Within an hour of his having left the Etna factory, James Kentworthy got
up from his chair in Dr. Maclean’s consulting room.
The man who had come down to Terriford to make these delicate inquiries
was honest and conscientious, set on finding out the truth and nothing
but the truth. Also, this was to be his last official investigation, and
he had every reason for hoping that it would be a short business. The
moment it was over he was to retire from the service and start for
himself as a private inquiry agent. He was, therefore, sincerely glad
that the conversation he had had with the late Mrs. Garlett’s medical
man had been, from his point of view, thoroughly satisfactory.
During the first few minutes of his interview with Mr. Kentworthy, Dr.
Maclean had been so indignant and so shocked when he realized his
visitor’s business, that he had been very unwilling to give the police
inspector any information. But he had soon realized that this was a
mistake on his part, and by the end of their conversation the two men
were on excellent terms the one with the other.
And now that their long talk was, as they both thought, drawing to an
end, Dr. Maclean said earnestly:
“I do hope, Mr. Kentworthy, that I have been able to convince you not
only that Mrs. Garlett died a natural death, but that my friend Garlett
himself was for long years an exceptionally good husband to the poor,
sickly woman?”
“You have convinced me,” said the inspector frankly, “that Mrs.
Garlett’s death was almost certainly a natural death. But I cannot
pledge my superiors in any way, and the best thing would be for you to
come with me to London to-night and see the gentleman in charge of the
case to-morrow morning.”
Dr. Maclean stood up.
“There’s one more thing I feel you should know, though it has nothing
directly to do with the matter in hand.”
Mr. Kentworthy stiffened into quick attention.
“My wife’s niece, Jean Bower, is just about to be married to Harry
Garlett. As a matter of fact, the wedding has been fixed to take place
to-morrow——”
A quick inward debate took place in the Inspector’s mind. Should he
imitate the other’s frankness? He made up his mind that it was his duty
to do so.
“I am aware of that, Dr. Maclean, for Mr. Garlett told me the fact
himself. I hope you won’t be offended when I say that I regret very much
that he did not wait a little longer. After all, it’s a very short time
since Mrs. Garlett’s death.”
“She died in May, and we are now in December!” exclaimed the doctor with
some heat. “And remember—I speak as from man to man—that the woman had
been Garlett’s wife only in name for many a long year.”
“I do remember that,” said James Kentworthy slowly. “But ask yourself,
Dr. Maclean, how so quick a second marriage would strike ordinary
people—who knew nothing of the special circumstances of the case?”
“But every one here, in this neighbourhood, does know the
circumstances,” objected the doctor.
Each word this stranger had uttered in the last few moments had been
said again and again in the last month by Dr. Maclean to his wife. But
he was not going to admit anything of the sort now, even to himself.
Hardly knowing what he was doing he sat down again, and Mr. Kentworthy
did the same.
Leaning forward, the police inspector said earnestly: “You must
remember, sir, that what we, in our line of inquiry, are always looking
for, is—motive.”
“Motive?” repeated the doctor. “I don’t quite follow what you mean, Mr.
Kentworthy.”
“I need not tell you—a doctor—that in the vast majority of cases the
death of a man or woman is always of interest, and very often of
considerable benefit, to some human being?”
“I see your point,” said the other uneasily.
“In this case,” went on Mr. Kentworthy, “I soon realized that money had
played no part at all in the matter I had been sent to investigate.”
He stopped abruptly, hardly knowing how to frame the unpleasant fact he
wanted to convey.
At last he said frankly: “You must admit, doctor, that Mrs. Garlett’s
death released her husband from a very trying position. It made him a
free man.”
“That’s true. Yet I ask you to believe me, Mr. Kentworthy, when I tell
you most solemnly that Harry Garlett never longed, even unconsciously,
for that sort of freedom. He is a man’s man in daily life; he never
seemed in the least interested in women; and there was never the
slightest breath of scandal about his name.”
The police inspector looked at him gravely.
“I am sorry to say that you are mistaken, Dr. Maclean. You are evidently
not aware that there has been a great deal of gossip, not only since
Mrs. Garlett’s death, but even before her death, concerning Mr. Garlett
and the young lady to whom he is now engaged.”
