The Sign of the Stranger Part 13

As she sat there, her veil raised, coolly discussing such things as stalls, stall-holders, fancy needlework and church expenses, she smiled sweetly and certainly did not in the least present the woeful picture that she had done as we pa.s.sed through the Chase. They even discussed the tragic discovery in the park. With the well-bred woman's natural tact she could control her outward appearance marvellously. The wife of the estimable rector would certainly never have dreamed the subject of our conversation a quarter of an hour before. They strolled across the tennis lawn together, and her neat figure and graceful swinging carriage was surely not that of a woman suspected of a heartless and brutal a.s.sa.s.sination.

Yet when I argued coldly and methodically with myself; when I recollected her admission, and her eager anxiety to get rid of those boots with the small high heels, I could not disguise from myself the hard fact that if she were not the actual a.s.sa.s.sin she was, at any rate, an accessory.

There had been some strong motive why that young man should die. That was plain, and without the slightest shadow of doubt.

I strolled beside the pair in the garden until my love took leave of her hostess, and then we walked home in the calm golden glow of the sundown.

Before the dressing-bell rang I surrept.i.tiously carried my old suit-case, empty, up to her room, and half-an-hour later fetched it down. It was packed full of all her French boots, and having locked it securely I tied upon it an address-label inscribed to myself to be left at St Pancras cloak-room "till called for." Then I rang for a servant, and dispatched it to Kettering station.

The blazing August days went slowly by. The body of the nameless victim had been laid in its grave in Sibberton churchyard, and the inquiries conducted by the obsequious Redway resulted in nothing. As was to be expected, he and his a.s.sistants haunted the village continually, endeavouring to gather all they could, but fortunately no suspicion was cast upon the sweet woman whom I loved. An active search was made for the boots with the Louis XV heels, in which Pink, the doctor, joined, but it never once occurred to them that they had belonged to Lolita.

Or, if it did, the theory had no doubt been dismissed as a wild and unfounded one.

Eager to escape from the place which was undoubtedly so full of tragic memory, Lolita, in the early days of September, went up to Strathpeffer to stay with her aunt, Lady Clayton, as was her habit each year.

On the morning just before she left, however, she came to my room ready dressed for her departure, and again, for the first time since our walk to Stanion, referred to the tragedy.

"Recollect, Willoughby, I am now entirely in your hands," she said, standing at the window with her eyes fixed aimlessly across the broad level park. "I cannot bear to remain here now, for I feel every moment that I am being watched, suspected--that one day that awful person Redway will enter my room with--perhaps a warrant for my arrest."

"There is no evidence," I pointed out, first ascertaining that there were no eavesdroppers in the corridor outside. "We have been able to efface everything. The police are utterly puzzled."

"Thanks to you," she said, turning her great blue eyes sweetly upon me.

Surely she did not at the moment present the appearance of a murderess, and yet the circ.u.mstances all pointed to one fact--that there was a motive in the death of that young man who had remained unidentified.

"You told me the other day," she went on, "that the necklet had been p.a.w.ned. My connexion with the poor young fellow may be established through that. You see I do not conceal my fears from you, Willoughby-- my only friend," she added.

"You need fear nothing in that direction," I responded. "I purchased the necklet, and I have it at this moment safely at home."

"You have!" she cried, a great weight lifted from her mind. "Ah! you seem to have left nothing undone to secure my safety."

"For the reason I explained to you on the night of the unfortunate affair," I responded, taking her small soft hand in mine and raising it slowly to my lips. She did not attempt to withdraw it. She only sighed, and a slight s.h.i.+ver ran through her as my lips came in contact with her fingers. What did that shudder mean?

Was it that I was actually kissing the hand that had committed murder?

"Lolita!" I said a moment later when I had crushed from my heart the gradually increasing suspicion. "You have received from the innkeeper, Warr, a letter left for you by a rough uncouth stranger."

"Ah," she sighed, "I have. Richard Keene has returned! You don't know what that means to me."

"The letter contained news that has filled you with serious apprehension, then?"

"It contained certain information that is utterly astonis.h.i.+ng!"

I explained how I had seen the stranger and overheard his conversation with Warr, whereupon she said--

"I expected that he would return, but it seems that he does not intend to do so. He fears, perhaps, to call upon me--just as I fear that he may reveal the truth."

For some time I was silent, pretending to occupy myself with some papers, but truth to tell I was considering whether the question I wished to put to her was really a judicious one. At last I decided to speak and make a bold demand. Therefore I said--

"And now, Lolita, that I have rendered you all the a.s.sistance I can, I want to ask you one single plain question--I want you to answer me truthfully, because what you tell me may in the future be of greatest a.s.sistance to me. Recollect that in this affair I am combating the efforts of the police, therefore I wish to know the name of the man who is dead."

"His name!" she exclaimed, looking straight at me. "His name--why do you wish to ascertain that?"

"First, because of curiosity, and, secondly, because in dealing with your enemies it will give me advantage if I am aware of facts of which they are in ignorance."

But she shook her head, while her brows knit slightly, by which I knew that she was firm.

