Her curious reply greatly puzzled me. What could be "the ugly truth" to
which she had referred?
At her side I sat in silence for some time. The car was tearing along a
wide straight main road between dusty hedges and many telegraph wires,
and as I glanced at her I saw that she was staring straight before her
fixedly, with a strange hard look upon her beautiful countenance.
Perhaps I might have been mistaken, but at my mention of the dead man I
felt certain that I saw in her eyes the light of unshed tears.
Through the busy town of Northampton we went, and out again on the road
to Kettering--a road I knew well, having motored over it many times. In
the centre of the latter town we turned sharply to the left, and, taking
the Oakham Road, soon passed through the village of Great Oakley, and
suddenly descending a very steep hill, on the summit, of which a castle
was perched, we found ourselves in the wide straggling main street of
Rockingham village.
My fair companion spoke but little. She seemed suddenly to have become
strangely preoccupied. Indeed, it struck me as though she had been
seized by some sudden apprehension, by a thought which had crossed her
mind for the first time. Her manner had completely changed.
"Your father has been away in France since I met him?" I remarked, for
want of something else to say.
"Yes," she responded; "he has been moving rapidly from place to place
for reasons to which I need not refer."
"But why has he returned if there is still danger?" I queried.
"I scarcely think there is further danger--at least at present," she
answered. I was puzzled at her reply, but not for long, as I will
relate.
The car slipped through Rockingham, and when about two miles farther on
swung abruptly through a handsome pair of lodge-gates and into a broad,
well-timbered park, at last pulled up before a long, old-fashioned
Jacobean mansion which commanded from its grey stone terrace fine views
of the green undulating hills and rich pastures around. The old
ivy-clad place, with its pointed gables and mullioned windows, was a
good type of the stately English home, and as the car drew up at the
porch the great door was flung open by a neat man-servant, who bowed low
as we entered the fine hall, where the stone slabs were, I noticed, worn
hollow by the tread of generations.
The place was built in a quadrangle, two-storeyed, with handsome
heraldic devices in the stained windows. There seemed to be roomy
corridors, leading by stout oak doors to roomier apartments within, some
oak-panelled, others with moulded ceilings and carved stone fireplaces.
The whole place had a cloak and rapier look about it, built probably
when the old Cavalier was poor and soured and had sheathed his sword,
but nevertheless was counting the months when the King should come to
his own again.
I followed Asta Seymour along the hall, and turning into a corridor on
the left, suddenly found myself in a pleasant sitting-room wherein the
man I knew as Dawnay stood, his hands behind his back, awaiting me.
As we entered she closed the door behind us. The room bore an old-world
air, with chintz-covered furniture and filled with the perfume of
pot-pourri.
"At last, Mr Kemball! At last?" cried the fugitive, crossing quickly
to me and taking my hand in warm welcome. "So Asta found you all right,
eh?"
"Her appearance was certainly a surprise," I said. "I expected you to
meet me yourself."
"Well," he laughed, his small narrow-set eyes filled with a merry
twinkle. "It would hardly have been a judicious proceeding. So I sent
Asta, to whom, I may as well tell you, I entrust all matters of
strictest confidence. But sit down, Mr Kemball. Give me your hat and
stick."
And he drew forward for me a comfortable chair, while the girl, excusing
herself, left us alone.
When she had gone, my friend looked me in the face, and burst out
laughing, exclaiming--
"I suppose, Mr Kemball, this is rather a surprise to you to find that
Harvey Shaw, the occupier of Lydford Hall, and Alfred Dawnay are one and
the same person, eh?"
"It is," I admitted. "I have passed the edge of your park many times in
my car, but I never dreamed that you lived here."
"Well," he said, "I rely upon your secrecy. You were extremely good to
me the other day, so I see no reason why I should not be just a little
frank with you."
"Your affairs are, of course, no business of mine," I declared. "But
whatever you may reveal to me I shall certainly treat with the strictest
confidence."
"Ah! I feel sure that you will. Melvill Arnold would never have taken
you into his confidence if he had not been certain that he could trust
you. He was one of the very shrewdest men in all England, or he would
not have been so enormously successful."
From the long windows, with their small leaded panes, I could see from
where I sat far away across the park with its fine beech avenue. Over
the wide fireplace were carved many heraldic devices in stone, while
against the dark oak-panelling the bright chintzes showed clean and
fresh. Taste was displayed everywhere--the taste of a refined man.
Mr Shaw, as he was apparently known there, was dressed very different
from the occasion when we had met at Totnes. Then he had assumed the
appearance of a racing man, but in his guise of country gentleman he was
dressed in morning-coat of a rather old-fashioned cut, and
pepper-and-salt trousers, an attire which gave him a quiet and somewhat
distinguished appearance.
I sat before him, wondering at his remarkable dual personality--the man
hunted by the police, and the wealthy occupier of that fine country
mansion.
His small, shrewd eyes seemed to realise the trend of my thoughts as he
lounged back in his chair near the window, regarding me lazily.
"I promised, Mr Kemball, that I would see you again as soon as
opportunity offered," he said; "and feeling assured of the spirit of
good fellowship existing between us, I have this afternoon let you into
the secret of my double life. That evening at Exeter I had a very
narrow squeak of it--by Gad! one of the narrowest in all my life. An
enemy--one whom I had believed to be my friend--gave me completely away.
The police evidently expected to find me through you, for you were
watched constantly. Everywhere you went you were followed."
"You know that?"
"I do," he said. "The fact is I have a personal guardian who constantly
watches over me, and warns me of danger. You saw him on his cycle at
Lathbury. He watched you while I was absent in France shaking off those
bloodhounds of the law."
"And you have now shaken them off, I presume?"
