The Secret of Lonesome Cove Part 37

"There I want your aid. The night of the tragedy a person wearing a dark garment embroidered with silver stars, was on Hawkill Heights. I have reason to believe that this person came there to meet some one from the Blair place; also, that he can tell me, if I can find him, the facts which I lack to fill out my theory. It is to run him down that I have come to Boston."

"A man wearing a dark garment embroidered with silver stars," said the philosopher. "Surely a strange garb in this age of sartorial orthodoxy."

"Not for an astrologer."

"Ah; an astrologer! And you think he came from Boston?"

"I think," said Chester Kent, drawing some newspaper clippings from his pocket; "that somewhere among these advertis.e.m.e.nts, taken from the newspapers which are subscribed for at Hedgerow House, he is to be found."

"There I ought to be able to help. Through my a.s.sociation with the occult society I have investigated many of these gentry. Great rascals, most of them."

"Whom would you consider the most able of the lot?"

The old man set a finger on one of the clippings. "Preston Jax," said he, "is the shrewdest of them all. Sometimes I have thought that he had dim flashes of real clairvoyance. Be that as it may, he has a surprising clientele of which he makes the most, for he is a master-hand at cozening women out of their money. More than once he has been in the courts."

"Probably he is my man. Anyway, I shall visit him first, and, if I find that his office was closed on July fifth-"

"It was, and for a day or two thereafter as I chance to know, because one of the occult society's secret agents was to have visited him, and could not get an appointment."

"Good! I shall see you, then, to-morrow, sir."

"Clarity of vision go with you, amid your riddles," said his host with a smile, shuffling the cards which Kent had gathered up for him. "Here is my all-sufficient riddle. Watch me now, how I meet and vanquish the demon mischance." He turned up a card. "Ah," said he with profound satisfaction, "the seven of spades. My luck runs in sevens."

CHAPTER XVIII-THE MASTER OF STARS

Ten o'clock of the following morning found the Harvard professor formally presenting his friend, Chester Kent, to Mrs. Wilfrid Blair, at the house of the cousin with whom she was staying.

"My dear," said the old gentleman, "you may trust Professor Kent's judgment and insight as implicitly as his honor. I can give no stronger recommendation, and will now take my leave."

Kent resisted successfully a wild and fearful desire to set a restraining hold upon the disappearing coat tails, for embarra.s.sment had again engulfed the scientist's soul. He seized himself by the lobe of the ear with that grip which drowning men reserve for straws. And-to continue the comparison-the ear sank with him beneath the waves of confusion. Mrs. Blair's first words did not greatly help him.

"Have you an earache, Professor Kent?" she inquired maliciously.

"Yes. No. It's a habit," muttered the caller, releasing his hold and immediately resuming it.

"Isn't it very painful?"

"Of course it is," said he testily; "when I forget to let go in time-as I frequently do."

"As you are doing now," she suggested.

Kent bestowed a final yank upon the dried fount of inspiration, and gave it up as hopeless.

"I don't know exactly how to begin," he complained.

"Then I will help you," said she, becoming suddenly grave. "You are here to speak to me of some topic, wholly distinct from one forbidden phase."

"Exactly. You make it difficult for me by that restriction. And I rather like difficulties-in reason. Let me see. Have you lost any jewels lately, Mrs. Blair?"

The girl-widow started. "Yes. How did you know?"

"You have made no complaint, or published no advertis.e.m.e.nts for them?"

"I have kept it absolutely secret. Father Blair insisted that I should do so."

"They were valuable, these jewels?"

"The rings were, intrinsically, but what I most valued was the necklace of rose-topazes. They were the Grosvenor topazes."

"A family relic?"

"Not my own family. My husband's mother left them to me. They came down to her from her grandmother, Camilla Grosvenor."

"You speak that name as if it should be recognizable by me."

"Perhaps it would, if you were a New Englander. She was rather a famous person in her time. C. L. Elliott painted her-one of his finest portraits, I believe. And-and she was remarkable in other respects."

"Would you mind being more specific? It isn't mere curiosity on my part."

"Why, my uncle could have told you more. He knows all about the Grosvenors. My own knowledge of Camilla Grosvenor is merely family tradition. She was a woman of great force of character, and great personal attraction, I believe, though she was not exactly beautiful.

When she was still under thirty she became the leader of a band of mystics and star-wors.h.i.+pers. I believe that she became infatuated with one of them, a young German, and that there was an elopement by water.

This I remember, at least: her body washed ash.o.r.e on the coast not very far from Hedgerow House."

"At Lonesome Cove?"

"Yes. The very name of it chills me. For my husband it had an uncanny fascination. He used to talk to me about the place. He even wanted to build there; but Mr. Alexander Blair wouldn't listen to it."

"Would you know the face of Camilla Grosvenor?"

"Of course. The Elliott portrait hangs in the library at Hedgerow House."

Kent took from under his coat the drawing purchased from Elder Dennett.

"That is the same," said Mrs. Blair unhesitatingly. "It isn't quite the same pose as the finished portrait. And it lacks the earring which is in the portrait. But I should say it is surely Elliott's work. Couldn't it be a preliminary sketch for the portrait?"

"Probably that is what it is."

"Can you tell me where it came from?"

"From between the pages of an old book. It must have been carelessly thrown aside. The book has just been sold at an auction in Martindale Center, and the drawing found by a man who didn't appreciate what it was. I bought it from him."

"That's rather wonderful, isn't it?"

"There are more wonders to come. Tell me how your necklace was lost, please."