The Sign of the Stranger

by William Le Queux

itslowly to my lips. She did not attempt to withdraw it. She onlysighed, and a slight shiver ran through her as my lips came in contactwith her fingers. What did that shudder mean?

  Was it that I was actually kissing the hand that had committed murder?

  "Lolita!" I said a moment later when I had crushed from my heart thegradually increasing suspicion. "You have received from the innkeeper,Warr, a letter left for you by a rough uncouth stranger."

  "Ah," she sighed, "I have. Richard Keene has returned! You don't knowwhat that means to me."

  "The letter contained news that has filled you with seriousapprehension, then?"

  "It contained certain information that is utterly astonishing!"

  I explained how I had seen the stranger and overheard his conversationwith Warr, whereupon she said--

  "I expected that he would return, but it seems that he does not intendto do so. He fears, perhaps, to call upon me--just as I fear that hemay reveal the truth."

  For some time I was silent, pretending to occupy myself with somepapers, but truth to tell I was considering whether the question Iwished to put to her was really a judicious one. At last I decided tospeak and make a bold demand. Therefore I said--

  "And now, Lolita, that I have rendered you all the assistance I can, Iwant to ask you one single plain question--I want you to answer metruthfully, because what you tell me may in the future be of greatestassistance to me. Recollect that in this affair I am combating theefforts of the police, therefore I wish to know the name of the man whois dead."

  "His name!" she exclaimed, looking straight at me. "His name--why doyou wish to ascertain that?"

  "First, because of curiosity, and, secondly, because in dealing withyour enemies it will give me advantage if I am aware of facts of whichthey are in ignorance."

  But she shook her head, while her brows knit slightly, by which I knewthat she was firm.

  "Your knowledge of the affair is surely sufficient, Willoughby," was heranswer. "You see in me a miserable woman, haunted by the shadow of acrime, a woman whom the world holds in high esteem but who merits onlydisgrace and death. You pity me--you say that you love me! Well, ifthat is so--if you pity me, and your love is really sincere, you will atleast have compassion upon me and allow me to retain one secret, evenfrom you--the secret of that man's name!"

  "Then you refuse to satisfy me," I exclaimed in bitter disappointment.

  "Is it a proof of love and confidence to wring from a woman a name whichis her secret alone?" she asked reprovingly.

  "But I am trying to act as your protector," I argued.

  "Then have patience," she urged. "His name does not concern you. He isdead, and his secret--which was also my secret--has gone with him to thegrave." Then, almost in the same breath, she bade me farewell, and afew moments later I saw the station-brougham receding down the longavenue.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

  THE YOUNG COUNTESS MAKES A STATEMENT.

  The harvest had been garnered and on the glorious "first" the youngCountess returned from the Continent, just in time to receive her annualhouse-party.

  The instant she arrived Sibberton always put on an air of gaiety whichit never wore during her absence. Full of verve and go, she lived onlyfor excitement and pleasure, and always declared the Hall as dull as aconvent if it were not full of those clever, well-known people whoconstituted her own particular set. Therefore she seldom brightened theplace with her presence unless she brought in her train a dozen or somerry men and women of the distinctly up-to-date type, some of whom werefashionable enough to have scandal attached to their names.

  Has it ever occurred to you that feminine beauty in the higher circle ofsociety is unfortunately, but very surely, deteriorating? It isremarkable how the type has of late years changed. When ourgrandmothers were celebrated and toasted in old port as beauties, quitea different ideal reigned. The toast was then something _petite_,womanly, of a pink complexion, of a delicious plumpness and animated bya lively and natural emotionalism. But with the introduction ofathletic, open-air exercise, motors and mannish achievements, we havedeveloped an entirely different type.

  The modern athletic girl is generally ugly. She begins early, andcontinues till after her marriage to cycle, shoot, ride and play golfand tennis, all of which ruin her figure and consequently her health.She shoots up tall, flat-chested, colourless and lacking in reasonableproportions, with one hip larger than the other if she rides regularlyto hounds. She becomes wried and atrophied by rough wear and unseemlyhabits, and the womanly delicacy shrinks and withers from the form ofhealth and beauty.

