On his way to keep his appointment with Miss Allen, Fayre called at
Kean’s house in Westminster, where he was assured by the butler that
Lady Kean’s improvement “was maintained.” That solemn functionary had
recovered his professional manner and looked a different person from
the harassed and very human individual who had mistaken Fayre for a
Harley Street specialist on the night of his mistress’s illness.
Fayre, observing his native pomposity for the first time, realized how
complete his collapse had been and liked him the better for it.
Before going on to Miss Allen’s hotel he dropped into a florist’s and
ordered a great sheaf of flowers to be sent to Lady Kean. Remembering
their old days together in the country he chose simple, country
flowers rather than the heavy-smelling hot-house blooms that were
pressed on him by the saleswoman. He had an idea that they would
please her and he knew that she would understand and appreciate the
spirit that had caused him to select them. He enclosed a short note
bearing his good wishes for her speedy recovery and then, on a sudden
impulse, he bought another, smaller bunch and carried it away with
him.
He produced his offering a little shyly on his arrival at Miss
Allen’s. It was a long time, he realized, since he had done this sort
of thing and the very act seemed, somehow, to emphasize the fact that
neither he nor the recipient were in their first youth. Miss Allen,
however, was troubled with no such misgivings and was frankly
delighted with the gift. Ringing for vases she set herself to arrange
the flowers with the appreciative care of one who really loves them.
Fayre sat watching her as she moved about the ugly hotel sitting-room
and decided that Greycross must be a pleasant house to stay in and its
owner a delightful hostess.
She was putting the finishing touches to her last vase when tea was
brought in.
“Pour it out, will you, Mr. Fayre,” she said in her decisive way,
“while I clear up this mess. Lots of milk and no sugar for me,
please.”
She disappeared into the next room, her hands full of paper and wet
foliage, and came back carrying a good-sized dispatch-box.
“We’ll have a go at this after tea,” she said as she sat down and
observed the results of her handiwork. “Mercy, how different the room
looks! Those flowers are a breath of the real country. You’ve chased
London out of the window, Mr. Fayre!”
“London isn’t so easily chased out as that, I’m afraid. It makes me
ache to get away from it. It’s all very well for the young, but for
people like myself it’s grown a little overwhelming. So many of the
old landmarks are gone and life seems to have grown amazingly hectic
in such a short time. I dare say it’s partly a question of contrast.
The East’s noisy, but it’s a place of leisure. I’ve lost the habit of
moving quickly.”
She nodded appreciatively.
“I know what you mean. It takes me the same way. I spend my life among
plants and animals and I’m beginning to realize how slowly and surely
nature progresses. Everything else, nowadays, seems anything but slow
and appallingly insecure. At least, that’s my feeling, but then I’ve
crossed Piccadilly at least half a dozen times to-day and I’m
wondering why I’m still alive. The moment my business here is finished
I shall make for home again. What are your plans, now that you are
back in England for good?”
“A little place somewhere in the country, just large enough to hold a
few friends and a dog or two. If possible, some fishing. Then I shall
settle down and cultivate my garden and write a dull book about
India.”
“You won’t be lonely?”
“Are you?” Fayre shot back at her.
She laughed.
“No, I must admit I’m not, but you must remember that I’ve got a small
village on my hands and I’m on all sorts of queer little local
committees and things. _You_ don’t propose to become the vicar’s prop
and stay, I presume?”
“Not exactly, but I’ve no doubt that some of the philanthropists of
the neighbourhood will find a use for me. I’ve never met any one yet
who escaped them.”
“Oh, they’ll get you,” agreed Miss Allen cheerfully. “When I took
Greycross, more years ago than I like to think of, I mapped out a neat
little program for myself. Riding to hounds in winter and gardening
and tennis in summer. I saw myself drifting into a healthy, mildly
selfish old age, but the local busybodies got me before I’d been there
a year. And you’ll be easier to net than I was!”
“I’m not so sure,” asserted Fayre grimly.
“I am. You’re the sort that can’t see a child fall down without
crossing the road to pick it up. You won’t have a chance!”
