THE INHERITED SIN
1.
"Getting kind of used to these courthouse shows, aren't you, Lenora?"
Quest remarked, as they stepped from the automobile and entered the house
in Georgia Square.
Lenora shrugged her shoulders. She was certainly a very different-looking
person from the tired, trembling girl who had heard Macdougal sentenced
not many weeks ago.
"Could anyone feel much sympathy," she asked, "with those men? Red
Gallagher, as they all called him, is more like a great brute animal than
a human being. I think that even if they had sentenced him to death I
should have felt that it was quite the proper thing to have done."
"Too much sentiment about those things," Quest agreed, clipping the end
off a cigar. "Men like that are better off the face of the earth. They did
their best to send me there."
"Here's a cablegram for you!" Lenora exclaimed, bringing it over to him.
"Mr. Quest, I wonder if it's from Scotland Yard!"
Quest tore it open. They read it together, Lenora standing on tiptoe to
peer over his shoulder:
"Stowaway answering in every respect your description of Craig
found on 'Durham.' Has been arrested, as desired, and will be
taken to Hamblin House for identification by Lord Ashleigh.
Reply whether you are coming over, and full details as to
charge."
"Good for Scotland Yard!" Quest declared. "So they've got him, eh? All the
same, that fellow's as slippery as an eel. Lenora, how should you like a
trip across the ocean, eh?"
"I should love it," Lenora replied. "Do you mean it really?"
Quest nodded.
"The fellow's fooled me pretty well," he continued, "but somehow I feel
that if I get my hands on him this time, they'll stay there till he stands
where Red Gallagher did to-day. I don't feel content to let anyone else
finish off the job. Got any relatives over there?"
"I have an aunt in London," Lenora told him, "the dearest old lady you
ever knew. She'd give anything to have me make her a visit."
Quest moved across to his desk and took up a sailing list. He studied it
for a few moments and turned back to Lenora.
"Send a cable off at once to Scotland Yard," he directed. "Say--'Am
sailing on _Lusitania_ to-morrow. Hold prisoner. Charge very serious. Have
full warrants.'"
Lenora wrote down the message and went to the telephone to send it off. As
soon as she had finished, Quest took up his hat again.
"Come on," he invited. "The machine's outside. We'll just go and look in
on the Professor and tell him the news. Poor old chap, I'm afraid he'll
never be the same man again."
"He must miss Craig terribly," Lenora observed, as they took their places
in the automobile, "and yet, Mr. Quest, it does seem to me a most amazing
thing that a man so utterly callous and cruel as Craig must be, should
have been a devoted and faithful servant to anyone through all these
years."
Quest nodded.
"I am beginning to frame a theory about that. You see, all the time Craig
has lived with the Professor, he has been a sort of dabbler with him in
his studies. Where the Professor's gone right into a thing and understood
it, Craig, you see, hasn't managed to get past the first crust. His brain
wasn't educated enough for the subjects into the consideration of which
the Professor may have led him. See what I'm driving at?"
"You mean that he may have been mad?" Lenora suggested.
"Something of that sort," Quest assented. "Seems to me the only feasible
explanation. The Professor's a bit of a terror, you know. There are some
queer stories about the way he got some of his earlier specimens in South
America. Science is his god. What he has gone through in some of those
foreign countries, no one knows. Quite enough to unbalance any man of
ordinary nerves and temperament."
"The Professor himself is remarkably sane," Lenora observed.
"Precisely," Quest agreed, "but then, you see, his brain was big enough,
to start with. It could hold all there was for it to hold. It's like
pouring stuff into the wrong receptacle when a man like Craig tries to
follow him. However, that's only a theory. Here we are, and the front door
wide open. I wonder how our friend's feeling to-day."
They found the Professor on his hands and knees upon a dusty floor.
Carefully arranged before him were the bones of a skeleton, each laid in
some appointed place. He had a chart on either side of him, and a third
one on an easel. He looked up a little impatiently at the sound of the
opening of the door, but when he recognised Quest and his companion the
annoyance passed from his face.
"Are we disturbing you, Mr. Ashleigh?" Quest enquired.
The Professor rose to his feet and brushed the dust from his knees.
