Chapter Twenty Five
In the Night
Fearing lest his quick eye should detect my presence, I stood there motionless as a statue.
The pair, in earnest conversation, suddenly strolled away over the fallen leaves at the edge of the wood, whereupon Tramu emerged silently from his hiding-place and crept after them, I being compelled to remain where I was.
So the French police had traced Shaw to his place of concealment!
I longed to give him warning, but was unable. What should I do? How should I act?
Asta was at the Bath Hotel at Bournemouth. At least I could ring her up on the telephone, and tell her what I had seen! So the watcher and the watched having disappeared, I hurried across the park until at length I gained the main road, and went on at a brisk pace till I was back again at my hotel.
It took me a full hour to get on to Bournemouth, and after long delay I at last heard her sweet, well-remembered voice at the instrument.
I expressed regret at awakening her, but told her that I was leaving by motor in half an hour to meet her.
“Where is your father?” I inquired.
“I don’t exactly know. He left me at Burford Bridge Hotel, at Box Hill, last Monday, and I came here to await him. Five days have gone, and I’ve had no letter.”
“Then he hasn’t been to Bournemouth?”
“No.”
“Well,” I said, “do not go out of the hotel until I arrive, will you?”
“Not if you wish me to remain in,” was her reply; and then, promising I would be with her at the earliest moment, as I wished to see her on a matter of gravest importance, I rang off. Half an hour afterwards I paid my bill, even though it were the middle of the night, and going out to the garage, started my engine, and with my bag in the back of the car sped away in: the drizzling rain eastward out of Bath.
I chose the road through Norton St. Philip, Warminster, and Wilton to Salisbury, where I had an early breakfast at the old White Hart, and then, striking south, I went by Downton Wick and Fordingbridge, through Ringwood and Christchurch, past the grey old abbey church and on through suburban Boscombe until, just after nine o’clock, I pulled up before the big entrance to the Bath Hotel in Bournemouth.
Into the pretty palm-court, where I waited, Asta, my lost love, came at last with outstretched hand, smiling me a welcome greeting. She looked dainty in blue serge skirt and muslin blouse, and there being no one else in the place at that early hour, – the idlers not yet having arrived to read the papers and novels, – we sat together in a corner to chat.
By the pallor of her soft, delicate countenance, I saw that she was nervous and troubled, though she showed a brave front, and affected a gay lightheartedness that was only feigned.
“Tell me, Miss Seymour,” I said presently, bending to her very seriously, “what happened to you on that night in Aix?”
“Happened!” she echoed, her dark eyes opening widely. “Ah! It was, indeed, a narrow escape. Had Dad not provided himself with a key to the back stairs in readiness for emergencies, we should have both been arrested – just as you were.”
“Yes,” I smiled. “But I was released. What happened to you?”
“We caught the Paris express – only just as it was leaving; but Dad, fearing that our flight had been telephoned to Paris, decided to get out at Laroche, where we stopped to change engines, and from there we took train by Troyes and Nancy to Strassbourg. Then, once in Germany, we could, of course, escape Tramu’s attentions,” and she smiled.
“And from Germany?”
“We remained a week in Berlin; thence we went to Copenhagen by way of Kiel and Korsor, and ten days ago crossed from Hamburg to Harwich – home again.”
“Your father is certainly extremely clever in evading the police,” I said, with a laugh.
“Our only fear was for you,” she said; “whether they would learn any thing by watching you.”
“They learnt nothing, even though they submitted me to a very close examination. But,” I added, “how did you know Tramu was in Aix?”
“I was ascending in the lift that evening, and as we passed the first floor I saw him talking with the hotel manager. Dad had once pointed him out to me at Monte Carlo. So I suspected the reason of his visit there, and scribbled you a line of warning before we took our bags and slipped away.”
“But for what reason is he so anxious to secure your arrest?” I asked, looking straight into her face. “Cannot you tell me the truth, Miss Seymour? Remember, I am your friend,” I added earnestly.
