A HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY
With a shriek of alarm I leapt to the further side of the table which
stood in the middle of the room, and at that moment hurried footsteps
became audible.
Our wild shouts for help had evidently been heard, for someone was
hurrying down the bare oak stairs into the hall.
"Hang this confounded lock—it catches!" we heard a voice exclaim as the
handle turned. Then an instant later the door was flung open, and
Gastrell stood before us.
"I am dreadfully sorry, you fellows," he said apologetically, "that you
should have been alarmed in this way, because I can assure you that my
tame cobra, 'Maharaja,' is quite harmless—look at him now," and we saw
that the horrid reptile had swung round the instant its master had
entered, and was sliding towards his feet. "He's a pet of mine—I
brought him home with me, and he follows me like a dog—no, you needn't
be in the least nervous," he added quickly, seeing that I instinctively
edged away as the reptile passed. "I'm awfully sorry to have kept you
waiting. I must apologize, too, for that confounded door—I myself got
locked in here the other day. My wife told you I was out, but I was not.
I came in by the side door, and she didn't know I was back, because I
went straight upstairs. If you'll wait a moment I'll take our friend
'Maharaja' out."
He left the room, and the snake slid rapidly along the floor after him,
almost, as he had said, like a dog following his steps.
"A nice cheerful pet to keep," I remarked, annoyed at my experience; but
at that moment the mysterious Gastrell bustled in alone.
"So sorry," he said, and, after thanking us for coming out so far to
ascertain if he had lost his purse, he pulled up a chair, seated himself
between us, lit a big cigar, and helped us to whiskey from a
silver tantalus.
"You had better add the soda yourselves," he said. "And now there is
something I want to say to you both. You must have been surprised at my
declaring so emphatically this evening that I had not met either of you
before—eh?"
"I can answer for myself," Osborne exclaimed quickly. "Are you going to
admit, after all, that you were on the _Masonic_?"
"Of course! Who else could it have been? Any more," he added, addressing
me, than it could have been someone other than me whom you met
in Geneva?"
"Then why did you deny it?" Osborne said rather irritably, looking hard
at him with an expression of disapproval and mistrust, while my eyes
wandered to that little gold medallion upon his chain.
"Because I had to,—that is, it was expedient that I should," was his
reply. "I have a reason for not wanting it to be generally known that I
am married,—least of all did I want Easterton, whose house I have just
leased, to know me to be a married man; indeed, I told him some weeks
ago that I was a bachelor—I had to, for reasons which I can't reveal
at present."
He stopped speaking, and we watched him narrowly.
"Still," I remarked, "I don't see how you could have been on board ship
in the middle of the ocean, and at the same time in London."
"I didn't say I was. I wasn't. I was in London a fortnight ago, and
spent some hours with Lord Easterton. On the same day I sailed for
Madeira, where I joined my wife on the homeward-bound _Masonic_. Think,
Mr. Osborne," he ended, his curious gaze set on my companion's face,
"think when we first met on board. It was not before the ship reached
Madeira, surely."
Jack Osborne reflected.
"By Jove, no!" he suddenly exclaimed. "How odd I should all along have
thought you had embarked at Capetown with the rest of us. But Mrs.
Gastrell came from the Cape, surely?"
"She did, and the name 'Mr. Gastrell' was also in the passenger list,
because a cousin of mine should have been on board. At the eleventh hour
he was prevented from sailing, and it was upon receipt of a cable from
him that I decided to catch the next boat to the Canaries and there
meet my wife."
I admit that, as he paused, I felt rather "small"; and I believe Osborne
felt the same. We had driven from the club right out here to Swiss
Cottage, and on the way we had conjured up in our imaginations all sorts
of mysterious happenings, even possible intrigues; and now the whole
affair proved to have been "quite ordinary," with a few commonplace
incidents to relieve its monotony—notably the incident of the
giant cobra.
True, there was the mystery of the locked door. But then, had it really
been locked? I had not myself tried to open it, and now as I thought
about it, it seemed to me quite possible that Jack Osborne might, in the
excitement of the moment, have failed to turn the handle sufficiently,
and so have believed that the door was locked when it was not. Again we
had Gastrell's assurance that he had found himself locked in one day. As
for his declaration to Easterton that he was not the Gastrell whom
Osborne had met on the _Masonic_, it was clear now that he had some
secret reason for wishing to pass in London as a bachelor, and as
Osborne had told Easterton that the Gastrell on the _Masonic_ had told
him that he had met me in Geneva, naturally Gastrell had been driven—in
order to conceal his identity—to maintain that he had never before met
me either.
Our host insisted upon our taking another of his very excellent cigars
before we left,—it was close upon one o'clock when we rose to go. He
rang up a taxi for us, helped us on with our coats, accompanied us to
the door, and shook hands with each of us most cordially.