"Your knowledge of the affair is surely sufficient, Willoughby," was her answer. "You see in me a miserable woman, haunted by the shadow of a crime, a woman whom the world holds in high esteem but who merits only disgrace and death. You pity me--you say that you love me! Well, if that is so--if you pity me, and your love is really sincere, you will at least have compa.s.sion upon me and allow me to retain one secret, even from you--the secret of that man's name!"

"Then you refuse to satisfy me," I exclaimed in bitter disappointment.

"Is it a proof of love and confidence to wring from a woman a name which is her secret alone?" she asked reprovingly.

"But I am trying to act as your protector," I argued.

"Then have patience," she urged. "His name does not concern you. He is dead, and his secret--which was also my secret--has gone with him to the grave." Then, almost in the same breath, she bade me farewell, and a few moments later I saw the station-brougham receding down the long avenue.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THE YOUNG COUNTESS MAKES A STATEMENT.

The harvest had been garnered and on the glorious "first" the young Countess returned from the Continent, just in time to receive her annual house-party.

The instant she arrived Sibberton always put on an air of gaiety which it never wore during her absence. Full of verve and go, she lived only for excitement and pleasure, and always declared the Hall as dull as a convent if it were not full of those clever, well-known people who const.i.tuted her own particular set. Therefore she seldom brightened the place with her presence unless she brought in her train a dozen or so merry men and women of the distinctly up-to-date type, some of whom were fas.h.i.+onable enough to have scandal attached to their names.

Has it ever occurred to you that feminine beauty in the higher circle of society is unfortunately, but very surely, deteriorating? It is remarkable how the type has of late years changed. When our grandmothers were celebrated and toasted in old port as beauties, quite a different ideal reigned. The toast was then something _pet.i.te_, womanly, of a pink complexion, of a delicious plumpness and animated by a lively and natural emotionalism. But with the introduction of athletic, open-air exercise, motors and mannish achievements, we have developed an entirely different type.

The modern athletic girl is generally ugly. She begins early, and continues till after her marriage to cycle, shoot, ride and play golf and tennis, all of which ruin her figure and consequently her health.

She shoots up tall, flat-chested, colourless and lacking in reasonable proportions, with one hip larger than the other if she rides regularly to hounds. She becomes wried and atrophied by rough wear and unseemly habits, and the womanly delicacy shrinks and withers from the form of health and beauty.

Glance over any social function in town or country, any meet of hounds, or any shooting-party where ladies are included, and you will not fail to recognise how women, by overtaxing their physique, are fading and gradually becoming as.e.xual.

The Countess of Stanchester's house-parties were always merry ones, and generally included an Amba.s.sador or two, a Cabinet Minister, a few good shots, and a number of ladies of various ages. The gigantic place was liberty hall, and both the young Earl and his wife carried out to the letter the traditions of the n.o.ble house for boundless hospitality.

There was no better shooting in all the Midlands than that furnished by the Earl of Stanchester's huge estate, extending as it did for nearly thirty miles in one direction; and the bags were always very huge ones.

Twenty-eight guests arrived on the same day that the young Countess returned home, and dinner that night was served as it always was on the first night of the shooting-season, upon the historic service of gold plate presented by Queen Elizabeth to the first Earl of Stanchester. I was invited to dine, and after music in the blue drawing-room retired with the men to the cosy panelled smoking-room with the grotesque carvings over the mantelshelf.

Many were the anecdotes and low the laughter, until at about midnight I rose and went back to my study, intending to get through some correspondence before retiring.

I suppose I must have been writing half-an-hour when the door opened and the Countess entered, greeting me merrily, saying--

"Well, Mr Woodhouse! I've had no time to talk to you to-night. And how have you been all this time?"

"As usual," I responded, smiling, for notwithstanding her faults she was so beautiful, merry and witty that her companions.h.i.+p was always pleasant. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Yes. I want you, please, to send out cards for dinner next Tuesday to this list." And she handed me half a sheet of note-paper on which she had hastily scribbled some names. "These county people, as they call themselves, are a fearful bore, and their women-folk are a terribly dowdy lot, but I suppose I must have them. It's only once a year--thank Heaven."

I laughed, for I knew that outside her own set she had withering sarcasm for the lower grade of society. With poor people she was always pleasant and popular, but with that little circle which called itself "the county," and which consisted of hard-up "squires," country parsons, men who had made money in the city and had bought properties, and the tea-and-tennis womankind that came in their wake, she had no common bond. They were a slow, narrow-minded lot who held up their hands at what she would term a harmless game at baccarat, and would be horror-stricken at tennis-playing or even bridge on Sundays.

Yet from time immemorial these people had been invited to dine at the Hall once during the shooting-season, and it was her husband's wish that all the old customs of his n.o.ble house should be strictly observed. For hospitality, the house of Stanchester had always been noteworthy. The Earl's grandfather, whom many aged villagers in Sibberton could still remember, used to keep open house every Friday night, and any of his friends could come up to the Hall and dine with him at six o'clock, providing they left or sent their cards on the previous day, in order that the cook should know how many guests would be present. It was the one evening in the week when his lords.h.i.+p entertained all his hunting friends, and on that day he did them royally for the port was declared the best in the country.