THE TRAP CLOSES
Miss Sarah Dymmock threw down the piece of old-fashioned embroidery on
which she had been engaged since dinner, yawning aggressively.
"I'm a sleepy old woman, and I shall go to bed," she remarked with a
snap. "Young people nowadays are bad company, though I suppose I ought
to make allowances for you, Vi, as a what-d'you-call-it."
"That's a vague term, auntie," said Violet Maynard with a wan smile. In
the absence of Montague Maynard in London the two ladies had been
spending the evening alone, and the girl's nerves were all on edge at
the prospect of the coming interview with her lover. The spacious
drawing-room at the Manor House had seemed like a prison, and dear Aunt
Sarah's fluent talk like the chatter of a persistent parrot. Violet was
annoyed with herself for her irritation, but she was nearly beside
herself with an intense craving to stand face to face with Leslie and
appeal to his manhood not to fly from the charge against him. The
dragging hours had seemed interminable, since Travers Nugent's
disclosure of Leslie's intended escape by sea.
"By a what-d'you-call-it I mean a prospective victim on the altar of
Hymen," explained the old lady, rising and gathering up her work. "If I
had ever been in love, which God in his mercy has spared me, I should
have been pirouetting all over the place instead of sitting mum-chance
and twiddling my thumbs. By the way, why hasn't your young man been out
here to-day. Is he cooling off already?"
"I can hardly expect him to dance attendance on me always, can I,
auntie?" replied Violet, making a brave effort to appear playful. She
was wondering how she should explain on the morrow that her lover had
been skulking somewhere all day preparatory to decamping altogether, if
she failed to prevent him from adopting that disgraceful course.
Aunt Sarah sniffed as she took her bedroom candle. "I wasn't thinking of
his dancing attendance on you, but on me," she rejoined, working herself
into an entirely spurious passion. "I wanted him to sign the documents
for the transfer of the securities I am making over to him, but I
suppose that he has had other fish to fry. You'll have to teach him
manners, child, when you're married--or at any rate attention to his own
interests."
The little wizened old woman pecked at the pale cheek which her
great-niece offered her, and stumped out of the room. Violet breathed a
sigh of relief, for it had been becoming a problem whether her aunt
would retire in time to allow her to get away unquestioned. It was quite
on the cards that the energetic old spinster might have offered to
accompany her if she had said that she was going for a stroll in the
gardens before going to bed.
As it was, she was free to make her preparations without interference,
and going out into the hall she provided herself with a motoring cap and
a heavy golf cloak. Returning to the drawing-room, she was about to
leave by one of the French windows when it occurred to her that as her
"stroll in the garden" was to-night an excuse for a more extended
expedition, it might be as well to take precautions against her being
locked out. She rang the bell and ordered the butler not to lock the
window, but to merely leave it on latch. She explained that she was
going to enjoy the beauty of the night in the open air, and might not
have returned when he went his rounds to see that all was secure.
"And don't trouble to sit up for me, Watson," she added. "I have a
headache, and may be out some little while."
"Shall I leave the lamps lighted, miss?" asked the butler.
"In the drawing-room and in the hall," was the reply. "I will make
myself responsible for putting them out when I come in."
The man bowed and retired, concealing with the tact of the well-trained
servant the surprise with which the cap and cloak inspired him. He was
aware that his young mistress was in the habit of walking in the grounds
at a late hour, but he had never previously received such an order about
not sitting up, nor had he known her to take precautions by putting on
additional wraps.
"I've got my plate chest to think about," the faithful servitor muttered
as he made his way back to his pantry. "Miss Violet is always
considerate, but I'm blessed if I'm going to turn in while that window's
only on latch. It appears to me she isn't in a hurry to come in
to-night."
Having got rid of Watson, Violet lost no time in starting to carry out
the project on which she was so feverishly bent. Along the noble avenue,
lit now by only a few pale stars in an opaque sky, she flitted like a
nymph of the night, only checking her footsteps as she passed the
lodge, lest she should awake the sleeping inmates. Out on the high road
she commenced running, and so neared the clump of trees where she was to
find the car. Nugent's carefully modulated voice hailed her from the
darkness.
"That you, Miss Maynard? Right! Pray do not distress yourself by undue
haste. We have ample time before us. There, let me help you in and make
you comfortable. Dixon, take the hoods off the lamps and get in behind.
Miss Maynard will sit with me."
Nugent, who was at the wheel, extended his hand, and when Violet had
settled herself at his side and the chauffeur had unveiled the great
acetylene lamps, he sent the car spinning for Ottermouth at half-speed.
But he avoided the road that would take him through the main street of
the little town, and struck into a series of country lanes that brought
them by a detour to The Hut, without having to pass more than a solitary
farmhouse.
"We are in luck so far," he said when they had swept up the drive and
he had assisted Violet to alight. "We didn't meet a soul all the way.
Dixon, have the car ready here. I shall want to take Miss Maynard back
to the Manor House presently. Now," he added, beckoning Violet to follow
him, "we will go round this way, please."
The girl, all her mind set on her purpose, obeyed like one in a dream.
She wanted to meet Leslie and bring him to reason. It mattered nothing
to her how she reached her goal so long as her task was swiftly
accomplished, and she knew that the shortest way to the sea was through
the grounds of The Hut. So without demur she followed Nugent round the
house to the lawns and gardens at the back.
