but what is it? You look as though you had
seen a ghost," replied the other.
"You will have to get all these folk away quietly," said Mr. Mallory,
after assuring himself that they were out of earshot. "I have not seen a
ghost, but the next thing to it. There is the dead body of a man in one
of those pools close under the railway fence. Some of these youngsters
will be sure to stumble on it if we remain here. Besides, we can't keep
it to ourselves for a minute. The authorities must be notified at once."
Maynard emitted a low whistle, and his face clouded at a contretemps
which, whatever else it might portend, bade fair to spoil Violet's
party. But his brow cleared again as his eyes rested on the
sombrely-clad diminutive form of Miss Sarah Dymmock, who, with a
vivacity wonderful for her years, was holding court under one of the
trees.
"Old Aunt Sally will manage it," he said. "You're quite right about
clearing 'em off, and I'm deeply indebted to you, Mallory, for not
raising a hullabaloo. It would never do to scare all these butterflies
with a discovery like that. And, as you say, the police must be informed
and a doctor sent for without a moment's delay."
He hurried off, and Mr. Mallory watched from afar the result of the
whispered communication which he made to the aged spinster. It did not
transpire till afterwards how Aunt Sarah contrived it, but after one or
two comprehending nods the old lady turned to the group of which she had
been the centre, and almost at once an electric spark seemed to have
been communicated to the whole festive assembly. In twos and threes and
larger clusters the picnic party began to move off the ground back
towards the Manor House.
Having assured himself that the main object was gained, Mr. Mallory was
free to study the details of the _debacle_ he had caused. Travers
Nugent, without a break in the lively conversation he was holding with a
smart lady of local importance, had apparently accepted unquestionably
the situation as propounded by Aunt Sarah, and was following the
remainder of the flock with sheep-like docility. After Nugent, Mr.
Mallory's eyes sought and found Leslie Chermside, and in his case there
was more food for reflection. Mr. Mallory was at once aware that
Chermside was observing him with equal interest; in fact, their eyes
actually met in a quick thrust and parry of unspoken question on one
side, and something that was curiously akin to defiance on the other.
The ex-Lancer was for the moment standing alone, and Mr. Mallory moved
towards him as if to speak. But he was forestalled by Violet, who came
up and evidently claimed Leslie as escort on the homeward walk, for they
started in the wake of the others before Mr. Mallory, if such had been
his intention, could make any attempt to detain them.
He was more fortunate in the case of Reggie Beauchamp, and he had his
daughter to thank for the capture. Enid, not having outgrown her
schoolgirl devotion to sweets, had lingered round the tables for a final
ice, and the young sailor was still in faithful attendance. Mr. Mallory
pounced on the pair just as they had realized that a general stampede
was in progress, and were preparing to follow.
"Beauchamp, I wish you would remain with Mr. Maynard and myself for a
little," he said. "There is a point on which I want to fortify myself
with your opinion. We can walk back to the Manor afterwards."
Enid began to pout and toss her head, but she knew every phase of her
idolized father's moods, and one glance at the network of creases round
the keen eyes was sufficient to quell her incipient mutiny. The
appearance of those filaments on the stern, ascetic face was a sure
danger-signal that her father was not to be trifled with--that the
active brain was at work on some serious problem. She put her ice-plate
down and, bidding the Lieutenant "make himself generally useful," ran
away to overtake the fast-receding party.
She had hardly departed when Montague Maynard came bustling up, wiping
his brow with a silk handkerchief. He stopped for an instant to order
the wondering servants to pack up the crockery ready for the cart and to
get home as quick as they could, and then he turned to Mr. Mallory,
while Reggie, with instinctive modesty, fell back a pace or two.
"Aunt Sally is a masterpiece; I'll tell you how she did it later," he
said, his eyebrows uplifted inquiringly in the direction of the young
torpedo-boat commander.
"It is all right. He's wanted," interpolated Mr. Mallory shortly.
"Well, then this is what I have done," the screw magnate went on in a
hoarse undertone. "I have sent a footman into the town direct for the
police-sergeant, and another to hurry up one of the local medicos. All
these maids will have skedaddled before either the sergeant or the
doctor can turn up. Now shall we go and have a look at the--the place?
You have no idea who the poor fellow is, I suppose?"
"I am not sure; it is on that point that I want Beauchamp to corroborate
me," was the reply. And, calling Reggie forward, Mr. Mallory told him,
as the three went towards the swamps under the embankment, of the
gruesome discovery he had made, and how he wished to learn if his view
of the dead man's identity coincided with his own.
No more was said till they had picked their way over the firmest
foothold they could find to the pool where the horrible sight awaited
them. The body lay half in and half out of the water, the upturned face
being afloat while the remains below the shoulders were embedded in the
ooze at the brink and nearly concealed by the reeds.
"Miss Maynard was right, you see, as to what the passenger called out
from the train--'the face in the pool,'" said Mr. Mallory. "The lower
limbs were probably invisible up there. Now, Beauchamp; do you recognize
the victim of this tragedy?"
Reggie looked blankly down at the features about which there lingered
none of the majesty of death--mean, commonplace features, which
nevertheless might have had their attraction for the unsophisticated by
reason of a certain sensual fullness of lip and smoothness of the now
marble-white skin. The wide-open eyes, staring skyward, conveyed the
impression of sudden, awful fear.
"No, I can't put a name to him," said the lieutenant after a long
scrutiny which he did not relax. "And yet there is a look about him that
seems vaguely familiar. That, though, is not quite the word for it. I
mean that I believe that I have seen him before."
"What about the French window in the reading room at the Club?"
suggested Mr. Mallory. "Does that help your memory?"
"Of course!" came the quick rejoinder. "It is the chap who called for
Chermside the other morning and walked away with him along the Parade. A
cockney visitor, I should judge by his clothes. And, by Jove, I expect
he's the man who is missing from the _Plume Hotel_. The club steward
knew him by sight as staying there."
A frosty gleam shone in the old diplomatist's eyes. "You are probably
correct in the latter surmise," he said. "But in any case we are in
agreement as to his being Chermside's acquaintance. That was what I
wanted to get from you."
"Not a very reputable acquaintance, I should imagine," said the great
manufacturer, looking thoughtfully down at the bedraggled tawdriness of
the dead man's attire. "If our young friend from India hadn't been
vouched for by Travers Nugent, I should have put this poor creature down
as a dun or a money-lender's tout. His features are distinctly Hebraic.
I wonder how he got himself drowned in that shallow pool. A drop too
much, eh, and a stumble in the dark?"
But Reggie Beauchamp, regardless of his immaculate flannels, had plunged
knee-deep into the mire. His sailor's eye, used to note every detail,
had perceived something that had escaped the two shore-going gentlemen
with sight impaired by years of office work.
"He wasn't drowned!" he exclaimed, and then, moderating his voice so
that it should not reach the maid-servants on the deserted picnic
ground, he added: "His throat has been cut from ear to ear. By Jove----"
But Reggie pulled himself up all short, and had no more to say. He had
remembered the cry, weird and long-drawn, which Enid and he had heard
from their cosy retreat at the marsh-side two nights ago. And he had
remembered something else of even graver and more personal import--a
reminiscence of the prowl in the dusk which he discreetly forbore from
disclosing till he should have had an opportunity for consulting his
fair partner in that escapade.
CHAPTER VIII
INTERCEPTED
Mademoiselle Louise Aubin possessed all the attributes of her Gallic
blood. She was vain of her voluptuous charms, susceptible to flattery,
and prone to blurt out on the least provocation the scanty ideas in her
empty little head as soon as and whenever they entered it. She was
further endowed with a fiery temper and an eager impetuosity, which
often led her to act without thought of consequences.
In the last-named characteristics was to be found the reason why in the
cool of the evening she set out to walk from the Manor House to
Ottermouth in order to lay information with the police against the man
she believed to be the slayer of Levi Levison. For once in a way she had
said nothing of her purpose in the servants' hall, expecting to score a
greater dramatic effect by announcing on her return that she had been
the means of causing the murderer's arrest.
Long before the afternoon party had dispersed the reason for the hurried
adjournment from the marsh back to the house had become known--first
among the guests, from whom there was no longer any necessity to keep
secret what was bound to be noised abroad in an hour or two, and then
among the members of the domestic staff, to whom the news spread like
wildfire.
The earliest intelligence had been quickly supplemented by further
details of description and identification which left no doubt in the
mind of Louise that the dead man was the hero of her three weeks'
flirtation. Equally sure was she that he had come by his death at the
hands of that older lover, the Breton peasant and sailor who had adored
her in her native village long before she had dreamed of becoming _femme
de chambre_ to the daughter of an English millionaire.
Yes, she told herself, assuredly Pierre Legros, the French huckster of
onions, had killed her latest admirer out of insensate jealousy, and he
should suffer for it if there was any power in a woman's tongue. Mr.
Levison had held out glittering prospects, which it was galling to have
destroyed by a persistent boor such as Pierre. Travers Nugent's human
tool had described himself as "a financial agent"--a phrase which to the
French girl's ears sounded the brazen tocsin of untold wealth, and which
she could not know covered as many iniquities as that other
comprehensive term--"a resting actress." Pierre Legros must certainly
pay the penalty for shattering her dreams of riches and luxury, and to
secure that laudable vengeance she started for Ottermouth as soon as she
had dressed her young mistress for dinner.
The path skirting the marshes was her nearest way, but she dared not
pass the spot where the crime had been committed, and where there would
probably be a crowd of sightseers attracted to the scene. She chose the
longer route along the high road, and by the time she had walked a mile
between the leafy hedgerows she began to ask herself questions.
Coming of thrifty French parents, her first was: What was she to gain by
making the disclosure and putting a noose round the neck of Pierre?
Nothing at all, and, on the other hand, there was the chance that she
might lose a situation in which she was extremely comfortable. Miss
Sarah Dymmock, who was her virtual if not nominal mistress, would not be
likely to tolerate lightly the scandal which she would bring upon Mr.
Maynard's establishment. The old lady had shown her teeth the other day,
when she had caught the onion-seller abusing her and had driven him out
of the grounds at the point of her sunshade. Miss Dymmock's
vituperations had not been all for the male delinquent. The rough side
of Aunt Sarah's tongue was like a nutmeg-grater, and she had rasped out
several rugged threats about not keeping a maid who was a bone of
contention to violent "followers."
