Chapter Four.
Hairpins.
The tragedy caused the greatest excitement in the neighbourhood. Journalistic artists, those industrious gentlemen who produce such terribly distorted portraits, came from London and sketched the spot in Cross Lane and the exterior of Captain Brooker’s house. One had the audacity to call and request him to lend them a photograph of the murdered girl. This he declined, with a few remarks more forcible than polite, for he had been greatly annoyed by the continual stream of interviewers, who continually rang his bell. Hundreds of persons walked or drove over from Reading to view the spot where Nelly had been found, and in addition to the local detectives, Inspector Swayne, a well-known officer from Scotland Yard, had been sent down to direct the inquiries.
At the inquest, held at the King’s Head, two days later, it was expected by everybody that some interesting facts would be brought to light. Erle Brooker had never troubled to earn the good will of his neighbours, therefore they were now spitefully eager for any scandal that might be elicited, and long before the hour for which the jury had been summoned, congregated around the village inn. It was known that on the day following the tragedy the Captain had paid a mysterious visit to London, and the object of this trip had been a subject of much discussion everywhere. The murder of his adopted daughter had been a terrible blow to him, and when seen on his way to the station it was noticed that his face, usually smiling and good-humoured, wore a heavy, preoccupied look.
As he walked with Liane from his cottage to the inn, the crowd, gaping and hushed, opened a way for them to pass in; then, when they had entered, there was an outburst of sympathy and sneers, many of the latter reaching the ears of George Stratfield when, a few moments later, he followed them.
After a long wait, the Coroner at length took his seat, the jury were duly sworn, and the witnesses, ordered out of the crowded room, were ushered into a small ante-room, the table of which had recently been polished with stale beer. Here Liane introduced her lover to her father, and the men exchanged greetings. George, however, did not fail to notice the rustiness of the Captain’s shabby frock-coat, nor the fact that his black trousers were shiny at the knees; yet as they grasped hands, the ring of genuine bonhomie about his voice favourably impressed him. By his tone and manner George instinctively knew that Erle Brooker, the man against whom his dead father entertained such an intense dislike, was a gentleman.
“Our meeting is in very tragic circumstances, Mr Stratfield,” the Captain observed huskily, his grave face unusually pale. “They told me that you had discovered poor Nelly, but I had not the pleasure of your acquaintance, although I had, of course, heard of you often from the villagers.”
Liane and George looked at one another significantly.
“I must regret your sad bereavement, and both you and Liane have my sincerest sympathy,” the young man answered.
The Captain glanced quickly at the Baronet’s son with a strange, puzzled expression. He had spoken of his daughter familiarly by her Christian name, and evidently knew her well. He had not before suspected this.
At that moment, however, the door opened, and a constable putting his head inside called his name. In obedience to the policeman’s request he rose and followed him into the room wherein the court of inquiry had assembled. Having advanced to the table and been sworn, the Coroner addressing him, said,—
“Your name is Captain Erle Brooker, late of the Guards, I believe?”
“Yes.”
“And you identify the body of the deceased. Who was she?”
“Helen Mary Bridson, daughter of a brother officer, Captain Bridson. She was left an orphan eleven years ago, and I brought her up.”
“Did her father die in London?”
“No, on the Continent.”
“Had she no relatives on her mother’s side?”
The Captain slowly stroked his moustache, then answered.
“I knew of none.”
“Were you acquainted with her mother?”
“No, I was not,” he replied after a moment’s reflection.
“And you have no suggestion to make, I suppose, regarding any person who might have entertained ill-will towards the unfortunate girl?” inquired the grey-haired Coroner.
“None whatever.”
“When did you last see her alive?”
“On Monday evening, when she accompanied a visitor to the station to see him off on his return to London. She rode her cycle, and announced her intention of going on to Burghfield to make a purchase. She was found later on,” he added, hoarsely.
“Who was this visitor? What was his name?”
“He was a friend, but I decline to give his name publicly,” the Captain replied firmly. “I will, however, write it for your information, if you desire,” and taking a pencil from his pocket he wrote the name of Prince Zertho d’Auzac and handed it to the Coroner.
The eager onlookers were disappointed. They had expected some sensational developments, but it seemed as though the crime was too enshrouded in mystery to prove of any very real interest. They did not, however, fail to notice that when the Coroner read what the Captain had written, an expression of astonishment crossed his face.
“Are you certain that the—this gentleman—left by the train he went to catch?” he asked.
“Quite,” answered Brooker. “Not only have the police made inquiry at my instigation, but I have also accompanied a detective to London, where we found my visitor. Inspector Swayne, as a result of his investigations, was entirely satisfied.”
“Had the unfortunate young lady any admirer?”
“I think not.”
“Then you can tell us absolutely nothing further?” observed the Coroner, toying with his quill.
“Unfortunately I cannot.”
The Captain, after signing his depositions, was directed to one of a row of empty chairs near the Coroner’s table, and his daughter was called.
Liane, pale and nervous, neatly dressed in black, entered quietly, removed her right glove, and took the oath. Having given her name, the Coroner asked,—
“When did you last see the deceased, Miss Brooker?”
“When she set out to go to the railway station,” she answered, in a low faltering voice.
“Have you any idea why she should have gone to Cross Lane? It was entirely out of her way home from Burghfield to Stratfield Mortimer, was it not?”
“I cannot tell,” Liane replied. “We went along that road on our cycles only on one occasion, and found it so rough that we agreed never to attempt it again.”
“I presume, Miss Brooker, that the deceased was your most intimate friend?” observed the Coroner. “She would therefore be likely to tell you if she had a lover. Were you aware of the existence of any such person?”
“No,” she replied, flushing slightly and glancing slowly around the hot, crowded room.
“You had a visitor whose name your father has just given me upon this paper,” observed the Coroner. “Was that visitor known to the deceased?”
The eyes of the father and daughter met for a single instant as she glanced around upon the long lines of expectant countenances.
“Oh, yes,” she replied. “The gentleman who came unexpectedly to see us has been known to us all for fully five or six years.”
“And has always been very friendly towards the unfortunate girl?”
“Always.”
