Part 3 (1/2)
As he poked about in the hay, the man stopped suddenly.
”What's this?” he said, picking up something upon which his fork had chanced. He held up to view a small revolver.
Could it be, Laurence wondered at the sight of it, the weapon with which the unknown stranger had attempted the life of Squire Carrington?
Disguising his pleasure at the sight of what might possibly be a clue to the hiding-place of the Squire's would-be murderer, Laurence pocketed the small weapon, and moved away, leaving Head to grumble over his loss.
But a subsequent scrutiny of the pistol was cut short by the arrival of Kingsford, who announced luncheon. Almost simultaneously a carriage bearing the Marquis of Moorland's coat of arms drove up the avenue, and deposited two ladies and a couple of small portmanteaux on the doorstep.
The butler proceeded to open the door, and, perceiving that the visitors were Miss Scott and her aunt, ushered them into the drawing-room, where Laurence quickly joined them. As the young man entered the room he heard his father's voice call over the banisters to the butler:
”Don't let any one in; pray don't; bar the door. Say that I have got a pistol ready. What? Mrs. Knox and Miss Scott? Oh, that's all right. I thought it was a--a burglar!”
A sigh of relief followed, and, after a moment or two, the Squire, looking paler and more miserable than ever, arrived in the drawing-room.
All through lunch he remained silent except when spoken to, while Laurence was being charmed by Miss Scott's graphic description of the fire, and Mrs. Knox paid undivided attention to the sumptuous repast laid out on the table.
”But the funniest thing of all, Mr. Carrington,” said the young lady to Laurence during the course of the conversation, ”was that when I was going down to supper, I happened to look out into the garden from a landing window, when what should I see but a figure creeping along the side of the house. Well, as auntie will tell you, if there's anything I'm frightened of it's a tramp. This looked like either a burglar or a tramp, but I knew that he daren't break in with all the servants and guests about, so I didn't mention the fact to anyone. To me it looks as if the person I saw had something to do with the dreadful fire, but why he should want to murder us all I should very much like to know. Well, but that isn't all. Soon after you'd gone--you went so awfully early, you know--I happened to go out on to the covered-in verandah for a breath of fresh air, and was talking very privately to Maggie Haroldsworth. I had just mentioned to her that you had gone” (Miss Scott blushed as she noticed the colour rise to Laurence's cheeks at the mention of his name in the ”very private” conversation) ”mentioned that you and the Squire had gone, when suddenly the same figure I had seen before sprang up from some bushes, almost underneath where we stood, and dashed off into the shrubbery. The lawn was quite dark, so that I could not see very well what the person was like, but Maggie insisted that it was a woman with coloured skirts, though I doubt if it really was, for no woman I ever saw ran like that figure did.”
At this point Squire Carrington roused himself from the state of lethargy into which he had fallen, and looked up, paying some attention to vivacious Miss Scott's story.
”Another thing Maggie insisted on, was that she distinctly saw the mysterious creature's features. She told me all about it afterwards, when we were bundling out of the house, for the alarm was raised before we had stopped talking about the woman--if it really was one. Well, she says that the light from one of the bas.e.m.e.nt rooms fell on this creature's face as it dashed out of the bushes, and that she could take her dying oath it was a black woman! Why, Mr. Carrington, what's the matter? Mr. Laurence, Auntie, the Squire has fainted!”
For the second time within twenty-four hours Squire Carrington had fallen forward in a dead faint!
CHAPTER VI
THE FIRST ENCOUNTER
Only for a few minutes did the Squire remain unconscious. Before his son had time to lift him, with the butler's aid, upon a convenient sofa, he had opened his eyes in a nervous fas.h.i.+on, and asked where he was. It was with mingled feelings of pity and contempt that Laurence told him he was safe at home. The old gentleman's extraordinary behaviour displeased his son, who regretted that such an incident had occurred in the presence of the ladies (though in his thoughts Mrs. Knox had but a small place), and was especially annoyed, because it seemed to him that his father's sudden embarra.s.sment was the result of some remark of Miss Scott's, though exactly what remark it was that had caused an elderly man, and a magistrate to boot, to faint like a servant girl or a delicate child was as much a mystery to him as the events of the previous night, and the Squire's extraordinary precautions during the last few months.
No sooner had Mr. Carrington recovered, then, than, at his son's suggestion, he retired to his own room, expressing a hope that he would renew his acquaintance with the ladies at dinner.
Mrs. Knox belonged to the n.o.ble army of ”after-lunch nappers,” and she, too, presently disappeared at the conclusion of the meal, leaving Laurence inwardly congratulating himself on the good fortune that removed the worthy old lady to her bedroom, permitting him to do the honours of the house to her niece alone.
At the girl's suggestion, a visit to the conservatories and flower gardens was the first event of the afternoon. But the day was warm, and two easy-chairs placed temptingly on the lawn proved a greater attraction than the walk which had been proposed by good Mrs. Knox.
”Well, and what is your opinion about this fire, Mr. Carrington?” asked Selene Scott, after a pause in the conversation.
”In my opinion it seems very much like a case of incendiarism,” replied Laurence.
”So I imagine, and--why do you think your father was so upset when I mentioned the person I saw in the Marquis's garden last night?”
Laurence did not reply for a moment. He was deliberating with himself as to whether he should confide in his fair companion all he knew about the old gentleman's fears, the affair on the moor, and the mysterious inmates of Durley Dene. It was more than possible that a sharp, intelligent girl, like Miss Scott seemed to be, might prove of considerable a.s.sistance to him in his efforts to account for the Squire's precautions and the uncanny attempts on his life.
On the other hand, he knew women to be credited with the b.u.mp of loquacity, and it was far from his intentions that his father should get to know of the efforts he was making to unravel the mystery surrounding old Mr. Carrington's terrible dread. In a conversation he had had that morning with the Squire, on being pressed by Laurence to confess that his fear was of something more than burglars, Mr. Carrington had begged his son not to allude to the subject at all. He could not, he said, and he would not, explain what the secret of his life was. ”Even had I a secret, it were better,” he had proceeded to say, ”for your own sake, Laurence, that you did not know that secret, and it is useless for you to try and extract an explanation from me of my proceedings. And,” he had added, as though fearing he had said too much, ”you are wrong in imagining that my fear of burglars is a cloak for something else. I am, indeed, in mortal fear of--a--housebreaker!”
Consequently Laurence knew that it was useless to obtain a solution of the puzzle from his father, and, to the best of his knowledge, no one could supply that solution but--possibly the mysterious bicyclist, and the equally mysterious Major Jones-Farnell, who, Laurence was convinced, were one and the same.
Therefore, it would certainly be easier, he argued, were he to work hand in hand with another person who might be likely to help him in his detective efforts. And the collaboration was likely to be more particularly pleasant when it was with such a companion as the young girl at his side!