"Tell him to buy if he can at a reasonable price. I fancy the Manor
House isn't let just now. Tell him to get a good tenant for it."
I knew the place, a fine old sixteenth-century house, with beautiful
terraces and gardens, one of the prettiest places in all Shropshire.
"What about visitors? Who's coming?" he asked. "Has Marigold given you
another list?"
"Yes," I responded, taking out a slip of paper the Countess had handed
me on the previous day, giving the names of some thirty persons, with
the dates of their arrival and departure.
Having scanned them down quickly he gave a grunt of distinct
dissatisfaction, for certain of the names were of persons of whom I knew
he did not approve.
"I see she's asked Goffe, after all--hang the fellow. You must put him
off, Willoughby. I won't have such a blackguard under my roof--and I
told her I wouldn't! I'm no saint myself, but I'm not going to ask my
guests to meet such a person. It's simply a marvel to me," he added,
striding up and down the room, his spurs clinking as he walked, "how the
papers talk about him. To-day you read he is staying with Lord This,
and to-morrow he is at the Duchess of That's house-party, and the next
day he meets the King at Doncaster. People must really think he's the
most popular man alive."
"Sends the paragraphs to the editor himself, I suppose," I remarked.
"Suppose so. There's Marigold's friend Lady Laxton, who boasts that she
pays two hundred a year to some poor devil of a journalist up in town to
puff her every other day in the papers, and scatter her portraits about
in the ladies' journals. That's why you see `Lady Laxton at Home,'
`Lady Laxton on her motor,' `Lady Laxton and her Chow,' `Lady Laxton
walking,' `Lady Laxton riding,' and all the rest of it," he laughed.
"The Laxton boom costs a couple of hundred a year, but it's cheap to a
draper's wife, for it's put her into a good set where she wouldn't
otherwise have been."
I joined in his laughter, for like all his class he hated cheap
notoriety, and was far too conservative to discern that no success,
social or commercial, is achieved in these modern days without judicious
advertising.
"Oh, by the way!" he exclaimed suddenly. "I see she hasn't put Smeeton
on the list--write it down, David Smeeton. You've never met him, I
think. He's a good fellow. I asked him down for a fortnight's
shooting. He's a magnificent shot--was with me up the Zambesi."
"When does he come?"
"To-morrow--five-forty at Kettering. See after him, won't you?
Introduce him, and all that. I shall shoot over at Harringworth, and
can't be back till late."
"Very well," I said, for it usually fell to me to put guests in the ways
of that enormous house.
That day, and the following, passed uneventfully, and I heard nothing of
any tragic discovery being made beyond Brigstock, therefore the
suspicion that a second crime had been committed seemed negatived. I
had driven over to Gretton in the afternoon to give instructions to one
of the keepers, and returning about seven o'clock, was walking along the
corridor to my room when, at the further end, in the fading light, I saw
two figures, one a guest, and the other Slater, the butler.
"This is Mr Smeeton, sir," the old servant explained. "He's just
arrived, and been shown his room. His lordship said you would entertain
him until he and her ladyship returned."
The newly-arrived guest came forward from the shadow to greet me, and as
he did so the light fell straight across his face.