THE PEERING EYES
Rumour at Ottermouth had a trick of travelling as quickly as it does
through the bazaars of the East. When the French maid turned away from
the rose garden, after seeing Violet Maynard in Leslie Chermside's arms,
she was already aware of the proceedings at the inquest held earlier in
the afternoon. She knew, therefore, that the gentleman whose love affair
seemed to be prospering so gaily had been called as a witness, and had
owned to an acquaintance with her deceased admirer.
Now mademoiselle was an adept at swift deduction, and, putting two and
two together, she had arrived at the conclusion that this Mr. Chermside,
who had admitted having business relations with Levi Levison, must be
the individual whom Mr. Travers Nugent suspected. Mr. Nugent had assured
her that he had ascertained that Levison had appointed to meet some one
on the marsh on the fatal evening. It followed as almost a certainty
that the appointment must have been with the gentleman who had a
mysterious connexion with Levison, the nature of which he refused to
divulge.
And now this _scelerat_, this assassin who had ruined her prospects by
untimely removing the amorous "financial agent," was making successful
love to Miss Violet. It was preposterous, and not to be countenanced for
a moment, that the murderer should carry off the great heiress, while
his cruel crime had relegated her, Louise Aubin, to a probable future of
celibate poverty. If only in her young mistress's interest, the
atrocious thing must be nipped in the bud.
But mademoiselle was endowed with a fair share of French caution, the
quality which kindly Nature supplies to balance French impulse, and she
was not going to jeopardize a comfortable and lucrative situation by
making a premature move. She must first put it beyond all doubt that the
man whom Mr. Levi Levison had arranged to meet on the marsh was the man
whom she had just seen in the rose garden, and to that end she must take
counsel with that dear gentleman who had saved her from the error of
denouncing Pierre Legros.
"Ce cher Monsieur Nugent--'e admire me just a leetle himself, I think,"
she murmured, as she tripped back to the house across the lawn. "I make
'im tell me all he knows."
Whereby Mademoiselle Louise Aubin showed herself to be of sanguine
temperament, but a poor student of the art of reading men.
Nevertheless, when Mr. Travers Nugent was sitting in his cosy
dining-room at The Hut that evening, peeling peaches and sipping his
claret in the soft glow of shaded lamps, his sphinx-like manservant,
Sinnett, entered, and, without a word, handed him a folded slip of
paper. Nugent read it with a twitch at the corner of his mouth, and
looked up sharply.
"Did any one beside yourself see this lady come?" he asked.
"Can't have, sir," was the reply. "She came to the front door, and I
admitted her myself. It is pitch-dark outside, so none of the maids can
have seen her walking up the drive."
"Then you can show her in," said Nugent. "It is business, Sinnett, but
we don't want any village scandal. There are a score of gossiping old
women in this place who would give their wigs to know that I had
received a smart Frenchwoman in the seclusion of my dining-room, eh?"
A grim smile was the only answer, and presently the man of few words
returned, ushering in Mademoiselle Louise. Faithful to his policy of
treating her with all respect, Nugent rose with outstretched hand as she
minced towards him. There was just enough pleased surprise in his manner
to conceal the fact that by paying him this visit she was only
fulfilling his calculated expectations.
"This is good of you, mademoiselle," he said in his soft accents. "You
will be fatigued after your long walk from the Manor House. Sit down and
let me give you a glass of wine from your own sunny France before you
tell me how I can be of service to you."
The fair Louise simpered, and seated herself at the well-appointed
dessert table. For that night, if for no longer, she had mounted several
rungs in the social ladder, and in that thought was compensation for the
loss of her "financial agent"--also encouragement for the future. This
kindly-spoken gentleman of middle-age was evidently "taken" with her,
and there could be no better way, she told herself, of winning and
clinching his further regard than by professing a whole-hearted devotion
to her last lover.
"I have some news for you, monsieur," she said, when she had sipped the
claret poured out by her host. "And, in return, I come to demand, nay,
to implore, some information from you."
"Then it must be my privilege to oblige you first, if it is in my
power," smiled Nugent. "I trust, however, that you do not still suspect
your fellow-countryman, Legros, of the foul deed that robbed you of your
friend. Believe me, he is guiltless."
"It is not Pierre Legros that I suspect, monsieur, thanks to your
guidance the other day," replied Louise coquettishly. "I was convinced
then that the murderer of the poor Levison was the man who was to meet
him on the marsh, and now--to-day, at the inquest, comes the straw that
makes to show the blow of the wind. Monsieur Chermside was a witness,
and admitted that he had affairs of business with Levison."
"Well?" Nugent purred gently at his pretty visitor.
