AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR
“Now that we have finished our secret conversation,” said Fuller some
time later, when the pair were returning towards the avenue, “I shall
call and pay my respects to your uncle.”
“I don’t think he wants to see you,” answered Marie very candidly, “he
is quite aware that I love you and wishes to keep us apart.”
“No doubt, my dear, but I don’t intend him to get his own way. He never
can, so long as you remain true to me.”
Marie squeezed the arm she held. “As if there was any question of that.
All the same, Uncle Ran is sure to be nasty if you call.”
“He was amiable enough yesterday when we met, and outwardly he has no
reason to overstep the bounds of politeness. I intend to call in order
to show him that I am quite friendly, and if he objects he can speak
out.”
“He’s asleep yet, I expect,” objected Marie anxiously.
“All the better. We shall have a longer time to ourselves, and you can
give me a cup of tea.”
“Uncle Ran would assuredly object to that,” said the girl with
emphasis. “He is becoming a perfect miser. Every penny he obtains he
turns into jewels, Alan, although owing to want of money he can only
buy cheap stones.”
“So long as he uses his own money and not yours he can do what he
likes, I suppose, Marie. But you have an income and the house, so he
has no right to object to your extending afternoon-tea hospitality to
me.”
“I never get any of my own money except a few shillings a week for my
pocket,” admitted Marie rather mournfully. “You know Uncle Ran was left
my sole guardian, and I do not come of age for another year. Then he
says he will account to me for my money, which he declares he is
saving.”
Remembering Mr. Sorley’s shifty eyes and slack mouth, Fuller had his
doubts as to the truth of this statement, and merely grunted. But when
Marie went on to say that her uncle was selling portions of the
furniture he raised his eyebrows. “He has no right to do that without
your consent, my dear.”
“He says that he has, and that there is too much furniture in the
place. I understand from him that he is selling the furniture in order
to invest the money for me.”
“Hum! It may be so, but I should not be too sure of that. I wish I were
your husband now, Marie, and then I could look after your interests.”
“You don’t trust Uncle Ran?”
“Candidly, I don’t, although I have no very strong reason to say so. Do
you trust him yourself, Marie?”
“I don’t know; I can’t say,” said the girl slowly; “of course he has
been kind to me since I returned a year ago from Brighton, where I was
at school, Alan. He doesn’t interfere with me, you know.”
“He lets you run wild, if that’s what you mean, my dear,” retorted the
solicitor hotly. “Now that it does you any harm of course, as you are a
sensible girl. But Mr. Sorley should take you out visiting and let you
go to dances occasionally, and you should have a few days in London
every now and then. He should not neglect you as he does.”
“We are too poor to afford such things, Alan. But some day when we find
the treasure, we—you and I of course—shall have a splendid time.
Remember the prophecy, my dear,” and she repeated two lines of the
same:
“Jewels and gold from over-seas
Will bring them peace and joy and ease.”
Alan was struck by the quotation from a three hundred year old oracle
after hearing Marie’s story of the secret which possession and
examination of the peacock would reveal. “Jewels and gold,” he repeated
slowly, “yes; it does sound as though that line referred to the Begum’s
hoard. Odd, very odd indeed.”
“It will come true, it will come true,” sang Marie, dancing a step or
two in her gleeful way, and with the exuberant joy of twenty. “Then
we’ll pension Uncle Ran off, and have The Monastery and the money to
ourselves. Oh, Alan, let us build castles in the air.”
“They won’t turn into bricks and mortar until we find the peacock,”
said Mr. Fuller gloomily, “and that will not be easy, seeing it means
the capture of poor Grison’s assassin. Moon can find out nothing and if
he fails how can mere amateur detectives such as Dick and I are
succeed. However, we know that he was murdered for the sake of the
peacock, and this strange story of yours helps a bit to strengthen the
clue. But let me impress upon you again, Marie, not to tell your
uncle.”
