path: root/75858-0.txt

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75858 ***





 The
 Strange Countess

 BY
 EDGAR WALLACE




 BOSTON
 SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
 PUBLISHERS




 [COPYRIGHT]

 Copyright, 1926
 By SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
 (INCORPORATED)




 [DEDICATION]

 To
 D. C. THOMSON
 WITH THE AUTHOR’S HAPPIEST MEMORIES
 OF A LONG BUSINESS ASSOCIATION




 CONTENTS

 Chapter One
 Chapter Two
 Chapter Three
 Chapter Four
 Chapter Five
 Chapter Six
 Chapter Seven
 Chapter Eight
 Chapter Nine
 Chapter Ten
 Chapter Eleven
 Chapter Twelve
 Chapter Thirteen
 Chapter Fourteen
 Chapter Fifteen
 Chapter Sixteen
 Chapter Seventeen
 Chapter Eighteen
 Chapter Nineteen
 Chapter Twenty
 Chapter Twenty-one
 Chapter Twenty-two
 Chapter Twenty-three
 Chapter Twenty-four
 Chapter Twenty-five
 Chapter Twenty-six
 Chapter Twenty-seven
 Chapter Twenty-eight
 Chapter Twenty-nine
 Chapter Thirty
 Chapter Thirty-one
 Chapter Thirty-two
 Chapter Thirty-three
 Chapter Thirty-four
 Chapter Thirty-five
 Chapter Thirty-six




 The Strange Countess

 Chapter One

Lois Margeritta Reddle sat on the edge of her bed, a thick and heavy
cup of pallid tea in one hand, a letter in the other. The tea was too
sweet, the bread was cut generously even as it was buttered
economically, but she was so completely absorbed in the letter that
she forgot the weakness of Lizzy Smith as a caterer.

The note was headed with a gilt crest and the paper was thick and
slightly perfumed.


                                            307 Chester Square, S.W.

 The Countess of Moron is pleased to learn that Miss Reddle will take
 up her duties as resident secretary on Monday, the 17th. Miss Reddle
 is assured of a comfortable position, with ample opportunities for
 recreation.


The door was thrust open and the red and shining face of Lizzy was
thrust in.

“Bathroom’s empty,” she said briefly. “Better take your own soap--you
can see through the bit that’s left. There’s one dry towel and one
half-dry. What’s the letter?”

“It is from my countess--I start on Monday.”

Lizzy pulled a wry face.

“Sleep in, of course? That means I’ve got to get somebody to share
these digs. Last girl who slept here snored. I will say one thing
about you, Lois, you don’t snore.”

Lois’ eyes twinkled, the sensitive mouth curved for a second in the
ghost of a smile.

“Well, you can’t say that I haven’t looked after you,” said Lizzy with
satisfaction. “I’m the best manager you’ve ever roomed with, I’ll bet.
I’ve done the shopping and cooked and everything--you’ll admit that?”

Lois slipped her arm round the girl and kissed her homely face.

“You’ve been a darling,” she said, “and in many ways I’m sorry I’m
going. But, Lizzy, I’ve tried hard to move on all my life. From the
National School in Leeds to that little cash desk at Roopers, and from
Roopers to the Drug Stores, and then to the great lawyers----”

“Great!” exclaimed the scornful Lizzy. “Old Shaddles great! Why, the
mean old devil wouldn’t give me a half-crown raise at Christmas, and
I’ve been punching the alphabet five years for him! Kid, you’ll marry
into society. That countess is a she-dragon, but she’s rich, and
you’re sure to meet swells--go and have your annual while I fry the
eggs. Is it going to rain?”

Lois was rubbing her white, rounded arm, gingerly passing her palm
over the pink, star-shaped scar just above her elbow. It was Lizzy’s
faith that whenever the scar irritated, rain was in the offing.

“You’ll have to have that electrocuted, or whatever the word is,” said
the snub-nosed girl when the other shook her head. “Sleeves are about
as fashionable nowadays as crinolines.”

From the bathroom Lois heard her companion bustling about the little
kitchen, and, mingled with the splutter and crackle of frying eggs,
came shrilly the sound of the newest fox-trot as Lizzy whistled it
unerringly.

They had shared the third floor in Charlotte Street since the day she
had come to London. Lois was an orphan; she could not remember her
father, who had died when she was little more than a baby, and only
dimly recalled the pleasant, matronly woman who had fussed over her in
the rough and humble days of her early schooling. She had passed to
the care of a vague aunt who was interested in nothing except the many
diseases from which she imagined she suffered. And then the aunt had
died, despite her arrays of medicine bottles, or possibly because of
them, and Lois had gone into her first lodging.

“Anyway, the countess will like your classy talk,” said Lizzy, as the
radiant girl came into the kitchen. She had evidently been thinking
over the new appointment.

“I don’t believe I talk classily!” said Lois good-humouredly.

Lizzy turned out the eggs from the frying-pan with a dexterous flick.

“I’ll bet that’s what got _him_,” she said significantly, and the girl
flushed.

“I wish you wouldn’t talk about this wretched young man as though he
were a god,” she said shortly.

Nothing squashed Lizzy Smith. She wiped her moist forehead with the
back of her hand, pitched the frying-pan into the sink and sat down in
one concerted motion.

“He’s not common, like some of these pickers-up,” she said
reminiscently, “he’s class, if you like! He thanked me like a lady,
and never said a word that couldn’t have been printed on the front
page of the _Baptist Herald_. When I turned up without you, he _was_
disappointed. And mind you, it was no compliment to me when he looked
down his nose and said: ‘Didn’t you bring her?’”

“These eggs are burnt,” said Lois.

“And a gentleman,” continued the steadfast Lizzy. “Got his own car.
And the hours he spends walking up and down Bedford Row just, so to
speak, to get a glimpse of you, would melt a heart of stone.”

“Mine is brass,” said Lois with a smile. “And really, Elizabetta,
you’re ridiculous.”

“You’re the first person that’s called me Elizabetta since I was
christened,” remarked the stenographer calmly, “but even that doesn’t
change the subject so far as I am concerned. Mr. Dorn----”

“This tea tastes like logwood,” interrupted the girl maliciously, and
Lizzy was sufficiently human to be pained.

“Did you hear old Mackenzie last night?” she asked, and when Lois
shook her head: “He was playing that dreamy bit from the _Tales of
Hoggenheim_--_Hoffmann_ is it? All these Jewish names are the same to
me. I can’t understand a Scotsman playing on a fiddle; I thought they
only played bagpipes.”

“He plays beautifully,” said Lois. “Sometimes, but only rarely, the
music comes into my dreams.”

Lizzy snorted.

“The middle of the night’s no time to play anything,” she said
emphatically. “He may be our landlord, but we’re entitled to sleep.
And he’s crazy, anyway.”

“It is a nice kind of craziness,” soothed Lois, “and he’s a dear old
man.”

Lizzy sniffed.

“There’s a time for everything,” she said vaguely, and, getting up,
took a third cup and saucer from the dresser, banged it on the table,
filled it with tea and splashed milk recklessly into the dark brown
liquid.

“It’s your turn to take it down to him,” she said, “and you might drop
a hint to him that the only kind of foreign music I like is ‘Night
Time in Italy.’”

It was their practice every morning to take a cup of tea down to the
old man who occupied the floor below, and who, in addition to being
their landlord, had been a very good friend to the two girls. The rent
they paid, remembering the central position which the house occupied
and the popularity of this quarter of London with foreigners who were
willing to pay almost any figure for accommodation in the Italian
quarter, was microscopic.

Lois carried the cup down the stairs and knocked at one of the two
doors on the next landing. There was the sound of shuffling feet on
the bare floor, the door opened, and Rab Mackenzie beamed benevolently
over his horn-rimmed spectacles at the fair apparition.

“Thank you, thank you very much, Miss Reddle,” he said eagerly, as he
took the cup from her hand. “Will you no’ walk round? I’ve got my old
fiddle back. Did I disturb you last night?”

“No, I’m sorry I didn’t hear you,” said Lois, as he put the cup on the
well-scrubbed top of the bare table.

The room, scrupulously clean, and furnished only with essentials, was
an appropriate setting for the little old man in his baggy trousers,
his scarlet slippers and black velvet coat. The clean-shaven face was
lined and furrowed, but the pale blue eyes that showed beneath the
shaggy eyebrows were alive.

He took up the violin which lay on the sideboard with a gentle, tender
touch.

“Music is a grand profession,” he said, “if you can give your time to
it. But the stage is damnable! Never go on the stage, young lady. Keep
you on the right side of the footlights. Those stage people are queer,
insincere folk.” He nodded emphatically and went on: “I used to sit
down in the deep orchestra well and watch her little toes twisting.
She was a bonny girl. Not much older than you, and haughty, like stage
folks are. And how I got up my courage to ask her to wed me I never
understood.” He sighed heavily. “Ah, well! I’d rather live in a fool’s
paradise than no paradise at all, and for two years----”

He shook his head.

“She was a bonny girl, but she had the criminal mind. Some lassies are
like that. They’ve just no conscience and no remorse. And if you’ve no
conscience and no remorse and no sense of values, why, there’s nothing
you wouldn’t do from murder downwards.”

It was not the first time Lois had heard these rambling and disjointed
references to a mysterious woman, these admonitions to avoid the
stage, but it was the first time that he had made a reference to the
criminal mind.

“Women are funny creatures, Mr. Mackenzie,” she said, humouring him.

He nodded.

“Aye, they are,” he said simply. “But, generally speaking, they’re
superior to most men. I thank ye for the tea, Miss Reddle.”

She went upstairs to find Lizzy struggling into her coat.

“Well, did he warn you off the boards?” asked Miss Smith, as she
strolled to the little mirror and dabbed her nose untidily with
powder. “I’ll bet he did! I told him yesterday that I was going into
a beauty chorus, and he nearly had a fit.”

“You shouldn’t tease the poor old man,” said Lois.

“He ought to have more sense,” said Lizzy scornfully. “Beauty chorus!
Hasn’t he got eyes?”




 Chapter Two

They went off to the office together, walking through the Bloomsbury
squares, and only once did Lois look round apprehensively for her
unwelcome cavalier. Happily he was not in sight.

“About that scar on your arm,” said Lizzy, when they were crossing
Theobalds Road. “I know a perfectly posh place in South Moulton Street
where they take away scars. I thought of going there to have a face
treatment. The managing clerk suggested it--Lois, that fellow is
getting so fresh he ought to be kept on ice. And him forty-eight with
a grown-up family!”

Two hours later, Mr. Oliver Shaddles picked up some documents from the
table, read through with quick and skilful eyes, rubbed the grey
stubble on his unshaven chin irritably, and glared out upon Bedford
Row.

He turned towards the little bell-push on his table, hesitated a
second, then pressed it.

“Miss Reddle!” he snapped to the clerk who answered his summons with
haste.

Again he examined the sheet of foolscap, and was still reading when
the door opened and Lois Reddle came in.

Lois was a little above medium height, and by reason of her slimness
seemed taller than she was. She was dressed in the severe black which
the firm of Shaddles & Soan imposed upon all their feminine employees.
Mr. Shaddles had reached the age, if he had ever been at any other,
when beauty had no significance. That Lois Reddle had a certain
ethereal loveliness which was all her own might be true, but to the
lawyer she was a girl clerk who received thirty-five well-grudged
shillings every week of her life, minus the cost of her insurance.

“You go down to Telsbury.”

He had a minatory manner, and invariably prefaced his remarks with the
accusative pronoun. “You’ll get there in an hour and a half. Take
those two affidavits to the woman Desmond, and get her to sign the
transfer form. The car’s there----”

“I think Mr. Dorling had it----” she began.

“The car’s there,” he said obstinately. “You’ll have a dry trip, and
you ought to be thankful for the opportunity of a breath of fresh air.
Here, take this,” as she was going out with the foolscap. It was a
little slip of paper. “It is the Home Office order--use your senses,
girl! How do you think you’ll get into the gaol without that? And tell
that woman Desmond---- Anyway, off you go.”

Lois went out and closed the door behind her. The four faded,
middle-aged clerks, sitting at their high desks, did not so much as
look up, but the snub-nosed girl with the oily face, who had been
pounding a typewriter, perked her head round.

“You’re going to Telsbury, by the so-called car?” she asked. “I
thought he’d send you. That old devil’s so mean that he wouldn’t pay
his fare to heaven! The juggernaut will kill somebody one of these
days,” she added darkly, “you mark my words!”

Attached to the firm of Shaddles & Soan was a dilapidated motor-car
that had seen its best time in pre-war days. It was housed in a
near-by garage which, being a property under Mr. Shaddles’ direction
as trustee, exacted no rent for the care of the machine, which he had
bought for a negligible sum at the sale of a bankrupt’s effects. It
was a Ford, and every member of the staff was supposed to be able to
drive it. It carried Mr. Shaddles to the Courts of Justice, it took
his clerks on errands, and it figured prominently in all bills of
cost. It was, in many ways, a very paying scheme.

“Ain’t you glad you’re going?” asked Lizzy enviously. “Lord! If I
could get out of this dusty hole! Maybe you’ll meet your fate?”

Lois frowned.

“My what?”

“Your fate,” said Elizabetta, unabashed. “I spotted him out of the
window this morning--that fellow is certainly potty about you!”

A cold light of disfavour was in the eyes of Lois, but Lizzy was not
easily squashed. “There’s nothing in that,” she said. “Why, there used
to be a young man who waited for me for hours--in the rain too. It
turned out that he wasn’t right in his head, either.”

Lois laughed softly as she wrapped a gaily coloured scarf about her
throat and pulled on her gloves. Suddenly her smile vanished.

“I hate Telsbury; I hate all prisons. They give me the creeps. I am
glad I’m leaving Mr. Shaddles.”

“Don’t call him ‘Mister,’” said the other. “It is paying him a
compliment.”

The car stood at the door, as Mr. Shaddles had suggested, an ancient
and ugly machine. The day was fair and warm, and once clear of the
London traffic the sun shone brightly and she shook off the depression
which had lain upon her like a cloud all that morning. As she sent the
car spinning out of Bedford Row she glanced round instinctively for
some sign of the man to whom Lizzy had made so unflattering a
reference, and whose constant and unswerving devotion was one of the
principal embarrassments of her life. But he was nowhere in sight, and
he passed out of her mind, as, clear of London, she turned from the
main road and slowed her car along one of the twisting lanes that ran
parallel with the post route and gave one who loved the country and
the green hedgerows a more entranced vision than the high road would
have given her.

Seven miles short of Telsbury she brought the car back to the main
thoroughfare, and spun, at a speed which she uneasily recognised as
excessive, on to the tarred highway. Even as she came clear of the
high hedges she heard the warning croak of a motor-horn, and jammed on
her brakes. The little machine skidded out into the road. Too late,
she released the brakes and thrust frantically at the accelerator. She
saw the bonnet of a long, black car coming straight towards her, felt
rather than heard the exclamation of its driver.

“_Crash!_”

In that second she recognised the driver.

“Say it!”

The girl, gripping the steering wheel of her ancient Ford, stared
defiantly across a broken windscreen, but Michael Dorn did not accept
the challenge. Instead, he put his gear into reverse, preparatory to
withdrawing his running-board from the affectionate embrace of the
other guard. He did this with a manner of gentle forbearance which was
almost offensive.

“Say it!” she said. “Say something violent or vulgar! It is far better
to have things out than to let bad words go jumping around inside!”

Grey eyes need black lashes to be seen at best advantage, he thought;
and she had one of those thinnish noses that he admired in women. He
rather liked her chin, and, since it was raised aggressively, he had a
fair view of a perfect throat. It struck him as being extremely
perfect in spite of the red and yellow and green silk scarf that was
lightly knotted about. She was neatly if poorly dressed.

“Nothing jumps around inside me except my heart,” he said, “and, at
the moment, that is slipping back from my mouth. I don’t like your
necktie.”

She looked down at the offending garment and frowned.

“You have no right to run into me because you disapprove of my scarf,”
she said coldly. “Will you please disengage your strange machine from
mine? I hope you are insured.”

He jerked his car back, there was a sound of ripping tin, a crack and
a shiver of glass, and he was free. Then:

“You came out of a side road at forty miles an hour--you’d have turned
over certain, only I was there to catch you,” he said
half-apologetically. “I hope you aren’t hurt?”

She shook her head.

“I am not,” she said, “but I think my employer will be when he sees
the wreckage. Anyway, your end is served, Mr. Dorn, you have made my
acquaintance.”

He started and went a shade red.

“You don’t imagine that I manœuvred this collision with the idea of
getting an introduction, do you?” he almost gasped, and was
thunderstruck when the girl with the grave eyes nodded.

“You have been following me for months,” she said quietly. “You even
took the trouble to make up to a girl in Mr. Shaddles’ office in order
to arrange a meeting. I have seen you shadowing me on my way
home--once you took the same ’bus--and on the only occasion I have
been to a dance this year I found you in the vestibule.”

Michael Dorn fiddled with the steering wheel, momentarily speechless.
She was serious now, all the banter and quiet merriment in her voice
had passed. Those wonderful eyes of hers were regarding him with a
certain gentle reproach that was hard to endure.

“Well, the truth is----” he began lamely, and found himself at a loss
for words.

She waited for him to finish his sentence, and then:

“The truth is----” A faint smile trembled at the corner of her red
mouth. “The truth is, Mr. Dorn, that it isn’t a very terrible offence
for any nice man to wish to meet any girl--that I recognise. And it
would be stupid in me if I pretended that I am very much annoyed. But
as I told your ambassador, Miss Lizzy Smith----”

He blinked rapidly.

“I really do not wish to know you, and I have no doubt that she has
conveyed that intelligence to you. Therefore your position is a
little--what shall I say?”

“Offensive is the word you’re wanting,” he said coolly. “I’ll admit
that it bears that construction.”

He got down slowly, walked to the side of her car, and stood, his
hands resting on the arm of the seat.

“I want you to believe, Miss Reddle!” he said earnestly, “that nothing
is farther from my wish than to annoy you. If I hadn’t been a clumsy
fool you would never have known that I was----”

He stopped, at a loss for a word. It was she who supplied it, and in
spite of his seriousness he laughed.

“‘Dogging’ is an ugly word. I’m trying to think of something
prettier,” he said.

She liked the ghost of a smile that shone in his blue eyes, and had
they parted then, without another word, she might have thought more
kindly of him. But:

“Where are you off to, on this bright autumn day?” he asked, and she
stiffened.

“Will you start my car, please?” she said with dignity.

He cranked up the engine and stood aside. She could not resist the
temptation:

“If you follow me now you’ll have a shock,” she said. “I am going to
Telsbury Prison.”

The effect on the man was startling; he stared in amazement and fear.
His jaw dropped, and into his eyes came a queer look of wonder.

“Where are you going?” he asked huskily, as though he doubted the
evidence of his ears.

“I am going to Telsbury Prison--please.”

She waved him out of her way. The car with the broken wind-screen went
noisily along the broad high road, leaving the man to stare. And then:

“Good God!” said Michael Dorn.




 Chapter Three

The grim entrance of Telsbury Convict Establishment is mercifully
hidden behind a screen of thick-growing pines. Its red walls have
mellowed with age, and but for the high tower in the centre of the
prison a traveller would pass it unnoticed. Hiding all the heartache
that has made the word “Dartmoor” synonymous with sorrow, Telsbury has
missed the fame of its fellow-prison.

Lois had already made two visits to the prison on her employer’s
business. A client of the firm had prosecuted a woman who had been
engaged in systematic fraud, and she had been sent down for five
years. It had been necessary to secure her signature to certain deeds
transferring back to their lawful owner stocks which had been
fraudulently converted.

Stopping her car broadside on to the high black gates, she descended
and pulled a bell. Almost immediately a grating was slipped back and
two watchful eyes surveyed her. Though the gatekeeper recognised her,
it was not until she had shown him the Home Office order which she
carried that he turned the key in the lock and admitted her to a bare
stone room, furnished with a desk, a stool, two chairs, and a table.

The warder read the order again and pressed a bell. He, his two
reliefs, and the governor were the only men who came within those
walls, and his sphere of operations was restricted to the room and the
archway, barred with steel railings, which cut the courtyard off from
the rest of the prison.

“Getting tired of coming here, miss?” he asked with a smile.

“Prisons make me very tired and very sick at heart,” said the girl.

He nodded.

“There are six hundred women inside here who are more tired and more
sick than you will ever be, I hope, miss,” he said conventionally.
“Not that I ever see any of them. I open the gate to the prison van
and never catch a sight of them again, not even when they go out.”

There was a snap of a lock, and a young wardress in neat blue uniform
came in and greeted Lois with a cheery nod. The girl was conducted
through a small steel gate, across a wide parade ground, empty at that
moment, through another door and along a passage into the governor’s
small office.

“Good morning, doctor,” she said. “I’ve come to see Mrs. Desmond,” and
displayed her papers before the grey-haired governor.

“She’ll be in her cell now,” he said. “Come along, Miss Reddle, I’ll
take you there myself.”

At the end of the passage was another door, which led into a large
hall, on either side of which was a steel alleyway, reached by broad
stairs in the centre of the hall. Lois looked up, saw the netting
above her head and shivered. It was placed there, she knew, to prevent
these unhappy women from dashing themselves to death from the top
landings.

“Here we are,” said the governor, and opened the cell door with his
pass-key.

For five minutes she was engaged with the sulky woman, who had a
whining grievance against everybody except herself; and at last, with
a heartfelt sigh of relief, she came out through the door and joined
the governor. As he locked the cell, she said:

“Thank heaven I shan’t come here any more.”

“Giving up being a lawyer?” he asked good-humouredly. “Well, I never
thought it was much of a profession for a girl.”

“You give my intelligence too great credit,” she smiled. “I am a very
commonplace clerk and have no other knowledge of the law than that
stamps must be put on certain documents and in certain places!”

They did not go back the way they had come, but went out through the
hall into the parade ground. So perfect was the organisation that in
the brief space she had been in the cell the yard was filled with grey
figures parading in circles.

“Exercise hour,” said the governor. “I thought you’d like to see
them.”

The girl’s heart was filled with pity and an unreasoning resentment
against the law which had taken these women and made them into so many
meaningless ciphers. With their print dresses and white mob caps,
there was something very ugly, very sordid about them, something which
clutched at the girl’s heart and filled her with a vague fear. There
were women of all ages, old and young, some mere girls, some grown
ancient in sin, and each bore on her face the indefinable stamp of
abnormality. There were fierce faces, cunning faces, weak, pathetic
faces that turned to her as the ghastly circle shuffled on its way;
faded eyes that stared stupidly, dark eyes that gleamed with malignant
envy, careless eyes that did not trouble to investigate her further
than by a casual glance. Shambling, shuffling women, who seemed after
a while to be unreal.

The circle had nearly passed in hideous completeness when Lois saw a
tall figure that seemed to stand out from that ground of horror. Her
back was straight, her chin uplifted, her calm eyes looked straight
ahead. She might have been forty, or fifty. The delicately moulded
features were unlined, but the hair was white. There was something
divinely serene in her carriage.

“What is that woman doing here?” said Lois, before she realised that
she had asked a question which no visitor must put to a prison
official.

Dr. Stannard did not answer her. He was watching the figure as it came
abreast. For a second the woman’s eyes rested gravely upon the girl.
Only for a second--just that period of time that a well-bred woman
would look at the face of another--and then she had passed.

The girl heaved a sigh.

“I’m sorry I asked,” she said, as she walked by the governor’s side
through the grille to his office.

“Other people have asked that,” said the governor, “and haven’t been
satisfied. It is against the prison rules to identify any convict, as
you know. But, curiously enough----” He was looking round for
something, and presently he found it, a stout calf-bound book that had
been opened and laid face downwards on a filing cabinet.

Without a word he handed it to her, and she looked at the title. She
was sufficiently acquainted with law books to recognise it as one of
that variety. It was labelled _Fawley’s Criminal Cases_.

“Mary Pinder,” he said briefly, and she saw that the book was open at
the page which was headed by that name. “It is rather curious, I was
reading up the case just before you came in. I was looking up the
essential details to see whether my memory was at fault. I don’t mind
telling you”--he dropped his voice as though in fear of an
eavesdropper--“that I share your wonder!”

She looked at the title: “Mary Pinder--Murder,” and gasped.

“A murderess?” she asked incredulously.

The doctor nodded.

“But that is impossible!”

“Read the case,” said the other, and she took up the book and read:


 Mary Pinder--Murder. Convicted at Hereford Assizes. Sentenced to
 death; commuted to penal servitude for life. This is a typical case of
 a murder for gain. Pinder lived in lodgings with a young man, who was
 reputedly her husband, and who disappeared before the crime occurred.
 It is believed that he left her penniless. Her landlady, Mrs. Curtain,
 was a wealthy widow, somewhat eccentric, believed to be on the border
 line of insanity. She kept large sums of money in the house and a
 quantity of antique jewellery. After her husband had left her Pinder
 advertised for a temporary situation, and a lady, calling at the house
 in answer to the advertisement, found the front door unfastened, and,
 after repeated knocking, receiving no answer, walked in. Seeing one of
 the room doors open, she looked in and found, to her horror, Mrs.
 Curtain lying on the floor, apparently in a fit. She immediately went
 in search of a policeman, who, arriving at the house, found the woman
 was dead. The drawers of an old secretaire were open and their
 contents thrown on the floor, including a piece of jewellery.
 Suspicion being aroused, the room of the lodger, who had been seen
 leaving the house just before the discovery, was searched in her
 absence. A small bottle containing cyanide of potassium, together with
 many pieces of jewellery, was found in a locked box, and she was
 arrested. The defence was that the deceased had frequently threatened
 to commit suicide, and that there was no evidence to prove the
 purchase of the poison, which was in an unlabelled bottle. Pinder
 refused to give information about herself or her husband; no marriage
 certificate was discovered; and she was tried before Darson J. and
 convicted. It is believed that Pinder, being in urgent need of money,
 was seized with the sudden temptation and, dropping cyanide in the
 woman’s tea, afterwards ransacked her secretaire. The case presents no
 unusual features, except the refusal of the prisoner to plead.


Twice Lois read the account and shook her head.

“I can’t believe it! It is incredible--impossible!” she said. “She was
imprisoned for life--but surely she should be out by now? Isn’t there
a remission of sentence for good conduct?”

The governor shook his head.

“Unfortunately she made two attempts to escape, and lost all her
marks. It is a great pity, because she’s a fairly rich woman. An uncle
of hers, who only learnt of her conviction after she had been five
years in gaol, left her a very considerable fortune. She never told us
who she was--he visited her here a few weeks before his death--and
we’re just as wise as ever we were, except that we know that he was a
relation of her mother.”

Lois took up the book again and stared at the printed page.

“A murderess--that wonderful woman!”

He nodded.

“Yes. Remarkable. Yet the most innocent-looking people commit bad
offences. I have been here twenty years and lost most of my
illusions.”

“If they thought she was a murderess, why didn’t they----”

She could not bring herself to say “hang her.” The governor looked at
her curiously.

“Ha--h’m--well, there was a reason, a very excellent reason.”

Lois was puzzled for a moment, and then suddenly the explanation came
to her.

“Yes, the baby was born in this very prison--the prettiest little baby
girl I’ve ever seen--a perfect child. I hated the time when she had to
be taken away. Poor little soul!”

“She didn’t know, perhaps doesn’t know now,” said Lois, her eyes
filling with tears.

“No, I suppose not. She was adopted by a woman who was a neighbour and
always believed in Mrs. Pinder’s innocence. No, when I said ‘poor
little soul,’ I was thinking of the fool of a nurse who let the child
burn its arm against the top of a hot water bottle. A pretty bad burn.
I remember it because it left a scar on the baby’s forearm--the
stopper of the water bottle had a star.”

Lois Reddle clutched the edge of the table and her face went suddenly
white. The doctor was putting away the book and his back was towards
her. With an effort she gained control of her voice.

“Do--do you remember the name by which the baby was christened?” she
asked in a low voice.

“Yes,” he said instantly, “an unusual name, and I always remember it.
Lois Margeritta!”




 Chapter Four

Lois Margeritta! Her own name! And the star-shaped burn on her arm!

Her head was in a whirl; the room seemed to be spinning round
drunkenly and it needed all her strength of mind to keep her from
crying out.

But it was true. That dignified, stately woman who had marched so
calmly in the circle of pain was her mother! Incredible, impossible
though it seemed, she knew this was the truth. Her mother!

Obeying a blind impulse, she darted to the door, flung it open, and
was half-way along the stone passage before the startled governor had
overtaken her.

“Whatever is the matter with you, girl?” he demanded, half astonished
and half angry. “Are you ill?”

“Let me go, let me go!” she muttered incoherently. “I must go to her!”

And then she came back to sanity with a gasp, and allowed herself to
be led back to the governor’s room.

“You sit down there while I give you a slight sedative,” said the
doctor, as he closed the door with a bang which echoed along the
hollow passage.

He opened the medicine chest, deftly mixed the contents of three
bottles and added water from a carafe on his table.

“Drink this,” he said.

The girl raised the glass to her lips with fingers that shook, and the
governor, hearing the glass rattle against her teeth, smiled.

“I think I’m a little mad,” she said.

“You’re a little hysterical,” said the practical doctor, “and it is my
fault for letting you see these people. We’ve broken all the rules by
talking about them.”

“I’m dreadfully sorry,” she muttered, as she put the glass on the
table. “I--I--it was so dreadful!”

“Of course it was,” he said. “And I was several kinds of an old fool
to talk about it.”

“Will you tell me one thing, doctor, please? What--what became of the
child?”

The doctor was obviously loth to discuss the matter any further.

“I believe she died,” he said briefly. “She was taken away by some
excellent people, but they failed to rear her. That is the story I
have. As a matter of fact it was published in the newspapers--there
was a great deal of interest in the case--that the child had died in
prison, but that was not the case. She was a healthy little creature
when she left here. And now, young lady, I am going to turn you out.”

He rang for the wardress, who conducted her to the gatekeeper’s lodge,
and in another second Lois was standing outside the black door, behind
which was--who?

She was mad to have made such a fool of herself. There was so much
more she wanted to know, so many opportunities which might have been
hers to see the beautiful woman who was--her mother? Her heart raced
at the thought. It couldn’t be! Her mother was dead; that stout,
homely body who had been a mother to her. It was a coincidence. There
must be other children in the world called “Lois Margeritta” than she,
and it was possible that some had been branded in babyhood.

She shook her head; it was impossible, it was beyond all the bounds of
probability that there could be two Lois Margerittas with a
star-shaped burn on the left arm.

Climbing painfully into the car, her knees giving under her, her
trembling hands manipulated the gears. The car wobbled painfully, and,
as she came slowly out on to the little road that runs by the prison,
she was conscious of a weakness which almost terrified her. She
stopped the car a few inches from the kerb, and at that moment she
heard a quick step, and, turning her head, saw the man with whose
machine she had collided earlier in the afternoon. There was a look of
deep concern on his saturnine face.

“Anything wrong?” he asked sharply.

“No--nothing,” she said unsteadily.

He stood surveying her with a critical and speculative eye.

“You nearly drove into that lamp-post. Aren’t you feeling well?”

“Not--not very,” she said.

In another second he had swung himself into the car by her side, and
she made room for him behind the steering wheel.

“I’ll take you down to the Lion Hotel and get them to send up for my
car.”

She was dimly aware that the long machine with the damaged mudguard
was parked by the side of the prison wall.

“I shall be quite all right----” she protested.

“Nevertheless, I will drive you back to town,” he said, and she made
no further demur.

He stopped outside the Lion Hotel long enough to communicate with a
little man who seemed to be expecting him; then turned the damaged
nose of the Ford towards London; and she was intensely grateful to him
that he made no attempt to improve his opportunity, for the rest of
the journey was carried out in almost complete silence. From time to
time he glanced at her, and once he looked at the crumpled papers
which she held tightly gripped in her little hand, the documents which
Mr. Shaddles’ client had signed, and which were now in a more ruffled
condition than most legal documents are supposed to be.

“179 Bedford Row, I think it is?” he said, as they crossed the traffic
of Holborn, and she had recovered sufficient of her spirits to answer:

“I think you should know.”

One side of his mouth went up in a smile.

“I’m pretty well acquainted with this neighbourhood,” he said coolly.
And then, as the car came to a standstill behind a big Rolls that
stood before the doorway of 179:

“You’ve been awfully kind to me, Mr. Dorn,” she said. “I am very
grateful to you indeed.”

“What worried you?” he asked. “At the prison, I mean?”

She shook her head.

“Nothing--only it is a rather dreadful shock, seeing so many women.”

His eyes narrowed.

“You saw the women, did you? Pretty queer lot, eh?”

She shivered.

“Do you know the prison? Have you been inside, I mean?” she asked.

“Yes, I’ve been inside once or twice,” he answered.

Glancing up at the window behind which was her office, she caught a
glimpse of a short, tilted nose and a pair of wide open eyes, and, in
spite of herself, laughed helplessly.

“Good-bye, Mr. Dorn.”

She held out her hand and he took it.

“I’m afraid I’ve been an awful nuisance to you. Will you be able to
get your car sent up to town, or must you go down to Telsbury for it?”

“Don’t bother about my car; it is here,” he said, and nodded to the
end of the road. To her amazement she saw his black machine come
slowly to the side-walk and stop.

She was about to say something, but changed her mind, and, running up
the steps, disappeared through the dark portals, the man watching her
until she was out of sight.




 Chapter Five

The clerks had gone, only Lizzy Smith remained. That young lady came
flying to greet her, all of a twitter with excitement.

“Oh, you artful one! You picked him up, did you? Haven’t you got a
nerve to come back with him? Suppose old Shaddles had seen you! What
have you done to the juggernaut? All the mudguard’s bent. Lois, the
countess is here! She’s in with old Shaddles, and she’s got the Queen
of Sheba skinned to death! I’ll bet that chinchilla coat she’s got
cost a thousand if it cost a tenner. And me wearing dyed fox, and glad
to get it! Not that I’m struck on chinchilla--it doesn’t suit my
complexion, anyway----. And isn’t Mike lovely?”

“Mike?” said Lois, puzzled.

“Didn’t he tell you his name was Mike?” asked Lizzy contemptuously.
“Of course it is! Michael Dorn. You don’t mean to tell me that you’ve
been joy-riding with him all these hours and never called him ‘Mike’
once?”

Lois hung up her coat and hat, and sat down wearily. Miss Smith
regarded her with a gathering frown.

“You’re not looking very bright, old dear,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

“The prison upset me,” said Lois. “How long has the countess been
here?”

“You haven’t had a row with him, have you?”

“With him--whom? Oh, the man, you mean, Lizzy?”

“Of course I mean the man! Who else was there to row with? You can’t
start any backchat with a pre-war Ford.”

Happily Lois was saved the embarrassment of an answer, for at that
moment a buzzer sounded and Lizzy darted into Shaddles’ office, to
return with an uplifted and bending finger.

“The countess wants to see you!” she hissed fiercely, “and the thing
attached to her is her little boy--the earl!”

Lois went into the room and closed the door behind her. Mr. Shaddles
glared up from his table as she handed him the crumpled documents.

“What’s happened to these?” he asked.

“We had an accident with the car,” said Lois, a little incoherently.
She was not a fluent liar.

“‘We’? Who are ‘we’?”

“I mean, I ran into another car,” said the girl in some confusion.

Mr. Shaddles smoothed out the rumpled paper, glanced at the signature,
and then:

“This is the girl, your ladyship.”

For the first time Lois was conscious of the woman’s presence.
“Majestic” was a word which fitly described the Countess of Moron. She
was tall and stoutly made. The long chinchilla cloak which covered her
dress from head to heel was open to show the rich velvet brocade
dress, but for the moment Lois had no eyes for the woman’s apparel, or
her looped pearls, or the jewels which glittered from ears and
fingers. It was the face that held her. Big, dominating, in some
indefinable way menacing. Black eyebrows that met above a masterful
nose; a pair of eyes of so dark a brown that they seemed black. They
were what are called full eyes; the vulgar would describe them as
bulging. They were hard and bright and stared unwinkingly at the girl.
The mouth was big, the lips thin, and the chin full and powerful. Lois
found herself trying to guess her age. Whether it was due to artifice
or not, her hair was a jet black, untouched by a vestige of grey; and
later she was to learn this was natural.

“You are Miss Reddle?” said the countess. Her voice was almost as deep
as a man’s, and she had a slow, deliberate enunciation which was a
little disconcerting.

Lois had the feeling that she was in a witness-box, under
cross-examination.

“Yes, madam, I am Lois Reddle,” she said.

For a moment the countess said nothing; then she turned to her
companion.

“This is Miss Lois Reddle, Selwyn,” she said.

He was a thin, bent man, with a weak face almost innocent of chin, and
a drooping yellow moustache, the twirling of which seemed to occupy
most of his spare time.

“May I introduce my son, the Earl of Moron?” said her ladyship, and
Lois bowed.

“Glad to meet you,” murmured the earl mechanically. “Rather nice
weather we’re having, what?”

Having made this speech, he seemed to have exhausted his vocabulary,
for he was silent during the remainder of the interview.

Lady Moron withdrew her scrutiny and turned her eyes slowly to the
lawyer.

“She seems entirely satisfactory, Shaddles,” she said.

Shaddles pursed his lips.

“Yes, she’s a very good girl,” he said, “quite reliable.”

He glanced disparagingly at the crumpled documents on his
blotting-pad.

“Quite reliable. I’ve no doubt that Miss Reddle, in her anxiety to get
back to interview your ladyship, has slightly damaged my car; that
will be a matter for adjustment between your ladyship and myself.”

