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- Herausgeber: Dean Street Press
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
"He had his tea as usual; when I knocked at the door with the tray (he always had afternoon tea), I found him—like this." Dr Roger Lavington is dreading his debut performance with the village amateur dramatic society. But real-world drama takes over when Lavington's neighbour, a reclusive artist, is found murdered in his own sitting room. Also found on the scene are a lady's glove, a diamond ring, and a mysterious young woman who begs Lavington for his protection. Her safety will depend on her ability to take a role in the forthcoming village play—but is Lavington sheltering a wronged woman or a clever murderess? The Bungalow Mystery (1923) was the first of Annie Haynes's golden age crime novels, and announced a major talent. This new edition, the first in over eighty years, features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans. "The ingredients in this story are skilfully mixed." Times "Contrived and worked out with considerable craftsmanship—drawn with sympathy and power."Sunday Times "Contains many cunning devices." Outlook "The mystery is a real mystery." Guardian "Plenty of mystery and drama." Queen "This author has a sure hand at a crime story…strongly recommended to every type of novel reader." Liverpool Courier
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
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Annie HaynesThe Bungalow Mystery
“He had his tea as usual; when I knocked at the door with the tray (he always had afternoon tea), I found him—like this.”
Dr Roger Lavington is dreading his debut performance with the village amateur dramatic society. But real-world drama takes over when Lavington’s neighbour, a reclusive artist, is found murdered in his own sitting room. Also found on the scene are a lady’s glove, a diamond ring, and a mysterious young woman who begs Lavington for his protection. Her safety will depend on her ability to take a role in the forthcoming village play—but is Lavington sheltering a wronged woman or a clever murderess?
The Bungalow Mystery (1923) was the first of Annie Haynes’s golden age crime novels, and announced a major talent. This new edition, the first in over eighty years, features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.
“The ingredients in this story are skilfully mixed.” Times
“Contrived and worked out with considerable craftsmanship—drawn with sympathy and power.” Sunday Times
“Contains many cunning devices.” Outlook
“The mystery is a real mystery.” Guardian
“Plenty of mystery and drama.” Queen
“This author has a sure hand at a crime story…strongly recommended to every type of novel reader.” Liverpool Courier
TO MY DEAR FRIEND
ADA HEATHER-BIGG
IN LOVING GRATITUDE FOR HER CONSTANT HELP AND KINDNESS
The Mystery of the Missing Author Annie Haynes and Her Golden Age Detective Fiction
The psychological enigma of Agatha Christie’s notorious 1926 vanishing has continued to intrigue Golden Age mystery fans to the present day. The Queen of Crime’s eleven-day disappearing act is nothing, however, compared to the decades-long disappearance, in terms of public awareness, of between-the-wars mystery writer Annie Haynes (1865-1929), author of a series of detective novels published between 1923 and 1930 by Agatha Christie’s original English publisher, The Bodley Head. Haynes’s books went out of print in the early Thirties, not long after her death in 1929, and her reputation among classic detective fiction readers, high in her lifetime, did not so much decline as dematerialize. When, in 2013, I first wrote a piece about Annie Haynes’ work, I knew of only two other living persons besides myself who had read any of her books. Happily, Dean Street Press once again has come to the rescue of classic mystery fans seeking genre gems from the Golden Age, and is republishing all Haynes’ mystery novels. Now that her crime fiction is coming back into print, the question naturally arises: Who Was Annie Haynes? Solving the mystery of this forgotten author’s lost life has taken leg work by literary sleuths on two continents (my thanks for their assistance to Carl Woodings and Peter Harris).
Until recent research uncovered new information about Annie Haynes, almost nothing about her was publicly known besides the fact of her authorship of twelve mysteries during the Golden Age of detective fiction. Now we know that she led an altogether intriguing life, too soon cut short by disability and death, which took her from the isolation of the rural English Midlands in the nineteenth century to the cultural high life of Edwardian London. Haynes was born in 1865 in the Leicestershire town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, the first child of ironmonger Edwin Haynes and Jane (Henderson) Haynes, daughter of Montgomery Henderson, longtime superintendent of the gardens at nearby Coleorton Hall, seat of the Beaumont baronets. After her father left his family, young Annie resided with her grandparents at the gardener’s cottage at Coleorton Hall, along with her mother and younger brother. Here Annie doubtlessly obtained an acquaintance with the ways of the country gentry that would serve her well in her career as a genre fiction writer.
