The Master of the Priory

by Annie Haynes

  Carlyn put her aside hurriedly. “No, no! It is some stupid mistake of course. Probably the man has had a fit. You go into the house with Barbara, and I will run down to the cottage and see what really is the matter.”

  He scarcely waited for her answer as he hurried off to the gamekeeper’s cottage. It was but a step away, as the North-country folk phrase it, when the near path through the Home Wood was taken, and Frank Carlyn was soon on the scene of action. Early as he was, however, quite a little crowd had assembled already.

  Carlyn drew his brows together as he saw Marlowe, the village constable, officiously pushing the people aside and bending over something that lay on the ground.

  The people, most of them his own employees, made way for the young squire. He glanced for a moment at the thing laying on the ground—the thing that so short a time before had been a living, breathing man—and turned away with a shudder of horror. The whole of the bottom part of the face had been blown away, and there were other ghastly injuries.

  “Dead, poor fellow!” he said hoarsely.

  The constable looked up. “As a door nail, sir. Whoever did this job didn’t mean there to be any doubt about it.”

  Carlyn looked at him. “Whoever did it,” he repeated. “But surely it is a clear case of suicide?”

  The constable shook his head. “He couldn’t have shot himself, sir, and then carried his gun off and thrown it behind that stack of wood, which is where Bill Jenkins found it just now. It’s murder, safe enough, and here is Dr. Thompson to tell us all about it.”

  The doctor bustled up. He was a little, wiry man of sixty or thereabouts.

  Motioning the bystanders away he knelt by the corpse. In a moment he looked up again.

  “You are right, constable, there is nothing to be done here. We had better have him moved into the cottage. Tell his wife—but I will speak to her myself. Where is she?”

  Constable Marlowe looked round. “Blest if I hadn’t forgotten all about her,” he ejaculated. “Where is she?”

  Nobody answered for a minute. By one consent everybody turned and looked in at the cottage door, through which a glimpse could be obtained of the pleasant, homely interior. At last one man spoke:

  “It was me that come on the body first, sir,” he said slowly, addressing himself to Carlyn, his eyes wandering fearfully every now and then to that long, silent thing on the ground. “And as I come into the wood I met Winter’s missus coming out. Tearing along like a wild thing she was, and never answered when I passed her the time of day civilly.”

  There was another silence. The bystanders looked at one another. Constable Marlowe drew a deep breath.

  “Tearing along like a wild thing, was she? Phew!”

  The inference was unmistakable. Frank Carlyn looked across at him with rising anger.

  “What do you mean, Marlowe? Mrs. Winter has, no doubt, gone to see some of her friends and will be back presently. The tearing along was probably Spencer’s fancy.”

  Spencer scratched his head.

  “Beg pardon, sir, there was no fancy about it,” he said stolidly. “And Jack Winter’s missus has no friends hereabouts. Seems as if she thought no one good enough for her to associate with.”

  “Pooh! You are talking nonsense—” Carlyn was beginning, but Dr. Thompson touched his arm.

  “Least said soonest mended,” he said in a low tone. “We don’t want to bring anyone’s name into this. Come, they are going to take the poor fellow inside.”

  Winter’s house was just the ordinary rural cottage, the front door led straight into the kitchen; opposite, another door led into the little parlour, a third opened on the closed stairs. There was a fire in the kitchen, a kettle was singing on the hob, a big black cat was curled up on the hearth, but of human presence there was no sign.

  An odd expression flashed for a moment into Carlyn’s eyes as he looked round. Was it relief, or was it fear? Dr. Thompson, who was watching his face narrowly, could not tell.

  The men halted on the threshold with their burden. The doctor motioned them to the inner room, he and Carlyn following closely, Constable Marlowe bringing up the rear.

  The principal piece of furniture in the room was a big, old-fashioned sofa. Here the bearers laid the dead man reverently. Frank Carlyn stood alone in the doorway while the doctor and the constable directed and helped the men. He looked swiftly round the room—a questioning, fearful glance—then he stepped quickly across to the fireplace, and from behind the cheap ornaments and shells with which it was adorned drew out a small, oblong object, and slipped it into his pocket.