Again she was conscious, deep down in her fickle heart, of a soft spot
for the faithful compatriot with whom she had scrambled about the rocks
of her native village when he had been a sunburnt fisher-lad and she a
bare-legged hoyden of fifteen. For Levi Levison she had cared not one
jot. If it had not been for the overthrow of the brilliant prospect
which she fondly believed a marriage with him would have implied she
would have borne Pierre Legros no ill-will for hacking his rival to
death. It would indeed have been a delicate compliment.
So it was that as she walked the deserted country road she wavered, and
as she wavered there came into view round a bend some way ahead a
pedestrian sauntering so leisurely that he had more the appearance of
keeping a tryst than of making for a destination. And, though the lady
for whom he was waiting knew it not, Mr. Travers Nugent was, in a sense,
keeping a tryst, and she was no less a personage than the damsel
advancing to meet him--Mademoiselle Louise Aubin herself.
As they met Louise was surprised to see the English gentleman stop and
raise his hat to her. She had never before exchanged a word with him, or
so much as given him a thought, though she knew him by sight as an
occasional caller at the Maynards' house in London, and had since
learned that he had a summer retreat at Ottermouth.
"Pardon me for addressing you without formal introduction," said Nugent
with the deference he would have used to a duchess, "but interest in
this terrible murder must be my excuse. I recognize you, of course, as
Miss Maynard's confidential companion. Can you inform me if any later
intelligence has been received at the Manor House? There was nothing but
vague rumour in the air when I left after the afternoon party."
He had to a nicety struck the correct note for "drawing" Mademoiselle
Louise. The winning smile, the doffed hat would have gone far; but the
promotion from lady's maid to "companion" made her conquest an easy
matter. Yet, coquette as she was, she delayed the intended surrender
which in her folly she regarded as a victory. She promised herself the
pleasure of looking important in this affable gentleman's eyes, but it
was a situation that must be prolonged for proper enjoyment.
"But no, M'sieu," she replied. "It is not at the Manor House that you
should inquire for news. They know nothing there, nor do they greatly
care. How should they be distracted, my so kind friends, by a cr-rime
which is to them but a bagatelle that has disturbed the pleasure of a
summerre day? It is to the police in the town that you should apply."
Nugent's shoulders shrugged with Parisian eloquence. "I have already
pursued inquiries in that quarter, but the police appear to be
completely in the dark, except that they have verified the fact that the
deceased had been staying at the _Plume Hotel_," he said, never
forgetting for an instant to qualify the baldness of his statement with
a respectfully admiring glance.
Mademoiselle's opportunity for dramatic effect had come. It would be far
more interesting to startle this so polite "Milor" than to scarify the
servants' hall at the Manor House, and she could do that later as well.
To the winds with all caution! She must brave Aunt Sarah's wrath if the
old lady took a harsh view of her conduct. The chance to pose was
irresistible and she took the stage there and then.
"M'sieu has been premature," she said, heralding her bomb-shell with a
flash of her fine eyes. "If he returns and puts his questions to the
_sergent-de-ville_ later in the evening he will doubtless be
differently informed. For I, Louise Aubin, am now on my way to indicate
to the authorities the assassin of that poor gentleman."
Travers Nugent's astonishment seemed to overwhelm him. He took a step
back, eyed the girl with something like awe, and touched his lips with
his tongue. "You are not serious?" he gasped. "Do you really mean that
you witnessed the crime?"
The fair Louise lifted her hands in genuine horror. "_Mon Dieu!_ Not so
bad as that," she replied. "But it is all the same as if I had been
there. It is the motive that I go to point out, and the name of the
murderer that I go to give. I who speak to you was the motive, and the
name is Pierre Legros. The _scelerat_ is a seller of onions from a
little French ship that is in the harbour of Exmouth."
And Mademoiselle Aubin proceeded to rattle off the history of her early
courtship by Legros in her native village, and of his inopportune
arrival while she was accepting the attentions of the "financial agent"
from London. She volubly repeated her former lover's heated language to
herself, and described the bloodthirsty threats he had used about his
successful rival. His guilt was as clear as noonday, she avowed--as
clear as if that dreadful thing M'sieu had suggested had been really
true and she had seen the deed with her own eyes.
"Pierre killed Monsieur Levison for love of me," she concluded, with a
gesture worthy of the great Bernhardt.
Nugent's manner and attitude had almost imperceptibly and very gradually
altered during the recital, though the theatrical young Frenchwoman had
been so absorbed in herself that it was only when she had sounded the
final flourish that she noticed the change. The look of surprise--of
almost alarmed surprise--which had come into his face at her first
profession of knowledge was gone, and was now replaced by an expression
of chivalrous sympathy blended with just a trace of dissent.
"I can well believe in the potency of the motive suggested by
Mademoiselle," he said with a grave bow. "Any man might almost have free
pardon for homicide committed for the sake of her favours. But it was
not so in this case. The man whom I have good cause to suspect of having
slain Mr. Levi Levison had never to my knowledge spoken with
mademoiselle either in France or in England. That was why I was so
astonished when you stated that though you had not witnessed the crime,
you were on your way to denounce the criminal."
"Who, then, is it that you suspect, m'sieu?" Louise, all taken aback,
demanded in a sibilant whisper. "After all, Pierre was the friend of my
youth, and it would be sweeter to take vengeance on other than he."
Travers Nugent appeared to be about to speak, but to check himself as an
afterthought. "I do not think that it would be quite in accordance with
a spirit of justice if I mentioned the villain's name, even to you, just
yet," he said, after a pause. "I am morally convinced of his guilt, but
there are one or two points to be cleared up before it can be proved. If
it leaked out that he was under suspicion before the police had been
furnished with enough evidence to arrest him he might evade us
altogether. This much, however, I can promise you, that as soon as I
have linked up the chain you shall be the first to be informed of it.
Surely you are entitled to be, as the adored of _ce pauvre_ Levison. In
the meanwhile, will you favour me with a description of Pierre Legros? I
have a reason for asking which will commend itself to you."
Louise launched into an eloquent word-picture of the onion-seller,
contriving with many deprecatory shrugs to convey her contempt for his
rough appearance and for his humble calling, while taking full credit
for having recognized him at all in her present exalted station. His
fierce eyebrows, his swarthy skin, his blue jean garments were all in
turn catalogued and tossed aside as so much rubbish not worthy of notice
if their owner was not to achieve fame as a murderer.
"A thousand thanks! You are an artist in our language, mademoiselle, and
have absolutely confirmed the innocence of your worthy
fellow-countryman, though I commiserate with you on the reappearance in
your life of one so _gauche_," said Nugent decisively. "You are entitled
to my fullest confidence, but discretion confines me to this at present:
Pierre Legros, so easily recognizable from your vivid description, could
not have committed this crime. It would have been a physical
impossibility. At the hour when the medical men say that Levison must
have met his death Legros was creating a disturbance at the back door of
my house because the cook would not purchase any of his wares. While I
happen to know that the man I suspect had an appointment to meet some
one on the marsh about the same hour."
One glance at the French girl's face as he made the last assertion told
him that he had scored one trick at least in the game he had set out to
play. There was no incredulity in the stare with which she drank in his
statement, nor was there affectation in the sigh which escaped her, due
partly to relief at the established alibi of her former lover, and
partly to disappointment that she was not to achieve fame as the heroine
of a murder mystery.
"I shall hold you to your promise, M'sieu," she simpered at last. "And
as you have rendered my journey into the town unnecessary I will now
return to the Manor House. Accept my best thanks for preventing me from
committing a _betise_ which would have anguished my soul. It would have
desolated me to have accused that poor Pierre under a mistake."
So, after a few courtesies from Nugent, she turned and went back the way
she had come, reflecting that, after all, there was compensation for her
disappointment. Had she not been treated as an equal by a gentleman of
position and fascinating manners? Certainly he was not so young as Levi
Levison, but his eyes had rested on her charms with an admiration that
seemed sincere. Who knew but what he might, after a little coy
manipulation, step into the place in her affections vacated by the
defunct Levi? But then she could not see the contemptuously satisfied
smile on Mr. Nugent's face as he made his way back to the town, the
contempt being for the fickle jade so easily duped, and the
satisfaction for the complete success of the self-denial that had led
him to postpone his dinner-hour and loiter about the country road on
which an unerring instinct had told him that the dupe would be found.
"The treacherous little cat!" he murmured, caressing his long fair
moustache. "Bereft of one lover, and on her way to get number two
hanged, she was not too busy to make eyes at a possible third. With all
your faults, Travers Nugent, you have cause to be thankful that a
weakness for women is not among them."
CHAPTER IX
THE INQUISITIVE FOREMAN
Reggie Beauchamp's mother, the widow of the late Admiral Beauchamp,
R.N., lived in a small detached house prettily situated on the main road
that extended from the High Street westward. A stout,
comfortable-looking lady of some fifty years, she had but one aim in
life--the happiness and advancement of her sailor son. Following on his
two years' absence in the China seas, she was having a glorious time
this eventful summer, with her boy stationed at Plymouth, and able to
run over to the little Devonshire resort as frequently as he could
obtain leave.
As mother and son sat together at breakfast on the morning after the
picnic tea she noticed with maternal solicitude that he seemed somewhat
preoccupied. The town was in a ferment over the discovery of Levison's
body, and though it was not like Reggie to take anything seriously she
could only suppose that he was brooding over the small part he had
played in that episode.
"When does the inquiry into this horrible affair take place, dear?" she
asked, as she handed him his second cup of coffee.
He started as though she had read his thoughts. "At two o'clock this
afternoon, I believe," he replied. And then, knowing from experience
that he could not deceive those loving eyes, he added: "I was just
wondering if I should have to give evidence. I hardly expect to be
called, as it was Mr. Mallory who was the first to actually find the
body."
"Even if you were called it would not be much of an ordeal, I
suppose--little more than a mere formality?" persisted Mrs. Beauchamp,
not wholly reassured by the shade of anxiety in his answer.
"How could it be, mother, when I didn't know the chap from Adam, and was
not present when he was killed," was the reply which was hardly out of
the lieutenant's mouth when he sprang to his feet and made for the door.
"Excuse me," he said, stifling an exclamation of relief, "there is Enid
Mallory coming up the garden path. I have finished breakfast, and I'll
go and see what she wants."
