Part 11 (1/2)
”Hum-m-m! Yes! Just so. Did you act on Constable Gorham's suggestion, then?”
”Yes. I led the way in here and then up the covered pa.s.sage to the laboratory and opened the door. My uncle was sitting exactly as he had been when I looked in before--his back to me and his face to the window--but although he did not turn, it was evident that he was annoyed by my disturbing him, for he growled angrily, 'What the devil are you coming in here and disturbing me like this for, Jane?
Get out and leave me alone.'”
”Hum-m-m!” said Cleek, drawing down his brows and pinching his chin.
”Any mirrors in the Round House?”
”Mirrors? No, certainly not, Mr. Headland. Why?”
”Nothing--only that I was wondering, if as you say, he never turned and you never spoke, how in the world he knew that it really _was_ you, that's all.”
”Oh, I see what you mean,” said Miss Renfrew, knotting up her brows.
”It does seem a little peculiar when one looks at it in that way. I never thought of it before. Neither can I explain it, Mr. Headland, any more than to say that I suppose he took it for granted. And, as it happened, he was right. Besides, as you will remember, I had intruded upon him only a short time before.”
”Quite so,” said Cleek. ”That's what makes it appear stranger than ever. Under the circ.u.mstances one might have expected him to say _not_ 'What are you coming in here for,' but, 'What are you coming in for _again_.' Still, of course, there's no accounting for little lapses like that. Go on, please--what next?”
”Why, of course I immediately explained what Constable Gorham had said, and why I had looked in. To which he replied, 'The man's an a.s.s. Get out!' Upon which I closed the door, and the constable and I went away at once.”
”Constable there with you during it all, then?”
”Yes, certainly--in the covered pa.s.sage, just behind me. He saw and heard everything; though, of course, neither of us actually entered the laboratory itself. There was really no necessity when we knew that my uncle was safe and sound, you see.”
”Quite so,” agreed Cleek. ”So you shut the door and went away--and then what?”
”Constable Gorham went back to his beat, and I flew as fast as I could to meet Mr. Drummond. It is only a short way to the old bridge at best, and by taking that short cut through the grounds, I was there in less than ten minutes. And by half-past eight I was back here in a greater state of terror than before.”
”And why? Were you so much alarmed that Mr. Drummond did not keep the appointment?”
”No. That did not worry me at all. He is often unable to keep his appointments with me. He is filling the post of private secretary to a large company promoter, and his time is not his own. What terrified me was that, after waiting a few minutes for him, I heard somebody running along the road, and a few moments later Sir Ralph Droger flew by me as if he were being pursued. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances I should have thought that he was getting into training for the autumn sports (he is, you may know, very keen on athletics, and holds the County Club's cup for running and jumping), but when I remembered what Constable Gorham had said, and saw that Sir Ralph was coming from the direction of this house, all my wits flew; I got into a sort of panic and almost collapsed with fright.”
”And all because the man was coming from the direction of this house?”
”Not that alone,” she answered with a shudder. ”I have said that I should under ordinary circ.u.mstances have thought he was merely training for the autumn sports--for, you see, he was in a running costume of white cotton stuff and his legs were bare from the knee down--but as he shot past me in the moonlight I caught sight of something like a huge splash of blood on his clothes, and coupling that with the rest I nearly went out of my senses. It wasn't until long afterward I recollected that the badge of the County Club is the winged foot of Mercury wrought in brilliant scarlet embroidery. To me, just then, that thing of red was blood--my uncle's blood--and I ran and ran and ran until I got back here to the house and flew up the covered pa.s.sage and burst into the Round House. He was sitting there still--just as he had been sitting before. But he didn't call out to me this time; he didn't reprove me for disturbing him; didn't make one single movement, utter one single sound. And when I went to him I knew why. He was dead--stone dead!
The face and throat of him were torn and rent as if some furious animal had mauled him, and there were curious yellow stains upon his clothes. That's all, Mr. Headland. I don't know what I did nor where I went from the moment I rushed shrieking from that room until I came to my senses and found myself in this one with dear, kind Mrs. Armroyd here bending over me and doing all in her power to soothe and to comfort me.”
”There, there, cherie, you shall not more distress yourself. It is of a hardness too great for the poor mind to bear,” put in Mrs.
Armroyd herself at this, bending over the sofa as she spoke and softly smoothing the girl's hair. ”It is better she should be at peace for a little, is it not, monsieur?”
”Very much better, madame,” replied Cleek, noting how softly her hand fell, and how gracefully it moved over the soft hair and across the white forehead. ”No doubt the major part of what still remains to be told, you in the goodness of your heart, will supply----”
”Of a certainty, monsieur, of a certainty.”
”--But for the present,” continued Cleek, finis.h.i.+ng the interrupted sentence, ”there still remains a question or two which must be asked, and which only Miss Renfrew herself can answer. As those are of a private and purely personal nature, madame, would it be asking too much----” He gave his shoulders an eloquent Frenchified shrug, looked up at her after the manner of her own countrymen, and let the rest of the sentence go by default.
”Madame” looked at him and gave her little hands an airy and a graceful flirt.