The Sign of the Stranger Part 16

THE TRACK OF THE TRUTH.

When the Countess had gone, leaving behind her a sweet breath of "Ideale," that newest invention of the Parisian perfumer, I sat with my elbows idly upon the table, pondering over her strange words and becoming more than ever puzzled.

Beauty may be only skin-deep, yet it makes a very deep impression. The brilliant woman who was my dear friend's wife had never captivated me.

Nevertheless I had seen in her a genuine desire for reform and had therefore given her my promise. Still the mystery of it all seemed to increase, instead of diminish.

The Earl of Stanchester had, of course, seen the dead man on the morning after the discovery, but had not recognised him. At least it was quite clear that he had no suspicion whatever of who the young man really might be.

From a drawer I took that piece of paper with those puzzling numerals upon it which I had managed to obtain in secret. The cipher was, however, utterly unreadable. Staring at the paper I sat wondering what was written there. If only I could learn the meaning of those figures, then I knew that the truth would quickly become revealed.

Only that morning I had received a response from an expert in cipher-- one of the officials at the Record Office in London--to whom I had submitted a copy of that tantalising doc.u.ment.

"This," he wrote, "is what is known as the checker-board cipher, a numerical cipher invented by a Russian revolutionist some forty years ago, and of all secret means of correspondence is the most complicated and ingenious. It is absolutely undecipherable unless the keyword or words agreed upon by the two correspondents be known, and it is therefore much used by Anarchists and Revolutionists. The meaning of the present cipher can never be solved until you gain knowledge of the keyword used, for in writing it the numbers representing each letter of that word are added to the numbers representing each letter of the message. Therefore, in deciphering, the proper subtraction must be made before any attempt can be successful in learning the message contained.

I enclose you a copy of the checker-board used in writing the cipher, but without knowledge of the keyword this can be of no use whatever. It will, however, serve to show you what an extremely ingenious cipher it is, devised as it has been by a Russian of quick and subtle intellect, and used as means of secret communication in the constant plots against the Russian aristocracy. In the Russian prisons this square with its five numbers and twenty-five letters is used in a variety of ways, for most political prisoners have committed it to memory. If two persons are in separate cells, for instance, and one wishes to communicate with the other, who in all probability is acquainted with the use of the square, he will ask, `Who are you?' by rapping on the wall, thus, 5 raps, a pause, 2 raps, a pause (W); 2 raps, a pause, 3 raps, a pause (H); 3 raps, a pause, 4 raps, a pause (O); and so on until the whole question is rapped out. This is the way in which the cipher you have submitted to me is written, but in this case, as I have said, with the numbers of the keyword added. Discover that, and the secret here will be yours."

Enclosed was a half sheet of note-paper on which was drawn the following device:--

- 1 2 3 4 5 1 A B C D E 2 F G H I K 3 L M N O P 4 Q R S T U 5 V W X Y Z

Ah! If only I could read what was written there! I placed the key beside the message, but saw that all the numbers were higher than those of the checker board, showing that the unknown keyword had been added, thus rendering the cipher secure from any save the person aware of the pre-arranged word. If, however, the expert failed to decipher what was written there, how could I hope to decipher it? I therefore replaced the papers in the drawer regretfully, locked it, and went upstairs to the long, old-fas.h.i.+oned room set apart for me when I dined and slept at the Hall.

My thoughts were full of Lolita and of the curious effect the news of Richard Keene's return had produced upon the Countess. For a long time I sat gazing out across the park, flooded as it was by the bright white light of the harvest moon.

My window was open, and the only sound that reached me there was the distant barking of the hounds in the kennels and the bell of the old Norman church of Sibberton striking two o'clock.

Over there, beyond the long dark line of the avenue, was the spot where the tragedy had been enacted, the spot where, in the clay, was left the imprints of Lolita's shoes. Time after time I tried to get rid of those grave suspicions that ever rose within me, but could not succeed. The evidence against my love, both confirmed by her own words and by the circ.u.mstances of the affair, was so strong that they seemed to convey an overwhelming conviction.

Yet somehow the Countess herself seemed to have united with Lolita in order to preserve the secret. Their interests, it seemed, were strangely identical. And it was this latter fact that rendered the enigma even more puzzling than ever.

