THE PICTURES
Our interview with Sir Beverley Drake was most satisfactory. Because he
had known old Mr. Ralston and Grandmother, the great specialist granted
my earnest request.
"I had almost vowed not to receive one solitary patient," he laughed,
"yet here I am promising to motor thirty miles for the pleasure of
calling on one."
"You won't regret it," I prophesied. "You will find Major Murray an
interesting man, and as enthralling a case as you ever met. As for the
bride, you'll fall in love with her. Every man must."
It was finally arranged that he should visit Ralston Murray early in the
following week. He could not go before, as he was expecting visitors;
but it was already Wednesday, so there were not many days to wait.
Jim and I had decided not to run over to see the Murrays at once, but to
give them time to "settle in." We would go on Sunday afternoon, we
thought; but on Saturday I had a telegram from Rosemary. "Would Sir
Beverley be offended if we asked him not to come, after all? Ralston
thinks it not worth while."
I was utterly amazed, for in London she had seemed as keen on consulting
the specialist as I was, and had thanked us warmly for the offer of
breaking our journey at Exeter.
"We can't force Sir Beverley on Murray," Jim said. "It wouldn't be fair
to either of them." But I insisted.
"There's something odd about this," I told him. "Let's spin over to-day
instead of to-morrow, and tell the Murrays that Sir Beverley _would_ be
offended. I shall say to Rosemary that as we asked him to call, it would
be humiliating to us to have him treated in such a way."
I think Jim has laid down for himself a certain line of action with me.
He yields to me on all matters as to which he's comparatively
indifferent, so that I won't notice much when he turns into the Rock of
Gibraltar over big issues.
This was one of the occasions when he yielded, and we flashed to Ralston
Old Manor directly after luncheon. There wasn't time for a telegram to
be delivered there before our arrival, and the Manor had no 'phone, so
we appeared _en surprise_. And the "surprise" was a double one, for I
was amazed to come upon Mrs. Jennings walking with Rosemary down the elm
avenue. Evidently the visitor was going home, and her hostess was
accompanying her as far as the gate. Our car running along the drive
startled them from what seemed to be the most intimate talk. At sight of
us they both looked up, and their manner changed. Rosemary smiled a
welcome. Gaby smiled, in politeness. But before the smile there was the
fraction of a second when each face revealed something it didn't mean to
reveal--or I imagined it. Rosemary's had lost the look of exalted
happiness which had thrilled me on her wedding day. For that instant it
had a haunted look. As for Gaby, the fleeting expression of her face was
not so hard to understand. For some reason she was annoyed that we had
come, and felt an impulse of dislike toward us.
"Can those two have met before?" I asked myself. It seemed improbable:
yet it was odd that strangers who had known each other only a couple of
days should be on such terms.
They parted on the spot, when we had slowed down, Mrs. Jennings walking
on alone the short distance to the gate, and Rosemary getting into the
car with us, to drive to the house. I couldn't resist asking the
question, "Had you ever seen Mrs. Jennings before she was married?" For,
after all, there was no reason why I should not ask it. But Rosemary
looked me full in the face as she answered:
"No, I never met her until she and her husband called the day before
yesterday. She had been very kind about getting the house beautifully
ready for us, and finding servants. I feel I know her quite well,
because she has come in every day to explain about repairs that have had
to be made, and that sort of thing."
"Do you like her?" I asked.
"I think she's tremendously clever," Rosemary said.
I was inclined to think so, too. "It's _she_ who has been trying to
persuade the Murrays not to have Sir Beverley Drake," I told myself.
"She wants the job for her husband."
Happiness had had a wonderful effect upon Murray, even in this short
time. It seemed to have electrified him with a new vitality. He had
walked a few steps without any help, and for the first time in many
weeks felt an appetite for food.
"If I didn't _know_ there was no hope for me, I should almost think
there was some!" he said, laughing. "Of course there isn't any! This is
only a flash in the pan, but I may as well enjoy it while it lasts, and
it makes things a little less tragic for my angel of mercy. I feel that
it might be best to 'let well alone,' as they say, and not disturb
myself with a new treatment. All the American specialists agreed that
nothing on earth could change the course of events, so why fuss, as I'm
more comfortable than I hoped to be? If you don't think it would be rude
to Sir Beverley----"
But there I broke in upon him, and Jim helped me out. We _did_ think it
would be rude. Sir Beverley would be wounded. For our sakes, if for
nothing else, we asked that Sir Beverley should be allowed to make his
call and examination as arranged.
