"I am a little worried about Margery," said Lady Stranleigh. "My girl,
you know," she added.
She sighed pensively. "It makes one feel terribly old to have a
grown-up daughter."
Mr. Satterthwaite, who was the recipient of these confidences, rose to
the occasion gallantly. "No one could believe it possible," he declared
with a little bow.
"Flatterer," said Lady Stranleigh, but she said it vaguely and it was
clear that her mind was elsewhere.
Mr. Satterthwaite looked at the slender white-clad figure in some
admiration. The Cannes sunshine was searching, but Lady Stranleigh
came through the test very well. At a distance the youthful effect
was really extraordinary. One almost wondered if she were grown up
or not. Mr. Satterthwaite, who knew everything, knew that it was
perfectly possible for Lady Stranleigh to have grown-up grandchildren.
She represented the extreme triumph of art over nature. Her figure
was marvelous, her complexion was marvelous. She had enriched many
beauty parlors and certainly the result was astounding. Lady Stranleigh
lighted a cigarette, crossed her beautiful legs, encased in the finest
of nude stockings, and murmured:
"Yes, I really am rather worried about Margery."
"Dear me," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "what is the trouble?"
Lady Stranleigh turned her beautiful blue eyes upon him. "You have
never met her, have you? She is Charles's daughter," she added
helpfully.
If entries in _Who's Who_ were strictly truthful, the entry concerning
Lady Stranleigh might have ended as follows: _hobbies: getting
married_. She had floated through life shedding husbands as she went.
She had lost three by divorce and one by death.
"If she had been Rudolf's child I could have understood it," mused Lady
Stranleigh. "You remember Rudolf? He was always temperamental. Six
months after we married I had to apply for those queer things--what
do they call them? Conjugal whatnots, you know what I mean. Thank
goodness it is all much simpler nowadays. I remember I had to write
him the silliest kind of letter--my lawyer practically dictated it
to me. Asking him to come back, you know, and that I would do all I
could, etc., etc., but you never could count on Rudolf, he was so
temperamental. He came rushing home at once, which was quite the wrong
thing to do, and not at all what the lawyers meant."
She sighed.
"About Margery?" suggested Mr. Satterthwaite, tactfully leading her
back to the subject under discussion.
"Of course. I was just going to tell you, wasn't I? Margery has been
seeing things, or hearing them. Ghosts, you know, and all that. I
should never have thought that Margery could be so imaginative. She is
a dear good girl, always has been, but just a shade--dull."
"Impossible," murmured Mr. Satterthwaite with a confused idea of being
complimentary.
"In fact very dull," said Lady Stranleigh. "Doesn't care for dancing or
cocktails or any of the things a young girl ought to care about. She
much prefers staying at home to hunt instead of coming out here with
me."
"Dear, dear," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "She wouldn't come out with you,
you say?"
"Well, I didn't exactly press her. Daughters have a depressing effect
upon one, I find."
Mr. Satterthwaite tried to think of Lady Stranleigh accompanied by a
serious-minded daughter and failed.
"I can't help wondering if Margery is going off her head," continued
Margery's mother in a cheerful voice. "Hearing voices is a very bad
sign, so they tell me. It is not as though Abbot's Mede were haunted.
The old building was burned to the ground in 1836, and they put up a
kind of early Victorian château which simply cannot be haunted. It is
much too ugly and commonplace."
Mr. Satterthwaite coughed. He was wondering why he was being told all
this.
"I thought perhaps," said Lady Stranleigh, smiling brilliantly upon
him, "that _you_ might be able to help me."
"I?"
"Yes. You are going back to England tomorrow, aren't you?"
"I am. Yes, that is so," admitted Mr. Satterthwaite cautiously.
"And you know all these psychical research people. Of course you do,
you know everybody."
Mr. Satterthwaite smiled a little. It was one of his weaknesses to know
everybody.
"So what can be simpler?" continued Lady Stranleigh. "I never get on
with that sort of person. You know--earnest men with beards and usually
spectacles. They bore me terribly and I am quite at my worst with them."
