CHAPTER XXI
It marked ten minutes to twelve on the tower of the ancient chantry church of Darnaston as Blanche Farrow walked across the village green and past the group of thatched cottages composing the pretty hamlet which looks so small compared with its noble house of God. But, though she was early, the man she was to meet was evidently already there, for a big, mud-stained motor-car was drawn up in the lane which runs to the left of the church.
Feeling more and more apprehensive, she knew not of what, she walked up the path between the graves, and then suddenly she saw Mark Gifford—his spare, still active-looking figure framed in the stone porch, his plain, but pleasant, intelligent-looking face full of a grave welcome.
He stepped out of the porch and gripped her hand in silence.
She felt that he was deeply stirred, stirred as she had never known him to be—excepting, perhaps, on that occasion, years and years ago, when he had first asked her to be his wife.
Still holding her hand in that strong grasp, he drew her within the porch. "I'm so grateful to you for having come," he said. "I hope you didn't think what I did very odd?"
"I did think it just a little odd."
She was trying to smile—to be her usual composed self.
"I couldn't come to Wyndfell Hall," he said abruptly, "for a reason which you will soon know. But I had to see you, and, by a bit of luck, I suddenly remembered this splendid old church. I passed by here once on a walking tour, years and years ago. It's the sort of place people come a long way to see; so, if we are found here together—well, we might have met by accident."
"As it is, we have met by appointment," she said quietly.
She was feeling more and more frightened. Mark now looked so set, so grim.
"Would you rather stay out here," he asked, "or shall we go into the church?"
"I'd rather stay out here. What is it, Mark? Don't keep me in suspense."
They were standing, facing one another; he had let go her hand at last.
"What I've come to tell you will give you, I fear, a great shock," he began slowly, "for it concerns someone to whom I believe you to be deeply attached."
He looked away from her for the first time.
"Then it is Bubbles!" she cried, dismayed. "What on earth has the child done?"
He turned and again looked into her face, now full of a deeply troubled, questioning anxiety. "Bubbles Dunster?" he exclaimed. "Good heavens, no! It's nothing to do with Bubbles."
A look of uncontrollable relief came over her eyes and mouth.
"Who is it, Mark? You credit me with a warmer heart than I possess—"
But he remained silent, and she said quickly: "Come! Who is it, Mark?"
"Can't you guess?" he asked harshly. And, as she shook her head, he added, in a slow, reluctant tone: "I've always supposed you to be really attached to Lionel Varick."
Lionel? That was the last name she expected to hear!
"I don't know exactly what you mean by 'attached,' Mark," she said coldly. "But yes, I've always been fond of him—in a way I suppose you might call it 'attached'—since that horrid affair, years ago, when you were so kind both to him and to me."
"Don't couple yourself with him," he said sternly, "if, as I gather, you don't really care for him, Blanche." And then, almost inaudibly, he added: "You don't know the tortures of jealousy I've suffered at the thought of you and that man."
"Tortures of jealousy?" she repeated, astonished, and rather touched. "Oh, Mark—poor Mark! Why didn't you ask me? I've never, never cared for him in—in that sort of way. How could you think I did?"
"Yet you're here, in his house," he said, "acting (so you said in your letter) as hostess to his guests? And surely you've always been on terms of what most people would call close friendship with him?"
"Yes, I suppose I have"—she hesitated—"in a way. I've always felt that, like me, he hadn't many real friends. And, of course, in old days, ages ago, he was very fond of me," she smiled. "That always pleases a woman, Mark."
"Does it?" he asked, probingly; and as only answer she reddened slightly.
There came a little pause, and then Blanche exclaimed:
"I'm sorry, very sorry, if he's got into a new scrape, Mark; and I'm surprised too. Some two years ago he married a rich woman; she died not long after their marriage, but she was devoted to him, and he's quite well off now."
"Did you know her?" asked Mark Gifford, in a singular tone.
"No, I never came across her. I was away—in Portugal, I think. He wrote and told me about his marriage, and then, later, when his wife fell ill, he wrote again. He was extremely good to her, Mark."
"D'you know much about Varick's early life?" he asked.
"I think I know all there is to know," she answered.
What was Mark getting at? What had Lionel Varick done? Her mind was already busily intent on the thought of how disagreeable it would be to have to warn him of impending unpleasantness.
It was good of Mark to have taken all this trouble! Of course, he had taken it for her sake, and she felt very grateful—and still a little frightened; he looked so unusually grave.
