“He’s gone in to grub,” said Selwyn, all a-twitter with excitement. “The thing for us to do is to be careful when he passes us again.”
But no care was required, and his elaborate plan to be immersed in an evening newspaper that completely hid himself and his companion when the car came abreast, was unnecessary, for it was dark when the siren of Chesney’s machine called for a clear road, and the car swept past.
Within ten miles of the farm there were a number of enquiries to be made. The exact situation of the farm was difficult to locate, and it was only when they reached Whitcomb village that they were able to take the road with any certainty. And there were other difficulties to be overcome.
“There is no sense in our dashing up madly to this old Gallows and saying ‘Where is she?’ ” said his lordship, with perfect truth. “If we’re on the track of something fishy, and I’m sure everything connected with Chesney is fishy, we shan’t get a civil answer. On the other hand, if there is nothing fishy about the business, we’ll be getting ourselves a bad reputation if we barge in and there’s nothing—er——”
“Fishy,” suggested Lizzy helpfully.
Two miles from Whitcomb they held a council of war, and decided to send the machine back to the main road and to continue the journey on foot. This was his lordship’s idea.
“The situation requires a certain amount of tact, and if there’s anybody more tactful than me, I’d like to meet them.”
They trudged up the dusty road, keeping a watch for Chesney’s car. It was dark by now and they were without any kind of light except the matches that Lord Moron occasionally struck, and both were dead-beat by the time they came in view of the farm.
“Not a very cheerful looking place, is it?” said Selwyn, some of his enterprise evaporating. “Beastly dismal hole. Shouldn’t be surprised if there was a real gallows somewhere around. I think it was a mistake to have left the car.”
“It is too late to talk about mistakes,” said Lizzy brusquely, and led the way. “We’ve found the place, that is something. Not that it looks as if it is worth finding.”
They came at last to the big black gate and the forbidding wall.
“Shall we ring or knock?” asked his lordship. “There’s a car inside—do you hear it?”
Lizzy compromised by kicking on the wood. Her foot was raised to kick a second time, when there came from the house a woman’s scream, so vibrant with fear that Selwyn’s blood seemed to turn to ice and his knees touched together.
At that moment the gates burst open with a crash, almost knocking them down, and the bonnet of a car showed.
“There’s a woman in the car,” screamed Lizzy, but the roar of the engines drowned her voice.
Chapter Thirty-three
Mr. Chesney Praye was a welcome visitor. He had parked his machine in the forecourt, and now, sitting before the small wood fire, was warming his chilled hands, for the night had turned unusually cold and he had come at full speed across the windy downs.
“Br-r-r!” he said, as he held his hands before the blaze. “And this is what they call an English summer! I’ll be glad to get back to India.”
“Do you think of going?”
“I may. Everything depends——”
“You were lucky to find me in,” said the doctor, putting glasses on the table.
“Why?” asked the other, in surprise. “I thought you wouldn’t leave this abode of peace, at any rate not now.”
Briefly the doctor related the cause of his excursion and Chesney looked serious.
“Is there any likelihood of Dorn coming back?” he asked.
Tappatt’s merriment reassured him.
“He’s back! In fact, he is practically under this roof!”
Chesney sprang to his feet.
“What the devil do you mean?” he asked roughly.
“Sit down. There’s nothing to be alarmed about. He is behind a two-inch door, with handcuffs on his wrists and a pain in his head that will take a lot of moving. I’d have telephoned, only I don’t trust the exchange.”
And then he told the visitor of his encounter with Dorn.
“It was a question of foresight, and I saw farthest,” he said. “It is as good as a bottle of sparkling wine to match your brain against the mind of a man like that, to look ahead and see what he will do in given circumstances, and to counter and recounter his plans. Somebody had to come out on top—he or I. He failed to take an elementary precaution—the veriest amateur would have known that, if his attention was distracted for a moment, I’d doctor his drink; and it was absurdly simple. I don’t even take the credit for it. He played so completely into my hands.”
Chesney pursed his lips.
“Has he recovered from the drug?” he asked, a little apprehensively.
Tappatt nodded.
“Oh yes, I’ve had quite an interesting conversation with him through the door. There’s a little spyhole that makes it easy to exchange pleasant badinage. Captain Michael Dorn is a pretty sick man at this moment.”
Chesney Praye was pacing up and down the room, a worried frown on his face. This was a development that he had not looked for.
“Perhaps it is better,” he said. “I shall be taking away the girl to-night.”
“The countess didn’t——” began the doctor.
“You needn’t worry about the countess. She’d have telephoned, but she shared your fear of the exchange. The girl and Mrs. Pinder are to be moved. The risk of keeping them here is too great. Dorn has people working for him and you’ll wake one morning to find a cordon of police round the house.”
“Where will you go?”
“I shall take her abroad.”
“And the other woman?”
Chesney looked at him oddly.
“I may want the other woman—later,” he said.
“I had better bring Reddle down,” said the doctor, rising and going to the door, but Praye beckoned him back.
“There is no hurry,” he said.
He evidently had something which he had hesitated to say.
“What are your plans, Tappatt?”
“Mine? I shall have to flit, I suppose. They’re striking me off the register, at least Dorn told me so.”
“What will you do with him?”
An ugly smile showed for a second on the doctor’s face.
“I don’t know. He is going to be a difficulty. I’ve seen that from the first. I could leave him, and that is what I shall probably do. Nobody would come near the farm perhaps for months, perhaps for a year.”