  Glance over any social function in town or country, any meet of hounds,or any shooting-party where ladies are included, and you will not failto recognise how women, by overtaxing their physique, are fading andgradually becoming asexual.

  The Countess of Stanchester's house-parties were always merry ones, andgenerally included an Ambassador or two, a Cabinet Minister, a few goodshots, and a number of ladies of various ages. The gigantic place wasliberty hall, and both the young Earl and his wife carried out to theletter the traditions of the noble house for boundless hospitality.There was no better shooting in all the Midlands than that furnished bythe Earl of Stanchester's huge estate, extending as it did for nearlythirty miles in one direction; and the bags were always very huge ones.

  Twenty-eight guests arrived on the same day that the young Countessreturned home, and dinner that night was served as it always was on thefirst night of the shooting-season, upon the historic service of goldplate presented by Queen Elizabeth to the first Earl of Stanchester. Iwas invited to dine, and after music in the blue drawing-room retiredwith the men to the cosy panelled smoking-room with the grotesquecarvings over the mantelshelf.

  Many were the anecdotes and low the laughter, until at about midnight Irose and went back to my study, intending to get through somecorrespondence before retiring.

  I suppose I must have been writing half-an-hour when the door opened andthe Countess entered, greeting me merrily, saying--

  "Well, Mr Woodhouse! I've had no time to talk to you to-night. Andhow have you been all this time?"

  "As usual," I responded, smiling, for notwithstanding her faults she wasso beautiful, merry and witty that her companionship was alwayspleasant. "Is there anything I can do?"

  "Yes. I want you, please, to send out cards for dinner next Tuesday tothis list." And she handed me half a sheet of note-paper on which shehad hastily scribbled some names. "These county people, as they callthemselves, are a fearful bore, and their women-folk are a terriblydowdy lot, but I suppose I must have them. It's only once a year--thankHeaven."

  I laughed, for I knew that outside her own set she had withering sarcasmfor the lower grade of society. With poor people she was alwayspleasant and popular, but with that little circle which called itself"the county," and which consisted of hard-up "squires," country parsons,men who had made money in the city and had bought properties, and thetea-and-tennis womankind that came in their wake, she had no commonbond. They were a slow, narrow-minded lot who held up their hands atwhat she would term a harmless game at baccarat, and would behorror-stricken at tennis-playing or even bridge on Sundays.

  Yet from time immemorial these people had been invited to dine at theHall once during the shooting-season, and it was her husband's wish thatall the old customs of his noble house should be strictly observed. Forhospitality, the house of Stanchester had always been noteworthy. TheEarl's grandfather, whom many aged villagers in Sibberton could stillremember, used to keep open house every Friday night, and any of hisfriends could come up to the Hall and dine with him at six o'clock,providing they left or sent their cards on the previous day, in orderthat the cook should know how many guests would be present. It was theone evening in the week when his lordship entertained all his huntingfriends, and on that day he did them royally for the port was declaredthe best in the country.

  In these modern go-ahead days, however, with the giddy you
ng Countess aschatelaine, this sort of thing was of the past. She tolerated peopleonly as long as they amused her. When they ceased to do that, shecalmly and ruthlessly struck them off her list. In town, she pettedyoung foreign musicians and got them to sing or play at her concerts andbrought them into notoriety by paying them cheques of three figures fortheir nightly services. But their reign usually lasted only half theseason, when they were cast aside, disappointed and dejected, and otherpopular favourites rose to take their places.

  She noticed my cigarettes in the big silver box the Earl had given me,and walking across, selected one, and slowly lit it with thatfree-and-easy air that was essentially that of the latter-day woman. Anexception to the general rule that beauty in women of the higher classis growing rarer, she was extremely