“The only thing taken from the young lady appears to have been a diamond brooch. Do you know anything of it?”
“Of what?” gasped Liane nervously, her face paling almost imperceptibly behind her black veil.
“Of the brooch, of course.”
“I only know that she prized it very much, as it was a present from a gentleman she had met while on the Riviera eighteen months ago.”
“He was not her lover?” inquired the grave-faced man, without looking up from the sheet of blue foolscap whereon he was writing her statement.
“Not exactly. I have no knowledge of her possessing any admirer.”
The Coroner at last paused and put down his quill. “And this miniature, which was discovered beside the body, have you ever before seen it in the possession of the deceased?” he asked, holding it up to her gaze.
“No,” she answered. “Never.”
The jury not desiring to ask any questions, Liane was then allowed to retire to a chair next her father, and the doctor was called.
“Will you kindly tell us the result of the post mortem, Dr Lewis?” the Coroner requested, when the medical man had been sworn.
At once the doctor explained in technical language the injuries he had discovered, and described the exact position in which he had found the body when he reached the spot.
“And what, in your opinion, was the cause of death?” asked the Coroner in dry, business-like tones.
“She was shot at close quarters while ascending the incline leading from the railway arch towards Stratfield Mortimer. The weapon used was an Army revolver. I produce the bullet I have extracted,” he answered, taking it from his vest-pocket and handing it across the table. “The deceased’s assailant stood on her left-hand side, and must have shot her as she rode along. She evidently mounted her cycle at the commencement of the incline, and having run down swiftly and passed beneath the arch, was again descending when the shot was fired.”
“Was death instantaneous?” inquired the foreman of the jury.
“Scarcely,” answered the doctor. “Such a wound must, however, cause death. Immediate attention could not have saved her.”
A thrill of horror ran through the crowded court. Nearly everyone present had seen Nelly Bridson, with her smiling happy face, riding about the village and roads in the vicinity, and the knowledge that she had met with an end so terrible yet mysterious, appalled them.
Some further questions were put to the doctor, after which George Stratfield entered. As he raised the greasy copy of Holy Writ to his lips, his eyes fell upon Liane. She was sitting, pale and rigid, with a strange haggard expression upon her beautiful countenance such as he had never before beheld. He gazed upon her in alarm and surprise.
The Coroner’s questions, however, compelled him to turn towards the jury, and in reply he explained how, on that fateful evening after his father’s death, he was riding along Cross Lane, and was horrified by discovering the body of Nelly Bridson. In detail he described every incident, how he had lifted her up, and finding her quite dead, had ridden on into the village to obtain assistance.
Liane listened to his story open-mouthed. Her hands were closed tightly, and once or twice, when questions were put to him by Coroner or jury, she held her breath until he had answered. She was as one paralysed by some unknown fear. Their gaze met more than once, and on each occasion he fancied he detected, even through her veil, that her eyes were dark and haggard, like one consumed by some terrible dread.
“You have, I believe, some knowledge of this miniature,” the Coroner observed, again taking the small oval bejewelled portrait in his hand.
“Yes,” he answered. “It is undoubtedly the one which has been missing from my late father’s collection for more than twenty years. It was supposed to have been stolen, but by whom could never be ascertained. My father had several times offered handsome rewards for its recovery, as it is a family portrait.”
“You have no idea, I suppose, by what means it could have come into the unfortunate girl’s possession?”
“None whatever. The unexpected discovery amazed me.”
“You have not told us what caused you to ride along Cross Lane on that evening,” the foreman of the jury observed presently.
Again Liane held her breath.
“I had an appointment,” he answered, not without considerable hesitation, “and was proceeding to keep it.”
“Did you know Miss Bridson?”
“We had met on several occasions.”
The detective from Scotland Yard bent across the table and uttered some words, after which the Coroner, addressing George, said,—
“Inspector Swayne desires to ascertain whether it was with the deceased you had an appointment?”
“No,” he replied promptly.
Again the Coroner and the inspector exchanged some hurried words.
“Who was the person you intended to meet?” the Coroner asked, looking inquiringly at the witness.
“A lady.”
“Am I right in presuming that it was Miss Brooker?”
George paused for an instant, bit his lip in displeasure at being thus compelled to publicly acknowledge his clandestine meetings with Liane, and then nodded in the affirmative.
“Then you were about to meet Miss Brooker, but instead, found Miss Bridson lying in the roadway dead?” the Coroner observed.
“I did.”
“Are you aware that Miss Brooker wrote to you expressing her inability to keep the appointment?” the Coroner asked.
“She has told me so,” he answered. “The letter was given, I believe, to the unfortunate young lady to post, but I have not received it.”
“There appears to be some mystery about that letter,” the Coroner said, turning to the jury. “I have it here. It was discovered in fragments yesterday by the police, thrown into a ditch at the roadside not far from where the body was found;” and taking from among his papers a sheet of foolscap whereon the pieces of Liane’s letter had been pasted together, he handed it to the jury for their inspection.
At that instant a sudden thought occurred to George. This last fact pointed alone to one conclusion, namely, that Nelly being given the letter by Liane, and knowing its contents, kept the appointment herself, desiring to speak to him alone upon some subject the nature of which he could not, of course, guess. This would not only account for her presence at the spot where he found her, but also for her dismounting and resting at the gateway where they had discovered the curious marks in the dust, and for the fragments of the letter being recovered near.
A similar theory appeared to suggest itself to the minds of the jury, for a moment later the foreman asked—
“Would the deceased have any definite object in seeking an interview with you?”
“None whatever,” he promptly replied, puzzled nevertheless that the remains of Liane’s note should have been recovered in Cross Lane.
“You assisted the police to search the road for any traces of the assassin, I believe, Mr Stratfield,” continued the Coroner. “Did you discover anything?”
George raised his eyes and met the curious gaze of the woman he loved. At that moment her veil failed to hide the strange look of dread and apprehension in her face, so intense it was. Her lips, slightly parted, quivered, the pallor of her cheeks was deathlike, and her whole attitude was that of one who feared the revelation of some terrible truth.
