The Master of the Priory

by Annie Haynes

  “Oswald, I—”

  There were voices outside. Maisie and her governess were coming downstairs. Sir Oswald rose as quickly as he could.

  “I must speak to Miss Martin. Excuse me, Sybil.”

  Sybil’s fair face hardened, her momentary irresolution vanished.

  “Well, good-bye then,” she called out with assumed gaiety as she ran down the steps and got into the waiting car.

  The great Metropolis of the Midlands was about an hour’s drive from the Priory. The road for the most part lay through pleasant, wooded country, sparsely populated until they reached the suburbs of the town.

  Sybil did not tell the chauffeur to drive to New Fish Street. Instead she got out in New Street and directed the man to drive to and wait for her at the nearest garage. She had her own reasons for wishing her visit to Messrs. Gregg and Stubbs to remain unknown.

  Even when she had got rid of the car she did not hurry herself; she strolled in and out of two or three shops, making trifling purchases, though it was easy to see that her thoughts were elsewhere.

  But at last she made up her mind to face the real business of the day. New Fish Street was some little distance away, in the new part of the town, but Sybil found her way there with but little difficulty. Palmer Buildings was a conspicuous block near the end of the street; it was apparently let out as offices, and Messrs. Gregg and Stubbs occupied the second floor.

  Sybil stopped a moment and glanced round nervously before entering the centre passage—but, no—there was certainly no one who would know her among the busy throng in the street. It seemed to her that even the lift-boy looked at her curiously as she gave the address of Messrs. Gregg and Stubbs. More than once she felt inclined to give up her expedition and turn back, but she was a little reassured by the businesslike aspect of the offices that confronted her.

  Mr. Gregg was in and would be at liberty in a few minutes, she learned on application to a solemn-looking youth in spectacles, who to her relief seemed to take no interest in her whatever. He showed her into a small waiting-room and retired.

  Sybil had time to ascertain that certain small trophies of hers were safe in her bag, and also to arrange in what words to open her business, before he returned to conduct her to Mr. Gregg.

  Sybil looked about her curiously as she entered. Mr. Gregg rose when the door opened and placed a large leather chair for her, with its face to the light.

  He was a tall, spare-looking man, with a stoop that seemed habitual about his thin shoulders; and, for the rest, he was clean-shaven with mild-looking blue eyes that seemed to be perpetually blinking. Sybil though he looked more like a professor or a student than a private detective.

  He had resumed his seat at his writing-table.

  “You wished to see me?” he said interrogatively.

  “Yes.” Sybil fumbled with her satchel. It was more difficult to begin than she had anticipated. “You—you inquire into other people’s pasts, don’t you?” she said abruptly.

  Mr. Gregg bowed. “If anybody has reason for us to do so, madam.”

  He was a little puzzled by Sybil. She was not married, so there was no peccant husband to be inquired about. It must be a lover, he decided, but women of Sybil’s class did not often come to him for help. His interest was distinctly roused.

  “And you don’t let them know that they are being inquired about, or anyone else?” Sybil went on feverishly. “So, if it all comes to nothing, there is no harm done?”

  “No harm at all,” the detective acquiesced. “I think we know our work, madam, and secrecy is one of the first essentials. You may safely trust yourself in our hands.”

  “Yes, I thought so,” Sybil said in a relieved tone. “I want you to find out all you can about the past of a woman who is a governess at Davenant Priory to my little cousin, Sir Oswald Davenant’s daughter.”

  A shade of surprise flitted over Mr. Gregg’s face. This was not at all what he had expected to hear.

  “Certainly, madam.”

  He drew a heavy ledger towards him and turned over the leaves. Then with his pen uplifted he waited, looking at Sybil.

  “Will you give me any particulars you can of the lady—any reason you may have for thinking her past may hold some secret? I presume you had references with her?”

  “My aunt had,” Sybil corrected. “Written ones only from a great friend, Mrs. Sunningdale, who is now in India. She was most enthusiastic about Miss Martin, I believe.”

  Mr. Gregg blinked at her. “I presume you have some definite reason for being dissatisfied with Miss Martin, for making inquiries about her?”