Dr. Maclean jumped up from his chair.
“I deny that! I deny it absolutely!”
His eyes flashed, he struck his writing-table with his hand.
“What devils some women are! Why, my poor little niece had only just
become secretary to the Etna Company when Mrs. Garlett died——”
“She took over her new duties on the 26th of last April,” observed the
inspector quietly, “and, from what I can make out, there seems no doubt
that Mr. Garlett, who up to then had much neglected his duties as
managing director, leaving everything, it appears, to his partner, a
certain Mr. Jabez Dodson, began going daily to the Etna China factory.”
Dr. Maclean sat down again. He felt far more disturbed than he would
have cared to acknowledge, even to himself.
“I suppose,” he said slowly, “that it would not be fair to ask you the
source of this absolutely untrue and poisonous gossip?”
“I don’t say it would be unfair—but I am sure you will understand that
it would not be right of me to oblige you.”
“Do you mind telling me exactly what it is you have heard?—narrowing
down the point to what you have been told happened before Mrs. Garlett’s
death?”
Mr. Kentworthy began to feel sorry he had said anything about that side
of his investigations. He had been tempted into indiscretion by his
liking for this man, and his growing conviction that Harry Garlett’s
wife had died an absolutely natural death.
It was as a friend of these foolish, if honest, people that he had just
said what he knew was true. After all, it was perhaps just as well that
they should know the kind of gossip floating about.
“The most serious thing I have heard,” he said quietly, “is that your
niece and Mr. Garlett occasionally met secretly, late at night, in a
little wood which forms part of Mr. Garlett’s property.”
Dr. Maclean stared at the speaker with growing anger and astonishment,
and the other, pursuing his advantage, as even the kindest men are
sometimes tempted to do, went on—
“I have actually spoken to the person who saw them there on at least two
occasions.”
Again Dr. Maclean got up. “You have actually found a man or woman who
declares that he or she saw my niece, Jean Bower, and Harry Garlett,
under the compromising circumstances you have described?”
“No,” exclaimed the other quickly. “I cannot say that the person in
question mentioned Miss Bower. What she said—I admit it is a woman—was
that she had twice seen Mr. Garlett and a young lady in the wood forming
part of the Thatched House property, and that, on the second occasion,
she overheard something like an altercation between the two. Garlett’s
companion burst into tears and reproached him, from what I can make out,
for his coldness to her.”
“Good God!” exclaimed Dr. Maclean.
He sat down again, heavily. He felt suddenly years older.
“Having said so much, I think it is only fair to you to read the exact
words I put down after seeing the young woman in question.”
“_Young_ woman? Then the author of this infamous lie is not Miss
Prince?” said the doctor to himself as he listened to the inspector
beginning to read from his notebook.
“It was one day late in April, I cannot fix the date. When I got to
the little wood I saw Mr. Garlett and a young lady walking down the
path. I did not want them to see me, so I hid behind some laurels. I
think from what I could make out, they were talking about the war.
There was no love-making that I could see.”
“You must understand,” explained Mr. Kentworthy, looking up, “that the
person in question did not give me this connected account that I have
read out. I had more or less to drag out of her these apparently
unimportant details.”
“There is nothing there about a quarrel or tears,” observed the doctor.
“We are coming to that,” said the other quietly.
“It must have been exactly a week later,” he read on, “that I was
there again. I wondered if I should see them, and sure enough I did!
It was a moonlit night, so I could see their figures clearly. I
couldn’t hear much of what they were saying, for I was afraid of going
too near, owing to its being so much more light than it had been the
time before, but I did hear Mr. Garlett speaking as if he thought it
was wrong of them to be there together at all. He begged the lady’s
pardon ever so many times, and seemed a good deal distressed. As for
her, she was sobbing bitterly, and kept saying, ‘I am very tired, or I
shouldn’t be upset like this.’”