We currently know nothing else of Annie Haynes’ life in Leicestershire, where she still resided (with her mother) in 1901, but by 1908, when Haynes was in her early forties, she was living in London with Ada Heather-Bigg (1855-1944) at the Heather-Bigg family home, located halfway between Paddington Station and Hyde Park at 14 Radnor Place, London. One of three daughters of Henry Heather-Bigg, a noted pioneer in the development of orthopedics and artificial limbs, Ada Heather-Bigg was a prominent Victorian and Edwardian era feminist and social reformer. In the 1911 British census entry for 14 Radnor Place, Heather-Bigg, a “philanthropist and journalist,” is listed as the head of the household and Annie Haynes, a “novelist,” as a “visitor,” but in fact Haynes would remain there with Ada Heather-Bigg until Haynes’ death in 1929.
Haynes’ relationship with Ada Heather-Bigg introduced the aspiring author to important social sets in England’s great metropolis. Though not a novelist herself, Heather-Bigg was an important figure in the city’s intellectual milieu, a well-connected feminist activist of great energy and passion who believed strongly in the idea of women attaining economic independence through remunerative employment. With Ada Heather-Bigg behind her, Annie Haynes’s writing career had powerful backing indeed. Although in the 1911 census Heather-Bigg listed Haynes’ occupation as “novelist,” it appears that Haynes did not publish any novels in book form prior to 1923, the year that saw the appearance of The Bungalow Mystery, which Haynes dedicated to Heather-Bigg. However, Haynes was a prolific producer of newspaper serial novels during the second decade of the twentieth century, penning such works as Lady Carew’s Secret, Footprints of Fate, A Pawn of Chance, The Manor Tragedy and many others.
Haynes’ twelve Golden Age mystery novels, which appeared in a tremendous burst of creative endeavor between 1923 and 1930, like the author’s serial novels retain, in stripped-down form, the emotionally heady air of the nineteenth-century triple-decker sensation novel, with genteel settings, shocking secrets, stormy passions and eternal love all at the fore, yet they also have the fleetness of Jazz Age detective fiction. Both in their social milieu and narrative pace Annie Haynes’ detective novels bear considerable resemblance to contemporary works by Agatha Christie; and it is interesting to note in this regard that Annie Haynes and Agatha Christie were the only female mystery writers published by The Bodley Head, one of the more notable English mystery imprints in the early Golden Age. “A very remarkable feature of recent detective fiction,” observed the Illustrated London News in 1923, “is the skill displayed by women in this branch of story-telling. Isabel Ostrander, Carolyn Wells, Annie Haynes and last, but very far from least, Agatha Christie, are contesting the laurels of Sherlock Holmes’ creator with a great spirit, ingenuity and success.” Since Ostrander and Wells were American authors, this left Annie Haynes, in the estimation of the Illustrated London News, as the main British female competitor to Agatha Christie. (Dorothy L. Sayers, who, like Haynes, published her debut mystery novel in 1923, goes unmentioned.) Similarly, in 1925 The Sketch wryly noted that “[t]ired men, trotting home at the end of an imperfect day, have been known to pop into the library and ask for an Annie Haynes. They have not made a mistake in the street number. It is not a cocktail they are asking for…”
Twenties critical opinion adjudged that Annie Haynes’ criminous concoctions held appeal not only for puzzle fiends impressed with the “considerable craftsmanship” of their plots (quoting from the Sunday Times review of The Bungalow Mystery), but also for more general readers attracted to their purely literary qualities. “Not only a crime story of merit, but also a novel which will interest readers to whom mystery for its own sake has little appeal,” avowed The Nation of Haynes’ The Secret of Greylands, while the New Statesman declared of The Witness on the Roof that “Miss Haynes has a sense of character; her people are vivid and not the usual puppets of detective fiction.” Similarly, the Bookman deemed the characters in Haynes’ The Abbey Court Murder “much truer to life than is the case in many sensational stories” and The Spectator concluded of The Crime at Tattenham Corner, “Excellent as a detective tale, the book also is a charming novel.”
