THE TRAP IS SET
About the time when the door of the stone grotto in the grounds of The
Hut swung to on Enid Mallory, Mr. Travers Nugent's motor car was rushing
up the avenue at the Manor House two miles away. At the main entrance of
the mansion Nugent got down and rang the bell, and while waiting turned
and spoke to his chauffeur.
"I shall want you to be busy this evening, Dixon," he said. "When we get
home see that your tanks are full, and have the car ready for any
emergency. I may want you at any moment."
The smart young fellow touched his cap, and the butler flinging open the
door put an end to further possible instructions. Nugent, who was aware
that the great manufacturer had gone to London that morning to attend a
board meeting, blandly inquired if Mr. Maynard was in. On receiving the
expected reply that the master would not be back till next day, he
affected to consider deeply, caressing his long moustache.
"That is annoying," he said at last. "I wished to see him very
particularly. Are the ladies at home?"
"Miss Dymmock is in the drawing-room, sir; but Miss Maynard is either in
the park or in the gardens--probably in the rosery, which is her
favourite place," said the butler.
"Ah!" murmured Nugent, and again he seemed to be plunged into perplexity
by Mr. Maynard's absence. "I had better see Miss Dymmock, perhaps. No,
on second thoughts I won't trouble her. I will leave a message with Miss
Maynard, if you will be good enough to show me where I shall be likely
to find her."
So did this past-master in the art of chicane take elaborate pains to
have it understood at the Manor that Violet was the last person whom he
had originally set out to see. The butler called a footman to pilot the
visitor to the embowered pleasaunce where four days earlier Leslie
Chermside's declaration of love had been wrung from his headstrong
tongue. With an unread book at her side, Violet was sitting on the same
seat where her brief wooing had begun and ended. Nugent's eyes gleamed
with momentary satisfaction as he noted the sadness in the beautiful
face, the listless droop in the attitude of the graceful figure. But by
the time he reached her and bent over the proffered hand his manner was
that of the courtly gentleman, tinged with a trace of grave concern
which yielded to a semblance of uncontrolled agitation as soon as the
footman had retired. His pose and facial expression was that of the
bearer of ill tidings to the life. Violet, strung to a pitch of nervous
tension by her lover's strange demeanour in the orangery the preceding
night, read in Nugent's countenance the exact emotion he intended to
show.
"This is not a duty call, Mr. Nugent?" she said, as she motioned him to
a seat at her side. Nugent preferred to stand, looking down at her. He
wanted to mark the effect of every word he had to say.
"No," he replied, deftly throwing off his "society" manner, and, with
the consummate skill of the genuine artist, speaking almost harshly. "I
wish it was, Miss Maynard. I am here on very serious business--so
serious that if I did not know you were a brave woman I should not dare
to approach you about it. As it is I am sorely tempted to run away and
leave matters as they are."
"I beg you will not do that," said Violet gravely. "It would be more
cruel than if you had not come to me at all. I presume that it is about
the suspicion that has been cast on Mr. Chermside?"
Nugent smiled inwardly as he noticed the change in her tone since last
night. No longer did she heap contempt upon the inference as to
Chermside's meeting with Levison. She was serious, and almost
pathetically meek. Like Mr. Mallory he had watched the lovers on their
return from the orangery to the drawing-room, and he had at the time
gloated over the coolness that had evidently arisen between them. That
ineffable idiot Chermside had, he congratulated himself, said or done
something to shake her confidence--just as he, Nugent, had expected and
intended.
But aloud he said, "Yes, it is about Chermside. Greatly against my will,
I have consented to be his ambassador--to bring you a message from him,
Miss Maynard. It will be kindest to break the worst to you without
beating about the bush. Chermside is leaving England to-night. He is
going to sail for South America in the yacht which has been kept in
readiness for him at Weymouth."
"Sailing to-night? Without coming to say good-bye--without a word of
explanation?" And the sweet eyes brimmed with unshed tears at the
conduct of the man who had so recently held her in his arms at that very
spot.
"It is so hard to wound you," Nugent protested, and the faultlessly
simulated note of self-pity with which he tinged his speech carried
conviction. "He dared not come to you, Miss Maynard. Somehow the police
have got wind of the appointment he had with the dead man, and he is in
danger of arrest. He is in hiding, and it is touch and go whether he
will get on board safely after dark. I am a selfish man, and I would
give a good deal if Leslie Chermside's letters of introduction had been
to any one but myself. All this has placed me in a most unpleasant
position."
