The House of Strange Secrets Part 15

"This," said Laurence, seeing fit to disguise the real truth, "is a friend of mine who happened to be staying in the village. As he has had some experience of nursing, he was good enough to offer his services on hearing of your illness. While you were unconscious he rendered Mrs.

Featherston valuable a.s.sistance. Now you are better, he will, of course, leave you. I will accompany him to the door, Father, and then will come back and see you again. Is your neck very bad?"

"It's very sore and weak, my boy. That's a good lad, go and show your friend out, and thank him for his kindness. Then return to me for a little talk. Mrs. Featherston, please stay until Mr. Laurence returns."

"Now, sir," said young Carrington, when, with the detective, he had left the sick-room, "are you quite convinced of your absurd blunder?"

"I am, and I sincerely regret it, Mr. Laurence," replied the man from Burton's. "It's not often that I err. When I do I feel it--feel it, sir, deeply. I am obliged to you for your kindness in withholding the truth from your father. I shouldn't like Squire Carrington to think me incompetent, though for that matter----"

"We won't refer to the subject any further, Mr. Potter. I will now draw you a cheque and wish you a very good day, regretting that your valuable services are no longer required."

A few minutes later the detective was ready to depart.

"Glad to have made your acquaintance, sir," he said, as he stood on the doorstep. "I suppose I may use your name as a reference? Perhaps you may require my a.s.sistance another time. Here is my card. If you should ever want me again that address will always find me. By the way, I'm of a forgiving nature, and always like to help young amateur investigators--give them encouragement, you know. Well, I've left a clue to the mystery behind in a cardboard box in the cupboard of the Squire's room. Don't thank me--anything to help a young friend. Fine day, isn't it?" And Mr. Oliver Potter, late of Scotland Yard, walked briskly out of the house, upsetting the umbrella stand as he went, and chuckling beneath his breath.

"Thank Heaven, he's gone!" muttered Laurence. "If ever there existed a greater bore than our friend from Burton's I shouldn't care to meet him."

He returned to the bedroom, and relieved Mrs. Featherston, taking a seat by his father's side.

"Daddy," he said, when the door closed upon the genial housekeeper, "I'm playing the part of an amateur detective. My one aim just now is to get to the bottom of the mystery of the two determined attacks on your life.

It's no use for you to try to deceive me. You have some deep secret--something is haunting you every moment of your existence; and I shall not rest until I have discovered what it is."

"Laurence, don't, don't try! It's for your own sake that I ask it of you. When I am dead you will know all. Until then, do not try to discover what is not meant for you to learn. I want you to love and respect your father while he lives. Therefore do as I beg of you."

"Don't talk like that, Daddy," said Laurence, gently, "as if anything could alter my feelings towards you. Is this secret anything that concerns my--mother?"

"No, my boy, thank G.o.d, it is not!"

"Then answer me this; have you ever heard of a Doctor Meadows?"

"Meadows! No. But why, Laurence?"

"Or a Major Jones-Farnell?"

"No, no! But----"

"Or of a fellow named Horncastle?" pursued the younger man.

"Never!"

"Then, have you ever mentioned anything about the matter which you wish to keep a secret from me to a living soul?"

"Why all these questions, Laurence? You know now that I have a secret, so there is no need for me to deny it. I have never before now breathed a word of this to a single soul, with the exception of one person."

"And he?"

"He is dead. My secret lies within my own heart. No cross-questioning shall drag it from me."

"One thing more, then I will not speak to you again for a little while, because you must be kept quite quiet. Were you ever in India? If so, did you happen to meet there a Major Carrington, of Madras?"

With startling suddenness the sick man darted up in his bed. He stared silently at his son for a moment, terror plainly imprinted upon his features. Then, still speechless, he collapsed again upon the pillows.

Presently he turned his face away, so that he could no longer see his son, whose words had so visibly concerned him.

"I am very tired, Laurence," he said, peevishly. "You have talked too long already. I must ask you to leave the room. Please do not annoy me any further with this absurd cross-questioning."

CHAPTER XXII

WHOSE WAS THE WRITING?

After being practically dismissed from his father's sick-room Laurence went in search of Lena, whom he found in the garden with Mrs. Knox. The good lady had fallen off into a convenient doze in a comfortable deck-chair, so her niece welcomed the new-comer's arrival with pleasure.

"Let us come for a little stroll," suggested the girl. Needless to say, Laurence gladly concurred.

"Well," Lena began, "I am dying to hear if the Squire said anything to you--anything of importance, I mean, of course."

"Yes, he did. He satisfied me upon one point, concerning which I was much troubled. His inviolate secret has nothing to do with my mother, as I feared--though I did not mention it to you--that it might. One discovery of importance I have made. That is, though he didn't say it in so many words, he made it very evident to me that he had at some period or other been in India."

"Ah, then you still think that Mr. Meadows is responsible for these attacks on his life?"