Chesney Praye’s face was ashen.
“Leave him to starve?” he whispered.
“Why not?” asked the other coolly. “Who would know? I thought of going to Australia. And I’d take my nurse with me. She would think that I had let Dorn out, and anyway she’s not the kind of person to ask questions. This place is Lady Moron’s property. Who would visit it if I left? It might be empty for years.”
Chesney Praye’s mouth was dry, the hand that went to his lips shook.
“I don’t know—it seems pretty awful,” he said irresolutely. “To leave a man—to starve!”
“What will happen if he gets after me?” asked the doctor, stirring the fire that had almost gone out. “I should either starve or get my meals too regularly! I understand the food is fairly good at Dartmoor, but I am willing to take anybody’s word for it. I do not want to have a personal experience. And anyway, there’s always a way out for a medical man. I owe Dorn something. He hounded me from India, and he’s not exactly a friend of yours, is he, Chesney?”
“No,” said the other shortly, “only——”
“Only what? You’re chicken-hearted! What do you think is going to happen to you and me if that gets out?” He pointed to the ceiling. “It would mean the best part of a lifetime for you—more than a lifetime for me. No, sir, I am well aware of the risks I am taking and more than determined what further risks I’ll accept. You’d better have the girl down. I suppose you want to be alone?”
He nodded and the doctor went out of the room, and was gone for a long while. When the door opened, Lois Reddle stood framed against the dark background of the passage. At the sight of Praye she stopped.
“You!” she said in wonder.
“Good evening, Miss Reddle. Won’t you sit down?”
Chesney was politeness itself and his manners were unimpeachable.
“I’m afraid you’ve had a very unhappy experience,” he said. “I only learnt about it this afternoon and I came down immediately to do whatever I could. The doctor tells me that you have been certified.”
“That is not true,” she said hotly. “I know very little about the law, but I have been in Mr. Shaddles’ office too long to suppose that any person can be certified as mad by one doctor! Are you going to take me away?”
He nodded.
“And that other unfortunate woman?”
“She may go too,” he said slowly, “on conditions.”
She looked at him steadily.
“I don’t quite understand you, Mr. Praye.”
He motioned her to a chair, but she did not move.
“Now listen to me, Miss Reddle. I am taking big risks for your sake. I needn’t particularise them, but if I fail this evening, my future, and probably”—he hesitated to say “liberty”—“at any rate, my future is seriously jeopardised. I’ve made this journey without the knowledge of a person who shall be nameless and I am betraying the trust she has in me. She will not forgive me.”
“You mean the Countess of Moron?” she asked quietly.
“There is no use in beating about the bush. I refer to the Countess of Moron.”
“Am I here by her orders?”
He nodded.
“But why? What have I ever done to her that she should wish to injure me?”
“You will know one of these days,” he said impatiently, “but that is beside the point. I can save you and your mother——”
She fell back a pace.
“My mother?” she breathed. “That woman,” she pointed her trembling finger to the door—“not my mother?” He nodded. “Here? Oh, my God! Why?”
“She’s here for the same reason that you are here,” was his cool reply. “Now, Miss Reddle, you’ve got to be an intelligent being. I want you to be sensible and recognise the sacrifices I am making for you, and to agree to my conditions for taking your mother away from this place.”
“What are the conditions?” she asked slowly.
“The first is that you marry me!” said Chesney Praye.
Chapter Thirty-four
She looked at him bewildered, as though she could not grasp the meaning of his words.
“That I marry you?” she repeated.
“That you marry me to-morrow. I took the precaution this afternoon of going to Doctors’ Commons and securing a special licence, which allows me to be married to-morrow morning. I had some trouble in getting it, but it is here——” he tapped his breast pocket. “Before leaving London I telegraphed to the vicar of Leitworth, a village some thirty miles from here, and asked him to perform the ceremony at ten o’clock to-morrow morning.”
His face was white; he was obviously labouring under the stress of some tense emotion. Presently he went on in a lower voice:
“I will make you a rich woman. I will place you and your mother beyond want. I will give you a position in the world that you could not dream you would ever occupy. I’ll do something more.” He came closer to her, and before she realised what he was doing he had gripped her shoulders. “I will clear your mother’s name—I can’t give her back the years she has spent in prison——”
She drew back out of his grasp.
“No!” she said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. It may be true—all these things you say—but I can’t marry you, Mr. Praye, and I—I don’t believe you. My mother is in prison.”
“Your mother is in this house.”
He strode to the door and, pulling it open, called the doctor by name.
“Bring down Mrs. Pinder,” he said.
The girl stood at the farther end of the room, her hands clasped together, waiting, hoping, yet not daring to hope. She heard a light step on the stair, again the door opened and the woman came in.
One glance at that serene face was sufficient. In another second they were in one another’s arms, and the girl was sobbing on her mother’s breast.
For a minute there was silence in the room, and only the murmured endearments of the older woman interrupted. Then Mrs. Pinder held the girl at arm’s length and looked into her tear-stained face.
“My little Lois!” she said softly. “It hardly seems possible.”
Lois tried to speak.
“And have you come to take me away?”
Watching the girl, Chesney saw her nod, and his hopes bounded as he introduced himself.
“I am Chesney Praye,” he said awkwardly, “a—a friend of Miss Reddle.”
