“I--I didn’t know. I was frightened,” she stammered.

“There’s no occasion to be frightened now,” retorted Miss Marvell,

“and the sooner you try and be truthful about the whole matter, the

better it will be for all of us.”

And the stern woman’s lips closed with a snap, as she deliberately

turned her back on Miss Fay and began turning over the leaves of a

magazine which happened to be on a table close to her hand.

I muttered a few words of encouragement, for the little actress looked

ready to cry. I spoke as kindly as I could, telling her that if indeed

she could throw some light on Mr. Marvell’s present whereabouts it was

her duty to be quite frank on the subject.

She “hem”-ed and “ha”-ed for awhile, and her simpering ways were just

beginning to tell on my nerves, when she suddenly started talking very

fast.

“I am principal boy at the Grand,” she explained with great

volubility; “and I knew Mr. Leonard Marvell well--in fact--er--he paid

me a good deal of attention and----”

“Yes--and----?” I queried, for the girl was obviously nervous.

There was a pause. Miss Fay began to cry.

“And it seems that my brother took this young--er--lady to supper on

the night of February 3rd, after which no one has ever seen or heard

of him again,” here interposed Miss Marvell, quietly.

“Is that so?” I asked.

Lulu Fay nodded, whilst heavy tears fell upon her clasped hands.

“But why did you not tell this to the police three weeks ago?” I

ejaculated, with all the sternness at my command.

“I--I was frightened,” she stammered.

“Frightened? Of what?”

“I am engaged to Lord Mountnewte and----”

“And you did not wish him to know that you were accepting the

attentions of Mr. Leonard Marvell--was that it? Well,” I added, with

involuntary impatience, “what happened after you had supper with Mr.

Marvell?”

“Oh! I hope--I hope that nothing happened,” she said through more

tears; “we had supper at the Trocadero, and he saw me into my

brougham. Suddenly, just as I was driving away, I saw Lord Mountnewte

standing quite close to us in the crowd.”

“Did the two men know one another?” I asked.

“No,” replied Miss Fay; “at least, I didn’t think so, but when I

looked back through the window of my carriage I saw them standing on

the kerb talking to each other for a moment, and then walk off

together towards Piccadilly Circus. That is the last I have seen of

either of them,” continued the little actress with a fresh flood of

tears. “Lord Mountnewte hasn’t spoken to me since, and Mr. Marvell has

disappeared with my money and my diamonds.”

“Your money and your diamonds?” I gasped in amazement.

“Yes; he told me he was a jeweller, and that my diamonds wanted

re-setting. He took them with him that evening, for he said that

London jewellers were clumsy thieves, and that he would love to do the

work for me himself. I also gave him two hundred pounds, which he said

he would want for buying the gold and platinum required for the

settings. And now he has disappeared--and my diamonds--and my money!

Oh! I have been very--very foolish--and----”

Her voice broke down completely. Of course, one often hears of the

idiocy of girls giving money and jewels unquestioningly to clever

adventurers who know how to trade upon their inordinate vanity. There

was, therefore, nothing very out of the way in the story just told me

by Miss--er--Lulu Fay, until the moment when Miss Marvell’s quiet

voice, with its marked Scotch burr, broke in upon the short silence

which had followed the actress’s narrative.

“As I explained to the chief detective-inspector at Scotland Yard,”

she said calmly, “the story which this young--er--lady tells is only

partly true. She may have had supper with Mr. Leonard Marvell on the

night of February 3rd, and he may have paid her certain attentions;

but he never deceived her by telling her that he was a jeweller, nor

did he obtain possession of her diamonds and her money through false

statements. My brother was the soul of honour and loyalty. If, for

some reason which Miss--er--Lulu Fay chooses to keep secret, he had

her jewels and money in his possession on the fatal February 3rd, then

I think his disappearance is accounted for. He has been robbed and

perhaps murdered.”

Like a true Scotchwoman she did not give way to tears, but even her

harsh voice trembled slightly when she thus bore witness to her

brother’s honesty, and expressed the fears which assailed her as to

his fate.

Imagine my plight! I could ill forgive my dear lady for leaving me in

this unpleasant position--a sort of peacemaker between two women who

evidently hated one another, and each of whom was trying her best to

give the other “the lie direct.”

I ventured to ring for our faithful Jane and to send her with an

imploring message to Lady Molly, begging her to come and disentangle

the threads of this muddled skein with her clever fingers; but Jane

returned with a curt note from my dear lady, telling me not to worry

about such a silly case, and to bow the two women out of the flat as

soon as possible and then come for a nice walk.

I wore my official manner as well as I could, trying not to betray the

’prentice hand. Of course, the interview lasted a great deal longer,

and there was considerably more talk than I can tell you of in a brief

narrative. But the gist of it all was just as I have said. Miss Lulu

Fay stuck to every point of the story which she had originally told

Miss Marvell. It was the latter uncompromising lady who had

immediately marched the younger woman off to Scotland Yard in order

that she might repeat her tale to the police. I did not wonder that

the chief promptly referred them both to Lady Molly.

Anyway, I made excellent shorthand notes of the conflicting stories

which I heard; and I finally saw, with real relief, the two women walk

out of our little front door.

3

Miss--er--Lulu Fay, mind you, never contradicted in any one

particular the original story which she had told me, about going out

to supper with Leonard Marvell, entrusting him with £200 and the

diamonds, which he said he would have reset for her, and seeing him

finally in close conversation with her recognised _fiancé_, Lord

Mountnewte. Miss Marvell, on the other hand, very commendably refused

to admit that her brother acted dishonestly towards the girl. If he

had her jewels and money in his possession at the time of his

disappearance, then he had undoubtedly been robbed, or perhaps

murdered, on his way back to the hotel, and if Lord Mountnewte had

been the last to speak to him on that fatal night, then Lord

Mountnewte must be able to throw some light on the mysterious

occurrence.

Our fellows at the Yard were abnormally active. It seemed, on the face

of it, impossible that a man, healthy, vigorous, and admittedly sober,

should vanish in London between Piccadilly Circus and Cromwell Road

without leaving the slightest trace of himself or of the valuables

said to have been in his possession.

Of course, Lord Mountnewte was closely questioned. He was a young

Guardsman of the usual pattern, and, after a great deal of vapid talk

which irritated Detective-Inspector Saunders not a little, he made the

following statement--

“I certainly am acquainted with Miss Lulu Fay. On the night in

question I was standing outside the Troc, when I saw this young lady

at her own carriage window talking to a tall man in an Inverness cape.

She had, earlier in the day, refused my invitation to supper, saying

that she was not feeling very well, and would go home directly after

the theatre; therefore I felt, naturally, a little vexed. I was just

about to hail a taxi, meaning to go on to the club, when, to my

intense astonishment, the man in the Inverness cape came up to me and

asked me if I could tell him the best way to get back to Cromwell

Road.”

“And what did you do?” asked Saunders.

“I walked a few steps with him and put him on his way,” replied Lord

Mountnewte, blandly.

In Saunders’s own expressive words, he thought that story “fishy.” He

could not imagine the arm of coincidence being quite so long as to

cause these two men--who presumably were both in love with the same

girl, and who had just met at a moment when one of them was obviously

suffering pangs of jealousy--to hold merely a topographical

conversation with one another. But it was equally difficult to suppose

that the eldest son and heir of the Marquis of Loam should murder a

successful rival and then rob him in the streets of London.

Moreover, here came the eternal and unanswerable questions: If Lord

Mountnewte had murdered Leonard Marvell, where and how had he done it,

and what had he done with the body?

I dare say you are wondering by this time why I have said nothing

about the maid, Rosie Campbell.

Well, plenty of very clever people (I mean those who write letters to

the papers and give suggestions to every official department in the

kingdom) thought that the police ought to keep a very strict eye upon

that pretty Scotch lassie. For she was very pretty, and had quaint,

demure ways which rendered her singularly attractive, in spite of the

fact that, for most masculine tastes, she would have been considered

too tall. Of course, Saunders and Danvers kept an eye on her--you may

be sure of that--and got a good deal of information about her from the

people at the hotel. Most of it, unfortunately, was irrelevant to the

case. She was maid-attendant to Miss Marvell, who was feeble in

health, and who went out but little. Rosie waited on her master and

mistress upstairs, carrying their meals to their private room, and

doing their bedrooms. The rest of the day she was fairly free, and was

quite sociable downstairs with the hotel staff.

With regard to her movements and actions on that memorable 3rd of

February, Saunders--though he worked very hard--could glean but little

useful information. You see, in an hotel of that kind, with an average

of thirty to forty guests at one time, it is extremely difficult to

state positively what any one person did or did not do on that

particular day.

Most people at the Scotia remembered that Miss Marvell dined in the

_table d’hôte_ room on that 3rd of February; this she did about once

a fortnight, when her maid had an evening “out.”

The hotel staff also recollected fairly distinctly that Miss Rosie

Campbell was not in the steward’s room at supper-time that evening,

but no one could remember definitely when she came in.

One of the chambermaids who occupied the bedroom adjoining hers, said

that she heard her moving about soon after midnight; the hall porter

declared that he saw her come in just before half-past twelve when he

closed the doors for the night.

But one of the ground-floor valets said that, on the morning of the

4th, he saw Miss Marvell’s maid, in hat and coat, slip into the house

and upstairs, very quickly and quietly, soon after the front doors

were opened, namely, about 7.0 a.m.

Here, of course, was a direct contradiction between the chambermaid

and hall porter on the one side, and the valet on the other, whilst

Miss Marvell said that Campbell came into her room and made her some

tea long before seven o’clock every morning, including that of the

4th.

I assure you our fellows at the Yard were ready to tear their hair out

by the roots, from sheer aggravation at this maze of contradictions

which met them at every turn.

The whole thing seemed so simple. There was nothing “to it” as it

were, and but very little real suggestion of foul play, and yet Mr.

Leonard Marvell had disappeared, and no trace of him could be found.

Everyone now talked freely of murder. London is a big town, and this

would not have been the first instance of a stranger--for Mr. Leonard

Marvell was practically a stranger in London--being enticed to a

lonely part of the city on a foggy night, and there done away with and

robbed, and the body hidden in an out-of-the-way cellar, where it

might not be discovered for months to come.

But the newspaper-reading public is notably fickle, and Mr. Leonard

Marvell was soon forgotten by everyone save the chief and the batch of

our fellows who had charge of the case.

