FIFTH CHAPTER
ON THE HOG'S BACK
Three days later. On a cold afternoon just as the wintry light wasfading a tall, dark, middle-aged, rather handsome man with black hairand moustache, and wearing a well-cut, dark-grey overcoat andgreen velour hat, alighted from the train at the wayside station ofWanborough, in Surrey, and inquired of the porter the way to ShapleyManor.
"Shapley, sir? Why, take the road there yonder up the hill till youget to the main road which runs along the Hog's Back from Guildford toFarnborough. When you get on the main road, turn sharp to the left pastthe old toll-gate, and you'll find the Manor on the left in among a bigclump of trees."
"How far?"
"About a mile, sir."
The stranger, the only passenger who had alighted, slipped sixpenceinto the man's hand, buttoned his coat, and started out to walk in thedirection indicated, breasting the keen east wind.
He was well-set-up, and of athletic bearing. He took long strides aswith swinging gait he went up the hill. As he did so, he muttered tohimself:
"I was an infernal fool not to have come down in a car! I hate thesebeastly muddy country roads. But Molly has the telephone--so I can ringup for a car to fetch me--which is a consolation, after all."
And with his keen eyes set before him, he pressed forward up the steepincline to where, for ten miles, ran the straight broad highway overthe high ridge known as the Hog's Back. The road is very popular withmotorists, for so high is it that on either side there stretches a widepanorama of country, the view on the north being towards the ThamesValley and London, while on the south Hindhead with the South Downs inthe blue distance show beyond.
Having reached the high road the stranger paused to take breath, andincidentally to admire the magnificent view. Indeed, an expression ofadmiration fell involuntarily from his lips. Then he went along foranother half-mile in the teeth of the cutting wind with the twilightrapidly coming on, until he came to the clump of dark firs and presentlywalked up a gravelled drive to a large, but somewhat inartistic,Georgian house of red brick with long square windows. In parts the ivywas trying to hide its terribly ugly architecture for around the deepporch it grew thickly and spread around one corner of the building.
A ring at the door brought a young manservant whom the caller addressedas Arthur, and, wishing him good afternoon, asked if Mrs. Bond were athome.
"Yes, sir," was the reply.
"Oh! good," said the caller. "Just tell her I'm here." And he proceededto remove his coat and to hang it up in the great flagged hall with theair of one used to the house.
The Manor was a spacious, well-furnished place, full of good picturesand much old oak furniture.
The servant passed along the corridor, and entering the drawing-room,announced:
"Mr. Benton is here, ma'am."
"Oh! Mr. Benton! Show him in," cried his mistress enthusiastically."Show him in at once!"
Next moment the caller entered the fine, old-fashioned room, where awell-preserved, fair-haired woman of about forty was taking her teaalone and petting her Pekinese.
"Well, Charles? So you've discovered me here, eh?" she exclaimed,jumping up and taking his hand.
"Yes, Molly. And you seem to have very comfortable quarters," laughedBenton as he threw himself unceremoniously into a chintz-coveredarmchair.
"They are, I assure you."
"And I suppose you're quite a great lady in these parts--eh?--now thatyou live at Shapley Manor. Where's Louise?"
"She went up to town this morning. She won't be back till after dinner.She's with her old school-fellow--that girl Bertha Trench."
"Good. Then we can have a chat. I've several things to consult you aboutand ask your opinion."
"Have some tea first," urged his good-looking hostess, pouring him someinto a Crown Derby cup.
"Well," he commenced. "I think you've done quite well to take thisplace, as you've done, for three years. You are now safely out of theway. The Paris Surete are making very diligent inquiries, but the SurreyConstabulary will never identify you with the lady of the Rue Racine. Soyou are quite safe here."
"Are you sure of that, Charles?" she asked, fixing her big grey eyesupon him.
"Certain. It was the wisest course to get back here to England, althoughyou had to take a very round-about journey."
"Yes. I got to Switzerland, then to Italy, and from Genoa took an AnchorLine steamer across to New York. After that I came over to Liverpool,and in the meantime I had become Mrs. Bond. Louise, of course, thoughtwe were travelling for pleasure. I had to explain my change of name bytelling her that I did not wish my divorced husband to know that I wasback in England."
"And the girl believed it, of course," he laughed.
"Of course. She believes anything I tell her," said the clever,unscrupulous woman for whom the Paris police were in active search,whose real name was Molly Maxwell, and whose amazing career was wellknown to the French police.
Only recently a sum of a quarter of a million francs had fallen intoher hands, and with it she now rented Shapley Manor and had set up asa country lady. Benton gazed around the fine old room with its Adamsceiling and its Georgian furniture, and reflected how different wereMolly's present surroundings from that stuffy little flat _au troisieme_in the Rue Racine.
