‘What is she doing here?’ asked Pen, unmoved by his strictures.
‘Heaven knows! I found her lying on the path. How does one make a female stop crying?’
‘I shouldn’t think you could. She’s going to have a fit of the vapours, I expect. And I do not see why you should hug people, if you don’t know who they are.’
‘I was not hugging her.’
‘It looked like it to me,’ argued Pen.
‘I suppose,’ said Sir Richard sardonically, ‘you would have had me step over her, and walk on?’
‘Yes, I would,’ replied Pen promptly.
‘Don’t be a little fool! The girl had fainted.’
‘Oh!’ Pen moved forward. ‘I wonder what made her do that? You know, it all seems extremely odd to me.’
‘It seems quite as odd to me, let me tell you.’ He laid his hand on the sobbing girl’s shoulder. ‘Come! You will not help matters by crying. Can’t you tell me what has happened to upset you so?’
The girl made a convulsive effort to choke back her hysterical tears, and managed to utter: ‘I was so frightened!’
‘Yes, that I had realized. What frightened you?’
‘There was a man!’ gasped the girl. ‘And I hid, and then another man came, and they began to quarrel, and I dared not move for fear they should hear me, and the big one hit the other, and he fell down and lay still, and the big one took something out of his pocket, and went away, and oh, oh, he passed so close I c-could have touched him only by stretching out my hand! The other man never moved, and I was so frightened I ran, everything went black, and I think I fainted.’
‘Ran away?’ repeated Pen in disgusted accents. ‘What a poor-spirited thing to do! Didn’t you go to help the man who was knocked down?’
‘Oh no, no, no!’ shuddered the girl.
‘I must say, I don’t think you deserve to have such an adventure. And if I were you I wouldn’t continue sitting in the middle of the path. It isn’t at all helpful, and it makes you look very silly.’
This severe speech had the effect of angering the girl. She reared up her head, and exclaimed: ‘How dare you? You are the rudest young man I ever met in my life!’
Sir Richard put his hand under her elbow, and assisted her to her feet. ‘Ah – accept my apologies on my nephew’s behalf, ma’am!’ he said, with only the faintest quiver in his voice. ‘A sadly ill-conditioned boy! May I suggest to you that you should rest on this bank for a few moments, while I go to investigate the – er – scene of the assault you so graphically described? My nephew – who has, you perceive, provided himself with a stout stick – will charge himself with your safety.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ said Pen mutinously.
‘You will – for once in your life – do as you are told,’ said Sir Richard, and, lowering the unknown on to the bank, strode on down the track towards the clearing in the wood.
Here the moonlight bathed the ground in its cold silver light. Sir Richard had no doubt that he would find Beverley Brandon, either stunned, or recovering from the effects of the blow which had felled him, but as he stepped into the clearing he saw not only one man lying still on the ground, but a second on his knees beside him.
Sir Richard trod softly, and it was not until he had approached to within a few feet of the little group that the kneeling man heard his footsteps, and looked quickly over his shoulder. The moonlight drained the world of colour, but even allowing for this the face turned towards Sir Richard was unnaturally pallid. It was the face of a very young man, and perfectly strange to Sir Richard.
‘Who are you?’ The question was shot out in a hushed, rather scared voice. The young man started to his feet, and took up an instinctively defensive pose.
‘I doubt whether my name will convey very much to you, but, for what it is worth, it is Wyndham. What has happened here?’
The boy seemed quite distracted, and replied in a shaken tone: ‘I don’t know. I found him here – like this. I – I think he’s dead!’
‘Nonsense!’ said Sir Richard, putting him out of his way, and in his turn kneeling beside Beverley’s inanimate body. There was a bruise on the livid brow, and when Sir Richard raised Beverley his head fell back in a way that told its own tale rather horribly. Sir Richard saw the tree-stump, and realized that Beverley’s head must have struck it. He laid his body down again, and said without the least vestige of emotion: ‘You are perfectly right. His neck is broken.’
The boy dragged a handkerchief out of his pocket, and wiped his brow with it. ‘My God, who did it? – I – I didn’t, you know!’