"My little stupid wits figure from that, monsieur, that it was Chermside
who was to meet the unfortunate one on the marsh. I have paid you this
call, at so great risk to my reputation, to find out if for once my
little stupid wits are right. You will not disappoint me. Say, I beseech
you, if Chermside was the man with whom my poor one had arranged the
rendezvous in that so desolate spot."
Nugent was moved with inward laughter at the impressive speech, at the
ogling glances accompanying it. He was quite aware of the personal
element the minx was endeavouring to import into their relations.
Outwardly his face wore the semblance of a severe mental struggle.
"I cannot resist your appeal, Mademoiselle Aubin," he said at last,
sighing a little as if in regret that his better judgment should be
vanquished by the feminine charms across the table. "I had hoped to keep
it to myself a little longer, while prosecuting inquiries which will
bring the crime home to this black-hearted villain without allowing an
outlet for escape. But I cannot deny you the solace of sharing the
secret with me, knowing that, our aims being identical, you will
preserve it till the time comes to strike. Yes, Leslie Chermside was the
man who had promised to complete a certain transaction with Levi Levison
at the spot where the latter was foully done to death."
It is easy to speak with your tongue in your cheek, and if the cheek is
large enough no one need catch a glimpse of the tongue. At any rate,
Louise Aubin did not. Confident in her potent fascinations, she
swallowed the purposely grandiose words like so much milk and honey, and
beamed ecstatically on the wily orator, more in delight at the
sentiments she believed the communication to denote than at the
communication itself. Levi Levison was beginning to take a very shadowy
back seat in the affections of Mademoiselle Louise Aubin.
"Then, monsieur," she said, gracefully quaffing her glass at him, "I
shall not be behindhand in civeelity. I shall--what you call it--place
myself in your hands for the right time to punish Chermside, and in the
meanwhile the secret is buried deep in my heart. Now for your repayment
for your kind help, though it is only a tiny piece of news. The villain
so despicable, upon whom we desire the avenge, is in love with my--with
Miss Maynard. I come from observing them this very afternoon, monsieur,
in the rose garden, where they were embracing and using words of
endearment."
And mademoiselle draped her eyes with their long, dark lashes, as though
her maiden modesty quailed before the reminiscence.
As for Nugent, he did not disguise the fact that the information had for
him the keenest interest. Rising from his chair, he lit a cigarette and
began to pace the room.
"Really, I am greatly indebted to you for this information," he said.
"The knowledge of Miss Maynard's infatuation for a man so utterly
unworthy of her will alter my plans, or rather, hurry them to a crisis.
I am, as perhaps you are aware, mademoiselle, a friend of Mr. Montague
Maynard. I have, therefore, now a double incitement to bring Chermside
to justice--that of saving my friend's daughter from a horrible
mesalliance, and of securing for you the satisfaction which you so
justly desire."
"Mr. Chermside is very rich, is he not?" asked Louise, her cunning but
unequal brain beginning to weave an entirely new web, in which she was
ultimately to entangle herself.
Travers Nugent shot a glance at her as she toyed with the stem of her
wine-glass. For the moment her question caused him a trifling
embarrassment. He would have liked to have answered it differently, but
he reflected that it would be dangerous to do so, for this woman was by
no means a fool. He was credited, rightly, with the introduction at
Ottermouth of Leslie Chermside as a man of wealth. His letter to the
secretary of the club would be on file to prove it, and by that he must
abide--for the present.
"Mr. Chermside has the command of vast resources," was his guarded
answer. "But I do not think that he will need to plead that argument
with a girl of Miss Maynard's character. His worldly position will not
weigh with her for an instant if she loves him. She is rich enough for
two, you see."
But apparently mademoiselle did not see. Just then she had lost the
thread of that newly-woven web on which her busy wits had set to work,
and she was staring at one of the long windows. Travers Nugent was
something of an artist by temperament, and on sitting down to dinner he
had had the blinds left up so as to enjoy the dying after-glow in the
western sky.
"The eyes! The peering eyes!" Louise exclaimed in a tense whisper.
Following the direction of her gaze, Nugent in four rapid strides
reached the window, and, flinging it open, dragged into the well-lit
room the lithe and sinewy form of a man dressed in blue jean. It was the
French onion-seller whom Aunt Sarah Dymmock had driven from the
precincts of the Manor House at the point of her sunshade. Louise
uttered a suppressed shriek as Nugent released his grip on the
Frenchman's collar and carefully closed the window.
"_Mon Dieu!_ it is Pierre Legros," she cried, looking from one to the
other of the two men in sheer bewilderment, in which there was a trace
of fear.
"Yes, it is I--Pierre," said the onion-seller in his native tongue,
scowling at his fair compatriot. "Is it that you have acquired the habit
of supping alone with gentlemen above your station, as well as of
meeting them in the lonely places of the country? You have sadly
changed, Louise, since we played barefoot together among the rocks of
Dicamp."
