CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE VIEW HALLOO
That the nocturnal visitor would prove to be Lady Clavering Cleek hadnot the smallest shadow of a doubt, although he marvelled much at hertemerity in venturing into the grounds of the Grange after thatexperience at the wall door so short a time previously, and he thereforeremained as breathless and as still as the shadows surrounding him, andwaited the coming of events. Not, however, without some slight feelingof disappointment at the thought that, intricate and puzzling as thiscase had been, it now promised to be solved in such a tame and paltrymanner; for if the newcomer should prove to be Lady Clavering, as,naturally, he had every reason for supposing, the affair would resolveitself into simply playing the part of eavesdropper at her interviewwith the General, and then making capital of the information thusobtained.
The intruder was advancing with extreme caution, but lacking his ownpeculiar gift of soundless stepping and noiseless movement, did notsucceed in passing between hedge and coppice without the betrayingrustle of disturbed leaves; and it was out of this circumstance themischief which followed was formed.
The shrubbery where Ailsa was waiting lay but a rope's cast distant fromthe spot where Cleek now crouched; and as if the ill-luck which hadbalked him once before to-night was intent upon flooring him at allquarters, he had no sooner grasped the unwelcome fact--made manifest bythe clearer sound of the approaching body as it came into closerrange--that the steps were advancing in a direct line with thatshrubbery than a thin, eager whisper pierced the stillness.
It was the voice of Miss Lorne, saying cautiously, yet distinctly:
"Goodness gracious! Why, Purviss! You don't mean to tell me it's you?"
Purviss! Not Lady Clavering, but Geoff Clavering's old valet, Purviss?Here was a facer to be sure. Well, well, you never can tell which way acat will jump, and that's a fact.
Purviss, eh? So he, too, was in the know, was he? Of course he must be,to be playing the role of Mercury and carrying messages between them inthis secret manner. Cleek decided to have a look at Mr. Purviss, and aword or two as well, by George! For now, of course, he would make noattempt to go near that window.
The thought had no sooner presented itself to him than he acted upon it.With the speed of a hound, but with no more noise than a moving shadow,he left his hiding-place, skirted the house, got round to the front ofit, crawled up the steps, then, rising suddenly, appeared to come out ofthe doorway and down the steps whistling, as he descended to the gardensand moved leisurely along in the direction of the shrubbery.
When he was within a foot of it he suddenly stopped, pulled out hiscigarette case, struck a match as if for the purpose of smoking, and bythe aid of that light saw standing within a yard of him Miss Ailsa Lornein close conversation with a mild-mannered, mild-faced elderly person,upon whom the word "valet" was clearly written.
"Hullo, Miss Lorne, enjoying an evening ramble, too? May I be allowed tojoin you?"
"With pleasure, Mr. Barch," said Ailsa. Then she motioned toward thevalet, who had stepped meekly back.
"Purviss has just come over from Lady Clavering to inquire for Mr.Geoffrey----"
"Ah, yes," said Cleek, smiling to himself unnoticed in the dark. "Heleft this afternoon, did he not? You have evidently just missed SirPhilip, who was himself here."
"Yes," added Ailsa, "I was just telling him, but it seems he has amessage for General Raynor from Lady Clavering----"
"I thought as much," said Cleek to himself triumphantly, though aloud heremarked, calmly enough: "Ah! but the General has gone to bed. I heardhim say that he was not to be disturbed, but if you care to give anymessage or letter, I'll go and knock him up."
"Oh, no, there's no need to do that, sir," replied Purviss hurriedly."It's only a request for a gardening book if I happened to see GeneralRaynor; of no importance at all, sir."
"I quite understand," said Cleek, the smile on his face hidden in thescreening darkness.
"As for Mr. Geoffrey," put in Ailsa kindly, "he is quite safe. He wentup to town on an errand for Lady Katharine----"
"Thank you, Miss," returned Purviss respectfully. "That will be a reliefto her ladyship to know that. She was very anxious. Good-night, Miss!Good-night, sir!" With a deferential salute, the man turned anddisappeared swiftly into the night.
"You see now," said Ailsa, "that I was right, that Geoff's absence wouldcreate such a panic at the Close that they would scour the place fornews of him. First his father, and now Purviss. I thought you would besatisfied as to the truth of his mission directly I spoke."
