The Evil Shepherd Part 38

"The man must have an interesting personality," a novelist who had joined the party observed. "Of course, you know that he was in prison for six months?"

"What for?" some one asked.

"Murder, only they brought it in manslaughter," was the terse reply.

"He killed his partner. It was many years ago, and no one knows all the facts of the story."

"I am not holding a brief for Sir Timothy," Francis remarked, as he sipped his c.o.c.ktail. "As a matter of fact, he and I are very much at cross-purposes. But as regards that particular instance, I am not sure that he was very much to be blamed, any more than you can blame any injured person who takes the law into his own hands."

"He isn't a man I should care to have for an enemy," Baker declared.

"Well, we'll shake the truth out of you fellows, somehow or other," one of the group threatened. "On Friday morning we are going to have the whole truth--none of this Masonic secrecy which Baker indulged in last year."

The men drifted in to luncheon and Francis, leaving them, took a taxi on to the Ritz. Looking about in the vestibule for Margaret, he came face to face with Lady Cynthia. She was dressed with her usual distinction in a gown of yellow muslin and a beflowered hat, and was the cynosure of a good many eyes.

"One would almost imagine, Lady Cynthia," he said, as they exchanged greetings, "that you had found that elixir we were talking about."

"Perhaps I have," she answered, smiling. "Are you looking for Margaret?

She is somewhere about. We were just having a chat when I was literally carried off by that terrible Lanchester woman. Let's find her."

They strolled up into the lounge. Margaret came to meet them. Her smile, as she gave Francis her left hand, transformed and softened her whole appearance.

"You don't mind my having asked Cynthia to lunch with us?" she said. "I really couldn't get rid of the girl. She came in to see me this morning the most aggressively cheerful person I ever knew. I believe that she had an adventure last night. All that she will tell me is that she dined and danced at Claridge's with a party of the dullest people in town."

A tall, familiar figure pa.s.sed down the vestibule. Lady Cynthia gave a little start, and Francis, who happened to be watching her, was amazed at her expression.

"Your father, Margaret!" she pointed out. "I wonder if he is lunching here."

"He told me that he was lunching somewhere with a South American friend--one of his partners, I believe," Margaret replied. "I expect he is looking for him."

Sir Timothy caught sight of them, hesitated for a moment and came slowly in their direction.

"Have you found your friend?" Margaret asked.

"The poor fellow is ill in bed," her father answered. "I was just regretting that I had sent the car away, or I should have gone back to Hatch End."

"Stay and lunch with us," Lady Cynthia begged, a little impetuously.

"I shall be very pleased if you will," Francis put in. "I'll go and tell the waiter to enlarge my table."

He hurried off. On his way back, a page-boy touched him on the arm.

"If you please, sir," he announced, "you are wanted on the telephone."

"I?" Francis exclaimed. "Some mistake, I should think. n.o.body knows that I am here."

"Mr. Ledsam," the boy said. "This way, sir."

Francis walked down the vestibule to the row of telephone boxes at the further end. The attendant who was standing outside, indicated one of them and motioned the boy to go away. Francis stepped inside. The man followed, closing the door behind him.

"I am asking your pardon, sir, for taking a great liberty," he confessed. "No one wants you on the telephone. I wished to speak to you."

Francis looked at him in surprise. The man was evidently agitated.

Somehow or other, his face was vaguely familiar.

"Who are you, and what do you want with me?" Francis asked.

"I was butler to Mr. Hilditch, sir," the man replied. "I waited upon you the night you dined there, sir--the night of Mr. Hilditch's death."

"Well?"

"I have a revelation to make with regard to that night, sir," the man went on, "which I should like to place in your hands. It is a very serious matter, and there are reasons why something must be done about it at once. Can I come and see you at your rooms, sir?"

Francis studied the man for a moment intently. He was evidently agitated--evidently, too, in very bad health. His furtive manner was against him. On the other hand, that might have arisen from nervousness.

"I shall be in at half-past three, number 13 b, Clarges Street," Francis told him.

"I can get off for half-an-hour then, sir," the man replied. "I shall be very glad to come. I must apologise for having troubled you, sir."

Francis went slowly back to his trio of guests. All the way down the carpeted vestibule he was haunted by the grim shadow of a spectral fear.

The frozen horror of that ghastly evening was before him like a hateful tableau. Hilditch's mocking words rang in his cars: "My death is the one thing in the world which would make my wife happy." The Court scene, with all its gloomy tragedy, rose before his eyes--only in the dock, instead of Hilditch, he saw another!

CHAPTER XXIX

There were incidents connected with that luncheon which Francis always remembered. In the first place, Sir Timothy was a great deal more silent than usual. A certain vein of half-cynical, half-amusing comment upon things and people of the moment, which seemed, whenever he cared to exert himself, to flow from his lips without effort, had deserted him.

He sat where the rather brilliant light from the high windows fell upon his face, and Francis wondered more than once whether there were not some change there, perhaps some prescience of trouble to come, which had subdued him and made him unusually thoughtful. Another slighter but more amusing feature of the luncheon was the number of people who stopped to shake hands with Sir Timothy and made more or less clumsy efforts to obtain an invitation to his coming entertainment. Sir Timothy's reply to these various hints was barely cordial. The most he ever promised was that he would consult with his secretary and see if their numbers were already full. Lady Cynthia, as a somewhat blatant but discomfited Peer of the Realm took his awkward leave of them, laughed softly.

"Of course, I think they all deserve what they get," she declared. "I never heard such brazen impudence in my life--from people who ought to know better, too."

Lord Meadowson, a sporting peer, who was one of Sir Timothy's few intimates, came over to the table. He paid his respects to the two ladies and Francis, and turned a little eagerly to Sir Timothy.

"Well?" he asked.

Sir Timothy nodded.

"We shall be quite prepared for you," he said. "Better bring your cheque-book."

"Capital!" the other exclaimed. "As I hadn't heard anything, I was beginning to wonder whether you would be ready with your end of the show."

"There will be no hitch so far as we are concerned," Sir Timothy a.s.sured him.

"More mysteries?" Margaret enquired, as Meadowson departed with a smile of satisfaction.

Her father shrugged his shoulders.

"Scarcely that," he replied. "It is a little wager between Lord Meadowson and myself which is to be settled to-morrow."