"TENS!"
"Did you see that, Mr. Narkom? Did you see that?" rapped out Cleek
excitedly, when--a few minutes later--he stepped free from the detaining
bushes and beckoned the Superintendent from his hiding-place. "Recognize
the cut of _that_ lady--eh? And notice anything else about her?"
"Only that she looked like that Lady Paula Duggan who was here a few
minutes ago," rejoined Mr. Narkom breathlessly. "But what had she got
that black thing over her head for?--sort of veil, wasn't it? Couldn't
see her face through--and gad! but how lightly she stepped!"
"Rubber shoes, my dear fellow! Where were your eyes?" snapped Cleek with
a hasty exclamation. "Off somewhere where she doesn't want to be seen.
I'll swear. And as this courtyard leads out into the backwoods of the
place, to that forest ridge which girts it about, and thence on to the
Great Free Road as it's called, she's meeting someone whom she doesn't
want any one to see--and doesn't want to be discovered in the act,
either.... Hello! here's Dollops at last! Just the very chap I was
wanting. Here, lad, there's work for you. Run along and track down that
lady in black who is disappearing so rapidly up there by the right-hand
side of the hedge--and keeping pretty close to it, too, for shelter from
the watching eye in the household. Gad! lucky thing we came out this
way, Mr. Narkom, and caught her napping. She never thought of _that_, I
suppose. Seems a woman of one idea all through, doesn't she? The
beautiful, sleepy-eyed cat-creature! I've met her kind before. All purr
and softness when she's a friend--and a perfect she-devil when an enemy.
Now, then, Dollops, your legs are nimble, so slip up after her, but
don't on any account let her know you're doing it. And I'll follow in a
moment or two. But don't let her get away without discovering where
she's going to. Mr. Narkom, you wait here, will you, and keep watch in
case she returns, or any one else in the know follows after, while I nip
up to the lady's boudoir, and enquire where she has gone to. I'll dare
swear she's 'lying down with a headache and has given orders not to be
disturbed.'"
And his imaginings proved to be correct, for that was exactly the case.
For Miss McCall, encountered in the outer passage from her lady's room,
with coat and hat on, and pulling on a pair of neatly darned cotton
gloves, met him, blushed like the timid little thing she was, and
answered him in all faith that what she spoke was true.
"Lady Paula? I believe she's lying down, Mr. Deland. She told me on no
account to disturb her and to let everyone else know that she wished a
couple of hours' quiet," she said in her soft, gentle voice, lifting her
timid eyes to his face. "It's been a shock, I suppose"--her face and
voice hardened--"but she'll get over it--as she gets over everything
else that happens to worry her. She said she'd be down for tea, however;
and Master Cyril has gone off with Mr. Duggan and his fiancee for a walk
round the laboratory. It's--it's all very sad, Mr. Deland, isn't it?"
"Very," rejoined Cleek. "Very sad, indeed. For a house divided against
itself, Miss McCall--you know the rest of the biblical quotation. And
I'm afraid that is exactly what will happen in this case.... Oh, well,
lying down, is she? Then I won't disturb her. Going out?"
"Yes. Just along to Mr. Tavish's cottage, at the bottom of the drive,"
she responded a trifle drearily. "Mr. Tavish and I, you know,
are--engaged. I have tea with him sometimes, and try to do some of his
mending. It's hard for a man to live alone, as he does."
"Indeed it is. Engaged? Then may I offer you my congratulations, Miss
McCall? I won't detain you any longer, as I know you must be anxious to
get along. A little freedom in the fresh air will do you good. We shall
meet again later, I've no doubt. Good-bye."
She nodded to him brightly and disappeared down the hill, and Cleek
could hear her soft feet beating upon the carpet as she passed down the
stairs.
