CHAPTER III
A HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY
With a shriek of alarm I leapt to the further side of the table whichstood in the middle of the room, and at that moment hurried footstepsbecame audible.
Our wild shouts for help had evidently been heard, for someone washurrying down the bare oak stairs into the hall.
"Hang this confounded lock--it catches!" we heard a voice exclaim as thehandle turned. Then an instant later the door was flung open, andGastrell stood before us.
"I am dreadfully sorry, you fellows," he said apologetically, "that youshould have been alarmed in this way, because I can assure you that mytame cobra, 'Maharaja,' is quite harmless--look at him now," and we sawthat the horrid reptile had swung round the instant its master hadentered, and was sliding towards his feet. "He's a pet of mine--Ibrought him home with me, and he follows me like a dog--no, you needn'tbe in the least nervous," he added quickly, seeing that I instinctivelyedged away as the reptile passed. "I'm awfully sorry to have kept youwaiting. I must apologize, too, for that confounded door--I myself gotlocked in here the other day. My wife told you I was out, but I was not.I came in by the side door, and she didn't know I was back, because Iwent straight upstairs. If you'll wait a moment I'll take our friend'Maharaja' out."
He left the room, and the snake slid rapidly along the floor after him,almost, as he had said, like a dog following his steps.
"A nice cheerful pet to keep," I remarked, annoyed at my experience; butat that moment the mysterious Gastrell bustled in alone.
"So sorry," he said, and, after thanking us for coming out so far toascertain if he had lost his purse, he pulled up a chair, seated himselfbetween us, lit a big cigar, and helped us to whiskey from asilver tantalus.
"You had better add the soda yourselves," he said. "And now there issomething I want to say to you both. You must have been surprised at mydeclaring so emphatically this evening that I had not met either of youbefore--eh?"
"I can answer for myself," Osborne exclaimed quickly. "Are you going toadmit, after all, that you were on the _Masonic_?"
"Of course! Who else could it have been? Any more," he added, addressingme, than it could have been someone other than me whom you metin Geneva?"
"Then why did you deny it?" Osborne said rather irritably, looking hardat him with an expression of disapproval and mistrust, while my eyeswandered to that little gold medallion upon his chain.
"Because I had to,--that is, it was expedient that I should," was hisreply. "I have a reason for not wanting it to be generally known that Iam married,--least of all did I want Easterton, whose house I have justleased, to know me to be a married man; indeed, I told him some weeksago that I was a bachelor--I had to, for reasons which I can't revealat present."
He stopped speaking, and we watched him narrowly.
"Still," I remarked, "I don't see how you could have been on board shipin the middle of the ocean, and at the same time in London."
"I didn't say I was. I wasn't. I was in London a fortnight ago, andspent some hours with Lord Easterton. On the same day I sailed forMadeira, where I joined my wife on the homeward-bound _Masonic_. Think,Mr. Osborne," he ended, his curious gaze set on my companion's face,"think when we first met on board. It was not before the ship reachedMadeira, surely."
Jack Osborne reflected.
"By Jove, no!" he suddenly exclaimed. "How odd I should all along havethought you had embarked at Capetown with the rest of us. But Mrs.Gastrell came from the Cape, surely?"
"She did, and the name 'Mr. Gastrell' was also in the passenger list,because a cousin of mine should have been on board. At the eleventh hourhe was prevented from sailing, and it was upon receipt of a cable fromhim that I decided to catch the next boat to the Canaries and theremeet my wife."
I admit that, as he paused, I felt rather "small"; and I believe Osbornefelt the same. We had driven from the club right out here to SwissCottage, and on the way we had conjured up in our imaginations all sortsof mysterious happenings, even possible intrigues; and now the wholeaffair proved to have been "quite ordinary," with a few commonplaceincidents to relieve its monotony--notably the incident of thegiant cobra.
True, there was the mystery of the locked door. But then, had it reallybeen locked? I had not myself tried to open it, and now as I thoughtabout it, it seemed to me quite possible that Jack Osborne might, in theexcitement of the moment, have failed to turn the handle sufficiently,and so have believed that the door was locked when it was not. Again wehad Gastrell's assurance that he had found himself locked in one day. Asfor his declaration to Easterton that he was not the Gastrell whomOsborne had met on the _Masonic_, it was clear now that he had somesecret reason for wishing to pass in London as a bachelor, and asOsborne had told Easterton that the Gastrell on the _Masonic_ had toldhim that he had met me in Geneva, naturally Gastrell had been driven--inorder to conceal his identity--to maintain that he had never before metme either.
Our host insisted upon our taking another of his very excellent cigarsbefore we left,--it was close upon one o'clock when we rose to go. Herang up a taxi for us, helped us on with our coats, accompanied us tothe door, and shook hands with each of us most cordially.