‘I don’t suppose you did,’ Sir Richard replied, rising to his feet, and dusting the knees of his breeches.
‘But it’s the most shocking thing! He was staying with me, sir!’
‘Oh!’ said Sir Richard, favouring him with a long, penetrating look.
‘He’s Beverley Brandon – Lord Saar’s younger son!’
‘I know very well who he is. You, I apprehend, are Mr Piers Luttrell?’
‘Yes. Yes, I am. I knew him up at Oxford. Not very well, because I – well, to tell you the truth, I never liked him much. But a week ago he arrived at my home. He had been visiting friends, I think. I don’t know. But of course I – that is, my mother and I – asked him to stay, and he did. He has not been quite well – seemed to be in need of rest, and – and country air. Indeed, I can’t conceive how he comes to be here now, for he retired to his room with one of his sick headaches. At least, that was what he told my mother.’
‘Then you did not come here in search of him?’
‘No, no! I came – The fact is, I just came out to enjoy a stroll in the moonlight,’ replied Piers, in a hurry.
‘I see.’ There was a dry note in Sir Richard’s voice.
‘Why are you here?’ demanded Piers.
‘For the same reason,’ Sir Richard answered.
‘But you know Brandon!’
‘That circumstance does not, however, make me his murderer.’
‘Oh no! I did not mean – but it seems so strange that you should both be in Queen Charlton!’
‘I thought it tiresome, myself. My errand to Queen Charlton did not in any way concern Beverley Brandon.’
‘Of course not! I didn’t suppose – Sir, since you didn’t kill him, and I didn’t, who – who did, do you suppose? For he did not merely trip and fall, did he? There is that bruise on his forehead, and he was lying face upwards, just as you saw him. Someone struck him down!’
‘Yes, I think someone struck him down,’ agreed Sir Richard.
‘I suppose you do not know who it might have been, sir?’
‘I wonder?’ Sir Richard said thoughtfully.
Piers waited, but as Sir Richard said no more, but stood looking frowningly down at Beverley’s body, he blurted out: ‘What ought I to do? Really, I do not know! I have no experience in such matters. Perhaps you could advise me?’
‘I do not pretend to any very vast experience myself, but I suggest that you should go home.’
‘But we can’t leave him here – can we?’
‘No, we can’t do that. I will inform the magistrate that there is – er – a corpse in the wood. No doubt he will attend to it.’
‘Yes, but I don’t wish to run away, you know,’ Piers objected. ‘It is the most devilish, awkward situation, but of course I don’t dream of leaving you to – to explain it all to the magistrate. I shall have to say that it was I who found the body.’
Sir Richard, who knew that the affair was one of extreme delicacy, and who had been wondering for several minutes in what way it could be handled so as to spare the Brandons as much humiliation as possible, did not feel that the entry of Piers Luttrell into the proceedings would facilitate his task. He cast another of his searching looks over the young man,
and said: ‘Your doing so would serve no useful purpose, I believe. You had better leave it to me.’
‘You know something about it!’
‘Yes, I do. I am on terms of – er – considerable intimacy with the Brandons, and I know a good deal about Beverley’s activities. There is likely to be a peculiarly distasteful scandal arising out of this murder.’
Piers nodded. ‘I was afraid of that. You know, sir, he was not at all the thing, and he knew some devilish odd people. A man came up to the house, enquiring for him only yesterday – a seedy sort of bully: I dare say you may be familiar with the type. Beverley did not like it above half, I could see.’
‘Were you privileged to meet this man?’
‘Well, I saw him: I didn’t exchange two words with him. The servant came to tell Beverley that a Captain Trimble had called to see him, and Beverley was so much put out that I – well, I fear I did rather wonder what was in the wind.’
‘Ah!’ said Sir Richard. ‘The fact that you have met Trimble may – or may not – prove useful. Yes, I think you had better go home, and say nothing about this. No doubt the news of Beverley’s death will be conveyed to you to-morrow morning.’
‘But what shall I tell the constable, sir?’
‘Whatever he asks you,’ replied Sir Richard.
‘Shall I say that I found Beverley here, with you?’ asked Piers doubtfully.
