doing so, that she was struck to the very heart, and he made haste to
lessen her distress by telling her of Lady Katharine's denial and of the
whole circumstance as it happened. Then he told of his own discovery of
the buried clothing, his overhearing the interview, the manner in which
the lovers had parted, and, finally, of his own act in apprehending
young Clavering and then accepting his parole and sending him off to
London for the night.
"Why did you do that?" she questioned feebly, and was not satisfied even
when he explained his motive. "I will not even take his word against
Kathie's, but I could have told you that he speaks the truth when he
says that his stepmother's interest in him is so great it is very likely
that she did go out on the Common to look for him, and for the reason he
gave. If he were her own son she could not think more of him. She
absolutely idolizes him. He is not dearer to his father than he is to
her; and if he does not return to Clavering Close to-night, be sure she
will have the Common searched from end to end, and will go half out of
her mind when she does not find him."
Cleek took his chin between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed it
hard. This was somewhat of a facer, he was obliged to confess.
"You rather take the wind out of my sails," he said reflectively. "If
the boy spoke the truth, if the stepmother really does care like that,
why that eliminates her from the case altogether, and it isn't worth
while asking you to take the risk I alluded to in the note."
"What risk?"
"A very considerable one for a young lady in your position, should you
be seen. As I do not even know Lady Clavering by sight, I was going to
ask you if you would mind prowling about the Common in company with me,
that, if the lady put in an appearance, you might be able to identify
her for me. But of course, if it is so very certain that she will join
in the search for the boy, there's no necessity for doing such a thing."
"Pardon me, but I think, Mr. Cleek, there is more reason than ever," she
replied, "if only to ease her mind, you know. You might do that by
telling her that Geoff was unexpectedly called to town and that you were
on the way to the Close to tell them so. I don't in the least mind
taking the risk, as you call it, under those circumstances; it would be
a charity to do so, for I know her ladyship, and Sir Philip will worry.
Of course they will not think of worrying yet a while; it is much too
early; and as Geoff came over here to see Kathie they will think he is
remaining for the evening. But later, when it is past bedtime, when it
is getting on toward twelve o'clock, they will be half out of their
minds with anxiety. Oh, yes; I'll go with you willingly, this minute if
you like, in such a cause as that."
"How loyal you are! What a woman you are! What a friend!" said Cleek
admiringly. "Shall I tell you something? I have hope that one of those
friends will be wholly cleared before another day comes; that something
may happen to-night which will make Geoff Clavering the happiest of men
and you and Lady Katharine almost beside yourselves with joy. No, don't
ask me what it is just yet a while. I have dreams and fancies and odd
notions like other men sometimes; and I am a great believer in the
theory of Loisette that a likeness of events acting upon a weary brain
is apt to produce similar results in certain highly strung natures. But
will you walk with me as far as the angle of the wall on the other side
of the shrubbery, Miss Lorne? Dollops is waiting there for me. I have
something of great importance for him to do to-night, and I think you
will be interested in it. Will you come? Thank you! This way then,
please, as quietly as you can."
Taking her hand and keeping always on the grass and always in the dark,
where the shadows of the trees lay between them and the lighted windows
of the Grange, he led her on to something which even he had not foreseen
and never for a moment guessed.
At the angle of the wall he stopped and began to whistle softly
"Kathleen Mavourneen." As upon another occasion, before he had completed
the third bar, the wall door gaped open and flashed shut again and
Dollops was in the dark, tree-crowded enclosure with him. It was a
rather more excited Dollops than he had expected to find, however, for
Cleek had no more than just begun to apologize for his lateness when the
boy was on him like a pouncing cat and was cutting into his low-spoken
words in a panting sort of whisper:
"For Gawd's sake, gov'ner. Come quick, sir!" he said, as he laid a
tense, nervous grip on Cleek's arm. "'Nother door in the wall, sir.
Higher up where them mulberry trees is thickest. Woman prowlin' round,
gov'ner. Been prowlin' round this ten minutes past and been to that door
and tried it three times a'ready. Woman in a pink dress, sir, and a long
dark cloak reachin' almost to the ground!"
"Margot!" said Cleek in an exultant whisper. "Margot at last, by
George!"
Then, for the second time that night, he received a shock.