Thus I heard through Danvers one day that Rosie Campbell had left Miss

Marvell’s employ, and was living in rooms in Findlater Terrace, near

Walham Green.

I was alone in our Maida Vale flat at the time, my dear lady having

gone to spend the week-end with the Dowager Lady Loam, who was an old

friend of hers; nor, when she returned, did she seem any more

interested in Rosie Campbell’s movements than she had been hitherto.

Yet another month went by, and I for one had absolutely ceased to

think of the man in the Inverness cape, who had so mysteriously and so

completely vanished in the very midst of busy London, when, one

morning early in January, Lady Molly made her appearance in my room,

looking more like the landlady of a disreputable gambling-house than

anything else I could imagine.

“What in the world----?” I began.

“Yes! I think I look the part,” she replied, surveying with obvious

complacency the extraordinary figure which confronted her in the

glass.

My dear lady had on a purple cloth coat and skirt of a peculiarly

vivid hue, and of a singular cut, which made her matchless figure look

like a sack of potatoes. Her soft brown hair was quite hidden beneath

a “transformation,” of that yellow-reddish tint only to be met with in

very cheap dyes.

As for her hat! I won’t attempt to describe it. It towered above and

around her face, which was plentifully covered with brick-red and with

that kind of powder which causes the cheeks to look a deep mauve.

My dear lady looked, indeed, a perfect picture of appalling vulgarity.

“Where are you going in this elegant attire?” I asked in amazement.

“I have taken rooms in Findlater Terrace,” she replied lightly. “I

feel that the air of Walham Green will do us both good. Our amiable,

if somewhat slatternly, landlady expects us in time for luncheon. You

will have to keep rigidly in the background, Mary, all the while we

are there. I said that I was bringing an invalid niece with me, and,

as a preliminary, you may as well tie two or three thick veils over

your face. I think I may safely promise that you won’t be dull.”

And we certainly were not dull during our brief stay at 34, Findlater

Terrace, Walham Green. Fully equipped, and arrayed in our

extraordinary garments, we duly arrived there, in a rickety

four-wheeler, on the top of which were perched two seedy-looking

boxes.

The landlady was a toothless old creature, who apparently thought

washing a quite unnecessary proceeding. In this she was evidently at

one with every one of her neighbours. Findlater Terrace looked

unspeakably squalid; groups of dirty children congregated in the

gutters and gave forth discordant shrieks as our cab drove up.

Through my thick veils I thought that, some distance down the road, I

spied a horsy-looking man in ill-fitting riding-breeches and gaiters,

who vaguely reminded me of Danvers.

Within half an hour of our installation, and whilst we were eating a

tough steak over a doubtful table cloth, my dear lady told me that she

had been waiting a full month, until rooms in this particular house

happened to be vacant. Fortunately the population in Findlater Terrace

is always a shifting one, and Lady Molly had kept a sharp eye on No.

34, where, on the floor above, lived Miss Rosie Campbell. Directly the

last set of lodgers walked out of the ground-floor rooms, we were

ready to walk in.

My dear lady’s manners and customs, whilst living at the above

aristocratic address, were fully in keeping with her appearance. The

shrill, rasping voice which she assumed echoed from attic to cellar.

One day I heard her giving vague hints to the landlady that her

husband, Mr. Marcus Stein, had had a little trouble with the police

about a small hotel which he had kept somewhere near Fitzroy Square,

and where “young gentlemen used to come and play cards of a night.”

The landlady was also made to understand that the worthy Mr. Stein was

now living temporarily at His Majesty’s expense, whilst Mrs. Stein had

to live a somewhat secluded life, away from her fashionable friends.

The misfortunes of the pseudo Mrs. Stein in no way marred the

amiability of Mrs. Tredwen, our landlady. The inhabitants of Findlater

Terrace care very little about the antecedents of their lodgers, so

long as they pay their week’s rent in advance, and settle their

“extras” without much murmur.

This Lady Molly did, with a generosity characteristic of an ex-lady of

means. She never grumbled at the quantity of jam and marmalade which

we were supposed to have consumed every week, and which anon reached

titanic proportions. She tolerated Mrs. Tredwen’s cat, tipped

Ermyntrude--the tousled lodging-house slavey--lavishly, and lent the

upstairs lodger her spirit-lamp and curling-tongs when Miss Rosie

Campbell’s got out of order.

A certain degree of intimacy followed the loan of those curling-tongs.

Miss Campbell, reserved and demure, greatly sympathised with the lady

who was not on the best of terms with the police. I kept steadily in

the background. The two ladies did not visit each other’s rooms, but

they held long and confidential conversations on the landings, and I

gathered, presently, that the pseudo Mrs. Stein had succeeded in

persuading Rosie Campbell that, if the police were watching No. 34,

Findlater Terrace, at all, it was undoubtedly on account of the

unfortunate Mr. Stein’s faithful wife.

I found it a little difficult to fathom Lady Molly’s intentions. We

had been in the house over three weeks, and nothing whatever had

happened. Once I ventured on a discreet query as to whether we were to

expect the sudden re-appearance of Mr. Leonard Marvell.

“For if that’s all about it,” I argued, “then surely the men from the

Yard could have kept the house in view, without all this inconvenience

and masquerading on our part.”

But to this tirade my dear lady vouchsafed no reply.

She and her newly acquired friend were, about this time, deeply

interested in the case known as the “West End Shop Robberies,” which

no doubt you recollect, since they occurred such a very little while

ago. Ladies who were shopping in the large drapers’ emporiums during

the crowded and busy sale time, lost reticules, purses, and valuable

parcels, without any trace of the clever thief being found.

The drapers, during sale-time, invariably employ detectives in plain

clothes to look after their goods, but in this case it was the

customers who were robbed, and the detectives, attentive to every

attempt at “shoplifting,” had had no eyes for the more subtle thief.

[IMAGE: images/img249.jpg

CAPTION: “Still talking shrilly … the pseudo Mrs. Stein dragged

her into our own sitting-room”]

I had already noticed Miss Rosie Campbell’s keen look of excitement

whenever the pseudo Mrs. Stein discussed these cases with her. I was

not a bit surprised, therefore, when, one afternoon at about tea-time,

my dear lady came home from her habitual walk, and, at the top of her

shrill voice, called out to me from the hall:

“Mary! Mary! they’ve got the man of the shop robberies. He’s given the

silly police the slip this time, but they know who he is now, and I

suppose they’ll get him presently. ’Tisn’t anybody I know,” she added,

with that harsh, common laugh which she had adopted for her part.

I had come out of the room in response to her call, and was standing

just outside our own sitting-room door. Mrs. Tredwen, too, bedraggled

and unkempt, as usual, had sneaked up the area steps, closely followed

by Ermyntrude.

But on the half-landing just above us the trembling figure of Rosie

Campbell, with scared white face and dilated eyes, looked on the verge

of a sudden fall.

Still talking shrilly and volubly, Lady Molly ran up to her, but

Campbell met her half-way, and the pseudo Mrs. Stein, taking vigorous

hold of her wrist, dragged her into our own sitting-room.

“Pull yourself together, now,” she said with rough kindness; “that owl

Tredwen is listening, and you needn’t let her know too much. Shut the

door, Mary. Lor’ bless you, m’dear, I’ve gone through worse scares

than these. There! you just lie down on this sofa a bit. My niece’ll

make you a cup o’ tea; and I’ll go and get an evening paper, and see

what’s going on. I suppose you are very interested in the shop robbery

man, or you wouldn’t have took on so.”

Without waiting for Campbell’s contradiction to this statement, Lady

Molly flounced out of the house.

Miss Campbell hardly spoke during the next ten minutes that she and I

were left alone together. She lay on the sofa with eyes wide open,

staring up at the ceiling, evidently still in a great state of fear.

I had just got tea ready when Lady Molly came back. She had an evening

paper in her hand, but threw this down on the table directly she came

in.

“I could only get an early edition,” she said breathlessly, “and the

silly thing hasn’t got anything in it about the matter.”

She drew near to the sofa, and, subduing the shrillness of her voice,

she whispered rapidly, bending down towards Campbell:

“There’s a man hanging about at the corner down there. No, no; it’s

not the police,” she added quickly, in response to the girl’s sudden

start of alarm. “Trust me, my dear, for knowing a ’tec when I see one!

Why, I’d smell one half a mile off. No; my opinion is that it’s your

man, my dear, and that he’s in a devil of a hole.”

“Oh! he oughtn’t to come here,” ejaculated Campbell in great alarm.

“He’ll get me into trouble and do himself no good. He’s been a fool!”

she added, with a fierceness wholly unlike her usual demure placidity,

“getting himself caught like that. Now I suppose we shall have to hook

it--if there’s time.”

“Can I do anything to help you?” asked the pseudo Mrs. Stein. “You

know I’ve been through all this myself, when they was after Mr. Stein.

Or perhaps Mary could do something.”

“Well, yes,” said the girl, after a slight pause, during which she

seemed to be gathering her wits together; “I’ll write a note, and you

shall take it, if you will, to a friend of mine--a lady who lives in

the Cromwell Road. But if you still see a man lurking about at the

corner of the street, then, just as you pass him, say the word

‘Campbell,’ and if he replies ‘Rosie,’ then give _him_ the note. Will

you do that?”

“Of course I will, my dear. Just you leave it all to me.”

And the pseudo Mrs. Stein brought ink and paper and placed them on the

table. Rosie Campbell wrote a brief note, and then fastened it down

with a bit of sealing-wax before she handed it over to Lady Molly. The

note was addressed to Miss Marvell, Scotia Hotel, Cromwell Road.

“You understand?” she said eagerly. “Don’t give the note to the man

unless he says ‘Rosie’ in reply to the word ‘Campbell.’”

“All right--all right!” said Lady Molly, slipping the note into her

reticule. “And you go up to your room, Miss Campbell; it’s no good

giving that old fool Tredwen too much to gossip about.”

Rosie Campbell went upstairs, and presently my dear lady and I were

walking rapidly down the badly-lighted street.

“Where is the man?” I whispered eagerly as soon as we were out of

earshot of No. 34.

“There is no man,” replied Lady Molly, quickly.

“But the West End shop thief?” I asked.

“He hasn’t been caught yet, and won’t be either, for he is far too

clever a scoundrel to fall into an ordinary trap.”