“I may as well read you the impression the story made on me at the
time,” said Mr. Kentworthy, and he went on with his notebook:
“I pressed her again and again to give me some indication of who the
young lady was. I cannot believe her assertion that it was a stranger
to her. But she persisted in her statement that though she knew the
man was Garlett she did not know his companion. If this is true it
follows that Garlett’s companion was some woman who had come out
either from Grendon or perhaps from an even greater distance to spend
an hour with him. Note: Make inquiries as to how he spent his time,
and with whom, during his frequent absences from home before his
wife’s death.”
“You cannot be surprised,” he added looking up, “that I feel everything
points to Mr. Garlett’s companion in the wood having been the young lady
with whom he is now on the eve of marriage.”
“I suppose I can’t expect you to agree with me,” said Dr. Maclean, “when
I say that I am convinced that the story is entirely false from
beginning to end. I _know_ my niece never met Harry Garlett secretly at
night, or, for the matter of that, in the daytime. Only his own
admission would make me believe that Garlett met any woman in such
compromising and dangerous circumstances.”
Mr. Kentworthy remained silent. It was clear he did not accept the other
man’s view of the story.
Suddenly the doctor pressed the electric bell on his table, twice,
sharply: “I’m going to send for my niece,” he exclaimed.
Mr. Kentworthy started up.
“That’s not fair,” he cried. “That’s not playing the game!”
“Bide a wee, man. I’m not going to do anything unfair. I simply want you
to see the child. I’ll give her a message for my wife.”
A moment later the door opened and Jean Bower ran in.
“Yes, Uncle Jock? What——” and then she stopped short. “I beg your
pardon. I did not know you had any one here.”
“Mr. Kentworthy—my niece.”
The two shook hands, and as he looked keenly into her fresh guileless
face and noted, as only a trained eye would have done, the dozen little
details which go to differentiate one type of modern girl from the
other, James Kentworthy told himself that Dr. Maclean had shown a sure
instinct in thus obliging him to see Harry Garlett’s betrothed.
The experienced police inspector was not a susceptible man, and he was
one whose work habitually caused him to see the ugliest side of feminine
human nature. Yet he would have staked a great deal on the probability
that the girl now before him was as pure and essentially simple-hearted
as had been the mother whose memory he cherished. He made up his mind
that Harry Garlett’s mysterious companion had almost certainly not been
this young woman.
“I want you to tell your aunt, my dear, that I have unexpectedly got to
go to town to-night.”
“Oh, Uncle Jock!”
Jean looked very troubled and dismayed. “I’d better ’phone to Harry at
once, hadn’t I?”
“Yes, do, my dear. But first tell your aunt. She’d better send a note to
the vicar—that is if you want me to be present at your wedding.”
She reddened deeply. How very strange and odd of Uncle Jock to speak of
to-morrow’s secret ceremony before a stranger.
“Of course we want you to be there. Why, we shouldn’t feel married if
you weren’t there! We’ll put the wedding off for a day or two.”
She tried to speak lightly and, turning, left the room.
“There!” exclaimed Dr. Maclean. “D’you see that girl meeting a married
man in a wood at night? She’s the most self-possessed, dignified little
lassie I’ve ever met! Not that she is lacking in feeling. She’s devoted
_now_, to that man, and,” he went on, speaking with a good deal of
emotion, “I hope to God she will never know of this horrible, if it was
not so serious I should say this ridiculous, business.”
Suddenly the telephone bell on his table rang. He took up the receiver.
“I said I was not to be disturbed”—and then in a very different
voice—“Garlett?”
“Has the man who called on me this morning gone? I feel I must see
you.... Yes, I’m still at the office. Where else should I be?... Somehow
the horror of it all seems to grow and grow on me.... For the first time
in my life I feel as if I don’t know what I ought to do!”
The doctor felt dismayed. It was clear that the invisible speaker was
painfully excited and overwrought.
“I don’t think there’s anything to worry about,” he called back
soothingly. “My interview with Mr. Kentworthy has been quite
satisfactory, and I’m going up to London to-night to see the people
concerned to-morrow morning. Best not say too much over the telephone,
my dear fellow. Bad breaks will come in business, as we all know.”
He hung up the receiver.
“Garlett’s thoroughly rattled!” he exclaimed. “D’you see any objection
to his coming up with us to-night and going to the Home Office to-morrow
morning?”
The other hesitated.