“During my search I discovered a lady’s hairpin lying in the grass at the roadside,” George replied, after a silence, brief but complete. He was not thinking of the question, but was sorely puzzled at the extraordinary change in the woman who had promised to become his wife. The transformation was amazing.
“That pin is here,” the Coroner explained to the jury, passing it across for their inspection. “I will call Henry Fawcett, hairdresser, of Reading, who will give evidence regarding it.”
The man referred to was called in, and in reply to a formal question, took the hairpin in his hand, saying,—
“I have, at the instigation of the police, minutely compared this pin with those worn by the young lady at the time of her death, and also those found upon her dressing-table. I find that although apparently the same make it is nevertheless entirely different. Some of them found upon her dressing-table were of similar length and size, but while the pins she used were of the ordinary kind, such as may be purchased at any draper’s, this one is of very superior quality. By the shape of its points, together with its curve, I can distinguish that this is the pin manufactured solely by Clark and Lister, of Birmingham, and sold by first-class hairdressers.”
“Your theory is that this pin was never worn by the deceased?” the Coroner said, thoughtfully stroking his grey beard.
“I feel confident it never was, for the pin is quite new, and they are sold in large boxes,” was the reply.
“In that case it seems probable that another woman was with her immediately before her death,” observed the foreman to his brother jurors.
George looked again at Liane. Her eyes were still staring into space, her lips were trembling, her face was ashen pale. She started at the ominous words which fell upon her ear, then feigned to busy herself in re-buttoning the black glove she had removed before taking the oath.
“It, of course, remains for the police to prosecute further inquiries and to discover the owner of that hairpin,” the Coroner said. “Most of us are aware that ladies frequently use various kinds of pins in dressing their hair, but in this case not a single one of the peculiar sort found on the spot was discovered in the deceased’s possession; and this fact in itself certainly lends colour to a suggestion that immediately prior to the tragedy Miss Bridson was not alone.”
George having concluded his evidence, had taken a seat beside his well-beloved. Only once she glanced at him, then evaded his gaze, for in her grey eyes was an expression as though she were still haunted by some unknown yet terrible dread. His statement regarding the hairpin had unnerved her. Did she, he wondered, wear similar pins in her own dark, deftly-coiled tresses?
Instantly, however, he laughed the wild, absurd idea to scorn. That she feared lest some startling truth should be elucidated was apparent; but the suspicion that a pin from her own hair had fallen unheeded upon the grass he dismissed as utterly preposterous. Was she not his enchantress? Surely he had no right to suspect her of all women, for he loved her with all his soul. Yet neither police, jury, nor he himself had inquired where she had been at the hour the tragedy was enacted. The thought held him appalled.
While these and similar reflections passed through his mind some words of the Coroner suddenly arrested his attention. The court was at once hushed in expectation, every word being listened to with eager attention.
“In the dress-pocket of the deceased has been found this letter, of a somewhat extraordinary character. As it is written in French it may be best if I read an English translation,” he said, spreading out the missive before him. “It is on superior note-paper of English make, bears traces of having been written by an educated person, and was sent to the post office, Stratfield Mortimer, where the police have ascertained that the deceased called for it about ten days ago. No address is given, and the envelope is missing, but the communication is to the following effect:—‘Dear Nelly,—The cord is now drawn so tight that it must snap ere long. England is safer than the south, no doubt, but it will not be so much longer. Therefore I remain here, but fortunately not “en convalescence.” Do not tell Liane anything, but remember that the matter must be kept a profound secret, or one or other of us must pay the penalty. That would mean the end. For myself, I do not care, but for you it is, of course, entirely different. We are widely separated, yet our interests are entirely identical. Remember me, and be always on your guard against any surprise. Au revoir.’ It will be noticed, gentlemen, by those of you who know French,” the Coroner added, “that the words ‘en convalescence’ occur here in a rather curious sense. It is, in fact, nothing less than thieves’ argot, meaning under police surveillance; and it is strange that it should be written by one who otherwise writes well and grammatically. The name of the dead girl’s mysterious correspondent is a rather uncommon one—Mariette Lepage.”
“Mariette Lepage!” George cried aloud in a tone of dismay, causing not a little consternation among those assembled.
The strange-sounding foreign name was only too deeply impressed upon his memory. The writer of that curious letter, with its well-guarded expression in the argot of the Paris slums, was the unknown woman to whom, under his father’s will, he was compelled to offer marriage.
Chapter Five.
Captain Brooker’s Objection.
As everyone expected, the Coroner’s jury, after hearing Zertho’s evidence at the adjourned inquest, returned the usual verdict of “Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown.” It was the only conclusion possible in such a case, the mystery being left for the police to solve. Later that afternoon Inspector Swayne was closeted with George and Mr Harrison at Stratfield Court, and after an hour’s consultation regarding the curious letter found in Nelly’s pocket, the detective left for London.
While that conversation was taking place Liane and her father, having returned from the inquest, were sitting together in the little dining-room. Brooker had cast off his shiny frock-coat with a sigh of genuine relief, assumed his old well-cut tweed jacket, easy and reminiscent of the past, while his daughter, having removed her gloves and veil, sat in the armchair by the fireplace still in her large black hat that gave a picturesque setting to her face. The windows were open, the blinds down, and the room, cool in the half-light, was filled with the sweet perfume of the wealth of old-world flowers outside.
“Our ill-luck seems to follow us, even now, my dear,” he observed, thrusting his hands deep into his empty pockets and lazily stretching out his legs. “That inquisitive old chap, the Coroner, was within an ace of raking up all the past. I was afraid they intended to adjourn again.”
“Why afraid?” asked Liane in surprise. “You surely do not fear anything?”
“Well, no, not exactly,” her father answered, with a quick glance at her. “But some facts might have been then elicited which are best kept secret.”
Liane looked at the Captain, long and steadily, with eyes full of sadness, then said, earnestly,—
“What caused you to suspect Zertho, father?”
“Suspect him. I never suspected him!”
“Do not deny the truth,” she answered, in a tone of mild reproach. “I know that before you went to London you sent him a message which, had he been guilty, would have allowed him time to escape.”
