There was a slight pause and then she answered quietly, "I will come at
once."
Mr. Satterthwaite put down the receiver and turned to Miss Glen. She
said quickly and angrily, "That was the picture you were talking about?"
"Yes," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "the lady to whom I am presenting it is
coming round to this house in a few minutes."
Suddenly Aspasia Glen's face broke once more into smiles. "You will
give me a chance of persuading her to turn the picture over to me?"
"I will give you a chance of persuading her."
Inwardly he was strangely excited. He was in the midst of a drama that
was shaping itself to some foredoomed end. He, the looker-on, was
playing a star part. He turned to Miss Glen.
"Will you come into the other room with me? I should like you to meet
some friends of mine."
He held the door open for her and, crossing the hall, opened the door
of the smoking room.
"Miss Glen," he said, "let me introduce to you an old friend of mine,
Colonel Monckton. Mr. Bristow, the painter of the picture you admire so
much." Then he started as a third figure rose from the chair which he
had left empty beside his own.
"I think you expected me this evening," said Mr. Quin. "During your
absence I introduced myself to your friends. I am so glad I was able to
drop in."
"My dear friend," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "I--I have been carrying
on as well as I am able but--" He stopped before the slight sardonic
glance of Mr. Quin's dark eyes. "Let me introduce you. Mr. Harley Quin,
Miss Aspasia Glen."
Was it his fancy--or did she shrink back slightly. A curious expression
flitted over her face. Suddenly Bristow broke in boisterously: "I have
got it."
"Got what?"
"Got hold of what was puzzling me. There is a likeness, there is a
distinct likeness." He was staring curiously at Mr. Quin. "You see it?"
He turned to Mr. Satterthwaite. "Don't you see a distinct likeness to
the Harlequin of my picture--the man looking in through the window?"
It was no fancy this time. He distinctly heard Miss Glen draw in her
breath sharply and even saw that she stepped back one pace.
"I told you that I was expecting someone," said Mr. Satterthwaite. He
spoke with an air of triumph. "I must tell you that my friend Mr. Quin
is a most extraordinary person. He can unravel mysteries. He can make
you see things."
"Are you a medium, sir?" demanded Colonel Monckton, eyeing Mr. Quin
doubtfully.
The latter smiled and slowly shook his head. "Mr. Satterthwaite
exaggerates," he said quietly. "Once or twice when I have been with him
he has done some extraordinarily good deductive work. Why he puts the
credit down to me I can't say. His modesty, I suppose."
"No, no," said Mr. Satterthwaite excitedly. "It isn't. You make me see
things--things that I ought to have seen all along--that I actually
have seen--but without knowing that I saw them."
"It sounds to me deuced complicated," said Colonel Monckton.
"Not really," said Mr. Quin. "The trouble is that we are not content
just to see things--we will tack the wrong interpretation onto the
things we see."
Aspasia Glen turned to Frank Bristow. "I want to know," she said
nervously, "what put the idea of painting that picture into your head?"
Bristow shrugged his shoulders. "I don't quite know," he confessed.
"Something about the place--about Charnley, I mean--took hold of my
imagination. The big empty room, the terrace outside, the idea of
ghosts and things, I suppose. I have just been hearing the tale of the
last Lord Charnley who shot himself. Supposing you are dead, and your
spirit lives on? It must be odd, you know. You might stand outside on
the terrace looking in at the window at your own dead body and you
would see everything."
"What do you mean?" said Aspasia Glen. "_See_ everything?"
"Well, you would see what happened. You would see--"
The door opened and the butler announced Lady Charnley.
Mr. Satterthwaite went to meet her. He had not seen her for nearly
thirteen years. He remembered her as she once was, an eager, glowing
girl. And now he saw--a Frozen Lady. Very fair, very pale, with an air
of drifting rather than walking, a snowflake driven at random by an icy
breeze. Something unreal about her. So cold, so far away.
"It was very good of you to come," said Mr. Satterthwaite.
He led her forward. She made a half gesture of recognition toward Miss
Glen and then paused as the other made no response.
"I am so sorry," she murmured, "but surely I have met you somewhere,
haven't I?"
