Читать бесплатно онлайн книгу  The Valley of Ghosts

автор Edgar Wallace

The Valley of Ghosts

Edgar Wallace

Chapter 1

 

Fate and an easy-running Spanz brought Andrew Macleod to the environs of Beverley. The town itself was at the end of a reluctant branch line, and had no visible excuse for existence, or means of support. Yet, for some extraordinary reason, the people of Beverley did not starve and the queer little shops that formed its one, broad, shaded street had the appearance of prosperity. This it could not have drawn from its aristocratic suburb, for Beverley Green had its supplies from the great department stores elsewhere, and came only to the town for such stocks as had been overlooked in the ordering.

Andy brought his long-bonneted car to a rest before the post office and got down. In five minutes he was chatting to headquarters, and the subject of his conversation was Allison John Wicker, alias Four-Eyed Scottie, from his practice of wearing spectacles. Scottie was one of the few men of his profession who enjoyed walking. When the manager of the Regent Diamond Syndicate came to his office one morning and found that somebody had saved him the bother of opening the large fire- and thief-resisting safe by means of an acetylene blower, it was as clearly Scottie's work as though he had left his receipt for the seven parcels of stones he had taken. Railway stations and ports of embarkation were instantly picketed by extra police, hotels were visited, and all constabularies warned.

Andy Macleod, spending his holiday with a fishing-rod and an accumulation of books which he had not time to read during the year, was dragged away from his recreation to organise the search.

He had started life as Dr Macleod, an assistant pathologist at headquarters, and had drifted into the profession of thief-catcher without exactly knowing how. Officially he was still a pathologist, a man to be called to the witness stand to testify the manner of deceased's death; unofficially, though they called him 'sir', he was 'Andy' to the youngest policeman that walked a beat.

"He passed through Panton Mills three days ago on a walking tour. I'm pretty certain it was Scottie," he said. "I'm quartering the country between here and Three Lakes. The local police swear that he hasn't been near Beverley, which means that he must have been living under their noses. They are a bright lot; asked me if he had done anything wrong, and they have had full particulars of the theft and a description of Scottie for a week."

A girl walked into the post office at this moment. Glancing sideways through the glass panel of the telephone booth, Andy noted her admiringly. Attractive—pretty—beautiful? To all men, all women look their best in tailored costumes of severe cut. She was tall for a woman; slim, but not thin.

"Yes, I think so," he answered his chief mechanically, his eyes on the girl.

She raised her hand, and he saw a ring on the engagement finger; a gold ring with little emeralds, or they may have been sapphires—no, they were emeralds. He caught the sea-green of them.

He had opened the door of the booth an inch after the more secret portion of his report had been made, and with one free ear he caught the murmur of her voice.

More than pretty, he decided, and admired the profile turned towards him.

And then a curious thing happened. She must have looked at him when his eyes were turned. Possibly she asked who he was; more likely the garrulous old postmaster, to whom Andy had shown his card to facilitate his call, volunteered the information. Andy heard the word 'detective'. From where he stood he had a clear view of her face.

"Detective!" she no more than whispered the word, but he heard—and saw. Her hands gripped the edge of the counter and the colour went out other face, leaving it a deathly white. Even the lips changed their hue queerly.

So intent, so startled was he, that he took the receiver from his ear, and at that moment she turned and met his gaze. Fear, panic, horror were in those eyes. He had a sense of something trapped and tortured as he stared at her, open-mouthed. Her eyes left his, and she fumbled at the money on the counter, the change the old man had put there, her hands shaking so that at last she scooped the coins into her palm and went out of the office hurriedly.

Unconscious of the fact that at the other end of the wire a puzzled police official was tapping the receiver urgently, having his own views to express, Andy hung up and passed into the shop.

"Who was that lady?" he asked as he paid the telephone charge.

"That, sir? Why, that's Miss Nelson, from the Green—Beverley Green, over by the hills. Wonderful place; you ought to see it. Lot of rich people live there. Mr Boyd Salter, you've heard of him? And Mr Merrivan, he's a rich man, too, though he's a bit mean, and oh, a lot of swell people. It's a sort of a—what do you call it? A garden city, that's what it is. Some of the biggest houses in the country. Mr Nelson's family lived there for years, long before there was any garden city. Remember his grandfather; a fine old fellow he was."

The postmaster was prepared to offer detailed biographies of the favoured folk who lived at Beverley Green, and Andy was anxious to catch another glimpse of the girl, and cut short the explanation.

He saw her walking quickly down the middle of the road, and guessed that she was on her way to the railway station.

He was puzzled and irritated. How might he explain her agitation? What had she to fear from detectives? What folly, big or small, had been responsible for the cold terror that had come to her eyes?

It was a waste of time to consider the cause. The folk of these little towns, picturesque, aloof from the world, where the stream of life seemed so idyllic and unruffled by the great passion storms which lash the surfaces of the cities, must inevitably experience crises no less tragic than these which disturb the people of the greater world. But—

The word 'detective', implying, as it would, the secret investigations of the law, holds no discomfort for normal, law-abiding people.

"Humph!" said Andy, and rubbed his smooth chin. "This won't catch Scottie!"

He drove the car out of the village, intending to push forward to the main road and begin his quartering of the network of secondary feeders which lie to the south from a point twenty miles away.

Slowing to take a sharp bend, a mile or more from Beverley, he saw an opening in the hedge to the right. There was a broad, gravelled boulevard flanked by trees; the paths, bordered by well-trimmed turf, curved out of view. An artistic signpost said private road to beverley green.

His speed had carried him beyond the opening, and he backed, looked thoughtfully at the sign, then turned into the drive. It was hardly likely that Scottie would pass into what was probably a dead end. On the other hand, Scottie was a versatile genius and a great opportunist. And Beverley Green was a rich community. So Andy told himself by way of excuse, though in his heart he knew that his curiosity had its causation in a new interest. He wanted to see the house in which she lived. What kind of style did Miss Nelson keep up?

The drive twisted and turned and at last took a sharper turn than usual, and Beverley Green, in all its summery beauty, came suddenly into view. Andy reduced speed to a walking pace. Before him was a broad space. It was almost flat, and was fringed with an unbroken border of flowering shrubs. Within a dozen yards from the drive was a tee, an indication of a golf course which probably extended along the valley. Set about the green, half revealed through the trees which surrounded them, were a dozen houses. A glimpse of a gable, a flash of a white-sashed window, a hint of timbering, the upstanding lift of a twisted Elizabethan chimney, indicated the type of architecture.

Andy looked around for somebody to question. The road bent sharply left and right from where he sat, and at the corner was a quaintly shingled building which suggested a club. He guessed it was a notice-board attached to the gatepost, and was getting out of the car to investigate further when a man came into view around the corner on which the building was situated.

"Prosperous city merchant—retired," said Andy mentally. "Black alpaca coat, broad-toed shoes, stiff collar, and a double watch-guard. Probably pompous, and wondering what the devil I mean by trespassing in these Elysian fields."

Certainly the newcomer eyed the intruder gravely, though it would be an exaggeration to say that he looked in any way resentful.

His age might have been anything between forty-five and sixty. The big, smooth face was unlined, and his gait was alert to the point of briskness. A big man, he supported his stoutness so well that Andy did not notice that he was inclined to fat until some time later.

The greeting he offered dispelled any doubt of welcome that the visitor may have harboured.

"Good morning, sir," he said. "You seem to be looking for somebody. The Green is a difficult locality for strangers; our houses have no names or numbers."

He laughed sedately.

"I am not looking for anybody in particular," said Andy, giving smile for smile. "I was led here by curiosity. It is a beautiful spot. I heard about it at Beverley."

The other inclined his head.

"We get very few visitors—I nearly said 'happily', but that would be unkind. The estate is privately owned by myself and my neighbours, and we have no inn to tempt visitors to stay. A guest-house." He waved his hand to the wisteria-covered building which Andy had thought might be a club. "We maintain that for visitors. Sometimes we cannot accommodate all our friends, and sometimes we have a distinguished—ah—person who is, so to speak, the guest of our little community. At present, for example," he went on, "we have an eminent Canadian geologist."

"Happy man," smiled Andy, "and happy community. Are all these houses occupied?"

He asked the question well knowing that every house would be in occupation, but anticipating the form a reply would take.

"Oh indeed, yes. That last house on the left is Mr Pearson's, the great architect, now of course retired. The next house with the gables is Mr Wilmot's, a gentleman who is—er—well, I don't know what he is, even though he is my nephew—shall we say something in the city? The next house, where you see the rambler roses, is Mr Nelson's—Kenneth Leonard Nelson, of whom you must have heard."

"The artist?" Andy was interested.

"Exactly. A great artist. He has a studio, but you cannot see it from here; it is on the northern side. Artists, I understand, prefer the northern light. The house on the far corner—you may not observe the corner from here, but there is a lane at the side leading to the tennis courts—that is my feudal mansion," he chuckled good-humouredly.

"What is that big mansion on the side of the hill?" asked Andy.

So her father was Nelson the artist. Now what had he heard about Nelson the artist? The name suggested something unpleasant.

"That house on the hill?" replied the guide. "That, unhappily, is not of our community. It is, in fact, the real feudal castle around which we humble—er—peasants have built our hovels."

The conceit seemed to please him, and he repeated, "Built our hovels," before he went on: "That is Mr Boyd Salter's place. The family has lived here or hereabouts for centuries, sir. The Salters come down from—well, I won't inflict their history upon you. Mr Boyd Salter is a very rich man, but a semi-invalid."

Andy nodded and the other went on:

"There is our guest. Professor Bellingham. My name, by the way, is Merrivan."

So this was Mr Merrivan. "Rich, but a bit mean," was the description the postmaster gave.

Andy was eyeing the approaching figure of the Canadian geologist—a spare man in baggy breeches with a studious stoop.

"Been out on the hills collecting fossils. Quite a number have been found here," explained Mr Merrivan.

"I think I know him rather well," said Andy, more than interested.

He walked across to meet the professor, and when they were separated by a few yards the geologist looked up and stopped.

"Hard lines, Scottie," said Andrew Macleod, with ill-simulated sorrow. "Are you going to make a fuss, or shall I take you somewhere to lunch?"

"Logic is my weakness," confessed Scottie, "and if you'll let me go up to my room to pack a few articles of raiment I'll step along with you. I see you've got a car, but I'd rather walk."

Andy said nothing, but when they joined Mr Merrivan: "The professor is going to show me some of his specimens," he said pleasantly, "and thank you very much, Mr Merrivan, for your kindness and courtesy."

"Perhaps you will come back one day and let me show you round?" invited the big man.

"I should be delighted," answered Andy, and meant it.

He followed Scottie up the oaken stairs of the guest-house to the delightful little room that he had occupied for two days.

"Scepticism is the curse of this age," said Scottie bitterly. "Do you think I wouldn't have come back if you'd let me go alone to my room?"

There were times when Scottie was childish, and Andy Macleod did not trouble to reply.

The lank man stepped into the car, wearing on his countenance an expression of sheer distaste.

"There are too many motor cars in these days," he complained. "Lack of exercise is killing thousands every day. What do you want me for, Mac? Whatever it is, I've got an alibi."

"Where did you find it? With the fossils?" demanded his captor, and Scottie relapsed into a dignified silence.

Chapter 2

 

With scottie lodged in the adequate lock-up, Andy discovered that there were certain formalities that need be gone through before his prisoner could be transferred to the area where he must answer for his sins.