Next day the guests shot over at Banhaw, the Countess accompanying them, but "cubbing" having just opened, the Earl was out with the hounds at five o'clock at the Lady Wood.

A letter I received by the morning post from Lolita at Strathpeffer told of a gay season at the Spa, for quite a merry lot of well-known people always a.s.semble there in early autumn and many pleasant entertainments are given. One pa.s.sage in the letter, however, caused me considerable apprehension. "If Marigold should question you regarding the re-appearance of a certain person at the inn in Sibberton, tell her _nothing_. She must not know."

What could she mean? Unfortunately her warning had come too late! I had told the Countess exactly what was contrary to my love's interests.

Could any situation be more perilous or annoying?

When I recollected her ladys.h.i.+p's words of the previous night I saw with chagrin how clever and cunning she was, and with what marvellous tact she had succeeded in eliciting the truth from me.

Pink came in during the afternoon, and flinging himself into the armchair opposite me, took a pinch of snuff with his usual nonchalant air.

"Thought you'd be out cubbing this morning," he commenced. "Too early for you--eh? We killed a brace in Green Side Wood. Frank Gordon was there, of course. He's as keen a sportsman as he ever was, and rides as straight as half the young ones. Wonderful man! They say he used, back in the fifties, to ride seventy miles to the meet, hunt all day, and ride home again. That's what I call a sportsman!"

"Yes," I said. "There are few left nowadays like old Frank Gordon. He was one of the hunting crowd at the Hayc.o.c.k at Wansford in the old days when men rode hard, drank hard, and played hard. He did the first, but always declares that his present good health is due to abstinence from the other two."

The old gentleman we were speaking of was the _doyen_ among hunting-men in the Midlands. He had hunted with the Belvoir half a century ago, and was as fine a specimen of an Englishman as existed in these degenerate days when men actually go to meets in motor cars.

The doctor himself hunted, as indeed did every one, the parson of Sibberton included, and the opening of "cubbing" was always a time of speculation as to what the season was to be, good or bad. The Earl had been delighted at his success at winning the cup for the best dog-hound at the Hound Show at Doncaster back in July, and certainly the pack was never in better form even under the old Earl than it was at present. Of course he spent money lavishly upon it, and money, as is so often the case, meant efficiency. The thousand pounds or so subscribed annually by the Hunt was but a drop in the ocean of expenditure, for a Master of Hounds, if he wishes to give his followers good sport, must be a rich man and not mind spending money to secure that end.

"I had a funny adventure last night," the doctor remarked presently, after we had discussed the prospects of hunting and all appertaining to it. "Devilish funny! I can't make it out. Of course you won't say a word of what I tell you, for we doctors aren't supposed to speak about our patients."

"I sha'n't say anything," I a.s.sured him.

"Well, I was called out about eleven last night, just as I was going up to bed, by an old labourer who drove into Sibberton in a light cart, and who told me that a woman was lying seriously ill at a farmhouse which he described as beyond Cherry Lap. It was out of my district, but he told me that he had been into Thrapston, but one doctor was out at a case and the other was away, therefore he had driven over to me. From what he said the case seemed serious, therefore I mounted my horse and rode along at his side in the moonlight. The night was lovely. We went by Geddington Chase, through Brigstock, and out on the Oundle Road, a good eleven miles in all, when he turned up a narrow drift for nearly half-a-mile where stood a small lonely farmhouse on the edge of a spinney. The place was in darkness, but as soon as I had dismounted the door opened, and there appeared a big powerful-looking man, holding a candle in his hand, and behind him was the figure of an old woman, who made a remark to him in a low voice. Then I heard a man somewhere speaking in some foreign language."

"A foreign language?" I remarked, quickly interested.

"Yes. That's what first aroused my suspicion," he said. "I was taken upstairs, and in a rather poorly-furnished room found a person in bed.

The light had been purposely placed so that I could not see the features distinctly, and so dark was the corner where the patient lay that at first I could distinguish nothing.

"My daughter here has--well, she's met with a slight accident," the sinister-looking fellow explained, standing behind me, and then as he s.h.i.+fted the paraffin lamp a little there was revealed a young woman, dark-haired and rather good-looking, lying pale and insensible. Upon the pillow was a quant.i.ty of blood, which had, I saw, flowed from an ugly gaping wound on the left side of the neck--distinctly a knife-wound.