"I shall be glad of a rest," he said simply. "You see what I am doing? I
am trying to reconstruct from memory--and a little imagination,
perhaps--the important part of my missing skeleton. It's a wonderful
problem which those bones might have solved, if I had been able to place
them fairly before the scientists of the world. Do you understand much
about the human frame, Mr. Quest?"
Quest shook his head promptly.
"Still life doesn't interest me," he declared. "Bones are bones, after
all, you know. I don't even care who my grandfather was, much less who my
grandfather a million times removed might have been. Let's step into the
study for a moment, Professor, if you don't mind," he went on. "Lenora
here is a little sensitive to smell, and a spray of lavender water on some
of your bones wouldn't do them any harm."
The Professor ambled amiably towards the door.
"I never notice it myself," he said. "Very likely that is because I see
beyond these withered fragments into the prehistoric worlds whence they
came. I sit here alone sometimes, and the curtain rolls up, and I find
myself back in one of those far corners of South America, or even in a
certain spot in East Africa, and I can almost fancy that time rolls back
like an unwinding reel and there are no secrets into which I may not look.
And then the moment passes and I remember that this dry-as-dust world is
shrieking always for proofs--this extraordinary conglomeration of human
animals in weird attire, with monstrous tastes and extraordinary habits,
who make up what they call the civilized world. Civilized!"
They reached the study and Quest produced his cigar case.
"Can't imagine any world that existed before tobacco," he remarked
cheerfully. "Help yourself, Professor. It does me good to see you human
enough to enjoy a cigar!"
The Professor smiled.
"I never remember to buy any for myself," he said, "but one of yours is
always a treat. Miss Lenora, I am glad to see, is completely recovered."
"I am quite well, thank you, Mr. Ashleigh," Lenora replied. "I am even
forgetting that I ever had nerves. I have been in the courthouse all the
morning, and I even looked curiously at your garage as we drove up."
"Very good--very good, my dear!" the Professor murmured. "At the
courthouse, eh? Were those charming friends of yours from Bethel being
tried, Quest?"
Quest nodded.
"Red Gallagher and his mate! Yes, they got it in the neck, too."
"Personally," the Professor exclaimed, his eyes sparkling with
appreciation of his own wit, "I think that they ought to have got it round
the neck! However, let us be thankful that they are disposed of. Their
attack upon you, Mr. Quest, introduced rather a curious factor into our
troubles. Even now I find it a little difficult to follow the workings of
our friend French's mind. It seems hard to believe that he could really
have imagined you guilty."
"French is all right," Quest declared. "He fell into the common error of
the detective without imagination."
"What about that unhappy man Craig?" the Professor asked gloomily. "Isn't
the _Durham_ almost due now?"
Quest took out the cablegram from his pocket and passed it over. The
Professor's fingers trembled a little as he read it. He passed it back,
however, without immediate comment.
"You see, they have been cleverer over there than we were," Quest
remarked.
"Perhaps," the Professor assented. "They seem, at least, to have arrested
the man. Even now I can scarcely believe that it is Craig--my servant
Craig--who is lying in an English prison. Do you know that his people have
been servants in the Ashleigh family for some hundreds of years?"
Quest was clearly interested. "Say, I'd like to hear about that!" he
exclaimed. "You know, I'm rather great on heredity, Professor. What class
did he come from then? Were his people just domestic servants always?"
The Professor's face was for a moment troubled. He moved to his desk,
rummaged about for a time, and finally produced an ancient volume.
"This really belongs to my brother, Lord Ashleigh," he explained. "He
brought it over with him to show me some entries concerning which I was
interested. It contains a history of the Hamblin estate since the days of
Cromwell, and here in the back, you see, is a list of our farmers,
bailiffs and domestic servants. There was a Craig who was a tenant of the
first Lord Ashleigh and fought with him in the Cromwellian Wars as a
trooper and since those days, so far as I can see, there has never been a
time when there hasn't been a Craig in the service of our family. A fine
race they seem to have been, until--"
"Until when?" Quest demanded.
The look of trouble had once more clouded the Professor's face. He
shrugged his shoulders slightly.
"Until Craig's father," he admitted. "I am afraid I must admit that we
come upon a bad piece of family history here. Silas Craig entered the
service of my father in 1858, as under game-keeper. Here we come upon the
first black mark against the name. He appears to have lived reputably for
some years, and then, after a quarrel with a neighbour about some trivial
matter, he deliberately murdered him, a crime for which he was tried and
executed in 1867. John Craig, his only son, entered our service in 1880,
and, when I left England, accompanied me as my valet."
