Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source: https://books.google.com/books?id=KF4gAAAAMAAJ
(The New York Public Library)
[Front cover]
[Illustration: "TAKE ME AWAY; TAKE ME AWAY!" SHE CRIED PITEOUSLY.
_Frontispiece_, p. 2]
THE MYSTERY
QUEEN
BY
FERGUS HUME
_Author of "The Mystery of a Hanson Cab," "The Yellow Holly,"
"The Red Window," "The Solitary Farm," "The Opal Serpent," etc., etc.,
etc_.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
HOWARD SOMERVILLE
G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
_The Mystery Queen_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. A STRANGE VISITOR
II. A COMPLETE MYSTERY
III. DUTY BEFORE PLEASURE
IV. AN AMATEUR DETECTIVE
V. MUDDY WATER
VI. THE INVENTOR
VII. THE HERMIT LADIES
VIII. AVIATION
IX. MAHOMET'S COFFIN
X. ANOTHER MYSTERY
XI. ON THE TRAIL
XII. AN AMAZING ADVENTURE
XIII. A BOLD DETERMINATION
XIV. A BUSY AFTERNOON
XV. ABSOLUTE PROOF
XVI. DAN'S DIPLOMACY
XVII. AT BAY
XVIII. THE FLIGHT
XIX. TREACHERY
XX. QUEEN BEELZEBUB'S END
XXI. SUNSHINE
ILLUSTRATIONS
"Take me away; take me away!" she cried piteously
"Why, even your cards are scented."
The Mystery Queen
CHAPTER I
A STRANGE VISITOR
"A penny for your thoughts, dad," cried Lillian, suppressing a
school-girl desire to throw one of the nuts on her plate at her father
and rouse him from his brown study.
Sir Charles Moon looked up with a start, and drew his bushy gray
eye-brows together. "Some people would give more than that to know
them, my dear."
"What sort of people?" asked the young man who sat beside Lillian,
industriously cracking nuts for her consumption.
"Dangerous people," replied Sir Charles grimly, "very dangerous, Dan."
Mrs. Bolstreath, fat, fair, and fifty, Lillian's paid companion and
chaperon, leaned back complacently. She had enjoyed an excellent
dinner: she was beautifully dressed: and shortly she would witness the
newest musical comedy; three very good reasons for her amiable
expression. "All people are dangerous to millionaires," she remarked,
pointing the compliment at her employer, "since all people enjoy life
with wealth, and wish to get the millionaire's money honestly or
dishonestly."
"The people you mention have failed to get mine, Mrs. Bolstreath," was
the millionaire's dry response.
"Of course I speak generally and not of any particular person, Sir
Charles."
"I am aware of it," he answered, nodding and showed a tendency to
relapse into his meditation, but that his daughter raised her price
for confession.
"A sixpence for your thoughts, dad, a shilling--ten shillings--then
one pound, you insatiable person."
"My kingdom for an explicit statement," murmured Dan, laying aside the
crackers. "Lillian, my child, you must not eat any more nuts or you
will be having indigestion."
"I believe dad has indigestion already."
"Some people will have it very badly before I am done with them," said
Sir Charles, not echoing his daughter's laughter; then, to prevent
further questions being asked, he addressed himself to the young man.
"How are things going with you, Halliday?"
When Sir Charles asked questions thus stiffly, Dan knew that he was
not too well pleased, and guessed the reason, which had to do with
Lillian, and with Lillian's friendly attitude towards a swain not
overburdened with money--to wit, his very own self--who replied
diplomatically. "Things are going up with me, sir, if you mean
aeroplanes."
"Frivolous! Frivolous!" muttered the big man seriously, "as a
well-educated young man who wants money, you should aim at higher
things."
"He aims at the sun," said Lillian gaily, "how much higher do you
expect him to aim, dad?"
"Aiming at the sun is he?" said Moon heavily, "h'm! he'll be like that
classical chap who flew too high and came to smash."
"Do you mean Icarus or Phaeton, Sir Charles?" asked Mrs. Bolstreath,
who, having been a governess, prided herself upon exceptional
knowledge.
"I don't know which of the two, perhaps one, perhaps both. But he flew
in an aeroplane like Dan here, and came to grief."
"Oh!" Lillian turned distinctly pale. "I hope, Dan, you won't come to
grief."
Before the guest could reply, Sir Charles reassured his daughter.
"Naught was never in danger," he said, still grim and unsmiling,
"don't trouble, Lillian, my dear. Dan won't come to grief in that way,
although he may in another."
