Ten Star Clues E-Book

E. R. Punshon

• Herausgeber: Dean Street Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

"I'll have breakfast ready before you're dressed," Olive said, her mind full of bacon and eggs, tea, toast."Can't stop," Bobby told her. "I've to be at Castle Wych at once.""What's happened there?""Murder," Bobby answered as he made for the door.Bobby Owen has left London and is now a policeman in the bucolic county of Wychshire. The local community is stunned when a missing heir returns to Castle Wych, determined to claim his inheritance. But following the ensuing dispute over his identity, Castle Wych plays host to murder. There are ten "star clues" investigated by the resourceful Bobby, with help from his wife Olive, in this delightful and classic example of the golden age mystery novel.Ten Star Clues, originally published in 1941, is the fifteenth novel in the Bobby Owen mystery series. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans."Mr E.R. Punshon is one of the most entertaining and readable of our sensational novelists because his characters really live and are not merely pegs from which a mystery depends." Punch

Leseprobe

E.R. Punshon TEN STAR CLUES

“I’ll have breakfast ready before you’re dressed,” Olive said, her mind full of bacon and eggs, tea, toast.

“Can’t stop,” Bobby told her. “I’ve to be at Castle Wych at once.”

“What’s happened there?”

“Murder,” Bobby answered as he made for the door.

Bobby Owen has left London and is now a policeman in the bucolic county of Wychshire. The local community is stunned when a missing heir returns to Castle Wych, determined to claim his inheritance. But following the ensuing dispute over his identity, Castle Wych plays host to murder. There are ten “star clues” investigated by the resourceful Bobby, with help from his wife Olive, in this delightful and classic example of the golden age mystery novel.

Ten Star Clues, originally published in 1941, is the fifteenth novel in the Bobby Owen mystery series. This new edition features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.

“Mr E.R. Punshon is one of the most entertaining and readable of our sensational novelists because his characters really live and are not merely pegs from which a mystery depends.” Punch

To

THE SIREN

Whose irresistible song so often lured

away the writer from his work.

LONDON. September—October 1940.

INTRODUCTION

The tale of the alleged lost heir who has returned home to claim his patrimony in the face of strenuous denials of his identity has proven a perennially popular one in English crime fiction. Probably the most well-known example of the plot today is found in Josephine Tey’s much-admired suspense novel Brat Farrar (1949), although with The Traveller Returns (1945) (in the US, She Came Back), the popular Golden Age crime writer Patricia Wentworth preceded Tey into print by four years with a feminine variation on the theme. However, E.R. Punshon anticipated both women on the subject with his fifteenth Bobby Owen detective novel, Ten Star Clues (1941), a classic British stately home mystery wherein Bobby, in his first investigation carried out entirely in the Midlands county of Wychshire in his capacity as detective-inspector and private secretary to Chief Constable Glynne, tries his best to solve the baffling problem of just which Wych is Wych. Confused? Read on!

Somewhat unusually for an E.R. Punshon detective novel, Ten Star Clues starts with an extended section devoted to detailing the rising tensions among the novel’s cast of characters, with Inspector Owen not making his first appearance until a quarter of the story has elapsed, after murder has finally struck. In this opening section of the novel, Punshon introduces the individuals connected to Castle Wych, located near the village of Brimsbury Wych. (“One of England’s show places and not without its niche in history,” Punshon observes of the castle, “open to the public on Saturdays and holidays on payment of one shilling, for the benefit of the funds of the Midwych General Hospital.”) These individuals are the elderly Earl and Countess Wych; Anne Hoyle, their masterful granddaughter, debarred by her sex, much to her irritation, from inheriting the Wych title and estates; Ralph Hoyle, their plainspoken great-nephew, estate manager and heir presumptive; Arthur Hoyle, another great-nephew, next in the line of succession after Ralph and a wealthy, smooth-talking company director who resides, Punshon wryly notes, “in some style in an imposing mansion known as The Thatched Cottage, presumably because it was neither thatched nor a cottage”; the absentminded Reverend Louis Longden, vicar of Brimsbury Wych, and his demure daughter, Sophy, companion to the ailing Countess Wych; Clinton Wells, “youngest partner in the old established firm of Wells, Clinton, Wells and Blacklock that for many years had been in charge of all the legal side of the Hoyle estates”; and Martin, the odious new butler at Castle Wych, “[p]lump, soft-footed, complacent—too complacent.”

Into this mix of vintage English mystery characters comes a highly disturbing element: a bumptious individual from the United States claiming to be Bertram Hoyle, grandson of Earl and Countess Wych. The family had presumed that Bertram met his demise a decade ago in the United States, yet Earl and Countess Wych quickly embrace the young man as Bertram, displacing Ralph Hoyle as heir presumptive to the Wych title and estates. Deeply disgruntled by this development, Ralph proclaims loudly to all and sundry that his “cousin” Bertram is a scoundrel and fake, and that he, Ralph, will prove him such. Not long afterward someone is shot dead in the library at Castle Wych, leaving Inspector Bobby Owen and Chief Constable Glynne tasked with unmasking a wily murderer. Late in the novel Bobby lists ten clues, dubbed by him “star” clues, which he believes are the keys to solving the crime—can you, in contrast with the flummoxed Colonel Glynne, beat Bobby to the solution?