There was a moment's silence. Quest shook his head a little reproachfully.
"Professor," he said, "you are a scientific man, you appreciate the
significance of heredity, yet during all this time, when you must have
seen for yourself the evidence culminating against Craig, you never
mentioned this--this--damning piece of evidence."
The Professor closed the book with a sigh.
"I did not mention it, Mr. Quest," he acknowledged, "because I did not
believe in Craig's guilt and I did not wish to further prejudice you
against him. That is the whole and simple truth. Now tell me what you are
going to do about his arrest?"
"Lenora and I are sailing to-morrow," Quest replied. "We are taking over
the necessary warrants and shall bring Craig back here for trial."
The Professor smoked thoughtfully for some moments. Then he rose
deliberately to his feet. He had come to a decision. He announced it
calmly but irrevocably.
"I shall come with you," he announced. "I shall be glad of a visit to
England, but apart from that I feel it to be my duty. I owe it to Craig to
see that he has a fair chance, and I owe it to the law to see that he pays
the penalty, if indeed he is guilty of these crimes. Is Miss Laura
accompanying you, too?"
Quest shook his head.
"From what the surgeons tell us," he said, "it will be some weeks before
she is able to travel. At the same time, I must tell you that I am glad of
your decision, Professor."
"It is my duty," the latter declared. "I cannot rest in this state of
uncertainty. If Craig is lost to me, the sooner I face the fact the
better. At the same time I will be frank with you. Notwithstanding all
this accumulated pile of evidence I feel in my heart the urgent necessity
of seeing him face to face, of holding him by the shoulders and asking him
whether these things are true. We have faced death together, Craig and I.
We have done more than that--we have courted it. There is nothing about
him I can accept from hearsay. I shall go with you to England, Mr. Quest."
2.
The Professor rose from his seat in some excitement as the carriage passed
through the great gates of Hamblin Park. He acknowledged with a smile the
respectful curtsey of the woman who held it open.
"You have now an opportunity, my dear Mr. Quest," he said, "of
appreciating one feature of English life not entirely reproducible in your
own wonderful country. I mean the home life and surroundings of our
aristocracy. You see these oak trees?" he went on, with a little wave of
his hand. "They were planted by my ancestors in the days of Henry the
Eighth. I have been a student of tree life in South America and in the
dense forests of Central Africa, but for real character, for splendour of
growth and hardiness, there is nothing in the world to touch the Ashleigh
oaks."
"They're some trees," the criminologist admitted.
"You notice, perhaps, the smaller ones, which seem dwarfed. Their tops
were cut off by the Lord of Ashleigh on the day that Lady Jane Grey was
beheaded. Queen Elizabeth heard of it and threatened to confiscate the
estate. Look at the turf, my friend. Ages have gone to the making of that
mossy, velvet carpet."
"Where's the house?" Quest enquired.
"A mile farther on yet. The woods part and make a natural avenue past the
bend of the river there," the Professor pointed out. "Full of trout, that
river, Quest. How I used to whip that stream when I was a boy!"
They swept presently round a bend in the avenue. Before them on the
hill-side, surrounded by trees and with a great walled garden behind, was
Hamblin House. Quest gave vent to a little exclamation of wonder as he
looked at it. The older part and the whole of the west front was
Elizabethan, but the Georgian architect entrusted with the task of
building a great extension had carried out his work in a manner almost
inspired. Lines and curves, sweeping everywhere towards the same
constructive purpose, had been harmonised by the hand of time into a most
surprising and effectual unity. The criminologist, notwithstanding his
unemotional temperament, repeated his exclamation as he resumed his place
in the carriage.
"This is where you've got us beaten," he admitted. "Our country places are
like gew-gaw palaces compared to this. Makes me kind of sorry," he went on
regretfully, "that I didn't bring Lenora along."
The Professor shook his head.
"You were very wise," he said. "My brother and Lady Ashleigh have
recovered from the shock of poor Lena's death in a marvellous manner, I
believe, but the sight of the girl might have brought it back to them. You
have left her with friends, I hope, Mr. Quest?"
[Illustration: LORD ASHLEIGH IDENTIFIES THE CAPTURED MAN AS CRAIG.]