Lillian opened her blue eyes and stared while young Halliday grew
crimson and fiddled with the nut-shells. "I don't know what you mean,
dad?" said the girl after a puzzled pause.
"I think Dan does," rejoined her father, rising and pushing back his
chair slowly. He looked at his watch, "Seven-thirty; you have plenty
of time to see your play, which does not begin until nine," he added,
walking towards the door. "Mrs. Bolstreath, I should like to speak
with you."
"But, dad----"
"My dear Lillian, I have no time to wait. There is an important
appointment at nine o'clock here, and afterwards I must go to the
House. Go and enjoy yourself, but don't"--here his stern gray eyes
rested on Dan's bent head in a significant way--"don't be foolish.
Mrs. Bolstreath," he beckoned, and left the room.
"Oh!" sighed the chaperon-governess-companion, for she was all three,
a kind of modern Cerebus, guarding the millionaire's child. "I thought
it would come to this!" and she also looked significantly at Halliday
before she vanished to join her employer.
Lillian stared at the closed door through which both her father and
Mrs. Bolstreath had passed, and then looked at Dan, sitting somewhat
disconsolately at the disordered dinner-table. She was a delicately
pretty girl of a fair, fragile type, not yet twenty years of age, and
resembled a shepherdess of Dresden china in her dainty perfection.
With her pale golden hair, and rose-leaf complexion, arrayed in a
simple white silk frock with snowy pearls round her slender neck, she
looked like a wraith of faint mist. At least Dan fancifully thought
so, as he stole a glance at her frail beauty, or perhaps she was more
like a silver-point drawing, exquisitely fine. But whatever image love
might find to express her loveliness, Dan knew in his hot passion that
she was the one girl in the world for him. Lillian Halliday was a much
better name for her than Lillian Moon.
Dan himself was tall and slim, dark and virile, with a clear-cut,
clean-shaven face suggestive of strength and activity. His bronzed
complexion showed an open-air life, while the eagle look in his dark
eyes was that new vast-distance expression rapidly being acquired by
those who devote themselves to aviation. No one could deny Dan's good
looks or clean life, or daring nature, and he was all that a girl
could desire in the way of a fairy prince. But fathers do not approve
of fairy princes unless they come laden with jewels and gold. To bring
such to Lillian was rather like taking coals to Newcastle since her
father was so wealthy; but much desires more, and Sir Charles wanted a
rich son-in-law. Dan could not supply this particular adjective, and
therefore--as he would have put it in the newest slang of the newest
profession--was out of the fly. Not that he intended to be, in spite
of Sir Charles, since love can laugh at stern fathers as easily as at
bolts and bars.
And all this time Lillian stared at the door, and then at Dan, and
then at her plate, putting two and two together. But in spite of her
feminine intuition, she could not make four, and turned to her
lover--for that Dan was, and a declared lover too--for an explanation.
"What does dad mean?" Dan raised his handsome head and laughed as
grimly as Sir Charles had done earlier. "He means that I shan't be
asked to dinner any more."
"Why? You have done nothing."
"No; but I intend to do something."
"What's that?"
Dan glanced at the closed door and seeing that there was no immediate
chance of butler or footmen entering took her in his arms. "Marry
you," he whispered between two kisses.
"There's no intention about that," pouted the girl; "we have settled
that ever so long ago."
"So your father suspects, and for that reason he is warning Mrs.
Bolstreath."
"Warning the dragon," said Miss Moon, who used the term quite in an
affectionate way, "why, the dragon is on our side."
"I daresay your father guesses as much. For that reason I'll stake my
life that he is telling her at this moment she must never let us be
together alone after this evening. After all, my dear, I don't see why
you should look at me in such a puzzled way. You know well enough that
Sir Charles wants you to marry Curberry."
"Marry Lord Curberry," cried Lillian, her pale skin coloring to a deep
rose hue; "why I told dad I wouldn't do that."
"Did you tell dad that you loved me?"
"No. There's no need to," said the girl promptly.
Dan coughed drily. "I quite agree with you," he said rising, "there's
no need to, since every time I look at you, I give myself away. But
you surely understand, darling, that as I haven't a title and I
haven't money, I can't have you. Hothouse grapes are for the rich and
not for a poor devil like me."