"Where can I find one?" asked Andy, when he was told that the transfer must be approved and ordered by the local justice.

"Well, sir," meditated the sergeant of police, "there's Mr. Staining, but he's ill; and there's Mr James Bolter, but he's on his holidays, and there's Mr Carrol, but, now I come to think of it, he's gone up to the horse show. He breeds—"

Andy interrupted him.

"There is something in the air of this place which makes people talkative, sergeant," he said patiently, "but perhaps I was a little obscure. I don't want the names of the men who aren't here. Is there anybody in the neighbourhood who is on the Commission of the Peace?"

"There is one gentleman," emphasised the sergeant. "Mr Boyd Salter. He'll sign the order." He added: "If he's at home."

Andy grinned, and went in search of Mr Boyd Salter.

He found that the nearest way to the house avoided Beverley Green; in fact, Mr Salter's demesne ran well into Beverley, and was reached through a pair of lodge gates at the end of the town. He had seen them before and wondered who lived beyond them.

Beverley Hall was a handsome mansion of the type that Inigo Jones had made famous.

It was a house of silence. The first sound he heard as he was taken into a spacious, stone-flagged hall was the ticking of a clock. The man-servant moved noiselessly to carry Andy's visiting card, and Andy saw that he wore rubber-soled shoes. He was a long time gone, and when he returned he beckoned the caller forward.

"Mr Salter is a martyr to nerve trouble, sir," he whispered. "If you would speak quietly to him he would be obliged, I am sure."

Andy expected to meet an invalid, and had a vision of a trembling figure propped in a cushioned chair. Instead, he found a healthy-looking man of fifty, who looked up quickly as, unannounced, Andy was shown into the room.

"Good afternoon, Mr Macleod. What can I do for you? I see you are on police business," he said, examining the card.

Andy explained the reason for his visit.

"You needn't lower your voice," smiled the other. "I suppose Tilling told you? Sometimes I am rather jumpy, but this is one of my good days." He looked at the document which Andy put before him and signed it. "Our friend is the jewel burglar, isn't he?" he said. "Where has he been hiding?"

"In your garden city," said Andy, and a frown puckered Mr Salter's handsome face.

"Beverley Green? At the guest-house, of course?"

Andy nodded. "Did you meet any of the citizens?"

"One; Mr Merrivan." There was nothing said for a little while, then: "A curious lot of people. Wilmot is a rum fish. I can't quite get the measure of him. I've often thought he was an aristocratic burglar. What is the name of that fellow in the book—Ruffles? Ah, Raffles, that's it! A queer fish, Wilmot. Then there's Nelson. There is a weird fellow! Drinks like the devil! He'd drink the sea dry."

It was then Andy remembered the story he had heard about the artist.

"He has a daughter," he suggested.

"Ah, yes. Nice girl; very pretty. Wilmot is engaged to her or something of the sort. My son is a great news-gatherer when he's at home. He ought to be in the police service—at school now. H'm."

He looked down at the warrant, blotted it, and passed it across to Andy.

"Mr Merrivan seems a very nice man," he suggested.

The justice shook his had.

"Know nothing about him whatever," he said. "I've just said 'How d'ye do' to him, nothing more. He appears an inoffensive gentleman. Rather a bore, but inoffensive. Talks too fluently; everybody does in Beverley."

To emphasise this local weakness he went on, without stopping, to give the history of Beverley and its people. Presently he spoke of the Hall.

"Yes, it's a beautiful little place, but the estate is a very expensive one to keep up. I've not been able to do what I should have done, if—"

He looked quickly away, as though he feared his visitor could read his thoughts. It was some time before he spoke again. "Have you ever associated with the devil, Mr Macleod?"

He was not joking. The look he shot at Andy was straight and stern.

"I have associated with a number of minor devils," smiled Andy, "but I cannot lay claim to knowing the father of them."

The eyes of Mr Salter did not waver. They fixed Andy absently, it is true, but steadfastly, for fully thirty seconds.

"There is a man in London called Abraham Selim," he said, speaking slowly, "who is a devil. I am not telling you this as a police officer. I don't know why I am telling you at all. I think it comes of a natural association of ideas. I have had to sign many orders of arrest, but never once have I put pen to paper without thinking of this greatest of criminals. He is a murderer—a murderer!"

Andy, startled, moved in his chair.

"He has killed men; broken their hearts; ground them into the earth. He had a friend of mine like that!" He clasped his hand tight until the knuckles showed white.

"Abraham Selim?" Andy could think of nothing else to say, and his host nodded.

"If, as I believe, he will one day make a slip and fall into your hands, send me word. No, no, I don't mean that; he will never be trapped!"

"Is he Semitic—or Turkish? His name suggests both origins."

Boyd Salter shook his head.

"I've never seen him. I've not met anybody who has," he said surprisingly. "Now off you go, Mr Macleod. What is your rank, by the way?"

"I've been trying to discover for years," said Andy. "I'm by way of being a medical."

"A doctor?"

Andy nodded.

"I do a lot of analytical work. I'm a sort of assistant pathologist."

Boyd Salter smiled.

"Then I should have called you 'Doctor'," he said. "Edinburgh, of course."

Andy agreed.

"I've a weakness for doctors. My nerves are—terrible. Is there any cure?"

"Psycho-analysis," said Andy promptly. "It enables you to take out your inhibited worries and stare 'em out of countenance. Goodbye, sir."

There was no more effectual way of giving Andy Macleod his conge than to talk medicines with him.

"Goodbye-er—Doctor. You look very young for such a position—thirty or thirty-one?"

"You suggested midway, sir," laughed Andy, and went out.

Chapter 3

 

Stella Nelson left the post office in a panic. Though she did not turn her head, she was conscious that the good-looking, strong-faced man she had seen in the telephone box was looking after her. What would he think, he, a man to whom, in all probability, the flicker of an eyelash had significance? She had nearly swooned at the shock of that word 'detective', and he had seen her sway and turn pale, and must have wondered what was the cause.

She wanted to run, and it required all her reserve of will to keep her from increasing her already hurried pace. She went rapidly down the declivity to the railway station and found she had half an hour to wait, and only then remembered that when she had left the house she had given herself time to order a number of commodities that were required for the kitchen. Should she go back? Dare she face the grave scrutiny which had so terrified her?

Eventually she did go back. The spur of self-contempt urged her, yet she was relieved to discover that the blue car had gone. She hurried from store to store with her orders, and then, after a moment's hesitation, went across to the post office and bought some stamps.

"What did you say that man was?"

With an effort she kept her voice steady.

"A detective, miss," said the old postmaster with relish. "You could have knocked me down with a feather duster when he showed me his card. I don't know what he's after."

"Where has he gone?" she asked, dreading the reply.

"He's gone up to Beverley Green, Miss, according to what he told me."

The postmaster's memory was not of the brightest, or he would have recalled the fact that Andy had expressed no such intention.

"To Beverley Green?" she said slowly.

"That's it, miss—Macleod!" he said suddenly. "That's the name. I couldn't remember it. Macleod." He pronounced it "Mac-lo-ed."

"Macleod," she corrected him. "Is he staying here?"

"No, miss, he's just passing through. Banks, the butcher, wouldn't believe that we had a detective in the town—a real man from headquarters. He's the fellow who gave evidence in that Marchmont poisoning murder. Do you remember it, miss? A wonderful murder it was, too. A man poisoned his wife, being anxious to marry another lady, and this Macleod's evidence got him hanged. Banks told me that, but I remembered it the moment he spoke. I've got a wonderful memory for murder cases."

She went back at a more leisurely pace to the station and took a ticket. She was undecided, tormented by doubt and fear. She hated the idea of going away from the place, even for a few hours, whilst that man was prying into heaven knows what, she told herself fretfully.

Again she walked back towards the village, and then she heard the scream of the train whistle. No, she would carry out her original idea. One danger at any rate was definite. She hated Macleod. He was an enemy. She hated him, but she feared him too. She shivered at the recollection of that inquiring stare of his, which said so plainly: "You have something to fear." She tried hard to read, but her mind was never upon the newspaper, and, though her eyes followed the lines, she saw nothing, read nothing.

Nearing her destination, she wondered that she had ever dreamt of going back. She had only a week to settle this ghastly business of hers—exactly a week—and every day counted. She might be successful. She might be returning that afternoon, her heart singing with happiness, passing by these very fields and bridges, her mind at peace.

Mechanically she noticed the objects of the landscape as the train flashed through. She must remember to register her emotions when they came to that white farmhouse on the return journey. By the time she saw it again she might not have a care in the world.

Dreams and journey ended simultaneously. She hurried out through the big terminus, crowded with jostling, horrible people, who would not so much as turn their heads if she died that moment. A taxi-cab came to her signal.

"Ashlar Building?" he pondered, and then: "I know where you mean, miss."

The Ashlar Building was a great block of offices; she had never seen it before, and had no idea as to how she was to find the man on whom she was calling. Inside the hall, however, and covering both walls, was an indicator, and her eyes went down column after column of names until they stopped.

309, Abraham Selim.

The office was on the fifth floor.

It was some time before she found it, for it stood in a corner of a long wing—two office doors, one marked private, the other abr. selim.

She knocked at the door, and a voice said:

"Come in."

A small rail separated the office from the narrow gangway in which callers were permitted to stand.

"Yes, miss?"

The man who advanced to her was brusque and a little hostile.

"I want to see Mr Selim," she said, and the young man shook his well-pomaded head.

"You can't see him, miss, without an appointment," he said, "and even then he won't talk to you." He stopped suddenly and stared at her. "Why, Miss Nelson!" he said. "I never expected to see you here."

She flushed, and strove vainly to recall where he had ever seen her.

"You remember me, miss—Sweeny," he said, and her face went a deeper red.

"Why, of course. Sweeny."

She was embarrassed, humiliated, at this discovery.

"You left Mr Merrivan's service rather hurriedly, didn't you?"

He was uncomfortable in his turn.

"Yes, I did, miss." He coughed. "I had a bit of a disagreement with Mr Merrivan. A very mean gentleman, and awfully suspicious." He coughed again. "Did you hear nothing, miss?"

She shook her head. The Nelsons did not keep their servants long enough to reach the stage of intimacy where they could gossip with them, even if they were so inclined.

"Well, the fact is," said Sweeny, a trifle relieved that he had the opportunity of getting in his version first, "Mr Merrivan missed some silver. Very foolishly I had lent it to a brother of mine to copy. He was very interested in old silver, being a working jeweller, and when Mr Merrivan missed the silver—" He coughed again, and grew weakly incoherent. He had been accused of stealing—he! And he had been fired without ado. "I'd have been starving now, miss, only Mr Selim got to hear of me and gave me this job. It is not much," he added deprecatingly, "but it is something. I often wish I was back in the happy valley. That's what I always called Beverley Green."

She cut short his flow of explanation and reminiscence.

"When can I see Mr Selim?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I can't tell you that, miss. I've never seen him myself."

"What!" she said, staring at him in amazement.

"It's a fact, miss. He's a moneylender—why, of course, I needn't tell you that."

He looked knowingly at her, and she felt ready to sink through the floor from very shame.

"All his business is done by letter. I receive visitors and fix appointments. Not that he ever keeps them," he said, "but the clients fill in blanks—you understand, miss, the amount of money they want, the security they can offer, and all that sort of thing—and I leave them here in that safe for Mr Selim when he comes."

"When does he come?"