"Yes," said Cleek quietly, "but he did not come here to seek GeoffClavering. That was a lie. He came for the purpose of having aninterview with some one else, and for the second time this night, MissLorne, you have unfortunately prevented me from hearing something whichmight have cleared this mystery up without any further search on mypart. You remember how I rushed past you at the time when Dollops hadset me on the track of the lady in pink? She came and she had aninterview, or, at least, she had the beginning of an interview, with theman she was there to see. What's that? No, she was not Margot. She wasLady Clavering. Sh-h-h! Quiet! Quiet! Yes, she was Lady Clavering. Andshe had just accused the man she came to meet of having murdered DeLouvisan, when your approach startled the pair of them and made themseparate hurriedly. Miss Lorne, can you stand a shock? Good! Then holdyour nerves under tight control. The man Lady Clavering met at the walldoor to-night was the master of this house, General Raynor!"
She all but collapsed when she heard that.
"General Raynor?" she breathed in a horrified voice. "General Raynor?And Lady Clavering? Oh, but why, but how? Dear Mr. Cleek, it--it is likesome horrible dream! What possible connection could there be betweenthose two people of all others?"
"I don't know. I have a suspicion--it is my business to have that, youknow--but I want something stronger. I shall have it soon. My work herein this house is pretty well finished, I fancy. Maybe to-morrow, maybethe next day, but this week certain, I shall be off to Malta. I am goingto hunt up a man's army record there."
"The General's?"
"Yes. His and--well, possibly, some one's else. When I come back Ipromise you that I will have the solution to this riddle in my hands.What's that? Oh, yes, Margot is in it."
"Then why--then how can Lady Clavering----"
"Lady Clavering, it appears, knows Margot. So does the General,evidently, for she mentioned her name to him."
"Dear heaven! And you say that she accused him of the murder? Accusedhim? How could she?"
"She was there--at Gleer Cottage--_last_ night. She went there to meethim. But she was not, however, the first to direct my suspicions againstthe General. That was done hours before and by a totally differentperson."
"Whom?"
"His son," said Cleek, and forthwith told her of that memorableinterview with Harry Raynor after dinner, and of the typewritten letterhe had abstracted from the young wastrel's coat pocket. "Miss Lorne, Iwaste no sympathy upon that worm," he went on. "From the top of hisempty head to the toe of his worthless foot there's not one ounce ofmanhood in him. But he spoke the truth! His father did type that forgedletter and for the purpose he declared."
"To get him out of the neighbourhood for the night?"
"Yes. And but for the mere accident of the fellow's having discoveredthat the typist girl was out of England, he would have succeededwithout having to resort to other means."
"How do you know that the General typed the letter?" asked Miss Lorne.
"I didn't in the beginning," returned Cleek. "I did know, however, thatit had been typed by somebody in this house; for I stole the letter,then tricked Hamer into getting me an unused sheet of the typing paperthat was left over from the manuscript of the General's book. A glanceat the watermark showed them to be identical; in other words, that theletter had been typed upon one of those left-over sheets. Well, that wasone thing; the other was that the General, having failed to get his sonout of the way for to-night by that mea
ns, took steps to accomplish itby drugging him."
"Drugging him?"
"Yes. Earlier in the day Purviss had brought him a note from LadyClavering, and it was imperative that he should go out to-night to meether in secret. He didn't want his son prowling about, and he didn't wantme prowling about, either. Still less did he want you prowling about, orthat his wife should know of his leaving the house after she had gone tobed. To make sure of having no such risk to run, he put a sleepingdraught into every drop of spirit or liqueur that was served in thishouse to-night. What he had not reckoned upon, however, was the factthat neither you nor I tasted either. But at this moment his son liesdrugged and unconscious in the dining-room, and it would be a safehazard to stake one's life that his wife is lying unconscious in bed."
"But--but--are you _sure_ there is no mistake?"
"No, Miss Lorne, there is no mistake. It was the General who did thedrugging. I found the paper in which the sleeping draught had come fromthe chemist's in the waste basket in the library; and when I wanted toclench the belief and make it absolutely positive, I tricked the Generalinto confessing that he stood in need of a stimulant after the stress ofthe night, then invited him to join me in one from the decanters in thedining-room. He knew what was in that liqueur and--he declined. I knewthen that there was no mistake about his being the hand that had donethe drugging, just as I had known previously that he was the man LadyClavering had met at the wall door.