At several points in Ten Star Clues characters reference the famous Victorian case of the Tichborne Claimant, in which an Australian butcher named Thomas Castro appeared in England in 1866 to claim that he was Roger Tichborne, the missing heir to the Tichborne baronetcy, who was widely believed to have expired in a shipwreck off the coast of Brazil a dozen years earlier. The case--of which it has been stated that “[n]o detective novel has a more complex and absorbing plot”--became one of the great causes célèbres in Victorian England, and has since stimulated the imaginations of English writers of both crime fiction and criminal history. In 1936, Frederic Herbert Maugham, elder brother of author Somerset Maugham and a prominent lawyer who had been recently ennobled as Baron Maugham, published The Tichborne Case, a classic account of the affair, while two years later the great locked room mystery writer John Dickson Carr drew on the Tichborne imbroglio for his acclaimed detective novel The Crooked Hinge (1938).

While not as singular a production as Carr’s fantastically eerie and unnerving mystery, Punshon’s Ten Star Clues is composed in the author’s very best vein. Simultaneously intriguing and charming and peopled by a splendid gallery of keenly observed characters, the novel is a model of Golden Age English mystery. In his review of Ten Star Clues in the Spectator, Punshon’s Detection Club colleague Nicholas Blake (the poet Cecil Day Lewis) allowed that Ten Star Clues has a “traditional atmosphere of Earls, libraries and sinister butlers,” but he nevertheless declared that the novel rose above convention “by soundness of characterization and the personality of Mr. Punshon’s detective.” He also deemed Bobby’s solutions to the dual puzzles concerning the identities of the claimant and the killer “not only exciting but plausible.”

Another interesting facet of Ten Star Clues is its setting in England during the so-called “Phoney War,” the early phase of relative inactivity in the Second World War that fell between the German-Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the German attack on the Low Countries that commenced in May 1940. Bobby’s newly-wedded wife, Olive--formerly Olive Farrar, owner of the chic shop “Olive, Hats”— dutifully attends ARP (Air Raid Precautions) lectures, where she incidentally meets Sophie Longden. (“I liked Miss Owen,” Sophy girlishly gushes to Countess Wych. “She seemed very nice, only rather awfully stylish. Oh, and her hats….Each time she had a different one, and each time it was nothing really and yet perfectly wonderful. She used to have a hat shop before she married, someone said.”) After England’s declaration of war on Germany, Bobby for his part handed in his resignation from the police force in order to enlist in the armed forces, but his resignation, we learn, was “instantly rejected.” County martial preparations ultimately play a key role in Bobby’s solution of one of the novel’s central mysteries.

War was much on E.R. Punshon’s mind when he wrote Ten Star Clues, in a two-month period over September-October 1940. With his gently wry humor the author tellingly dedicated the novel to “THE SIREN”, “Whose irresistible song so often lured away the writer from his work.” He of course refers ironically to the air raid siren, which after the Germans commenced the Blitz sounded many times throughout those months on Nimrod Road, Streatham, where Punshon resided in London with Sarah Punshon, his wife of thirty-five years. Presciently the author had evacuated Bobby Owen and his wife Olive from London to comparative safety in Wychshire, a rural Midlands county of his splendidly fertile imagination, but both Punshon and his wife themselves steadfastly remained in London to face the horrors of German air bombardment. In my introduction to the next set of Dean Street Press reissues of Bobby Owen detective novels, I will discuss more about the matter of E.R. Punshon and the Second World War, while continuing the chronicle of Inspector Owen’s battles with crime in Wychshire.

Curtis Evans

CHAPTER IAFTERNOON TEA

Tea was ready on the great south terrace of Castle Wych, one of England’s show places and not without its niche in history, open to the public on Saturdays and holidays on payment of one shilling, for the benefit of the funds of the Midwych General Hospital. Plump, soft-footed, complacent—too complacent—Martin, the new butler, was putting the finishing touches to the tea things. Somehow, correctly conventional as he was in movement and appearance, he yet managed to give an impression of a secret, gloating satisfaction. Ralph Hoyle, leaning against the parapet, found himself reminded of a vulture, a filthy, obscene vulture, hovering over a dying man. Ralph knew this was absurd. It was his own imagination, he was well aware, a result of the tension of the moment. Nevertheless the impression remained. He glanced at his cousin and fiancée, Anne Hoyle, wondering if she felt the same. Apparently not, for she was absorbed in twisting his engagement ring round and round upon her finger. But then Anne seldom noticed servants, not, that is, so long as they carried out their duties satisfactorily. She said abruptly:—

“I can’t think why grand-dad doesn’t just send for the police.”