He had glanced out of the window and had taken in with an assessor’s
eye the amount of the damage. Lady Moron looked at him for a time.

“She had no idea I was here, Shaddles. And of course I shall not be
responsible for any damage to your car.”

He squirmed in his seat.

“And, personally, I should doubt if the car has any value. At any
rate, in my eyes it has none. Come, Selwyn.”

For a moment Lois had the illusion that the young man was holding on
to his mother’s skirt, and she had an insane desire to laugh, as her
ladyship went forth majestically, followed by what Lizzy had
described, not unfaithfully, as “the thing attached to the Countess.”

Shaddles bustled through the outer office, opened the door for them,
and went down to see her ladyship into her car before he returned.

“Now, what the devil do you mean by smashing up my car?” he grated.
“And look at the condition of these documents. Is that the sort of
thing that can go before a Master in Chambers? Pah!”

Before she could reply:

“Whatever are the cost of the repairs I shall send the bill to you,
and I shall expect you to act in an honourable manner, for I’m not
sure that you are not liable in law. You will have a good salary and
you owe your position entirely to the fact that I happen to be her
ladyship’s solicitor.”

“If there is any damage, I will pay for it, Mr. Shaddles,” said the
girl, and was glad to make her escape.

Lizzy Smith did not find her a very communicative companion, and she
was responsible for most of the conversation on the way back to their
lodgings. Lois was glad when her companion left her that night to join
a girl friend who had two tickets for a theatre. She wanted to be
alone, she wanted to think out this most terrifying problem of hers.
There were other problems too, for suddenly she remembered the look of
utter horror and amazement that had come to Michael Dorn’s face when
she told him she was going to the prison. Did he know, and was he
dogging her footsteps for any other than the obvious reason--the young
man’s desire to get acquainted with the girl who had taken his fancy?
That seemed impossible.

She was glad she was taking up a new post. She would have leisure, in
the service of Lady Moron, and opportunities, perhaps, for meeting
people who would be helpful to her in the conduct of her
investigations.

A thought occurred to her as she was sitting before her untasted
supper, and, getting up, she put on her hat and went eastwards to
Fleet Street. She had been to the _Daily Megaphone_ before to make
searches on behalf of Mr. Shaddles, but now she found that the
offices, which are usually open to the public, were closed. She sent
up a note from the jealously guarded lobby of the editorial offices,
and to her joy her request was granted, and a messenger conducted her
to the file room.

Taking down one of the many big black volumes which filled the shelves
on one side of the room and opening it at the date she had remembered,
the messenger left her; and for two hours she studied the details of
what she would ordinarily have dismissed as a sordid and wicked crime.
She was half-way through the account of the trial when she saw a name
that made her gasp. It was the name of a witness who had been called
by the defence--Mrs. Amelia Reddle!

Then it was true! This was the kindly neighbour, about whom the prison
governor had spoken. It was her mother, that tall, lovely woman who
paced the prison flags with such unconcern. “A kind neighbour took the
child”--Mrs. Reddle was the kind neighbour, and had brought her up in
ignorance of her origin.

The printed page swam before her eyes as she sat, her hands tightly
clasped, her mind confounded by the confirmation of this tremendous
discovery.

Her mother was innocent. It was something more than a natural revolt
against the thought that in her veins ran the blood of a murderess; it
was a conviction, an inspiration, the faith which is knowledge.

She went back to her lodgings, calm and determined. She would prove
her mother’s innocence, devoting her life to that object.




 Chapter Six

Charlotte Street was deserted when she turned the corner. Passing a
small closed coupé that stood by the side-walk, she was half-way up
the street, and was turning to cross, when she saw the car coming
towards her at full speed, and stopped in the roadway to let it pass.
Its headlights were burning very dimly, she noticed--in the idle way
of one whose mind was fully occupied elsewhere. The car came on,
gaining momentum, and then, when it was a dozen yards away, it swerved
suddenly towards her.

Her first impulse was to step back, but an instinct beyond
understanding made her leap ahead. If the driver had corrected his
swerve she could not have escaped death. That spring saved her; the
edge of the mudguard grazed her dress and some small and jagged
projection ripped a two-inch strip from her skirt as neatly as though
it had been cut by scissors. In another second the car had passed,
speeding towards Fitzroy Square, its rear light dark, its number
invisible.

For a second the girl stood, bereft of breath, trembling in every
limb; and then somebody darted out of the doorway of her house and
came towards her, and before she saw his face she knew him.

“Close call that,” drawled Michael Dorn.

“What happened?” she asked. “They must have lost control, I think.”

“Yes, they must have lost control,” he said quietly. “You didn’t see
the number, I suppose?”

She shook her head. In her then state of nerves the question irritated
her.

“Of course I did not see the number. Do you want me, Mr. Dorn?”

“I came to see how you were after your unpleasant experience.”

She faced him squarely.

“What do you mean? What unpleasant experience?” she asked.

“I was referring to the little accident for which I was partly
responsible,” he answered coolly. “I regard any road collision as
unpleasant. But possibly you’re a more hardened motorist than I am.”

She shook her head.

“You don’t mean that at all. You mean--you mean--what happened at the
prison.”

He bent down towards her.

“What did happen at the prison?” he asked in a low voice.

“If you don’t know, I can’t tell you,” she said, and, turning abruptly
from him, went into the house and closed the door almost in his face.

Before she had reached her room she regretted her act of rudeness. It
was too late now; she would not go back and apologise, even if she
could bring herself to such an act.

An alarmed Lizzy was waiting for her.

“Do you know it is nearly twelve o’clock? I thought you were going to
bed early?” she said.

“I’ve been to Fleet Street, looking up a case for--for Mr. Shaddles,
and look at my dress--a car ripped it.”

Lizzy’s nose wrinkled.

“If it’s true that you’ve been working overtime for that old
skinflint--and it probably isn’t--you’ve got something the matter with
your head,” she said, “and you ought to see a doctor. I’m disappointed
with you.”

“Why?” asked the girl, as she tossed her hat on to the bed and stooped
to a further examination of her torn skirt.

“Well, I thought you’d been out to see a Certain Person. Then, on the
other hand, I couldn’t understand, if you were with him, how he could
have sent you this.”

On the table, standing amidst its loosened wrappings, was a beautiful
round box, the satin cover of which was painted with a floral design.

“It was a bit of cheek on my part, taking it out of the paper,”
admitted Lizzy, “but I haven’t touched a single choc.”

“Chocolates?” said Lois incredulously, and lifted the cover,
displaying the most gorgeous selection of confectionery that had ever
come her way.

On the top was a small card with a line of writing: “From an Admirer.”

She frowned.

“From an Admirer,” nodded Lizzy. “No name? Now, I wonder who it can
be?”

Her smirk of amazement was too extravagant to leave any doubt in Lois’
mind.

“Did he bring it?” she asked.

“He? You mean Mike? Why, of course he brought it! At least, I suppose
so. It was here when I came in. How many other admirers have you got,
Lois?”

The girl replaced the lid with a vicious jab.

“I hate that man,” she said vehemently, “and if he doesn’t leave me in
peace I shall complain to the police. It isn’t enough to find him
sitting on the doorstep----”

“Was he here?” gasped Lizzy.

“Of course he was here! You knew he was here,” said Lois unjustly.
“Lizzy, you’re helping and abetting him, and I wish you wouldn’t.”

“Me?” said the indignant Lizzy. “Abetting? I like that! You take him
out driving all the afternoon and talk about me ‘abetting’! Why, I
haven’t seen the bird to speak to for a month!”

“Where does he live?” demanded Lois.

“How the blazes do I know?” stormed Lizzy. And then, more soberly:
“Yes I do. He lives in Hiles Mansions.”

“Then this goes back to Hiles Mansions to-morrow morning,” said Lois
with determination. “And with it a polite note asking him to refrain
from his attentions, which are getting a little objectionable.”

Lizzy shrugged her thin shoulders.

“I don’t know what you expect,” she said, in despair. “A good-looker,
with a nice car, and a perfect gentleman.”

“He may be all these things and still be objectionable to me,” said
Lois shortly, and to her surprise the ungainly Lizzy put her arm
around her with an affectionate hug and laughed.

“I won’t quarrel with you the last few nights you are here. And
another thing, Lois; I’m not going to take another mate. Your room
will be waiting for you when you get tired of the aristocracy.”

One big room in the suite had been divided by a wooden partition.
There was a doorless opening that communicated between the two
cubicles, over which a curtain was hung. And after Lois had made a
parcel of the confectionery and had addressed it to her “admirer,” she
carried the package into her bedroom and put it on her dressing-table.
She must not forget to return that gift, even though she could ill
afford the postage.

They chatted across the partition (which did not reach to the ceiling)
for some time, and presently Lois slipped into her bed feeling
unutterably tired.

“Good-night,” she called.

“Hark at old Mac!”

From below stole the sad wail of old Mackenzie’s fiddle. Softly it
rose and fell, and to one of the audience at least the sound was
infinitely sweet and soothing.

“He used to be an orchestra leader--what’s the word? Conductor,” said
Lizzy. “I wish he’d keep his moonlight sonatas until I was out of the
house.”

“I like it,” said Lois.

In truth the sad melody attuned to her own troubled heart.

“It gives me the hump,” grunted Lizzy, as she jerked off her stockings
and examined her toes critically. “After you’ve gone I’m going to ask
him to give up his midnight folly.”

“He has very little amusement,” protested Lois.

“Why doesn’t he go out and get it? The old niggard never leaves the
house. He’s got plenty of money. He owns this property.”

Lois was listening. The old man was playing the Intermezzo from
_Cavalleria Rusticana_, and, hackneyed as the melody was, it sounded
to the girl as though it expressed all the sorrows, all the fears, all
the inarticulate protests of her own soul.

“Music’s all right in its place,” said Lizzy, “if it’s the right kind.
What’s the matter with ‘Maggie! Yes, Ma?’ I bought a copy of it cheap
a week ago and gave it to him and he’s not played it once!”

Presently there was silence on the other side of the partition. The
music had ceased. Lois, turning over, fell into a troubled sleep. She
dreamt she was in Telsbury Prison; it was she, among the colourless
women, who was walking that dreary circle. Somebody stood watching her
where she had stood by the doctor’s side; a great, fleshy-nosed woman
whose hard black eyes smiled sneeringly as she passed. In the centre
of the circle was the little old man, Mackenzie, his fiddle cuddled
under his chin, and he was playing a vulgar tune she had heard Lizzy
whistle.

Suddenly she woke with a start.

A light had flashed on her face--somebody was in the room. She could
hear their soft movements, and then came to her ears the rustle of
paper. It was Lizzy, of course. Lizzy frequently came in the middle of
the night, when her cough was troublesome, for the voice lozenges
which Lois kept in the drawer of her dressing-table. Without a word
she stretched out her hand and switched on the little hand-lamp which
was one of her luxuries.

As she turned the switch, she remembered drowsily that the battery had
nearly run out. There was a flicker of white light, that died down to
yellow, and then to darkness. But in that second of time she had seen
the figure of a man standing by the dressing-table, and recognised him
before she saw the startled face of Michael Dorn!




 Chapter Seven

For a second she remained, paralyzed, and then, as the sound of his
feet crossing the floor came to her, she screamed.

“What is it?”

She heard the creak and rumble of Lizzy’s bed, the scratch of a match,
and saw the white gleam of the gas as it was lit. In another second
Lizzy was in her room.

Lois was out of bed now and with trembling fingers was lighting her
own lamp. Otherwise the room was empty.

“Somebody was here--a man,” she said shakily.

“You’ve been dreaming.”

“I was not dreaming. Listen!”

There was the thud of a closing door. Running to the window, Lois
threw up the sash and leant out. She had time to see a man’s figure
walking swiftly down Charlotte Street.

“There he is! Don’t you recognise him? It is Dorn!”

Lizzy craned farther out of the window and after a time came in with a
scared face.

“I shouldn’t like to say it wasn’t,” she said cautiously. “Do you mean
to say Dorn’s been here?”

Lois nodded. This shock, coming on top of the other, had almost
unnerved her.

“But was he here--in this room?” Still Lizzy was not convinced, but
one glance at the girl’s face told her that Lois had not been
mistaken.

She hurried out into the kitchen, drew a glass of water. Lois drank
the refreshingly cold liquid eagerly.

“Well, he’s got a nerve!” said Lizzy, sitting down on a chair and
staring blankly at her companion. “What was he doing?”

“I don’t know. He was standing in front of the dressing-table. I only
saw him for a second, and then this wretched light went out.”

“He’s got a nerve,” said Lizzy again. “There’s a limit to everything.
Going into a young lady’s bedroom in the middle of the night to get an
introduction seems to me to be ungentlemanly.”

Lois laughed weakly.

“He didn’t speak to you?”

She shook her head.

“Jack scuttled off like a rabbit, I suppose.”

Lizzy walked to the door and opened it, gazing reflectively at the
stairs, as though she wished to visualise the undignified character of
the visitor’s exit.

“He sends you chocolates overnight----”

Lois’ eyes strayed to the dressing-table, and she sprang to her feet
with a cry.

“They’re gone!” she said, and the stenographer’s jaw dropped.

“Gone? Were they there?” She pointed.

“I put them on the dressing-table to remind me in the morning--at
least, I think I did.”

A hurried search of the kitchen discovered no trace of the missing
package.

“Perhaps he knew you wouldn’t like them and came to get them back?”
was the inane suggestion that Lizzy offered.

“I don’t know--I don’t understand.”

At that moment a voice hailed them and Lizzy opened the door.

“Is anything wrong?”

It was old Mackenzie.

“That man never sleeps,” groaned Lizzy under her breath. “He ought to
be a night watchman. No, everything’s all right, Mr. Mackenzie.”

“I heard somebody come down the stairs and go out a little time ago,”
said the old man, “I thought maybe one of you was ill.”

“This is where our characters go west,” said Lizzy, and, in a louder
voice: “No, Mr. Mackenzie, it was only me! I went down to make sure
that Miss Reddle had closed the front door. Good-night.”

She came back, looking very thoughtful.

“‘Three o’clock in the morning’ is a pretty nifty fox-trot, but it is
a bad time for young men to come sneaking round other people’s rooms.
What are you going to do, Lois? Anyway, he’s saved you the postage on
the chocolates. It seems to me to be the moment for tea.”

Any occasion was the moment for tea so far as Lizzy was concerned. She
bustled off into the kitchen and came back in ten minutes with a hot
decoction which was very gratifying to Lois, and, in spite of Lizzy’s
making, unusually palatable.

“There are two things to do; one is to inform the police, and the
other is to see Mr. Dorn, and I think I will take the latter course.
Will you give me his address again?”

“You’re not going now?” said Lizzy, in a tone of horror.

“No, I’ll go before working hours.”

“He’ll be in bed. Maybe you’ll be able to get the chocolates back
while he is sleeping,” suggested Lizzy. “As I remarked before, he’s
got a nerve.”

Hiles Mansions was a magnificent block of flats near Albert Hall, but
Mr. Dorn’s apartment was the least magnificent of any, for it was
situated on the upper floor and consisted of two rooms, and a bath and
a tiny hall. The elevator man was in his shirt-sleeves, polishing
brasses at the early hour at which Lois made her call. But he showed
no surprise at her enquiry.

“Top floor, miss. If you’ll step into the lift and excuse my
shirt-sleeves, I’ll take you up.”

The elevator stopped at the sixth floor and the liftman pointed to a
plain rosewood door, one of three on the landing. She hesitated, her
finger on the bell-push, and then, mastering her courage, she pressed,
expecting to be kept waiting for a long time, for if Mr. Dorn was
really the night visitor, he would still be in bed. To her surprise,
however, her finger was hardly off the bell-push before the door
opened and Michael Dorn confronted her. He seemed to have been up for
some time, for he was dressed and shaved, and there was no evidence in
his eyes that he had spent a sleepless night.

“This is an unexpected pleasure, Miss Reddle,” he said. “Will you come
in?”

The study into which she was ushered was larger than she had expected
and the sloping roof gave it an odd but pleasant character. She saw at
a glance that the furniture was old, and probably valuable. The
writing-table, from which he had evidently just risen, for the morning
newspaper lay open at the top, was undoubtedly Buhl, and the deep
arm-chair before the fire was the only modern article in the room.
Etchings covered the soberly painted walls, and in one alcove was a
well-filled bookcase.

“Mr. Dorn, I have called on a very serious errand,” she said.

“I am sorry to hear that,” was his reply as he pushed a chair forward.

“I won’t sit down, thank you. Last night you sent me a box of
chocolates. I can understand that your intentions were well meant,
though I thought I had made it very clear that I do not wish to know
you, or to improve an acquaintance which began only yesterday. I am
very grateful to you for all you did,” she went on a little
incoherently, “but----” she paused.

“But----?” he suggested.

“Your conduct is abominable!” she flamed. “The gift of chocolates was
an impertinence, but to follow that up by breaking into my lodgings
was criminal! I’ve come to tell you that, unless you cease your
persecution, I shall complain to the police.”

He did not answer. Standing by the table, he fiddled with a long
poignard which was evidently used as a letter-opener.

“You say I broke into your house--what makes you think that?”

“Because I recognised you,” she said emphatically. “You came and took
away the box--though I could have saved you the trouble. I intended
returning it in the morning.”

To her amazement, he did not deny his presence, but, on the contrary,
gave confirmation of his action.

“If I had known you were going to return it this morning I should
certainly not have called in the night,” he said with a calmness which
took her breath away. “I have been guilty of conduct which may seem to
you to be unpardonable, but for which there is a very simple
explanation. Until a quarter to two this morning I had no idea that
you had received the chocolates.”

He walked across the room to a cabinet, pulled open one drawer and
took out the painted box.

“These are the chocolates, are they not?”

She was so taken back by his audacity that she could not speak. He put
back the box carefully in the cabinet and closed the door.

“I underrated your intelligence, Miss Reddle,” he said. “I have done
that all too frequently in my life--taken too light a view of woman’s
genius.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand you,” she said helplessly. “Only I want
to tell you----”

“You want to tell me that if this act of mine is repeated, you will
notify the police.” He took the words from her mouth. “And I think you
would be wise. When do you take up your new position?”

“On Monday,” she was startled into telling him, but, recollecting that
the object of her visit was not to furnish him with information about
her movements, she walked to the door. “You don’t deny that you came
into my room?”

He shook his head.

“No, why should I? You saw me. It was the flash of my lamp which woke
you. I am very sorry. But for that stupid blunder you would not have
known.”

She stared at him.

“You admit you were there?” she said, with growing wonder, as the
nature of his offence began to take shape in her mind. “How could you,
Mr. Dorn!”

“It is much easier for me to admit my fault than to lie about it,” he
said coolly. “Even you must give me some credit for my frankness.”

He followed her out on to the landing and rang for the elevator.

“You must keep your door locked, Miss Reddle,” he said. “No matter
where you are--even in the palatial establishment of the Countess of
Moron--you must keep your door locked.”

He looked down the lift shaft and saw that the cage at the bottom was
not moving. The elevator man was outside the building and had not
heard the signal.

“I don’t think, if I were you, that I should write to your mother,” he
said. “You may raise false hopes. At present she is well balanced. The
knowledge that you are alive--and know--may cut the thread that has
held her up all these years.”

“What do you know?” she gasped, gazing at him in terrified amazement.

Then came the whine of the ascending lift.

“I don’t think I should write if I were you,” he said, and with a
smile handed the dazed girl into the elevator and waited until the
clash of the lift-gate told him that she had reached the ground floor.
Then he walked slowly back into his flat, closed the door behind him,
and resumed his place at the table, but this time he did not read.

For half an hour he sat, his chin on his hand, and then, rising, he
opened the door that led to the second room. A spare little man, with
a dark and melancholy face, sat patiently on the edge of a chair, as
he had sat ever since the ring at the door had announced the girl’s
arrival. A beckoning jerk of Dorn’s chin brought the man to the study.

“Go along and pick up Chesney Praye. Find out what he was doing last
night, and where he went. I think he was playing baccarat at the Limbo
Club, and, if so, find out what he lost. That is all.”

Without a word the little man made for the door. His hand was on the
latch when Dorn called him back.

“Call in at Scotland Yard and discover the owner of a blue Buick, No.
XC2997. I pretty well know, but I should like a little moral support.”

When the door had closed behind his servitor Michael Dorn took several
sheets of paper from the stationery rack and for half an hour was
writing rapidly. When he had finished, he addressed an envelope,
stamped the letter, and, going out to the landing, rang for the
liftman and handed him the letter to post. Then he returned to his
flat, and, taking off his collar and his tie, lay down on the bed for
the sleep he so badly needed; for Michael Dorn had not closed his eyes
for more than thirty-six hours.




 Chapter Eight

All her life, Lois Reddle could never recall what happened that
morning. She went about her work mechanically, like one in a dream;
and that she did not commit the most appalling blunders was due to the
natural orderliness of her mind. She went out with Lizzy to lunch at a
neighbouring restaurant, and this was usually the meal of the day. But
she could eat nothing, and her room-mate was genuinely alarmed.

“Was it fierce, dear?” asked Lizzy anxiously.

Lois roused herself from her thoughts with an effort.

“Was what fierce?” she asked.

“The fight you had with his nibs?”

At first Lois did not comprehend what the girl was talking about.

“Oh, you mean Mr. Dorn? No, it wasn’t fierce at all. It was a
very--mild encounter.”

“Did you tell him about his nerve?” asked Lizzy.

“He seemed to know all about that!” said Lois with a smile.

“I’ll bet he was upset and asked for mercy. Did he go on his knees?”

She was anxious for details, but Lois shook her head.

“Nothing sensational happened. He was a little bit penitent, but only
a little bit. I am scared.”

“Scared?” said Lizzy indignantly. “What have you got to be scared
about? I’ll go and see him.”

“No, you’ll do nothing of the kind. He’s not likely to worry us
again,” said Lois Reddle hastily.

“But what happened? Didn’t you ask him what he meant by it?” said her
disappointed friend.

“Yes, I asked him something of the sort.” Lois was anxious to get off
the subject, but Lizzy was insistent.

“Of course, if you were properly engaged and you were ill, and you’d
had a tiff, it would have been all right his coming,” she began.

“We aren’t engaged, properly or improperly, and I am in disgustingly
good health, and we haven’t had a tiff, so it _wasn’t_ all right.
He’ll not trouble us again, Lizzy.”

“I’ve been trying all morning to get a word with you,” said the
disgruntled typist, “but you’ve been going about all blah and woozy,
and naturally I thought you’d been raising hell--if you’ll excuse the
unladylike expression--and that there had been an awful scene, but I
did think you’d tell me when we came out to grub.”

But Lois was adamantine, and the meal passed in what was to Lizzy a
wholly unsatisfactory discussion of her friend’s plans.

The one happy result of the morning’s interview was that, neither that
day nor the next, did she so much as catch a glimpse of Michael Dorn
and his long black car. But, as the days passed, this relief was not
as pleasant as she had anticipated, and on the Saturday afternoon she
found herself wishing that she had an excuse for meeting him.

What did he know about her mother? Had he known all the time, and was
that the reason he was taking so great an interest in her? That he
could have been associated, even remotely, with the case was
impossible. His age, she guessed, was in the neighbourhood of thirty;
possibly he was younger; and he must have been a child when Mary
Pinder stood her trial.

Lois remembered with a start that her own name must be Pinder, though
the question of names did not matter very much.

On the Monday morning she packed her two boxes, and, with Lizzy’s
assistance, carried them down into the street to the waiting cab.
Lizzy was inclined to be tearful. Old Mr. Mackenzie, in his black
velvet coat, hovered anxiously in the background, though he did not
emerge from the house which had been his voluntary prison for
twenty-five years.

“What’s he shoving his nose in for?” demanded Lizzy viciously. “I’ll
bet he’ll play ‘The Girl I Left Behind Me’ when you drive away!”

But it was to no such accompaniment that Lois left her old lodgings,
and she came to the chaste atmosphere of Chester Square without any of
the mishaps which Lizzy had so gloomily prophesied. The door was
opened by a liveried footman, and she was apparently expected, for he
led her up the broad, carpeted stairs to a wide and lofty room looking
out on to the square.

Lady Moron was sitting at her small writing-table when the girl was
announced, and rose magnificently to meet her. She was arrayed in a
bright emerald velvet gown, which no other woman could have worn. On
her ample bosom sparkled and flashed a great diamond plaque which was
suspended from her neck by a chain of pearls. Her face was powdered
dead white, against which her jet-black eyebrows seemed startlingly
prominent. Lois noticed, now that she had time to inspect her new
employer, that, though the blackness of her hair was natural, both
eyebrows and eyelashes had been treated, and the scarlet lips were
patently doctored.

“The maid will show you your room, Miss Reddle,” said the Countess in
her deliberate way. “I hope you will be happy with us. We are
extremely unpretentious people, and you will not be called upon to
perform any duties that would be repugnant to a lady.”

Lois inclined her head slightly in acknowledgment of this promise, and
a few minutes later was viewing her new bedroom with pleasant
surprise. It was a big room at the top of the house, overlooking the
square. There was here everything for comfort, and, for some reason
which she could not define, she compared the furnishings of those she
had seen of Mr. Michael Dorn’s and decided that they were in the same
category of luxury.

She changed and came down to the drawing-room, which was also, she
learnt, Lady Moron’s “work-room.” She opened the door and stopped. Two
men were there; the first of these she recognised as the weak-kneed
holder of the title. The second man was shorter and more sturdily
built. His fleshy red face was eloquent of his love of good living,
and when he smiled, as he did frequently, he showed two lines of large
white teeth, that in some manner reminded the girl of a tiger’s,
though there was certainly nothing tigerish about this gentleman, with
his plump body and his curly red hair that ran back from a rather high
forehead.

“Let me introduce Mr. Chesney Praye,” said her ladyship, and Lois
found her hand engulfed in a large moist palm.

“Glad to meet you, Miss Reddle.” His voice was pleasantly husky. His
keen eyes looked at her with undisguised admiration.

“You know Lord Moron?”

His lordship nodded and muttered something indistinguishable.

“Miss Reddle is my new secretary,” said her ladyship. She pronounced
the four syllables of the word as though they were separated. “You may
see a great deal of her, Chesney--Mr. Praye is my financial adviser.”

He certainly did not look like one who could offer any other advice
than on the correct cut of a morning coat or the set of a cravat. He
himself was perfectly dressed. Lois had often read the phrase
“well-groomed” and now for the first time realised all that it
signified, for Mr. Chesney Praye looked as though he had come from the
hands of an ardent, hissing hostler, who had brushed and smoothed him
until he was speckless and shining.

“A pretty nice pitch for you, this, Miss Reddle,” said Praye. “If you
don’t get on with her ladyship, I’m a Dutchman! Ever been on the
stage?”

“No, I haven’t,” she said, with a faint smile, as she recalled old
Mackenzie’s warning.

“A pity. You ought to have done well on the stage,” he prattled on.
“You’ve got the style and the figure and the voice and all that sort
of thing. I’ve played for a few years in comedy--it’s a dog’s life for
a man and not much better for a woman.”

He laughed uproariously, as though at some secret joke, and Lois was
surprised that the majestic countess did not chide him for the free
and easy attitude which seemed hardly compatible with that of a
trusted financial adviser.

“I’d like to go on the stage.”

It was the silent Lord Moron, and his tone had a note of sulkiness
which was surprising. It was as though he were a small boy asking for
something which had already been refused.

The countess turned her dark, unfriendly eyes upon her son. “You will
never go on the stage, Selwyn,” she said firmly. “Please get that
nonsense out of your head.”

Lord Moron played with his watch-guard, and moved his feet
uncomfortably. He was, she judged, between thirty and forty years of
age, and she guessed he was not married, and had more than a suspicion
that he was mentally deficient. She was to learn later that he was a
weakling, entirely under the domination of his mother, a quiet and
harmless man with simple, almost childish, tastes.

“Not for you, my boy,” said Mr. Chesney Praye, as he slapped the other
on the shoulder, and Lord Moron winced at the vigour of this form of
encouragement. “There is plenty of occupation for you, eh, countess?”

She did not answer him. She was standing by the long French windows
looking down into the square, and now she turned and, fixing a pair of
horn-rimmed lorgnettes, lifted them to her eyes.

“Who is that man?” she asked.

Chesney Praye looked past her, and Lois, who was watching at the time,
saw his mouth twitch and the geniality fade from his face.

“Damn him!” he said under his breath, and the countess turned slowly
and surveyed him with a stare.

“Who is he?” she asked.

“He’s the cleverest ‘busy’ in London--that’s who he is. Detective, I
mean. I’d give a thousand for the privilege of going to his funeral.
He’s got a grudge against me----”

He stopped, as though he realised he was saying too much. Lois looked
over his shoulder at the man in the street. He was walking slowly on
the opposite pavement.

It was Michael Dorn!




 Chapter Nine

Lady Moron was talking.

“A detective? Really, I don’t see why you should be worried about
detectives, Chesney. You are not, I hope, a member of the criminal
classes?”

“Of course I’m not,” he said brusquely, almost rudely, “but I loathe
this fellow. His name’s Dorn--Michael Dorn. He is the only private
detective in England who is worth twopence. They call him into
Scotland Yard for consultations; they think so much of him. He was the
fellow that organised the raid on the Limbo Club, and he tried to get
a conviction against me for being one of the proprietors, which of
course I wasn’t.”

Michael Dorn had passed out of sight now, and the girl was thankful
that their interest had been so concentrated upon his hateful presence
that they had not noticed her; otherwise she must have betrayed her
knowledge of the man.

A detective! At this moment Mr. Chesney Praye was amplifying his
description.

“That fellow’s got the nerve of the devil,” he said, unconsciously
echoing Elizabetta Smith. “He is utterly unscrupulous, and would
‘shop’ his own maiden aunt to get a conviction. He used to be a Deputy
Commissioner of Police in India, but resigned to take up the case of
an African millionaire who lost some documents and paid him a fortune
for recovering them--at least, that’s the yarn I’ve heard.”

What did “shop” mean, she wondered, and guessed that it was synonymous
with “betray.” And what sort of a man was this Mr. Chesney Praye that
he could use these cant terms in the face of his noble employer? She
had heard of men and women who occupied so well-established a position
in the households of the great that they could grow familiar with the
people they were paid to respect, and she supposed this was one such.

It was left to Lord Moron to protest.

“Don’t like ‘shop,’ old thing,” he quavered. “Sort of a low-down term
to use before a young lady--what?”

Again those menacing eyes of his mother cowed him.

“It does not shock me, Selwyn, and I have no reason to suppose that my
secretary will be shocked either.”

He wilted under the glance, muttered something incoherent and stole
guiltily out of the room. Lois would gladly have followed, but there
was no excuse. Instead, it was Mr. Chesney Praye who was dismissed.

“You must run along now, Chesney,” said the countess. “I want to have
a little talk with Miss Reddle.”

Chesney, with his ever-ready grin, took a somewhat elaborate farewell
of his hostess, bending to kiss her plump white hand that was so
covered with jewels that Lois wondered whimsically whether he would
cut his lip.

“You, young lady, I hope to meet again,” he said briskly, as he shook
hands with unnecessary warmth, his bright eyes never leaving hers. “I
might take her around a bit, don’t you think, countess? Is she from
the country?”

“Miss Reddle has lived for some years in town,” said Lady Moron, and
the reproof in her voice would have chilled most persons, but Chesney
Praye was not the kind to be snubbed.

“Anyway, she hasn’t seen the sights I shall probably show her. Perhaps
her ladyship will let you come and dine one night at the club. Do you
dance?”

“If I’m allowed to choose my own partners, I dance rather well,” said
Lois.

“Then you shall choose me,” said the thick-skinned young man, “for I’m
a dandy hopper!”

It was some time after they were left alone before Lady Moron spoke.
She stood, surveying the square below, her hands behind her, and Lois
thought her ladyship must have forgotten that she was present, until
the countess spoke, without turning her head.

“There will be nothing for you to do to-day. I’ve answered all my
letters. We lunch at one-thirty, and you, of course, will invariably
be at our table except when we have visitors. Dinner is at eight
o’clock. You will be allowed to go out every other afternoon from five
to ten, and such weekends as I am in the country will be your own.
Thank you very much, Miss Reddle,” and with this dismissal Lois went
directly up to her room, wondering how she would fill in her spare
time between meals.

When Chesney Praye left the house in Chester Square he looked left and
right, and presently saw what he sought. An idle man, standing at the
corner of the street, his back towards the red-faced young man.
Hesitating only a moment, he turned resolutely towards the seemingly
unconscious Michael Dorn.

“Look here, Dorn!”

Dorn turned round slowly.

“Good morning, Mr. Praye,” he said, with a lift of his eyebrows, as
though the man who confronted him was the last person in the world he
expected to meet in that place at that time.

“What’s your idea in tailing me?”

Michael Dorn’s eyebrows met in seeming perplexity.

“‘Tailing’? Oh, you mean following you, I suppose? I haven’t quite got
used to the argot of the London underworld. In India we call it----”

“Never mind what you call it in India,” said the other roughly.
“What’s the great idea?”

Dorn looked at him with a thoughtful expression.

“Are you under the impression that I’m tailing you?”

“I’m not only under that impression--I know,” said the other, his face
growing darker. “I spotted you this morning when I came out of my
rooms in St. James’ Street, and thought you were there by accident.
And one of your bloodhounds has been up to the Limbo Club, pumping the
waiters. What’s the general scheme?”

“Curiosity,” murmured the other, “just idle curiosity. I’m thinking of
writing a book on the bizarre criminal, and naturally you’d have a few
pages all to yourself.”

Chesney Praye’s eyes were veritable slits as he tapped the other
gently on the waistcoat.

“I’m going to give you a tip, Dorn,” he said. “Keep your finger out of
my pie, or you’re going to get it burnt!”

“One good tip deserves another,” said Dorn. “And mine is, keep your
finger off my waistcoat or you’ll be severely kicked!”

He said it in the most pleasant manner, but the furious man knew that
he meant every word, and dropped his hand. Before he could master his
wrath, Dorn went on:

“You’ve got a good job, Praye--don’t lose it. I understand that you’re
financial adviser to a very noble lady--unprepossessing, but noble.
If, by chance, I hear you’re advising her to put money in some of your
wildcat schemes, or advising her to finance some of the little
gambling houses which you have found so profitable in the past, I
shall be coming right along after you with a real policeman.”

“You damned amateur!” spluttered the other.

“You have found the chink in my armour.” Dorn was coolness itself, and
the shadow of laughter gleamed in his fine eyes. “I hate being called
‘amateur’! I have warned you.”

“You’re not in India now----” began Chesney, and recognised his
mistake too late.

“I am not in India now, nor are you,” Dorn’s voice was gentle, almost
silken. “Seven years ago I was in India--in Delhi--and there was a
certain smart young Government official, also a financial adviser to
some heads of departments, whose accounts went a little wonky. He was
some twenty thousand pounds short. The money was never discovered. It
was generally thought that the financial authority was more of a fool
than a rogue, and, although he was dismissed from the public service,
he was not prosecuted.”

Chesney Praye licked his dry lips.

“I, for my part, advised his prosecution,” Dorn went on. “In fact, I
knew that the money was lying at a bank in Bombay, in the name of a
lady friend. The Simla big-wigs were so scared of a scandal that the
thief”--he paused and watched the other wince--“this thief was allowed
to transfer his ill-gotten gains to Europe. And lo! I meet him again
in the rôle of financial adviser!”

Chesney found his voice.

“There’s a law of libel in this country,” he said.

“There are several other laws, including the very excellent criminal
law,” said Dorn. “And the statute of limitations does not apply to
felonies. One loud squeal in an irresponsible newspaper, and they’d
have to pinch you, whether the Government liked it or not.”

Chesney Praye looked first one way and then the other, and presently
his eyes caught the detective’s. He was paler than he had been.

“I didn’t associate you with that business,” he said. “I knew I had an
enemy somewhere in the background. It was you, was it?”

Dorn nodded.

“It was I--by the way, where is your dissolute friend, Dr. Tappatt,
located? I thought he must have drunk himself to death, but I hear
that he is in London--you introduced him to the countess a year ago.
Did you tell her about his queer record? Or is he now her medical
adviser? Or is he running one of the famous unregistered homes for
mental cases? That man will hang sooner or later.”

Praye did not reply. His face was working nervously; for a second he
had a mad impulse to strike at his tormentor, but thought better of
it. It was in a calmer voice that he said:

“I don’t see why we should quarrel over what is past. You’re wrong
when you think I made money out of that Delhi business, and I haven’t
seen Tappatt for months. But I know I can’t convince you. Let’s bury
the hatchet.”

Michael Dorn looked down at the extended hand, but made no effort to
take it.

“If I bury any hatchet with you, Praye,” he said, “it will only put me
to the expense of buying a new one. You go your way and let your way
be as straight as possible. If you run foul of me, I’m going to hurt
you, and I assure you I shall hurt you bad!”

He saw the flaming hate in the man’s eyes, and his own gaze did not
waver. Suddenly Praye turned on his heels and walked away.

The detective waited until the man was out of sight, then strolled
along the side-street, passed up the mews at the back of Chester
Gardens, and made a careful examination of the back premises of No.
307. The stables and garages on the other side of the mews interested
him considerably, and it was some time before he was clear of the
mews, and met the silent little man whom he had sent out on an errand
the morning Lois Reddle had visited his flat.

“Wills, there’s a garage to let in this mews. I have an idea that it
belongs to her ladyship--her own cars are at the Belgrave Garage. Go
along and see the agents, tell them you wish to rent the place and get
the keys--to-night if possible--to-morrow certain.”

