III

It might have been different in the evening, and Darnell had matured a

plan by which he hoped to gain much. He intended to ask his wife if she

would mind having only one gas, and that a good deal lowered, on the

pretext that his eyes were tired with work; he thought many things might

happen if the room were dimly lit, and the window opened, so that they

could sit and watch the night, and listen to the rustling murmur of the

tree on the lawn. But his plans were made in vain, for when he got to

the garden gate his wife, in tears, came forth to meet him.

'Oh, Edward,' she began, 'such a dreadful thing has happened! I never

liked him much, but I didn't think he would ever do such awful things.'

'What do you mean? Who are you talking about? What has happened? Is it

Alice's young man?'

'No, no. But come in, dear. I can see that woman opposite watching us:

she's always on the look out.'

'Now, what is it?' said Darnell, as they sat down to tea. 'Tell me,

quick! you've quite frightened me.'

'I don't know how to begin, or where to start. Aunt Marian has thought

that there was something queer for weeks. And then she found--oh, well,

the long and short of it is that Uncle Robert has been carrying on

dreadfully with some horrid girl, and aunt has found out everything!'

'Lord! you don't say so! The old rascal! Why, he must be nearer seventy

than sixty!'

'He's just sixty-five; and the money he has given her----'

The first shock of surprise over, Darnell turned resolutely to his

mince.

'We'll have it all out after tea,' he said; 'I am not going to have my

meals spoilt by that old fool of a Nixon. Fill up my cup, will you,

dear?'

'Excellent mince this,' he went on, calmly. 'A little lemon juice and a

bit of ham in it? I thought there was something extra. Alice all right

to-day? That's good. I expect she's getting over all that nonsense.'

He went on calmly chattering in a manner that astonished Mrs. Darnell,

who felt that by the fall of Uncle Robert the natural order had been

inverted, and had scarcely touched food since the intelligence had

arrived by the second post. She had started out to keep the appointment

her aunt had made early in the morning, and had spent most of the day in

a first-class waiting-room at Victoria Station, where she had heard all

the story.

'Now,' said Darnell, when the table had been cleared, 'tell us all about

it. How long has it been going on?'

'Aunt thinks now, from little things she remembers, that it must have

been going on for a year at least. She says there has been a horrid kind

of mystery about uncle's behaviour for a long time, and her nerves were

quite shaken, as she thought he must be involved with Anarchists, or

something dreadful of the sort.'

'What on earth made her think that?'

'Well, you see, once or twice when she was out walking with her husband,

she has been startled by whistles, which seemed to follow them

everywhere. You know there are some nice country walks at Barnet, and

one in particular, in the fields near Totteridge, that uncle and aunt

rather made a point of going to on fine Sunday evenings. Of course, this

was not the first thing she noticed, but, at the time, it made a great

impression on her mind; she could hardly get a wink of sleep for weeks

and weeks.'

'Whistling?' said Darnell. 'I don't quite understand. Why should she be

frightened by whistling?'

'I'll tell you. The first time it happened was one Sunday in last May.

Aunt had a fancy they were being followed a Sunday or two before, but

she didn't see or hear anything, except a sort of crackling noise in the

hedge. But this particular Sunday they had hardly got through the stile

into the fields, when she heard a peculiar kind of low whistle. She took

no notice, thinking it was no concern of hers or her husband's, but as

they went on she heard it again, and then again, and it followed them

the whole walk, and it made her so uncomfortable, because she didn't

know where it was coming from or who was doing it, or why. Then, just as

they got out of the fields into the lane, uncle said he felt quite

faint, and he thought he would try a little brandy at the "Turpin's

Head," a small public-house there is there. And she looked at him and

saw his face was quite purple--more like apoplexy, as she says, than

fainting fits, which make people look a sort of greenish-white. But she

said nothing, and thought perhaps uncle had a peculiar way of fainting

of his own, as he always was a man to have his own way of doing

everything. So she just waited in the road, and he went ahead and

slipped into the public, and aunt says she thought she saw a little

figure rise out of the dusk and slip in after him, but she couldn't be

sure. And when uncle came out he looked red instead of purple, and said

he felt much better; and so they went home quietly together, and nothing

more was said. You see, uncle had said nothing about the whistling, and

aunt had been so frightened that she didn't dare speak, for fear they

might be both shot.

'She wasn't thinking anything more about it, when two Sundays afterwards

the very same thing happened just as it had before. This time aunt

plucked up a spirit, and asked uncle what it could be. And what do you

think he said? "Birds, my dear, birds." Of course aunt said to him that

no bird that ever flew with wings made a noise like that: sly, and low,

with pauses in between; and then he said that many rare sorts of birds

lived in North Middlesex and Hertfordshire. "Nonsense, Robert," said

aunt, "how can you talk so, considering it has followed us all the way,

for a mile or more?" And then uncle told her that some birds were so

attached to man that they would follow one about for miles sometimes; he

said he had just been reading about a bird like that in a book of

travels. And do you know that when they got home he actually showed her

a piece in the "Hertfordshire Naturalist" which they took in to oblige a

friend of theirs, all about rare birds found in the neighbourhood, all

the most outlandish names, aunt says, that she had never heard or

thought of, and uncle had the impudence to say that it must have been a

Purple Sandpiper, which, the paper said, had "a low shrill note,

constantly repeated." And then he took down a book of Siberian Travels

from the bookcase and showed her a page which told how a man was

followed by a bird all day long through a forest. And that's what Aunt

Marian says vexes her more than anything almost; to think that he should

be so artful and ready with those books, twisting them to his own wicked

ends. But, at the time, when she was out walking, she simply couldn't

make out what he meant by talking about birds in that random, silly sort

of way, so unlike him, and they went on, that horrible whistling

following them, she looking straight ahead and walking fast, really

feeling more huffy and put out than frightened. And when they got to the

next stile, she got over and turned round, and "lo and behold," as she

says, there was no Uncle Robert to be seen! She felt herself go quite

white with alarm, thinking of that whistle, and making sure he'd been

spirited away or snatched in some way or another, and she had just

screamed out "Robert" like a mad woman, when he came quite slowly round

the corner, as cool as a cucumber, holding something in his hand. He

said there were some flowers he could never pass, and when aunt saw that

he had got a dandelion torn up by the roots, she felt as if her head

were going round.'

Mary's story was suddenly interrupted. For ten minutes Darnell had been

writhing in his chair, suffering tortures in his anxiety to avoid

wounding his wife's feelings, but the episode of the dandelion was too

much for him, and he burst into a long, wild shriek of laughter,

aggravated by suppression into the semblance of a Red Indian's

war-whoop. Alice, who was washing-up in the scullery, dropped some three

shillings' worth of china, and the neighbours ran out into their gardens

wondering if it were murder. Mary gazed reproachfully at her husband.

'How can you be so unfeeling, Edward?' she said, at length, when

Darnell had passed into the feebleness of exhaustion. 'If you had seen

the tears rolling down poor Aunt Marian's cheeks as she told me, I don't

think you would have laughed. I didn't think you were so hard-hearted.'

'My dear Mary,' said Darnell, faintly, through sobs and catching of the

breath, 'I am awfully sorry. I know it's very sad, really, and I'm not

unfeeling; but it is such an odd tale, now, isn't it? The Sandpiper, you

know, and then the dandelion!'

His face twitched and he ground his teeth together. Mary looked gravely

at him for a moment, and then she put her hands to her face, and Darnell

could see that she also shook with merriment.

'I am as bad as you,' she said, at last. 'I never thought of it in that

way. I'm glad I didn't, or I should have laughed in Aunt Marian's face,

and I wouldn't have done that for the world. Poor old thing; she cried

as if her heart would break. I met her at Victoria, as she asked me, and

we had some soup at a confectioner's. I could scarcely touch it; her

tears kept dropping into the plate all the time; and then we went to the

waiting-room at the station, and she cried there terribly.'

'Well,' said Darnell, 'what happened next? I won't laugh any more.'

'No, we mustn't; it's much too horrible for a joke. Well, of course aunt

went home and wondered and wondered what could be the matter, and tried

to think it out, but, as she says, she could make nothing of it. She

began to be afraid that uncle's brain was giving way through overwork,

as he had stopped in the City (as he said) up to all hours lately, and

he had to go to Yorkshire (wicked old story-teller!), about some very

tiresome business connected with his leases. But then she reflected that

however queer he might be getting, even his queerness couldn't make

whistles in the air, though, as she said, he was always a wonderful man.

So she had to give that up; and then she wondered if there were anything

the matter with her, as she had read about people who heard noises when

there was really nothing at all. But that wouldn't do either, because

though it might account for the whistling, it wouldn't account for the

dandelion or the Sandpiper, or for fainting fits that turned purple, or

any of uncle's queerness. So aunt said she could think of nothing but to

read the Bible every day from the beginning, and by the time she got

into Chronicles she felt rather better, especially as nothing had

happened for three or four Sundays. She noticed uncle seemed

absent-minded, and not as nice to her as he might be, but she put that

down to too much work, as he never came home before the last train, and

had a hansom twice all the way, getting there between three and four in

the morning. Still, she felt it was no good bothering her head over what

couldn't be made out or explained anyway, and she was just settling

down, when one Sunday evening it began all over again, and worse things

happened. The whistling followed them just as it did before, and poor

aunt set her teeth and said nothing to uncle, as she knew he would only

tell her stories, and they were walking on, not saying a word, when

something made her look back, and there was a horrible boy with red

hair, peeping through the hedge just behind, and grinning. She said it

was a dreadful face, with something unnatural about it, as if it had

been a dwarf, and before she had time to have a good look, it popped

back like lightning, and aunt all but fainted away.'

'A red-headed _boy_?' said Darnell. 'I thought----What an extraordinary

story this is. I've never heard of anything so queer. Who was the boy?'

'You will know in good time,' said Mrs. Darnell. 'It _is_ very strange,

isn't it?'

'Strange!' Darnell ruminated for a while.

'I know what I think, Mary,' he said at length. 'I don't believe a word

of it. I believe your aunt is going mad, or has gone mad, and that she

has delusions. The whole thing sounds to me like the invention of a

lunatic.'

'You are quite wrong. Every word is true, and if you will let me go on,

you will understand how it all happened.'

'Very good, go ahead.'

'Let me see, where was I? Oh, I know, aunt saw the boy grinning in the

hedge. Yes, well, she was dreadfully frightened for a minute or two;

there was something so queer about the face, but then she plucked up a

spirit and said to herself, "After all, better a boy with red hair than

a big man with a gun," and she made up her mind to watch Uncle Robert

closely, as she could see by his look he knew all about it; he seemed as

if he were thinking hard and puzzling over something, as if he didn't

know what to do next, and his mouth kept opening and shutting, like a

fish's. So she kept her face straight, and didn't say a word, and when

he said something to her about the fine sunset, she took no notice.

"Don't you hear what I say, Marian?" he said, speaking quite crossly,

and bellowing as if it were to somebody in the next field. So aunt said

she was very sorry, but her cold made her so deaf, she couldn't hear

much. She noticed uncle looked quite pleased, and relieved too, and she

knew he thought she hadn't heard the whistling. Suddenly uncle pretended

to see a beautiful spray of honeysuckle high up in the hedge, and he

said he must get it for aunt, only she must go on ahead, as it made him

nervous to be watched. She said she would, but she just stepped aside

behind a bush where there was a sort of cover in the hedge, and found

she could see him quite well, though she scratched her face terribly

with poking it into a rose bush. And in a minute or two out came the boy

from behind the hedge, and she saw uncle and him talking, and she knew

it was the same boy, as it wasn't dark enough to hide his flaming red

head. And uncle put out his hand as if to catch him, but he just darted

into the bushes and vanished. Aunt never said a word at the time, but

that night when they got home she charged uncle with what she'd seen and

asked him what it all meant. He was quite taken aback at first, and

stammered and stuttered and said a spy wasn't his notion of a good wife,

but at last he made her swear secrecy, and told her that he was a very

high Freemason, and that the boy was an emissary of the order who

brought him messages of the greatest importance. But aunt didn't believe

a word of it, as an uncle of hers was a mason, and he never behaved like

that. It was then she began to be afraid that it was really Anarchists,

or something of the kind, and every time the bell rang she thought that

uncle had been found out, and the police had come for him.'

'What nonsense! As if a man with house property would be an Anarchist.'

'Well, she could see there must be some horrible secret, and she didn't

know what else to think. And then she began to have the things through

the post.'

'Things through the post! What do you mean by that?'

'All sorts of things; bits of broken bottle-glass, packed carefully as

if it were jewellery; parcels that unrolled and unrolled worse than

Chinese boxes, and then had "cat" in large letters when you came to the

middle; old artificial teeth, a cake of red paint, and at last

cockroaches.'

'Cockroaches by post! Stuff and nonsense; your aunt's mad.'

'Edward, she showed me the box; it was made to hold cigarettes, and

there were three dead cockroaches inside. And when she found a box of

exactly the same kind, half-full of cigarettes, in uncle's great-coat

pocket, then her head began to turn again.'

Darnell groaned, and stirred uneasily in his chair, feeling that the

tale of Aunt Marian's domestic troubles was putting on the semblance of

an evil dream.

'Anything else?' he asked.

'My dear, I haven't repeated half the things poor aunt told me this

afternoon. There was the night she thought she saw a ghost in the

shrubbery. She was anxious about some chickens that were just due to

hatch out, so she went out after dark with some egg and bread-crumbs, in

case they might be out. And just before her she saw a figure gliding by

the rhododendrons. It looked like a short, slim man dressed as they

used to be hundreds of years ago; she saw the sword by his side, and

the feather in his cap. She thought she should have died, she said, and

though it was gone in a minute, and she tried to make out it was all her

fancy, she fainted when she got into the house. Uncle was at home that

night, and when she came to and told him he ran out, and stayed out for

half-an-hour or more, and then came in and said he could find nothing;

and the next minute aunt heard that low whistle just outside the window,

and uncle ran out again.'

'My dear Mary, do let us come to the point. What on earth does it all

lead to?'

'Haven't you guessed? Why, of course it was that girl all the time.'

'Girl? I thought you said it was a boy with a red head?'

'Don't you see? She's an actress, and she dressed up. She won't leave

uncle alone. It wasn't enough that he was with her nearly every evening

in the week, but she must be after him on Sundays too. Aunt found a

letter the horrid thing had written, and so it has all come out. Enid

Vivian she calls herself, though I don't suppose she has any right to

one name or the other. And the question is, what is to be done?'

'Let us talk of that again. I'll have a pipe, and then we'll go to bed.'