Leonora, Countess of Moron, paced her long dressing-room, her hands
behind her, a calm, speculative woman, for emotion did not belong to
her. Chesney Praye and the doctor she had left in the music-room, and
through the windows that overlooked the stone porch at the front of
the house she had, a few minutes before, seen the car pass which
carried Mary Pinder to happiness and freedom.
Lady Moron felt no resentment against any save the weakling son she
had hated from his birth. There was still a hope that the wheel would
turn by some miracle in her favour. All she had played for, all she
had won, was gone. It was the hour of reparation and judgment, not yet
for her the hour of penitence.
Opening a little safe that was set in the wall, concealed by a silver
barometer, she took out a tiny box and shook on to the table a folded
sheet of newspaper and a key. This she put into her bag. From the back
of the safe she pulled to view a small automatic pistol, and, jerking
back the cover to assure herself that it was loaded, fixed the safety
catch. This too went into the bag. Then she rang the bell, and her
scared maid answered after a long interval.
“Tell Henry that I wish the Rolls to be at the door in ten minutes,”
she said, and at the end of that time, with her cloak wrapped about
her shoulders, she stepped into the car, pausing only to give
directions. “Charlotte Street,” she said, and gave the number.
She turned over in her mind the events of the past few weeks, striving
to discover the key flaw of her plan. Some force had been working
against her. Dorn was the instrument, but behind that was a power the
identity of which she could not imagine.
The car ran through the deserted streets of Reading along the long
road to Maidenhead. Still her problem was not solved. Who was behind
Dorn? She had for him a certain amount of admiration. She had known,
the moment he came into the case, that the little men who had seemed
so big, Chesney Praye and the doctor, were valueless.
The car came noiselessly to the door of Lois Reddle’s home. She looked
up at the lighted windows and was slightly amused. Selwyn would be
there, basking in the approval of the bourgeoisie. Even her feeling of
bitterness towards him had been blunted on the journey. This was to be
the last throw.
Old Mackenzie, on his way up to Lizzy’s kitchenette to brew more
coffee, heard the knock and called to Lizzy:
“There’s somebody at the door, miss: will you open it for me?”
A transfigured Lizzy, dustless and tidy, ran down the stairs two at a
time and pulled open the door. At first she did not recognise the
woman, and then:
“You can’t come in here, ma’am,” she said.
“I wish to see Miss Reddle,” said the countess. “Please don’t be
ridiculous!”
She had still an overawing effect upon Lizzy, and the girl stood on
one side, and followed the leisurely figure up the stairs.
The door of Mackenzie’s room was open, and as she walked into the
chamber, a sudden silence fell upon the gathering. She looked from
face to face and smiled. But the smile faded when her eyes rested upon
the man who sat by the plain deal table near the window.
“Mr. Shaddles!” she faltered.
He nodded.
“So it was you? I might have guessed that.”
“Yes, madam, it was I. My family have been the Moron lawyers for
hundreds of years, and it was not likely that I should cease to study
their interests.”
“It was you!” she said again. “I should have guessed that. You opposed
my marriage to Lord Moron.”
He nodded.
“I should have opposed it more if I had known what I know now,” he
said. “Will you be seated?”
She nodded and sat down, her bag on her knees, opened. Michael Dorn
stood by the lawyer’s side, and his eyes never left her face.
“Well, I suppose everybody knows now?” said the countess pleasantly.
“Nobody knows--yet. I particularly asked Miss Smith, when she called
me on the ’phone, not to tell the story until I came. It is not a long
story, madam, if you will permit me?”
She nodded.
“The late Earl of Moron married twice,” said Shaddles. “By his first
wife he had a son, William. By his second wife--which is your
ladyship--a son, Selwyn, who is with us to-night. William was a
high-spirited, honourable young man, who served Her Majesty Queen
Victoria in a regiment of Highlanders. He was a thought romantic, and
nothing was more natural than that, when he met Mary Pinder----”
“Mary Pinder!” gasped Lois, but he did not notice the interruption.
“----when he met Mary Pinder, who was then a very beautiful girl of
seventeen or eighteen, he should fall in love with her. He did not
reveal his identity. He had a craze for walking tours, and at that
time was travelling through Hereford--not under his own name, which
was Viscount Craman, but under the name of Pinder, which was his
mother’s maiden name. He met the girl several times without telling
her who he was, and married her by special licence, in the name of
Pinder, intending to reveal his status after the marriage. They had
been living together for a month, when he was suddenly called home by
the illness of his father, and arrived in Scotland to find the late
Earl dying of malignant scarlet fever. By a cruel fate, William was
infected with the disease and died two days after his father, leaving
his widow, ignorant alike of his identity and where he was staying.
“As he was dying, he told his stepmother, the present Lady Moron, the
story of his marriage, and begged her to send for his wife. This she
refrained from doing, especially when she learnt that the girl did not
know where or who he was. Lord Moron, as of course he was then, was
buried. Some time after the countess went to Hereford to seek out the
widow. Mrs. Pinder was living in the house of an eccentric woman, a
drug-taker and slightly mad. The woman had threatened to commit
suicide many times, and it happened that on the morning her ladyship
arrived in Hereford and made a call at the house to satisfy her
curiosity about her stepson’s wife, the landlady took the fatal step,
and when the caller walked into her room, she found her dead, with a
letter on the table announcing why she had committed suicide.