He handed a note he had made of the agent’s address to the other, and
without a word the silent Wills strolled away. He never asked
questions--which, to Michael Dorn, was his chief charm.

Michael came into Chester Square from the opposite end. He saw Lady
Moron’s big Rolls standing at the doorway, and presently had the
felicity of seeing her ladyship, accompanied by her son, enter the car
and drive away. She was going shopping and would come back to lunch,
he thought, and loafed along the side-walk, slackening his pace as he
came opposite the house. There was no sign of the girl, but Michael
Dorn was a very patient man. It was not Lois whom he expected or
wished to see. The man for whom he was waiting came out ten minutes
after Lady Moron’s car had turned from Chester Square. He was a tall,
broad-shouldered man with a somewhat unpleasant face, whom Michael
knew to be Lady Moron’s butler. Him he followed at a distance, and
this time Michael made a very profitable trail.




 Chapter Ten

The Countess of Moron, Lois discovered, had one amiable weakness; it
was for jigsaw puzzles, which were made especially for her--pictures
in greys and blues and elusive shades which would have driven an
ordinary puzzle expert to despair. They were cut in tiny pieces, and
her ladyship would spend hours before the big table in the library,
putting them together. This she confessed at luncheon, and it was the
first time that Lois had seen the human side of her employer. In the
main the conversation was confined to the two women, Lord Moron being
in the party, but not of it. When he spoke, as occasionally he did,
his mother either ignored him or answered him in monosyllables. And
apparently he was used to such treatment, which he did not seem to
resent. The only servant present throughout the meal was the butler,
Braime, for whom Lois conceived an instant dislike. He was a man with
a forbidding face, sparing of speech, and though he was polite enough,
there was something about his height and bulk which produced in the
girl a sensation of uneasiness.

“You don’t like Braime, Miss Reddle?” asked the countess, when the man
was momentarily absent from the room.

Lois marvelled at the intuition of her employer, and answered
laughingly:

“I don’t know whether I like him or not.”

“He is a very satisfactory person,” said the countess in her majestic
manner. “I like tall servants, and the fact that he is unpleasant
looking is an advantage. None of my callers will try to steal him. In
society one finds one’s best servants so frequently enticed away by
people who pretend they are one’s friends.”

It was then that she told of her passion for jigsaw puzzles.

“Braime is very helpful and quite clever at that sort of thing, and I
have frequently had to call on him for help.”

“Have you had him long?”

“Some six months. He was recommended to me by some people anxious to
reform criminals,” was the startling thing she added.

Lois nearly jumped from her chair.

“You mean that he has been in prison?” she asked, bewildered.

Lady Moron inclined her head in a stately agreement.

“Yes, I believe he has been in prison for some foolish
offence--stealing silver, I think. I have given him a new start, and
the man is grateful.” When the butler returned, Lois gave him a more
careful, if more furtive, scrutiny. Despite his powerful physique, he
moved with a gentle, almost feline tread and his big clumsy hands
manipulated the delicate china with a dexterity which was surprising.

Partly to her amusement, but more to her embarrassment, Lois found
that a maid had been allocated to her--a fresh-faced country girl who
had been recruited from her ladyship’s own village in Berkshire. For
the Earls of Moron were wealthy landowners, and Moron House, near
Newbury, was one of the show places of the county.

The maid had all the loquacity of her kind, and Lois had not been very
long in her room before she learnt that her distrust of the butler was
generally felt throughout the servants’ quarters.

“He’s always prying and spying, miss,” said the maid. “He’s just like
a great cat, the way he walks; you can’t hear him until he’s behind
you. And us servants are not good enough for him. He has all his meals
in his pantry, and whenever we get a new servant here he watches her
as if she was a mouse. I wonder her ladyship stands such an ugly,
bad-tempered man about the house.”

“Is he very bad-tempered?” asked Lois.

“Well,” admitted the girl with reluctance, “I can’t exactly say that.
But he looks bad-tempered,” she said triumphantly, “and you can always
judge a man on his looks. Her ladyship took a lot of trouble about
you, miss.”

“About me?” said Lois in surprise.

The girl nodded.

“She had these chairs put in for you and chose your bed, and--hullo,
what’s this? Is this yours, miss?”

She had pulled open the empty drawer of a bureau, and now she held in
her hand a large cabinet photograph. Lois took it from her; it was the
picture of a young man; she judged him to be in the early twenties. He
was singularly good-looking, and there was about the face something
that was vaguely familiar.

“I don’t know how that got there,” said the chattering girl. “I
cleared these drawers out myself yesterday. Her ladyship must have
brought it up and left it.”

Lois saw, though it was only a bust photograph, that the young man
wore the uniform of a Highland regiment, and she tried to recall the
badge. As a child she had been interested in regimental insignia.

“He’s good-looking, isn’t he, miss?”

“Very good-looking,” said the girl. “I wonder who he is?”

“We’ve got lots of photographs in the house and nobody knows who they
are. Her ladyship collects them,” said the girl.

“I will take it down to Lady Moron,” said Lois.

She found the countess sitting with her head in her hands before a
half-completed puzzle picture.

“Where was that? In your room?”

Lady Moron took the photograph from her hand, looked at it
disparagingly and dropped it into a table drawer.

“He was a boy I knew some many years ago,” she said, and did not
trouble to discuss how the photograph had appeared in Lois’ room.

Lois went back to her own room. It was a sunny afternoon and rather
warm. The long windows were open and one of these led on to a small
stone balcony, one of the many which ornamented the front of the
house. Across the window opening, however, was a light wooden gate
which barred access to the inviting place.

“We’re not allowed to go out on the balconies in the daytime,” said
the girl. “Her ladyship is very particular about that.”

“Does that apply to me?”

“Oh yes, miss,” said the girl. “Her ladyship doesn’t go out on to her
own balcony, except in the evenings. Nobody is allowed out by day.”

Lois was wondering what induced the eccentric countess to prohibit a
very pleasant lounging place during the day.

The afternoon post brought a number of letters, which, contrary to
Lady Moron’s express principles, had to be answered that afternoon,
and she was busy until an hour before dinner. And then the stately
lady made a suggestion for which the girl was very grateful.

“If you have any girl friend you would like to ask to tea you may--any
afternoon I am out. To-morrow will be a free evening for you. I shall
be going out to dinner.”

That night, before she retired to her comfortable bed, she wrote a
long letter to Lizzy Smith and posted it herself, and Lizzy’s reply
was characteristically prompt. Lois was eating a solitary breakfast
the next morning when a footman came in to say that she was wanted on
the telephone. It was Lizzy.

“That you, kid? I’ll be coming along to-night. Are you sending the
car, or am I taking the old No. 14? Don’t dress for me; I’m a plain
woman without any side.”

“Don’t be silly, Lizzy. I shall be all alone and expecting you.”

“What sort of a crib is it?” asked Lizzy.

“Very nice, very nice, indeed,” said Lois, but without any enthusiasm.
“Only there isn’t enough work to do.”

“‘Only’ is not the word you want, it’s ‘and,’” said Lizzy. “What is
coming over you, Lois? Find me a job without work--here’s old
Rattlebones!”--the latter in a lower tone told Lois that the girl was
telephoning from the office and that the managing clerk had arrived.

Lady Moron and her son had gone out to dinner and a theatre party, and
Lois was alone when the girl came.

“This is certainly great,” said Lizzy in a slow tone, as she looked
round the resplendent dining-room. “That big chap’s the butler, I
suppose? I can’t say that I like his face, but he can’t help that. How
many courses do you have?” she asked, after the third course. “My
doctor says I mustn’t take more than six.”

Following dinner the two girls went up to Lois’ room and Lizzy sat
down to stare and admire.

“I always thought these sort of jobs didn’t exist outside of good
books,” she said. “I mean the books they give you for Sunday School
prizes. You’ve certainly rung the bell this time, Lois!”

“It seems too good to be true, doesn’t it?” laughed Lois.

“You haven’t seen _him_, I suppose?”

“You mean Mr. Dorn? Yes, I saw him this morning. He was walking up and
down Chester Square. And Lizzy, he’s a detective.”

Lizzy’s eyes lit up.

“A real detective?” she said, in an awestricken tone. “And I thought
he was the other way about--that he was one of the people detectives
catch. What did he say, Lois?”

The girl shook her head.

“I didn’t speak to him. I only saw him through the window. Lizzy, I’m
so worried and puzzled about it all--and he’s such a queer man! The
things he _could_ have said when I collided with his car!”

“I don’t know why you need be worried,” said the philosophical Lizzy.
“Even detectives have their feelings. There was one married the other
day--I saw a bit in the paper about it. And some of them are quite
respectable men.” She looked up suddenly.

“What is it?” asked Lois.

“I thought I heard footsteps outside the door.”

Lois walked to the door and threw it open. The corridor was empty.

“What made you think there was somebody there?”

Lizzy shook her head.

“I don’t know,” she said vaguely, “only I’ve got sharp ears, and if
they weren’t slippers moving on a carpet, I’ve never heard ’em!”

Lois closed the door and sat down on the bed.

“Lizzy, I’m going to tell you something,” she said, and the interest
of Miss Elizabetta Smith quickened.

“Ah!” she said, drawing a long breath. “I knew you’d tell me sooner or
later. But, my dear, it won’t be any news to me. He is one of the
nicest men I’ve ever met----”

“What on earth are you talking about?” demanded Lois, aghast. “Are you
thinking of that wretched Mr. Dorn?”

“Well, what else have you got to tell me?” demanded Lizzy indignantly;
and Lois, in spite of the seriousness of the subject she was about to
broach, fell into an uncontrollable fit of silent laughter.

“My dear, I can’t tell you now, not--not in this mood,” said Lois.
“You poor little matchmaker! Mr. Dorn is probably married, with a
large family. We won’t talk about him either.” Then, as a thought
struck her: “Would you like to see this wicked city by night, with all
its lights? I’ll show you.” She walked to the French windows and
opened them. “This little balcony is forbidden territory by day, but
it is rather wonderful now, isn’t it?”

She stepped out on to the balcony and, walking to the balustrade,
rested her hand upon the broad parapet, looking down into the street,
which seemed a terribly long way below. And even as she did so, she
felt the balcony sag slowly beneath her.

She turned in a fright and leapt towards the window; but at that
minute there was a loud crack, and the stone floor dropped suddenly
beneath her.




 Chapter Eleven

As she fell, Lois clutched wildly, and her fingers caught a
projecting ridge of stone an inch wide; the jerk nearly pulled her
arms from their sockets, but for the moment she hung.

She heard the frightened scream of Lizzy.

“Are you there? Oh, for God’s sake hold on, Lois! I’ll get them!”

And then, looking up, she saw the girl jerked violently backwards. She
was falling; she could not hold on a second longer. There was a
terrible, unendurable pain in her shoulders and her head was swimming.

And then, just as her fingers were slipping, a big hand grasped her
wrist, and she felt herself drawn upwards until another hand caught
her under the arm and pulled her into the room. She looked up into the
unpleasant face of Braime, the butler.

He laid her on the bed, then, going to the window, knelt and peered
down. The crash of falling masonry had attracted one of those small
crowds which gather from nowhere at any hour of the day or night in
London. Braime saw a policeman running across the street, and, rising,
dusted his knees carefully, closed the window door and latched it. He
said not a word to the girl, but went out of the room.

Lois, on the very verge of collapse, lay white of face, as pale as
death. But her distress was as nothing to Lizzy Smith’s, who was
paralysed by all the tragic happening, until the girl’s moan aroused
her to action.

Lois came from semi-consciousness to a clearer understanding, with a
sense that she had been drowned, then, as out of a haze, loomed the
white-faced Lizzy with a water-jug in her hand.

“That was a close call!” breathed the girl.

Something in the words was reminiscent; Lois had heard them before.
Then in a flash she remembered the motor-car which had nearly killed
her and Michael Dorn’s words. She struggled up to a sitting position
and found that the sensation of drowning was not altogether illusory,
for Lizzy had been very lavish in her use of the water-jug.

She had hardly got to her feet when there was a tap at the door and
the butler came in, followed by a policeman.

“The officer wishes to see the balcony,” said Braime, and opened the
door for the policeman’s inspection.

With the aid of his lamp the officer made a cursory examination and
brought his head back into the room. He looked strangely at Lois.

“You’ll never get nearer to trouble than that, miss,” he said.
“There’s an old crack in the slab that you trod on, and the balustrade
doesn’t support the flooring at all. I’d like to see some of the other
balconies,” he said, and disappeared with the butler.

This was the second accident in a few days; her spine crept at the
thought. What malign influence was following her? For the first time
she wished she was returning to her humble little room in Charlotte
Street, and she said good-bye to Lizzy with real reluctance.

The countess arrived home soon after the girl had gone, and came
immediately up to Lois’ room as she was undressing.

“I knew that balcony was unsafe,” she said, “and I told that fool of a
butler to keep the gate fixed. Where is the gate?”

“It was here this afternoon; I did not notice it before I went down to
dinner, Lady Moron,” said Lois. “I thought it had been moved to allow
the windows to be closed.”

The countess bit her red lip thoughtfully.

“There is more in this than I care to think about,” she said. “I hope
you’re not going to have a sleepless night, Miss Reddle. I cannot tell
you how distressed I am. How were you saved?”

Lois told her and Lady Moron nodded.

“Braime?” she said. “But what was he doing on the third floor at that
time?”

She looked searchingly at the girl and then, without another word,
went to her own room.

It was two o’clock in the morning before sleep came to Lois; and by
that time her nerves were on edge, so that she started at every sound.
Something was keeping her awake--something she was trying to remember.
Some thought was working insistently at the back of her mind,
demanding revelation. As she tossed from side to side, consciousness
of this inhibited memory made her grow wider and wider awake. And
then, as she came back to bed, after the second tramp to the washstand
for a glass of water, it flashed upon her.

“Keep your door locked--even in the palatial home of the Countess of
Moron!”

Michael Dorn’s warning! It was that. She went to the door and felt for
the key. But there was none, nor was there any bolt. Turning on the
light, she lifted one of the smaller arm-chairs, carried it to the
door, and pushed the back beneath the handle. Then she went back to
bed and was asleep in a few seconds.

She awoke the next morning to find the sun streaming past the edge of
the blind. There was a gentle tap-tapping at the door. She jumped out
of bed and pulled away the chair to admit the maid.

“Good morning, miss,” said the maid cheerfully, and was inclined to
discuss the accident of the night before, but that Lois was most
anxious to forget.

“Her ladyship’s very much upset. She hasn’t had any sleep all night,
miss,” said Jean. “She asked me if I’d warned you about the balcony.
Of course I told her I did, but only in the daytime--I didn’t know it
was unsafe. I’ve only been here a fortnight. Her ladyship was in the
country until then.”

She drew the blinds, and, crossing to the window, Lois looked out. The
jagged edge of the broken balcony was there to remind her of her
narrow escape and she shuddered as she recalled that dreadful moment
when she had hung in space.

“It was the butler’s fault,” said Jean maliciously. “I shouldn’t be
surprised if he got the sack.”

“If it hadn’t been for the butler I should have been killed.”

“If it hadn’t been for the butler, miss, you wouldn’t have been in
danger,” said the girl, and there seemed some truth in her remark.
“Her ladyship told me to move you to-day to his lordship’s room on the
floor below.”

“But surely she’s not turning out Lord Moron?” asked Lois, aghast.

Apparently the household staff entertained towards his lordship
something of the contempt which his mother displayed, in public and
private.

“Oh, him!” said the girl with a shrug. “He doesn’t mind where he
sleeps. He’d be just as happy in the garret. All he wants to do is to
go on the stage and play with his silly old electricity! I wonder her
ladyship allows him to go on in that childish way.”

So the Earl of Moron’s queer desire was public property, thought Lois.
Apart from the shock of the news that he was being turned out of his
apartment to make room for a secretary, Lois was not sorry that new
accommodation was to be offered to her, and her pleasure was
intensified after her interview with the countess.

Her ladyship, who had a predilection for strong colours, wore a gown
of petunia that morning. Lois thought it made her look old. She made
no reference to the accident, and for the first hour after breakfast
they were engaged in letter-writing. Lady Moron had many
correspondents, and there was the usual sprinkling of begging letters
which had to be dealt with in the usual way. When Lois had finished
her work and brought the last letter for her employer’s signature, the
countess looked up.

“You are not suffering any ill effects from last night’s terrible
experience?” she asked.

“No,” smiled Lois.

“I have told the maid to move you into Selwyn’s room. As a matter of
fact, it is never used by him; he prefers his little study at the top
of the house and sleeps there nine nights out of ten. You are not
worried about what happened?”

Lois shook her head.

“Or nervous?”

The girl hesitated.

“I was a little nervous last night.”

“I thought you would be, and I have been considering what would be my
best course to induce you to stay. I like you. And there is another
reason; I want a woman in the house to whom I can talk
confidentially.” She turned in her swivelled chair and looked up into
Lois’ face. “I don’t want to be alone,” she said. “I am rather
frightened of being alone.”

“Frightened, Lady Moron?”

Her ladyship nodded. There was certainly nothing in her voice to
indicate her fear. She picked and chose her words with characteristic
care. “I can’t explain why, but I am frightened--of certain people. If
you care to remain with me, I will raise your salary, and I am quite
willing that your friend should sleep in the house.”

“My friend?” asked the surprised Lois. “Do you mean Miss Smith?”

Again the countess nodded, her dark eyes never leaving the girl’s
face.

Lois hesitated.

“That might be very--very awkward for you,” she said.

The countess waved a flashing hand.

“I have considered the matter in all its aspects, and if it is
agreeable to you and your friend, I will have another bed put into
your room. Perhaps you would like to see Miss Smith and discover her
opinions on the subject? I will have the car ready for you in a
quarter of an hour.”

Looking over the edge of the wire blinds, Lizzy Smith saw the
glistening limousine pull up at the door, and Lois alight, and,
defiant of all the rules of the establishment, she ran out of the
office and came half-way down the stairs to meet the visitor.

In a few words Lois told her of Lady Moron’s proposal.

“Gee whiz!” said Lizzy, flabbergasted. “You don’t mean that?”

She gripped Lois by the arm and pulled her upstairs. “Come right along
to the ’phone!” she hissed, “and tell her royal highness that I’ll be
on the mat at six!”




 Chapter Twelve

Lois did not go into the office; she left her friend on the
threshold and went on to the appointment she sought. Leaving the car
in Parliament Street, she walked down Whitehall to the Home Office
building, and, filling in a blank, took her place in the waiting-room.

There was very little possibility, she told herself that the august
Under-Secretary, with whom she craved an interview, would grant her
that privilege, in spite of the pressing nature of the note which she
had sent with the official form. She began to despair and was looking
round at the waiting-room clock for the tenth time, when a messenger
came for her.

“Miss Reddle?” he asked. “Will you follow me?”

Her heart beat a little faster as he knocked on an imposing door, and,
opening it, announced her name. An elderly man, who was sitting at the
far end of a big room, his back to an empty fireplace, an immense desk
before him, half rose from his chair.

“Sit down, Miss Reddle,” he said, with official brusqueness. “I read
your note, and I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. I had an important
conference here.” And then, without further preliminary: “You say that
Mrs. Pinder is your mother?”

“Yes, sir, I am certain of that.”

There was a big folder before him, and this he opened.

“The case is familiar to me,” said the Under-Secretary. “As a matter
of fact, I was a junior engaged in the courts when she was tried,
though not in the case. I don’t know what I can do for you. Her
sentence has nearly expired, and if I were you I should wait until she
comes out before you take any further steps. There are certain other
people interested in the case, as you probably know, and that is the
advice I have given to them.”

“But my mother was innocent,” said Lois, and he replied with an almost
imperceptible shrug of his shoulders.

“Innocence has this much in common with guilt,” he said, “that after
twenty years it is very difficult to prove or disprove. I followed the
case very closely and it seemed to me that there were two essential
pieces of evidence, one of which might have proved her guilt beyond
doubt, and one her innocence. And these were not produced at the
trial.”

“What were they?” asked Lois quickly.

“The first was the key to the box in which the jewellery and the
cyanide were discovered. If that had been found in your mother’s
possession any doubt in my mind would have been removed. That was the
judge’s view also. The other is the letter the murdered woman--or
rather,” he said hastily, “the woman who was found dead--would have
written had it been a case of suicide. You know, of course, there was
a pen and ink on the table and a pad of paper, but no letter was
found. It was a new pad, purchased by the dead lady that morning, and
one sheet had been torn away. The view of the defence was that,
preparatory to committing suicide, she had written a letter, as people
do in such circumstances. However, it was not found, although a very
careful search was made.”

And then, abruptly, he began to question her about herself, her life.
When she had told him the means by which she had identified herself
with Lois Margeritta, Mrs. Pinder’s daughter, he agreed.

“I should think you were right there,” he said.

“Even Mr. Dorn thinks I am right,” she said with a half-smile.

“Dorn?” he said sharply. “You mean the Indian man, the police officer?
Do you know him?”

“Not very well,” she said.

Could he be amongst the “other people interested in the case”? She
dismissed the possibility as absurd.

He looked at her keenly.

“In what circumstances did you meet Dorn?” he asked, and Lois was very
frank.

“Humph!” said the Under-Secretary. “Dorn isn’t that kind of man. I
mean, he wouldn’t go chasing round after a girl if there wasn’t
something else to it. He is a man of the highest integrity and
honour,” he said emphatically; and for some extraordinary reason she
was pleased to hear this tribute to the man who had so often annoyed
her.

There was nothing more to be done, and when he rose to signify the end
of the interview and shook her hand, he put into words her own
thought.

“When your mother comes out of prison she will be able to give you a
great deal more information than any of us possess. There is the
question of your father, for example, who disappeared for a week or
two before the crime and was never seen again. What happened to him? I
remember there was a half-hearted attempt on the part of the
prosecution to hold your mother responsible for his disappearance.”

“How horrible!” said Lois indignantly.

“Yes, I suppose it was horrible.”

From the Under-Secretary’s tone it seemed to Lois that he did not
regard the matter quite in that light.

“In criminal cases, my dear young lady, the prosecution have to
presume the most horrible things, and they’re usually right!”

There was very little profit for the girl from this interview, but at
least she had the satisfaction of knowing that she had made a start.
Somehow she had never thought very much about her father and his
disappearance. That seemed so unimportant by the side of her mother’s
suffering.

The letter and the key; these were two new points which she had never
considered or known about before. She went back to Chester Square with
a sense of accomplishment, and arrived in time to witness perhaps the
strangest incident that mortal eye had seen.

As she opened the door of the drawing-room, she heard a shrill voice
raised in anger, recognised it as Lord Moron’s, and would have drawn
back, only her ladyship, who had seen her, called her into the room.

Moron was beside himself with rage. His sallow cheeks were pale, and,
as he spluttered his annoyance, he stamped his foot in childish anger.

“I refuse, I absolutely refuse!” he almost screamed. “I appeal to Miss
What’s-er-name. I appeal to you, miss. Is it right that a man in my
position should do what any wretched boozing doctor tells him to do?
Don’t think that I’m afraid of this horrible creature, because I’m
not! I know the law, by gad!”

“Braime simply carried out his instructions,” said the countess in her
deep, booming voice.

She was standing near her writing-table, slowly sharpening a pencil
with a little knife, and did not look up from her task.

“I don’t mind giving up my room for a young lady,” said the Earl
rapidly, “any gentleman would do the same. Besides, my study’s awfully
jolly. But if I want to go out alone, I’ll go out alone, and I won’t
have any beastly criminal butlers going with me--not if all the
beastly doctors in the world order it. I’ve stood enough, my dear
mother.”

He shook a trembling finger at the woman, who, seemingly oblivious to
the scene, continued her pencil-sharpening.

“I’ve stood enough. You may marry this wretched Chesney Praye, the
infernal blackguard! Ah, yes. I know all about that! I know a lot of
things you don’t imagine I know! You may use my money as you jolly
well please, you may----”

Lois saw Lady Moron’s hand go up and touch her son’s face with a
caressing gesture.

“You’re a naughty boy,” she said, her thin lips curled in a smile.

And then, with a scream of pain, the man stepped backwards and put up
his hand to his bleeding face.

Lois could not believe the evidence of her eyes. Yet there it was--a
long, straight cut, and the little knife with which the woman was
sharpening her pencil showed a tiny red stain.




 Chapter Thirteen

“You’re a very naughty boy,” said the countess, intent again upon
her pencil-sharpening, “go back and play with your batteries!” and,
with a gasp of fear, the man turned and ran blindly from the room, his
face dabbled red.

There was a dead silence, and then the countess looked up.

“I suppose you think I’m very horrid? But Selwyn is difficult at
times--shockingly difficult, and shockingly sulky. I must impose my
will on him for his own good. And really, he isn’t hurt any more than
he would have been if his razor had slipped.”

The cold-bloodedness of the thing left Lois breathless and shaken. She
could hardly believe that she was not dreaming horribly.

“It was rather--drastic, wasn’t it?” she said, speaking with
difficulty.

Again the dark eyes met hers.

“Drastic? Yes. Dr. Tappatt wishes me to be even more drastic. Did you
speak to your friend?”

“Yes,” said Lois, almost grateful to be lifted out of the scene.

“And she will come? How dear of her! I told you I was afraid this
morning, Miss Reddle. I don’t suppose you guessed why, even after
Moron’s amazing exhibition of childish temper?”

Lois did not guess and was wisely silent. Her ladyship made no further
reference to the scene. When Lord Moron came to lunch with his face
conspicuously plastered, his mother did no more at the end of the meal
than say:

“Please don’t come to dinner like that, Selwyn. One would imagine you
had been in an earthquake.”

To which he answered, with a meek:

“Yes, madam.”

The change of rooms had been effected, and Lois was now in what might
very well have been a small state apartment in one of the royal
palaces. The new bed had been erected, and as the hour approached for
Lizzy’s arrival, the uneasy qualms which Lois had been feeling all day
began to dissipate. Though she had given strict injunctions as to the
appearance her son should present at dinner, the countess herself
dined out. She sent for Lois before she left the house.

“If you could amuse Selwyn, please do so. He is quite a good companion
if you can reduce your mentality to the level of his. Possibly your
friend will find him easier than you,” she added, and Lois would have
been amused if she were not a little shocked.

Lizzy came promptly at six, bringing with her a battered black bag
containing what she described as her “court dress and coronation
robes” and the girl prepared her for a shock.

“You’re dining to-night with the Earl of Moron,” she said, and Lizzy
collapsed into a chair.

“I can’t and I won’t,” she said energetically. “I knew there was going
to be a catch in this!”

Lois soothed her fears, and, though she did not wish to follow the
example of the servants and speak of his lordship in terms of
disparagement, she sufficiently reassured her friend that Lizzy
neither fainted nor flew when she was introduced to the vacuous,
young-old man.

He was standing with his back to the empty fireplace in the
drawing-room, a cigarette drooping from his lips, when Lois ushered
her friend into his presence. He gave Lizzy a feeble handshake.

“Awfully glad to meet you. Nice weather we’re having,” he said, and to
Lois: “Her ladyship’s gone, I suppose? That beastly bounder Praye
called for her.”

Lois remembered the scene, of which she had been an unwilling witness,
and Mr. Chesney Praye’s attitude towards the countess, which seemed
inexplicable, was within her understanding. Chesney Praye was
something more than a financial adviser. Apparently he had advised the
lady in affairs of the heart only too well, though Lois found it
rather difficult to imagine the masterful countess in a tender mood.

“Perfectly beastly bounder,” said his lordship with such energy that
she realised that the spirit of revolt was not wholly crushed. “That
wretched boozing doctor is bad, but Chesney Praye is worse! I call him
a bird of prey--that’s not bad, what? Chesney, the bird of prey!”

He chuckled at his mild jest and visibly brightened under the
influence of his own humour. This was the second reference that had
been made to the mysterious doctor. Lois wondered if she would be
called upon to meet him.

“Well, I’m glad she’s gone with her bird of prey. Let’s go along and
have some grub.”

Lizzy’s jaw dropped at the sound of this familiar vulgarism; and that
moment probably marked the beginning of an interest in the aristocracy
which was fated to grow in intensity.

It was one of the most cheerful dinners that Lois remembered, and
certainly for his lordship it was an hilarious feast, for he trotted
out his joke about “bird of prey” some half a dozen times, and on each
occasion with an increasing measure of amusement.

“I didn’t see the joke at first,” said Lizzy, wiping her eyes.

“His name’s Praye,” explained his lordship eagerly. “I call him the
bird of prey--rather good, what? Let’s play draughts. I’m rather a dab
at draughts.”

It was an opportunity to learn to know him better and Lois very
skilfully drew him out. He had been to a public school--he thought it
was Harrow; in fact, he was pretty sure it was Harrow--for two years,
and then his mother had taken him away. He hated school life; it was
rough. Since then he had practically not left his mother. He thought
he was a member of one of the clubs, but he wasn’t quite sure which
one; at any rate, he had never been there.

“You aren’t married?” asked Lois boldly.

The question afforded him a tremendous amount of enjoyment.

“Married--me? Good gracious, no! Who wants to marry a silly old johnny
like me? Oh dear, no! There was a girl who wanted to marry me, I
understand, when I was rather young, but her ladyship wouldn’t have
her at any price.”

He had never occupied any responsible position. His mother managed his
estate with the aid of bailiffs and lawyers; from time to time
documents came to him for his signature; and he had been to the House
of Lords once to take his seat.

“Never again--too silly,” he said. “They dress you up in red velvet
and put crowns and things on your head!”

She discovered, to her surprise, that he had a hobby, and
incidentally, his mother’s sneering remarks about his “batteries” were
cleared up. He had a passion for electrical apparatus. His study, into
which the girl had not been invited, was a litter of model dynamos,
electric trains, and batteries.

“I’ve done one of the neatest little jobs for her ladyship in the
library--ask her to show it to you.” His face went serious, “Perhaps
you’d better not,” he said hastily.

Electrical work was not wholly an amusement to him. He claimed with
pride to have fixed all the bells in the house, and later the girl
learnt that this was true.

Whatever terrors the peerage had for Lizzy were quickly dissipated;
towards the end of the evening she was hotly disputing the bona fides
of a piece which had mysteriously appeared on his side of the
chequer-board.

“Never had such a perfectly jolly evening in all my young life,” said
his lordship. He had been glancing nervously at the clock for some
time. “Now I think I’ll toddle, before the madam comes.”

He made one of his rapid exits, and the two girls came out into the
hall. Braime was standing by the front door, staring through the glass
panels into the street.

“Good-night, miss,” he said respectfully, and then continued his
vigil.

“I don’t like that man,” said Lizzy, when they got to their room.

“Braime? I didn’t, but I owe him so much. If he had not been there
last night----”

“How did he get there--that’s the question?” said Lizzy. “He must have
been in the room when the balcony fell, for almost at once I felt
somebody pulling me aside.”

“What do you think of Lord Moron?” asked Lois, anxious to turn the
conversation to pleasanter channels.

“He’s wonderful,” said Lizzy dreamily. “From what I heard about him I
thought he was dippy; but that boy’s got brains!”

Lois was in bed, and Lizzy, who was too intensely interested in her
own views to be a quick-change artist, was in that condition of
deshabille which made her least presentable, when there came a frantic
tapping at the door.

“Who is that?” asked Lois.

“It’s me, young lady. Can I come in?”

It was Lord Moron’s voice.




 Chapter Fourteen

“I’m afraid you can’t come in now. Is there anything you want?”

“Yes, I forgot something,” said the agitated voice.

“Can I get it for you?” asked Lois, now at the door.

“No, I’m afraid you can’t, it’s--er----”

His voice died down into a rumble of sound. Then!

“Never mind. I don’t suppose--I say, don’t be alarmed or anything of
that sort--I mean, don’t mention to the madam anything that seems
remarkable, will you?”

The girl shook her head in bewilderment.

“I don’t know what you mean. Is there something I can get for you?”

But he had evidently gone. Lizzy, who had a practical mind, suggested
that the articles he required were false teeth.

“He’s got that kind of delicate mind that wouldn’t mention them to a
lady,” she said.

But her companion did not accept that explanation.

Lizzy, who was not affected by the stateliness of the surroundings,
was asleep almost as soon as she had finished talking. But Lois Reddle
had never been more wide awake in her life. She heard the clock strike
the quarter and the half and the hour. She turned from side to side
and counted sheep and furnished houses and followed all the
prescriptions for sleeplessness which had ever been offered. But at
half-past one she was alert and wakeful. She heard the whine of a car
as it stopped in front of the house. That was Lady Moron returning,
she guessed.

The bed she occupied was a small four-poster. Perhaps it was this
unusual factor which kept her awake. She stared up in the dark at the
silken canopy above her head, wondering whether she would sleep more
comfortably upon the big settee at the foot of the bed.

The deep breathing which came from Lizzy’s bed irritated her
unreasonably. She rose, touched the pillow, and turned over again, and
then----

“_Did she know the photograph?_”

She sat up with a jerk. It was the voice of Chesney Praye and had come
from the canopy above her!

It was as though somebody was lying on the top and speaking, for the
words were clear and distinct. It was the voice of the countess who
answered him.

“No,” came the deep tones. “I put it in the drawer just before she
arrived.”

A pause, and then presently he spoke again.

“You took a risk.”

She heard the deep laughter of Lady Moron.

“I’ve taken a greater one to-night, I think, Chesney.”

“My dear Leonora,” Chesney’s voice was pained, “surely you can trust
me?”

“I have to,” the deliberate tone of her ladyship came down from the
canopy, “and I think you will be wise not to play the fool. Selwyn is
worrying me.”

“Selwyn!” contemptuously.

“Selwyn. He knows more than I gave him credit for. How did he know
that we were to be married? He came out with it in his rage to-day.
And how did he know that I’d been lending you money----”

“Come into the dining-room.”

There came the sound of a knock and then the voice of Braime spoke
very faintly.

“I’ve set the table, my lady.”

After that Lois heard no more.

“Who was that? Was it somebody talking?” It was Lizzy who spoke. “Was
it you, Lois? I heard somebody say they’d lent money.”

Lois was out of bed now, and had switched on the little lamp that
stood on the table by the bedside. She looked up fearfully at the
canopy. It had the heavy, respectable appearance which all such
articles of furnishing have. Lois had a wild idea that a door had been
left open, but the only door in the room was that which led to the
corridor and it was locked, as she knew.

“What was it, Lois?” Lizzy was struggling into her dressing-gown.

“I don’t know. I heard somebody speaking. It seemed to be in the
room.”

“It came from the direction of your bed,” said Lizzy. “Lord! This is a
queer house. I don’t like it, Lois. I’d sooner have old Mackenzie and
his fiddle any day or any night.”

Lois Reddle jumped on to the bed, lifted the table lamp and began an
examination of the valance above. Presently she uttered an
exclamation. In one corner, suspended by two wires, was a black,
bell-shaped piece of ebonite, which at first she thought was a
telephone receiver. Behind was a flat and circular box, and this was
wired to the canopy.

“That is where the voice came from; it’s a loud-speaking telephone!”

She found the wire; it was cunningly hidden along the valance,
descending one of the bed-posts, where it ran in a red flex to a
wall-plug. The mystery was a mystery no longer, and now she understood
the agitation of Lord Moron. She appreciated, too, his skill as an
electrical engineer. He had been spying on his mother, if such a term
applied to one who heard rather than saw. Somewhere in the house,
probably in the drawing-room, was a concealed microphone, and too late
that night he had remembered that he had not disconnected the
instrument. Lady Moron was puzzled as to how her son knew so much.
Lois could have told her.

“What a bird!” said Lizzy admiringly. “Fixed it all up himself! The
boy’s got brains! What did you hear, Lois?”

But the girl was not inclined to be communicative. She pulled out the
plug from the wall, sent her companion to bed, and followed her
example.

Whose photograph was it that had been placed for her inspection? And
what risk had Lady Moron taken? She remembered the picture of the
handsome young officer who was “a boy I once knew” to her ladyship.
And what risk had the woman run in leaving that under her secretary’s
eyes. She got out of bed again and re-fixed the plug, feeling that she
was being guilty of a despicable act. But something was happening
which was so vital to her, that she could not afford to allow niceties
of conduct to weigh against her need. No sound came from the
microphone. But perhaps after supper they would return here. And, in
any event, the weariness and monotony of waiting might induce the
sleep which refused to come to her eyes.

Three o’clock struck, half-past three, four and half-past, and the
chill of dawn began to show on the white blinds. Lois was not as far
from sleep as she had been, and she was beginning to doze when a faint
sound brought up her head from the pillow.

Click, click!

It was as though somebody was turning on the lights in the
drawing-room. She waited tensely for the next sound. Presently there
was an indistinguishable whisper, and then a voice spoke. Clearly the
words came to her.

“Lois Reddle is very near to death!”

She knew the voice, in her imagination could almost see the speaker.

It was Michael Dorn.




 Chapter Fifteen

In a second she had recovered, and had leapt out of bed. Better the
known than the unknown. All fear had vanished; she would face Dorn and
have the truth. Snatching up her dressing-gown, she went to the door,
turned the key noiselessly and ran down the dark stairs.

The drawing-room faced her as she came on to the landing, and she did
not hesitate, but flung open the door. The place was in darkness, and
reaching out, she felt for the light switches and turned them. The
room was empty; there was no sound save the musical ticking of a
French clock on the mantelpiece, no sign of Michael Dorn or of his
unknown companion. She gazed bewildered. Then she heard a noise behind
her and spun round.

“What is it?”