[Illustration: "CRAIG DISAPPEARED ABOUT HERE, SIR"--SAID THE GAMEKEEPER.]
"She has an aunt in Hampstead," the latter explained. "I should have liked
to have seen her safely there myself, but we should have been an hour or
two later down here, and I tell you," he went on, his voice gathering a
note almost of ferocity, "I'm wanting to get my hands on that fellow
Craig! I wonder where they're holding him."
"At the local police-station, I expect," the Professor replied. "My
brother is a magistrate, of course, and he would see that proper
arrangements were made. There he is at the hall door."
The carriage drew up before the great front, a moment or two later. Lord
Ashleigh came forward with outstretched hands, the genial smile of the
welcoming host upon his lips. In his manner, however, there was a distinct
note of anxiety.
"Edgar, my dear fellow," he exclaimed, "I am delighted! Welcome back to
your home! Mr. Quest, I am very happy to see you here. You have heard the
news, of course?"
"We have heard nothing!" the Professor replied.
"You didn't go to Scotland Yard?" Lord Ashleigh asked.
"We haven't been to London at all," Quest explained. "We got on the boat
train at Plymouth, and your brother managed to induce one of the directors
whom he saw on the platform to stop the train for us at Hamblin Road. We
only left the boat two hours ago. There's nothing wrong with Craig, is
there?"
Lord Ashleigh motioned them to follow him.
"Please come this way," he invited.
He led them across the hall--which, dimly-lit and with its stained-glass
windows, was almost like the nave of a cathedral,--into the library
beyond. He closed the door and turned around.
"I have bad news for you both," he announced. "Craig has escaped."
Neither the Professor nor Quest betrayed any unusual surprise. So far as
the latter was concerned, his first glimpse at Lord Ashleigh's face had
warned him of what was coming.
"Dear me!" the Professor murmured, sinking into an easy-chair. "This is
most unexpected!"
"We'll get him again," Quest declared quickly. "Can you let us have the
particulars of his escape, Lord Ashleigh? The sooner we get the hang of
things, the better."
Their host turned towards the butler, who was arranging a tray upon the
sideboard.
"You must permit me to offer you some refreshments after your journey," he
begged. "Then I will tell you the whole story. I think you will agree,
when you hear it, that no particular blame can be said to rest upon any
one's shoulders. It was simply an extraordinary interposition of chance.
There is tea, whisky and soda, and wine here, Mr. Quest. Edgar, I know
you'll take some tea."
"English tea for me," the Professor remarked, watching the cream.
"Whisky and soda here," Quest decided.
Lord Ashleigh himself attended to the wants of his guests. Then, at his
instigation, they made themselves comfortable in easy-chairs and he
commenced his narration.
"You know, of course," he began, "that Craig was arrested at Liverpool in
consequence of communications from the New York police. I understand that
it was with great difficulty he was discovered, and it is quite clear that
some one on the ship had been heavily bribed. However, he was arrested,
brought to London, and then down here for purposes of identification. I
would have gone to London myself, and in fact offered to do so, but on the
other hand, as there are many others on the estate to whom he was
well-known, I thought that it would be better to have more evidence than
mine alone. Accordingly, they left London one afternoon, and I sent a
dogcart to the station to meet them. They arrived quite safely and started
for here, Craig handcuffed to one of the Scotland Yard men on the back
seat, and the other in front with the driver. About half a mile from the
south entrance to the park, the road runs across a rather desolate strip
of country with a lot of low undergrowth on one side. We have had a little
trouble with poachers, as there is a sort of gipsy camp on some common
land a short distance away. My head-keeper, to whom the very idea of a
poacher is intolerable, was patrolling this ground himself that afternoon,
and caught sight of one of these gipsy fellows setting a trap. He chased
him, and more, I am sure, to frighten him than anything else, when he saw
that the fellow was getting away he fired his gun, just as the dog-cart
was passing. The horse shied, the wheel caught a great stone by the side
of the road, and all four men were thrown out. The man to whom Craig was
handcuffed was stunned, but Craig himself appears to have been unhurt. He
jumped up, took the key of the handcuffs from the pocket of the officer,
undid them, and slipped off into the undergrowth before either the groom
or the other Scotland Yard man had recovered their senses. To cut a long
story short, that was last Thursday, and up till now not a single trace of
the fellow has been discovered."
Quest rose abruptly to his feet.
