LADY KATHLEEN'S DOUBTS
In the outer room he found Melun; he took him by the arm and said very
quickly, “Come along, I want to speak to you.”
Melun gave him one almost quizzical look and accompanied him without
speaking.
As a matter of fact, he found it rather awkward to say anything at all,
and did not attempt to break the silence in which Westerham drove back
to the hotel.
Westerham himself was baffled, and yet he had ascertained one thing
which was likely to be of infinite use to him. He had discovered that
there was, without doubt, a definite connection between the game
which Melun was playing and Bagley's attempt to steal Lady Kathleen's
diamonds.
That was sufficient for the night.
Still his impatience, or perhaps one had better say his desire, to get
at the actual facts prompted him to take Melun into Walter's Hotel and
subject him to a close cross-examination.
Melun, however, had recovered from his perturbation of the night
before, and, moreover, was apparently intoxicated by the effect of
rubbing shoulders with the great ones of the earth at the Prime
Minister's reception. Therefore he was in a far less tractable frame
of mind than was pleasant to Westerham. The captain, indeed, had got
back that self-possession and cool audacity of which he had made such
good use on the _Gigantic_. Westerham realised this at once, and at the
outset dealt very gently with Melun.
“Don't you think,” he began softly, “that you had better make a clean
breast of it?”
“Not at all,” answered Melun. “I have no desire to shock you, and a man
who is disturbed by the yelling of a couple of girls is not likely to
take what I might tell him in a particularly cool manner.”
Westerham's bright, sea-green eyes hardened.
“I have told you,” he said in a more menacing tone, “that if you want
to indulge in villainy you have got to keep women out of it. Now,
whatever your scheme may be, it cannot be of very particular magnitude
unless it has to do with the Premier. I fail to see where Lady Kathleen
comes into the matter at all.”
“Perhaps you do,” Melun answered, “but then you are unacquainted
with the details, and I don't propose to enlighten you. I agreed to
betray the secrets of the prison house, or rather to let you see how
my friends work, but I did not agree to tell you of every piece of
business in which I was engaged.”
“On this occasion, I fancy,” said Westerham, “you will find it
convenient to unburden your mind.”
But Captain Melun only laughed. “Not so,” he said.
Westerham was as near to exasperation as he ever allowed himself to get.
“I don't want to coerce you,” he remarked grimly.
“You had better not try,” Melun answered. “There is one thing which
apparently you have not taken into your calculations. You forget that
Lord Penshurst—I admit that your suspicions of a tie between us are
correct—is quite as much interested in keeping me silent as I am in
keeping silent myself.”
Westerham had foreseen this point, and was prepared with an answer.
“You forget,” he said, “that it might suit my convenience to become
Lord Penshurst's friend.”
“Have a care,” cried Melun, angrily; “you don't know what you say.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Westerham.
“I mean,” said Melun, softly, “that I can strike back where it will hit
you most.”
Instinctively Westerham clenched his hands.
“Possibly,” he said, “but you cannot blackmail me, and though since I
met you first I knew you were a blackmailer, I did not know you aimed
so high as to blackmail the Prime Minister.”
He paused for a few moments before he spoke again; when he did his
voice was even and low; but Melun did not like the ring in it.
“In fact,” Westerham resumed, “I have seen enough to convince me that
what you are after must be very big game indeed. What it is, of course,
I do not know, and it would simply be idle on my part to pretend that
I did. But I have the capacity of being infinitely patient, and sooner
or later I shall find out. I will not press you because I think that I
should simply land myself into difficulties, which would make matters
harder than they are.”
He rose and walked over to the door, and held it open. “For the
present,” he said, “you may go, but if I were you I would not fail to
appear when you are sent for.”
Melun took up his hat and stick and laughed lightly.
“It suits me very well,” he said, “to come when I am bid, but possibly
you may not find me quite so pliant in the future. Good-night!”
Going straight up to his room, Westerham slept like a child till
about six o'clock. He preferred to do his clear thinking in the
early morning. Now he thought long and hard for two hours. He argued
the matter out with himself in all its respects, and though he had
determined not to take a bold course with Melun on the previous night,
he was now convinced that the only way was to take a bold course with
Lady Kathleen.
He had not seen Dunton among the guests at the reception, but, of
course, there could be no doubt that Lady Kathleen was well acquainted
with that entirely charming and honest, if somewhat vacuous, young peer.
It was therefore with the intention of revealing his identity to Lady
Kathleen and explaining the whole position to her that about noon he
made his way down Whitehall and rang the queer little bell of No. 10
Downing Street.
As he waited on the door-step, however, he was a little disconcerted
to observe that the blinds were drawn down, and immediately the door
was opened he instinctively knew that the house was, for his purpose at
least, empty.
None the less, he asked for Lady Kathleen, only to be met with the
grave reply that her ladyship had left that morning by motor car for
Trant Hall, in Hertfordshire.
Without any display of discomposure Westerham nodded the man his thanks
for the information and retraced his steps to the hotel. The departure
of Lady Kathleen to some slight extent unsettled his mind. He reflected
that perhaps he had been a little too hasty in his decision to tell her
everything.
