The Riddle of the Night Part 22

The tightly woven fabric of last night's mystery had started to unravel.

In one little corner a flaw had suddenly sprung into existence, and to-night the first loosened thread was in this man's hands.

He set his back to the lighted windows and forged on through the darkness until the swerving path brought him to the little summerhouse where, earlier, he had first met Ailsa, and stepping in, threw himself into a rustic seat and bent forward with his elbows upon his knees and his face between his hands: a grim and silent figure in the loneliness and the darkness.

Five minutes pa.s.sed--six, seven--and found him still sitting there, still communing with his own thoughts, though it was now nearing ten o'clock, and he had told Dollops to be at the wall angle to meet him at nine. But suddenly his att.i.tude changed; his hands dropped, his head jerked upward, as a sleeping cat's does when it hears a gnawing mouse, and he was on his feet, alert, eager, all alive, in a twinkling. Half a minute later Miss Lorne stepped from the gra.s.s on to the gravel and found him waiting for her in the arch of the summerhouse doorway.

"It is you at last, then, is it?" he said, reaching out to her through the darkness. "Take my hand and I will guide you if you cannot see the way clearly. I can't risk striking a match."

"It isn't necessary; I know the way quite well," she answered; but she took his hand all the same. "I hope I haven't kept you waiting; I came as quickly as I could. Mrs. Raynor had fallen asleep over her novel while we were waiting for you and her son to finish your cigars and join us in the drawing-room, but Hamer coming in with your note awoke her and I could not get away so quickly as I desired."

"Was Mrs. Raynor interested in the note, then? Did she show any desire to hear what it was about?" he questioned eagerly.

"Oh, no. She"--colouring under cover of the darkness--"she merely laughed, and said that it was no more than she should have expected, but she kept me talking so long that I nearly lost all patience, and your note did puzzle me, Mr. Cleek. Why was it so important that you should see me at once without Kathie knowing? Have you discovered anything fresh?"

"Such strange things indeed have happened, Miss Lorne, since this evening," he returned quietly, "that I think I shall need your help in getting to the bottom of them. For one thing, it is now absolutely certain that the murderer of the Common keeper came into these grounds last night after he had committed the crime, and that when he gave Narkom and his men the slip the fellow came directly to this place unseen."

"Mr. Cleek!"

"Sh-h-h! Not so loud, please. And don't shake like that. Steady yourself, for there is something yet more startling to come. There is now positive proof, Miss Lorne, that Lady Katharine Fordham did leave this house last night and go to Gleer Cottage."

"I won't believe it!" she flung out loyally. But she had scarcely more than said it when his next words cut the ground from beneath her.

"A witness has turned up," he said; "a witness who saw her there and spoke to her."

"A witness? Dear G.o.d! Who?"

"Geoffrey Clavering!"

"Geoffrey Clavering? Geoffrey?"

"Yes. He and Lady Katharine had an interview in the ruin this evening, an interview which I overheard without either being aware of my presence. That is what sent Lady Katharine to bed with a bad headache just before dinner. Geoffrey Clavering accused her of murdering De Louvisan and acknowledged that it was he himself who placed the two lighted candles at the feet of the dead man's body."

She made no cry this time, no single sound. He knew that she was beyond doing so, that she was struck to the very heart, and he made haste to lessen her distress by telling her of Lady Katharine's denial and of the whole circ.u.mstance as it happened. Then he told of his own discovery of the buried clothing, his overhearing the interview, the manner in which the lovers had parted, and, finally, of his own act in apprehending young Clavering and then accepting his parole and sending him off to London for the night.

"Why did you do that?" she questioned feebly, and was not satisfied even when he explained his motive. "I will not even take his word against Kathie's, but I could have told you that he speaks the truth when he says that his stepmother's interest in him is so great it is very likely that she did go out on the Common to look for him, and for the reason he gave. If he were her own son she could not think more of him. She absolutely idolizes him. He is not dearer to his father than he is to her; and if he does not return to Clavering Close to-night, be sure she will have the Common searched from end to end, and will go half out of her mind when she does not find him."