"Oh, no, I don't go so far as that," was Laurence's reply; "but I argue thus. According to your friend, the person who presumably set fire to the Marquis's house was of black complexion; but whereas we believed that it must be a woman, because it wore garments like skirts, we now learn on Meadows' authority that it was a man--a man in coloured skirts.

We therefore naturally concluded it must be some foreigner. Now I come to think of it, the face of the highwayman on the moor gave me the impression of being remarkably dark. The agility he displayed in the barn was further proof of his being semi-civilised, for you know that many of the coloured races can boast of agility that with us would seem nothing short of marvellous. Then we learn from Doctor Meadows that many years ago he knew my father--apparently intimately. One of the most noticeable features of Durley Dene is, you will agree, the Oriental fittings of the only room into which we have been shown. The conclusion one naturally draws is that Meadows has travelled, or more likely lived, in Oriental countries. Putting two and two together, I deemed it possible that Meadows might have made my father's acquaintance when abroad. Now, you will recollect my telling you that, on the occasion of my first visit to the Dene, Meadows mentioned that he once knew a Major Carrington at Madras. Nevertheless, when he learned that my father was not a soldier, he distinctly said he could not have ever met the Squire.

On the other occasion he equally distinctly stated that he had known my father before. He was, as you will remember, even able to describe his appearance. What does all this lead you to presume--to deduct, as our friend Potter would say?"

"I must confess that I am stupid enough not to see what you are driving at, in spite of your lucid reasoning," replied Lena.

"Why, this, that Major Carrington, of Madras, and Squire Carrington, of the Manse, Northden, are not merely namesakes, but one and the same person!"

"Good gracious me!" exclaimed Lena. "You clever boy! And you mean to say that the Squire is an army man, and yet not even his son knows it?"

"That is so, according to reasoning in which I can see no flaw, at present. I asked him just now whether he had ever been in India, and, if so, whether he had met a certain Major Carrington at Madras."

"Yes, and what did he say?"

"He could not answer. He was plainly terrified by the question, and without further parley dismissed me on the ground that I was tiring him by conversation. No; of this I am confident, there's something very deep and mysterious about the whole business. One thing has been bothering me a good deal. Were we right in making that promise to Doctor Meadows? Is he really unconnected with our mystery, as he would try to make out?

Does it not seem most improbable that there should be two men with closely guarded secrets occupying houses adjoining one another in a peaceful little country village? Yet there was something so sincere about the way in which he spoke that one could not help believing him.

Now, in the recent conversation I had with my father, he told me that the only person who ever knew anything about his secret (except, of course, the creature who is responsible for the attempt on his life) is dead. Yet Meadows claims a knowledge of that secret. One of the two is not adhering to the truth. Naturally, I am inclined to think that Meadows is this one, though I confess it appears possible that my father might not be too careful about speaking the whole truth if he feared by so doing to place in my hand a clue to the revelation of his secret.

But, supposing that Meadows' knowledge of my father is not of such a kind as he would lead us to believe it to be, have we not, perhaps, acted unwisely in confiding in him to so great an extent? And the discovery that the servant's real name is Horncastle; what do you make of that?"

"I feel very much inclined," replied Lena, "to think that he is what Kingsford calls 'the' Horncastle, the man who was sent to prison for daring robbery about a year ago, and who escaped from Dartmoor six or eight months since. Oh, to think that you were in the clutches of such a creature, Laurence, and that you were practically alone with him in that dark house! Why, didn't they say that he was suspected of some murder out at Swiss Cottage? Yes, I'm sure they did. But what can he be doing in Durley Dene? Is he in hiding there? If so, perhaps that is the secret of the house. But it cannot be. There is something far deeper than that in the mystery of Durley Dene."

"I can easily prove that that is but a part of the mystery," said Laurence. "You remember how Horncastle said to me when I threatened to report him, 'Do you think I care whether you tell the doctor? He's nothing to me.' Well, to my mind, that remark implies that, instead of fearing his master (if he is actually such), he has the whip hand of Meadows. Why? Because he alone knows the doctor's mysterious secret. He realises, of course, that the master of Durley Dene dares not expose him or hand him over to justice as an escaped convict for fear that Horncastle, in his turn, will reveal to the world his secret, which, according to Meadows himself, would electrify the world and prove one of the greatest sensations of the day. Thus we now know why Horncastle wears a woman's disguise when walking abroad, because, were he not to do so, he might be identified by anyone who had seen his portrait, copies of which were posted outside every police-station in the kingdom, with a notice to the effect that anyone apprehending Thomas Horncastle or giving such evidence as shall lead to his apprehension will be amply rewarded!"

"Really, Laurence," said his companion gaily, "you're quite smart. We are, I am certain, at any rate well started in our investigation of this maze of mysteries. But what have we here?"

The last remark was caused by the fluttering of a sc.r.a.p of white paper, on which Lena's eye chanced as the young pair strolled down a path bounded on one side by the palisade dividing the garden from that of Durley Dene.