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THE WHITE
LIE
BY
WILLIAM LE QUEUX
_Author of "The Temptress," "In White Raiment,"
"The Room of Secrets," etc._
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
LONDON, MELBOURNE AND TORONTO
1915
[Illustration: "He had taken her small, white hand in his, and for a
moment he stood mute before her, overcome with gratitude." (Chapter
XVIII.) [_Frontispiece_]
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--IS MAINLY MYSTERIOUS 7
II.--CONCERNS A PRETTY STRANGER 19
III.--DESCRIBES TWO INQUIRIES 34
IV.--DESCRIBES A TORN CARD 45
V.--SECRETS OF STATE 56
VI.--THE SAFE BREAKERS 67
VII.--THE DOWNWARD PATH 78
VIII.--REVEALS THE GRIM TRUTH 88
IX.--IN THE NIGHT 99
X.--HONOUR AMONG THIEVES 108
XI.--THE VOW 119
XII.--THE FATE OF "THE AMERICAN" 130
XIII.--SISTERS IN SILENCE 139
XIV.--JEAN LEARNS THE TRUTH 149
XV.--HIS LORDSHIP'S VISITOR 159
XVI.--JEAN HAS A SURPRISE 169
XVII.--THE DARKENING HORIZON 178
XVIII.--LORD BRACONDALE'S CONFESSION 188
XIX.--THE GARDEN OF LOVE 197
XX.--CROOKED CONFIDENCES 206
XXI.--THE GREEN TABLE 215
XXII.--DISCLOSES A SCHEME 224
XXIII.--THE FALLING SHADOW 235
XXIV.--THE BLOW 244
XXV.--TO PAY THE PRICE 255
XXVI.--A CHILD'S QUESTION 265
XXVII.--THE INTRUDER 275
XXVIII.--THE CLOSED BOX 284
XXIX.--DEADLY PERIL 293
XXX.--THE WHITE LIE 299
THE WHITE LIE
CHAPTER I.
IS MAINLY MYSTERIOUS.
"A woman--perhaps?"
"Who knows! Poor Dick Harborne was certainly a man of secrets, and of
many adventures."
"Well, it certainly is a most mysterious affair. You, my dear Barclay,
appear to be the last person to have spoken to him."
"Apparently I was," replied Lieutenant Noel Barclay, of the Naval Flying
Corps, a tall, slim, good-looking, clean-shaven man in aviator's garb,
and wearing a thick woollen muffler and a brown leather cap with rolls
at the ears, as he walked one August afternoon up the village street of
Mundesley-on-Sea, in Norfolk, a quaint, old-world street swept by the
fresh breeze of the North Sea. "Yesterday I flew over here from Yarmouth
to see the cable-laying, and met Dick in the post-office. I hadn't seen
him for a couple of years. We were shipmates in the _Antrim_ before he
retired from the service and went abroad."
"Came into money, I suppose?" remarked his companion, Francis Goring, a
long-legged, middle-aged man, who, in a suit of well-worn tweeds,
presented the ideal type of the English landowner, as indeed he
was--owner of Keswick Hall, a fine place a few miles distant, and a
Justice of the Peace for the county of Norfolk.
"No," replied the aviator, unwinding his woollen scarf. "That's just it.
I don't think he came into money. He simply retired, and next we heard
was that he was living a wandering, adventurous life on the Continent. I
ran up against him in town once or twice, and he always seemed amazingly
prosperous. Yet there was some sort of a mystery about him--of that I
have always felt certain."
"That's interesting," declared the man at his side. "Anything
suspicious--eh?"
"Well, I hardly know. Only, one night as I was walking from the Empire
along to the Rag, I passed a man very seedy and down-at-heel. He
recognised me in an instant, and hurried on towards Piccadilly Circus.
It was Dick--of that I'm absolutely convinced. I had a cocktail with him
in the club next day, but he never referred to the incident."
