Half A Chance Part 16

CHAPTER X

A CONTEST

A few days pa.s.sed; the usual round of pastimes inseparable from house parties served to while away the hours; other guests arrived, one or two went. Lord Ronsdale had greeted John Steele perfunctorily; the other's manner was likewise mechanically courteous. It could not very well have been otherwise; a number of people were near.

"Come down for a little sport?" the n.o.bleman, his hands carelessly thrust into the pockets of his shooting trousers, had asked with a frosty smile.

"Perhaps--if there is any!" Steele allowed his glance for the fraction of a moment to linger on Lord Ronsdale's face.

"I'll answer for that." A slight pause ensued. "Decided rather suddenly to run down, didn't you?"

"Rather."

"Heard you were on the continent. From Sir Charles, don't you know.

Pleasant time, I trust?" he drawled.

"Thank you!" John Steele did not answer directly. "Your solicitude," he laughed, "honors me--my Lord!"

And that had been all, all the words spoken, at least. To the others there had been nothing beneath the surface between them; for the time the two men const.i.tuted but two figures in a social gathering.

A rainy spell put a stop to outdoor diversions; for twenty-four hours now the party had been thrown upon their own resources, to devise such indoor amus.e.m.e.nt as occurred to them. Strathorn House, however, was large; it had its concert stage, a modern innovation; its armory hall and its ball-room. Pleasure seekers could and did find here ample facilities for entertaining themselves.

The second morning of the dark weather discovered two of the guests in the oak-paneled smoking-room of Strathorn House. One of them brushed the ash from his cigar meditatively and then stretched himself more comfortably in the great leather chair.

"No fox-hunt or fis.h.i.+ng for any of us to-day," he remarked with a yawn.

The other, who had been gazing through a window at a prospect of dripping leaves and leaden sky, answered absently; then his attention centered itself on the small figure of a boy coming up through the avenue of trees toward a side entrance.

"Believe I shall run over to Germany very soon, Steele," went on the first speaker.

"Indeed?" John Steele's brows drew together; the appearance of the lad was vaguely familiar. He remembered him now, the hostler boy at the Golden Lion.

"Yes; capital case coming on in the criminal courts there."

"And you don't want to miss it, Forsythe?"

"Not I! Weakness of mine, as you know. Most people look to novels or plays for entertainment; I find mine in the real drama, unfolded every day in the courts of justice."

Forsythe paused as if waiting for some comment from his companion, but none came. John Steele watched the boy; he waved a paper in his hand and called with easy familiarity to a housemaid in an open window above:

"Telegram from London, Miss. My master at the Golden Lion said there'd be a sixpence here for delivering it!"

"Well, I'll be down in a moment, Impudence."

The silence that followed was again broken by Captain Forsythe's voice: "There are one or two features in this German affair that remind me of another case, some years back--one of our own--that interested me."

"Ah?" The listener's tone was only politely interrogatory.

"A case here in London--perhaps you have heard of it? The murder of a woman, once well-known before the footlights, by a one-time champion of the ring--the 'Frisco Pet, I think he was called."

The other moved slightly; his back had been toward Forsythe; he now half-turned. "Yea, I have heard of it," he said slowly, after a pause.

"But why should this case across the water interest you; because it is like--this other one you mention?"

"Because I once puzzled a bit over that one; investigated it somewhat on my own account, don't you know."

"In what way?" Steele's manner was no longer indifferent. "I'm rather familiar with some of the details myself," he added.

"Then it attracted you, too, as an investigator?" murmured the captain in a gratified tone. "For your book, perhaps?"

"Not exactly. But you haven't yet told me," in a keen, alert tone, "why you looked into it, 'on your own account.' It seems simple, obvious. Not of the kind that would attract one fond of nice criminal problems."

"That is just it," said Captain Forsythe, rising. "It was, perhaps, a little too simple! too obvious."

"How," demanded John Steele, "can a matter of this sort be too obvious?

But," bending his eyes on the other, "you attended the trial of this fellow?" His tone vibrated a little oddly.

"The last part of it; wasn't in England when it first came on; and what I heard of it raised some questions and doubts in my mind. Not that I haven't the greatest respect for English justice! However, I didn't think much more about the case until a good many months later, when chance alone drew my attention more closely to it."

"Chance?"

"Was down in the country--jolly good trout district--when one night, while riding my favorite hobby, I happened to get on this almost-forgotten case of the 'Frisco Pet. Whereupon the landlord of the inn where I put up, informed me that one of the villagers in this identical little town had been landlady at the place where the affair occurred."

"The woman who testified no one had been to her place that night except--" John Steele spoke sharply.

"This fellow? Quite so." Captain Forsythe walked up and down. "Now, I'd always had a little theory. Could never get out of my mind one sentence this poor, ignorant fellow uttered at the trial. 'Seems as if I could remember a man's face, a stranger's, that looked into mine that night, your Lords.h.i.+p, but I ain't exactly c.o.c.k-sure!' 'Ain't exactly c.o.c.k-sure,'" repeated Captain Forsythe. "That's what caught me. Would a man, not telling the truth, be not quite 'c.o.c.k-sure'; or would he testify to the face as a fact?" The other did not answer. "So the impression grew on me. Can you understand?"

"Hum! Very interesting, Forsythe; very ingenious; quite plausible!"

"Now you're laughing at me, Steele?"

"On the contrary, my dear fellow, go on."

"The landlady's testimony excluded the face, made it a figment of an imagination, disordered by drink!" Captain Forsythe waved his hand airily as he stepped back and forth.

"You went to see this woman?"

"Out of curiosity, and found she was, indeed, the same person. She seemed quite ill and feeble; I talked with her about an hour that day.

Tried in every way to get her to remember she had possibly let in some other person that night, but--"

"But?"

"Bless you, she stuck to her story," laughed Captain Forsythe. "Couldn't move her an iota." One of the listener's arms fell to his side; his hand closed hard. "Quite bowled over my little theory, don't you know! Of course I told myself it didn't matter; the man convicted was gone, drowned. However,--" he broke off. A swish of silk was heard in the hallway; Forsythe stopped before the door.

"Ah, Miss Jocelyn! Haven't you a word in pa.s.sing?"