  “I am dissatisfied with her in every way,” Sybil said with gathering energy. “I am convinced that she is an adventuress, but I want you to find me some definite grounds on which to proceed.”

  Mr. Gregg’s blue eyes still blinked. All this was very interesting from his point of view, but he saw clearly enough that the affair might resolve itself into merely a matter of jealousy between two women and he felt by no means certain of Sybil Lorrimer’s ability to pay his expenses. Messrs. Gregg and Stubbs were not inclined to work for nothing.

  “But, Miss Lorrimer,” he said, with a slight hesitation in his manner, “you may be quite right, very possibly you are, but I must say again, I suppose you have some reason for your suspicion, for speaking of Miss Martin as an adventuress?”

  The interview was not proceeding precisely as Sybil had expected. Questioned thus, her distrust of the governess seemed almost baseless. Still, some instinct stronger than reason told her that she was on the right track, that there was some secret in Miss Martin’s past, and she was determined to discover it.

  “It isn’t easy to put the reason for one’s suspicions into words,” she said slowly. “Of course if it were more than suspicion I should have no need to come to you, Mr. Gregg.”

  A movement of the detective’s eyelids showed that he appreciated this thrust. He began to see that this fluffy, golden-haired lady had more in her than he had imagined.

  “Her very appearance suggests a disguise,” Sybil went on. “She has large grey eyes, apparently quite strong, and yet she constantly wears smoke-coloured glasses, and however hot the weather is I have never seen her out of doors even in the park except with her hat and her face swathed in a veil. She gives neuralgia as the reason, but she evidently dislikes speaking about it.”

  “Um-m.” Mr. Gregg was making some entries in his ledger. “Will you describe the lady, madam.”

  “She is tall,” Sybil began, “tall, with good features and a very fair complexion and masses of black hair—too black, and not shingled. I am sure it is dyed.”

  Mr. Gregg permitted himself a smile. “That is not so very unusual, madam, I fancy. Everybody does not admire shingling, either. What age is she?”

  “I should say under thirty,” Sybil said vaguely. “What with her veil and her glasses it is difficult to see enough of her to be sure.”

  Mr. Gregg tapped restlessly on the open page of his ledger.

  “Well, madam, I think it would be well to consider what you are doing before we go on with the matter. It is sure to be expensive—such inquiries always are—and I am bound to tell you that you seem to have but the slightest of grounds for your suspicion of this lady.”

  Sybil’s small face looked obstinate. “I intend to go on,” she said quietly. “But of course, Mr. Gregg—” She stopped suddenly and opened her bag. “I was forgetting. But I don’t know that you will consider these of any importance. I came across them by accident in Miss Martin’s room, among some things she was burning.” She held out the photograph and the tiny curl of red gold hair.

  Mr. Gregg looked a little bored as he took them in his hand, then his expression changed indefinably; he bent over them and studied them intently. At last he glanced up.

  “You are sure these belong to Miss Martin?”

  “Quite sure,” Sybil returned laconically.

  Mr. Gregg swept them both into an envelope.


  “Well, Miss Lorrimer, we will do the best we can for you and as soon as we learn anything definite we will communicate with you.”

  “One more thing I might mention,” Sybil said as she stood up. “Miss Martin, though they met as strangers, is evidently on most familiar terms with a man who dined at the Priory last week, a Mr. Carlyn, of Carlyn Hall. I feel sure he knows the secret of her past.”

  “Mr. Carlyn. Ah!” The detective said no more as he opened the door for her. He was apparently lost in a brown study.

  Sybil opened her bag again. “I believe it is usual to pay something on account.” She laid a twenty-pound note on the table.

  Mr. Gregg pushed it back to her, blinking benevolently.

  “No, no! My dear madam, wait till we have done something.”

  He saw her out with grave politeness, then he went back to his office and took up his speaking-tube.

  “Send Mr. Marlowe to me at once.”

  There was an air of repressed excitement about him as he waited the coming of the ex-constable from Carlyn.

  The ex-policeman looked much as usual, save that out of uniform he seemed a trifle less portly and important. He looked at Mr. Gregg in some surprise.

