TOO LATE
Mrs. Braxfield herself opened the door of Woodland Cottage to Mr.
Fransemmery, and making out his identity by the light of the lamp in
her hall, bade him enter in tones of warm welcome.
“Never rains but it pours!” she exclaimed, as she ushered the visitor
towards her parlour. “I’ve got one caller already, and now here’s
another; glad to see you, Mr. Fransemmery!”
Mr. Fransemmery stepped into a well-lighted, cosy sitting-room, and
found himself staring at Blick. Blick smiled and nodded; he
recognized the newcomer as the bland and spectacled gentleman who had
acted as foreman of the jury at the recent inquest. Mr. Fransemmery,
of course, knew who Blick was. He hesitated on the threshold.
“If you’re talking business matters—” he suggested.
“Not at all!” exclaimed Mrs. Braxfield. “This young gentleman—too
young, I tell him, to have such a job as he has!—simply came to ask
me what he calls a pertinent question about my evidence the other
morning. I’m a very good-tempered woman, as you well know, Mr.
Fransemmery, or I might have given his question another name, and
called it impertinent! What do you think he wanted to know, Mr.
Fransemmery? If I was certain that the man I saw on the hill-side the
morning of the murder was Mr. John Harborough? The idea!”
Blick, who looked very much at home in an easy chair, gave Mrs.
Braxfield a whimsical glance.
“Well, you haven’t told me yet if you were certain!” he said.
Mrs. Braxfield bridled.
“I’m not so old that I’ve lost the use of my eyes, my lad!” she
exclaimed. “I can see as well as you can!—better, for anything I
know.”
“It was very early in the morning,” remarked Blick. “The light was
uncertain—I’ve learned that there was a good deal of mist about on
the hill-sides—Hobbs, the man who found Guy Markenmore’s body, says
that about here it was very misty indeed that Tuesday morning——”
“How does he know?” demanded Mrs. Braxfield sharply. “Was he about
here at that time—four o’clock?”
“He was about here an hour and a half later, and if it was misty at
five-thirty it would be still more so at four-fifteen,” retorted
Blick. “Now, if it was—as it was!—misty you might easily mistake
one person for another, Mrs. Braxfield. And, at that time you
referred to in your evidence, there was a man, closely resembling Mr.
Harborough in height, build, and general appearance—I don’t refer to
facial resemblance—who was somewhere in this immediate
neighbourhood.”
“What man?” asked Mrs. Braxfield suspiciously.
“Baron von Eckhardstein,” said Blick. “That’s a fact!”
Mrs. Braxfield turned to Mr. Fransemmery, who had been standing
during the exchange of words, and pointed him to an easy chair,
opposite that in which Blick sat. She took another, between the two
men.
“Oh!” she said. “So he was up here, was he? That foreign man, staying
at Mrs. Tretheroe’s? Oh! Indeed! Well, I never saw him!—the man I
saw was Mr. Harborough. To be sure, now to think of it, that
foreigner is about Mr. Harborough’s height and figure.”
“Now that you think of it again, don’t you think that you may have
been mistaken?” suggested Blick. “Don’t you think that the man you
saw may have been von Eckhardstein, and not Harborough? Come, now!”
“No!” said Mrs. Braxfield. “You won’t come it over me, young man!
I’ve been in a law-court before today, and you’re suggesting answers
to your witness. The man I saw, and that I spoke about in that
witness-box was John Harborough! Do you think that I shouldn’t know a
man who’s been well known to me ever since he was that high?
Ridiculous!”
“You hadn’t seen Harborough for seven years,” said Blick.
“What’s seven years out of thirty-five?” retorted Mrs. Braxfield,
with scorn. “I remember John Harborough being born, there at
Greycloister. I tell you it was him that I saw on Tuesday morning—of
course it was! It is ridiculous, isn’t it, Mr. Fransemmery?”
Mr. Fransemmery, utterly puzzled to know what all this was about,
glanced at the detective.
“I—er—thought that Mr. Harborough fully admitted that he was up
this way on Tuesday morning about four o’clock?” he observed.
“Mr. Harborough did; Mr. Harborough was up here,” agreed Blick.
“There’s no question of that. But, so was another man—von
Eckhardstein. It’s all—for me—a question of exact times and places.
I thought that Mrs. Braxfield might have been mistaken, but as she
was not, I can only congratulate her on her excellent eyesight! Oh,
by the way, Mrs. Braxfield,” he added, with a smile. “There’s another
matter—a pleasanter one—-on which I must congratulate you! I heard
in the village, just before I came up, of the event which you had
announced. I wish your daughter every happiness in her new station;
from what I’m told she’ll fill it admirably.”
