The Second Victorian Mystery Megapack, page 9
He rose and walked over to the door, and held it open. “For the present,” he said, “you may go, but if I were you I would not fail to appear when you are sent for.”
Melun took up his hat and stick and laughed lightly.
“It suits me very well,” he said, “to come when I am bid, but possibly you may not find me quite so pliant in the future. Good-night!”
Going straight up to his room, Westerham slept like a child till about six o’clock. He preferred to do his clear thinking in the early morning. Now he thought long and hard for two hours. He argued the matter out with himself in all its respects, and though he had determined not to take a bold course with Melun on the previous night, he was now convinced that the only way was to take a bold course with Lady Kathleen.
He had not seen Dunton among the guests at the reception, but, of course, there could be no doubt that Lady Kathleen was well acquainted with that entirely charming and honest, if somewhat vacuous, young peer.
It was therefore with the intention of revealing his identity to Lady Kathleen and explaining the whole position to her that about noon he made his way down Whitehall and rang the queer little bell of No. 10 Downing Street.
As he waited on the door-step, however, he was a little disconcerted to observe that the blinds were drawn down, and immediately the door was opened he instinctively knew that the house was, for his purpose at least, empty.
None the less, he asked for Lady Kathleen, only to be met with the grave reply that her ladyship had left that morning by motor car for Trant Hall, in Hertfordshire.
Without any display of discomposure Westerham nodded the man his thanks for the information and retraced his steps to the hotel. The departure of Lady Kathleen to some slight extent unsettled his mind. He reflected that perhaps he had been a little too hasty in his decision to tell her everything.
There was the possibility that she would disbelieve him, and the possibility, moreover, that she would tell her father; and if she told her father there was the further possibility that the Premier would be adamant in his refusal to disclose his troubles. And in that case he would be absolutely baulked. Westerham was a keen judge of character, and he saw that if her father refused to speak Lady Kathleen would refuse to speak too.
Then indeed he would be in a quandary, for he would be entirely cut off from those whom he wished to befriend, even if he did not excite their active hostility.
Upon these reflections he instantly decided to alter his mind, comforting himself on this score with the dictum that it is only the dead who never change.
But though he decided to withhold his identity, he was resolved to make one last effort to induce Lady Kathleen to confide in him.
With this idea he turned back, not to his hotel, but to his rooms in Bruton Street, from which he had been absent for so long without explanation.
There he was met on the threshold by the entirely immaculate and discreet servant with whom the youthful, but worldly-wise, Lord Dunton had provided him.
The man’s eyes revealed nothing. He merely bowed and waited, with that urbane silence which characterises the best kind of English servant.
The man’s face, indeed, expressed no surprise even at the rather shabby clothes which Westerham was wearing, though Westerham himself knew well enough that he must have remarked them.
“While I am getting into other things,” he said, “you had better telephone round for my car.”
The man bowed. It was the first time that his extraordinary new master had thought of using the very magnificent motor car which he had casually bought in the course of an afternoon’s walk. In about twenty minutes Westerham came out of his room again, looking, if not altogether a different man, at least a better-dressed one.
Westerham was conscious that his servant surveyed him with approval as he offered him lunch. He accepted it, as he was hungry; moreover, he knew that he could reach Trant Hall well within two hours, and he had no desire to arrive too soon. The chauffeur, also supplied by Lord Dunton, was the same manner of man as his valet. Westerham appreciated the fact, but was not as thankful as he became later, when he discovered that a silent and discreet and civil chauffeur was a distinctly uncommon type of human being.
Having made up his mind as to his immediate course of action, Westerham thought no more about the matter. It was not his habit to think what he should say when he met a certain man or a certain woman. He believed in the inspiration of the moment; and his inspiration was seldom wrong.
About four o’clock the chauffeur informed him that they were nearing Trant Hall, and then it occurred to Westerham that it might possibly be unwise to make too bold an entry into the grounds. In consequence he stopped at the lodge and inquired for Lady Kathleen.
Her ladyship, he was told, had not many minutes before called there herself. She was believed to be now on her way to the deer park. Having asked where this lay, Westerham got out of the car and proceeded on foot down the leafy avenue. At the end of the avenue there was a high wall, in which there was a break. A flight of stone steps led up to the break, and these he climbed.
On the top he paused, being struck by the remarkable beauty of the scene. For from the wall the green turf sloped downwards, while before him and on either side stretched a magnificent forest of giant beech trees.
He had taken the precaution to inquire whether it were possible for Lady Kathleen to return from the deer park by any other route, and had received an answer in the negative. Therefore he decided it would be waste of time for him to go in search of her, seeing that she must come back by the same way.
Meanwhile he sat down on the top of the steps, and, lighting a cigarette, gave himself over to patient waiting.
