THE FACE IN THE POOL
Discussion as to the exact words of the cry from the train was cut short
by a general adjournment to the tables, where for the next half-hour the
guests did justice to their host's lavish hospitality. Mountains of
sun-kissed peaches from the warm walls of the Manor gardens, gallons of
fruit-salad and cakes in bewildering variety disappeared as by magic.
The little green oasis at the brink of the marshes rang with laughter,
presently blended with the strains of a small but select string band
from London, hidden in a secluded nook behind the sheltering elms.
But if the episode of the excited passenger was generally forgotten it
only remained in abeyance so far at least as the memory of one of Mr.
Maynard's guests was concerned. It was not necessary for a man of Mr.
Vernon Mallory's age to plead an excuse for an early desertion of the
"aids to indigestion," as he called them, and he lighted a cigar and
went off for a solitary stroll. Travers Nugent paused for a moment in
his entertainment of a cluster of ladies to send a thoughtful glance
after the tall, spare figure of the retired civil servant, and a curious
gleam flitted over his inscrutable features. It could not have been
wholly caused by dissatisfaction, for he resumed his amusing persiflage
with enhanced sparkle.
Mr. Mallory's sauntering steps took him to the side of the reclaimed
ground nearest to the railway line immediately under the embankment. To
the casual observer his movements might have seemed somewhat erratic,
and based only on a desire to get away from the chatter of the
tea-tables and enjoy his cigar in peace. To any one really interested in
his sudden detachment, however, it would have become apparent that there
was system, carefully cloaked, perhaps, but none the less thorough, in
every step he took.
The place where, by Travers Nugent's advice, the picnic camp had been
pitched lay some two hundred yards beyond the little glade at the side
of the raised marshland path where Reggie Beauchamp and Enid Mallory had
rested on the occasion of their prowl in the dark two evenings ago.
Here, for the purpose of raising the railway to the proper level, the
bank of the old river bed had been destroyed for a short distance, and
instead of the miniature red cliffs, with their leafy screen of brambles
and dwarf oaks, the marsh was skirted by the ugly side of the
embankment. This break in the beauties of nature caused by the
exigencies of engineering was but a score or two of yards in length, and
it was while the train had been in view on this short section that the
third-class passenger had played such strange antics.
At the foot of the embankment the ground was swampy, nowhere yielding
firm foothold, and here and there deepening into pools formed by the
brackish water that had drained in from the tidal dykes at the other
side of the path. For the most part the pools were surrounded and
studded with sedges, which concealed them from passers-by.
It was among these offshoots of the marsh that, at the risk of getting
bogged in the quagmires, Mr. Mallory pottered about by himself. Poking
and prying everywhere, he, however, devoted most attention to the pools
in the ground nearest the fence at the base of the embankment, which
were furthest removed, and therefore less visible, from the path. Ten
minutes must have been spent in this apparently unprofitable employment
when he suddenly straightened himself, and, regaining the firmer ground,
made his way slowly back to the gay gathering under the trees.
Many of the people had left the vicinity of the tables and were
promenading the grassy strip while listening to the band. Montague
Maynard, assiduous in his care for his guests, was a difficult man to
catch, but Mr. Mallory managed to pin him at last as he was leaving one
group to join another. Poles apart in temperament and in their life's
experience, the genial manufacturer and the reserved old diplomatist had
nevertheless conceived a sincere regard for each other during the
former's sojourn in the neighbourhood.
"Just a word with you," said Mr Mallory in a low voice, leading his host
aside.
"My dear fellow, certainly; but what is it? You look as though you had
seen a ghost," replied the other.
"You will have to get all these folk away quietly," said Mr. Mallory,
after assuring himself that they were out of earshot. "I have not seen a
ghost, but the next thing to it. There is the dead body of a man in one
of those pools close under the railway fence. Some of these youngsters
will be sure to stumble on it if we remain here. Besides, we can't keep
it to ourselves for a minute. The authorities must be notified at once."
Maynard emitted a low whistle, and his face clouded at a contretemps
which, whatever else it might portend, bade fair to spoil Violet's
party. But his brow cleared again as his eyes rested on the
sombrely-clad diminutive form of Miss Sarah Dymmock, who, with a
vivacity wonderful for her years, was holding court under one of the
trees.
"Old Aunt Sally will manage it," he said. "You're quite right about
clearing 'em off, and I'm deeply indebted to you, Mallory, for not
raising a hullabaloo. It would never do to scare all these butterflies
with a discovery like that. And, as you say, the police must be informed
and a doctor sent for without a moment's delay."
He hurried off, and Mr. Mallory watched from afar the result of the
whispered communication which he made to the aged spinster. It did not
transpire till afterwards how Aunt Sarah contrived it, but after one or
two comprehending nods the old lady turned to the group of which she had
been the centre, and almost at once an electric spark seemed to have
been communicated to the whole festive assembly. In twos and threes and
larger clusters the picnic party began to move off the ground back
towards the Manor House.
Having assured himself that the main object was gained, Mr. Mallory was
free to study the details of the _debacle_ he had caused. Travers
Nugent, without a break in the lively conversation he was holding with a
smart lady of local importance, had apparently accepted unquestionably
the situation as propounded by Aunt Sarah, and was following the
remainder of the flock with sheep-like docility. After Nugent, Mr.
