THE MYSTERIOUS MR. MALTWOOD
NOW Enid Orlebar's story contained several discrepancies.
She had declared that she arrived at Hill Street about seven o'clock on
that fateful second of September. That might be true, but might she not
have arrived after her secret visit to Half Moon Street?
In suppressing the fact that she had been there at all she had acted with
considerable foresight. Naturally, her parents were not desirous of the
fact being stated publicly that she had gone alone to a bachelor's rooms,
and they had, therefore, assisted her to preserve the secret--known only
to Barker and to the doctor. Yet her evidence had been regarded as
immaterial, hence she had not been called as witness.
Only Barker had suspected. That unusual perfume about her had puzzled
him. Yet how could he make any direct charge against the general's
stepdaughter, who had always been most generous to him in the matter of
tips? Besides, did not the captain write a note to her with his last
dying effort?
What proof was there that the pair had not dined together? Fetherston had
already made diligent inquiries at Hill Street, and had discovered from
the butler that Miss Enid, on her arrival home from Salisbury, had
changed her gown and gone out in a taxi at a quarter to eight. She had
dined out--but where was unknown.
It was quite true that she had come in before ten o'clock, and soon
afterwards had received a note by boy-messenger.
In view of these facts it appeared quite certain to Fetherston that Enid
and Harry Bellairs had taken dinner _tête-à-tête_ at some quiet
restaurant. She was a merry, high-spirited girl to whom such an adventure
would certainly appeal.
After dinner they had parted, and he had driven to his rooms. Then,
feeling his strength failing, he had hastily summoned her to his side.
Why?
If he had suspected her of being the author of any foul play he most
certainly would not have begged her to come to him in his last moments.
No. The enigma grew more and more inscrutable.
And yet there was a motive for poor Bellairs' tragic end--one which, in
the light of his own knowledge, seemed only too apparent.
He strolled on beside the fair-faced girl, deep in wonder. Recollections
of that devil-may-care cavalry officer who had been such a good friend
clouded her brow, and as she walked her eyes were cast upon the ground in
silent reflection.
She was wondering whether Walter Fetherston had guessed the truth, that
she had loved that man who had met with such an untimely end.
Her companion, on his part, was equally puzzled. That story of Barker's
finding a white feather was a curious one. It was true that the man had
found a white feather--but he had also learnt that when Enid Orlebar had
arrived at Hill Street she had been wearing a white feather boa!
"It is not curious, after all," he said reflectively, "that the police
should have dismissed the affair as a death from natural causes. At the
inquest no suspicion whatever was aroused. I wonder why Barker, in his
evidence, made no mention of that perfume--or of the discovery of the
feather?"
And as he uttered those words he fixed his grave eyes upon her, watching
her countenance intently.
"Well," she replied, after a moment's hesitation, "if he had it would
have proved nothing, would it? If the captain had received a lady visitor
in secret that afternoon it might have had no connection with the
circumstances of his death six hours later."
"And yet it might," Fetherston remarked. "What more natural than that the
lady who visited him clandestinely--for Barker had, no doubt, been sent
out of the way on purpose that he should not see her--should have dined
with him later?"
The girl moved uneasily, tapping the ground with her stick.
"Then you suspect some woman of having had a hand in his death?" she
exclaimed in a changed voice, her eyes again cast upon the ground.
"I do not know sufficient of the details to entertain any distinct
suspicion," he replied. "I regard the affair as a mystery, and in
mysteries I am always interested."
"You intend to bring the facts into a book," she remarked. "Ah! I see."
"Perhaps--if I obtain a solution of the enigma--for enigma it certainly
is."
"You agree with me, then, that poor Harry was the victim of foul play?"
she asked in a low, intense voice, eagerly watching his face the while.
"Yes," he answered very slowly, "and, further, that the woman who visited
him that afternoon was an accessory. Harry Bellairs was _murdered_!"
Her cheeks blanched and she went pale to the lips. He saw the sudden
change in her, and realised what a supreme effort she was making to
betray no undue alarm. But the effect of his cold, calm words had been
almost electrical. He watched her countenance slowly flushing, but
pretended not to notice her confusion. And so he walked on at her side,
full of wonderment.
How much did she know? Why, indeed, had Harry Bellairs fallen the victim
of a secret assassin?
No trained officer of the Criminal Investigation Department was more
ingenious in making secret inquiries, more clever in his subterfuges or
in disguising his real objects, than Walter Fetherston. Possessed of
ample means, and member of that secret club called "Our Society," which
meets at intervals and is the club of criminologists, and pursuing the
detection of crime as a pastime, he had on many occasions placed Scotland
Yard and the Sûreté in Paris in possession of information which had
amazed them and which had earned for him the high esteem of those in
office as Ministers of the Interior in Paris, Rome and in London.
The case of Captain Henry Bellairs he had taken up merely because he
recognised in it some unusual circumstances, and without sparing effort
he had investigated it rapidly and secretly from every standpoint. He had
satisfied himself. Certain knowledge that he had was not possessed by any
officer at Scotland Yard, and only by reason of that secret knowledge had
he been able to arrive at the definite conclusion that there had been a
strong motive for the captain's death, and that if he had been secretly
poisoned--which seemed to be the case, in spite of the analysts'
evidence--then he had been poisoned by the velvet hand of a woman.