"What do you make of it, Michael?" Osborne asked, when we had remainedsilent in the swift-travelling taxi for five minutes or more, and wereapproaching Marlboro' Road Station."
"Nothing," I answered bluntly. "I don't know what to make of it."
"Suspect anything?"
"Yes--and no."
"That's just how I feel, and yet--"
"Well?"
"I mistrust him. I don't know why, but I do. I mistrust them both.There's something queer happening in that house. I am certain there is."
"You can't be certain, as you don't know."
"My suspicions are so strong that they amount to convictions."
"So I think, too. And those dirty tumblers on the tray, and the hotarm-chair I sat down in--Jack, I believe there were a lot of people inthat house, hidden away somewhere, all the time we were there. I believeGastrell admitted his identity only because he was obliged to. Ourcalling like that, so unexpectedly, and being admitted by his wife--ifshe is his wife--disconcerted him and took him unawares. I can't thinkwhy she admitted us--especially I can't think why she kept us so long inthe dark in the hall before she switched on the light. By Jove! What astunning woman!"
"She is--but crafty. I thought that when I met her on board ship. Andthose eyes of hers. Phew! They seem to read right into one's soul, anddiscover one's secret thoughts." He stopped for an instant, then added,meditatively, "I wonder what makes Gastrell keep that horrible cobraas a pet."
I yawned, and we relapsed into silence. Then gradually my thoughtsdrifted--drifted away from London, far from crowds and hustle, therumble of motor 'buses and the hootings and squawkings of ears, to apeaceful, rural solitude.
I was in Berkshire. Down in the picturesque valley into which I gazedfrom the summit of a wooded slope stood a Manor house, ivy-grown, old,very beautiful Facing it an enormous plateau, hewn out of the Down, hadbeen converted to various uses--there were gardens, shrubberies, tennislawns. Lower came terrace after terrace of smoothly mown grass, eachwith its little path and borders of shrubs, interspersed with the finestWellingtonias in the county, tapering gracefully to heaven,copper-beeches and grand oaks.
The house itself was very long and low, its frontage white, mellowedwith age, and broken up by old-fashioned, latticed windows which gleamedblue and grey in the translucent, frosted air. The roof of the Manorboasted a mass of beautiful red-brown gables, many half hidden fromsight by the wealth of ivy; last summer also by a veritable tangle ofVirginia creeper and crimson rambler, now sleeping their winter sleep.
My thoughts wandered on. They travelled with extraordinary rapidity, asthought does, picture after picture rising into the vision of myimagination like the scenes in a kaleidoscopic cinema.
Now I was seated in the old Manor. I could see the room distinctly. Itwas a small boudoi
r or ante-room opening into the large drawing-room--acosy, homely place, its low, latticed windows, divided into four,opening outwards on to garden and terraces, its broad, invitingwindow-seat comfortably cushioned. Nearly all the furniture was quiteold, dark oak, elaborately carved--writing-table, high-backed chairs, anold French "armoury" in the corner; but near the hearth there were twoor three deep, modern armchairs of peculiarly restful character, coveredwith exquisite flowered chintzes.
This vision deepened. I started. The door of the quiet room had suddenlyopened, and, humming a gay little French air, a young girl hadentered--fresh, exquisite, like a breath of early Springtime itself inthe midst of Winter. With her deep eyes, so soft and brown, her skin ofa healthy olive pallor, the cheeks just flushed with crimson, and hernimbus of light brown hair through which the golden threads strayed socharmingly, she made a perfect picture standing there in her long gownof sapphire-blue velvet.
The soft contours of her young face were outlined against a tall screenembroidered gorgeously with silken peacocks, before which she stopped tolay down upon a small table the sheaf of red and brown and goldenchrysanthemums which she carried in her arms.
My pulses throbbed as they always did in her presence, or when, indeed,she so much as crossed my daydreams, as at this moment. For this girlwas Dulcie Challoner--the woman who was fast becoming the one woman inthe world to me, and thus had I seen her enter that very room when lastI had spent a week-end at Holt Manor, four miles from the little villageof Holt Stacey--and that happened to have been only three weeks from thepresent moment.
The taxi stopped abruptly, shattering my dreams. We had reached theclub. Some letters were awaiting me. My spirits rose as I recognized thehandwriting on one of them.
Dulcie wrote to say that her father hoped, if I were not "alreadybooked," I would spend Christmas with them.
I was "already booked." I had accepted an invitation a month before todine on Christmas Day with an hysterical aunt from whom I hadexpectations. Well, the expectations must take their chance. Then andthere I sat down and wrote a long letter to Dulcie saying what joy thecontents of her letter had given me, and a brief line to my auntexplaining that "unavoidable circumstances had arisen" whichnecessitated my cancelling my promise to come to her, much as Iregretted doing so.