“Certainly not, though I really don’t know why you mistrust him.”
“I scarcely know myself,” said Alan candidly, “but I certainly do.”
By this time—walking demurely apart in case Mr. Sorley should be awake
and on the watch—they had entered the house, to find themselves in a
large and chilly hall, with a black and white pavement and marble busts
of the Cæsars set round about it close to the walls. No rosy glow came
from the old-fashioned fireplace, since Mr. Sorley deemed it waste of
coal to heat such a mausoleum; so, with a shiver, the two crossed into
the library, which was at the end of a lordly corridor to the right.
“There’s a fire here,” said Marie as they entered, “it’s Uncle Ran’s
favorite room, and you can trust him to make himself comfortable, even
if he has to pay for it.”
“Then he can’t be a genuine miser,” remarked Fuller, walking towards
the fire, which was a tolerably good one; “they starve themselves in
every way, my dear, and—oh, I beg your pardon.”
This last was addressed to a small elderly woman who suddenly rose from
a deep grandfather’s chair which looked like a sentry-box. She had
sandy hair smoothly plastered down on either side of a sallow, wrinkled
face; also thin, firmly compressed lips and hard blue eyes, staring and
unwinking. Her figure was lean, her waist was pinched in, and her
shoulders were so sloping that the worn black velvet cloak she wore
would have slipped off had it not been firmly fastened down the front
with large buttons of cut jet. As the cloak was down to her very heels,
the dress she had on could not be seen, but her head was adorned with
an early Victorian bonnet and her thin hands were covered with drab
thread gloves. She had crape on her bonnet, and crape round her neck,
but it did not need this evidence of mourning to assure Fuller that he
beheld the sister of the dead man, since he remembered Dick’s
description fairly well.
“Miss Grison,” said Marie, coming forward when she heard her lover’s
speech and offering her hand. “I heard you were down here.”
Miss Grison took the hand, gave it a limp shake and dropped it. “Thank
you, my dear,” she said in a cold, precise voice. “I came down for my
brother’s funeral. He always wished to rest in Belstone churchyard and
have the service read over his remains by Mr. Fuller, so I felt it was
only due to his memory to do what he desired.”
“This is Mr. Fuller’s son,” said Marie, introducing Alan.
“How do you do,” said the visitor, still coldly. “I remember you years
ago as a little boy with bare legs and a pinafore. You have grown since
then.”
“It is impossible to have bare legs and a pinafore at twenty-seven,”
said Alan, not knowing if she was laughing at him.
“Twenty and more years ago I saw you,” said Miss Grison, who certainly
seemed to have no sense of humor. “Ah, how the time passes. You were
just born when I left Belstone to live in London,” she added, glancing
in her hard way at Marie, “a mere infant in arms.”
“I have seen you a few times though,” murmured Marie politely.
Miss Grison nodded stiffly. “Occasionally I have come down to stay with
Selina Millington,” she explained, “and we met before you went to
school at Brighton. But since your return a year ago we have not met,
as I have not been down here. How did you recognise me?”
“You are not changed in any way,” said Marie bluntly.
“I should be,” remarked the little woman with a sigh, “my poor
Baldwin’s death has broken my heart.”
“It was very terrible,” Marie hastened to assure her. “I read about it
in the newspapers. Who killed him?”
“That’s what I intend to find out,” cried Miss Grison with a flash of
her blue eyes. “Poor Baldwin never harmed a soul, and had no
enemies—except one,” she ended with an afterthought, and her lips
closed firmly.
“Perhaps the one enemy killed him.”
“I don’t know. I can’t prove anything. And the police seem to be
doubtful about tracing the man.”
“It was a man then who murdered your brother?” asked Alan suddenly.
Miss Grison gave him a scrutinizing look. “Yes, it was a man, as I
truly believe, although there is no evidence to show the sex of the
murderer.”
“What is the name of the person you think was your brother’s enemy?”
