CHAPTER EIGHT
AILSA LORNE
Mrs. Raynor positively jumped as the premonitory knock trembled on thedoor before Johnston the butler opened it and entered. Ordinarily shewas but little given to "nerves" and was by no means easily startled,but this morning was a decided exception to the rule. And why not? Youdon't get called up out of your bed every morning to learn that agentleman who had been walking about your tulip beds yesterday afternoonhad been barbarously murdered during the night in a house but a fewyards away. Nor is it pleasant to face the likelihood of getting yourname and your residence mentioned in the daily papers in connection witha police affair, and to know that before nightfall every groom,washerwoman, and chambermaid within a fifty-mile radius will have readexactly what the interior of your home is like, exactly what you worewhen "our representative" called, and will know a good deal more aboutyou than you ever knew about yourself.
"Begging pardon, madam, but a gentleman----" began Johnston, but wassuffered to get no further.
"If it is a reporter I will not see him," interrupted his mistress witha decisive wave of the hand. "You know very well that your master andMr. Harry have gone over to the scene of the abominable affair toascertain if there is or is not any likelihood of its being a case ofmistaken identity; and you ought to know better, Johnston, than to admitstrangers of any sort during their absence."
"Your pardon, madam, but nobody has called--at least at the door,"replied Johnston with grave politeness. "The gentleman in question isasking over the telephone to speak with Miss Lorne."
"With me?" exclaimed Ailsa, turning around in the recess of the big baywindow of the morning room where she had been standing with her armabout Lady Katharine Fordham and looking anxiously down the drive whichled to the Grange gates. "Did you say that somebody was asking over thetelephone for _me_, Johnston? Thank you! I will answer the calldirectly."
"My dear, do you think that wise? Do you think it discreet?" said Mrs.Raynor rather anxiously. "Consider what risks you run. It may be areporter--I am told that they are up to all sorts of tricks--and to betrapped into giving an interview in spite of one's self---- Dearest, youmust not let yourself be dragged into this abominable affair."
"I think it will be a clever man who can do that against my will--andover the telephone," replied Ailsa gayly. "I shan't be gone more than aminute or two, Kathie dear; and while I'm away, you might get your hatand be ready for a stroll in the grounds when I come back. And you, too,Mrs. Raynor, if you will. The weather is glorious, and one might as wellspend the time waiting for the General's and Mr. Harry's return in theopen air as cooped up here at half-past nine o'clock on a brilliantApril morning."
"My dear, you are wonderful, positively wonderful," said Mrs. Raynoradmiringly. "How _do_ you maintain your composure under such tryingcircumstances? Look at Katharine and me--both of us shaking like theproverbial aspen leaf and looking as washed out as though neither of ushad slept a wink all night; and you as fresh and serene as the morningitself. No, I don't think I will go out, thank you. There may be peoplewith cameras you know; and to be snapshotted for the edification of thereaders of some abominable halfpenny paper----"
Ailsa did not wait to hear the conclusion of the remark, but slippedout, went hastily to the library and the telephone, and lost not amoment in making her presence known to the caller at the other end ofthe line. She had barely spoken three words into the receiver, however,when she gave a little start, eyes and lips were involved in a radiantsmile, and her face became all red and warm with sudden blushes.
"Yes, yes, of course I recognize your voice!" she said in answer to aquery unheard by any ears but hers. "How wonderful you are! You find outeverything. I had meant to write and tell you, but we came up sounexpectedly and---- What! Yes, I can hear you very distinctly. Pardon?Yes. I am listening." Then letting her voice drop off into silence shestood very, very still, with ever-widening eyes, lips parted, and a lookof great seriousness steadily settling down over her paling countenance.
She had said that she would be absent for but a minute or two; it wasfive or six, however, before she came back, to find Lady Katharine andMrs. Raynor just as she had left them.
"No, it wasn't a reporter," she said gayly in response to Mrs. Raynor'sinquiring look. "It was a dear old friend"--blushing rosily--"a Mr.Philip Barch, whom I first met through my uncle, Sir Horace Wyvern, inthe days before his second marriage. Mr. Barch has asked if he may bepermitted to call this morning, and I have taken the liberty of sayingthat he may."