"`Accident!' I exclaimed, looking at the man. `Why, she couldn't have inflicted such a wound as that herself. Who did it?' `Never mind, doctor, who did it,' the fellow growled surlily. `You sew it up or something. This ain't the time for chin--the girl may die.' He was a rough customer, and I did not at all like the look of him. I was, indeed, sorry that I had entered there, for both he and the woman also in the room were a very mysterious pair. Therefore I got the latter to bring some warm water, and after a little time succeeded in sewing the wound and properly bandaging it. Just as I had finished, the young woman gradually recovered consciousness. `Where am I?' she inquired in a faint, rather refined voice. `Hold your jaw!' roughly replied the fellow. `If you don't it'll be the worse for you!' `But, where's George?' she demanded. `Oh, don't bother about him,' was the gruff injunction. `Ah!' she shrieked suddenly, raising herself in her bed and glaring at him wildly. `I know the truth! I remember now! You caught him by the throat and you strangled him?--you coward! You believe that d.i.c.k Keene doesn't know about the Sibberton affair, but he does.

They've seen him, and told him everything--how--' The man turned to her with his fist raised menacingly saying, `Lie quiet! you silly fool! If you don't, you'll be sorry for it! No more gab now!' Then turning to me he said with a short harsh laugh, `The girl's a bit off her head, doctor. Come, let's go downstairs!' And he hurried me out lest she should make any more allegations.

"My first inclination was to remain and question her, yet it seemed clear that I was among a very queer lot, and that discretion was the best course. Therefore I followed the man down, although my patient shrieked aloud for me to return."

"By Jove!" I exclaimed, aroused to activity by mention of the man Keene. "That was a strange adventure--very strange!"

"Yes," he continued. "The fellow evinced the greatest anxiety that I should leave, pressed into my hand half-a-sovereign as a fee, and again a.s.sured me that the girl's mind was wandering. Again and again she called after me `Doctor! doctor!' but in a room beyond I again heard men's voices, speaking low in a foreign language, therefore I hesitated, and presently mounted my mare and rode away. Now," he added, taking another long pinch of snuff, "what do you make out of it, Woodhouse?"

"Seems very much as though there's been another tragedy," I remarked.

"I wonder who the injured girl is?" I added, utterly amazed at his narrative.

"I wonder," he added, "and who is this man Keene who knows all about the Sibberton affair? Could she have been referring to the tragedy in the park, do you think?"

"Yes, undoubtedly," I said quickly. "We must return there, get to see her in secret, and hear her story."

"The worst of it is that as I was there at night, just at a time when the moon was hidden behind the clouds, I doubt whether I'll be able to recognise the place again."

"Let's try," I suggested eagerly, springing up. "Don't let us lose an instant. I have a suspicion that we're on the track of the truth."

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

THE STORY OF MR THOMAS HAYES.

By half-past four we had covered the eleven miles that lay between the old-world village of Sibberton and that point beyond Brigstock on the Oundle road which skirts that dense wood called Cherry Lap.

Both of us were well-mounted, the doctor on his bay hunter, while I rode my own cob, and our pace had all along been a pretty hard one. Being both followers of hounds we knew all the bridle-roads across Geddington Chase, and over the rich pastures between them and the road at Cat's Head. Beyond Brigstock, however, we never hunted, for at that point our country joined that of the Fitzwilliam Hunt. Therefore, beyond Cherry Lap the neighbourhood was unfamiliar to both of us.

We hacked along on the gra.s.s by the side of the broad highway for a couple of miles or so, but the doctor failed to recognise the field by which he had turned off on the previous night. By-roads are deceptive in the moonlight.

"The gate was open when I pa.s.sed through," he remarked. "And if it's closed now it'll be difficult to find it again. The country is so level here, and all the fields are so much alike. I recollect at the time looking around for some landmark and finding nothing until I got to the top end of the field, over the brow of the hill."

"We'll go on slowly," I said. "You'll recognise it presently."

We pa.s.sed half a dozen fields with rough cart-roads running through each of them. Indeed, after harvest each field generally bears marks of carts in its gateway. In the darkness my companion had not been able to see what had been grown, except that the crop had been cut and carried.

For another couple of miles we rode forward, the doctor examining every field but failing to recognise the gateway into which he had turned, until at length we came to the junction of the road from Weldon, when he pulled up, saying--