Jack Glover heard footsteps coming down the path, and turned to meet a
man who had "detective" written largely all over him. Jack turned and
looked down again at the body as the man came up.
"Who is this?" asked the officer sharply.
"It is James Meredith," said Jack simply.
"Dead?" said the officer, startled. "He has committed suicide!"
Jack did not reply, and watched the inspector as he made his brief,
quick examination of the body. A bullet had entered just below the left
temple, and there was a mark of powder near the face.
"A very bad business, Mr. Glover," said the police officer seriously.
"Can you account for this man being here?"
"He came to get married," said Jack listlessly. "I dare say that
startles you, but it is the fact. He was married less than ten minutes
ago. If you will come up to the house I will explain his presence here."
The detective hesitated, but just then another of his comrades came on
the scene, and Jack led the way back to the house through a back door
into Rennett's study.
The lawyer was waiting for them, and he was alone.
"If I'm not very much mistaken, you're Inspector Colhead, of Scotland
Yard," said Glover.
"That is my name," nodded the officer. "Between ourselves, Mr. Glover, I
don't think I should make any statement which you are not prepared to
verify publicly."
Jack noted the significance of the warning with a little smile, and
proceeded to tell the story of the wedding.
"I can only tell you," he said in answer to a further inquiry, "that Mr.
Meredith came into this house at a quarter to eight this morning, and
surrendered himself to my partner. At eight o'clock exactly, as you are
well aware, Mr. Rennett telephoned to Scotland Yard to say that Mr.
Meredith was here. During the period of his waiting he was married."
"Did a parson happen to be staying here, sir?" asked the police officer
sarcastically.
"He happened to be staying here," said Jack calmly, "because I had
arranged for him to be here. I knew that if it was humanly possible, Mr.
Meredith would come to this house, and that his desire was to be
married, for reasons which my partner will explain."
"Did you help him to escape? That is asking you a leading question,"
smiled the detective.
Jack shook his head.
"I can answer you with perfect truth that I did not, any more than the
Home Secretary helped him when he gave him permission to go to a nursing
home."
Soon after the detective returned to the shed, and Jack and his partner
were left alone.
"Well?" said Rennett, in a shaking voice, "what happened?"
"He's dead," said Jack quietly.
"Suicide?"
Jack looked at him oddly.
"Did Bulford commit suicide?" he asked.
"Where is the angel?"
"I left her in the drawing-room with Mrs. Rennett and Miss Beale."
"Mrs. Meredith," corrected Jack quietly.
"This complicates matters," said Rennett, "but I think we can get out of
our share of the trouble, though it is going to look a little black."
They found the three women in the drawing-room. Lydia, looking very
white, came to meet them.
"What happened?" she asked, and then she guessed from his face. "He's
not dead?" she gasped.
Jack nodded. All the time his eyes were on the other girl. Her
beautiful lips were drooped a little. There was a look of pain and
sorrow in her eyes that caught his breath.
"Did he shoot himself?" she asked in a low voice.
Jack regarded her coldly.
"The only thing that I am certain about," and Lydia winced at the
cruelty in his voice, "is that you did not shoot him, Miss Briggerland."
"How dare you!" flamed Jean Briggerland. The quick flush that came to
her cheek was the only other evidence of emotion she betrayed.
"I dare say a lot," said Jack curtly. "You asked me if it is a case of
suicide, and I tell you that it is not--it is a case of murder. James
Meredith was found with a revolver clutched in his right hand. He was
shot through the left temple, and if you'll explain to me how any man,
holding a pistol in a normal way, can perform that feat, I will accept
your theory of suicide."
There was a dead silence.
"Besides," Jack went on, with a little shrug, "poor Jimmy had no
pistol."
Jean Briggerland had dropped her eyes, and stood there with downcast
head and compressed lips. Presently she looked up.
"I know how you feel, Mr. Glover," she said gently. "I can well
understand, believing such dreadful things about me as you do, that you
must hate me."