“Never mind, Mr. Fuller. I may misjudge him, and until I am sure I
shall mention no names. But I shall watch and search and think and work
until I avenge poor Baldwin’s death!” And the fierce, determined look
on her yellow face showed that she thoroughly meant what she said.
“Can I help you in any way?”
“Why should you?” she asked cautiously.
“Because I take an interest in the case,” Alan explained equally
cautiously. “A friend of mine, Mr. Latimer, who was at the inquest,
told me all about the sad circumstances, and the death is so mysterious
that both of us wish to learn the truth, if only out of curiosity.”
The little woman paused almost imperceptibly and cast a swift look at
the young man and the girl by his side before replying. Then she
accepted the well-meant offer in her usual unemotional way. “I shall be
glad of your assistance, Mr. Fuller,” she said, producing a printed
card from a bead bag which dangled from her lean wrist; “this is my
address in Bloomsbury. I keep a boarding-house.”
“So Mr. Latimer told me. You stated as much at the inquest. Tell me,”
he asked, putting the card into his vest pocket, “have you any clue
to———”
“I have no clue you would call reasonable, Mr. Fuller!”
“That hints some ground on your part for——”
“Never mind what it hints,” interrupted Miss Grison sharply. “If you
call on me in London, and I feel that I can trust you, then I may speak
out.”
“Anyone could trust Alan,” said Marie indignantly.
The visitor gave a thin-lipped smile. “You are quite right to defend
him, my dear, and your defence is natural enough since Selina
Millington told me that Mr. Fuller admires you. But he’s a man and all
men are bad——”
“Except Alan, who is engaged to be married to me.”
“All men are bad,” repeated Miss Grison stolidly. “I only knew one good
man, and he was my brother Baldwin.
“H’m!” murmured Alan, remembering what Sorley had said on the previous
day.
If Miss Grison heard the ejaculation, and understood its purport, she
gave no sign of such knowledge. “What does your Uncle Randolph say to
your being engaged to Mr. Fuller?” she asked turning to Marie abruptly.
“He says nothing, because he knows nothing.”
“Then don’t let him know. He will ruin your happiness in life if he
can, as he ruined mine. A hard, cruel man is your Uncle Randolph, my
dear.”
Marie stared at this wholesale condemnation. “Do you know him well?”
“Do I know him well?” Miss Grison gave a hard laugh, and her eyes
glittered viciously. “Yes, I may say that I know him very well.”
Alan, looking closely at her, wondered if the enemy of her brother to
whom she had referred so positively was Mr. Sorley, and thought that it
was extremely likely from the vicious emphasis with which she spoke.
But Miss Grison, giving him no time to make any comment on her last
speech, continued as though she had not stopped to draw breath.
“I know the house very well also,” she said calmly, “and I have been
walking all over it, while waiting to see Mr. Sorley.”
“Walking all over it,” repeated Marie rather indignantly. “A stranger?”
“I am not a stranger either to Mr. Sorley or to The Monastery,” replied
the small woman with great coolness. “When my brother was his secretary
here, years ago, I used to spend days wandering about the rooms and
corridors. I know every nook and corner of it, my dear, and could tell
you of many a secret hiding-place and hidden passage which were used in
ancient times. Your mother made a friend of me in those days, and we
used to explore the house together before you were born.”
“Still Uncle Ran would not like you walking about the place when I was
out and he was asleep. Didn’t Jenny or Henny stop you?”
“Do you mean the servants?” inquired Miss Grison smoothly. “Well they
did express surprise when I walked into the kitchen. But I told them I
had come to see Mr. Sorley, and they showed me in here to wait for
him—as if I required showing,” ended Miss Grison disdainfully.
Fuller stared at her hard. She seemed to be in her right senses and
what she said was reasonable enough, but it struck him that there must
be something eccentric about her when she ventured to enter a house and
explore it without the owner’s permission. Again Miss Grison gave him
no time to make a comment, but went on talking in the shrill voice
which Latimer had noted and mentioned.