Sadly, Haynes’ triumph as a detective novelist proved short lived. Around 1914, about the time of the outbreak of the Great War, Haynes had been stricken with debilitating rheumatoid arthritis that left her in constant pain and hastened her death from heart failure in 1929, when she was only 63. Haynes wrote several of her detective novels on fine days in Kensington Gardens, where she was wheeled from 14 Radnor Place in a bath chair, but in her last years she was able only to travel from her bedroom to her study. All of this was an especially hard blow for a woman who had once been intensely energetic and quite physically active.
In a foreword to The Crystal Beads Murder, the second of Haynes’ two posthumously published mysteries, Ada Heather-Bigg noted that Haynes’ difficult daily physical struggle “was materially lightened by the warmth of friendships” with other authors and by the “sympathetic and friendly relations between her and her publishers.” In this latter instance Haynes’ experience rather differed from that of her sister Bodleian, Agatha Christie, who left The Bodley Head on account of what she deemed an iniquitous contract that took unjust advantage of a naive young author. Christie moved, along with her landmark detective novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926), to Collins and never looked back, enjoying ever greater success with the passing years.
At the time Christie crossed over to Collins, Annie Haynes had only a few years of life left. After she died at 14 Radnor Place on 30 March 1929, it was reported in the press that “many people well-known in the literary world” attended the author’s funeral at St. Michaels and All Angels Church, Paddington, where her sermon was delivered by the eloquent vicar, Paul Nichols, brother of the writer Beverley Nichols and dedicatee of Haynes’ mystery novel The Master of the Priory; yet by the time of her companion Ada Heather-Bigg’s death in 1944, Haynes and her once highly-praised mysteries were forgotten. (Contrastingly, Ada Heather-Bigg’s name survives today in the University College of London’s Ada Heather-Bigg Prize in Economics.) Only three of Haynes’ novels were ever published in the United States, and she passed away less than a year before the formation of the Detection Club, missing any chance of being invited to join this august body of distinguished British detective novelists. Fortunately, we have today entered, when it comes to classic mystery, a period of rediscovery and revival, giving a reading audience a chance once again, after over eighty years, to savor the detective fiction fare of Annie Haynes. Bon appétit!
Curtis Evans
Contents
Chapter One
“What a nuisance this confounded play is! What a fool I was to promise to take part in it!” Dr. Roger Lavington flung the paper-covered book in his hand on the ground, and then aimed a kick at it as a further vent to his feelings.
Miss Minnie Chilton—the maiden aunt who had been acting for the past three months as his housekeeper—looked at him in mild surprise.
“Really, Roger—”
“I am sick of the whole thing,” the doctor went on, in a much exasperated tone. “Here I come in, wet and tired from a long day’s work and, instead of a little peace, I have to learn these wretched lines, and I suppose to-morrow when Zoe arrives there will be nothing but rehearsing. Plague take it all!”
Miss Chilton went on with her knitting.
“I was afraid you would find it a bother, Roger. I told you so when the idea was first mentioned, if you remember?”
This well-meant remark only had the effect of deepening her nephew’s irritation. He rose.
“Well, anyhow, I am not going to bother any more about it to-night. There’s a new article in the Lancet I must look at.”
“Roger”—Miss Chilton’s subdued, rather plaintive voice stopped him before he reached the door—“I suppose Zoe is sure to be here in time for lunch to-morrow?”
“I suppose so. By rights she ought to have come to-night. One day won’t be enough for getting her part up, and so I told her; but one may as well talk to the wind as to Zoe, when she has made up her mind.”
He did not wait for any of the further questions which he saw coming, but made his escape with all possible speed and betook himself down the long passage that led to his consulting-room.
