CASTING THE BAIT
Loving and perishing: these have tallied from eternity. Love and death
walk hand-in-hand. The will to love means also to be ready for death.
Gabrielle Heyburn recognised this truth. She had the will to love, and
she had the resolve to perish--perish by her own hand--rather than allow
her secret to be exposed. Those who knew her--a young, athletic,
merry-faced, open-air girl on the verge of budding womanhood, so
true-hearted, frank, and free--little dreamed of the terrible nature of
that secret within her young heart.
She held aloof from her lover as much as she dared. True, Walter came to
Glencardine nearly every day, but she managed to avoid him whenever
possible. Why? Because she knew her own weakness; she feared being
compelled by his stronger nature, and by the true affection in which she
held him, to confess. They walked together in the cool, shady glen
beside the rippling burn, climbed the neighbouring hills, played tennis,
or else she lay in the hammock at the edge of the lawn while he lounged
at her side smoking cigarettes. She did all this because she was
compelled.
Her most enjoyable hours were the quiet ones spent at her father's side.
Alone in the library, she read to him, in French, those curious business
documents which came so often by registered post. They were so strangely
worded that, not knowing their true import, she failed to understand
them. All were neatly typed, without any heading to the paper. Sometimes
a printed address in the Boulevard des Capucines, Paris, would appear on
letters accompanying the enclosures. But all were very formal, and to
Gabrielle extremely puzzling.
Sir Henry always took the greatest precaution that no one should obtain
sight of these confidential reports or overhear them read by his
daughter. Before she sat down to read, she always shot the small brass
bolt on the door to prevent Hill or any other intruder from entering.
More than once the Baronet's wife had wanted to come in while the
reading was in progress, whereupon Sir Henry always excused himself,
saying that he locked his door against his guests when he wished to be
alone, an explanation which her ladyship accepted.
These strangely worded reports in French always puzzled the Baronet's
daughter. Sometimes she became seized by a vague suspicion that her
father was carrying on some business which was not altogether
honourable. Why should he enjoin such secrecy? Why should he cause her
to write and despatch with her own hand such curiously worded telegrams,
addressed always to the registered address: "METEFOROS, PARIS"?
Those neatly typed pages which she read could be always construed in two
or three senses. But only her father knew the actual meaning which the
writer intended to convey. For hours she would often be engaged in
reading them. Sometimes, too, telegrams in cipher arrived, and she would
then obtain the little, dark-blue covered book from the safe, and by its
aid decipher the messages from the French capital.
Questions, curious questions, were frequently asked by the anonymous
sender of the reports; and to these her father replied by means of his
private code. She had become during the past year quite an expert
typist, and therefore to her the Baronet entrusted the replies, always
impressing upon her the need of absolute secrecy, even from her mother.
"My affairs," he often declared, "concern nobody but myself. I trust in
you, Gabrielle dear, to guard my secrets from prying eyes. I know that
you yourself must often be puzzled, but that is only natural."
Unfamiliar as the girl was with business in any form, she had during the
past year arrived at the conclusion, after much debate within herself,
that this source of her father's income was a distinctly mysterious one.
The estates were, of course, large, and he employed agents to manage
them; but they could not produce that huge income which she knew he
possessed, for had she not more than once seen the amount of his balance
at his banker's as well as the large sum he had on deposit? The source
of his colossal wealth was a mystery, but was no doubt connected with
his curious and constant communications with Paris.
At rare intervals a grey-faced, grey-bearded, and rather stout
Frenchman--a certain Monsieur Goslin--called, and on such occasions was
closeted for a long time alone with Sir Henry, evidently discussing some
important affair in secret. To her ladyship, as well as to Gabrielle,
the Frenchman was most courteous, but refused the pressing invitations
to remain the night. He always arrived by the morning train from Perth,
and left for the south the same night, the express being stopped for him
by signal at Auchterarder station. The mysterious visitor puzzled
Gabrielle considerably. Her father entrusted him with secrets which he
withheld from her, and this often caused her both surprise and
annoyance. Like every other girl, she was of course full of curiosity.
Towards her Flockart became daily more friendly. On two occasions, after
breakfast, he had invited her to spend an hour or two fishing for trout
in the burn, which was unexpectedly in spate, and they had thus been
some time in each other's company.
She, however, regarded him with distinct distrust. He was undeniably
good-looking, nonchalant, and a thorough-going man of the world. But his
intimate friendship with Lady Heyburn prevented her from regarding him
as a true friend. Towards her he was ever most courteous, and paid her
many little compliments. He tied her flies, he fitted her rod, and if
her line became entangled in the trees he always put matters right. Not,
however, that she could not do it all herself. In her strong, high
fishing-boots, her short skirts hemmed with leather, her burberry, and
her dark-blue tam-o'-shanter set jauntily on her chestnut hair, she very
often fished alone, and made quite respectable baskets. To wade into the
burn and disentangle her line from beneath a stone was to her quite a
small occurrence, for she would never let either Stewart or any of the
under-keepers accompany her.