"If you mean that French Aparsh 'skirt' we run up against in the time of
the Red Crawl, gov'ner," interposed Dollops, "you're backin' the wrong
horse. It aren't _her_--aren't a bit like her, sir; no fear!"
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE LADY AT THE GATE
Cleek was conscious of a sense of keen disappointment at this piece of
intelligence, it so completely upset all his calculation. Hitherto, the
bits of the puzzle had fitted nicely and bade fair to make a smooth and
flawless whole.
"Are you sure?" he whispered, laying a tense hand upon Dollops's arm.
"Don't jump to a conclusion without positive evidence. Are you _sure_?"
"Rath-_er_! Of course it's too dark to see her face, gov'ner; but when
she come to the gate the first time--she's been several, sir--it was a
deal lighter on account of the moon not bein' hid so much with them
blessed clouds, sir; and I could see then that she was wot you might
call a high-stepper--summink classy and up in the nines, gov'ner, and
had a way with her that you don't pick up if you aren't born to it. She
couldn't have been putting it on for effect, 'cause she didn't know
there was anybody there to see. Gone she is now, sir; slipped off over
the Common, and I lost sight of her among all them furze bushes, but
she'll come back, never fear. She's went away like that two or three
times before, but always come back and tried the door, and jist struck
her hands together and rocked back and forwards like she was half
beside herself when she found it locked and nobody there to meet her."
"And you didn't succeed in seeing her face at all?"
"No, sir. It never was light enough for me to do that. But even if it
had been, it wouldn't 'a' been no use, sir. She had summick that looked
like a white lace scarf wrapped all round her head and over her face.
But I was near enough to make out as she smelt summink beautiful of
voylits, and had on one of them shiny, silky-lookin' kind of
mackintoshes and a dress of pink silk."
A black mackintosh and a dress of pink silk! _Not_ a black cloak lined
with ermine! Not a dress of pink gauze! Of course Dollops was right in
his statement that it was not Margot; that fact alone proved it. So
there was a second woman who prowled about Wuthering Grange and
endeavoured to see somebody in secret, was there? Whom? Harry Raynor or
Lord St. Ulmer?
Clearly the one in the pink gauze--Margot beyond all possible
question--came to see Raynor, for Hamer had identified her as the woman
he had seen in that young man's company that day at Kingston. Who, then,
was this other woman in pink? And whom did _she_ come to see? What was
_her_ mission, her place in this elusive puzzle?
Come to think of it, he had been a fool to imagine when Dollops first
spoke of her that it could possibly be Margot. The pink dress itself
ought to have told him that. For although young Raynor had said that
the lady he knew as Mademoiselle Mignon de Varville nearly always
dressed in pink, Margot was no such fool as to prowl round this place
to-night in the identical frock she had worn at the time of the tragedy,
and from which that tiny scrap had been torn by the nail head in the
floor of Gleer Cottage.
True, nobody but Narkom and Ailsa and he himself knew, as yet, of the
finding of that betraying scrap, but---- Ah, well, you couldn't catch
Margot napping! She might not know when, how, nor _where_ that scrap had
been torn off, but _her_ shrewd eyes would detect the missing bit in the
skirt: she would be on to it like a cat on a mouse. He knew her methods,
knew her miscroscopic carefulness and attention to detail. What, then,
was this other woman's place in the puzzle? What was she after? Whom had
she come to see? He'd make it his business to find that out, and in
short order, too.
These things had travelled through Cleek's thoughts rapidly. It was
scarcely more than a moment after Dollops had last spoken when he
addressed the boy again.
"I've got something important on hand for you, as I told you, my lad,"
he said in a cautious whisper. "But, first, tell me: where is this other
door in the wall of which you speak, the one where the Pink Woman goes?"
"Jist about thirty feet farther up, gov'ner; there where them mulberry
trees is so blessed thick. You don't notice the place till you come
smack on to it, on account of furze bushes and ivy along the foot of the
wall. You can creep up till you're almost on it, though, without a body
seein' of you, 'specially if you go before the party comes back."
"Right you are," said Cleek in reply. "I'll act on that tip, my lad.