"Over the footlights perhaps," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "This is Miss
Aspasia Glen, Lady Charnley."
"I am very pleased to meet you, Lady Charnley," said Aspasia Glen.
Her voice had suddenly a slight transatlantic tinge to it. Mr.
Satterthwaite was reminded of one of her various stage impersonations.
"Colonel Monckton you know," continued Mr. Satterthwaite, "and this is
Mr. Bristow."
He saw a sudden faint tinge of color in her cheeks.
"Mr. Bristow and I have met too," she said and smiled a little. "In a
train."
"And Mr. Harley Quin."
He watched her closely, but this time there was no flicker of
recognition. He set a chair for her and then seating himself he cleared
his throat and spoke a little nervously: "I--this is rather an unusual
little gathering. It centers round this picture. I--I think that if we
liked we could--clear things up."
"You are not going to hold a séance, Satterthwaite?" asked Colonel
Monckton. "You are very odd this evening."
"No," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "not exactly a séance. But my friend, Mr.
Quin, believes, and I agree, that one can by looking back over the past
see things as they were and not as they appeared to be."
"The past?" said Lady Charnley.
"I am speaking of your husband's suicide, Alix. I know it hurts you--"
"No," said Alix Charnley, "it doesn't hurt me. Nothing hurts me now."
Mr. Satterthwaite thought of Frank Bristow's words: "_She was not quite
real, you know. Shadowy. Like one of the people who come out of the
hills in Gaelic fairy tales._"
"Shadowy," he had called her. That described her exactly. A shadow, a
reflection of something else. Where then was the real Alix? And his
mind answered quickly, "_In the past. Divided from us by fourteen years
of time._"
"My dear," he said, "you frighten me. You are like the Weeping Lady
with the Silver Ewer."
Crash! The coffee cup on the table by Aspasia Glen's elbow fell
shattered to the floor. Mr. Satterthwaite waved aside her apologies.
He thought, _We are getting nearer, we are getting nearer every
minute--but nearer to what?_
"Let us take our minds back to that night fourteen years ago," he
said. "Lord Charnley killed himself. For what reason? No one knows."
Lady Charnley stirred slightly in her chair.
"Lady Charnley knows," said Frank Bristow abruptly.
"Nonsense," said Colonel Monckton, then stopped, frowning at her
curiously.
She was looking across at the artist. It was as though he drew the
words out of her. She spoke, nodding her head slowly, and her voice was
like a snowflake, cold and soft.
"Yes, you are quite right. _I know._ That is why as long as I live I
can never go back to Charnley. That is why when my boy Dick wants me to
open the place up and live there again I tell him it can't be done."
"Will you tell us the reason, Lady Charnley?" asked Mr. Quin.
She looked at him. Then, as though hypnotized, she spoke as quietly and
naturally as a child. "I will tell you if you like. Nothing seems to
matter very much now. I found a letter among his papers and I destroyed
it."
"What letter?" said Mr. Quin.
"The letter from the girl--from that poor child. She was the Merriams'
nursery governess. He had--he had made love to her--yes, while he was
engaged to me, just before we were married. And she--she was going to
have a child too. She wrote saying so, and that she was going to tell
me about it. So, you see, he shot himself."
She looked round at them wearily and dreamily, like a child who has
repeated a lesson it knows too well.
Colonel Monckton blew his nose. "My God," he said, "so that was it.
Well, that explains things with a vengeance."
"Does it?" said Mr. Satterthwaite. "It doesn't explain one thing. _It
doesn't explain why Mr. Bristow painted that picture._"
"What do you mean?"
Mr. Satterthwaite looked across at Mr. Quin as though for encouragement
and apparently got it, for he proceeded. "Yes, I know I sound mad to
all of you, but that picture is the focus of the whole thing. We are
all here tonight because of that picture. That picture _had_ to be
painted--that is what I mean."
"You mean the uncanny influence of the Oak Parlor," began Colonel
Monckton.
"No," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "Not the Oak Parlor. The Terrace Room.
That is it! The spirit of the dead man standing outside the window and
looking in and seeing his own dead body on the floor."