"But I do not understand," Violet protested. "Mr. Chermside has not
committed this murder. Why does he not laugh at the charge, and stay and
meet it? He must be able to prove his innocence."
Travers Nugent's shrug was eloquent--so eloquent that Violet fired up
instantly, rising and confronting him. "You cannot mean that you deem
him guilty?" she demanded, with ominous restraint.
"My dear lady, no--a thousand times no," came the quick repudiation.
"But you must pardon my expressing the candid opinion that he is a fool,
a chivalrous, misguided fool, perhaps, who is risking his future from
some silly motive that would be brushed aside in a second if he would
only enlighten his friends about it. I have pleaded with him to adopt
that course but it was of no avail. Nothing would satisfy him but to fly
the country, he avowed, till the murder of Levison had been cleared
up--I presume by the detection of the real criminal."
"And in the meanwhile he is going to wander about the world in exile,
resting under a stigma which he does not deserve, till the end of his
days?"
"I do not think he looks at it quite in that light," said Nugent,
choosing his words carefully. "He is trusting that this cloud will blow
over. Candidly, in my judgment, he is afraid that if he is brought to
trial some episode in his life will come out--as likely as not some
harmless piece of youthful folly--which he wishes to conceal."
Violet made a hopeless gesture, avoiding the falsely sympathetic eyes of
this man, whom she intuitively disliked, but whose behaviour, she was
bound to admit, was perfectly correct. Her unseeing gaze made a dumb
appeal for comfort to the rich blooms of the rose-garden, to the blue
sky overhead, to the aged yew hedge that girt the place where she had
plighted her troth, but there seemed to be no comfort, no help anywhere.
Nugent's statement tallied with the impression she had formed the
previous night in the orangery exactly. Leslie had some reason, of which
he was ashamed, for dreading the fierce light of a legal inquiry being
thrown on his relations with the murdered Jew. It was to his credit,
anyhow, and she hugged the remembrance because she loved him, that he
had all along harped on some secret in his past career.
"Tell me," she said wearily, "what his message was. That can hardly have
been all of it--that he was running away?"
"No," replied Nugent, with the air of bracing himself for a distasteful
task, "there was something more. And before I pass it on to you, let me
assure you, Miss Maynard, that I tender no advice as to how you should
treat Chermside's proposition. I merely impart it to you as his
mouthpiece, and leave you to be guided by your own inclination and good
sense. But this I beg of you to believe--that if you decide to consent
to his request, my willing services are at your disposal. He wants to
bid you farewell, and he has commissioned me to arrange a meeting for
to-night, before he sails."
In an ecstasy of eagerness Violet dropped some of her stately dignity
and clasped her hands. "Meet him?" she cried. "Of course I will, but it
will not be to say good-bye. If I have any influence over him, and I
know that I have, it will be used to induce him to abandon this
disgraceful flight and to face the accusation out. You have, indeed,
been a good friend, Mr. Nugent, in coming to me. When and where can I
see Mr. Chermside?"
"Not till quite late to-night," was the reply. "It will not be safe for
the steamer to approach the coast and send a boat ashore till it is
thoroughly dark. Should you have any difficulty in leaving the house
here, say, at eleven o'clock?"
"Not in the least; I am my own mistress. I often go for a stroll in the
park before going to bed when it is fine."
"Then if you will prolong your stroll to-night as far as the Ottermouth
road, I will be waiting with my car about a hundred yards from the
lodge," came Nugent's glib instructions. "I can easily run you to the
place where the ship's boat is to come to pick up Chermside inside ten
minutes. You may rely on me absolutely. I shall not fail you at the hour
mentioned. And now, as there is much to arrange, I will leave you."
"I shall not keep you waiting," said Violet, shaking his extended hand
warmly. "Punctually at eleven on the Ottermouth road."
But if she could have seen her kind helper's face as he turned his back
on her to quit the rose-garden, she would have felt misgivings as to the
honesty of his aid. Every line of it betokened an end gained by
questionable means.
"Directly we're outside the lodge gates, drive to The Hut at top speed,"
he bade the chauffeur as soon as he reached the motor car. Glancing at
his watch, he saw that it was nearly seven o'clock.
"In a little over four hours I shall have earned Bhagwan Singh's
reward," he murmured to himself, as they slid down the avenue.