Fayre reddened as he caught the disarming twinkle in her eyes.
“Look at you now,” she went on ruthlessly. “How long have you been
home?”
“Three months, more or less,” he informed her meekly.
“And you’re up to your eyes in this affair of John Leslie’s already.
And, as soon as that’s over, you’ll find some one else in trouble.”
“It’s a depressing program for a man who has come home to enjoy a
well-earned rest,” he protested.
“It’s the fate of all unattached people,” she assured him briskly.
“Don’t you know that the spinster and the bachelor are at the mercy of
their friends? I speak from personal experience.”
“And you enjoy every moment of it!” put in Fayre shrewdly.
It was Miss Allen’s turn to blush.
“Well, it keeps me busy and it may save me from becoming a selfish,
cantankerous old woman.”
She drew the dispatch-box to her and unlocked it.
“The private letters, such as they are, are at the bottom,” she said,
removing several bundles that were obviously bills and receipts. “Do
any of these names suggest anything to you?”
She handed him a packet of letters and he went through them with the
swiftness of one accustomed to handle papers. They seemed to consist
mostly of old invitations. Why Mrs. Draycott should have kept them, it
was difficult to imagine. Probably she had been too lazy to sort them
out and had thrown them carelessly into the box with other papers, but
they were useful inasmuch as they gave some clue as to the people she
was in the habit of visiting. One or two of the signatures Fayre
recognized as being well known in the City. He made a note of some of
them in his pocketbook, meaning to ask Grey for information about
them. As Miss Allen emptied the box his list grew longer, but even the
few private letters which he read carefully from beginning to end, in
the hope of finding at least some allusion to Mrs. Draycott’s private
affairs, failed to produce any enlightening information. There were
several packets of photographs, some of which were signed and many of
which bore inscriptions, but they conveyed nothing either to Fayre or
Miss Allen.
“That’s the lot,” she said at last, beginning to stack the pile of
papers back in the box. “I’m afraid it hasn’t been much help.”
Fayre rose to help her.
“It’s given me a list of names that may prove useful and at least we
know now what sort of set she was moving in. Any one of these people
may be able to give us information as to some one who had reason to
bear her a grudge.”
He picked up an envelope which was lying at the top of a bundle of
receipts and opened it idly. A snapshot fell out and dropped, face
upwards, onto the table.
Fayre bent over it and, as he did so, the colour ebbed slowly from his
face, leaving even his lips white.
He snatched the photograph up and walked quickly over to the
electric-lamp that stood on the writing table. Holding the snapshot
just under the light, he studied it carefully.
Miss Allen, who was absorbed in fitting the papers back into the box,
had not noticed his emotion. Now she suddenly became aware that he had
found something that interested him.
“What have you got there?” she asked. Then, seeing the envelope on the
table: “Is it that snapshot? It puzzled me, too. The odd thing is that
it seems to have come from Germany, according to the inscription on
the back.”
Fayre turned it over. Stamped across the back were the words:
“Staatsnarrenhaus, Schleefeldt.”
“What do you make of it?” she went on. “I don’t know a word of German,
but it seems to be the name of a place.”
Fayre came slowly back to the table and picked up the envelope. His
face had regained its normal colour and there was nothing in his
manner to show that he had just had, perhaps, the greatest shock of
his life. He was a good German scholar, but he did not enlighten Miss
Allen as to the full meaning of the inscription he had just read.
“It seems to have come from a place called Schleefeldt,” he said,
examining the envelope narrowly as he spoke. “You’ve no idea, I
suppose, how your sister got it?”
“None. She had no connection with Germany that I know of, either
before or after the war, though she may have been there when she was
abroad. She was on the Continent a good deal and had a good many
friends there. There was nothing in the box that seemed to have any
connection with the photograph. It was lying on the top, in the
envelope, just as you saw it, when I first came on it.”
“We may take it, then, that it was probably one of the last things she
put into the box,” suggested Fayre.
“It looked like it, certainly.”
Fayre picked up the topmost packet of receipts and pulled one out. It
was dated 1926.