“But he was entirely unaware of the tragedy,” her father answered, rolling a cigarette with infinite care. “Zertho could have had no object in murdering Nelly. Besides, it had already been proved by the station-master that he had left by the train he saw him enter.”
“Then why did you take the trouble to go to London?” she inquired.
“My motive was a secret one,” he replied.
“One that even I must not know?” she inquired, in genuine surprise.
“Yes, even you must not know, Liane,” he answered. “Women are apt to grow confidential towards their lovers, and if the secret were once out, then my plans would be thwarted.”
“You suspect someone?” she asked, in a low, harsh voice.
“Well,” he answered, regarding his unlit cigarette intently, “I will not say that I actually suspect someone, but I have a theory, strange though it may be, which I believe will turn out to be the correct one.”
Liane started. Father and daughter again exchanged quick glances. She fancied she saw suspicion in his eyes.
“May I not assist you?” she asked. “You know that in the past I’ve many times brought you luck at the tables.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “In this I must act entirely alone. George Stratfield no doubt occupies all your thoughts.” She thought she detected a touch of sarcasm in his tone.
The girl blushed deeply, but did not answer. Her father, inveterate smoker that he was, lit his cigarette and sat silent and self-absorbed for a long time. He was thinking of the bright happy girl who, cold and dead in her tiny room upstairs, was the victim of a foul, terrible, and mysterious crime.
“How long have you known this man?” the Captain inquired at last.
“Three months.”
“And has he proposed to you?”
“He has,” she faltered, blushing more deeply.
He drew a long breath, rose slowly, and pulling aside the white blind, looked out as if in search of something. In truth, he was hesitating whether he should speak to her at once, or wait for some other opportunity. Turning to her at last, however, he said briefly, in a low, pained tone,—
“You must break off the engagement, Liane. You cannot marry him.”
“Cannot!” she gasped, her face turning pale. “Why?”
“Listen,” he continued huskily, coming closer to her, laying his big hand upon her shoulder, and looking down upon her tenderly. “Through all these years of prosperity and adversity you alone have been the one bright joy of my life. Your existence has kept me from going to the bad altogether; your influence has prevented me from sinking lower in degradation than I have already sunk. For me the facile pleasures of a stray man have ceased, because, for your sake, Liane, I gave up the old life and returned here to settle and become respectable. I admit that our life in England is a trifle tame after what we’ve been used to, but it will not, perhaps, be always so. At present my luck’s against me and we must wait in patience; therefore do not accept the first man’s offer of marriage. Life’s merely a game of rouge-et-noir. Sometimes you may win by waiting. Reflect well upon all the chances before you stake the maximum.”
“But George loves me, dad, and his family are wealthy,” she protested, meeting her father’s earnest gaze with her large grey eyes, in which stood unshed tears.
“I don’t doubt it, my girl,” he answered huskily. “I was young once. I, too, thought I loved a woman—your mother. I foolishly believed that she loved me better than anyone on earth. Ah! You wring from me my confession, because—because it should serve you as a lesson.” And he paused with bent head, while Liane held his strong but trembling hand. “It is a wretched story,” he went on in a low, harsh voice, “yet you should know it, you who would bind yourself to this man irrevocably. At the time this woman came into my life I was on leave down in the South of France, with wealth, happiness and bright prospects. I loved her and made her my wife. Then I went with my regiment to India, but already my future was blasted, for within a year of my marriage the glamour fell from my eyes and I knew that I had been duped. A fault committed by her threw such opprobrium upon me that I was compelled to throw up my commission, leave her and go back to England. I could not return to my friends in London, because she would discover and annoy me; therefore I have drifted hither and thither, falling lower and lower in the social scale, until, ruined and without means, I became a common blackleg and swindler. But it belongs to the past. It is dead, gone—gone for ever. Those years have gone and my youth has gone. I’ve lived like other men since then. Heaven knows it has not been a life to boast of, Liane. There have been days and years in it when I dared not trust myself to remember what had been—days of madness and folly, and months of useless apathy. Ah!” he sighed, “I was straight enough before my marriage, but my life was wrecked solely by that woman.”
His daughter listened intently, and when he had finished she echoed his deep sigh. Her father had never before told her the tragic story. She had always believed that her mother died of fever in India a year after marriage.
“Then my mother is not dead?” she observed reflectively.
“I do not know. To me she has been dead these eighteen years,” he answered, with a stern look upon his hard-set features. A lump rose in his throat, and in his eye there was a suspicion of a tear.
“Was she like me?” Liane asked softly, still holding her father’s hand and looking up at him.
“Yes, darling,” he replied. “Sometimes when you look at me I shrink from you because your eyes are so like hers. She was just your age when I married her.”
There was a long and painful silence. The hearts of father and daughter were too full for words. They were indeed an incongruous pair. He was a reckless gamester, a cunning adventurer, whose career had more than once brought him within an ace of arrest, while she, although prematurely versed in the evil ways of a polyglot world, where the laws of rectitude and morality were lax, was nevertheless pure, honest and good.
“But, dear old dad, why may I not marry George?” she asked when, after thinking deeply over the truth regarding her parentage, her mind reverted to thoughts of the man she loved.
“I cannot sufficiently explain the reason now,” he answered vaguely. “Some day, when I am aware of all the facts, you shall know.”
“But I can love no other man,” she exclaimed decisively, with eyes downcast.
“You know my wish, Liane,” her father answered rather coldly. “I feel sure you will endeavour to respect it.”
“I cannot, father! I really cannot!” she cried starting up. “Besides, you give me no reason why I should not marry.”
“I am unable to explain facts of which I am as yet unaware,” he said, withdrawing his hand.
“We love each other, therefore I cannot see why you should object.”
“I do not doubt that there is affection between you, but my objection is well based, I assure you, as some day you will be convinced.”
“Have you any antipathy against George personally?”
“None whatever; I rather like him,” he said. “I only tell you in plain, straightforward terms that your marriage with him is impossible, therefore the sooner you part the better;” and opening the door, he slowly left the room.