"If he had retired from the Navy, then what was his business, do you
suppose?"
"Haven't the slightest idea," Barclay replied. "I met him here with
a motor-bike late yesterday afternoon. We had a drink together across
at the Grand, against the sea, and I left him just after five o'clock.
I had the hydroplane out and went up from opposite the coastguard
station," he said, pointing to the small, well-kept grass plot on
the left, where stood the flagstaff and the white cottages of the
coastguard. "He watched me get up, and then, I suppose, he started off
on his bike for Norwich. What happened afterwards is entirely shrouded
in mystery. He was seen to pass through the market-place of North
Walsham, five miles away, and an hour and a quarter later he was found,
only three miles farther on, at a lonely spot near the junction of the
Norwich road and that leading up to Worstead Station, between Westwick
and Fairstead. A carter found him lying in a ditch at the roadside,
stabbed in the throat, while his motor-cycle was missing!"
"From the papers this morning it appears that your friend has been about
this neighbourhood a good deal of late. For what reason nobody knows.
He's been living sometimes at the Royal at Norwich and the King's Head
at Beccles for the past month or so, they say."
"He told me so himself. He promised to come over to me at the
air-station at Yarmouth to-morrow and lunch with me, poor fellow."
"I wonder what really happened?"
"Ah, I wonder!" remarked the slim, well-set-up, flying officer. "A mere
tramp doesn't kill a fellow of Dick Harborne's hard stamp in order to
rob him of his cycle."
"No. There's something much more behind the tragedy, without a doubt,"
declared the local Justice of the Peace. "Let's hope something will come
out at the inquest. Personally, I'm inclined to think that it's an act
of revenge. Most probably a woman is at the bottom of it."
Barclay shook his head. He did not incline to that opinion.
"I wonder with what motive he cycled so constantly over to this
neighbourhood from Norwich or Beccles?" exclaimed Goring. "What could
have been the attraction? There must have been one, for this is an
out-of-the-world place."
"Your theory is a woman. Mine isn't," declared the lieutenant, bluntly,
offering his friend a cigarette and lighting one himself. "No, depend
upon it, poor old Dick was a man of mystery. Many strange rumours were
afloat concerning him. Yet, after all, he was a real fine fellow, and
as smart an officer as ever trod a quarter-deck. He was a splendid
linguist, and had fine prospects, for he has an uncle an admiral on
the National Defence Committee. Yet he chucked it all and became a
cosmopolitan wanderer, and--if there be any truth in the gossip I've
heard--an adventurer."
"An outsider--eh?"
"Well--no, not exactly. Dick Harborne was a gentleman, therefore he
could never have been an outsider," replied the naval officer quickly.
"By adventurer I mean that he led a strange, unconventional life. He was
met by men who knew him in all sorts of out-of-the-world corners of
Europe, where he spent the greater part of his time idling at _cafes_
and in a section of society which was not altogether reputable."
"And you say he was not an adventurer?" remarked the staid British
landowner--one of a class perhaps the most conservative and
narrow-minded in all the world.
"My dear fellow, travel broadens a man's mind," exclaimed the naval
officer. "A man may be a cosmopolitan without being an adventurer. Dick
Harborne, though there were so many sinister whispers concerning him,
was a gentleman--a shrewd, deep-thinking, patriotic Englishman. And his
death is a mystery--one which I intend to solve. I've come over here
again to-day to find out what I can."
"Well," exclaimed Goring, "I for one am hardly satisfied with his recent
career. While he was in the Navy and afloat--gunnery-lieutenant of one
of His Majesty's first-class cruisers--there appears to have been
nothing against his personal character. Only after his retirement these
curious rumours arose."
"True, and nobody has fathomed the mystery of his late life," admitted
Barclay, drawing hard at his cigarette and examining the lighted end.