Mr. Satterthwaite was rather taken aback. Lady Stranleigh continued to
smile at him brilliantly.
"So that is all settled, isn't it?" she said brightly. "You will go
down to Abbot's Mede and see Margery, and make all the arrangements. I
shall be terribly grateful to you. Of course, if Margery is _really_
going off her head, I will come home. Ah! here is Bimbo."
Her smile from being brilliant became dazzling.
A young man in white tennis flannels was approaching them. He was about
twenty-five years of age and extremely good-looking.
The young man said simply, "I have been looking for you everywhere,
Babs."
"What has the tennis been like?"
"Septic."
Lady Stranleigh rose. She turned her head over her shoulder and
murmured in dulcet tones to Mr. Satterthwaite, "It is simply marvelous
of you to help me. I shall never forget it."
Mr. Satterthwaite looked after the retreating couple.
_I wonder_, he mused to himself, _if Bimbo is going to be number five_.
* * * * *
The conductor of the Train de Luxe was pointing out to Mr.
Satterthwaite where an accident on the line had occurred a few years
previously. As he finished his spirited narrative, the other looked up
and saw a well-known face smiling at him over the conductor's shoulder.
"My dear Mr. Quin," said Mr. Satterthwaite. His little withered
face broke into smiles. "What a coincidence! That we should both be
returning to England on the same train. You are going there, I suppose."
"Yes," said Mr. Quin. "I have business there of rather an important
nature. Are you taking the first service of dinner?"
"I always do so. Of course it is an absurd time--half-past six, but one
runs less risk with the cooking."
Mr. Quin nodded comprehendingly. "I also," he said. "We might perhaps
arrange to sit together."
Half-past six found Mr. Quin and Mr. Satterthwaite established opposite
each other at a small table in the dining car. Mr. Satterthwaite gave
due attention to the wine list and then turned to his companion.
"I have not seen you since--ah, yes--not since Corsica. You left very
suddenly that day."
Mr. Quin shrugged his shoulders. "Not more so than usual. I come and
go, you know. I come and go."
The words seemed to awake some echo of remembrance in Mr.
Satterthwaite's mind. A little shiver passed down his spine--not a
disagreeable sensation, quite the contrary. He was conscious of a
pleasurable sense of anticipation.
Mr. Quin was holding up a bottle of red wine, examining the label on
it. The bottle was between him and the light but for a minute or two a
red glow enveloped his person.
Mr. Satterthwaite felt again that sudden stir of excitement. "I too
have a kind of mission in England," he remarked, smiling broadly at the
remembrance. "You know Lady Stranleigh, perhaps?"
Mr. Quin shook his head.
"It is an old title," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "a very old title. One
of the few that can descend in the female line. She is a baroness in
her own right. Rather a romantic history really."
Mr. Quin settled himself more comfortably in his chair. A waiter,
flying down the swinging car, deposited cups of soup before them as if
by a miracle. Mr. Quin sipped it cautiously.
"You are about to give me one of those wonderful descriptive portraits
of yours," he murmured, "that is so, is it not?"
Mr. Satterthwaite beamed on him.
"She is really a marvelous woman," he said. "Sixty, you know--yes, I
should say at least sixty. I knew them as girls, she and her sister.
Beatrice, that was the name of the elder one. Beatrice and Barbara.
I remember them as the Barron girls. Both good-looking and, in those
days, very hard up. That was a great many years ago--why, dear me, I
was a young man myself then." Mr. Satterthwaite sighed. "There were
several lives then between them and the title. Old Lord Stranleigh was
a first cousin once removed, I think. Lady Stranleigh's life has been
quite a romantic affair. Three unexpected deaths--two of the old man's
brothers and a nephew. Then there was the _Uralia_. You remember the
wreck of the _Uralia_? She went down off the coast of New Zealand. The
Barron girls were on board. Beatrice was drowned. This one, Barbara,
was among the few survivors. Six months later old Stranleigh died and
she succeeded to the title and came into a considerable fortune. Since
then she has lived for one thing only--herself! She has always been the
same, beautiful, unscrupulous, completely callous, interested solely
in herself. She has had four husbands, and I have no doubt could get a
fifth in a minute."