  He went back to the kitchen, and there presently Dr. Thompson and Marlowe joined him.

  “That is all there is to be done for the present,” the former said as he closed the door. “Except that the coroner must be communicated with.”

  Constable Marlowe looked at him. “Beg pardon, sir; there is another thing we have to do as quickly as possible, I think, and that is find Mrs. Winter. I am going to phone to headquarters at once, and I fancy you will find they will agree with me.”

  The doctor’s kindly face over-clouded. “Oh, well, you may be right, Marlowe. But I hope Mrs. Winter will be at home very shortly and convince you that you are wrong.”

  “I don’t fancy there is much chance of that, sir,” the constable rejoined.

  He wasn’t an attractive man, Constable Marlowe, but his prominent jaw and his keen, deep-set eyes gave promise of a certain order of intelligence. The constable was by no means inclined to under-rate himself. He had made up his mind to rise in his calling, and had regarded it as little less than a calamity when he was sent to Carlyn village, which seemed to afford no scope for his ability. Now, however, with the mystery surrounding Winter’s death, he told himself his opportunity had come. Rosy visions of a speedy promotion, of an inspectorship in the near future, even of a post in the detective force of the Metropolis dangled before his eyes. He watched the young squire and the doctor out of sight, and then went back into the cottage. A close study of the methods of Sherlock Holmes had taught him that the most unconsidered trifle would sometimes give the clue to the mystery. He did not intend that any such should escape the sharp eyes of Constable Marlowe.

  Frank Carlyn returned to the hall. Dr. Thompson kept by his side; a great favourite of Mrs. Carlyn’s, he knew he was assured of his welcome.

  “This is a sad affair, a very sad affair,” he remarked sympathetically.

  Carlyn turned to him with something like passion in his tone.

  “I tell you it is a case of suicide. I had just dismissed the man. Perhaps I had been unjustifiably harsh—”

  The doctor shook his head. “Don’t blame yourself, my dear Frank. This was no suicide. The shot was fired from some distance away. It would have been a physical impossibility for Winter to have done it himself. As for what that fellow Marlowe was hinting at—well, poor young thing! Poor young thing! Heaven knows what she may have suffered at Winter’s hands.”

  The view the doctor took of the case was unmistakable, but his pity for the young wife was so evidently genuine that some of the anger in Carlyn’s face evaporated.

  “I attended her in the spring,” the doctor went on. “And I saw enough to know that some tragedy underlay the marriage. It was obvious, though she avoided all reference to the past, that she was of a very different class to her husband.”

  “Anyone could see that,” Carlyn said gruffly. “But she had nothing to do with this, doctor.”

  “And yet,” the doctor went on, “one of the things that struck me most was that there was nothing in the cottage, beyond its scrupulous cleanliness, no books, no knick-knacks or flowers to indicate that its mistress was a person of superior refinement.”

  “Wasn’t there?” Carlyn’s hand strayed to his breast pocket for an instant.

  But, as the doctor went on with his surmises as to Mrs. Winter’s origin, Carlyn’s responses grew curter and curter. It was with a sigh of profound relief that when they reached
the house, he deputed to Dr. Thompson the task of telling Mrs. Carlyn what had happened, and went off himself to his study.

  He was still sitting there a couple of hours later when Constable Marlowe asked for an interview.

  “We were right enough from the first, sir,” he said when he was admitted. “Mrs. Winter had caught the 3.30 train up to town; when the inspector came he phoned up at once to have her stopped, but we were too late.”

  “How do you mean?” Carlyn’s tone was stern. He shuffled the papers on his table as if to show the constable that he was wasting his time.

  Marlowe coughed.

  “We phoned to the junction, sir, but she wasn’t in the train. She must have got out at Brentwood, the first stop. But we shall catch her soon, there is no doubt of that. The inspector is having her description circulated. But he is hampered in one way: there doesn’t seem to be any photograph of her to be had. We were wondering if any of the servants up here would be likely to have one.”