“Please do not ask me,” she urged. “I cannot betray the man who has been father to me all these years,” she added in a low, pained voice.
“But are you quite certain that he is as devoted to you as he professes?” I asked very gravely.
“Absolutely. Am I not the only real friend he has?”
I recollected that letter written by the man who had loved her, and the allegations he had made.
“Do you know,” I said, “the other night I had burglars at my home. They tried to break open the safe which contains that mysterious cylinder given into my charge by Mr Melvill Arnold.”
“The cylinder!” she gasped, instantly turning pale as death. “Ah! that hateful cylinder, which brings upon its possessor misfortune and disaster. Why don’t you get rid of it, Mr Kemball?”
“I have. It is now in the Safe Deposit Company’s vaults in Chancery Lane.”
She held her breath, her gaze fixed upon me. Then involuntarily she laid her slim white hand upon my coat-sleeve, and said —
“I – I always fear for your safety, Mr Kemball, while that thing is in your possession. Give it away. Destroy it – anything – only get rid of it!”
“But I cannot until the third of November. I accepted a sacred trust, remember, given by a dying man,” I said.
“Yes – but – ”
“But what?” I asked. Then in a low voice, as I bent towards her, I added: “Miss Seymour, I have deep suspicion that your father – a friend of Arnold’s – knows what the cylinder contains, and is extremely eager to get possession of it. Is not that so?”
She was silent. Her lips moved nervously. Her indecision to speak told me the truth. We were friends, therefore she could not deliberately lie to me.
A faint smile overspread her pale, refined features. That was all, but it told its own tale.
“Well,” I said, “the burglars, whoever they were, were experts, and only the electric alarm prevented the theft. What the ancient cylinder really contains I cannot imagine. Indeed, I am filled with anxiety and impatience for the dawn of November the third, when, without doubt, I shall learn the truth.”
“Yes, no doubt,” she said in a slow, tremulous tone. “And the truth will surely be a stranger one than you have ever dreamed.”
Our tête-à-tête was suddenly interrupted by a woman entering the lounge; therefore, as Asta had her hat and coat with her, I suggested that we should walk down to the beach, an idea which she readily adopted.
Then, when there was no one to overhear, I told her of my adventure in the night, of Tramu’s inquiries in the neighbourhood of Ridgehill Manor, and of his surveillance of the movements of Mrs Olliffe and her father.
“Tramu!” she gasped, her face white as death. “Then he has found poor Dad! Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Because I had no wish to alarm you unduly, Miss Seymour,” I said very quietly.
“But Dad may be arrested!” she cried. “Ah! how fatal to associate again with that accursed woman.”
“She is certainly no friend of yours.”
“But she makes great pretence of friendship. I have often been her guest.”
“For the last time, I trust.”
“Yes. But what can we do? How can I warn Dad?” she asked in deep anxiety.
“Ah, Miss Seymour,” I said, after a brief silence, “I fear that you think a little too much of your foster-father, and too little of your own self.”
“Why?” she asked quickly, with some resentment. Again I hesitated. We had wandered upon the pier, but it was as yet early, and few people, save the early-morning exercise men, were about.
“Let us sit here a moment,” I suggested at last. “It is pleasant in the sunshine. I have something to show you.”
Without a word she seated herself where I suggested, on a seat near the empty band-stand, and then I drew from my pocket the letter which Guy Nicholson had written to me on the night of his tragic death and handed it to her.
I watched her sweet face, so pale and anxious. In an instant she recognised the writing of the hand now dead, and read it through eagerly from end to end.
I explained how it had come so tardily into my possession, whereupon she said —
“It is true. He disliked Dad for some inexplicable reason.”
“Apparently he had become aware of some extraordinary truth. It was that truth which he had intended to explain to me, but, poor fellow, he was prevented from doing so by his sudden death.”
Sight of that letter had recalled to her visions of the man whom she had loved so fondly, and next instant I hated myself for having acted injudiciously in showing her the curious missive.