"I'd like to take this matter up right on the spot where Craig
disappeared," he suggested. "Couldn't we do that?"
"By all means," Lord Ashleigh agreed, touching a bell. "We have several
hours before we change for dinner. I will have a car round and take you to
the spot."
The Professor acquiesced readily, and very soon they stepped out of the
automobile on to the side of a narrow road, looking very much as it had
been described. Further on, beyond a stretch of open common, they could
see the smoke from the gipsy encampment. On their left-hand side was a
stretch of absolutely wild country, bounded in the far distance by the
grey stone wall of the park. Lord Ashleigh led the way through the
thicket, talking as he went.
"Craig came along through here," he explained. "The groom and the Scotland
Yard man who had been sitting by his side followed him. They searched for
an hour but found no trace of him at all. Then they returned to the house
to make a report and get help. I will now show you how Craig first eluded
them."
He led the way along a tangled path, doubled back, plunged into a little
spinney and came suddenly to a small shed.
"This is an ancient gamekeeper's shelter," he explained, "built a long
time ago and almost forgotten now. What Craig did, without a doubt, was to
hide in this. The Scotland Yard man who took the affair in hand found
distinct traces here of recent occupation. That is how he made his first
escape."
Quest nodded.
"Sure!" he murmured. "Well now, what about your more extended search?"
"I was coming to that," Lord Ashleigh replied. "As Edgar will remember, no
doubt, I have always kept a few bloodhounds in my kennels, and as soon as
we could get together one or two of the keepers and a few of the local
constabulary, we started off again from here. The dogs brought us without
a check to this shed, and started off again in this way."
They walked another half a mile, across a reedy swamp. Every now and then
they had to jump across a small dyke, and once they had to make a detour
to avoid an osier bed. They came at last to the river.
"Now I can show you exactly how that fellow put us off the scent here,"
their guide proceeded. "He seems to have picked up something, Edgar, in
those South American trips of yours, for a cleverer thing I never saw. You
see all these bullrushes everywhere--clouds of them, all along the river?"
"We call them tules," Quest muttered. "Well?"
"When Craig arrived here," Lord Ashleigh continued, "he must have heard
the baying of the dogs in the distance and he knew that the game was up
unless he could put them off the scent. He cut a quantity of these
bullrushes from a place a little further behind those trees there, stepped
boldly into the middle of the water, waded down to that spot where, as you
see, the trees hang over, stood stock still and leaned them all around
him. It was dusk when the chase reached the river bank, and I have no
doubt the bullrushes presented quite a natural appearance. At any rate,
although the dogs came without a check to the edge of the river, where he
stepped off, they never picked the scent up again either on this side or
the other. We tried them for four or five hours before we took them home.
The next morning, while the place was being thoroughly searched, we came
upon the spot where these bullrushes had been cut down, and we found them
caught in the low boughs of a tree, drifting down the river."
The Professor's tone was filled with something almost like admiration.
"I must confess," he declared, "I never realised for a single moment that
Craig was a person of such gifts. In all the small ways of life, in
campaigning, camping out, dealing with natural difficulties incidental to
our expeditions, I have found him invariably a person of resource,
ready-witted and full of useful suggestions. But that he should be able to
apply his gifts with such infinite cunning, to a suddenly conceived career
of crime, I must admit amazes me."
Quest had lit a fresh cigar and was smoking vigorously.
"What astonishes me more than anything," he pronounced, as he stood
looking over the desolate expanse of country, "is that when one comes face
to face with the fellow he presents all the appearance of a nerveless and
broken-down coward. Then all of a sudden there spring up these evidences
of the most amazing, the most diabolical resource.... Who's this, Lord
Ashleigh?"
The latter turned his head. An elderly man in a brown velveteen suit, with
gaiters and thick boots, raised his hat respectfully.
"This is my head-keeper, Middleton," his master explained. "He was with us
on the chase."
The Professor shook hands heartily with the newcomer.
"Not a day older, Middleton!" he exclaimed. "So you are the man who has
given us all this trouble, eh? This gentleman and I have come over from
New York on purpose to lay hands on Craig."
