The King of Diamonds Part 42

"How long have they been here?"

"I cannot say. I was only called in four days ago."

They pa.s.sed a policeman patrolling his country beat. The doctor gave him an affable smile. The man saluted promptly, but looked after them with a puzzled air. He continued to watch them at intervals until they reached the Grange House.

Anson noticed that the track, it was a gate-guarded bridle path now, mounted steadily to the very threshold.

"The place stands on the edge of a cliff," he said.

"Yes. It was built by some recluse. The rock falls sheer, indeed slopes inwards to some extent, for three hundred feet."

"Some day, I suppose, it will fall into the sea?"

"Probably, but not in our time. Here we are. Just allow me to hitch the reins to the gatepost."

He jumped lightly out of the dogcart.

"Are there no servants?"

"Only an old woman and her daughter. They are busy at this hour."

Philip understood that a meal might be in preparation. He hoped not; personally, he could not eat there.

Dr. Williams pressed the latch of an old-fas.h.i.+oned door. He whispered:

"Be as quiet as possible. He may be asleep; if he is, it will not be for long, poor fellow."

Indeed the doctor himself betrayed some slight agitation now. He perspired somewhat, and his hand shook.

Anson followed him into a somber apartment, crudely furnished, half dining room, half kitchen. Though the light of a June evening was clear enough outside, the interior of the house was gloomy in the extreme.

There were some dark curtains shrouding a doorway.

"Lady Morland is in there," murmured the doctor, brokenly. "Will you go to her?"

Philip obeyed in silence. He pa.s.sed through the curtains. It was so dark that he imagined he must be in a pa.s.sage with a door at the other end.

"Can't I have a light?" he asked, partly turning toward the room he had just quitted.

In the neglected garden at the landward front of the Grange House the horse stood patiently on three legs, ruminating, no doubt, on the steepness of hills and the excellence of pastures.

Nearly an hour pa.s.sed thus, in solemn quietude. Then a boy on a bicycle, red-faced with exertion, pedaled manfully up the hill, and through the gate.

"I hope he's here," thought he. "It's a long way to coom for nothin'."

Around his waist was a strap with a pouch bearing the king's monogram.

He ran up to the door and gave a couple of thunderous knocks, the privileged rat-tat of a telegraph messenger.

There was a long delay. Then a heavy step approached, and a man opened the door, a big, heavy-faced man, with eyes that stared dreadfully, and a nose damaged in life's transit.

"Philip Anson, Esquire," said the boy, briskly, producing a buff-colored envelope.

The man seemed to swallow something.

"Yes; he's here. Is that for him?"

"Yes, sir. Any reply?"

The man took the telegram, closed the door, and the boy heard his retreating footsteps. After some minutes he returned.

"It's too late to reply to-night, isn't it?" he inquired.

"Yes, sir. It coom'd after hours, but they'd paid t' porterage i'

Lunnon, so t' postmistress said ye'd mebbe like to hev it at yance. I've ridden all t' way frae Scarsdale."

Late that evening, when the protracted gloaming of the north was fast yielding to the shadows of a cloudy night, the big man from the Grange House drove into Scarsdale. He pulled up at the Fox and Hounds public house. He wanted Mr. Green.

Anson's valet came.

"Your master says you are to bring his portmanteau to the Grange House to-night. He intends remaining there. You must get the landlord to sit up until you return. It will take you an hour and a half to drive both ways."

Green was ready in five minutes. He learned that a stable boy must crouch at their feet to bring the dogcart back. It was the property of the Fox and Hounds' proprietor.

Very unwillingly the horse swung off again toward the moor. There was little conversation. The driver was taciturn, the Londoner somewhat scared by the dark loneliness.

At the Grange House they were met by Philip Anson. He stood in the open doorway. He held a handkerchief to his lips and spoke in a husky voice, the voice of one under the stress of great agitation:

"That you, Green? Just give my bag to the driver and return to the village. Here is a five-pound note. Pay your bill and go back to London by the first train to-morrow. I stop here some few days."

The astonished servant took the note. Before he could reply, his master turned, crossed a room feebly lighted by a dull lamp, and pa.s.sed through a curtained doorway.

Green was staring perplexedly at the house, the kitchen, his ill-favored companion carrying Philip's portmanteau within, when he heard his master's voice again, and saw him standing between the partly drawn curtains, with his face quite visible in the dim rays of the lamp.

"Green?"

"Yes, sir."

"Here are my keys. Unlock the bag and take the keys with you. You remember the small portmanteau in my safe at Park Lane?"

"Yes, sir."

"Open the safe, get that bag, and send it to me to-morrow night by train to the Station Hotel, York."

"To-morrow night, sir?"

"Yes."

The keys were thrown with a rattle onto a broad kitchen table. Evidently Mr. Anson would not brook questions as to his movements, though his few words sounded contradictory. Green got down, unfastened the portmanteau and went back to the dogcart.