"What do you make of it, Michael?" Osborne asked, when we had remained
silent in the swift-travelling taxi for five minutes or more, and were
approaching Marlboro' Road Station."
"Nothing," I answered bluntly. "I don't know what to make of it."
"Suspect anything?"
"Yes—and no."
"That's just how I feel, and yet—"
"Well?"
"I mistrust him. I don't know why, but I do. I mistrust them both.
There's something queer happening in that house. I am certain there is."
"You can't be certain, as you don't know."
"My suspicions are so strong that they amount to convictions."
"So I think, too. And those dirty tumblers on the tray, and the hot
arm-chair I sat down in—Jack, I believe there were a lot of people in
that house, hidden away somewhere, all the time we were there. I believe
Gastrell admitted his identity only because he was obliged to. Our
calling like that, so unexpectedly, and being admitted by his wife—if
she is his wife—disconcerted him and took him unawares. I can't think
why she admitted us—especially I can't think why she kept us so long in
the dark in the hall before she switched on the light. By Jove! What a
stunning woman!"
"She is—but crafty. I thought that when I met her on board ship. And
those eyes of hers. Phew! They seem to read right into one's soul, and
discover one's secret thoughts." He stopped for an instant, then added,
meditatively, "I wonder what makes Gastrell keep that horrible cobra
as a pet."
I yawned, and we relapsed into silence. Then gradually my thoughts
drifted—drifted away from London, far from crowds and hustle, the
rumble of motor 'buses and the hootings and squawkings of ears, to a
peaceful, rural solitude.
I was in Berkshire. Down in the picturesque valley into which I gazed
from the summit of a wooded slope stood a Manor house, ivy-grown, old,
very beautiful Facing it an enormous plateau, hewn out of the Down, had
been converted to various uses—there were gardens, shrubberies, tennis
lawns. Lower came terrace after terrace of smoothly mown grass, each
with its little path and borders of shrubs, interspersed with the finest
Wellingtonias in the county, tapering gracefully to heaven,
copper-beeches and grand oaks.
The house itself was very long and low, its frontage white, mellowed
with age, and broken up by old-fashioned, latticed windows which gleamed
blue and grey in the translucent, frosted air. The roof of the Manor
boasted a mass of beautiful red-brown gables, many half hidden from
sight by the wealth of ivy; last summer also by a veritable tangle of
Virginia creeper and crimson rambler, now sleeping their winter sleep.
My thoughts wandered on. They travelled with extraordinary rapidity, as
thought does, picture after picture rising into the vision of my
imagination like the scenes in a kaleidoscopic cinema.
Now I was seated in the old Manor. I could see the room distinctly. It
was a small boudoir or ante-room opening into the large drawing-room—a
cosy, homely place, its low, latticed windows, divided into four,
opening outwards on to garden and terraces, its broad, inviting
window-seat comfortably cushioned. Nearly all the furniture was quite
old, dark oak, elaborately carved—writing-table, high-backed chairs, an
old French "armoury" in the corner; but near the hearth there were two
or three deep, modern armchairs of peculiarly restful character, covered
with exquisite flowered chintzes.
This vision deepened. I started. The door of the quiet room had suddenly
opened, and, humming a gay little French air, a young girl had
entered—fresh, exquisite, like a breath of early Springtime itself in
the midst of Winter. With her deep eyes, so soft and brown, her skin of
a healthy olive pallor, the cheeks just flushed with crimson, and her
nimbus of light brown hair through which the golden threads strayed so
charmingly, she made a perfect picture standing there in her long gown
of sapphire-blue velvet.
The soft contours of her young face were outlined against a tall screen
embroidered gorgeously with silken peacocks, before which she stopped to
lay down upon a small table the sheaf of red and brown and golden
chrysanthemums which she carried in her arms.
My pulses throbbed as they always did in her presence, or when, indeed,
she so much as crossed my daydreams, as at this moment. For this girl
was Dulcie Challoner—the woman who was fast becoming the one woman in
the world to me, and thus had I seen her enter that very room when last
I had spent a week-end at Holt Manor, four miles from the little village
of Holt Stacey—and that happened to have been only three weeks from the
present moment.
The taxi stopped abruptly, shattering my dreams. We had reached the
club. Some letters were awaiting me. My spirits rose as I recognized the
handwriting on one of them.
Dulcie wrote to say that her father hoped, if I were not "already
booked," I would spend Christmas with them.
I was "already booked." I had accepted an invitation a month before to
dine on Christmas Day with an hysterical aunt from whom I had
expectations. Well, the expectations must take their chance. Then and
there I sat down and wrote a long letter to Dulcie saying what joy the
contents of her letter had given me, and a brief line to my aunt
explaining that "unavoidable circumstances had arisen" which
necessitated my cancelling my promise to come to her, much as I
regretted doing so.