"Which he couldn't have done," said the Colonel, "because the body was
in the Oak Parlor."
"Supposing it wasn't," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "Supposing it was
exactly where Mr. Bristow saw it, saw it imaginatively, I mean, on the
black and white flags in front of the window."
"You are talking nonsense," said Colonel Monckton. "If it was there, we
shouldn't have found it in the Oak Parlor."
"Not unless someone carried it there," said Mr. Satterthwaite.
"And in that case how could we have seen Charnley going in at the door
of the Oak Parlor?" inquired Colonel Monckton.
"Well, you didn't see his face, did you?" asked Mr. Satterthwaite.
"What I mean is, you saw a man going into the Oak Parlor in fancy
dress, I suppose."
"Brocade things and a wig," said Monckton.
"Just so, and you thought it was Lord Charnley because the girl called
out to him as Lord Charnley."
"And because when we broke in a few minutes later there was only Lord
Charnley there dead. You can't get away from that, Satterthwaite."
"No," said Mr. Satterthwaite, discouraged. "No--unless there was a
hiding-place of some kind."
"Weren't you saying something about there being a Priests' hole in that
room?" put in Frank Bristow.
"Oh!" cried Mr. Satterthwaite. "Supposing--" He waved a hand for
silence and sheltered his forehead with his other hand and then spoke
slowly and hesitatingly.
"I have got an idea--it may be just an idea but I think it hangs
together. Supposing someone shot Lord Charnley. Shot him in the Terrace
Room. Then he--and another person--dragged the body into the Oak
Parlor. They laid it down there with the pistol by its right hand.
Now we go on to the next step. It must seem absolutely certain that
Lord Charnley has committed suicide. I think that could be done very
easily. The man in his brocade and wig passes along the hall by the
Oak Parlor door and someone, to make sure of things, calls out to him
as Lord Charnley from the top of the stairs. He goes in and locks both
doors and fires a shot into the woodwork. There were bullet holes
already in that room if you remember; one more wouldn't be noticed. He
then hides quietly in the secret chamber. The doors are broken open
and people rush in. It seems certain that Lord Charnley has committed
suicide. No other hypothesis is even entertained."
"Well, I think that is balderdash," said Colonel Monckton. "You forget
that Charnley had a motive right enough for suicide."
"A letter found afterward," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "A lying, cruel
letter written by a very clever and unscrupulous little actress who
meant one day to be Lady Charnley herself."
"You mean?"
"I mean the girl in league with Hugo Charnley," said Mr. Satterthwaite.
"You know, Monckton, everyone knows, that that man was a blackguard. He
thought that he was certain to come into the title." He turned sharply
to Lady Charnley. "What was the name of the girl who wrote that letter?"
"Monica Ford," said Lady Charnley.
"Was it Monica Ford, Monckton, who called out to Lord Charnley from the
top of the stairs?"
"Yes, now you come to speak of it, I believe it was."
"Oh, it's impossible," said Lady Charnley. "I--I went to her about it.
She told me it was all true. I only saw her that once afterward but
surely she couldn't have been acting the whole time."
Mr. Satterthwaite looked across the room at Aspasia Glen. "I think she
could," he said quietly. "I think she had in her the makings of a very
accomplished actress."
"There is one thing you haven't got over," said Frank Bristow. "There
would be blood on the floor of the Terrace Room. Bound to be. They
couldn't clear that up in a hurry."
"_No_," admitted Mr. Satterthwaite, "but there is one thing they could
do--a thing that would only take a second or two--they could throw over
the bloodstains the Bokhara rug. Nobody ever saw the Bokhara rug in
the Terrace Room before that night."
"I believe you are right," said Monckton, "but all the same, those
bloodstains would have to be cleared up some time?"
"Yes," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "in the middle of the night. A woman
with a jug and basin could go down the stairs and clear up the
bloodstains quite easily."
"But supposing someone saw her?"