"What do you know of Varick's early life?" he persisted.
"I don't think there's very much to know," she answered uneasily. "His father had a place in Yorkshire, and got involved in some foolish, wild speculations. In the end the man went bankrupt, everything was sold up, and they were very poor for a while—horribly poor, I believe. Then the elder Varick died, and his widow and Lionel went and lived at Bedford. I gather Lionel's mother was clever, proud, and quarrelsome. At any rate, she quarrelled with her people, and he had a very lonely boyhood and youth."
"Then you know very little of how Varick lived before you yourself met him? How old would he have been then, Blanche?"
"I should think four or five-and-twenty," she said hesitatingly.
"I suppose," and then Mark Gifford looked at her with a troubled, hesitating look, "I suppose, Blanche—I fear I'm going to surprise you—that you were not aware that he'd been married before?"
"Yes," she said eagerly, "I did know that, Mark."
What on earth was he driving at? That woman, Lionel Varick's first wife, was surely dead? She, Blanche, had had, by a curious accident, someone else's word for that. And then—there rose before her the vision of a ghastly-looking, wild, handsome face; quickly she put it from her, and went on: "He married, when he was only nineteen, a girl out of his own class. They separated for a while; then they seem to have come together again, and, fortunately for Lionel, she died."
"She died murdered—poisoned."
Mark Gifford uttered the dread words very quietly. "Almost certainly poisoned by her husband, Lionel Varick."
A mist came over Blanche Farrow's eyes. She turned suddenly sick and faint.
She put out her hand blindly. Gifford took it, and made her sit down on a stone bench.
"I'm sorry," he said feelingly, "very, very sorry to have had to tell you this dreadful thing, Blanche."
"Never mind," she muttered. "Go on, Mark, if there's anything else to say—go on."
As he remained silent for a moment, she asked, in a dull, tired tone: "But if this awful thing is true, how was it found out, after so many years?"
"It's a peculiar story," he answered reluctantly. "The late—I might say the last—Mrs. Varick, whose name, as you of course know, was Millicent Fauncey, had first as governess, and then as companion, an elderly woman called by the extraordinary name of Pigchalke. This Julia Pigchalke seemed to have hated Varick from the first. She violently disapproved of the engagement, quarrelled with Miss Fauncey about it, and the two women never met after the marriage. But Miss Pigchalke evidently cared deeply for poor Mrs. Varick; I've seen her, and convinced myself of that."
"What is she like?" asked Blanche suddenly.
"Well, she's not attractive! A stout, stumpy, grey-haired woman, with a very red face."
Blanche covered her eyes with her hands. "Go on," she said again, "go on, Mark, with what you were saying."
"Where was I? Oh, I know now! When Mrs. Varick died, within less than a year of her marriage, Miss Pigchalke suspected foul play, and she deliberately set herself to track Lionel Varick down. She made it her business to find out everything about him, and but for her I think we may take it that he would have gone on to the end of the chapter a respectable, and in time highly respected, member of society."
There was a pause. Blanche was staring before her, listening.
"About five weeks ago," went on Mark Gifford quietly, "Miss Pigchalke got into touch with the head of our Criminal Investigation Department. She put before him certain—one can hardly call them facts—but certain discoveries she had made, which led to the body of the first Mrs. Varick being exhumed." Blanche Farrow uttered a stifled exclamation of surprise, and Gifford went on: "I may add that Miss Pigchalke behaved with remarkable cunning and intelligence. She found out that the doctor at Redsands—the place where her poor friend died—was a firm friend of Varick's. She thinks him an accomplice, but of course we regard that as nonsense, for we've found out all about the man, and he is coming to see our toxological expert to-morrow."
(Then that was Dr. Panton's urgent appointment in town.)
"And now, Blanche, comes the curious part of the story! The doctor who had attended the first Mrs. Varick years and years ago had suspected foul play. He's a very old man now, and he retired many years ago, but he happened to come across an advertisement which Miss Pigchalke put into one of the Sunday papers asking for information concerning Lionel Varick's past life. He answered the advertisement, with the result that his one-time patient was exhumed. It was then found beyond doubt that the woman had been poisoned; and a few days ago the second Mrs. Varick's body was exhumed."
Blanche looked up, and in answer to her haggard look, he said: "Though perhaps I oughtn't to tell you so, there isn't a shadow of doubt that she also was foully done to death, and rather more intelligently than the other poor soul, for in her case the process was allowed to take longer, and the doctor attending her was quite taken in."