“Reddle? Then Mrs. Reddle gave you her name?” She looked at Chesney. “When do we go?” she asked.
“As soon as certain conditions are fulfilled. Will you leave us, Mrs. Pinder?”
The woman’s eyes fell upon the girl. Gathering her in her arms, she kissed her tenderly. Chesney, in his feverish anxiety, almost tore them apart in his urgency. He closed the door upon Mrs. Pinder and came back to the girl.
“Well?” he said. “I told you the truth?”
She nodded.
“And you’ll do this?”
“Marry you?” She shook her head.
“But you told your mother you would!” he said furiously. “You know what it means, don’t you, if you refuse?”
“I can’t, I can’t! How can I marry you, Mr. Praye? You’re engaged to the Countess of Moron——”
He interrupted her with an oath.
“Never mind about the countess! You know what I’m doing for you, don’t you? I’m saving your life, I’m giving you your mother——”
She looked past him at the closed door.
“I can’t!” she said helplessly. “How can you ask me to decide? I—I don’t know you, you must give me time.”
“I’ll give you as much time as it will take you to sign this paper.”
He pulled out a sheet of foolscap from his pocket and laid it on the table.
“What is that?” she said.
“It’s an agreement. You needn’t trouble to read it. Just put your signature here, and I’ll bring in the doctor to witness it.”
“But what is the document?” she asked, and tried to turn it back to the first page, but he prevented her.
Her suspicion was growing, and the reaction from that tremendous meeting had left her chilled and numb. Into her heart had crept an uneasy suspicion that the conditions he offered were not in his power to fulfil. All her instincts told her this man’s word was valueless.
“I can do nothing until I have seen Mr. Dorn.”
Why she mentioned the detective’s name at all, she could not understand. She wanted time. She mentioned the first name that occurred to her, and might as well have referred to Mr. Shaddles.
“Dorn! So that’s how the land lies, eh? Michael Dorn is the favoured gentleman? Well, Dorn or no Dorn, you’ll marry me to-morrow morning at ten o’clock. I’ve gone too far to pull back now. And Dorn’s dead, anyway.”
“Dead?” she cried in horror.
“He came here this morning, looking for you, and——”
The door was opening slowly.
“I don’t want you, Tappatt. Shut the door, damn you!”
But still it was moving, slowly, slowly. And then around the edge came the black muzzle of a pistol, an arm, and then, last, the smiling face of Michael Dorn!
“Put up your hands, Praye!” he said. “I want you!”
As the door opened and the hand came in, Chesney Praye’s fingers closed around an ebony ruler, and then, at the hateful sight of Michael Dorn’s face, he struck at the oil lamp that stood on the table. There was a crash, a jangle of broken glass, and Lois screamed.
Praye darted past her; she heard the thud of the door, and a grunt from somebody. In another second the two men were at grips and she shrank back farther and farther into a corner of the room, as tables and chairs became involved in the struggle. She heard Chesney screaming for the doctor at the top of his voice.
“Doctor—help! Get this swine!” And there came to the frightened ears of the girl the sound of the door being wrenched open, the scurry of footsteps, and Chesney’s voice was silent.
“Stay where you are!”
The room reeked with the smell of kerosene.
“Don’t strike a light,” said Michael’s voice, but even as he spoke a white flame leapt up from the hearth. The flowing oil had reached some red-hot embers, and in a second the whole floor was blazing.
The girl was paralysed with fear, but before she could move he had picked her up and carried her into the passage.
“Go into the back, quick! The dogs won’t hurt you,” he said, and flew up the stairs, bursting into Mrs. Pinder’s prison.
The room in which Mrs. Pinder had been confined was empty. There was no sign of the doctor or of the woman. He came down into the hall again and ran to the front door. As he opened the door, he saw Chesney’s big car going full speed towards the closed gates. There was a crack and a crash, the gates flew open, and the tail lights disappeared as the car turned on to the road.
The front room was now blazing. He tried the housekeeper’s room: that also was empty. There was no need for further search. Dr. Tappatt had got away, and with him the unhappy mother of Lois.
He rejoined the girl and she told him what had happened before he came into the room.
“That is it,” he said bitterly. “The doctor was listening at the door and, thinking he was going to be left in the lurch, decided to make his getaway. When Praye turned your mother from the room he must have put her into the car, and probably unfastened the gate when he heard the fight.”
“Where will he have taken her? What will happen?” she asked fearfully.
Her nerve had gone, and she clung to him like a frightened child, and as he held the quivering figure in his arms, the world and all its sordid horrors dropped away from him and for a second he lived in a heaven of happiness.
“Child, child!” His hand trembled as it touched her cheek. “Your mother is not in danger—they dare not.”
“I am an hysterical fool!” she sobbed as she rubbed her face against his coat. “But, Michael, I am so frightened. What will happen to my mother?”
“Nothing; they will not dare injure her.”
The fire had taken hold; great tongues of flame were leaping up from the roof.
“It will burn like tinder. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” she said, in surprise.
“I mean I’m sorry to see property destroyed. I don’t suppose it is insured,” was his strange reply. “I’ll pull the Buick out of the shed before the fire gets to it.”
As they were walking across the yard to the extemporised garage, he caught her arm and drew her from the path, and, looking down, she saw the stiff figure of a dog.
“I had to shoot them,” he said. “I used a silencer, because I thought the doctor would hear.”