Now, then, listen here. There's a ruin in the grounds of this place, and
that ruin I particularly wish to have closely watched to-night. For one
thing, the man who murdered the Common keeper made his way to that place
and buried his victim's clothing there; and for another--oh, well, never
mind. That will keep for later. Miss Lorne"--he turned to Ailsa, who all
along had remained silent and closely huddled back in the shadow of the
wall-angle and the trees--"Miss Lorne, we shall have to defer our stroll
on the Common until later, I'm afraid. I shall have to look into the
matter of this mysterious woman in pink before we can give any further
thought to Lady Clavering and her possible anxiety over her stepson. In
the meantime, will you, as silently and as expeditiously as you can,
steal back through the grounds and show Dollops the way to the ruin?
Afterward, you and I can meet again here. And you, Dollops, listen
closely to what I say. The chances are that some one, either man or
woman, will secretly visit that ruin to-night. Keep yourself well hidden
and your eyes wide open. If a woman comes, slip away from the place as
quietly as you can, come round to the shrubbery near the front entrance
to the house, and hoot like an owl three times in succession; then lie
low until I come out and join you. But if, on the other hand, it should
be a man who puts in an appearance--here, lay hold of this pair of
handcuffs--look sharp! At all costs, at any hazard, get those things on
him and then blow your police whistle as a signal to me. I'll be with
you like a shot. Now, then, cut along with you. Show him the way, Miss
Lorne, and be as quiet as you can in your movements, both of you."
"Mice'll be fools to us, sir," whispered Dollops.
Cleek waited a minute to let them get well on their way, then stooped in
the darkness, crept to the wall door, opened it cautiously, and went
down on all-fours upon the strip of grass and the row of furze bushes
that flanked that wall upon the outer side and made a narrow black alley
between it and the crowded mulberry trees.
The moon had ridden farther than ever into the depths of the thick,
slow-moving clouds, and the darkness was almost opaque. To the left the
great Common stretched out, a thing of gloom and shadows, blotted here
and there with deeper black where the furze clumps were thickest or the
full-leaved tree reached up above the skyline. On the right, the blank
wall rose, flat, smooth as your hand, so tall it shut out even the
lights in the windows of the Grange; and between these lay Mulberry
Lane, a black funnel leading on to deeper darkness and the shapelessness
of crowded trees.
In the shadows of that narrow alley made by the wall and the furze
bushes Cleek crouched a moment and listened before he ventured to move
another inch. Not a sound, not the merest ghost of a sound. If the woman
were in the immediate neighbourhood, she was keeping extremely quiet;
therefore it behoved him to progress with infinite caution. Inch by
inch, on hands and knees, he moved up that narrow alley, stopping every
now and then to prick up his ears and listen breathlessly. But upon
every occasion he found the stillness yet unbroken and no sign or sound
of breathing life anywhere about him.
Two minutes passed--three--five--half a dozen, and still all was as it
had been in the beginning. By this time this slow, cautious creeping had
carried him over two thirds of the distance, and he was now within ten
or eleven feet of the hidden gate; and still no sound or sign of the
woman's return. Indeed, no sound of any sort until, with one hand
outstretched and one knee lifted to edge forward yet a trifle more, he
paused abruptly, sucked in his breath, and huddled softly down, becoming
but a mere dark heap on the damp, dark grass.
A sound had come at last! The unmistakable sound of some one moving
cautiously through close-pressing branches and crowded leaves.
It was so faint a thing that ears less keen than his might not have
detected it. Yet, at the first rustle of the first stirred leaf he
caught the hiss of it and knew it was not the woman that made it; for
the prickly foliage of furze makes no rustling sound when a passing
body brushes it, and there was nothing upon the outer side of the wall
_but_ furze that was low enough to be brushed in passing.
Clearly, then, the sound was from the other side of the wall, from
within the grounds of the Grange! Some one was coming to keep the
tryst--some one who, evidently, had been delayed past an agreed time,
otherwise the woman would not have made all those anxious pilgrimages to
the door and been so upset when she found it still locked and nobody
there to meet her.
Well, this was a stroke of good fortune at all events; for if by any
chance the woman did not return there would at least be the satisfaction
of discovering----A sound interrupted: a cat's mew to the life. And from
the shadow of a thick furze hedge on the Common side of the lane it was
answered.
"Yes, I am here," a shrill, eager voice called out in a sharp, keen
whisper. "Oh, come quickly or I shall go insane!"