Mrs. Beauchamp smiled indulgently, and straightway forgot the
momentary qualm of uneasiness called up by the half-tone of irritation
in her son's reply to her questions about the inquest. Like the fond
match-making mother she was, she had immediately jumped to the
conclusion that her first diagnosis had been wrong, and that the boy's
wool-gathering was really due to the sprightly maiden whose knock was
even now resounding on the front door. For the Admiral's widow, with
happy memories of her own gallant husband to egg her on, had woven all
sorts of fairy visions round the two young people who were now meeting
on her doorstep. She approved of the lively Enid, was the devoted
friend of her blind mother, and had the most profound respect for Mr.
Vernon Mallory himself.
"It is as it should be; they are outgrowing the old playmate stage, and
are honestly falling in love with each other," the good lady murmured as
she caught a glimpse through the venetians of the pair strolling side by
side across the dewy little lawn.
For, with set purpose, Reggie had not invited Enid into the house, but
had suggested that they should betake themselves to a garden seat under
the branches of a great horse-chestnut that grew in the boundary hedge.
Mrs. Beauchamp, however, would have heard no lover-like phrases could
she have listened to their matter-of-fact conversation.
"Well, have you decided what it is best for us to do?" said the girl, as
soon as they were seated.
"For goodness sake don't screech like that," Reggie reproved her, with
an apprehensive glance at the thick privet hedge that separated his
mother's premises from those next door. "That beast Lowch is probably on
the prowl over there, listening for all he's worth."
"That's where you're wrong," retorted Enid promptly, but, nevertheless,
lowering her voice. "As I came up the street Mr. Lowch was up to his old
game--walking up and down in front of the police station so as to get
spotted for the jury by the sergeant."
Mr. Lazarus Lowch, Mrs. Beauchamp's nearest neighbour, was one of those
freaks of humanity intended by an all-wise Providence to be as a thorn
in the flesh of his fellow-men. His one idea of enjoying life was to
creep about endeavouring to catch people doing wrong. He was known to
carry a stop-watch for timing the speed of motor cars; he spent hours in
"shadowing" small boys whom he hoped to detect stealing apples; he
followed the municipal labourers about to see that they did not scamp
their work; he had a finger in every one's pie, always with the
intention of spoiling it; he was never really happy, but his nearest
approach to the beatific state was when he was doing his level best to
make some one else miserable.
A lean, cadaverous, lantern-jawed creature, more resembling the
galvanized corpse of a dyspeptic ourang-outang than a man, he stalked
the earth full of petty guile and mischief. His origin and reason for
settling in the place were veiled in obscurity, though naturally there
were many legends on the subject. Equally of course, he was not a
favourite locally, and he would have been sorry to have it so. A man
whose hand is raised against everybody neither courts nor expects
popularity.
One of the eccentricities of this peculiar being was a morbid love of
anything pertaining to the realm of the King of Terrors. He doted on
funerals, and was always present at the cemetery when these solemn
functions were being performed. Though somewhat stiff in the joints, he
would run a mile to see a drowned man taken out of the sea; he had been
heard to lament the fact that murderers were not hanged in public
nowadays, and that he was consequently deprived of a spectacle that
would have been as meat and drink to a starving man.
But his great opportunity came whenever it was necessary to hold an
inquest in the bright little resort. On these occasions he would thrust
himself under the notice of the police with a view to getting summoned
on the jury, and, as it saved trouble, his tactics were always
successful. Moreover, since he occupied a superior social position to
the general ruck of jurymen he was invariably chosen foreman, with the
result that he reaped a double joy--that of viewing the corpse and of
making himself disagreeable to every one concerned.
Reggie Beauchamp, therefore, on learning how their uncongenial neighbour
was occupied emitted a chuckle of mingled disgust and amusement.
"Up to his old tricks, is he?" he said. "Well, the coast being clear,
let's consider what course to pursue. If we look at it from the point of
view of what we ought to do there is no question but that we ought to
come forward and say that we were on the marsh that night, and that
shortly after hearing a blood-curdling scream we saw Chermside in the
rays of the searchlight hurrying towards the town."
Enid's face fell. There was no heinous fault in her evening walk with
her old playmate, and she did not in the least mind that coming to
light, but she shrank from the publicity of having to appear as a
witness whose evidence would be almost in the nature of an implied
accusation against a man whom she could not regard for an instant as
having anything to do with the crime. She had played tennis with Leslie
Chermside, and liked him; besides which she had conceived a romantic
affection for beautiful Violet Maynard, and had watched the undeclared
love idyll between the young Indian officer and the millionaire's
daughter with lively interest.
Possibly the cloud on Enid's frank face prompted Reggie to come to a
decision more than half formed already.
"But," he went on without giving her time to reply, "one doesn't in this
wicked world always do what one ought, Pussy."
"I never do," rejoined the girl, omitting to pretend to resent the use
of the once familiar nickname. "I don't see why we should now."
"Nor, on the whole, do I," Reggie relieved her with his assent. "You
see, it might put Chermside into the deuce of a hole, since he was
undoubtedly acquainted with this chap Levison. He will have to own to
that, anyhow, as he called on Levison once or twice at the _Plume_, and
the police are sure to have got hold of that. But, though there's
something mysterious about him, Chermside is a gentleman. I cannot
imagine him carving a little Jew all to pieces simply because of a
difference of opinion. He couldn't have had any real motive for doing
such a horrible thing, since they say at the club that he's simply
rolling in coin. And I don't suppose Levison can have been a rival for
the hand of the peerless Violet."
"That suggestion is nothing short of sacrilege, you rude, crude
sailor-man!" protested Enid. "Well, we are to lie low, then, and keep a
stiff upper lip?"
"That's about the ticket," Reggie agreed, rising and stretching
himself. "I don't see that one is even called upon to mention that we
were on the marsh and heard that scream. Come, let's clear out of this
and go up to the links. A little golf will be a tonic after the gruesome
parliament we have been having."
So they went together, dismissing the unpleasant subject with the
facility of youth, and in happy ignorance that a pair of sunken, hungry
orbs were glaring after them from a tiny flaw in the privet hedge--a
spy-hole which Mr. Lazarus Lowch had specially constructed for the
purpose of keeping an eye on the comings and goings of his neighbour. He
had returned from achieving his purpose of being summoned on the jury in
time to hear the last words spoken by Reggie. The contortion which did
duty with him for a saturnine smile creased his facial muscles.
"So they heard a scream on the marsh and don't mean to say anything
about it, eh? I'll see about that," he muttered, rubbing his scraggy
hands in a transport of malevolent triumph.
The inquest on Levi Levison was held that afternoon in the long room
at the _Plume Hotel_--an apartment in much request for public functions
of all kinds, from Volunteer dinners to sombre occasions like the
present. According to precedent Mr. Lowch was chosen foreman, and,
licking his lips with anticipation, went away with his brother jurors to
gloat over the corpse of the little Hebrew. On their return the coroner
at once announced that an adjournment would be necessary, as it had been
found impossible as yet to trace the relations, if any, of the
deceased. He would, however, take such evidence as was forthcoming that
day, and leave the police to complete their investigations before the
next occasion.
The first witness was the landlord of the _Plume_, who identified the
body as that of a guest who had been stopping at the hotel for a week.
Mr. Levison, he avowed, had been very reticent about the reason of his
coming to Ottermouth, and he seemed to know nobody except a gentleman--a
visitor of the name of Chermside--who had called on him twice during the
week. The deceased had spent a good deal of time out of the hotel,
especially in the evenings.
Leslie Chermside was then called and sworn. In answer to the coroner, he
stated that he knew very little of Levison, but that the latter had made
certain business proposals to him, and had, he believed, come down to
Ottermouth with the express purpose of making them. Levison came from
London, but he did not know his address there.
"Have you any objection to informing the jury of the nature of the
business he had with you?" asked the coroner suavely.
Leslie faced his interrogator squarely, a slight frown of intelligible
annoyance contracting his brows. "I should prefer not to," he made
answer. "The business was of a very private nature."
"You can, perhaps, at least state to the Court what his occupation was?"
"I believe he called himself a financial agent," was the reply.
"One more question I am bound to ask you, Mr. Chermside," pursued the
coroner with a deprecatory wave of his hand: "Were you in the company of
the deceased on Wednesday evening last?"
"Most certainly I was not," said Leslie firmly. "I have not spoken to or
been with Levison since the morning of the previous day, when he called
for me at the club, and we discussed our business during a short walk."
The word had gone round that the bronzed young soldier from India, who
occupied the best-furnished apartments in the town, was very wealthy,
with a steam yacht lying at Portland, and this had been communicated to
the coroner by the police sergeant. Leslie was therefore politely
informed that he might stand down, though it might be necessary to
recall him at the adjournment.
The next witness was Mr. Mallory. In brief snappy sentences he briefly
described how he had found the body in the pool on the marsh while
strolling about after the picnic-tea given by the tenant of the Manor
House. Mr. Mallory's manner was distinctly that of the old official, who
was aware of the fact that he was a merely formal witness. If only the
coroner could have penetrated the thoughts which that sphinxlike
demeanour veiled he would have started his officer hot-foot to fetch
certain witnesses who were not in the room, even as spectators. Travers
Nugent was playing pool at the club, and Mademoiselle Louise Aubin was
attending to her young mistress's wardrobe a couple of miles away at the
Manor.
Then followed the doctor, who described the dead man's injuries, and in
doing so cleared the ground of all doubt as to it being a case of
murder. Not only had Levi Levison been slain, but he had fallen by the
hand of some one who had literally "savaged" him to death. For the gash
in the throat was but an item in a whole series of wounds inflicted on
the hapless Jew's body. He had been stabbed three times in the back and
once in the chest, any one of the wounds being in itself sufficient to
kill.
Sergeant Bruce, in charge of the local force, and a singularly
intelligent specimen of the provincial police officer, added his
testimony, most of it being concerned with the condition of the ground.
A careful examination had led him to adopt the theory that the fatal
blows had been struck while the victim was on the footpath, and that the
murderer had then carried the body across the swamp to the foot of the
railway embankment, and had there flung it into the pool.
"That," said the coroner, "is as far as I propose to take the case
to-day."
But it was not, it appeared, as far as Mr. Lazarus Lowch proposed to
take it. Bobbing up from his seat like a jack-in-the-box, the foreman
wagged a minatory finger at Reggie Beauchamp, whom he had singled out
among the audience.
"Before we adjourn, sir, I should like to ask Mr. Beauchamp there a
question. I have reason to know that he is concealing a material piece
of evidence," Lowch declaimed in his husky voice, lowering at his prey.