“Lady Moron is a woman of infinite resource. Here, she thought, was an
opportunity of removing for ever a possible claimant to the Moron
estate. On the table were a number of jewels and some money, which the
woman had put there in her madness. Gathering these, her ladyship went
into the girl’s room. She guessed it was hers when she saw the
photograph of William on the mantelpiece, a photograph which was
afterwards left in Lois’ room to discover if she knew her father. Lady
Moron placed the jewels and the poison in an open box, locked it,
taking away the key, and also a letter which would not only have
established Mrs. Pinder’s innocence, but if the part Lady Moron played
became public property, would also establish hers! That is the
explanation for what would seem at the most to be an indiscretion.
“As you know, Mary Pinder was tried, sentenced to death, and her
sentence commuted. In the prison her baby was born and taken in charge
by a neighbour friend--though for some reason it was announced in the
newspapers that the child of the ‘Hereford murderess’ had died. That,
at any rate, satisfied Lady Moron, and she made no attempt to verify
the story until she learnt by accident one day that Lois Reddle was
the missing girl. How she discovered this I do not pretend to know--I
am under the impression that one of her servants was connected with
the Reddle family.
“For years,” Mr. Shaddles went on, “I have been satisfied in my mind
that William was married, and have been trying to find his wife. I saw
him soon after he was dead, and there was a gold wedding ring on his
little finger, which was not there when he was buried. I also believed
that the child was alive, and sought her out. I found that she was
working at an office in Leith, and brought her down to my own office
so that she should be under my eye, and eventually engaged the
cleverest detective I could find to protect her. I then discovered
that Lady Moron had some inkling of her identity, and I confess I
hesitated when her ladyship suggested that the girl should go to her
house as secretary. It was only after consultation with Mr. Dorn that
I agreed. I had notified my suspicions to the Home Office, and a
special service officer, Sergeant Braime, had been planted in her
household to make enquiries, and to discover if she had been foolish
enough to preserve the suicide’s letter.”
He paused.
“I think that is all.”
“An excellent story,” said Lady Moron, “and in confirmation----”
She took something from her bag and threw it on the floor.
Dorn stooped and picked up the key and the letter, gave one quick
glance at its contents, and handed it to the lawyer.
“And now I have something else to say.” There was a dreadful silence.
The pistol was in her hand, and the safety-catch had been lowered.
“Most people in my position would commit suicide. But it will be very
poor satisfaction to me to go out of the world and leave my enemies to
triumph. I have a son--of sorts.” She smiled across the room to
Selwyn, and he met her gaze steadily. “I should not care to leave him
behind. Nor this wretched shop-girl”--her eyes sought Lois Reddle’s,
and instantly her mother was by her side, her frail body interposed
between the woman and her vengeance. “That is all,” said her ladyship.
And then Selwyn saw a look of horror come into his mother’s face. She
was staring at the doorway. Little Mackenzie, a tray in his hand, had
not seen the new visitor and he put down the tray with a chuckle.
“It’s a curious thing----” he said.
And then he saw the woman with the pistol.
“Martha!”
“My God!” she moaned. “I thought you were dead!”
The room was very quiet.
“I’d have recognised you if I hadn’t heard your fine, deep voice,”
said the old man, blinking at her. “It’s Martha, my wife--you’ve met
her, Mr. Shaddles?”
“I thought you were dead!” she said again, and the pistol dropped from
her nerveless hand.
* * * * * * *
“The point is,” said the disconsolate Selwyn. “I am in a perfectly
painful position, old dear, I’m not Lord anybody; I suppose I’m a
Moron of sorts. I’m what you might term a naughty Moron. I’m really
not worried about the mater--she’s in the south of France, and she’s
jolly lucky she’s not in a hotter place! She’s been a perfectly
fearful mother to me, and I don’t suppose I shall ever see her again,
and I don’t jolly well want to! She’ll probably live to ninety--she’s
that kind of mother.”
“Don’t be silly, Selwyn. Of course it makes all the difference!” said
Lizzy. “If you’d asked me when you were a real lord and I was a
typist--I’m a typist still, for the matter of that--I simply couldn’t
have allowed you to ruin your career. As it is----”
They were walking along a quiet by-path of the park when suddenly
Lizzy caught him by the arm and swung him round.
“Not that way,” she said. “Here’s a path through the rhododendrons.
They’ll never think of coming round here, and there’s a perfectly
beautiful seat--and at this time of the morning there’s nobody about.
We can sit and talk----”
Michael saw the hasty retreat and smiled to himself.
“That’s the queerest aspect of the whole case.”
“Do you think so?” asked Lois, Countess of Moron. “I know lots of
things that are queerer. I had a bill this morning from Mr. Shaddles.
He has charged me one pound six shillings for the damage you did to
his Ford!”
“He never has?” said the admiring Michael. “What a man! He must have
spent ten thousand pounds on this case if he spent a penny. Most of
which,” he added, “went to me.”
“Do you feel repaid?” she asked.
He nodded.
“I shall when your ladyship has said ‘thank you.’”
“Haven’t I said that yet?” she demanded in feigned surprise. “And
please don’t say ‘ladyship’--you give me the creeps. Well, I’ll thank
you, now--no, not now.”
They paused at the end of a little path.
“Let us go down here,” she said. “I think I remember there’s a
shrubbery at the other end, and a garden seat, and it’s hardly likely
that at this time of day…”