A GARDEN OF TRANSPLANTED FLOWERS
Cleek made not a single sound. A curious, intense, half-frightened
expression had settled down over his face. He walked on with brows knit
and eyes fixed on the road, and when Overton, impressed by his silence,
looked round at him, he saw that his lower lip was pushed outward beyond
the upper one, and that the pipe he had taken out and refilled hung from
the corner of his mouth still unlighted.
"It was a shocking experience, Mr. Headland," Overton said, fetching a
deep breath.
"Must have been," admitted Cleek, without looking up. "You're putting
some new ideas into my head, Mr. Overton. If it had been one of the
villagers, or even a servant from the Castle--anybody but _you_! H'm!
Wot happened afterward?"
"When I came to I was lying on my back in the road. The wind had died
utterly away, the trees were standing motionless again, but there was a
curious sound as of wheels passing and repassing me at a furious rate.
There was, however, not a moving thing in sight, and as the moon was
again shining brightly I could see quite clearly. Nevertheless,
frightened as I was--and I confess that I _was_ frightened, Mr.
Headland, horribly so--I struck several matches and examined the surface
of the road thoroughly."
"Why?"
"I had heard of those phantom wheels that were said to rush about the
village by night, but this was my first personal experience with them.
To judge by the sound alone, I should have declared that vehicles on
rubber tyres were scudding past me at the rate of five or six a minute
and almost within touching distance. When I struck those matches and
looked at the white dust of the road, there was nothing on it but the
prints of my own feet and a shapeless mark where I had fallen. The
wheels, however, were still speeding by in an unbroken stream of
traffic. I turned tail and ran as I haven't run since I was a boy, and I
never slackened pace either, until I was safe inside the Lodge and the
door bolted behind me. If I had had a bit of pluck just then, I should
have faced the dark avenue up to the Castle and told about the affair. I
wish now that I had. It would have saved that poor chap's life."
"Maybe, but you can't be sure of it, Mr. Overton. He was a daredevil
sort from what I've heard, and you can't do much with them kind of chaps
when they take a notion in their heads."
"Possibly not. Still, I might have tried. I shall never be quite able
to forgive myself for being such a coward. But I was absolutely in a
blue funk, and wouldn't have faced that long walk up the Oak Avenue for
the best thousand pounds I ever saw."
"Say anything to the duke about it?"
"No. I was going to do so, but this morning, when poor Davis's body was
found, His Grace was in something so very like a panic over the horrible
turn the abominable affair had taken, that I hadn't the heart to harrow
up his feelings still further--particularly as he was determined on
going up to town and putting the matter into the hands of Scotland Yard
at once. I shall do so, of course, when he's calmer. It is no use making
matters worse than they are. It is bad enough to feel that you have to
cope with natural forces without dragging supernatural ones into it. And
there _is_ some supernatural force connected with it, Mr. Headland--I'm
convinced of that now. Human beings may engineer a plot to haunt a
village for some purpose; may even brain a man and spirit away a child
to keep what they are up to from being found out--but they can't make
church bells ring without hands, nor wheels fly through dust without
leaving traces. Nor can they produce that monstrous Thing which I saw
with my own eyes last night."
"Well, I'll own it's got a devilish queer look, Mr. Overton," admitted
Cleek, gravely. "And, as I said before, if it was anybody but a
level-headed gent like you, I should think it was, maybe, a case of the
D.T.'s coming on. Still, of course, you know, they can do wonderful
things these days with electricity and flying machines--and Solinski's
no fool. Besides, the Cement Company's got the money to spend if it
wants to set about things properly and means to have a tract of land
that it needs. So, of course----Geraniums! Geraniums, fuchsias,
delphiniums, and lilies, or I'm a Dutchman!"
This remark had been rapped out so suddenly and with such vehemence, and
was so utterly foreign to the subject under discussion, that Mr. Overton
looked round at Cleek in absolute bewilderment.
By this time the walk from the station had brought them abreast of the
western boundaries of the Castle domain, and a rise in the road gave a
view of part of its splendid grounds. Beyond a low wall stretched an
expanse of lawn, green, close-clipped, level as a billiard table; on the
right there was the gleam of a water garden, the blaze of a rose-laden
pergola, and the snow of swans' wings; on the left, two straw-thatched
cottages and the rich green of a clipped yew hedge shutting in an
enclosure that glowed with a myriad blossoming flowers.