“But they told me you were dead?”
“I’ll tell you about it some day,” he answered briefly, and gave his whole attention to breaking the lock of the shed.
Presently he hauled out the car and examined the petrol tank.
“There is enough to get us to the nearest village,” he said; “the spare tin is full.”
He got the car round to the front of the house, and was standing watching the havoc of the flames when the first police cyclist came thunderously from the direction of Whitcombe.
“Nobody is hurt except me,” said Michael in answer to the man’s enquiry, “and in my case it is only a question of feelings. You didn’t pass a car on your way?”
“Yes, I passed a big car, with three or four people in it.”
“Which way did they go?”
“They took the Newbury Road.”
“Then we also will take the Newbury Road,” said Michael.
On the journey back to London he told Lois what had happened to him.
“I pretty well knew that he’d get you out of the house in the night, but I also knew that he couldn’t take you far. It was impossible to watch all sides of the house, and besides, it would have been as impossible to get back on foot in time to intercept him. As I expected, the house was empty when I made my search. I had formed a plan which was fairly elementary. When he showed me the underground cellar room, I slipped a spare gun and a small kit of tools amongst the bedding, for I guessed that would be the place he would put me—that is, if he managed to catch me. Honestly, I don’t believe he thought of drugging me until I suggested it myself, and then he did his work in the most clumsy way. He told me that he heard somebody moving outside in order to distract my attention, and of course my attention was distracted. When he had dropped the dope into my coffee, I had a little distraction of my own. I found an excuse to go out into the yard, poured away the coffee, and when I came back I stood in the doorway, giving him the impression that I was drinking. I was standing and he was sitting, so he couldn’t tell whether there was coffee in the cup or not. But he was so smugly satisfied that he did what I knew he would do—‘lured’ me down into the underground room—and I was glad to be lured. I knew that the moment I was safely under lock and key, he would bring you back again. I had cached my gun and tools, and when he came in and found me unconscious, he did not trouble to search the room again. If he had, he would have been shocked to have had a most unpleasant beating from the helpless creature on the bed!”
“But how did you get out?”
“That was easy. Almost any key could have opened that old-fashioned lock, and I came prepared with several. I waited all day because I was certain that he would not bring you back until night. The handcuffs were the most difficult part; I hadn’t a key to fit them. It took me two hours’ hard work and a nearly dislocated thumb to slip them off.”
They stopped at an all-night filling station, replenished the tank, and continued their way to London.
“I know one person who will be happy to-night,” said Michael, as the car sped up the Bayswater Road. “I wonder whether she got the day off?”
“Whom do you mean?” asked the girl, aroused from an unpleasant reverie.
“Miss Elizabeth Smith.”
“Mr. Dorn, do you really think that there’s no danger to my mother?” she asked, for the moment oblivious to everything except the woman’s danger.
“None, I should imagine,” he said.
The car stopped before the house in Charlotte Street, and Mr. Mackenzie answered the knock.
“Have you Miss Smith with you?” he asked, after he had welcomed the girl.
“Lizzy?” said Lois in surprise. “She wasn’t with me. I haven’t seen her. Why do you ask?”
“She went to Gallows Farm with his lordship.”
“With his lordship?” said Michael, in surprise. “Do you mean Lord Moron?”
“They left at eight o’clock,” said the old man, “in a hired car.”
Michael and the girl were in the old man’s room when he gave them this information, and the two exchanged glances. Here was an unforeseen complication.
“I saw no sign of a car, hired or otherwise,” he said. “And Moron—phew!” He whistled.
“Perhaps they lost their way,” suggested Lois, and he seemed prepared to accept the suggestion.
“If you don’t mind, Miss Reddle, I’ll wait here until they have returned,” he said, and then: “You don’t wish to call up Lady Moron, I suppose?”
Lois shuddered.
“No, no, not that terrible woman.”
“So you know—or rather, you guess?”
Lois shook her head.
“I know nothing. The whole thing is a mystery to me. It is so confusing that I think I should go mad, only I’m so grateful to be here,” she smiled, and held out her hand. “And I knew that it would be you who would come for me, just as I know it will be you who will restore my mother to me.”
He took her hand and held it, his eyes searching hers.
“I’m going to tell you something,” he said in a low voice. They were alone in the little room, and she felt her heart beating in time with the cheap American clock on the table. “I suppose I really oughtn’t to say anything,” he said, “because I have no right. But I feel if I don’t tell you I may never have another opportunity.”
She had dropped her eyes before his, but now she looked at him again.
“I love you,” he said simply. “I can’t marry you, I won’t ask you to marry me, and that is what makes this folly of mine all the more mad! But I want you to believe that it has been a happiness to work for you.”
“For me?” she said. “Why, of course, you’ve worked very hard for me.”
“And I have been paid very well,” was the disconcerting rejoinder. “But I would do it again and pay all the money I have in the world for the privilege.”
Suddenly he released her hand, and when she smiled up at him he, too, was smiling.
“Two declarations of love in one night is more than any reasonable girl can expect,” he said flippantly.
“One declaration of love,” she said in a low voice, “and one offer of marriage—quite different, isn’t it?”
“I’m not an authority on these matters,” he said with a sigh, and looked up at the loud-ticking clock.
Michael saw the hour and frowned.
“I’m rather worried about these people; where on earth can they have got? You don’t feel worried about sleeping here to-night alone—if you have to sleep alone?”