Mr. Mallory, wedged in, alert and watchful, near the door, gazed
thoughtfully across at his young friend. The lieutenant was already
shouldering his way towards the witness-stand, and the old diplomatist
noted not only a burning anger in the usually good-humoured boyish face,
but a trace of something like consternation. The former sentiment he
could understand, for it was nothing new for the methods of Lazarus
Lowch to provoke wrath, but what could account for the dashing sailor's
palpable nervousness?
At a nod from the coroner Reggie was sworn, and confronted the foreman
with a defiant: "Well, sir, I presume that you were eavesdropping behind
my mother's garden hedge this morning?"
Lowch ignored the innuendo. "Were you on the marsh late on Wednesday
evening, Mr. Beauchamp?" he demanded, in the tone of a grand inquisitor.
"I was," admitted Reggie, shrugging his shoulders.
"In the company of a young lady?"
"Yes," with a scowl for the friendly titter that ran round the room.
"As a gentleman, I abstain from pressing for the lady's name, though
doubtless it can be guessed by many in this assemblage," proceeded Lowch
pompously. "Let me ask if you and your companion heard a scream on the
marsh that night?"
"I am glad you labour the point of your being a gentleman," said Reggie
sweetly. "Yes, we heard some kind of a cry. I thought it was a sea-bird,
or possibly a snared rabbit."
"Then why did you not come forward when you knew that a murder had been
committed and inform the police of what you had heard?" came the
supplementary query.
Mr. Mallory's wise old head was cocked a little on one side to catch the
answer. From his attitude he seemed to set considerable store by it.
"Because," said Reggie slowly, "I didn't think that the cry necessarily
had anything to do with the case. I know from experience that there are
all sorts of queer noises on the marsh after dark--hooting owls, barking
foxes, and a hundred things."
Lazarus Lowch subsided suddenly into his seat with an air of great
achievement, and Reggie, perceiving that he had exhausted his capacity
for making himself disagreeable, turned with an engaging smile to the
coroner. "I hope I have done nothing serious, sir," he said cheerily.
"This person seems to accuse me of some terrible misdemeanour, but you
will understand that unless one's evidence is really vital to the issue
one doesn't want to be needlessly dragged into these little turn-ups."
The coroner, a good fellow with a taste for saltwater "breeziness,"
smiled in friendly fashion, and promptly adjourned the Court.
But Mr. Vernon Mallory was not so easily satisfied. "The boy is
concealing something," he muttered as he allowed himself to be carried
with the human stream out into the sunlight.
CHAPTER X
THE LURE OF LOVE
Leslie Chermside walked away from the inquest like a man in a dream. It
was only a few steps to the house where he lodged, and he at once sought
the seclusion of his own sitting-room--a shady apartment with long
windows opening on to a cool verandah, whence there was a distant view
of the headland at the river's mouth and of the sea beyond.
"At any rate, I do not think that I am an object of suspicion--yet," he
murmured with a bitter laugh when he had stood staring from one of the
windows with unseeing eyes for some minutes. "And, as I more than half
expected, Travers Nugent did not disclose my appointment with that
wretched little scally-wag."
Turning away, he lit his pipe and flung himself into a long chair to
review the situation. At the best his position was a perilous one, and
he was very conscious of the necessity of not lulling himself into a
false security because of that day's immunity. But he had at least
obtained a reprieve, and for the present he was free to concentrate all
his energies on keeping watch and ward over Violet. That Travers Nugent
had not abandoned his compact with the Maharajah because of his own
defection he felt sure. For, looked at by the light of the event of that
afternoon, the inactivity of Bhagwan Singh's agent seemed ominously
sinister--the more so as it was entirely problematical.
If Nugent had played the obvious card of revealing what he knew about
the meeting on the marsh arranged between Levison and Leslie, the latter
would almost certainly have been arrested, and so had his wings clipped
for further opposition to Nugent's plans. But this obvious and drastic
course would have laid Nugent's flank open to the counter-attack of full
confession by a desperate man, and he had been far too cunning to run
that risk. No, he must be working by subtler and more tortuous methods
towards the attainment of his purpose--the embarkation of Violet Maynard
on board the turbine yacht _Cobra_.
Leslie gave his antagonist full credit for cold calculation of all the
chances. He was under no illusion as to the apparent complaisance with
which his rebellion had been accepted, and as to Nugent's quiescence in
the matter of Levison's murder. He was assured that he was only sitting
there at liberty because he was of more use to Mr. Travers Nugent in the
freedom of that comfortable room than he would have been in a cell at
the police-station charged with murder.
Rising from his chair with a sudden impulse, Leslie knocked the ashes
out of his pipe. As always happens to the man in love, he had persuaded
himself that the wisest course to pursue was the one which jumped with
his inclinations.
"I will force his hand," he said half aloud. "I will spend all the time
I can with Violet, and I will begin at once. My constant presence will
be the best safeguard she can have."
Mounting his bicycle, he made short work of the two miles to the lodge
gates of the Manor House, and as luck would have it whom should he see
coming towards him along the drive but Violet herself. She was looking
deliciously cool and dainty in a coat and skirt of white drill, which
set off her tall, graceful figure to perfection. Leslie's pulses
quickened at sight of the pleased surprise and heightened colour in her
face as she saw him.
"I didn't expect you to-day," she said, when he had jumped off his
machine. "I thought that you would be kept by that horrid affair in the
town, but I suppose you couldn't shed any light on it."
"It was soon over--adjourned for a week," replied Leslie. "As I was able
to get away, I saw no reason why this should be a day entirely wasted."
Violet shot a glance at him from under the deep-fringed lids which had
given the critics their cue for their ravings over her Academy picture.
There was a warmth in the tone of the neatly-turned little speech that
had been lacking in their intercourse of late. The millionaire's
daughter had never disguised from herself the singular attraction which
this sun-browned, well-knit young soldier from India had for her from
the moment of their first meeting a month ago. And he had begun to woo
her so bravely and openly, only to slacken his ardour after a week into
an indifference which was almost insult after such warm beginnings.
No woman of spirit cares to be treated like goods sent out "on
approval"--to be analytically inspected and then cast aside as not quite
up to the mark. Especially if she happens to be the acknowledged beauty
of the London season, and so lavishly dowered as to have had half the
bachelor peerage at her feet. It speaks wonders, therefore, for the
efficiency as a lover which Leslie Chermside had shown when he wasn't in
love, that now, when he was, Violet should have behaved as she did.
"Let us go and be lazy on that seat by the sundial in the rose garden,"
she said, with a smile of invitation.
It was all that Leslie asked for--to be near her, to worship her, to
feel her gracious presence, and, above all, by his unceasing
watchfulness, to avert the peril of the steamer with the giant
horse-power lurking thirty miles away along the coast. That was all that
was in his mind as he wheeled his bicycle at her side over the turf that
lay between the drive and the rosery. But half an hour amid the late
blooms of the old world pleasaunce was to alter all that modest scheme.
Leslie Chermside had made the mistake of reckoning without heed to the
power that had them in thrall--the mighty power of love.
Neither of them ever knew how it came about. When they first sat down
there was a shy constraint between them that seemed to hold them apart.
They talked at random of trifles, with an obvious effort at searching
for subjects. Violet even referred to the inquest on Levison, though in
such a manner as to show that she plainly took only a superficial
interest in it. It made Leslie shudder to hear her touch so lightly on
a matter in which, though she was not aware of it, she was so nearly
concerned.
Gradually and imperceptibly the awkward attempt at making conversation
ceased, and the silence that supervened was threatening to become more
awkward still, when Violet said suddenly:
"I believe that your heart is in India, Mr. Chermside--anywhere but in
Ottermouth. You always--latterly at least--seem to me to be living in
the past, or, perhaps, in the future. When your yacht is ready for sea,
I suppose that you will lose no time in going back to the East?"
Leslie started, and came back to earth. "If you only knew the price I
paid to get out of India you would not say that," he answered gravely.
"And I am afraid that you are incorrect in your other surmises, Miss
Maynard. I am neither living in a past which has nothing to recommend
it, or in a future which is not alluring. As a matter of fact, I am just
drifting--and revelling in the present."
He did not look at her as he spoke. He was staring straight before him
at a trellis arch groaning under a weight of crimson rambler roses, but
at the suggestion of trouble in his voice the girl swayed nearer to him.
"I wish you would be as frank with me as I am with you," she said. "A
woman's sympathy counts for much sometimes. Forgive me for saying that
you puzzle me, and one isn't puzzled where one isn't interested. You
don't convey the impression of a man with a discreditable career behind
him, and from the accepted accounts of your position your prospects are
assured from a worldly point of view. A month ago I thought--I
hoped--that we were going to be friends. We had begun to exchange
confidences in a mild sort of way. Will you not confide in me now more
fully, and tell me if there is anything in which I can help?"
In that moment, listening to her sweet proffer of womanly aid, Leslie
suffered the most exquisite torture. This was the girl whom he had
lightly condemned to a fate worse than death--a fate which he had
pledged himself to compass by deceitfully gaining her love. He turned
and looked at her, and he knew that the priceless guerdon which he had
played for as a mere counter in a disgraceful game had been won. And now
that it was his--now that he valued it for its own sake more than all
the treasures in the world--he could not take it. His reawakened sense
of honour forbade him to think of such desecration. How could he,
wastrel and pauper, have aspired to this queenly maiden, even if his
soul had not been soiled by the memory of his infamous bargain?
"I am not worthy one passing thought from you--still less to give you my
confidence," he faltered. "Confidence!" he went on, with something like
a groan of anguish. "Why, I would rather lose the power of speech for
ever than befoul your ears with the record of my shame."
Her eyes, like twin pools of shining radiance, were searching his face.
"That is for me to judge," she said softly. "But I do not, on second
thoughts, ask you for your confidence, Mr. Chermside. I have faith in my
instinct. I do not believe that you have done anything really
base--whatever, perhaps, after sore temptation, you may have
contemplated. You would have stopped short when you realized that you
were on the brink of an evil deed. And--and if you hadn't stopped short
I--well, I, perhaps, should have tried to make allowances. So, if you
cannot give me your confidence, at least let me give you my help."
"Help?" came the man's sobbing cry, as the blood surged into his brain,
and all barriers of conscience, expedience, and common-sense were swept
away in a whirlpool of riotous passion--"it is your love I want, my
darling. The love of such as you means not only help but regeneration,
life itself, to such as I."