“Well, I don’t like the chap myself,” Ralph agreed, “but why the police? Sack him. I don’t know why you ever let Uncle Ralph take him on. Of course, it’s no end of a job, getting decent butlers these days.”

“Don’t be a fool,” snapped Anne. “You know I didn’t mean Martin.”

“No, I suppose not,” agreed Ralph. “I expect I was trying to be funny. I always do when I’m a bit nervy.”

“Nothing to be nervy about, is there?” Anne asked.

Ralph did not answer. She knew as well as he did how much or how little there was to be nervy about. It was the length of the interview in the study from which they had been excluded that was troubling them, that was giving to Martin his air of a secret and malicious satisfaction. They had both thought it would have ended long ago, and it still went on. Neither of them could imagine why. But it meant that both were becoming conscious of a vague and increasing unease.

Anne was still absorbed in apparent contemplation of the engagement ring on her finger. It was a nice ring. It had cost a hundred pounds. She knew the exact figure, because her grandfather, old Earl Wych, had told her as a great secret. But it hadn’t been Ralph’s hundred pounds. For one thing Ralph hadn’t a hundred pounds, hardly a hundred pence for that matter. Her grandfather—who was also Ralph’s great-uncle—had provided the money for this ring. That was a proof of how greatly the formal engagement had pleased him. Because he was not an old man who parted very easily with his money. Not a miser, of course, but his dislike of drawing cheques had always been marked, and had increased with age. All the same it was a nice ring. Turning it round and round upon her finger, Anne thought:—

“Suppose it’s true. If it is... but it can’t be... it can’t.”

She looked up at Ralph. He was tall, well built, with the fair hair, blue eyes, dominant nose of the Hoyles, who for some hundreds of years had lived and flourished at Castle Wych and owned most—but less now than formerly—of the surrounding country. In accordance with the present fashion, he was clean shaven, so that one could see the big mouth with the thin, straight lips that were also a characteristic of the Hoyles. His big, square chin stuck out, too, in a way reminiscent rather of the earlier than of the later Hoyles, who had generally owed their continued success to a certain nimble suppleness of mind rather than to that thrusting energy of which such a chin is supposed to be a sign. It was certainly a sign very apparent in the effigy of the founder of the family, the first Baron Hoyle, who had undoubtedly been a bit in the traditional robber-baron line.

Since those far-off days, however, the Hoyles had generally preferred to be lawyers, politicians, high ecclesiastics— place holders, in brief—rather than soldiers or adventurers. So they had flourished exceedingly, adding acre to acre, sedately progressing from baron to earl, sending out many off-shoots, destined, they, too, to reap where they had not sown and gather where they had not strewn. Then when place holding became a depressed industry the family took to finance, since holding directorships and drawing fat fees therefor, seemed almost the same thing as holding a sinecure or two. Unhappily, it hadn’t worked out quite like that. More than once unscrupulous persons had taken advantage of the Hoyle aristocratic indifference to detail that they expected subordinates to attend to. Also, the trade, profession, or occupation of landlord had in its turn become something of a depressed industry. True, as in the days of Carlyle, if a tenant plucked two nettles to make soup, then of those nettles the landlord could still claim one for himself. But to-day there wasn’t always a tenant to do the required plucking. Alternatively, as the lawyers say, the market for plucked vegetation of all kinds was sometimes so bad that even transport costs could not be covered.

This is known as agricultural depression, and Ralph, as heir to his great-uncle, the present aged but still vigorous earl, had long ago decided that when he inherited title and estates Castle Wych would have to go. Possibly it might be presented to the nation or to the Wychshire County Council, if either nation or county council could be cajoled or persuaded or otherwise induced to accept the sprawling white elephant of a place. Some of the outlying property would have to be disposed of, too, and the rest managed on very different lines from those followed at present. There was still money to be made in agriculture, Ralph was persuaded, if one had capital and adopted modern and scientific methods. Unfortunately in his present position as agent to his great-uncle he had command of no capital, nor was he permitted to employ or introduce those new methods for which he yearned. Indeed these suggestions that he had more than once urged upon the old earl had led to somewhat strained relations between them, and to one really gorgeous row when Ralph had let slip his intention of somehow or another getting rid of the castle, the ancient seat of the family.

“But for the entail,” Ralph had remarked afterwards to Anne, “poor old Uncle Ralph would have booted me out then and there. He told me I was a degenerate Hoyle and a disgrace to the family name. I suppose it is hard luck on him he has no direct heir now.”

Anne had made no comment. Her common sense told her some such step as Ralph proposed might very well be necessary. But she meant to make very sure that it was necessary. Countess Wych, presiding over ancient and historic Castle Wych, would be a much more imposing person than a Countess Wych in a London flat or occupying the dower house which was as old and inconvenient as the castle itself, and very much less magnificent; in fact, not magnificent at all. Besides, she had a genuine sense of the historic significance of the old place, where news had come of Agincourt, from whose towers beacons had blazed to tell of the coming of the Armada, where Charles the First had first raised his standard even before flying it at Nottingham, where galloping messengers had brought so often news of peace and war, of triumph and disaster, where three times over in the war of 1914-18, telegraph boys had come cycling up the long avenue with the tidings that once again the heir had died in battle; Mesopotamia, Gallipoli, France, all taking their toll in grim succession.