"How horrible!" muttered Blanche. "How very, very horrible!"
"Yes, horrible indeed! But why I've come here to-day, Blanche, is to tell you that to-morrow Lionel Varick will be arrested on the charge of murder. I have come to say that you and Bubbles must leave Wyndfell Hall this afternoon."
Blanche hardly heard what he was saying. She was absorbed in the horror and in the amazement of the story he had just told her, and in what was going to happen to-morrow to the man who had been for so long her familiar friend.
"It is an immense relief to me to hear that you never even saw the late Mrs. Varick." Mark Gifford went on: "I was afraid that you might have been mixed up with this dreadful business; that he might have used you in some way."
Blanche shook her head, and he went on, musingly: "There were two ladies living next door to the house at Redsands where the poor woman was done to death. They, I expect, will have to give evidence, at least I know that one of them will, a certain Miss—Miss—?"
"Brabazon?" supplied Blanche quickly.
"Yes, that's the name! A certain Miss Brabazon was a great deal with Mrs. Varick. She seems to have been an intimate friend of both the husband and wife. She used to go out with Varick for motor drives. Has he ever spoken to you of her?"
"Miss Brabazon is here, now, at Wyndfell Hall," exclaimed Blanche. "You must have heard of her, Mark? She's the owner of some tremendously big city business."
"Oh, I don't think it can be that girl!"
Mark Gifford looked surprised and perturbed.
"But I know it's that girl. She's become quite a friend of mine, and of Bubbles. Oh, Mark, I do hope Helen Brabazon won't be brought into this dreadful business—d'you think that will be really necessary?"
"I don't know," he said slowly. "But some of our people think that Varick may put up a fight. British criminal law is much too kind to murderers. Even if there's evidence enough to hang a man ten times over, there's always a sporting chance he may get off! There is in this case."
Blanche turned suddenly very pale. The full realization of what those words meant rushed upon her. He feared she was going to faint.
"Forgive me," she muttered. "It's stupid, I know; but you must remember that—that I've known Lionel Varick a long time."
"I'm not a bit surprised that you are so distressed," he said soothingly.
And then something happened which did surprise Mark Gifford! He was supposed to be a clever, intelligent man, and there were many people who went in awe of him; but he knew very little about women. This, perhaps, was why he felt utterly astounded when Blanche suddenly burst into tears, and began rocking herself backwards and forwards. "Oh, Mark!" she sobbed. "Oh, Mark, I'm so unhappy,—I'm so miserable—I'm so frightened. Do—do help me!"
"That's just what I came to do," he said simply. But he was very much troubled. Her face was full of a kind of agonized appeal....
Greatly daring, he bent down over her, and gathered her into his arms.
She clung to him convulsively; and, all at once, there came insistently to Mark Gifford, George Herbert's beautiful saying: "There is an hour in which a man may be happy all his life, can he but find it." Perhaps that hour, that moment, had come to him now.
"Blanche," he whispered, "Blanche—darling! You didn't really mean what you wrote yesterday? Don't you think the time has come when two such old friends as you and I might—"
"—make fools of themselves?"
She looked up at him, and there came a quivering smile over her disfigured face. "Yes, if you really wish it, Mark. I'll do just as you like."
"D'you really mean that?" he asked.
And she said firmly: "Yes, Mark—I really do mean it." And he felt her yielding—yielding in spirit as well as in body—in body as well as in spirit.
"I suppose you couldn't come back with me to London, now?" he asked a little shyly. "We could get the woman at the post office down there to send up a letter to Bubbles, explaining that you had to go away unexpectedly, and telling her to follow you to town to-day."
It was rather a wild proposal, and he was not surprised when he saw her shake her head. "I can't do that," she said. "But oh, Mark, I wish I could! Bubbles is in bed. There was an accident—it's too long to tell you about it now. But, of course, I'll manage to get her away to-day."
And then the oppressive horror of it all suddenly came back to her. "When did you say they were going to arrest Lionel?"
She uttered the words slowly, and with difficulty.
"They're going to arrest him to-morrow, Friday, in the early afternoon," he said in a low voice. "By God's mercy," he spoke simply, reverently, "I got your letter in time, Blanche."
He looked at her anxiously. "I'm afraid even now you will have some difficult hours to live through," and, as he saw her face change, "I trust absolutely to your discretion," he said hesitatingly.
"Of course," she gave the assurance hurriedly. "Of course you can do that, Mark."