Ah, how deeply, how devotedly I loved her! and yet I dared not utter one single word of affection. That calm, sweet countenance, with those big, wonderful eyes, was ever before me, sleeping or waking, and yet I knew not from hour to hour that she might not be arrested and placed in a criminal dock, as accomplice of that arch-adventurer Shaw – that man who led such a strange dual existence of respectability and undesirability.
“I cannot understand what he discovered regarding the apparition of the hand,” she exclaimed at last, still gazing upon the letter in a half-dreamy kind of way.
“It seems as though, by some fact accidentally discovered, he arrived at the solution of the mystery,” I said. “It was to explain this to me that he intended to come over to Upton End, but was, alas! prevented.”
“But why didn’t he tell me?” she queried. “It surely concerned myself for I had seen it, not in our own house, remember, but in the house of a friend at Scarborough.”
“And I saw it in an obscure French inn,” I said; “and previously I had been warned against it.”
“Yes, I agree, Mr Kemball. It is a complete mystery. Ah! how unfortunate that poor Guy never lived to tell you his theory concerning the strange affair. But,” she added, “our present action must concern dear old Dad. What do you suggest we should do? How can we give him warning?”
“I can suggest nothing,” was my reply. “Tramu is watching them both. Probably he is fully aware of some ingenious conspiracy in progress.”
“Ah! I foresaw danger in his association with her,” the girl declared, pale and anxious in her despair.
“But why has not your father returned to Lydford? Surely while his whereabouts could be preserved from Tramu he would be safer there than anywhere!”
“You might be watched, and if you visited us, you might be followed. Tramu is, as you know, one of the most famous detectives in Europe.”
“And he has, in your father, one who is a past-master in the art of evasion. But,” I added, “tell me frankly, Miss Seymour, do you anticipate that he is anxious to possess himself of the bronze cylinder?” She hesitated again.
“Well – yes. As you ask me for a plain reply, I tell you that I believe his intention is to gain possession of it.”
“Why?”
“Because of the great secret therein contained.”
“And of what nature is this remarkable secret?” I demanded eagerly, much puzzled by her response.
“Ah! how can we tell? It is a secret from all, save to the person who shall dare break it open and examine it.”
“And dare you break it open, Miss Seymour?” I asked.
“No – a thousand times no!” she cried, alarmed at the very suggestion. “I would rather see it taken up and cast deep into the sea. Why don’t you do that, Mr Kemball? Take it out in a boat and sink it deep in the waters, where no man – not even divers – could ever recover it. Sink it deeply,” she urged, “so that all fears may be dispelled, and peace and love may reign.”
But I shook my head, expressing regret at my utter inability to accede to her desire.
And then very slowly we retraced our steps back to the hotel, where an unexpected surprise was, we found, awaiting us.
Chapter Twenty Six
Contains an Ominous Message
As we re-entered the pretty winter garden the hall-porter gave Asta a telegram, which she tore open hastily and read, afterwards handing it to me in silence.
To my surprise, I found it to be from Shaw, informing her that he was on his way to Lydford, and asking her to return home that day. The message had been handed in at Bath Railway Station, therefore it appeared that he was already on his way.
“Is there not danger, distinct danger, in this, Mr Kemball?” she queried, in great anxiety. “If Tramu were watching last night, then he will be followed home!”
“I don’t see how we can prevent him from going to Lydford now,” I said. “We have no address where a telegram would reach him.”
Truly the situation was a critical one. Harvey Shaw, all unconscious of being watched, was actually returning to his highly respectable home.
“Oh, if I could only warn him!” Asta cried, wringing her hands. Yet, personally, I was not thinking of the man’s peril so much as hers. If she went to Lydford, would not she also fall into the drag-net of the police?
Yet what was the mysterious charge against her – the charge which the French police had refused to reveal to me?
While she changed her dress and packed her small trunk I had a look around my engine, and an hour later, with her sitting beside me, we were already buzzing along the Salisbury road, returning by that level way I had followed earlier that morning. From Salisbury we travelled the whole day by way of Andover, Newbury, and Oxford, the same road that I had traversed in the night on my way to Bath.
