"I think that's everything, Caw. We shan't be much later than eleven.
Don't forget that Mr. Harvie wants to catch the first steamer in the
morning." Alan, in evening dress, was smoking a cigarette in the study
pending the assembling of his guests in the drawing-room, all of whom had
been bidden to dinner that evening by the hospitable Handyside.
"Mr. Harvie shall be looked after, sir." Caw retired to the door, closed
it and came back to the hearth. "May I ask you to cast your eye over this
list, Mr. Alan?" he said, presenting a sheet of notepaper.
"Why," exclaimed Alan, "this is my uncle's writing ... and it's a list of
the people who are now in the house--"
"With one exception, sir. Mr. Bullard."
"That's so. Where did this come from?"
"That, sir, is one of the instructions left me by my master. Those are
the names of all the people who are to be present on the night when the
clock stops. I ventured to bring it to your notice now merely because it
struck me as a little curious, sir, especially since Mr. Harvie, the
lawyer, had not intended to stay the night."
Alan smiled. "And so we want only Mr. Bullard to make the party complete!
Pity he sailed to-day for South Africa!"
"If I may say so, I should like very much to have seen him off, sir."
"Good heavens, man! Didn't that telegram of an hour ago convince you?"
"It struck me afterwards that your agent might have watched his--well,
his double go on board. You will remember that wire from Paris--"
"Oh, really, Caw, your imagination carries you too far! Bullard, as you
well know, is bound for South Africa on serious business: his fortune is
at stake. Doesn't that satisfy you? Is it this list that has upset you?"
"Well, to tell the truth, sir, it did give me a bit of a turn, and I'm
not superstitious every evening."
"You've got your big dog."
Caw smiled apologetically. "I didn't say I was afraid, sir. Perhaps you
are right to laugh at me, sir; still, Mr. Bullard has always done the
unexpected thing in the past, and--"
Teddy came in.
"Teddy," said Alan, "shut the door, and in the fewest words possible tell
Caw what Bullard did to Flitch in the fog."
Three minutes later Caw went out, with his list, easier in his mind than
he had ever been since that midnight hour when he set the clock going.
And now Alan glanced at the clock. "Time's about up. We had better go
downstairs."
In the drawing-room they found Lancaster and Mr. Harvie. Three days of
the free and friendly atmosphere of Grey House had worked wonders on the
former: a rather painful diffidence was still in evidence now and then,
but the man was beginning to hold up his head, his nervousness was
becoming less noticeable, and his old kindly manner was once more
asserting itself. Once Caw had caught him watching Alan unawares, and had
forgiven him much because of the gratitude in his gaze.
The lawyer had run down from Glasgow to see Alan respecting that young
man's recent and serious onslaught on his capital, and had allowed
himself to be persuaded to remain over night. He and Lancaster appeared
to take kindly to each other, much to the host's gratification. Thus far
Alan could congratulate himself on the success of his little house-party.
Doris seemed to have found the friend he had hoped for her in Marjorie
Handyside. As for Mrs. Lancaster, she had been a cheering surprise in her
graciousness to every one and her open appreciations of her surroundings,
while she had quite captivated the doctor.
It was therefore something of a blow when Doris, lovely in a wild-rose
pink, but a little pale and anxious looking, appeared with the news that
her mother had been stricken with a headache so severe as to necessitate
her going to bed.
"I never knew your mother to have a headache before," said Lancaster,
perturbed. "I hope it is nothing serious."
"She wants us not to bother about her," said the girl. "She has not been
sleeping so well lately, she says, but hopes to get to sleep now, and she
will ring if she requires anything. No, father; she would rather you
didn't go up."
Alan expressed his regrets. "It doesn't seem right to go out and
leave her--"
"I'm afraid it would just upset her if we made any difference," said
Doris, "and she certainly does not look alarmingly ill."
"I will leave orders with Caw to communicate at once should she want you,
Doris," Alan said at last, and presently the party went forth into the
starry, moonless night.
Alan, as host, escorted Doris. As he drew her hand through his arm he
felt it tremble.
"Are you troubled about your mother?" he asked.
"Just a little, Alan," she replied, after a moment. "But I'm not going to
let it make me a skeleton at the feast," she added with a small laugh.
She would have given much then to have been walking with Teddy; her
answer to a similar question from him would have been somewhat different,
for her mind was full of vague fears.
And just then Alan spoke of Teddy. "Is there anything wrong between you
and Teddy, Doris? I may be mistaken, but these last few days I have been
fancying you were avoiding each other. No quarrel, surely."
"Oh, nonsense! Teddy is my oldest friend, and neither of us is
quarrelsome. On the other hand, we are interested in people besides each
other." Her lighter tone was very well assumed.