"I've heard of him being seen in Cairo, Assouan, Monte Carlo, Aix,
Berlin, Rome--all over the Continent, and in Egypt he seems to have
travelled, and with much more means at his disposal than ever he had in
the ward-room."
"There are strange mysteries in some men's lives, my dear Barclay.
Harborne was a man of secrets without a doubt. Some of those secrets may
come out at the inquest."
"I doubt it. Poor Dick!" he sighed. "He's dead--killed by an unknown
hand, and his secret, whatever it was, has, I believe, gone to the grave
with him. Perhaps, after all, it is best."
"The police are very busy, I understand."
"Oh, of course! The Norfolk Constabulary will be very active over it
all, but I somehow have an intuition that the crime was one of no
ordinary character. Dick must have dismounted to speak to his assailant.
If he had been overthrown his machine would most probably have been
damaged. The assassin wanted the motor-cycle intact to get away upon.
Besides," he added, "the victim took over an hour to cover the three
miles between North Walsham and the spot where he was found. Something
unusual must have occurred in that time."
"Well, it can only be left to the police to investigate," replied the
tall, country squire, thrusting his hands into his jacket pockets.
"They won't discover much--depend upon it," remarked the naval officer,
who, as he strolled at his friend's side, presented the ideal type of
the keen, British naval officer. "Dick has been the victim of a very
carefully-prepared plot. That is my firm belief. I've been making some
inquiries at the Grand Hotel, and learn that Dick came over from Norwich
on his motor-cycle at nine o'clock yesterday morning for some purpose,
and idled about Mundesley and the neighbourhood all the day. The
head-waiter at the hotel knew him, for he had often lunched there. But
yesterday he evidently came here with some fixed purpose, for he seemed
to be eagerly expecting somebody, and at last, a little before two
o'clock, a young lady arrived by the motor-bus from Cromer. They
describe her as a neat, dark-haired, good-looking young person, rather
well-dressed--and evidently a summer visitor. The pair walked about the
village, and then went down to the beach and sat upon deck-chairs to
chat. They returned to the hotel at half-past three and had tea
together, _tete-a-tete_, in a small sitting-room. The waiter tells me
that once, when he went in, suddenly, she was standing up, apparently
urging him to act in opposition to his own inclinations. Her attitude,
he says, was one of unusual force, it being evident that Dick was very
reluctant to give some promise she was endeavouring to extract from him.
She left again by the motor-bus for Cromer just after four."
"Ah! There you are! The woman!" exclaimed the owner of Keswick Hall,
with a smile. "I thought as much."
"I don't think she had anything to do with the affair," said Barclay.
"The police this morning obtained a detailed description of her--just as
I have done--and they are now searching for her in Cromer, Runton, and
Sheringham, believing her to be staying somewhere along this coast. She
was dressed in a pale blue kit of a distinctly seaside cut, so the
police are hoping to find her. Perhaps she doesn't yet know of the
tragic fate that has befallen poor Dick."
"I wonder who the girl can be? No doubt she'd be able to make a very
interesting statement--if they could only discover her."
"I think she left Cromer last night," Noel Barclay suggested to his
companion.
"She would, if she were in any way implicated. Perhaps she has already
gone!"
"No, I don't agree. I believe she is still in ignorance."
"What, I wonder, was the motive for their meeting here--in this quiet,
out-of-the-world little place?" asked Goring. "If he wanted to see her,
he might have motored to wherever she was staying, and not have brought
her over here in a motor-bus. No, it was a secret meeting--that's my
opinion--and, as it was secret, it probably had some connection with the
tragedy which afterwards occurred."
The two men were now close to the "Gap," or steep, inclined cart-road
which ran down to the sands. On their right, a little way from the road,
stood a small, shed-like building where the rocket life-saving apparatus
of the Board of Trade was housed. In front, the roadway, and indeed all
down the "Gap" and across the sands to where the waves lapped the shore,
had been recently opened, for upon the previous day the shore end of
the new German telegraph-cable connecting England with Nordeney had been
laid. At that moment, while the cable-ship, on its return across the
North Sea, was hourly paying out the cable, a German telegraph engineer
was seated within the rocket-station, constantly making tests upon the
submerged line between the shore and the ship.