“Why, thank you, I think she will, and I’m much obliged to you,”
responded Mrs. Braxfield. “But that’ll be so much Greek to Mr.
Fransemmery—you don’t know what he’s talking about, Mr. Fransemmery,
do you?
“I—I think I do, Mrs. Braxfield,” replied Mr. Fransemmery. “I—the
fact is, just before coming out, I had a visit from Miss Markenmore.
She told me that her brother, now Sir Henry Markenmore, was married
to your daughter, and that he intends to make public announcement of
the fact to his kinsfolk and his solicitor tomorrow, after the sad
ceremony of which we are all aware is over. But—er—I understood
that no other announcement had yet been made?”
“Did you?” exclaimed Mrs. Braxfield, a little contemptuously. “No
doubt you would—from Valencia Markenmore! But they have me to reckon
with, Mr. Fransemmery, and I intend that my daughter, Lady
Markenmore, shall occupy her rightful position tomorrow! She’ll get
home here tonight from London, where she’s been staying with
friends—I expect her from Selcaster station about eleven o’clock.
She’s coming by the last train, and tomorrow morning she’ll assume
her proper place at Markenmore Court. As to whether she attends the
funeral ceremonies of Sir Anthony and Mr. Guy she and her husband,
Sir Harry, can decide; I’m nothing to do with that, Mr. Fransemmery.
What I have to do with is making sure that my daughter, now that she
is Lady Markenmore, is in her proper position as mistress of
Markenmore Court when its late master is carried out for burial!”
Mr. Fransemmery made no immediate reply. He was conscious now that
the ground had been cut from under his feet; there was no chance of
fulfilling his promise to Valencia. Evidently, the new Lady
Markenmore’s mother had assumed responsibility, mounted her high
horse, and had her own way.
“I sincerely hope the young people will be happy,” he said lamely.
“I—er—trust so!”
“Be their own fault if they aren’t!” declared Mrs. Braxfield sharply.
“What’s to prevent it? I shan’t! I’ve been uncommonly good to
them—especially to him; far more so than most mothers would have
been in similar circumstances, I assure you, Mr. Fransemmery. You
don’t know everything!”
“I know next to nothing, ma’am,” protested Mr. Fransemmery. “I am
just acquainted with the bare fact of the marriage.”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Mrs. Braxfield. “I don’t mind your
knowing, and I don’t mind this young man knowing, stranger though he
is——”
“I’ve been trying to say good-bye for the last ten minutes,” said
Blick good-humouredly. “But you were so engrossed with your family
affairs that you didn’t notice I’d risen, Mrs. Braxfield. I wasn’t
lingering to listen—out of curiosity.”
“Never said you were!” retorted Mrs. Braxfield. “Sit down again—as
you’re concerned in Guy Markenmore’s affairs, you’re concerned in his
brother’s, my son-in-law. I said I didn’t mind your knowing the facts
of this marriage—I don’t mind anybody knowing; it’s not my fault
that it hasn’t been open. It was like this, Mr. Fransemmery. You know
that my daughter is a very pretty, very graceful, highly accomplished
girl. She gets her good looks from my family—all our women have been
distinguished for their good looks, though I say it myself.”
“You may safely and justly say it for yourself, ma’am!” murmured Mr.
Fransemmery. “As I have frequently observed.”
“I join in Mr. Fransemmery’s sentiments, Mrs. Braxfield,” added Blick
with a bow. “Precisely what I was thinking!”
“Well, I’ve worn very well,” said Mrs. Braxfield complacently. “We
all do—and as I say, my daughter has inherited the family good
looks. And as for her accomplishments—well, if she isn’t a
well-educated young woman, it’s her own fault. She went to the Girl’s
High School at Selcaster from being ten until she was fifteen; then
she’d two years at the very best boarding-school I could hear of in
London, and she finished off with twelve months in Paris. Cost me no
end of money, I can tell you, her education did! And having brought
her up like that, well, I sold my business at the Sceptre and retired
here, so that the girl would have proper surroundings. And it was not
so long after coming here, Mr. Fransemmery, that I found out that she
and young Harry Markenmore were sweet on each other, and meeting in
these woods and so on. I wasn’t going to have that going on unless I
knew what it all meant, and what it was going to lead to, so I had it
out with him. Then he got me to consent to an engagement, though he
persuaded me to let him keep that secret from his father and sister
for a while. And in the end he got round me about this marriage—he
promised that if I’d only consent to that, he’d tell Sir Anthony of
it very soon afterwards. So I gave way, and I saw them married, in a
London church, and just afterwards Sir Anthony fell ill, and Harry
made that an excuse for putting things off, and though there were
times—plenty of them, Mr. Fransemmery!—when he could have told his
father—and of course, he could have told his sister at any time—he
was always making excuses. So when Sir Anthony died the other day,
and this affair of Guy’s happened, and Harry came into the title and
estates, I made up my mind that I’d have the thing seen to and put
right at once, and I told him so. I’ve seen him twice today, and he’s
just like every Markenmore that ever I knew—obstinate and
self-willed! He wanted to put it off again—until his father and
brother were buried. I said No!—my daughter was going to take her
proper position as mistress of Markenmore Court tomorrow morning. And
so she will!”