"I am very sorry, sir," the man replied. "I wouldn't have fired my gun if
I had known what the consequences were going to be, but them poaching
devils that come round here rabbiting fairly send me furious and that's a
fact. It ain't that one grudges them a few rabbits, but my tame pheasants
all run out here from the home wood, and I've seen feathers at the side of
the road there that no fox nor stoat had nothing to do with. All the same,
sir, I'm very sorry," he added, "to have been the cause of any
inconvenience."
"It is rather worse than inconvenience, Middleton," the Professor said
gravely. "The man who has escaped is one of the worst criminals of these
days."
"He won't get far, sir," the gamekeeper remarked, with a little smile.
"It's a wild bit of country, this, and I admit that men might search it
for weeks without finding anything, but those gentlemen from Scotland
Yard, sir, if you'll excuse my making the remark, and hoping that this
gentleman," he added, looking at Quest, "is in no way connected with
them--well, they don't know everything, and that's a fact."
"This gentleman is from the United States," Lord Ashleigh reminded him,
"so your criticism doesn't affect him. By-the-by, Middleton, I heard this
morning that you'd been airing your opinions down in the village. You seem
to rather fancy yourself as a thief-catcher."
"I wouldn't go so far as that, my lord," the man replied respectfully,
"but still, I hope I may say that I've as much common sense as most
people. You see, sir," he went on, turning to Quest, "the spots where he
could emerge from this track of country are pretty well guarded, and he'll
be in a fine mess, when he does put in an appearance, to show himself upon
a public road. Yet by this time I should say he must be nigh starved.
Sooner or later he'll have to come out for food. I've a little scheme of
my own, sir, I don't mind admitting," the man concluded, with a twinkle in
his keen brown eyes. "I'm not giving it away. If I catch him for you,
that's all that's wanted, I imagine, and we shan't be any the nearer to it
for letting any one into my little secret."
His master smiled.
"You shall have your rise out of the police, if you can, Middleton," he
observed. "It seems queer, though, to believe that the fellow's still in
hiding round here."
As though by common consent, they all stood, for a moment, perfectly
still, looking across the stretch of marshland with its boggy places, its
scrubby plantations, its clustering masses of tall grasses and bullrushes.
The grey twilight had become even more pronounced during the last few
minutes. Little wreaths of white mist hung over the damp places.
Everywhere was a queer silence. The very air seemed breathless. The
Professor shivered and turned away.
"My nerves," he declared, "are scarcely what they were. I have listened in
a primeval forest, listened for the soft rustling of a snake in the
undergrowth, or the distant roar of some beast of prey. I have listened
then with curiosity. I have not known fear. It seems to me, somehow, that
in this place there is something different afoot. I don't like it,
George--I don't like it. We will go home, if you please."
They made their way, single file, to the road and up to the house. Lord
Ashleigh did his best to dispel a queer little sensation of uneasiness
which seemed to have arisen in the minds of all of them.
"Come," he said, "we must put aside our disappointment for the present,
and remember that after all the chances are that Craig will never make his
escape alive. Let us forget him for a little while.... Mr. Quest," he
added, a few minutes later, as they reached the hall, "Moreton here will
show you to your room and look after you. Please let me know if you will
take an aperitif. I can recommend my sherry. We dine at eight o'clock.
Edgar, you know your way. The blue room, of course. I am coming up with
you myself. Her ladyship back yet, Moreton?"
"Not yet, my lord."
"Lady Ashleigh," her husband explained, "has gone to the other side of the
county to open a bazaar. She is looking forward to the pleasure of
welcoming you at dinner-time."
* * * * *
Dinner, served, out of compliment to their transatlantic visitor, in the
great banqueting hall, was to Quest especially a most impressive meal.
They sat at a small round table lit by shaded lights, in the centre of an
apartment which was large in reality, and which seemed vast by reason of
the shadows which hovered around the unlit spaces. From the walls frowned
down a long succession of family portraits--Ashleighs in the queer Tudor
costume of Henry the Seventh; Ashleighs in chain armour, sword in hand, a
charger waiting, regardless of perspective, in the near distance;
Ashleighs befrilled and bewigged; Ashleighs in the Court dress of the
Georges--judges, sailors, statesmen and soldiers. A collection of armour
which would have gladdened the eye of many an antiquarian, was ranged
along the black-panelled walls. Everything was in harmony, even the grave
precision of the solemn-faced butler and the powdered hair of the two
footmen. Quest, perhaps for the first time in his life, felt almost lost,
hopelessly out of touch with his surroundings, an alien and a struggling
figure. Nevertheless, he entertained the little party with many stories.