Why Flockart had so suddenly sought her society she failed to discern.
Hitherto, though always extremely polite, he had treated her as a child,
which she naturally resented. At length, however, he seemed to have
realised that she now possessed the average intelligence of a young
woman.
He had never repeated those strange words he had uttered when, on the
night of the ball at Connachan, he returned in secret to the castle and
beckoned her out upon the lawn. He had, indeed, never referred to his
curious action. Sometimes she wondered, so changed was his manner,
whether he had actually forgotten the incident altogether. He had showed
himself in his true colours that night. Whatever suspicions she had
previously held were corroborated in that stroll across the lawn in the
dark shadow. His tactics had altered, it seemed, and their objective
puzzled her.
"It must be very dull for you here, Miss Heyburn," he remarked to her
one bright morning as they were casting up-stream near one another. They
were standing not far from a rustic bridge in a deep, leafy glen, where
the sunshine penetrated here and there through the canopy of leaves,
beneath which the burn pursued its sinuous course towards the Earn. The
music of the rippling waters over the brown, moss-grown boulders mingled
with the rustle of the leaves above, as now and then the soft wind swept
up the narrow valley. They were treading a carpet of wild-flowers, and
the air was full of the delicious perfume of the summer day. "You must
be very dull, living here so much, and going up to town so very seldom,"
he said.
"Oh dear no!" she laughed. "You are quite mistaken. I really enjoy a
country life. It's so jolly after the confinement and rigorous rules of
school. One is free up here. I can wear my old clothes, and go cycling,
fishing, shooting, curling; in fact, I'm my own mistress. That I
shouldn't be if I lived in London, and had to make calls, walk in the
Park, go shopping, sit out concerts, and all that sort of thing."
"But though you're out, you never go anywhere. Surely that's unusual for
one so active and--well"--he hesitated--"I wonder whether I might be
permitted to say so--so good-looking as you are, Gabrielle."
"Ah!" replied the girl, protesting, but blushing at the same time,
"you're poking fun at me, Mr. Flockart. All I can reply is, first, that
I'm not good-looking; and, secondly, I'm not in the least dull--perhaps
I should be if I hadn't my father's affairs to attend to."
"They seem to take up a lot of your time," he said with pretended
indifference, but, to his annoyance, landed a salmon parr at the same
moment.
"We work together most evenings," was her reply.
The question which he then put as he threw the parr back into the burn
struck her as curious. It was evident that he was endeavouring to learn
from her the nature of her father's correspondence. But she was shrewd
enough to parry all his ingenious cross-questioning. Her father's
secrets were her own.
"Some ill-natured people gossip about Sir Henry," he remarked presently,
as he made another long cast up-stream and allowed the flies to be
carried down to within a few yards from where he stood. "They say that
his source of income is mysterious, and that it is not altogether open
and above-board."
"What!" she exclaimed, looking at him quickly. "And who, pray, Mr.
Flockart, makes this allegation against my father?"
"Oh, I really don't know who started the gossip. The source of such
tales is always difficult to discover. Some enemy, no doubt. Every man
in this world of ours has enemies."
"What do you mean by the source of dad's income not being an honourable
one?"
The man shrugged his shoulders. "I really don't know," he declared. "I
only repeat what I've heard once or twice up in London."
"Tell me exactly what they say," demanded the girl, with quick interest.
Her companion hesitated for a few seconds. "Well, whatever has been
said, I've always denied; for, as you know, I am a friend of both Lady
Heyburn and of your father."
The girl's nostrils dilated slightly. Friend! Why, was not this man her
father's false friend? Was he not behind every sinister action of Lady
Heyburn's, and had not she herself, with her own ears, one day at Park
Street, four years ago, overheard her ladyship express a dastardly
desire in the words, "Oh, Henry is such a dreadful old bore, and so
utterly useless, that it's a shame a woman like myself should be tied up
to him. Fortunately for me, he already has one foot in the grave.
Otherwise I couldn't tolerate this life at all!" Those cruel words of
her stepmother's, spoken to this man who was at that moment her
companion, recurred to her. She recollected, too, Flockart's reply.
This hollow pretence of friendship angered her. She knew that the man
was her father's enemy, and that he had united with the clever, scheming
woman in some ingenious conspiracy against the poor, helpless man.
Therefore she turned, and, facing him boldly, said, "I wish, Mr.
Flockart, that you would please understand that I have no intention to
discuss my father or his affairs. The latter concern himself alone. He
does not even speak of them to his wife; therefore why should strangers
evince any interest in them?"
"Because there are rumours--rumours of a mystery; and mysteries are
always interesting and attractive," was his answer.
"True," she said meaningly. "Just as rumours concerning certain of my
father's guests possess an unusual interest for him, Mr. Flockart.
Though my father may be blind, his hearing is still excellent. And he is
aware of much more than you think."
The man glanced at her for an instant, and his face darkened. The girl's
ominous words filled him with vague apprehension. Was it possible that
the blind man had any suspicion of what was intended? He held his
breath, and made another vicious cast far up the rippling stream.