It was the countess, who slept on the same floor as the girl.

“Turn on the landing lights,” said the woman calmly, and when she did
so, Lois saw the older woman standing on the landing above, wrapped in
a white ermine coat, as calm and imperturbable as ever.

“I thought I heard voices and came down.”

“In the drawing-room? Of course, it is under your bedroom!”

Lady Moron descended the stairs without haste and walked into the
salon.

“You must have been mistaken, there’s nobody here,” she said. “I’m
afraid your nerves are on edge. The opening of your door woke me. What
did the noise sound like? The windows are fastened. None of the
furniture has been moved.”

“I heard somebody speaking,” said Lois.

“Go to bed, my child.”

Her large hand patted the girl gently on the shoulder, and Lois went
meekly up the stairs and into her room.

She came down to breakfast the next morning feeling a wreck, and
Lizzy, warned by her friend, made no reference at the table to the
voices of the night. She saw the girl off and came back to the
dining-room. A footman was clearing the table under Braime’s watchful
eye. When the man had gone:

“Her ladyship says you heard somebody speaking in the night, Miss
Reddle?”

“I thought I did. Perhaps I was dreaming, or only imagined that I
heard her ladyship in my sleep.”

“Lady Moron did not go into the drawing-room last night,” was the
surprising reply.

Lois stared at the man, who went on:

“Her ladyship went into the library, but you would not hear her from
your apartment.”

The library! That was where the microphone was fixed, and all the time
she had been talking to Lady Moron on the landing Michael Dorn and his
assistant had been on the floor below. The library was situated on the
ground floor at the back of the house. She was thankful that she had
not found him whilst that watchful woman was hovering in the
background.

“I thought I heard you come out of your room, miss,” Braime continued;
“in fact, I was on the point of coming downstairs when her ladyship
came up. By the way, her ladyship will not be down until one o’clock,
miss, she has two friends coming to lunch. She asked me if you would
deal with any letters which are not marked personal.”

Lois was in the midst of this occupation when Lord Moron came into the
drawing-room, a nervous and apprehensive man.

“’Morning, Miss Reddle,” he said, eyeing her keenly. “Well?”

“Not very well, thank you!” smiled Lois.

“Queer house this,” he mumbled. “All sorts of odd noises. These old
places are like that, you know. Nothing disturbed you, I suppose?
Nobody--er--talking in the street?”

“No, nothing disturbed me,” she said untruthfully, and he heaved a
sigh of relief.

“Awfully glad. You don’t mind my going into your room to get the
things I left behind, do you? I say, don’t mention this to her
ladyship, will you, because she thinks I’m a careless devil and she’ll
rag me most fearfully!”

Lois promised, and he hurried from the room. When she went up to
prepare for luncheon, she examined the canopy and found, as she had
expected, that the microphone and its attachments had been removed.

In other circumstances she might have been amused, but she was
conscious that a terrible danger was hovering over her, and in some
way that the menace was associated with the countess and her friend.

“Lois Reddle is near to death!” She shivered at the recollection.

Twice in a week she had escaped destruction by a hair’s breadth. Those
were not accidents; she was sure now. But who could desire her harm?
And what had the photograph of the young man in uniform to do with
her?

On one point she was determined, and she had confided her intention to
Lizzy that morning whilst they were dressing, before they came down to
breakfast. She must leave this house and take the risk of unemployment
for a while.

Lady Moron came into the drawing-room just before lunch, looked over
the letters and signed such as required her signature, and then Lois
broke the news. To her surprise the big woman was neither indignant
nor entreating.

“When I saw you early this morning I was afraid this would happen,”
she said. “And really I cannot blame you, Miss Reddle. You have had a
most terrifying experience, though I believe that last night’s trouble
was purely imaginary.”

Lois said nothing.

“When do you wish to go? As soon as possible, I gather from your
hesitation. Very well, I am not blaming you. I feel partly to blame,
and I will pay you a month’s salary and arrange for you to leave
to-morrow.”

The two visitors were Chesney Praye and a man whom Lois had not seen
before, though she had heard his lordship’s views on him. Later she
felt she had no particular desire to meet him again. He was a bald man
of fifty, with a face even redder than Mr. Praye’s, a big, bulbous
nose, a loose mouth. She might, had she met him in the street and not
in this chaste atmosphere, have analysed him as a typical drunkard.
Nor would that description have been uncharitable. His frock coat was
old and shone at the seams, and she observed that he had made only a
half-hearted attempt to make his nails presentable.

“I want you to meet Dr. Tappatt.”

So this was the famous doctor. She was not impressed.

“Glad to meet you, young lady, very glad to meet you,” said the doctor
with spurious heartiness. And with his words came the faint aroma of
something that was not entirely whisky and not entirely cloves. “This
is the young person your ladyship was speaking about? Hears voices,
eh? Dear, dear, that’s a bad symptom,” he chuckled, “a very bad
symptom. Eh, Chesney? We’ve had ’em for that! We’ve had ’em for that!”

Lois saw the butler fill this strange creature’s glass with wine, and
when she looked again the glass was empty. Apparently Braime, if he
did not already know the peculiarities of the guest, had been
carefully coached, for, without asking, he had refilled the glass.

Lord Moron appeared at the lunch table, a sulky and silent young man,
his face less extensively plastered.

“Had an accident, eh? Been in a railway smash?” demanded the doctor.
“Your lordship should be more careful.”

“I haven’t been in a railway accident,” said Selwyn sulkily.

He evidently knew the doctor, and the girl had a feeling that he was
afraid of him, for once or twice she saw him glancing furtively and a
little fearfully in the direction of the untidy man.

“There’s another one who hears voices, eh? Your lordship hasn’t been
followed by a dog--a nice black dog with a waggly tail, eh?”

“No, I haven’t,” almost shouted Lord Moron, going red and white. “I
never said I had, did I? I’m perfectly--I know what I’m doing and all
that sort of thing. You leave me alone, sir.”

It was in every way an uncomfortable meal for Lois Reddle. The
glowering resentment of Moron, the calm indifference of his mother,
the crude jocularity of Chesney Praye, and the presence of the doctor,
who, when he was not drinking, was boasting of the wonderful cures he
had effected in India, brought a sense of nightmare to the girl. Only
once more did Dr. Tappatt turn his attention to Lois.

“What’s this I hear about your trying to throw yourself over the
balcony? Come, come, young lady, that will never do!” He wagged his
animal face at her, and the bloodshot eyes gleamed unpleasantly.

“Don’t be stupid.” It was Lady Moron who spoke. “The balcony gave way
under Miss Reddle; there was no suggestion that she attempted to throw
herself into the street.”

“A joke, a mere jest,” said the doctor unabashed, and pushed his glass
towards the watchful Braime. “That’s a good wine of yours, your
ladyship, a fine, full-bodied wine with a generous bouquet.
Romanee-Conti, I think?”

“Clos de Vougeot,” corrected the countess.

“There is very little difference between the wines of Vougeot and
Vosne,” said the connoisseur. “As a rule, I prefer the Conti, but your
ladyship has converted me.”

The lunch did not end soon enough for Lois. When the countess had
risen, she strolled to where her son was standing.

“When you come down to dinner to-night, be so good as to have the last
of that ridiculous plaster taken from your face. I wish, at any rate,
that you should look like a gentleman and not like a prize-fighter.”
She mouthed the words deliberately. “Otherwise, perhaps I shall have
to consult Dr. Tappatt.”

Lord Moron shrunk at the ominous words, and his muttered rejoinder did
not reach Lois’ ears.

The suggestion that she should work in the library was one which Lois
was glad to accept; for beyond a glimpse, she had never seen the room
wherein the Countess of Moron spent so many hours with her jigsaw
puzzles. And there was another reason; she must find the artfully
concealed microphone which Lord Moron had installed.

It was a pleasant room, low-roofed and long, and ran from the wall of
the reception-room at the front of the house to a small conservatory
which hid the ugliness of the tiny courtyard at the back. Every wall
was covered with bookshelves, and there were, in addition, more than a
dozen big filing cabinets in which the countess had accumulated, and
carefully docketed, the little souvenirs which had come to her in the
course of her life; theatre programmes, newspaper cuttings,
correspondence which most people would not have thought worth
preserving. But Lady Moron was a methodical woman and had a horror of
waste. This she told the girl when she introduced her to the room.

Left alone, Lois made a careful inspection of the library, without,
however, discovering the hidden receiver or its wiring. She noticed
that one section of the bookcase was covered by a strong door, covered
with fine wire mesh, through which the titles could be seen; and
studying these in the ample leisure she had, she was more than a
little surprised at the precautions taken to prevent casual reading of
this forbidden library. The books were of the most innocuous type, and
she surmised that there had been a time when this section held
literature less innocent.

She had finished her work and was browsing about the books, taking
down one after the other and glancing at their contents, when Braime
came in. One glance at the man told her that something unusual had
happened. His face was twitching, and he was evidently labouring under
the stress of great excitement which he had not succeeded wholly in
suppressing.

“Will you go to the dining-room, miss? There’s a gentleman wishes to
see you.”

“A gentleman? Who is it?”

“I don’t know his name,” said the man, “but if he’s not there, will
you wait for him?”

“But who is it, Braime? Didn’t he give his name?”

“No, miss.” The hands clasped before him were trembling, his eyes held
a strange light.

“In the dining-room?” she said as she went out.

“Yes, miss.”

To her surprise, when she looked round, she found he had not
accompanied her. The dining-room was empty, except for Jean, her maid.
The girl was engaged in dusting, and seemed surprised at the arrival
of Lois.

“Braime told me a gentleman was waiting to see me?”

Jean shook her head.

“I don’t know anything about a gentleman, miss, but I do know one
thing,” she said viciously. “_He’s_ no gentleman. I caught him coming
out of the countess’ room just now and I’m going to tell her ladyship.
A sneaking, prying----”

“Please find out who it is wishes to see me,” said the puzzled girl.
“Perhaps he is in the hall.”

Jean went out, but returned in a few minutes, shaking her head.

“Nobody is there, miss. Thomas, the footman, says that there have been
no callers since Dr. Tappatt left. Mr. Praye is with her ladyship in
the drawing-room.”

What did this mean? Lois frowned. Braime’s story was obviously an
excuse to get her out of the room. She hurried back to the library.
The door was closed and she threw it open.

“Braime----” she began, and then stopped and said no more.

The butler lay on his back in the middle of the floor, a silent,
motionless figure, a look of agony on his white face, his lips
distorted in a grimace of agony.




 Chapter Sixteen

Her first impulse was to fly, her second, more merciful, was to run
to his side, and, kneeling down, loosen his collar. Was he dead? There
was no sign of life or sound of breath. The hands, upraised, as though
to clutch an invisible enemy, were stiff and rigid.

She flew out of the door and called the maid.

“Telephone for a doctor, please. Braime is ill,” she said
breathlessly, and rushed up the stairs.

Lady Moron was deep in conversation with her visitor, but at the sight
of the girl she came hurriedly across the room.

“What is it?” she asked in a low voice.

“It’s Braime,” said Lois breathlessly. “I think he’s dead!”

The countess followed her down the stairs at a pace which Lois did not
think was possible for so heavy a woman. For a moment she stood in the
doorway, surveying the silent man.

“This is not for you to see,” she said gently, and, pushing the girl
back into the passage, closed the door.

Presently she came out.

“I’m afraid he’s dead. Tell me what happened. Or first ring through to
the Limbo Club for Dr. Tappatt.”

Lois told her that she had already given an order for a doctor to be
called, and her instructions were fulfilled more efficiently than she
had supposed. For Jean had rung the Virginia Hospital, which is within
a hundred yards of Chester Square, and even while they were talking in
the passage there came the clang of an ambulance bell, and the footman
hurried to open the door.

The youthful house surgeon who had accompanied the ambulance made a
brief examination of the prostrate figure and was obviously puzzled.

“Was this man subject to fits?” he asked.

“I am not aware that he was. He has been quite well since he has been
in my employ,” said Lady Moron.

Lois, who had been attracted to the room, was looking down fearfully
at the still figure.

“There is no wound of any kind that I can see,” said the doctor,
peering through his spectacles. “I will have the attendants in and
we’ll rush him to the hospital.”

He went back to the hall and signalled for his assistants, and a
stretcher, withdrawn from the ambulance, was brought into the library.

And then, as they were about to lift the man on to the canvas, there
came the sound of running footsteps in the hall and a man burst
violently into the room. He was hot and hatless and stood breathing
heavily in the doorway, looking from one to another. Presently his
gaze fell upon Lois.

“Thank God!” he said shakily.

Then, with two strides, he was by the side of the prostrate figure.

“Are you a doctor?” began Lady Moron.

“My name is Michael Dorn--a name probably unknown to your ladyship,”
said Dorn brusquely.

His keen eyes searched the room. Rising, he lifted a china bowl filled
with roses, swept the flowers on to the floor, and dashed the water
into the man’s face. Ripping off the collar of the man he knelt over
Braime’s head and drew up the stiff arms, pressing them back again to
the body. Lois watched him in bewilderment. He was applying the
restorative methods which are used for people who are partially
drowned.

“Are you a doctor?” asked the young surgeon, a little irritably.

“No,” said Michael, without ceasing his work.

“May I ask what you think you’re doing with this man?”

“Saving his life,” was the brief reply.

Lady Moron turned at that moment. She had heard the voice of her son
in the hall, and, sweeping out of the room, she intercepted him.

“What do you want, Selwyn?” she asked coldly.

“Something’s happened in the library. They say old Braime’s got a fit
or something--thought I might be useful.”

“Go back to your study, please, Selwyn,” said her ladyship. “I will
not have you excited over these matters.”

“But dash it all----” began his lordship, but the look in his mother’s
eyes silenced him, and he grumbled his way back to his den.

The countess waited until he was out of sight, and then came back to
the little party that was watching Michael Dorn and his seemingly
futile efforts. A few minutes passed, and then:

“I really think this man should be taken to the hospital,
Mr.--er--Dorn.”

Lady Moron’s visitor had by now joined the group. Chesney Praye had
witnessed the arrival of the detective and had thought it wise not to
offer his advice. But now, morally strengthened by the presence of the
countess, he added his voice to the argument.

“You’re probably killing that man, Dorn. Let him go to the hospital,
where he’ll be properly attended to.”

Michael made no reply. The perspiration was pouring down his face; he
stopped only to strip off his coat before he resumed his work.

“I hope you’re a better doctor than you are a detective,” said
Chesney, nettled by Dorn’s attitude.

“In the present case, I am as good a doctor as you are an embezzler,”
said Dorn, without turning his head. “And, in any circumstances, I am
a better detective than you are a crook. He’s reviving.”

To Lois’ amazement, Braime’s eyelids were flickering. She saw the
slow, unaided movement of his chest.

“I think he’ll do now,” said Dorn, getting up and wiping his forehead.

“Are you a detective?” It was the doctor who asked the question.

“Sort of a one,” said Michael with a smile. “I think you’d better get
him into hospital as soon as you can, doctor. Please forgive me for
butting in, but I have had a case like this before.”

“What is it?” demanded the puzzled medico, as the butler was lifted on
to the stretcher and carried from the room. “I thought it was a stroke
of some kind.”

“It was a stroke of a pretty bad kind,” said Michael grimly.

He did not attempt to follow the ambulance party, but, putting on his
coat, he strolled round the room on what appeared to be a tour of
inspection. He examined the ceiling, the floor, and ran his eye over
the library table.

“He fell six feet from the table, didn’t he?” he mused. He pointed to
the patch of water that had discoloured the carpet. “Do you mind
telling me where his feet were? He had been moved when I came in.”

“Lady Moron would prefer to discuss that matter with the police when
they arrive,” snapped Chesney Praye. “You’ve no right whatever to be
here, you know that, Dorn.”

“Will somebody tell me where his feet were?”

It was Lois who pointed.

“He was lying across the room.”

“Of course--yes.” The puzzled Dorn stroked his chin. “You weren’t here
when it happened, I suppose, Miss Reddle?”

“I forbid you to answer any questions,” said the countess in her most
ponderous manner. “And I completely agree with Mr. Praye that this is
not a matter for outsiders. Do you suggest the man was assaulted?”

“I suggest nothing,” said Dorn, and again his eyes sought Lois
Reddle’s. “You have quite a lot of accidents in this house, don’t you,
Miss Reddle?” he asked pleasantly. “If I were you, I think I’d go back
to Charlotte Street; you’ll be safer. When I saw the ambulance at the
door I must confess that I nearly died of heart failure. I thought you
were the interesting subject.”

Her ladyship walked to the door and opened it a little wider.

“Will you please go, Mr. Dorn? Your presence is unwelcome, and your
suggestion that any person in this house is in the slightest danger is
most offensive to me”--she looked at Praye--“and to my friend.”

“Then your ladyship should change your friend,” said Dorn
good-naturedly, “and, lest you should think that the fine feelings of
Mr. Chesney Praye are lacerated by my suggestion, I will relieve your
mind. There are only two things that annoy Chesney, and they are to
lose money he has and to be thwarted in any attempt to get money which
doesn’t belong to him. Can I speak with you alone, Miss Reddle?”

“I forbid----” began the countess.

“May I?”

Lois hesitated, nodded, and preceded him from the room.

It was in the hall, deserted even by the footman, that he spoke his
mind.

“I confess I didn’t expect the succession of accidents which have
followed one another at such close intervals since you have been in
this house,” he said. “I only consented to your coming here at all
because I thought that----”

“_You_ consented?” Her eyes opened wide. She flushed with sudden
anger. “Does it occur to you, Mr. Dorn, that I do not require your
consent?”

“I’m sorry.” He was humility itself. “I am on the wrong track, but my
nerves are a little jangled. What I wanted to say was that I ought to
have known, after you received those poisoned chocolates----”

She went pale.

“Poisoned?” she whispered.

He nodded.

“Of course they were poisoned. Hydrocyanic acid. Why did you think I
came into your room that night to get them away? I came with my heart
in my mouth as I did a few minutes ago, expecting to find you dead.”

“Why are you so--so interested in me?” she asked, but he evaded the
question.

“Will you leave this house to-day and go back to Charlotte Street?”

She shook her head.

“I can’t until to-morrow. I’ve promised Lady Moron that I would stay
with her until then, and I’m sure, Mr. Dorn, that you’re mistaken. Who
would send me poisoned chocolates?”

“Who would try to run you down with a car?” he countered. “Look at
this.” He put his hand in his waistcoat pocket and took out a little
roll of cloth. “Do you recognise this stuff?”

Her mouth opened in astonishment.

“Why, that is a piece of my skirt that was cut out when the car----”

“Exactly, and I found it hanging on the car. The people who garaged it
were in such a hurry that they didn’t attempt to examine or to clean
the machine.”

“But who--who is this enemy of mine?” she asked in a low voice.

He shook his head.

“Some day I will tell you his name. I think I have already told you
too much, and made myself just a little bit too conspicuous. My only
hope is that the knowledge that I am around will scare them. You can’t
leave to-night?”

“No, it is impossible,” she said.

He nodded.

“All right.” He glanced past her to Lady Moron, who was standing at
the door of the library, deeply engaged in conversation with Chesney
Praye. Presently he caught the eye of the red-faced man. “I want you,
Praye.”

He walked out of the house, waiting on the sidewalk for Chesney to
join him.

“Now see here, Dorn----” began the other loudly.

“Lower your voice. I am not deaf. And, anyway, there’s no call for you
to talk at all. Understand that. I’ve been to the India Office this
morning, and sounded the Secretary. There will be no difficulty in
getting a warrant for you in connection with that Delhi business if I
take a little trouble. Let fact Number One sink into your mind. The
second is this; if any harm comes to this girl Reddle--and I can trace
your strong right hand in the matter--I’ll follow you through nine
kinds of hell and catch you. Absorb that.” And with a nod, he turned
and walked away, leaving the man speechless with rage and fear.




 Chapter Seventeen

Lois thought it was kind of Lady Moron to give her the afternoon and
evening to herself.

“My dear, I’ll be glad to get rid of you,” said her ladyship frankly.
“That wretched man Dorn has quite upset me, and I’m not going to visit
my resentment on you. Go away for a few hours and begin to forget that
there is such a place as 307 Chester Square. And if you feel you’d
like to go to a theatre later, please do so. I will leave instructions
for the night footman to wait up for you. I have just heard from the
hospital that Braime is quite conscious and perhaps he will give us an
account of the mysterious happening. I’ve had the library searched,
and I’ve not found anything to account for his extraordinary seizure.
I doubt even whether the clever Mr. Dorn will be any more successful,”
she added, without evidence of malice.

Lois was glad to get away, and her first thought was to acquaint her
friend with what had happened. She made her way to Bedford Row, and as
she reached that familiar thoroughfare, she saw the ancient Ford at
the door and Mr. Shaddles pulling on his gloves preparatory to
departure.

He lived in Hampstead, and was invariably the first and last user of
the old machine. His glare was distinctly unfriendly as she mounted
the steps.

“Well?” he asked. “You’ve come back, have you? Tired of your job, eh?
I never thought you’d be much good as a private secretary.”

“I’m not tired of it, but I’m leaving,” she smiled.

“Young people must have change,” deplored Mr. Shaddles. “It is the
cursed unrest of the age. How long were you with me?”

“Some years, Mr. Shaddles.”

“Two years, nine months, and seven days,” he said rapidly. “That seems
like eternity, I suppose, young woman? To me it is”--he snapped his
fingers--“yesterday! I brought you down from Leith, didn’t I? One of
my clients mentioned you, and I gave you your chance, eh?”

“Yes,” she said, wondering why he had grown so unexpectedly
reminiscent.

“Ah!” He looked up at the sky as though for inspiration, or
applause--she wasn’t quite sure which. “You’ll want to come back to
your old job, I suppose?” And without waiting for her reply, “Well,
you can start to-morrow. I’ll give you three pounds a week, and you
can start to-morrow morning at half-past eight.” He laid special
emphasis on the last words.

“But, Mr. Shaddles,” said the dazed girl, “that is awfully kind of
you--most kind. I’d love to come, but I can’t come to-morrow morning.”

“Half-past eight to-morrow morning,” he blinked at her. “Don’t keep
me, I’m in a hurry.”

He went down the steps, mounted his car, and she stood watching him
until he was one with the traffic in Theobalds Road.

So great was the shock of the lawyer’s generosity that this was the
first news she told the sceptical Lizzy.

“There’s been something strange about him for the last two days,”
decided that young lady. “Softening of the brain, I think. He didn’t
mention about putting up my salary? Maybe he’s not so far gone as
that. I shouldn’t take too much notice; he’ll probably change his mind
to-morrow. Three pounds a week? He must be mad! I’ll bet he’ll come
down to the office in the morning in his pyjamas, playing a cornet,
and calling himself Julius Cæsar.”

The clerks had gone; Lizzy was alone in her office; she had stayed
behind to type an interminable memorandum of association, which was
never finished after Lois had told the story of what had happened at
the house that day.

“I think Mike’s right,” said Lizzy, nodding vigorously. “That house is
too full of tricks. I hate the idea of leaving Selwyn----”

“You mean Lord Moron?”

“He’s Selwyn to me,” said Lizzy calmly. “I’m going to the pictures
with him to-morrow night. He’s a nice boy, that. What he wants is a
mother’s care and he’s never had it.”

“And you’re going to be the mother?” Lois laughed, and then,
seriously: “I can’t leave at once. You must please yourself what you
do. I promised Lady Moron I would stay.”

Lizzy pulled a long face.

“I can’t desert you, but I’ll tell you straight, that I’d rather sleep
on the top shelf of a mortuary than at Chester Square to-night. I’ll
go with you, but I’m doing you a favour. Put it down in your book. As
to old Shaddles he’ll be in charge of a keeper to-morrow. If anybody
else but you had told me about that three pounds a week business, I’d
have known they were lying. And now, what do you say to coming back to
Charlotte Street and pretending we are poor again?”

To Lois there could have been no more attractive way of spending the
evening. The old room with its shabby furniture, its faded chintzes,
was home; and even the squalling of playing children in the street had
a special charm which Lois had never observed before.

There was too a welcome awaiting them. Old Mackenzie saw them through
the window of his room and came down to greet them in the passage. He
was pathetically disappointed when he learnt they were not staying the
night, but cheered up after Lizzy told him their plans.

“Let us ask him up to dinner,” said Lois, as she sat on the kitchen
table, watching the girl manipulating the frying-pan.

Lizzy nodded. She was a thought distrait, and later Lois learnt the
reason.

“If I’d had any sense, I’d have asked Selwyn to drop in, and he’d have
come,” she said. “He’s democratic--one of the best mixers I’ve ever
met. He told me last night, when you went out to get a handkerchief,
that he felt thoroughly at home with me, and that I was the first girl
he’d ever felt at home with all his life. That’s something for an earl
to say, knowing that I’m a thirty-five bob a week key-shifter.”

Her voice trembled slightly and Lois regarded her with a new interest.
She had been acquainted with Lizzy for many years and had never known
her so emotional.

“He’s never had a mother’s care, that boy,” she said again, her voice
shaking.

Lois charitably overlooked the fact that the boy in question was
somewhere in the region of thirty-five.

“That woman hasn’t got any more sympathy with Selwyn than I’ve got
with her. She’s got a heart like a bit of flint, she’s----”

“Mr. Mackenzie will be a poor substitute for your Selwyn, but shall we
have him up?” asked Lois again.

“Yell for him,” was the terse reply.

In many ways Mr. Mackenzie was a more entertaining guest than Lizzy
had hoped. In the first place he was very interested in her account of
the Morons’ house and daily life, for it was Lizzy who spoke as an
authority on the subject, appealing only occasionally to Lois for
confirmation.

“Silk curtains? Really!” said Mr. Mackenzie, impressed.

“And satin ones,” said Lizzy recklessly. “At least, they look like
satin. And silver mountings everywhere. And real marble walls in the
bathroom. Am I right, Lois? And a silver fire-grate in the
drawing-room.”

Old Mackenzie sighed.

“It must be very gran’ to live amidst such surroundings,” he said,
“though I never envy any man or woman. And the countess is a charming
lady?”

“I wouldn’t call her that,” said Lizzy. “She’s all right up to a
point. She’s a bad mother but a good scout, if you understand me.”

“She has young children?” Mr. Mackenzie was interested.

“He is not exactly young,” Lizzy was careful to explain, “he’s a young
man in what you might term the first prime of life. No, he’s not at
school,” she snapped to the unfortunate question. “He’s a wonderful
man. Selwyn wants to be an actor, and why his mother doesn’t let him
go on the stage is a wonder to me.”

Again Mr. Mackenzie sighed.

“It is a bad life, the stage. I think I have told you young ladies
before, all my sorrow and troubles come from my association with the
stage.” And he went on disjointedly: “She was a bonny girl, with a
beautiful figure and a face like a--a----”

“Angel?” suggested Lizzy, pausing with uplifted fork.

“‘Madonna’ was the word I wanted. To me it is still a matter of wonder
that she ever looked at me, let alone accepted my humble suit. But at
that time, of course, I was in a very good position. Some of my comic
operas were being played. I had a considerable sum of money which,
fortunately, I invested in house property, and she was a
little--er--extravagant--yes, that’s the word, she was a little
extravagant. It was perhaps my fault.”

There was a long silence while he ruminated, his chin bent on his
chest, his eyes fixed upon the table-cloth.

“Yes, it was my fault. I told my dear friend Shaddles, when he
suggested a divorce----”

“Shaddles?” squeaked Lizzy. “You don’t know that old--that gentleman,
do you?”

Mackenzie looked at her in surprise.

“Why, Mr. Shaddles is my lawyer. That is how I came to have the good
fortune to secure you as my tenants. You remember Mr. Shaddles
recommended my little house?”

“Shaddles! Good Lord!” said Lizzy, pushing back her plate. “I don’t
think I could ever have slept in my bed if I’d known!”

“He is a good man, a true man, and a friend,” said Mr. Mackenzie
soberly.

“And he’s a mean old skinflint,” said Lizzy, despite Lois’ warning
glance.

“He’s a wee bit near,” admitted Mr. Mackenzie. “But then, some lawyers
get that way. His father was like that.”

“Did he ever have a father?” asked Lizzy, with assumed surprise.

“His father and his father’s father were the same way. But the
Shaddles are great lawyers, and they’ve managed great estates. They’ve
been lawyers to the Moron family for hundreds of years.”

“Do you know the Morons then?” asked Lois.

He hesitated.

“I cannot say that I know them. I know of them. The old earl, the
father of the present boy, I have seen once. He lived abroad for many
years, and was--weel, I’ll no’ call him bad, but he was a gay man by
all accounts. And a scandalous liver. Willie, his son, was a fine boy,
but he died. Selwyn, the younger son by the second wife, must be the
lad to whom you’re referring.”

Even Lizzy was impressed by the old man’s knowledge of the Morons’
genealogical tree.

“It is a good thing for the family that they have this fine boy,
Selwyn; though, if her ladyship had a daughter, she would succeed to
the title, the Morons being one of those families where a woman
succeeds failing a male heir.”

After dinner was cleared away he brought up his violin and played for
half an hour; and Lizzy, whose respect for the musician seemed to have
taken an upward curve, tolerated the performance with admirable
fortitude.

The evening passed all too quickly, and at ten o’clock Lois looked at
her watch and the two girls exchanged glances. Lizzy rose with a
shiver.

“Back to the house of fate,” she said dramatically. “And thank heaven
this is the last night we shall sleep there!”

She could not guess that neither Lois Reddle nor she would ever pass
into that house of fate again!




 Chapter Eighteen

At five o’clock that afternoon there was a great thudding of doors
and snapping of keys in Telsbury Prison. The evening meal-hour was
over. The last visit had been paid by the chief wardress. Laundries,
cook-houses, and workshops had been locked up by the officers
responsible, and the five halls, that ran, star-shaped, from the
common centre, were deserted except for the wardress on duty at the
desk, who was reading the letters which had come addressed to the
prisoners and which would be delivered to them in the morning. She
worked with the sure eye and hand of an expert, using her blue pencil
to cover up such items of general news as convicts are not allowed to
receive.

So engaged, she heard the burr of a “call,” and, looking round, saw
that the red disc had fallen over one of the hundred apertures in the
indicator. She put down her pencil, walked along the hall, and,
stopping before a cell, inserted her key and pulled the door open.

The woman who rose from her bed did not wear the prison livery.
Instead, she was dressed in a dark blue costume; her hat and coat lay
on the bed and on top a pair of new gloves. In one corner of the cell
was a small Gladstone bag and an umbrella.

“I am sorry to trouble you, madam,” said the prisoner nervously, “but
I wondered if they had forgotten, if----” Her voice shook and she
found it difficult to speak.

“They haven’t forgotten, Mrs. Pinder,” said the wardress calmly. “The
officer should not have put the lock on you.” She pushed the door open
wide. “If you feel lonely come out and sit with me.”

“Thank you,” said the woman gratefully, and the official saw that she
was very near to tears. “Only the governor told me that he had
telegraphed to my friends. There has been no reply?”

“There wouldn’t be,” said the tactful wardress. “They will be here
very soon. Probably they think that you would prefer to wait.” She
laughed. “Usually prisoners are discharged in the morning, but the
Home Office allowed the governor to use his discretion in letting you
out over-night. I don’t think I should worry, Mrs. Pinder.”

She waited at the door.

“Come out when you want,” she said good-humouredly. “There’s the whole
hall to walk in and the lock is on, so you won’t be seen by any of the
women.”

Mary Pinder came slowly into the wide hall and looked along the
familiar vista of small black doors, tier upon tier, at the big window
at the end of the hall through which the light of the evening sun was
shining. For the first time in twenty years she was free of restraint,
could walk without observation, and soon would pass through that
steel-barred grille into God’s sweet air and into a world of free
people.

She checked the sobbing sigh that came, and, her hands tightly clasped
together, stood motionless, thinking. She dared not believe the story
she had been told; dared not let her mind rest upon what happiness lay
beyond the bars.

The wardress had gone back to the desk and her occupation, and the
woman watched her wistfully. She was in contact with the world; had a
husband perhaps, and children, outside these red walls. Mary Pinder
had been cut off from life and human companionship for nearly twenty
years. Outside the world rolled on; men had risen and fallen, there
had been wars and periods of national rejoicing; but here, in this
shadowy place, life had been grey, without relief, and even pain had
become a monotony.

She walked timidly towards the officer and sat down in a chair near
her. The wardress stopped her work to smile encouragingly, and then
laid down her pencil again.

“I hope you’re going to forget this place, Mrs. Pinder?”

The other shook her head.

“I shouldn’t think it were possible--to forget,” she said. “It is
life, most of the life I have known. I was eighteen when I came here
first; twenty-three when I was transferred to Aylesbury, and thirty
when I came back. I have little else to remember,” she said simply.

The woman looked at her curiously.

“You’re the only prisoner I’ve ever known that I had any faith in,
Mrs. Pinder,” she said.

Mary Pinder leant forward eagerly.

“You believe that I was innocent?” And, when the woman nodded: “Thank
you. I--I wish I had known that somebody believed that.”

“I wish I had told you,” said the wardress briefly. Then, as the sound
of a turning key came to her: “Here comes somebody who thinks you were
innocent, at any rate,” she said, and rose to meet the governor.

“All dressed and ready, eh?” said he cheerfully. “You’re a lucky
woman! I wish to heaven I were free of this wretched place. But I am a
prisoner here until I die!”

It was a stock joke of his and the woman smiled, as he took her arm
and paced with her along the hall.

“Your friends will not be here until ten o’clock. I’ve just had a
wire. They thought you’d rather leave after dark. Do you know where
you’re going?”

“I haven’t any idea,” she said. “The address I gave you will always
find me.” And then, in a changed tone: “Doctor, I wasn’t dreaming that
you told me about--about----”

“That young lady who saw you? No, it is a most amazing coincidence. If
I’d had any brains I should have known, the moment I saw how upset she
was, that she was the girl with the branded arm.”

“My daughter!” she breathed. “Oh God, how wonderful! How wonderful!”

“They didn’t want to let you know. They were afraid of the effect it
might have upon you. She’s a pretty girl.”

“She’s lovely,” breathed Mary Pinder. “She’s lovely! And does she
know?”

He nodded.

“She knew that day she was in my room, when I told her about Lois
Margeritta. If there’s any doubt about it the letter I had from the
Under-Secretary should set your mind at rest. She went to see him with
the idea of getting further particulars about the--about the crime you
were charged with committing. Mrs. Pinder, will you tell me
something?” He dropped her arm and faced her. “I am an old man and
haven’t a very long time to live, and I’ve lost most of the little
faith in human nature I ever possessed. Were you innocent?” He paused.
“Were you innocent or guilty?”

“I was innocent.” She raised her eyes fearlessly to his. “What I have
told you has been the truth. I went out to look for work, and when I
came back I was arrested.”

“What about your husband? Where was he?”

She shook her head.

“He was dead,” she said simply. “I didn’t know then, but I have learnt
since. Doctor, do you believe that?”

He nodded silently.

“You’ve been wonderful to me, sir,” she said in a low sweet voice. “I
wish I could repay you for your kindness.”

“Well, you can,” he said in his gruff way. “When you get out into the
world, you’re bound to meet some poor women who will suggest that you
have your hair dyed red--don’t do it.”

He found an especial pleasure in the soft laughter that his jest
evoked.

“And now you can come along and dine with my wife and me,” he said.
“The only satisfaction I’ve ever got out of having a house within the
prison walls.”

At five minutes past ten that night a small saloon motor-car drew up
before the gates of Telsbury Prison and the driver got down and pulled
the bell. He was challenged, as usual, from the wicket.

“I’ve called to take away Mrs. Pinder,” he said.

“You had better come in and see the governor.”

“I’d rather stay.” The driver lit a cigarette and paced to and fro to
kill the time. But he had not long to wait; five minutes after, the
little wicket-gate swung open and a woman stepped out.

“Is that Mrs. Pinder?” asked the man in a voice little above a
whisper.

“Yes, it is I.”

“Let me take your bag.”

He opened the door of the car, pushed the bag inside and put out his
hand to help her enter. Then, swinging into the driver’s seat, he
closed both doors and sent the car spinning along the London road. In
the shadow of the prison-gate the doctor watched the departure, and
turned back with a sigh towards his office. Telsbury Prison had lost
something of its interest with the passing of one whom the newspapers
had described as “The Hereford Murderess.”




 Chapter Nineteen

Lois Reddle was in no mood to return to Chester Square; but she was
less willing to break faith with the woman whom she was beginning to
dislike, and debated the question, she and Lizzy, on the Charlotte
Street doorstep.

“Let’s stay,” urged Lizzy. “At any rate, don’t let’s go back yet. We
shan’t see anything of Selwyn. Besides, remember what Mike said.”

“What Mike said means nothing to me--if by ‘Mike’ you mean Michael
Dorn,” said Lois quietly. “We must go back, Lizzy--I’ve promised.”

Lizzy groaned.

“Oh, these honourable people--you make my head ache! Well, don’t let’s
go back yet,” she urged. “The old lady said you could stay out to do
a theatre. What’s the hurry?”

Again Lois hesitated.

“No, we’ll go back now,” she said firmly.

She looked across the road. An idler was standing with his back to the
railings and she knew at once that it was not Dorn. No sooner had they
moved towards Oxford Street than the lounger was galvanised to life
and followed at a slow pace on their trail. Once Lois looked back; the
man was following them.

“Let us turn round to the right,” she said. “I’m almost sure we are
being followed.”

“We will keep to the main street,” said the intelligent Lizzy. “I
prefer being followed that way.”