By the great laws that govern us, these things happen so, and the love
of Leslie Chermside and Violet Maynard had passed beyond the region of
words and of petty sophistries. They were locked in each other's arms,
eye to eye and lip to lip, at that moment of glad surrender in the
solitude of the rose garden--a solitude that was not entirely solitary.
For from behind the high box-hedge that hemmed them in, the French maid,
Louise Aubin, glided across the silent turf back to the house, her
piquant features contracted in a venomous frown. She had come out to
seek her young mistress on some trifling errand, but, having found her,
decided to retreat without fulfilling it.
CHAPTER XI
THE PEERING EYES
Rumour at Ottermouth had a trick of travelling as quickly as it does
through the bazaars of the East. When the French maid turned away from
the rose garden, after seeing Violet Maynard in Leslie Chermside's arms,
she was already aware of the proceedings at the inquest held earlier in
the afternoon. She knew, therefore, that the gentleman whose love affair
seemed to be prospering so gaily had been called as a witness, and had
owned to an acquaintance with her deceased admirer.
Now mademoiselle was an adept at swift deduction, and, putting two and
two together, she had arrived at the conclusion that this Mr. Chermside,
who had admitted having business relations with Levi Levison, must be
the individual whom Mr. Travers Nugent suspected. Mr. Nugent had assured
her that he had ascertained that Levison had appointed to meet some one
on the marsh on the fatal evening. It followed as almost a certainty
that the appointment must have been with the gentleman who had a
mysterious connexion with Levison, the nature of which he refused to
divulge.
And now this _scelerat_, this assassin who had ruined her prospects by
untimely removing the amorous "financial agent," was making successful
love to Miss Violet. It was preposterous, and not to be countenanced for
a moment, that the murderer should carry off the great heiress, while
his cruel crime had relegated her, Louise Aubin, to a probable future of
celibate poverty. If only in her young mistress's interest, the
atrocious thing must be nipped in the bud.
But mademoiselle was endowed with a fair share of French caution, the
quality which kindly Nature supplies to balance French impulse, and she
was not going to jeopardize a comfortable and lucrative situation by
making a premature move. She must first put it beyond all doubt that the
man whom Mr. Levi Levison had arranged to meet on the marsh was the man
whom she had just seen in the rose garden, and to that end she must take
counsel with that dear gentleman who had saved her from the error of
denouncing Pierre Legros.
"Ce cher Monsieur Nugent--'e admire me just a leetle himself, I think,"
she murmured, as she tripped back to the house across the lawn. "I make
'im tell me all he knows."
Whereby Mademoiselle Louise Aubin showed herself to be of sanguine
temperament, but a poor student of the art of reading men.
Nevertheless, when Mr. Travers Nugent was sitting in his cosy
dining-room at The Hut that evening, peeling peaches and sipping his
claret in the soft glow of shaded lamps, his sphinx-like manservant,
Sinnett, entered, and, without a word, handed him a folded slip of
paper. Nugent read it with a twitch at the corner of his mouth, and
looked up sharply.
"Did any one beside yourself see this lady come?" he asked.
"Can't have, sir," was the reply. "She came to the front door, and I
admitted her myself. It is pitch-dark outside, so none of the maids can
have seen her walking up the drive."
"Then you can show her in," said Nugent. "It is business, Sinnett, but
we don't want any village scandal. There are a score of gossiping old
women in this place who would give their wigs to know that I had
received a smart Frenchwoman in the seclusion of my dining-room, eh?"
A grim smile was the only answer, and presently the man of few words
returned, ushering in Mademoiselle Louise. Faithful to his policy of
treating her with all respect, Nugent rose with outstretched hand as she
minced towards him. There was just enough pleased surprise in his manner
to conceal the fact that by paying him this visit she was only
fulfilling his calculated expectations.
"This is good of you, mademoiselle," he said in his soft accents. "You
will be fatigued after your long walk from the Manor House. Sit down and
let me give you a glass of wine from your own sunny France before you
tell me how I can be of service to you."
The fair Louise simpered, and seated herself at the well-appointed
dessert table. For that night, if for no longer, she had mounted several
rungs in the social ladder, and in that thought was compensation for the
loss of her "financial agent"--also encouragement for the future. This
kindly-spoken gentleman of middle-age was evidently "taken" with her,
and there could be no better way, she told herself, of winning and
clinching his further regard than by professing a whole-hearted devotion
to her last lover.
"I have some news for you, monsieur," she said, when she had sipped the
claret poured out by her host. "And, in return, I come to demand, nay,
to implore, some information from you."
"Then it must be my privilege to oblige you first, if it is in my
power," smiled Nugent. "I trust, however, that you do not still suspect
your fellow-countryman, Legros, of the foul deed that robbed you of your
friend. Believe me, he is guiltless."
"It is not Pierre Legros that I suspect, monsieur, thanks to your
guidance the other day," replied Louise coquettishly. "I was convinced
then that the murderer of the poor Levison was the man who was to meet
him on the marsh, and now--to-day, at the inquest, comes the straw that
makes to show the blow of the wind. Monsieur Chermside was a witness,
and admitted that he had affairs of business with Levison."
"Well?" Nugent purred gently at his pretty visitor.
"My little stupid wits figure from that, monsieur, that it was Chermside
who was to meet the unfortunate one on the marsh. I have paid you this
call, at so great risk to my reputation, to find out if for once my
little stupid wits are right. You will not disappoint me. Say, I beseech
you, if Chermside was the man with whom my poor one had arranged the
rendezvous in that so desolate spot."
Nugent was moved with inward laughter at the impressive speech, at the
ogling glances accompanying it. He was quite aware of the personal
element the minx was endeavouring to import into their relations.
Outwardly his face wore the semblance of a severe mental struggle.
"I cannot resist your appeal, Mademoiselle Aubin," he said at last,
sighing a little as if in regret that his better judgment should be
vanquished by the feminine charms across the table. "I had hoped to keep
it to myself a little longer, while prosecuting inquiries which will
bring the crime home to this black-hearted villain without allowing an
outlet for escape. But I cannot deny you the solace of sharing the
secret with me, knowing that, our aims being identical, you will
preserve it till the time comes to strike. Yes, Leslie Chermside was the
man who had promised to complete a certain transaction with Levi Levison
at the spot where the latter was foully done to death."
It is easy to speak with your tongue in your cheek, and if the cheek is
large enough no one need catch a glimpse of the tongue. At any rate,
Louise Aubin did not. Confident in her potent fascinations, she
swallowed the purposely grandiose words like so much milk and honey, and
beamed ecstatically on the wily orator, more in delight at the
sentiments she believed the communication to denote than at the
communication itself. Levi Levison was beginning to take a very shadowy
back seat in the affections of Mademoiselle Louise Aubin.
"Then, monsieur," she said, gracefully quaffing her glass at him, "I
shall not be behindhand in civeelity. I shall--what you call it--place
myself in your hands for the right time to punish Chermside, and in the
meanwhile the secret is buried deep in my heart. Now for your repayment
for your kind help, though it is only a tiny piece of news. The villain
so despicable, upon whom we desire the avenge, is in love with my--with
Miss Maynard. I come from observing them this very afternoon, monsieur,
in the rose garden, where they were embracing and using words of
endearment."
And mademoiselle draped her eyes with their long, dark lashes, as though
her maiden modesty quailed before the reminiscence.
As for Nugent, he did not disguise the fact that the information had for
him the keenest interest. Rising from his chair, he lit a cigarette and
began to pace the room.
"Really, I am greatly indebted to you for this information," he said.
"The knowledge of Miss Maynard's infatuation for a man so utterly
unworthy of her will alter my plans, or rather, hurry them to a crisis.
I am, as perhaps you are aware, mademoiselle, a friend of Mr. Montague
Maynard. I have, therefore, now a double incitement to bring Chermside
to justice--that of saving my friend's daughter from a horrible
mesalliance, and of securing for you the satisfaction which you so
justly desire."
"Mr. Chermside is very rich, is he not?" asked Louise, her cunning but
unequal brain beginning to weave an entirely new web, in which she was
ultimately to entangle herself.
Travers Nugent shot a glance at her as she toyed with the stem of her
wine-glass. For the moment her question caused him a trifling
embarrassment. He would have liked to have answered it differently, but
he reflected that it would be dangerous to do so, for this woman was by
no means a fool. He was credited, rightly, with the introduction at
Ottermouth of Leslie Chermside as a man of wealth. His letter to the
secretary of the club would be on file to prove it, and by that he must
abide--for the present.
"Mr. Chermside has the command of vast resources," was his guarded
answer. "But I do not think that he will need to plead that argument
with a girl of Miss Maynard's character. His worldly position will not
weigh with her for an instant if she loves him. She is rich enough for
two, you see."
But apparently mademoiselle did not see. Just then she had lost the
thread of that newly-woven web on which her busy wits had set to work,
and she was staring at one of the long windows. Travers Nugent was
something of an artist by temperament, and on sitting down to dinner he
had had the blinds left up so as to enjoy the dying after-glow in the
western sky.
"The eyes! The peering eyes!" Louise exclaimed in a tense whisper.
Following the direction of her gaze, Nugent in four rapid strides
reached the window, and, flinging it open, dragged into the well-lit
room the lithe and sinewy form of a man dressed in blue jean. It was the
French onion-seller whom Aunt Sarah Dymmock had driven from the
precincts of the Manor House at the point of her sunshade. Louise
uttered a suppressed shriek as Nugent released his grip on the
Frenchman's collar and carefully closed the window.
"_Mon Dieu!_ it is Pierre Legros," she cried, looking from one to the
other of the two men in sheer bewilderment, in which there was a trace
of fear.
"Yes, it is I--Pierre," said the onion-seller in his native tongue,
scowling at his fair compatriot. "Is it that you have acquired the habit
of supping alone with gentlemen above your station, as well as of
meeting them in the lonely places of the country? You have sadly
changed, Louise, since we played barefoot together among the rocks of
Dicamp."
In the dawn of her new ambition the reminder of her humble origin goaded
the girl to a fury that dispelled her temporary fear. "Barefoot!" she
shrilled. "Miserable one, you know quite well that I was never so, and
that if you had the presumption to worship me it was from down below--as
a pig may gaze at the stars. I came to this English gentleman to help me
punish the murderer of my dear friend Monsieur Levison."