“Frankly, I shouldn’t advise that. If you, as Mrs. Garlett’s medical
attendant, can convince my chiefs that she died a natural death, the
whole matter will be dropped.”
“I understand that, and I’ll make him follow your advice,” said the
doctor. “But what I can’t make out—what I would give a good deal to
know—I suppose you know and won’t tell me?—is what started this damnable
inquiry?”
The eyes of the two men crossed.
“There are such things as anonymous letters,” observed Mr. Kentworthy
dryly.
“Anonymous letters?”
Surprised though he felt, he told himself that he had been a fool not to
think of that solution of the mystery.
“I didn’t know,” he muttered, “that poor Garlett had an enemy in the
world. But I suppose you can’t run any business without making some bad
blood.”
“I suppose you can’t,” agreed the other. “But one thing I will tell you.
The letters in question were never written by a factory hand.”
He leant forward and instinctively lowering his voice, he went on:
“Can you think of any one who bears Mr. Garlett a grudge? Having said so
much I think I may go a step further and say that we have no doubt at
all that it is a woman.”
“A woman?”
Again the doctor’s suspicions swung around to Miss Prince.
“I understand that before his wife’s death Mr. Garlett went about a
great deal?” went on the other thoughtfully.
“That’s true. Garlett’s a very good fellow, and very popular. As a
famous cricketer he knew people more or less all over England, and the
only kind of business he really did for the Etna China works was that of
sometimes acting as a sort of glorified commercial traveller.”
“That being so, Dr. Maclean, don’t you think it possible that he may
have formed some kind of connection which he gave up as, queerly enough,
a good many men do give up such friendships after a wife’s death?”
“In this strange world of ours,” said the doctor reluctantly,
“everything is possible. But I would have staked a good deal that that
particular thing was never true of Harry Garlett. I take it you have
seen the anonymous letters in question?”
The police inspector quietly opened his black attaché case.
“I see no reason why I should not show the letters to you now!” he
exclaimed. “I feel certain the originals will be submitted for your
inspection at the Home Office. I, of course, have only a set of
facsimiles.”
The doctor’s face, which had been very grave, livened into eager
curiosity.
Mr. Kentworthy came up to the writing table.
“This was the first letter. It was not addressed to the Home Office. It
was sent to Scotland Yard.”
While he was speaking he had put his hand over the sheet of paper; now
he lifted it, and Dr. Maclean saw a large sheet of paper marked I. Drawn
in pencil was a curious conventional design, under which ran the
words—“Water-mark of the original (foreign) paper.”
Then, written in block letters in very black ink, he read the following:
THE WRITER FEELS IT HIS DUTY TO DRAW THE ATTENTION OF THE HEAD
COMMISSIONER OF POLICE TO CERTAIN MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING
THE DEATH, ON THE 28TH OF LAST MAY, OF MRS. EMILY GARLETT AT THE
THATCHED HOUSE, TERRIFORD VILLAGE. MRS. GARLETT WAS THE WIFE OF HENRY
GARLETT, OWNER AND MANAGING-DIRECTOR OF THE WELL-KNOWN GRENDON ETNA
CHINA FACTORY. THOUGH THE DEATH WAS VERY SUDDEN, NO INQUEST WAS HELD.
“This reads like a man’s letter,” observed Dr. Maclean.
“It was meant to read like a man’s letter,” said Mr. Kentworthy. “But we
believe it to be the work of an educated woman.”
The doctor went on staring at the sinister epistle. What dread secret of
love or hate—or was it only poisonous malice—lay behind these roughly
ink-printed words?
“Here is the envelope. You will notice that the postmark, which by the
way has been drawn in, for it was too obliterated for any other method
to be of use, shows the letter to have been posted in London just a
month ago. For what it is worth I may remind you that almost any
educated man would realize that such a communication should be sent to
the Criminal Investigation Department of the Home Office, and not to
Scotland Yard.”
“What happens,” asked Dr. Maclean, “when such a thing as this is
received?”
“By long experience we are well aware that such a letter is likely to be
only one of a series—and sure enough, four days later, came this second
letter!”