In the dawn of her new ambition the reminder of her humble origin goaded
the girl to a fury that dispelled her temporary fear. "Barefoot!" she
shrilled. "Miserable one, you know quite well that I was never so, and
that if you had the presumption to worship me it was from down below--as
a pig may gaze at the stars. I came to this English gentleman to help me
punish the murderer of my dear friend Monsieur Levison."
There was malice in every spitting syllable of the tirade, and more than
malice in the baleful look she cast at the sullen Frenchman. Travers
Nugent glanced at her a little anxiously, and hastened to intervene. It
would not suit his book at all for Louise to revert, out of petty spite,
to her original suspicion--to the prejudice of the later one he had been
at such pains to inspire.
"What mademoiselle asserts is absolutely true," he said in French,
fixing Pierre's fierce eyes in a hypnotic stare. "She is greatly
concerned to catch the murderer, and I hope to hand over to justice the
English rascal who committed the crime on the marsh. And just a word of
advice to you, Legros. You had better keep a civil tongue in your head,
or you may find yourself in trouble. Mademoiselle Aubin and I, of
course, know that you had nothing to do with the matter, but the police
might think differently if they got wind of your jealous ravings."
Pondering on, and impressed by, the slight emphasis put on the word
English, the onion-seller hung his head, muttering to himself. Nugent
took the opportunity to touch the bell, and having done so turned to
Louise.
"I think that we have concluded our affairs for this evening,
mademoiselle," he said with a cool politeness, the purport of which the
clever Frenchwoman was quick to appreciate. "You shall be kept informed
of the latest developments, and now my servant shall escort you to the
road, for I must have a private word with Legros. Sinnett," to the
silent henchman who had appeared, "accompany this lady down the drive,
please."
Sinnett understood by the ocular signal that his master flashed at him
that Mademoiselle Aubin's departure from the premises was to be
accomplished without witnesses, and he gravely followed the somewhat
mystified visitor out. Neither by look or gesture did he express the
slightest surprise at seeing an unkempt and none too clean foreigner in
the room. Ten years in the service of Mr. Travers Nugent had killed the
faculty of astonishment, or, at any rate, had taught him that the
outward and visible signs thereof were inadvisable.
Directly the door was shut on them Nugent's manner underwent a rapid
transformation. All the suave polish was gone. He became the brute and
the bully--the man with the whip-hand. He was not in the least
handicapped by having to express himself in French, because he spoke all
European languages as fluently as his own. He showered every vile
epithet he could think of on the onion-seller, calling him fool, dolt,
and everything by turn, and then, when he had pulverized the still
scowling but crest-fallen sailor into abject humiliation he demanded--
"Why, in the name of all that is idiotic, did you disregard my
instructions and come here to the house? I told you that nothing but the
last extremity would warrant any intercourse between us."
Pierre Legros raised his bloodshot eyes in half-defiant remonstrance. "I
came because I thought it was what you call the last extremity," he
said. "There has been some one on the quay at Exmouth to-day asking
questions of me. He also go on board our vessel and speak with my
captain."
"You think he was a detective?"
"No, monsieur; he was not of the police. I believe him to be a
gentleman. He lives here in Ottermouth. I see him often when I sell my
onions up the street--an old man with no hair on his face, dressed in
fine clothes, and having eyes that pierce like needles. Though of so
great age, he walks very quick and upright."
Nugent took a turn up the room, frowning and biting his lips. "So!" he
murmured to himself. "Mr. Vernon Mallory has to be reckoned with as
still on the active list, eh?" And coming back to where Legros was
standing, he added aloud, in more conciliatory tones: "You did right in
bringing me this news, my friend. The gentleman is meddlesome, but there
is no reason why he should become dangerous if you are discreet."
"I was discreet, monsieur," rejoined Legros. "The grey-head _Anglais_
set springes as one sets them for birds, but I was wary, and walked all
round. And Jules Epitaux, my captain, he make fool of the old man."
"I hope so," said Nugent drily. "But if it is a sample of your
discretion that we have been having in this room to-night, my opinion of
it is not high, Pierre Legros. You must learn to curb that insane
jealousy of yours, or you will have Louise on to you like a wild cat.
Your conduct was base ingratitude, seeing that I stopped her from
setting the police at you."
"I am sorry, monsieur; I was taken by surprise, and I did not
understand," replied the onion-seller submissively, as he passed out of
the window which Nugent held significantly open.
But once outside in the darkness, setting out on the four-mile trudge
back to his ship, he began to mutter to himself, and the refrain of the
inaudible babble was always the same, recurring a hundred times as he
stumbled along the moorland track--
"Louise goes to console herself, but not with Pierre. Poor Pierre! He
will have to strike--always strike--if he is betrayed."