  “You sent for me, sir?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Gregg replied, taking the photograph from its envelope and handing it to him. “Sit down, Marlowe. Can you tell me anything about this?”

  Marlowe glanced at it leisurely and then he gave a cry of amazement.

  “Why, if it isn’t a photo of John Winter, who was murdered in the Home Wood at Carlyn Hall a year last spring. Where did you get it, sir?”

  Mr. Gregg rubbed his hands together.

  “Ah! ‘Thereby hangs a tale.’ But I thought I wasn’t mistaken. You will have to prepare for special work for the next few days, Marlowe.”

  Chapter Nine

  “AND YOU will tell me a story, Barbara, and you will come to tea in the schoolroom with me and Miss Martin?” cried Maisie, dancing round the girl in her excitement.

  “If Miss Martin will ask me,” smiled Barbara.

  On the conclusion of her stay with her other friends in the neighbourhood Barbara had come to pay a long-promised visit to the Davenants. Not Frank Carlyn. The day after the dinner-party at the Priory he had been summoned home on urgent business, much to Elizabeth’s relief.

  All the Davenants liked Barbara, who had been a friend of Sir Oswald’s poor young wife, while with Maisie she was a special favourite. She had seen the governess a few minutes before breakfast. Miss Martin had made but little impression upon her beyond striking her as a silent and not very agreeable young person.

  Now Elizabeth was standing just inside the open door of the schoolroom waiting for Maisie. Above all things she was anxious to see as little as possible of Frank Carlyn’s fiancée. It was easy to pretend not to hear Barbara’s courteous reference to her with regard to the projected tea-party in the midst of Maisie’s chatter, but it would be difficult to avoid the offered visit, and Elizabeth was afraid of Miss Burford, and of what she might find out.

  Maisie was doing her best to pull Barbara into the room with her.

  “Come and see my French exercise. There are only two mistakes, so daddy is going to give me a box of bon-bons.”

  Barbara yielded. “Ah, well! I think I really can’t resist that.”

  “I’m afraid Maisie is a little tiresome,” Miss Martin said apologetically. She was standing near the window and the morning sunlight was streaming full upon her; in its clear radiance her hair looked oddly black. Barbara’s puzzled gaze rested upon it. It seemed so strange that so young a woman should dye her hair, and yet Barbara asked herself, looking at it, could there be any doubt? The governess flushed under her scrutiny, and in a moment Barbara looked away. Miss Martin’s pallor seemed to have transferred itself to her now, and she said little as she glanced at Maisie’s vaunted exercise.

  A servant appeared in the doorway.

  “Sir Oswald would be glad if you could spare him a few minutes, miss,” he said, addressing himself to the governess. “It is an important letter that needs answering. Miss Maisie is to go to her ladyship.”

  “I will come at once,” Miss Martin said, moving to the door with an unmistakable air of relief. “Come, Maisie!”

  “I will take Maisie to Lady Davenant,” Barbara promised, and the governess hurried off.

  As she went down the passage she heard Maisie coaxing, “You will come to the schoolroom tea to-day, Barbara?” And she caught the girl’s clear-toned reply, “I will tell you the story, Maisie, dear, but I don’t know about the tea. If I ask Granny to give it us in the boudoir, won’t that do as well?”

  Elizabeth went on to the study. Sir Oswald had come back from town the preceding day. The verdict of the specialist had not been quite so favourable as the local doctor had hoped. The eyes were better, decidedly better, he said, but there must be an interval of three months before the operation which would give Sir Oswald back his sight could be attempted.

  Three months seemed but a little time to wait to the rest of the world, but to Sir Oswald, who had been confidently reckoning on his immediate restoration to sight, it was an eternity.

  He was looking dull and depressed when Elizabeth went in, and gave her only the briefest of directions as to the reply when she read his letter to him. But when she rose he stopped her.

  “You have heard my sentence, Miss Martin? Three months more of this horrible darkness and helplessness?”

  “Yes, I have heard,” the aloofness there had been in Elizabeth’s voice of late had gone; it was very pitiful now.