He struggled all the time against that queer sensation of anachronism
which now and then became almost oppressive.
The Professor's pleasure at finding himself once more amongst these
familiar surroundings was obvious and intense. The conversation between
him and his brother never flagged. There were tenants and neighbours to be
asked after, matters concerning the estate on which he demanded
information. Even the very servants' names he remembered.
"It was a queer turn of fate, George," he declared, as he held out before
him a wonderfully chased glass filled with amber wine, "which sent you
into the world a few seconds before me and made you Lord of Ashleigh and
me a struggling scientific man."
"The world has benefited by it," Lord Ashleigh remarked, with more than
fraternal courtesy. "We hear great things of you over here, Edgar. We hear
that you have been on the point of proving most unpleasant things with
regard to our origin."
"Oh! there is no doubt about that," the Professor observed. "Where we came
from and where we are going to are questions which no longer afford room
for the slightest doubt to the really scientific mind. What sometimes does
elude us is the nature of our tendencies while we are here on earth."
"Mine, I fancy, are obvious enough," Lord Ashleigh interposed.
"Superficially, I grant it," his brother acknowledged. "As a matter of
scientific fact, I recognize the probability of your actually being a
person utterly different from what you appear. Man becomes what he is
according to the circumstances by which he is assailed. Now your life
here, George, must be a singularly uneventful one."
"Not during the last six months," Lord Ashleigh remarked, with a sigh.
"Even these last few days have been exciting enough. I must confess that
they have left me with a queer sort of nervousness. I find myself
listening intently sometimes,--conscious, as it were, of the influence or
presence of some indefinite danger."
"Very interesting," the Professor murmured. "Spiritualism, as an exact
science, has always interested me very much."
Lady Ashleigh made a little grimace.
"Don't encourage George," she begged. "He is much too superstitious, as it
is."
There was a brief silence. The port had been placed upon the table and
coffee served. The servants, according to the custom of the house, had
departed. The great apartment was empty. Even Quest was impressed by some
peculiar significance in the long-drawn-out silence. He looked around him
uneasily. The frowning regard of that long line of painted warriors seemed
somehow to be full of menace. There was something grim, too, in the sight
of those empty suits of armour.
"I may be superstitious," Lord Ashleigh said, "but there are times,
especially just lately, when I seem to find a new and hateful quality in
silence. What is it, I wonder? I ask you but I think I know. It is the
conviction that there is some alien presence, something disturbing lurking
close at hand."
He suddenly rose to his feet, pushed his chair back and walked to the
window, which opened level with the ground. He threw it up and listened.
The others came over and joined him. There was nothing to be heard but the
distant hooting of an owl, and farther away the barking of some farmhouse
dog. Lord Ashleigh stood there with straining eyes, gazing out across the
park.
"There was something here," he muttered, "something which has gone. What's
that? Quest, your eyes are younger than mine. Can you see anything
underneath that tree?"
Quest peered out into the grey darkness.
"I fancied I saw something moving in the shadow of that oak," he muttered.
"Wait."
He crossed the terrace, swung down on to the path, across a lawn, over a
wire fence and into the park itself. All the time he kept his eyes fixed
on a certain spot. When at last he reached the tree, there was nothing
there. He looked all around him. He stood and listened for several
moments. A more utterly peaceful night it would be hard to imagine. Slowly
he made his way back to the house.
"I imagine we are all a little nervous to-night," he remarked. "There's
nothing doing out there."
They strolled about for an hour or more, looking into different rooms,
showing their guest the finest pictures, even taking him down into the
wonderful cellars. They parted early, but Quest stood, for a few moments
before retiring, gazing about him with an air almost of awe. His great
room, as large as an apartment in an Italian palace, was lit by a dozen
wax candles in silver candlesticks. His four-poster was supported by
pillars of black oak, carved into strange forms, and surmounted by the
Ashleigh coronet and coat of arms. He threw his windows open wide and
stood for a moment looking out across the park, more clearly visible now
by the light of the slowly rising moon. There was scarcely a breeze
stirring, scarcely a sound even from the animal world. Nevertheless,
Quest, too, as reluctantly he made his preparations for retiring for the
night, was conscious of that queer sensation of unimagined and impalpable
danger.