The speaker pushed aside the first sheet of paper he had laid down, and
put in its place another.
“This surely is from an uneducated person?” exclaimed Dr. Maclean.
He was now gazing at a most peculiar looking script, marked 2.
“Not necessarily,” said Mr. Kentworthy. “But whether written by the same
individual or not, this was undoubtedly written with the left hand. It
is extremely difficult for any handwriting expert, however clever, to
identify a letter written with the left hand with the writer’s ordinary
right-hand script. There are as a rule certain similarities, but those
proceed from the brain rather than from the mechanical action of the
hand.”
“I think I understand what you mean,” and, bending down, he read the
following long comma-less sentence:
It’s a shame the police took no notice of what happened at The
Thatched House when poor Mrs. Garlett died she died in agony her
husband was carrying on at the time with more than one girl the
doctor’s niece could tell you why poor Mrs. Garlett’s doctor made no
fuss people have asked why no inquest echo answers why?
“What an abominable thing!”
Dr. Maclean’s eyes flamed with anger. “I hope to God that neither my
niece nor Harry Garlett will ever see this vulgar, hateful letter.”
“I can reassure you on that point,” said the other earnestly. “Under no
consideration are these kinds of communications brought into a law
case,” and, as he saw a shadow pass over the doctor’s face:
“Not that I think there will be a law case. Since my talk with Mr.
Garlett this morning, and with you during the last hour, I believe that
all this trouble has been caused by some hysterical woman who has a
grudge against Mr. Garlett.”
Dr. Maclean muttered: “I only wish I had the writer of this letter
here.”
“Perhaps you’d rather not see the other letter?” said his visitor, half
smiling.
Human nature was always surprising James Kentworthy, and now he was
amused in spite of himself. Dr. Maclean had taken the first anonymous
letter calmly, but the moment he himself had been brought into the
matter he had evidently felt very differently.
“Of course I’d rather see it!” he exclaimed brusquely, and the police
inspector put it down before him.
No. 3 was written in block letters.
THE WRITER OF THE LETTER DATED NOVEMBER 25TH ADVISES THE HEAD
COMMISSIONER OF POLICE TO ASK MR. HENRY GARLETT TO RENDER A FULL
ACCOUNT OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES SURROUNDING HIS WIFE’S DEATH.
“I think,” said Dr. Maclean hesitatingly, “that I know who wrote two of
those letters.”
“You do?” Mr. Kentworthy leaped to his feet.
“I suspect,” said the doctor, “that the writer is a certain Mary Prince,
the daughter, I am sorry to say, of the medical man from whom I bought
my practice.”
“The lady who lives at the Thatched Cottage?”
Mr. Kentworthy felt sadly disappointed. He was convinced the doctor was
on a wrong track.
“I feel sure it is she,” Dr. Maclean spoke with growing energy and
conviction. “Miss Prince is a most malicious woman. She has never liked
Harry Garlett, and I know she has been genuinely shocked at his thought
of remarriage. She actually guessed how things were between him and my
poor little niece before they knew it themselves.”
“Believe me, you are on the wrong track, Dr. Maclean. I had a talk with
this very lady two days ago, and though I don’t think she has a pleasant
disposition, if she is really the writer of these letters then she
entirely took _me_ in.”
“Did she know why you were here?” asked Dr. Maclean.
“Good heavens, no! I hope you won’t be shocked when I confess that I
told her I was distantly related, through her mother, to the late Mrs.
Garlett. On the strength of this statement she asked me to tea, and we
had a long talk. She is a shrewd, clever woman, though I admit a
dangerous gossip. By the way, there is one person who, I gather, was
actually with Mrs. Garlett when she died. I mean a certain Miss Agatha
Cheale, who is a friend of this Miss Prince. How about her, Dr.
Maclean?”
Unconsciously the doctor stiffened.
“I don’t know that there is anything to say about Miss Cheale. She was
distantly related to the Garletts. Mrs. Garlett’s death was a real
misfortune for her, for although the poor lady left her a thousand
pounds, she was actually receiving a salary of three hundred pounds a
year.”
“When was she here last?” asked Mr. Kentworthy suddenly.