Without looking at her, he went on:
"As a matter of fact, the house has been watched for some days. If he tries to get away he will destroy the—the sporting chance I mentioned just now."
"I must be going back," she said, getting up. "Several of the party were, in any case, leaving this afternoon, and I must manage to get everybody else away as well."
Her mind was in a whirl of conflicting feelings and emotions. And then, all at once, she was moved, taken away from the dreadful problem of the moment, by what she saw in Mark Gifford's face. It was filled with a kind of sober gladness. "Mark," she exclaimed, "what a selfish brute I've always been to you—never giving—always taking! I'll try to be different now."
She held out her hand; he took it and held it closely. "When shall I see you again?" he asked. "May I come and meet you and Bubbles at Liverpool Street to-morrow?"
"Yes—do. That will be a great comfort!" And then, acting as she very seldom did, on impulse, Blanche rather shamefacedly held up her face to his....
CHAPTER XXII
Again and again, as Blanche Farrow walked slowly back to Wyndfell Hall, she went over the meagre details of the strange story she had just been told. Again and again she tried to fill in the bare outlines of the tale.
Lionel Varick a murderer? Her mind, her heart, refused to accept the possibility.
Suddenly there came back to her a recollection of the curious, now many years old, circumstances which had attended her knowledge of Varick's first marriage.
Someone, she could not now remember who, had taken her to one of the cheap foreign restaurants in Soho, which were not then so much frequented by English people as they are now. She had been surprised, and rather amused, to see Lionel Varick at a neighbouring table, apparently entertaining a middle-aged, rather prim-looking lady, whom he had introduced to her, Blanche, rather unwillingly, as "my friend, Miss Weatherfield."
Then had come the strange part of the story!
When on her way to stay with some friends in Sussex a few days later, she found herself in the same railway carriage as Miss Weatherfield; and, during the course of some desultory talk, the latter had mentioned that she was daughter to the Chichester doctor who had attended Lionel Varick's wife in her last illness.
Lionel Varick's wife? For a moment Blanche had thought that there must be some mistake, or that her ears had betrayed her. But she very soon realized that there was no mistake, and that she had heard aright.
Successfully concealing her ignorance of the fact that their mutual friend was a widower, she had ventured a few discreet questions, to which had come willing answers. These made it clear why Varick had chosen to remain silent concerning what had evidently been a sordid and melancholy episode of his past life.
Miss Weatherfield told her pleasant new acquaintance that the Varicks, when they had first come to Chichester, had been very poor, the wife of an obviously lower class than the husband. But that Varick, being the gentleman he was, had not minded what he did to earn an honest living, and that through Dr. Weatherfield he had obtained for a while employment with a chemist, his work being that of taking round the medicines, as he was not of course qualified to make up prescriptions.
While Miss Weatherfield had babbled on, Blanche had been able to piece together what had evidently been a singularly painful story. Mrs. Varick had been a violent, disagreeable woman, and the kindly spinster had felt deeply sorry for the husband, himself little more than a boy. But she admitted that her father, while attending Mrs. Varick, had acquired a prejudice against the husband of his patient, and she added, smilingly, that it was without her father's knowledge or consent that she had given the young man, after the death of his wife, a valuable business introduction.
Miss Weatherfield evidently flattered herself that this introduction had been a turning-point in Varick's life, and that what appeared to her his present prosperity was owing to what she had done. In any case, he had shown his gratitude by keeping in touch with her, and on the rare occasions when she came to London, they generally met.
Blanche Farrow, even in those early days, was too much a woman of the world to feel as surprised as some people would have been. All the same, she had felt disconcerted and a little pained, that the man who was fond of telling her that she was his only real friend in the world had concealed from her so important a fact as that of his marriage.
After some hesitation she had made up her mind to tell him of her new-found knowledge, and at once he had filled in and coloured the sketchy outlines of the picture drawn by the rather foolish if kindly natured Miss Weatherfield. Yes, it was true that he had been a fool, though a quixotic fool—so Blanche had felt on hearing his version of the story. At the time of the marriage Varick had been nineteen, his wife five years older. The two had soon parted, but they had made up their differences after a separation which lasted four years. Varick's fortunes had then been at their lowest ebb, and the two had drifted to Chichester, where Mrs. Varick had humble, respectable relations. After a while the woman had fallen ill, and finally died. Blanche had seen how it had pained and disturbed Varick to rake out the embers of the past, and neither had ever referred to the sad story again.