“Henrietta and Jane Trent are twins,” she explained to Marie as if the
girl knew nothing about her own servants. “I remember them as little
toddlers in the village. The mother took in washing. Fine bouncing
women they have grown into, my dear: red cheeks and black hair and
wooden expressions, just like two Dutch dolls. Are they good servants?”
Marie was so taken aback by the audacity of her visitor that she
replied, as she would have done to her schoolmistress: “They are very
good and do all the work of this big house.”
“There is a lot to do, I admit,” said Miss Grison, nodding, “but I
notice that many of the rooms are shut up, my dear.”
“We—uncle and I, that is—do not require so many.”
“I looked into some, and found them bare of furniture,” pursued Miss
Grison calmly, and with her hard, unwinking stare. “Yet in my time
there was a lot of valuable——”
“Pardon me, Miss Grison,” interrupted Fuller, seeing the consternation
of Marie, “but don’t you think you are taking rather a liberty in
entering the house and in talking like this?”
“It may appear a liberty to you, Mr. Fuller,” she rejoined quietly,
“but it will not to Mr. Sorley. We are old friends.”
“Friends,” said Alan with emphasis.
She turned on him with a flash in her eyes. “Did he ever give you to
understand otherwise?” she demanded, drawing quick breaths. “Has he
ever mentioned my name to you?”
She waited for a reply but none came, as Alan was deliberating whether
it would be wise to inform her of the way in which Mr. Sorley had
spoken. Also he wondered if Miss Grison knew that her brother had been
murdered for the sake of the peacock, and if she could tell how Baldwin
became possessed of the same. But he felt that it would be best not to
ask questions, or to make answers, until he knew his ground better.
With her hard look, the little woman waited for him to speak, but he
was saved the trouble by the unexpected entrance of Mr. Randolph
Sorley. He was perfectly dressed as usual in a well-cut suit of blue
serge and wore patent leather boots, together with a smart scarf of
white silk fastened with a black pearl breast-pin. If he was a miser in
some things, as Marie asserted, he assuredly was not so in the matter
of clothes, for no one could have been better turned out, or have
looked more aristocratic. His carriage was so upright, his hair so
short, his face so bronzed and his greenish eyes so alert that he had
quite a military appearance. He even looked young in the dusky
atmosphere of the big room, and it was only when he came forward more
into the light that he betrayed his sixty years. And that was possibly
because Alan knew his true age, for the smooth, clean-shaven face
looked much younger in spite of the white hair.
“Mr. Fuller! Miss Grison,” he said slowly, “this is indeed a surprise.
I am delighted to see you both.”
And indeed he appeared to be so, for his smile was open, his speech
soft and his manner frank. After what he had said about the woman on
the previous day Fuller quite expected that he would be rude to her
and—since he had other plans in his head—the young man quite expected
that he would be rude to him also. But Mr. Sorley was apparently too
well-bred to act impolitely in what he regarded as his own house, even
if that same house was the property of Marie Inderwick. Miss Grison’s
blue eyes glittered a trifle more as he shook hands with her cordially
but otherwise she remained her impenetrable self. And remembering what
she had said about her host, Alan was as amazed at her behavior as he
was at Sorley’s. As to Marie, she was so relieved that her uncle
received Alan courteously that she never gave a thought to the
possibility that he might be acting a part for reasons best known to
himself.
“Have you had tea?” inquired Mr. Sorley, poking the fire. “Marie, my
dear, why did you not offer your guests tea?” And he rang the bell
promptly.
“I did not like to without your permission, Uncle Ran,” she said
timidly.
“My dear child, this is your house, and here you are the mistress. I am
only your guardian and live here, as it were, on sufferance. Miss
Grison I am truly grieved to hear of your brother’s death.”