Turning now her ring round and round upon her finger, she was telling herself that things would have to be very bad indeed before she would consent to parting with the old historic dwelling, for so long the seat of the family. Certainly not merely to raise money for agricultural experiments. Always she had been accustomed to getting her own way, and she meant to have it about the old house, too. Only, somehow, glancing up at Ralph, as he leaned moodily against the stone parapet, she was aware of an uncomfortable feeling that that square, stuck-out chin, those clear and steady eyes, suggested a will as decided as her own.

Then, too, there was this new development, though that, it appeared, need not be taken too seriously. Ralph himself, at any rate, who had seen and talked to the fellow, had waved him aside as an obvious, almost bare-faced impostor. And Mr. Clinton Wells, the family lawyer, was very much of the same opinion.

Only why were they all three, earl, lawyer, claimant, closeted so long in the library? Or perhaps the police had been sent for and the delay was merely till they arrived?

Bitterly she reflected, with the sense of grievance that never left her, that the claim now made would not have mattered but for the absurd and unfair sex disability under which her natural rights were disallowed. She felt herself as competent as any man to look after the estate or to take part in those activities that in England are part and parcel of an ancient title. Indeed, her clear-cut features; her chin, smaller and rounder no doubt than Ralph’s, but sticking out in much the same manner; the firm lines of her mouth, too big, like that of all the Hoyles; the direct and haughty gaze of her clear eyes so ready to show disdain or anger; all spoke of much the same reversion to the original bold-baron type whereof Ralph also seemed an example. She was a handsome rather than a pretty girl, largely made, fond of all outdoor sports, a good rider to hounds, an excellent shot, inclined to despise tennis to which she sometimes referred as ‘pat ball,’ but almost in the championship class at golf. Not that she ever really enjoyed any game so much as she enjoyed a day’s shooting—deer stalking in the Highlands for example—or a good run to hounds ending with a kill in the open. The very first thrill in her life had been the old ceremony of blooding she had gone through at the age of five, after one of the best runs the Wychshire hounds had ever known. Nor probably had Castle Wych, in all its long history, ever been so well run as since Countess Wych’s increasing age and infirmities had confined her to her room and caused the reins of management to fall into Anne’s hands. The domestic staff held her in wholesome awe, though, like the schoolboy in the story, they would probably have admitted that if she was a beast, at any rate she was a just beast.

A girl came out from the house, small and hurrying and a little breathless. She was Sophy Longden, daughter of the Reverend Louis Longden, vicar of Brimsbury Wych, the village and parish dominated by the castle. Mr. Longden had not been vicar long. It is not always easy to-day to find incumbents for small, badly endowed country livings, and the bishop had been glad to hear of an East End curate who, threatened with a breakdown after twenty years’ hard work in a poor district, was willing to exchange the smoke and noise and squalor of the East End for the fresh air and quiet of Brimsbury Wych.

The change had been very successful in filling in Sophy’s small, thin face, with the broad low forehead and the pointed chin. She was even beginning to show roses in her cheeks, and her eyes had become less strained, and quieter. Fruit and vegetables from their own garden were still a treat, bewilderingly different from the stuff of the same name, bought from London greengrocers. Nor had Sophy as yet quite recovered from her awe of the castle and those who dwelled therein, especially of the tall old man, so very upright and dignified, who treated her when they met with a lofty courtesy that not only deeply gratified her, but somehow left her more than ever conscious of the enormous difference between Earl Wych and the younger daughter of a country parson.

It had been an added wonder, a kind of Cinderella tale come true in real life, when quite unexpectedly she had found herself actually living in a real castle, rising each morning, going to bed each night, in one of England’s stately homes—Sophy knew her Mrs. Hemans—and able in her leisure time to sit with her book or sewing in one or other of those magnificent rooms; even in the west drawing-room, for instance, where, according to legend, Queen Elizabeth had once held council. It was as a kind of part secretary, part companion, part nurse to the bed-ridden Countess Wych that she was there, and though the salary was small enough, it paid for her clothes, there was one mouth less to feed at home, there was even often a little over to help her mother with the housekeeping, and she was still able to help her father in such small ways as taking a class in the Sunday school, arranging flowers in the church, and so on.

Indeed Sophy thought herself an extraordinarily lucky young person, even if she did not fully realize that she was doing twice the work any maid would have done for less than a half of the wage. Not that any one else realized it, either.