She did not give me time to ask further questions, for presently, when

we had reached Reporton Square, my dear lady handed me the note

written by Campbell, and said:

“Go straight on to the Scotia Hotel, and ask for Miss Marvell; send up

the note to her, but don’t let her see you, as she knows you by sight.

I must see the chief first, and will be with you as soon as possible.

Having delivered the note, you must hang about outside as long as you

can. Use your wits; she must not leave the hotel before I see her.”

There was no hansom to be got in this elegant quarter of the town, so,

having parted from my dear lady, I made for the nearest Underground

station, and took a train for South Kensington.

Thus it was nearly seven o’clock before I reached the Scotia. In

answer to my inquiries for Miss Marvell, I was told that she was ill

in bed and could see no one. I replied that I had only brought a note

for her, and would wait for a reply.

Acting on my dear lady’s instructions, I was as slow in my movements

as ever I could be, and was some time in finding the note and handing

it to a waiter, who then took it upstairs.

Presently he returned with the message: “Miss Marvell says there is no

answer.”

Whereupon I asked for pen and paper at the office, and wrote the

following brief note on my own responsibility, using my wits as my

dear lady had bidden me to do.

“Please, madam,” I wrote, “will you send just a line to Miss Rosie

Campbell? She seems very upset and frightened at some news she has

had.”

Once more the waiter ran upstairs, and returned with a sealed

envelope, which I slipped into my reticule.

Time was slipping by very slowly. I did not know how long I should

have to wait about outside in the cold, when, to my horror, I heard a

hard voice, with a marked Scotch accent, saying:

“I am going out, waiter, and shan’t be back to dinner. Tell them to

lay a little cold supper upstairs in my room.”

The next moment Miss Marvell, with coat, hat, and veil, was descending

the stairs.

My plight was awkward. I certainly did not think it safe to present

myself before the lady; she would undoubtedly recollect my face. Yet I

had orders to detain her until the appearance of Lady Molly.

Miss Marvell seemed in no hurry. She was putting on her gloves as she

came downstairs. In the hall she gave a few more instructions to the

porter, whilst I, in a dark corner in the background, was vaguely

planning an assault or an alarm of fire.

Suddenly, at the hotel entrance, where the porter was obsequiously

holding open the door for Miss Marvell to pass through, I saw the

latter’s figure stiffen; she took one step back as if involuntarily,

then, equally quickly, attempted to dart across the threshold, on

which a group--composed of my dear lady, of Saunders, and of two or

three people scarcely distinguishable in the gloom beyond--had

suddenly made its appearance.

Miss Marvell was forced to retreat into the hall; already I had heard

Saunders’s hurriedly whispered words:

“Try and not make a fuss in this place, now. Everything can go off

quietly, you know.”

Danvers and Cotton, whom I knew well, were already standing one each

side of Miss Marvell, whilst suddenly amongst this group I recognised

Fanny, the wife of Danvers, who is one of our female searchers at the

Yard.

“Shall we go up to your own room?” suggested Saunders.

“I think that is quite unnecessary,” interposed Lady Molly. “I feel

convinced that Mr. Leonard Marvell will yield to the inevitable

quietly, and follow you without giving any trouble.”

Marvell, however, did make a bold dash for liberty. As Lady Molly had

said previously, he was far too clever to allow himself to be captured

easily. But my dear lady had been cleverer. As she told me

subsequently, she had from the first suspected that the trio who

lodged at the Scotia Hotel were really only a duo--namely, Leonard

Marvell and his wife. The latter impersonated a maid most of the time;

but among these two clever people the three characters were

interchangeable. Of course, there was no Miss Marvell at all. Leonard

was alternately dressed up as man or woman, according to the

requirements of his villainies.

“As soon as I heard that Miss Marvell was very tall and bony,” said

Lady Molly, “I thought that there might be a possibility of her being

merely a man in disguise. Then there was the fact--but little dwelt on

by either the police or public--that no one seems ever to have seen

brother and sister together, nor was the entire trio ever seen at one

and the same time.

“On that 3rd of February Leonard Marvell went out. No doubt he changed

his attire in a lady’s waiting-room at one of the railway stations;

subsequently he came home, now dressed as Miss Marvell, and had dinner

in the _table d’hôte_ room so as to set up a fairly plausible alibi.

But ultimately it was his wife, the pseudo Rosie Campbell, who stayed

indoors that night, whilst he, Leonard Marvell, when going out after

dinner, impersonated the maid until he was clear of the hotel; then he

reassumed his male clothes once more, no doubt in the deserted

waiting-room of some railway station, and met Miss Lulu Fay at supper,

subsequently returning to the hotel in the guise of the maid.

“You see the game of criss-cross, don’t you? This interchanging of

characters was bound to baffle everyone. Many clever scoundrels have

assumed disguises, sometimes personating members of the opposite sex

to their own, but never before have I known two people play the part

of three. Thus, endless contradictions followed as to the hour when

Campbell the maid went out and when she came in, for at one time it

was she herself who was seen by the valet, and at another it was

Leonard Marvell dressed in her clothes.”

He was also clever enough to accost Lord Mountnewte in the open

street, thus bringing further complications into this strange case.

After the successful robbery of Miss Fay’s diamonds, Leonard Marvell

and his wife parted for awhile. They were waiting for an opportunity

to get across the Channel and there turn their booty into solid cash.

Whilst Mrs. Marvell, _alias_ Rosie Campbell, led a retired life in

Findlater Terrace, Leonard kept his hand in with West End shop

robberies.

Then Lady Molly entered the lists. As usual, her scheme was bold and

daring; she trusted her own intuition and acted accordingly.

When she brought home the false news that the author of the shop

robberies had been spotted by the police, Rosie Campbell’s obvious

terror confirmed her suspicions. The note written by the latter to the

so-called Miss Marvell, though it contained nothing in any way

incriminating, was the crowning certitude that my dear lady was right,

as usual, in all her surmises.

And now Mr. Leonard Marvell will be living for a couple of years at

the tax-payers’ expense; he has “disappeared” temporarily from the

public eye.

Rosie Campbell--_i.e._ Mrs. Marvell--has gone to Glasgow. I feel

convinced that two years hence we shall hear of the worthy couple

again.

X.

THE WOMAN IN THE BIG HAT

Lady Molly always had the idea that if the finger of Fate had

pointed to Mathis’ in Regent Street, rather than to Lyons’, as the

most advisable place for us to have a cup of tea that afternoon, Mr.

Culledon would be alive at the present moment.

My dear lady is quite sure--and needless to say that I share her

belief in herself--that she would have anticipated the murderer’s

intentions, and thus prevented one of the most cruel and callous of

crimes which were ever perpetrated in the heart of London.

She and I had been to a matinée of “Trilby,” and were having tea at

Lyons’, which is exactly opposite Mathis’ Vienna café in Regent

Street. From where we sat we commanded a view of the street and of the

café, which had been very crowded during the last hour.

We had lingered over our toasted muffin until past six, when our

attention was drawn to the unusual commotion which had arisen both

outside and in the brilliantly lighted place over the road.

We saw two men run out of the doorway, and return a minute or two

later in company with a policeman. You know what is the inevitable

result of such a proceeding in London. Within three minutes a crowd

had collected outside Mathis’. Two or three more constables had

already assembled, and had some difficulty in keeping the entrance

clear of intruders.

But already my dear lady, keen as a pointer on the scent, had hastily

paid her bill, and, without waiting to see if I followed her or not,

had quickly crossed the road, and the next moment her graceful form

was lost in the crowd.

I went after her, impelled by curiosity, and presently caught sight of

her in close conversation with one of our own men. I have always

thought that Lady Molly must have eyes at the back of her head,

otherwise how could she have known that I stood behind her now?

Anyway, she beckoned to me, and together we entered Mathis’, much to

the astonishment and anger of the less fortunate crowd.

The usually gay little place was indeed sadly transformed. In one

corner the waitresses, in dainty caps and aprons, had put their heads

together, and were eagerly whispering to one another whilst casting

furtive looks at the small group assembled in front of one of those

pretty alcoves, which, as you know, line the walls all round the big

tea-room at Mathis’.

Here two of our men were busy with pencil and note-book, whilst one

fair-haired waitress, dissolved in tears, was apparently giving them a

great deal of irrelevant and confused information.

Chief Inspector Saunders had, I understood, been already sent for; the

constables, confronted with this extraordinary tragedy, were casting

anxious glances towards the main entrance, whilst putting the

conventional questions to the young waitress.

And in the alcove itself, raised from the floor of the room by a

couple of carpeted steps, the cause of all this commotion, all this

anxiety, and all these tears, sat huddled up on a chair, with arms

lying straight across the marble-topped table, on which the usual

paraphernalia of afternoon tea still lay scattered about. The upper

part of the body, limp, backboneless, and awry, half propped up

against the wall, half falling back upon the outstretched arms, told

quite plainly its weird tale of death.

Before my dear lady and I had time to ask any questions, Saunders

arrived in a taxicab. He was accompanied by the medical officer, Dr.

Townson, who at once busied himself with the dead man, whilst Saunders

went up quickly to Lady Molly.

“The chief suggested sending for you,” he said quickly; “he was

’phoning you when I left. There’s a woman in this case, and we shall

rely on you a good deal.”

“What has happened?” asked my dear lady, whose fine eyes were glowing

with excitement at the mere suggestion of work.

“I have only a few stray particulars,” replied Saunders, “but the

chief witness is that yellow-haired girl over there. We’ll find out

what we can from her directly Dr. Townson has given us his opinion.”

The medical officer, who had been kneeling beside the dead man, now

rose and turned to Saunders. His face was very grave.

“The whole matter is simple enough, so far as I am concerned,” he

said. “The man has been killed by a terrific dose of

morphia--administered, no doubt, in this cup of chocolate,” he added,

pointing to a cup in which there still lingered the cold dregs of the

thick beverage.

“But when did this occur?” asked Saunders, turning to the waitress.

“I can’t say,” she replied, speaking with obvious nervousness. “The

gentleman came in very early with a lady, somewhere about four. They

made straight for this alcove. The place was just beginning to fill,

and the music had begun.”

“And where is the lady now?”

“She went off almost directly. She had ordered tea for herself and a

cup of chocolate for the gentleman, also muffins and cakes. About five

minutes afterwards, as I went past their table, I heard her say to

him, ‘I am afraid I must go now, or Jay’s will be closed, but I’ll be

back in less than half an hour. You’ll wait for me, won’t you?’”