There was malice in every spitting syllable of the tirade, and more than
malice in the baleful look she cast at the sullen Frenchman. Travers
Nugent glanced at her a little anxiously, and hastened to intervene. It
would not suit his book at all for Louise to revert, out of petty spite,
to her original suspicion--to the prejudice of the later one he had been
at such pains to inspire.
"What mademoiselle asserts is absolutely true," he said in French,
fixing Pierre's fierce eyes in a hypnotic stare. "She is greatly
concerned to catch the murderer, and I hope to hand over to justice the
English rascal who committed the crime on the marsh. And just a word of
advice to you, Legros. You had better keep a civil tongue in your head,
or you may find yourself in trouble. Mademoiselle Aubin and I, of
course, know that you had nothing to do with the matter, but the police
might think differently if they got wind of your jealous ravings."
Pondering on, and impressed by, the slight emphasis put on the word
English, the onion-seller hung his head, muttering to himself. Nugent
took the opportunity to touch the bell, and having done so turned to
Louise.
"I think that we have concluded our affairs for this evening,
mademoiselle," he said with a cool politeness, the purport of which the
clever Frenchwoman was quick to appreciate. "You shall be kept informed
of the latest developments, and now my servant shall escort you to the
road, for I must have a private word with Legros. Sinnett," to the
silent henchman who had appeared, "accompany this lady down the drive,
please."
Sinnett understood by the ocular signal that his master flashed at him
that Mademoiselle Aubin's departure from the premises was to be
accomplished without witnesses, and he gravely followed the somewhat
mystified visitor out. Neither by look or gesture did he express the
slightest surprise at seeing an unkempt and none too clean foreigner in
the room. Ten years in the service of Mr. Travers Nugent had killed the
faculty of astonishment, or, at any rate, had taught him that the
outward and visible signs thereof were inadvisable.
Directly the door was shut on them Nugent's manner underwent a rapid
transformation. All the suave polish was gone. He became the brute and
the bully--the man with the whip-hand. He was not in the least
handicapped by having to express himself in French, because he spoke all
European languages as fluently as his own. He showered every vile
epithet he could think of on the onion-seller, calling him fool, dolt,
and everything by turn, and then, when he had pulverized the still
scowling but crest-fallen sailor into abject humiliation he demanded--
"Why, in the name of all that is idiotic, did you disregard my
instructions and come here to the house? I told you that nothing but the
last extremity would warrant any intercourse between us."
Pierre Legros raised his bloodshot eyes in half-defiant remonstrance. "I
came because I thought it was what you call the last extremity," he
said. "There has been some one on the quay at Exmouth to-day asking
questions of me. He also go on board our vessel and speak with my
captain."
"You think he was a detective?"
"No, monsieur; he was not of the police. I believe him to be a
gentleman. He lives here in Ottermouth. I see him often when I sell my
onions up the street--an old man with no hair on his face, dressed in
fine clothes, and having eyes that pierce like needles. Though of so
great age, he walks very quick and upright."
Nugent took a turn up the room, frowning and biting his lips. "So!" he
murmured to himself. "Mr. Vernon Mallory has to be reckoned with as
still on the active list, eh?" And coming back to where Legros was
standing, he added aloud, in more conciliatory tones: "You did right in
bringing me this news, my friend. The gentleman is meddlesome, but there
is no reason why he should become dangerous if you are discreet."
"I was discreet, monsieur," rejoined Legros. "The grey-head _Anglais_
set springes as one sets them for birds, but I was wary, and walked all
round. And Jules Epitaux, my captain, he make fool of the old man."
"I hope so," said Nugent drily. "But if it is a sample of your
discretion that we have been having in this room to-night, my opinion of
it is not high, Pierre Legros. You must learn to curb that insane
jealousy of yours, or you will have Louise on to you like a wild cat.
Your conduct was base ingratitude, seeing that I stopped her from
setting the police at you."
"I am sorry, monsieur; I was taken by surprise, and I did not
understand," replied the onion-seller submissively, as he passed out of
the window which Nugent held significantly open.
But once outside in the darkness, setting out on the four-mile trudge
back to his ship, he began to mutter to himself, and the refrain of the
inaudible babble was always the same, recurring a hundred times as he
stumbled along the moorland track--
"Louise goes to console herself, but not with Pierre. Poor Pierre! He
will have to strike--always strike--if he is betrayed."
CHAPTER XII
THE _COBRA'S_ SAILING ORDERS
Nine o'clock in the morning was a busy time in a mild way at the
Ottermouth Railway Station. The budding resort was served by only a
branch line with a single set of rails, and at this hour the first two
trains of the day in each direction passed each other here.
Mr. Travers Nugent stood at the window of the booking office, waiting
till the slide should be raised, and biting his long fair moustache in
annoyance because out of the tail of his eye he had just discovered that
the next intending passenger in the row behind him was Lieutenant
Reginald Beauchamp. He had quite a poor opinion of the lieutenant's
intelligence, but he was aware of his close acquaintance with the
Mallorys, and there were reasons why he would have preferred to conceal
his destination that day from the shrewd old civil servant.
However, the wooden slide was raised, and Nugent could not avoid asking
for his ticket--a first-class return to Weymouth. It was not till he had
picked up his change and passed on that he affected to notice his
successor at the window.
"Ah, Beauchamp! Going my way I hope?" he said genially. "I am compelled
to go to Weymouth for the day, to look up a sick relative. Beastly
nuisance having to play the good Samaritan in such hot weather."
Reggie, before replying, planked down his money and asked for a return
ticket to Plymouth. "No," he replied as he joined Nugent. "As you heard,
I am going in the opposite direction. My little torpedo craft requires
my attention."
"Sorry I'm not to have the pleasure of your company," said the elder man
courteously. "Surely your leave isn't up yet?"
"No," Reggie replied. "I have another ten days to run, but I have to see
about one or two little matters of shipping stores and ammunition. I
hope to be back to-night or to-morrow morning."
On the platform the two separated, Reggie getting into the train which
would take him to the western naval seaport, and Nugent crossing the
line by the footbridge to the east-bound train.
"I trust that that nautical noodle will have forgotten all about our
meeting by to-morrow," Nugent communed with himself as he chose a corner
seat in an unoccupied compartment. "It would not be advisable for
Mallory, with his wonderful faculty for piecing trifles together, to
know that I had paid a flying visit to the port where Chermside's
alleged yacht is fitting out."
He leaned back in his cushioned corner and further reflected that even
if Mr. Mallory was informed by young Beauchamp that he had been to
Weymouth no irremediable harm could come of it. It was even possible
that the incident might be converted into an advantage. He had good
reason not to despise Mr. Mallory's capabilities, but that astute old
gentleman could not thwart his scheme without a fuller knowledge of it,
and that could only be gained from Leslie Chermside, who in his present
circumstance as Violet Maynard's accepted lover would probably prefer
death to confession.
"My immediate policy must be to preserve the renegade's life at all
hazards, while threatening it by means of the fair Louise," Nugent
smiled contemptuously. "Though what Bhagwan Singh will do to him when he
is delivered at Sindkhote is another matter," the arch plotter added
under his breath as he unfolded his newspaper and resigned himself to
the tedium of the journey.
He reached Weymouth at noon, and at once made his way into the old town,
where he turned to the left down the one-sided street of shipping
offices and public houses that faces the harbour. The brick and mortar
side of the street had no interest for him. His gaze was always for the
long row of vessels moored to the quay wall. He walked on, past the
wharf where the red-funnelled Great Western boats lay, and came to a
halt opposite a large 2,000 ton steam yacht. A handsomely appointed
craft she was, with something of the snake in her long, low, graceful
lines, and evidently built for speed as well as comfort. The heavy gilt
lettering on her stern proclaimed to all and sundry that she was called
the _Cobra_.
The gang plank was down, and Nugent stepped lightly across it on to the
main deck, where his further progress was promptly barred by a
bullet-headed ship's officer in a smart blue suit and a brass-banded
cap.
"Here! you don't own the bally vessel," said this individual rudely.
"Not quite so fast, if you please. What's your business?"
"I am a friend of Captain Brant's; if he is on board and if you will
kindly have my card taken to him I have no doubt that he will see me,"
replied Nugent with his usual suave politeness.
The officer called a seaman, and, having dispatched him with the card,
became roughly apologetic. "That's a horse of another colour," he
growled. "Strict orders against strangers on this ship. Couldn't let you
on if you were the skipper's own brother, and the skipper's the devil."
"My dear sir, I congratulate you on your discretion," rejoined Nugent
affably. "I don't mind telling you that if you had let me on without
orders you wouldn't have enjoyed your billet another hour. As it is, you
will be like the nice little boy in the Sunday school who had a good
mark put against his name."
The bullet-headed mate spat thoughtfully over the bulwarks, and then, as
he realized the position, broke into an evil grin.
"I see," he chuckled. "You're the power behind the throne, eh? I guess
if I'd known that I'd have given you a bit of stronger lip. What the
blooming game is I don't want to know, but I can see it's going to be a
funny sort of cruise."
The bluejacket, whose brutal features, Nugent observed with cynical
satisfaction, were at curious variance with his trim, yacht-like
attire, returned, and said that Captain Brant would receive the visitor
at once. Nugent followed his conductor to a cabin under the bridge, the
occupant of which, a little wisp of a man with an elongated, pear-shaped
cranium, prominent teeth, and a yellow complexion, advanced with a
strange, hopping gait to greet his guest.
"Ah!" he said with an uncanny hissing intake of breath, "I am charmed to
see you, Mr. Nugent. The honour of your visit means that we are to get a
move on us at last, I hope?"
"It points that way," replied Nugent guardedly as he took the seat
offered him. "Your anxiety to be off means that you are having trouble
with the crew, I am afraid, Brant?"
The repulsive captain twisted his features into a grimace that would
have curdled milk, at the same time emitting a sound like the snarl of a
wolf. "The maintenance of discipline among a lot of toughs like those I
selected isn't child's play," he said. "It only wants a rule of three
sum to find out how soon I shall have no crew at all if we are to lay
idle here much longer. I've had to shoot one as dead as Queen Anne and
crack the heads of four others for kicking over the traces."
The answer, delivered coolly and as a matter of course, seemed ludicrous
coming from the undersized, deformed creature with the top-heavy head.
But Nugent evidently knew his man, for he merely nodded comprehension
and approval. "It is because you are such a holy terror, Brant, that I
selected you for the job," he said. "There was bound to be trouble, at
the start of a cruise for which the hands were induced to join by the
promise of a rich reward, if any hitch occurred."