Dr. Roger Lavington had only been settled in the village of Sutton Boldon for the past six months, but he was already beginning to doubt whether he had made a wise choice of a locality in which to begin life on his own account, and to think regretfully of the time he had passed in the metropolis, with his uncle, Dr. Lavington, Zoe’s father, when he was at the hospital.
The village folk were inclined to look askance at the young doctor, and to regard his new-fangled theories with suspicion; he found it difficult to contend with their ignorance and apathy. Of late a new factor had been added to the situation; an old college friend of his—the Rev. Cyril Thornton—had been presented to a living a few miles away, and had brought his sister to keep house. Somewhat against his will Lavington had found himself drawn into the little circle of gaiety which had been created by the advent of the new clergyman. Thornton was so determined to have him that he told himself it was really less trouble to give way than to refuse; some amateur theatricals in aid of the building fund were the young vicar’s latest idea, and he had not rested until he had obtained Roger Lavington’s unwilling promise to help.
Only five days before that fixed for the performance, a great misfortune had befallen the little band of performers; the girl who was to take the second lady’s part—one on which, in a great measure, the success of the whole thing depended—had fallen suddenly ill, and it was impossible on the spur of the moment to supply her place from the neighbourhood. In her despair Elsie Thornton had appealed to Lavington; she had often heard him speak of his cousin’s powers as an actress; she begged him to ask her to come to their assistance now. Lavington had yielded unwillingly, and Zoe had promised to do her best; but she had delayed her arrival until the day of the performance itself, and the rest of the troupe were in despair, fearing that the one complete dress rehearsal—which was all that was possible under the circumstances—would be altogether inadequate to their needs.
Lavington himself was by no means word perfect; but, as he lighted his pipe and turned to his writing-table, he resolved to put the whole matter out of his mind, philosophically concluding that he would manage to get through somehow.
He was deeply immersed in the records of a case which was interesting him considerably, when there was a knock at the door. His strongly marked eyebrows nearly met in a frown as he called out:
“Come in!”
“I shouldn’t have ventured to disturb you, sir, only; being as it was marked ‘Immediate,’ I thought—” the house-parlourmaid remarked apologetically as she handed him a letter on a salver.
“Quite right!” he said, as he took it, his scowl deepening as he saw that the bold black handwriting was that of his cousin Zoe.
“More directions, I suppose,” he ejaculated, sotto voce, as he tore it open and the servant withdrew. “I really wish Zoe—What the deuce!” He stopped short and stared blankly at the note in his hand.
Miss Zoe Lavington’s communication was characteristically brief:
“DEAR ROGER,
“I am sorry that I am unable to come to you to-morrow, as I am down with the flu. You will have to get some one else to take the part. I am very much disappointed.
“Your affectionate cousin,
Lavington gave a long whistle of dismay.
“What on earth is to be done now? They can’t get anybody to take the part at a moment’s notice, that’s certain. The whole thing will have to be put off, and Thornton and his sister will be frantic. Well, I suppose”—hoisting himself out of his comfortable chair with a sigh—“I must go and break it to them.”
He went over to the cupboard, and, taking out a box of cigars, filled his case; as he did so he heard footsteps hurrying up the gravel walk leading to the surgery door, and a loud clamouring ring at the bell.
He threw the door open; a woman, hatless, her uncovered grey hair floating wildly about her face, her eyes wild and frightened, almost flung herself upon him.
“You’ll come, sir—you must come at once!” she cried, catching desperately at his arm as if afraid he would escape her, her breath breaking forth in long strangulating sobs between her words, as she tried to pour out her story. “It—it is the master—he is dying—dead! Oh, hurry, hurry!”
In an instant Lavington became the brisk business-like doctor.
“What is the matter?”
“I—I don’t know!” The woman shuddered, casting furtive, frightened glances into the shadows around. “He was quite well at tea-time. But now he is lying on the floor—and there is blood—”
Her voice died away in a wail of anguish.
