secretly battling with a desire to catch hold of this young man and to
kick him as far as the human foot could propel him; and it was, no
doubt, a relief to all when the two footmen swung open the great double
doors leading into the dining-room and announced gravely that dinner was
served.
With the matter of that dinner it is doubtful if anybody but Cleek
really enjoyed the hour spent in consuming it, and even he merely
because the girl of his heart was beside him, and _that_ would make a
heaven with any healthy and well-conditioned man in the universe. But it
was certain that nobody was deeply regretful when the end came, and Mrs.
Raynor, rising, gave the hint to Miss Lorne that it was time to return
to the drawing-room and to leave the gentlemen to their half hour with
the coffee, the liqueurs, and the cigars. But to-night the General would
have none of these.
"Young men to young men's pleasure, gentlemen. I'm an old fogy, and I'm
sleepy," he said immediately after the ladies had retired. "Besides, my
monthly copy of the _Gardener and Fruit Grower_ arrived this evening,
and I haven't looked at it yet. So, if you will excuse me, Mr.
Barch----"
"My dear General, pray make no apologies," said Cleek, struggling
between the necessity for keeping up his rakish attitude and the desire
to be a man in the eyes of this rugged old soldier, who was fighting a
braver battle now than he had ever fought in the days when king and
country called him. "If a man may not consider his personal convenience
in his own house, what's the good of saying that an Englishman's home is
his castle?"
"Ah, we outlive old notions, Mr. Barch, we outlive them!" replied the
General with a kindly smile and something that was like a smothered
sigh. "Pray make yourself thoroughly at home, however. I hear from Harry
that you have decided to honour us with a week's visit, and I am very
greatly pleased. Hawkins, in the absence of Johnston, see that the
gentlemen want for nothing."
"Very good, sir. Serve your coffee in your study, sir?"
"No, I shan't take any. See that I'm not disturbed; and don't bother to
valet me to-night; I shall be reading late. Good-night, Harry;
good-night, Mr. Barch." And with that he walked out of the room and left
them.
"Now, then, Hawkins," said young Raynor as soon as his father was fairly
out of sight and sound, "set the decanters and the glasses on the table
here, and you and Hamer clear off about your business as fast as you can
toddle. We don't need you. Hook it!"
"Very good, sir," replied Hawkins deferentially, and obeyed the order to
the letter.
Harry Raynor waited a moment to give both time to leave the room and to
get beyond earshot, then caught up a decanter, drew a glass toward him,
and poured out a stiff peg of brandy.
"I say, Barch, I've got a flea to put into your ear," he said earnestly,
"and I didn't want those blighters hanging round to hear it; that's the
reason I packed them off as I did. I'm going to give you a shock that
will set you thinking."
"Are you?" said Cleek with the utmost serenity. "Well, I'm going to give
_you_ one, too, dear boy; and as first horse at the post wins--I say,
what price this little caper? How did you come by this, dear boy--and
when?"
He dipped round and down into his coat-tail pocket, as he spoke, pulled
out the scent bracelet, and laid it on the table before him.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
PICKING UP THREADS
Young Raynor was not in the smallest degree upset at sight of the thing.
He was mildly surprised, and expressed it by a low, soft whistle as he
reached out his hand and took up the bracelet.
"Well, of all the mutton heads! Shows what a thoughtless beggar I am!"
he said with a slight lurch of the shoulders and an impatient twitch of
the head. "No need to ask you how you came by the blessed thing, dear
boy. Found it in the inside pocket of that coat you're wearing, I know.
That's where I put the bally thing, I recollect. What an ass of me to
forget all about it. Hope she won't think I've bagged it."
"She?" said Cleek, with admirable composure, considering that this open
admission, this evidence of there being nothing to conceal, threatened
to upset all his calculations. "Antecedent of that personal pronoun,
please; who may the 'she' in question be?"
"Why, Mignon, of course."
"Mignon?"
"Yes, Mademoiselle Mignon De Varville, the famous Whirlwind Dancer of
the Paris Varietes. _You_ know her, or ought to, considering that you
got a peep at her phiz in spite of me this afternoon."
"Not 'Pink Gauze'? The lady of the tobacco jar?"
"The very identical. Little bit of all right, that--eh, what?"
"Looked like it, at all events," said Cleek, selecting a cigar and
lighting up. "What a lucky beggar you are, dear chap--all the good
things seem to go your way. And so"--puff! puff!--"Pink Gauze gave you
the bracelet, eh? When? Last night? Or didn't you see her then?"