Deep in thought, Liane stood leaning against the table, in the same position as Zertho had stood when he had asked the captain for her hand. Evidently her father entertained some deep-rooted prejudice against the Stratfields; nevertheless, after calm reflection, she felt confident that sooner or later she could over-rule his objection, and persuade him to adopt her view, as she had done on previous occasions without number.
On the following afternoon a double funeral attracted hundreds of persons to the churchyard of Stratfield Mortimer, where Nelly Bridson was laid to rest in a plain grave, beneath a drooping willow, and the body of Sir John Stratfield, fourteenth baronet, was placed in the family vault, among his ancestors. When the interments were over, George met Liane and managed to whisper a few words to her. It was an appointment, and in accordance with his request, she went at sundown along the chestnut avenue to the Court, and was at once shown to the library, where her lover awaited her.
Her mourning became her well. His quick eyes detected that her black dress, though not new, bore the unmistakable cut of the fashionable dressmaker. Her figure, perfect in symmetry, was shown to advantage by her short, French corset, and the narrow band of black satin that begirt her slim waist.
“I have to offer my apologies to you, dearest,” he said, when the servant had closed the door. “At the inquest I was bound to openly confess that we had met clandestinely.”
“What apology is needed?” she asked, smiling. “We love each other, and care nothing for what the world may think.”
“That is true,” he answered, deep in thought. “But I—I have an announcement to make to you, which I fear must cause you pain.”
“An announcement! What?”
“I must leave you.”
She stood before him, looked quickly into his face, and turned pale.
“Leave me!” she gasped.
“Yes. I find, alas, I am compelled to go.”
“And only the day before yesterday you asked me to become your wife!” she cried, reproachfully. “What have I done that you should treat me thus?”
“Nothing. You have done nothing, Liane, only to fascinate me and hold me irrevocably to you,” he answered, looking earnestly into her clear, beautiful eyes. He paused. His soul was too full for utterance. Then at length he said, “I have asked you here this evening to tell you everything, for when I leave here, I fear it will be never to return.”
“Why?” she asked, looking him full in the face, with a puzzled expression.
“Because I am not wealthy, as is generally believed,” he replied, colouring deeply as he met her searching gaze. “It is useless to deceive you, therefore I must tell you the hideous truth. My father has thought fit to leave his whole fortune to my brother, and allow me to go penniless. I am therefore unable to marry.”
Liane’s lips had grown white with fear and astonishment. “And that is the reason you now intend to forsake me!” she gasped.
He bowed his head.
She passed her hand over her eyes. Her soul was in a tumult. She, too, fondly wished to believe that he actually loved her, to trust the evidence of what she saw. His words were a trifle ambiguous, and that was sufficient to fill her with uncertainty. Jealous of that delicacy which is the parent of love, and its best preserver, she checked the overflowings of her heart, and while her face streamed with tears, placed her hand protestingly upon his arm.
“Forgive me!” he cried with increased earnestness. “I know I have wronged you. Forgive me, in justice to your own virtues, Liane. In what has passed between us I feel I ought to have only expressed thanks for your goodness to me; but if my words or manner have obeyed the more fervid impulse of my soul, and declared aloud what should have been kept secret, blame my nature, not my presumption. I am ruined, and I dare not look steadily on any aim higher than your esteem.”
“Ah! do not speak to me so coldly,” the girl burst forth passionately. “I cannot bear it. You said you loved me,” and she sobbed bitterly.
“I have loved you, dear one, ever since we first met,” he answered quickly. “I love you now, even better than my life. But alas! a mysterious fate seems to govern both of us, and we are compelled to part.”
“To part!” she wailed. “Why?”
“Ere long my brother will come to take possession of this place, for it is no longer my home,” he answered, in a low, pained tone. “I shall go away to London and try to eke out a living at the Bar. For a young man without means the legal profession is but a poor one at best,” he sighed; “therefore marriage being out of the question, I am compelled to tell you the plain honest truth, and release you.”
“Release me!” she echoed wildly. “I do not desire release. I love you, George.”
“But you do not love me sufficiently to wait through the long, dark days that are at hand?” he cried, surprised at her passionate declaration! “Remember, I am penniless, without hope, without prospects, without anything save my great affection for you!”
The slanting rays of the sunset streaming through the stained glass fell upon her, gilded her hair, and illumined her anxious face with a halo of light. She looked lovely, with her dark eyelashes trembling, her soft eyes full of love, and the colour of clear sunrise mounting on her cheeks and brow.
“Wealthy or poor,” she answered, in a low, sweet tone, “it matters not, because I love you, George.”
“And although we must part; although I must go to London and exchange this free, open, happy life with you daily beside me for the dusty dinginess of chambers wherein the sun never penetrates, yet you will still remain mine?” he cried half doubtingly. “Do you really mean it, Liane?”
“I do,” she answered, in a voice trembling with emotion, and with a look all tenderness and benignity. “It is no fault of yours that you are poor, therefore be of stout heart, and when you return to London remember that one woman alone thinks ever of you, because—because she loves you.”
With the large tears in her beautiful eyes—tears which seemed to him to rise partly from her desire to love him with the power of his love—she put her pure, bright lips, half-smiling, half-prone to reply to tears, against his brow, lined with doubt and eager longing.
“Dearest darling, love of my life,” he whispered through her clouds of soft, silky hair. “I know I, an Englishman, with my blunt manners, must grate upon you sometimes, with your delicate, high-strung feelings. We are as different as the day is from the night. But, Liane, if truth and honesty, and a will so to use my life as to become one of the real workers and helpers in the world—a wish to be manly and upright, strong of heart, and clean of conscience before God and man—if these can atone for lack of culture and refinement, then I hope you will not find me wanting. When I am absent there will be plenty besides me to love you, but I will not believe that any can love you better than I do, or few as truly.”
She hesitated for a single instant as he spoke. She lifted her face from her hands and looked up at him. He was not much taller than she; it was not far. But as she looked another face came between them—a pale, refined face: a face with more poetry, more romance, more passion.
Its sight was to her as a spectre of the past. It held her dumb in terror and dismay.
George saw her hesitation, and the strange horrified look in her eyes. Puzzled, he uttered not a word, but watched her breathlessly.