“Ah!” The doctor turned quickly to an open drawer and took out lint and bandages, together with a case of instruments and a small portable medicine-case. “Now, my good woman, calm yourself,” he said authoritatively. “Where is your master?”
The woman looked at him in astonishment.
“I thought you would know, sir,” she said in a more natural tone. “He—he is next door—at The Bungalow.”
“The Bungalow.” The doctor drew in his lips as, the woman running to keep pace with his long strides, he hurried down the little drive that led to his front gate. That there were curious rumours about the tenant of The Bungalow—a middle-aged artist, apparently possessed of considerable means, who had had the bad taste to refuse absolutely to make any acquaintances—it would have been impossible to live for six months in Sutton Boldon without knowing. The gossips had decided that his disinclination for society argued a disreputable past and, being completely in the dark with regard to his antecedents, had proceeded to invent various discreditable stories which might account for his hermit-like preference for his own society.
Lavington himself had rarely seen his neighbour, an occasional glimpse in the garden having been hitherto his only opportunity, and as he entered the long, low room leading out of the passage he was surprised to see how massive the frame of the man was who was stretched upon the floor, how large and well-formed his limbs.
The doctor’s face was grave as he knelt down and made a cursory examination, the woman, meanwhile, standing in the doorway watching him with ashen face and wide-open dilated eyes.
At last he looked up.
“I can do no good here. He must have died instantaneously!”
A sort of quiver passed over the white face of the woman in the doorway.
“I can’t think how he came to do it,” she said hoarsely. “It wasn’t as if he had any trouble. He always said—”
“You are making a mistake, my good woman,” the doctor checked her sternly as he rose. “This is no case of suicide. Your master has been murdered!”
“Murdered!” With a cry the woman shrank back and put up her hand to her eyes. “Ah, no, no! He—”
“He has been shot through the brain. And there is no sign of the pistol from which the shot was fired—that alone would be conclusive,” said the doctor grimly. “But the position of the wound shows that it could not have been self-inflicted. I should say, probably, robbery was the motive: you can see that his pockets have been rifled.”
“What!” The housekeeper started violently. “They were not when I was here. They cannot be!”
“Look for yourself.”
The doctor pointed to the prostrate figure. One of the coat-pockets was turned inside out; two or three envelopes and a cigar-case lay on the carpet.
The woman uncovered her face, her eyes looked wild and staring. She glanced fearfully round, at the open door behind her, at the darkness beyond.
“I did not see—I did not know! Who—”
The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
“That we have to find out. The first thing to be done is to let the police know. Is there anyone in the house whom you can send?”
She shook her head.
“I did for him altogether. He was never one to care for many folks about him.”
“Then the question resolves itself into this: Will you stay here while I go, or shall I—”
“I—I daren’t, sir!” the housekeeper broke in, her agitation becoming almost unbearable. “It is as much as I can do to stay in the house when you are here. I should go mad if I was left alone with him!”
Lavington glanced at her coldly: something in her emotion impressed him unfavourably. For a moment the idea of sending her to his house for help occurred to him, but the thought of the shock to his aunt restrained him.
“Then I will stay here and you must go,” he said shortly. “Be as quick as you can, please.”
The woman waited for no second bidding; she turned through the door, and Roger heard her running swiftly down the garden path outside.
Left alone, he looked down once more at the dead man. Who was the assassin, he wondered, who had stolen in from the darkness? Was it a thief, tempted by the thought of the gold that he might find? Or was it some one who had been once friend or foe of the dead man? But the blank, silent face before him could not answer his questions; there was nothing more to be done, and he was about to turn to the door when a faint fluttering sigh caught his ear. He paused and looked round. Everything was silent; apparently he and the dead man were the only occupants of the room; but Roger’s trained eye caught an almost imperceptible movement of one of the thick window curtains.
He sprang forward and flung the curtain aside. Then he stood as if thunderstruck. Opposite, crouching against the wall, a small packet in her arms, her eyes wide open, dilated apparently in the last extremity of terror, was a young girl, looking almost a child as the lamplight fell on her white face and gleaming, dishevelled hair.