She shook her head.
“I’m troubled about Lizzy,” she said. “Poor Lord Moron! I wonder what his mother would say if she knew.”
“She probably knows,” said Michael.
It was at that moment they heard Lizzy’s voice in the hall and the sound of feet on the stairs.
Lois ran out to the landing and looked down into the lighted hall.
“Michael!” she called wildly, and he was at her side. “Look—oh, look!” she said in a hushed voice.
And Michael Dorn looked—and wondered!
Chapter Thirty-five
As the gates burst open violently and the car lurched on to the road, Lizzy pulled her companion back to the shadow of the wall. At that moment a man came flying through the gateway and leapt upon the running-board. Again the car slowed perceptibly.
“He’s there,” whispered Lizzy fiercely. “Quick—luggage rack!”
In an instant she was flying after the machine, caught the iron rail of the rack and sprang on. The car was gathering speed as Selwyn Moron stumbled forward, his hand gripping the rail, his legs moving faster than nature had intended. Kneeling down, Lizzy caught him by a garment which ladies do not mention, let alone grab, and hauled him up to her side, breathless, almost dead.
“Hold tight!” she squeaked in his ear, and there was need for the caution, for the car was bumping from side to side over the uneven road, at a speed beyond her computation.
“A thousand miles an hour!” she jerked into his ear, and he nodded his complete agreement.
Now they were on the post road. The bumping had ceased, and the machine was going even faster. Lizzy held tight to the luggage support and adopted an attitude of passive fatalism. Once a motorcyclist snapped past, going in the other direction, and she had a glimpse of a uniform cap. It was a policeman, but by the time she realised the fact he was out of sight.
The seat was most uncomfortable. She began to realise the sensations of a herring on a gridiron and wondered if the luggage rack would leave the same marks.
Selwyn was trying to whisper to her; he had recovered most of his breath and all his sense of obligation.
“What about that car of ours? We hired it by the hour,” he whispered hoarsely, and she put her lips to his ear.
“Shaddles will pay,” she said gaily, and found a delight in the prospect.
A little while later the car stopped, and the two unauthorised riders got ready to jump. Peeping round the back of the machine, Lizzy saw the cause of the delay. They had pulled up at a sort of sentry box and one of the party was unlocking the door. She knew that the hut was an automobile station equipped with a telephone, before she heard a muffled voice speaking. Presently the telephoner came out.
“All right,” he said, as he climbed in and the car started again.
They had not gone twenty miles when, to her surprise, the machine slackened its speed again, slowed almost to a halt, and then turned suddenly through a pair of old gates that had been opened for them. She felt a communicated excitement from her companion as he bent over towards her.
“Old family estate,” he whispered. “Country seat and all that sort of thing! Knew it as soon as I saw the gates.”
“Whose?” she asked cautiously.
“Mine,” was the surprising reply.
And then, feeling that he had overstated the case, he added:
“Her ladyship’s really. Beastly house—never liked it. Moron Court, Newbury. Rum place——”
They passed up a long avenue of elms, going slower and slower. Selwyn tapped her on the shoulder and dropped off the rack, and, recognising his wisdom, she followed, darting into the shadow of an elm only just in time, for at that moment the car stopped and the voice of Lady Moron sent a shiver down the back of her son.
“Go to the west entrance: you’ll find nobody there. What were you doing in Somerset, Chesney?”
“I will tell you later,” he said shortly.
The car passed on and the two watchers saw the tall woman walking slowly in its wake. How had she known they were coming? And then Lizzy remembered the car stopping at the telephone box on the side of the road.
“Queer old crib, eh?” Moron was whispering. “See that bump in the roof? That’s the alarm bell—works from the music-room… in case of fire and all that sort of thing.”
They waited till Lady Moron had disappeared from sight, then they followed cautiously. The west entrance was reached through a glass-covered porch, and the door was closed when they came up to it. Moron smiled benignly at the girl, and took a small object from his pocket.
“Pass-key,” he whispered, so loudly that he would have been heard if there had been a listener.
Inserting the key, he turned it and signalled the girl to follow. Before them stretched a vista of red-carpeted corridor; a light burnt in a ceiling lamp at the farther end. Moron crept along with extravagant caution, and he was half-way up the passage when he stopped and raised a warning finger, pointing energetically to a door before he beckoned her past it. A little farther along was a broad marble staircase. Up this he went, with Lizzy, feeling like a conspirator, at his heels.
They must have presented a terrifying sight. White from head to foot, their faces were masks of dust. Lizzy’s crumpled hat hung drunkenly over one ear. At the top of the stairs was another corridor, with the same meagre illumination. He drew her head to his.
“That is the gallery of the music-room!” He indicated a small door. “For heaven’s sake don’t make a row,” he implored her, and opened the door an inch at a time.
The door itself was shadowed by the broad musicians’ balcony from the light in the room below. They heard voices talking as they came in, and, keeping flat to the wall, they edged forward until it was dangerous to go any farther. Then Selwyn gave a start that nearly betrayed their presence. Turning, he communicated what he had seen.
“She’s not there—Miss Reddle, I mean. It’s an elderly lady with white hair.”
“So you have seen your daughter, Mrs. Pinder?”
“Yes, madam, I have seen Lois.”
Lois! Lizzy clapped her hand over her mouth. Lois Reddle’s mother, and her name was Pinder!