And now, from considering the past, Blanche Farrow turned shrinkingly to the present.
In common with the rest of the world, she had at times followed the course of some great murder trial; and she had been interested, as most intelligent people are occasionally interested, in the ins and outs of more than one so-called "poisoning mystery."
But such happenings had seemed utterly remote from herself; and to her imagination the word "murderer" had connoted an eccentric, cunning, mentally misshapen monster, lacking all resemblance to the vast bulk of human kind. She tried to realize that, if Mark Gifford's tale were true, a man with whom she herself had long been in close sympathy, and whose peculiar character she had rather prided herself on understanding, had been—nay, was—such a monster.
Blanche felt a touch of shuddering repulsion from herself, as well as from Varick, as she now remembered how sincerely she had rejoiced when, reading between the lines of his letter, she had guessed that he was marrying an unattractive woman for her money. It was now a comfort to feel that, even so, she had certainly felt a sensation of disgust when it had come to her knowledge that Varick had assumed, with regard to that same unattractive woman, an extravagant devotion she felt convinced he did not—could not—feel. It had shocked her, made her feel uncomfortable, to hear Helen Brabazon's artless allusions to the tenderness and devotion he had lavished on "poor Milly."
Helen Brabazon? A sensation of pain, almost of shame, swept over Blanche Farrow. Were Helen to appear as witness in a cause célèbre the girl's life would henceforth be shadowed and smirched by an awful memory. And then there rose before her mind another dread possibility. Was it not possible—nay, probable—that she, Blanche Farrow, would be sucked into the vortex?
She remembered a case in which the prisoner had been charged with the murder of a relation through whose death he had received considerable benefit, and how four or five men and women of repute had been called to testify to his high character, and to the kindness of his heart. But their evidence had availed him nothing, for he had been hanged.
Blanche quickened her footsteps as, in imagination, she saw herself in the witness-box speaking on behalf of Lionel Varick.
She argued with herself that, after all, it was just possible that he might be innocent! If so, she would fight for him to the death, and that, however much it distressed and angered Mark Gifford that she should do so.
Absorbed in the dread and terrible thing he had come to tell her, she had not given him, the man who loved her, and whose wife she was to be, one thought since their solemn, rather shamefaced, embrace. Yet now the knowledge that, however, much he disapproved, Mark would stand by her, gave her a wonderful feeling of security, of having left the open sea of life for a safe harbour—and that in spite of the terrible hours, perhaps the terrible weeks and months, which now lay before her.
Turning the sharp angle which led to the gate giving admittance to the gardens of Wyndfell Hall, she suddenly met Helen Brabazon face to face, and for one wild moment Blanche thought that Helen knew. The girl's usually placid, comely face was disfigured. It was plain that she had been crying bitterly.
"I'm going to the village," she exclaimed; "I've got to go home to-day, and I must telegraph to my uncle."
"I hope you haven't had bad news?" said Blanche mechanically.
She was telling herself that it was quite, quite impossible that Helen knew anything—but as Helen, who had begun crying again, shook her head, Blanche asked: "Does Lionel know that you want to leave to-day?"
"Yes; I have told Mr. Varick," and then all at once she exclaimed: "Oh, Miss Farrow, I feel so utterly miserable! Mr. Varick has just asked me to be his wife, and it has made me feel as if I had been so treacherous to Milly. Yet I don't think I did anything to make him like me? Do you think I did?"
She looked appealingly at Blanche.
It was plain that what had happened had given her an extraordinary shock. "I am sure, now," she went on falteringly, "that Milly—poor, poor Milly—haunts this house. I have felt, again and again, as if she were hovering about me. I believe that what I saw in the hall, on that awful afternoon, was really her. Yet Mr. Varick says that Milly would be very pleased if he and I were to marry each other. Surely he is mistaken?"
"Yes," said Blanche slowly, "I think he is."
"I feel so miserable," went on the girl, still speaking with a touch of excitement which in her was so very unusual. "What happened this morning has spoiled what I thought was such a beautiful friendship! And then I feel frightened—horribly frightened"—she went on in a low voice.
"What is it that frightens you, Helen?" asked Blanche.
These confidences seemed at once so futile, and yet also so sinister, knowing what she now knew.
"I'm afraid that Mr. Varick will 'will' me into thinking I care for him," the girl confessed in a low voice. "He says that he will never give up hope, and that, although he knows he isn't worthy of me, he thinks that in time I shall care for him. But I don't want to care for him, Miss Farrow—I'm sure that Milly is jealous of me; yet at Redsands, when she was dying, it made her happy that we were friends."