“I think, ma’am,” observed Mr. Fransemmery quietly, “you said just
now that you had announced this marriage?”
“I have!” answered Mrs. Braxfield.
“To whom, may I ask?” enquired the elder visitor. “Mr. Blick, I
think, has heard it from somebody in the village?”
“I announced it to the proper people,” replied Mrs. Braxfield with
spirit. “I’m not the sort of person to do otherwise. I announced it
to the Vicar; to Mr. Chilford, the Markenmore’s family solicitor; and
to Mrs. Perrin, the wife of the principal tenant-farmer.”
“With leave, I suppose, to tell the news to any one?” suggested Mr.
Fransemmery.
“Of course! Why not, Mr. Fransemmery?” exclaimed Mrs. Braxfield. “My
daughter is Lady Markenmore!”
Mr. Fransemmery coughed—a short, dry, embarrassed cough—and Mrs.
Braxfield looked at him, suddenly and sharply. She had detected, or
fancied she had detected, some meaning in that cough.
“What now?” she asked, a note of impatience in her voice. “What’s
that mean, Mr. Fransemmery? I know you’re a lawyer, though you don’t
practise it—are you implying that my daughter isn’t Lady Markenmore?”
“If her husband is Sir Harry Markenmore, ma’am, your daughter is
certainly Lady Markenmore,” replied Mr. Fransemmery calmly. “But—is
he?”
Mrs. Braxfield’s rosy cheeks turned pale. Blick, who was watching her
closely, saw a sudden compression of her lips; he saw, too, an
involuntary, mechanical lifting of her hand, upward. But the colour
came back as she turned on Mr. Fransemmery.
“Whatever do you mean?” she demanded with an awkward attempt at an
incredulous laugh. “Sir Harry! Of course, he’s Sir Harry! His
father’s dead—his brother’s dead——”
“Supposing his brother left a son?” said Mr. Fransemmery, in quiet,
level tones. “What then?”
Mrs. Braxfield turned paler than before. And now Blick, keenly alive
to the new situation and possibilities, saw that she was really
alarmed. She stared silently at Mr. Fransemmery—stared and stared,
and still remained silent. And Blick spoke, looking at the elder man.
“You wouldn’t say that unless you’d some grounds for saying it,” he
observed. “Have you? Because, if so, I’d like to know. It’s my duty
to get all the information I can about Guy Markenmore.”
“Mr. Blick,” answered Mr. Fransemmery in his gravest accents, “your
profession being what it is, I can speak freely to you. And I will
speak freely to Mrs. Braxfield, things having developed as they have.
What I am going to say has only been known to me for a few hours; I
think it may be known to the Markenmores’ solicitor by now—it may
be—and possibly to Harry Markenmore. But I’ll tell you and Mrs.
Braxfield what it is, now—it may save some trouble. Mind, this is
nothing that I can personally vouch for!—it is only something that I
have heard. And it is this—I may tell you that I have spent the
whole day searching for Baron von Eckhardstein; I have been all up
and down in the lonelier parts of the woods and in some of the Down
valleys. About noon I was in that very out-of-the-way valley on the
other side of one hill, called Grayling Bottom—a wild, solitary
place, Mr. Blick. There is just one human habitation in it, tenanted
by a woman whom Mrs. Braxfield no doubt knows—Margaret Hilson. It
was very chilly in that valley—a sunless, cold place always—and I
asked Margaret Hilson to let me sit by her cottage fire while I ate
my lunch, which I had carried out with me. This woman is a close,
reserved person—the sort, I should say, who could keep secrets for
ever if she chose—but she talked to me with some freedom about the
present events and situation. And finding that I was a lawyer, she
talked still more freely, and in the end—knowing, as she said, that
things would have to come out—she said she would tell me something
that she had kept entirely to herself for four years. Briefly, it was
this: Margaret Hilson says that at just about the time of Guy
Markenmore’s disappearance from these parts, there also disappeared a
girl named Myra Halliwell, a very pretty girl, one of two daughters
of a small farmer in this neighbourhood, whose sister, Daphne
Halliwell, she said, went out to India as lady’s-maid to Mrs.