“A very beautiful girl,” said Lady Moron suavely.
“A dear, sweet girl! I am very proud, whatever happens to me.”
“What do you think will happen to you?”
“I don’t know, but I am prepared for anything now.”
Lizzy glanced at her comrade. He was staring open-mouthed into the hall below.
“She is too pretty a daughter to lose. Now, Mrs. Pinder, I am going to make you an offer. I want you to take your daughter to South America. I will pay you a yearly sum, more than sufficient for your needs. If you undertake to do that, you will never be troubled again.”
Mary Pinder smiled and shook her head.
“Madam, your offer comes too late. Had it been made whilst I was still a prisoner, had it been supported by any efforts to obtain my release from that cruel punishment, I would have gone on my knees and thanked you and blessed you. But now I know too much.”
“What do you know?” asked Lady Moron.
And then Mrs. Pinder began to speak, and as she went on, Lizzy gripped the hand of the man at her side, and laid her face against his arm. He turned round once during the narrative, his weak face transfigured and smiled down at her, as though he read in her gesture all that her heart conveyed. Mrs. Pinder spoke without interruption, and, when she had finished:
“You know a great deal too much for my comfort, madam,” said her ladyship’s voice, “and much too much for the safety of my friends.”
“So I realise,” said Mary Pinder gravely.
“I repeat my offer. I would advise you to think well before you reject your chance of safety.”
“Look here, Leonora——” began Chesney Praye.
“Be silent. I have found one friend to-night—one I can trust. It is not you, Chesney. The doctor has told me all that has happened. You thought you would go behind my back and forestall me. To-night you will do as you’re told. Now, madam—do you accept my offer?”
“No,” was Mrs. Pinder’s reply.
Lady Moron turned to the red-faced doctor. He nodded.
“Now, Mrs. Pinder,” he said, advancing to her, his tone jovial, his manner friendly, “why can’t you be sensible? Do as her ladyship asks you.”
“I will not——”
He was near to her now. Suddenly his hand shot out and strangled the scream in her throat. She struggled desperately, madly, but there was no denying those relentless hands. Chesney Praye took half a step forward, but Lady Moron’s arm barred him.
And then came the interruption. A wild-looking, dust-stained man, unrecognisable to any, leapt from the balcony and gripped the doctor by the shoulders from behind. As Tappatt staggered back, releasing his hold upon his victim, Selwyn sprang to the long red bell-cord that hung on the side of the wall, and pulled. From overhead came a deafening clang. Again he pulled.
“You fool, you madman, what are you doing?”
His mother rushed towards him, but he pushed her back. Presently he ceased.
“That’s the alarm bell. We’ll have all the house and half the village in here in a minute. And I don’t want to say before them what I’m saying to you now.” He pointed an accusing finger at his mother. “You think I’m a fool, and perhaps you’re right. But I’m not a wicked fool, and I’m going to send you and your damnable friend before a judge!”
“Get him away quick!” screamed the countess, as a patter of feet came along the corridor. “I can say it was an accident.”
“Don’t touch him!”
A girl, almost as great a scarecrow as the panting Selwyn, was leaning over the balcony.
“You can tell them what you like, but you can’t tell them anything they’ll believe after they’ve heard me!”
The door was pushed open at that moment, and a man half-dressed came running in, and stopped dead, gaping at the scene that met his eyes. Almost immediately the doorway was filled with dishevelled men and women.
“Is there any trouble, my lady?”
“None,” she said sharply, and pointed to the door. “Wait outside.”
She looked up at the girl in the gallery.
“I think you would be well advised to ask my son to change his plans,” she said, in the same calm, even voice which Selwyn knew so well. “The matter can be adjusted to-morrow. Selwyn, go back to your friend and take this lady with you.”
Mrs. Pinder was sitting on a chair, her frail frame shaking convulsively, while Selwyn strove to comfort her. At Lady Moron’s words she stood up, and, with the man’s arm about her, passed into the crowded corridor, and in a few seconds Lizzy Smith had joined them.
Chapter Thirty-six
Leonora, Countess of Moron, paced her long dressing-room, her hands behind her, a calm, speculative woman, for emotion did not belong to her. Chesney Praye and the doctor she had left in the music-room, and through the windows that overlooked the stone porch at the front of the house she had, a few minutes before, seen the car pass which carried Mary Pinder to happiness and freedom.
Lady Moron felt no resentment against any save the weakling son she had hated from his birth. There was still a hope that the wheel would turn by some miracle in her favour. All she had played for, all she had won, was gone. It was the hour of reparation and judgment, not yet for her the hour of penitence.
Opening a little safe that was set in the wall, concealed by a silver barometer, she took out a tiny box and shook on to the table a folded sheet of newspaper and a key. This she put into her bag. From the back of the safe she pulled to view a small automatic pistol, and, jerking back the cover to assure herself that it was loaded, fixed the safety catch. This too went into the bag. Then she rang the bell, and her scared maid answered after a long interval.
“Tell Henry that I wish the Rolls to be at the door in ten minutes,” she said, and at the end of that time, with her cloak wrapped about her shoulders, she stepped into the car, pausing only to give directions. “Charlotte Street,” she said, and gave the number.
She turned over in her mind the events of the past few weeks, striving to discover the key flaw of her plan. Some force had been working against her. Dorn was the instrument, but behind that was a power the identity of which she could not imagine.
