by Annie Haynes
Another moment and she had recognized Lady Palmer’s voice. Judith’s face clouded over; with a restless sigh she turned back and went in by the front door.
She could not bring herself to like Lady Palmer in spite of that lady’s protestations of affection for her cousin’s wife.
Lord Palmer had apparently left his affairs in a considerable tangle. Lady Palmer was still staying with her friends, the Wiltons, and almost every day found her at Heron’s Carew, intent on getting Sir Anthony’s opinion on some knotty point. Sir Anthony, for his part, seemed nothing loath to act as general adviser.
Judith went up to her own room; its windows overlooked the rosery. She could see her husband, his dark head bent down to his companion, pacing up and down the centre walk by Lady Palmer’s side. Lady Palmer was talking softly; she was gesticulating with her small white hands.
Judith’s eyes were strained and bright as she watched them. It seemed to her that the reason of her husband’s coldness to her was perfectly clear now. It dated from the day of Lord Palmer’s accident. Lord Palmer’s premature death had set Sybil free, still young and beautiful, and Anthony—Anthony, who had well-nigh broken his heart for the loss of her in the days of their youth—Anthony was bound.
Was he?
The question pierced like a sword stab through Judith’s heart. It was the first time, in any serious sense, that the threats uttered by Stanmore on the night of his death had recurred to her memory. The manner of his death had been such as to overshadow and absorb all lesser things. Until now Judith had not realized that, if his words were true, even dead he stood between her and Anthony. As she watched Anthony and his cousin, a new terrible pain gripped her heart; she bit her under-lip till two red beads of blood stood out. Then, with a resolute effort, she turned away; she would not look at them again, she would not even think of them, she would put that last horrible suggestion from her.
She turned away, and, moved by some sudden instinct, opened the door of Anthony’s dressing-room, and looked in. All was just as usual. Then, as she stood there, her eye was caught by something bright on the floor near the dressing-table. She went over and picked it up with an exclamation of surprise. It was a diamond stud—one that she knew her husband particularly valued. How it had escaped the attention both of the valet and the house-maids was a mystery.
The dressing-case was unlocked, but Judith knew that it held a secure hiding-place—a concealed drawer, the secret of which Anthony had shown her in the early days of their married life. She remembered that he kept the stud there.
She pressed the spring and the drawer sprang open. There was not much in it. Judith took up the stud-case and fitted the diamond in. Then, as she put it back, her eyes were caught by a piece of paper that lay beneath—“42 Abbey Court, Leinster Avenue. 9.30 to-night.”
The fatally familiar words stared up at her in the man’s big characteristically bold handwriting. She stood still and gazed at them, her breath coming in quick shallow gasps, her eyes dilating—it was Cyril Stanmore’s writing, she could not mistake it.
She put out her hand, shaking as if from ague, and picked it up. Yes; there was no possibility of error—it was the identical piece of paper that Cyril Stanmore had given her on the steps of St. Peter’s, when he had ordered her to come to his rooms.
How had it come into Anthony’s possession? And what could its presence in the secret drawer signify? It was self-evident that she had dropped the paper, that Anthony had picked it up, but when and where? Its presence there in his drawer showed that he attached some importance to it. Was it possible that he had found it before she went to the flat? She remembered that he had not gone to the Denboroughs’ on the night of the murder. Where had he been? Where had he gone? She shivered all over as if from ague as she dropped the paper, pushed the stud-case over it, and replaced the secret drawer.
Shaking still with internal cold she tottered back to her room and closed and bolted the communicating door. Then, leaning against the wall, her mind went back to the night of the tragedy at the flat. She recalled every little incident with the precision and the certainty of a photograph.
She retraced every step mentally. She saw that it would have been perfectly easy for anyone to have followed her; the only difficulty was as to how it would have been possible to obtain access to the flat. She could only imagine that Stanmore in his anxiety to hurry her inside, had fastened the door insecurely—some one who had been waiting and watching must have stolen in behind them.
Judith put her hand up to her throat, her mouth suddenly parched and dry; somebody had stolen in and waited in that outer room, had heard Stanmore’s threats, and when the light was switched out had taken up Sir Anthony’s pistol and used it!