"Yes," he said. "You had a very narrow escape, Molly. I dared not comenear you, but I knew that you'd look after the girl."
"Of course. I always look after her as though she were my own child."
Benton's lip curled as he sipped his China tea, and said:
"Because so much depends upon her--eh? I'm glad you view the situationfrom a fair and proper stand-point. We're now out for a big thing,therefore we must not allow any little hitch to prevent us from bringingit off successfully."
"I quite agree, Charles. Our great asset is Louise. But she must beinnocent of it all. She must know absolutely nothing."
"True. If she had an inkling that we were forcing her to marry Hugh shewould fiercely resent it. She's a girl of spirit, after all."
"My dear Charles, I know that," laughed the woman. "Ever since she camehome from school I've noticed how independent she is. She certainlyhas a will of her own. But she likes Hugh, and we must encourage it.Recollect that a fortune is at stake."
"I have not overlooked that," the man said. "But of late I've cometo fear that we are treading upon thin ice. I don't like the look ofaffairs at the present moment. Young Henfrey is head over ears in lovewith that girl Dorise Ranscomb, and--"
"Bah! It's only a flirtation, my dear Charles," laughed the woman."When just a little pressure is put upon the boy, and a sly hint to LadyRanscomb, then the affair will soon be off, and he'll fall into Louise'sarms. She's really very fond of him."
"She may be, but he takes no notice of her. She told me so the otherday. He's gone to the Riviera--followed Dorise, I suppose," Benton said.
"Yvonne wrote me a few days ago to say that he was there with a friendof his named Walter Brock. Who's he?"
"Oh! a naval lieutenant-commander who served in the war and wasinvalided out after the Battle of Jutland. He got the D.S.O. over theFalklands affair, and has now some post at the Admiralty. He wasin command of a torpedo boat which sank a German cruiser, and wasafterwards blown up."
"They are both out at Monte Carlo, Yvonne says. And Henfrey is withDorise daily," remarked the woman.
"Yvonne is always apprehensive lest young Henfrey should learn thesecret of the old fellow's end," said Benton. "But I don't see how thetruth of the--well, rather ugly affair can ever come out, except by anindiscretion by one or other of us."
"And that is scarcely likely, Charles, is it?" his hostess laughedas she pushed across to him a big silver box of cigarettes and thenreclined lazily among her cushions.
"No. It would certainly be a very sensational affair if the newspapersgot hold of the facts, my dear Molly. But don't let us anticipate such athing. Fortunately Louise, in her girlish innocence, knows nothing. OldHenfrey left his money
to his son upon certain conditions, one of whichis that Hugh shall marry Louise. And that marriage must, at all hazards,take place. After that, we care for nothing."
The handsome woman who was rolling a cigarette between herwell-manicured fingers hesitated. Her countenance assumed a strangelook as she reflected. She was far too clever to express any off-handopinion. She had outwitted the police of Paris, Brussels, and Rome inturn. Her whole career had been a criminal one, punctuated by periods ofpretended high respectability--while the funds to support it had lasted.And upon her hands had been placed Louise Lambert, the child CharlesBenton had adopted ten years before.
"We shall have to exercise a good deal of discretion and caution inregard to Louise," she declared. "The affair is not at all so plainsailing as I at first believed."
"No. It is a serious contretemps that you had to leave Paris, Molly,"agreed her well-dressed visitor. "The young American was a fool, ofcourse, but I think--"
"Paris was flooded by rich young men from the United States who cameover to fight the Boche and to spend their money like water when onleave in Paris. Frank was only one of them."
Benton was silent. The affair was a distinctly unsavoury one. Frank vanGeen, the son of the Dutch-American millionaire cocoa manufacturer ofChicago, had, by reason of his association with Molly, found himself thepoorer by nearly a quarter of a million francs, and his body had beenfound in the Seine between the Pont d'Auteuil and the Ile St. Germain.At the inquiry some ugly disclosures were made, but already the ladyof the Rue Racine and her supposed niece had left Paris; and thoughthe affair was one of suicide, the police raised a hue and cry, and thefrontiers had been watched, but the pair had disappeared.
That was several months ago. And now Molly Maxwell the adventuress inParis had been transformed into the wealthy and highly respectable widowMrs. Bond, who having presented such excellent references had becometenant of that well-furnished mansion, Shapley Manor, and the beautifulgrounds adjoining. For nearly two centuries it had been the home of thePuttenhams, but Sir George Puttenham, Baronet, the present owner, hadfound himself ruined by war-taxation, and as one of the new poor he hadbeen glad to let the place and live upon the rent obtained for it. Hiscase, indeed, was only one of thousands of others in England, whereadventurers and war-profiteers were ousting the landed gentry.