The car ran through the deserted streets of Reading along the long road to Maidenhead. Still her problem was not solved. Who was behind Dorn? She had for him a certain amount of admiration. She had known, the moment he came into the case, that the little men who had seemed so big, Chesney Praye and the doctor, were valueless.
The car came noiselessly to the door of Lois Reddle’s home. She looked up at the lighted windows and was slightly amused. Selwyn would be there, basking in the approval of the bourgeoisie. Even her feeling of bitterness towards him had been blunted on the journey. This was to be the last throw.
Old Mackenzie, on his way up to Lizzy’s kitchenette to brew more coffee, heard the knock and called to Lizzy:
“There’s somebody at the door, miss: will you open it for me?”
A transfigured Lizzy, dustless and tidy, ran down the stairs two at a time and pulled open the door. At first she did not recognise the woman, and then:
“You can’t come in here, ma’am,” she said.
“I wish to see Miss Reddle,” said the countess. “Please don’t be ridiculous!”
She had still an overawing effect upon Lizzy, and the girl stood on one side, and followed the leisurely figure up the stairs.
The door of Mackenzie’s room was open, and as she walked into the chamber, a sudden silence fell upon the gathering. She looked from face to face and smiled. But the smile faded when her eyes rested upon the man who sat by the plain deal table near the window.
“Mr. Shaddles!” she faltered.
He nodded.
“So it was you? I might have guessed that.”
“Yes, madam, it was I. My family have been the Moron lawyers for hundreds of years, and it was not likely that I should cease to study their interests.”
“It was you!” she said again. “I should have guessed that. You opposed my marriage to Lord Moron.”
He nodded.
“I should have opposed it more if I had known what I know now,” he said. “Will you be seated?”
She nodded and sat down, her bag on her knees, opened. Michael Dorn stood by the lawyer’s side, and his eyes never left her face.
“Well, I suppose everybody knows now?” said the countess pleasantly.
“Nobody knows—yet. I particularly asked Miss Smith, when she called me on the ’phone, not to tell the story until I came. It is not a long story, madam, if you will permit me?”
She nodded.
“The late Earl of Moron married twice,” said Shaddles. “By his first wife he had a son, William. By his second wife—which is your ladyship—a son, Selwyn, who is with us to-night. William was a high-spirited, honourable young man, who served Her Majesty Queen Victoria in a regiment of Highlanders. He was a thought romantic, and nothing was more natural than that, when he met Mary Pinder——”
“Mary Pinder!” gasped Lois, but he did not notice the interruption.
“——when he met Mary Pinder, who was then a very beautiful girl of seventeen or eighteen, he should fall in love with her. He did not reveal his identity. He had a craze for walking tours, and at that time was travelling through Hereford—not under his own name, which was Viscount Craman, but under the name of Pinder, which was his mother’s maiden name. He met the girl several times without telling her who he was, and married her by special licence, in the name of Pinder, intending to reveal his status after the marriage. They had been living together for a month, when he was suddenly called home by the illness of his father, and arrived in Scotland to find the late Earl dying of malignant scarlet fever. By a cruel fate, William was infected with the disease and died two days after his father, leaving his widow, ignorant alike of his identity and where he was staying.
“As he was dying, he told his stepmother, the present Lady Moron, the story of his marriage, and begged her to send for his wife. This she refrained from doing, especially when she learnt that the girl did not know where or who he was. Lord Moron, as of course he was then, was buried. Some time after the countess went to Hereford to seek out the widow. Mrs. Pinder was living in the house of an eccentric woman, a drug-taker and slightly mad. The woman had threatened to commit suicide many times, and it happened that on the morning her ladyship arrived in Hereford and made a call at the house to satisfy her curiosity about her stepson’s wife, the landlady took the fatal step, and when the caller walked into her room, she found her dead, with a letter on the table announcing why she had committed suicide.
“Lady Moron is a woman of infinite resource. Here, she thought, was an opportunity of removing for ever a possible claimant to the Moron estate. On the table were a number of jewels and some money, which the woman had put there in her madness. Gathering these, her ladyship went into the girl’s room. She guessed it was hers when she saw the photograph of William on the mantelpiece, a photograph which was afterwards left in Lois’ room to discover if she knew her father. Lady Moron placed the jewels and the poison in an open box, locked it, taking away the key, and also a letter which would not only have established Mrs. Pinder’s innocence, but if the part Lady Moron played became public property, would also establish hers! That is the explanation for what would seem at the most to be an indiscretion.
“As you know, Mary Pinder was tried, sentenced to death, and her sentence commuted. In the prison her baby was born and taken in charge by a neighbour friend—though for some reason it was announced in the newspapers that the child of the ‘Hereford murderess’ had died. That, at any rate, satisfied Lady Moron, and she made no attempt to verify the story until she learnt by accident one day that Lois Reddle was the missing girl. How she discovered this I do not pretend to know—I am under the impression that one of her servants was connected with the Reddle family.
“For years,” Mr. Shaddles went on, “I have been satisfied in my mind that William was married, and have been trying to find his wife. I saw him soon after he was dead, and there was a gold wedding ring on his little finger, which was not there when he was buried. I also believed that the child was alive, and sought her out. I found that she was working at an office in Leith, and brought her down to my own office so that she should be under my eye, and eventually engaged the cleverest detective I could find to protect her. I then discovered that Lady Moron had some inkling of her identity, and I confess I hesitated when her ladyship suggested that the girl should go to her house as secretary. It was only after consultation with Mr. Dorn that I agreed. I had notified my suspicions to the Home Office, and a special service officer, Sergeant Braime, had been planted in her household to make enquiries, and to discover if she had been foolish enough to preserve the suicide’s letter.”