There was the possibility that she would disbelieve him, and the
possibility, moreover, that she would tell her father; and if she told
her father there was the further possibility that the Premier would be
adamant in his refusal to disclose his troubles. And in that case he
would be absolutely baulked. Westerham was a keen judge of character,
and he saw that if her father refused to speak Lady Kathleen would
refuse to speak too.
Then indeed he would be in a quandary, for he would be entirely cut off
from those whom he wished to befriend, even if he did not excite their
active hostility.
Upon these reflections he instantly decided to alter his mind,
comforting himself on this score with the dictum that it is only the
dead who never change.
But though he decided to withhold his identity, he was resolved to make
one last effort to induce Lady Kathleen to confide in him.
With this idea he turned back, not to his hotel, but to his rooms
in Bruton Street, from which he had been absent for so long without
explanation.
There he was met on the threshold by the entirely immaculate and
discreet servant with whom the youthful, but worldly-wise, Lord Dunton
had provided him.
The man's eyes revealed nothing. He merely bowed and waited, with that
urbane silence which characterises the best kind of English servant.
The man's face, indeed, expressed no surprise even at the rather shabby
clothes which Westerham was wearing, though Westerham himself knew well
enough that he must have remarked them.
“While I am getting into other things,” he said, “you had better
telephone round for my car.”
The man bowed. It was the first time that his extraordinary new
master had thought of using the very magnificent motor car which he
had casually bought in the course of an afternoon's walk. In about
twenty minutes Westerham came out of his room again, looking, if not
altogether a different man, at least a better-dressed one.
Westerham was conscious that his servant surveyed him with approval
as he offered him lunch. He accepted it, as he was hungry; moreover,
he knew that he could reach Trant Hall well within two hours, and
he had no desire to arrive too soon. The chauffeur, also supplied
by Lord Dunton, was the same manner of man as his valet. Westerham
appreciated the fact, but was not as thankful as he became later, when
he discovered that a silent and discreet and civil chauffeur was a
distinctly uncommon type of human being.
Having made up his mind as to his immediate course of action, Westerham
thought no more about the matter. It was not his habit to think what he
should say when he met a certain man or a certain woman. He believed
in the inspiration of the moment; and his inspiration was seldom wrong.
About four o'clock the chauffeur informed him that they were nearing
Trant Hall, and then it occurred to Westerham that it might possibly be
unwise to make too bold an entry into the grounds. In consequence he
stopped at the lodge and inquired for Lady Kathleen.
Her ladyship, he was told, had not many minutes before called there
herself. She was believed to be now on her way to the deer park. Having
asked where this lay, Westerham got out of the car and proceeded on
foot down the leafy avenue. At the end of the avenue there was a high
wall, in which there was a break. A flight of stone steps led up to the
break, and these he climbed.
On the top he paused, being struck by the remarkable beauty of the
scene. For from the wall the green turf sloped downwards, while before
him and on either side stretched a magnificent forest of giant beech
trees.
He had taken the precaution to inquire whether it were possible for
Lady Kathleen to return from the deer park by any other route, and had
received an answer in the negative. Therefore he decided it would be
waste of time for him to go in search of her, seeing that she must come
back by the same way.
Meanwhile he sat down on the top of the steps, and, lighting a
cigarette, gave himself over to patient waiting.
Some thirty minutes passed before he caught a glimpse of a moving
figure amid some distant trees. The figure grew in size and in
distinctness of outline, and then he saw Lady Kathleen coming slowly
towards him.
Her face was bent on the ground, and her whole figure seemed for the
moment old and bowed. Her appearance, indeed, gave him a little pang of
sorrow.
He realised that when she saw him she must suffer some slight shock.
That, however, was inevitable, and so he sat waiting for her to raise
her head.
Presently, as she came nearer the wall, she lifted up her eyes, and a
little cry escaped her lips as she saw Westerham sitting there. She
stopped dead in her walk and stood still, holding her hand against her
heart.
Westerham knew that she must have time to recover before he spoke, so
he merely removed his hat and, moving forward, stood bareheaded before
her.
A little of her old spirit came back to her as she looked up at him.
There was almost a glimmer of amusement in her eyes, but whatever
humour she might have felt at his appearance was drowned in her obvious
anxiety. She might well have been angry with him, but she kept her sad
composure.
“Do you think,” she asked, with an appealing gesture of her hands, “it
is quite fair to torment me in this way?”
“You would not ask me that,” said Westerham, “if you did believe me to
be an honest man.”
She passed her hand rather wearily across her forehead.
“I hardly know,” she said in a slightly shaky voice, “exactly what to
think.”
She lifted her eyes again to his as though to search him through and
through.
“At any rate,” asked Westerham, with a smile, “have you a sufficiently
good opinion of me to grant me just a few moments to say something?”
“It seems I cannot help myself,” she said, with a pained little laugh.