"Take a further one, dear, and ask him to stop to luncheon when hecomes," said Mrs. Raynor. "When a girl blushes like that over the merementioning of a man's name---- Oh, well, I wasn't always fifty-two, mydear, and I flatter myself that I know the duties of a hostess."
Miss Lorne's only response was another and a yet more radiant blush andan immediate return to the side of the slim, dark girl standing in therecess of the window.
"Kathie, you are positively lazy," she said. "You haven't budged an inchsince I left, and I distinctly asked you to get your hat."
"I know it," admitted Lady Katharine. "But, Ailsa, dear, I simplycouldn't. I am afraid Uncle John and Harry may return, and you know howanxious I am."
"Still, Kathie, staying in will make no difference," said Ailsa gently,"and you will soon know when they arrive."
Reluctantly Lady Katharine let herself be piloted through the openFrench windows and out into the grounds, ablaze with flowers.
"I should think Geoffrey would be here, too," said Ailsa, with a swiftglance at her companion's pale face. "He must have heard the news bythis time, but something has evidently delayed him."
A wave of scarlet surged into Lady Katharine's face.
"Oh, if only he would!" she muttered. "I am so tired----"
"I daresay, dear," said Ailsa sympathetically. "You did not sleep well,darling, did you?"
"Yes, but I did--that's just the strange thing," said Lady Katharinequickly. "What made you think not, Ailsa?"
"Well, for one thing, I thought I heard your door open and shut in thenight. I came within an ace of getting up to see whether you were ill,but fell asleep again myself."
Her companion looked puzzled. "It must have been a mistake on your part,Ailsa. I fell asleep almost directly my head touched the pillow, andslept like a log until morning. But don't let's talk about last night."She turned impulsively to Ailsa, her voice thrilling with emotion. "It'sno use," she said. "I simply can't feel sorry over it. I know I ought.Death is always horrible, and such a death!" She shudderedinvoluntarily. "But you don't know what a release it is to me. If thishad not happened, I think I should have died----"
Ailsa pressed her arm in silent sympathy, but before she could speakMrs. Raynor appeared on the scene. She had guarded herself againstattacks of possible snapshotters by carrying an open parasol, and Ailsawas glad to change the topic of conversation.
It was some twenty minutes later, when they were still strolling in thegardens, that a taxicab halted at the lodge gates, and they saw a tall,slim figure arrayed in an exceedingly well-cut morning suit, with a rosein his buttonhole and shiny top hat on his closely cropped fair head,advancing up the drive toward them with that easy grace and perfectpoise which mutely stands sponsor for the thing called breeding.
"My dears!" began Mrs. Raynor admiringly, "what a distinguished lookingman!" She had time to say no more, for Ailsa, with a face like a rose,had gone to meet the newcomer--who quickened his steps at sight of herand was now well within earshot--and was greeting him as a woman greetsbut one man ever.
"My dear," said Mrs. Raynor to Lady Katharine, in a carefully loweredtone, "if I know anything, you will be parting with that dear girl'scompanionship for good and all before the summer is over. Look at theman's eyes: they are positively devouring her. Of course we shall haveto remain to welcome him, but I think we shall earn their gratitude ifwe leave them to themselves as soon as we decently can."
A few minutes later the opportunity to do this wa
s offered her; andhaving lingered just long enough to be introduced to "Mr. Philip Barch"and to become even more impressed with him at close quarters as not onlya man good to look at, but as an apt and easy conversationalist, shesuddenly remembered that she and Lady Katharine had promised to gathersome hyacinths for the lunch table, and forthwith spirited her away.
Cleek followed her with his eyes as long as she remained in sight, thenhe turned to Ailsa. "A very tender and sensitive girl I should say, MissLorne, although she bears herself so well under the cross of lastnight's tragedy. I see by your manner of looking at her that you areattached to her in many ways."
"Not in many, but in all, Mr. Cleek. She is the dearest girl in theworld."
"We won't go into that, otherwise we should disagree for the first timein the whole course of our acquaintance. Let me thank you for adheringso closely to all that I asked over the telephone. I didn't mean to, atfirst. My original idea was to come here unknown to all, even to you;but when I came to think over it, it seemed so disloyal, sounderhanded, as if I didn't trust you in all things, _always_--that Isimply couldn't bring myself to do it."
She looked up at him with grave sweet eyes--the eyes that had lit himback from the path to destruction, that would light him up to the gatesof heaven evermore--and smiled on him, bewildered.