  “I should think it was exceedingly unlikely,” Carlyn’s tone was short in the extreme. He rose to signify that the interview was ended. “But you must make what inquiries you like, constable. I think you are on the wrong track altogether, as you know.”

  “Yes, sir!” The constable’s eyes gleamed unpleasantly. It was evident that he resented his dismissal. He glanced furtively round the room. “Time will show which of us is right, sir,” he said as he left the room.

  Left alone Frank Carlyn drew a small folding case from his pocket. It held three miniatures painted on ivory. One was that of a fine, soldierly-looking old man; opposite him a comparatively young woman with a sweet, serious face, and then, beneath, the lovely, laughing face of a very young girl with a mass of red-gold hair, and big, mischievous, grey eyes.

  It was on this last that Carlyn’s gaze was riveted.

  “Yes, I was right to bring it, no one could have mistaken it,” he said slowly.

  With it in his hand he went slowly across to his writing-table, opened a drawer and thrust the miniature and case to the very back. Then he locked the drawer and thrust the key into his pocket, his face looking very grave and stern.

  Chapter Two

  “CASTOR is the next station, miss. The next stop I mean. You will have nearly an hour’s run before you come to it.” The speaker, a burly countryman, was following his family on to the platform and paused at the door to give this piece of information to the other occupant of the carriage, a tall woman in black sitting near the window at the other end.

  “Thank you,” she said with a slight bow. Touching his cap the man went on. The train began to move. The woman crossed over and opening her bag drew out a tiny pocket mirror. Holding it up she studied her face intently for a minute, then with a deep sigh she laid the glass back, replaced the smoke-tinted glasses she had momentarily taken off, and drew down her thick veil.

  “It looks quite right,” she said to herself in a low frightened whisper. “And it is so far away, surely there cannot be any danger.”

  She stood up and pulled down the shabby portmanteau with the letters E.B.M. stamped on one side. The label was addressed in firm angular writing—“Miss Elizabeth Martin, Davenant Priory, near Castor.” She shuddered as she put it on the seat beside her. Then suddenly she burst into a passion of sobs.

  “Oh, Lizzie, Lizzie, you were right, I can’t do it,” she cried. “And yet, God help me, what is to become of me if I don’t?”

  Her sobs subsided, she lay back in her seat, big tears coursing miserably down her cheeks. There was time to turn back yet, she said to herself, time to give up this mad scheme on which she had embarked. She knew that there was a door of escape open to her, but her pride and some feeling stronger than pride forbade her to avail herself of it. No; she told herself that there was nothing for it but to go forward in the path she had chosen; there could be no harm by it and at least she would be safe.

  But all the while another voice was whispering to her, pleading with her to go back, to humble herself. When the train began to slow down she was still gazing mechanically out of the window, her expression strangely undecided.

  “Castor! Castor!” the solitary porter the little station boasted shouted in stentorian tones.

  Still for one second she sat motionless, then with a sudden look of resolution she got up, opened the door and stepped on to the platform.

  There were a few passengers to get out at Castor. One trunk had already been hauled out of the van: “Miss Elizabeth Martin.” She went up to claim it. An elderly woman was standing near it, an expression of perplexity on her comely face. She looked relieved as the passenger came up.

  “Miss Martin, ma’am?” she said respectfully, then as the other murmured an inaudible assent she went on, “I’m Latimer, Lady Davenant’s maid. Her ladyship desired me to see if I could help you in any way with your luggage. My lady intended coming to meet you herself, but she has one of her bad headaches this afternoon.”

  Miss Elizabeth Martin uttered a few words of polite regret and pulled her veil more closely down with fingers that visibly shook.

  Latimer relieved her of her bag and wrap and led the way to a waiting motor-car.

  Miss Martin glanced from side to side as they passed quickly down the narrow, little street. With its quaint black and white houses and pavements of cobble stones, Castor might certainly have passed for the original of Sleepy Hollow. Latimer pointed out the various objects of interest. The church, the Vicarage, the big old-fashioned market-place, the roof of Davenant Priory in the distance.