“Did the gentleman seem all right then?”

“Oh, yes,” said the waitress. “He had just begun to sip his chocolate,

and merely said ‘S’long’ as she gathered up her gloves and muff and

then went out of the shop.”

“And she has not returned since?”

“No.”

“When did you first notice there was anything wrong with this

gentleman?” asked Lady Molly.

“Well,” said the girl with some hesitation, “I looked at him once or

twice as I went up and down, for he certainly seemed to have fallen

all of a heap. Of course, I thought that he had gone to sleep, and I

spoke to the manageress about him, but she thought that I ought to

leave him alone for a bit. Then we got very busy, and I paid no more

attention to him, until about six o’clock, when most afternoon tea

customers had gone, and we were beginning to get the tables ready for

dinners. Then I certainly did think there was something wrong with the

man. I called to the manageress, and we sent for the police.”

“And the lady who was with him at first, what was she like? Would you

know her again?” queried Saunders.

“I don’t know,” replied the girl; “you see, I have to attend to such

crowds of people of an afternoon, I can’t notice each one. And she had

on one of those enormous mushroom hats; no one could have seen her

face--not more than her chin--unless they looked right under the hat.”

“Would you know the hat again?” asked Lady Molly.

“Yes--I think I should,” said the waitress. “It was black velvet and

had a lot of plumes. It was enormous,” she added, with a sigh of

admiration and of longing for the monumental headgear.

During the girl’s narrative one of the constables had searched the

dead man’s pockets. Among other items, he had found several letters

addressed to Mark Culledon, Esq., some with an address in Lombard

Street, others with one in Fitzjohn’s Avenue, Hampstead. The initials

M. C., which appeared both in the hat and on the silver mount of a

letter-case belonging to the unfortunate gentleman, proved his

identity beyond a doubt.

A house in Fitzjohn’s Avenue does not, somehow, suggest a bachelor

establishment. Even whilst Saunders and the other men were looking

through the belongings of the deceased, Lady Molly had already thought

of his family--children, perhaps a wife, a mother--who could tell?

What awful news to bring to an unsuspecting, happy family, who might

even now be expecting the return of father, husband, or son, at the

very moment when he lay murdered in a public place, the victim of some

hideous plot or feminine revenge!

As our amiable friends in Paris would say, it jumped to the eyes that

there was a woman in the case--a woman who had worn a gargantuan hat

for the obvious purpose of remaining unidentifiable when the question

of the unfortunate victim’s companion that afternoon came up for

solution. And all these facts to put before an expectant wife or an

anxious mother!

As, no doubt, you have already foreseen, Lady Molly took the difficult

task on her own kind shoulders. She and I drove together to Lorbury

House, Fitzjohn’s Avenue, and on asking of the manservant who opened

the door if his mistress were at home, we were told that Lady Irene

Culledon was in the drawing-room.

Mine is not a story of sentiment, so I am not going to dwell on that

interview, which was one of the most painful moments I recollect

having lived through.

Lady Irene was young--not five-and-twenty, I should say--_petite_ and

frail-looking, but with a quiet dignity of manner which was most

impressive. She was Irish, as you know, the daughter of the Earl of

Athyville, and, it seems, had married Mr. Mark Culledon in the teeth

of strenuous opposition on the part of her family, which was as

penniless as it was aristocratic, whilst Mr. Culledon had great

prospects and a splendid business, but possessed neither ancestors nor

high connections. She had only been married six months, poor little

soul, and from all accounts must have idolised her husband.

Lady Molly broke the news to her with infinite tact, but there it was!

It was a terrific blow--wasn’t it?--to deal to a young wife--now a

widow; and there was so little that a stranger could say in these

circumstances. Even my dear lady’s gentle voice, her persuasive

eloquence, her kindly words, sounded empty and conventional in the

face of such appalling grief.

2

Of course, everyone expected that the inquest would reveal something

of the murdered man’s inner life--would, in fact, allow the over-eager

public to get a peep into Mr. Mark Culledon’s secret orchard, wherein

walked a lady who wore abnormally large velvet hats, and who nourished

in her heart one of those terrible grudges against a man which can

only find satisfaction in crime.

Equally, of course, the inquest revealed nothing that the public did

not already know. The young widow was extremely reticent on the

subject of her late husband’s life, and the servants had all been

fresh arrivals when the young couple, just home from their honeymoon,

organised their new household at Lorbury House.

There was an old aunt of the deceased--a Mrs. Steinberg--who lived

with the Culledons, but who at the present moment was very ill.

Someone in the house--one of the younger servants, probably--very

foolishly had told her every detail of the awful tragedy. With

positively amazing strength, the invalid thereupon insisted on making

a sworn statement, which she desired should be placed before the

coroner’s jury. She wished to bear solemn testimony to the integrity

of her late nephew, Mark Culledon, in case the personality of the

mysterious woman in the big hat suggested to evilly disposed minds any

thought of scandal.

“Mark Culledon was the one nephew whom I loved,” she stated with

solemn emphasis. “I have shown my love for him by bequeathing to him

the large fortune which I inherited from the late Mr. Steinberg. Mark

was the soul of honour, or I should have cut him out of my will as I

did my other nephews and nieces. I was brought up in a Scotch home,

and I hate all this modern fastness and smartness, which are only

other words for what I call profligacy.”

Needless to say, the old lady’s statement, solemn though it was, was

of no use whatever for the elucidation of the mystery which surrounded

the death of Mr. Mark Culledon. But as Mrs. Steinberg had talked of

“other nephews,” whom she had cut out of her will in favour of the

murdered man, the police directed inquiries in those various quarters.

Mr. Mark Culledon certainly had several brothers and sisters, also

cousins, who at different times--usually for some peccadillo or

other--seemed to have incurred the wrath of the strait-laced old lady.

But there did not appear to have been any ill-feeling in the family

owing to this. Mrs. Steinberg was sole mistress of her fortune. She

might just as well have bequeathed it _in toto_ to some hospital as to

one particular nephew whom she favoured, and the various relations

were glad, on the whole, that the money was going to remain in the

family rather than be cast abroad.

The mystery surrounding the woman in the big hat deepened as the days

went by. As you know, the longer the period of time which elapses

between a crime and the identification of the criminal, the greater

chance the latter has of remaining at large.

In spite of strenuous efforts and close questionings of every one of

the employees at Mathis’, no one could give a very accurate

description of the lady who had tea with the deceased on that fateful

afternoon.

The first glimmer of light on the mysterious occurrence was thrown,

about three weeks later, by a young woman named Katherine Harris, who

had been parlour-maid at Lorbury House when first Mr. and Lady Irene

Culledon returned from their honeymoon.

I must tell you that Mrs. Steinberg had died a few days after the

inquest. The excitement had been too much for her enfeebled heart.

Just before her death she had deposited £250 with her banker, which

sum was to be paid over to any person giving information which would

lead to the apprehension and conviction of the murderer of Mr. Mark

Culledon.

This offer had stimulated everyone’s zeal, and, I presume, had aroused

Katherine Harris to a realisation of what had all the while been her

obvious duty.

Lady Molly saw her in the chief’s private office, and had much ado to

disentangle the threads of the girl’s confused narrative. But the main

point of Harris’s story was that a foreign lady had once called at

Lorbury House, about a week after the master and mistress had returned

from their honeymoon. Lady Irene was out at the time, and Mr. Culledon

saw the lady in his smoking-room.

“She was a very handsome lady,” explained Harris, “and was beautifully

dressed.”

“Did she wear a large hat?” asked the chief.

“I don’t remember if it was particularly large,” replied the girl.

“But you remember what the lady was like?” suggested Lady Molly.

“Yes, pretty well. She was very, very tall, and very good-looking.”

“Would you know her again if you saw her?” rejoined my dear lady.

“Oh, yes; I think so,” was Katherine Harris’s reply.

Unfortunately, beyond this assurance the girl could say nothing very

definite. The foreign lady seems to have been closeted with Mr.

Culledon for about an hour, at the end of which time Lady Irene came

home.

The butler being out that afternoon it was Harris who let her mistress

in, and as the latter asked no questions, the girl did not volunteer

the information that her master had a visitor. She went back to the

servants’ hall, but five minutes later the smoking-room bell rang, and

she had to run up again. The foreign lady was then in the hall alone,

and obviously waiting to be shown out. This Harris did, after which

Mr. Culledon came out of his room, and, in the girl’s own graphic

words, “he went on dreadful.”

“I didn’t know I ’ad done anything so very wrong,” she explained, “but

the master seemed quite furious, and said I wasn’t a proper

parlour-maid, or I’d have known that visitors must not be shown in

straight away like that. I ought to have said that I didn’t know if

Mr. Culledon was in; that I would go and see. Oh, he did go on at me!”

continued Katherine Harris, volubly. “And I suppose he complained to

the mistress, for she give me notice the next day.”

“And you have never seen the foreign lady since?” concluded Lady

Molly.

“No; she never come while I was there.”

“By the way, how did you know she was foreign. Did she speak like a

foreigner?”

“Oh, no,” replied the girl. “She did not say much--only asked for Mr.

Culledon--but she looked French like.”

This unanswerable bit of logic concluded Katherine’s statement. She

was very anxious to know whether, if the foreign lady was hanged for

murder, she herself would get the £250.

On Lady Molly’s assurance that she certainly would, she departed in

apparent content.

3

“Well! we are no nearer than we were before,” said the chief, with

an impatient sigh, when the door had closed behind Katherine Harris.

“Don’t you think so?” rejoined Lady Molly, blandly.

“Do you consider that what we have heard just now has helped us to

discover who was the woman in the big hat?” retorted the chief,

somewhat testily.

“Perhaps not,” replied my dear lady, with her sweet smile; “but it may

help us to discover who murdered Mr. Culledon.”

With which enigmatical statement she effectually silenced the chief,

and finally walked out of his office, followed by her faithful Mary.

Following Katherine Harris’s indications, a description of the lady

who was wanted in connection with the murder of Mr. Culledon was very

widely circulated, and within two days of the interview with the

ex-parlour-maid another very momentous one took place in the same

office.