“Lady Kathleen,” he answered earnestly, “you are very much upset. I
assure you that if you will only hear me out you will not regret it—at
least you may rest assured that you will be free from any insult or
annoyance.
“It will take me some few minutes to explain,” he went on, “and so I
think it would be best for you to sit down.”
Without waiting for an answer he took her by the hand and led her
gently to the steps. She sank down on them with a heavy sigh.
“The other night,” said Westerham, “I was sufficiently honest to save
you from an awkward situation.”
Lady Kathleen was about to speak, but he would not allow it.
“No, no!” he urged, “I did not mention it to be thanked again. I have
been more than thanked already. I only did what any ordinary decent man
would do. I have no desire to dwell on that. Indeed, I simply mentioned
it in order that I might convince you that I wish you well.”
“But you knew that man,” she cried; “you must have known him.”
Westerham stared at Lady Kathleen with some astonishment.
“I give you my word that I did not know him then,” he said, “even if I
know him now.”
“Ah!” she darted a look of suspicion at him.
“Yes, I know Bagley, and I know Melun, and I know a man called Crow.”
Lady Kathleen's face blanched.
“And what else?” she asked.
He threw out his arms. “Nothing! I swear to you I know absolutely
nothing else, except—and that, of course, is obvious—that you and
your father go in deadly fear of all the three. Why, I cannot tell. If
you will only enlighten me a little I may do much to help you.”
“No, no!” she cried, “it is simply out of the question. The secret is
not mine, but my father's.”
“Then let me go to Lord Penshurst,” urged Westerham.
The girl started and thought for a few minutes before she answered.
“No,” she said at last, slowly, “you must not do that. He would not
understand.”
“You mean,” said Westerham, “he would merely regard me as one who might
be termed ‘one of the gang.’”
The girl nodded.
“But I assure you,” Westerham laughed, “that I am not.”
To his surprise the girl looked him straight in the face. “I wish I
felt quite sure,” she said.
Westerham flushed with almost a flush of anger.
“This,” he cried, “is an intolerable situation. If you would only
confide in me I would confide in you.
“I am not what I seem. I am no mere man-about-town. I am not one of
Melun's dupes. I am not of a certainty one of his friends—even though
I may appear to be associated with him.
“I am a very different man indeed from what I fancy you take me for.
My resources are practically limitless, and without boasting I may say
that I hold Melun in the hollow of my hand.”
Again, to his surprise, Kathleen gave him the same keen look of
suspicion.
“I fear no consequence as the result of what I will tell you,” she
said quietly, “but Melun declares that you are merely an American
confederate.”
“Good Heavens!” cried Westerham, and so great was the sincerity of his
tones that Lady Kathleen's face softened.
“But perhaps you are not. I wish I knew.”
She buried her face in her hands and rocked to and fro in her distress.
“If I tell you who I am,” cried Westerham, stung to desperation, “am I
not right in thinking that you would tell your father?”
Kathleen nodded her assent.
“And then we should be worse off than ever,” he rejoined gloomily. “Far
from being regarded as a friend, I should be regarded as an interloper,
possibly a danger, because I knew of your father's difficulty. Yet what
the nature of that trouble is I have not the least idea. Why not tell
me?”
The girl leapt to her feet and looked at him with wild eyes. “If you do
know,” she cried, “you are as great a fiend as Melun to persecute me
in this way, and if you do not know—then Heaven forbid that you ever
should.
“I cannot tell you because if I did I should be a murderess.”
“A murderess!” Westerham drew a step back in horror.
“A murderess of whom?”
“Don't ask,” cried Kathleen; “I should be a murderess of not one, but
many. As it is I can at least be silent, and if needs be make the
sacrifice.”
“What sacrifice?”
“What sacrifice? Ah, that I cannot tell you now, though I cannot hide
it from you always. I fear that there is no hope. That you will have to
know in time unless—unless——”
“Unless what?”
“Unless——” cried the girl, and her voice trailed away.
Westerham took her hands gently and with great deference.
“Unless,” he said softly, “you allow me to help you.”
She tore her hands away from his and almost screamed at him.
“Go! Go!” she cried.
Her whole air was so distraught, she was so obviously on the verge of a
complete breakdown, that Westerham realised it would be mere folly to
remain. His offers could only exasperate her the more.
So he turned away sorrowfully. It cut him to the heart to see her
huddled there upon the steps crying as if her heart would break. But
he could do nothing. It was with a blind rage against Melun that he
stumbled back along the avenue to his car and curtly ordered the man to
return to London.
And at every yard of the way he repeated to himself the words:
“Murderess!” “Sacrifice!” “Sacrifice!” “Murderess!”
On a sudden he resolved to call on Mme. Estelle.
Possibly she could help to solve all this sickening mystery.
The words “Murderess!” “Sacrifice!” “Murderess!” “Sacrifice!” fitted
with a horrible nicety the throbbing of the engine, and he was
still muttering to himself “Murderess!” “Sacrifice!” “Sacrifice!”
“Murderess!” when he reached the narrow door in the wall of the house
of Mme. Estelle.