"God knows," said the other piously. "He must come, because the letters are taken away two or three times a week. He communicates with the people himself. I never know how much they borrow or how much they pay back."

"But when he wants to give instructions does he write them?" asked the girl, her curiosity getting the better other disappointment.

"He telephones. I don't know where from. It's a queer job. Only two hours a day, and only four days a week."

"Is there no possibility of seeing him?" she asked desperately.

"Not a scrap," said Sweeny, becoming important again. "There's only one way of conducting business with Abe—he wouldn't be mad if he knew I called him Abe, not at all—and that is by correspondence."

She dropped her eyes to the counter and stood awhile thinking.

"Is Mr Nelson quite well, miss?" asked Sweeny.

"Very well, thank you," she said hastily. "Thank you, Sweeny. I—" It was hateful to take a servant into her confidence. "You won't mention the fact that you saw me here?"

"Certainly not," said the virtuous Sweeny. "Lord, miss, if you knew the people who come up here you would be surprised. Actors and actresses, people you read about in the daily papers, ministers, religious ones—"

"Goodbye, Sweeny."

She closed the door on his recital.

Her knees wobbled as she walked down the stairs, which she took in preference to the lift, for she knew now just how much she had counted upon the interview. With despair in her heart she saw the iron inevitability of everything. What could now arrest the sword already swinging for the blow? Nothing, nothing! The man she wanted she could not reach—the only man, she told herself bitterly, the only man!

Looking up on the journey back she saw the white farmhouse and could have wept.

She changed at the junction and arrived at Beverley at five o'clock, and the first person she saw as she stepped off the train was the calm, capable, grey-eyed man. He had seen her first, and his eyes were on hers when she stepped down. For a second her heart stood still, and then she saw at his side the man with the handcuffs on his wrist—the Canadian professor! So that was whom he was after—the Canadian professor, who had talked so entertainingly on fossils.

Scottie knew a great deal about fossils; it was his favourite subject. In prison, if one takes up a subject, one usually discovers three or four books in the library that have a bearing upon the matter. On Scottie's other side stood a uniformed policeman. As for the criminal, he met her horrified glance with a bland smile. She supposed that people got callous and hardened after a while, and the shame of captivity ceased to be. But there must have been a time when even that lean-faced man would have dropped his eyes before the gaze of a woman who had so much as spoken to him.

She glanced quickly at Andy and went on. The relief! The dismal despair of the return journey was lightened. She was almost cheerful as she came up the rose-bordered path to the door.

Chapter 4

 

In nelson's house you stepped from the street to a big hall, around three sides of which ran a gallery reached by a broad flight of stairs.

Nelson was standing at an easel examining a picture, and his face was hidden from her. But there was no need to see his face. The attitude was eloquent. He turned and surveyed her with a certain strange hauteur which a king might reserve for unwelcome intruders. He was a man with a narrow face, slightly bald. The nose was thin and aristocratic, the chin and mouth a little weak. A thin brown moustache, turning grey, gave him a quasi-military appearance, in keeping with a mood which at the moment was certainly militant.

"Well," he said, "you have come back."

He stalked slowly towards her, his hands behind him, his thin shoulders thrown back.

"Are you aware that I have had no lunch?" he asked ominously.

"I told you I was going to town this morning. Why didn't you ask Mary?"

She dreaded the reply.

"I have discharged Mary," he said, and Stella groaned inwardly.

"You haven't discharged the cook by any chance?" she asked.

"I have also discharged the cook."

"Did you also pay them their wages?" she demanded, angered beyond restraint. "Oh, Father, why do you do these things?"

"I discharged them because they were impertinent," said Mr Nelson with a gesture. "That is sufficient. I am master in my house."

"I wish you were a little more master of yourself," she said wearily, as she walked across to the mantelpiece, took down a bottle, and held it to the light. "Why do you always discharge the servants when you are drunk, Father?"

"Drunk?" he said, shocked.

She nodded.

In such moments as these she did not use euphemisms, it was not the occasion for delicacy.

"Tomorrow you will tell me you have no recollection of anything that happened, and you will be very penitent. But I shall have to go into Beverley and find two servants who have not been discharged by us. They will be difficult to find."

Nelson raised his eyebrows.

"Drunk?" he repeated, but she took no notice of him, and presently, in the kitchen, where she was preparing her meal, she heard him going up the stairs, repeating "Drunk" and laughing sardonically at intervals.

She sat by the spotless kitchen table and made her meal of a cup of chocolate and a slice of bread and butter. She looked for the cheese, though she knew her search would be fruitless. It was another characteristic of Mr Nelson that in his 'cups' he had a partiality for cheese. If he had done any work—she went out into the studio at the back of the house. The canvas she had placed for him that morning had not felt so much as the touch of a charcoal suck. Stella Nelson sighed.

"What's the use?" she asked, addressing her query to one of the many half finished studies that hung on the wall.

She was working at her household accounts at a small writing-table in a corner of the studio when she heard the bell tinkle, and went to the front door. It was dusk, and the figure of the man who had rung had retreated some half a dozen paces from the door, so that at first she could not distinguish him.

"Oh, is that you, Arthur? Come in, won't you? Father's gone to bed."

"I guessed he had."

Mr Arthur Wilmot waited until she had switched on the light in the studio before he came in.

"You went to town today?"

"Did you see me?" she asked quickly.

"No. Somebody told me; I think it was Merrivan. And did you hear about our Canadian geologist? He is quite an important burglar; important enough to have a man like Andrew Macleod looking for him. He's the pathologist."

"Who is Andrew Macleod?" she asked. She knew at once that Andrew Macleod was the man with the grey eyes, but she wanted to be sure.

"He's a detective. Well, he's not exactly a detective; I believe he's a doctor—a pathologist. He only takes the big cases, and the professor is a pretty big man in his business. 'Scottie' I think they call him; at least, that is how Mr Macleod addressed him."

"I must have seen him at the station," she said; "rather a good-looking man with peculiar eyes."

"I wouldn't call Scottie good looking," said Wilmot, and she was so confused that she did not correct the mistaken impression he had formed.

"I can't ask you to stay very long," she said. "We have lost our domestic staff."

"Again?" he said in surprise. "Oh no, that's too bad! Really I think your father is impossible. That means you've got to be cook and housemaid until you get somebody in."

"With a penitent parent most anxious to assist," she said savagely, "and all the time getting in my way! It is one of the crosses we have to bear, and father is really a wonderful darling when—"

It was on the tip of the young man's tongue to ask when was Mr Nelson ever completely sober. He was too wise, however, to let it go any further. Yet not so wise, as it transpired.

"To what part of the city did you go?" he asked.

She was over by the desk, tidying her papers.

"Why?" she asked, looking across at him.

"Oh, I—just asked—" he said lamely. "I wish I'd known you were in town. We'd have gone to lunch somewhere."

"I have a soul above food when I go to the city," she said. "What is it you do, Arthur?" she went on. "I have asked you that question more or less obliquely before. Permit me the luxury of a real indiscretion. Is it an indiscretion to ask you what you do for a living?"

He was silent.

"I just do things," he said vaguely.

"Have you an office?"

He hesitated, then nodded.

"Yes, I have an office," he said.

"Where?"

She saw the quick pucker of brow, and then:

"Mostly I use other people's offices. I have any number of friends, and my—" he stopped again. "I see my clients as near their homes as I can."

"You're not a lawyer and you're not a doctor." She ticked off the two professions on her fingers. "You're not a broker. Really, Arthur, you're almost as mysterious as"—a silence—"as Mr Scottie, as you call him, our poor professor. And now," she said briskly, "I think you had better go. I am not a stickler for the proprieties"—there was a bump overhead, and she looked up—"but when my parent has finally retired—I think he is just taking his boots off—you will have to retire also."

"I suppose," he began awkwardly, "you haven't thought any more—about—I don't want to rush or take advantage of—of things—"

She looked at him kindly enough, and took him in from the top of his tidy hair to the points of his polished shoes. He had a broad face and a small black moustache (it sometimes reminded Stella of a black caterpillar that had come to rest across his upper lip), and there were times when he appeared a little ridiculous. For some reason he was not so tonight and her heart went out to him in sympathy.

"I have thought about it, Arthur," she said quietly, "but it is wholly impossible. I really do not want to marry anybody. And now go home and forget all about it."

He sat, his eyes looking at the floor, his fingertips touching, and a silence followed, she did not care to break in upon thoughts which she guessed were not too happy.

Suddenly:

"Now, Stella, perhaps you had better drop that little-boy-don't-bother attitude," he said. "You're a woman and I'm a man. I'm offering you something. I'm not exactly empty-handed as it is, but when Merrivan dies—well, I'm his only relative. You're broke, and you've been up to some damned folly. I don't know what it is, but I'll know sooner or later. You can't stay in Beverley Green much longer. Your father has drunk two mortgages on to this house and he'll drink the furniture before he's through. I dare say you think it will be fine and large to earn your living, but it isn't. Five employers in seven will want to cuddle you, I know. I'm willing to put that poor soak into a good inebriates' home. It will be kill or cure, and, anyway, it has got to come to that. I'm speaking plainly. I've tried the other way and it hasn't worked. You're woman enough to see that it is kindest to be cruel. I want you, Stella, I want you more than I've wanted anything. And I know!"

This significantly. Her lips moved; but the question she put had no sound.

"I know just how bad your affairs are, and I tell you that I am going to use my knowledge to get you. There isn't a low-down thing on earth that I won't do to get you. That's straight?"

They had been on such good terms that the reticences which separate ordinary friends from one another had been thawed away. He was the only man in the world, with the exception of her father, who addressed her by her Christian name. She called him "Arthur" naturally. To Stella Nelson he was a type of young business man who played tennis, danced well, talked about himself with satisfaction and owned a mid-opulent car. He was the most engaging of that type she had met, and she had studied him sufficiently well to know exactly what he would do in any given set of circumstances.

Her first sensation when he began to speak was one of dismay and chagrin. She was not hurt; it was a long time before she was hurt. But she was annoyed by the mistake she had made. She had felt that way when at a bridge party she had inadvertently or abstractedly led the wrong card, knowing that it was the wrong card, and had lost the rubber in consequence. She had an absurd desire to apologise to him for having misjudged his character, but, even had she not recognised its absurdity, she was incapable of speech. She was wrong, not he. He was right, natural, his own self, aggressive and 'hell-sure'. The Canadian professor had used that expression in her hearing and it had tickled her. Arthur Wilmot was hell-sure of himself, of his advantageous position, of her.

Then she found her voice.

"You'd better go, Arthur," she said gently.

In age she was little more than a child. She felt motherly towards him. He was so pathetically foolish that she felt sorry for him.

"I'll go when I want to," he said. "If you want me thrown out, call your father. Why don't you? Call the servants he fired! You think I'm being a cad, but I'm underlining and italicising the fact that you arc alone, not in this house, but in the world."

She had found her strength and her weapon.

"And you are being the strong, talkative man. The silent variety was sure to produce his opposite sooner or later," she said.

She leant against the back of a chair, her hands behind her. Her poise was disconcerting to this stormer of citadels. Neither hectic defiance nor surrender met him, but the consciousness that there was some hidden reserve. He felt it coming and was uneasy.