She was genuinely fond of the aged Countess Wych, and really liked to listen to those interminable tales of her young days Anne would have cut very short indeed. Of Earl Wych she stood in deep awe, tempered by a lively gratitude that he permitted her to breathe the same air as himself. Anne she worshipped from a great distance, absolutely convinced that Anne was the most perfect and altogether wonderful creature the world had ever seen. She was more than a little doubtful of Ralph, though, holding him quite unworthy of her paragon, but loyally accepting him, since Anne had deigned to do the same. Still she liked him the least of the family. She found a trifle alarming his silences, his abstractions, there was something about him she felt vaguely disturbing. Not for the world would she ever have been alone with him, and once when he had offered to drive her into Midwych on some errand or another, she had looked so startled and scared that he had burst out laughing and gone off without her.

That had been hard to forgive; for her dignity, of which she was seldom aware, had really been ruffled on that occasion. On his side he had put her down as a colourless little thing and had never since taken much notice of her. She said now, a little breathlessly:—

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know tea was ready. Would you like me to pour out, Anne?”

(Yes, she was allowed to call Anne by her Christian name, and Anne quite often called her ‘Sophy’. Countess Wych, too, who had begun with ‘Miss Longden’, had progressed to ‘Sophy’, and now seldom called her anything but ‘dear’ or ‘dear child’. It was all very wonderful, and if only Earl Wych had been a trifle less alarming and Ralph a trifle more friendly, she would have felt herself entirely at home.)

Without replying directly to her question, Anne said:— “Are they still in the library?”

Sophy nodded and looked grave.

“I think,” she said, “they must be giving him a—talking to.” She looked graver still as she thought of how awful it must be to be ‘talked to’ by Earl Wych. She said severely:— “I don’t know how any one can be so wicked as to pretend to be some one they aren’t. I could kill them.” Then she saw Ralph smiling, and that really annoyed her. It was nothing to laugh at. She said quite loudly:— “Well, I could,” and indeed at the moment she felt there was nothing, however desperate, she was not capable of to defend this great House of Wych against disaster.

“Another Joan of Arc come to Castle Wych,” Ralph said, amused, and yet a little impressed, too, by the sudden note of will and energy in the generally quiet, clear little voice.

“Sophy’s not saying she’s a Joan of Arc,’’ interposed Anne, who felt that if any Joan of Arcs were required, she herself was quite ready to supply the need. Sophy looked at her gratefully, thankful for this defence. Anne added:— “What’s the good of talking like that? The man’s an evident impostor.”

All the same there was a touch of renewed unease in her voice. Why were they so long in the library? why hadn’t the fellow been thrown out long ago? Sophy began to pour out the tea. Anne had not answered her question directly, but Anne had a habit of not answering questions. She expected her wishes to be understood. She expected people to know what they ought to do and to do it. A regal attitude, but Anne had a regal turn of mind. The fact that Sophy was rather quick at understanding what Anne wished was one of the reasons why she had found favour in Anne’s sight—Sophy having anything but a regal turn of mind. From the parapet Ralph said:—

“Here’s Arthur coming. The gathering of the clans—or is it a case of the eagles and the carcase?” and Sophy thought the remark in dreadfully bad taste.

A stout, comfortable-looking, middle-aged man was walking towards them across the lawn. He was Arthur Hoyle, next in succession in the direct male line—or so till now it had been assumed—though it was four generations through which he traced descent. His grandfather was the only member of the Hoyle family who, venturing into the city, had there been not shorn but shearer—an expert shearer, too. Arthur’s father had been less successful, but Arthur himself was supposed to have more than retrieved their fortunes. He was an accountant by profession, a director of many companies, engaged in various complicated financial operations, and he lived in some style in an imposing mansion known as The Thatched Cottage, presumably because it was neither thatched nor a cottage, and situated between the town of Midwych and Wych forest. He was a widower, having lost his wife some years ago, and there were no children. Rumour said there were many willing to do their best to bring him consolation for his loss, and rumour was busy, too, with the passing consolations he was supposed to be finding for himself. Fortunately rumour can generally be disbelieved, and these were no more than rumours. He was still a good-looking and in his way an imposing person, with the Hoyle blue eyes—a colder blue in his case perhaps—the fair hair, the wide mouth and the thin lips, these last more tightly pressed together than with most of the Hoyles. On the whole, belonging to the more recent Hoyle type, the supple, smiling, ready-witted type rather than to the direct and dominant type to which both Ralph and Anne belonged.

He ascended the terrace by one of the short flights of steps that led up to it from the lawn, and waved them a cheery greeting.

“Hullo!” he called. “Thought I would drop in and hear the news. I heard Clinton Wells was bringing him along. I suppose he’s here.”

Ralph nodded an assent.

“They’re in the library,” he said.

“Well, you ought to be there, too,” Arthur remarked.

Ralph made no comment but looked as though he were of the same opinion.

“You’re an interested party,” Arthur said. “So am I, I suppose, for that matter—or would be, if you weren’t so disgustingly healthy.”