"I am afraid I do not follow you," she said. "I don't quite grasp whatyou mean. Oh!" with sudden fear, "if you thought from my cry of surprisewhen I recognized your voice over the telephone, that I was not glad----Why, I was going to write to you this morning. But I expected it to beGeoffrey Clavering asking for Kathie, you know----"
The name brought a ridge between Cleek's brows as of a suddendisconcerting thought.
"Geoffrey Clavering? But he has been over here, this morning, has henot?" he asked anxiously.
"No, he has not, and that is what seems so strange," said Ailsa.
"Did he write no note to Lady Katharine then--send her no message, MissLorne?"
"No. I see that surprises you, Mr. Cleek, as, to be perfectly frank withyou, it surprises me. I can't make it out. I know that his whole life isbound up in Kathie, as hers is bound up in him. I know that it nearlydrove him frantic when he was told their engagement would have to cometo an end; so one would naturally think that when there is a rumour thatthe man who came between them is dead----And he _must_ have heard bythis time."
"Miss Lorne, let me tell you something," said Cleek gravely. "GeoffreyClavering does know of the murder. He has known of it since twelveo'clock last night, to my certain knowledge."
"Mr. Cleek! And yet he has made no move to communicate with LadyKatharine! But"--with sudden hopefulness--"perhaps he wishes to makeabsolutely sure; perhaps the identity of the murdered man is not yetwholly established! Perhaps it is not really the Count de Louvisan afterall."
"It _is_ the Count de Louvisan, Miss Lorne! That was settled beyond allquestion last night."
"And Geoffrey Clavering knew it then?"
"And Geoffrey Clavering knew it then--yes! The man slain is, or ratherwas, the one known as the Count de Louvisan; on his dead body numberswhose total make up the sum of nine were marked; and--I fancy youremember what Geoffrey Clavering threatened when the fellow went toClavering Close last night."
Ailsa looked at him, her eyes dilating, the colour draining slowly outof her cheeks and lips. It was impossible not to grasp the significanceof these two circumstances, one of which--the mysterious markings on thedead man's body--she now heard of for the first time.
"Oh, Mr. Cleek, oh!" she said faintly. "You surely can't think---- Adear lovable boy like that! You can't believe that Geoffrey Claveringhad anything to do with it?"
"I hope not, for, frankly, I like the boy. But one thing is certain: if_he_ didn't kill the man, he knows who did; knows, too, that there is awoman implicated in the crime."
"A woman! Oh, Mr. Cleek, a--a woman?"
"Yes--perhaps two women!"
"Women and--and a deed of violence, a deed of horror, like that? No!Women couldn't. They would be fiends, not women. I hold too high anestimate of my sex to let you call them that! And for him, for GeoffreyClavering, there is but one woman in all the world! Even you shan't hintit of _her_! No, not even you."
"Hush! I am hinting nothing. Now that I have seen Lady Katharine I wouldalmost as soon think evil of you as of her."
There was a little summerhouse close at hand. He saw that she was faint,shocked, overcome, and gently led her to it, loathing himself that evenfor one moment he had brought pain within touch of her.
"Who knows better than I how false appearances may be?" he said. "Whoshould be less likely to take suspicious circumstances for proof?"
"Oh, but to suspect, even to _suspect_, Kathie--the dearest and thesweetest girl on earth."
"Again I dispute that!" he threw back with repressed vehemence. "Andagain I declare that I am not swayed by facts, black as they may be,black as they undoubtedly are. If I believed, should I come here andopenly tell you of these things? My duty is to the law. Should I notcarry proofs there if I believed that they were proofs? But my faith isas a rock. Shall I prove it to you? Then look! I know that you will tellme the truth; and it is because of that, because in my heart I know itis a truth which you can and will face openly and with no cause forfear, that I have declined to hold this thing of sufficient importanceto be called a clue, and as such to be handed over to the police. MissLorne--Ailsa--tell me, will you--have you ever seen this thing before?"
While he was speaking his hand had gone to his pocket and come forthtightly shut. Now he opened his closed fingers and let her see thatthere was a scrap of pink chiffon edged with rose coloured stitcherylying on his open palm. Her eyes, fixed earnestly upon his faceheretofore, dropped to the gauzy fragment held out to her, and a ridgedug itself between her level brows.