"I'm not frantically annoyed by your—I am trying to think of a good description—tragic clowning; clowning because it was intended to be tragic. I don't want to marry you, Arthur, because—well, you admitted that of yourself you have no particular quality or charm, didn't you? You must 'get me' by virtue of your better financial position. That is snobbish in you, isn't it? Or by blackmail, or some other thing. The villain in the melodrama does that. You should have had a green limelight focused on you—the strong, talkative man and the weak, silent woman. That would be novel, wouldn't it? You are the second drunken man I have met today, only you have swallowed a more potent intoxicant. You're vanity-drunk, and you'll find it hard to get sober again."

Her voice never lost its command of him. He writhed, made grunting little noises. Once he tried to break in on her, but in the end he was beaten down, and arrested the employment of arguments which he had so carefully thought out in a shrinking fear that they would sound silly even to himself. She crossed to the door and opened it.

"I only want to say—" he began, and she laughed.

"You still want to say something?" she asked. He walked out without a word and she crossed and locked the door, behind him.

She stood with one hand on the knob, thinking, her head bent low in the attitude of one who was listening. But she was only thinking, and still in thought she put out the lights and went upstairs to her room. It was very early to go to bed, but there was no reason why she should stay below. She undressed slowly by the light of the moon. Her room was on the top floor, on the same level as that of the servants. It was the gable window which Andrew Macleod had seen, and she chose it because it gave her a view uninterrupted by the trees.

She pulled a dressing-gown over her pyjamas and, throwing open the casement windows, leant her elbows on the edge and looked out. The world was a place of misty hues. The light flooding the central green turned the grass to a dove grey. The beams caught the white scar of old Beverley Quarry, and it showed like a big oyster-shell against the wooded slope of the hill. A night of peace; no sound but the faint screech of an owl from the hills and the crunching of feet on the gravel road. Tramp, tramp, tramp, like the measured march of a soldier. Who was abroad? She did not recognise the leisurely footstep. Then he came into view.

Looking down between the branches of two trees, she saw a man, and knew him before he turned his face inquiringly towards the house.

The detective with the grey eyes—Andrew Macleod!

She bit her lip to check the cry that rose, and, stepping back, closed the windows stealthily.

Her heart was thumping painfully; she almost heard the 'Ugh!'of it.

The detective! She crept to the windows and looked out, and, waiting, she pulled them open. There was no sound, not even the distant sound of feet on gravel. In a moment she saw him. He was walking across the grass, and soon after disappeared. There came to her the drone of a motor that died away to nothing.

She staggered to her bed and sat down.

At that moment Arthur Wilmot was torturing himself with speculations. What would she think of him? He might have spared himself that sleepless night. She had forgotten that Arthur Wilmot existed.

Chapter 5

 

Waiting on the station platform, Scottie had grown suddenly communicative, even rhetorical.

"You think that you're tolerably well acquainted with all the dirt of life, Macleod; because you know the hot spots in town, the Chink pipe cellars, and the silk curtains and divan emporiums, that you know it all. I admit you're not so hell-sure as some of those misapplications they call detectives, and your doctoring has taken you down to the lining of things, but you don't know it all."

"I don't," confessed Andy.

"That is where some of you people go wrong—not you, I admit, but some of you coppers. It isn't the dive and the thieves' kitchen, or the place where the scum and scrapings are found—little hooks who reckon they're Rothschildren when they touch a fiver—it isn't these that are the bad places." He looked round. The county policeman who was escorting him to town was not listening. "If you want to find tabulated hell, go to Beverley Green!"

Andy eyed him keenly and felt an inexplicable thrill run down his spine.

"What do you mean? Did you hear anything?"

Scottie conveyed a negative with a curl of his lips. "No, nothing; but I smelt it. I'm sensitive to—what'n hell's the word? Atmosphere, that's it. You'll snigger at that, but it was a fortune to me in what I might term my unregenerate days. I'll let you snigger now, but you won't laugh when you see the size and appearance of my alibi. In those days that sort of creepy feeling has saved me many a long stretch of wasted time. I've been in a prison when they brought in a man to be hanged. Nobody knew he was there; he was transferred the day before his execution, because the flooring of the death house caught fire. Fact! And I knew he was in the prison, knew the hour he came in. That is how I feel about Beverley Green. There is something—evil about it. Queer word for me to use, Macleod, eh? They touch your elbow as you walk—ghosts! Laugh! But I tell you there's a bunch of 'em. That's how I've named it the Valley of Ghosts! Now I'll tell you something that would look bad against me if you put it in the charge. But I trust you, Macleod, because you're different to the general run of bulls; you're a gentleman. I carried a gun. Always had one in my kit, but never carried one in my jeans before. I did. I had it on me when you pinched me. I chucked it away as we drove into Beverley. I won't tell you where, for you didn't see me do it.'

"When you pretended to yawn as we were coming round the bend into the town," said Andy. "But we won't mention that, and I'll countermand the order I gave to search the ditches. Why, Scottie, you're not easily scared."

Scottie clicked his lips. He was quite serious.

"I don't know. I'm not nervy; never was. Not afraid of anything human. It was just—well—shooting stars used to give me the same creep. It was a fear. I let it out yesterday to Merrivan, the Community-Barker—"

Andy grinned at the tribute to Mr Merrivan as the advertising agent of, and guide to, Beverley Green.

"Not a bad fellow. He's forgotten how to learn, but that comes with fat. Not a bad fellow. He said the same thing—after I'd said it. Agreed with me. Maybe he'd agree with anybody; he's accommodating. But it seemed to me that I'd put into words all that he would have thought if the Lord had given him the power of thinking. Macleod, go and stay a day or so in Beverley Green and smell it yourself—something brooding, the dead silence before the flash of lightning that hits your house—and here's the train. If you're called to give evidence about me, say the good word."

"Have I ever said anything against you, Scottie?" asked Andy reproachfully. "Good luck to the alibi!"

Scottie winked.

It was at that moment that the train stopped and Stella Nelson got out. Andy's eyes followed her until she was out of sight.

"And she's in it somewhere," whispered Scottie, almost in his ear. "So long, Macleod."

So Scottie went off to the bar of justice, a less disastrous experience than he had anticipated, for his alibi was well and truly laid, and the evidence of four apparently respectable persons who were playing cards with him at the moment the crime was committed was unshaken by the scorn of the prosecution and unmoved by the deft questions of a sceptical judge.

Andy had promised himself the pleasure of a moonlight drive across country to the holiday place whence he had been dragged. Evidence of arrest would be given by the inspector in charge of the case, to whom the receiving of the prisoner from the county policeman constituted arrest. If Andy's presence was necessary in court it would only mean a day in town.

Scottie's words had bitten into the surface of his mind as acid bites into a plate. When he went back to the inn where he had garaged the car he had no intention of leaving Beverley, although he was embarrassed to discover that his identity was public property, and the sparse but human population of Beverley turned to look awefully after him as he passed.

If he had no intention of leaving Beverley that night, he had less thought of paying a visit to Beverley Green. Subconsciously he may have already decided his action, but consciously he was obeying a sudden impulse, when, after dinner, he had his car out and drove towards the happy community. He turned at the guest-house, shut off his engine, and extinguished his lights. The moon was at its full, and its magic was working powerfully within him.

He stood for a long time greedily absorbing the delicate beauty of the scene, and then he crossed the green, and again subconsciously his feet carried him in the direction of the Nelson home.

An oblong of yellow light suddenly appeared; the door had opened, and he stopped in the shadow of a clump of rhododendrons, one of many that edged the village green.

He saw a man come out, and there was something in his gait that immediately attracted Andy's attention. It was literally true of Andy that his study of mankind was man. A grimace, a movement of the hands, the very way a man sat down to table and unfolded his napkin, had a meaning to this student.

"There goes one who is in a very bad temper," he thought, and watched the form of Arthur Wilmot as he strode wrathfully along the gravelled road. He threw open the gate of his own house and paused. As if a thought had struck him, he came out again, closed the gate, and continued his walk, turning into a house that stood at the corner of the lane—Mr Merrivan's house, Andy noted, and remembered that they were uncle and nephew.

He walked on, still keeping to the shadow of the bushes. Something—a twinge of apprehension—had communicated itself to him. He was imaginative in a practical way, but he was certainly not as susceptible as Scottie claimed to be. He had passed the burglar's narrative under review, and, allowing for certain natural extravagances of language, there remained his natural sincerity. Andy had discounted the fear which he man had so graphically described as part and portion of the extravagance, but now he himself was experiencing something of the same vague dread. It was as though his soul was passing under the shadow of a menace. He conceived that menace in the shape of a gigantic figure with an upraised sword, and smiled to himself at the romantic conceit.

Nevertheless, he kept to the shadows, and stopped opposite Mr Merrivan's house. What made him do it he never knew. He was jeopardising a better acquaintance with the people of Beverley Green, and, by all standards of behaviour, he was acting unpardonably. The gate of Mr Merrivan's house was open as Arthur Wilmot had left it, and, crossing the road, he passed through, walking on the grass border of the drive.

It was a house of many windows, he saw, when he was clear of the obstructing trees—white, owlish windows, which the moon had transmuted into polished silver. There was no sign of light, and he followed the border until he stood under a window on the entrance floor, and then, with startling clearness, he heard a voice.

"You won't! By God, you won't! I'll see you dead before you do!"

It was not Merrivan speaking. He guessed it must be the visitor. Presently he heard a murmur of sound. The window was opened a few inches at the top. Behind, he guessed, were heavy curtains, and the speakers were in this room. And now he heard Merrivan distinctly.

"You're ridiculous, you're absurd, my dear man. I am not afraid of your threats. And now I will tell you something—something that will surprise you. I know—mysterious occupation in the city—"

And then the voices dropped, and although Andy put his ear to the pane, he could not distinguish anything more, only he heard the quick, urgent murmur of the visitor's voice, and once Mr Merrivan laughed.

Then he caught the moving of a chair and went back the way he had come, standing by the bushes until Arthur Wilmot came out, and, walking more slowly, disappeared into his own house.

Family jars can very well seem more important, more tragic than they are. But this was an unusual quarrel. What was this mysterious occupation of Mr Arthur Wilmot, the very mention of which had reduced him from a hectoring bully, breathing fire and slaughter, to a murmuring supplicant?

He waited until the door of the Wilmot house closed, then he stepped down to the gravel and paced slowly back. As he came to the Nelson residence he stopped and looked, and his heart beat a little faster. He saw the girl distinctly. The moonlight gave her beautiful face a delicacy which was unearthly. He saw her draw back and the window slowly close, and knew that she had seen him. Was she afraid? Had she recognised him? It was queer, he told himself, as he drove back to Beverley, and queerest of all was the sudden lightening of spirit and the rolling away of a sense of impending trouble which he experienced as his car turned into the main road. If there was a devil at Beverley Green he was a most potent devil. For a second he had scared Andrew Macleod.

Chapter 6

 

Stella nelson was at breakfast when her father came down. He was no longer a haughty dismisser of servants, but an ashamed and humble man. His whole attitude was an apology.

Once Stella used to be deceived by his penitence. She had argued that if a man realised and was truly sorry for his faults—and he had not grown so callous that he passed over these acts in silence—there must be something in him and a chance of reformation. But that illusion had passed, with many others.

"Good morning, my dear. I hardly like to look you in the face," he said as he sat down and unfolded his serviette with uncertain hands. "I am a beast, a beast!"

She poured out his tea unimpressed.

"This is the last time, Stella, the very last time. I resolved as I was dressing this morning that never again would a wineglass touch my lips. Was I unusually stupid? I didn't dismiss the servants, did I?"