Lavington stared at her in utter amazement.
“What on earth are you doing here?” he questioned at last.
The stiff lips moved, but no words came; the brown eyes gazed back at him with the dazed, uncomprehending stare of a child.
Roger put out his hand and caught her arm.
“Why are you here? What have you done?”
With a hoarse cry the girl wrenched herself free and threw herself on her knees before him.
“Help me! Help me! I must get away. If anyone comes—if anyone knows—I shall die.”
Lavington looked down into the anguished, tear-filled eyes, at the trembling lips, hardening his heart by a supreme effort.
“If you haven’t done anything wrong there is nothing to be afraid of,” he said.
But the great terrified eyes, raised so imploringly, had caught the momentary softening in his, and a gleam of hope crept into them. Slowly, falteringly, the girl raised herself, and faced him, steadying herself by the framework of the French window.
“I—perhaps I have done wrong,” she said slowly, her throat twitching convulsively, one slender, ungloved hand still clutching the parcel to her breast, the other clenching and unclenching itself nervously, the delicate almond-shaped nails leaving cruel marks on the rosy palm. “But this will be worse than death. If—if you have a mother—a sister—for their sakes you will let me go!”
Her eyes wandered to the open door; she made a step towards it. Still, Lavington did not move aside, though the stern lines of his mouth had relaxed somewhat. Her appeal had touched a soft place in his heart. He had passionately loved his dead mother; she and the tiny sister who had died just as she had learnt to lisp his name were enshrined in his Holy of holies. What would they bid him do, if the dead could speak, he wondered? Then he recollected how his mother had always been on the side of mercy; his extended hand dropped.
With a sigh of relief the girl slipped by. At the same moment the echo of excited voices reached them from the distance, the sound of heavy measured footfalls. The girl halted and then turned back.
“It is too late! Oh, help me! Hide me! Save me! I am frightened—frightened—for the love of heaven!”
All Lavington’s compassion was roused by the very forlornness of her attitude, by her despairing cry. He glanced round. Had he indeed left it too late? Was there no way of saving her even yet—this girl who had cried to him for help?
A sudden thought struck him; he stepped to the French window and opened it softly.
“See,’’ he said, taking something from his pocket, as with a swift grateful glance she slipped through. “The garden will be searched, and all round will be watched; you cannot get away. But if you go across the lawn, step over the low fence and go up to that door next to the window where you will see a bright light, you can let yourself in with this latchkey. Stay quietly in my consulting-room until I come to you, and do not open the door to anyone.”
He had no time for more, no means of finding out whether she understood or not. Like a frightened rabbit she scudded across the lawn; and when he turned round, after closing the window, the burly form of the village constable stood in the doorway.
“This ’ere seems a bad job, sir.”
“It is indeed.” To his intense disgust, as the man’s small bright eyes watched him curiously, Lavington felt that his colour was changing. “It is impossible from the nature and the direction of the shot that it could have been self-inflicted,” he went on, recovering his matter-of-fact, professional manner with an effort.
“I see, sir.” Constable Frost’s tone was distinctly non-committal. The constable was on the look out for promotion; it struck him that this case might afford him the opportunity for which he had been longing. He crossed over to Roger, who stood with his back against the thick, dull green curtains. “That window now, sir, I heard you closing it—was it open when you came in?”
“No. I unlatched it for a minute. The room was close.”
“Just so, sir.” The constable opened it and, stepping outside, listened with his head on one side for a minute. “Seems all quiet here, sir. I have sent over to Harleswood for the inspector, but if in the meantime you will oblige me—” He took out his notebook and set down laboriously Roger’s bald account of his summons by the housekeeper, his brief examination of the body and, approximately, the cause of death. Then he looked at the housekeeper.
“And you say you last saw him alive, Mrs. McNaughton?”
“About seven o’clock, it would be,” the housekeeper said tremulously. “He had his tea as usual; when I knocked at the door with the tray (he always had afternoon tea), I found him—like this. But I never thought but he had put an end to himself, poor gentleman!”
