The Solitary Farm Part 49

"Yes and no. I won't say what may happen. She pities him for his weakness, and pity, as you know, is akin to love. Besides, only ourselves and Inspector Inglis know of the temptation to which Mr. Pence was submitted."

"Why, Bella, everyone knows he saw the corpse of Huxham and held his tongue."

"Yes, but everyone doesn't know that he took the one hundred pounds which he restored to me. He is looked upon as somewhat weak for not having informed the police of the crime, but on the whole people are sorry for him."

"I shall be sorry, too, if a nice little woman like Miss Ankers marries such a backboneless creature."

"Cyril! Cyril! have not our late troubles shown you that we must judge no one? After what we have undergone I shall never, never give an opinion about anyone again. I am sorry now that I did not behave better to poor Mrs. Vand. When my supposed father was alive I did treat her haughtily. No wonder she disliked me."

"My dear," said Lister, taking her hand, "don't be too hard on yourself.

You and your so-called aunt would never have got on well together."

"But I might have been kinder," said Bella, almost crying; "now that she is dead and gone I feel that I might have been kinder."

"How do you know that she is dead and gone?" asked Cyril, in so strange a tone that Bella, das.h.i.+ng the tears from her eyes, looked at him inquiringly. "She is alive," he replied to that mute interrogation.

"Oh, Cyril, I am so glad! Tell me all about it."

"I don't know that I am glad, poor soul," said Lister sadly. "The police are on her track. I didn't want to tell you, Bella, but for the last two days the papers have been full of the hunt after Mrs. Vand."

"Why didn't Dora tell me?"

"I asked her not to. You have had quite enough to bear."

"Well, now that you have told me some, tell me all."

"There isn't much to tell. Some too clever landlady in Bloomsbury suspected a quiet lady lodger. It certainly was Mrs. Vand, but she became suspicious of her landlady and cleared out. Then she was seen at Putney, and afterwards someone noticed her in Hampstead. The papers having been taunting the police about the matter, they'll catch her in the end."

"Poor Mrs. Vand! poor Mrs. Vand!" The girl's eyes again filled with tears.

"We can't help her, Bella. I wish Timson could get hold of her and induce her to stand her trial. I don't think either judge or jury would be hard on her; more, I fancy that her brain must be turned with all this misery."

"And she has lost her husband, too," sighed Bella; "she loved him so.

Oh, dear Cyril, what should I do if I lost you?"

Before Lister could reply with the usual lover-like attentions there was a noise in the road, and looking through the window they saw many people hurrying along. Dora came in at the moment from the other room, whither she always discreetly withdrew when not nursing Pence.

"It is only some policeman they are running after. He declares that Mrs.

Vand is in the neighbourhood. If she is I hope she will escape."

"By Jove! I must go out and see," said Cyril, seizing his hat.

"I shall come also," cried Bella, and in a few minutes the two were on the road. But by this time the people were not tearing along as they had been, and one villager told Lister that it had been a false alarm.

"The old vixen won't come back to her first hole," said the villager with a coa.r.s.e laugh, and Bella frowned at him for his inhumanity.

As there really was nothing to hurry for the lovers strolled easily along the road talking of their future. "Bella, you haven't many boxes?"

asked Cyril.

"Only two. Why do you ask?"

"Will you be ready to come with me to London to-morrow?"

"Yes; I shall be glad to get out of Marshely, where I have been so miserable. Only I wish I knew where Mrs. Vand is, poor soul."

Cyril pa.s.sed over the reference to Mrs. Vand, as he was weary of discussing that unfortunate woman. "There's a chum of mine got a motor,"

said the young man. "I wrote and asked him for the loan of it. He brought it down last night, and it is safely bestowed in the stables of 'The Chequers.' To-morrow at nine o'clock let us start off with your boxes----"

"And Dora?"

"No," said Cyril, very decidedly. "Dora can remain with Pence, whom she probably will marry. We will go to London and get married at a registry office in the afternoon, and then cross to Paris for our honeymoon. I haven't much money, Miss Rothschild, but I have enough for that. In our own happiness let us forget all our troubles."

"I'll come," said Bella with a sigh. "After all, we can do nothing. By the way, Cyril, what about Durgo's things?"

"Well it's odd you should mention that. He evidently thought that something might happen to him on that night, for he left a note behind him saying that if he did not return they were to be given to me. So I have s.h.i.+fted them long since to my lodgings. There they lie packed up, and ready to be taken away in our motor to-morrow."

"Cyril, you have been arranging this for some time?"

"Well, I have. It's the only way of getting you to leave this place, and you will always be miserable while you remain here."

"I only stayed in the hope that poor Mrs. Vand might return, and then I would be able to comfort her. Oh! how I wish Durgo with his occult powers was here to help us."

"I don't; Durgo's occult powers brought him little happiness, and didn't solve the mystery of my father's death. One would have thought that Granny Tunks, in her trances, would have told Durgo that the scarecrow which he saw daily was his dearly-beloved master's dead body."

"It is strange," said Bella thoughtfully; "but then, as Durgo said about something else, perhaps it was not permitted. What's become of Granny Tunks, Cyril? Is she still at the hut?"

"Yes; but I heard to-day that she is going on the road again with her old tribe of the Lovels. I daresay Granny will be at all the fairs and race meetings, swindling people for many a long day."

"And her son Luke?"

"He'll get off with a light sentence. He certainly had no hand in the murders, and there is no one to prosecute him for blackmail. Granny and Luke will soon be together again. I hope never to hear more of them, for my part. Bella! Bella! don't let us talk of such things. We have had enough of these tragedies. Let us be selfish for once in our lives and consider ourselves. Hullo, what's this?"

The question was provoked by the sight of Inglis with three constables, who whirled past in a fly which they had evidently obtained from the station. As they dashed onward in a cloud of dust the inspector, recognising the two, shouted out something indistinctly, with his hand to his mouth.

"What does he say, Cyril?" asked Bella anxiously.

"Something about fire. I wonder where they are going? Oh!"--Cyril suddenly stopped short--"I wonder if they are after poor Mrs. Vand.

Come, Bella, let us see where they go to."

"But where are you going?" asked Bella, as he rushed along the road dragging her after him swiftly. "Oh!" she cried out with horror, "look!"

At the far end of the village and in the direction of the Solitary Farm, a vast cloud of smoke was mounting menacingly into the soft radiance of the twilight sky. "No wonder Inglis said fire!" cried Lister excitedly, "I believe, Bella, that the Manor-house is blazing."

"No," cried Bella in reply, "it is impossible."

But it was not. As they rounded the corner of the crooked village street in the midst of a crowd of people who had sprung as by magic from nowhere, they saw the great bulk of the Manor-house enveloped in thick black smoke, and even at the distance they were could catch sight of fiery tongues of flame. The sky was rapidly darkening to night, and the smoke-cloud, laced with red serpents, looked lurid and livid and sinister.

"Come, Bella, come!" cried Cyril to the panting girl, and took her arm within his own, "we must see who set it on fire."