Part 9 (1/2)

”I was an infernal fool not to have come down in a car! I hate these beastly muddy country roads. But Molly has the telephone--so I can ring up for a car to fetch me--which is a consolation, after all.”

And with his keen eyes set before him, he pressed forward up the steep incline to where, for ten miles, ran the straight broad highway over the high ridge known as the Hog's Back. The road is very popular with motorists, for so high is it that on either side there stretches a wide panorama of country, the view on the north being towards the Thames Valley and London, while on the south Hindhead with the South Downs in the blue distance show beyond.

Having reached the high road the stranger paused to take breath, and incidentally to admire the magnificent view. Indeed, an expression of admiration fell involuntarily from his lips. Then he went along for another half-mile in the teeth of the cutting wind with the twilight rapidly coming on, until he came to the clump of dark firs and presently walked up a gravelled drive to a large, but somewhat inartistic, Georgian house of red brick with long square windows. In parts the ivy was trying to hide its terribly ugly architecture for around the deep porch it grew thickly and spread around one corner of the building.

A ring at the door brought a young manservant whom the caller addressed as Arthur, and, wis.h.i.+ng him good afternoon, asked if Mrs. Bond were at home.

”Yes, sir,” was the reply.

”Oh! good,” said the caller. ”Just tell her I'm here.” And he proceeded to remove his coat and to hang it up in the great flagged hall with the air of one used to the house.

The Manor was a s.p.a.cious, well-furnished place, full of good pictures and much old oak furniture.

The servant pa.s.sed along the corridor, and entering the drawing-room, announced:

”Mr. Benton is here, ma'am.”

”Oh! Mr. Benton! Show him in,” cried his mistress enthusiastically.

”Show him in at once!”

Next moment the caller entered the fine, old-fas.h.i.+oned room, where a well-preserved, fair-haired woman of about forty was taking her tea alone and petting her Pekinese.

”Well, Charles? So you've discovered me here, eh?” she exclaimed, jumping up and taking his hand.

”Yes, Molly. And you seem to have very comfortable quarters,” laughed Benton as he threw himself unceremoniously into a chintz-covered armchair.

”They are, I a.s.sure you.”

”And I suppose you're quite a great lady in these parts--eh?--now that you live at Shapley Manor. Where's Louise?”

”She went up to town this morning. She won't be back till after dinner.

She's with her old school-fellow--that girl Bertha Trench.”

”Good. Then we can have a chat. I've several things to consult you about and ask your opinion.”

”Have some tea first,” urged his good-looking hostess, pouring him some into a Crown Derby cup.

”Well,” he commenced. ”I think you've done quite well to take this place, as you've done, for three years. You are now safely out of the way. The Paris Surete are making very diligent inquiries, but the Surrey Constabulary will never identify you with the lady of the Rue Racine. So you are quite safe here.”

”Are you sure of that, Charles?” she asked, fixing her big grey eyes upon him.

”Certain. It was the wisest course to get back here to England, although you had to take a very round-about journey.”

”Yes. I got to Switzerland, then to Italy, and from Genoa took an Anchor Line steamer across to New York. After that I came over to Liverpool, and in the meantime I had become Mrs. Bond. Louise, of course, thought we were travelling for pleasure. I had to explain my change of name by telling her that I did not wish my divorced husband to know that I was back in England.”

”And the girl believed it, of course,” he laughed.

”Of course. She believes anything I tell her,” said the clever, unscrupulous woman for whom the Paris police were in active search, whose real name was Molly Maxwell, and whose amazing career was well known to the French police.

Only recently a sum of a quarter of a million francs had fallen into her hands, and with it she now rented Shapley Manor and had set up as a country lady. Benton gazed around the fine old room with its Adams ceiling and its Georgian furniture, and reflected how different were Molly's present surroundings from that stuffy little flat _au troisieme_ in the Rue Racine.