Lady Molly was at work with the chief over some reports, whilst I was

taking shorthand notes at a side desk, when a card was brought in by

one of the men, and the next moment, without waiting either for

permission to enter or to be more formally announced, a magnificent

apparition literally sailed into the dust-covered little back office,

filling it with an atmosphere of Parma violets and russia leather.

I don’t think that I had ever seen a more beautiful woman in my life.

Tall, with a splendid figure and perfect carriage, she vaguely

reminded me of the portraits one sees of the late Empress of Austria.

This lady was, moreover, dressed to perfection, and wore a large hat

adorned with a quantity of plumes.

The chief had instinctively risen to greet her, whilst Lady Molly,

still and placid, was eyeing her with a quizzical smile.

“You know who I am, sir,” began the visitor as soon as she had sunk

gracefully into a chair; “my name is on that card. My appearance, I

understand, tallies exactly with that of a woman who is supposed to

have murdered Mark Culledon.”

She said this so calmly, with such perfect self-possession, that I

literally gasped. The chief, too, seemed to have been metaphorically

lifted off his feet. He tried to mutter a reply.

“Oh, don’t trouble yourself, sir!” she interrupted him, with a smile.

“My landlady, my servant, my friends have all read the description of

the woman who murdered Mr. Culledon. For the past twenty-four hours I

have been watched by your police, therefore I have come to you of my

own accord, before they came to arrest me in my flat. I am not too

soon, am I?” she asked, with that same cool indifference which was so

startling, considering the subject of her conversation.

She spoke English with a scarcely perceptible foreign accent, but I

quite understood what Katherine Harris had meant when she said that

the lady looked “French like.” She certainly did not look English, and

when I caught sight of her name on the card, which the chief had

handed to Lady Molly, I put her down at once as Viennese. Miss

Elizabeth Löwenthal had all the charm, the grace, the elegance, which

one associates with Austrian women more than with those of any other

nation.

No wonder the chief found it difficult to tell her that, as a matter

of fact, the police were about to apply for a warrant that very

morning for her arrest on a charge of wilful murder.

“I know--I know,” she said, seeming to divine his thoughts; “but let

me tell you at once, sir, that I did not murder Mark Culledon. He

treated me shamefully, and I would willingly have made a scandal just

to spite him; he had become so respectable and strait-laced. But

between scandal and murder there is a wide gulf. Don’t you think so,

madam,” she added, turning for the first time towards Lady Molly.

“Undoubtedly,” replied my dear lady, with the same quizzical smile.

“A wide gulf which, no doubt, Miss Elizabeth Löwenthal will best be

able to demonstrate to the magistrate to-morrow,” rejoined the chief,

with official sternness of manner.

I thought that, for the space of a few seconds, the lady lost her

self-assurance at this obvious suggestion--the bloom on her cheeks

seemed to vanish, and two hard lines appeared between her fine eyes.

But, frightened or not, she quickly recovered herself, and said

quietly:

“Now, my dear sir, let us understand one another. I came here for that

express purpose. I take it that you don’t want your police to look

ridiculous any more than I want a scandal. I don’t want detectives to

hang about round my flat, questioning my neighbours and my servants.

They would soon find out that I did not murder Mark Culledon, of

course; but the atmosphere of the police would hang round me, and I--I

prefer Parma violets,” she added, raising a daintily perfumed

handkerchief to her nose.

“Then you have come to make a statement?” asked the chief.

“Yes,” she replied; “I’ll tell you all I know. Mr. Culledon was

engaged to marry me; then he met the daughter of an earl, and thought

he would like her better as a wife than a simple Miss Löwenthal. I

suppose I should be considered an undesirable match for a young man

who has a highly respectable and snobbish aunt, who would leave him

all her money only on the condition that he made a suitable marriage.

I have a voice, and I came over to England two years ago to study

English, so that I might sing in oratorio at the Albert Hall. I met

Mark on the Calais-Dover boat, when he was returning from a holiday

abroad. He fell in love with me, and presently he asked me to be his

wife. After some demur, I accepted him; we became engaged, but he told

me that our engagement must remain a secret, for he had an old aunt

from whom he had great expectations, and who might not approve of his

marrying a foreign girl, who was without connections and a

professional singer. From that moment I mistrusted him, nor was I very

astonished when gradually his affection for me seemed to cool. Soon

after, he informed me, quite callously, that he had changed his mind,

and was going to marry some swell English lady. I didn’t care much,

but I wanted to punish him by making a scandal, you understand. I went

to his house just to worry him, and finally I decided to bring an

action for breach of promise against him. It would have upset him, I

know; no doubt his aunt would have cut him out of her will. That is

all I wanted, but I did not care enough about him to murder him.”

Somehow her tale carried conviction. We were all of us obviously

impressed. The chief alone looked visibly disturbed, and I could read

what was going on in his mind.

“As you say, Miss Löwenthal,” he rejoined, “the police would have

found all this out within the next few hours. Once your connection

with the murdered man was known to us, the record of your past and his

becomes an easy one to peruse. No doubt, too,” he added insinuatingly,

“our men would soon have been placed in possession of the one

undisputable proof of your complete innocence with regard to that

fateful afternoon spent at Mathis’ café.”

“What is that?” she queried blandly.

“An alibi.”

“You mean, where I was during the time that Mark was being murdered in

a tea shop?”

“Yes,” said the chief.

“I was out for a walk,” she replied quietly.

“Shopping, perhaps?”

“No.”

“You met some one who would remember the circumstance--or your

servants could say at what time you came in?”

“No,” she repeated dryly; “I met no one, for I took a brisk walk on

Primrose Hill. My two servants could only say that I went out at three

o’clock that afternoon and returned after five.”

There was silence in the little office for a moment or two. I could

hear the scraping of the pen with which the chief was idly scribbling

geometrical figures on his blotting pad.

Lady Molly was quite still. Her large, luminous eyes were fixed on the

beautiful woman who had just told us her strange story, with its

unaccountable sequel, its mystery which had deepened with the last

phrase which she had uttered. Miss Löwenthal, I felt sure, was

conscious of her peril. I am not sufficiently a psychologist to know

whether it was guilt or merely fear which was distorting the handsome

features now, hardening the face and causing the lips to tremble.

Lady Molly scribbled a few words on a scrap of paper, which she then

passed over to the chief. Miss Löwenthal was making visible efforts

to steady her nerves.

“That is all I have to tell you,” she said, in a voice which sounded

dry and harsh. “I think I will go home now.”

But she did not rise from her chair, and seemed to hesitate as if

fearful lest permission to go were not granted her.

To her obvious astonishment--and, I must add, to my own--the chief

immediately rose and said, quite urbanely:

“I thank you very much for the helpful information which you have

given me. Of course, we may rely on your presence in town for the next

few days, may we not?”

She seemed greatly relieved, and all at once resumed her former charm

of manner and elegance of attitude. The beautiful face was lit up by a

smile.

The chief was bowing to her in quite a foreign fashion, and in spite

of her visible reassurance she eyed him very intently. Then she went

up to Lady Molly and held out her hand.

My dear lady took it without an instant’s hesitation. I, who knew that

it was the few words hastily scribbled by Lady Molly which had

dictated the chief’s conduct with regard to Miss Löwenthal, was left

wondering whether the woman I loved best in all the world had been

shaking hands with a murderess.

4

No doubt you will remember the sensation which was caused by the

arrest of Miss Löwenthal, on a charge of having murdered Mr. Mark

Culledon, by administering morphia to him in a cup of chocolate at

Mathis’ café in Regent Street.

The beauty of the accused, her undeniable charm of manner, the

hitherto blameless character of her life, all tended to make the

public take violent sides either for or against her, and the usual

budget of amateur correspondence, suggestions, recriminations and

advice poured into the chief’s office in titanic proportions.

I must say that, personally, all my sympathies went out to Miss

Löwenthal. As I have said before, I am no psychologist, but I had

seen her in the original interview at the office, and I could not get

rid of an absolutely unreasoning certitude that the beautiful Viennese

singer was innocent.

The magistrate’s court was packed, as you may well imagine, on that

first day of the inquiry; and, of course, sympathy with the accused

went up to fever pitch when she staggered into the dock, beautiful

still, despite the ravages caused by horror, anxiety, fear, in face of

the deadly peril in which she stood.

The magistrate was most kind to her; her solicitor was unimpeachably

assiduous; even our fellows, who had to give evidence against her, did

no more than their duty, and were as lenient in their statements as

possible.

Miss Löwenthal had been arrested in her flat by Danvers, accompanied

by two constables. She had loudly protested her innocence all along,

and did so still, pleading “Not guilty” in a firm voice.

The great points in favour of the arrest were, firstly, the undoubted

motive of disappointment and revenge against a faithless sweetheart,

then the total inability to prove any kind of alibi, which, under the

circumstances, certainly added to the appearance of guilt.

The question of where the fatal drug was obtained was more difficult

to prove. It was stated that Mr. Mark Culledon was director of several

important companies, one of which carried on business as wholesale

druggists.

Therefore it was argued that the accused, at different times and under

some pretext or other, had obtained drugs from Mr. Culledon himself.

She had admitted to having visited the deceased at his office in the

City, both before and after his marriage.

Miss Löwenthal listened to all this evidence against her with a hard,

set face, as she did also to Katherine Harris’s statement about her

calling on Mr. Culledon at Lorbury House, but she brightened up

visibly when the various attendants at Mathis’ café were placed in

the box.

A very large hat belonging to the accused was shown to the witnesses,

but, though the police upheld the theory that that was the headgear

worn by the mysterious lady at the café on that fateful afternoon,

the waitresses made distinctly contradictory statements with regard to

it.

Whilst one girl swore that she recognised the very hat, another was

equally positive that it was distinctly smaller than the one she

recollected, and when the hat was placed on the head of Miss

Löwenthal, three out of the four witnesses positively refused to

identify her.

Most of these young women declared that though the accused, when

wearing the big hat, looked as if she might have been the lady in

question, yet there was a certain something about her which was

different.

With that vagueness which is a usual and highly irritating

characteristic of their class, the girls finally parried every

question by refusing to swear positively either for or against the

identity of Miss Löwenthal.

“There’s something that’s different about her somehow,” one of the

waitresses asserted positively.

“What is it that’s different?” asked the solicitor for the accused,

pressing his point.

“I can’t say,” was the perpetual, maddening reply.

Of course the poor young widow had to be dragged into the case, and

here, I think, opinions and even expressions of sympathy were quite

unanimous.