"It would be best to be perfectly silent," her guide whispered as they
struck across the greensward. "My servants may not all have gone to bed
yet, or some one else might be about."
"I--I thought I heard something there," replied Violet, laying a hand on
his arm and glancing apprehensively at the spectral outline of the
grotto, the walls of which gleamed white amid the gloom of the
shrubbery.
"Only the breeze in the foliage," Nugent murmured hastily, and, taking
the girl's hand almost roughly, he hurried her to the door on to the
moor, opened it, and as quickly closed it when they had passed through.
"There!" he said in a tone of unaffected relief, "we shall find no more
obstacles in our way but a short walk through the heather and a scramble
down the steps to the beach. Chermside will be waiting for us at the
foot of Colebrook Chine."
But that prophecy was not to be verified. When at length they stood on
the pebbles of the shore the figure which emerged from a nook in the
cliff was not Leslie Chermside, but Bill Tuke, "The Bootlace Man."
"Well, where is Mr. Chermside?" Nugent demanded of him angrily.
"It's not my fault that he ain't here, sir," the fellow replied in
seemingly surly protest. "Nothing I could say would make him stop. As
soon as the launch came he insisted on going off to the steamer."
Violet uttered a cry of anguish. Her self-set task had failed. Not only
had her lover fled, but he had fled like a craven without keeping the
tryst which he had himself sought.
"Did he leave no message?" Nugent inquired, in a tone of perplexity that
sounded perfectly natural.
"He did that," replied Tuke. "I was to say that he was frightened to
wait about here on the shore lest the coppers should pinch him, but that
he would ask the captain, directly he got on board, to keep the yacht
out there for a bit, and to send the launch back for the lady. Then she
could come out to the steamer and bid him good-bye, and the launch could
put her ashore again afterwards."
Nugent turned impetuously to Violet. It was too dark for her to see the
expression on his face, but the quiver in his voice was eloquent of
hardly-restrained indignation. "Chermside must have lost his head or his
nerve," he said. "Though that is no excuse for such a want of
consideration. The request is outrageous. I will not worry you with my
sympathy, Miss Maynard, for I cannot trust myself to speak. Come! Let me
take you home without delay, for of course you will not accede to this
preposterous request."
"On the contrary, that is exactly what I mean to do--if the launch comes
for me," replied Violet, straining her wet eyes seaward through the
gloom. "You must remember that it was not to say farewell but to prevent
him from going that I came here, Mr. Nugent. I am very sensible of your
kindness in bringing me, and I regret Mr. Chermside's conduct as an
insult to you, even greater than to me. I will not ask you to remain
till I return from the steamer. If--if I am alone I shall prefer to make
my way home by myself."
"My duty to your father, who is my friend----" Nugent was beginning.
"I have my duty to myself, and to my affianced husband to consider,"
Violet cut him short. "Pray spare me an argument in my distress, Mr.
Nugent. My mind is quite made up to go out to the yacht."
And, as if to fortify her resolve, there sounded from the dark sea the
pulsing clack of the electric launch as it sped towards the shore. A few
moments later it had been skilfully beached, and a gruff voice inquired
in a guarded undertone--
"Is the lady there?"
"Yes, I am here and ready," responded Violet eagerly; and she went down
across the pebbles to where the bows of the tiny craft nuzzled the
shore. A horny hand was stretched out to her, and she was drawn on
board. When Nugent had tossed a letter into her, the launch backed off,
and, circling round, started for the second time that night on its trip
back to the steamer.
"Pray do not wait, Mr. Nugent; I shall be really vexed if you do,"
Violet's vibrant tones rang from the fast-receding launch.
The reply was uttered so low that it reached no ears but those of Tuke,
who, like some foul bird of the night, had hovered round, taking no part
in the scene after the delivery of his alleged message.
"I have no intention of causing you any such vexation, dear lady. The
wait would, indeed, be a long one," was what Travers Nugent said, as he
turned to climb the steps to the top of the cliff.
And the subtle humour of the remark, which was apparently intelligible
to "The Bootlace Man," caused that worthy to break into a snigger of
servile laughter--the kind of merriment which the junior bar concedes to
a jest from the bench.
"That's a good 'un, sir," he wheezed. "She won't trouble you much more,
I'm thinking. But what about the little gel in the grotto? She'll make
it nasty for us if she ain't let out soon, I reckon."
"Not for _us_, Tuke," was Nugent's sardonic rejoinder. "But she will
probably make it very nasty for _you_, or rather her father will. I
intend you to bear the brunt of Mr. Mallory's displeasure, my friend, on
the usual terms. In other words, you will be well paid for any
unpleasantness you may incur on my behalf. I am going to release Miss
Enid Mallory now, and as the tale I intend to regale her with does not
entail your presence, you had better go back to your lodging. And by
the first train in the morning you must clear right out for your kennel
in London. I will communicate with you by letter as to future
requirements."
So at the summit of the cliff they separated, Tuke taking the path to
the lower end of the town, where for some days he had been domiciled in
a fisherman's cottage, and Nugent striking out across the moor for the
back way into his own grounds.
Before he closed the door in the hedge, he turned and looked seaward.
Some three miles out a brilliant streak of light was visible. It was
moving rapidly westward, like a golden snake gliding on the face of the
dark waters. The phenomenon was evidently caused by the port-hole lights
of an electrically-lit steamer.
The watcher drew a deep breath of satisfaction. "Brant has lost no time
in getting under weigh," he muttered, as he softly shut the door.