"You might find a prettier simile," laughed Lillian, not at all
discomposed, although she now thoroughly understood the meaning of her
father's abrupt departure with Mrs. Bolstreath. Then she rose and took
Dan by the lapels of his coat, upon which he promptly linked her to
himself by placing both arms round her waist. "Dearest," she said
earnestly, "I shall marry you and you only. We have been brought up
more or less together, and we have always loved one another. Dad was
your guardian: you have three hundred a year of your own, and if we
marry dad can give us plenty, and----"
"I know all that," interrupted Halliday, placing her arms round his
neck, "and it is just because Sir Charles knows also, that he will
never consent to our marriage. I knew what was in the wind weeks ago,
darling heart, and every day I have been expecting what has occurred
to-night. For that reason, I have come here as often as possible and
have arranged for you and the dragon to go to the theatre to-night.
But, believe me, Lillian, it will be for the last time. To-morrow I
shall receive a note saying that I am to stay away from Lord
Curberry's bride."
"I'm not his bride and I never shall be," stamped Lillian, and the
tears came into her pretty eyes, whereupon Dan, as a loyal lover,
wiped them away with his pocket-handkerchief tenderly, "and--and--"
she faltered.
"And--and--" he mocked, knowing her requirements, which led him to
console her with a long and lingering kiss. "Oh!" he sighed and
Lillian, nestling in his arms, echoed the sigh. The moment of perfect
understanding and perfect love held them until the sudden opening of
the door placed Dan on one side of the table and Lillian on the other.
"It won't do, my dears," said the new-comer, who was none other than
Mrs. Bolstreath, flaming with wrath, but not, as the lovers found
later, at them. "I know quite well that Dan hasn't wasted his time in
this league-divided wooing."
"We thought that one of the servants----" began the young man, when
Mrs. Bolstreath interrupted.
"Well, and am I not one of the servants? Sir Charles has reminded me
of the fact three times with the information that I am not worth my
salt, much less the good table he keeps."
"Oh! Bolly dear," and Lillian ran to the stout chaperon to embrace her
with many kisses, "was dad nasty?"
"He wasn't agreeable," assented Mrs. Bolstreath, fanning herself with
her handkerchief, for the interview had heated her. "You can't expect
him to be, my sweet, when his daughter loves a pauper."
"Thank you," murmured Dan bowing, "but don't you think it is time we
went to the theatre, Bolly dear."
"You must not be so familiar, young man," said the chaperon, broadly
smiling at the dark handsome face. "Sir Charles wants Lillian to
marry----"
"Then I shan't!" Lillian stamped again, "I hate Lord Curberry."
"And you love Dan!"
"Don't be so familiar, young woman," said Halliday, in a joking way,
"unless you are on our side, that is."
"If I were not on your side," rejoined Mrs. Bolstreath, majestically,
"I should be the very dragon Lillian calls me. After all, Dan, you
_are_ poor."
"Poor, but honest."
"Worse and worse. Honest people never grow rich. And then you have
such a dangerous profession, taking people flying trips in those
aeroplanes. One never can be sure if you will be home to supper. I'm
sure Lillian would not care to marry a husband who was uncertain about
being home for supper."
"I'll marry Dan," said Lillian, and embraced Dan, who returned the
embrace.
"Children! Children!" Mrs. Bolstreath raised her hands in horror,
"think of what you are doing. The servants may be in at any moment.
Come to the drawing-room and have coffee. The motor-car is waiting and
--hush, separate, separate," cried the chaperon, "someone is coming!"
She spoke truly, for the lovers had just time to fly asunder when
Sir Charles's secretary entered swiftly. He was a lean, tall,
haggard-looking young fellow of thirty with a pallid complexion and scanty
light hair. A thin moustache half concealed a weak mouth, and he
blinked his eyes in a nervous manner when he bowed to the ladies
and excused his presence. "Sir Charles left his spectacles here," he
said in a soft and rather unsteady voice, "he sent me for them
and----" he had glided to the other side of the table by this
time--"oh, here they are. The motor-car waits, Miss Moon."
"Where is my father?" asked Lillian irrelevantly. "Tell me, Mr. Penn."
"In the library, Miss Moon," said the secretary glibly, "but he cannot
see any one just now--not even you, Miss Moon."
"Why not?"
"He is waiting to interview an official from Scotland Yard--a Mr.
Durwin on important business."
"You see," murmured Dan to Lillian in an undertone, "your father
intends to lock me up for daring to love you."
Miss Moon took no notice. "What is the business?" she asked sharply.