"I think so. Scotland Yard has, happily, never yet associated Harvey
Shaw, Justice of the Peace for the County of Rutland, and one of the
visiting justices of Oakham Gaol, with Alfred Dawnay, alias Day, whom
they are so very eager to arrest," and he laughed grimly. "Mine is an
amusing situation, I assure you, to sit on the Bench and try prisoners,
well knowing that each police-officer who appears as witness would, if
he knew, be only too eager to execute the warrant outstanding."
And his broad, good-humoured face again expanded into a smile.
"Certainly. I quite see the grim humour of the situation," I said.
"And if you had not assisted me, Mr Kemball, I should, at this moment,
have been under detention in His Majesty's prison at Brixton," he said.
"By the way, I have to return the suit of clothes you so very kindly
lent to me. My man has them upstairs ready packed. I shall send them
to you by parcel-post. Gates was, I think, rather surprised to find
another man's clothes among my kit. But fortunately he's used to my
idiosyncrasies, and regards them as mere eccentricities on the part of
his master. But he is always discreet. He's been with me these ten
years."
"How long have you lived here, Mr--er--"
"Shaw here," he interrupted quickly.
"Mr Shaw. How long have you lived here? I thought the place belonged
to Lord Wyville?"
"So it does--at least to the late lord's executors. I've rented it for
the past three years. So in the county I'm highly respectable, and I
believe highly respected."
"The situation is unusual--to say the least," I declared.
"Perhaps I'm a rather unusual man, Mr Kemball," he said, rising and
crossing the room. I saw that in his dark green cravat he wore a fine
diamond, and that his manner and bearing were those of a well-born
country gentleman. Truly, he was an unusual person.
"I hope," he went on, halting suddenly before me, "that as you have
associated yourself with my very dear and intimate friend, Melvill
Arnold, you will now become my friend also. It is for that reason I
venture to approach you as I have done to-day."
"Well," I said, my natural sense of caution exerting itself as I
recollected the dead man's written injunction, "I must admit, Mr Shaw,
that I am sorely puzzled to fathom the mystery of the situation. Ever
since my meeting with poor Mr Arnold I seem to have been living in a
perfect maze of inexplicable circumstances."
"I have no doubt. But all will be explained in due course. Did Arnold
make no explanation?"
"None. Indeed, in his letter to me, which I opened after his burial, he
admitted to me that he was not what he had pretended to be."
"Few of us are, I fear," he laughed. "We are all more or less
hypocrites and humbugs. To-day, in this age of criminality and
self-advertisement, the art of evading exposure is the art of industry.
Alas! the copy-book proverb that honesty is the best policy seems no
longer true. To be dishonest is to get rich quick; to remain honest is
to face the Official Receiver in the Bankruptcy Court. A dishonest man
amasses money and becomes great and honoured owing to the effort of his
press agent. The honest man struggles against the trickery of the
unscrupulous, and sooner or later goes to the wall."
"What you say is, I fear, too true," I sighed. "Would that it were
untrue. Virtue has very little reward in these days of unscrupulous
dealing in every walk of life, from the palace to the slum."
"Then I take it that you do not hold in contempt a man who, in dealing
with the world, has used his opponents' own weapons?" he asked.
"How can I? In a duel the same weapons must be used."
"Exactly, Mr Kemball, we are now beginning to understand each other,
and--"
At that moment the door opened without warning, and Asta re-entered.
She had changed her frock, and was wearing a pretty muslin blouse and
skirt of dove-grey.
"Shall you have tea in here, Dad--or out on the lawn?" she inquired.
"Oh, on the lawn, I think, dear. I just want to finish my chat with Mr
Kemball--if you don't mind."
"I'm awfully sorry I intruded," she laughed. "I thought you'd
finished." And with a sweet smile to me she closed the door and again
left us.
How very dainty she looked; how exquisite was her figure! Surely her
grace was perfect.
"Really," my companion said, "I don't know what I'd do without Asta.
She's all I have in the world, and she's a perfect marvel of discretion
and diplomacy."
"She's indeed very charming," I said, perfectly frankly.
"I'm glad you find her so. She has plenty of admirers, I can assure
you. And I fear they are spoiling her. But as I was saying, Mr
Kemball," he went on, "I hope we now understand each other perfectly.
Poor Arnold was such a dear and intimate friend of mine, and we were
equally interested in so many financial schemes that it has puzzled me
greatly that he should have sought an obscure burial as he has done, and
that his affairs are not in the hands of some responsible lawyer. Did
he mention anything to you concerning the terms of his will?"
"He never breathed a word regarding it. Indeed, I have no idea whether
he had made one."
"Ah!" sighed my companion; "so like poor Arnold. He always was fond of
postponing till to-morrow what could be done to-day. His will--if he
made one--would be interesting, no doubt, for his estate must be pretty
considerable. He was a wealthy man."
I recollected the incident of the burning of the banknotes, and that set
me pondering.
"Do you anticipate that he made a will?" I asked. "I think not," was
Shaw's answer. "He had a strong aversion to making a will, I know,
because he feared that after his death the truth might be revealed."
"The truth concerning what?"
"Concerning a certain chapter of his life which for years had been very
carefully hidden. The fact is, Mr Kemball, that he feared exposure!"
"Of what?"
"Of some rather ugly facts. And for that reason he carefully avoided
making much explanation to you as to who he really was. He had
reasons--very strong reasons--for concealing his actual identity."
"May I not know them?" I asked very slowly, fixing my eyes upon his.
"Some day," was the rather strained reply. "Not now--some day--some
day. I hope to be in a position to explain all to you--to reveal to you
certain matters which will hold you utterly dumbfounded and amazed."