‘I hardly think that he will ask you that question.’
‘But will he not wonder how it came about that I did not miss Beverley?’
‘Did you not say that Beverley gave it out that he was retiring to bed? Why should you miss him?’
‘To-morrow morning?’
‘Yes, I think you might miss him at the breakfast-table,’ conceded Sir Richard.
‘I see. Well, if you feel it to be right, sir, I – I own I would rather not divulge that I was in the wood tonight. But what must I say if I am asked if I know you?’
‘You don’t know me.’
‘N-no. No, I don’t, of course,’ said Piers, apparently cheered by this reflection.
‘That is a pleasure in store for you. I came into this neighbourhood for the purpose of – er – making your acquaintance, but this seems hardly the moment to enter upon a matter which I have reason to suspect may prove extremely complicated.’
‘You came to see me ?’ said Piers, astonished. ‘How can this be?’
‘If,’ said Sir Richard, ‘you will come to see me at the “George” to-morrow – a very natural action on your part, in view of my discovery of your guest’s corpse – I will tell you just why I came to Queen Charlton in search of you.’
‘I am sure I am honoured – but I cannot conceive what your business with me may be, sir!’
‘That,’ said Sir Richard, ‘does not surprise me nearly as much as my business is likely to surprise you, Mr Luttrell!’
Nine
Having got rid of Piers Luttrell, who, after peering at his watch surreptitiously, and several times looking about him as though in the expectation of seeing someone hiding amongst the trees, went off, rather relieved but much bewildered, Sir Richard walked away to rejoin Pen and the unknown lady. He found only Pen, seated on the bank with an air of aloof virtue, her hands folded primly on her knees. He paused, looking her over with a comprehending eye. ‘And where,’ he asked in conversational tones, ‘is your companion?’
‘She chose to go home,’ responded Pen. ‘I dare say she grew tired of waiting for you to come back.’
‘Ah, no doubt! Did you by any chance, suggest to her that she should do so?’
‘No, because it was not at all necessary. She was very anxious to go. She said she wished she had not come.’
‘Did she tell you why she had come?’
‘No. I asked her, of course, but she is such a silly little missish thing that she would do nothing but cry, and say she was a wicked girl. Do you know what I think, Richard?’
‘Probably.’
‘Well, it’s my belief she came to meet someone. She seems to me exactly the sort of female who would feel romantic just because there is a full moon. Besides, why else should she be here at this hour?’
‘Why indeed?’ agreed Sir Richard. ‘I apprehend that you have little sympathy to spare for such folly?’
‘None at all,’ said Pen. ‘In fact, I think it’s silly, besides being improper.’
‘You are severe!’
‘I can tell by your voice that you are laughing at me. I expect you are thinking of my climbing out of a window. But I was not going to meet a lover by moonlight! Such stuff !’
‘Fustian,’ nodded Sir Richard. ‘Did she disclose the identity of her lover?’
‘No, but she said her own name was Lydia Daubenay. And no sooner had she told me that than she went off into another taking, and said she was distracted, and wished she had not told me. Really, I was quite glad when she decided to go home without waiting for you.’
‘Yes, I had rather gathered the impression that her company was not agreeable to you. I suppose it hardly signifies. She did not appear to me to be the kind of young woman who could be trusted to bear a still tongue in her head.’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Pen thoughtfully. ‘She was so frightened I quite think she may not say a word about the adventure. I have been considering the matter, and it seems to me that she must be in love with someone whom her parents do not wish her to marry.’
‘That,’ said Sir Richard, ‘seems to be a fair conclusion.’
‘So that I shouldn’t be at all surprised if she conceals the fact that she was in the wood to-night. By the way, was it the stammering-man?’
‘It was, and Miss Daubenay was right in her suspicion: he is dead.’
Miss Creed accepted this with fortitude. ‘Well, if he is, I can tell you who killed him. That girl told me all over again how it happened, and there is no doubt that the other man was Captain Trimble. And he did it to get the necklace!’
‘Admirable!’ said Sir Richard.