"Oh, I saw her last night, right enough; in fact, I've seen her pretty
nearly every night since she came over from Paris, but she didn't give
me the bracelet to take care of _then_. _That_ was on the night
before--over at her little place, you know."
"No, I'm blest if I do. How should I? Never saw or heard of her, dear
boy, till I had the misfortune to break that tobacco jar and tumble out
her photo. So her name's Mignon de Varville, is it? And she's got a
little place of her own, eh? Where? In this neighbourhood?"
"Lord, no! Beyond Wimbledon. Rippin' little place, too. Clinkin' little
house standing in its own grounds and fitted up to the nines. Took it
furnished, and gives the rippin'est suppers and the jolliest dances
going. Hot stuff, I give you _my_ word. Brought over her entire troupe
with her. Rehearsing now, and with all their evenings to themselves.
Going to open in London in a fortnight's time, she says, and no English
hotels for _her_ and her little lot. There are ten of 'em: five spiffin'
pretty girls, and five of the most awful-lookin' Johnnies you ever saw
in evening clothes since the hour you were christened. Coarse as dog's
hair, every mother's son of 'em, but clinkin' good chaps, for all that.
Plenty of champagne, and jolly good champagne it is, too, dear boy; and
after supper there's always a dance, two of the chaps and two of the
girls sitting out and furnishing the music. And Lord, you don't know
what a dance is, Barch, till you've had one with Mignon de Varville, my
boy!"
Cleek did not dispute the assertion. He had had many with the lady in
those old days that lay forever behind; and it needed no man's word to
tell him how tirelessly, how joyously, and with what mad _abandon_
Margot could dance when the fever of music and wine got into her blood.
"My hat! I'll be choking you from sheer jealousy, presently, you lucky
beggar!" he said enviously. "All the plums seem to fall over on _your_
side of the wall, dash you! and here am I sitting solitary and alone in
a howling wilderness with not even _one_. I say, how the dickens did you
ever come across this French lot? Blest if I can seem to meet with
_any_--French, English, or any other sort, dash it! Where did you meet
the charming Mignon? In Paris?"
"No fear! You can fall in with anything going in London if you only
know the ropes, dear boy, and are popular. Flossie Twinkletoes
introduced me to her. She'd just come over from Paris, and Flossie was
out of work through the failure of 'The Seaside Girl,' and asked me to
take her to supper and meet a friend of hers. I did--and the friend was
Mignon. After that--well, you know how it is, dear boy. When a fellow
knows his way about women _will_ run after him. Mignon and I took to
each other from the first, and we've been jolly good pals ever since.
Invited me to her place before we'd known each other half an hour. Fact,
dear boy. And she's rather exclusive, too, I can tell you. Just _how_
exclusive you may guess when I tell you that I'm the only living man
outside of those who belong to her troupe that ever sees the inside of
her house or shares one of those rippin' evenings there."
The curious one-sided smile travelled up Cleek's cheek, hovered there a
moment, and then disappeared. He said nothing upon the subject, but it
was perfectly clear to him just _why_ Mr. Harry Raynor was the only
stranger present. He knew Margot and he knew her methods. This one man
was desirable because she had an especial use for him; and he meant to
make it his business to find out just what that especial use might be.
So, then, she had abandoned her customary tactics for once, and had
brought some of the female members of her crew to England with her, had
she?
The murder of De Louvisan looked more than ever like an Apache crime,
in the light of these things. But _why_ an Apache crime? Margot's game
was always money; and the pseudo Count de Louvisan had not a shilling to
bless himself with. Again, if it were an Apache crime, how came a man
who was undeniably Lord St. Ulmer--undeniably everything that he
claimed--to be mixed up in the affair to such an extent as he was? And
what of Lady Clavering? Where did she come in? What had taken her out
upon the Common last night? What of young Geoff? What of his father? And
what, of all things, about Lady Katharine Fordham?
None of these people could be connected with Margot--with the Apaches.
He had his own ideas relative to Lady Katharine's part in the puzzle,
but there was still that bundle of buried clothing, still the fact that
it was found in the grounds of Wuthering Grange, and that it was highly
improbable either Margot or any of her crew could have put it there.
Still, Margot had a purpose in "catching" Mr. Harry Raynor; and if----
Ah, well, you never can tell. Shallow-looking pools are sometimes very
deep. Which, then, _was_ Mr. Harry Raynor: the brainless fool he
appeared, or a very excellent actor playing a very cunning part?