It was delightful to have her as companion through those sunny hours on the road, and she looked inexpressibly dainty in her close-fitting little bonnet, fur coat, and gauntlet gloves. An enthusiastic motorist, she often drove her father’s car, which I now understood they had been compelled to abandon in the garage at Aix. The police had taken possession of it, but as both the French and English numbers it bore were false ones no clue to the address of its owner would be obtained.
Yet though she charmed me by her voice, though her sweet beauty filled my whole being and intoxicated my senses, nevertheless I somehow experienced a strange presage of evil.
Had Harvey Shaw once again exercised those precautions against disaster and managed to elude the vigilance of the great French police-agent? That was the main question in my mind as I drove the car hard, for Asta seemed all eagerness to get home. If Shaw had been unsuspicious, what more natural than that he should be followed by Tramu to that hiding-place where he assumed the rôle of country gentleman.
The autumn afternoon wore on, and I could not help noticing that the nearer we approached her home the paler and more anxious became the girl at my side. And I loved her, ah yes! I loved her more than my pen has power to describe. She possessed me body and soul. She was all in all to me.
That she was reflecting upon the letter penned by Guy almost immediately before his death I knew by her several references to it.
“I wonder what is the solution of that shadowy hand which we both have seen, Mr Kemball?” she exclaimed suddenly, after sitting in silence for some time, her eyes fixed upon the muddy road that lay before us.
“You mean the solution at which Nicholson apparently arrived?” I said.
“Yes.”
“How can we tell? He evidently discovered, something – something of extreme importance which he wished to communicate to me.”
“I wonder why he makes those extraordinary statements about Dad – and the locked cupboard in his room?”
“I don’t know. Have you ever seen inside that cupboard?” I asked quickly, my eyes still upon the road.
“Never. But poor Guy seems to have regarded it as a kind of Bluebeard’s cupboard, doesn’t he?”
“He seems to have entertained a curious suspicion concerning your father,” I admitted. “Of course, he did not know half that I know.”
“Of course not,” she sighed. “He simply believed – as others do – that he is a country gentleman. And he would have been if – ”
“If what?”
“If – if it had not been for that horrible woman,” she added, in a low hard voice. “Ah, Mr Kemball, if only you could know the truth – if only I dare tell you. But I can’t – I can’t betray the man who has been so good and kind to me all my life.”
“But could I not, if I knew the actual truth, be of service to him?” I suggested. “Could I not be of service to him for your sake?” I added, in a low earnest tone, my eyes fixed upon her pale, troubled countenance.
She looked at me in sharp, startled surprise. Her cheeks flushed slightly. Then, lowering her eyes, she turned her glance away, straight before her again, and in pretence that she had not understood my meaning, replied simply —
“If the heavy hand of disaster falls upon him, then I fear it must fall upon me also.”
How sweet she looked – how serious and pensive her beautiful countenance.
“I must act as your friend and use my best endeavours to ward it off,” I said.
“Did you not do so in Aix, Mr Kemball? We have to thank you for everything. They expected to learn a good deal through you, and while you engaged their attention we were enabled to make a hurried exit. It is, indeed, fortunate that I recognised Victor Tramu!”
“Then I suppose you have had previous narrow escapes?”
“One or two,” she replied, smiling. “But Dad is always so very wary. He is generally forewarned.”
“By whom?”
“By the man who watches him always – a man named Surridge, who never allows his identity to be known, but who acts as our watchdog, to give us warning of any unwelcome watcher.”
“But he failed at Aix.”
“Because Dad foolishly sent him upon an errand to somebody in Paris.”
“He is a friend of your father’s, I suppose?”
“Yes, a great friend. He was once in the London detective police, but on his retirement he found his present post a very lucrative one – the personal guardian of one for whom the police are ever in search! You saw him on his cycle on the afternoon I overtook you in the car – the first time we met?” and she smiled as she spoke. “His vigilance is never relaxed,” she added, “and his true métier never suspected. No doubt he is near my father now on his journey back to Lydford.”