“Ay, I dessay. But, you see, Dr. Lavington here says that you were wrong. Besides, a dead man can’t carry away a pistol. You can’t give us any idea who done it, ma’am?”
The woman began to shiver, her eyes looked round the room, anywhere save at that stark, awful figure on the floor.
“I can’t tell you anything. I never heard anybody come in.” The man stooped and picked up something that lay concealed by the dead man’s coat.
“What’s this? How did this ’ere come ’ere?”
Roger bent forward and looked curiously at the long dangling object, then a breath of subtle perfume seemed to reach him; with a sudden exclamation he drew back. It was a woman’s long suede glove that looked so strangely out of place in the constable’s big red hand. As he moved away, some small shining object dropped from it; the constable stooped stiffly to pick it up.
“A ring,” he muttered, turning it about in the lamplight. “Diamonds too. This ’ere ought to be a clue, sir.”
Roger glanced at it; it looked like some family heirloom, he thought, with its quaint, old-fashioned setting.
“Certainly it ought,” he acquiesced.
The amazement grew in Mrs. McNaughton’s face, a bewilderment mixed with a kind of curious shrinking horror.
“I can’t say—I don’t know nothing about it.”
Lavington stepped forward.
“Well, if that is all I can tell you, Frost, I will just step indoors. I am afraid my aunt—”
“Begging your pardon, sir, I should be glad if you would stay till the inspector comes. I expect him every minute now.”
Lavington felt nettled.
“But my good man—”
“I should be blamed, sir, if I let you go afore he come,” the constable went on. “There’ll be explanations as’ll have to be made. There”—he held up his hand—“I hear wheels. Here he is now, sir.”
Chapter Two
Lavington crossed the passage to the consulting-room and opened the door; then he stood still in amazement. His own easy chair was drawn up before the fire, and in it the girl was curled up, fast asleep apparently, one cheek resting on her upturned palm, her golden hair gleaming against the dark cushion. As he watched her, she drew her breath in a little sobbing cry, her delicate features contracted; then suddenly she opened her eyes and stared at him bewilderedly.
“Where am I? Oh!”—her lips trembling, a swift rush of colour flooding even her temples—“now, I—I remember. You sent—you sent me here. You will help me to get away?”
“If I can,” said Lavington uncertainly. He came into the room and shut the door. “I could not get away before, until the inspector came; and now they are searching the neighbourhood for a girl, a girl whose glove they have found—a glove with a diamond ring in the finger.”
“Ah!” The girl drew a deep breath.
Roger’s eyes rested on a tiny crumpled ball of suede that lay on his writing-table, then his glance wandered to the fire-place and he uttered a quick exclamation.
“Why, some one has been burning paper,” he said in surprise, as he picked up the largest piece.
With a sharp sound of dismay the girl sprang forward and snatched it out of his hand, not, however before he had had time to read two words in the small neat handwriting. It was the outside of an envelope; part of the address was torn away; only “von Rheinhart” was readable.
“How dare you!” the girl flashed as his fingers relaxed. “You knew that you were not meant to read it.”
The very suddenness of the attack momentarily disconcerted Lavington, the softness and the smallness of the hands gripping his, the wrath in the great brown eyes alike took him aback. But, as he saw her tear the offending scrap of paper into the minutest fragments and throw it on the top of the smoking heap in the fire-place, he awoke to the full consciousness of the situation.
“I did not wish to read anything written there,” he said gravely. “I had no thought at the moment that it was yours; but I could not help seeing the name ‘von Rheinhart’ and I know that Maximilian von Rheinhart is lying dead next door and that papers and valuables have been taken from his body.”
In spite of her anger, as the last word left his lips, the girl visibly flinched.
“Not valuables—papers. And”—raising her head defiantly—“I took them—stole them, if you will. But he ought to have given them up long ago. He had no right to keep them. Now, they can do no more harm.” And with the point of her buckled shoe she pushed the ashes farther down.
Lavington’s grey eyes were stem.
“I believe that it is my duty to summon the police at once and to tell them everything.”