The whole tragedy had been inexpressibly painful to her, of course,

and now it must have seemed doubly so. The scandal which had

accumulated round her late husband’s name must have added the

poignancy of shame to that of grief. Mark Culledon had behaved as

callously to the girl whom clearly he had married from interested,

family motives, as he had to the one whom he had heartlessly cast

aside.

Lady Irene, however, was most moderate in her statements. There was no

doubt that she had known of her husband’s previous entanglement with

Miss Löwenthal, but apparently had not thought fit to make him

accountable for the past. She did not know that Miss Löwenthal had

threatened a breach of promise action against her husband.

Throughout her evidence she spoke with absolute calm and dignity, and

looked indeed a strange contrast, in her closely fitting tailor-made

costume of black serge and tiny black toque, to the more brilliant

woman who stood in the dock.

The two great points in favour of the accused were, firstly, the

vagueness of the witnesses who were called to identify her, and,

secondly, the fact that she had undoubtedly begun proceedings for

breach of promise against the deceased. Judging by the latter’s

letters to her, she would have had a splendid case against him, which

fact naturally dealt a severe blow to the theory as to motive for the

murder.

On the whole, the magistrate felt that there was not a sufficiency of

evidence against the accused to warrant his committing her for trial;

he therefore discharged her, and, amid loud applause from the public,

Miss Löwenthal left the court a free woman.

Now, I know that the public did loudly, and, to my mind, very justly,

blame the police for that arrest, which was denounced as being as

cruel as it was unjustifiable. I felt as strongly as anybody on the

subject, for I knew that the prosecution had been instituted in

defiance of Lady Molly’s express advice, and in distinct contradiction

to the evidence which she had collected. When, therefore, the chief

again asked my dear lady to renew her efforts in that mysterious case,

it was small wonder that her enthusiasm did not respond to his

anxiety. That she would do her duty was beyond a doubt, but she had

very naturally lost her more fervent interest in the case.

The mysterious woman in the big hat was still the chief subject of

leading articles in the papers, coupled with that of the ineptitude of

the police who could not discover her. There were caricatures and

picture post-cards in all the shop windows of a gigantic hat covering

the whole figure of its wearer, only the feet, and a very long and

pointed chin, protruding from beneath the enormous brim. Below was the

device, “Who is she? Ask the police?”

One day--it was the second since the discharge of Miss Löwenthal--my

dear lady came into my room beaming. It was the first time I had seen

her smile for more than a week, and already I had guessed what it was

that had cheered her.

“Good news, Mary,” she said gaily. “At last I’ve got the chief to let

me have a free hand. Oh, dear! what a lot of argument it takes to

extricate that man from the tangled meshes of red tape!”

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Prove that my theory is right as to who murdered Mark Culledon,” she

replied seriously; “and as a preliminary we’ll go and ask his servants

at Lorbury House a few questions.”

It was then three o’clock in the afternoon. At Lady Molly’s bidding, I

dressed somewhat smartly, and together we went off in a taxi to

Fitzjohn’s Avenue.

Lady Molly had written a few words on one of her cards, urgently

requesting an interview with Lady Irene Culledon. This she handed over

to the man-servant who opened the door at Lorbury House. A few moments

later we were sitting in the cosy boudoir. The young widow, high-bred

and dignified in her tight-fitting black gown, sat opposite to us, her

white hands folded demurely before her, her small head, with its very

close coiffure, bent in closest attention towards Lady Molly.

“I most sincerely hope, Lady Irene,” began my dear lady, in her most

gentle and persuasive voice, “that you will look with all possible

indulgence on my growing desire--shared, I may say, by all my

superiors at Scotland Yard--to elucidate the mystery which still

surrounds your late husband’s death.”

Lady Molly paused, as if waiting for encouragement to proceed. The

subject must have been extremely painful to the young widow;

nevertheless she responded quite gently:

“I can understand that the police wish to do their duty in the matter;

as for me, I have done all, I think, that could be expected of me. I

am not made of iron, and after that day in the police court----”

She checked herself, as if afraid of having betrayed more emotion than

was consistent with good breeding, and concluded more calmly:

“I cannot do any more.”

“I fully appreciate your feelings in the matter,” said Lady Molly,

“but you would not mind helping us--would you?--in a passive way, if

you could, by some simple means, further the cause of justice.”

“What is it you want me to do?” asked Lady Irene.

“Only to allow me to ring for two of your maids and to ask them a few

questions. I promise you that they shall not be of such a nature as to

cause you the slightest pain.”

For a moment I thought that the young widow hesitated, then, without a

word, she rose and rang the bell.

“Which of my servants did you wish to see?” she asked, turning to my

dear lady as soon as the butler entered in answer to the bell.

“Your own maid and your parlour-maid, if I may,” replied Lady Molly.

Lady Irene gave the necessary orders, and we all sat expectant and

silent until, a minute or two later, two girls entered the room. One

wore a cap and apron, the other, in neat black dress and dainty lace

collar, was obviously the lady’s maid.

“This lady,” said their mistress, addressing the two girls, “wishes to

ask you a few questions. She is a representative of the police, so you

had better do your best to satisfy her with your answers.”

“Oh!” rejoined Lady Molly pleasantly--choosing not to notice the tone

of acerbity with which the young widow had spoken, nor the

unmistakable barrier of hostility and reserve which her words had

immediately raised between the young servants and the “representative

of the police”--“what I am going to ask these two young ladies is

neither very difficult nor very unpleasant. I merely want their kind

help in a little comedy which will have to be played this evening, in

order to test the accuracy of certain statements made by one of the

waitresses at Mathis’ tea shop with regard to the terrible tragedy

which has darkened this house. You will do that much, will you not?”

she added, speaking directly to the maids.

No one can be so winning or so persuasive as my dear lady. In a moment

I saw the girls’ hostility melting before the sunshine of Lady Molly’s

smile.

“We’ll do what we can, ma’am,” said the maid.

“That’s a brave, good girl!” replied my lady. “You must know that the

chief waitress at Mathis’ has, this very morning, identified the woman

in the big hat who, we all believe, murdered your late master. Yes!”

she continued, in response to a gasp of astonishment which seemed to

go round the room like a wave, “the girl seems quite positive, both as

regards the hat and the woman who wore it. But, of course, one cannot

allow a human life to be sworn away without bringing every possible

proof to bear on such a statement, and I am sure that everyone in this

house will understand that we don’t want to introduce strangers more

than we can help into this sad affair, which already has been bruited

abroad too much.”

She paused a moment; then, as neither Lady Irene nor the maids made

any comment, she continued:

“My superiors at Scotland Yard think it their duty to try and confuse

the witness as much as possible in her act of identification. They

desire that a certain number of ladies wearing abnormally large hats

should parade before the waitress. Among them will be, of course, the

one whom the girl has already identified as being the mysterious

person who had tea with Mr. Culledon at Mathis’ that afternoon.

“My superiors can then satisfy themselves whether the waitress is or

is not so sure of her statement that she invariably picks out again

and again one particular individual amongst a number of others or

not.”

“Surely,” interrupted Lady Irene, dryly, “you and your superiors do

not expect my servants to help in such a farce?”

“We don’t look upon such a proceeding as a farce, Lady Irene,”

rejoined Lady Molly, gently. “It is often resorted to in the interests

of an accused person, and we certainly would ask the co-operation of

your household.”

“I don’t see what they can do.”

But the two girls did not seem unwilling. The idea appealed to them, I

felt sure; it suggested an exciting episode, and gave promise of

variety in their monotonous lives.

“I am sure both these young ladies possess fine big hats,” continued

Lady Molly with an encouraging smile.

“I should not allow them to wear ridiculous headgear,” retorted Lady

Irene, sternly.

“I have the one your ladyship wouldn’t wear, and threw away,”

interposed the young parlour-maid. “I put it together again with the

scraps I found in the dusthole.”

There was just one instant of absolute silence, one of those magnetic

moments when Fate seems to have dropped the spool on which she was

spinning the threads of a life, and is just stooping in order to pick

it up.

Lady Irene raised a black-bordered handkerchief to her lips, then said

quietly:

“I don’t know what you mean, Mary. I never wear big hats.”

“No, my lady,” here interposed the lady’s maid; “but Mary means the

one you ordered at Sanchia’s and only wore the once--the day you went

to that concert.”

“Which day was that?” asked Lady Molly, blandly.

“Oh! I couldn’t forget that day,” ejaculated the maid; “her ladyship

came home from the concert--I had undressed her, and she told me that

she would never wear her big hat again--it was too heavy. That same

day Mr. Culledon was murdered.”

“That hat would answer our purpose very well,” said Lady Molly, quite

calmly. “Perhaps Mary will go and fetch it, and you had better go and

help her put it on.”

The two girls went out of the room without another word, and there

were we three women left facing one another, with that awful secret,

only half-revealed, hovering in the air like an intangible spectre.

“What are you going to do, Lady Irene?” asked Lady Molly, after a

moment’s pause, during which I literally could hear my own heart

beating, whilst I watched the rigid figure of the widow in deep black

crape, her face set and white, her eyes fixed steadily on Lady Molly.

“You can’t prove it!” she said defiantly.

“I think we can,” rejoined Lady Molly, simply; “at any rate, I mean to

try. I have two of the waitresses from Mathis’ outside in a cab, and I

have already spoken to the attendant who served you at Sanchia’s, an

obscure milliner in a back street near Portland Road. We know that you

were at great pains there to order a hat of certain dimensions and to

your own minute description; it was a copy of one you had once seen

Miss Löwenthal wear when you met her at your late husband’s office.

We can prove that meeting, too. Then we have your maid’s testimony

that you wore that same hat once, and once only, the day, presumably,

that you went out to a concert--a statement which you will find it

difficult to substantiate--and also the day on which your husband was

murdered.”

“Bah! the public will laugh at you!” retorted Lady Irene, still

defiantly. “You would not dare to formulate so monstrous a charge!”

“It will not seem monstrous when justice has

[IMAGE: images/img290.jpg

CAPTION: “Lady Irene, with a cry of agony, fell senseless in my

dear lady’s arms”]

weighed in the balance the facts which we can prove. Let me tell you a

few of these, the result of careful investigation. There is the fact

that you knew of Mr. Culledon’s entanglement with Miss Elizabeth

Löwenthal, and did your best to keep it from old Mrs. Steinberg’s

knowledge, realising that any scandal round her favourite nephew would

result in the old lady cutting him--and therefore you--out of her

will. You dismissed a parlour-maid for the sole reason that she had

been present when Miss Löwenthal was shown into Mr. Culledon’s study.