Judith’s eyes were full of sickening terror, her mouth twitched down at one side, big drops of moisture stood out upon her forehead. Whose breathing was it she listened to? If she had found the door earlier, if she had turned the light on, whom would she have seen?
CHAPTER X
“Eh! What! What is the meaning of this?” Sir Anthony was reading his letters. He looked up now, and glanced at his wife as though he expected her to explain what was the meaning of their contents.
Judith’s mouth gave a little nervous twitch; from her seat behind the tea-pot she glanced out half-fearfully at her husband. She was growing much thinner, the graceful rounded curves of her figure were changing to positive attenuation. The improvement in her health that those first days at Heron’s Carew had wrought had not been maintained, but Judith was resolute in determining to stop there.
“What is it, Anthony?” she asked nervously. There was a curious shrinking now in her manner to her husband; it was obvious at times that she avoided being left alone with him.
“It is Peggy,” Sir Anthony returned somewhat illogically. “This letter is from my stepmother and there is another from Alethea. Peggy is engaged to Lord Chesterham.”
“Peggy is engaged to Lord Chesterham!” Judith echoed. “Oh, I am sorry. I was afraid she was attracted by him, but I didn’t think there would be anything definite settled at present.”
“I never heard of such a thing,” Sir Anthony went on, frowning and tapping the letter. “Peggy is a mere child; she does not know her own mind, and as for Chesterham—I disapprove of it entirely.”
Judith looked troubled; she had dreamt of a very different husband for Peggy. “Is there really anything against Lord Chesterham?” she questioned.
Sir Anthony shrugged his shoulders. “One does not want one’s sister to marry a man simply because there is nothing against him. The Chesterhams have never been a particularly reputable family, in my opinion. The last lord had anything but an enviable reputation in his youth, but he lived to a great age, and in his case the sins of the past were forgotten. This man, his successor, as I have understood, was always a mauvais sujet.”
“Still, he may have reformed,” Judith said hesitatingly. “I don’t want to put myself into opposition, Anthony, but we are bound to look at this from every point of view, for Peggy’s sake.”
“I shall do my best to stop it—to put an end to the idea at once, for Peggy’s sake,” Sir Anthony retorted folding up his papers with a determined air. “Why, the fellow must be three times her age, if there were nothing else.”
Judith sighed. “I am afraid that sometimes to a girl like Peggy that is part of the attraction.”
“It is an absurd, an unheard-of thing, that they should try to settle the affair,” Sir Anthony grumbled, paying scant heed to his wife’s remarks. “Peggy can’t have known him a month, and here is my stepmother writing that the engagement, as she calls it, has her warmest approval. While as for Alethea she positively seems to imagine that I shall be grateful to her for having brought it about. I shall give them both a piece of my mind. I shall tell them—Why!”—getting up and going over to the window—“who is this, coming through the rosary? It looks like—I declare it is Stephen Crasster. What in the world brings him down here?”
He opened the window as he spoke, and stepped out on to the terrace. “Stephen, old man, is that you?” he called out in my heartiest greeting. “You have come in the nick of time, for I have just heard a piece of news that has taken away my appetite for breakfast.”
With her quick womanly intuition, Judith knew what the news would mean to the man who was coming towards them across the rosery, his keen kindly face bright with smiles. She went out on the terrace too; touched her husband’s arm.
“I would not speak of it yet, Anthony; they—Peggy might not like it, I mean,” stammering a little as she met his astonished gaze. “Something might happen to prevent it.”
“No such luck,” Sir Anthony said ruefully. “They mean it to be announced formally next week unless I can put a spoke in the wheel.”
“Bad news! Have you?” Stephen questioned as he stepped on to the terrace. “Nothing very bad, I trust. How do you do, Lady Carew”—a certain formality creeping into his tone—“For my own part I hope, Anthony, old man, that you may consider I am the bearer of good news this morning. I am conceited enough to think you will. You see before you the new owner of Talgarth.”
“What!” Anthony exclaimed with a great laugh, and a hearty squeeze of his friend’s hand, while Judith caught herself up in an exclamation that betokened anything but pleasure, and bit her lip. “You don’t mean to say that it is settled? How quiet about it you have been. Why didn’t you tell me you were thinking of it?”