"It is entirely the delay that caused the ructions," the captain
assented. "You see, they don't know whether they're on a treasure hunt
or what, and they're in a hurry to finger the pieces. To keep 'em from
letting their jaw tackle run in the pubs I didn't allow much shore
liberty--none at all since I had to pump Black Jake, a fireman, full of
lead for inciting to mutiny."
"But how about the--er--necessary formalities?" asked Nugent, genuinely
interested in the drastic methods of his instrument.
Captain Brant uttered the unpleasant combination of croak and wheeze
that did duty with him for a laugh. "You mean the inquest and funeral?
We have no use for little extras like them on the _Cobra_. I'm the law
on this ship. I took a kind of a trial trip out to sea for a couple of
hours, and cremated Black Jake in his own furnace. That put the fear of
the devil into the rest, and we're a happy family now. I wouldn't
guarantee to hold 'em for more than a fortnight, though, tied up to this
cursed quay. The officers are right enough. Bully Cheeseman, the chap
who was at the gangway when you boarded us, is a fair scorcher. Twenty
years ago he was suspected of being Jack the Ripper; and Wiley the
second mate, as you know, has done time for manslaughter."
Travers Nugent gazed thoughtfully through the circular window of the
deck-cabin at the teeming quay-side, and the array of public-houses
across the road. He was not at all dissatisfied with the state of
things prevailing on the _Cobra_. It had justified his choice of a
skipper. If this frail little atomy with the body of an imp and the soul
of a Thug, could isolate and hold in check a crew of cut-throats
recruited from the slums of Limehouse, within sight of the drink-shops
over the way, he was not likely to fail at the crucial moment.
And it was to expedite that crucial moment that Nugent had paid his
surprise visit to the _Cobra_.
"I'm not finding fault, Brant," he said. "At least, not with you and
your management of affairs. The blame rests on the mean-spirited cur who
has kept the ship dallying here in port while he was going back on his
bargain and playing a double game with me. However, you'll have him on
board in a few days, I hope, and among your final instructions will be
one to let him have a particularly warm time of it."
"I'll keel-haul the swine morning and evening if you like," growled
Brant, "or give him a taste of the cat."
"Well, I don't want you to be tender with him," laughed Nugent, "so long
as you leave enough of him for delivery to the consignee. But here is
what I ran over to tell you. On receipt of a wire containing the one
word 'Advance,' you will leave port and steam to the westward at such a
speed as will take you abreast of Ottermouth after sundown. Don't bring
the ship nearer inshore than three miles, but lay to till you see a blue
light, and then a green, shown about half a mile to the west of the
town."
"Just a moment. Let's fix it up accurate," interrupted the captain. "We
mustn't have any such words as 'about' in a job of this kind. Point out
the exact place on this ordnance map, please."
"There, at the foot of that cleft in the cliff marked Coldbrook Chine,"
said Nugent, placing his finger on the map section which Captain Brant
spread before him on the cabin table. "I have chosen the spot because it
is hidden from the coast-guard station by this jutting angle in the wall
of cliff."
"The signal wouldn't be visible from the station?" croaked Brant.
"Quite impossible. When you see the blue and green lights, all you have
to do is to send the electric launch, manned by three trustworthy and
well-armed men, to the beach at the foot of the chine. The launch will
pick up a passenger, and as soon as he has been put aboard the steamer,
will return to the same spot and pick up another. On the second occasion
I myself shall be there, and will hand your officer a sealed packet
containing your final instructions. It is even possible that I may come
aboard and hand them to you in person."
The weird little deformity laughed his horrible laugh. "Pleased to see
you, I'm sure," he responded, when the convulsions in his throat had
ceased. "You might be making the voyage with us, I reckon?"
"God forbid!" exclaimed Travers Nugent fervently.
CHAPTER XIII
FOOL'S PARADISE LOST
Leslie Chermside walked out of his lodgings in the Ottermouth main
street and struck downwards towards the parade. He had promised to take
Violet Maynard and Aunt Sarah Dymmock out for a sail in a boat he had
hired, and, lover-like, he was nearly an hour ahead of the appointment
he had made with the two ladies to meet him on the beach.
Three days had passed since the unpremeditated avowal of his love for
the millionaire manufacturer's daughter. They slipped by like a happy
dream, no care for the future, or the deadlock to which the future must
inevitably bring him, disturbing the sweet dalliance of the present till
the previous evening. He had dined at the Manor House alone with the
family and, as they sat over their wine after the departure of Violet
and Aunt Sarah, Montague Maynard had, quite kindly, put to him some
pertinent questions, the drift of which there was no mistaking. Mr.
Maynard would not have attained to his position in the commercial world
had he not been a student of men and things, and, without definitely
stating as much, he let it be clearly understood that he was not blind
to what was going on. His manner implied that he was not unfriendly,
but, at the same time, in asking about the young ex-Lancer's resources,
he spoke as if he had a right to the information.
He opened the battle in his usual blunt, jovial fashion, without any
beating about the bush--
"So, my young friend, you're a warm man, Travers Nugent tells me. Lucky
chap, to possess inherited wealth, though I'm not sure that I wouldn't
have preferred you to have made a pile by hard work, as I have."
Leslie suddenly finding himself on the edge of a precipice, clutched for
the only available support--a deprecating and rather shamefaced laugh.
"Mr. Nugent must be given to exaggeration, sir," he said. "I have never
represented myself as a rich man. As a matter of fact I am--not by any
means what you would consider rich."
He thought grimly of the few L5 notes left to him out of the sum
advanced by Nugent for current expenses during the bogus courtship of
the girl now dearer to him than life. Something of the rueful irony in
his mind must have been reflected in his face, for Mr. Maynard, after a
sidelong glance at him and a sip of port, continued--
"Now, my lad, I've been and set your back up by hinting that you didn't
earn your money. At any rate, you must be pretty well lined to be able
to chuck the army at your age, and to possess such a steam yacht as
Nugent has described to me."
"I am afraid, sir, that Nugent's imagination has run away with him,"
Leslie replied, flushing hotly. "The yacht at Weymouth, in which I had
been going to travel, is not my own property."
"You have abandoned your intention?"
"Entirely."
A constrained silence fell upon the two men. The blue smoke of their
cigars floated over the array of decanters, the luscious fruits and
glittering plate. On one the demon of distrust had been unchained; on
the other, a cloud of apprehension, threatening the short-lived bliss of
the last few days, had swooped from an azure sky. It was Montague
Maynard who broke the spell, going, as was his way, direct to the point.
"Look here, Chermside," he blurted out. "I like you, and so does old
Sally Dymmock--'cute observers, both of us. But there's something not
quite above-board--I don't say about you, but about your circumstances.
I'm the last man to judge anybody hastily, and you may have the best of
reasons for reticence; but I just want to warn you that if you come to
me with a proposal which I need not define I shall expect perfect
frankness."
Leslie's heart sank within him, for perfect frankness was what he would
never be able to accord. How was he to explain the fact that he was a
penniless man without prospects, in face of the impression which, if not
actually inspired by him, he allowed to remain, that he was rolling in
money? Still less could he explain the motive which had prompted him to
acquiescence in Nugent's description of him. And the only alternative to
explanation was once for all to abandon hopes of Violet, and to bear his
loss as manfully as he could, accepting it as a punishment for his
contemplated evil-doing.
"When I come to you with a definite proposal, sir, I shall naturally
endeavour to satisfy you," was his long-delayed reply.
It was lame enough, but it served its immediate purpose of staving off
the day of reckoning. For Montague Maynard rose abruptly from the table,
flinging down his napkin with a gesture of impatience, and obviously
restraining an impulse to press his guest for a declaration of his
intentions.
"Come and join the ladies," he said curtly.
An uncomfortable half-hour had followed in the drawing-room, the air
vibrant with an electric tension which all were conscious of, and, as is
customary on such occasions, increased by their fatuous efforts to
relieve it. Violet talked brilliantly--more brilliantly than usual,
perhaps--of things that did not matter, watching her father and lover
with a pained surprise which her brave efforts could not wholly conceal.
Aunt Sarah seized such opportunities as were offered to her of being
openly rude to every one in turn, nodding her priceless lace cap to
emphasize her points, stabbing her lean fingers at the successive
victims of her caustic tongue, and galvanizing her mummy-like face into
grimaces that would have terrified strangers.
But, so far as Leslie was concerned, it was reserved for the old lady to
save the situation. When she got up to go she followed Mr. Maynard and
Violet into the hall to speed the parting guest, winding up a stilted
evening with the request that Mr. Chermside would take her and her
great-niece on what she called "the water" the next day. She and Violet
would motor out to the Ottermouth beach, and meet him there at 11.30 if
"the elements were propitious."
Leslie had, of course, consented, though he had to conceal a certain
amount of reluctance in doing so. After Mr. Maynard's plain speech he
was not sure if it was not his duty to refrain from seeing Violet again.
At any rate the time had come when he must quit the fool's paradise in
which he had been living since the scene in the rose-garden, and
seriously consider his position. But Miss Dymmock's request was a
command, and it had this merit--that whatever course he decided on he
would have one more hour in the company of his beloved.
Now, as he went to keep the appointment, he was no nearer a solution of
his dilemma in spite of anxious deliberation through the long hours of a
sleepless night. He was prepared to suffer the pain of giving Violet up,
but from her own sweet confession he knew that in vanishing from her
life he would inflict upon her a pain equal to his own. He shrank from
dealing the cruel blow. And, again, the necessity of guarding her
against the plot which he was all too sure was hatching in Nugent's
brain was a strong inducement to remain on the spot as long as possible.
Racked with indecision, he loitered on the parade and absent-mindedly
watched the bathers till one of the Maynard motor cars swept round the
corner by the coastguard station, pulling up opposite the boat which the
fisherman in his employ had in readiness. He thought that Violet looked
pale and preoccupied as she stepped from the car, but Aunt Sarah was as
alert and determined as ever, and, hardly deigning a word of greeting,
started across the pebbly beach for the boat. Leslie and Violet
followed, the sight of the little old lady's spindle shanks, as she
trudged over the stones with skirts held high, for the moment taking
them out of themselves.