Almost instantly there was a rustle of silken garments, a patter of
footsteps, the swift moving of a figure across the lonely lane, followed
by the rattle and click of a key in a spring lock, the creak of an
in-swung gate moving upon its hinges, and with these things the sound of
an excited man whispering warningly, "Sh-h-h!" as the woman swept down
upon him in a state bordering on absolute hysteria.
"Oh, if you could but know what agonies I have suffered, what horrors
of suspense I have endured!" she said in a wailing sort of whisper, "I
feared that you might not be able to come, after I have risked so much
to be here; but when I heard the cat's mew, I wonder that I did not
scream."
And again the man's whispered "Sh-h-h!" sounded, but fuller than ever of
excitement and fear.
But Cleek scarcely heard it. Other and more startling things were
claiming his thoughts. A scent of violets was in his nostrils; a sting
of bitter recollection was in his memory. What was it the dying Common
keeper had said? "All shiny pale green satin, sir, with sparklin' things
on her bosom, and smellin' like a field of voylits in the month of May!"
He did not need Ailsa Lorne to point her out to him after this. He knew
without anybody telling him; knew in that first moment, as surely as he
ever lived to know in moments yet to come, that this veiled and
night-hidden woman who stood there by the garden door keeping tryst with
a man was she who had been out on the Common last night: Sir Philip
Clavering's wife!
And the man she was meeting, this crafty fellow who hung back in the
shadow of the solid gate, who and what was he? What part was his in this
grim riddle of death?
It was Lady Clavering herself who gave the answer.
"Oh, it is so easy to say that," she went on, answering his warning
"Sh-h-h" in a whisper that was shrill with agony and despair, "but the
dread of shrieking will be on me forever after this, the horrible dread
that if I do not cry out in my waking moments I may unconsciously do so
in my sleeping ones. I know it was mad of me to do this thing, to take
this dreadful risk in coming here; but I couldn't sleep until I saw you,
until I had told you that I know! I think I knew it yesterday; I think I
foresaw it when you wrote and warned me, and if I had not been a coward,
if fate had not sent him to Clavering Close last night and let me see
that it was written he should come back into my life again----"
Her voice snapped off and failed her for an instant, sinking down to a
dull, whimpering sound like the wail of an animal that is beaten; then
it came back to her and she spoke again.
"I knew you would kill him, I knew that you would!" she said in that
horrible, excited whisper. "I felt it in my soul the moment he looked up
and recognized me, and I knew what I--what you--had to dread. It was
that that drove me out on the Common. I wanted to find you; I wanted to
stop you. But it was too late, too late! I know that you did it for my
sake as much as for your own, but the thought of the thing, the
_thought_ of it! If anything can palliate that, if God can in any way
excuse it, it will be that you got the letters; that you tore them up,
burnt them, did anything in the world but let them fall into that woman
Margot's hands! Oh, did you? I cannot sleep until I know. For if you did
not----"
Here her voice snapped again, but for quite another reason this time, a
reason which made Cleek groan inwardly.
Far down at the other end of the dark alley where he lay breathlessly
listening, a faint rustling sound had suddenly risen--the sound of some
one creeping gently toward him. He knew and understood what was
happening, what an unkindly blow fate had dealt him. Ailsa was
returning. She had taken his expression, "Afterward you and I can meet
here again," to mean after she had conducted Dollops to the ruin, not
after Cleek's own work was done; and lo! here she was returning at this
inopportune moment. She was creeping along on tiptoe, it was true, and
moving as stealthily and as silently as she knew how, but in that utter
stillness, with silk skirts that brushed the wall as she advanced----
The end came abruptly. There was just one second of breathless
listening, then without a word the two people at the open doorway
parted. Lady Clavering jumped back, darted across the lane, and vanished
in the blackness of the Common; the wall door closed, the spring lock
clicked, and the sound of a man's running echoed faintly from the other
side. No time this for craft and finesse. Here was a call for action, a
demand for muscle, not brain. If that man was a member of this
household, if fleet running could do it, if any man who should be under
that roof was _not_ there----
Cleek was on his feet like a flash. He scudded down the lane openly, he
ducked into the door and vanished into the gardens without so much as a
word to Ailsa, he struck through the plantation and made a short cut for
the lawn and the front door, and with jaw squared and teeth shut, ran
and ran and ran.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE MOUSETRAP
Cleek covered the distance between the wall angle and the door of the
Grange in a fraction over a minute, and he had neither heard any one nor
seen any one on the way. He went up the steps two at a time, and,
swinging into the hallway, made hot foot for the dining-room. An inward
push on the door and all that lay beyond it was in view.