Cleek took his chin between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed it hard. This was somewhat of a facer, he was obliged to confess.

"You rather take the wind out of my sails," he said reflectively. "If the boy spoke the truth, if the stepmother really does care like that, why that eliminates her from the case altogether, and it isn't worth while asking you to take the risk I alluded to in the note."

"What risk?"

"A very considerable one for a young lady in your position, should you be seen. As I do not even know Lady Clavering by sight, I was going to ask you if you would mind prowling about the Common in company with me, that, if the lady put in an appearance, you might be able to identify her for me. But of course, if it is so very certain that she will join in the search for the boy, there's no necessity for doing such a thing."

"Pardon me, but I think, Mr. Cleek, there is more reason than ever," she replied, "if only to ease her mind, you know. You might do that by telling her that Geoff was unexpectedly called to town and that you were on the way to the Close to tell them so. I don't in the least mind taking the risk, as you call it, under those circ.u.mstances; it would be a charity to do so, for I know her ladys.h.i.+p, and Sir Philip will worry.

Of course they will not think of worrying yet a while; it is much too early; and as Geoff came over here to see Kathie they will think he is remaining for the evening. But later, when it is past bedtime, when it is getting on toward twelve o'clock, they will be half out of their minds with anxiety. Oh, yes; I'll go with you willingly, this minute if you like, in such a cause as that."

"How loyal you are! What a woman you are! What a friend!" said Cleek admiringly. "Shall I tell you something? I have hope that one of those friends will be wholly cleared before another day comes; that something may happen to-night which will make Geoff Clavering the happiest of men and you and Lady Katharine almost beside yourselves with joy. No, don't ask me what it is just yet a while. I have dreams and fancies and odd notions like other men sometimes; and I am a great believer in the theory of Loisette that a likeness of events acting upon a weary brain is apt to produce similar results in certain highly strung natures. But will you walk with me as far as the angle of the wall on the other side of the shrubbery, Miss Lorne? Dollops is waiting there for me. I have something of great importance for him to do to-night, and I think you will be interested in it. Will you come? Thank you! This way then, please, as quietly as you can."

Taking her hand and keeping always on the gra.s.s and always in the dark, where the shadows of the trees lay between them and the lighted windows of the Grange, he led her on to something which even he had not foreseen and never for a moment guessed.

At the angle of the wall he stopped and began to whistle softly "Kathleen Mavourneen." As upon another occasion, before he had completed the third bar, the wall door gaped open and flashed shut again and Dollops was in the dark, tree-crowded enclosure with him. It was a rather more excited Dollops than he had expected to find, however, for Cleek had no more than just begun to apologize for his lateness when the boy was on him like a pouncing cat and was cutting into his low-spoken words in a panting sort of whisper:

"For Gawd's sake, gov'ner. Come quick, sir!" he said, as he laid a tense, nervous grip on Cleek's arm. "'Nother door in the wall, sir.

Higher up where them mulberry trees is thickest. Woman prowlin' round, gov'ner. Been prowlin' round this ten minutes past and been to that door and tried it three times a'ready. Woman in a pink dress, sir, and a long dark cloak reachin' almost to the ground!"

"Margot!" said Cleek in an exultant whisper. "Margot at last, by George!"

Then, for the second time that night, he received a shock.

"If you mean that French Aparsh 'skirt' we run up against in the time of the Red Crawl, gov'ner," interposed Dollops, "you're backin' the wrong horse. It aren't _her_--aren't a bit like her, sir; no fear!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

THE LADY AT THE GATE

Cleek was conscious of a sense of keen disappointment at this piece of intelligence, it so completely upset all his calculation. Hitherto, the bits of the puzzle had fitted nicely and bade fair to make a smooth and flawless whole.

"Are you sure?" he whispered, laying a tense hand upon Dollops's arm.

"Don't jump to a conclusion without positive evidence. Are you _sure_?"