Walter Fetherston was ever regretting his inability to put any of the
confidential information he acquired into his books.
"If I could only write half the truth of what I know, people would
declare it to be fiction," he had often assured intimate friends. And
those friends had pondered and wondered to what he referred.
He wrote of crime, weaving those wonderful romances which held breathless
his readers in every corner of the globe, and describing criminals and
life's undercurrents with such fidelity that even criminals themselves
had expressed wonder as to how and whence he obtained his accurate
information.
But the public were in ignorance that, in his character of Mr. Maltwood,
he pursued a strange profession, one which was fraught with more romance
and excitement than any other calling a man could adopt. In comparison
with his life that of a detective was really a tame one; while such
success had he obtained that in a certain important official circle in
London he was held in highest esteem and frequently called into
consultation.
Walter Fetherston, the quiet, reticent novelist, was entirely different
from the gay, devil-may-care Maltwood, the accomplished linguist,
thorough-going cosmopolitan and constant traveller, the easy-going man of
means known in society in every European capital.
Because of this his few friends who were aware of his dual personality
were puzzled.
At the girl's side he strode on along the road which still led through
the wood, the road over which every evening rumbled the old
post-diligence on its way through the quaint old town of Etain to the
railway at Spincourt. On that very road a battalion of Uhlans had been
annihilated almost to a man at the outbreak of the Great War.
Every mètre they trod was historic ground--ground which had been
contested against the legions of the Crown Prince's army.
For some time neither spoke. At last Walter asked: "Your stepfather has
been up to the fortress with Monsieur Le Pontois, I suppose?"
"Yes, once or twice," was her reply, eager to change the subject. "Of
course, to a soldier, fortifications and suchlike things are always of
interest."
"I saw them walking up to the fortress together the other day," he
remarked with a casual air.
"What?" she asked quickly. "Have you been here before?"
"Once," he laughed. "I came over from Commercy and spent the day in your
vicinity in the hope that I might perhaps meet you alone accidentally."
He did not tell her that he had watched her shopping with Madame Le
Pontois, or that he had spent several days at a small _auberge_ at the
tiny village of Marcheville-en-Woevre, only two miles distant.
"I had no idea of that," she replied, her face flushing slightly.
"When do you return to London?" he asked.
"I hardly know. Certainly not before next Thursday, as we have amateur
theatricals at General Molon's. I am playing the part of Miss Smith, the
English governess, in Darbour's comedy, _Le Pyrée_."
"And then you return to London, eh?"
"I hardly know. Yesterday I had a letter from Mrs. Caldwell saying that
she contemplated going to Italy this winter; therefore, perhaps mother
will let me go. I wrote to her this morning. The proposal is to spend
part of the time in Italy, and then cross from Naples to Egypt. I love
Egypt. We were there some winters ago, at the Winter Palace at Luxor."
"Your father and mother will remain at home, I suppose?"
"Mother hates travelling nowadays. She says she had quite sufficient of
living abroad in my father's lifetime. We were practically exiled for
years, you know. I was born in Lima, and I never saw England till I was
eleven. The Diplomatic Service takes one so out of touch with home."
"But Sir Hugh will go abroad this winter, eh?"
"I have not heard him speak of it. I believe he's too busy at the War
Office just now. They have some more 'reforms' in progress, I hear," and
she smiled.
He was looking straight into the girl's handsome face, his heart torn
between love and suspicion.
Those days at Biarritz recurred to him; how he would watch for her and go
and meet her down towards Grande Plage, till, by degrees, it had become
to both the most natural thing in the world. On those rare evenings when
they did not meet the girl was conscious of a little feeling of
disappointment which she was too shy to own, even to her own heart.
Walter Fetherston owned it freely enough. In that bright springtime the
day was incomplete unless he saw her; and he knew that, even now, every
hour was making her grow dearer to him. From that chance meeting at the
hotel their friendship had grown, and had ripened into something warmer,
dearer--a secret held closely in each heart, but none the less sweet for
that.
After leaving Biarritz the man had torn himself from her--why, he hardly
knew. Only he felt upon him some fatal fascination, strong and
irresistible. It was the first time in his life that he had been what is
vulgarly known as "over head and ears in love."
He returned to England, and then, a month later, his investigation of
Henry Bellairs' death, for the purpose of obtaining a plot for a new
novel he contemplated, revealed to him a staggering and astounding truth.
Even then, in face of that secret knowledge he had gained, he had been
powerless, and he had gone up to Monifieth deliberately again to meet
her--to be drawn again beneath the spell of those wonderful eyes.
There was love in the man's heart. But sometimes it embittered him. It
did at that moment, as they strolled still onward over that carpet of
moss and fallen leaves. He had loved her, as he believed her to be a
woman with heart and soul too pure to harbour an evil thought. But her
story of the death of poor Bellairs, the man who had loved her, had
convinced him that his suspicions were, alas! only too well grounded.