Snow was falling slowly and persistently, as it had done all theafternoon, when, about ten days later, I arrived at the little stationof Holt Stacey, the nearest to Holt Manor. The motor brougham awaitedmy rather late train, and I was quickly installed among the fur rugs inits cosy interior and being whirled along the silent whiteness of thenarrow lanes between the station and my destination. The weather wasvery cold, and I saw through the windows of the car that every branchand twig had its thick covering of pure white snow, while the thatchedroofs of the tiny cottages we passed were heavily laden. By four o'clockin the afternoon most of the cottage windows were lit up, and the glowof the oil lamps shining through tiny panes on to the gleaming carpet ofsnow without, produced a most picturesque effect.
Now we were purring up the hilly drive; then rounding the sweep to thehall door. The man did not have to ring. Before he could get off the boxI heard heavy footsteps leaping down the stairs three at a time andflying across the hall. The door was flung open, and a wild war-whoopfrom Dick announced my arrival to whoever cared to know of it.
"Good old sport!" shouted Dick, snatching the travelling-rug from myarm, after telling the footman behind him to "take Mr. Berrington'sthings to the green room in the west wing," and almost pushing me intothe hall. "Good old sport! You're awfully late. We've all done tea."
I told him we had been quite half an hour after the scheduled time instarting from Paddington, and that the crowds had been enormous.
"Just what I told Dulcie," he exclaimed. "You don't want to see her, Isuppose? What a beastly long time it seems since you were here! Threeweeks, isn't it, since I was home, ill?"
In vain I endeavoured to quiet Dick's ringing voice as a girlish, lithefigure appeared between the curtains which divided the stairs from thehall, a figure clad in soft rosy silk with a little lacy tea-jacket overit, and with golden-brown hair waving naturally about a broad, whiteforehead, with starry brown eyes full of welcome. Taking my hand in hersquietly for an instant, Dulcie asked me what sort of journey I had had,and presently led me across the hall to the drawing-room.
"You will like to see father," she said. "He and Aunt Hannah are in thedrawing-room; they've looked forward so much to your coming."
With a heart beating faster than usual I followed Dulcie. Her father Iwas always glad to see, and we were exceedingly good friends, havingmuch in common. Of a good old county family, Sir Roland Challoner hadsucceeded late in life to the title on the sudden death in the huntingfield of his father, Sir Nelson Challoner.
Dulcie's mother had died just after the birth of Dick, and Sir Rolandhad tried to make up the loss to Dulcie by getting his only and elderlysister Hannah--"Aunt Hannah" as she was inevitably called by all whostayed at Holt Manor, and in fact by everybody who had seen her morethan twice--to come and live with him. And there at Holt she had, in hereccentric way, ever since superintended domestic arrangements andmothered his beautiful little girl and her only brother, by this time anobstreperous boy of fourteen, at Eton and on his way to Oxford.
Aunt Hannah was, as Dulcie expressed it, "rather a dear, quaint thing."But she was more than that, I thought. She had such a pungent wit, hersayings were at times so downright--not to say acrid--that many stood interror of her and positively dreaded her quick tongue. I rather likedAunt Hannah myself, perhaps because, by the greatest of good luck, Ihappened not to have done anything so far to incur her displeasure,which she was never backward in expressing forcibly, or, as Dick theschoolboy brother put it, "in no measured terms." Still, as it is theunexpected that always happens, I knew there might yet come a day when Ishould be called upon to break a lance with Aunt Hannah, and I must sayI devoutly hoped that in the event of so deplorable an occurrence,heaven would vouchsafe me the victory. Steeped in intrigue up to her oldears, Aunt Hannah had, I believed, several times laid deep planstouching her niece's future--plans mysterious to the last degree, whichseemed to afford her the liveliest satisfaction. None of these schemes,however, had succeeded up to the present, for Dulcie seemed withdelightful inconsistence consistently to "turn down" the admirablesuitors whom Aunt Hannah metaphorically dangled before her eyes. Yet socleverly did she do this that, in some wondrous way known only toherself, she continued to retain them all in the capacity of firmfriends, and apparently no hearts were ever permanently bruised.
As I say, I quite liked Aunt Hannah, and she had afforded me a good dealof innocent amusement during my not infrequent visits at Holt Manor.Certainly on these occasions I had managed to adopt, if not actually abrotherly, at any rate an almost brotherly demeanour towards Dulciewhenever the sharp-eyed old lady chanced to be in the vicinity. As aresult, after much careful chaperonage, and even astute watching, of mymanner towards her niece, Aunt Hannah had "slacked off" delightfully,evidently regarding me as one of those stolid and casual nonentitieswho, from lack of much interest in anything can safely be trustedanywhere and under the most trying circumstances.
