Parlous Times Part 46

"By all means."

"Shall I turn out the electric lights in the smoking-room?"

"Yes, we're evidently the last."

A moment later they stood on the upper landing about to separate for the night.

"The woman was behind that screen at the foot of the stairs," said Kent-Lauriston.

"Yes, I know," replied the Secretary.

"Good-night, my dear Stanley."

"Good-night, old man. You possess a rare talent."

"Yes?"

"You know when not to ask questions."

CHAPTER XXVI

FACE TO FACE

When Kent-Lauriston had disappeared in his bedroom, and closed the door, the Secretary, extinguis.h.i.+ng his own candle, turned on his heel, and walked slowly back to the head of the stairs. It was easy to preserve an unruffled demeanour before his friend, but he was far from being as calm as he appeared.

All was not right in the house, he knew. Some mischief was afoot, and he meant to find out what it was, even though he dared not admit to himself some of the possibilities which it suggested.

He softly descended the stairs. Everything was silent. He moved the screen; the s.p.a.ce behind it was vacant. Suddenly, his eye fell upon the smoking-room door, and he drew in his breath softly. There was a line of light showing under the crack. Yet he could have sworn that Kent-Lauriston had turned off the switch, and while he stood hesitating as to what it was best to do, a soft breath of wind upon his cheek caused him to make another discovery. The great front door was open. He stepped softly down the hall, and going out under the porte-cochere, cast his eyes over the driveway. No one was in sight. He was about to return to the house when he heard light steps coming down the hall.

Drawing back into the shadow to escape observation, he waited. Someone was evidently leaving the house. A moment later, a hand was lightly laid upon the door, and it was closed behind him, before he could realise what was happening. He was shut out into the night.

His first impulse was to ring sharply for a.s.sistance. Second thoughts showed him the foolishness of such an attempt. It would be merely apprising the intruders of his presence, and long before a servant could be aroused and the bell could be answered, they would have made their escape.

The Secretary judged that shutting him out was unintentional. The persons, whoever they were, had hidden somewhere, till he had gone upstairs, had then slipped into the smoking-room, probably to arrange their plans, and coming out while he was on the lawn, and seeing the door ajar, had closed it, quite unconscious that by so doing they were putting their pursuer in a very awkward predicament.

However, the Secretary told himself that there was nothing to prevent him from seeing what was going on in the hall, and he hastened to make his way round to the side of the house where there were several large windows opening into that apartment. He had picked his way across several flower-beds, and was just turning the corner to approach the house when he was startled by seeing a dark figure loom up beside him, and feeling a hand lightly laid on his shoulder, and a whispered word of caution to be silent. Almost involuntarily, however, he exclaimed:--

"Inez! You here, and at this hour."

"s.h.!.+" she said, "There are listeners. I, like you, am watching."

"Who are you watching?" he asked, softly.

"My husband."

"Your husband?"

"Yes," she replied. "Why has he entered this house secretly every night since he has been here?"

"You amaze me," said the Secretary. "How has it been possible for him to get in?"

"He has been aided by someone who opens the door for him."

"A man?"

"No, a woman."

The Secretary whistled softly.

"Well," he said, "we'll probe this mystery to the bottom. I, too, have heard suspicious noises in the pa.s.sages to-night, and, coming down, after I had retired, to find out what they were, I was shut out from within, though I don't think they were aware of my presence. We must go round on the outside and see what we can through the windows."

"You can't," she said. "The approaches are protected by an iron fence with spikes."

"But surely there's a gate?"

"Yes, but it's always padlocked."

"We'll have a look at it, any way," he replied; and they approached and examined it closely.

The Secretary rattled the lock cautiously and found it old and shaky.

"I think I could smash this with a couple of bits of flint," he said, "and if I have a new lock put on at my own expense, my hostess will, under the circ.u.mstances, probably forgive me." And suiting the action to the word, he managed, by a few judicious blows, with two bits of stone, picked up from the driveway, to bend the hasp of the lock sufficiently to release it.

There being no further impediment to their progress they hastened through the gardens, and a moment later were standing outside one of the great hall windows whose lower panes were on a level with their faces.

They could distinctly see three people, but their glances were riveted on a circle of light farther up the hall, a circle that s.h.i.+fted and danced over the surface of the secret door, flas.h.i.+ng on the heads of the silver nails; a circle that was made by the lens of a small bull's-eye lantern, held in the grasp of a crouching figure whose back was turned towards them. By his side were two others, apparently a man and a woman, who seemed to be directing him at his work. For several minutes the little group presented their backs to the spectators, but at an incautious step of the Secretary's, which caused a dry twig to crackle, they all turned sharply round, the owner of the lantern throwing its rays full on the window outside which they were standing. The watchers drew back, in time evidently to escape detection, for the absence of footsteps and the recurrence, after a moment, of the curious sounds which Stanley had noticed from the smoking-room, a.s.sured him that they had once more returned to their work. The lantern, however, though it had failed to discover them, had, for a brief second, illumined the faces of the intruders, and both the Secretary and Madame Darcy recognised the trio. The man at work on the door was the Colonel; his a.s.sistants were Mr. Riddle and Miss Fitzgerald. The Secretary's worst suspicions were confirmed, and a smothered sob at his side told him that the discovery had inflicted no less keen a pang on his companion. She slipped down in a little heap on the ground, and he dropped on his knees beside her, whispering such consolation as he could without running the risk of being overheard.

"I knew it must be so," she said, "and yet I hoped against hope that he was not guilty of this last infamy."

Suddenly another thought seemed to have occurred to her.

"You knew," she said. "You must have known, and yet you did not tell me."

"My dear Inez," he said. "How could I, when my suspicions were directed against your own husband?"

"But why do I think of myself?" she said. "I am nothing. But it is you--you, that my heart bleeds for. I, too, concealed my suspicions for your sake."

"And you can think of me," he said, "at a time like this?"

"Of course," she replied. "Yours is the greater sorrow. I knew that my husband was bad--worthless--capable of anything. My eyes are only proving what my reason told me must be so. But with you, it is so much harder. This is the woman you loved, and, whom loving, you must have made your ideal. And now to find that she is--this." And she pressed his hand silently.

"Don't talk about it," said the Secretary.

"You don't quite understand."

"But what is to be done?" she said.