Once out of sight of her, he darted into the room which he knew was Lady
Paula's, and closed the door softly behind him, turning the key in the
lock. It was just the sort of boudoir he would have imagined her
choosing--a place all soft pillows and low divans, and hung in silks of
Eastern colourings, so that it resembled nothing so much as the home of
a sultan's favourite, from the low Turkish stool standing by the
couch-side, with the little filigree box of cigarettes upon it,
accompanied by a match-case _en suite_, to a tiny jewelled inlaid holder
bearing a half-smoked cigarette in it. Cleek picked it up, smelt it,
smelt it again, and then pursed his lips up into a low whistle of
astonishment.
"My lady indulges in a delicate drug now and again, does she?" he told
himself, examining the thing with some distaste. "And for that reason
one may find excuse for the hysteria of this morning. That lends fresh
colour to the case, certainly. For a drug-fiend in plain parlance is
little more than a fool, and a half-balanced fool at that.... I'll take
a peep at those drawers in that secretaire, my lady, and see if you have
anything to reveal to me. For an _ambitious_ drug-fiend would stop at
nothing to gain her own ends, and if those same ends should happen to be
such a heritage as _this_ for her son and herself.... Hello! what's
this? Tablets, eh? But the bottle unmarked."
He drew one out of the little phial and laid it in the palm of his hand,
and with the other thumb as piston, ground it down to fine powder and
then, sniffed it, recollecting that story which Maud Duggan had told him
of her suspicions with regard to the poisoning of her father. But after
he had touched the tip of his tongue to it, he smiled a little.
"H'm. Nothing but aspirin. I thought as much, certainly, when she told
me the story. So that explodes _that_ little theory once and for all--if
there was anything in it from the beginning.... Nicely appointed
chamber, I must say." He walked leisurely about it, lifting a pillow
there, and dropping it back into its place, and straightening the set of
a chair, pushed out of its usual position by a very obvious hurry of the
room's occupant.
And he was just in the act of doing this trivial thing when he came upon
a little screw of paper lying in a twisted ball beneath a chair which
stood close up to the Turkish stool, and evidently dropped by accident
(which undoubtedly was the fact). Cleek stooped to pick it up, smoothed
it out in his fingers, and then of a sudden sucked in his breath, and
every muscle in that well-organized frame of his went taut as iron. For
the paper--innocent as it looked--contained news which certainly was
enough to startle the most unsuspicious police-constable in existence.
For, written across its surface, having neither name nor address nor
date, and in a calligraphy which was undoubtedly foreign, were the
words:
Meet me at three o'clock by the G. F. Road. Everything
successfully carried out. Muffled clapper. Must see you.
Utmost importance.
A. M.
"Hello! Hello!" rapped out Cleek in the sharp staccato of excitement.
"Then she _did_ have something to do with it, after all, did she? Gad! a
dollar to a ducat that there's someone else in this affair whom we've
never even hit upon yet! What a bit of luck Dollops turned up at that
moment--when _she_ was just on the way! Let's see--what's the time?
Three o'clock. Gad! I'll nip along myself, and come in at the finish,
and hear what I can hear from the good lady's lips herself, and see who
the dickens it is who's meeting her. There's more in this than meets the
eye, Cleek my boy, and don't you forget it!"
Following the direction shown him by Mr. Narkom (who was still standing
like a monument of Patience in the little shrubbery where they had first
caught sight of her wandering ladyship), Cleek pelted off in the
direction of the woods, every faculty alert, and in the hastily donned
rubber-soled shoes proving himself a silent if a fleet-footed pursuer.
But he was doomed to disappointment upon his quest. For halfway toward
the Great Free Road as that portion of the country was called, through a
belt of thick trees which entirely hid the landscape from view, he met
Dollops, looking disconsolately upon the ground, hands in pockets and
face dejected, and cannoned into him as they came abreast of each other.
Dollops's face went crimson at sight of Cleek, and then paled off
suddenly. His voice was tragic in the extreme.