Some thirty minutes passed before he caught a glimpse of a moving figure amid some distant trees. The figure grew in size and in distinctness of outline, and then he saw Lady Kathleen coming slowly towards him.
Her face was bent on the ground, and her whole figure seemed for the moment old and bowed. Her appearance, indeed, gave him a little pang of sorrow.
He realised that when she saw him she must suffer some slight shock. That, however, was inevitable, and so he sat waiting for her to raise her head.
Presently, as she came nearer the wall, she lifted up her eyes, and a little cry escaped her lips as she saw Westerham sitting there. She stopped dead in her walk and stood still, holding her hand against her heart.
Westerham knew that she must have time to recover before he spoke, so he merely removed his hat and, moving forward, stood bareheaded before her.
A little of her old spirit came back to her as she looked up at him. There was almost a glimmer of amusement in her eyes, but whatever humour she might have felt at his appearance was drowned in her obvious anxiety. She might well have been angry with him, but she kept her sad composure.
“Do you think,” she asked, with an appealing gesture of her hands, “it is quite fair to torment me in this way?”
“You would not ask me that,” said Westerham, “if you did believe me to be an honest man.”
She passed her hand rather wearily across her forehead.
“I hardly know,” she said in a slightly shaky voice, “exactly what to think.”
She lifted her eyes again to his as though to search him through and through.
“At any rate,” asked Westerham, with a smile, “have you a sufficiently good opinion of me to grant me just a few moments to say something?”
“It seems I cannot help myself,” she said, with a pained little laugh.
“Lady Kathleen,” he answered earnestly, “you are very much upset. I assure you that if you will only hear me out you will not regret it—at least you may rest assured that you will be free from any insult or annoyance.
“It will take me some few minutes to explain,” he went on, “and so I think it would be best for you to sit down.”
Without waiting for an answer he took her by the hand and led her gently to the steps. She sank down on them with a heavy sigh.
“The other night,” said Westerham, “I was sufficiently honest to save you from an awkward situation.”
Lady Kathleen was about to speak, but he would not allow it.
“No, no!” he urged, “I did not mention it to be thanked again. I have been more than thanked already. I only did what any ordinary decent man would do. I have no desire to dwell on that. Indeed, I simply mentioned it in order that I might convince you that I wish you well.”
“But you knew that man,” she cried; “you must have known him.”
Westerham stared at Lady Kathleen with some astonishment.
“I give you my word that I did not know him then,” he said, “even if I know him now.”
“Ah!” she darted a look of suspicion at him.
“Yes, I know Bagley, and I know Melun, and I know a man called Crow.”
Lady Kathleen’s face blanched.
“And what else?” she asked.
He threw out his arms. “Nothing! I swear to you I know absolutely nothing else, except—and that, of course, is obvious—that you and your father go in deadly fear of all the three. Why, I cannot tell. If you will only enlighten me a little I may do much to help you.”
“No, no!” she cried, “it is simply out of the question. The secret is not mine, but my father’s.”
“Then let me go to Lord Penshurst,” urged Westerham.
The girl started and thought for a few minutes before she answered. “No,” she said at last, slowly, “you must not do that. He would not understand.”
“You mean,” said Westerham, “he would merely regard me as one who might be termed ‘one of the gang.’”
The girl nodded.
“But I assure you,” Westerham laughed, “that I am not.”
To his surprise the girl looked him straight in the face. “I wish I felt quite sure,” she said.
Westerham flushed with almost a flush of anger.
“This,” he cried, “is an intolerable situation. If you would only confide in me I would confide in you.
“I am not what I seem. I am no mere man-about-town. I am not one of Melun’s dupes. I am not of a certainty one of his friends—even though I may appear to be associated with him.
“I am a very different man indeed from what I fancy you take me for. My resources are practically limitless, and without boasting I may say that I hold Melun in the hollow of my hand.”
Again, to his surprise, Kathleen gave him the same keen look of suspicion.
“I fear no consequence as the result of what I will tell you,” she said quietly, “but Melun declares that you are merely an American confederate.”
“Good Heavens!” cried Westerham, and so great was the sincerity of his tones that Lady Kathleen’s face softened.
“But perhaps you are not. I wish I knew.”
She buried her face in her hands and rocked to and fro in her distress.
“If I tell you who I am,” cried Westerham, stung to desperation, “am I not right in thinking that you would tell your father?”
Kathleen nodded her assent.
“And then we should be worse off than ever,” he rejoined gloomily. “Far from being regarded as a friend, I should be regarded as an interloper, possibly a danger, because I knew of your father’s difficulty. Yet what the nature of that trouble is I have not the least idea. Why not tell me?”
The girl leapt to her feet and looked at him with wild eyes. “If you do know,” she cried, “you are as great a fiend as Melun to persecute me in this way, and if you do not know—then Heaven forbid that you ever should.