Liane opened her pale lips, but they closed and tightened upon each other; from beneath her narrowed brows her eyes sent short flashes out upon his, and her breath came and went long and deep, without sound.
“Why are you silent?” he whispered at last.
Her lips relaxed, her form drooped, she lifted her face to reply, but her mouth twitched; she could not speak.
“If you truly love me and are prepared to wait, I will do my best,” he declared passionately, surprised at her change of manner, but little dreaming of its cause.
Suddenly, however, as quickly as the heavy, preoccupied expression had settled upon her countenance it was succeeded by a smile. She was a strange, unique, incomparable girl, for the next second she laughed at him in sweetest manner with a come and go of glances, saying in a tone of low, deep tenderness,—
“Yes, George, you are the only man I love. If it is necessary that you should go to follow your profession, then go, and take with you the blessing of the woman who has promised to become your wife.”
An instant later George held her slight graceful form in fond embrace, while she hid her forehead and wet eyelashes on his shoulder, murmuring,—
“I shall be yours always.”
His burning kisses fell upon her hair, but neither of them spoke for a while. The sunlight faded, and the old brown room with its shelves of dusty tomes became dark and gloomy. Each felt the other’s heart beat; and the unlucky son of the Stratfields drank that ecstasy of silent, delicious bliss which comes to great hearts only once in a life.
Later that night, after he had walked with her to her father’s door, she went to her room and sat alone for a long time in silence. A noise aroused her. It was her father retiring to rest. She listened intently, until, hearing his door closed, she paced her room with fevered steps. Her face was ashen pale, and from time to time low, strange words escaped her, as, lifting her hands, she pushed back her hair, which seemed to press too heavily upon her hot brow.
“I love him!” she gasped in a low, strained whisper. “Yet, if he only knew—if he only knew!”
And she shuddered.
Thrice she moved slowly backwards and forwards across her room. Suddenly pulling aside the dimity curtains, she gazed out into the brilliant night. The moon was shining full upon her windows, revealing the trees and stretch of undulating meadows beyond.
For an instant she hesitated. Her clenched hands trembled; she held her breath, listening. Reassured, she crossed noiselessly to her little dressing-table, opened one of the drawers, and took therefrom a small jewel-case. Only a few cheap trinkets were revealed when she unlocked it, but from it she drew forth a small oblong box of white cardboard. Then cautiously she crept from her room downstairs, and out into the small orchard behind the house. Crossing it, still in the deep shadow of the apple trees, she searched for some moments until she found a spade, and making her way to a bed that had been newly dug, she deftly removed several shovelfuls of earth, panting the while.
Taking the small box hastily from her pocket, she glanced round to assure herself she was unobserved, then bent, and placing it carefully in the hole she had made, an instant later proceeded to fill it in and rearrange the surface, so that no trace should remain of it having been removed.
Then replacing the spade where she had found it, she crept noiselessly back to her room, locked the door and stood rigid, her hand pressed upon her wildly-beating heart.
Chapter Six.
Outsiders.
Many weeks went by. To Liane the days were long, weary and monotonous, for George had left, and the Court had passed into the possession of Major Stratfield, a proud, pompous, red-faced man, who often rode through the village, but spoke to nobody. Since her lover had gone she had remained dull and apathetic, taking scarcely any interest in anything, and never riding her cycle because of the tragic memories its sight always aroused within her. Her life was, indeed, grey and colourless, for she noticed that of late even her father’s manner had changed strangely towards her, and instead of being uniformly courteous and solicitous regarding her welfare, he now seemed to treat her with studied indifference, and she even thought she detected within him a kind of repulsion, as if her presence annoyed and distressed him.
He had never been the same towards her since that memorable evening when he had forbidden her to accept George’s offer. Yet her mind was full of thoughts of her absent lover, and she sent him by post boxes of flowers from the garden, that their sweet perfume should remind him of her.
Another fact also caused her most intense anxiety and apprehension. The secret which she believed locked securely within her own bosom was undoubtedly in possession of some unknown person, for having gone into the garden one morning, a week after that night when she had buried the small box from her jewel-case, she fancied that the ground had been freshly disturbed, and that someone had searched the spot.
If so, her actions had been watched.
Thus she lived from day to day, filled by a constant dread that gripped her heart and paralysed her senses. She knew that the most expert officers from Scotland Yard were actively endeavouring to discover the identity of Nelly’s assassin, and was convinced that sooner or later the terrible truth must be elicited.
Twice each week George wrote to her, and she read and re-read his letters many times, sending him in return all the gossip of the old-world village that he loved so well. Thanks to the generosity of the Major, who had decided to give him a small property bringing in some two hundred a year, he was not so badly off as he had anticipated; nevertheless, were it not for that he must have been in serious straits, for, according to his letters, work at the Bar was absolutely unobtainable, and for a whole month he had been without a single brief. Old Mr Harrison sometimes gave him one, but beyond that he could pick up scarcely anything.
One evening in late autumn, when the air was damp and chilly, the orchard covered with leaves and the walnuts were rattling down upon the out-house roof with every gust of wind that blew across the hills, the Captain received a telegram, and briefly observed that it was necessary he should go to London on the morrow. He threw the piece of pink paper into the fire without saying who was the sender, and next morning rose an hour earlier and caught the train to Paddington, whence he drove in a hansom to an address in Cork Street, Piccadilly.
A man-servant admitted him, and he was at once ushered upstairs to a small, well-furnished drawing-room, which, however, still retained the odour of overnight cigars. He had scarcely time to fling himself into a chair when a door on the opposite side of the room opened, and Zertho entered, well-dressed, gay and smiling, with a carnation in the lappel of his coat.
“Well, Brooker, old chap,” he cried, extending his white hand heartily, “I’m back again, you see.”
“Yes,” answered the other, smiling and grasping the proffered hand. “The dignity of Prince appears to suit you, judging from your healthful look.”
“It does, Brooker; it does,” he answered laughing. “One takes more interest in life when one has a plentiful supply of the needful than when one has to depend upon Fortune for a dinner.”