Up from the trench beside the rocket-house came the cable--black,
coiled, and snake-like, about three inches in thickness--its end
disappearing within the small building.
"Been inside to-day?" asked Goring, just as they were passing.
"No. Let's see how they are progressing," the other said; and both
turned into the little gate and asked permission to enter where the
tests were being made.
Herr Strantz, the German engineer, a dark-haired, round-faced,
middle-aged man, came forward, and, recognising the pair as visitors of
the previous day, greeted them warmly in rather imperfect English, and
bowed them into where, ranged on a long table, the whole length of the
left-hand wall, stood a great quantity of mysterious-looking electrical
appliances with a tangle of connecting wires, while below the tables
stood a row of fully fifty large batteries, such as are used in
telegraph work.
On the table, amid that bewildering assortment of queer-looking
instruments, all scrupulously clean and highly polished, were two small
brass lamps burning behind a long, narrow strip of transparent
celluloid whereon was marked a minute gauge. On the edge of the table,
before these lamps, was a switch, with black ebonite handle.
As the two Englishmen entered, the German's eyes caught the small, round
brass clock and noted that it was time to make the test--every five
minutes, night and day, while the cable was in process of completion.
Therefore, without further word to his visitors, he carefully pulled
over the long ebonite handle of the switch, and, at the same instant, a
tiny spot of bright light showed upon the transparent gauge.
This the engineer examined to see its exact place upon the
clearly-defined line, afterwards noting it in his book in cryptic
figures, and then carefully switching off again, when the tell-tale
light disappeared.
"Well?" asked Barclay. "How are you getting along? Not quite so much
excitement in this place as yesterday--eh?"
"No," laughed the engineer. "Der people here never see a shore-end
floated to land wiz bojes (buoys) before. Dey have already buried der
line in der trench, as you see. Ach! Your English workmen are far
smarter than ours, I confess," he added, with a pleasant accent.
"Is it being laid all right?" the airman asked.
"Ja, ja. Very good work. Der weather, he could not be better. We have
laid just over one hundert mile in twenty-four hours. Gut--eh?"
[Illustration: "A carter found him lying in a ditch at the roadside,
stabbed in the throat, while his motor-cycle was missing!" [_Page 9_]
As he spoke the Morse-sounder at the end of the green baize-covered
table started clicking calling him.
In a moment his expert hand was upon the key, tapping a response.
The ship tapped rapidly, and then the engineer made an enquiry, and
received a prompt reply.
Then tapped out the short-long-short-long and short, which meant
"finish," when, turning to the pair, he said:
"Dey hope to get it am Ufer (ashore) at daybreak to-morrow. By noon
there will be another through line between Berlin and London."
Lieutenant Barclay was silent. A sudden thought crossed his mind. At
Bacton, a couple of miles farther down the coast, the two existing
cables went out to the German shore. But this additional line would
prove of immense value if ever the army of the great War Lord attempted
an invasion of our island.
As a well-known naval aviator, and as chief of the whole chain of
air-stations along the East Coast, the lieutenant's mind was naturally
ever set upon the possibility of projected invasion, and of an adequate
defence. That a danger really existed had at last been tardily admitted
by the Government, and now with our Navy redistributed and centred in
the North Sea, our destroyer-flotillas exercising nightly, and the
establishment of the wireless at Felixstowe, Caister, Cleethorpes,
Scarborough, and Hunstanton, as well as the construction of naval
air-stations, with their aeroplanes and hydroplanes from the Nore up to
Cromarty we were at last on the alert for any emergency.
When would "_Der Tag_" ("The Day")--as it was toasted every evening in
the military messes of the German Empire--dawn? Aye, when? Who could
say?