“Then he would not allow him to go if he were still being watched by Tramu?”
“Certainly not. We can, I think, after all, make our minds quite easy upon that score,” she replied.
And as I sat at the steering-wheel I found myself wondering whether any other man had loved in circumstances so curious and so unusual.
At the hotel in Bournemouth we had carefully concealed our destination, telling the hall-porter we were going to London, lest any inquiry be made after our departure. We had tea at the Randolph at Oxford, and it was nearly half-past seven before we drew up before the grey stone front of Lydford Hall, where the butler threw open the door.
The sound of the car brought Shaw out in surprise, and as soon as we had washed we all three sat down to dinner in the fine old dining-room.
About Shaw there was no trace of the least anxiety, yet when the man had gone and I told him in a whisper of what I had seen when watching in the park at Ridgewell, he started, and his face underwent a change.
“I was a fool to have gone there,” he said. “But it was unfortunately of necessity. Surridge was in Bath, but did not know that I went out to Ridgehill.”
“Tramu may have had you watched, Dad.”
“No fear of that, child,” he laughed. “Surridge arranged for a hired car for me to-day from Bath to Westbury, where I took train to Newbury, and the ‘sixteen’ met me there and brought me here. So for Tramu to follow is out of the question. I have not seen Surridge, but merely carried out his arrangements. He may, of course, have had a motive in them.”
“No doubt he had, Dad.”
The butler at that moment returned with the next course, therefore our intimate conversation was abruptly interrupted.
As I sat at that table, lavishly spread and adorned with a wealth of flowers and a profusion of splendid old Georgian silver my eyes wandered to the sweet-faced girl who, in a low-cut gown of palest eau-de-nil chiffon, with velvet in her hair to match, held me so entirely and utterly entranced.
Later that evening, while I had a cigar alone with Shaw, who lay back lazily in his chair, I detected his annoyance that I should have watched him meet the woman Olliffe. And yet how cleverly he concealed his anger, for he was, on the contrary, apologetic for the abrupt ending of our motor-tour, and profuse in his thanks to me for my silence when interrogated by the police at Aix.
Was this actually the man who had made the attempt to break open my safe and secure the bronze cylinder of Melvill Arnold?
No! I could not believe it. He was an adventurer, without a doubt, but men of his stamp are invariably loyal to those who show them friendship. What, I wondered, had caused Guy Nicholson to doubt his affection for Asta? I certainly could detect nothing to cause me to arrive at such conclusion.
The girl entered the room to obtain a book, whereupon, removing his cigar from his mouth, he said, in a low voice —
“Come and sit here, dear. I haven’t been with you lately. I fear you must have found Bournemouth dreadfully dull.”
“Well, I did rather. Mr Kemball’s unexpected arrival was most welcome, I assure you,” she declared, sinking into a chair and placing both hands behind her beautiful head as she leaned back upon the yellow silk cushion.
“I confess I had no suspicions that Mr Kemball was in Bath,” declared her father, with a smile. Then turning to me, he added: “I feared to communicate with you, lest Tramu might be watching your correspondence. He is one of the few really intelligent police officials that France possesses.”
“He is evidently extremely anxious to make your acquaintance,” I laughed.
“I believe so. And I am equally anxious to avoid him. While I remain here, however, I am quite unsuspected and safe. It is really surprising,” he added, “what an air of respectability a little profuse charity gives to one in a country district. Become a churchwarden, get appointed a justice of the peace, sit upon the board of guardians, give a few teas and school-treats, and subscribe to the church funds, and though you may be an entire outsider you can do no wrong in the eyes of the country folk. I know it from experience.”
“Ah! you are a little too reckless sometimes, Dad,” exclaimed the girl, shaking her head. “Remember that when you’ve not taken Surridge’s advice, you’ve run into danger.”
But the man with the small, shrewd eyes smiled at the girl’s words of wisdom.