“I cannot tell you because if I did I should be a murderess.”
“A murderess!” Westerham drew a step back in horror.
“A murderess of whom?”
“Don’t ask,” cried Kathleen; “I should be a murderess of not one, but many. As it is I can at least be silent, and if needs be make the sacrifice.”
“What sacrifice?”
“What sacrifice? Ah, that I cannot tell you now, though I cannot hide it from you always. I fear that there is no hope. That you will have to know in time unless—unless—”
“Unless what?”
“Unless—” cried the girl, and her voice trailed away.
Westerham took her hands gently and with great deference.
“Unless,” he said softly, “you allow me to help you.”
She tore her hands away from his and almost screamed at him.
“Go! Go!” she cried.
Her whole air was so distraught, she was so obviously on the verge of a complete breakdown, that Westerham realised it would be mere folly to remain. His offers could only exasperate her the more.
So he turned away sorrowfully. It cut him to the heart to see her huddled there upon the steps crying as if her heart would break. But he could do nothing. It was with a blind rage against Melun that he stumbled back along the avenue to his car and curtly ordered the man to return to London.
And at every yard of the way he repeated to himself the words: “Murderess!” “Sacrifice!” “Sacrifice!” “Murderess!”
On a sudden he resolved to call on Mme. Estelle.
Possibly she could help to solve all this sickening mystery.
The words “Murderess!” “Sacrifice!” “Murderess!” “Sacrifice!” fitted with a horrible nicety the throbbing of the engine, and he was still muttering to himself “Murderess!” “Sacrifice!” “Sacrifice!” “Murderess!” when he reached the narrow door in the wall of the house of Mme. Estelle.
CHAPTER VIII
SCOTLAND YARD INTERVENES
Mme. Estelle was at home, and Westerham was immediately shown into a long, low, pretty drawing-room, which gave on to a garden at the back of the house.
Judged, indeed, from Madame’s pose, and from the gown she wore, she might have been expecting visitors.
The lights were shaded so that the hard lines on her face were softened, and in the dimness of the pretty room she looked the really beautiful woman she once must have been.
In his generous spirit—though he knew nothing of Madame’s past, and practically nothing of her present—his heart was touched by a certain air of loneliness the woman wore, and by the very pleasant smile of greeting which she gave him.
Sir Paul was conscious that Mme. Estelle surveyed him with a certain amount of quiet wonderment. And it came home to him that for the first time for many years he had been shaken out of himself—so badly shaken out of himself that evidently his countenance bore some traces of his unquiet mind.
Madame’s words of welcome were, however, quite conventional, and bore no evidence of surprise. “This is a most unexpected pleasure,” she said.
“The pleasure, I assure you,” answered Westerham in the same conventional strain, “is entirely mine. I do not wish in the least to be discourteous, but I have to tell you that I have called on business.”
Madame nodded as if she understood. “Suppose,” she said, in a pleasant voice, “that while we discuss business we drink tea.”
“I shall be more than delighted,” returned Westerham, though he was anxious to get the matter over and go back to the quiet of his room, where he could think without interruption.
So Madame rang the bell, gave her orders, and the tea came in.
It was not till they were alone again and fairly certain of not being interrupted that Westerham went straight to the point.
“Madame,” he said, and his tone was formal—so formal that he paused for a moment to be amused at himself; he might have been a family solicitor about to talk business with a difficult client.
“Whatever they may have been to you,” he continued, “the last few days have meant much to me. Possibly you are aware of how I made Captain Melun’s acquaintance.”
Madame pursed up her mouth and smiled. “I can guess,” she said; “but, of course, versions differ.”
Westerham’s heart gave a little bound of triumph. After all, this woman was not wholly sunk in admiration of the gallant captain.
“Never mind about the versions,” he said; “we met. Without attempting to make an ex-parte statement, I may say that I practically foisted myself upon Melun. I think I may even go so far as to say that I compelled him to reveal himself to me in his most unpleasant light, and also to introduce to me various of his friends. You will, of course, pardon my including you in that number.”
Making a bow that was half a mock, Madame smiled—not altogether a pleasant smile.
“Les affaires sont les affaires,” said Madame. “Let us be strictly businesslike. Allow me to put the matter as I think you should have put it had you been entirely plain. Do you”—her face grew a little hard again—“blackmail the blackmailer?”
“To be perfectly honest,” said Westerham, “I do.”
Madame nodded her head up and down several times as though she completely understood.
“Now the first of my discoveries,” Westerham continued, “was that Melun had some sort of hold over the Prime Minister, Lord Penshurst.”
Madame started.
“I also discovered that whatever that hold might be, the secret involved his daughter. Then I think by a perfectly reasonable and logical course of argument I came to the conclusion that the secret, however closely it might be guarded, did not reflect one particular kind of dishonour upon Lord Penshurst.”