Mr. Overton, following the direction of Cleek's eyes, looked round and
saw that they were fixed upon that glorious garden.
"Oh, I see what you mean," he said, with a smile of sudden
understanding. "Old Hurdon's flowers. Fine, aren't they?"
"Something more than fine from what I can see of 'em at this distance.
They will be 'Pollacks' and 'Paul Crampels' them geraniums, if I know
anything about it. Do a bit in that line myself at home."
"I shouldn't have thought it," replied Overton, rather abruptly; then
hastened to amend his blunder by adding discreetly, "I should have
supposed that the business of Scotland Yard would leave you so little
time. But possibly you have 'off days' and little opportunities of that
kind."
"Something of that sort. I've always sort of prided myself on my little
bit, but it isn't a patch on that show, I can tell you. How would it be
if we slipped over the wall and had a look at 'em a bit closer, Mr.
Overton? You being who you are, the gardeners wouldn't say nothing, I
reckon."
"Yes, I suppose it will be all right if you like. That will be Mrs.
Hurdon herself that's working in the garden. Come along."
They swung over the low boundary wall into the Castle grounds, and
walked directly toward the cottages, Mr. Overton flinging a reassuring,
"That's all right, Johnston, the gentlemen are with me," to a protesting
gardener who came running across the lawn.
Cleek observed, however, that, although the gardener heard the
land-steward's voice clearly enough, and went about his business at
once, the woman in the radiant garden of the cottage did not so much as
look up.
"Old lady's something after the style of my mate here, ain't she--a bit
deaf?" he observed.
"Yes, a little. That is one reason why she never is worried by the
ringing of the bells."
"I see. And the old man--wot about him? He deaf, too?"
"Oh, dear no. Ears as sharp as a badger's. He is a very strong-minded,
practical, level-headed old chap, without a grain of superstition in
him. He declares that he has never in all his life found soil so fertile
or a garden that gives such good return for his work as that one, and he
wouldn't give the place up if ghosts danced round the house all night in
dozens."
"Oh, so that's why they didn't get out and chuck the place when the
mischief began, is it? I was wondering. One deaf and the other with his
head screwed on the right way. Old gent must have a power o' confidence
in his missus, Mr. Overton, to let her go messing about with his plants
and him not there. Blowed if I'd let mine do it--no fear."
"I don't fancy that Hurdon would either, if he could help it. He's as
fussy a horticulturist as any," said Overton, with an amused laugh,
"and, in an ordinary way, it would be as much as anybody's life was
worth to touch a single one of his plants. Unfortunately, however, the
old chap had a slight accident the day before yesterday. Fell down the
stairs and strained his back. It will probably keep him laid up for the
next five or six days; and, as his garden is his hobby, I suppose he has
sent the old lady out to attend to it. I'm told, too, that she's as well
up in garden matters as he."
"Is she now?" commented Cleek with a casualness which masked an emotion
of a totally different character; for he observed, as he drew nearer,
that the good lady was in the act of inserting a blossoming begonia into
a nice round hole which she had scooped out from one of the beds with
her trowel, and that there was an empty flower pot and a full
watering-can standing on the tiled path beside her.
Nor did his observations cease there. His eye, seeing while it seemed
not to see, detected dotted here and there about the crowded flower beds
fuchsias and geraniums whose foliage was of that clear, rich, glossy
green which betokens plants fresh bought from a greenhouse and whose
general appearance indicated that they had never before been exposed to
the rigours of the open and the dust from a near-by road.
He looked round to see if there was any greenhouse attached to the
cottage garden, or any glass frame of any sort from whose shelter these
speckless plants might have come. There was none. The garden was simply
a rectangle of brilliant bloom cut through the middle by a red-tiled
footpath--a glowing, gorgeous spot of beauty, blazing in the sunshine.
When he came close enough to lean over the low hedge with Mr. Overton,
however, and to see what that hedge had hidden heretofore, he observed
that just below him there was a little heap of broken pots and withered
plants lying, waiting to be removed. Drooping fuchsias and yellowing
geraniums they were with the original ball of earth from a florist's
pots still clinging to their dry roots.
Here it was that a flash of memory brought back to Mr. Narkom that
moment on the stairs at the Carlton and a recollection of what had been
said. If there were geraniums and fuchsias much would depend upon it,
Cleek had murmured. And now here were geraniums and fuchsias in dozens!