He paused.
“I think that is all.”
“An excellent story,” said Lady Moron, “and in confirmation——”
She took something from her bag and threw it on the floor.
Dorn stooped and picked up the key and the letter, gave one quick glance at its contents, and handed it to the lawyer.
“And now I have something else to say.” There was a dreadful silence. The pistol was in her hand, and the safety-catch had been lowered. “Most people in my position would commit suicide. But it will be very poor satisfaction to me to go out of the world and leave my enemies to triumph. I have a son—of sorts.” She smiled across the room to Selwyn, and he met her gaze steadily. “I should not care to leave him behind. Nor this wretched shop-girl”—her eyes sought Lois Reddle’s, and instantly her mother was by her side, her frail body interposed between the woman and her vengeance. “That is all,” said her ladyship.
And then Selwyn saw a look of horror come into his mother’s face. She was staring at the doorway. Little Mackenzie, a tray in his hand, had not seen the new visitor and he put down the tray with a chuckle.
“It’s a curious thing——” he said.
And then he saw the woman with the pistol.
“Martha!”
“My God!” she moaned. “I thought you were dead!”
The room was very quiet.
“I’d have recognised you if I hadn’t heard your fine, deep voice,” said the old man, blinking at her. “It’s Martha, my wife—you’ve met her, Mr. Shaddles?”
“I thought you were dead!” she said again, and the pistol dropped from her nerveless hand.
* * * * * * *
“The point is,” said the disconsolate Selwyn. “I am in a perfectly painful position, old dear, I’m not Lord anybody; I suppose I’m a Moron of sorts. I’m what you might term a naughty Moron. I’m really not worried about the mater—she’s in the south of France, and she’s jolly lucky she’s not in a hotter place! She’s been a perfectly fearful mother to me, and I don’t suppose I shall ever see her again, and I don’t jolly well want to! She’ll probably live to ninety—she’s that kind of mother.”
“Don’t be silly, Selwyn. Of course it makes all the difference!” said Lizzy. “If you’d asked me when you were a real lord and I was a typist—I’m a typist still, for the matter of that—I simply couldn’t have allowed you to ruin your career. As it is——”
They were walking along a quiet by-path of the park when suddenly Lizzy caught him by the arm and swung him round.
“Not that way,” she said. “Here’s a path through the rhododendrons. They’ll never think of coming round here, and there’s a perfectly beautiful seat—and at this time of the morning there’s nobody about. We can sit and talk——”
Michael saw the hasty retreat and smiled to himself.
“That’s the queerest aspect of the whole case.”
“Do you think so?” asked Lois, Countess of Moron. “I know lots of things that are queerer. I had a bill this morning from Mr. Shaddles. He has charged me one pound six shillings for the damage you did to his Ford!”
“He never has?” said the admiring Michael. “What a man! He must have spent ten thousand pounds on this case if he spent a penny. Most of which,” he added, “went to me.”
“Do you feel repaid?” she asked.
He nodded.
“I shall when your ladyship has said ‘thank you.’ ”
“Haven’t I said that yet?” she demanded in feigned surprise. “And please don’t say ‘ladyship’—you give me the creeps. Well, I’ll thank you, now—no, not now.”
They paused at the end of a little path.
“Let us go down here,” she said. “I think I remember there’s a shrubbery at the other end, and a garden seat, and it’s hardly likely that at this time of day…”
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
The Hodder and Stoughton Limited (1926) edition was consulted for many of the changes listed below.
Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g. liftman/lift-man, prison-gate/prison gate, Whitcomb/Whitcombe, etc.) have been preserved.
Alterations to the text:
Abandon the use of drop-caps.
Add ToC.
[Chapter Seven]
Change (“Even you must given me some credit for my frankness.”) to give.
[Chapter Thirteen]
(“Lizzy came promptly at six, bringing with her a…) delete the quotation mark.
[Chapter Eighteen]
“periods of national rejoicing but here, in this shadowy place” add semicolon after rejoicing.
[Chapter Twenty]
(“I’ve got a wife and four children,” he whined “and there’s an…) add comma after whined.
[Chapter Twenty-one]
“in order to get even either with Mr. Chester Praye or the Countess” to Chesney.
[Chapter Twenty-five]
(“I want to see the master of this house,” said Michael Dorn!) change the exclamation mark to a period.
[Chapter Twenty-six]
“he could not see the top windows of the buildings” to building.
[Chapter Twenty-seven]
“Dr. Tappatt had no intention of sending of the police” to for.
[Chapter Twenty-eight]
“Tappett forced a smile.” to Tappatt.
[Chapter Twenty-nine]
“He scowled at her as he came in, noted her coat and her hat” to she.
[Chapter Thirty]
“The farm takes it name from the wood.” to its.
“steady echo of footsteps, as though somebody was passing the floor” to pacing.
[Chapter Thirty-three]
“be sensible and recognise the sacrifies I am making for you” to sacrifices.
[Chapter Thirty-six]
(“It a curious thing——” he said.) to It’s.
[End of text]