They reached Oxford Street, and crossed the road, the shadow coming
after them at a respectful distance.

“Try Regent Street,” said Lizzy, “and when we get a little way down
we’ll cross the road and come back on the other side. Then we’ll be
sure.”

The movements of the man, when this manœuvre was completed, left no
doubt. He, too, crossed the road and came back with them, and, when
they boarded a westward bound ’bus, Lois saw him call a cab, which
kept behind them all the way.

“If I thought it was Mike, I’d go back and give him a bit of my mind,”
said Lizzy.

“It’s not he,” Lois assured her. “Mr. Dorn is not so tall and he’s
smarter looking.”

They got out of the ’bus near Victoria, and, as they hurried across
the road, Lois saw that the cab had stopped and the man was getting
out. Surely enough, by the time they had plunged into silent
Belgravia, he was on their heels. He never attempted to overtake them,
showed not the slightest inclination to be any nearer to them than he
was. If they dawdled, he slackened his pace; when they hurried, his
stride lengthened. Then suddenly, ahead of them, Lois saw Michael
Dorn. He stood squarely in the middle of the pavement and it was
impossible to avoid him.

“I want a word with you, Miss Reddle,” he said. “You’re not going back
to Lady Moron’s?”

“That is just what I am doing,” said Lois quietly.

“That is just what you’re not doing,” he said firmly. “Miss Reddle,
I’ve rendered you many services. I would like you to do something for
me in exchange.” He seemed momentarily at a loss for words. “And I
have a personal interest. I don’t suppose you like me very much, and,
anyway, that doesn’t count in the argument. But I like you.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“You can afford to be sarcastic--I do not complain of that; but I am
telling you the plain, naked truth. I like you as any decent man would
like a girl of your character and----”

“Sweetness,” suggested Lizzy, an interested audience.

“That is a very good word,” said Dorn with a faint smile. “But because
of this personal interest and--liking--I realise I’m being very lame
and unconvincing, but I’m rather a fool in my dealings with women--I
want you to go back to Charlotte Street.”

Lois shook her head.

“I quite understand that you are disinterested,” she said.

“I’m not,” he interrupted. “I’m too interested in you to be
disinterested.”

“Well, in spite of that, or because of that, I am staying with Lady
Moron to-night. To-morrow we are leaving, Miss Smith and I, and are
returning to Charlotte Street.”

“You are returning to Charlotte Street to-night,” he said, almost
harshly, and she stiffened.

“What do you mean?” she demanded coldly.

“I mean just what I say. I will not have you stay in this devil house
another night. Won’t you be persuaded, Miss Reddle?” he pleaded. “You
don’t imagine for one moment that this is a caprice on my part? Or
that I have any unreasoning prejudice against Lady Moron and her son?
I beg of you not to go to that house to-night.”

“Can you give me any reason?”

He shook his head.

“You must trust me, and believe that I have a very excellent reason,
even though I can’t for the moment disclose it. That is, unless you
see some reason yourself?”

“I don’t,” she said. “There have been a number of accidents; do you
suggest Lady Moron is responsible?”

“I suggest nothing.”

“Then I’ll say good-night,” she said, and was passing on; but he
barred her way, and at that moment he must have signalled to the dark
figure in the background, for the tall man came forward.

“This is Sergeant Lighton, of the Criminal Investigation Department,”
he said, and then indicated the girl: “This is Lois Reddle. I charge
her with being concerned in the attempted murder of John Braime!”

The girl listened, thunderstruck, rooted to the spot.

“You charge me?” she said in horror. “But, Mr. Dorn----”

Michael Dorn made a signal, and the tall man caught Lois gently by the
arm. Within half an hour of the prison gate opening for her mother, a
cell door in a mundane police station closed upon her daughter.




 Chapter Twenty

“And that’s that!” said Michael Dorn lugubriously, as he left the
police station in company with the tall officer.

“Lighton, I’m going to catch a real thief now, if my theories are
sound. And my main theory has something to do with an envelope which I
begged from a clerk at the Home Office to-day, and which was posted to
my address this afternoon.”

“Letter-box stealing?” asked the other, and Michael did not reply
until he had secured the cab that was crawling on the other side of
the street and they were seated.

“Let us say letter-delaying. I got on to this business owing to the
fact that all the letters that came to me from my stationer and from a
friend of mine in a Government office were unaccountably delayed
twenty-four hours in the post. After giving the matter some thought I
reached the conclusion that this coincidence was due to the fact that
they were both enclosed in blue envelopes.”

“How is Braime?” asked the sergeant.

“Better,” was the reply. “I had a talk with him to-night--he’s had the
shock of his life.” He chuckled softly, though his heart at that
precise moment was aching for the dazed and indignant girl who was
occupying the matron’s room, a large and airy cell, at the Chelsea
police station.

The cab stopped before Hiles Mansions, and the lift-man took them up
to Michael’s cosy flat. There were two or three letters waiting for
him in his letter-box. He took them out and examined them. Then he
went on to the landing and rang for the elevator.

“You brought these letters up?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What time did they arrive?”

“Half-past nine, sir,” said the man.

“There was a blue envelope posted to me this afternoon at
three-thirty. It’s not here. How do you account for that?”

The liftman looked past him.

“I’m sure I can’t tell you, sir,” he said, studiously avoiding
Michael’s eyes. “I bring the letters up as they come and put ’em in
your box.”

“You’re on duty from nine at night until nine in the morning, aren’t
you?” asked Dorn.

“Yes, sir.”

“You handle the morning and the night posts. Why is it that all
letters enclosed in blue envelopes fail to reach me until twenty-four
hours after they are due?”

“I can’t tell you that, sir.”

“Tell this gentleman. He’s a detective from Scotland Yard. And tell
him without hokum, or you’ll sleep uncomfortably to-night, my friend.”

For a while the man blustered and protested and then suddenly
collapsed.

“I’ve got a wife and four children,” he whined, “and there’s an Army
pension I shall lose----”

“You’ll lose nothing if you tell me the truth. Who employed you to
stop my letters?”

“A man, sir. I don’t know his name. If I die this minute, I don’t know
his name! He gives me two pounds a week to hold up all the blue
envelopes and the official ones. They’re not stolen, sir, they’re
always put into the letter-box----”

“I know all about that,” interrupted Michael curtly. “You’re wasting
your breath, man. Who is your employer?”

“I swear I don’t know him, sir. I met him at a public-house one night.
He kidded me on to this job. I wish I’d never seen him.”

“Does he call for the letters?”

“Yes, sir, he called this morning after the post came in, but I didn’t
give him the blue envelope because I hadn’t got it then. The postman
overlooked it and came back a quarter of an hour later.”

“The blue envelope? Which blue envelope?” asked Michael quickly.

“It is downstairs, sir,” whimpered the unfaithful servant of Hiles
Mansions.

“We’ll go down with you and get it.”

In the lobby below was a small cubby-hutch which served the porters as
an office, and from beneath a stained blotting-pad he drew out two
blue envelopes.

The first Michael recognised as that which he had written himself; the
second he tore open and read, and the detective-sergeant saw his face
change. Thrusting the letter into his pocket, he turned to the
frightened servant.

“What else came for me to-day? Come, across with it, quick!”

Without a word the man put his hand into the pocket of a jacket that
was hanging against the wall and took out a telegram, which had
obviously been opened and reclosed. Michael read it in a fury of
anger.

“Deal with this man,” he said and flew out of the hall, springing on
the first empty taxi he saw.

A run of ten minutes brought him to his garage. Almost before the cab
could turn round, the long black car was running out of London in
defiance of all speed regulations.

Midnight was booming from Telsbury Parish Church when the car shot up
to the entrance of the prison and Michael leapt out and pulled the
bell.

“The governor’s in bed, sir.”

“I must see him at once. This is a matter of life and death. Take my
card to him.” He thrust it through the bars of the grating and waited
impatiently until he was admitted and conducted to the doctor’s house.

The governor, in pyjamas and dressing-gown, was waiting for him in his
small study.

“Mrs. Pinder left at ten o’clock. Didn’t you send down for her?”

“No, sir, I knew nothing whatever about the release. The letter from
the Home Office giving me the information had been held up. Ten
o’clock? Who called for her?”

“I don’t know, I thought it was you. I saw the car and didn’t trouble
to make enquiries.”

“Do you know which way they went?”

“They turned towards the London road. The car was a small saloon--a
Buick, I think, with an enclosed drive. Hasn’t she turned up?”

Michael shook his head.

“No, she’s not in London.”

There was no time to be lost. He got into his machine and flew back
along the London road. At the junction of the Telsbury by-road was a
filling station, and he knew that an attendant slept upon the
premises. It was some time before he could get an answer to his
knocking, and then he was rewarded with valuable information.

“I saw the machine pass. It went south, towards Letchford.”

“It didn’t take the London road?”

“No, sir, it turned there.” He pointed. “I could see the rear light
going up over the hill. It was just before I closed down for the
night.”

Michael got back into his car, and, opening out, flew over the hill
and covered the fifteen miles that separated Telsbury from Letchford
in exactly fifteen minutes. Here again he was in luck. One of the town
police had seen the machine; it had taken the westerly road. But
thereafter his fortune failed him, for he came to a place where four
roads met, and there was no trail that could help him determine which
route the unknown driver had chosen. They were not bound for London at
any rate. He tried one road without success; worked across country to
intercept the second, but could meet nobody who had the slightest
information to offer.

At four o’clock in the morning a weary man brought his machine to a
standstill before the Chelsea police station and went slowly up the
steps into the charge-room.

“Hullo, Mr. Dorn!” said the sergeant. “The superintendent’s been
looking for you all night about that charge.”

“Well, what about it?” asked Michael drearily.

“There’s going to be the devil to pay. It appears that the countess
says the girl wasn’t in the room when Braime was hurt. We’ve had a
full statement from her in writing, and the superintendent says he’s
got something to say to you that you won’t forget in a hurry!”

Dorn’s lip went back in an angry snarl.

“If he should say anything that’s worth remembering I’ll go out of
business,” he said. “Anyway, you can release her. I’d like to offer my
apologies.”

“Let her out!” laughed the sergeant. “You’re a bit late. She was
released at one o’clock this morning.”

Dorn’s eyes narrowed.

“Released at one o’clock this morning?” he said softly. “Did she go
away by herself?”

“No, sir, she did not. A gentleman called for her in a blue Buick.”

Michael Dorn staggered back; his face was drawn and haggard. Of a
sudden he seemed to have grown old.

“The man who released that girl may be an accessory to murder!” he
said. “Tell your superintendent that when you see him!”

And, turning on his heel, he left the charge-room.

The Public Prosecutor’s office opened at ten o’clock, and Michael Dorn
was waiting for him, a dusty, unshaven, grimy figure, when that
official arrived.

“Hullo, Dorn! What is wrong?” he asked, and, in as few words as
possible, the detective explained the position.

The Prosecutor shook his head.

“We can do nothing. You haven’t the evidence we want, and no charge
would lie. We’ve given you the freest hand, in view of all the
remarkable circumstances of the case, but I cannot consent to a
warrant for arrest until you bring me proof positive and undeniable.”

Michael Dorn bit his lip thoughtfully.

“In the old days, when they couldn’t get a man to tell the truth, what
did they do with him, Sir Charles?”

“Well,” said the other drily, “they tried something with boiling oil
in it! Those were the days when criminal investigation was a little
easier than it is now.”

“No easier.” Michael shook his head. “I’m going to get the truth. I’m
going to find out where they have taken these two women. And the rack
and the thumbscrew will be babies’ toys compared with what I will use
against them! I’ll have the truth if I have to pull Chesney Praye limb
from limb!”




 Chapter Twenty-one

Lois was wakened from an exhausted sleep by the opening of the cell
door; she got up unsteadily, not quite knowing what she was doing, and
followed the matron to the charge-room, dizzy with sleep, inert from
the very shock of the charge levelled against her. She heard the
desk-sergeant say something, and dimly heard the name of the countess.
And then somebody shook hands with her; she thought it was the
sergeant. And a young man, who had appeared and disappeared in her
focus of vision and had not entered into recognition, took her arm and
led her slowly into the dark street. He jerked open the door of a car,
and, before she knew what was happening, had set the car in motion.
She experienced a pleasant sensation of languor--her head drooped.

It was the bump of her forehead against the driver’s seat that wakened
her. It was nearly daybreak.

“Where are we?” she asked.

She was uninterested in the identity of the driver, but, as he turned
his head to answer her, she saw that it was the red-faced man, Chesney
Praye.

“It’s all right, Miss Reddle,” he said, showing his big teeth in a
grin; “I’m taking you down into the country.”

She frowned, trying to remember clearly the events of the night
before. She was still dazed with sleep, then she recalled her arrest
and became wide awake. Before she could ask any further questions, he
was explaining over his shoulder.

“Her ladyship thought you’d better be kept out of the way of that
sleuth for a day or two. He’s got a grudge against you, and he’s a
vindictive beast.”

“Mr. Dorn?” she asked. “Why did he arrest me? I knew nothing whatever
about Braime’s injury.”

“Of course you didn’t,” he said soothingly. “But that was his way of
getting even.”

With whom he was getting even he did not explain, and even to the
girl’s tired brain it seemed a little illogical to suggest that
Michael Dorn had procured her arrest in order to get even either with
Mr. Chesney Praye or the Countess of Moron.

They were passing across the wide slope of a hill. Beneath them she
saw the glitter of a meandering river and the grey smoke rising from
little cottages in the valley. The road was narrow and bumpy and was
little more than a lane. She wondered why he came this way, for down
the hill-side she saw a broader thoroughfare which seemed to be
running more or less parallel with that they traversed.

“We are nearly there.”

They were reaching the mouth of the valley. The lane dipped
unexpectedly into a thick plantation of young trees, turned abruptly
at right angles over a cart track, and five minutes later she sighted
a long discoloured wall, which enclosed a squat, low-roofed building.
She saw that the other side of the house faced a road, and again she
wondered why they had not reached their destination by a more
comfortable route. Evidently she was expected, for the weather-beaten
gate was pulled open and they passed into an untidy farmyard. Half a
dozen chickens scattered at their approach; from a patched and broken
pen came the grunt of a pig.

“Here we are.”

He stopped the car, and, jumping out into the litter, he jerked open
the door and helped her to alight. The girl looked round in surprise.
She saw a long, rambling farm-house, and of the windows that were in
view, all except two had not been cleaned for years. To her left was a
cavernous black barn, its doors hanging on broken hinges, and, she
guessed, immovable. It was empty save for a rusted old plough and the
wheelless body of a farm waggon. The place smelt of decay and she
noted in that brief survey that at one end of the building the roof
was nearly innocent of tiles.

“This is not on Lady Moron’s estate?” she asked.

“No, it is a little place that a friend of ours--hers I mean--has.
You’ve met Dr. Tappatt?”

“Dr. Tappatt?” she frowned. Of course, it was the queer, uncleanly
doctor, with the bulbous nose, who had lunched at Chester Square.

“Is he here?” she asked dismally. The last person in the world she
wanted to spend a day with was the doctor.

“Yes, he’s here. He’s not a bad fellow; I knew him in India, and I
think you’ll like him.”

They had evidently come in the back way of the farm, for the only
visible door into the house was closed and bolted. He knocked for a
little while before a woman’s harsh voice asked who was there, and in
a little time there was a sound of rusted bolts being drawn and a
tall, gaunt female showed in the doorway. She wore a soiled print
dress; her face was sallow and grimy.

“Come in, mister,” she said, and they passed into a dark corridor.

The house smelt damp and sour, and the ancient carpet on the floor was
too thin to deaden the hollow echoes of their footsteps.

“The doctor is here.” She wiped her hands mechanically upon her black
apron, and showed them into a room leading off the passage.

It was a dingy apartment, as unsavoury as the house itself. Huddled in
one corner of a horsehair sofa, before the ashes of a wood fire, a man
was sleeping, wrapped in an old dressing-gown. The air was thick and
redolent of stale smoke and whisky fumes, and the girl drew back in
disgust.

Chesney went past her and shook the sleeping man.

“Here, wake up,” he said roughly. “There’s somebody to see you.”

Dr. Tappatt’s head jerked up. If he had been unpleasant at midday in
Chester Square, he was repulsive now.

“Eh, what?” he grunted. He got up on to his feet and stretched
himself. “I’m tired. I told you I should go to sleep. You said you’d
be here before now. _She’s_ sleeping. I’ll bet she’s got a more
comfortable bed to-night than she’s had for twenty years.”

“Shut up, damn you!” said Chesney under his breath. “Here’s Miss
Reddle.”

The doctor blinked at the girl.

“Hullo! Glad to see you, miss. Sorry for you to see me like this, but
I’ve been up all night with--with a patient.” He boomed the last word
as though by its very emphasis it would carry conviction.

“Now listen, Tappatt. There’s a warrant out for this lady, but we’ve
succeeded in getting her away from the police, and she is to remain
here for a few days until her ladyship can square matters.”

Lois gasped.

“A warrant out for me?” she said in amazement. “But you told me that
Dorn had no right to arrest me!”

He smiled and signalled to her to keep silence.

“Has the woman got Miss Reddle’s room ready? She is very tired and
wants to sleep.”

“Surely, surely,” mumbled the doctor. He held a bottle upside down
over a glass, and a very small trickle of liquid came out, to his
annoyance. “I must have a drink,” he grumbled. “This fever is playing
Old Harry with me.”

“But, Mr. Praye,” said Lois, “I don’t quite understand the position.
Why am I staying here? Where is this place?”

“Near Nottingham,” replied Praye. “And, for heaven’s sake, don’t stray
out of the farm and lose yourself. You’ll be all right; you needn’t be
here longer than a few days, and I assure you that there is no cause
for worry.”

He looked at his watch and uttered an impatient exclamation.

“Is Miss Reddle’s room ready?” he asked sharply.

The doctor led the way out along the passage and up a narrow flight of
stairs. On the top landing he unlocked a door and threw it open.

“Here it is.”

“But I’m not tired, Mr. Praye; in fact, I was never so wide awake, and
I’d rather stay up, if I could have some tea?”

“You can have anything you like, my child,” said the doctor gallantly.
“Where’s that woman? Hi, you!” he roared down the stairs. “Bring this
lady up some tea, and bring it quick!”

Lois walked into the bedroom. It was poorly furnished but clean. She
had the impression that every article of furniture had been newly
placed.

“This was the room we got ready for the other,” began the doctor, “but
when I heard the young lady was coming----”

Chesney Praye silenced him with a look.

The other? Twice he had made reference to another visitor who had
already arrived.

“That door at the end leads to a bathroom,” said the doctor. “It is
the snuggest little country lodging you could hope to find.”

He closed the door on her and softly turned the key. The two men went
down the stairs together. When they were alone in the doctor’s room:

“Where’s Pinder?” asked Chesney Praye.

“She’s all right,” said the other carelessly.

“She’s nowhere near this girl?”

“No, she’s in the other wing. She’s easy. Twenty years of prison
discipline behind her. She won’t kick!”

“What did you tell her?”

“The yarn you told me, that somebody wanted to get at her, and she had
to lie here quietly for a day or two. That housekeeper of mine will
look after her, believe me. She had charge of one of my homes in
India.”

Chesney looked at his watch again.

“It is four miles to Whitcomb Aerodrome; you can drive me over.”

“Why don’t you take the car?”

“Because, you fool, I don’t want the car to be seen. Hurry up!”

In five minutes the doctor had harnessed a raw-boned pony to a
dilapidated trap. The blue car had been driven into a shed and the
door locked, and they were bowling down the road to Whitcomb as fast
as the ancient animal could pull them. A quarter of a mile short of
the aerodrome Chesney got down.

“Those two women are not to meet----”

“They’re not likely,” interrupted the other.

“And you’d better keep to the house.”

“What about money?” asked the doctor.

Chesney took a pad of notes from his pocket and passed two to the man.

“And try to cut out the booze for the next week. You’ve got a chance
of making big money, Tappatt, but you’ve also got a chance of being
pinched. If Dorn so much as smells the end of the trail, he’s sure to
have you before you realise you’re suspected.”

Tappatt grinned.

“On what charge?” he asked. “They both came of their own free will,
didn’t they? I don’t pretend they’re certified.”

“They may want to go away of their own free will,” said the other
significantly.

He walked rapidly along the road through the big gates of the
aerodrome and crossed the field towards a two-seater scout that had
been drawn out of its hangar and was attended by three men.

“Good morning. I’m Mr. Stone,” he said. “Is this my machine?”

“Yes, sir. You’ve got a good morning for your trip.”

Praye looked at the frail machine dubiously.

“Will that make Paris in one trip?”

The aerodrome manager nodded.

“Two hours and fifty minutes,” he said. “Maybe shorter. You’ll have a
following wind.”

He helped the passenger into a heavy leather coat. The pilot had
already taken his place, and, when Praye had been strapped and gloved
and received his final instructions, the propellers turned with a
roar, and the machine, running lightly along the grass, swept up into
the blue sky and was soon a speck of white above the eastern horizon.




 Chapter Twenty-two

When Michael Dorn left the police station he hurried his car to
Charlotte Street. At such an early hour of the morning there was no
sign of life in this thoroughfare. He expected to be kept waiting
before there came an answer to his knocking. But had he known
something of old Mackenzie’s habits, he would not have been surprised
at the promptitude with which his signal was answered.

The old man was in his dressing-gown and had not been half an hour in
bed when Dorn arrived. He looked with mild suspicion at the visitor--a
suspicion which was intensified when he learnt the object of his
visit.

“Yes, sir, Miss Elizabetta Smith is in the house. Are you from the
police?”

“Yes,” said Michael, without stretching the truth. “Can I speak to
Miss Smith?”

“She came in late and very distressed. I understand that the good
countess has promised to do all in her power to secure the release of
my young friend, Miss Reddle. It is indeed an awful thing to have
happened. Will you come in, sir?”

Michael followed him up the stairs to his little room and sat down
whilst the musician went up to arouse Lizzy. She also had heard the
knocking and was waiting in the doorway of her room when Mackenzie
came up.

“Dorn, is it?” she said viciously. “I’ll come down and Dorn him! He’ll
be ‘sunset’ by the time I’ve finished with him!”

She came into Michael’s presence a flaming virago.

“You’ve got a nerve!” she said. “After swearing away the life of poor
Lois----”

Michael shook his head.

“She’s not here?” he interrupted with a touch of asperity.

“Here? Of course she’s not here! She’s in the police station, and how
you could----”

“She’s not in the police station, she’s been released, and I want to
find the man who released her.”

Something in his tone silenced the girl.

“Isn’t she with Lady Moron?” she asked.

“I am going to Chester Square, but I don’t expect to find Miss Reddle
there. I locked her up to save her life--I suppose you realise that?
There have been two attempts made to kill her, and I had information
that the third would be more successful. I knew her mother was on the
point of being released from prison--she was in fact released last
night. It is vitally necessary that I should have Lois Reddle under my
eye.”

Lizzy had collapsed into a chair.

“Her mother released from prison?” she said hollowly. “What are you
talking about? Her mother’s dead. And killing? Who’s going to kill
Lois? Why! It was an accident--the balcony.”

“It was no accident,” said Michael quietly. “The balcony has been
unsafe for a year past and was condemned by the borough surveyor on
the advice of a local builder who was brought in to repair the slab.
Until Miss Reddle occupied that room in Chester Square the French
windows leading to the balcony had been kept locked up.”

Lizzy gasped.

“But the servants----”

“The servants were all new. None of them had been longer in the house
than a fortnight. Sergeant Braime came up from Newbury, and even he
knew nothing.”

“Sergeant Braime?” she repeated, wide-eyed.

“Braime is an officer of the Criminal Investigation Department, who
has been in the countess’ household for six months,” was the
staggering reply. “Nobody was allowed to go on to the balcony. A gate
was fixed to prevent the servants from forestalling the plan--it was
removed the night Lois went to her room.”

“By whom?” asked Lizzy quietly.

Michael Dorn shrugged his shoulders.

“Who knows? I shall discover later.”

“Where is Lois now?”

“That is exactly what I want to know. I’m going to Chester Square
right away. Will you come with me?”

She was out of the room in a flash.

“But, Mr. Dorn, this is a terrible thing you say; that any person
should conspire against the life of that innocent lassie!” said old
Mackenzie, horrified. “You will surely find Miss Reddle at the good
countess’ home.”

“I hope so, but I very much doubt it, Mr. Mackenzie,” said Michael.

The old man’s lips were tremulous.

“Is there anything I can do? It is not my habit to leave the house,
but I would even take that step----”

Michael shook his head.

“I am afraid you can do nothing, except in the unlikely event of Miss
Reddle returning here. You will see that she does not go out again,
and that she does not receive visitors in any circumstances. I very
much doubt,” he smiled faintly, “whether you will be called upon to
render this help. I can only wish to heaven that you will be!”

Lizzy was down in a very short time, dressed for the street, and, as
they drove towards Chester Square, she told him the part she had
played in securing Lois Reddle’s release.

“I went and found the countess; she was at a friend’s house, and told
her about Lois. She was very much upset. I’d never seen her before to
speak to, but she was quite decent to me.”

“Did she have anybody with her? Do you know Chesney Praye?”

Lizzy shook her head.

“No, I’ve heard of him from Lois, but I’ve never seen him.”

Michael described the man and again she shook her head.

“No, he was not there.”

“What did the countess do?”

“She telephoned to somebody and said she was sending a letter to the
police officer in charge. She told me to go home to Charlotte Street
and wait in patience until Lois came back.”

Michael nodded.

“You could rest in patience because she knew that Lois wasn’t going
back to Chester Square!” he said grimly. “And if she hadn’t come back
to Chester Square and you were there waiting for her, you would have
wanted to know where she had been taken.”

The car drew up before 307, and Michael got out and pressed the bell.
There was no reply. He rang again, and followed this up by knocking.
Still there was no answer. Stepping out from under the porch he looked
up at the windows, just as a sash was raised and a tousled head thrust
forth. It was Lord Moron, and apparently he was sleeping on the floor
which was usually given over to the household staff.

“Hullo! What’s the trouble, old thing?”

“Will you come down?” called Michael, and the head was withdrawn.

They waited for a longer time than it would have taken for him to
reach the ground floor, before the door opened, and then the
explanation for the delay was unnecessary, for with him the countess
stood in the hall, wrapped in her cloak, a majestic and imposing
figure.




 Chapter Twenty-three

“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded.

“I’ve come for Lois Reddle,” said Dorn shortly.

“She is not here. I have put her beyond your vindictive reach.”

“Where is she?”

“I refuse to make any statement, after your disgraceful conduct last
night in arresting this poor innocent child----”

“You can leave that out, Lady Moron,” said Michael savagely. “Nobody
knows better than you why she was arrested. Where is she?”

“I’ve sent her away to friends of mine.”

“The address?”

The Countess of Moron smiled slowly.

“A very persistent young man,” she said, almost pleasantly. “Will you
come into the library? I cannot speak in this draughty hall. Is that
Miss Smith you have with you? She may come in too.”

“She’ll be safer outside,” said Michael coolly and passed into the
hall.

All this time Selwyn had said nothing, but now he turned to his
mother.

“Where is Miss Reddle? Perhaps your ladyship will tell me?”

“I shall tell you nothing,” was the cold reply. “You may go back to
your room.”

“I’ll be blowed if I’ll go back to my room,” protested Lord Moron.
“There’s something remarkably fishy here, and I want to know just what
the deuce it is all about.”

It was a most heroic speech for him, and Michael, who knew all the
courage that was required to oppose this woman, felt a little glow of
admiration for the bullied man. Even the countess was taken aback.

“Why, Selwyn,” she said in a milder voice, “that is not the tone to
adopt towards your mother!”

“I don’t care what it is or what it isn’t,” said Selwyn doggedly.
“There’s something fishy--I’ve always said there was something fishy
about--things. Now, where the deuce is Miss Reddle?”

“She is with some friends of ours in the country,” said her ladyship.

The reply seemed to exhaust his power of resistance.

“Very well,” he said meekly.

He looked through the open door at Lizzy, smiled and waved his hand at
her, looked back at his mother, and then, visibly bracing himself for
the effort, walked boldly down the steps in his pyjamas and attenuated
dressing-gown to talk to the girl.

“Are you satisfied, Mr. Dorn?”

“No, I am far from satisfied, your ladyship,” said Michael, as he
followed the woman into the library.

He noticed the dull patch on the carpet where the water had been
thrown upon Braime, and saw her eyes also fixed upon the spot.

“And now, Mr. Dorn,” she said, almost amiably, “there is no reason why
we should quarrel. What is this mystery that you are making about Miss
Reddle? The poor girl was beside herself last night. It was an act of
mercy to send her off into the country.”

“Who drove her?”

“My chauffeur.” His keen eyes were fixed upon her, but she did not
falter.

“Not Mr. Chesney Praye by any chance?” he asked softly.

“Mr. Praye is in Paris. He has been there some days,” was the
staggering reply. “You’ve found a mare’s nest. Really there is no
mystery at all about anything that has happened to this young lady in
my house. What reason in the world was there for me to engage her,
except my desire to find a comfortable job for a very very nice girl?”
And then: “Is Braime better?”

“Sergeant Braime is much better,” said Michael, and saw that he had
got beneath her guard.

She cringed back as at a blow, and her voice had lost a little of its
assurance when she faltered:

“Sergeant Braime? I am talking about my butler----”

“And I’m talking about Sergeant Braime of the Criminal Investigation
Department, who has been in your service for six months.”

Her mouth was an O of amazement.

“But--but he was recommended to me by----”

“By a spurious Prisoners’ Aid Society,” said Michael. “The idea was
that, if you believed that the man had a criminal record, he had a
better chance of coming into your ladyship’s service.”

She had recovered herself in an instant.

“But why?” she drawled. “Why put a detective in my household? It is an
abominable outrage and I shall report the matter to the Commissioner
of Police immediately.”

He was looking round the room and his eyes rested upon that section of
the bookshelves which was protected by the wire-covered door.

“You have a book there that I should like to see. I intended coming
last night, only something prevented me.”

“A book?”

“A book called _The Life of Washington_--sounds a fairly innocuous
title, doesn’t it?”

She walked to the bookcase, and, taking a key from the drawer of her
desk, opened the wire net cover.

“There it is,” she said. “Read it and be improved.”

She turned to walk to the door and stood there watching him. And then
he did the last thing she expected. From his pocket he took a thick
red glove and drew it on his right hand. Reaching up, he seized the
back of the book and jerked it loose. There was a click, a spark of
blinding white light, but nothing else happened, and he laid the book
with some difficulty on the table.

“A very good imitation,” he said quietly, “but it is less of a book
than a steel box, and any person who attempts to pull it out
automatically makes contact with a very powerful electric current.
Where is the switch?”

She did not reply. Her face, under the powder, was drawn and haggard.
Walking to the door, Michael searched for a while, then, stooping
down, he turned over a big switch that was well concealed by a hanging
portière.

“Have you the key of this box?”

“It is not locked,” she said, and, coming to his side, pressed a
spring. The lid sprang open.

The “book” was, as he surmised, hollow. It was also empty.

“Is there a law against having a safe-box made like a book?” she
asked, and her voice was almost sweet. “Does one get into _very_
serious trouble for protecting one’s property from thieving butlers
and--inquisitive amateur detectives?”

“There’s a law against murder,” said the other shortly. “If I had
touched that book without rubber gloves, I should have been as near
dead as makes no difference. It did not kill Braime, because he is
constitutionally a giant.”

“I did not ask you to take down the book,” she said.

“Neither did you warn me,” Michael smiled crookedly. “Empty, eh? Of
course, it would be. You suspected Braime, and left a little notebook
around carelessly in your bedroom, in which you made reference to the
_Life of Washington_. Braime saw it and fell into the trap. He came to
the library, and would have been a dead man if I hadn’t applied first
aid.”

There was a silence.

“Is that all?” asked Lady Moron.

“Not quite all. I want to know where is Miss Reddle?”

“And I’m afraid I cannot tell you. The truth is, when she was released
last night, or in the early hours of this morning, she refused to come
either here or to her house in--wherever her house may be. She said
she wanted to go into the country----”

“And did Mrs. Pinder express a desire to go into the country?” he
asked, his cold eyes fixed on hers.

“Mrs. Pinder? I do not know Mrs. Pinder.”

“Did Mrs. Pinder express a desire to go into the country?” he asked
again. He raised a warning finger. “Madam, there is very considerable
trouble coming to you, and to those who work with you.”

She shrugged her broad shoulders.

“If it takes any other form than an early morning call by a
melodramatic detective I shall bear it with equanimity,” she said, and
stalked through the doorway into the hall, Michael following.

As she stood aside for him to pass through the door, she saw the
grotesque figure of Selwyn leaning over the side of the car--intently
occupied--and her lips curled.

“My son has found his intellectual level,” she said, and called him by
name.

To Michael’s surprise the young man merely turned his head and resumed
his conversation with the girl.

“Selwyn!”

Even then he took his time.

“Good-bye, young lady. Don’t forget”--in a stage whisper--“pork
sausages, not beef. Beef gives me indigestion.” And, waving her an
airy farewell, he went back to the woman whose face was a thundercloud
of wrath.

“It sounded almost as if you were making a date with that young man,”
said Michael as they drove off.

“He’s coming to supper,” said Lizzy. “Was Lois there?”

“No, I didn’t expect she would be.”

Even the prospect of a _tête-à-tête_ meal with a scion of the
nobility was not sufficient to compensate for this news.

“But where is she, Mr. Dorn?”

“She’s somewhere. I don’t think she’ll come to any harm for a day or
two.”

She looked at him quietly.

“You don’t think that.”

“Yes, I do,” he protested.

She did not take her eyes from him.

“You look nearly dead,” she said. “You’re pretty fond of her, aren’t
you?”

He was startled by the question.

“Fond of Lois?” The question seemed in the nature of a revelation.
“Fond of her--why--I suppose I am.”

At that moment Michael Dorn realised that he had something more than a
professional interest in the girl he sought, and he was shocked at the
discovery.

He dropped Lizzy Smith in Charlotte Street, and, declining her
invitation to come in, drove home, and, leaving his car in the
courtyard of Hiles Mansions, he dragged himself wearily up to his
room. He was sleeping on the top of his bed when the silent Wills came
in with a telegram in his hand, and, struggling up, he tore open the
cover and read the message. It had been handed in at Paris at eight
o’clock and ran:


 Will you please inform me name of District Commissioner, Karrili,
 during period you were in Punjab.


It was signed “Chesney Praye, Grand Hotel.”

“An ‘I’m here’ enquiry,” said Michael, handing the telegram to Wills,
“the idea being to establish the fact that he is in Paris at this
moment. Get on the ’phone, Wills, to all the private hire aerodromes
within a radius of a hundred miles of London, find out if anybody
hired a private machine in the early hours of the morning to take him
to Paris. Report to me later.”

Wills nodded and stole forth silently.

“To try that stuff on me!” said Michael wrathfully, as the door closed
upon his man.




 Chapter Twenty-four

It was three o’clock in the afternoon when Lois Reddle woke from a
heavy sleep, feeling ravenously hungry. She got off the bed, and,
putting on her shoes, walked to the window. The prospect was a dreary
one. She saw the farmyard into which she had driven that morning, and
recognised the slatternly woman who was feeding the chickens as the
janitress who had opened the door. Beyond the discoloured wall was the
slope of a treeless down, and, by getting close to the pane and
looking sideways, she could see no more than a further fold of the
hills, surmounted by a black copse.

She felt refreshed when she had bathed her face and hands, but the
pangs of hunger had grown more poignant, and she went to the door and
turned the handle. It did not budge; the door was locked. The window
sash, she found, only opened a few inches, but it was sufficient to
call to the woman in the yard, and presently she attracted her
attention, for she waved her hand impatiently and went on feeding the
chickens. Then, after a few minutes, she went out of the girl’s line
of vision. It was some time before her heavy tread sounded on the
stairs, and obviously the locked door was no accident, for, when the
woman came in carrying a tray, the key was hanging from a chain
fastened to her waist.

“Please do not lock the door again,” said Lois, as she surveyed the
very plain fare with some appreciation.

“You get on with your eating and never mind about the door,” was the
unexpected reply.

Lois was left in no doubt as to the woman’s hostility and wisely did
not continue the argument. Then, to her amazement, as the woman went
out of the room she turned the key again. Lois ran to the door and
hammered on the panels.

“Unlock this door,” she said, but there was no reply save the sound of
the dour attendant’s footsteps on the stairs, and the girl went slowly
back to her meal to confront a new problem.

The appetite of youth was not to be denied, and when she had finished
her meal some of her confidence and poise had returned. It was
impossible that they could be keeping her prisoner; she scoffed at the
idea. Possibly the locking of the door was the act of an over-zealous
custodian who was to keep her safe from--she shook her head. Not from
Michael Dorn. Whatever views the countess might have of him, however
unforgivable had been his behaviour, he was not vindictive, nor would
he pursue her in any spirit of revenge. That was the greatest
impossibility of all.

She tried the door again; it was undoubtedly locked. And then, in a
spirit of self-preservation, she attempted to open the window, and
found that two slats of wood had been so screwed as to make it
impossible for the sash to rise or fall more than a few inches. The
other window had been similarly dealt with. She was examining this
when she saw the doctor in the yard. He wore his rusty frock coat, but
he was collarless, and on his head was an old golf cap.

Walking with unsteady steps to the gate through which she had come,
and which was open, with some difficulty he closed it. She needed no
special knowledge of human weakness to see that he had been drinking
more than was good for him, for his gait was unsteady, and when,
turning back to the house, he saw her, and yelled a greeting, it was
interrupted by a hiccough.