“You don’t know at all when your sister last asked for this box at the
bank?” he asked.
Miss Allen shook her head.
“I could find out, I suppose. But I do know that my sister only sent
it to the bank with her plate when she left her London flat about two
months ago, so that she had access to it up till then. I believe she
stayed on in town for a bit after giving up her flat, so she may have
had the box out again. Do you want me to find out?”
“It’s very kind of you, but I don’t think it’s necessary. There’s no
date on the envelope; evidently it is just an unused one that she
slipped the photograph into for safety and I was trying to get a clue
as to when she is likely to have received the photograph. As it was at
the top and as the receipts under it are for 1926, it looks as if she
had put the photograph in fairly recently.”
“Does it suggest anything to you?” she asked.
“It bears an extraordinary resemblance to a man I firmly believe to be
dead,” said Fayre slowly. “Of course, it probably is only a chance
likeness, but it is so strong that I am going to ask you whether I may
borrow the photograph for a day or two.”
“Of course,” agreed Miss Allen readily. “Keep it as long as you like.
If, later, I come across anything that throws any light on it, I’ll
let you know, but I think I’ve been through all my sister’s papers
now.” Fayre stowed the envelope and its content carefully away in his
breast pocket. He stayed chatting with Miss Allen for a minute or two
and then took his leave. As he was saying good-by he remembered a
question he had meant to put to her.
“By the way, you could not tell me anything about the death of your
sister’s first husband, I suppose?”
“He died of drink, poor soul,” she said bluntly. “He was a friend of
Dr. Gregg’s, you know, and the doctor was with him to the end. He was
buried at Putney, I’ve never quite known why, and, as a matter of
fact, I went to the funeral.”
“You went to the funeral?” Fayre echoed her words mechanically in his
surprise.
“I suppose it was rather an astonishing thing to do,” she admitted,
“considering what had happened, but I’d always liked him, though I’d
never seen much of him. I had a very painful interview with him after
my sister left him and was sorry for him. I was in London when he died
and Dr. Gregg wrote to me about the funeral. I don’t know quite why I
went, but, somehow, it seemed the decent thing to do. My sister had a
lot to answer for there, Mr. Fayre.” Fayre could hear the pain and
humiliation in her voice.
“I think you are right about unattached people,” he said gently, “only
you forgot to mention that some of them are apt to take the sins as
well as the troubles of others on their shoulders.”
“They get there of their own accord,” she said with a rueful smile.
“Believe me, they need no taking.” As he was leaving, a thought struck
him.
“Didn’t Gregg’s attitude at the inquest strike you as odd?” he asked.
“You must have known that your sister was no stranger to him.”
She shook her head.
“I took it for granted that he didn’t recognize her. I always
understood that he saw very little of the Baxters after their marriage
and I don’t suppose he ever saw her before. The name Draycott might
have given him a clue, but, when he first saw her at the farm, he
didn’t know her name even.”
Evidently Miss Allen was unaware of Gregg’s connection with St.
Swithin’s and the fact that he had known Mrs. Draycott before her
marriage.
On the way back to his club Fayre bought a powerful magnifying-glass.
Armed with this he went to his room and examined the photograph
closely under the light of a strong reading-lamp.
The snapshot was that of a man sitting on a bench in what looked like
a private garden. He was staring straight in front of him, his face
devoid of all expression, his hands hanging loosely between his knees.
He was poorly dressed and his clothes looked shabby and ill cared-for.
By his side, hanging over the edge of the bench, was a newspaper. Even
without the glass, the name of the paper, printed in large type at the
head of the first page, was decipherable. It was that of a well-known
German daily. Underneath it was the date, in much smaller type, and
Fayre had some difficulty in making it out, even with the aid of the
glass he had bought. He did succeed at last. It was January 16th and
the address, printed with an ordinary stamp on the back of the
photograph, was that of the State Lunatic Asylum at Schleefeldt, a
small town in north Germany.
When Fayre at last raised his head his face in the crude light of the
electric-lamp was white and drawn. He seemed to have aged ten years in
as many minutes.