‘It is as plain as a pikestaff. And now that I come to think of it, it may very likely be all for the best. Of course, I am sorry for the stammering-man, but you can’t deny that he was a very disagreeable person. Besides, I know perfectly well that he was threatening you. That is why I followed you. Now we are rid of the whole affair!’
‘Not quite, I fear. You must not think that I am unmoved by your heroic behaviour, but I could wish that you had gone to bed, Pen.’
‘Yes, but I find that most unreasonable of you,’ objected Pen. ‘It seems to me that you want to keep all the adventure for yourself !’
‘I appreciate your feelings,’ said Sir Richard, ‘but I would point out to you that your situation is a trifle – shall we say irregular? – and that we have been at considerable pains to excite no undue attention. Hence that abominable stagecoach. The last thing in the world I desire is to see you brought forward as a witness to this affair. If Miss Daubenay does not disclose her share in it, you may yet escape notice, but, to tell you the truth, I place little dependence on Miss Daubenay’s discretion.’
‘Oh!’ said Pen, digesting this. ‘You think there may be a little awkwardness if it should be discovered that I am not a boy? Perhaps we had better leave Queen Charlton?’
‘No, that would indeed be fatal. We are now committed to this adventure. I am going to inform the local magistrate that I have discovered a corpse in this spinney. As you have encountered Miss Daubenay, upon whose discretion we have decided to place no reliance, I shall mention the fact that you accompanied me upon my evening stroll, and we must trust that no particular notice will be taken of you. By the way, brat, I think you had better become my young cousin – my remote young cousin.’
‘Ah!’ said Miss Creed, gratified. ‘My own story!’
?
??Your own story.’
‘Well, I must say I am glad you don’t wish to run away,’ she confided. ‘You cannot conceive how much I am enjoying myself ! I dare say it is otherwise with you, but, you see, I have had such a very dull life up till now! And I’ll tell you another thing, Richard: naturally I am very anxious to find Piers, but I think we had better not send any word to him until we have finished this adventure.’
He was silent for a moment. ‘Are you very anxious to find Piers?’ he asked at last.
‘Of course I am! Why, that is why we came!’
‘Very true. I was forgetting. You will see Piers tomorrow morning, I fancy.’
She got up from the bank. ‘I shall see him to-morrow? But how do you know?’
‘I should have mentioned to you that I have just had the felicity of meeting him.’
‘Piers?’ she exclaimed. ‘Here? In the wood?’
‘Over Beverley Brandon’s body.’
‘I thought I heard voices! But how did he come to be here? And why didn’t you bring him to me directly?’
Sir Richard took time over his answer. ‘You see, I was under the impression that Miss Daubenay was still with you,’ he explained.
‘Oh, I see!’ said Pen innocently. ‘Yes, indeed, you did quite right! We don’t want her to be included in our adventure. But did you tell Piers about me?’
‘The moment did not seem to be propitious,’ confessed Sir Richard. ‘I told him to come to visit me at the “George” to-morrow morning, and on no account to divulge his presence in the wood to-night.’
‘What a surprise it will be to him when he finds me at the George!’ said Pen gleefully.
‘Yes,’ said Sir Richard. ‘I think it will be – a surprise to him.’
She fell into step beside him on their way back to the road. ‘I am glad you did not tell him! I suppose he had come to look for the stammering-man? I can’t conceive how he could have had such a disagreeable person to visit him!’
Sir Richard, who had rarely, during the twenty-nine years of his existence, found himself at a loss, now discovered that he was totally incapable of imparting his own suspicions to his trusting companion. Apparently, it had not occurred to her that the sentiments of her old play-fellow might have undergone a change; and so fixed in her mind was a five-year-old pact of betrothal that it had not entered her head to question either its durable qualities, or its desirability. She evidently considered herself plighted to Piers Luttrell, a circumstance which had no doubt had much to do with her friendly acceptance of Sir Richard’s companionship. Phrases of warning half-formed themselves in Sir Richard’s brain, and were rejected. Piers would have to do his explaining; Sir Richard could only hope that upon coming face to face with him after a lapse of years, Pen might discover that as he had outgrown a childhood’s fancy, so too had she.