"Here is a telegram for you, Mike," Dulcie said to me one morning, whenI had been several days at Holt and the slow routine of life wasbeginning to reassert itself in the sleepy village after the excitementcreated by Christmas. The sight of the envelope she handed to me sent mythoughts back to London, the very existence of which I seemed to haveentirely forgotten during the past delightful days in this happy,peaceful spot. My gaze was riveted upon Dulcie, standing there beforeme, straight and slim in her dark violet breakfast gown, with itsruffles of old lace at neck and wrists, the warm light from the fireturning her fluffy brown hair to gold, as I mechanically tore open theenvelope, then pulled the telegram out.
"You don't seem in a hurry to read it," she exclaimed lightly, as I satthere looking at her still, the telegram open in my hands
.
I glanced down. It was from Osborne, and ran:
"Read report to-day's papers about Maresfield Gardens fire. Write mewhat you think about it.
"JACK OSBORNE."
I read it through again, then looked up at Dulcie, who still stood therebefore me.
"Have the papers come?" I asked.
She glanced up at the clock.
"They won't be here just yet," she answered. "We don't get them beforemidday, you know, and during these days they haven't arrived until lunchtime, owing to Christmas."
"You can read it if you like," I said, handing her the telegram, for Ihad seen her glance at it inquisitively. "It will interest youenormously."
She made a little grimace when she had read it.
"'Interest me enormously,'" she said contemptuously, crumpling up thepaper and tossing it into the grate. For some moments she did not speak.
"What fire was there at Maresfield Gardens?" she inquired suddenly, "andwhy does he ask you what you think about it?"
"Ah, so it does interest you a little," I exclaimed, taking hold of herhand and drawing her towards me, for as she stood there looking down atme she seemed somehow to magnetize me. "Sit by me, here, and I'lltell you."
I told her of the conversation at the club, of Lord Easterton's dinner,of Osborne's queer suggestion, of our visit to the house at MaresfieldGardens in the middle of the night, of our being admitted by the strangewoman, including, of course, the incident of the serpent.
When I had finished, she looked at me seriously for some moments withoutspeaking.
"I don't think I like that adventure," she said at last.
For a moment she paused.
"Don't go to that house again, Mike," she suddenly exclaimed. "Promiseme you won't."
I was deliberating what reply I should make to this request, though Idid not think it likely I should want to go to the house again, when ourattention was distracted by the footman entering with the morningpapers--we were sitting in the big hall, before the fire ofblazing logs.
Dulcie sprang up and snatched the papers from the man, and Dick,bouncing in at that instant, exclaimed with mock solemnity:
"Oh fie! 'Thou shalt not snatch,' Dulcie, you are 'no lady.'"
"Thank heaven for that," she retorted quickly, then began to tantalizeme by holding the papers just beyond my reach.
At last she gave me two, and Dick one, opened one herself, and sat uponthe rest. They made quite a pile, for Sir Roland was one of thosebroad-minded men who like to read both sides on questions of anyimportance.
I soon found the report I sought. It occupied a prominent position, andwas headed:
HAMPSTEAD FIRE MYSTERYBODY FOUND STABBEDPOLICE PUZZLED
The disastrous fire at Number 340 Maresfield Gardens, on Christmas Eve,has given rise to an interesting sequel.
I had not been aware that a fire had occurred there, and I read on:
It was confidently hoped that no lives had been lost, but about middayyesterday the charred body of a woman was discovered among the _debris_.
Upon careful examination it was ascertained beyond doubt that the bodyhad been several times stabbed, apparently with some sharp weapon orinstrument. All the wounds were in the breast, and it is stated that anyone of them might have caused death.
The police are instituting searching inquiries, and a sensationalannouncement will most likely be made shortly. The origin of theconflagration remains a mystery. Apparently nobody occupied the housewhen the fire broke out, the sub-tenants, whose identity is veiled inobscurity, having left some days previously.
"Have you read the account in your paper?" I asked, turning to Dulcie asI put mine down.
"Yes," she answered, "I have just finished it. Isn't it terrible?"
"I have a theory," a boy's voice exclaimed suddenly. Dick, seated on thefloor, tossed aside the newspaper I had thrown to him.
"That woman whose body has been found may have been stabbed, but Ibelieve that big cobra had something to do with her death. I don't knowwhy I think that, but I do. It's instinct, I suppose. Michael, I believeyou were spoofed by that man Gastrell, whoever he is--absolutely spoofed."
"Good heavens, Dick!" I exclaimed in dismay, "how do you come to knowwhat I have just told to Dulcie in confidence?"
"Oh, ask me another, old sport!" he cried out, and burst into laughter."If you will 'exchange confidences'--isn't that the phrase?--withDulcie, and be so engrossed that you don't notice me in the room--well,what can you expect?"