The lights were still burning, the decanter and the glasses still _en
evidence_, and, what was still more to the point, there lay Mr. Harry
Raynor with his arms sprawled out over the tablecloth and his head
between them, snoring away in a semi-drunken stupor, with his mouth wide
open and his flushed face a little less attractive in slumber than it
was in wakefulness.
Not he, then!
Cleek dashed out of the room and flew upstairs to Lord St. Ulmer's room.
No time for craft and cunning this. At whatever risk, at whatever cost,
he must assure himself of where _that_ man was at this particular
moment; and, even if he had to break down the door to get in---- The
possibility ceased to exist while it was yet taking shape in his mind.
For he had reached the second landing, had come within three feet of
Lord St. Ulmer's room, when he heard a voice from within it say, "Then
if there is nothing more, your lordship, allow me to thank your lordship
and to say good-night"--and was in time to see the door open and
Johnston, the butler, come out. More than that, to look past him and see
the figure of a man lying in bed with his back to the door, his face to
the wall, and one pajama-clad arm lying outside the bedclothing.
Not St. Ulmer either, eh? Then who the dickens----He turned and made a
bolt for the staircase again.
"Anything I can get you, Mr. Barch?" inquired Johnston. "I've just
returned from town, sir, so if there's anything Hamer has neglected to
do in my absence----"
"No, thanks, don't want anything!" flung back Cleek, not waiting for him
to finish; and then cut downstairs again in such hot haste that his feet
beat an audible tattoo upon the padded steps and gave such evidence of
excitement that he was not at all surprised when the key of the library
click-clacked sharply, the door opened, and General Raynor appeared.
"What's this? What's the meaning of all this confounded hubbub when I
expressly said"--he began--and then, looking up and seeing Cleek,
stopped short and changed his tone. "Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Barch; I
didn't know it was you! Is there anything wrong?"
"No, General," replied Cleek. "Sorry if I disturbed you. Just looking
for----" Then he, too, stopped short and changed his tone. For of a
sudden his ear had caught the shrilling note of a distant police
whistle, and excitement swayed him.
"Dollops, by Jupiter!" he cried unthinkingly. "Got him! Got him, the
little brick!" and without another word he faced about, ran down the
hall, and pelted off through the grounds in the direction of the ruin.
And all the time the police whistle was shrilling, and Dollops's voice
was sounding, and the darkness was full of scuffling sounds. For the
noise of the whistle had disturbed the servants, and Cleek was hard put
to it to get to the scene of the uproar before them. He did, however;
but they were close upon his heels and as excited as he when, upon
nearing the ruin, they came upon two struggling figures linked together
and careering about like a couple of fighting tomcats.
"Here yer are, gov'ner; ketched him foul, the rotter," sang out Dollops
as his master came scudding up with all that troop of servants pounding
along in his wake. "Look! See!"
Then an electric torch clicked, and lo, there he was, with one end of a
pair of handcuffs snapped on his own wrist and the other locked fast
upon that of a distinguished-looking man in a spring overcoat and
evening clothes.
A stranger to Cleek this man, but not to the servants of Wuthering
Grange; and it came as a shock when he heard them speak his name.
It was Sir Philip Clavering.
The man's identity had no sooner been made known than he broke forth
with a storm of indignant protest.
"What is the meaning of this outrage, and who is this young person?" he
demanded with heat. "As some of you have good enough eyes to recognize
me, perhaps you will have good enough wits to go for your master and let
me get to the bottom of this extraordinary proceeding as soon as
possible. I should like to know what on earth this means. Ah, Raynor, is
that you?" he added, as he caught sight of the General forcing his way
to the front. "Glad you've put in an appearance. Perhaps you can throw
some light upon this affair. Who's this fellow?" twitching his head
toward Dollops. "What's he doing here? And what is the meaning of this
astonishing business, if you please?"
"Good heavens above, how do you expect I am going to know? Never saw him
in all my life," exclaimed the General in bewilderment. "Look here,
young man, what's the meaning of this? Who are you? What are you doing
in this place? Speak up.