The girl turned sharply; the anger on her face changed to terror.
“You—you couldn’t!” she gasped, catching at her throat with both hands. “Listen—listen! I will tell you—you shall judge. He was a bad man—Maximilian von Rheinhart—a cruel man. There had been a story. Oh, you are a man, you can guess it; it was all over, quite over and done with—but there were letters and he traded on them, he threatened. At last he promised to give them to me, if I came alone, late at night, to-night. I came, and I found—oh, I cannot tell you any more!” shuddering and burying her face in her hands. “It was awful. But I think if I had been your sister, you would have asked another man to be kind to her, you would not—”
“Stop!” Roger held up his hand. “It is for her sake, my child sister’s and for my mother’s, and because you are a woman, and I have your word for it that you have been sorely tried, that I am going to help you now. But how to do it? That is the question. I don’t know—” He paced up and down the small room in perplexity.
The girl watched him with puzzled eyes.
“If you will keep silence just a little while, I will make my way to the nearest station; and then—”
“Nearest station!” Lavington laughed aloud though there was little enough of real mirth in his merriment “Don’t you know that every stranger at any of the stations round here will be watched and interrogated? Oh, yes; with the help of the telegraph and telephone, Inspector Stables has done his work well—for miles round the police are searching for the woman who wore the suede glove that lay beside the body of Maximilian von Rheinhart, for the owner of the diamond ring.”
The colour slowly faded from the listener’s face.
“What am I to do then?” she exclaimed in consternation. “How am I to get away?”
Lavington shook his head.
“At present I can see no way out of it. You are safe here now—but for how long?” shrugging his shoulders hopelessly.
“Do you mean that I cannot get away to-night?” she demanded, her face twitching nervously.
“Certainly not,” Lavington confirmed promptly. “It is out of the question.”
“But I cannot stay here.”
“I am afraid you will have to,” gloomily.
The girl stared at him a moment incredulously, then her full underlip began to tremble; to Roger’s horror she buried her face in her hands and burst into a perfect passion of tears.
He watched her for a minute or two in a species of helpless fascination, wishing vainly that some form of comfort likely to be efficacious would occur to him; the idea of applying to his aunt for help occurred to him, only to be rejected. Miss Chilton was too old and too frail to be troubled with such problems as this girl’s safety involved. The veriest hint of the terrible peril which hung over their guest would be enough to make her absolutely ill, as her nephew well knew. If only his cousin Zoe had been there, he thought vaguely, he would have been able to appeal to her. The recollection of Zoe turned his thoughts to her letter, which still lay on the mantelpiece.
As he looked at it, vaguely wishing he could ask her advice, a sudden idea flashed into his mind. Zoe’s place, Zoe’s room were waiting for her, his aunt and the servants were expecting her. Suppose, for the nonce, their guest were to become Zoe! The audacity of it almost took his breath away; and yet, the longer he thought of it, the more plainly he saw that it distinctly offered a solution of the difficulty. His eyes turned back to the girl, now sobbing aloud, apparently in the last extremity of despair.
“Can you act?” he asked suddenly.
The very incongruity of the question seemed to rouse the girl. She raised her eyes, tear-filled, her cheeks still wet.
“Act!” she repeated, in bewilderment.
“Yes, act,” Lavington returned impatiently. “Because if you could, I think I see a way. I believe we might manage—”
A gleam of hope came into the brown eyes watching him.
“If you would explain, I think perhaps I might.”
Lavington caught up his copy of the play.
“Have you ever taken part in any theatricals? Do you think you could help in this?” holding it out.
The girl glanced at it in his hand; a tinge of colour was creeping back to her pale cheeks.
“I think I could. I have always been fond of that sort of thing. But when? I cannot understand.”
“To-morrow night,” Lavington explained quickly. “My cousin Zoe was expected, but she is down with influenza. Luckily, I have not told anyone that she is prevented; and, if until after to-morrow evening you could take her place, the next day I might go to London with you, and I do not think any suspicion would be roused.”
She turned the pages over rapidly.
“I could soon learn the part, but the dress—”