“Had a good sleep, young friend?” he shouted. “Has that old hag
brought your lunch?”

“Doctor”--she spoke through the slit of the sash--“can’t I come down?
She has locked me in.”

“Locked you in?” The statement seemed to afford him some amusement,
for he rocked with laughter. “Well, well, fancy locking you in! She
must be afraid of you, my dear. Don’t you worry, you’re all right.
I’ll look after you. You’ve heard no voices, have you? Seen nobody
following you around, eh? You’ll be all right in a day or two.”

His words filled her with apprehension. Once before, at the luncheon
where she had met him, he had spoken about mysterious voices and
people following her. Did he think she was mad? She went cold at the
thought. Going to the door, she waited for him to come up the stairs,
but there was no sound from below, only a soft patter of feet, and
presently something snuffled under the door and there was a low growl.
The woman’s harsh voice called from the passage.

“Bati, Bati, _hitherao_! Come down, you black _soor_!”

She heard the animal running down the stairs, there was the sound of a
smack and a sharp yelp. Later, she saw the dogs--there were two of
them--in the yard. Great black beasts, bigger than Alsatians, but
lacking their fineness. They were prowling about, nosing into stable
refuse. One of them saw her, growled and showed his fangs, the
bristles stiff, and she hastily drew out of sight. She knocked again
on the door, stamped on the floor, but attracted no attention, and
though she heard the doctor’s voice and called to him he ignored her.
Her situation was a dangerous one, and she began to understand dimly
the reason for Dorn’s drastic action.

Where she was she could not guess. So much of the country as she could
see had no meaning for her; and, except that her window faced
northward, she was unable to locate her position.

The woman brought her up some more tea in the afternoon--vile stuff
beside which Lizzy Smith’s concoctions were veritable nectar.

“I insist that you leave this door open,” said the girl.

“They’d tear you to pieces if I did,” said the woman. “There is no
holding them with strangers. Hark at Bati now!”

There was a snuffling and growling outside the door.

“Go away, you! _Juldi_!” she cried shrilly in her queer mixture of
English and Hindustani.

The girl faced her.

“I am not afraid of dogs,” said Lois steadily, and walked to the door.

Before she was half-way the woman had overtaken her, and, catching her
by the arm, had swung her round.

“You’ll stay where you are, and do as you’re told, or it will be worse
for you,” she said threateningly.

“Where is the doctor? I wish to see him.”

“You can’t see any doctor. He’s gone down to the village to get a
drink.”

She kicked away the dogs that strove to get through the half-open
door, closed and locked it, and for half an hour Lois sat before her
untasted meal, trying to think. The light was fading in the sky when
there came the second dramatic interruption of that day.

Lois was standing by the window, looking into the dreary yard and
thinking of Michael Dorn. He had certainly become a bright nucleus of
hope. Michael Dorn would not fail her; wherever she was, he would
follow. Why she should think this, she could not understand. Why he
should give his time and his thoughts to her protection, was a mystery
yet to be solved. But he was working for her--working for her now. It
was a comforting thought; she almost forgot her fears.

Then from the yard below came the screaming voice of the gaunt woman.

“I told you to wash those dishes, didn’t I? Never mind what you’re
doing; when I give you an order you carry it out, you old gaol-bird.”

“Why am I kept here?” Another voice spoke sweet and soft. Lois
trembled at the sound. “He told me that----”

“Never mind what he told you,” shrilled the other. “Wash those dishes,
and then you can scrub the floor; and if it is not done in half an
hour I’ll put you in the cellar with the rats or give you to the dogs,
and they’ll tear you to pieces! Hi, Bati! Mali!”

There was a harsh growl from the dogs and a clanking of chains.

“I refuse”--again the gentle voice--“I refuse!”

_Crack!_

“Refuse that! Give me any trouble and I’ll whip you till you bleed.
Ah, you would, would you?”

There was the sound of a struggle and the horrified girl, craning her
neck, saw a frail woman stumble and fall to the ground, saw the cruel
whip rise and fall----

“Stop!” cried Lois hoarsely, and at that instant, as the old hag
stooped over the stricken woman and jerked her out of view, the knees
of Lois Reddle gave beneath her and she fell to the floor in a swoon.




 Chapter Twenty-five

Lois came to consciousness almost at once, as she thought, though
she had been lying on the floor for half an hour before she moved,
and, sick and shaking, dragged herself with difficulty to the bed.

She felt ill and shaken and sat with her hands before her eyes trying
to shut out that hideous scene. The raised whip----

She lay down on the bed, her face in the crook of her arm, trying to
reconstruct from the confusion of her mind a sane and logical
explanation, and always her thoughts flew back to Michael Dorn, with
his saturnine face and his soul-searching eyes. Why he should weave in
and out of her troubled thoughts, she could not fathom, except that
she came back to that sure foundation of faith. Who was this other
prisoner? What had the countess to do with this experience of hers?
Was it true, as Michael Dorn had hinted, that the falling balcony and
the motor-car incident were not accidents, but deliberate attempts to
kill her?

When the woman brought her supper, Lois was outwardly calm,
recognising the futility of questioning her. When she came up to clear
away, she brought a small oil lamp and lit it. She pulled down the two
ragged blinds before she left, and at the door paused for her
good-night message.

“If you want anything, stamp on the floor,” she said. “If you take my
tip you won’t send for the doctor, because he’s raving drunk; and
don’t take any notice of that woman downstairs, she’s crazy!”

It was not a very cheering farewell. One thing was certain, she was
free from interruption for the rest of the night; and she decided to
put into operation the plan she had formed.

She had found in her little handbag a small nail file. The slats that
prevented the windows opening had been screwed into the sash grooves,
and Lois guessed that by breaking off the point of the file she would
be able to improvise a screwdriver. The snapping of the file was an
easy matter, but when she came to fit the jagged end in the screws,
she found both the instrument and her strength insufficient for the
purpose. She tried another screw with no better result, and finally
gave up her task in despair. The windows could be broken, but they
were scarcely a foot wide. And the dogs were below; she heard them
growling as she worked.

There was nothing for her to do, nothing to read. She did not even
know the time, for her watch had stopped, and she could only judge the
hour by the light of the sky.

Pacing up and down the room, her hands behind her, she resolutely
refused to be panic-stricken. The blind impulse of panic, which came
to her again and again, had made her want to scream aloud. What was
Lizzy doing now? And Michael Dorn? Always her thoughts came back to
Michael Dorn.

“I wonder if I’m in love with him?” she said aloud, and smiled at the
thought.

If she was, then he was the last person she had ever expected to love,
and Lizzy would never believe that she had not been fond of him all
the time. He would find her. She was sure of that. But suppose he did
not? She drew a long sigh. Turning down the light and resting her
elbows on the window-sill, she stared out into the darkness. The moon
was rising somewhere on the other side of the house. She saw the
ghostly light of it turn the dark downs to silver. Then she heard
hurried steps in the hall below, and, going back to the table, turned
up the light. The lock snapped back and the door was thrust open. It
was the doctor, and he was not drunk. He was, in truth, haggardly,
tremblingly sober.

“Come out of this!” he jerked, and dragged her from the room down the
stairs into the hall. “Go up and put that light out,” he said to some
one in the darkness, and the gaunt woman, appearing from nowhere,
brushed past her and ran up the stairs.

“What do you want, doctor? Is anything----”

“Shut up!” he hissed. “Have you put that light out?”

“Yes,” said a sulky voice from the stairs. “What is there to be scared
about? You’ve been drunk and dreaming.”

“I’ll smash your head if you talk to me like that!” said the man
without heat. “I tell you I saw the car coming over the hill. It
stopped in front of the house. Do you think I’m blind? You go up to my
room and you can see the lights. He got out and came along the wall,
then I lost sight of him.”

Lois’ heart so thumped and swelled that she almost choked.

“Where is he now?” asked the woman.

“Shut up.”

Again a dreadful, long silence, broken at last by the faint sound of
the howling dogs.

“He’s at the back!”

The doctor still held Lois’ arm in his firm grip, and now he gently
shook her.

“If you scream or shout, or do anything, I’ll cut your throat. I mean
what I say--do you hear?”

“Why didn’t you leave her upstairs?” growled the woman.

“Because I wanted her here, where I could see her. Find my silk
handkerchief; I left it in the study. And bring the irons, I’m not
going to take any risks.”

The woman went into the room and came back. Suddenly Lois felt the
handkerchief against her mouth.

“Don’t struggle; I’m not going to hurt you, unless you shout. Get the
irons.”

“Here!” said the woman’s voice.

Lois felt her wrists gripped and dragged behind her. In another second
she was handcuffed.

“Sit down there.” He pushed her into a chair, felt at the gag, and
grunted his satisfaction.

“Listen! He’s knocking.”

_Tap-tap-tap!_

Silently the two stepped into the darkness of the front yard and the
woman called.

“Who’s there?”

And then came a voice that made the girl half-rise from her chair.

“I want to see the master of this house,” said Michael Dorn.




 Chapter Twenty-six

It was the worst kind of fortune that Michael Dorn received news of
two early morning departures from aerodromes situated a hundred miles
apart; and worse that he should have chosen the Cambridgeshire venue
first. Here the telephone enquiries he made gave him little
information, and it was not until he arrived at Morland that he found
the early morning passenger was an undergraduate from Cambridge who
had been summoned home through the serious illness of a sister and had
left for Cornwall.

“I wasn’t in the office when you enquired,” said the aerodrome chief,
“or I would have told you that.”

“It can’t be helped,” said Michael.

He went back to his car and studied the map. He was separated from
Whitcomb by a hundred and seven miles of road, mainly indifferent;
and, to add to his troubles, he had two bad punctures in the first
twenty miles and went into Market Silby on a flat tyre. By the time
the new tyre was purchased and fixed he had lost a good hour of
daylight and had still the worst of the road to negotiate. And it was
by no means certain, even when he reached his objective, that he would
be any nearer to finding the girl.

During the period of waiting while the tyre was being fitted he
studied the little time-table he had made that morning. The girl had
been taken from the police station in the neighbourhood of two
o’clock, he had discovered. She had left in the car for an unknown
destination, and at eight o’clock--six hours later--Chesney Praye had
wired him from Paris. Supposing he had flown from a private aerodrome
near London, it would have taken him two hours to reach the French
Capital, which meant that he must have departed somewhere about five
o’clock.

Between two and five o’clock was the unknown quantity of distance. By
accepting this period he had decided that Lois had been taken to a
spot between an hour and a half and two hours distant from the
metropolis. He also guessed the aeroplane theory was right, that the
place of detention and the aerodrome were within twenty miles by car,
and six or seven miles if the abductor drove or walked.

The Cambridge aerodrome was an ideal fulfilment of his calculations.
So was Whitcomb, on the borders of Somerset. He came to the aerodrome
in time to catch the manager just before he left for the night, showed
his authority, which had a more official value than Lady Moron had
imagined, and accompanied the manager to his office.

“The gentleman’s name was Stone. We had a telephone message late last
night from London, asking us to have a machine waiting to take him to
France, and he arrived on time.”

He described the traveller so faithfully that Michael could almost see
Chesney Praye standing before him.

“That is the gentleman,” he said. “How did he get here?--Did he come
here by car?”

The manager shook his head.

“No, he came up in a trap to the end of the field and walked the rest
of the distance.”

“A horse-drawn trap? Who drove him?”

“That I cannot tell you. It was too far away to see. I know very few
people here.”

Michael considered for a moment.

“Perhaps you will show me where the trap set down.” And, as a thought
struck him: “Have you an Ordnance map of this district?”

This request the manager was able to satisfy. He could also show him
on the plan the point at which the passenger had left the cart.
Michael traced the road with the tip of his finger, and then began a
wide sweep in search of houses.

“That’s Lord Kelver’s place. I do happen to know that, because I’ve
been there. That’s the house of his bailiff.” When Michael touched
another red square: “That’s the road to Ilfey Village. There is an inn
there, the Red Lion, where he may have been putting up,” he suggested,
but Michael rejected the likelihood of Chesney having stayed in the
neighbourhood.

“What is this place?”

His finger paused, but the manager shook his head.

“I don’t remember it. Perhaps one of my mechanics will be able to tell
us.”

He went out and came back with a workman who bent over the map.

“That is Gallows Farm,” he said. “It is an old place--been there for
hundreds of years. I don’t know who has it now, but he isn’t a
farmer--at least, I never saw any cattle coming out of his yard.”

There was a telephone on the table; Michael took it up and gave the
number of the nearest police station. He introduced himself and then
put his question and waited whilst the particulars were found.

“Gallows Farm was let twelve months ago to a Mr. ----” He gave a name
which was unfamiliar to Dorn. “There’s nobody there except the
gentleman and his housekeeper.”

This was not very informative, but Michael was not discouraged. Again
he went over the map, and in the end concluded that Gallows Farm was
the only house in the neighbourhood which was in any way under
suspicion. He snatched a hasty meal in the aerodrome mess, and it was
growing dark when he skirted the field and took the road along which
the cart had come in the early morning. Presently, as he came over the
crest of the hill, the farm showed dimly in the circle of his powerful
headlamps. There were no lights or sign of life about the house. The
long, white, ugly wall was surmounted by broken glass, and the gate,
which opened on to the road, was securely fastened. There was no
evidence of a bell-pull.

He went back to the car, and, finding an electric torch, continued his
investigations. The farm building lay on the slope of the hill and he
had to descend to get to the back of the premises. Here the gate was
larger and more insecure, and his attempt to open it was followed by a
furious barking and straining of chains. He listened, interested; the
barking had a familiar sound. It was not the deep roar of the mastiff,
or the half-frightened, half-angry discordance of the terrier; there
was a howl in that note that he had heard before on dark nights as he
had passed through sleeping Indian villages.

“If they’re not native dogs, I’ve never heard any,” he said softly,
and continued his circuit.

From the declivity at the back of the house he could not see the top
windows of the building, low as it was, and he turned to the front of
the house and rapped on the heavy black wooden gate.

Somebody must have been aroused by the barking of the dogs, for almost
immediately the sharp voice of a woman called:

“Who’s there?”

“I want to see the master of this house,” said Dorn.

“Well, you can’t see him, not at this time; he’s in bed.”

“Then let me see you. Open this gate,” said Michael.

There was an interval of silence, and then the woman said:

“Go away, or I’ll telephone for the police.”

That pause before she spoke betrayed the situation to the keen-witted
man at the gate. There was somebody else behind that barrier, somebody
who was prompting the woman in a whisper.

“Will you please tell your master, who is in bed, but not, I think,
asleep, that unless you open the gate I’ll come over the top?”

This time the woman needed no prompting.

“If you dare, I’ll set my dogs on you!” she screamed.

He heard her footsteps running on the cobbled yard, and presently the
throaty growl of the dogs as they came flying before her.

“Now will you go away?” shrieked the woman. “If they get out they’ll
tear the heart out of you, _ek dum_!”

Michael Dorn uttered an involuntary exclamation. “_Ek dum_?” Who was
this who used the Indian phrase?

“I think you’d better let me in, my sister,” he said, and he spoke in
Hindustani.

There was no reply for a moment, and now he was sure somebody was
whispering--whispering fiercely, urgently.

“I don’t know what you mean by your outlandish gibberish,” said the
woman’s voice huskily. “You get away, mister, before you’re in
trouble.”

Michael, thrusting his lamp in the direction of the gate-top, looked
up at a row of rusty iron spikes. Should he take the risk? These
people might be law-abiding, and it was not remarkable that the woman
should have a few Indian phrases. She might have been a soldier’s wife
who had lived in India and had acquired the habit of that pigeon talk.

“Won’t you be sensible and let me in? I only want to ask you a few
questions.” And then, as an inspiration came to him: “I am from Mr.
Chesney Praye.”

This time the silence was so long that he thought they had gone. Then
the woman spoke.

“We don’t know Mr. Chesney Praye, and we’re going in.”

“We? Who’s your friend?” asked Michael, but there was no answer.

Presently the door was slammed ostentatiously. Behind the gates he
could hear the growling and snuffling of the dogs, and when he put his
toe cautiously under the space between earth and gate he heard the
vicious snap of a jaw, and smiled in the darkness. Soon after, the man
and woman at the upstairs window heard the whine of a motor and saw
the two white beams of its head-lamps moving towards London.

And Lois Reddle lay sobbing on her bed, and in her heart the despair
of hopelessness.




 Chapter Twenty-seven

Two hours after Michael Dorn had gone, Dr. Tappatt sat in his
parlour, his elbows on his knees, his big face cupped in his hands.
Beside him was a half-filled tumbler of whisky, and he was gazing into
the fire, which was lit for him summer and winter since he had left
India. There had been a time when his name had ranked high in the
profession of medicine, but an unsavoury incident had driven him from
Edinburgh, where, although he was young, he had established an
excellent practice, and he found himself in India, with no other
assets than his undoubted skill, the meagre remnants of his savings,
and a taste for good wine. For a time he had been attached to the
court of an Indian prince, and then, in an evil moment, he had
conceived the idea of a mental home for wealthy Indians.

But for the growing craving for drink he might have retired after a
few years, with sufficient to keep him for the rest of his life. But
there was a kink somewhere in Dr. Tappatt’s nature and it showed
itself only too clearly in his conduct of the home. He had to leave
the North-West Provinces in a hurry and settle in Bengal, where there
were queer stories about the home he founded there. There were
applications at court by the relatives of patients who had been put
away by interested people, and in the end his home was closed and he
moved into the Punjab.

His brilliant brain had been sharpened by conflict with authority, and
he had become something of a strategist, for strategy is the art of
knowing your enemy’s mind.

Staring into the fire, he was studying the mentality of Captain
Michael Dorn and he reached certain conclusions. The woman attendant
had long since gone to bed, and was asleep when he shuffled down the
passage and knocked at her door.

“Come out; I want to speak to you.”

He heard her grumbling, and went back to the study. Once in the period
of waiting he looked at the telephone and reached out his hand
half-way to take it. But he knew that the person he had in mind was
not to be lightly disturbed again, and he had already made his report.
No, his method was the best, he decided; and if he was mistaken in his
estimate of Michael Dorn no harm would be done.

When the woman came blinking into the light, buttoning up her dress,
he nodded to a chair and for half an hour they talked, the woman
interpolating sour objections which he dismissed without ceremony.

“I haven’t had any sleep for two nights,” she complained, “and I don’t
see why----”

“Are you expected to see anything?” he snarled. “You’re a listener--no
more!”

She had served him for the greater part of twenty years and was afraid
of no other person in the world. And from grumbling she came to
whining, until he waved her out of the room.

At seven o’clock in the morning Dr. Tappatt, dressed in a thick
woollen overcoat, for he felt the chill air of the morning, drew up
the blinds and opened the windows of his parlour, having previously
made a tour of inspection. Heaping two more logs on the fire, he
gathered some scraps of meat and carried them out to the dogs, who
greeted him with hoarse barks of welcome. He took his time, finding a
malicious joy in his tardiness. Then, when he had toured the yard, he
went round to the front of the house again, turned the key, unbolted
the gate, and pulled it open. A man was standing squarely opposite the
entrance, and the doctor started.

“Good morning, Dr. Tappatt,” said Michael Dorn. “I had an idea I
should see you if I came early enough.”

“Good gracious!” said Tappatt, in feigned surprise. “This is an
unexpected pleasure, Captain Dorn!”

“I am glad you think so. Did Miss Reddle sleep well?”

The doctor’s brows furrowed.

“Miss Reddle? I can’t remember--oh, yes, of course, it was that
delightful young lady I met at the Countess of Moron’s house. What a
queer question to ask me!”

There was a silence.

“You haven’t invited me in. You’ve lost your old Anglo-Indian sense of
hospitality,” bantered Michael.

Tappatt stood in the doorway, his hands in his pockets, his inflamed
face thrust forward.

“I don’t remember that we were especially good friends, Dorn,” he
said. “I seem to remember certain unpleasant encounters----?”

“Nevertheless--you are going to invite me inside, or else----”

“Or else?” repeated the doctor.

“Or else I shall invite myself. I have a particular wish to look round
your little place.”

Tappatt’s big mouth twisted in a smile.

“With or without a search warrant?” he asked politely.

“Without, for the moment. You and I are two old law-breakers, Tappatt;
we have never been great sticklers for formality.”

By this time he had walked through the gate, and, curiously enough, he
did not seem to expect the dogs. Tappatt noticed this and grew even
more alert. He had matched his brain against this sometime chief of
police, and so far the honours were with him, he felt.

“I can’t resist you, Dorn,” he said, and waved his hand to the open
door of the house. “Step right in.”

Michael did not require a second invitation. He strolled carelessly
into the house, and turned to the study as though he had been there
before. Following him, the doctor closed the door.

“Now, what do you want?”

“I wish to search these premises--I am seeking a lady named Pinder and
her daughter, Lois Margeritta Reddle, whom I believe are forcibly
detained here.”

Tappatt shook his head.

“I’m afraid you’re on a wild goose chase. Neither of these ladies are
inmates of my house. In fact, I have no patients just now----”

“Nor yet a licence to take patients,” added Michael. “I took the
trouble to look up the records--they are available even in the middle
of the night--fearing that short-memoried authority had overlooked
your many grievous faults; I was happy that the official mind has
showed commendable discretion.”

“I haven’t applied for a licence,” said Tappatt shortly. Any question
regarding his profession touched him on the raw. “I don’t see why I
should allow you to make a search,” he went on. “You have no more
authority to act as a detective than I have to run a mental home. You
can start here--look under the table or under the sofa,” he grew
heavily sarcastic, “I may have some unfortunate person concealed
there!”

Dorn walked from the room, along the passage, and stopped at the door
at the foot of the stairs, turning the handle.

“My housekeeper’s room.”

“Where is she?” asked Michael.

“She’s in the kitchen.”

Michael passed into the room, pulled up the blinds and again looked
round. Though he did not show by any sign his state of mind he was
neither uneasy nor unalarmed at the readiness with which permission
had been given to him to make the search. Rather were matters working
out according to his expectations.

“There are two rooms upstairs; would you like to see them?”

Dorn nodded and followed on the man’s heels to the landing.

“This is a ward I should use if I had luck enough to get a patient.”
He threw open the door of what had been Lois’ room. It was empty; the
bed was stripped of all its clothes and the blankets were neatly
folded at the foot. Michael walked into the room, inspected the little
bathroom, tried the windows, and came out without a word. Most women
use a distinctive perfume. He had noted that Lois was faintly fragrant
of lavender--the room had that scent too.

The room opposite was even less completely furnished, and it was also
tenantless. He knew that there was no space between the ceiling and
the roof to conceal any but a willing fugitive, and satisfied himself
with the briefest of scrutinies.

The other wing of the house was scarcely habitable; in some places the
sky showed through the gaps in the roof, and all the upper floors were
rotten with storm-water and would hardly bear the weight of a child.

“Where does that lead?” asked Michael when he came out from the
inspection of the lower floor of the old wing. He pointed to a flight
of steps that terminated in a door.

“It is a cellar of some kind; you can go in,” said the other
carelessly.

Michael pushed the door open and stepped into a little apartment. A
certain amount of light and air was admitted through a small grating
that had been let into the wall, but there was little of either. Other
light or ventilation there was none, except for the spy-hole in the
door. He flashed his lamp around, saw an old bed in one corner and a
washstand. He walked to the bed, turned over the folded blankets, and
then came into the daylight.

“Quite an airy apartment,” he said drily. “Is this for a patient too?”

“There is many a poor fellow sleeping out at night who would be glad
of that room,” said Dr. Tappatt virtuously, and Michael showed his
teeth for a moment in an unpleasant smile.

“Ever been in prison, Tappatt? I don’t think you have, have you?” he
asked, as he ascended the steps again.

Nobody knew better than Michael Dorn that the doctor had escaped
conviction, but it was his way of giving a warning.

“I have not had that distinction.”

“Yet,” finished Dorn. “The cells of Dartmoor are much more wholesome
than this black hole of yours--as you will find. Plenty of fresh air,
immense quantities of light--and the food is good.”

Tappatt licked his lips but made no answer.

“What is in here?” He stopped before a locked shed.

“A motor-car belonging to a friend of mine. Do you want to see it?”

“A blue Buick, by any chance?”

“Yes, I think it is a Buick.”

“Left here the night before last, I think?”

Tappatt smiled and shook his head.

“It has been here a week. There are times when you are just a little
too clever.”

“Let me see it,” said Michael.

The doctor went back to the house for keys, whilst Michael made a
rapid inspection of the remaining buildings. The two dogs broke into a
fury at his approach, straining at their chains until it seemed that
they must choke or the leashes break. Then the doctor returned and
found Dorn contemplating the back gate with absorbed interest; the
ground was hard and showed no footmark--even the car had left no
tracks.

“Here is a key.”

“I don’t think I want to see the car,” said Dorn slowly. “I know it
rather well and the owner more than a little.” He looked round. “I
don’t see your housekeeper anywhere.”

“I expect she’s gone into the village to do her marketing,” said the
other.

Slowly Michael took a gold case from his pocket, selected a cigarette
and lit it, throwing the match towards the dogs, an act which angered
them to madness.

“You want to be careful of those dogs,” warned the doctor. “They’re
not the kind to monkey with. I don’t know what they would do to you,
even if I were with you.”

“They want to be careful of me,” said Dorn. “I had the death of more
pariahs on my soul than any other police official in India during the
term I was serving.”

“They would get you before you got them,” said the doctor angrily.

Michael Dorn smiled, and stretched out his hand stiffly before him.

“Do you see that?” he asked. “Watch!”

Where it came from, how it got there, Tappatt could not for the life
of him tell; but though the hand apparently had not moved it was
holding a short-barrelled Browning of heavy calibre.

“Where on earth did that come from?” he gasped. “You had it there all
the time----”

“No, it came out of my pocket,” laughed Michael. Again he was engaged
in one of his subtle acts of intimidation.

“I’ll swear that it didn’t.”

“Watch!”

Again the hand was held stiffly. An imperceptible movement, whether up
or down or backward Tappatt could not say, and the hand was empty.

“It is a trick,” said Dorn carelessly. “And if you speak dog language
you might explain to these hounds of yours that I am a man to leave
severely alone. By-the-way, dog patrols have always been a specialty
of yours? Wasn’t the trouble in Bengal over a patient who had been
worried to death? Refresh my memory.”

The doctor swallowed something, and then Dorn asked:

“Why are these dogs chained up?”

“I keep them chained.”

“They weren’t chained last night. You knew I was in the neighbourhood,
and that doesn’t seem to be the time to put them on the leash. Yet at
four o’clock this morning they were fast. Why did you tie them up,
doctor?”

Their eyes met.

“Shall I tell you why?”

Tappatt was silent; the detective had returned at four o’clock in the
morning; he had just missed the little procession that had crossed the
fields!

“Shall I tell you why?” Dorn asked again.

“You’re in an informative mood,” sneered Tappatt.

“Very. You tied them up because you took those two women out of the
house last night, out through this yard, and you could only do that
when you had put the dogs on the chain. Correct me if I’m wrong. They
went out this way and they will come back this way.”

Dr. Tappatt’s jaw dropped; this was a turn to his disadvantage with a
vengeance. He had expected Dorn to be satisfied with his search and to
leave some time during the day. His plan was not working as he had
expected.

“You can invite me to breakfast; I shall stay until they return.”

“I swear to you that I know nothing whatever about any women,”
protested Tappatt violently. “You’re making a mistake, Dorn! Anyway,
you’ve no right here--you know that!”

Michael shook his head.

“I never make mistakes,” he said arrogantly, “and I have every right
to be here. It is the first duty of a citizen to frustrate any
wrong-doing, and the first duty of a host to ask his guest if he is
hungry. Now you can invite me to breakfast. And over that pleasant
meal I will tell you something which will interest and amuse you.”

The baffled man looked first one way and then the other. He was
trapped; his ruse had not only failed, but had rebounded against
himself. Dorn, out of the corner of his eye, saw the quick rise and
fall of his chest, and knew something of the panic in him.

“You can’t stay here. I don’t want you!” exploded Tappatt angrily.
“That story about women being in my house is all moonshine and you
know it. I’ll give you one minute to clear out! You can’t bluff me!”

Michael Dorn laughed softly.

“What will happen if I don’t clear out? Will you send for the police?
There is the opportunity to get back on the cruel police commissioner
who shut down your little home in the Provinces and might have got you
five long weary years in Delhi prison if the official mind had only
moved a little quicker. Send for the police, my good man; it will be a
grand advertisement for you.”

Dr. Tappatt had no intention of sending for the police; the force was
not a popular constituent of public life with him. From the height of
his intellect he looked down upon all other professions and callings
than his own.

“All right,” he growled, “come in. And as for the women, you’ll find
you were mistaken.”

“Don’t let us discuss them,” said Michael with an airy gesture of his
hand.




 Chapter Twenty-eight

He could almost afford to feel jubilant at the contemplation of his
partial success, only he was a man who never counted eggs as chickens;
nor did he underrate the resourcefulness of the man he was dealing
with.

The doctor was thinking rapidly, and a stiff glass of whisky helped
further to clear a mind which was only normal when it was stimulated.
Dorn was there to stay; such subterfuges as came into his mind to rid
himself of the unwelcome visitor, he rejected.

“Tell me where the coffee is and I will make it myself,” said Dorn.
“Please forgive me if I’m a little suspicious, but doctors have an
uncanny knowledge of the properties of certain drugs, and I should
hate to feel myself going to sleep for no other reason than that you
had found an opportunity for doctoring my drink.”

He went into the kitchen, kindled the fire and put on the kettle. In
one of the cupboards he found a tin of biscuits and a can of preserved
milk--there were the elements of safe refreshment here. He knew his
doctor very well--he had set a train of thought in motion. Would he
take the obvious step, or go outside the detective’s plan?

The doctor crouched before the fire in his study, his mind working in
all directions. It was a curious fact that, until Dorn’s jesting
remark, he had not thought of drugs. He heard Michael whistling softly
to himself, and, rising noiselessly, crossed to his desk and searched
among the bottles that were arrayed on various shelves and in divers
pigeonholes, and presently found what he sought.

He slipped a grey pellet from the phial, dropping it into the palm of
his hand, and, replacing the bottle, pulled down the desk cover. There
might be no opportunity. Against that, every man as self-assured as
Dorn was left himself open at one point.

Wedging the pellet between the second and third fingers of his left
hand, he came back to the fire, and was there when Michael Dorn came
in later with coffee, cups, and saucers on a tray, the biscuits under
his arm.

“I’ve been thinking that perhaps, after reflection, you will tell me
what time you expect our friends to return?” he asked. “Or, failing
that, would you tell me what is the signal you are to give to signify
that the coast is clear?”

“You’re mad to make such suggestions,” said Tappatt gruffly. “I
thought you weren’t going to talk about the women. They are not here.”

“Somebody has got to talk about them,” murmured Michael
apologetically. “Have some coffee? It is infinitely better than that
yellow stuff you’ve got on the mantelpiece, and costs about one
twentieth the price.”

He poured out a cup and pushed it towards his companion, but the
doctor did not so much as turn his head.

Michael sipped luxuriously at the hot comforting fluid, his eyes fixed
upon Tappatt’s moody face. Suddenly the doctor lifted his head as
though he had heard something.

“There is somebody coming now,” he said, and the detective walked to
the door and listened.

When he turned the doctor was in his old posture.

“You’re getting jumpy--it is the whisky, my friend,” he said.

He refilled his cup, stirred it vigorously, and dropped in a liberal
supply of condensed milk.

“What is this interesting thing you were going to tell me?” asked
Tappatt, still staring into the fire.

“It concerns you. There is a movement to get you brought before the
General Medical Council for that Indian trouble, which means, I
suppose, that you will be struck off the medical register.”

This was news to the doctor, and he sprang to his feet.

“That is a lie!” he said loudly.

Suddenly Michael bent his head.

“What was that?” he asked.

Tappatt looked round.

“I didn’t hear anything.”

But the detective motioned him to silence. He rose, picked up his
coffee, and walked to the door, listening.

“Stay here,” he said and disappeared from view.

He was back again in a minute, but remained standing by the door,
sipping at his cup, and the doctor affected to be amused.

“You’ve got nerves, man,” he said. “If you’d trusted me enough to
leave your cup behind I’d have given you something to cure you!”

“So I suppose,” said Michael, setting down the vessel nearly empty. “I
hate showing discourtesy to a host, but I have made a practice all my
life of pouring out my own drinks when I’m in dubious company, and
hanging on to them until I’m finished.”

The doctor glanced at the cup and his face cleared. It had been so
absurdly easy, though the danger was by no means over.

“What I like about you, Dorn, is that you’re a gentleman. I’m not
paying you a compliment. I’m merely stating a fact. I’ve had to do
with a few police officers who have been the scum of the gutter, and
the contrast is refreshing. You were kidding about striking me off the
register, weren’t you?”

Michael shook his head.

“I never kid. I am the man who intends making a personal application
at the next meeting of the Council,” he said. “You can be sure that I
shall be able to lay before them sufficient proof to make your
position in England a pretty uncomfortable one.”

Tappatt forced a smile.

“In that case,” he said, rising, “I’d better do what I can to get on
the right side of you. If you will come with me, I will show you
something you’ve overlooked.”

He smiled in the other’s face, and Michael followed him down the
passage into the yard.

“You were rather unkind about the airiness of this admirable place of
detention,” said Tappatt. He stood on the top of the steps which led
to the underground room. “Did it occur to you that it might be just a
little more airy than you had imagined? Come!”

He ran down the steps, pushed open the heavy door, and went into the
cellar chamber.

“You did not see the trap-door in the corner of the room, did you?”

Michael pushed past him and strode across the brick floor. He had
taken three steps when the door shut. The key squeaked as it turned
and there came to him the sound of Tappatt’s mocking laughter.…

“That is a trick of mine--now show me your trick with the gun!”
laughed the doctor.

A splinter of wood leapt from the door; there was the sound of a
muffled explosion and Tappatt scrambled up the steps, laughing
hysterically.

He ran back to the room. Michael’s cup stood on the table, and he
spooned a quantity of the lukewarm liquid and tasted it, smacking his
lips.

“Brain against brain. I think I’ve scored the final point!” he said
with satisfaction. It had been so crudely simple. What would happen
after, he did not stop to consider.

For Dr. Tappatt the game was almost finished. His employer had been
more than generous--a large sum was due for his latest services, and
the whole world was open to him. For two years he had served his
friend faithfully and well. It had been an unromantic service, a
service that kept him well within the boundaries of the law. The
doctor had a very clear viewpoint. He knew that the end of this
adventure meant the worst kind of trouble, and one more offence
against the law would make little difference if he faced a jury. He
was determined to avoid juries. The detention of Michael Dorn gave him
a breathing space--a respite. The machinery of the law moved slowly,
and nowadays a man who took forethought might go from one end of
Europe to the other between sunrise and sunrise.

Half an hour passed, an hour. He looked at his watch for the twentieth
time, and, pulling open a drawer of his desk, he took out a pair of
handcuffs, humming a tune as he worked the hinges.

Returning to the cellar room, he knocked loudly on the door and called
the prisoner by name. There was no reply, and he unlocked the door and
peeped cautiously inward. The slit afforded him a view of the bed.
Michael Dorn was lying face downward, his head on his arm and
motionless.

Without hesitation, the doctor went into the room, and, turning the
inert figure on its back, began a quick search. There was no pistol in
the hip pocket; he found that in a specially constructed pouch inside
the coat. Dorn’s eyelids flickered as the doctor made the search, and
there came from the lips an unintelligible mutter of sound.

“You are not so talkative now, my friend,” said Tappatt pleasantly.

He took some papers from the detective’s pocket and these he
transferred to his own. Watch and chain he left; but anything that
might be used as a weapon, even the little penknife, he took away.
When he had finished he fastened the handcuffs and gazed upon his
finished work with a smile of satisfaction. Returning to the house, he
found the tin of biscuits, and, filling a ewer full of water from the
yard pump, he brought them back to the prison. These he placed near
the bed.

“Michael Dorn, you were easy,” he said, addressing the unconscious
figure. “Much easier because you have no official standing, and have
few friends who will worry about you, or notify the police of your
disappearance. And if they are notified, where are they to search?
Tell me that, Michael Dorn!”

He locked the door and, passing through the gate at the front of the
house, he made a reconnaissance. There was just a chance that the man
had left his motor car near by, and a standing machine might attract
the attention of the constabulary. There was even a possibility that
he had not come alone. But, though the doctor walked a mile in either
direction, there was no sign of a car, and he returned to the house,
tired but triumphant. Never again would the thought of Captain Michael
Dorn come like a shadow over his pleasant dreams of the future.




 Chapter Twenty-nine


 Dear Miss Smith,--I have been trying to get into communication with
 a Mr. John Wills, who is an assistant of mine, and possibly I have
 succeeded. But in case, by any mischance, my messages have failed to
 reach him, I should esteem it as a great favour if you would find him
 and hand him the enclosed, which is a duplicate of the instructions
 already posted. I think I have located Miss Reddle, and hope to have
 good news for you to-morrow. But I am dealing with a man for whose
 genius I have a profound respect. Miss Reddle is at Gallows Farm, near
 Whitcomb in Somerset, and, if you do not hear from me by telegram in
 the course of the day, it is extremely likely that I shall also be
 there--against my will. I have calculated every contingency; foreseen,
 I think, most of the possibilities, but there is always a big chance
 that I may not be as clever as I think I am! Will you therefore remain
 all day at Charlotte Street? I suggest that you should ask your
 employer, Mr. Shaddles, to let you off for the day, and, if necessary,
 show him this letter. He may remember me by name; I met him many years
 ago.