  “Why don’t you tell me to be thankful it is no worse?” Sir Oswald questioned with a reckless laugh. “That is the stock remark. Good heavens! Three months more of this total blindness! I wonder whether you know—whether anybody knows—what it means to me.”

  “One can only think of the getting well in the end,” Elizabeth said gently.

  Sir Oswald shrugged his shoulders “How do I know the fellow may not say the same thing at the end of this three months? But I must not weary you, Miss Martin. You don’t know how much your tact and sympathy have helped me since you came to the Priory.”

  “I am very glad that I have been able to be of use to you, Sir Oswald,” Elizabeth said quietly.

  Sir Oswald felt that she was turning away. He got up, moving towards her uncertainly, all his prudent resolutions swept to the winds by his longing to have her sympathy, to keep her presence with him.

  “Miss Martin—Elizabeth,” he said hoarsely. “I shall want your help more than ever now, won’t you give it to me?”

  He could hear her quickened breathing. He knew that she was struggling to retain her self-control.

  “I shall always be glad to do anything I can, Sir Oswald,” she murmured.

  He stepped forward quickly, her agitation teaching him coolness, he caught one of her slim, soft hands in his.

  “That is not all I want, Elizabeth; I want you, dear—to be with me always—to be my wife.”

  The governess struggled to free her hand.

  “Oh, this is madness, Sir Oswald!” she cried.

  “Let me go, please.”

  But Sir Oswald’s clasp only tightened on the fluttering fingers.

  “Why should it be madness, Elizabeth? Is it impossible that you should care for a blind man?”

  “Oh, no—not that!” Elizabeth cried quickly, and Sir Oswald’s face brightened.

  “What is it, then?” he questioned. “I have learned in my blindness and helplessness to care for you very dearly, Elizabeth. Don’t tell me that it is hopeless. Let me teach you.”

  “No, no, no!” Elizabeth’s voice caught in her throat in a muffled shriek. “Sir Oswald, I tell you again you are mad—mad! You are asking a woman to marry you of whom you know nothing, whom you have never even seen.”

  Sir Oswald still held her hand, but some of the passion died out of his face.

  “I know you, Elizabeth—that is
enough for me. I think I fell in love with you the first time you came into the room with your sweet voice, your gentle, tender ways. And if I haven’t seen you—well, I made Perkins read aloud Mrs. Sunningdale’s description of you one day. I think I have got it by heart. But I should have known what you looked like without that, my dear; I couldn’t help it, I think.”

  Elizabeth stood still, her fingers lying inert in his clasp.

  “What do you mean by Mrs. Sunningdale’s description of me? I don’t understand,” she questioned hoarsely.

  A faint smile crept under Sir Oswald’s brown moustache. “I heard my mother telling Sybil the other day she had lost the first letter Mrs. Sunningdale wrote about you, and I laughed to myself. That letter is calmly reposing in one of the drawers of my writing-table. It was brought to me to hear what Mrs. Sunningdale said about Maisie’s new governess, and I shall not part with it until I see the original Elizabeth.”

  “What did she say?” Elizabeth asked abruptly. There was still that curious immobility in her attitude.

  Sir Oswald’s smile deepened.

  “I wonder if you will tell me again that I am mad, Elizabeth, when you know that I can repeat her description word for word? Listen! ‘Miss Martin is above middle height, slight and dark, with one of the most lovable faces I have ever seen; she has masses of dark brown hair and pretty, kind brown eyes.’ So you see, Miss Martin, I have some idea what you are like. I have pictured you very often in my thoughts, the clouds of hair shadowing the most lovable little face in the world, the pretty, kind, brown eyes.”

  The woman with the grey eyes and black hair, listening, tore her hands from his with a moan. So near—so near she had been, nay, she was—to detection. And she had thought herself so safe from all the world but Frank Carlyn.

  “And now I want those same kind brown eyes to come and be eyes for me,” Sir Oswald went on. “Elizabeth, you will take pity on me?”

  “No, no!” The grey eyes were full of wild terror now. “I can’t! Indeed I can’t!”

  It was impossible for Sir Oswald to mistake either the finality or the pain in her tone, his face grew suddenly graver, sterner.