"Missed 'er, Guv'nor!" he declared laconically. "Missed 'er for the
first time in all my existence upon this 'ere plannit! Give me the slip,
strite she did, but _'ow_, is a question as 'as fair diddled me. I
follered 'er up to 'ere as good as you please, and then of a suddint
'eard voices to the left of me, did a bunk after 'em, as I knowed you'd
wish me to, sir, and--that there she-devil 'ad disappeared as smooth as
you please! A fair ghost she were, Guv'nor, strite--an' if she ain't the
Peasant Girl wot 'aunts these parts, then I'm a Dutchman!"
But Cleek had not the heart to smile at the boy's excited preamble. He
was too disappointed at losing his quarry so easily when this new thing
had been thrust right into his hands in this fashion, and the chance of
elucidating the mystery so incredibly easy--judging by the crumpled
note in his breast-pocket. Another such opportunity would never occur
again--one could not hope for things to happen in duplicate.
"Dollops! Dollops!" he exclaimed, with a shake of the head. "Where is
your training in Apache quarters gone to, I'd like to know? Letting a
mere woman elude you, as though she had been Margot, Queen of the
Apaches, herself. And doing the ventriloquial trick so successfully upon
you, too! And at the very crux of the case, just when I'd found the clue
of all others which was likely to establish the truth of the whole
appalling affair! I'm disappointed. But it can't be helped, so put away
your crestfallen countenance, and come back to the house with me. We'll
have to wait until evening now, and see what comes to pass to-night. Did
the lady actually see you by any chance?"
"Don't know, sir." Dollops's voice was dejected. "Suppose she must 'er
done, by the way she slipped the leash on me, so ter speak. Why, sir?"
"Because, my young jackanapes, if that is the case, the scarcer you make
yourself the better," returned Cleek rapidly. "For it's no use your
allying yourself to me in her ladyship's presence, for the fat would be
in the fire with a vengeance. And now, about that other affair.... You
did what I told you? And what did your bit of private 'detecting' bring
forth, may I ask?"
For a second Dollops's glum face lit up, and his eyes shone. Here at
least he had found something with which actually to help. There was a
hint of triumph in his tones.
"Got 'em 'id in the shrubs, sir," he returned enthusiastically. "Done up
in brahn paper, they are, and ready for examination on sight. 'Untin'
boots, Mr. Cleek, sir--gent's 'untin'-boots, and that thick wiv mud as
ter look like blessed gardings too. Fit fer growin' a crop of taties in,
I swear, sir. An' fahnd 'em 'idden in a bush er laurels as large as
life."
"Whew! Is that all, then? Nothing under-ground?"
"No, sir. Not a blinkin' thing."
"Um. Pity. You must show me the hunting-boots, Dollops; they may prove a
clue--though just how they would be connected with this particular case
remains to be seen. Very muddy, eh? Any name inside?"
Dollops nodded.
He looked hastily from side to side to see that no one was listening.
Then he bent toward Cleek with a mysterious manner and spoke in a bated
voice.
"Yessir. Belongs to a gen'leman as is sweet on the young leddy we come
along wiv yesterday from Lunnon," he replied weightily. "Or so they tell
me up at the Three Fishers. Name of Macdonald--Captain Angus Macdonald.
Writ inside 'em as large as life and twice as nat'ril. Eh?--wot's the
matter, sir?"
For Cleek had whirled about suddenly and struck his hands together, and
was laughing, laughing like a man gone suddenly daft. He stopped
abruptly and put one hand upon Dollops's shoulder.
"Matter?" he said rapidly. "Why, simply this: Get a line on this young
Captain's handwriting, Dollops, and report to me this afternoon. And if
it tallies with this note, as I somehow fancy it does--well, we'll see
the fur fly so quickly that you won't be able to say Jack Robinson.
Happen to notice the size of the boots, by any chance?"
"Yessir. Tens."
"Good lad. And the footprints outside of the window in that little
courtyard are tens, too! The net's closing in upon you, my gallant
friend, and you won't get a chance to do much more spluttering and
exclaiming before I've found out what your little move in this
Inheritance Game is, and--nipped it in the bud!... Gad!--Captain Angus
Macdonald! And--tens!... Now, who the dickens would have thought it?"