“She came down for a week-end visit to Miss Prince about a month ago,
and I think she is coming for Christmas. A capable, intelligent young
woman, but I don’t think she could add anything to what I have told
you—the more so, that although she was in a war hospital in France, she
is not a trained nurse.”
“Well, I’ll be going now. Shall we meet at Grendon station at five
o’clock and travel together?”
“By all means.” The two men shook hands cordially.
“I hope you will be able to forget all about this business after
to-morrow,” said the police inspector earnestly.
But Dr. Maclean felt very sick at heart when he finally shut the door on
his unwelcome visitor, and turned his steps reluctantly toward the
dining room where he knew his wife, and probably Jean with her, was
likely to be.
As he opened the dining-room door he saw with relief that Mrs. Maclean
was alone.
“What signifies the message Jean brought me just now?” she exclaimed.
“Why must the marriage be put off, even for one day, Jock? Surely you
can postpone going to London till to-morrow afternoon?”
“I’m the bearer of bad news,” he said heavily.
Mrs. Maclean stood up.
“What’s the matter?” she asked in a frightened tone.
As her husband remained silent, she went up to him, and gave his arm a
shake:
“Jock? You’re frightening me! Have you found out anything about Harry
Garlett? D’you mean you think the marriage will have to be broken off?”
She added, “The child’s fair daft about him!”
“There’s no question of breaking off the marriage,” he said quickly. “In
fact, if I had my way Jean should not be told anything—beyond the bare
fact that her wedding must be postponed for a day or two.”
And then, before he could say anything further, the door behind them
burst open and Harry Garlett rushed into the room.
His face was drawn and haggard—he looked years older than he had done
that morning.
“I hoped to catch that London detective here—but I hear he’s gone. Look
here, Maclean. I’ve had time to think over what I ought to do, and I’ve
decided to go to London at once and clear the matter up.”
“What matter have you to clear up?” asked Mrs. Maclean.
Garlett walked straight over to where she was standing and looked at her
fixedly:
“I am suspected of having murdered my wife, Aunt Jenny,” he said in a
hard, matter-of-fact voice, “and from what I can make out that suspicion
will never be laid to rest till they have dug up the poor creature and
satisfied themselves that she died a natural death.”
The colour drifted from Mrs. Maclean’s healthy face.
“Is what he says true?” she asked, turning to her husband.
“Yes and no,” he answered in a measured tone. “It’s true that Harry has
some deadly enemy who is trying to fasten this awful charge on him. But
my talk just now with a man named Kentworthy who was sent down from the
Home Office——”
“The Home Office?”
Mrs. Maclean was an intelligent woman, and the words struck a note of
sharp fear in her breast.
The doctor went on: “I’ve just had the fellow here for over an hour, and
I think I’ve convinced him that the—well, the suspicion, if you can go
so far as to call it that, is absolutely groundless.”
Harry Garlett broke in: “But did Kentworthy tell you what I forced him
to admit to me—that nothing short of an exhumation will really settle
the matter, and that unless that takes place the matter may be raised
again at any time?”
A tide of dismay welled up in Dr. Maclean’s heart. He suddenly realized
that what this wild-eyed man, who looked so little like the happy, still
young lover of this morning, was saying, was only too true.
Even so he forced himself to exclaim: “You take an exaggerated view,
Harry. All I ask you to do is to await the result of my interview with
the Home Office people.”
Harry Garlett was staring at the speaker, a look of terrible perplexity
as well as acute suffering on his face.
“In any case, I suppose you would admit that our marriage will have to
be postponed?” he said slowly.
“Well, yes, I’m afraid it must be—for a day or two.”
And then Mrs. Maclean broke in:
“Before you even decide on that I think you ought to consult Jean. After
all, she’s the person most nearly concerned, isn’t she? Though perhaps—”
she hesitated painfully, “we need not tell her the reason for the
postponement?”
Garlett turned away and stared out into the wintry garden, and there was
such a look of anguish on his face that Mrs. Maclean suddenly felt a
rush of intense, overwhelming pity for him.
She went across to where he was standing and put her hand gently on his
arm. But he made no response.
