In White Raiment

by William Le Queux

half-darkened room,leaning back gracefully and smiling upon me.

  "He announced no fresh discovery?"

  "He spoke scarcely a dozen words."

  "But this mystery is a very disagreeable one for you who live here. Ipresume that you live with your cousin always?"

  "Yes," she responded. "After my father's death, some years ago, I camehere to live with her."

  So her father was dead! The Tempter was not, as I had all alongsuspected, her father.

  I longed to take her in my arms and tell her the truth, that I wasactually her husband and that I loved her. Yet, how could I? Themystery was so complicated, and so full of inscrutable points, that tomake any such declaration must only fill her with fear of myself.

  We chatted on while I feasted my eyes upon her wondrous beauty. Hadshe, I asked myself, ever seen young Chetwode since her return toLondon? Did she really love him, or was he merely the harmless butnecessary admirer which every girl attracts towards herself as a sort ofnatural instinct? The thought of him caused a vivid recollection ofthat night in Whitton Park to arise within me.

  Where was Tattersett--the man who had laughed at her when she haddeclared her intention of escaping him by suicide? Who was he? Whatwas he?

  It occurred to me, now that I had learned some potent facts from her ownlips, that my next course should be to find this man and investigate hispast. By doing so I might elucidate the problem.

  Her ladyship, with a cry of welcome upon her lips, entered the room andsank, hot and fatigued, into a cosy armchair.

  "London is simply unbearable!" she declared. "It's ever so many degreeshotter than at Atworth, and in the Stores it is awfully stuffy. In theprovision department butter, bacon, and things seem all melting away."

  "You'll be glad to get back again to Wiltshire," I laughed.

  "Very. We shall go by the night-mail to-morrow," she answered. "Whydon't you come up and visit us, Doctor? My husband would be charmed tomeet you I'm sure."

  "That's just what I've been saying, dear," exclaimed Beryl. "Dopersuade Doctor Colkirk to come."

  "I am sure you are both very kind," I replied, "but at present I am inpractice."

  "You can surely take a holiday," urged Beryl. "Do come. We would tryto make it pleasant for you."

  Her persuasion decided me, and, after some further pressing on the partof her ladyship, I accepted the invitation with secret satisfaction,promising to leave in the course of a week or ten days.

  Then we fell to discussing the curious phenomena of the previous night,until, having again exhausted the subject, I rose to take my leave.

  "Good-bye, Doctor Colkirk," Beryl said, looking into my eyes as I heldher small hand. "I hope we shall soon meet down in Wiltshire, and, whenwe do, let us forget all the mystery of yesterday."

  "I suppose you have given Hoefer permission to visit, the room when hewishes to pursue his investigations?" I said, turning to her ladyship.

  "Of course. The house is entirely at his disposal. One does not careto have a death-trap in one's own house."

  "He will do his best--of that I feel quite sure," I said.

  And then again promising to visit her soon, I shook her hand, bade themboth adieu, and with a last look at the frail, graceful woman I loved,went out into the hot, dusty street.

  In order to celebrate my sudden accession to wealth I lunched well atSimpson's, and then took a hansom to old Hoefer's dismal rooms in.Bloomsbury. To me, so gloomy and severe is that once-aristocraticdistrict that, in my hospital days, I called it Gloomsbury.

  Hoefer occupied a dingy flat in Museum Mansions, and, as I entered thesmall room which served him as laboratory, I was almost knocked back bythe choking fumes of some acid with which he was experimenting. A denseblue smoke hung over everything, and through it loomed the German'sgreat fleshy face and gold-rimmed spectacles. He was in hisshirt-sleeves, seated at a table, watching some liquid boiling in a bigglass retort. Around his mouth and nose a damp towel was tied, and as Ientered he motioned me back.

  "Ach! don't come in here, my tear Colkirk! I vill come to you. Ze airis not good just now. Wait for me there in my room."