Her mouth quivered and her voice grew husky with sorrow.
"I loved James Meredith," she said, "and he loved me."
"He loved you well enough to marry somebody else," said Jack Glover, and
Lydia was shocked.
"Mr. Glover," she said reproachfully, "do you think it is right to say
these things, with poor Mr. Meredith lying dead?"
He turned slowly toward her, and she saw in his humorous eyes a hardness
that she had not seen before.
"Miss Briggerland has told us that I hate her," he said in an even
voice, "and she spoke nothing but the truth. I hate her perhaps beyond
understanding--Mrs. Meredith." He emphasised the words, and the girl
winced. "And one day, if the Circumstantialists spare me----"
"The Circumstantialists," said Jean Briggerland slowly. "I don't quite
understand you."
Jack Glover laughed, and it was not a pleasant laugh.
"Perhaps you will," he said shortly. "As to your loving poor Jim--well,
you know best. I am trying to be polite to you, Miss Briggerland, and
not to gloat over the fact that you arrived too late to stop this
wedding! And shall I tell you why you arrived too late?" His eyes were
laughing again. "It was because I had arranged with the vicar of St.
Peter's to be here at nine o'clock this morning, well knowing that you
and your little army of spies would discover the hour of the wedding,
and would take care to be here before. And then I secretly sent for an
old Oxford friend of mine to be here at eight--he was here last night."
Still she stood regarding him without visible evidence of the anger
which Lydia thought would have been justified.
"I had no desire to stop the wedding," said the girl, in a low, soft
voice. "If Jim preferred to be married in this way to somebody who does
not know him, I can only accept his choice." She turned to the girl and
held out her hand. "I am very sorry that this tragedy has come to you,
Mrs. Meredith," she said. "May I wish you a greater happiness than any
you have found?"
Lydia was touched by the sincerity, hurt a little by Glover's
uncouthness, and could only warmly grip the little hand that was held
out to her.
"I'm sorry too," she said a little unsteadily. "For you more than
for--anything else."
The girl lowered her eyes and again her lips quivered, and then without
a word she walked out of the room, pulling her sable wrap about her
throat.
It was noon before Rennett's car deposited Lydia Meredith at the door of
her lodging.
She found Mrs. Morgan in a great state of anxiety, and the stout little
woman almost shed tears of joy at the sight of her.
"Oh, miss, you've no idea how worried I've been," she babbled, "and
they've been round here from your newspaper office asking where you are.
I thought you had been run over or something, and the _Daily Megaphone_
have sent to all the hospitals----"
"I have been run over," said Lydia wearily. "My poor mind has been under
the wheels of a dozen motor-buses, and my soul has been in a hundred
collisions."
Mrs. Morgan gaped at her. She had no sense of metaphor.
"It's all right, Mrs. Morgan," laughed her lodger over her shoulder as
she went up the stairs. "I haven't really you know, only I've had a
worrying time--and by the way, my name is Meredith."
Mrs. Morgan collapsed on to a hall chair.
"Meredith, miss?" she said incredulously. "Why I knew your father----"
"I've been married, that's all," said Lydia grimly. "You told me
yesterday that I should be married romantically, but even in the wildest
flights of your imagination, Mrs. Morgan, you could never have supposed
that I should be married in such a violent, desperate way. I'm going to
bed." She paused on the landing and looked down at the dumbfounded
woman. "If anybody calls for me, I am not at home. Oh, yes, you can tell
the _Megaphone_ that I came home very late and that I've gone to bed,
and I'll call to-morrow to explain."
"But, miss," stammered the woman, "your husband----"
"My husband is dead," said the girl calmly. She felt a brute, but
somehow she could not raise any note of sorrow. "And if that lawyer man
comes, will you please tell him that I shall have twenty thousand pounds
in the morning," and with that last staggering statement, she went to
her room, leaving her landlady speechless.