Tretheroe, came back with her, and is now in her service at the Dower
House. This Myra, says Margaret Hilson, was considered to be engaged
to be married to a man named Roper—James Roper—a woodman, still, I
believe, employed on the Markenmore estate. But, as I have said, she,
according to Margaret Hilson, completely disappeared at the same time
that Guy Markenmore left the Court. That,” observed Mr. Fransemmery,
pausing in his narration and glancing significantly at the detective,
“is an important matter to keep in mind—in view of what follows.”
Blick nodded. But he was not watching Mr. Fransemmery so much as he
was watching Mrs. Braxfield. Obviously she was more than deeply
interested in the story which was being so unexpectedly revealed to
her, and since the introduction of Myra Halliwell’s name her interest
had deepened almost to the point of agitation. Her colour came and
went; her lips were alternately compressed and relaxed; clearly,
thought Blick, this woman was distinctly anxious, not to say alarmed.
And when Mr. Fransemmery paused, she kept her eyes on him with an
expression which showed that she was waiting, with almost frightened
eagerness, to know what was coming next.
“Well,” continued Mr. Fransemmery, “what follows is this: Margaret
Hilson, some four years after the disappearance of Myra Halliwell
from these parts, went to London to visit a sister of hers who lived
near Wandsworth Common. Margaret usually went out on the Common of a
morning, to take the air, while her sister, a working-man’s wife, was
engaged on her household tasks. One morning, as she was strolling
about, she saw a young, smartly dressed woman whose appearance seemed
familiar to her, and who had with her a nursemaid in charge of a
perambulator in which was a child. They came near, and in the smart
young woman Margaret Hilson recognized Myra Halliwell. The
recognition was mutual; they stopped and spoke to each other. And the
result was that Myra Halliwell, pledging Margaret to secrecy,
confided to her that she was married to Mr. Guy Markenmore, and that
the child in the perambulator, now three years old, was their son——”
Mrs. Braxfield suddenly smote the table with her clenched fist.
“A lie!” she exclaimed hoarsely. “A lie—all through! Why!—he asked
Mrs. Tretheroe to marry him, the night he was here! You both heard
her swear it—in the witness-box; you know you did!”
Blick said nothing. He was watching Mr. Fransemmery now—convinced
that there was more in and behind this story than he had at first
imagined. Its various phases were opening up new ideas, new visions
to him; he was becoming professionally excited over it.
“I have not yet finished, Mrs. Braxfield,” said Mr. Fransemmery
quietly. “Allow me—now, Margaret Hilson, who, in my opinion, is just
the woman to keep close thoughts—promised young Mrs. Guy that she
would keep the secret, and she did. But, a year ago, Margaret Hilson
went to visit her sister again—at the same place. Again, she took
her walks on Wandsworth Common. And, one morning, she met, not Mrs.
Guy Markenmore, but the same nurse, with the same child, then grown
into a sturdy boy of five. She spoke to the nurse, who told her that
the mother was dead—had died a year previously, of pneumonia; the
child, she said, was being brought up by a lady to whose care he had
been entrusted on his mother’s death, and she, the nurse, remained
with him. The nurse, who probably saw no reason why she should not
talk freely to a woman with whom she had seen her late mistress in
close and intimate conversation, added some details. She said that
the child’s father came to see him twice a week, and always spent
Sunday afternoon with him; she, the nurse, spoke of him as a handsome
and well-to-do man. She further said that the child was called after
him—Guy. Finally, she told Margaret Hilson where her late mistress
was buried, and Margaret Hilson went to see the grave. She found it
easily enough from the particulars given her, and she saw the
inscription on the tombstone—Myra, wife of Guy Markenmore. That,
too, Margaret Hilson has kept to herself—but, Mrs. Braxfield, she
was not going to keep it to herself longer than tonight! Her
intention, when I called at her cottage, was to tell Mr. Chilford all
that she knew, this evening; as I did call, she told me. I advised
her to tell Chilford at once—by now, she may have done so—I suppose
she has. I don’t think there’s the slightest ground for doubting the
truth of her story—why should there be? And it is, of course,
absolutely certain that if the late Guy Markenmore’s little boy is
alive—why, he’s the heir to the title and the estates!”