                                              Yours very truly,
                                              Michael Dorn.


The words, “If necessary, show him this letter,” were heavily
underlined.

The letter had come by special delivery, a red express label on the
face, and the postmark was a town in Somersetshire. Lizzy Smith read
it three times, once to master the calligraphy, once to understand it,
and once out of sheer enjoyment, for she felt more important with each
reading; though it struck her as humorous that Michael Dorn should, in
his most extravagant mood, imagine that her flinty-faced employer
would grant her leave of absence on the strength of a meeting which he
must long since have forgotten and would most certainly disclaim.

The news was too vital to be kept to herself, and she took the letter
down to old Mr. Mackenzie, and found him engaged in fitting a new
string to his violin.

“Wore it out last night, I should think,” said Lizzy, not unkindly. “I
heard you tuning and tuning.”

“Tuning!” said old Mackenzie in surprise. “I was no’ tuning, young
lady. Perhaps, to the ear of one who is not acquainted with the
peculiar qualities of classical music, it may have sounded that way. I
was playing the aria from _Samson and Delilah_. ’Tis a bonny piece.”

He pulled on his spectacles from his forehead, and took the letter
from her hand.

“You would like me to read this?” he asked, and when she nodded, he
followed the quaint crabbed writing line by line. “It seems very good
news,” he said. “Will Miss Reddle be back to-night?”

Lizzy sighed impatiently. It was the sort of question he would ask.

“How do I know whether she’ll be back to-night?” She was annoyed that
he was not as impressed as she had expected. “She may not be back at
all! Don’t you understand anything you can’t play on your fiddle, Mr.
Mackenzie? She may be in the power of this Gallows man! The whole
thing now depends on me. Mike understands human nature, and when he
got into trouble naturally his mind flew to Elizabetta Smith. That man
has got experience.”

“Naturally,” murmured Mr. Mackenzie.

“Now the thing is,” considered Lizzy, her face wearing a frown of
profoundest thought, “shall I try to find this fellow Wills first, or
shall I go to the office?”

“You might telephone to Mr. Dorn’s flat,” suggested the old man
helpfully, and Lizzy was irritated that that simple solution had not
occurred to her.

On her way to the office she stopped at the first telephone booth and
called Michael’s number, and after a long wait was told there was no
answer. The news pleased her rather than otherwise, for the
responsibility, vague as it was, gave her a pleasing sense that she
was intimately associated with great happenings, though she looked
forward with trepidation to her meeting with old Shaddles. That he
would grant her the day was a forlorn hope. Much more likely he would
point his skinny finger to the door and order her from his room.
Nevertheless, though she sacrificed her livelihood, she was determined
to be on hand in case her services were required--though what she
could do, and in what capacity she could act, she did not trouble to
consider.

Before she reached the office she had created three alternative
excuses, none of which unfortunately had any relation to the other.
Happily she was only called upon to produce two.

Mr. Shaddles had arrived before her; he was invariably the first-comer
and generally the last leaver. Without taking off her hat, she knocked
at the glass panel, and when his gruff “Come in!” reached her she all
but abandoned the interview. He scowled at her as she came in, noted
her coat and her hat.

“Well, what is the matter? Why aren’t you at your work? You’re five
minutes late as it is!” he demanded.

Lizzy rested her hand lightly on his desk, and in her most genteel
voice began:

“Mr. Shaddles, I’m sorry to ask you, but, owing to a family
bereavement, I should like the day off.”

“Who’s dead?” he growled.

“An aunt,” she said, and added: “On my mother’s side.”

“Aunts are nothing,” said the old man, and waved her to the door.
“Uncles are nothing either. Can’t spare you. What do you want to go to
funerals for?”

“Well, the real truth is,” said the disconcerted Lizzy, and produced
the letter, “I’ve had this!”

He took the message with apparent reluctance and read it through with
typical care. He sat for a long time, and she thought he was searching
for misspelt words--a horrible practice of his.

“There is nothing about your aunt in this,” snarled Mr. Shaddles.

“Mr. Dorn has been more than an aunt to me,” said Lizzy with dignity.
“It is my pet name for him. And if he’s not dead, he may very well
be.”

He looked out of the window, scratched his rough chin angrily, then
glared round at her.

“You can have the day,” he said, and she nearly dropped with
amazement.

Murmuring her incoherent thanks, she was making for the door.

“Wait.”

He put his hand in his pocket, laid a note-case on the table, and took
out three bank-notes.

“You may not want these,” he said; “I cannot conceive that you will,
but you may. I shall require you to give me a very full account of any
expenses you incur. If you need a car, hire one from the Bluelight
Company--they are clients of ours, and they allow me a rebate.”

Like a woman in a dream, Lizzy staggered out the office. Each note was
for £20. She had no idea there was so much money in the world.

She did not answer the clerk whom she passed on the stairs, and had
not wholly recovered by the time she reached Hiles Mansions. Mr. Dorn
was not in, the liftman told her unnecessarily; and Mr. Wills had not
called since the previous day. Lizzy went out into the Brompton Road,
called a taxicab magnificently, and, reaching Charlotte Street,
discovered she had only sufficient loose cash to pay the fare.

Such a tremendous happening could not be reserved to herself, and she
took Mr. Mackenzie into her confidence.

“Shaddles is a grand man,” said Mackenzie soberly, “a big-hearted
fellow.”

Lizzy shook her head.

“I don’t know whether I shall get into trouble with the police for
taking this money from the poor old man,” she said. “He has been
strange for a long time: I’ve seen this coming on for days. When he
raised Lois Reddle’s salary to three pounds a week I knew something
else would happen.” She looked at the three notes in awe. “They get
like that when they’re about ninety,” she said. And then a great
inspiration came to her--so daring, so tremendous, that it left her
gasping.

Borrowing some loose change from the old man, she dashed down to the
telephone box from which she had called Hiles Mansions and gave Lady
Moron’s number. The footman who answered her told her that her
ladyship was in bed.

“Oh, pray don’t trouble,” said Lizzy in an exaggerated tone. “Will you
ask his lordship to hop along?”

“To what, madam?”

“To speak to me,” corrected Lizzy.

“What name shall I give him?”

“Tell him the Lady Elizabetta,” said Lizzy, and lolled languidly
against the cork-lined ’phone box as she would have lolled had she
been a person of title.

She had to wait for some time before his lordship, who was sound
asleep at that hour, could be aroused and sufficiently interested in
the caller to come down to the drawing-room, where there was a
telephone extension.

“Hullo?” he asked feebly. “Good morning and all that! Sorry I didn’t
catch your name.”

“It’s Miss Smith,” said Lizzy in a hushed voice, and she heard Selwyn
gasp.

“Really? Not really? I say, there’s been an awful bother here!
Everything’s at sixes and sevens, and all that sort of thing. That
beastly bounder, Chesney Praye--you remember the fellow--bird of prey,
what?” (Even Lizzy could not laugh at that hour in the morning.)
“Well, he’s in the library with her ladyship!”

“Listen--Selwyn!” She had to summon all her courage to voice this
familiarity. “Can you see me? You know where I live--you were coming
to dinner to-night; but I want you to come before. There’s something I
want to see you about, something--well, I can’t describe it.”

“Certainly,” he interrupted. “I’ll come right along. I’m supposed to
go to the South Kensington Museum to see some models, but---- All
right, colonel, thank you very much for calling!”

The tone was louder and more formal. Lizzy, not unused to such
innocent acts of deception, guessed that a servant or his mother had
come into the drawing-room.

She went back to her lodging with a feeling of exaltation. Not only
had she secured the aid of a member of the aristocracy, but she had
also, with great daring, and exercising a woman’s privilege, addressed
him by a name which, to say the least, was intimate. She confided to
Mr. Mackenzie, with an air of nonchalance, that she was expecting Lord
Moron to call upon her, and he was impressed to a gratifying extent.

“I told him to drop in--I know him rather well.” Lizzy flicked a speck
of dust from her skirt with a fine air.

“Is that so?” he asked, looking at her in wonder. “Well now, I never
thought that one of the Morons would ever do me the honour of entering
my house! They’re a fine family, a handsome family. I remember the old
earl: he frequently came to the theatre, though not, I fear, in the
most presentable condition.”

Miss Lizzy Smith was not interested in the old earl. She was, however,
immensely absorbed in the new one; and when Lord Moron’s taxicab
pulled up at the side-walk she was at the door to admit him.

“I say, what an awfully jolly kitchen!” he said, looking round at a
room of which even Lizzy was not particularly proud.

“I wouldn’t have asked your lordship here----” she began.

“I say, don’t give us any of that ‘lordship’ stuff,” he pleaded. “I’m
Selwyn to my friends. That’s a wonderful frying-pan: did you make it?”

Lizzy disclaimed responsibility. But he had his views, apparently,
upon culinary apparatus, had invented an electric chafing-dish, and
had plans for a coke oven. Until then she had not known that coke was
ever cooked.

“I’ve often thought I’d like to run away from this awful ‘my-lording’
and do some work. I’ve got a bit of money of my own that even her
ladyship can’t touch--and you can bet your life that it’s pretty well
tied up, old thing, if she and the bird of prey can’t get their hooks
into it!”

He was delightfully, restfully vulgar, and Lizzy who only knew this
much about electricity, that lamps light up when you turn a switch,
without exactly understanding why, could have listened for hours to
schemes which might even have interested an engineer. But she had the
letter to discuss.

He read it through, and, by stopping at every other line and asking
for explanations, understood the gist of it. She had noticed before
how, on really important matters, Selwyn had quite intelligent views;
and that he was no fool she discovered later in the day, when he
confided to her that he had countered his mother’s veiled threats of
getting him certified as mentally incompetent to deal with his estate,
by making a visit to three Harley Street alienists in consultation,
and procuring from them a most flattering tribute to his mentality.

“I don’t know what it’s all about,” he said, as he handed the letter
back. And then, answering her pained look: “Yes, I understand the
letter, but I mean all these accidents and things--old Braime dropping
dead, or something, in the library. Madam is my mother, and I suppose
I ought not to loathe her. But she’s fearfully devilish, Miss Smith,
fearfully devilish!”

He fingered the red seam on his cheek tenderly.

“You can never be sure what she’s up to, and since that bounder Praye
and that awful boozy doctor have been around the house she’s been
queerer than ever. Do you know what she told me once? She said that if
she thought she’d be any happier by me being dead I’d be dead
to-morrow--those were her very words! Dead to-morrow, dear old Lizzy!
Isn’t it positively fearful?”

“What a lady!” said Lizzy. “You’ve heard nothing at the house about
this business--I mean Gallows Farm?”

He shook his head.

“They never talk in front of me. But _something’s_ happening: I’m sure
of that! That chap Chesney has been in with her ladyship since eight
o’clock this morning--they told you she was in bed--well, she wasn’t:
she was in the library. And the telephone seems to have been ringing
all night. I say, what do you think of that detective johnny putting
the young lady in gaol? A bit thick, what? I meant to have a few words
with him the other morning.”

“He did it for a very good reason,” said Lizzy mysteriously. “I can’t
tell you everything, Selwyn; one day you will know the truth, but at
the present moment I’m not at liberty to talk.”

“Nobody seems to be at liberty to tell me anything,” said the dismal
man. “But what’s the idea of that letter? Somebody’s got her in that
place with a fearful name!” He slapped his side. “Tappatt--the chap
who worries the wine! You know this fellow--the perfectly horrible
doctor! I’ll bet he’s the perfectly awful villain of the piece! He
hasn’t been near the house for days, and he had been sleuthing round
Chester Square a lot lately. And”--he slapped his knee again--“and
there was a trunk call came through from the country last night! I was
in the hall when the bell rang, and I’m sure he was the johnny who
called. He asked for her ladyship. Gallows Farm: that’s the place he
lives!”

Suddenly he jumped up, his eyes bright with excitement.

“She’s there--I’ll bet a million pounds to a strawberry ice! Gallows
Farm, Somerset.” He tapped his forehead. “I signed a paper about that,
I’ll swear! It is one of the job lots her ladyship bought two or three
years ago, or one of her bailiffs bought. She is always buying old
properties and selling ’em at a profit. And I know old
stick-in-the-mud has got a home somewhere--Tappatt, I mean--because
her ladyship said she’d send me there if I wasn’t jolly careful. That
rosy-nosed hound has got Miss Reddle!”

They looked at one another in silence.

“You’re a detective, Selwyn!” she breathed ecstatically, and he pulled
at his moustache.

“I’m pretty smart at some things--what about a rescue?” said his
lordship suddenly.

“A what?” Lizzy’s heart beat faster.

“A rescue,” he nodded. “What about hopping down into Somerset, seeing
old stick-in-the-mud, and saying: ‘Look here, old top, this sort of
thing can’t be tolerated in civilised society. Hand over Miss Reddle
or you’ll get into serious trouble’?”

Lizzy’s enthusiasm died down.

“I don’t think that would make much difference to him,” she said. “And
it would be unnecessary, Selwyn; if Michael Dorn is there she will be
released this afternoon.”

Selwyn was disappointed.

“Besides,” Lizzy went on, “what would her ladyship say if you were
away all day?”

“Blow her ladyship!” He snapped his fingers. “I’ve had enough of her
ladyship--I have really. I’ve made up my mind that I’m through with
Chester Square, and I’ve got my eye on a dinky little flat in
Knightsbridge,” he said rapidly. “I feel it is time I asserted myself.
My idea is to live incognito. I’m going to call myself Mr. Smith----”

“Indeed?” said Lizzy coldly.

“It’s a pretty good name. Anyway, Brown is as good.” He amended his
plans in some haste. “Now what about a little bit of lunch somewhere?”

An hour later Lizzy went dizzily into the great dining-room of the
Ritz-Carlton, and Lady Moron, entertaining a guest at a corner table,
looked at her through her lorgnettes and shrugged her large shoulders.

“Selwyn is sowing his wild oats rather late in life,” she said, and
Chesney Praye, who had returned from Paris that morning, was mildly
amused.




 Chapter Thirty

Though she could remember one or two uncomfortable days in her life,
Lois Reddle could not recall one that bore any comparison with the
twenty hours that followed her departure from Gallows Farm. She had
been awakened by the woman at some unknown hour in the middle of the
night, ordered to dress and come downstairs. The first order was easy
to obey, for she had not taken off her clothes. When she came down
into the passage she found the doctor waiting for her. He was wearing
his heaviest overcoat, and carried a thick stick, and was testing a
flash-lamp as she joined him.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked, as he led her across the yard to
the accompaniment of the savage chorus of the dogs.

“You’ll find out in good time,” was the unpromising reply. “I don’t
want you to ask questions or to speak until I tell you. After you
leave this house you are to be silent--understand that?”

They mounted the gentle slope of the downs and presently descended
into a valley on the other side. Although the moon was obscured, there
was sufficient light to enable her to pick her way across the rough
ground and to dispense with the arm he offered her. Once they made a
wide detour to avoid a marshy patch, and once he had to help her
through a fence of hawthorn. Ahead of them was a dark line of trees,
which was on the estate. He told her there were twelve hundred acres
of land attached to the farm, only a small portion of which had been
sub-let, and none of which was under cultivation.

“It is poor land, anyway--most of this downland is. That is Gallows
Wood,” he said, indicating the trees ahead. “The farm takes its name
from the wood. There used to be a gallows on the crest of the hill
years ago. Not scared, are you?”

He chuckled when she answered “No.”

After a while they struck a rough track which led into the heart of
the copse, and now for the first time he produced the flash-lamp; a
necessary precaution, for the path was overgrown and difficult to
follow. Although her voice was steady and her attitude one of sublime
confidence, Lois was inwardly quaking. There was something very
ominous in this move. Yet it was not the fear of what would happen in
the wood that frightened her. She guessed that the doctor was moving
her from the farm because he expected the return of Michael Dorn. She
dreaded only this; that Michael would search the house and be
satisfied that she was not there. Would the doctor move the
grey-haired woman too, she wondered? After ten minutes’ walk he
stopped, and she thought he had lost the way, until the light of his
lamp revealed a small stone cottage, standing back from the path and
almost hidden by trees and undergrowth. This, then, was the new
prison, she thought.

“Hold this light,” he ordered, and she obeyed, whilst he tried key
after key in the lock.

After a while the door swung open and he went in, turning his head to
see that she was coming after. The floor was thick with dust; the only
furniture in the room into which he invited her was an old backless
chair. On one of the walls was a yellow almanac for the year 1913, and
probably the house had not been occupied since then.

“You’ll stay here and keep quiet. There will be light in a few hours.
If you want anything, ask Mrs. Rooks--she will be here presently.”

He went out, but did not lock the door; she found afterwards that it
was lacking in this appendage. Followed half an hour’s wait, and then
she heard footsteps in the hall, heard another door open, and a mutter
of conversation. Something dropped with a thud on the passage, and for
a second Lois’ heart came into her mouth. But it seemed that Mrs.
Rooks, who, she guessed, was the sallow-faced woman, had come heavily
laden, for the sound of her complaining reached the girl. Evidently
she had brought the provisions necessary for the party--the weight of
them was not very promising, and Tappatt was seemingly prepared for a
long stay.

“Nearly broke my back,” she grumbled. “Why couldn’t she carry it,
doctor?”

Lois crept nearer to the door and listened, hoping to hear something
that would confirm her theory that she was being hidden because the
doctor expected a return visit from Michael Dorn.

“Get a chair from the other room,” she heard him growl. “What are you
making all this fuss about? It is no worse for you than for me. This
isn’t the first time you’ve sat up all night, is it?”

“I don’t see why you should take all this trouble,” grumbled the
woman. “He’ll not come back again, and, if he did, what’s to stop him
coming into the wood?”

“He will come back--you need have no doubt about that. I know the man.
And you can make your mind easy about his finding them. He isn’t
likely to search every copse in the neighbourhood.”

A few minutes later the front door slammed as he went out, and she
heard the woman grumbling to herself. She was sitting within a few
feet of the door, and could hear every sound and move in the bare
room. To open the window might be possible, but to do so without her
hearing was a hopeless impossibility.

Soon after daybreak Mrs. Rooks took her into the kitchen, and, passing
the room which held the second prisoner, Lois saw that there was a key
in that door. If the conditions were the same in the other prison room
it was as impossible for the unknown woman to escape. Who was she, she
wondered? Some poor creature, perhaps, who had been entrusted by her
friends to the tender mercy of Dr. Tappatt. Her heart ached for the
woman, and in her pity she forgot her own danger and discomfort.

Throughout the long and weary day that followed she saw no sign of any
human being. The wood was situate on a private estate, and the
overgrown condition of the path had told her that it was not
frequented even by those who had authority to cross the land. From the
windows she could see only the trunks of beeches and the green tracery
of leaves. The oppressive loneliness told even upon the
uncommunicative Mrs. Rooks, who must have been unused to a solitary
life, for that afternoon she came into the room where Lois was
sitting. Lois had opportunity for studying her. She must have been in
the region of fifty, a harsh, sour-faced woman, with a grievance
against the world and its people.

“It’s so pesky quiet that I should go off my head if I was here long,”
she complained.

Lois wondered if she could make the woman talk about other things than
the loneliness of the wood.

“Have you been in England a long time?” she asked.

Mrs. Rooks had to master her natural repugnance to gossip before she
spoke.

“Only two years. We were in India before then. I don’t know what that
has got to do with you, anyway.”

“I heard you call your dogs by Indian names. ‘Mali’ means money,
doesn’t it?”

“Don’t you ask questions, young lady,” said the woman. “You behave
yourself, and you won’t be badly treated. Act the fool, and
you’ll----” She nodded significantly. “Of course ‘Mali’ means money.
Do you _mallum_ the _bat_?”

Lois shook her head smilingly. She guessed that she was being asked if
she spoke or understood Hindustani.

“Why am I kept here--can you tell me that?”

“Because you’re not right in your head.” The reply would have driven
Lois to a fury, but she had already guessed the excuse that would be
made for her detention. “You’ve been hearing things and seeing things.
An’ people who hear things, voices an’ all that, are batty.”

Lois laughed quietly.

“You know that I am not mad, Mrs. Rooks.”

“Nobody thinks they are mad,” said Mrs. Rooks alarmingly. “That’s one
of the symptoms. The minute a person thinks she’s sane, she’s mad! The
doctor knows: he’s the cleverest man in the world.”

She glanced back at the open door. Lois heard a steady echo of
footsteps, as though somebody was pacing the floor.

“Who is in the other room?” she asked, without expecting any very
satisfactory reply.

“A woman--she’s nutty.”

“I thought I saw her the other evening,” said the girl with affected
carelessness. “Weren’t you--talking to her in the yard?”

The woman’s shrewd eyes looked her up and down.

“You saw me quieting her with the whip. She gets fresh sometimes--most
of ’em do. You will too.” Lois shuddered at this ominous prophecy.
“Bless you, they don’t mind a licking! Lunatics ain’t human beings
anyway, they’re just animals, the doctor says, and you’ve got to treat
’em like animals. That’s the only kind of treatment they understand.”

Lois tried to veil her horror and disgust and felt that she had not
wholly succeeded.

“I hope you will not treat me like an animal,” she said, and Mrs.
Rooks sniffed.

“If you behave yourself, you’ll be treated well. All nutty people have
a good time if they don’t get fresh and obstrepulous. That’s the
doctor’s way.”

It was clear to Lois that, whatever faults this woman might have,
however brutal she might be, she had accepted without any question any
diagnosis that the doctor might make. To Mrs. Rooks she was crazy,
just as was the other woman. And if she became “obstrepulous” she
would be served in the same way.

“Why did you call her a gaolbird?”

Again that shrewd, suspicious scrutiny.

“I call her lots of things,” said Mrs. Rooks indifferently. “If you
hadn’t been spying you wouldn’t have heard. Names don’t hurt anybody.
They’re better than the whip anyway--did you know that man that came
last night?”

“Mr. Dorn?”

“Yes, who is he?”

“He’s a police officer,” said Lois.

The effect of the words upon the woman was unexpected. Her sallow skin
became a pasty white.

“A detective!”

Lois nodded, and Mrs. Rooks’ face cleared.

“That’s part of your crazy ideas,” she said calmly. “He is a man the
doctor owes money to. I know, because the doctor told me. The doctor’s
been in difficulties, and he’s not the kind of man who’d have any
trouble with the police. They told a lot of lies about him in India,
but he’s a good man, the best man in the world.”

And then a thought struck Lois, and she asked:

“What is supposed to be my delusion?”

Mrs. Rooks shot a cunning glance at the girl.

“I’m surprised at you asking that, young lady! You think you’re
somebody who you’re not!”

Lois frowned.

“You mean I am under the impression that I am somebody important?”

Mrs. Rooks nodded.

“Yes--you think you’re the Countess of Moron!” she said.




 Chapter Thirty-one

Lois could hardly believe her ears.

“Me?” she said in amazement. “I think I am the Countess of Moron? How
absurd! I think nothing of the kind!”

“Yes, you do,” nodded Mrs. Rooks. “The doctor said you think you’re
the countess. You tried to murder Lady Moron because you wanted the
title!”

The suggestion was so ludicrous that Lois laughed.

“How ridiculous! Such an idea has never entered my head. Lady Moron!
Why, I am a secretary--where did you hear this?”

“The doctor told me,” said the woman stubbornly. “He never tells
lies--except to people he owes money to, but that’s natural, ain’t
it?”

She went out of the room soon after and was gone for half an hour,
apparently attending to the needs of the other prisoner, for when she
came back she had something to say about discontented people.

“She’s had all she wants to eat and all she wants to drink and still
she’s not satisfied. That shows she’s mad. I never knew a crazy woman
that was satisfied.”

Lois thought it was a weakness, not entirely confined to the crazy.

“When are we leaving here?”

“I don’t know--to-night I guess,” said the other, vaguely. “Anyway,
the doctor will be here to take my place and I’ll get some sleep. I’m
nearly dead.”

Mrs. Rooks was not disposed for further conversation and as the day
progressed she grew more taciturn and irritable. When night fell, she
seemed to be spending her time either at the door of the cottage or
outside. Lois heard her walking under her window, talking to herself.
She was dozing in her chair when she heard the doctor’s voice and was
instantly wide awake.

“You take the other, I’ll bring this one along. You can leave all the
truck here. We may want to come back. I don’t think it is likely, but
we may.”

The room was in darkness when he came stamping in and flashed his lamp
upon her.

“You’ve had an uncomfortable day, but you’ve got your friend to
blame,” he said. “You’ll be able to sleep to-night in your own bed,
which is more than he will do!”

She did not answer him; the reference to Michael’s bed was too cryptic
to follow.

“Clever fellow, Dorn, eh? Brilliant detective? He’s got all his wits
about him, don’t you think?”

Still she did not answer.

“Oh yes, he’s clever,” said Tappatt. He was in a cheerful, almost a
rollicking mood, and she guessed with a sinking heart that if Michael
Dorn had come back, he had been outwitted. “Look at this.” He flashed
his lamp on an object which lay in his palm. It was a heavy-calibred
automatic pistol and she uttered an “Oh!” of surprise.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to kill you, my girl. We don’t kill
people, we cure ’em! That is what they are here for.”

As he patted her shoulder, she shrank back from him.

“No, I wanted to show you that, because it is Dorn’s. I took it away
from him as easily as you might take money from a child. I just took
it out of his pocket and he said nothing! And he’s clever.”

“Is he dead?” she asked, and the question tickled him.

“No, he’s not dead,” he said jovially. “Nothing so dramatic. I don’t
kill people, I tell you. I cure ’em! He’s cured! The mania for
investigation has been entirely eradicated!”

Mrs. Rooks and her prisoner had, by this time, left the house. Lois
heard them swishing through the undergrowth and saw a momentary
flicker of light through the window, as the old woman sought for the
path.

“We’ll give them a start,” said the doctor, “and then we’ll follow
them. Rooks is slow; getting old, I guess.”

“Who is the other woman?”

“A patient of mine,” said the doctor casually. “She’s got some strange
delusions.”

“Why did you tell Mrs. Rooks that I was mad?”

“Because you are,” was the calm reply. “I have diagnosed you as
suffering from delusions, with suicidal tendencies. And my diagnosis
has never been questioned, my dear. And now, if you’re ready----?”

“Why do you say that I think I’m the Countess of Moron?”

“Because you do! I’ve put that in my case book and case books are
evidence!”

And he roared with laughter as if he had made a good joke.

They returned to the other cottage, and even in her weariness Lois
looked forward to the walk across the fields, for her legs were
cramped and she ached in every limb. As they mounted the last gentle
slope, the long wall of Gallows Farm came into view. The gate was open
and they passed through. Half-way across the yard he caught her arm
and they stopped. She heard the rattle of the chained dogs and
wondered if he was about to warn her again of the dangers that
attended an escape. Instead:

“There’s a nice little place down there,” he pointed into the
darkness--“a room that has been described as airy, though it is a
little below the level of the ground. I must show it to you some
day--it has an interesting story.”

“Are you going to put me there?” she asked, her courage almost failing
her.

“You? My dear, you’re the last person in the world I should put
there.” Again the hateful encouragement of his caressing hand. “Go
ahead, your own handsome apartment is ready for you.”

He took up the lamp that was waiting in the passage and showed her to
the landing. Glancing at the room opposite, she saw that a new staple
had been fixed in the doorway and guessed that the other woman was now
her neighbour. Tappatt followed the direction of her eyes.

“You’ll have company,” he said. “The old home is filling up rapidly!
All you require in any mental establishment is a start. Satisfied
clients are the best advertisements!”

“Where is Mr. Dorn?” she asked as he was leaving the room.

“He has gone back to London with a flea in his ear. That fellow won’t
bother me again in a hurry.”

“Do you ever speak the truth?”

For some reason the question infuriated him and his manner changed in
an instant.

“I’ll tell you the truth one of these days, my young lady, and it
won’t be pleasant to hear!” he stormed.

With that he slammed the door and turned the key on her.




 Chapter Thirty-two

Earlier that day somebody else had asked for the truth. As a rule,
Mr. Chesney Praye had little use for that quality, but, as he
explained to the Countess over their protracted meal, he wanted to
know “exactly where he was.” He knew a lot, more than she guessed, for
he was a keen man with an instinct for hidden facts. He was also a
professional opportunist, as she was to learn.

“You’re going to marry me, Leonora, as soon as this business is
cleared up. But before we go any further, I want all your cards on the
table. And first I want to know what I have been doing. Blind
obedience is all right in a soldier, but I’m not a soldier. I’ve
muddied my hands pretty badly over this business and I can see myself
getting five years’ imprisonment if Dorn ever gets on to my trail. But
there is a lot that you haven’t told me and I’d rather like to know
where I stand.”

The Countess took the cigarette from her mouth, blew a cloud of smoke,
following it with her eyes until it dissipated, and then, slowly
extinguishing the cigarette in the ash-tray, she made her revelation
and Mr. Chesney Praye listened without interruption for half an hour.
And all that he heard he sorted for his own advantage.

She paused only once, and that was when she saw her son, piloting the
girl into the palm court.

“She’s prettier than I thought,” she said, “a chorus-girl’s
prettiness, but----”

“Never mind about her,” said Chesney impatiently. “What happened
after----”

The Countess told him, concealing nothing, and when she had finished,
he sat back in his chair, hot and limp.

“My God!” he breathed. “You--you are wonderful! And that’s the ‘why’
of Gallows Farm, eh? I confess I was puzzled.”

“That is the why of Gallows Farm,” said Lady Moron, lighting another
cigarette.

Chesney Praye left the hotel alone; the Countess was going down to her
place in the country, and, when she invited him to accompany her, he
had invented an appointment on the spur of the moment, for Chesney was
a quick thinker, and on the occasion of which Michael Dorn never grew
weary of reminding him, he owed his immunity from arrest to this
quality.

He glanced up at the street-clock. There was time to carry out one
essential part of his scheme and, if his plan was not entirely worked
out when he picked up a taxi, it was complete in all details when he
reached St. Paul’s Churchyard.

From the top of a plebeian ’bus Lord Moron and his companion saw the
cab flash past.

“My stepfather!” groaned his lordship. “You wouldn’t think a horrible,
common bounder like that would attract a woman like her ladyship,
Elizabeth?”

But Lizzy pressed her lips tightly together and expressed no opinion,
other than the noncommittal one that “likes attract like,” which may
or not have been as complimentary as she intended.

There was no telegram for her in Charlotte Street when they arrived.

“And there won’t be,” said Lord Moron with satisfaction. “I’ll bet you
any amount of money that the purply doctor has got away with it. Mind
you, Elizabeth, I know him! He’s had his skinny legs under my
mahogany, and whatever you may say about me, I’m a judge of
character.”

“I think you’re clever,” admitted Lizzy, “and I’ve always said so.
What is your mother going to say about us going to lunch at that posh
restaurant?”

Lord Moron expressed his complete indifference.

“From to-day I am on my own; I can’t start too soon,” he said. “Her
ladyship doesn’t mind being seen in public with that perfectly
impossible Chesney Praye--the bird of prey, as I sometimes call
him----” he waited for applause, but received no more than an
approving smile,--“and if she doesn’t mind, I don’t see how she can
object to me going to lunch with one of the--at any rate, a very nice
girl,” he added lamely, and Elizabeth raised her eyes in the shy,
wistful way she had seen in the best films.

At eight o’clock the post office was closed. Moron went down to the
nearest branch office and enquired for a telegram, but none had been
received; nor were they able to get into communication with Mr. Wills.

On his way back to the house, Selwyn telephoned the Bluelight Garage,
in accordance with instructions, and they were flying along the broad
expanse of the Great West Road, when a faster car overtook and passed
them and Selwyn involuntarily shrank back to cover.

“Who was it?” asked Lizzy, who had not seen the occupant.

Lord Moron raised his fingers to his lips, though the possibility of
being overheard was negligible. It was not until the overtaking car
was a steady speck in a revolving cloud of dust that he turned
dramatically to her and whispered:

“Chesney--Chesney Praye. He’s going down too! I knew he was in it. A
bounder like that would be in anything dirty!”

“Did he see us?”

Selwyn shook his head.

“No. He was driving; but he was grinning like an ape. That shows!”

At Maidenhead they passed the car standing outside an hotel.

“He’s gone in to grub,” said Selwyn, all a-twitter with excitement.
“The thing for us to do is to be careful when he passes us again.”

But no care was required, and his elaborate plan to be immersed in an
evening newspaper that completely hid himself and his companion when
the car came abreast, was unnecessary, for it was dark when the siren
of Chesney’s machine called for a clear road, and the car swept past.

Within ten miles of the farm there were a number of enquiries to be
made. The exact situation of the farm was difficult to locate, and it
was only when they reached Whitcomb village that they were able to
take the road with any certainty. And there were other difficulties to
be overcome.

“There is no sense in our dashing up madly to this old Gallows and
saying ‘Where is she?’” said his lordship, with perfect truth. “If
we’re on the track of something fishy, and I’m sure everything
connected with Chesney is fishy, we shan’t get a civil answer. On the
other hand, if there is nothing fishy about the business, we’ll be
getting ourselves a bad reputation if we barge in and there’s
nothing--er----”

“Fishy,” suggested Lizzy helpfully.

Two miles from Whitcomb they held a council of war, and decided to
send the machine back to the main road and to continue the journey on
foot. This was his lordship’s idea.

“The situation requires a certain amount of tact, and if there’s
anybody more tactful than me, I’d like to meet them.”

They trudged up the dusty road, keeping a watch for Chesney’s car. It
was dark by now and they were without any kind of light except the
matches that Lord Moron occasionally struck, and both were dead-beat
by the time they came in view of the farm.

“Not a very cheerful looking place, is it?” said Selwyn, some of his
enterprise evaporating. “Beastly dismal hole. Shouldn’t be surprised
if there was a real gallows somewhere around. I think it was a mistake
to have left the car.”

“It is too late to talk about mistakes,” said Lizzy brusquely, and led
the way. “We’ve found the place, that is something. Not that it looks
as if it is worth finding.”

They came at last to the big black gate and the forbidding wall.

“Shall we ring or knock?” asked his lordship. “There’s a car
inside--do you hear it?”

Lizzy compromised by kicking on the wood. Her foot was raised to kick
a second time, when there came from the house a woman’s scream, so
vibrant with fear that Selwyn’s blood seemed to turn to ice and his
knees touched together.

At that moment the gates burst open with a crash, almost knocking them
down, and the bonnet of a car showed.

“There’s a woman in the car,” screamed Lizzy, but the roar of the
engines drowned her voice.




 Chapter Thirty-three

Mr. Chesney Praye was a welcome visitor. He had parked his machine
in the forecourt, and now, sitting before the small wood fire, was
warming his chilled hands, for the night had turned unusually cold and
he had come at full speed across the windy downs.

“Br-r-r!” he said, as he held his hands before the blaze. “And this is
what they call an English summer! I’ll be glad to get back to India.”

“Do you think of going?”

“I may. Everything depends----”

“You were lucky to find me in,” said the doctor, putting glasses on
the table.

“Why?” asked the other, in surprise. “I thought you wouldn’t leave
this abode of peace, at any rate not now.”

Briefly the doctor related the cause of his excursion and Chesney
looked serious.

“Is there any likelihood of Dorn coming back?” he asked.

Tappatt’s merriment reassured him.

“He’s back! In fact, he is practically under this roof!”

Chesney sprang to his feet.

“What the devil do you mean?” he asked roughly.

“Sit down. There’s nothing to be alarmed about. He is behind a
two-inch door, with handcuffs on his wrists and a pain in his head
that will take a lot of moving. I’d have telephoned, only I don’t
trust the exchange.”

And then he told the visitor of his encounter with Dorn.

“It was a question of foresight, and I saw farthest,” he said. “It is
as good as a bottle of sparkling wine to match your brain against the
mind of a man like that, to look ahead and see what he will do in
given circumstances, and to counter and recounter his plans. Somebody
had to come out on top--he or I. He failed to take an elementary
precaution--the veriest amateur would have known that, if his
attention was distracted for a moment, I’d doctor his drink; and it
was absurdly simple. I don’t even take the credit for it. He played so
completely into my hands.”

Chesney pursed his lips.

“Has he recovered from the drug?” he asked, a little apprehensively.

Tappatt nodded.

“Oh yes, I’ve had quite an interesting conversation with him through
the door. There’s a little spyhole that makes it easy to exchange
pleasant badinage. Captain Michael Dorn is a pretty sick man at this
moment.”

Chesney Praye was pacing up and down the room, a worried frown on his
face. This was a development that he had not looked for.

“Perhaps it is better,” he said. “I shall be taking away the girl
to-night.”

“The countess didn’t----” began the doctor.

“You needn’t worry about the countess. She’d have telephoned, but she
shared your fear of the exchange. The girl and Mrs. Pinder are to be
moved. The risk of keeping them here is too great. Dorn has people
working for him and you’ll wake one morning to find a cordon of police
round the house.”

“Where will you go?”

“I shall take her abroad.”

“And the other woman?”

Chesney looked at him oddly.

“I may want the other woman--later,” he said.

“I had better bring Reddle down,” said the doctor, rising and going to
the door, but Praye beckoned him back.

“There is no hurry,” he said.

He evidently had something which he had hesitated to say.

“What are your plans, Tappatt?”

“Mine? I shall have to flit, I suppose. They’re striking me off the
register, at least Dorn told me so.”

“What will you do with him?”

An ugly smile showed for a second on the doctor’s face.

“I don’t know. He is going to be a difficulty. I’ve seen that from the
first. I could leave him, and that is what I shall probably do. Nobody
would come near the farm perhaps for months, perhaps for a year.”

