A TRIP TO DEVON
Betty Carew made a call on the residence of De Fell, the manager,
and that young man was not too busy to see the girl to whom he had
written on the previous night.
“You’ve come to accept that part, have you? Well, you can start
rehearsals----”
She shook her head with a smile.
“I never dreamt I’d be in a position to do it, Mr. De Fell, but I’ve
got to decline your engagement. I am going with my uncle to America.”
“The dickens you are!” said De Fell, swinging round and looking at
the girl admiringly. “Does that mean you’re out of the theatrical
business for good?”
“I don’t know. I hope so in many ways, in others I should be very
sorry.”
“Who is your uncle, by the way?” and, when she told him, he whistled.
“Suffering cats! Why, I introduced him to you! Well, now, isn’t that
fine!”
He had something to say about an old acquaintance of hers.
“You weren’t at La Florette’s great jamboree last night? Well, you
missed nothing except the exhibition of lavish expenditure, for no
particular reason so far as I can discover, since Van Campe and I were
the only theatrical people present. They say that she has been
financed--by the way, what relation is Dr. Laffin to you--uncle?”
“He is not my uncle,” she said shortly.
“Then you ought to be thankful. I can’t understand that bird. Somebody
told me that Laffin was behind this grand display of La Florette’s,
but I can’t believe that. Is he a rich man?”
She shook her head. “He’s very poor.”
She was loth to discuss the doctor at all, and took the earliest
opportunity of bringing the interview to an end. There was another she
would gladly have avoided, but Bullott had insisted upon seeing her
that afternoon, and though he had made the environment for the
appointment as pleasant as possible--he had chosen Mr. Stone’s
flat--she went in some apprehension.
Once again she told him of her dreams, of the chapel, the book upon
her knees, the monk-like figures sitting beneath their banners, and
the purple-robed man who had addressed her.
“That is what I wanted to know,” said Bullott at the finish. “You
don’t remember what happened to the book?”
She shook her head.
“Would you know the place again if you saw it?”
She hesitated.
“Yes, I think I should. Why--do you know where it is? Wasn’t it a
dream after all?”
“You bet it wasn’t!” said Bill Holbrook, an interested audience,
energetically. “Miss Carew, the inspector wants you to go down with us
to-night.”
“Where?” she said in surprise.
“Into Devonshire.”
“But I couldn’t. Why into Devonshire?”
“My dear, I think you’d better go,” said Lambert Stone. “I have heard
enough from these gentlemen to be convinced that there is some danger
to your father.”
“My father!” she gasped. “Whom do you mean?”
“I mean the man in purple.”
She looked at him in astonishment.
“You’re not jesting?”
“No, that was your father. Mr. Bullott has made inquiries and has
discovered that the Grand Priors of Ragousa have their headquarters on
Dartmoor.”
“Oh!” Suddenly she remembered the adventure that had overtaken her
and the doctor nearly two years before. “Now I remember. It was on
Dartmoor that we saw those dreadful masked faces, and the voice--the
voice of the man who stopped us--it was Brother John!”
Incoherently she related the events of that wild night: the rain, the
storm-swept moor, the red lantern in the road that had brought the car
to a standstill, and the long absence of the doctor.
“Yes,” nodded Bullott, “you were near the Priory. Someone must have
been taken ill there, and the doctor went to see him. It was after
that that he got his idea for dressing you up in green and putting you
in a shop window--I’ve got it!” His eyes were blazing with
excitement. “Listen--this is what happened. It must have been Leiff
Stone who was taken ill, and when the doctor saw him he must have
gained his confidence. Your brother is something of a mystic, isn’t
he, sir?”
Lambert nodded.
“Given to strange dreams?”
“Yes, he always had his visions,” said the other quietly.
“Old man Laffin must have heard from him about some dream in which he
saw a Messenger from the Absolute--that is the word--in the form of a
red-haired girl in a green dress. Perhaps Leiff Stone’s dream was that
he would meet this girl sitting in a shop window, with a green jade
vase and a red rose--can’t you imagine what fantastic things he may
have dreamt in his delirium? And Laffin thought it over, saw the
immense opportunity which this knowledge gave to him, and gradually
worked up to the grand climax! Do you remember the advertisement,
Holbrook, the advertisement I showed you--‘Punging the Green Dragon?’
That was Laffin’s signal to some confederate, probably in the Priory;
somebody who informed him of all Mr. Leiff Stone’s movements--he may
have got at one of the laymen. At any rate, he induced the Prior to
come to London, and pass the store where Miss Carew was working. When
Stone had called that part of your work was finished. Laffin had
evidently a rôle assigned to you, something referred to in the
message which you had given to your father. He intended taking you to
the Priory and detaining you in the house for the purpose, and then,
when he failed, carried you off from your lodging. Try hard to
remember, Miss Carew,” he said earnestly, “what did Brother John say
to you when he called at the theatre?”
“He asked me if I was the lady who had been in the shop window,” she
said, “whether I was related to Dr. Laffin.”
“Then Brother John knew, or guessed, and he had come to London to
protect his friend. And because he was seen speaking to you, they
killed him--Laffin or his agent.”
He took a sheet of blue paper from his pocket, read it with some
satisfaction and put it back.
“I’m taking Laffin to-night,” he said.
“On a charge of killing Brother John?” asked Bill.
“No, sir, I am taking him on a charge of wilfully murdering the late
Lord Lowbridge by the administration of poison. We’ve had the body up,
and found enough aconite to kill a regiment of soldiers!
“Don’t you see,” he said, when they had recovered a little from their
surprise, “Laffin was the family doctor of the late Lord Lowbridge.
Clive Lowbridge had been his pupil, and you might suppose that, with
the property in the hands of his friend, it would be an easy matter to
get the money he wanted and to hide the fact that, two years before
Lord Lowbridge died, Laffin had got transferred, by means of a false
deed, a considerable slice of Lord Lowbridge’s property. The present
holder of the title does not know this, but it is nevertheless a fact
that the impoverished condition of his estate is due very considerably
to the systematic forgeries of Laffin. The son of Lowbridge died in
exactly the same manner--it may be the subject of another charge.
Laffin is an expert poisoner, and the sooner we get him the better.”
“He is not at his house?” asked Bill in a hushed voice, for this
revelation of his friend’s prescience almost shocked him.
“No, I have been there. He left very early this morning. I think I
know where he is to be found. Now, Miss Carew, will you come?”
“I think I ought to go--for Clive’s sake,” she said, and Bill
Holbrook was instantly and unaccountably depressed.