"Indeed, I don't know, Miss Moon. It is strictly private. Sir Charles
has related nothing to me. And if you will excuse me--if you don't
mind--these spectacles are wanted and----" he babbled himself out of
the room, while Mrs. Bolstreath turned on her charge.
"You don't mean to say, you foolish child, that you were going to see
your father about 'this'!" she indicated Halliday.
"I don't care about being called a 'this'!" said Dan, stiffly.
Neither lady noticed the protest. "I want to make it clear to my
father as soon as possible, that I shall marry Dan and no one else,"
declared Lillian, pursing up her pretty mouth obstinately.
"Then take him at the right moment," retorted Mrs. Bolstreath crossly,
for the late interview had tried even her amiable temper. "Just now he
is seething with indignation that an aviator should dare to raise his
eyes to you."
"Aviators generally look down," said Dan flippantly; "am I to be
allowed to take you and Lillian to the theatre this evening?"
"Yes. Although Sir Charles mentioned that you would do better to spend
your money on other things than mere frivolity."
"Oh!" said Halliday with a shrug, "as to that, this particular
frivolity is costing me nothing. I got the box from Freddy Laurance,
who is on that very up-to-date newspaper _The Moment_ as a reporter. I
have dined at my future father-in-law's expense, and now I go in his
motor-car without paying for the trip. I don't see that my pleasures
could cost me less. Even Sir Charles must be satisfied with such
strict economy."
"Sir Charles will be satisfied with nothing save a promise for you to
go away and leave Lillian alone," said Mrs. Bolstreath, sadly, "he has
no feeling of romance such as makes me foolish enough to encourage a
pauper."
"You called me that before," said Dan, coolly, "well, there's no
getting over facts. I am a pauper, but I love Lillian."
"And I--" began Lillian, advancing, only to be waved back and
prevented from speaking further by Mrs. Bolstreath.
"Don't make love before my very eyes," she said crossly, "after all I
am paid to keep you two apart, and--and--well, there's no time for
coffee, so we had better finish the discussion in the car. There is
plenty of time between Hampstead and the Strand to allow of a long
argument. And remember, Dan," Mrs. Bolstreath turned at the door to
shake her finger, "this is your last chance of uninterrupted
conversation with Lillian."
"Let us make honey while the flowers bloom," whispered Halliday,
poetically, and stole a final and hasty kiss before he led the girl
after the amiable dragon, who had already left the room.
The lovers found her talking to a poorly-dressed and rather stout
female clothed in rusty mourning, who looked the picture of decent but
respectable poverty. The entrance door stood open, and the waiting
motor-car could be seen at the steps, while the footman stood near
Mrs. Bolstreath, watching her chatting to the stranger and wearing an
injured expression. It seemed that the decent woman wished to see Sir
Charles, and the footman had refused her admission since his master
was not to be disturbed. The woman--she called herself Mrs. Brown and
was extremely tearful--had therefore appealed to the dragon, who was
explaining that she could do nothing.
"Oh, but I am sure you can get Sir Charles Moon to see me, my lady,"
wailed Mrs. Brown with a dingy handkerchief to her red eyes, "my son
has been lost overboard off one of those steamers Sir Charles owns,
and I want to ask him to give me some money. My son was my only
support, and now I am starving."
Lillian knew that her father owned a number of tramp steamers, which
picked up cargoes all over the world, and saw no reason why the woman
should not have the interview since her son had been drowned while in
Moon's service. The hour was certainly awkward, since Sir Charles had
an appointment before he went down to the House. But a starving woman
and a sorrowful woman required some consideration so she stepped
forward hastily and touched Mrs. Brown's rusty cloak.
"I shall ask my father to see you," she said quickly, "wait here!" and
without consulting Mrs. Bolstreath she went impulsively to her
father's study, while Mrs. Brown dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief
and called down blessings on her young head.
Dan believed the story of the lost son, but doubted the tale of
starvation as Mrs. Brown looked too stout to have been without food
for any length of time. He looked hard at her face, which was more
wrinkled than a fat woman's should be; although such lines might be
ascribed to grief. She wept profusely and was so overcome with sorrow
that she let down a ragged veil when she saw Dan's eager gaze. The
young gentleman, she observed, could not understand a mother's
feelings, or he would not make a show of her by inquisitorial glances.
The remark was somewhat irrelevant, and the action of letting down the
veil unnecessary, but much might be pardoned to a woman so obviously
afflicted.