"That's all right then," he said, and there was a pause. Then, suddenly,
he put another question: "Doris, must I go on waiting till--till the
clock stops?"
Her reply was, to say the least of it, unexpected. "No, I don't think
it's necessary, Alan."
"Doris!" He may have imagined his voice sounded eager as he proceeded:
"Then I may speak now!"
"Please, no," she gently forbade. "I meant that you must never speak at
all--to me--of marriage. For you don't really love me, dear Alan, and
I--I'm really awfully glad! Now don't say another word, my friend. Who
could be dishonest under such a sky?"
And having nothing to say, he held his peace till they reached the gates
of the doctor's garden where the others awaited them.
* * * * *
To Mrs. Lancaster, as a matter of course, the chief guest-chamber had
been allotted. Its door faced that of the study across the spacious
landing; viewed from outside, its bay-window balanced that of the study
and suggested an equally large apartment. It lacked, however, the depth
of the opposite room, and further differed from the latter in having a
window of ordinary size in the side wall, looking north. Elegance and
comfort it possessed to satisfy the most fastidious senses. White walls
and furniture, rose velvet carpet, and hangings, silver electric
fittings and a silver bedstead. The warmed atmosphere would have been
pleasant to the body without the fire, yet those glowing and flaming
logs made cheerfulness for the imagination--or would have done so for
the imagination of any person save Mrs. Lancaster. At intervals she
shivered. She was half sitting, half reclining on the couch drawn near
to the hearth. She was wearing an elaborate tea-gown which had cost her,
or, to be precise, had added to her debts, more guineas than some of us
earn in a year.
Her hands and neck blazed with gems, but her eyes would have made you
forget the jewels, so intensely they gleamed. The finger of feverishness
had touched her dusky cheeks to a rare flush. Waiting there in the soft
light of a single lamp of the cluster in the ceiling, Carlotta Lancaster
had never looked so splendid. And she had never felt so afraid.
Afraid of what? Ruin for her husband, misery for her daughter? Oh, dear,
no! Afraid of being herself caught in a most dishonourable and traitorous
act? A little, perhaps. But the fear that now made her shiver and burn
was the fear lest Bullard should fail in his latest and last, as he had
said it should be, plan to obtain the diamonds. Failure on his part
spelled ruin for her--not just social ruin, though that were terrible
enough, but financial ruin, hideous, complete.
Debts, debts, debts! The night before leaving London, and for the first
time in her life there, she had sat down with paper and pencil and made
up a statement--rough, of course--of all she owed, and added it up....
Appalling! Thousands and thousands of pounds! Why, great Heavens! if she
used her recent windfall to pay her debts, she would have nothing left
worth mentioning. And Bullard was going to give her a hundred
thousand--if--if ... Oh, but he must not fail! It was her final chance,
her final hope, of averting downfall into sordid obscurity.
An hour ago another hope had glimmered, but briefly.
"Doris," she said, "you seem happy here. Will you give me a straight
answer to a straight question? Suppose your father's affairs came right;
suppose, also, I gave you back that money; would you--would you marry
Alan Craig?"
But Doris, who had made a discovery since coming to Grey House, answered
shortly yet cheerfully--
"No!"
Mrs. Lancaster did not press the matter. She was too well aware that the
twenty-five thousand pounds had been the price of the remnants of her
daughter's faith in her. Doris had ceased to call her "mother" except in
company, and then as seldom as possible; in times of unavoidable privacy
she treated her with extreme but distant courtesy.
So the glimmer had gone out, and now there was no way of salvation but
Bullard's way.
The silver carriage-clock on the mantel tingled eight. Mrs. Lancaster
rose and went to the door, which she opened an inch. Awhile she listened
intently, then closed it and turned the key. She had heard nothing.
Twenty minutes earlier she had heard Caw moving about the study, mending
the fire and putting things in order; then he had gone downstairs--to
his supper, she presumed. He would not likely be up again within the
next two hours--unless she summoned him. With another shudder she moved
away from the door.
Presently she unlocked one of her trunks and took out a little white
package with a red cross scored on it. Undoing the sealed waxed paper she
uncovered several neatly cut strips of meat. She regarded them with
disgust. It was by no means the first little white package she had opened
since her arrival at Grey House, but none of the previous ones had been
crossed with red.
She switched off the light and went towards the side window, slipped
between the curtains and drew them close behind her. When her eyes were
grown accustomed to the darkness, she raised the sash. Like the others in
the house it worked easily, noiselessly. A bitter air from the
snow-capped Argyll hills made her wish she had donned furs.