“Oh, indeed,” said the small woman sarcastically, “in that case, I
wonder you didn’t come to the funeral.”
“No! no! no! That would have awakened memories of the past.”
“There is a proverb,” remarked Miss Grison coldly, “which bids us let
sleeping dogs lie.”
“Very good advice,” assented Mr. Sorley, “suppose we adopt it by
letting the sad past alone and coming to the sad present. Have the
police discovered who murdered your brother?”
“No,” snapped Miss Grison impassively.
“Are they likely to?”
“If I can help them, they certainly are.”
“Then you know of some clue?”
“I may, or I may not. This is not the time to speak about such things.”
“My dear lady,” said the host with great dignity, “I am under the
impression that you came here to receive my sympathy.”
“Then you were never more mistaken in your life,” retorted Miss Grison
grimly. “I came to say what I shall say, when tea is at an end.”
“Nothing unpleasant, I trust?” asked Sorley distinctly uneasily.
“That is for you to judge,” she returned, and the entrance of Henny
Trent with a tray put an end to this particular conversation.
While Henny, who was large and red-cheeked and black-eyed, and who
really resembled the Dutch doll Miss Grison had compared her to, was
arranging the tea-table, Alan stole furtive looks at Mr. Sorley. The
old gentleman seemed to have suddenly aged, and a haggard look had
crept over his deceptive face, while his eyes hinted uneasiness as he
watched Miss Grison. It seemed to Fuller that Sorley for some reason
feared his visitor, and the fact that she had so audaciously walked
over the house appeared to indicate that she was quite sure he would
not rebuke her for the liberty. And, remembering the man’s bluster,
which contrasted so pointedly with his present suave talk, Alan felt
confident that there was an understanding between them. He asked
himself if such had to do with the murder, but replied mentally in the
negative. If Sorley knew anything about the matter, Miss Grison would
then and there have denounced him, since she appeared to hate him as
much as he dreaded her. But beyond short answers and sinister glances,
she gave no sign of her enmity, while Sorley masked his uneasiness
under the guise of small talk. In spite of the almost immediate
occurrence of the murder, and the fact that Miss Grison had come down
for the funeral, Fuller noted that the tragedy was scarcely referred
to—at all events during the earlier part of the conversation. Along
with Marie, he remained silent, and allowed the other two to converse.
“Are you staying long down here, Miss Grison?” asked the host, handing
a cup of tea to her and a plate of thin bread and butter.
“Why don’t you call me Louisa as you used to do?” she demanded. “We
were great friends, you know, Marie, before you were born.” She turned
to Miss Inderwick.
“Yes yes,” said Sorley, taking his cue. “You called me Randolph; but we
are both too old now to use our Christian names.” He laughed
artificially.
“Are we?” said Miss Grison shortly. “Perhaps we are. How are you
getting along with that book on precious stones, may I ask?”
“You may,” said Sorley blandly. “I am getting on slowly but surely. It
has taken me years to gather material.”
“Precious stones, I suppose.”
“Certain gems of small value amongst other material, such as legends
and superstitions connected with jewels. It will be an interesting
book.”
“I’m sure it will,” said Miss Grison more graciously, “but don’t work
too hard at it. You are fond of exercise?”
“Yes, I take a great deal.”
“Ah, Selina Millington told me that you had bought a motor bicycle.”
“Yes,” said Sorley stiffly and still laboriously polite. “I ride it
round the country.”
“And up to London?”
“No,” he replied swiftly. “I have not yet travelled on it to town.”
“I don’t think it takes many hours to get to town on so rapid a
machine,” said Miss Grison in a musing tone. “But perhaps you are wise;
you might get knocked over in the streets.”