"They've gone," she said.

He groaned.

"Perhaps I could see them," he said eagerly. "I think I could put things right with Nellie. She was not a bad girl, though she did lose my gold studs. I'll go down and explain, and we'll have them all up by lunch-time, my love. I can't allow you to do the housework."

"Nellie came for her box this morning," said the girl in a matter-of-fact tone, "and I made the same suggestion to her. She says she wouldn't come back if I paid her a million a year. I didn't offer it to her."

"Did I—did I call her names?" he asked guiltily.

She nodded and pushed the marmalade towards him.

"Have you any money? I want to go shopping," she said.

He shifted uneasily in his chair.

"I'm afraid I haven't," he said. "I went into Beverley yesterday morning after you had gone and made one or two purchases—"

"I know," Stella interrupted calmly. "You left exactly half a bottle, which I poured down the sink."

"You shouldn't have done that, my dear," he murmured. "It is poisonous stuff, but it is good to have in the house in case of sudden sickness."

Kenneth Nelson, on such occasions as these, invariably presupposed the outbreak of some malady which could only be cured by the liberal application of whisky.

"If we're sick we'll send for Dr. Grannitt," said the girl briskly. "Are you sure you have no money, Father?"

"I have a few shillings." He put his hand in his pocket and produced a handful of loose silver. "I shall want that," he said hastily. "I get my cheque from the dealers today. Why it hasn't come this morning I don't know. These dealers are most unbusiness-like."

"The cheque came last week," she said, without heat. "You took the letter from the maid and asked her not to tell me anything about it. She told me that yesterday, amongst other things."

He groaned again.

"I'm a spendthrift, I'm a wastrel," he wailed. "I drove your poor mother into her grave by my beastliness. You know I did, Stella."

In such moments of self-abnegation he found pleasure in the exposure of his weakness. That it might hurt his daughter did not occur to him. He himself derived such complete satisfaction in his role of flagellant that he could not imagine she did not share his painful pleasure.

"Don't," she said almost sharply, and returned instantly to the money question. "I must have some money, Father. The maids are coming up for their wages today. Or, to be more exact, I promised to send it down to them."

He was hunched up in his chair, an injured, brooding man.

"I'll make a start on that Pygmalion today," he said. "It will take some while to do, and it will be a long time before I get the money. These infernal dealers—"

He had started on the Pygmalion three years before, but had not been quite in the mood ever since. Stella had given up engaging models for him and accepted the announcement that a start was to be made upon the great picture with the same indifference as she received his penitence.

He brightened up as a thought occurred to him and leant across the table, dropping his voice to a confidential tone.

"I suppose, Stella, you couldn't get—You remember the money you got when that wretched jam manufacturer sued me for the money he had deposited—as if I could paint a picture to order! I was never a tradesman, dear. I don't sing a song about art, but art is the essence of existence to me."

He looked at her expectantly, pleadingly. She shook her head.

"I cannot get any more money that way," she said. "I'd sooner die." She shivered at the recollection. "Don't let us talk about it. Father," she said.

Presently he got up and strolled disconsolately about the room, posing before the half-finished portrait of her which had been begun when she was three years younger.

"There's the makings of a picture," he said. "I've a jolly good mind to concentrate on that."

Later, however, she found him in the studio examining another incomplete canvas.

"A couple of weeks' work on that, Stella, and, by gad! I've got an Academy picture!"

"Why don't you make a start. Father?" she asked. "I'll help you fix the palette. Get into your smock and start."

"There's tons of time," he said airily. "I'm going to see if I can find a professional. One round would make a man of me."

She saw him afterwards disappearing into the valley, with his caddie behind him and the professional walking by his side, a man without a care in the world, without a thought of tomorrow or a real regret for yesterday.

When he came back to lunch he was so bright and confident, so dogmatic and optimistic, that she knew that his good resolution of the morning was already an amusing memory.

"It is knowing where to stop, Stella, that makes all the difference between a man and a fool," he said. "There is nobody who knows better than myself when he's had enough. The trouble with me is that I am an artist. My mind goes wandering into rosy dreamlands, and I drink mechanically, without realising that I am drinking at all." He laughed outrageously and pinched her cheek. "We'll have that Pygmalion finished in a week," he said. "You think that's a stupid promise, don't you? I can tell you, my dear, that as a young man, when I painted the picture which made me famous—Homer drinking the hemlock—I began to work on the Sunday morning and the thing was finished on Tuesday night. Of course I touched it up afterwards."

She had heard the story innumerable times.

"Did you drink anything at the club, Father?"

The club was a tiny bungalow at the end of the village, and had perhaps the smallest membership of any golfing club in the world.

"Just a whisky and soda," he said airily, and added something about a man knowing when he had had enough.

Kenneth Nelson had the habit of repression, a habit to which neurotics are susceptible. He could put out of his mind any aspect of life and every memory of word or deed that was unpleasant to think about, or shocked his artistic soul. He referred to this facility as a gift; it was, in fact, a weakness, symptomatic of his neurosis. His speech abounded in wise sayings, old saws that had crystallised into a habit of thought. His favourite, and, indeed, the only poetical quotation, was that stanza from Omar which deals with the inevitability of the moving finger.

"Oh, by the way, Stella, we have a visitor at the guesthouse. Upon my word, it is poetical justice," he chuckled. "That rascal Bellingham was a thief, a burglar. By gad! I shouldn't have slept soundly if I had known that."

The girl wondered what there was in the house, other than unfinished paintings, that might have tempted the errant Scottie.

Before her father could continue she had an intuitive knowledge of what he was going to say.

"The detective?" she asked quickly.

He nodded.

"He is staying here for a day or two—quite an interesting fellow, a most charming fellow. He's a guest of Merrivan's in a sense. You know how Merrivan picks up odd people, impossible people as a rule; but this time he's picked a winner. This detective fellow—Andrew, Andrew, what the devil is it? A Scottish name. I never can remember all the Macs."

"Macleod."

"Andrew Macleod, that's it! Well, he is the fellow who was sent down to arrest the burglar, and very smart he was about it. He is quite a lion. Of course, it is unusual to find a detective who is a gentleman, except in books. You'd like to meet him, wouldn't you, my dear? He would interest you."

"No," she said, so quickly that he looked at her. "I'm really not interested," she went on hurriedly, "and besides, I saw him in the post office yesterday morning and didn't like the look of him."

Mr Nelson yawned and looked at his watch.

"Well, I'll get along. I promised Pearson I'd partner him in a foursome this afternoon. You're sure you won't come up to tea?"

She did not ask him inconvenient questions about the unfinished Pygmalion. Two years ago, when she first came back from school, she would have been surprised that he had so quickly forgotten his noble intentions, and would have suggested that he spent the afternoon in his studio, and he would have replied that he would get up early the next morning and make a good start. If she had repeated the suggestion now, she would have had the same answer. She was resigned now, resigned to everything. Things must work out as they might. She had made her effort and had failed. Recalling the journey to town and the high hopes she had set upon the interview which had proved impossible, she knew that her wild flutter to escape had been futile from the conception of the idea. The worst must happen. It was Kismet.

When she had come down that morning she had found a letter from Arthur Wilmot, and, after making sure that he was the writer, she had torn it up unread and thrown it into the wastepaper basket. He was the least disturbing element of all.

As to the detective, he also was fate. He must do whatever he wished, whatever it was his duty to do. She was resigned to the worst, and he was included in her category of misfortunes. Today he headed the list.

She spent the afternoon interviewing the raw materials of service. They were crude country girls, who gaped at her, and giggled at the labour-saving devices to which she introduced them. It was a waste of time to look for trained servants, for they knew the house, and they had heard of Kenneth Nelson in his cups.

A secret and dwindling reserve of money which she kept in her desk enabled her to discharge her liabilities to the servants whom Nelson, in his lordly way, had dismissed. She had just finished the heart-breaking task of teaching the new cook the delicate art of tea-making ("I likes it hot and strong myself, miss," said that lady) when Mr Merrivan arrived. She saw him through the window, and opened the door to him herself.

He was an unwelcome visitor, though she did not dislike him. She stilled the nutter of apprehension which she felt by committing him to the category of her inevitabilities, and gained a certain peace of mind thereby.

"A delicate errand. Miss—er—Nelson," he said, shaking his head, and thereby implying his unfitness for the mission. "A very delicate errand. I hardly know where to begin."

She waited, fearing that he would begin by reminding her of a certain obligation she had once undertaken and happily discharged. To her relief, the subject which he had come to expound was the brutality of his nephew.

"I don't know what he said to you. I can only guess. May I sit down?"

"I'm so sorry."

She pushed forward a chair, and Mr Merrivan seated himself slowly and gave her elaborate thanks.

"He has insulted you beyond forgiveness," he was starting, but she stopped him.

"I do hope you're not going to talk about that, Mr Merrivan. Arthur is very young, and he doesn't know a very great deal about women."

"Doesn't he?" said Mr Merrivan significantly. "I am sorry to say I disagree with you. He knows enough about ladies to understand what is his duty."

"Did he tell you?" she asked, wondering how this big man came to know.

It occurred to her that Arthur must have inherited his talkativeness from Mr Merrivan's branch of the family.

"He certainly told me," nodded the other, "and he asked me to use my influence with you—ahem!" he coughed. "I told him," he spoke very distinctly and slowly, "that I certainly could not hope to press the suit of another."

There was a pause whilst she was taking this in.

"Of another?" she repeated. "Do you mean—oh, no, you cannot mean—"

"I mean," said Mr Merrivan, very quietly, and, as before, very distinctly, "myself. The disparity in our ages, Miss Nelson, is apparently an insuperable obstacle to my happiness."

"Age has nothing to do with it, Mr Merrivan," she said hastily, "only I—I don't want to get married. You do mean that? You want to marry me? I hope you don't—it would make me look a little foolish if you didn't, but—I'd rather feel foolish."

"That is what I mean," said Darius Merrivan in his stateliest manner. "I have for a long time contemplated such a step. Miss Nelson, and every day I have seen you I have become more and more convinced that you are the only woman in the world with whom life would be in any way agreeable."

Stella laughed.

"I'm a little hysterical, I think," she excused herself. "I never dreamt that you—Of course, I am very honoured, Mr Merrivan, I cannot tell you how honoured, and you have been so good to me."

He raised his hand in protest.

"Do not let us speak of that matter," he said. "I can offer you—"

"Wait," she interrupted urgently. "I don't want to be married; that is the truth. I am very young, and I have no fixed ideas about matrimony, and I don't want to be married. It isn't because it is you, Mr Merrivan, any more than it was because it was Arthur. I just don't want to be married!"

She might have thought that he had expected some such reply, he took her refusal so calmly and with such a little show of chagrin.

"The matter can wait," he said. "I cannot expect a young lady to make up her mind on the spot, but I shall not give up hoping."

She shook her head.

"I think it would be kinder to tell you not to hope," said she. "I like you awfully, and you have been very kind to me."

Again his hands protested.

"But I don't want to marry you, Mr Merrivan, any more than I want to marry your nephew, and I don't think any time you may allow me to reconsider the matter will cause me to change my views. They are fixed and immutable."

Still he did not make any attempt to rise, but sat there feeling his smooth check and staring past her, until she began to wonder what there was to attract his gaze.

"Are things well with you, Miss Nelson?"

"Very well indeed," she answered brightly.

"You are not troubled at all?"

She shook her head.