There is the fact that Mrs. Steinberg had so worded her will that, in

the event of her nephew dying before her, her fortune would devolve on

you; the fact that, with Miss Löwenthal’s action for breach of

promise against your husband, your last hope of keeping the scandal

from the old lady’s ears had effectually vanished. You saw the fortune

eluding your grasp; you feared Mrs. Steinberg would alter her will.

Had you found the means, and had you dared, would you not rather have

killed the old lady? But discovery would have been certain. The other

crime was bolder and surer. You have inherited the old lady’s

millions, for she never knew of her nephew’s earlier peccadillos.

“All this we can state and prove, and the history of the hat, bought,

and worn one day only, that same memorable day, and then thrown away.”

A loud laugh interrupted her--a laugh that froze my very marrow.

“There is one fact you have forgotten, my lady of Scotland Yard,” came

in sharp, strident accents from the black-robed figure, which seemed

to have become strangely spectral in the fast gathering gloom which

had been enveloping the luxurious little boudoir. “Don’t omit to

mention the fact that the accused took the law into her own hands.”

And before my dear lady and I could rush to prevent her, Lady Irene

Culledon had conveyed something--we dared not think what--to her

mouth.

“Find Danvers quickly, Mary!” said Lady Molly, calmly. “You’ll find

him outside. Bring a doctor back with you.”

Even as she spoke Lady Irene, with a cry of agony, fell senseless in

my dear lady’s arms.

The doctor, I may tell you, came too late. The unfortunate woman

evidently had a good knowledge of poisons. She had been determined not

to fail; in case of discovery, she was ready and able to mete out

justice to herself.

I don’t think the public ever knew the real truth about the woman in

the big hat. Interest in her went the way of all things. Yet my dear

lady had been right from beginning to end. With unerring precision she

had placed her dainty finger on the real motive and the real

perpetrator of the crime--the ambitious woman who had married solely

for money, and meant to have that money even at the cost of one of the

most dastardly murders that have ever darkened the criminal annals of

this country.

I asked Lady Molly what it was that first made her think of Lady Irene

as the possible murderess. No one else for a moment had thought her

guilty.

“The big hat,” replied my dear lady with a smile. “Had the mysterious

woman at Mathis’ been tall, the waitresses would not, one and all,

have been struck by the abnormal size of the hat. The wearer must have

been _petite_, hence the reason that under a wide brim only the chin

would be visible. I at once sought for a _small_ woman. Our fellows

did not think of that, because they are men.”

You see how simple it all was!

XI.

SIR JEREMIAH’S WILL

Many people have asked me whether I knew when, and in what

circumstances, Lady Molly joined the detective staff at Scotland Yard,

who she was, and how she managed to keep her position in Society--as

she undoubtedly did--whilst exercising a profession which usually does

not make for high social standing.

Well, of course, there is much that I have known all along about my

dear lady--just as much, in fact, as her aristocratic friends and

relations did--but I had promised her not to let the general public

know anything of her private life until she gave me leave to do so.

Now things have taken a different turn, and I can tell you all I know.

But I must go back some years for that, and recall to your mind that

extraordinary crime known in those days as the Baddock Will Case,

which sent one of the most prominent and popular young men in Society

to penal servitude--a life sentence, mind you, which was considered to

be remarkably lenient by a number of people who thought that Captain

de Mazareen ought to have been hanged.

He was such a good-looking young soldier in those days. I specially

remember him at the late Queen’s funeral--one of the tallest men in

the British army, and with that peculiar charm of manner which, alas!

one has ceased to associate with young Englishmen nowadays. If to

these two undeniable advantages you add the one that Hubert de

Mazareen was the dearly loved grandson of Sir Jeremiah Baddock, the

multi-millionaire shipowner of Liverpool, you will realise how easy it

was for that young Guardsman to ingratiate himself with every woman in

Society, and more particularly with every mamma who had a marriageable

daughter.

But Fate and Love have a proverbial knack of making a muddle of

things. Captain de Mazareen, with a bevy of pretty and eligible girls

from whom to select a wife, chose to fall in love with the one woman

in the whole of England who, in his grandfather’s opinion, should have

remained a stranger, even an enemy, to him.

You remember the sad story--more than a quarter of a century old

now--of Sir Jeremiah’s unhappy second marriage with the pretty French

actress, Mlle. Adèle Desty, who was then over thirty years younger

than himself. He married her abroad, and never brought her to England.

She made him supremely wretched for about three years, and finally ran

away with the Earl of Flintshire, whom she had met at Monte Carlo.

Well! it was with a daughter of that same Earl of Flintshire, Lady

Molly Robertson-Kirk, that Captain Hubert de Mazareen fell desperately

in love. Imagine Sir Jeremiah’s feelings when he heard of it.

Captain Hubert, you must know, had resigned his commission in 1902 at

his grandfather’s request, when the latter’s health first began to

fail. He had taken up his permanent abode at Appledore Castle, Sir

Jeremiah’s magnificent home in Cumberland, and, of course, it was

generally understood that ultimately he would become possessed of the

wealthy shipowner’s millions as well as of the fine property, seeing

that his mother had been Sir Jeremiah’s only child by the latter’s

first marriage.

Lord Flintshire’s property was quite close to Appledore; but, needless

to say, old Sir Jeremiah never forgave his noble neighbour the cruel

wrong he had suffered at his hands.

The second Lady Baddock, afterwards Countess of Flintshire, has been

dead twenty years. Neither the county nor the more exclusive sets of

London ever received her, but her daughter Molly, who inherited all

her beauty and none of her faults, was the idol of her father, and the

acknowledged queen of county and town Society.

You see, it was the ancient, yet ever new, story of Cappelletti and

Montecchi over again, and one day Captain Hubert de Mazareen had to

tell Sir Jeremiah that he desired to marry the daughter of his

grandfather’s most cruel enemy.

What the immediate result of that announcement was, no one could say.

Neither Sir Jeremiah nor Captain Hubert de Mazareen would have allowed

servants or dependents to hear a word of disagreement that might have

passed between them, much less to suspect that an unpleasant scene had

occurred.

Outwardly everything went on as usual at Appledore Castle for about a

fortnight or so, after which Captain Hubert went away one day,

ostensibly for a brief stay in London; but he never re-entered the

doors of the Castle until after the dark veil of an appalling tragedy

had begun to descend on the stately old Cumberland home.

Sir Jeremiah bore up pretty well for a time, then he had a slight

paralytic stroke and became a confirmed invalid. The postmaster at

Appledore declared that after that many letters came, addressed to Sir

Jeremiah in Captain Hubert’s well-known handwriting and bearing the

London postmark; but presumably the old gentleman felt bitterly

irreconcilable towards his grandson, for Captain de Mazareen was never

seen at the Castle.

Soon the invalid grew more and more eccentric and morose. He ordered

all the reception rooms of his magnificent home to be closed and

shuttered, and he dismissed all his indoor servants, with the

exception of his own male attendant and an old married couple named

Bradley, who had been in his service for years, and who now did the

little work that was required in what had once been one of the most

richly appointed country mansions in England.

Bitter resentment against his once dearly loved grandson, and against

the man who had robbed him of his young wife twenty-five years ago,

seemed to have cut off the old man from contact with the outside

world.

Thus matters stood until the spring of 1903, when Sir Jeremiah

announced one morning to the three members of his household that Mr.

Philip Baddock was coming to stay at the Castle, and that a room must

be got ready immediately.

Mr. Philip Baddock came that same evening. He was a young man of quite

ordinary appearance: short, rather dark, with the somewhat uncouth

manners suggestive of an upbringing in a country parsonage.

His arrival created no little excitement in the neighbourhood. Who was

Mr. Philip Baddock, and where did he come from? No one had ever heard

of him before, and now--after a very brief time spent at the

Castle--he seemed to be gradually taking up the position which

originally had belonged to Captain Hubert.

He took over the command of the small household, dismissing Sir

Jeremiah’s personal attendant after a while and engaging another. He

supervised the outdoor men, reducing the staff both in the gardens and

the stables. He sold most of the horses and carriages, and presently

bought a motor-car, which he at once took to driving all over the

country.

But he spoke to no one in the village, and soon, in answer to

inquiries by one or two of Sir Jeremiah’s faithful friends and

cronies, the reply came regularly from Mr. Philip Baddock that the

invalid was disinclined for company. Only Doctor Thorne, the local

practitioner, saw the patient. Sir Jeremiah, it was understood, was

slowly sinking towards the grave; but his mind was quite clear, even

if his temper was abnormal.

One day Mr. Philip Baddock made inquiries in the village for a good

chauffeur. George Taylor presented himself, and was at once told off

to drive the car as quickly as possible to Carlisle, to the office of

Mr. Steadman, solicitor, and to bring that gentleman back to the

Castle as soon as he could come.

The distance from Appledore to Carlisle is over fifty miles. It was

seven o’clock in the evening before George Taylor was back, bringing

Mr. Steadman with him.

The solicitor was received at the Castle door by old Bradley, and at

Sir Jeremiah’s door by Felkin, the new attendant, who showed him in.

The interview between the invalid and Mr. Steadman lasted half an

hour, after which the latter was driven back to Carlisle by George

Taylor.

That same evening a telegram was sent off by Mr. Philip Baddock to

Captain de Mazareen in London, containing the few words:

“Sir Jeremiah very ill. Come at once.”

Twenty-four hours later Captain Hubert arrived at Appledore

Castle--too late, however, to see his grandfather alive.

Sir Jeremiah Baddock had died an hour before the arrival of his once

so tenderly cherished grandson, and all hopes of a reconciliation had

now been mercilessly annihilated by death.

The end had come much more suddenly than Doctor Thorne had

anticipated. He had seen the patient in the morning and thought that

he might last some days. But when Sir Jeremiah had heard that Captain

de Mazareen had been sent for he had worked himself into a state of

such terrible agitation that the poor, overtaxed brain and heart

finally gave way.

2

The events of those memorable days--in the early spring of 1904--are

so graven on my memory that I can recount them as if they happened

yesterday.

I was maid to Lady Molly Robertson-Kirk at the time. Since then she

has honoured me with her friendship.