"I don't think you need be afraid that Lionel will ever ask you to marry him again," said Blanche firmly. "And, Helen? Let me give you a word of advice. Never, never, tell anyone of what happened to you this morning."
The girl blushed painfully. "I know I ought not to have told you," she whispered, "but I felt so wretched." She hesitated, and then added: "Ever since it happened I have been remembering that first evening, when my dear father warned me to leave this house. Oh, how I wish I had done what he told me to do!"
"I think you are wrong there," said Blanche. "I think a day will come, Helen, and in spite of anything that has happened, or that may happen, when you will be very glad that you stayed on at Wyndfell Hall."
"Do you?" she said wistfully and then she went on, with a note of diffidence and shyness which touched the older woman: "You and Bubbles have both been so kind to me—would you rather that I stayed on with you? I will if you like."
"As a matter of fact, Bubbles and I are going away to-day, after all," said Blanche, "so let me send one of the men down with your telegram."
"I would rather take it myself—really!" and a moment later she disappeared round the sharp turning which led on to the open road.
Blanche walked on, her eyes on the ground, until there fell on her ears the sound of quick footsteps. She looked up, to see Varick's tall figure hurrying towards her.
They met by the moat bridge, and as he came up to her he saw her pull forward the veil which, neatly arranged round the rim of her small felt hat, was not really meant to cover her face.
"Let's walk down here for a moment," he said abruptly. "I want to ask you a question, Blanche."
They stepped off the carriage road on to the grass, and, walking on a few paces, stood together at the exact spot from which Varick, on Christmas Eve, had looked at the house before him with such exultant eyes.
Three weeks ago Wyndfell Hall had appeared kindly and welcoming, as well as mysteriously beautiful, with its old diamond-paned windows all aglow. Now, in the wintry daylight, the ancient dwelling house still looked mysteriously beautiful; but there was something cold, menacing, forlorn in its appearance. The windows looked like blind eyes....
He turned on her suddenly, and held out the telegram she had received that morning.
"One of the servants picked this up on the breakfast table and brought it to me. What the devil does it mean? If Mark Gifford wanted to see you why couldn't he come here?"
Blanche looked at him dumbly. Had her life depended on her speaking she could not have spoken just then.
He went on: "Have you seen Gifford? Did he say anything about me?"
He uttered the words with a kind of breathless haste. She had the painful feeling that he wanted to put her in the wrong, to quarrel with her. Even as he spoke he was tearing the telegram into small pieces, and casting them down on to the neat, well-kept grass path.
"I suspect I know the business he came about—" He was speaking quietly, collectedly, now, and she felt that he was making a great effort to speak calmly and confidently.
"I don't think, Lionel, that you can know," she answered at last, in an almost inaudible voice.
"Well, let me tell you what it is that I suspect," he said.
There was a long pause. He was looking at her warily, wondering, evidently, as to how far he dared confide in her. And that look of his made her feel sick and faint.
"I suspect," he said at last, "that Gifford came to tell you a cock-and-bull story concocted by my wife's companion, a woman called Julia Pigchalke."
"Yes, Lionel, you have guessed right."
It was an unutterable relief that he thus made the way easy for her; a relief—but she now knew that what Gifford had told her was true.
"He wants me to get everyone away from here to-day," she went on, in a tone so low that he could scarcely hear her.
"Away from here? To-day?" he repeated, startled.
"Yes, away before to-morrow midday." She moistened her dry lips with her tongue.
"I am the victim of a foul conspiracy!" he exclaimed. "Panton warned me that I should have trouble with that woman." He waited a moment, then: "Did Gifford tell you that they have sent for Panton?" he asked suddenly. So that, she told herself, was what had really put him on the track. She nodded, and he added grimly: "They won't get much out of him."
Then he was going to fight it—fight it to the last?
"You will stand my friend, Blanche," he asked, and slowly she bent her head.
"Of course you know what this woman Pigchalke wishes to prove?"
He was now looking keenly, breathlessly, into her pale, set face. "Come," he said, "come, Blanche—don't be so upset! Tell me exactly what it was that Gifford told you."
But she shook her head. "I—I can't," she murmured.
"Then I will tell you what perhaps he felt ashamed to say to any friend of mine—that is that Julia Pigchalke suspects me of having done my poor Milly to death! She went and saw Panton; she did more, she actually advertised for particulars of my past life. Did he know that?"