"Rath-_er_! Of course it's too dark to see her face, gov'ner; but when she come to the gate the first time--she's been several, sir--it was a deal lighter on account of the moon not bein' hid so much with them blessed clouds, sir; and I could see then that she was wot you might call a high-stepper--summink cla.s.sy and up in the nines, gov'ner, and had a way with her that you don't pick up if you aren't born to it. She couldn't have been putting it on for effect, 'cause she didn't know there was anybody there to see. Gone she is now, sir; slipped off over the Common, and I lost sight of her among all them furze bushes, but she'll come back, never fear. She's went away like that two or three times before, but always come back and tried the door, and jist struck her hands together and rocked back and forwards like she was half beside herself when she found it locked and n.o.body there to meet her."

"And you didn't succeed in seeing her face at all?"

"No, sir. It never was light enough for me to do that. But even if it had been, it wouldn't 'a' been no use, sir. She had summick that looked like a white lace scarf wrapped all round her head and over her face.

But I was near enough to make out as she smelt summink beautiful of voylits, and had on one of them s.h.i.+ny, silky-lookin' kind of mackintoshes and a dress of pink silk."

A black mackintosh and a dress of pink silk! _Not_ a black cloak lined with ermine! Not a dress of pink gauze! Of course Dollops was right in his statement that it was not Margot; that fact alone proved it. So there was a second woman who prowled about Wuthering Grange and endeavoured to see somebody in secret, was there? Whom? Harry Raynor or Lord St. Ulmer?

Clearly the one in the pink gauze--Margot beyond all possible question--came to see Raynor, for Hamer had identified her as the woman he had seen in that young man's company that day at Kingston. Who, then, was this other woman in pink? And whom did _she_ come to see? What was _her_ mission, her place in this elusive puzzle?

Come to think of it, he had been a fool to imagine when Dollops first spoke of her that it could possibly be Margot. The pink dress itself ought to have told him that. For although young Raynor had said that the lady he knew as Mademoiselle Mignon de Varville nearly always dressed in pink, Margot was no such fool as to prowl round this place to-night in the identical frock she had worn at the time of the tragedy, and from which that tiny sc.r.a.p had been torn by the nail head in the floor of Gleer Cottage.

True, n.o.body but Narkom and Ailsa and he himself knew, as yet, of the finding of that betraying sc.r.a.p, but---- Ah, well, you couldn't catch Margot napping! She might not know when, how, nor _where_ that sc.r.a.p had been torn off, but _her_ shrewd eyes would detect the missing bit in the skirt: she would be on to it like a cat on a mouse. He knew her methods, knew her miscroscopic carefulness and attention to detail. What, then, was this other woman's place in the puzzle? What was she after? Whom had she come to see? He'd make it his business to find that out, and in short order, too.

These things had travelled through Cleek's thoughts rapidly. It was scarcely more than a moment after Dollops had last spoken when he addressed the boy again.

"I've got something important on hand for you, as I told you, my lad,"

he said in a cautious whisper. "But, first, tell me: where is this other door in the wall of which you speak, the one where the Pink Woman goes?"

"Jist about thirty feet farther up, gov'ner; there where them mulberry trees is so blessed thick. You don't notice the place till you come smack on to it, on account of furze bushes and ivy along the foot of the wall. You can creep up till you're almost on it, though, without a body seein' of you, 'specially if you go before the party comes back."

"Right you are," said Cleek in reply. "I'll act on that tip, my lad.

Now, then, listen here. There's a ruin in the grounds of this place, and that ruin I particularly wish to have closely watched to-night. For one thing, the man who murdered the Common keeper made his way to that place and buried his victim's clothing there; and for another--oh, well, never mind. That will keep for later. Miss Lorne"--he turned to Ailsa, who all along had remained silent and closely huddled back in the shadow of the wall-angle and the trees--"Miss Lorne, we shall have to defer our stroll on the Common until later, I'm afraid. I shall have to look into the matter of this mysterious woman in pink before we can give any further thought to Lady Clavering and her possible anxiety over her stepson. In the meantime, will you, as silently and as expeditiously as you can, steal back through the grounds and show Dollops the way to the ruin?