During the moment it had taken for these thoughts to travel through his
mind, Cleek's whole attention seemed to be claimed by his cigar, which,
for some unknown reason, appeared to have an objection to draw. Now,
however, he flung the thing aside.
"Pardon me, dear boy, if I have seemed inattentive," he said. "Please go
on. What was it you were saying? Oh, ah! I recollect: about your being
the only guest that Mademoiselle What's-her-name ever asks to her
blessed kick-ups. Lay you a tanner I can tell you why, old chap."
"Can you? Then why?"
"Either she's clean gone on you--which, no doubt, is very likely--or
she's trying to get something out of you. Ever give you what our Yankee
cousins call the touch? Ever try to get anything out of you?"
"Not a blessed rap. Never wanted _anything_ from me. That is, anything
in the money line, I mean. Hinted pretty strongly at something else,
however; but, of course, I wasn't taking any on that score!"
"Weren't you? Why not?"
"Don't be an ass, Barchie! You've seen the pater and mater, and you can
judge for yourself just how impossible it would be to even hint at
having a girl like Mignon asked over here to dinner one night just
simply because she has, as she says, an intense yearning to see how
people of the better class in England live and conduct themselves in
their own homes."
Cleek reached for another cigar and lit it. Oho! so that was how the cat
jumped, was it? That was Margot's little game, eh? She had taken up with
this engaging young man merely for the purpose of getting an entree to
Wuthering Grange. Clearly, then, there must be something or some one
under the roof of this house that she desired to get in contact with;
and having failed to get _invited_, as she had hoped----Yes, of course!
Cunning of her, diabolically cunning. Forgotten all about the bracelet,
eh? Not she! He knew her like a book. It would be an excuse to come over
in person to ask for its return. "So sorry; but called away suddenly,
and couldn't possibly wait for you to bring it back." That sort of
thing, and--well, there you are. Ah, she was the very embodiment of
craft and cunning, that lady: cut her off at one door and she would make
her way round to the other.
"Wasn't aware that it was anything of that sort, dear chap, or I
shouldn't have asked," said Cleek, responding with the utmost serenity
to young Raynor's remark. "Of course you couldn't do anything of that
sort, so it was deuced wise of you to ignore the hint. Rum what fancies
women of that sort have, eh? And how blessed crafty they are in getting
what they want! You look out, dear boy, that she doesn't come over here
after that bracelet. Lay you a sov that's why she got you to take charge
of it."
"Lay you another it isn't," replied the young man, with a smile of
confidence. "You don't know the facts, dear boy, or you wouldn't jump to
such silly conclusions. She gave it to me because the blessed thing
would keep coming undone and falling off and interfering with our
waltzing. Besides, it wasn't she--it was I--that suggested that I should
put it in my pocket for safe keeping until the dancing was over; and,
like a blithering idiot, you see, I forgot all about it. Blessed lucky
thing for me that I had to lend you a suit of evening clothes, b'gad, or
I might not have found the bracelet for heaven knows how long."
"And a blessed lucky thing for me that you turned up in time to lend it
to me," said Cleek, in reply. "Never was in such a beastly funk in all
my life, dear chap. Could have said a prayer, if I knew any, I was so
blessed glad when I looked out and saw you standing in the passage. I
say, how did you come to be there, Raynor? Thought you were heaven knows
how far away, and blest if I can think where you came from."
"Popped out of St. Ulmer's room. Next one to yours. Was in there when
that sneak thief appeared."
"In there? My hat! What a rum idea! Thought you didn't care for the old
josser. At least, you spoke as though you didn't this afternoon; and to
have you sitting in there and kow-towing to a gouty old sick man----"
"Wasn't sitting in there, dear boy. Had just popped in on my way up to
dress. Evening papers full of that business at Gleer Cottage last night.
Bought several of them at the railway station. Happened to think that,
maybe, the old bounder hadn't read the news and would be interested in
it, so just dropped in to give them to him. That was all."
"Oh, I see," said Cleek. "That accounts for it, of course. Wondered how
the dickens you came to be there, and what on earth had called you back
home so early after you'd told me not to expect you until twelve. By the
way, dear boy, what did call you back, if it isn't an impertinence to
ask. Needn't bother to reply if you'd rather not." This latter, for the
reason that at the mention of his coming back earlier than expected,
young Raynor's lips had come together in a sharp, hard, narrow line, and
his eyes had assumed an absolutely savage expression. "Sorry if I've
poked my nose in where I'm not wanted, old chap, deuced sorry."