He waited, for what seemed a very long time to Blanche, and then in a voice which, try as he might, was yet full of suppressed anxiety, he added: "She had got hold somehow of the fact that I once lived at Chichester."
Blanche looked down, and she counted over, twice, the thirty little bits of the torn telegram before she answered, in a low, muffled voice: "It's what happened at Chichester, Lionel, that made them listen to her."
There was a long moment of tense, of terrible, silence between them.
At last Varick broke the silence, and, speaking in an easy, if excited, conversational tone, he exclaimed: "That's a bit of bad luck for me! I have an enemy there—an old fool of a doctor—father of that woman you met me with years ago."
He walked on a few steps, leaving her standing, and then came back to her.
More seriously he asked the fateful question: "I take it I am to be arrested to-morrow?"
He saw by her face that he had guessed truly, and as if speaking to himself, he said musingly: "That means I have twenty-four hours."
She forced herself to say: "They think you have a good sporting chance if you stay where you are."
"It never occurred to me to go away!" he said angrily. "I want you always to remember, Blanche, that I told you, here, and now, that, even if appearances may come to seem damnably against me, I am an innocent man."
She answered: "I will always remember that, and always say so."
He said abruptly: "I want you to do me a kindness."
She asked uneasily: "What is it, Lionel?"
"I want you to get Gifford to prevent the meeting which has been arranged for to-morrow morning between Panton and the Home Office expert called Spiller."
He waited a moment, then went on: "It was the summons to Panton which put me on the track of—of this conspiracy." And Blanche felt that this time Varick was speaking the truth.
She said, deprecatingly: "Mark would do a great deal to please me, but I'm afraid he won't do that."
"I think he may," he answered, in a singular tone, "you may have a greater power of persuasion than you know."
She made no answer to that, knowing well that Mark would never interfere with regard to such a matter as this.
"Can you suggest any reason I can give, why we should be all going away to-day?" she asked falteringly.
Without a moment's hesitation he answered: "You can say there has been trouble among the servants, and that I should feel much obliged if I could have the house cleared of all my visitors by to-night."
Then Blanche Farrow came to a sudden determination. "I will get them all away to-day, Lionel, but I, myself, will stay till to-morrow morning."
For the first time during this strange, to her this unutterably painful conversation, Varick showed a touch of real, genuine feeling. It was as if a mask had fallen from his face.
He gripped her hand. "You're a brick!" he exclaimed. "I ought to tell you to go away, too, but I won't be proud, Blanche. I'll accept your kindness."
CHAPTER XXIII
There are hours in almost every life of which the memory is put away, hidden, as far as may be, in an unfathomable pit. Blanche Farrow never recalled to herself, and never discussed with any living being, the hours which followed her talk with Lionel Varick.
Of the five people to whom she told the untrue tale so quickly and so cleverly imagined by their host, only one suspected that she was not telling the truth. That one—oddly enough—was Sir Lyon Dilsford. He guessed that something was wrong, and in one sense he got near to the truth—but it was such a very small bit of the truth!
Sir Lyon suspected that Varick had made an offer to Helen Brabazon, and that she had refused him. But he was never to know if his suspicion had been correct, for he was one of those rare human being who are never tempted to ask indiscreet or unnecessary questions from even their nearest and dearest.
In answer to Miss Farrow's apologies and explanations, everyone, of course, expressed himself or herself as very willing to fall in with the suggestion that they should all travel up to town together that day. It also seemed quite natural to them all, even to Bubbles, that Blanche should stay behind for the one night.
She was not the sort of woman to leave a task half done. She had engaged the servants, and she would remain to settle up with them. The average man—and most of them thought Varick an average man—is helpless in dealing with so complicated a domestic problem as a number of job servants.
As the hours of the early afternoon went by, Blanche more and more marvelled at Varick's extraordinary powers of self-command. Excepting that he was, perhaps, a little more restless than usual, he was at his best as the courteous, kindly host, now parting with regret from a number of well-liked guests.
He even succeeded in putting Helen Brabazon once more at her ease, for, choosing his opportunity, he told her, in a few earnest words which touched her deeply, that he had come to see her point of view, and to acquiesce in her decision.
Blanche heard him making an appointment with Dr. Panton to lunch at the Ritz on one of the days of the following week. He asked Sir Lyon to join them there; and Blanche saw the look of real chagrin and annoyance which passed over his face when Sir Lyon declined the invitation.