He collected a chair and sat down. Sophy, whose existence he had acknowledged with a brief nod, poured out another cup of tea for him. Silently Anne pushed over a plate of cakes. She was still turning round and round the ring on her engagement finger. Ever since her earliest childhood, it had always been understood that she and Ralph were to marry. It was, in a way, her right. That absurd sex disability whereby she was barred from her natural right of succession might have had some sense in it in days when occasionally rights had to be defended by the use of lance and battle axe. Not that Anne didn’t feel perfectly capable of wielding axe and lance herself, if necessary. But in settled days of law and order, this sex disability business was a ridiculous and disgusting anachronism. Had she been the grand-daughter of an American millionaire instead of an English peer of ancient lineage, sex would not have mattered in the least. Her rights would not have been affected in any way by the totally irrelevant detail that she generally wore skirts and not trousers. True, the American millionaire could leave his money as he liked and the English peer had no say in the matter, all that being regulated by the entail. But Anne felt as fully competent to deal with supposititious American millionaires as with equally supposititious battle axes. She would have liked to see any old millionaire grandfather disinheriting her, just as she would have liked a chance to wave a battle axe in the thickest of the fray. So the engagement to Ralph, heir to title and estates by the mere accident of having been born to trousers and not skirts, had always been regarded as no more than her right, the simple compensation due to her. Turning the ring round and round, she thought:—

“Arthur’s awfully rich. Money matters to-day. If you’ve money you’ve everything. Ralph wouldn’t have a farthing, if he wasn’t heir, and he has no profession except managing the estates. I wonder if Arthur would give him a job—five or ten pounds a week perhaps. What’s the good of that?”

“You both look a bit down,” Arthur said. He helped himself to another cake. “I can remember Bertram,” he said. “I was here when we heard of his death. Cheek for this bloke to turn up now and claim to be him. Clinton Wells has seen him, hasn’t he?”

“Yes. He told me there was nothing in it,” Ralph answered.

“Well, he’s a lawyer and he ought to know,” Arthur remarked.

“Oh, the fellow’s an impostor all right,” declared Ralph. “He’s managed to get hold of poor old Bertram’s papers— stole them after Bertram died most likely. Now he has his tale pat, but there are all kinds of things he ought to know that he hasn’t any idea of. You could see it. When he got here he was gaping all round, like one of the Saturday shillingers. He wasn’t remembering familiar things, he was noticing and trying to remember new ones. Bertram wasn’t bad at cricket. The first century he made in anything like a good match was for Wych and District against an M.C.C. team. No chap ever forgets his first century in a good match. Couldn’t if he tried,” pronounced Ralph, who himself bowled a good fast ball and was a fair, if somewhat impetuous, batsman, generally good for runs if he didn’t get out in the first over. “But this fellow hadn’t a notion what I was talking about when I tried him with it.”

“Wonder why he has waited so long?” Arthur mused, half to himself. “If he managed to get hold of Bertram’s papers after his death, that’s all of ten years ago, isn’t it?”

“To explain why he has forgotten such a lot,” Ralph suggested.

“Yes, there’s that,” agreed Arthur. “Handy excuse. Or he may have been screwing up his courage.”

“Grand-dad ought to send for the police,” Anne interposed sharply. “I can’t think why he doesn’t. Perhaps he has,” she added hopefully, “and they’re just waiting for the police to get here.”

“Well, about that,” Arthur pointed out, helping himself to more cake, “I don’t know what he could be charged with. I don’t quite know what just saying you are someone you aren’t would come under for a police charge.”

“The Roger Tichborne man was sent to prison,” Anne reminded him.

“Wasn’t that for perjury committed at the first trial?” Arthur asked. “Do you know, Ralph?”

Ralph didn’t answer. He didn’t like Arthur’s tone very much, and he liked still less the touch of mockery, of malice indeed, he felt beneath the smoothness of Arthur’s voice. It has the voice Arthur used, he felt, when Arthur was explaining to someone that he, Arthur, had got the best of the bargain, and there was nothing the someone could do about it. Of course, it all made very little difference to Arthur since his prospect of inheriting had always been negligible. Ralph’s expectation of life was perfectly good, he and Anne had every intention of producing a large family. Besides, when a chap was as rich and prosperous and successful as Arthur Hoyle, he had no need to worry about losing so small a chance of inheriting. There were, no doubt, those vague rumours about Arthur having dropped a packet recently on the Stock Exchange, but rumours don’t amount to much, and certainly there was no sign of any change in the luxurious style of living at The Thatched Cottage, any more than there was any sign of worry to be seen overshadowing Arthur’s accustomed air of plump prosperity. He was well into his fifth cake now, by the way.

Through the french windows that opened on the terrace from the small drawing-room, three men came in succession. First was old Earl Wych, aged, white-haired, erect, looking stern and intent, with so set and grim an expression indeed that Sophy found herself thinking of a soldier advancing to the attack. Not that she had ever seen a soldier advancing to the attack, but that was the thought that came into her mind. Behind the old earl was a much younger man, evidently very nervous, a nervousness that showed itself in restless eyes, an occasional twitching at the corners of the mouth, a perpetual fidgeting with handkerchief and cigarette case, and so on. Sophy remembered, too, later on, how when he stood still she could see his toes working inside his long, narrow, shiny, patent leather shoes. A natural nervousness perhaps in a man claiming to be the long-lost heir and uncertain of his reception. At the moment the thought in Sophy’s mind was that if you said ‘Boo’ to him very loudly and very suddenly, he would probably run away. Unfortunately, it occurred to no one to try the experiment. Besides, it may be Sophy did not quite understand the kind of timid desperation, of frightened obstinacy, some people can display.