"Oh, that's all right," said Raynor, reaching for the decanter and
pouring out a fresh peg of brandy. "Don't bother about treading on _my_
corns. Of course I'm a bit sore on the subject, but--well, I like you,
Barch; I like you no end. Besides, I was going to tell you, anyhow.
Remember, don't you, that I said I was going to give you a shock?"
"Oh, ah! Yes. Blest if I hadn't forgotten. And I thought I was going to
give you one, too, about the bracelet; but it didn't come off. Maybe
yours won't either, dear boy."
"Oh, don't you make any mistake upon that score. Lay you a fiver it
makes you sit up when I spring it on you. Shove that siphon over this
way, will you, dear boy? Thanks, very much. I say, Barch--chin'-chin',
old chap!-- I say, you want to know what sent me back so unexpectedly,
do you, eh? Well, you may."
"May I? Thanks. Then what did?"
"Same thing that called me away in the first place--a blessed swindle!"
"The dickens you say? What sort of a swindle, old chap, eh?"
"A forged letter. Somebody wanted to get me away from this house for
some purpose or another, and to _keep_ me away until late to-night, too.
I don't know why, and I don't know what for, but I'm jolly well certain
who the party is, b 'gad; and it's a howlin' eye-opener, I give you _my_
word! Wait a bit!"
He got up suddenly, walked to the door, opened it a foot or so, peeped
out, then reclosed it and walked back to his seat. He poured out a third
brandy, and drank it almost neat this time, then put his elbows upon the
table, and, leaning forward, looked straight into Cleek's eyes.
"Barch, I've discovered something," he said in a lowered voice. "My
father's playing a double game. He's a damned old two-faced hypocrite,
that's what, and I've found him out at last!"
The cigar dropped suddenly from Cleek's fingers, and he ducked down in
quest of it. He simply _had_ to have some excuse to cover up the state
of his feelings, or they would have got the better of him. A while ago
he had said to himself that the fellow was despicable enough to
implicate his own parents if it were necessary to save his skin; but
even then he had only half believed it; now, however, he knew, and a
fierce indignation bit into the very soul of him.
The worm had suddenly developed into a viper.
He went on groping for the dropped cigar. He might have found it at once
had he chosen to do so, but he did not. It needed a moment or two to
whip his savage desires into subjugation, to get himself well in hand
again that he might face this unnatural son without giving way to the
temptation to thrash him; and all the while his head was whirling with
the crushing recollections that were crowding into it.
If it were worth his while--to save his own skin, to divert suspicion
from himself---- Well, was it not worth his while now? The chase was
narrowing, and perhaps he knew it--one could not be certain what such a
man _would_ find means of discovering. Perhaps he knew of the unearthing
of the buried clothing. Perhaps he knew that there was proof the
murderer had been traced to Wuthering Grange, and knowing, realized the
necessity for diverting suspicion from himself, if he were guilty? But,
guilty or innocent, principal or accessory, this one thing was certain:
last night a murder had been committed; last night a dead man had been
spiked to the wall in true Apache fashion; and this Mr. Harry Raynor,
who was casting slurs upon his own father, was hand and glove with the
Apache queen!
CHAPTER TWENTY
"HOW SHARPER THAN A SERPENT'S TOOTH"
Cleek found his cigar at last, and rose with it in his hand, leaving
young Barch to finish his story in his own inimitable way.
"Yes," he continued, "what I call a regular facer for me. I was swindled
into going away by a forged letter, which I swear he wrote himself.
Recollect, don't you, that when you came to meet me at the ruin, I told
you I'd suddenly been called away? Well, so I had. While I was waiting
there at the ruin for you to get shot of that muff Geoff Clavering and
come to join me, up walks the pater and hands me a letter--a typewritten
letter, mark you--with word that a messenger had just brought it. Now
listen to this closely, Barch! Last January some fool of an editor
suggested to my pater that he should write a series of articles upon the
proper cultivation of hot-house fruits for his tomfool paper, and said
that typewritten copy was absolutely necessary. Out goes the pater and
buys a typewriter, and engages a girl to operate it. Got her from some
typewriting school in town, and a rippin' fine little girl she was, too!