But even what was obviously sincere and real, seemed utterly insincere and unreal to Blanche Farrow, during those tense hours. Thus, when she overheard Donnington and Bubbles talking over the arrangements for their wedding, their talk seemed to her all make-believe.
At last, however, there came the moment for which she had been longing for what seemed to her an eternity.
Miss Brabazon, Sir Lyon, and Dr. Panton were the first to go off; followed, after a few minutes' interval, Donnington, Bubbles, and the luggage.
Blanche noticed that Lionel's parting with Bubbles was particularly suave and cordial. But the girl was not at her best. When her host touched her, accidentally, she shrank back, and his face clouded. And, as the motor drove off, he turned to Blanche and said discontentedly: "I wish Bubbles liked me better, Blanche!"
She hardly knew what to answer, for it was true that the girl did not like Varick, and had never liked him. Yet it seemed such a strange thing for him to trouble about that now. But Lionel, poor Lionel, had always had an almost morbid wish to be liked—to stand well with people, so she told herself with a strange feeling of pain at her heart.
They walked back together into the house, and Blanche, going over to the fire-place, poured herself out another cup of tea.
In a sense she still felt as if she was living through a terrible, unreal dream, and yet it was an unutterable relief to be no longer obliged to pretend.
She glanced furtively at Varick.
He looked calm, cheerful, collected. "Will you excuse me for a few moments? I have got several things to do," he said. "Then I think I will go out and tramp about for a bit. It's been a strain for you as well as for me, Blanche," he added sympathetically.
"Yes, it has," she answered almost inaudibly.
"Is there anything I can get you?" he asked. "Will you be quite comfortable?"
She repeated, mechanically: "Quite comfortable, thank you, Lionel," and then, as an after-thought: "I suppose we shall dine at the same time as usual?"
"Certainly—why not?" He looked puzzled at her question. "Let me see—it's not much after five now; I'll be back by seven."
He walked to the door, and from there turned round. "So long!" he cried out cheerily, and she was surprised, for Varick seldom made use of any slang or colloquialism.
Feeling all at once utterly exhausted and spent, she drew a deep chair forward to the fire and lay back in it. Her mind seemed completely to empty itself of thought. She neither remembered the past nor considered the future, and very soon she slipped off into a deep sleep—the sleep of exhaustion which so often follows a great mental strain.
It must have been over an hour later that Blanche seemed to awaken to a perception that the big oak door behind her, which gave access to the deep-eaved porch, had opened and closed.
She looked round; and, in the candle-light, for the fire had died down, she saw Varick, looking neither to the right nor to the left, walk quickly across the long room and slip noiselessly through the door leading to the interior of the house.
Then it was seven o'clock? Nearly three-quarters of an hour before she must go up and dress for dinner.
Almost at once she was asleep again, to be, however, thoroughly awakened a few moments later by the opening and the shutting of a door.
It was the old butler, a man Blanche had come to like and to respect.
He held a salver in his hand, and on the salver was a letter. "Mr. Varick asked me to give you this note at a quarter-past seven, ma'am. I understood him to say that he might be late for dinner to-night as he had to go up to the Reservoir Cottage."
Blanche sat up, all her senses suddenly on the alert.
"Mr. Varick came in some minutes ago," she said, "at least, I think he did."
She was beginning to wonder if Lionel had really come in, or if she had only dreamt that he had done so.
"I don't think he came in, ma'am, for I've been in the dining-room, with the door open, for a long time. I would have heard him if he had come through and gone upstairs."
"You might see if he is in," she said quietly.
She took the letter off the salver, but did not break the seal till the old man had come back with the words: "No, ma'am, Mr. Varick is not in the house."
He lingered on for a moment. "I hope you will forgive me, ma'am, for mentioning that Mr. Varick told us we could all go off early to-morrow morning if we liked, instead of next Monday. He paid us up after the visitors had gone away, and he also gave us the bonus he so kindly promised. I never wish to serve a more generous gentleman. But the chef and I decided that we would ask you, ma'am, if it is for your convenience that we leave early to-morrow?"
"Anything that Mr. Varick has arranged with you will suit me," she said quickly. "As a matter of fact, I think he would like you to leave by the train I shall be going by myself."
As the man turned away she looked down at Varick's letter. On the envelope was written in his good, clear handwriting: "The Hon. Blanche Farrow, Wyndfell Hall." But no premonition of its contents reached her still weary, excited brain.
Written on a large plain sheet of paper, the letter ran: