THE MAN WITH THE THUMB AGAIN
Chris gave Henson one swift searching glance before her eyes dropped
demurely to the ground. Lord Littimer appeared to be taking no heed of
anything but his own annoyance. But quick as Chris had been, Henson was
quicker. He was smiling the slow, sad smile of the man who turns the
other cheek because it is his duty to do so.
"And when does Dr. Bell arrive?" he asked.
"He won't arrive at all," Littimer said, irritably. "Do you suppose I
am going to allow that scoundrel under my roof again? The amazing
impudence of the fellow is beyond everything. He will probably reach
Moreton Station by the ten o'clock train. The drive will take him an
hour, if I choose to permit the drive, which I don't. I'll send a groom
to meet the train with a letter. When Bell has read that letter he will
not come here."
"I don't think I should do that," Henson said, respectfully.
"Indeed! You are really a clever fellow. And what would you do?"
"I should suffer Bell to come. As a Christian I should deem it my duty to
do so. It pains me to say so, but I am afraid that I cannot contravert
your suggestion that Bell is a scoundrel. It grieves me to prove any man
that. And in the present instance the proofs were overpowering. But there
is always a chance--a chance that we have misjudged a man on false
evidence."
"False evidence! Why, the Rembrandt was actually found in Bell's
portmanteau."
"Dear friend, I know it," Henson said, with the same slow, forgiving
smile. "But there have been cases of black treachery, dark conspiracies
that one abhors. And Bell might have made some stupendous discovery
regarding his character. I should see him, my lord; oh, yes, I should
most undoubtedly see him."
"And so should I," Chris put in, swiftly.
Littimer smiled, with all traces of his ill-temper gone. He seemed to
be contemplating Henson with his head on one side, as if to fathom
that gentleman's intentions. There was just the suspicion of contempt
in his glance.
"In the presence of so much goodness and beauty I feel quite lost," he
said. "Very well, Henson, I'll see Bell. I may find the interview
diverting."
Henson strolled away with a sigh of gentle pleasure. Once out of sight he
flew to the library, where he scribbled a couple of telegrams. They were
carefully worded and related to some apocryphal parcel required without
delay, and calculated to convey nothing to the lay mind. A servant was
despatched to the village with them. Henson would have been pleased had
he known that the fascinating little American had waylaid his messenger
and read his telegrams under the plea of verifying one of the addresses.
A moment or two later and those addresses were carefully noted down in a
pocket-book. It was past five before Chris found herself with a little
time on her hands again. Littimer had kept her pretty busy all the
afternoon, partly because there was so much to do, but partly from the
pleasure that he derived from his secretary's society. He was more free
with her than he had been with any of her sex for years. It was
satisfactory, too, to learn that Littimer regarded Henson as a smug and
oily hypocrite, and that the latter was only going to be left Littimer
Castle to spite the owner's other relations.
"Now you run into the garden and get a blow." Littimer said at length. "I
am telling you a lot too much. I am afraid you are a most insinuating
young person."
Chris ran out into the garden gaily. Despite the crushing burden on her
shoulders she felt an elation and a flow of spirits she had not been
conscious of for years. The invigorating air of the place seemed to have
got into her veins, the cruel depression of the House of the Silent
Sorrow was passing away. Again, she had hope and youth on her side, and
everything was falling out beautifully. It was a pleasanter world than
Chris had anticipated.
She went along more quietly after a time. There was a tiny arbour on a
terrace overlooking the sea to which Chris had taken a particular fancy.
She picked her way daintily along the grass paths between the roses until
she suddenly emerged upon the terrace. She had popped out of the roses
swiftly as a squirrel peeps from a tree.
Somebody was in the arbour, two people talking earnestly. One man
stood up with his back to Chris, one hand gripping the outside ragged
bark of the arbour frame with a peculiarly nervous, restless force.
Chris could see the hand turned back distinctly. A piece of bark was
being crumbled under a strong thumb. Such a thumb! Chris had seen
nothing like it before.
It was as if at some time it had been smashed flat with a hammer, a
broad, strong, cruel-looking thumb, flat and sinister-looking as the head
of a snake. In the centre, like a pink pearl dropped in a filthy gutter,
was one tiny, perfectly-formed nail.
The owner of the thumb stepped back the better to give way to a fit of
hoarse laughter. He turned slightly aside and his eyes met those of
Chris. They were small eyes set in a coarse, brutal face, the face of a
criminal, Chris thought, if she were a judge of such matters. It came
quite as a shock to see that the stranger was in clerical garb.
"I--I beg your pardon," Chris stammered. "But I--"
Henson emerged from the arbour. For once in a way he appeared confused,
there was a flush on his face that told of annoyance ill suppressed.
"Please don't go away," he said. "Mr. Merritt will think that he has
alarmed you. Miss Lee, this is my very good friend and co-worker in the
field, the Reverend James Merritt."
"Is Mr. Merritt a friend of Lord Littimer's?" Chris asked, demurely.
"Littimer hates the cloth," Henson replied "Indeed, he has no sympathy
whatever with my work. I met my good friend quite by accident in the
village just now, and I brought him here for a chat. Mr. Merritt is
taking a well-earned holiday."
Chris replied graciously that she didn't doubt it. She did not deem it
necessary to add that she knew that one of Mr. Henson's mystic telegrams
had been addressed to one James Merritt at an address in Moreton Wells, a
town some fifteen miles away. That the scoundrel was up to no good she
knew perfectly well.
"Your work must be very interesting," she said. "Have you been in the
Church long, Mr. Merritt?"
Merritt said hoarsely that he had not been in the Church very long. His
dreadful grin and fog voice suggested that he was a brand plucked from
the burning, and that he had only recently come over to the side of the
angels. The whole time he spoke he never met Chris's glance once. The
chaplain of a convict prison would have turned from him in disgust.
Henson was obviously ill at ease. In his suave, diplomatic way he
contrived to manoeuvre Merritt off the ground at length.
"An excellent fellow," he said, with exaggerated enthusiasm. "It was a
great day for us when we won over James Merritt. He can reach a class
which hitherto we have not touched."
"He looks as if he had been in gaol," Chris said.
"Oh, he has," Henson admitted, candidly. "Many a time."
Chris deemed it just possible that the unpleasant experience might be
endured again, but she only smiled and expressed herself to be deeply
interested. The uneasiness in Henson's manner gradually disappeared.
Evidently the girl suspected nothing. She would have liked to have asked
a question or two about Mr. Merritt's thumb, but she deemed it prudent
not to do so.
Dinner came at length, dinner served in the great hall in honour of the
recently arrived guest, and set up in all the panoply and splendour that
Littimer affected at times. The best plate was laid out on the long
table. There were banks and coppices of flowers at either corner, a huge
palm nodded over silver and glass and priceless china. The softly shaded
electric lights made pools of amber flame on fruit and flowers and
gleaming crystal. Half-a-dozen big footmen went about their work with
noiseless tread.
Henson shook his head playfully at all this show and splendour. His good
humour was of the elephantine order, and belied the drawn anxiety of his
eyes. Luxurious and peaceful as the scene was, there seemed to Chris to
be a touch of electricity in the air, the suggestion of something about
to happen. Littimer glanced at her admiringly. She was dressed in white
satin, and she had in her hair a single diamond star of price.
"Of course Henson pretends to condemn all this kind of thing," Littimer
said. "He would have you believe that when he comes into his own the
plate and wine will be sold for the benefit of the poor, and the seats of
the mighty filled with decayed governesses and antiquated shop-walkers."
"I hope that time may long be deferred," Henson murmured.
"And so do I," Littimer said, drily, "which is one of the disadvantages
of being conservative. By the way, who was that truculent-looking
scoundrel I saw with you this afternoon?"
Henson hastened to explain. Littimer was emphatically of opinion that
such visitors were better kept at a distance for the present. When all
the rare plate and treasures of Littimer Castle had been disposed of for
philanthropic purposes it would not matter.
"There was a time when the enterprising burglar got his knowledge of the
domestic and physical geography of a house from the servants. Now he
reforms, with the great advantage that he can lay his plan of campaign
from personal observation. It is a much more admirable method, and tends
to avert suspicion from the actual criminal."
"You would not speak thus if you knew Merritt," said Henson.
"All the same, I don't want the privilege," Littimer smiled. "A man with
a face like that couldn't reform; nature would resent such an enormity.
And yet you can never tell. Physically speaking, my quondam friend
Hatherly Bell has a perfect face."
"I confess I am anxious to see him," Chris said. "I--I heard him lecture
in America. He had the most interesting theory about dogs. Mr. Henson
hates dogs."
"Yes," Henson said, shortly, "I do, and they hate me, but that does not
prevent my being interested in the coming of Dr. Bell. And nobody hopes
more sincerely than myself that he will succeed in clearly vindicating
his character."
Littimer smiled sarcastically as he trifled with his claret glass. In his
cynical way he was looking forward to the interview with a certain sense
of amusement. And there was a time when he had enjoyed Bell's society
immensely.
"Well, you will not have long to wait now," he said. "It is long past
ten, and Bell is due at any moment after eleven. Coffee in the
balcony, please."
It was a gloriously warm night, with just a faint suspicion of a breeze
on the air. Down below the sea beat with a gentle sway against the
cliffs; on the grassy slopes a belated lamb was bleating for its dam.
Chris strolled quietly down the garden with her mind at peace for a time.
She had almost forgotten her mission for the moment. A figure slipped
gently past her on the grass, but she utterly failed to notice it.
"An exceedingly nice girl, that," Littimer was saying, "and distinctly
amusing. Excuse me if I leave you here--a tendency to ague and English
night air don't blend together."