Chesney Praye’s face was ashen.

“Leave him to starve?” he whispered.

“Why not?” asked the other coolly. “Who would know? I thought of going
to Australia. And I’d take my nurse with me. She would think that I
had let Dorn out, and anyway she’s not the kind of person to ask
questions. This place is Lady Moron’s property. Who would visit it if
I left? It might be empty for years.”

Chesney Praye’s mouth was dry, the hand that went to his lips shook.

“I don’t know--it seems pretty awful,” he said irresolutely. “To leave
a man--to starve!”

“What will happen if he gets after me?” asked the doctor, stirring the
fire that had almost gone out. “I should either starve or get my meals
too regularly! I understand the food is fairly good at Dartmoor, but I
am willing to take anybody’s word for it. I do not want to have a
personal experience. And anyway, there’s always a way out for a
medical man. I owe Dorn something. He hounded me from India, and he’s
not exactly a friend of yours, is he, Chesney?”

“No,” said the other shortly, “only----”

“Only what? You’re chicken-hearted! What do you think is going to
happen to you and me if that gets out?” He pointed to the ceiling. “It
would mean the best part of a lifetime for you--more than a lifetime
for me. No, sir, I am well aware of the risks I am taking and more
than determined what further risks I’ll accept. You’d better have the
girl down. I suppose you want to be alone?”

He nodded and the doctor went out of the room, and was gone for a long
while. When the door opened, Lois Reddle stood framed against the dark
background of the passage. At the sight of Praye she stopped.

“You!” she said in wonder.

“Good evening, Miss Reddle. Won’t you sit down?”

Chesney was politeness itself and his manners were unimpeachable.

“I’m afraid you’ve had a very unhappy experience,” he said. “I only
learnt about it this afternoon and I came down immediately to do
whatever I could. The doctor tells me that you have been certified.”

“That is not true,” she said hotly. “I know very little about the law,
but I have been in Mr. Shaddles’ office too long to suppose that any
person can be certified as mad by one doctor! Are you going to take me
away?”

He nodded.

“And that other unfortunate woman?”

“She may go too,” he said slowly, “on conditions.”

She looked at him steadily.

“I don’t quite understand you, Mr. Praye.”

He motioned her to a chair, but she did not move.

“Now listen to me, Miss Reddle. I am taking big risks for your sake. I
needn’t particularise them, but if I fail this evening, my future, and
probably”--he hesitated to say “liberty”--“at any rate, my future is
seriously jeopardised. I’ve made this journey without the knowledge of
a person who shall be nameless and I am betraying the trust she has in
me. She will not forgive me.”

“You mean the Countess of Moron?” she asked quietly.

“There is no use in beating about the bush. I refer to the Countess of
Moron.”

“Am I here by her orders?”

He nodded.

“But why? What have I ever done to her that she should wish to injure
me?”

“You will know one of these days,” he said impatiently, “but that is
beside the point. I can save you and your mother----”

She fell back a pace.

“My mother?” she breathed. “That woman,” she pointed her trembling
finger to the door--“not my mother?” He nodded. “Here? Oh, my God!
Why?”

“She’s here for the same reason that you are here,” was his cool
reply. “Now, Miss Reddle, you’ve got to be an intelligent being. I
want you to be sensible and recognise the sacrifices I am making for
you, and to agree to my conditions for taking your mother away from
this place.”

“What are the conditions?” she asked slowly.

“The first is that you marry me!” said Chesney Praye.




 Chapter Thirty-four

She looked at him bewildered, as though she could not grasp the
meaning of his words.

“That I marry you?” she repeated.

“That you marry me to-morrow. I took the precaution this afternoon of
going to Doctors’ Commons and securing a special licence, which allows
me to be married to-morrow morning. I had some trouble in getting it,
but it is here----” he tapped his breast pocket. “Before leaving
London I telegraphed to the vicar of Leitworth, a village some thirty
miles from here, and asked him to perform the ceremony at ten o’clock
to-morrow morning.”

His face was white; he was obviously labouring under the stress of
some tense emotion. Presently he went on in a lower voice:

“I will make you a rich woman. I will place you and your mother beyond
want. I will give you a position in the world that you could not dream
you would ever occupy. I’ll do something more.” He came closer to her,
and before she realised what he was doing he had gripped her
shoulders. “I will clear your mother’s name--I can’t give her back the
years she has spent in prison----”

She drew back out of his grasp.

“No!” she said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. It may be true--all these
things you say--but I can’t marry you, Mr. Praye, and I--I don’t
believe you. My mother is in prison.”

“Your mother is in this house.”

He strode to the door and, pulling it open, called the doctor by name.

“Bring down Mrs. Pinder,” he said.

The girl stood at the farther end of the room, her hands clasped
together, waiting, hoping, yet not daring to hope. She heard a light
step on the stair, again the door opened and the woman came in.

One glance at that serene face was sufficient. In another second they
were in one another’s arms, and the girl was sobbing on her mother’s
breast.

For a minute there was silence in the room, and only the murmured
endearments of the older woman interrupted. Then Mrs. Pinder held the
girl at arm’s length and looked into her tear-stained face.

“My little Lois!” she said softly. “It hardly seems possible.”

Lois tried to speak.

“And have you come to take me away?”

Watching the girl, Chesney saw her nod, and his hopes bounded as he
introduced himself.

“I am Chesney Praye,” he said awkwardly, “a--a friend of Miss Reddle.”

“Reddle? Then Mrs. Reddle gave you her name?” She looked at Chesney.
“When do we go?” she asked.

“As soon as certain conditions are fulfilled. Will you leave us, Mrs.
Pinder?”

The woman’s eyes fell upon the girl. Gathering her in her arms, she
kissed her tenderly. Chesney, in his feverish anxiety, almost tore
them apart in his urgency. He closed the door upon Mrs. Pinder and
came back to the girl.

“Well?” he said. “I told you the truth?”

She nodded.

“And you’ll do this?”

“Marry you?” She shook her head.

“But you told your mother you would!” he said furiously. “You know
what it means, don’t you, if you refuse?”

“I can’t, I can’t! How can I marry you, Mr. Praye? You’re engaged to
the Countess of Moron----”

He interrupted her with an oath.

“Never mind about the countess! You know what I’m doing for you, don’t
you? I’m saving your life, I’m giving you your mother----”

She looked past him at the closed door.

“I can’t!” she said helplessly. “How can you ask me to decide? I--I
don’t know you, you must give me time.”

“I’ll give you as much time as it will take you to sign this paper.”

He pulled out a sheet of foolscap from his pocket and laid it on the
table.

“What is that?” she said.

“It’s an agreement. You needn’t trouble to read it. Just put your
signature here, and I’ll bring in the doctor to witness it.”

“But what is the document?” she asked, and tried to turn it back to
the first page, but he prevented her.

Her suspicion was growing, and the reaction from that tremendous
meeting had left her chilled and numb. Into her heart had crept an
uneasy suspicion that the conditions he offered were not in his power
to fulfil. All her instincts told her this man’s word was valueless.

“I can do nothing until I have seen Mr. Dorn.”

Why she mentioned the detective’s name at all, she could not
understand. She wanted time. She mentioned the first name that
occurred to her, and might as well have referred to Mr. Shaddles.

“Dorn! So that’s how the land lies, eh? Michael Dorn is the favoured
gentleman? Well, Dorn or no Dorn, you’ll marry me to-morrow morning at
ten o’clock. I’ve gone too far to pull back now. And Dorn’s dead,
anyway.”

“Dead?” she cried in horror.

“He came here this morning, looking for you, and----”

The door was opening slowly.

“I don’t want you, Tappatt. Shut the door, damn you!”

But still it was moving, slowly, slowly. And then around the edge came
the black muzzle of a pistol, an arm, and then, last, the smiling face
of Michael Dorn!

“Put up your hands, Praye!” he said. “I want you!”

As the door opened and the hand came in, Chesney Praye’s fingers
closed around an ebony ruler, and then, at the hateful sight of
Michael Dorn’s face, he struck at the oil lamp that stood on the
table. There was a crash, a jangle of broken glass, and Lois screamed.

Praye darted past her; she heard the thud of the door, and a grunt
from somebody. In another second the two men were at grips and she
shrank back farther and farther into a corner of the room, as tables
and chairs became involved in the struggle. She heard Chesney
screaming for the doctor at the top of his voice.

“Doctor--help! Get this swine!” And there came to the frightened ears
of the girl the sound of the door being wrenched open, the scurry of
footsteps, and Chesney’s voice was silent.

“Stay where you are!”

The room reeked with the smell of kerosene.

“Don’t strike a light,” said Michael’s voice, but even as he spoke a
white flame leapt up from the hearth. The flowing oil had reached some
red-hot embers, and in a second the whole floor was blazing.

The girl was paralysed with fear, but before she could move he had
picked her up and carried her into the passage.

“Go into the back, quick! The dogs won’t hurt you,” he said, and flew
up the stairs, bursting into Mrs. Pinder’s prison.

The room in which Mrs. Pinder had been confined was empty. There was
no sign of the doctor or of the woman. He came down into the hall
again and ran to the front door. As he opened the door, he saw
Chesney’s big car going full speed towards the closed gates. There was
a crack and a crash, the gates flew open, and the tail lights
disappeared as the car turned on to the road.

The front room was now blazing. He tried the housekeeper’s room: that
also was empty. There was no need for further search. Dr. Tappatt had
got away, and with him the unhappy mother of Lois.

He rejoined the girl and she told him what had happened before he came
into the room.

“That is it,” he said bitterly. “The doctor was listening at the door
and, thinking he was going to be left in the lurch, decided to make
his getaway. When Praye turned your mother from the room he must have
put her into the car, and probably unfastened the gate when he heard
the fight.”

“Where will he have taken her? What will happen?” she asked fearfully.

Her nerve had gone, and she clung to him like a frightened child, and
as he held the quivering figure in his arms, the world and all its
sordid horrors dropped away from him and for a second he lived in a
heaven of happiness.

“Child, child!” His hand trembled as it touched her cheek. “Your
mother is not in danger--they dare not.”

“I am an hysterical fool!” she sobbed as she rubbed her face against
his coat. “But, Michael, I am so frightened. What will happen to my
mother?”

“Nothing; they will not dare injure her.”

The fire had taken hold; great tongues of flame were leaping up from
the roof.

“It will burn like tinder. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” she said, in surprise.

“I mean I’m sorry to see property destroyed. I don’t suppose it is
insured,” was his strange reply. “I’ll pull the Buick out of the shed
before the fire gets to it.”

As they were walking across the yard to the extemporised garage, he
caught her arm and drew her from the path, and, looking down, she saw
the stiff figure of a dog.

“I had to shoot them,” he said. “I used a silencer, because I thought
the doctor would hear.”

“But they told me you were dead?”

“I’ll tell you about it some day,” he answered briefly, and gave his
whole attention to breaking the lock of the shed.

Presently he hauled out the car and examined the petrol tank.

“There is enough to get us to the nearest village,” he said; “the
spare tin is full.”

He got the car round to the front of the house, and was standing
watching the havoc of the flames when the first police cyclist came
thunderously from the direction of Whitcombe.

“Nobody is hurt except me,” said Michael in answer to the man’s
enquiry, “and in my case it is only a question of feelings. You didn’t
pass a car on your way?”

“Yes, I passed a big car, with three or four people in it.”

“Which way did they go?”

“They took the Newbury Road.”

“Then we also will take the Newbury Road,” said Michael.

On the journey back to London he told Lois what had happened to him.

“I pretty well knew that he’d get you out of the house in the night,
but I also knew that he couldn’t take you far. It was impossible to
watch all sides of the house, and besides, it would have been as
impossible to get back on foot in time to intercept him. As I
expected, the house was empty when I made my search. I had formed a
plan which was fairly elementary. When he showed me the underground
cellar room, I slipped a spare gun and a small kit of tools amongst
the bedding, for I guessed that would be the place he would put
me--that is, if he managed to catch me. Honestly, I don’t believe he
thought of drugging me until I suggested it myself, and then he did
his work in the most clumsy way. He told me that he heard somebody
moving outside in order to distract my attention, and of course my
attention was distracted. When he had dropped the dope into my coffee,
I had a little distraction of my own. I found an excuse to go out into
the yard, poured away the coffee, and when I came back I stood in the
doorway, giving him the impression that I was drinking. I was standing
and he was sitting, so he couldn’t tell whether there was coffee in
the cup or not. But he was so smugly satisfied that he did what I knew
he would do--‘lured’ me down into the underground room--and I was glad
to be lured. I knew that the moment I was safely under lock and key,
he would bring you back again. I had cached my gun and tools, and when
he came in and found me unconscious, he did not trouble to search the
room again. If he had, he would have been shocked to have had a most
unpleasant beating from the helpless creature on the bed!”

“But how did you get out?”

“That was easy. Almost any key could have opened that old-fashioned
lock, and I came prepared with several. I waited all day because I was
certain that he would not bring you back until night. The handcuffs
were the most difficult part; I hadn’t a key to fit them. It took me
two hours’ hard work and a nearly dislocated thumb to slip them off.”

They stopped at an all-night filling station, replenished the tank,
and continued their way to London.

“I know one person who will be happy to-night,” said Michael, as the
car sped up the Bayswater Road. “I wonder whether she got the day
off?”

“Whom do you mean?” asked the girl, aroused from an unpleasant
reverie.

“Miss Elizabeth Smith.”

“Mr. Dorn, do you really think that there’s no danger to my mother?”
she asked, for the moment oblivious to everything except the woman’s
danger.

“None, I should imagine,” he said.

The car stopped before the house in Charlotte Street, and Mr.
Mackenzie answered the knock.

“Have you Miss Smith with you?” he asked, after he had welcomed the
girl.

“Lizzy?” said Lois in surprise. “She wasn’t with me. I haven’t seen
her. Why do you ask?”

“She went to Gallows Farm with his lordship.”

“With his lordship?” said Michael, in surprise. “Do you mean Lord
Moron?”

“They left at eight o’clock,” said the old man, “in a hired car.”

Michael and the girl were in the old man’s room when he gave them this
information, and the two exchanged glances. Here was an unforeseen
complication.

“I saw no sign of a car, hired or otherwise,” he said. “And
Moron--phew!” He whistled.

“Perhaps they lost their way,” suggested Lois, and he seemed prepared
to accept the suggestion.

“If you don’t mind, Miss Reddle, I’ll wait here until they have
returned,” he said, and then: “You don’t wish to call up Lady Moron, I
suppose?”

Lois shuddered.

“No, no, not that terrible woman.”

“So you know--or rather, you guess?”

Lois shook her head.

“I know nothing. The whole thing is a mystery to me. It is so
confusing that I think I should go mad, only I’m so grateful to be
here,” she smiled, and held out her hand. “And I knew that it would be
you who would come for me, just as I know it will be you who will
restore my mother to me.”

He took her hand and held it, his eyes searching hers.

“I’m going to tell you something,” he said in a low voice. They were
alone in the little room, and she felt her heart beating in time with
the cheap American clock on the table. “I suppose I really oughtn’t to
say anything,” he said, “because I have no right. But I feel if I
don’t tell you I may never have another opportunity.”

She had dropped her eyes before his, but now she looked at him again.

“I love you,” he said simply. “I can’t marry you, I won’t ask you to
marry me, and that is what makes this folly of mine all the more mad!
But I want you to believe that it has been a happiness to work for
you.”

“For me?” she said. “Why, of course, you’ve worked very hard for me.”

“And I have been paid very well,” was the disconcerting rejoinder.
“But I would do it again and pay all the money I have in the world for
the privilege.”

Suddenly he released her hand, and when she smiled up at him he, too,
was smiling.

“Two declarations of love in one night is more than any reasonable
girl can expect,” he said flippantly.

“One declaration of love,” she said in a low voice, “and one offer of
marriage--quite different, isn’t it?”

“I’m not an authority on these matters,” he said with a sigh, and
looked up at the loud-ticking clock.

Michael saw the hour and frowned.

“I’m rather worried about these people; where on earth can they have
got? You don’t feel worried about sleeping here to-night alone--if you
have to sleep alone?”

She shook her head.

“I’m troubled about Lizzy,” she said. “Poor Lord Moron! I wonder what
his mother would say if she knew.”

“She probably knows,” said Michael.

It was at that moment they heard Lizzy’s voice in the hall and the
sound of feet on the stairs.

Lois ran out to the landing and looked down into the lighted hall.

“Michael!” she called wildly, and he was at her side. “Look--oh,
look!” she said in a hushed voice.

And Michael Dorn looked--and wondered!




 Chapter Thirty-five

As the gates burst open violently and the car lurched on to the
road, Lizzy pulled her companion back to the shadow of the wall. At
that moment a man came flying through the gateway and leapt upon the
running-board. Again the car slowed perceptibly.

“He’s there,” whispered Lizzy fiercely. “Quick--luggage rack!”

In an instant she was flying after the machine, caught the iron rail
of the rack and sprang on. The car was gathering speed as Selwyn Moron
stumbled forward, his hand gripping the rail, his legs moving faster
than nature had intended. Kneeling down, Lizzy caught him by a garment
which ladies do not mention, let alone grab, and hauled him up to her
side, breathless, almost dead.

“Hold tight!” she squeaked in his ear, and there was need for the
caution, for the car was bumping from side to side over the uneven
road, at a speed beyond her computation.

“A thousand miles an hour!” she jerked into his ear, and he nodded his
complete agreement.

Now they were on the post road. The bumping had ceased, and the
machine was going even faster. Lizzy held tight to the luggage support
and adopted an attitude of passive fatalism. Once a motorcyclist
snapped past, going in the other direction, and she had a glimpse of a
uniform cap. It was a policeman, but by the time she realised the fact
he was out of sight.

The seat was most uncomfortable. She began to realise the sensations
of a herring on a gridiron and wondered if the luggage rack would
leave the same marks.

Selwyn was trying to whisper to her; he had recovered most of his
breath and all his sense of obligation.

“What about that car of ours? We hired it by the hour,” he whispered
hoarsely, and she put her lips to his ear.

“Shaddles will pay,” she said gaily, and found a delight in the
prospect.

A little while later the car stopped, and the two unauthorised riders
got ready to jump. Peeping round the back of the machine, Lizzy saw
the cause of the delay. They had pulled up at a sort of sentry box and
one of the party was unlocking the door. She knew that the hut was an
automobile station equipped with a telephone, before she heard a
muffled voice speaking. Presently the telephoner came out.

“All right,” he said, as he climbed in and the car started again.

They had not gone twenty miles when, to her surprise, the machine
slackened its speed again, slowed almost to a halt, and then turned
suddenly through a pair of old gates that had been opened for them.
She felt a communicated excitement from her companion as he bent over
towards her.

“Old family estate,” he whispered. “Country seat and all that sort of
thing! Knew it as soon as I saw the gates.”

“Whose?” she asked cautiously.

“Mine,” was the surprising reply.

And then, feeling that he had overstated the case, he added:

“Her ladyship’s really. Beastly house--never liked it. Moron Court,
Newbury. Rum place----”

They passed up a long avenue of elms, going slower and slower. Selwyn
tapped her on the shoulder and dropped off the rack, and, recognising
his wisdom, she followed, darting into the shadow of an elm only just
in time, for at that moment the car stopped and the voice of Lady
Moron sent a shiver down the back of her son.

“Go to the west entrance: you’ll find nobody there. What were you
doing in Somerset, Chesney?”

“I will tell you later,” he said shortly.

The car passed on and the two watchers saw the tall woman walking
slowly in its wake. How had she known they were coming? And then Lizzy
remembered the car stopping at the telephone box on the side of the
road.

“Queer old crib, eh?” Moron was whispering. “See that bump in the
roof? That’s the alarm bell--works from the music-room… in case of
fire and all that sort of thing.”

They waited till Lady Moron had disappeared from sight, then they
followed cautiously. The west entrance was reached through a
glass-covered porch, and the door was closed when they came up to it.
Moron smiled benignly at the girl, and took a small object from his
pocket.

“Pass-key,” he whispered, so loudly that he would have been heard if
there had been a listener.

Inserting the key, he turned it and signalled the girl to follow.
Before them stretched a vista of red-carpeted corridor; a light burnt
in a ceiling lamp at the farther end. Moron crept along with
extravagant caution, and he was half-way up the passage when he
stopped and raised a warning finger, pointing energetically to a door
before he beckoned her past it. A little farther along was a broad
marble staircase. Up this he went, with Lizzy, feeling like a
conspirator, at his heels.

They must have presented a terrifying sight. White from head to foot,
their faces were masks of dust. Lizzy’s crumpled hat hung drunkenly
over one ear. At the top of the stairs was another corridor, with the
same meagre illumination. He drew her head to his.

“That is the gallery of the music-room!” He indicated a small door.
“For heaven’s sake don’t make a row,” he implored her, and opened the
door an inch at a time.

The door itself was shadowed by the broad musicians’ balcony from the
light in the room below. They heard voices talking as they came in,
and, keeping flat to the wall, they edged forward until it was
dangerous to go any farther. Then Selwyn gave a start that nearly
betrayed their presence. Turning, he communicated what he had seen.

“She’s not there--Miss Reddle, I mean. It’s an elderly lady with white
hair.”

“So you have seen your daughter, Mrs. Pinder?”

“Yes, madam, I have seen Lois.”

Lois! Lizzy clapped her hand over her mouth. Lois Reddle’s mother, and
her name was Pinder!

“A very beautiful girl,” said Lady Moron suavely.

“A dear, sweet girl! I am very proud, whatever happens to me.”

“What do you think will happen to you?”

“I don’t know, but I am prepared for anything now.”

Lizzy glanced at her comrade. He was staring open-mouthed into the
hall below.

“She is too pretty a daughter to lose. Now, Mrs. Pinder, I am going to
make you an offer. I want you to take your daughter to South America.
I will pay you a yearly sum, more than sufficient for your needs. If
you undertake to do that, you will never be troubled again.”

Mary Pinder smiled and shook her head.

“Madam, your offer comes too late. Had it been made whilst I was still
a prisoner, had it been supported by any efforts to obtain my release
from that cruel punishment, I would have gone on my knees and thanked
you and blessed you. But now I know too much.”

“What do you know?” asked Lady Moron.

And then Mrs. Pinder began to speak, and as she went on, Lizzy gripped
the hand of the man at her side, and laid her face against his arm. He
turned round once during the narrative, his weak face transfigured and
smiled down at her, as though he read in her gesture all that her
heart conveyed. Mrs. Pinder spoke without interruption, and, when she
had finished:

“You know a great deal too much for my comfort, madam,” said her
ladyship’s voice, “and much too much for the safety of my friends.”

“So I realise,” said Mary Pinder gravely.

“I repeat my offer. I would advise you to think well before you reject
your chance of safety.”

“Look here, Leonora----” began Chesney Praye.

“Be silent. I have found one friend to-night--one I can trust. It is
not you, Chesney. The doctor has told me all that has happened. You
thought you would go behind my back and forestall me. To-night you
will do as you’re told. Now, madam--do you accept my offer?”

“No,” was Mrs. Pinder’s reply.

Lady Moron turned to the red-faced doctor. He nodded.

“Now, Mrs. Pinder,” he said, advancing to her, his tone jovial, his
manner friendly, “why can’t you be sensible? Do as her ladyship asks
you.”

“I will not----”

He was near to her now. Suddenly his hand shot out and strangled the
scream in her throat. She struggled desperately, madly, but there was
no denying those relentless hands. Chesney Praye took half a step
forward, but Lady Moron’s arm barred him.

And then came the interruption. A wild-looking, dust-stained man,
unrecognisable to any, leapt from the balcony and gripped the doctor
by the shoulders from behind. As Tappatt staggered back, releasing his
hold upon his victim, Selwyn sprang to the long red bell-cord that
hung on the side of the wall, and pulled. From overhead came a
deafening clang. Again he pulled.

“You fool, you madman, what are you doing?”

His mother rushed towards him, but he pushed her back. Presently he
ceased.

“That’s the alarm bell. We’ll have all the house and half the village
in here in a minute. And I don’t want to say before them what I’m
saying to you now.” He pointed an accusing finger at his mother. “You
think I’m a fool, and perhaps you’re right. But I’m not a wicked fool,
and I’m going to send you and your damnable friend before a judge!”

“Get him away quick!” screamed the countess, as a patter of feet came
along the corridor. “I can say it was an accident.”

“Don’t touch him!”

A girl, almost as great a scarecrow as the panting Selwyn, was leaning
over the balcony.

“You can tell them what you like, but you can’t tell them anything
they’ll believe after they’ve heard me!”

The door was pushed open at that moment, and a man half-dressed came
running in, and stopped dead, gaping at the scene that met his eyes.
Almost immediately the doorway was filled with dishevelled men and
women.

“Is there any trouble, my lady?”

“None,” she said sharply, and pointed to the door. “Wait outside.”

She looked up at the girl in the gallery.

“I think you would be well advised to ask my son to change his plans,”
she said, in the same calm, even voice which Selwyn knew so well. “The
matter can be adjusted to-morrow. Selwyn, go back to your friend and
take this lady with you.”

Mrs. Pinder was sitting on a chair, her frail frame shaking
convulsively, while Selwyn strove to comfort her. At Lady Moron’s
words she stood up, and, with the man’s arm about her, passed into the
crowded corridor, and in a few seconds Lizzy Smith had joined them.




 Chapter Thirty-six

Leonora, Countess of Moron, paced her long dressing-room, her hands
behind her, a calm, speculative woman, for emotion did not belong to
her. Chesney Praye and the doctor she had left in the music-room, and
through the windows that overlooked the stone porch at the front of
the house she had, a few minutes before, seen the car pass which
carried Mary Pinder to happiness and freedom.

Lady Moron felt no resentment against any save the weakling son she
had hated from his birth. There was still a hope that the wheel would
turn by some miracle in her favour. All she had played for, all she
had won, was gone. It was the hour of reparation and judgment, not yet
for her the hour of penitence.

Opening a little safe that was set in the wall, concealed by a silver
barometer, she took out a tiny box and shook on to the table a folded
sheet of newspaper and a key. This she put into her bag. From the back
of the safe she pulled to view a small automatic pistol, and, jerking
back the cover to assure herself that it was loaded, fixed the safety
catch. This too went into the bag. Then she rang the bell, and her
scared maid answered after a long interval.

“Tell Henry that I wish the Rolls to be at the door in ten minutes,”
she said, and at the end of that time, with her cloak wrapped about
her shoulders, she stepped into the car, pausing only to give
directions. “Charlotte Street,” she said, and gave the number.

She turned over in her mind the events of the past few weeks, striving
to discover the key flaw of her plan. Some force had been working
against her. Dorn was the instrument, but behind that was a power the
identity of which she could not imagine.

The car ran through the deserted streets of Reading along the long
road to Maidenhead. Still her problem was not solved. Who was behind
Dorn? She had for him a certain amount of admiration. She had known,
the moment he came into the case, that the little men who had seemed
so big, Chesney Praye and the doctor, were valueless.

The car came noiselessly to the door of Lois Reddle’s home. She looked
up at the lighted windows and was slightly amused. Selwyn would be
there, basking in the approval of the bourgeoisie. Even her feeling of
bitterness towards him had been blunted on the journey. This was to be
the last throw.

Old Mackenzie, on his way up to Lizzy’s kitchenette to brew more
coffee, heard the knock and called to Lizzy:

“There’s somebody at the door, miss: will you open it for me?”

A transfigured Lizzy, dustless and tidy, ran down the stairs two at a
time and pulled open the door. At first she did not recognise the
woman, and then:

“You can’t come in here, ma’am,” she said.

“I wish to see Miss Reddle,” said the countess. “Please don’t be
ridiculous!”

She had still an overawing effect upon Lizzy, and the girl stood on
one side, and followed the leisurely figure up the stairs.

The door of Mackenzie’s room was open, and as she walked into the
chamber, a sudden silence fell upon the gathering. She looked from
face to face and smiled. But the smile faded when her eyes rested upon
the man who sat by the plain deal table near the window.

“Mr. Shaddles!” she faltered.

He nodded.

“So it was you? I might have guessed that.”

“Yes, madam, it was I. My family have been the Moron lawyers for
hundreds of years, and it was not likely that I should cease to study
their interests.”

“It was you!” she said again. “I should have guessed that. You opposed
my marriage to Lord Moron.”

He nodded.

“I should have opposed it more if I had known what I know now,” he
said. “Will you be seated?”

She nodded and sat down, her bag on her knees, opened. Michael Dorn
stood by the lawyer’s side, and his eyes never left her face.

“Well, I suppose everybody knows now?” said the countess pleasantly.

“Nobody knows--yet. I particularly asked Miss Smith, when she called
me on the ’phone, not to tell the story until I came. It is not a long
story, madam, if you will permit me?”

She nodded.

“The late Earl of Moron married twice,” said Shaddles. “By his first
wife he had a son, William. By his second wife--which is your
ladyship--a son, Selwyn, who is with us to-night. William was a
high-spirited, honourable young man, who served Her Majesty Queen
Victoria in a regiment of Highlanders. He was a thought romantic, and
nothing was more natural than that, when he met Mary Pinder----”

“Mary Pinder!” gasped Lois, but he did not notice the interruption.

“----when he met Mary Pinder, who was then a very beautiful girl of
seventeen or eighteen, he should fall in love with her. He did not
reveal his identity. He had a craze for walking tours, and at that
time was travelling through Hereford--not under his own name, which
was Viscount Craman, but under the name of Pinder, which was his
mother’s maiden name. He met the girl several times without telling
her who he was, and married her by special licence, in the name of
Pinder, intending to reveal his status after the marriage. They had
been living together for a month, when he was suddenly called home by
the illness of his father, and arrived in Scotland to find the late
Earl dying of malignant scarlet fever. By a cruel fate, William was
infected with the disease and died two days after his father, leaving
his widow, ignorant alike of his identity and where he was staying.

“As he was dying, he told his stepmother, the present Lady Moron, the
story of his marriage, and begged her to send for his wife. This she
refrained from doing, especially when she learnt that the girl did not
know where or who he was. Lord Moron, as of course he was then, was
buried. Some time after the countess went to Hereford to seek out the
widow. Mrs. Pinder was living in the house of an eccentric woman, a
drug-taker and slightly mad. The woman had threatened to commit
suicide many times, and it happened that on the morning her ladyship
arrived in Hereford and made a call at the house to satisfy her
curiosity about her stepson’s wife, the landlady took the fatal step,
and when the caller walked into her room, she found her dead, with a
letter on the table announcing why she had committed suicide.

“Lady Moron is a woman of infinite resource. Here, she thought, was an
opportunity of removing for ever a possible claimant to the Moron
estate. On the table were a number of jewels and some money, which the
woman had put there in her madness. Gathering these, her ladyship went
into the girl’s room. She guessed it was hers when she saw the
photograph of William on the mantelpiece, a photograph which was
afterwards left in Lois’ room to discover if she knew her father. Lady
Moron placed the jewels and the poison in an open box, locked it,
taking away the key, and also a letter which would not only have
established Mrs. Pinder’s innocence, but if the part Lady Moron played
became public property, would also establish hers! That is the
explanation for what would seem at the most to be an indiscretion.

“As you know, Mary Pinder was tried, sentenced to death, and her
sentence commuted. In the prison her baby was born and taken in charge
by a neighbour friend--though for some reason it was announced in the
newspapers that the child of the ‘Hereford murderess’ had died. That,
at any rate, satisfied Lady Moron, and she made no attempt to verify
the story until she learnt by accident one day that Lois Reddle was
the missing girl. How she discovered this I do not pretend to know--I
am under the impression that one of her servants was connected with
the Reddle family.

“For years,” Mr. Shaddles went on, “I have been satisfied in my mind
that William was married, and have been trying to find his wife. I saw
him soon after he was dead, and there was a gold wedding ring on his
little finger, which was not there when he was buried. I also believed
that the child was alive, and sought her out. I found that she was
working at an office in Leith, and brought her down to my own office
so that she should be under my eye, and eventually engaged the
cleverest detective I could find to protect her. I then discovered
that Lady Moron had some inkling of her identity, and I confess I
hesitated when her ladyship suggested that the girl should go to her
house as secretary. It was only after consultation with Mr. Dorn that
I agreed. I had notified my suspicions to the Home Office, and a
special service officer, Sergeant Braime, had been planted in her
household to make enquiries, and to discover if she had been foolish
enough to preserve the suicide’s letter.”

He paused.

“I think that is all.”

“An excellent story,” said Lady Moron, “and in confirmation----”

She took something from her bag and threw it on the floor.

Dorn stooped and picked up the key and the letter, gave one quick
glance at its contents, and handed it to the lawyer.

“And now I have something else to say.” There was a dreadful silence.
The pistol was in her hand, and the safety-catch had been lowered.
“Most people in my position would commit suicide. But it will be very
poor satisfaction to me to go out of the world and leave my enemies to
triumph. I have a son--of sorts.” She smiled across the room to
Selwyn, and he met her gaze steadily. “I should not care to leave him
behind. Nor this wretched shop-girl”--her eyes sought Lois Reddle’s,
and instantly her mother was by her side, her frail body interposed
between the woman and her vengeance. “That is all,” said her ladyship.

And then Selwyn saw a look of horror come into his mother’s face. She
was staring at the doorway. Little Mackenzie, a tray in his hand, had
not seen the new visitor and he put down the tray with a chuckle.

“It’s a curious thing----” he said.

And then he saw the woman with the pistol.

“Martha!”

“My God!” she moaned. “I thought you were dead!”

The room was very quiet.

“I’d have recognised you if I hadn’t heard your fine, deep voice,”
said the old man, blinking at her. “It’s Martha, my wife--you’ve met
her, Mr. Shaddles?”

“I thought you were dead!” she said again, and the pistol dropped from
her nerveless hand.

 * * * * * * *

“The point is,” said the disconsolate Selwyn. “I am in a perfectly
painful position, old dear, I’m not Lord anybody; I suppose I’m a
Moron of sorts. I’m what you might term a naughty Moron. I’m really
not worried about the mater--she’s in the south of France, and she’s
jolly lucky she’s not in a hotter place! She’s been a perfectly
fearful mother to me, and I don’t suppose I shall ever see her again,
and I don’t jolly well want to! She’ll probably live to ninety--she’s
that kind of mother.”

“Don’t be silly, Selwyn. Of course it makes all the difference!” said
Lizzy. “If you’d asked me when you were a real lord and I was a
typist--I’m a typist still, for the matter of that--I simply couldn’t
have allowed you to ruin your career. As it is----”

They were walking along a quiet by-path of the park when suddenly
Lizzy caught him by the arm and swung him round.

“Not that way,” she said. “Here’s a path through the rhododendrons.
They’ll never think of coming round here, and there’s a perfectly
beautiful seat--and at this time of the morning there’s nobody about.
We can sit and talk----”

Michael saw the hasty retreat and smiled to himself.

“That’s the queerest aspect of the whole case.”

“Do you think so?” asked Lois, Countess of Moron. “I know lots of
things that are queerer. I had a bill this morning from Mr. Shaddles.
He has charged me one pound six shillings for the damage you did to
his Ford!”

“He never has?” said the admiring Michael. “What a man! He must have
spent ten thousand pounds on this case if he spent a penny. Most of
which,” he added, “went to me.”

“Do you feel repaid?” she asked.

He nodded.

“I shall when your ladyship has said ‘thank you.’”

“Haven’t I said that yet?” she demanded in feigned surprise. “And
please don’t say ‘ladyship’--you give me the creeps. Well, I’ll thank
you, now--no, not now.”

They paused at the end of a little path.

“Let us go down here,” she said. “I think I remember there’s a
shrubbery at the other end, and a garden seat, and it’s hardly likely
that at this time of day…”

 THE END




 TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

The Hodder and Stoughton Limited (1926) edition was consulted for
many of the changes listed below.

Minor spelling inconsistencies (_e.g._ liftman/lift-man,
prison-gate/prison gate, Whitcomb/Whitcombe, etc.) have been
preserved.

Alterations to the text:

Abandon the use of drop-caps.

Add ToC.

[Chapter Seven]

Change (“Even you must _given_ me some credit for my frankness.”) to
_give_.

[Chapter Thirteen]

(“Lizzy came promptly at six, bringing with her a…) delete the
quotation mark.

[Chapter Eighteen]

“periods of national rejoicing but here, in this shadowy place” add
semicolon after _rejoicing_.

[Chapter Twenty]

(“I’ve got a wife and four children,” he whined “and there’s an…)
add comma after _whined_.

[Chapter Twenty-one]

“in order to get even either with Mr. _Chester_ Praye or the Countess”
to _Chesney_.

[Chapter Twenty-five]

(“I want to see the master of this house,” said Michael Dorn!) change
the exclamation mark to a period.

[Chapter Twenty-six]

“he could not see the top windows of the _buildings_” to _building_.

[Chapter Twenty-seven]

“Dr. Tappatt had no intention of sending _of_ the police” to _for_.

[Chapter Twenty-eight]

“_Tappett_ forced a smile.” to _Tappatt_.

[Chapter Twenty-nine]

“He scowled at her as _he_ came in, noted her coat and her hat” to
_she_.

[Chapter Thirty]

“The farm takes _it_ name from the wood.” to _its_.

“steady echo of footsteps, as though somebody was _passing_ the floor”
to _pacing_.

[Chapter Thirty-three]

“be sensible and recognise the _sacrifies_ I am making for you” to
_sacrifices_.

[Chapter Thirty-six]

(“_It_ a curious thing----” he said.) to _It’s_.

[End of text]






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