Mallory's eyes sought and found Leslie Chermside, and in his case there
was more food for reflection. Mr. Mallory was at once aware that
Chermside was observing him with equal interest; in fact, their eyes
actually met in a quick thrust and parry of unspoken question on one
side, and something that was curiously akin to defiance on the other.
The ex-Lancer was for the moment standing alone, and Mr. Mallory moved
towards him as if to speak. But he was forestalled by Violet, who came
up and evidently claimed Leslie as escort on the homeward walk, for they
started in the wake of the others before Mr. Mallory, if such had been
his intention, could make any attempt to detain them.
He was more fortunate in the case of Reggie Beauchamp, and he had his
daughter to thank for the capture. Enid, not having outgrown her
schoolgirl devotion to sweets, had lingered round the tables for a final
ice, and the young sailor was still in faithful attendance. Mr. Mallory
pounced on the pair just as they had realized that a general stampede
was in progress, and were preparing to follow.
"Beauchamp, I wish you would remain with Mr. Maynard and myself for a
little," he said. "There is a point on which I want to fortify myself
with your opinion. We can walk back to the Manor afterwards."
Enid began to pout and toss her head, but she knew every phase of her
idolized father's moods, and one glance at the network of creases round
the keen eyes was sufficient to quell her incipient mutiny. The
appearance of those filaments on the stern, ascetic face was a sure
danger-signal that her father was not to be trifled with--that the
active brain was at work on some serious problem. She put her ice-plate
down and, bidding the Lieutenant "make himself generally useful," ran
away to overtake the fast-receding party.
She had hardly departed when Montague Maynard came bustling up, wiping
his brow with a silk handkerchief. He stopped for an instant to order
the wondering servants to pack up the crockery ready for the cart and to
get home as quick as they could, and then he turned to Mr. Mallory,
while Reggie, with instinctive modesty, fell back a pace or two.
"Aunt Sally is a masterpiece; I'll tell you how she did it later," he
said, his eyebrows uplifted inquiringly in the direction of the young
torpedo-boat commander.
"It is all right. He's wanted," interpolated Mr. Mallory shortly.
"Well, then this is what I have done," the screw magnate went on in a
hoarse undertone. "I have sent a footman into the town direct for the
police-sergeant, and another to hurry up one of the local medicos. All
these maids will have skedaddled before either the sergeant or the
doctor can turn up. Now shall we go and have a look at the--the place?
You have no idea who the poor fellow is, I suppose?"
"I am not sure; it is on that point that I want Beauchamp to corroborate
me," was the reply. And, calling Reggie forward, Mr. Mallory told him,
as the three went towards the swamps under the embankment, of the
gruesome discovery he had made, and how he wished to learn if his view
of the dead man's identity coincided with his own.
No more was said till they had picked their way over the firmest
foothold they could find to the pool where the horrible sight awaited
them. The body lay half in and half out of the water, the upturned face
being afloat while the remains below the shoulders were embedded in the
ooze at the brink and nearly concealed by the reeds.
"Miss Maynard was right, you see, as to what the passenger called out
from the train--'the face in the pool,'" said Mr. Mallory. "The lower
limbs were probably invisible up there. Now, Beauchamp; do you recognize
the victim of this tragedy?"
Reggie looked blankly down at the features about which there lingered
none of the majesty of death--mean, commonplace features, which
nevertheless might have had their attraction for the unsophisticated by
reason of a certain sensual fullness of lip and smoothness of the now
marble-white skin. The wide-open eyes, staring skyward, conveyed the
impression of sudden, awful fear.
"No, I can't put a name to him," said the lieutenant after a long
scrutiny which he did not relax. "And yet there is a look about him that
seems vaguely familiar. That, though, is not quite the word for it. I
mean that I believe that I have seen him before."
"What about the French window in the reading room at the Club?"
suggested Mr. Mallory. "Does that help your memory?"
"Of course!" came the quick rejoinder. "It is the chap who called for
Chermside the other morning and walked away with him along the Parade. A
cockney visitor, I should judge by his clothes. And, by Jove, I expect
he's the man who is missing from the _Plume Hotel_. The club steward
knew him by sight as staying there."
A frosty gleam shone in the old diplomatist's eyes. "You are probably
correct in the latter surmise," he said. "But in any case we are in
agreement as to his being Chermside's acquaintance. That was what I
wanted to get from you."
"Not a very reputable acquaintance, I should imagine," said the great
manufacturer, looking thoughtfully down at the bedraggled tawdriness of
the dead man's attire. "If our young friend from India hadn't been
vouched for by Travers Nugent, I should have put this poor creature down
as a dun or a money-lender's tout. His features are distinctly Hebraic.
I wonder how he got himself drowned in that shallow pool. A drop too
much, eh, and a stumble in the dark?"
But Reggie Beauchamp, regardless of his immaculate flannels, had plunged
knee-deep into the mire. His sailor's eye, used to note every detail,
had perceived something that had escaped the two shore-going gentlemen
with sight impaired by years of office work.
"He wasn't drowned!" he exclaimed, and then, moderating his voice so
that it should not reach the maid-servants on the deserted picnic
ground, he added: "His throat has been cut from ear to ear. By Jove----"
But Reggie pulled himself up all short, and had no more to say. He had
remembered the cry, weird and long-drawn, which Enid and he had heard
from their cosy retreat at the marsh-side two nights ago. And he had
remembered something else of even graver and more personal import--a
reminiscence of the prowl in the dusk which he discreetly forbore from
disclosing till he should have had an opportunity for consulting his
fair partner in that escapade.