Behind these two came a tall, very good-looking young man, athletic in build, with strong, eager features, a bronzed complexion, a general air of brisk and confident authority. He had not at all the appearance of the traditional family lawyer. But it might come to that in time, for he was still much the youngest partner in the old established firm of Wells, Clinton, Wells and Blacklock that for many years had been in charge of all the legal side of the Hoyle estates, and he would certainly not have been here to-day but for the accident that the senior partner, Mr. Blacklock, was ill, and the second partner, another Blacklock, was away on holiday. So this young man, Clinton Wells, combining in himself the original Clinton and Wells strains, found himself in full charge. Gossip whispered that he was an ambitious young man, showing no signs of settling down as a country solicitor, and even entertaining political aspirations. It was reported he had been heard to say that what a little Welsh lawyer could do, a solicitor from the Midlands could do, too. More ill-natured gossip remarked that he had the pale-blue eyes of the Hoyle family, and hinted that a certain unavowed mixing, outside legal bonds, of Hoyle and Clinton blood a generation or two back, accounted for the favour with which old Earl Wych always seemed to regard the young man. But these were only whispers none dared repeat aloud, whispers without a shred of proved foundation. True, there were always those clear, rather pale-blue eyes characteristic in the Hoyle family, showing, for example, both in Anne and in Ralph, though in Ralph’s case the blue often seemed to be a grey, so that Sophy, at least, was never quite sure whether they were really blue or really grey.

There advanced slowly the little group—the tall, commanding looking old man; the nervous young man; the handsome, youthful lawyer, looking as distinguished in his way as did the old earl himself. The group by the tea table were all on their feet now. Arthur had an air of complete bewilderment. Ralph waited, utterly expressionless. Anne gave the impression of holding herself in check, of being ready to spring at any moment, of a coiled-up spring indeed that the smallest touch might release. To Sophy’s mind the comparison between this advance of the three men with the advance of soldiers upon a firmly held position, grew still stronger. She became suddenly afraid. In a clear, loud voice, with little in it of the frequent shrillness of old age, Earl Wych said:—

“This is my grandson, Bertram, we all believed dead so long. I am sure you will welcome him. At first I failed to recognize him, but now I am convinced of his identity.”

CHAPTER IICHIVALROUS OFFER

There followed a bleak silence, broken only by a quick, deep-drawn breath from the claimant, the soi-disant Bertram Hoyle. It was almost as if he experienced a sudden relief, as if until then he had not been quite sure of what the old earl would say. No longer had he the appearance of being ready to run if any one said ‘Boo’ to him. Instead, and instantly, he took on an air of swaggering confidence, and, looking at the others, seemed to be asking them what they thought of that.

What Ralph thought, it was not easy to tell. His features were utterly expressionless. The only change was that he no longer lolled against the parapet but straightened himself and stood upright. The earl was looking straight at him; and Sophy, watching, had an odd sensation that silently the old man was pleading with him, asking for sympathy and understanding, almost for help. But Ralph’s own gaze was averted, directed towards that wide expanse of countryside, of field and wood and pasture, of hedge and grove and spinney, all lying there in the quiet afternoon sunshine, all of it land over which for centuries the Hoyles had borne sway and rule.

Arthur was still gaping, open-mouthed, open-eyed. The impression he gave was of a complete and indeed incredulous astonishment. One expected every moment to hear him burst out laughing and remark that it had been a good joke and now let’s be serious. Anne was leaning forward, her hands on the tea table, her eyes intent upon the claimant. There was questioning and doubt and anger in her gaze, and something else as well that Sophy, at least, did not understand, something of poise and calculation as at secret, unknown thoughts. Yet what Sophy remembered best in after days, when thinking over that strange scene, in the first moments at least so strangely silent, was neither the dark impassivity with which Ralph listened to his great-uncle’s declaration, nor the change in the claimant’s attitude from nervousness to swaggering assurance, nor the suggestion in Anne’s eyes of hidden, secret thoughts, nor Arthur Hoyle’s almost ludicrous surprise, nor yet that impression as of a pleading for sympathy, even for help, Earl Wych seemed to her somehow to convey, but rather the sharp intake just behind her of the lawyer’s breath, and of how when she turned for a moment to look she saw his strong white even teeth so firmly clamped upon his under lip that spots of blood showed here and there.

No one had spoken. The only person who had even moved was the claimant, who had dropped into a chair, where he lolled with a kind of insolent self-assurance, as if now perfectly at home. Angrily Sophy thought to herself:—

“Yes, but it wouldn’t take much to send you running again.”