He went on to describe the mission with which he had been entrusted by
Lady Stranleigh.
"I thought of running down to Abbot's Mede to see the young lady," he
explained. "I--I feel that something ought to be done about the matter.
It is impossible to think of Lady Stranleigh as an ordinary mother." He
stopped, looking across the table at Mr. Quin.
"I wish you would come with me," he said wistfully. "Would it not be
possible?"
"I am afraid not," said Mr. Quin, "but, let me see--Abbot's Mede is in
Wiltshire, is it not?"
Mr. Satterthwaite nodded.
"I thought as much. As it happens, I shall be staying not far from
Abbot's Mede, at a place you and I both know." He smiled. "You remember
that little inn, The Bells and Motley?"
"Of course," cried Mr. Satterthwaite, "you will be there?"
Mr. Quin nodded. "For a week or ten days, possibly longer. If you will
come and look me up one day, I shall be delighted to see you."
And somehow or other Mr. Satterthwaite felt strangely comforted by the
assurance.
* * * * *
"My dear Miss--er--Margery," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "I assure you that
I should not dream of laughing at you."
Margery Gale frowned a little. They were sitting in the large
comfortable hall of Abbot's Mede. Margery Gale was a big, squarely
built girl. She bore no resemblance to her mother, but took entirely
after her father's side of the family, a line of hard-riding country
squires. She looked fresh and wholesome and the picture of sanity.
Nevertheless, Mr. Satterthwaite was reflecting to himself that the
Barrons as a family were all inclined to mental instability. Margery
might have inherited her physical appearance from her father and at the
same time have inherited some mental kink from her mother's side of the
family.
"I wish," said Margery, "that I could get rid of that Casson woman. I
don't believe in spiritualism, and I don't like it. She is one of these
silly women that run a craze to death. She is always bothering me to
have a medium down here."
Mr. Satterthwaite coughed, fidgeted a little in his chair and then said
in a judicial manner, "Let me be quite sure that I have all the facts.
The first of the--er--phenomena occurred two months ago, I understand."
"About that," agreed the girl. "Sometimes it was a whisper and
sometimes it was quite a clear voice, but it always said much the same
thing."
"Which was?"
"'_Give back what is not yours. Give back what you have stolen._' On
each occasion I switched on the light, but the room was quite empty and
there was no one there. In the end I got so nervous that I got Clayton,
Mother's maid, to sleep on the sofa in my room."
"And the voice came just the same?"
"Yes, but--and this is what frightens me--Clayton did not hear it."
Mr. Satterthwaite reflected for a minute or two. "Did it come loudly or
softly that evening?"
"It was almost a whisper," admitted Margery. "If Clayton was sound
asleep, I suppose she would not really have heard it. She wanted me to
see a doctor."
The girl laughed bitterly. "But since last night even Clayton
believes," she continued.
"What happened last night?"
"I am just going to tell you. I have told no one as yet. I had been
out hunting yesterday and we had had a long run. I was dead tired and
slept very heavily. I dreamed--a horrible dream--that I had fallen over
some iron railings and that one of the spikes was entering slowly into
my throat. I woke to find that it was true--there was some sharp point
pressing into the side of my neck and at the same time a voice was
murmuring softly, '_You have stolen what is mine. This is death._'
"I screamed," continued Margery, "and clutched at the air but there
was nothing there. Clayton heard me scream from the room next door
where she was sleeping. She came rushing in, and she distinctly felt
something brushing past her in the darkness, but she says that,
whatever that something was, it was not anything human."
Mr. Satterthwaite stared at her. The girl was obviously very shaken
and upset. He noticed on the left side of her throat a small square of
sticking plaster. She caught the direction of his gaze and nodded.
"Yes," she said, "it was not imagination, you see."
Mr. Satterthwaite put a question almost apologetically, it sounded so
melodramatic. "You don't know of anyone--er--who has a grudge against
you?" he asked.