"Another delicate matter," he said. "I am a very rich man and have no relatives and few calls upon my purse. If a matter of two thousand would be of any use to you, to tide over these hard times, you may command me."

"No, Mr Merrivan," she answered quietly, "it is big and generous of you. I have once trespassed upon your kindness, but—it wasn't a nice experience. Oh, yes, you were very sweet about it, but I can't accept anything more."

He got up to his feet, flicked a speck of dust from his sleeve, and picked up his hat.

"Arthur knows," he said. "I told him."

"Told him what?" she demanded, startled.

"That I was going to ask you to marry me."

He laughed softly.

"He was very violent. Miss Nelson, and threatened—I think he threatened to kill me." He turned at the door. "By the way, did he say anything to you about knowing your secret?"

"Did he tell you that, too?"

He shook his head.

"No, I guessed that. The secret he knew was that you had borrowed money from me, and how he came to know is beyond my understanding. Perhaps I can induce you to change your mind?"

She shook her head.

He was standing in the doorway, his hand on the handle, looking out into the garden.

"When is the twenty-fourth of the month?" he asked, not turning his head,

A very considerable space of time elapsed before she replied.

"Next Monday," she breathed, and stood motionless as he dosed the door behind him.

So he knew. He really did know. And the detective was here, for what other purpose than to serve Mr Merrivan in his discretion?

Chapter 7

 

Andy spent two unprofitable days at Beverley Green—unprofitable because the person he had come to meet had studiously avoided him. Once he saw a girl walking on the other side of the green. She was accompanied by two dogs, which ran erratically before and behind, and occasionally around her, and, quickening his steps, found that it was a Miss Sheppard, a girl to whom he had been introduced on the links.

He dined the first night with Mr Merrivan and Sheppard, the architect, a man of such elusive personality that thereafter Andrew could never form a mental picture of him. Mr Merrivan was a bachelor, he told them; not an incorrigible one by any means. He was open to conviction, and, if he dare talk about himself, though he was sure nobody was particularly interested, he had been convinced.

"Indeed?" said his guests, variously impressed.

Andy wondered what kind of woman his host would marry. Mr Sheppard did not speculate. He gave the impression that he had stopped thinking when he had made sufficient money to retire from his profession.

Andy recalled the great architect as a round-faced man, but was uncertain whether he had a moustache or was cleanshaven.

He wore a large gold stud, flat, and resembling a button. It had a small black stone in the centre. It was the only hint of his personality that Andy could ever recollect.

"The fact is, gentlemen," said Mr Merrivan, lowering his voice as if he were revealing a great secret, "beautiful as this place is, and charming as the community is and always will be, I am sure, I have planned an existence even more—ah—serene. Do you know Lake Como, Dr Macleod?"

Andy knew it rather well.

"I have purchased a villa—the Villa Frescoli—a little place where I hope to find even greater happiness than has been my lot at Beverley."

Andy was thoughtful. The Villa Frescoli, so far from being a little place, was a palace, and Mr Merrivan was not the kind of man who would boast; a big white marble palace, he remembered, because the title of villa had seemed so inadequate to him when it had been pointed out.

There was a woman in the party that day on the lake, a woman with a practical housekeeping mind.

"They call it a villa," she said, "but it would require a staff of a hundred servants to run it."

She had been over the place, which had been built for a Russian Grand Duke.

Mr Merrivan assumed a new interest in Andy Macleod's eyes. He had spent the evening wondering whether the Nelsons would drop in after dinner, for such was the practice amongst members of the 'community'. But life ran much more conventionally than he had supposed, and, really there had been no reason why he should expect it to run otherwise. Neighbours did not call on one another. Beverley Green kept itself to itself.

Mr Sheppard left early, and, at the invitation of his host, Andy took his coffee into what Mr Merriman called his 'den'. He found himself in the room where Merrivan and Wilmot had been when he had overheard their conversation on the previous night. In some respects it was a remarkable apartment. It was long, and also appeared narrower than it was. It ran from the front to the back of the house, and was lighted from both ends by two tall windows. In the very centre was a big carved fireplace, which would have been more in keeping with a baronial hall, and it was probably due to this feature that the room seemed out of proportion and the ceiling unusually low.

Oak panelling covered the walls, and the first thing Andy noticed was the absence of books. Evidently Mr Merrivan was not a literary man and made no attempt to deceive a casual caller into believing that he was. The pictures on the wall were mostly etchings, and very valuable. Andy noticed some priceless examples of Zohn's works, and Mr Merrivan pointed out to him, with justifiable pride, a cartoon of Leonardo da Vinci.

For the fireplace he apologised. He had bought it from the executors of Stockley Castle. The coats of arms of the Stockleys appeared on the entablature. The furniture was good and modern—two deep settees fitted into the window recesses, and besides Mr Merrivan's desk, which was in that portion of the room at the front of the house, there was a long table at the other end, a beautifully carved cabinet of Eastern origin, and a sprinkling of most comfortable armchairs.

"I am a simple person with simple tastes," said Mr Merrivan complacently. "My nephew thinks that the apartment is more like an office. Well, I have been very comfortable in offices. You smoke, doctor?"

Andy selected a cigar from the silver case that was pushed towards him.

"Do you find our community restful?"

Andy smiled.

"It is a delightful backwater," he said, and Mr Merrivan purred.

"I take a great deal of credit upon myself for its creation," he said. "I acquired these houses one by one. Some of them are very old, though you may not think so, and it was I who laid out Beverley Green as you now see it, I sold every house and made not a penny profit, sir, not a penny," he shook his head.

Andy was surprised.

"That was unbusinesslike of you."

"Not a all, not at all," said Mr Merrivan, shaking his head. "The idea is to get the right kind of people here. I am afraid they are not all quite the right kind. People are not all they seem, and character deteriorates. But in contrast to your own active life, doctor, Beverley Green must be very restful."

They passed on to a discussion of crime and criminals, a discussion which, in the main, took the form of questions on the part of Mr Merrivan and answers, long and short, according to the interest he had in the particular object of Mr Merrivan's research, from Andy.

"Have you ever met in your travels," Mr Merrivan hesitated, "a man named Abraham Selim?"

"Somebody else was asking me that very question," said Andy. "Now who was it? Anyway, I have not met him, Mr Merrivan. He is rather a bad egg, isn't he?"

"He is a usurer, and, as I have every reason to believe, a blackmailer," said Mr Merrivan soberly. "Happily I have not been in his clutches, although other people—can you remember who spoke about him? It was not Nelson, by any chance?"

"No, it was not Nelson," said Andy. "I think it was Mr Boyd Salter who asked me whether I had met him."

"Our feudal lord," said Merrivan humorously. "A very nice man, Mr Boyd Salter. Do you know him very well? I was not aware that you had met him when I was speaking to you the other day."

"I met him the same afternoon," said Andy. "I had to get his signature as Justice of the Peace before I could remove my prisoner."

"A charming fellow; we see too little of him," said Merrivan. "He is a nervous wreck in these days, I am told."

Andy remembered the soft-footed servant and the silence of the house and smiled. He left soon after. Mr Merrivan would have accompanied him to the guest-house, but this Andy declined. He was anxious to be alone; he wanted to make the journey at his leisure. The Nelson house could only be seen from one part of the green.

"I seem to spend my time listening at people's doors," thought Andy. He was standing opposite the gate, a very amazed man, for from within there reached him the sound of a man's violent raving. Suddenly the door was flung open and two women came flying out, blubbering in their rage. Behind them, with long strides, came Nelson. He was dressed in his shirt and trousers and slippers. Andy guessed he was drunk, but although he had seen many drunken men, he had never met one who walked so steadily as he followed the women outside the gate, or whose voice and enunciation were so clear.

"Don't ever let me see you again, you—" He broke into a volley of vilest abuse.

"Father!" The girl was at his side and had slipped her arm into his. "I think you had better come back."

"I will not come back. I will do as I wish. Stella, go to your room!" He pointed dramatically. "Am I to be talked to by these sluts, these scourings of the gutter, I, Kenneth Nelson, an Associate of the Royal Academy? I'll not stand it!"

"Will you please come into the house, Father, or are you anxious to let Beverley Green—"

"Damn Beverley Green! I am superior to Beverley Green! A lot of retired jam manufacturers! Go to your room, Stella." But she did not move, and then Andy thought it was a propitious moment to make his influence felt.

"Ah, Mr Macleod." Nelson was geniality itself.

"Good evening, Mr Nelson. I wanted a little talk with you."

He took the arm of the man and led him unresistingly into the house, and the girl followed.

She was grateful, but she was frightened, curious to know more of him, to see him at closer quarters, and humiliated by the circumstances under which they met. First she recognised—and herein her gratitude was founded—the strength of him. He was one who had handled men before. She sensed something of his magnetism, and perhaps gave him greater credit for the docility of her father than he was entitled to.

"I have just dismissed two impertinent members of the lower classes—two infernal domestic servants, Mr Macleod," said Nelson, with a return of his old hauteur. "The lower orders are becoming more and more unbearable. My dear," he looked reprovingly at his daughter, "I cannot congratulate you on your selection. I really cannot. Now get Mr Macleod something to drink, and I will have just a little tot to keep him company."

"Then we'll have a tot of water, Mr Nelson," said Andy, smiling.

"Water!" Kenneth Nelson did not attempt to disguise his contempt for the suggestion. "Whilst I have a house and a cellar, my dear friend, no guest goes away from here without a beaker of the good yellow wine of Scotland. Ha, ha!"

Andy had expected to find the girl distressed, and was shocked to note her self-possession, shocked because her very poise in this crisis was eloquent of great experience. These outbreaks of Nelson must be of frequent occurrence, he thought, and she seemed so young, such a child. He had once read in a novel of a heroine that she was flower-like, and had dismissed this description as a piece of extravagance on the part of the writer. And yet the description fitted her. The petal purity of her colouring, the stem straightness of her figure—it wasn't these things, though they were there, that he admired. She was a bud, half-revealing the splendour of the flower, and yet wholly satisfying in her immaturity. He had seen her kind in the higher forms at girls' schools—something between girl and child—so exactly satisfying as they were that you grudged their improvement.

She made no attempt to go in search of the whisky. She knew there was none in the house.

"The cellar is empty. Father," she said dryly. "There has been a strike amongst the wine miners."

Ridicule infuriated him, and he swung round on her, but something brought his eyes to Andy. They dominated and held him.

"May I see your father alone for a few minutes, Miss Nelson?" he said. "There is something I want to speak to him about."

She nodded and disappeared.

"My dear fellow," murmured Nelson in weak protest.

"You called me Mr Macleod just now. You have forgotten that I am a doctor. Have you seen a doctor lately?"

"No, I haven't. My health is perfect, perfect," said the other defiantly.

"So far from being perfect," said Andy, "you are on the verge of a complete breakdown, from which you may never wholly recover. I can tell you, without troubling to examine your heart, that you have an aneurism. That made you jump, because you know it is true. I have watched you at golf, and I know, Mr Nelson, you will not live for another year unless you stop drinking."

Nelson bunked.

"You're trying to frighten me," he said. "I know I'm a fool, but I'm not such a fool as you think. I've got a lot of trouble on my mind—Mr—Dr Macleod."

"You can get rid of the greatest by cutting out whisky—though I hate to say anything that will reduce the manufacturing output of my native land. Will you let me come over and see you tomorrow? Who is your doctor?"

"Granitt of Beverley. I have never had him for myself. He attended my poor wife."