"When I rushed past you that time and raced through these grounds, I hadno more idea than a child unborn who the man I was pursuing would proveto be. He might have been Harry Raynor; he might have been Lord St.Ulmer. I even said to myself that he might be any male member of thishousehold from the General down; and my one idea was to get to the houseand to find which man was missing. I found no one absent! St. Ulmer wasin his bedroom; Harry Raynor was sleeping over the table in thedining-room; and as I came clattering down the stairs the Generalstepped out of the library to inquire into the cause of thedisturbance. To all intents and purposes he had been in there readingthe whole evening long. But it was a significant fact that as he openedthe door and came out, I was able to see past him into the room and todiscern that the curtains drawn over the swinging window were bellyinginward, showing that the opening of the door had started a current ofair which could be created only by the window behind them being likewiseopen.
"That gave me the first suspicion of a clue. I looked at the man himselffor further evidence to back it up and, in the first glance, found it.There was black soil on the toes of his house shoes and a smudge ofgreen wall-moss on his shirt cuff! I knew then just what he had done,and how I had failed to overhaul him in that hot race. He had simplyducked down out of sight, lain still in the bushes and allowed me to runpast him. For me there was, of course, no other means of entering thehouse but by the door; for him there was the library window! He waitedto give me time to get into the house, then rose, ran across theintervening space and back into the library by means of that window, andhad had just about sufficient time to get there when I came rushing downthe stairs. You will remember, will you not, that I spoke of those twothings: the spot of black and smudge of green? You know now to what Ialluded."
"It is wonderful and--yes, it is horrible also!" she said with a faintshudder. "What a day of horror this has been! I think the shadow of itwill weigh upon me forever."
"Not if I can help it," said Cleek very gently, very tenderly. "And Icount very, very much indeed, Miss Lorne, upon the possibility of makingyou bless it before the whole twenty-four hours of it have been roundedout. Don't you remember what I said to you about my hopes for theclearing of all shadows from the path of Geoff Clavering and LadyKatharine, about the theory of Loisette?"
"Loisette? That is the great French scientist, is it not? The first manwho actually did establish a standard rule for the training of thememory and schools for the teaching of his system all over the world?"
"Yes, that is the man. His principle is somewhat akin to that of theprinciple of homoeopathy. 'Like cures like,' says the homoeopathist.'Like produces like,' says Loisette, 'and the similarity of eventsacting upon the human mind may, by suggestion, produce similar results,'Well, last night Lady Katharine Fordham went through an experience whichno living woman is ever likely to forget: the knowledge that hope ofhappiness is over, and that the man she loves is lost to her beyond allpossible recall. This evening, in the ruin over there, she went throughan exactly similar experience, and after some few hours of hope, wasthrust rudely back into the absolute certainty that a barrier as high asheaven itself had come between Geoff Clavering and her. I stake myhopes upon that, Miss Lorne. I look for Loisette to be vindicated. Ilook for last night to be repeated _in all particulars_, and I am sohopeful of it that I have sent for Geoff Clavering to come here and be awitness to it."
"Sent for Geoff Clavering to come here--here?"
"Yes. At twelve o'clock he will be waiting for me at the lodge gates;and if all goes as I hope and believe that it will go--ah, well, it willbe a blessed time for him, for her, for you! As for myself--but thatdoesn't matter. I shall have but one more thing to accomplish under theroof of this house, and then if the trail leads elsewhere, I'll be offto Malta as fast as steam can take me."
"And that one thing, Mr. Cleek? May I ask what it is?"
"Yes, certainly. It is to discover Lord St. Ulmer's part in this elusivebusiness, and then to be absolutely certain of getting at the man whokilled the Count de Louvisan, and at the reason for the crime."
"The reason? The man?" repeated Ailsa in utter bewilderment. "I thoughtyou said just now that you were satisfied regarding that? Why, then,should you speak as if there were a possibility of Lord St. Ulmer beingconcerned in the murder if you are seemingly so sure that General Raynordid it?"
"General Raynor? Good heavens above, Miss Lorne, get that idea out ofyour mind! Why, General Raynor is no more guilty of the murder of DeLouvisan than you are!"