  “’Tis but a bit of a walk,” she said. “But folks are tired after a long journey, so her ladyship always has them met. Miss Maisie ought to have come with me, but she has never had a governess before and she is a bit frightened at the notion, so she ran away and curled herself up on Sir Oswald’s sofa, and there isn’t any of us dare fetch her away from there.”

  “Oh, dear! I do hope she won’t be frightened at me,” the new governess said with a touch of pathos in her tired tones. “I love children and I do want my little pupil to like me.”

  “She is bound to do that,” Latimer said heartily, some motherly instinct in her touched by the appeal in the weary voice. She was wishing that Miss Martin would raise her veil or take off her disfiguring glasses. Latimer thought herself a good judge of faces, but she found herself baffled here. “Mrs. Sunningdale told her ladyship the gift you had with children was something wonderful,” she concluded, as the car turned in at the entrance gates of the Priory.

  The new governess shivered. “It is quite chilly here after town,” she said as if in apology. “It was very kind of Mrs. Sunningdale to say that. I shall do my best to give satisfaction to Lady Davenant.”

  There was just a suspicion of hauteur in her tone, and Latimer drew back feeling vaguely rebuffed.

  The door of the Priory stood hospitably open. The house itself was one of the oldest in the Midlands. In mediaeval days it had been famed as the home of godly and learned monks. At the time of the Reformation it had been too wealthy to escape the hand of the despoiler, and it and the broad lands pertaining to it had been bestowed by King Henry on one Thomas Davenant, just then the reigning favourite.

  Since then the Davenants had prospered exceedingly. The second George had made the head of the family a baronet, and, though a course of gambling and cock-fighting had weakened the family exchequer, a couple of wealthy marriages in the nineteenth century had restored it to affluence.

  The present owner was a widower with one small daughter, and his widowed mother presided over his establishment.

  It was evident that Miss Elizabeth Martin was being treated with an unusual amount of consideration for a governess. She was escorted to her room by Latimer, who told her that her ladyship would see her when she had rested. A dainty tea was sent up to her, and then a smiling, white-capped maid appeared.

  “If you will give me your keys, miss, I will put your things away,” she said respectfully.

  Miss Marti
n started violently. “Please don’t trouble,” she said hurriedly. “I would rather you did not. I always prefer to do my own unpacking.”

  The maid withdrew, rather aggrieved; then Elizabeth Martin stood up. She was still wearing the hat and coat in which she had travelled. Now she threw them aside and looked at herself in the pier-glass. She saw a tall, slim figure in an ill-made black gown, a small head well poised on a long slender throat, a quantity of hair that looked oddly dark against the clear, pale skin, that was brushed back sleek and straight and coiled in a hard and uncompromising knot on the nape of her neck. Near the temples a few stray locks seemed rebelling against their bondage, and inclined to curl themselves over her forehead. Damping a brush, she flattened them back. The smoke-coloured glasses hid her eyes; she pushed them further on as if anxious that they should shield her still more.

  But when there was a knock at the door she was sitting prim and straight in her chair by the fireplace. “Her ladyship would like to see you now, ma’am, if you are rested,” said the maid who had appeared before.

  Miss Martin got up at once. “I am quite rested, thank you.”

  She followed the girl down what seemed to her an endless succession of steps and passages until at last the door was opened into a bright, prettily furnished room, and a cheerful voice bade them come in.

  Lady Davenant was sitting in an easy-chair near the open window; a delicate-looking old lady. It was obvious that her headache was no fiction; she looked tired and languid in spite of a pleasant smile and a pair of big, dark eyes.

  “I am so glad to see you, Miss Martin,” she said, holding out a slender hand sparkling with jewels, and making the governess seat herself on the settee beside her. “I have heard so much of you from Mrs. Sunningdale that I feel we really are not strangers.”

  Miss Martin sat upright, her hands folded stiffly together on her lap.

  “Mrs. Sunningdale was very good to me,” she said slowly, with a faint quiver of the lips. “I hope I shall give you satisfaction, Lady Davenant, and so justify her kind recommendation of me.”