Directly after Captain Hubert’s first estrangement from his

grandfather, she and I came down to Cumberland and lived very quietly

at Kirk Hall, which, as you know, is but a stone’s throw from

Appledore.

Here Captain Hubert paid my dear lady several visits. She had

irrevocably made up her mind that their engagement was to be

indefinitely prolonged, for she had a vague hope that, sooner or

later, Sir Jeremiah would relent towards the grandson whom he had

loved so dearly. At any rate, there was a chance of it whilst the

marriage had not actually taken place.

Captain de Mazareen, mind you, was in no sense of the word badly off.

His father had left him some £25,000, and Lady Molly had a small

private fortune of her own. Therefore I assure you that there was not

a single mercenary thought behind this protracted engagement or

Captain Hubert’s desire for a reconciliation with his grandfather.

The evening that he arrived at Appledore in response to Mr. Philip

Baddock’s telegram, Lady Molly met him at the station. He sent his

luggage on to Kirk Hall, and the two young people walked together as

far as the Elkhorn Woods, which divide the Earl of Flintshire’s

property from Appledore itself.

Here they met Mr. Steadman, the solicitor, who had motored over from

Carlisle in response to an urgent summons from Sir Jeremiah Baddock,

but whose car had broken down about two hundred yards up the road.

It seems that the chauffeur had suggested his walking on through the

woods, it being an exceptionally fine and mild spring evening, with a

glorious full moon overhead, which lit up almost every turn of the

path that cuts through the pretty coppice.

Lady Molly had given me rendezvous at the edge of the wood, so that I

might accompany her home after she had taken leave of Captain Hubert.

It seems that the latter knew Mr. Steadman slightly, and we saw the

two men shake hands with one another, then, after a few words of

conversation, turn off to walk together through the wood. We then made

our way back silently to Kirk Hall.

My dear lady was inexpressibly sad. She appreciated very deeply the

love which Captain Hubert bore for his grandfather, and was loath to

see the final annihilation of all her hopes of an ultimate

reconciliation between the two men.

I had dressed Lady Molly for dinner, and she was just going

downstairs, when Captain de Mazareen arrived at the Hall.

He announced the sad news of his grandfather’s death, and looked

extremely dejected and upset.

Of course, he stayed at the Hall, for Mr. Philip Baddock seemed quite

to have taken command at Appledore Castle, and Captain Hubert did not

care to be beholden to him for hospitality.

My dear lady asked him what had become of Mr. Steadman.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “He started to walk with me through the

wood, then he seemed to think that the tramp would be too much for

him, and that the car could be put right very quickly. He preferred to

drive round, and was quite sure that he would meet me at the Castle in

less than half an hour. However, he never turned up.”

Lady Molly asked several more questions about Sir Jeremiah, which

Captain Hubert answered in a listless way. He had been met at the door

of the Castle by Mr. Philip Baddock, who told him that the old

gentleman had breathed his last half an hour before.

I remember that we all went to bed that night feeling quite

unaccountably depressed. It seemed that something more tragic than the

natural death of a septuagenarian hovered in the air of these remote

Cumberland villages.

The next morning our strange premonitions were confirmed. Lord

Flintshire, my dear lady, and Captain Hubert were sitting at breakfast

when the news was brought to the Hall that Mr. Steadman, the Carlisle

solicitor, had been found murdered in the Elkhorn Woods earlier in the

morning. Evidently he had been stunned, and then done to death by a

heavily-loaded stick or some similar weapon. When he was discovered in

the early hours of the morning, he had, apparently, been dead some

time. The local police were at once apprised of the terrible event,

which created as much excitement as the death of the eccentric old

millionaire at Appledore Castle.

Everyone at Kirk Hall, of course, was keenly interested, and Captain

de Mazareen went over to Appledore as soon as he could in order to

place his information at the service of the police.

It is a strange fact, but nevertheless a true one, that when a deadly

peril arises such as now threatened Captain de Mazareen, the person

most in danger is the last to be conscious of it.

I am quite sure that Lady Molly, the moment she heard that Mr.

Steadman had been murdered in the Elkhorn Woods, realised that the man

she loved would be implicated in that tragedy in some sinister manner.

But that is the intuition of a woman--of a woman who loves.

As for Captain Hubert, he went about during the whole of that day

quite unconscious of the abyss which already was yawning at his feet.

He even discussed quite equably the several valuable bits of

information which the local police had already collected, and which

eventually formed a portion of that damning fabric of circumstantial

evidence which was to bring him within sight of the gallows.

Earlier in the day, Mr. Philip Baddock sent him a stiff little note,

saying that, as Captain de Mazareen was now the owner of Appledore

Castle, he (Philip Baddock) did not desire to trespass a moment longer

than was necessary on his relative’s hospitality, and had arranged to

stay at the village inn until after the funeral, when he would leave

Cumberland.

To this Captain Hubert sent an equally curt note saying that, as far

as he knew, he had no say in the matter of anyone coming or going from

the Castle, and that Mr. Philip Baddock must, of course, please

himself as to whether he stayed there or not.

So far, of course, the old gentleman’s testamentary dispositions were

not known. He had made a will in 1902 bequeathing Appledore and

everything he possessed unconditionally to his beloved grandson,

Hubert de Mazareen, whom he also appointed his sole executor. That

will was lodged with Mr. Truscott, who had been solicitor to the

deceased practically until the last moment, when Mr. Steadman, a new

arrival at Carlisle, had been sent for.

Whether that will had been revoked or not Mr. Truscott did not know;

but, in the course of the afternoon, Lord Flintshire, whilst out

driving, met the local superintendent of police, who told him that Mr.

Steadman’s senior partner--a Mr. Fuelling--had made a statement to the

effect that Sir Jeremiah had sent for Mr. Steadman the day before his

death and given instructions for the drafting of a new will whereby

the old gentleman bequeathed Appledore and everything he possessed to

his beloved grandson, Hubert de Mazareen, but only on the condition

that the latter did not marry the daughter or any other relative of

the Earl of Flintshire. In the event of Hubert de Mazareen

disregarding this condition at any future time of his life, Sir

Jeremiah’s entire fortune was to devolve on Philip Baddock, sole issue

of testator’s second marriage, with Adèle Desty. The draft of this

will, added Mr. Fuelling, was in Mr. Steadman’s pocket ready for Sir

Jeremiah’s signature on that fateful night when the unfortunate young

solicitor was murdered.

The draft had not been found in the murdered man’s pocket. A copy of

it, however, was in Mr. Fuelling’s safe. But as this will had never

been signed by the deceased the one of 1902 remained valid, and

Captain Hubert de Mazareen remained unconditionally his grandfather’s

sole heir.

3

Events crowded thick and fast on that day--one of the most miserable

I have ever lived through.

After an early tea, which my dear lady had alone in her little

boudoir, she sent me down to ask Captain Hubert to come up and speak

to her. He did so at once, and I went into the next room--which was

Lady Molly’s bedroom--there to prepare her dress for the evening.

I had, of course, discreetly closed the door of communication between

the two rooms, but after the first five minutes, Lady Molly

deliberately reopened it, from which I gathered that she actually

wished me to know what was going on.

It was then a little after four o’clock. I could hear Captain de

Mazareen’s voice, low-toned and infinitely tender. He adored my dear

lady, but he was a very quiet man, and it was only by the passionate

tensity of his attitude when he was near her that a shrewdly observant

person could guess how deeply he cared. Now, through the open door, I

could see his handsome head bowed very low, so that he could better

look into her upturned eyes. His arms were round her, as if he were

fighting the world for the possession of her, and would never let her

go again. But there were tears in her eyes.

“Hubert,” she said after a while, “I want you to marry me. Will you?”

“Will I?” he whispered, with an intensity of

[IMAGE: images/img327.jpg

CAPTION: “Philip Baddock looked defiant, and Felkin taciturn and

sulky”]

passionate longing which seemed to me then so unutterably pathetic

that I could have sat down and had a good cry.

“But,” rejoined Lady Molly, earnestly, “I mean as soon as

possible--to-morrow, by special licence. You can wire to Mr. Hurford

to-night, and he will see about it the first thing in the morning. We

can travel up to town by the night train. Father and Mary will come

with me. Father has promised, you know, and we can be married

to-morrow … I think that would be the quickest way.”

There was a pause. I could well imagine how astonished and perturbed

Captain Hubert must be feeling. It was such a strange request for a

woman to make at such a time. I could see by the expression of his

eyes that he was trying to read her thoughts. But she looked up quite

serenely at him, and, frankly, I do not think that he had the

slightest inkling of the sublime motive which lay at the back of her

strange insistence.

“You prefer to be married in London rather than here?” he asked quite

simply.

“Yes,” she replied; “I desire to be married in London to-morrow.”

A few moments later my dear lady quietly shut the door again, and I

heard and saw no more; but half an hour later she called me. She was

alone in her boudoir, bravely trying to smile through a veil of tears.

Captain Hubert’s footsteps could still be heard going along the hall

below.

Lady Molly listened until the final echo of that tread died away in

the distance; then she buried her sweet face on my shoulder and sobbed

her very heart out.

“Get ready as quickly as you can, Mary,” she said to me when the

paroxysm had somewhat subsided. “We go up to town by the 9.10.”

“Is his lordship coming with us, my lady?” I asked.

“Oh, yes!” she said, whilst a bright smile lit up her face. “Father is

simply grand … and yet he knows.”

“Knows what, my lady?” I queried instinctively, for Lady Molly had

paused, and I saw a look of acute pain once more darken her soft, grey

eyes.

“My father knows,” she said, slowly and almost tonelessly, “that half

an hour ago the police found a weighted stick in the Elkhorn Woods not

far from the spot where Mr. Steadman was murdered. The stick has the

appearance of having been very vigorously cleaned and scraped

recently, in spite of which fact tiny traces of blood are still

visible on the leaden knob. The inspector showed my father that stick.

I saw it too. It is the property of Captain Hubert de Mazareen, and by

to-morrow, at the latest, it will be identified as such.”

There was silence in the little boudoir now: a silence broken only by

the sound of dull sobs which rose from my dear lady’s overburdened

heart. Lady Molly at this moment had looked into the future, and with

that unerring intuition which has since been of such immense service

to her she had already perceived the grim web which Fate was weaving

round the destiny of the man she loved.