“I wonder that no one has yet spotted you,” Brooker observed, leaning back in the silken armchair, stretching out his feet upon the hearthrug, regarding the Prince with a critical look from head to toe, and lighting the cigar the other had offered him.
“If they did, it might certainly be a bit awkward,” Zertho acquiesced. “But many people are ready to forgive the little peccadilloes of anybody with a title.”
“Ah! that’s so. It’s money, money always,” the luckless gamester observed with a sigh.
“Well, hang it, you can’t grumble. You’ve won and lost a bit in your time,” his friend said, casting himself upon a couch near, stroking his dark beard, and blowing a cloud of smoke from his full lips. “If you’re such an idiot as not to play any more, well you, of course, have to suffer.”
“Play, be hanged!” cried Brooker, impetuously. “My luck’s gone. The last time I played trente-et-quarante, I lost a couple of ponies.”
“But the system is—”
“Oh, the system is all rot. The Johnnie who invented it ought to have gone and played it himself. He’d have been a candidate for the nearest workhouse within three days.”
“Well, we brought it off all right more than once,” Zertho observed, with a slight accent.
“Mere flukes, all of them.”
“You won at one coup thirty-six thousand francs, I remember. Surely that wasn’t bad?”
“Ah! that was because Liane was sitting beside me. It’s wonderful what luck that girl has.”
“Then why not take her back again this season?” his companion suggested.
“She wouldn’t go,” he answered, after a slight pause.
“Wouldn’t go!” cried the Prince, raising his dark, well-defined brows. “You are her father. Surely she obeys you?”
“Of late she’s very wilful; different entirely from the child as you knew her. Since poor Nelly’s death she seems to have been seized with a sudden desire to go to church on Sunday, and is getting altogether a bluestocking,” the Captain said.
“Poor Nelly!” sighed the Prince. “I have never ceased to think of that sad evening when she grasped my hand through the carriage-window as the train was moving, and with a merry mischievous laugh waved me farewell. She was bright and happy then, as she always was; yet an hour later she was shot dead by some villainous hand. I wonder whether the mystery will ever be explained,” he added, reflectively.
The Captain made no reply, but smoked on steadily, his head thrown back, gazing fixedly at the opposite wall.
“The police have done their best,” he answered at length. “At present, however, they have no clue.”
“And I don’t believe they ever will have,” answered Zertho, slowly.
“What makes you think that?” Brooker inquired, turning and looking at him.
“Well, I’ve read all that the papers say about the affair,” he answered, “and to me the mystery seems at present one that may never be solved.”
“Unless the crime is brought home to the assassin by some unexpected means.”
“Of course, of course,” he answered. “You’re a confounded fool to remain down in that wretched, dismal hole, Brooker. How you can stand it after what you’ve been used to I really can’t think.”
“My dear fellow, I’ve grown quite bucolic,” he assured his companion, laughing a trifle bitterly. “The few pounds I’ve still got suffice to keep up the half-pay wheeze, and although I’m in a chronic state of hard-up, yet I manage to rub along somehow and just pay the butcher and baker. Hang it! Why, I’m so infernally respectable that a chap came round last week with a yellow paper on which he wanted me to declare my income. Fancy me paying an income-tax!”
The Prince laughed at his friend’s grim humour. In the old days at Monte Carlo, Erle Brooker had been full of fun. He was the life and soul of the Hôtel de Paris. No reverse ever struck him seriously, for he would laugh when “broke” just as heartily as when, with pockets bulky with greasy banknotes, he would descend the steps from the Casino, and crack a bottle of “fizz” at the café opposite.
“If I were you I’d declare my income at eight hundred a year, pay up, and look big,” Zertho laughed. “It would inspire confidence, and you could get a bit of credit here and there. Then when that’s exhausted, clear out.”
“The old game, eh? No, I’m straight now,” the other answered, his face suddenly growing grave.
“Honesty is starvation. That used to be our motto, didn’t it? Yet here you are with only just enough to keep a roof over your head, living in a dreary out-of-the-way hole, and posing as the model father. The thing’s too absurd.”
“I don’t see it. Surely I can please myself?”
“Of course. But is it just to Liane?”
“What do you mean?”
“It is essential for a young girl of her temperament to have life and gaiety,” he said, exhibiting his palms with a quick, expressive movement. “By vegetating in Stratfield Mortimer, amid surroundings which must necessarily possess exceedingly painful memories, she will soon become prematurely old. It’s nothing short of an infernal shame that she should be allowed to remain there.”
Brooker did not reply. He had on more than one occasion lately reflected that a change of surroundings would do her good, for he had noticed with no little alarm how highly strung had been her nerves of late, and how pale and wan were her cheeks. Zertho spoke the truth.
“I don’t deny that what you say is correct,” he replied thoughtfully. “But what’s the use of talking of gaiety? How can any one have life without either money or friends?”
“Easily enough. Both you and Liane know the Riviera well enough to find plenty of amusement there.”
“No, she wouldn’t go. She hates it.”
“Bah!” cried the prince, impatiently. “If, as you say, she’s turned a bit religious, she of course regards the old life as altogether dreadful. But you can easily overcome those prejudices—or I will.”
“How?”
“In December I’m going to Nice for the season,” Zertho explained. “We shall have plenty of fun there, so at my expense you’ll come.”
“I think not,” was the brief reply.
“My dear fellow, why not,” he cried. “Surely you can have no qualms about accepting my hospitality. You will remember that when I was laid up with typhoid in Ostend I lived for months on your generosity. And heaven knows, you had then but little to spare! It is my intention now to recompense you.”
“And to endeavour to win Liane’s love,” added the Captain, curtly.
Zertho’s brows narrowed slightly. He paused, gazing at the fine diamond glittering upon his white finger.
“Well, yes,” he answered at last. “I don’t see why there should be anything underhand between us.”
“I gave you my answer when you came down to Stratfield Mortimer,” the other responded in a harsh, dry tone, rising slowly. “I still adhere to my decision.”
“Why?” protested his whilom partner, looking up at him intently, and sticking his hands into his pockets in lazy, indolent attitude.