Name, Katie Walters. Pretty as a picture and lively as a cricket. Well,
Katie and I became jolly good pals. Pater found it out, and then just
what you might have expected happened. I got a lecture, and Katie got
the sack and was packed off to town before I could get a private word
with her. Now, the letter my father handed me this afternoon was
supposed to come from that girl."
"And didn't?"
"No, it didn't. It asked me to run up to town and meet her just outside
the typewriting school when the day's work was over. I went, but I
didn't do exactly as I'd been asked. I suppose the party that wrote it
hoped that I'd wait there until dark, and that when she didn't come out
I'd come to the conclusion that I'd missed her, and, being in town,
would probably go somewhere else and make a night of it, as I most
likely should have done under ordinary circumstances. But I didn't feel
like waiting round for that bally school to close; so as soon as I got
there, I walked upstairs and asked to see her."
"Humph! And she wasn't there?"
"No, she wasn't. And what's more, she hadn't been there for weeks and
weeks. Had got a position up in Scotland, and is going to be married to
a bank clerk next month."
"Oho!" said Cleek, "I see! I see!"
He walked over to the other side of the room, where there was a huge
potted azalea on an ebony pedestal. He had admired and he had examined
that azalea earlier in the evening, so it was, perhaps, only natural
that he should be attracted by it now. Still, for once in a way, it was
not the blossoming beauty of the plant that lured him to it, much as
flowers always had and always would appeal to him. He could see the
trend of young Raynor's tale now, the dim, shadowy outline of the
argument he was putting forth, the suspicion he was endeavouring to
lead; and he was afraid that something in his face or his eyes might
betray the true state of his feelings if he remained there in the bright
light for the man to study him. The big azalea offered the refuge of
shadow. He walked there and stood in the shade of it, and began idly
poking at the earth in the huge pot.
"Naturally, dear boy," he went on, "when you heard that you knew that
you had been taken in."
"So I did, on the instant," said young Raynor, tackling yet a fourth
glass of brandy. "It was as plain as the nose on your face that somebody
had tried to spoof me; somebody had an interest in sending me off to
town on a wild-goose chase and getting me out of this neighbourhood
to-night, and that that somebody hadn't reckoned upon my doing what I
did, and didn't know about my having promised you to take you to see
Mignon de Varville, when that blithering letter intervened. And speaking
of that-- I say, Barchie, we'll go to-night, if you like--eh, what?"
"Sorry, dear boy," said Cleek, whose intention was to get out on the
Common to-night and test the truth of Geoff Clavering's story; "sorry,
but I'm afraid we'll have to put that off until to-morrow. Thinking you
weren't coming back in time, I arranged with the ladies for an evening
of bridge; so, if you don't join us, you'll have to pay your respects to
'Pink Gauze' to-night without me. And, by the way, how did you get that
bit of pink gauze, old chap? Any particular significance attached to
it?"
"Lord, no! Bit of gauze scarf she wore the other night--always wears
pink, by the way--caught in my watch chain. Tore in gettin' loose, and I
kept the bit as a memento."
"Ah, I see. Well, get on with the other subject; I'm immensely
interested. As soon as you'd found out that Katie What's-her-name
couldn't have written the letter, and that you'd been deceived by
somebody, then what?"
"Why, then I put back home by the first possible train. I had my
suspicions--yes, rather--so I came back to prove them true."
"And did you?"
"Ah, didn't I? Nobody knew of my affair with Katie outside of my father,
and my father has a typewriter ready to hand, and typewriters don't
betray anybody's 'fist.' I went to the lodgekeeper. No messenger had
passed him to-day. I went to Hawkins and Hamer. No messenger had brought
any letter that they knew of to the house. I couldn't ask Johnston,
because this is his evening off; but no doubt that when I do ask him
he'll say the same. Well, now, you put all those things together, Barch,
and see for yourself what they make. As nobody but my father knew
anything about the girl, and nobody gave him a letter, and he has a
typewriter ready to hand, why there you are. He wrote the letter, that's
what. And if he wrote it to get me away and keep me away until late at
night, why he's got a devilish good reason for it; and if he has got a
reason for doing things at night that he doesn't want other people to
know about and doesn't want his own son to discover, then he's playing a
double game. And last, when a man sets himself up for a howling saint in
the virtue line and yet plays a double game, why he's a rotter and a
hypocrite, whether he's my father or not, and I'm not going to stand
it." He nodded with drunken solemnity. "I'm going to have it out with
him to-night, you'll see. Come with me if you like----"