Dan was about to excuse his inquiring looks, when Lillian danced back
with the joyful information that her father would see Mrs. Brown for a
few minutes if she went in at once. "And I have asked him to help
you," said the girl, patting the tearful woman's shoulder, as she
passed to the motor-car. "Oh! it's past eight o'clock. Dan, we'll
never be in time."
"The musical comedy doesn't begin until nine," Halliday assured her,
and in a few minutes the three of them were comfortably seated in the
luxurious car, which whirled at break-neck speed towards the Strand.
Of course Lillian and Dan took every advantage of the opportunity,
seeing that Mrs. Bolstreath was sympathetic enough to close her eyes
to their philanderings. They talked all the way to the Curtain
Theatre; they talked all through the musical comedy; and talked all
the way back to the house at Hampstead. Mrs. Bolstreath, knowing that
the young couple would not have another opportunity for uninterrupted
love-making, and being entirely in favor of the match, attended to the
stage and left them to whisper unreproved. She did not see why Dan,
whom Lillian had loved since the pair had played together as children,
should be set aside in favor of a dry-as-dust barrister, even though
he had lately come into a fortune and a title. "But, of course," said
Mrs. Bolstreath between the facts, "if you could only invent a perfect
flying-machine, they would make you a duke or something and give you a
large income. Then you could marry."
"What are you talking about, Bolly darling?" asked Lillian, much
puzzled, as she could not be supposed to know what was going on inside
her friend's head.
"About you and Dan, dear. He has no money and----"
"I shall make heaps and heaps of money," said Dan, sturdily; "aviation
is full of paying possibilities, and the nation that first obtains
command of the air will rule the world. I'm no fool!"
"You're a commoner," snapped Mrs. Bolstreath quickly, "and unless, as
I said, you are made a duke for inventing a perfect aeroplane, Lord
Curberry is certainly a better match for Lillian."
"He's as dull as tombs," said Miss Moon with her pretty nose in the
air.
"You can't expect to have everything, my dear child."
"I can expect to have Dan," retorted Lillian decidedly, whereat Dan
whispered sweet words and squeezed his darling's gloved hand.
"Well," said Mrs. Bolstreath, as the curtain rose on the second act,
"I'll do my best to help you since I believe in young love and true
love. Hush, children, people are looking! Attend to the stage."
Dan and Lillian did their best to follow her advice and sat demurely
in their stalls side by side, watching the heroine flirt in a duet
with the hero, both giving vent to their feelings in a lively musical
number. But they really took little interest in "The Happy Bachelor!"
as the piece was called, in spite of the pretty girls and the charming
music and the artistic dresses and the picturesque scenery. They were
together and that was all they cared about, and although a dark cloud
of parental opposition hovered over them, they were not yet enveloped
in its gloom. And after all, since Mrs. Bolstreath was strongly
prejudiced in their favor, Lillian hoped that she might induce Sir
Charles to change his mind as regards Lord Curberry. He loved his
daughter dearly and would not like to see her unhappy, as she
certainly would be if compelled to marry any one but Dan. Lillian said
this to Mrs. Bolstreath and to Dan several times on the way home, and
they entirely agreed with her.
"Although I haven't much influence with Sir Charles," Mrs. Bolstreath
warned them, "and he is fond of having his own way."
"He always does what I ask," said Lillian confidently. "Why, although
he was so busy this evening he saw Mrs. Brown when I pleaded for her."
"He couldn't resist you," whispered Dan fondly, "no one could."
Mrs. Bolstreath argued this point, saying that Lillian was Sir
Charles's daughter, and fathers could not be expected to feel like
lovers. She also mentioned that she was jeopardizing her situation by
advocating the match, which was certainly a bad one from a financial
point of view, and would be turned out of doors as an old romantic
fool. The lovers assured her she was the most sensible of women and
that if she was turned out of doors they would take her in to the
cottage where they proposed to reside like two turtle doves. Then came
laughter and kisses and the feeling that the world was not such a bad
place after all. It was a very merry trio that alighted at the door of
Moon's great Hampstead mansion.
Then came a shock, the worse for being wholly unexpected. At the door
the three were met by Marcus Penn, who was Moon's secretary. He looked
leaner and more haggard than ever, and his general attitude was that
of the bearer of evil news. Dan and Lillian and Mrs. Bolstreath stared
at him in amazement. "You may as well know the worst at once, Miss
Moon," said Penn, his lips quivering with nervousness, "your father is
dead. He has been murdered."