Murray did not protest much when he saw how we took his suggestion; and
Rosemary protested not at all. She simply sat still with a queer,
_fatal_ look on her beautiful face; and suspicions of her began to stir
within me again. Did she not _want_ to give her husband a chance of
life?
The answer to that question, so far as Sir Beverley came into it, was
that she could easily have influenced Murray not to heed us if she had
been determined to do so. But that was just the effect she gave; lack of
determination. It was as if, in the end, she wanted Murray to decide for
himself, without being biassed by her.
"That Gaby Lorraine _is_ in it somehow, all the same," I decided. "She
was able to make Rosemary send us the telegram, and if we hadn't come
over, and argued, she would have got her away."
It seemed rather sinister.
Ralston Murray was charmed with his heritage, and wanted Rosemary to
show us all over the house, which she did. It was beautiful in its
simple way: low-ceilinged rooms, many with great beams, and exquisite
oak panelling of linen-fold and other patterns. But the fame of the
Manor, such as it was, lay in its portraits and pictures by famous
artists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Rosemary frankly
confessed that she knew very little about Old Masters of any age; and
Jim had been, as he said, in the same boat until the idea had struck him
of renewing the past glories of the family place, Courtenaye Abbey.
After renting the Abbey from me, and beginning to restore its
dilapidations, he had studied our heirlooms of every sort; had bought
books, and had consulted experts. Consequently, he had become as good a
judge of a Lely, a Gainsborough, a Romney, a Reynolds, and so on, as I
had become, through being my grandmother's grand-daughter.
I wondered what was in his mind as we went through the hall and the
picture gallery, and began to be so excited over my own thoughts that I
could hardly wait to find out his.
"Well, what is your impression of the famous collection?" I asked, the
instant our car whirled us away from the door of Ralston Old Manor.
"What do you think of everything?"
"_Think_, my child?" echoed Jim. "I'm bursting with what I think; and
so, I expect, are you!"
"I wonder how long it is since the pictures were valued?" I muttered.
"I suppose they must have been done," said Jim, "at the time of old
Ralston's death, so that the amount of his estate could be judged."
"Yes," I agreed; "I suppose the income-tax people, or whoever the fiends
are that assess heirs for death duties, would not have accepted any old
estimates. But that would mean that the pictures were all right ten
months ago."
We looked at each other. "There's been some queer hocus-pocus going on,"
mumbled Jim.
"It sounds like black magic!" I breathed.
"Black fraud," he amended. "Ought we to speak to Murray--just drop him a
hint, and suggest his getting an expert to have a look round?"
"It would worry him, and he oughtn't to be worried now," I said.
"Still, he wants everything to be all right for his wife when he goes
west."
"I know," said I; "but I don't feel that these happy days of his--his
last days, perhaps--ought to be disturbed. If--if Rosemary loves him as
much as we believe she does, she'd rather have a fuss after he's gone
than before. We might be breaking open a wasp's nest if we spoke. And it
isn't our _business_, is it?"
"Unless we could find out something on the quiet," thoughtfully
suggested Jim. "For instance, is there anybody in this neighbourhood
who's a pretty good artist and a smart copyist--anybody, I mean, who
could have had the run of the Manor while the house was unoccupied
except by a caretaker?"
"Yes, we might set ourselves to find out that," I assented. "And, by the
way--apropos of nothing, of course!--I think we might call on the
Jenningses, don't you?--as the doctor intimated that they didn't 'feel
grand enough' to call on us."
"I think we might," echoed Jim. "And why not to-day, while we're close
to Merriton?"
Quick as a flash I seized the speaking-tube and directed the chauffeur.
We had gone only a mile out of the way, and that was soon retraced.
Both the doctor and his wife were at home, in their rather ugly modern
villa, which was one of the few blots on the beauty of Merriton. But
there were no pictures at all in the little drawing room. The
distempered walls were decorated with a few Persian rugs (not bad,
though of no great interest) given to Doctor Jennings, it seemed, by a
grateful patient now dead. By round-about ways we tried to learn whether
there was artistic talent in the family, but our efforts failed. As Jim
said later, when the call had ended in smoke, "There was nothing doing!"