He twitched an inquiring glance at Cleek; but Cleek was looking at the
dying plants, not at the thriving ones, and the curious one-sided smile
peculiar to him was looping up his cheek.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Hurdon," called out the land-steward, leaning over
both the low hedge and the stone wall it screened and shouting across
the garden to the woman who had never once looked up during the whole
period of their approach.
She did now, however.
"Oh, good afternoon, Mr. Overton, sir," she said, rising instantly and
brushing down her gardening apron with conspicuous haste as she did so.
She displayed as she got on her feet a figure of grenadier-like
proportions. "And how will you be doing this fine weather, sir?"
"Very well indeed, Mrs. Hurdon, thank you. And how is the good man
coming on?"
"Middling, sir, middling. The pain's a bit less, but he's uncommon
stiff, poor dear. Can't bend to so much as pick up a pin!"
"Poor old chap! Too bad he can't come out. I've a gentleman here who
takes an interest in gardening, and I'm sure he and Mr. Hurdon would
enjoy a few words on a subject so agreeable to both."
"Ah! that he would, yes, indeed! Talk flowers to Joshua, Mr. Overton,
sir, and he'll listen to you by the hour."
"And here, evidently, is a kindred spirit. Mr. Headland was so struck
with the beauty of your garden that nothing would do him but to come
over and have a good look at it. You will be pleased to hear that he
calls this as fine a display of the kind as he has ever seen."
"Doo-ee, now? Well, I'm sure that's very nice of him. We do take a pride
in our garden, sir, and that's a fact."
During all this Cleek had said nothing--had not even so much as glanced
at Mrs. Hurdon a second time after she rose to her feet. He seemed to be
wholly absorbed in contemplating the beauty of the flowers, and, with
his arms folded on the top of the wall, and his pipe in his mouth, was
giving them his entire attention. It had occurred to him, however, that
to be owned by one so erect, so broad-shouldered, and so seemingly
virile, Mrs. Hurdon's voice was singularly thin and high-pitched, and
had the quavering, cracked quality of eighty rather than that which
usually goes with the appearance of fifty-five.
"I'm struck most with them Paul Crampels of yours, ma'am," he declared,
breaking silence suddenly, and looking up. "Never saw a finer lot in all
my life. Would you mind telling me where your husband got them?"
At the first word he knew, from the blank expression which came into her
face, that what he had said was Choctaw to her--that she did not know a
Paul Crampel from a Pollock, and hastened to land her still deeper into
the mire by seeming to give a hint.
"Them with the white and scarlet bells is the best I ever see."
"Yes, they are fine, aren't they now?" she said, her face clearing, as,
guided by his gesture, she looked in the direction of the plants bearing
blooms of that description. "No; I don't know where he got them, sir.
But it will be from somewhere in England, of course--he says he don't
hold with them foreign seeds."
"Doesn't know a fuchsia from a geranium!" was Cleek's unspoken comment.
"Doesn't even know whether they are propagated from cutting or from
seed." Aloud, however, he simply declared, "No more do I, ma'am--that's
where me and him agrees. All the same, though, I would like to know
where he got that particular lot. You ask him for me, will you? And you
can tell me some time when I drop round this way again."
"With pleasure, sir," said she. "Going, are you, Mr. Overton, sir?"
Evidently Mr. Overton was, but Cleek delayed the departure rather
unexpectedly. On the top of the wall a seed had found lodgment, and was
rooted between the stones. He caught hold of it suddenly, and pulled it
up roots and all.
"Here's something your husband will be interested in, ma'am, I know,"
said he. "Hold your apron--catch! Don't let it get bruised."
With that he swung the plant forward, threw it to her, and she, catching
up the corners of her apron, received it therein.
"Well, now, I never! To think of it growing up there, and me never
noticing such a beautiful thing before! Oh, thanky, sir, thanky. Joshua
_will_ be pleased!"
Then she took up the plant and looked at its fuzzy little yellow
blossoms, and let her apron fall into place again.
But not before Cleek had remarked the fact that the skirt it covered was
baggy and very badly smudged in the neighbourhood of the good lady's
knees, and that the smudges bore a curious resemblance to dried mustard.
The smile went up his cheek again.