"Yvonne is evidently keeping a good watch upon young Hugh," remarkedBenton presently, as he blew a ring of cigarette smoke towards theceiling.
"Yes," replied the woman, her eyes fixed out of the big window whichcommanded a glorious view of Gibbet Hill, at Hindhead, and the blueSouth Downs towards the English Channel. But all was dark and loweringin the winter twilight, now fast darkening into night.
In old-world Guildford, the county town of Surrey, with its steep HighStreet containing many seventeenth-century houses, its old inns, and itsbalconied Guildhall--the scene of so many unseemly wrangles among therobed and cocked-hatted borough councillors who are, _par excellence_,outstanding illustrations of the provincial petty jealousies ofbumbledom--Mrs. Bond was welcomed by the trades-people who vied witheach other to "serve her." Almost daily she went up and down the HighStreet in her fine Rolls-Royce driven by Mead, an ex-soldier and aworthy fellow whom she had engaged through an advertisement in the_Surrey Advertiser_. He had been in the Queen's West Surrey, and hishome being in Guildford, Molly knew that he would serve as a testimonialto her high respectability. Molly Maxwell was an outstandinglyclever woman. She never let a chance slip by that might be takenadvantageously.
Mead, who went on his "push-bike" every evening along the Hog's Backto Guildford, was never tired of singing the praises of his generousmistress.
"She's a real good sort," he would tell his friends in the bar of theLion or the Angel. "She knows how to treat a man. She's a widow, andgood-looking. I suppose she'll marry again. Nearly all the best peopleabout here have called on her within the last week or two. Magistratesand their wives, retired generals, and lots of the gentry. Yes, my jobisn't to be sneezed at, I can tell you. It's better than driving a lorryoutside Ypres!"
Mrs. Bond treated Mead extremely well, and paid him well. She knewthat by so doing she would secure a good advertisement. She had done sobefore, when four or five years ago she had lived at Keswick.
"Do you know, Charles," she said presently, "I'm really veryapprehensive regarding the present situation. Yvonne is, no doubt,keeping a watchful eye upon the young fellow. But what can she do ifhe has followed the Ranscomb girl and is with her each day? Each day,indeed, must bring the pair closer together, and--"
"That's what we must prevent, my dear Molly!" exclaimed the lady'svisitor. "Think of all it means to us. You are quite safe here--as safeas I am to-day. But we can't last out without money--either of us. Wemust have cash-money--and cash-money always."
"Yes. That's so. But Yvonne is wonderful--amazing."
"She hasn't the same stake in the affair as we have."
"Why not?" asked the woman for whom the European police were in search.
"Well, because she is rich--she's won pots of money at the tables--andwe--well, both of us have only limited means. Yours, Molly, are largerthan mine--thanks to Frank. But I must have money soon. My expenses intown are mounting up daily."
"But your rooms don't cost you very much! Old Mrs. Evans looks afterthings as she has always done."
"Yes. But everything is going up in price, and remember, I dare notcross the Channel just now. At Calais, Boulogne, Cherbourg, and otherplaces, they have my photograph, and they are waiting for me to fallinto the trap. But the rat, once encaged, is shy! And I am very shy justnow," he added with a light laugh.
"You'll stay and have dinner, won't you?" urged his hostess.
Benton hesitated.
"If I do Louise may return, and just now I don't want to meet her. It isbetter not."
"But she won't be back till the last train to Guildford. Mead is meetingher. Yes--stay."
"I must get a car to take me back to town. I have to go to Glasgow bythe early train in the morning."
"Well, we're order one from one of the garages in Guildford. You reallymust stay, Charles. There's lots we have to talk over--a lot of thingsthat are of vital consequence to us both."
At that moment there came a rap at the door and the young manservantentered, saying:
"You're wanted on the telephone, ma'am."
Mrs. Bond rose from the settee and went to the telephone in the library,where she heard the voice of a female telephone operator.
"Is that Shapley Manor?" she asked. "I have a telegram for Mrs.Bond. Handed in at Nice at two twenty-five, received here at fourtwenty-eight. 'To Bond, Shapley Manor, near Guildford. Yvonne shot bysome unknown person while with Hugh. In grave danger.--S.' That is themessage. Have you got it please?"
Mrs. Bond held her breath.
"Yes," she gasped. "Anything else?"
"No, madam," replied the telephone operator at the Guildford PostOffice. "Nothing else. I will forward the duplicate by post."
And she switched off.