"Of course not," said Margery, "what an idea."
Mr. Satterthwaite started on another line of attack. "What visitors
have you had during the last two months?"
"You don't mean just people for week-ends, I suppose? Marcia Keane
has been with me all along. She is my best friend and just as keen on
horses as I am. Then my cousin Roley Vavasour has been here a good
deal."
Mr. Satterthwaite nodded. He suggested that he should see Clayton, the
maid. "She has been with you a long time, I suppose?" he asked.
"Donkey's years," said Margery. "She was Mother's and Aunt Beatrice's
maid when they were girls. That is why Mother has kept her on, I
suppose, although she has got a French maid for herself. Clayton does
sewing and pottering little odd jobs."
She took him upstairs and presently Clayton came to them. She was a
tall, thin old woman with gray hair neatly parted, and looked the acme
of respectability.
"No, sir," she said in answer to Mr. Satterthwaite's inquiries, "I have
never heard anything of the house being haunted. To tell you the truth,
sir, I thought it was all Miss Margery's imagination until last night.
But I actually felt something--brushing by me in the darkness. And I
can tell you this, sir, _it was not anything human_. And then there is
that wound in Miss Margery's neck. She didn't do that herself, poor
lamb."
But her words were suggestive to Mr. Satterthwaite. Was it possible
that Margery could have inflicted that wound herself? He had heard of
strange cases where girls apparently just as sane and well balanced as
Margery had done the most amazing things.
"It will soon heal up," said Clayton. "It's not like this scar of mine."
She pointed to a mark on her own forehead. "That was done forty years
ago, sir. I still bear the mark of it."
"It was the time the _Uralia_ went down," put in Margery. "Clayton was
hit on the head by a spar, weren't you, Clayton?"
"Yes, miss."
"What do you think yourself, Clayton?" asked Mr. Satterthwaite. "What
do you think was the meaning of this attack on Miss Margery?"
"I really should not like to say, sir."
Mr. Satterthwaite read this correctly as the reserve of the
well-trained servant. "What do you really think, Clayton?" he said
persuasively.
"I think, sir, that something very wicked must have been done in this
house, and that until that is wiped out there won't be any peace."
The woman spoke gravely, and her faded blue eyes met his steadily.
Mr. Satterthwaite went downstairs rather disappointed. Clayton
evidently held the orthodox view, a deliberate "haunting" as a
consequence of some evil deed in the past. Mr. Satterthwaite himself
was not so easily satisfied. The phenomena had only taken place in the
last two months. Had only taken place since Marcia Keane and Roley
Vavasour had been there. He must find out something about these two. It
was possible that the whole thing was a practical joke. But he shook
his head, dissatisfied with that solution. The thing was more sinister
than that. The post had just come in and Margery was opening and
reading her letters. Suddenly she gave an exclamation.
"Mother is too absurd," she said. "Do read this." She handed the letter
to Mr. Satterthwaite.
It was an epistle typical of Lady Stranleigh.
_Darling Margery_ [she wrote],
_I am so glad you have that nice little Mr. Satterthwaite there. He
is awfully clever and knows all the big-wig spook people. You must
have them all down and investigate things thoroughly. I am sure
you will have a perfectly marvelous time and I only wish I could
be there, but I have really been quite ill the last few days. The
hotels are so careless about the food they give one. The doctor
says it is some kind of poisoning. I was really very ill._
_Sweet of you to send me the chocolates, darling, but surely
just a wee bit silly, wasn't it? I mean, there's such wonderful
confectionery out here._
_By-by, darling, and have a lovely time laying the family ghosts.
Bimbo says my tennis is coming on marvelously. Oceans of love_,
_Yours, Barbara._
"Mother always wants me to call her Barbara," said Margery. "Simply
silly, I think."
Mr. Satterthwaite smiled a little. He realized that the stolid
conservatism of her daughter must on occasions be very trying to Lady
Stranleigh. The contents of her letter struck him in a way in which
obviously they did not strike Margery.
"Did you send your mother a box of chocolates?" he asked.