Crouching, she reached out and peered downwards. The darkness baffled
her, but something had to be left to chance. She let fall a strip of
meat, and closed the window--for about five minutes. Then she peered down
again. A live thing was moving on the gravel. She let fall the rest of
the meat, and a snuffling sound came up to her ears. Caw's Great Dane had
lately been finding frequent tit-bits in that particular spot, and now he
was making another tasty meal--his last.
Mrs. Lancaster closed the window and after washing her hands went back to
the fire. It supplied all the light she required for the present. There
was nothing that needed to be done for an hour. But she grew more and
more restless, and before half the time had passed she was opening
another of her trunks. From it she took that which in the doubtful light
seemed a mere mass of silk, but which was later to resolve itself into a
sort of ladder carefully rolled up and fitted with a steel clamp at the
top. She placed the bundle behind the curtains of the side window, and
returned to the trunk.
From a nest of soft materials she drew a wooden box about eight inches
square. Gingerly she carried it to the couch, seated herself, and took
off the lid. The removal of a quantity of cotton wool revealed a glass
sphere of the size of an average orange, filled with a clear, colourless
fluid. She let the sphere stay where it was, and after gazing at it
awhile placed the box very cautiously on the mantel.
Feeling faintish, she got her smelling-salts and cologne and lay down on
the couch. The half hour that followed was the longest she had ever
spent, and yet she was not relieved when the clock tinkled nine. The fire
had burned low, but she let it die....
Once more she lurked at the window--fearing one moment, hoping the
next, that her message had not reached him in time, that he would
not come--till another night, though she was aware that it must be
now or never.... And at last, down below, a mere spark of light
moved in the mirk.
Mrs. Lancaster was no weakling. The spark roused as though it had touched
and scorched her. She cleared her mind for action. No useless hampering
thoughts littered it now. Her intelligence reckoned nothing save the work
on hand; its details she had by heart. She acted.
* * * * *
Bullard came from between the curtains white and breathing hard, but
smiling. He had no head for climbing--and a loosely hung ladder of silken
loops in the darkness is poor support to the nerves--but he had the will
for anything that meant great gain.
"You will excuse me," he gasped, taking a sip from a tiny gold
flask. "I've come out of one darkness to go into another. Is all clear?
You managed the dog, I noticed. Yes, yes, very disagreeable, but
necessary.... Well?"
"So far as I know," she whispered, "your way is clear, unless"--she
glanced at the box on the mantel--"I fail, or that thing there does. Have
you found out about the clock?"
"Not much. Nothing, in fact. The Frenchman would not take my order for a
clock exactly similar to my dear old friend's, and he was not talkative.
But I'm very much mistaken if Christopher's diamonds are not there."
"Tell me," she said, her hand to her heart, "how you are going to
escape--detection. I must know that before we go further, for, if they
catch you, they will never, with such a fortune involved, spare you for
my husband's sake."
He seated himself beside her on the couch and lit a cigarette.
"There is no time for full details, dear lady. Be satisfied with these.
First, I sailed this afternoon from London--by deputy, you understand.
To-night I shall travel a certain distance south by car, afterwards by
rail. At a certain port, a Mr. So-and-So will board and occupy his
reserved cabin on a swift steamer bound for Madeira. At Madeira Mr.
So-and-So and Mr. Deputy will meet--just meet and no more. Then Mr.
Deputy will disappear as such, Mr. So-and-So will disappear as such, and
Mr. Bullard will continue his journey to Cape Town."
"Oh, you are horribly clever! ... Your deputy is like you in appearance?"
"Very; and as I've had occasion to use him before, he knows my little
ways.... But now, Mrs. Lancaster, I must ask you to get busy." He rose,
took the box from the mantel and extracted the sphere. "Don't be afraid,"
he said, as she rose, also, with a shiver. "Only be careful." He laid it
in her hand.
"Will it hurt much?" she whispered.
"No--not much. Disagreeable of course, but not deadly."
"You're sure it won't--kill?"
"I give you my word. Now, please,--at once." He went over to the door and
unlocked it. "Come!"
She joined him. "Oh, yes, I know exactly what to do," she said, answering
a question.
"Very well." He returned to the hearth. "Now I'm going to ring for Mr.
Caw.... There!"
She opened the door and slipped out. At the rail directly over the foot
of the stair she took her stand.
Ere long she heard a door in the distance open and shut. Then she heard
Caw coming along the passage leading from the kitchen premises....
As Caw placed his foot on the first step, something bright flashed down
within a yard of his eyes and burst on the stair with a slight report.
When Bullard looked over, a moment later, he nodded and said: "That's all
right. He won't stir for fifteen minutes, anyway, and I hope I shan't
need five."
It then appeared necessary to conduct Mrs. Lancaster back to her room and
administer to her what remained in the tiny gold flask.