"It wouldn't matter," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "I am speaking now of
things as they _are_. I said a woman with a jug and basin. But if I had
said a Weeping Lady with a Silver Ewer, that is what they would have
_appeared_ to be." He got up and went across to Aspasia Glen. "That
is what you did, wasn't it?" he said. "They call you the Woman with
the Scarf now, but it was that night you played your first part, the
Weeping Lady with the Silver Ewer. That is why you knocked the coffee
cup off that table just now. You were afraid when you saw that picture.
You thought someone knew."
Lady Charnley stretched out a white, accusing hand.
"Monica Ford," she breathed. "I recognize you now."
Aspasia Glen sprang to her feet with a cry. She pushed little Mr.
Satterthwaite aside with a shove of the hand and stood shaking in front
of Mr. Quin.
"So I was right. Someone _did_ know! Oh, I haven't been deceived by
this tomfoolery. This pretense of working things out." She pointed
at Mr. Quin. "_You_ were there. _You_ were there outside the window
looking in. You saw what we did, Hugo and I. I _knew_ there was someone
looking in; I felt it all the time. And yet when I looked up there was
nobody there. I knew someone was watching us. I thought once I caught a
glimpse of a face at the window. It has frightened me all these years.
And then I saw that picture with you standing at the window and I
recognized your face. You have known all these years. Why did you break
silence now? That is what I want to know."
"Perhaps so that the dead may rest in peace," said Mr. Quin.
Suddenly Aspasia Glen made a rush for the door and stood there flinging
a few defiant words over her shoulder.
"Do what you like. God knows there are witnesses enough to what I have
been saying. I don't care, I don't care. I loved Hugo and I helped him
with the ghastly business and he chucked me afterward. He died last
year. You can set the police on my tracks if you like but, as that
little dried-up fellow there said, I am a pretty good actress. They
will find it hard to find me." She crashed the door behind her and a
moment later they heard the slam of the front door also.
"Reggie," cried Lady Charnley, "Reggie." The tears were streaming down
her face. "Oh, my dear, my dear, I can go back to Charnley now. I can
live there with Dickie. I can tell him what his father was, the finest,
the most splendid man in all the world."
"We must consult very seriously as to what must be done in the matter,"
said Colonel Monckton. "Alix, my dear, if you will let me take you
home, I shall be glad to have a few words with you on the subject."
Lady Charnley rose. She came across to Mr. Satterthwaite and laying
both hands on his shoulders she kissed him very gently.
"It is so wonderful to be alive again after being so long dead,"
she said. "It was like being dead, you know. Thank you, dear Mr.
Satterthwaite." She went out of the room with Colonel Monckton. Mr.
Satterthwaite gazed after them. A grunt from Frank Bristow, whom he had
forgotten, made him turn sharply round.
"She is a lovely creature," said Bristow moodily. "But she's not nearly
so interesting as she was," he said gloomily.
"There speaks the artist," said Mr. Satterthwaite.
"Well, she isn't," said Mr. Bristow. "I suppose I should only get the
cold shoulder if I ever went butting in at Charnley. I don't want to go
where I am not wanted."
"My dear young man," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "if you will think a
little less of the impression you are making on other people, you will,
I think, be wiser and happier. You would also do well to disabuse your
mind of some very old-fashioned notions, one of which is that birth has
any significance at all in our modern conditions. You are one of those
large-proportioned young men whom women always consider good-looking,
and you have possibly, if not certainly, genius. Just say that over
to yourself ten times before you go to bed every night and in three
months' time go and call on Lady Charnley at Charnley. That is my
advice to you, and I am an old man with considerable experience of the
world."
A very charming smile suddenly spread over the artist's face. "You
have been thunderingly good to me," he said suddenly. He seized Mr.
Satterthwaite's hand and wrung it in a powerful grip. "I am no end
grateful. I must be off now. Thanks very much for one of the most
extraordinary evenings I have ever spent."
He looked round as though to say good-by to someone else and then
started. "I say, sir, your friend has gone. I never saw him go. He is
rather a queer bird, isn't he?"
"He goes and comes very suddenly," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "That is one
of his characteristics. One doesn't always see him come and go."
"Like Harlequin," said Frank Bristow, "he is invisible," and laughed
heartily at his own joke.