The Riddle of the Night Part 8

"Yes, but I did--that's just the strange thing," said Lady Katharine quickly. "What made you think not, Ailsa?"

"Well, for one thing, I thought I heard your door open and shut in the night. I came within an ace of getting up to see whether you were ill, but fell asleep again myself."

Her companion looked puzzled. "It must have been a mistake on your part, Ailsa. I fell asleep almost directly my head touched the pillow, and slept like a log until morning. But don't let's talk about last night."

She turned impulsively to Ailsa, her voice thrilling with emotion. "It's no use," she said. "I simply can't feel sorry over it. I know I ought.

Death is always horrible, and such a death!" She shuddered involuntarily. "But you don't know what a release it is to me. If this had not happened, I think I should have died----"

Ailsa pressed her arm in silent sympathy, but before she could speak Mrs. Raynor appeared on the scene. She had guarded herself against attacks of possible snapshotters by carrying an open parasol, and Ailsa was glad to change the topic of conversation.

It was some twenty minutes later, when they were still strolling in the gardens, that a taxicab halted at the lodge gates, and they saw a tall, slim figure arrayed in an exceedingly well-cut morning suit, with a rose in his b.u.t.tonhole and s.h.i.+ny top hat on his closely cropped fair head, advancing up the drive toward them with that easy grace and perfect poise which mutely stands sponsor for the thing called breeding.

"My dears!" began Mrs. Raynor admiringly, "what a distinguished looking man!" She had time to say no more, for Ailsa, with a face like a rose, had gone to meet the newcomer--who quickened his steps at sight of her and was now well within earshot--and was greeting him as a woman greets but one man ever.

"My dear," said Mrs. Raynor to Lady Katharine, in a carefully lowered tone, "if I know anything, you will be parting with that dear girl's companions.h.i.+p for good and all before the summer is over. Look at the man's eyes: they are positively devouring her. Of course we shall have to remain to welcome him, but I think we shall earn their grat.i.tude if we leave them to themselves as soon as we decently can."

A few minutes later the opportunity to do this was offered her; and having lingered just long enough to be introduced to "Mr. Philip Barch"

and to become even more impressed with him at close quarters as not only a man good to look at, but as an apt and easy conversationalist, she suddenly remembered that she and Lady Katharine had promised to gather some hyacinths for the lunch table, and forthwith spirited her away.

Cleek followed her with his eyes as long as she remained in sight, then he turned to Ailsa. "A very tender and sensitive girl I should say, Miss Lorne, although she bears herself so well under the cross of last night's tragedy. I see by your manner of looking at her that you are attached to her in many ways."

"Not in many, but in all, Mr. Cleek. She is the dearest girl in the world."

"We won't go into that, otherwise we should disagree for the first time in the whole course of our acquaintance. Let me thank you for adhering so closely to all that I asked over the telephone. I didn't mean to, at first. My original idea was to come here unknown to all, even to you; but when I came to think over it, it seemed so disloyal, so underhanded, as if I didn't trust you in all things, _always_--that I simply couldn't bring myself to do it."

She looked up at him with grave sweet eyes--the eyes that had lit him back from the path to destruction, that would light him up to the gates of heaven evermore--and smiled on him, bewildered.

"I am afraid I do not follow you," she said. "I don't quite grasp what you mean. Oh!" with sudden fear, "if you thought from my cry of surprise when I recognized your voice over the telephone, that I was not glad---- Why, I was going to write to you this morning. But I expected it to be Geoffrey Clavering asking for Kathie, you know----"

The name brought a ridge between Cleek's brows as of a sudden disconcerting thought.

"Geoffrey Clavering? But he has been over here, this morning, has he not?" he asked anxiously.

"No, he has not, and that is what seems so strange," said Ailsa.

"Did he write no note to Lady Katharine then--send her no message, Miss Lorne?"

"No. I see that surprises you, Mr. Cleek, as, to be perfectly frank with you, it surprises me. I can't make it out. I know that his whole life is bound up in Kathie, as hers is bound up in him. I know that it nearly drove him frantic when he was told their engagement would have to come to an end; so one would naturally think that when there is a rumour that the man who came between them is dead----And he _must_ have heard by this time."

"Miss Lorne, let me tell you something," said Cleek gravely. "Geoffrey Clavering does know of the murder. He has known of it since twelve o'clock last night, to my certain knowledge."

"Mr. Cleek! And yet he has made no move to communicate with Lady Katharine! But"--with sudden hopefulness--"perhaps he wishes to make absolutely sure; perhaps the ident.i.ty of the murdered man is not yet wholly established! Perhaps it is not really the Count de Louvisan after all."