"Well, I'll examine you and he can treat you. We'll have a second examination. I'll call in Granitt. Probably he'll want to run the rule over you himself, but that isn't going to hurt you very much."

"I don't know why—" began Nelson in his old haughty way, but Andrew overrode his objections.

"I don't want to alarm your daughter," he said, lowering his voice, "so we will not discuss it any further."

When the girl returned, she found her father almost lamb-like in his mildness. Kenneth Nelson was terribly afraid, for he had had a shock from which he was not likely to recover in a hurry. "I think I'll go to bed, Stella," he said. "I am a bit run down. I haven't been feeling so well lately."

Andrew was amused, but he did not smile. He walked with the girl to the gate, waiting on the step whilst she put on a little scarf—a black scarf, he noticed idly. There was a little red monogram in the corner. Everything about her was interesting to him. He told her as they walked down the path something of the conversation he had had with her father.

"I don't for one moment suppose he has an aneurism, but I'll see Granitt. I think I know his son rather well—he was at Guy's with me—and we can fix up something peculiarly complicated that will keep him away from drink for a very long while."

"I hope so," she said dubiously.

"You have lost faith, haven't you?"

She nodded.

"A little. One gets that way."

"I'll tell you something," he said. "There are taxi-cabs on the streets run by a man named Stadmere. The Stadmere cabs are by far the most luxurious of any. I have trained myself, when I have not been in a very great hurry, to wait for a Stadmere. It is generally a long time coming. Sometimes you can get one almost at once. But it is remarkable, if you make-ip your mind that you will take nothing but a Stadmere, how quickly it comes."

"That is a parable," she smiled. "But I am wanting something chat is even more rare than a Stadmere; I am wanting a miracle."

He did not say anything to this, and she was regretting that she had said so much to a stranger when he turned, holding the wicket gate with his hands.

"I have even seen miracles happen," he said. "They're worth waiting for, too, but I suppose when you're very young, very impatient, days pass so very quickly, and years are such enormous gulfs of time, that you grow tired of waiting."

"You talk like an old gentleman." She smiled in spite of herself.

"A very old gentleman, with long white whiskers, eh?" he said good-humouredly. "Old enough to be impatient sometimes. But still I can wait!"

He held her hand in his for a moment, and she watched him crossing the Green until she saw his blurred figure enter the door of the guest-house.

Chapter 8

 

The days went on. Andy extended his stay for another week. He consulted Dr Granitt, and that physician had called upon Nelson, and, though he had not discovered the alarming aneurism, he left his patient impressed with the number and character of maladies from which he was suffering.

Andy did not see the girl again, save at a distance. His holiday was approaching its end, and he really must put in a week at fishing. His room at the guest-house was a comfortable one, the golf course was excellent, and there was really no reason why he should fish at all.

On Sunday he went to church. He went somewhat hurriedly, for he was in his pyjamas reading when he saw Stella Nelson pass with a prayer-book in her hand. He was in church ten minutes after she entered, and secured a pew which gave him a view of her profile. She recognised him outside, and they walked back to Beverley Green together.

"It was rather an interesting sermon, don't you think, Dr Macleod?"

"Very," he agreed, and tactfully changed the subject. He knew there had been a sermon, because he had seen an old man curled up in one corner of the pew fast asleep. But what it was about he had not the slightest idea.

"I hear you are going away tomorrow," she said.

"I had intended going tomorrow," he said, "but probably I shall stay a few more days, unless they turn me out of the guest-house."

She shook her head.

"Nobody is turned out of the guest-house," she said. "Except by the police," she added a little maliciously, and he chuckled.

As they strolled up the road a man was coming to meet them. Unexpectedly he turned off and disappeared down a side-street.

"Sweeny looks as if he didn't want to meet me," said the girl with a smile.

"I was thinking the same myself. Who is Sweeny?"

"He used to be Mr Merrivan's butler, but I rather think he left under a cloud. He hates Mr Merrrivan."

She was puzzled. She did not credit Sweeny with such a sense of delicacy that he avoided her in order to save her an embarrassing reminder of their last meeting. The explanation of his visit came from Mr Merrivan himself. That genial gentleman came up to them as they were standing by the gate of the house.

"Good morning. Miss Nelson," he said cheerfully. "You didn't meet that rascally Sweeny, did you?"

"I thought it was he," she said.

"The scoundrel!" Mr Merrivan shook his large fist. "He has the audacity to show his nose in Beverley Green again. I caught the fellow spying round my house—or, at least, my gardener did. If I had been at church, as is my usual practice, I should probably never have heard of his appearance. All these servants hang together."

What was there especially heinous in overlooking Mr Merrivan's private grounds, Andy wondered, when he explained to him that Sweeny had done no more than wormed his way through a hedge, at which point he was discovered by the vigilant gardener. Probably the vigilant gardener would have said nothing, only Mr Merrivan happened to be pottering about—he was the sort of man who pottered—and had heard the sound of voices.

Nothing remarkable happened that day, and the machinery of fate, which in its working was to make Beverley Green world-notorious, did not begin grinding until the moon came up over the hills.

Stella was reading in the hall. She had just been up to see her father and make him comfortable for the night, since Mr Nelson had taken the medical advice very seriously and had not left his room since Andy's warning.

She was turning over the page when she heard a stealthy 'Tap, tap' at the window. She waited a moment, thinking she must have been mistaken or that it was a dripping faucet in the kitchen she had heard. It came again,' Tap, tap, tap,' and she put down the book and got up. She was not nervous. Arthur Wilmot, in the old days, used to attract her attention that way when he wanted her to come out and walk round the Green.

She pulled aside the curtain and looked into the garden, but saw nothing. Heavy clouds had been rolling up all the afternoon from the south-west, and the moon was obscured. She walked to the front door, and her hand was on the knob to open it when she saw a letter at her feet. It had been pushed under the door. It was unaddressed, and after a moment's hesitation she tore it open. It was a long letter; four pages were covered with close writing. At first she thought it was from Arthur. She had had several letters from him, and they had all gone the way of the first.

She turned to the signature, puzzled over it a little while, then began to read. The further she read, the colder grew her heart, and tighter seemed that restricted band about it, until she could hardly breathe. She went out into the kitchen and drew herself a glass of water, and, clutching the letter in her hand, she read it again, and every line was a knife-thrust. Presently she found what she was seeking—a small colt revolver which belonged to her father, and which she had locked away in the old days, when his drunken threats meant more to her than they did today. She found also a little green box, packed tight with cartridges. With a duster she cleaned the pistol, opened it calmly, put in three cartridges, and re-closed the breech. Then she went up to her room, found a dark overcoat, put it on, and slipped the pistol into her pocket.

Back in the hall she wished she had not burnt the letter; she wanted to make absolutely sure. She could find out, she told herself. She was cool and unshaken. The hand that turned the switch, plunging the room into darkness, did not shake. She slipped on her scarf and made sure that she had the key in her pocket before she closed the door gently.

At the garden gate she stopped to look over to the guesthouse. What a strength was there! For one wild moment she was tempted to lay her burden of agony upon his broad shoulders—for one moment. Then the absurdity of it struck her. Call a police officer! So she went on, a figure of doom, and her heart was as black as the room she had left, for the light of hope had gone out.

Andy Macleod had changed his mind for the third time that day. He would go tomorrow, he told himself; he was just being a stupid, sentimental fool, and that is a confession which does not sound nice to a man of thirty-five.

He walked over to the house, and, seeing the rooms black, he came back to his own apartment and tried to read. He put the book down after an unsuccessful attempt, undressed, and went to bed. He had a good conscience and a good digestion, and, though he told himself he was going to have a restless night, he was asleep within five minutes.

A rattling at the bedroom door awoke him instantly.

"Who is that?"

"Johnston the manager, sir. Can I see you? It is very urgent."

Andy Macleod put on the light. The watch at his bedside marked the hour of a quarter to two. What had happened? He guessed that the telephone message had come through from headquarters requiring his presence in connection with Scottie's arrest, and he cursed that man unjustly.

His first glance at the manager's face told him that the trouble was nearer at hand. Johnston's face was grey and his lips were trembling.

"Oh, sir," he gasped, "such a terrible thing has happened. Mr Pearson told me to go and fetch you at once before I went to the police."

"What is the matter?" asked Andy quickly.

"Mr Merrivan, sir, Mr Merrivan," whimpered the man.

"What has happened?"

"Dead, sir, murdered, sir. Oh, it is dreadful!"

"Merrivan—murdered! Just wait a moment. I'll be down in a few minutes. Make a cup of tea if you can."

He dressed rapidly, swallowed the tea that the manager handed him (how the cup shivered and rattled in his hands!). Somebody else had notified the local authorities. A sergeant of police opened the door of Mr Merrivan's house to his knock.

"I'm glad you've come, sir," he said. "This is a pretty bad business. I've had every man of the police force roused and I've notified all stations on the road."

"Is he dead?"

"Oh yes, sir, he's quite dead. He must have been dead an hour. I've sent for Dr Granitt."

Andy nodded.

"Where is he?"

"There," said the sergeant, "in his 'den', as he used to call it."

Andy opened the door and walked into the long room. All the lights had been switched on, and he turned automatically to the right where Merrivan's desk was to be found, but he was not there. He lay at the other end of the room, his feet towards the window, his hands upraised, as though to ward off an attacker, and a fearful grin upon his face. He had been shot at close quarters, for there was a blackening of powder upon his white waistcoat. There was no necessity to carry out a medical examination; one glance at the still figure told its story.

Chapter 9

 

He came into the hall.

"Where are the servants?" he asked.

"The butler is pacifying the women, sir."

"Send for him," said Andy shortly.

The butler had heard nothing. His master had sent the servants to bed early. He had said that he would put out the lights and lock up. He often did this, so the butler did not see anything unusual in the order.

"Has he had any visitors this evening?"

The man hesitated.

"I couldn't say for certain, sir. I heard voices once. I came down for a candle, and I thought I heard him talking."

"To whom?"

"Well, sir," hesitated the man, "as far as I could judge, it was to a lady."

"Did you recognise her voice?"

"No, sir."

"What time was this?"

"Between half past ten and eleven."

"Did you hear no shot?"

"No, sir. Something woke me up; it may have been that. Cook says she heard a sound like a door creaking loudly. She came and woke me up. She didn't wake me up immediately she'd heard the sound, but lay shivering in bed thinking it was burglars. Then she got up and knocked at Mr Merrivan's door, and, as he didn't answer, she came to me. That's how I discovered Mr Merrivan, sir."

"When you went into the room were the windows open or closed?"

"They were closed, sir."

"Is there any other way out besides the front door?"

"Yes, sir. There's a way out through the kitchen, and there's another way out along the rosery path which Mr Merrivan uses himself."

The doors leading to both these exits were barred and bolted, and Andy returned to the room where the murder had been committed. He noticed something peculiar about the carved Chinese cabinet. The door did not seem to fit, and, pulling it open, it came away in his hand. Then he understood the utility of the cabinet. Inside was a steel safe, which was also open. A bunch of keys dangled from the lock. He pulled open this door, to discover that the safe was empty. Then in the fireplace he saw a heap of burnt papers. Part of the heap was still smouldering red, and carefully he extracted such unburnt scraps as remained. He rescued a little leather-covered diary which had only been partly consumed, and this he placed carefully on a piece of paper.

"Nobody is to touch those ashes, you understand, sergeant?"

"I understand, sir."