“Because I’m confident she will never marry you.”
“Has she a lover?”
His companion gave an affirmative nod. Zertho frowned and bit his lip.
“Who is he?” he asked. “Some uncouth countryman or other, I’ll be bound.”
“The son of Sir John Stratfield.”
The prince sprang to his feet, and faced his visitor with a look of amazement.
“Sir John’s son! Never!” he gasped.
“Yes. Strange how such unexpected events occur, isn’t it?” Brooker observed, slowly, with emphasis.
“But, my dear fellow, you can’t allow it. You must not!” he cried wildly.
“I’ve already told her that marriage is entirely out of the question. Yet she will not heed me,” her father observed, twirling the moustaches which he kept as well trained now as in the days when he rode at the head of his troop on Hounslow Heath, and was the pet of certain London drawing-rooms.
“Then take her abroad, so that they cannot meet. Come to Nice in December.”
“I am to bring her, so that you may endeavour to take George Stratfield’s place in her heart—eh?” observed the Captain shrewdly.
“Marriage with George Stratfield is agreed between us both to be impossible, whereas marriage with me is not improbable,” was the reply.
Erle Brooker shrugged his shoulders as he again puffed vigorously at his cigar. He now saw plainly Zertho’s object in asking him to call.
“Well,” continued his friend, “even I, with all my faults, am preferable to any Stratfield as Liane’s husband, am I not?”
“I don’t see why we need discuss it further,” said Brooker quietly. “Liane will never become Princess d’Auzac.”
“Will you allow me to pay my attentions to her?”
“If you are together I cannot prevent it, Zertho. But, candidly speaking, you are not the man I would choose as husband for my daughter.”
“I know I’m not, old fellow,” the other said, shrugging his shoulders slightly. “And you’re not exactly the man that, in ordinary circumstances, I’d choose as my father-in-law. But I have money, and if the man’s a bit decent-looking, and sound of wind and limb, it’s about all a woman wants nowadays.”
“Ah! I don’t think you yet understand Liane. She’s not eager for money and position, like most girls.”
“Well, let me have a fair innings, Brooker, and she’ll consent to become Princess d’Auzac, I feel convinced. You fancy I only admire her; but I swear it’s a bit more than mere admiration. For Heaven’s sake take her out of that dismal hole where you are living, and make her break it all off with Stratfield’s son. She must do that at once. Take her to the seaside—to Paris—anywhere, for a month or two until we can all meet in the South.”
Brooker, leaning against the mantelshelf, slowly flicked the ash from his cigar, meditated deeply for a few moments, then asked—
“Why do you wish to take me back to the old spot?”
“Because only there can you pick up a living. The police have nothing against either of us, so what have we to fear?”
“Recognition by one or other of our dupes. Play wasn’t all straight, you’ll remember.”
“Bah!” cried Zertho with impatience. “What’s the use of meeting trouble half-way? You never used to have a thought for the morrow in the old days. But, there, you’re respectable now,” he added, with a slight sneer.
“If I go South I shall not play,” Brooker said, decisively. “I’ve given it up.”
“Because you’ve had a long run of ill-luck—eh?” the other laughed. “Surely this is the first time you’ve adopted such a course. I might have been in the same unenviable plight as yourself by now if my respected parent had not taken it into his head to drop out of this sick hurry of life just at a moment when my funds were exhausted. One day I was an adventurer with a light heart and much lighter pocket, and on the next wealthy beyond my wildest expectations. Such is one’s fortune. Even your bad luck may have changed during these months.”
“I think not,” Brooker answered gravely.
“Well, you shall have a thousand on loan to venture again,” his old partner said good-naturedly.
“I appreciate your kindness, Zertho,” he answered, in a low tone, smiling sadly, “but my days are over. I’ve lost, and gone under.”
The prince glanced at him for an instant. There was a strange glint in his dark eyes.
“As you wish,” he answered, then walking to a small rosewood escritoire which stood in the window, he sat down and scribbled a cheque, payable to his friend for five hundred pounds. Brooker, still smoking, watched him in silence, unaware of his intention. Slowly the prince blotted it, folded it, and placing it in an envelope, returned to where his visitor was standing.
“I asked you to take Liane from all the painful memories of Stratfield Mortimer. Do so for her sake, and accept this as some slight contribution towards the expense. Only don’t let her know that it comes from me.”
Brooker took the envelope mechanically, regarding his friend steadily, with fixed gaze. At first there was indecision in his countenance, but next instant his face went white with fierce anger and resentment. His hand closed convulsively upon the envelope, crushing it into a shapeless mass, and with a fierce imprecation he cast it from him upon the floor.
“No, I’ll never touch your money!” he cried, with a gesture, as if shrinking from its contact. “You fear lest Liane should know that you are attempting to buy her just as you would some chattel or other which, for the moment, takes your fancy. But she shall know; and she shall never be your wife.”
“Very well,” answered Zertho, with a contemptuous smile, facing the Captain quickly. “Act as you please, but I tell you plainly, once and for all, that Liane will many me.”
“She shall not.”
“She shall!” declared the other, determinedly, looking into his face intently, his black eyes flashing. “And you will use that cheque for her benefit, and in the manner I direct, without telling her anything. You will also bring her to Nice, and stand aside that I may win her, and—”
“I’ll do nothing of the sort. I’d rather see her dead.”
Zertho’s fingers twitched, as was his habit when excited. Upon his dark sallow face was an expression of cruel, relentless revenge; an evil look which his companion had only seen once before.
“Listen, Brooker,” he exclaimed in a low, harsh tone, as advancing close to him he bent and uttered some rapid words in his ear, so low that none might hear them save himself.
“Good God! Zertho!” cried the unhappy man, turning white to the lips, and glaring at him. “Surely you don’t intend to give me away?” he gasped, in a hoarse, terrified whisper.
“I do,” was the firm reply. “My silence is only in exchange for your assistance. Now you thoroughly understand.”
“Then you want Liane, my child, as the price of my secret! My God!” he groaned, in a husky, broken voice, sinking back into his chair in an attitude of abject dejection, covering his blanched, haggard face with trembling hands.