What answer Sorley made to this speech Alan did not hear. Marie, who
had resented his attention to the speech of the elderly couple, now
insisted that he should converse with her. He did so rather
unwillingly, in spite of his genuine love. But his brain was running on
the odd and somewhat spasmodic conversation, and he wondered why Miss
Grison so pointedly referred to the motor bicycle. Also it seemed
strange that Sorley should be on such familiar terms with a humble
woman who kept a Bloomsbury boarding-house. To be sure her brother had
been the man’s secretary, and Sorley probably had been intimate with
the visitor in early days. Perhaps—and here Fuller started—perhaps the
two had been in love, and the hatred Miss Grison felt for the
well-preserved old gentleman was that of a woman scorned. When he again
caught the drift of the conversation she was talking about cryptograms,
and this also Alan thought strange.
“My poor brother was always trying to work out secret writings,” said
she.
“Why?” asked Sorley, again uneasy at this mention of the dead.
“I don’t know,” answered Miss Grison indifferently. “He wanted to learn
some secret that would bring him money.”
“In connection with what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he ever decipher the secret writing you refer to?”
“I don’t know,” said Miss Grison again. “He spent his days and nights
in trying to work out the cryptogram.’
“Alan,” murmured Marie under her breath on hearing this, “there is some
cryptogram connected with the peacock, I fancy.”
“Yes! yes, and he had it,” said Fuller hastily. Then he raised his
voice. “Are you talking about ciphers, Miss Grison? I am fond of
solving them myself and indeed I am rather good at it.”
“Are you?” It was Mr. Sorley who replied and not the woman. “I think
that I could puzzle you.”
“No, you couldn’t,” rejoined Alan deliberately boastful. “Set me any
cryptogram and I am sure I can solve it. I go on the system of Poe.”
“What is that?”
Before he could answer Miss Grison rose, and shaking the crumbs from
her dress walked to the door. There she halted, and turned to fix cold
eyes on her astonished host, who had not expected so abrupt a move in
the midst of an agreeable conversation.
“I have eaten and drunk in this house,” said Miss Grison sternly, “a
thing I never believed that I could bring myself to do. Now I shall say
what I came to say to you, Mr. Randolph Sorley, and shake the dust from
my feet.”
“Hadn’t you better speak to me privately?” asked Sorley, rising with a
wan smile and a white face.
“I think not. What I have to say can be heard by both these young
people, who are aware of the opinion I have of you. You are a wicked
and cruel and sinful man, worse than the worst of men, although all are
bad now that my poor brother is dead.”
“Your brother Bald——”
“Don’t dare to take his name on your lips,” interrupted Miss Grison in
a fierce way. “His death is due to you.”
“To me? How dare you accuse me of the murder?” Sorley was whiter than
ever and seemed much shaken by the abrupt accusation.
“I don’t. But I accuse you of having wrongfully dismissed Baldwin from
this house, over twenty years ago.”
“I dismissed him, if you will have the truth told in the presence of
others, because he forged my name to a check.”
“He did not. You malign the dead. You turned him out and soiled his
name and ruined his life without a shadow of excuse. That he sank to a
slum in Rotherhithe is your work; that he was murdered there is your
work, for if he had not been in Rotherhithe he would not have died by
violence. If you had dared to come to the funeral I should have spat on
your wicked face.”
“How dare you! how dare you! Marie, go to your room.”
“Marie shall stay until she hears what I think of you,” cried Miss
Grison grimly. “With that meal you hoped to smooth me down. But I shall
never forgive you for having laid Baldwin in the dust. You have had
your turn: now it is my turn. Wait, wait and see how iniquity can be
punished,” and, shaking a menacing finger, she stalked out of the room.
“Mad! mad. She is mad,” gasped Mr. Sorley and literally tottered out of
the library, presumably to follow his denouncer.
“What does it all mean, Alan?” asked Marie with awe. “Why did she turn
so suddenly on Uncle Ran?”
“And why did she mention that her brother was trying to solve some
secret writing which he hoped would bring him money?” asked Fuller
quickly.
“Her brother had the peacock and——”
“Exactly. Now Marie we have a clue to the truth.”