  Heedless of his warning, however, I went forward to the table, coughingand choking the while. I took out my handkerchief, when suddenly hesnatched it from me, and steeped it in some pale yellow solution. Then,when I placed it before my mouth, inhaling it, I experienced no furtherdifficulty in respiration.

  The nature of the experiment on which he was engaged I could notdetermine. From the retort he was condensing those suffocating fumes,drop by drop, now and then dipping pieces of white, prepared paper intothe liquid thus obtained. I stood by watching in silence.

  Once he placed a drop of that liquid upon a glass slide, dried it forcrystallisation, and, placing it beneath the microscope, examined itcarefully.

  He grunted. And I knew he was not satisfied.

  Then he added a few drops of some colourless liquid to that in theretort, and the solution at once assumed a pale green hue. He boiled itagain for three minutes by his common, metal watch, then, having drainedit off into a shallow glass bowl to cool, blew out his lamp, and Ifollowed him back into his small, cosy, but rather stuffy little den.

  "Well?" he inquired. "You have called at her ladyship's--eh?"

  "Yes," I replied, stretching myself in one of his rickety chairs; "butyou were there before me. What have you discovered?"

  "Nothing."

  "But that experiment I have just witnessed? Has it no connexion withthe mystery?"

  "Yes, some slight connexion. It was, however, a failure," he grunted,still speaking with his strong accent.

  "You experienced the same sensation there to-day, I hear?" I said.

  "H'm, yes; but not so strong."

  "And the same injection cured you?"

  "Of course. That, however, tells us nothing. We cannot yet ascertainhow it is caused."

  "Or find out who was that unknown woman in black," I added.

  "If we could discover her we might obtain the key to the situation," heresponded.

  "I have been invited by her ladyship to visit them in Wiltshire," I saidsuddenly, as I lit a cigarette, "and I have accepted. Have I doneright, do you think?"

  "You would have done far better to stay here in London," grunted the oldman. "If we mean to get at the bottom of this mystery we must worktogether."

  "How?"

  "In this affair, my dear Colkirk," he exclaimed, with a sudden burst ofconfidence, "there is much more than of what we are aware. There issome motive in getting rid of Miss Wynd secretly and surely. I feelcertain that she knows who her mysterious visitor was, but dare not tellus."

  "I am going down to Atworth," I said. "Perhaps I shall discoversomething."

  "Perhaps?" he sniffed dubiously. "But, depend upon it, the key to thisproblem lies in London. You haven't yet told me who this Miss Wynd is."

  "A lady who, her father being dead, went to live with Sir HenryPierrepoint-Lane and his wife."

  "Ach! then she has no home? I thought not."

  "Why? What made you think that?"

  "I fancied so," he said, continuing to puff at his great pipe. "Ifancied, too, that she had a lover--a young lover--who is a lieutenantin a cavalry regiment."

  "How did you know?"

  "Merely from my own observations. It was all plain last night."

  "How?"

  But he grinned at me through his great ugly spectacles without replying.I knew that he was a marvellously acute observer.

  "And your opinion of her ladyship?" I inquired, much interested.

  "She, like her charming cousin, is concealing the truth," he answeredfrankly. "Neither are to be trusted."

  "Not Beryl--I mean Miss Wynd?"

  "No; for she knows who her visitor was, and will not tell us."

  Then he paused. In that moment I made a sudden resolve; I asked himwhether he had read in the newspapers the account of the Whittontragedy.

  "I r
ead every word of it," he responded--"a most interesting affair. Iwas not well at the time, otherwise I dare say I might have gone downthere."

  "Yes," I said, "from our point of view it is intensely interesting, themore so because of one fact, namely, that her ladyship was among thevisitors when the Colonel was so mysteriously assassinated."

  "At Whitton!" he exclaimed, bending forward. "Was she at Whitton?"

  "Yes," I answered.

  "And her cousin, Miss Wynd?"

  "Of that I am not quite sure. All I know is that she was there on theafternoon previous to the