Again and again there recurred to me those strange expressions in the letter of poor Guy. Ah! if he only had lived! And yet if he were still alive my love for the girl before me must have been a hopeless one. Only on those last weeks had she abandoned her deep! black. That she often sat for hours plunged in bitter memories I knew full well. Would she ever sufficiently forget to allow me to take his place in her young heart?
Knowing her nature, her honest, true, open-hearted disposition, I sometimes experienced a strange heart-sinking that, after all, she could never reciprocate my love. Yet now, as the weeks had gone on, my affection had become stronger and stronger, until I was seized by a passion akin to madness. I loved her with my soul, as truly and as well as ever man has loved a woman through all ages.
Yet, for what reason I cannot even now determine, I felt a strange foreboding that evil was pursuing her. I experienced exactly the same feeling that Guy Nicholson had felt when he penned that letter to me, the delivery of which was, alas! so long delayed.
Presently, when Asta had risen again and left the room, Shaw turned to me and said —
“Poor girl, Guy’s death was a great blow to her, but she is gradually getting over it – don’t you think so? I should never have risked going to the Continent had it not been for her sake – in order to give her a change. But in these last few weeks we’ve had sufficient change, in all conscience. She’s always so cool and level-headed that I feel lost without her, Kemball.”
His words were surely not those of an enemy. No, more than ever was I convinced of his devotion to the girl who, as a tiny child, he had adopted as his own daughter.
Mention of Nicholson, however, afforded me opportunity to tell him how tardily I had received a letter from the dead man.
“It was written only an hour before he died,” I added.
“Written, I suppose, after his guests had left, eh?” asked Shaw, his face a little hard and changed, I thought. “He mentioned me. What did he say? What did he tell you?”
“Nothing,” I replied, sorry that I had spoken so injudiciously.
“Poor Guy didn’t like me, I fear,” declared my host quietly. “He didn’t know what you know, and hence he viewed me with suspicion. I couldn’t very well tell him the truth – or he would have cast poor little Asta aside.”
“I quite understand,” I said.
“Well, what did he say against me?” he asked, looking at me strangely with those small, mysterious eyes of his.
“Nothing whatever.”
“You are deceiving me. I know what he has told you. He has revealed to you something – something – ”
“He has revealed nothing,” I declared. “Why should he?”
But the man lying back in his chair drew at his cigar hard and contemplatively, a strange smile overspreading his broad features. I saw that he was unconvinced, and that upon his countenance was a curious dark expression such as I had never before seen.
Yet it was only for an instant, for next moment he was smiling, and invited me, as I was, to remain there the night.
I, however, declined, for I expected some important business letters at home, and was compelled, therefore, to return to Upton End, towards which destination I set forth about ten o’clock.
I had travelled about ten miles, when three miles the other side of Corby village, a double calamity befell me. Not only did one of my back tyres burst, but something went wrong with my magneto. Hence in the darkness, and with rain beginning to fall, I was brought to a complete standstill. Midnight passed. I was several miles from anywhere, and magnetos are tricky things. I could not get the car to budge, even though I had put on my Stepney wheel.
I must, I suppose, have been pottering about for fully three hours, and not a soul had passed me in either direction. The distant chimes of a church somewhere had struck two, and when just about to give up the attempt to readjust the magneto, I suddenly heard the sound of a galloping horse approaching in the darkness.
As it came up I saw it was ridden by a youth, and I was just about to hail him and ask him to fetch assistance when, with the perversity of such instruments, the magneto started again quite merrily. Therefore I once again mounted at the wheel, and flashing past the lonely horseman, pushed on through the rain over the many weary miles till I at last reached my own home.
Next morning, while seated alone at breakfast, I heard a sound, and, to my great surprise, recognised the same young horseman, muddy and wearied, coming up the drive. With curiosity I went forth to meet him, when he handed me a note, saying —
“Miss Seymour, of Lydford, asked me to bring this at once, sir. It is very important. I’ve been riding all night.”
“Yes,” I cried. “Why, I remember I passed you in my car!”
I tore open the letter, and found in it some scribbled words in pencil, which read —
“I am in deadly peril! If you are my friend come here at once, and save me! – Asta.”