A little later the boat was running eastward round the headland at the
river's mouth before a gently favouring breeze. The wind being steady
and the sea smooth, the boatman was left behind, Violet taking the helm
and Leslie minding the sheet. Aunt Sarah, settled comfortably forward of
the little stick of a mast, spent the first five minutes in a careful
scrutiny of the sky, and then, finding that there were no outward
evidences that she was to be drowned that morning, suddenly astounded
her shipmates with the exclamation--
"You two are in love with each other, and you can't deny it!"
There succeeded ten seconds of intense silence, and then Violet, who was
familiar with her aged relative's little ways, laughed at the
consternation on her lover's bronzed face.
"It is no use, Leslie," she said. "Aunt Sarah is a witch, and knows the
secrets of our inmost hearts. We may as well confess."
"I don't suppose it is a crime," Chermside murmured weakly, in his
confusion taking an unnecessary pull at the sheet and sending a spray
over Aunt Sarah's mantle.
"No, young man, it's not a crime," she snapped when she had recovered
her balance and her equanimity. "I'm a bit of a character reader, and I
don't think you're capable of crime--havn't got the backbone for it. But
I know that you are weak, and that you're in some sort of a hobble that
you ought to be pulled out of. Now just you be straight with me. If you
had really been the man of the means you've been credited with in this
gossipy little hole you'd have gone to my nephew Montague Maynard and
asked him for his daughter three days ago, eh?"
"I admit that. There have been misunderstandings for which I am partly
but not entirely responsible," said Leslie, marvelling at the almost
uncanny insight with which the old lady had read between the lines, and
wondering how much of his secret she had guessed.
She proceeded to cross-examine him after the fashion of a barrister
handling a hostile witness. "Leaving aside for the moment the question
of financial position," she continued, "is there any other cause or
impediment why you should not be joined in holy matrimony to my
great-niece? As a man of honour you will answer me truly and without
reserve."
Leslie stole a glance at Violet and saw that she had become suddenly
grave. Nurtured in the midst of luxury, she hardly knew the value of
money, and had the most profound contempt for it; but she cherished the
highest ideals of what a man's moral worth should be, and she was
clearly awaiting his answer with eager interest.
"Yes," said Leslie, scarcely hesitating, "there is the strongest
possible reason why Violet should not marry me. I have already urged it
upon her--that I am utterly unworthy."
"He is not so black as he would paint himself, Aunt Sarah," the girl
pleaded. "Some quixotic idea----"
"Mind your steering or we shall all be in the water," the old lady cut
her short. "Now, Mr. Chermside, be explicit, please. Why are you
unworthy to marry my niece?"
"Because," replied Leslie, who had expected the question. "I consented,
under stress of peculiar circumstances, to aid and abet a base
conspiracy for doing a great injury to an innocent person. It is true
that I repented and left my tempters in the lurch, but I cannot hold
myself white-washed on that account."
Miss Sarah Dymmock, not having a barrister's gown to hitch up, adjusted
her mushroom hat before returning to the charge. "Has this piece of
villainy you set out to do since been accomplished by the people who
tried to mislead you?" she demanded.
"It has not," rejoined Leslie firmly. "And please God it never will.
They have not, I believe, abandoned it; but I am devoting such feeble
powers as I possess to thwarting them. I claim no leniency on that
score. I tell you, Miss Dymmock, as I have told Violet, that the thing
was a horrible thing, and that no decent woman ought to be joined to a
man who, even in a mad lapse born of unspeakable misery, could have
become a consenting party to it for a single minute."
Aunt Sarah nodded sagely once or twice, and let her keen old eyes rest
for a while on the red cliffs past which the boat was gliding.
"Reverting to the question of means," she resumed at length, "if you
went to that greedy nephew of mine--not a bad sort, but a
money-grubber--you would have to confess that you had no steam yacht to
your name, or any of the other trimmings with which the Ottermouth
wiseacres have credited you?"
"I should have to confess that I haven't a blessed stiver," said Leslie
grimly.
Aunt Sarah's stern features relaxed, and her smile could be very
charming when she chose. "In that case, Mr. Chermside," she said, "you
would be adding the sin of falsehood to your other real or imaginary
iniquities. I yesterday arranged the preliminaries of a transfer to you
of securities worth, roughly speaking, two hundred and fifty thousand
pounds. I had an inkling that you were an attractive but quite harmless
fraud, and as the present interview has confirmed that belief I shall
wire my brokers to complete the transfer. I was aware that my dear
girl's happiness was bound up in your ability to satisfy her father of
your good faith, and I decided to place you in a position to do so.
There is no need to thank me. It is only a little juggle with money for
which an old woman has no use. In any case it would have been Violet's
when I die."
"And you suggested a sail in order to tell us this?" Violet gasped.
"Yes; you see it is really a sort of plot in which we three must remain
the only conspirators," the old lady beamed at the fair young face
flushed with joy. "A boat seemed the safest place for such business."
"You dear!" was all Violet could answer as she strove to keep back the
happy tears.
As for Leslie, his first impulse was to reject the good fortune thrust
upon him. The "coals of fire" heaped upon his head burned his brain and
filled him with a greater shame; for he could not but think that if the
real enormity of his offence were known this generosity would never have
been shown him. His proper course, he felt, was to make still fuller
confession, but that would be to stab his darling to the heart in the
hour of triumphant love. All he could do then was to begin to stammer
inconsequent but grateful protests which Aunt Sarah stopped at once with
masterful insistence.
"Nonsense!" she snapped at him. "Just look to the sail and do what's
necessary to put us ashore again as quick as may be. I've got but a
short patience with folk who don't know the butter side of a slice of
bread."
So the boat was turned and went gaily dancing over the summer sea, under
the red cliffs, and round the headland, to the beach. After the
discussion on the outward run it was but natural that words should be
few, and Leslie was glad of it for more reasons than one. They had the
wind against them now, and the sailing of the boat claimed all his
attention. A succession of short tacks was necessary before he landed
his precious freight.
The motor car was waiting for the ladies, and when he had bestowed them
in it, and given a promise to come out to the Manor House later in the
day, Leslie turned in the opposite direction to go to his rooms for
lunch. As he neared the end of the parade, he saw Travers Nugent
watching him from one of the windows of the club, and he averted his
gaze so as not to catch the eye of his enemy. But the elementary tactics
were of no avail. Nugent came out of the front door before he could
pass.
"Come inside; there is need for a consultation," said the Maharajah's
agent.
Leslie angrily shook off the detaining hand which had been laid upon his
arm. "I don't wish to have anything to do with you. I'll be hanged if I
come in," he said.
Nugent laughed--the little musical laugh that women loved and men
loathed. "My dear fellow, you have used an apt term in the reverse
sense," he cooed. "You will certainly be hanged if you don't come in and
listen to what I have to say."
For the second time that morning Leslie Chermside paled beneath his
Eastern tan, and he meekly followed Nugent into the club.
CHAPTER XIV
THE CREAKING STAIR
Throughout the bewildering excitement in the boat consequent on Miss
Dymmock's benevolence, Leslie had been conscious of a weak spot in his
armour, which, if it had been detected by his antagonist, might prove
his undoing. Nugent's ominous rejoinder suggested that the weak spot had
been found, and that he was being led into the comfortable seclusion of
the Ottermouth Club for the purpose of having it pierced.
"We had better go into the card-room," said Nugent. "There will be less
chance of interruption there, though at present there is no one in the
club. Every one has gone home to lunch."
The card-room was on the first floor, with a window overlooking the sea.
Leslie remained standing just inside the door, but Nugent sat down at
one of the card tables, his fingers drawing fantastic patterns on the
green cloth as he seemed to consider how best to open the subject.
Suddenly he raised his eyes, and Leslie saw with surprise that there was
no hostility in them--only a look of deep concern.
"You are in a tight place, my friend," he said. "Are you aware that you
are under the gravest suspicion of having murdered Levi Levison?"
"I am not surprised to hear it, since you knew of my engagement to meet
Levison on the marsh that night," replied Leslie. "I had more than half
expected that you would give evidence to that effect at the inquest."
Nugent brushed the insinuation aside with a contemptuous gesture. "My
dear Chermside, if you are going to approach the matter in that spirit,
we shall come to grief," he said. "Can't you see that our interests are
absolutely identical--that if you fall I fall too. Not quite so far
perhaps, but a good deal further than I care to contemplate. I don't
pretend to any affection for you, after the way you have played the
mischief with everything, but your arrest on this charge would mean my
social ruin--if nothing worse. The motive for your crime, and all that
led up to it, would be sure to come to light--even if you did not plead
guilty and put forward the motive as an extenuating circumstance."
This was selfish villainy, naked and unashamed, but it sounded like
honest villainy. Leslie had realized from the first that if his
appointment with Levison transpired, the case against him would be black
indeed, but he had expected that Nugent would rejoice in that fact. It
had not occurred to him that his former accomplice would be dragged down
in his fall.
"It will be time enough to talk of motive when I admit that I killed
Levison," he said, in a burst of indignation.
"You didn't kill him? There are no witnesses. Straight now, as from man
to man, standing on the brink of the same precipice?"
"I'll swear I didn't."
The shrug and the raised eyebrows with which Nugent received the denial
made Leslie itch to hit him, but his anger passed with the prompt
semi-withdrawal of the implied accusation.
"If you didn't someone else did. Let me think a moment," said Nugent,
and again he fell to tracing invisible patterns on the card table.
Leslie leaned against the wall by the door, and stared vacantly through
the window at faint specks on the horizon of the sunlit sea--Brixham
trawlers on the fishing-grounds twenty miles away. The dapper man in the
immaculate grey suit, solving unseen problems on the green cloth, had
disarmed him. Nugent's belief in his guilt, he told himself, had been
genuine, but Nugent had been shaken in that belief. He was striving for
some other explanation of the Jew's death. At last he raised his eyes.
"I have been trying to overhaul my knowledge of Levison's past in order
to account for his murder by some other means than the obvious," he
said. "And, with every desire to fit him with an appropriate murderer, I
have entirely failed. There is no need to disguise the fact that he was
my tool--a dirty little shyster who has done odd jobs for me--but he was
not the sort of person to inspire a thirst for bloodshed. A
mean-spirited little rascal, with no ideas beyond the price of a
bill-stamp and overcharging what he called his 'exes.' There was no
one to kill him but you, my friend."
"Don't call me that," said Leslie hotly. "I repeat that I did not kill
him."
Nugent shook his head with an incredulity the more exasperating because
it seemed so thoroughly genuine. "At any ra
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