"It _is_ the Count de Louvisan, Miss Lorne! That was settled beyond all question last night."

"And Geoffrey Clavering knew it then?"

"And Geoffrey Clavering knew it then--yes! The man slain is, or rather was, the one known as the Count de Louvisan; on his dead body numbers whose total make up the sum of nine were marked; and--I fancy you remember what Geoffrey Clavering threatened when the fellow went to Clavering Close last night."

Ailsa looked at him, her eyes dilating, the colour draining slowly out of her cheeks and lips. It was impossible not to grasp the significance of these two circ.u.mstances, one of which--the mysterious markings on the dead man's body--she now heard of for the first time.

"Oh, Mr. Cleek, oh!" she said faintly. "You surely can't think---- A dear lovable boy like that! You can't believe that Geoffrey Clavering had anything to do with it?"

"I hope not, for, frankly, I like the boy. But one thing is certain: if _he_ didn't kill the man, he knows who did; knows, too, that there is a woman implicated in the crime."

"A woman! Oh, Mr. Cleek, a--a woman?"

"Yes--perhaps two women!"

"Women and--and a deed of violence, a deed of horror, like that? No!

Women couldn't. They would be fiends, not women. I hold too high an estimate of my s.e.x to let you call them that! And for him, for Geoffrey Clavering, there is but one woman in all the world! Even you shan't hint it of _her_! No, not even you."

"Hus.h.!.+ I am hinting nothing. Now that I have seen Lady Katharine I would almost as soon think evil of you as of her."

There was a little summerhouse close at hand. He saw that she was faint, shocked, overcome, and gently led her to it, loathing himself that even for one moment he had brought pain within touch of her.

"Who knows better than I how false appearances may be?" he said. "Who should be less likely to take suspicious circ.u.mstances for proof?"

"Oh, but to suspect, even to _suspect_, Kathie--the dearest and the sweetest girl on earth."

"Again I dispute that!" he threw back with repressed vehemence. "And again I declare that I am not swayed by facts, black as they may be, black as they undoubtedly are. If I believed, should I come here and openly tell you of these things? My duty is to the law. Should I not carry proofs there if I believed that they were proofs? But my faith is as a rock. Shall I prove it to you? Then look! I know that you will tell me the truth; and it is because of that, because in my heart I know it is a truth which you can and will face openly and with no cause for fear, that I have declined to hold this thing of sufficient importance to be called a clue, and as such to be handed over to the police. Miss Lorne--Ailsa--tell me, will you--have you ever seen this thing before?"

While he was speaking his hand had gone to his pocket and come forth tightly shut. Now he opened his closed fingers and let her see that there was a sc.r.a.p of pink chiffon edged with rose coloured st.i.tchery lying on his open palm. Her eyes, fixed earnestly upon his face heretofore, dropped to the gauzy fragment held out to her, and a ridge dug itself between her level brows.

CHAPTER NINE

BLIND GROPING

Ailsa Lorne gave a little start as she examined the fragment.

"I thought at first that it was torn from my own dress," she said frankly, looking up at him, "for, as it happens, I was wearing a pink dress, but not quite of this shade. I will show it to you if you like."

"There is no need, Miss Lorne," said Cleek, his eyes s.h.i.+ning. "If you tell me that you were not at Gleer Cottage last night, then there is no more to be said," and with a little laugh of sheer happiness he carefully replaced the bit of chiffon in his pocketbook. "Just one more question, please, Miss Lorne. Tell me: has Lady Katharine a certain kind of bracelet to which there is attached a small capsule by a link of gold, and which smells adorably of violets?"

"Yes. Anybody that knows her could tell you that. Her father, Lord St.

Ulmer, brought it to her from South America. He had her name and the St.

Ulmer arms engraved upon it. At least, upon what you have called the 'capsule,' which contains some highly concentrated perfume that makes the whole room fragrant whenever she removes a tiny gold stopper from the delightful thing."

"Thank you! I supposed as much. Now will you tell me, Miss Lorne, how long it is since Lady Katharine lost that little golden capsule from her bracelet? Was it, as I am hoping, on the day when you visited Gleer Cottage in company with her, or since?"

"What a strange question. She hasn't lost it at all. At least, she has made no mention of having done so, as I am sure she would if it _had_ been lost. Always, of course, providing it wasn't lost without her knowledge. At any rate, she wore it last night when we went to Clavering Close. I know that, because I remarked at the time that she had better let a jeweller look at it, as the ring of the scent globe was very nearly worn through."

"Was that before you left the Grange or after?"

"After--a long while after--at Clavering Close; in fact, while we were taking off our wraps preparatory to going down to the drawing-room."