In a perfectly level, expressionless voice, as if he were merely remarking that it was a fine day, or that he would like another cup of tea, without letting his eyes wander from their contemplation of the fair countryside before him, Ralph said over his shoulder and almost casually:—

“That’s a lie.”

There followed another silence. Earl Wych went very red and then very pale. He struck his hand heavily on the back of a chair near. Then he said:—

“That’s the first time in my life I’ve been called a liar.”

Ralph turned and faced him.

“It may be the first time that you have lied,” he said.

Earl Wych still had his hand on the back of a chair. But now it seemed less in anger than for support. Sophy had the idea that he might fall, and instinctively took a step or two towards him. He seemed to understand, and, instead of resenting her action, to be glad of it. He said to Anne:—

“Give your cousin Bertram some tea.”

Sophy found suddenly that the old man was leaning a little heavily on her shoulder. He began to walk back towards the castle, still availing himself of her support, of which indeed he was evidently glad. She had the impression that his sight had become dim, that he no longer saw surrounding objects very clearly. She heard him muttering to himself, but she could not tell what he said, though twice over she heard the word ‘Bertram’ pronounced, and once the phrase ‘wretched boy’, and then again she heard: ‘No lie, no lie. Bertram’s there.’

But what this meant she could not imagine.

They entered the castle through the great open french windows of the small drawing-room—its length, by the way, was about thirty feet, its breadth in proportion— and then on to the library where the earl was accustomed to sit. At its door he paused and looked at Sophy with a slight air of surprise, as if wondering who she was and why she was there and why he was leaning on her shoulder. He said:—

“Thank you, my dear. I shall be all right now.” Then he said:— “Ralph should take it better. Bertram has his rights. Can’t the boy trust me?”

He pushed open the library door and went in, leaving Sophy on the threshold as if he had forgotten she was there, as indeed very likely was the case. Evidently he wished to be alone. Sophy hesitated for a moment, not quite knowing what to do. But she was a young woman with a healthy appetite and she had by no means finished her tea, which, indeed, had been a somewhat interrupted meal. She decided to go back to the terrace and see if anything to eat was still there. She found herself wondering if the old earl had been quite fair to Ralph in saying he should have taken it better. To her surprise she discovered that she was feeling a little sorry for Ralph. Odd, to feel sorry for that strong, aloof personality. She was on the terrace now and she was aware of Martin, the butler, hovering at a distance. She had a disagreeable impression that he was watching. By the tea-table no one seemed to have moved or even to have spoken. Except that Anne had poured out for her newly-discovered cousin a cup of tea, which he was sipping with an air of smug triumph that made even Sophy long to box his ears. His earlier nervousness had entirely disappeared and he had an almost bragging air of possession, even though he did still keep a wary eye on the still and silent figure by the parapet. Sipping his tea as he spoke Bertram was saying now:—

“You know, Cousin Anne, I remember you perfectly. I should have known you again anywhere, any time. So would you me perhaps?”

“No,” said Anne, though in a queer, detached, unemotional voice.

“Too bad,” Bertram smiled without a trace of discomposure. “I expect I’ve changed more than you, though. Now Cousin Arthur—” He paused and looked at Arthur, who still had not lost his manner of extreme and indeed incredulous bewilderment. “No,” Bertram decided. “I should not have known Cousin Arthur again. One forgets a lot in ten years, especially in the sort of rough and tumble life I’ve had out there, not to mention a whack on the head I had that got me six months in hospital without knowing who I was or how I got there. Of course, they had me remembering again after a time. That was from getting mixed up in a street row, and when the cops came along, well, they just naturally clubbed every one around. They’re handy with their night sticks, those lads, and if you get some when they’re handing it out, well, it’s just too bad, and that’s all there’s to it.”

He paused and looked round with a kind of sly triumph, and there came into Sophy’s mind a sudden, sure conviction that the man was a liar and an impostor, and that he had put forward this story to explain a probably soon apparent ignorance of things he ought to have known, that a genuine Bertram would certainly have known. No one made any comment. The story had been too crude, its intention too evident. Even Bertram himself seemed to feel its reception unsatisfactory. He stared around with what Sophy felt was an insolent defiance, challenging them, as it were, to express disbelief. He drank up his tea and handed the cup to the silent and the watchful Anne.

“May I have another, Cousin Anne?” he asked, and, addressing himself for the first time to the impassive, sombre Ralph, he said:—“Cousin Ralph I hardly remember at all, but then we never saw much of each other, did we? Only in the hols., and not always then.”

“I never saw you before to-day,” Ralph answered slowly; “and please don’t call me your cousin. I believe you to be a liar and an impostor.”

“Now, now, now,” protested Bertram. “I can make allowances for the way you feel about it, but what’s the good of taking it bad? You heard what grand-pa said. I ask you, is it likely grand-pa would accept me as his grand-son and heir if he wasn’t satisfied?”

“Have you seen the Countess?” asked Arthur abruptly.