Dr. Maclean cleared his throat: “Perhaps I’d better go and tell Jean
what has happened? I don’t see how we can hope to keep it from her.”
But the unhappy man roused himself: “No!” he said violently, “I’ll tell
her myself—I’d rather she heard it from me.
He turned to the doctor. “I know how kind you are——” his voice broke,
“but I feel that she ought to hear this vile thing from me——”
“I think that’s true, Jock,” said Mrs. Maclean quietly. “So now I’ll go
and find the child.”
She was walking to the door when Garlett asked suddenly: “Where is Jean?
Out of doors? I’d rather speak to her there.”
“I’ll see you’re not disturbed.”
Jean Bower was already on her way back to the house when Harry Garlett
caught sight of her. She was walking quickly, her whole figure instinct
with the joyous buoyancy and grace of happy youth.
When she saw her lover she stopped short, pleased and yet surprised, for
he had told her that he was not coming back from the factory till late
afternoon.
And then, as he hurried up to her, there swept over her a feeling of
sharp misgiving.
“Is anything the matter?” she asked affrightedly.
He took hold of her arm and guided her to a brick path which was now, to
them both, filled with delicious associations, for it was here that they
had always come, during the few short weeks of their secret engagement,
to be alone together. Closed in on either side by old yew hedges, it was
the only part of the Bonnie Doon garden really sheltered from prying
eyes. Often, nay almost always, their first, their only, kisses, on any
given day, were taken and given here, between those high, impenetrable
walls of living green. To Jean the yew hedge walk had become holy
ground.
And so, as they turned the corner, the girl’s heart began to beat
quickly. Here it was that Harry always turned with a sudden, passionate
movement, and took her in his arms. But to-day her lover hurried her
along the uneven brick path until they reached the extreme end of the
shadowed walk.
Then, and not till then, he stopped, and faced her with the words: “We
can’t be married to-morrow——”
He had meant to add, “I am suspected of having poisoned my wife.” But he
found he could not utter the hateful words. They would not come.
And Jean? Gazing up into his haggard face she felt a mingled rush of
intense relief and deep, exultant love and tenderness. It moved her to
the soul to think that the postponement of their marriage could make him
look as he was looking now. But she was quickly, painfully, undeceived.
“A man came to see me at the works this morning to tell me that there
seems to be some doubt as to the cause of Emily’s death.”
Her face filled with deep surprise and dismay, but no suspicion of what
his words implied crossed her mind. All she did understand was that what
had happened had given this man who was so entirely her own, a terrible
shock.
“Why should that make any difference to our being married to-morrow
morning?” she asked in a low voice.
“Because neither your aunt nor your uncle would wish you to be married
to a man suspected of murder.” He spoke with harsh directness.
“Murder?” Jean Bower’s eyes flashed. She did not shrink, as he had
thought she would do; instead she threw herself on his breast and
pressed close up to him, putting her arms round his neck.
“If that is true, but I don’t believe it is true, then I want to marry
you at once—to-day rather than to-morrow, Harry. Oh, my love, my own
dear love, don’t look at me like that!”
His arms hungrily enfolded her, but he shook his head determinedly.
“Till the whole thing is cleared up, we’ve got to face this trouble
separately.”
“No! No! _No!_” she exclaimed, looking up eagerly, piteously, into his
drawn face. “Not separately, but together, Harry.”
And it was he, not she, who broke down as she pressed up closer to him,
for, to her agonized distress, he pushed her away and broke into short,
gasping, hard sobs.
“I can’t come back to the house,” he said at last. “Tell your uncle I’ll
meet him at the station, my darling.”
She saw he was making a great effort over himself, and very gallantly
she “played up.”
“All right, I’ll tell him. But Harry?”
“Yes?” he said listlessly.
“You’ll go now and get something to eat. Promise?” and for the first
time her lips quivered.
“I promise.”
Again he took her in his arms. Their lips met and clung together. At
last, “Oh, Jean,” he whispered brokenly, “do you think we shall ever be
happy again?”
“Of course we shall,” she said confidently.
And then she walked with him through the wintry, bare garden to the
field where there was a gate which gave into the road leading to
Grendon. There they did not kiss again. They only shook hands quietly.