Snow was falling slowly and persistently, as it had done all the
afternoon, when, about ten days later, I arrived at the little station
of Holt Stacey, the nearest to Holt Manor. The motor brougham awaited
my rather late train, and I was quickly installed among the fur rugs in
its cosy interior and being whirled along the silent whiteness of the
narrow lanes between the station and my destination. The weather was
very cold, and I saw through the windows of the car that every branch
and twig had its thick covering of pure white snow, while the thatched
roofs of the tiny cottages we passed were heavily laden. By four o'clock
in the afternoon most of the cottage windows were lit up, and the glow
of the oil lamps shining through tiny panes on to the gleaming carpet of
snow without, produced a most picturesque effect.
Now we were purring up the hilly drive; then rounding the sweep to the
hall door. The man did not have to ring. Before he could get off the box
I heard heavy footsteps leaping down the stairs three at a time and
flying across the hall. The door was flung open, and a wild war-whoop
from Dick announced my arrival to whoever cared to know of it.
"Good old sport!" shouted Dick, snatching the travelling-rug from my
arm, after telling the footman behind him to "take Mr. Berrington's
things to the green room in the west wing," and almost pushing me into
the hall. "Good old sport! You're awfully late. We've all done tea."
I told him we had been quite half an hour after the scheduled time in
starting from Paddington, and that the crowds had been enormous.
"Just what I told Dulcie," he exclaimed. "You don't want to see her, I
suppose? What a beastly long time it seems since you were here! Three
weeks, isn't it, since I was home, ill?"
In vain I endeavoured to quiet Dick's ringing voice as a girlish, lithe
figure appeared between the curtains which divided the stairs from the
hall, a figure clad in soft rosy silk with a little lacy tea-jacket over
it, and with golden-brown hair waving naturally about a broad, white
forehead, with starry brown eyes full of welcome. Taking my hand in hers
quietly for an instant, Dulcie asked me what sort of journey I had had,
and presently led me across the hall to the drawing-room.
"You will like to see father," she said. "He and Aunt Hannah are in the
drawing-room; they've looked forward so much to your coming."
With a heart beating faster than usual I followed Dulcie. Her father I
was always glad to see, and we were exceedingly good friends, having
much in common. Of a good old county family, Sir Roland Challoner had
succeeded late in life to the title on the sudden death in the hunting
field of his father, Sir Nelson Challoner.
Dulcie's mother had died just after the birth of Dick, and Sir Roland
had tried to make up the loss to Dulcie by getting his only and elderly
sister Hannah—"Aunt Hannah" as she was inevitably called by all who
stayed at Holt Manor, and in fact by everybody who had seen her more
than twice—to come and live with him. And there at Holt she had, in her
eccentric way, ever since superintended domestic arrangements and
mothered his beautiful little girl and her only brother, by this time an
obstreperous boy of fourteen, at Eton and on his way to Oxford.
Aunt Hannah was, as Dulcie expressed it, "rather a dear, quaint thing."
But she was more than that, I thought. She had such a pungent wit, her
sayings were at times so downright—not to say acrid—that many stood in
terror of her and positively dreaded her quick tongue. I rather liked
Aunt Hannah myself, perhaps because, by the greatest of good luck, I
happened not to have done anything so far to incur her displeasure,
which she was never backward in expressing forcibly, or, as Dick the
schoolboy brother put it, "in no measured terms." Still, as it is the
unexpected that always happens, I knew there might yet come a day when I
should be called upon to break a lance with Aunt Hannah, and I must say
I devoutly hoped that in the event of so deplorable an occurrence,
heaven would vouchsafe me the victory. Steeped in intrigue up to her old
ears, Aunt Hannah had, I believed, several times laid deep plans
touching her niece's future—plans mysterious to the last degree, which
seemed to afford her the liveliest satisfaction. None of these schemes,
however, had succeeded up to the present, for Dulcie seemed with
delightful inconsistence consistently to "turn down" the admirable
suitors whom Aunt Hannah metaphorically dangled before her eyes. Yet so
cleverly did she do this that, in some wondrous way known only to
herself, she continued to retain them all in the capacity of firm
friends, and apparently no hearts were ever permanently bruised.
As I say, I quite liked Aunt Hannah, and she had afforded me a good deal
of innocent amusement during my not infrequent visits at Holt Manor.
Certainly on these occasions I had managed to adopt, if not actually a
brotherly, at any rate an almost brotherly demeanour towards Dulcie
whenever the sharp-eyed old lady chanced to be in the vicinity. As a
result, after much careful chaperonage, and even astute watching, of my
manner towards her niece, Aunt Hannah had "slacked off" delightfully,
evidently regarding me as one of those stolid and casual nonentities
who, from lack of much interest in anything can safely be trusted
anywhere and under the most trying circumstances.