Andy examined the windows. Those in the front of the house were secured, and had not been tampered with. He tried the windows at the rear, and, as he had expected, one of them was unfastened.

"Excuse me, sir," said the sergeant. "Did you see the letter?"

"The letter?" said Andy. "No, where?"

"The butler found it on the floor by the desk. He tells me he picked it up and put it under a heap of papers on the desk. He has just remembered that. He said he thought it was a letter Mr Merrivan had been reading just before he was killed."

Andy searched the desk and drew forth from beneath a heap of accounts and unanswered letters a sheet of yellow notepaper. The calligraphy was cramped and of that style which is known as backhand, and is usually used by people who seek to disguise their handwriting.

The first words arrested Andy's attention. He sat down in the swing chair. The letter ran:

'I have given you a chance. You have failed me. You must bear the consequence. If in twenty-four hours you do not agree to carry out your promise, look out! This is final. I have been patient too long.'

It was signed 'A.S.'. He looked up at the ceiling. A.S.? Abraham Selim! There was a postscript.

'A trusted friend of mine will put this under your door.'

Andy folded up the letter and put it into his pocketbook as Dr Granitt came in.

"Well?"

"Very bad," said the old doctor, shaking his head. "Oh, yes, he's dead all right; been dead for an hour, I should think. Just lift his head, Dr Macleod. Yes, there's the wound. The thoracic aorta is severed and the fourth dorsal vertebra smashed by the same bullet. You may say he has been killed twice. Bad, very bad."

"Do you notice anything peculiar about him, Dr Granitt?"

"No," said the other, looking down with a professional eye at the dead man.

"Look at his boots."

The old man obeyed, and raised his eyebrows.

"Good lord, he's got a pair of labourer's boots on!"

They were thick, unshapely articles, the kind that agricultural labourers wear, and they were yellow with dried mud. The doctor looked and shook his head.

"You won't want me any more, Macleod?"

"No. I don't even think we shall want you at the coroner's inquiry unless they wish to call corroborative evidence."

"Thank heaven for that," said the doctor. He had all the general practitioner's horror of court proceedings, with their time-wasting protractions. "I'm frightfully busy just now. Hardly a night I'm not called up by anguished husbands—a very prolific people, the people of Beverley."

Andy saw him out of the house and went back to the death-chamber to conduct a more thorough examination. He worked away from the body, and began with the window through which the murderer must have come. Here he had a complete confirmation of his theory. There were three dusty footprints on the settee, which was covered in black poplin and showed the prints of shoes, two lefts and a right. They were very, very small, no bigger than a woman's, though the heel was broader. They might have been the marks of a woman's house-shoes—the butler had heard a woman's voice. The window was unbolted and moved up easily and noiselessly. He found nothing until he came to the writing-table. It was a broad pedestal desk in black oak. It looked an antique; a man like Merrivan would hardly have imitation Jacobean furniture.

There were two drawers on either side, and one of these—the lower and the nearest to the window—was open. It looked as though it had been opened by Merrivan as he sat in the swing chair. Andy pulled it out still further, and the glitter of gold caught his eye. It was a woman's dress ring—a thin hoop of gold with five small emeralds set at intervals.

He frowned. He had seen that ring before. Where? He knew, but he fought off an admission that he knew. It was Stella Nelson's ring. He had seen it on her engagement finger in the post office, and had felt a momentary pang of disappointment, the pang that all men feel when they see a pretty woman is not for them.

He stared at the little hoop in the centre of his palm, turned it over, and put it into his pocket, closing the drawer. Now he began to search about the desk and underneath.

Again he was rewarded. He picked up a tiny box, leather-covered. It was a jeweller's ring case, and it was empty. He did not trouble to fit the ring to the slot in the white velvet. A ring of any size would fit. There was a step in the passage, and he slipped the case into his jacket pocket.

The newcomer was the local inspector, an important man, very naturally anxious to extract whatever kudos was to be had from the conduct of the case.

He said it was a "very bad business". It was curious how people always said that on these occasions.

"I'll take over charge here, Mr—um—Macleod," he said.

"Certainly," agreed Andy, "but you must definitely instruct me in writing not to conduct any further investigation."

At this the inspector hesitated.

"I dare say we can work together, Mr Macleod. I've got on the 'phone to the chief constable and he told me to notify headquarters."

"We'll work together if I am in charge," said Andy. "You shall have all the credit that is going, Inspector. Leave me to find the murderer."

"I don't want any credit. But I'm sure you'll see me right, Mr Macleod. What do you want me to do?"

Andy gave his instructions and in half an hour the body was removed. Later the inspector came to him with information.

"Mr Pearson heard the shot; it woke him up, he said. He came over just as the butler made the discovery. The shot came from the orchard at the back of Merrivan's house."

Andy listened incredulously.

"From the orchard? Impossible. He was shot at close range. The waistcoat is scorched and blackened."

"But one of the maids heard it, too—the hysterical one. We've got her calm now, and she swears she heard the shot. The window of her room overlooks the orchard. She was awake, too, the knocking on the butler's door had awakened her."

"But the butler didn't hear it?"

"He was on his way downstairs by then," explained the officer.

Andy scratched his nose irritably.

"Merrivan was dead by then and the safe rifled. It must have taken at least four minutes to find the keys, open the safe—no, that is impossible. The butler must have made a noise of some kind—knocked a chair over probably."

"But Mr Pearson wouldn't have heard that."

Andrew was silent.

"Neither would he," he confessed.

It was getting light now, and he passed out through the kitchen into the garden. It was very still and solemn, and the fresh morning air tasted indescribably sweet.

The orchard lay beyond the truck garden. You followed a cinder path through a wooden gate and came to row upon row of fruit trees, the lime-washed trunks showing whitely in the dawn light.

Before this the path frayed to an end in coarse grass.

Andy peered left and right, but saw nothing until he had passed the first line of trees, and even then, so much a part of the shadows was it that he did not see the huddled figure by the tree-trunk for some time. He was dead, shot square through the heart.

Andy went back to the house and summoned the inspector.

"There is a second body in the garden," he said, "and, if my eyesight is not at fault, he should be an old acquaintance of yours."

The police officer accompanied him to where the dead man lay.

"I know him, a man named Sweeny," he said. "He was in Mr Merrivan's service and was discharged for stealing. So he was the murderer; first shot Mr Merrivan and then came out here and shot himself!"

"Where is the revolver?" asked Andy quietly.

The inspector searched the ground about, but without success. The grass was quite short and had been grazed over (Andy afterwards found that sheep had been admitted to the orchard that week), and there was no possible hiding-place for the weapon.

"There has been a struggle here," said Andy of a sudden. "Look at the turf! Three scars where the heel of somebody's boot has tried to get a foothold, and—Go and bring the butler, Inspector, will you, please?"

Andy waited until he was out of sight, then walked quickly to the next tree and picked up something from the ground. It was a black silk scarf—the scarf that Stella Nelson had worn when she came to the gate two nights before.

There was no doubt whatever. In one corner was a monogram worked in red silk, S.N. The scarf was torn slightly. He smelt it. He was aware that she used a perfume, an elusive scent; as delicate a fragrance as he remembered. Yes, it was Stella Nelson's scarf beyond any doubt. He rolled it up into as small a compass as possible and pushed it into his hip pocket, realising ruefully that he was loaded up with clues, and every clue pointed to this girl as the murderer.

Yet in his heart he had no doubt. It was not her beauty or her youth that convinced him of the impossibility of Stella being a murderess. It was something within him. Perhaps, like Scottie, he was fey. He was smiling at the thought when it came to him that he no longer felt the oppression that had irritated him all the time he had been in the valley. Perhaps it was the daylight. No, he had felt that lurking shape when the sun was shining its brightest.

The inspector came back, and for appearance sake, to justify his sending the officer away, he had to submit the agitated servant to the ordeal of identifying the dead man.

"Yes, sir, that was the man that Mr Merrivan found in the grounds this morning—yesterday morning, sir."

"Of course!" Andy had forgotten the incident. This man Sweeny hated Merrivan. Probably he had some reason outside his natural dislike for an employer who had detected him in the act of theft.

Back in the house he gave his final instructions.

"Nobody is to be admitted. No information is to be given to the reporters beyond the bare fact that Mr Merrivan was murdered some time between midnight and one o'clock this morning. The position of the body can be shown diagrammatically, nobody must enter the room. Motive—robbery. The man in the orchard—let them try to explain him their own way."

He was half way down the garden path when Arthur Wilmot dashed in at the gate. He had dressed hurriedly—his pyjama jacket showed under the light buttoned coat—and he was very pale.

"Mr Macleod, is it true—my poor uncle—Good God, it can't be!"

"I'm glad I've seen you," said Andy slowly. "Yes, I'm afraid it is true. Your uncle has been killed—shot."

"Murdered?"

He whispered the word fearfully. Andy nodded.

"But—he has no enemies—"

"Few people are murdered from enmity," said Andy. "The only man who has threatened Mr Merrivan's life recently is you."

Wilmot staggered back as if he had been struck.

"I?" he stammered. "I've never—did he say—?"

"He was dead when he was found," answered Andy, "and he has not said anything to me about the matter at any time. Now, Mr Wilmot, don't answer in a hurry, and don't answer at all if you'd rather not. Had you a quarrel with Darius Merrivan?"

The young man was shocked to speechlessness. He could only wag his head impotently and stare horrified at the inquisitor.

"I'll tell you this much, that, standing outside this house a week ago, I heard you say, 'I will kill you first.'"

Wilmot recovered his voice.

"Somebody has been telling lies about me." His voice rose to a shout. "And I can tell you a few truths about somebody. I quarrelled with him—yes, I did! Over a girl who isn't worth a packet of pins. Now you know. He talked about marrying her—and he's married already. He didn't know I knew, and I never told him. His wife ran away from him and went abroad, and they were never divorced. He was afraid to divorce her—and when he said he was going to marry—"

"Don't shout," said Andy sharply. "I'm not deaf. And I'm not keen on knowing any of your family troubles. I'm pretty sure you had nothing to do with the murder. Although"—he paused to give point to the next sentence—"although you are his heir and benefit by his death. Unless, of course," he added, looking past the man but observing the understanding in his eyes, "unless you care to prove that he has a wife living. In that case his wife gets the lot. There may be a will."

Wilmot shook his head.

"There isn't a will," he said in a milder tone. "I'm sorry I lost my temper, Macleod, but I'm rattled, and who wouldn't be?"

"Who wouldn't be?" agreed Andy.

He walked back with Arthur Wilmot and watched him into the house. The man had a charge to bring against somebody—against the girl who was not worth quarrelling about? That gave him material for thought. Had they quarrelled, these two, whom Beverley Green regarded as 'practically engaged'? What hurt vanity went to the framing of those words "not worth a packet of pins"? He knew by the symptoms. The girl had wounded Wilmot's pride, had touched him on a very raw place. And the conceit of the young man had been patent to Andy from the beginning. He had a trick of closing his eyes for a second or so when he spoke about himself and his accomplishments—a glaring advertisement of a man's vanity.

Slowly he paced the gravel.

Should he go to the house? He looked at his watch. It was six o'clock. She would not be up. He looked dubiously at the silent house. The blinds were drawn, but she had told him that she rose at six when they had no servants. Yet, he hesitated, his knuckles raised to rap on the door. If she were about, she would hear him. If she were asleep, he could do no harm. He knocked, and instantly the door was opened.