"Here is a telegram for you, Mike," Dulcie said to me one morning, when
I had been several days at Holt and the slow routine of life was
beginning to reassert itself in the sleepy village after the excitement
created by Christmas. The sight of the envelope she handed to me sent my
thoughts back to London, the very existence of which I seemed to have
entirely forgotten during the past delightful days in this happy,
peaceful spot. My gaze was riveted upon Dulcie, standing there before
me, straight and slim in her dark violet breakfast gown, with its
ruffles of old lace at neck and wrists, the warm light from the fire
turning her fluffy brown hair to gold, as I mechanically tore open the
envelope, then pulled the telegram out.
"You don't seem in a hurry to read it," she exclaimed lightly, as I sat
there looking at her still, the telegram open in my hands.
I glanced down. It was from Osborne, and ran:
"Read report to-day's papers about Maresfield Gardens fire. Write me
what you think about it.
"JACK OSBORNE."
I read it through again, then looked up at Dulcie, who still stood there
before me.
"Have the papers come?" I asked.
She glanced up at the clock.
"They won't be here just yet," she answered. "We don't get them before
midday, you know, and during these days they haven't arrived until lunch
time, owing to Christmas."
"You can read it if you like," I said, handing her the telegram, for I
had seen her glance at it inquisitively. "It will interest you
enormously."
She made a little grimace when she had read it.
"'Interest me enormously,'" she said contemptuously, crumpling up the
paper and tossing it into the grate. For some moments she did not speak.
"What fire was there at Maresfield Gardens?" she inquired suddenly, "and
why does he ask you what you think about it?"
"Ah, so it does interest you a little," I exclaimed, taking hold of her
hand and drawing her towards me, for as she stood there looking down at
me she seemed somehow to magnetize me. "Sit by me, here, and I'll
tell you."
I told her of the conversation at the club, of Lord Easterton's dinner,
of Osborne's queer suggestion, of our visit to the house at Maresfield
Gardens in the middle of the night, of our being admitted by the strange
woman, including, of course, the incident of the serpent.
When I had finished, she looked at me seriously for some moments without
speaking.
"I don't think I like that adventure," she said at last.
For a moment she paused.
"Don't go to that house again, Mike," she suddenly exclaimed. "Promise
me you won't."
I was deliberating what reply I should make to this request, though I
did not think it likely I should want to go to the house again, when our
attention was distracted by the footman entering with the morning
papers—we were sitting in the big hall, before the fire of
blazing logs.
Dulcie sprang up and snatched the papers from the man, and Dick,
bouncing in at that instant, exclaimed with mock solemnity:
"Oh fie! 'Thou shalt not snatch,' Dulcie, you are 'no lady.'"
"Thank heaven for that," she retorted quickly, then began to tantalize
me by holding the papers just beyond my reach.
At last she gave me two, and Dick one, opened one herself, and sat upon
the rest. They made quite a pile, for Sir Roland was one of those
broad-minded men who like to read both sides on questions of any
importance.
I soon found the report I sought. It occupied a prominent position, and
was headed:
HAMPSTEAD FIRE MYSTERY
BODY FOUND STABBED
POLICE PUZZLED
The disastrous fire at Number 340 Maresfield Gardens, on Christmas Eve,
has given rise to an interesting sequel.
I had not been aware that a fire had occurred there, and I read on:
It was confidently hoped that no lives had been lost, but about midday
yesterday the charred body of a woman was discovered among the _debris_.
Upon careful examination it was ascertained beyond doubt that the body
had been several times stabbed, apparently with some sharp weapon or
instrument. All the wounds were in the breast, and it is stated that any
one of them might have caused death.
The police are instituting searching inquiries, and a sensational
announcement will most likely be made shortly. The origin of the
conflagration remains a mystery. Apparently nobody occupied the house
when the fire broke out, the sub-tenants, whose identity is veiled in
obscurity, having left some days previously.
"Have you read the account in your paper?" I asked, turning to Dulcie as
I put mine down.
"Yes," she answered, "I have just finished it. Isn't it terrible?"
"I have a theory," a boy's voice exclaimed suddenly. Dick, seated on the
floor, tossed aside the newspaper I had thrown to him.
"That woman whose body has been found may have been stabbed, but I
believe that big cobra had something to do with her death. I don't know
why I think that, but I do. It's instinct, I suppose. Michael, I believe
you were spoofed by that man Gastrell, whoever he is—absolutely spoofed."
"Good heavens, Dick!" I exclaimed in dismay, "how do you come to know
what I have just told to Dulcie in confidence?"
"Oh, ask me another, old sport!" he cried out, and burst into laughter.
"If you will 'exchange confidences'—isn't that the phrase?—with
Dulcie, and be so engrossed that you don't notice me in the room—well,
what can you expect?"