“I had a fancy for surprising you,” Stephen smiled. “And you knew I was looking out for something in the neighbourhood. I have had my eye on Talgarth for some time. Do you remember we rode over to see it on our way to Mereham Park?”
Certainly Crasster’s news had the effect of diverting Sir Anthony’s mind from Peggy’s misdeeds. His countenance lighted up. He looked thoroughly pleased.
“I remember. It will want a lot of doing up, but there are endless possibilities about the old place, and if you got it cheap I daresay you will do very well there. I know Judith and Peggy always say it is the prettiest place in the county.”
“I know they do,” Crasster assented. “I hope they will honour me by coming over some day soon and suggesting improvements.”
“Why, of course they will,” Sir Anthony began hastily; then his countenance clouded over. “That is to say, they will if anything happens to prevent Peggy from carrying out this wild scheme of hers. That is what is upsetting me. I have only just heard of it.”
Stephen Crasster’s grey eyes twinkled. “What scheme of Peggy’s do you mean? I have heard nothing of it. What has she been doing now?”
“Worse than ever,” Sir Anthony grumbled dismally. “She is going to marry Lord Chesterman.”
“What!” The exclamation sounded almost like a groan as it broke from Crasster.
Judith, watching, saw that his dark face had paled suddenly beneath its tan.
“Peggy is going to marry this new Lord Chesterham,” Sir Anthony repeated, his tone growing more aggrieved. “How in the world she and Alethea can think I am likely to approve of such a match for her I am at a loss to imagine. Had you any idea that such a thing was in contemplation, Crasster?”
“I? Not the slightest,” Stephen answered quietly. After that first movement of involuntary self-betrayal he had dropped as it were a mask over his features. “It is rather sudden, isn’t it?”
“Sudden? Of course it is sudden,” Sir Anthony said impatiently. “She didn’t know him when we left town. And now Alethea sends me word she is engaged to a man I never saw and never heard any good of. Do you know anything of him?”
“I have met him, I think,” Stephen said slowly, drawing his dark brows together thoughtfully. “Yes, he was at the Derehams’. He is a good-looking man.”
“Good-looking!” Sir Anthony repeated scornfully. “What do I care about that? I want to know what sort of a man he is.”
“I am afraid I can’t help you there,” Crasster said, forcing an apparent lightness into his manner. “But, more earnestly, “my knowledge of Peggy tells me that there must be some good in him if Peggy loves him.”
“I don’t feel so sure about that,” Sir Anthony growled. “Peggy wouldn’t be the first girl who has been made a fool of. Well, well, I suppose talking won’t mend matters. And, anyhow, it is a great thing to know we are going to have you for a neighbour, Stephen, old fellow. How soon do you expect to be down?”
A slight change passed over Stephen’s face. “I am down now, that is to say, I am staying in the house and seeing into things generally; there is a lot that wants doing. But I haven’t any intention of settling at Talgarth for the present. I am too fond of my profession for that. When I have finished the necessary improvements, I must look about for a suitable tenant, or dispose of it in some way. Perhaps—”—with a little laugh in which only Judith’s quick ear detected any bitterness—“I may give it to Peggy for a wedding present.”
“Nonsense!” Sir Anthony tore the greater part of his correspondence across and threw it into the wastepaper basket. “Nonsense, my dear fellow. You will have to settle down yourself and receive our wedding presents instead. I used to think—”
He was interrupted. Jenkins opened the door and announced Lady Palmer. That lady fluttered in with outstretched hands, and her pretty uncertain smile.
“You must not blame Jenkins, dear Lady Carew. I insisted on being shown in to you at once. I have just heard this delightful news from Alethea, and I felt I must come over at once and offer my congratulations.”
Judith submitted with as good a grace as she could to the little airy touch on her cheek which passed for a kiss. Sir Anthony frowned.
“Alethea has been in a hurry,” he said shortly. “I have not given my consent yet, and I am Peggy’s guardian conjointly with her mother, a fact Alethea seems to forget.”
“Oh, I am sure she doesn’t. Only you couldn’t but approve of this marriage,” Lady Palmer rejoined with a deprecating smile. “Lord Chesterham is a great parti. He is the most perfectly charming man, besides being enormously rich, and his title is among the oldest in the country. Our little Peggy will be a very great lady, the envy of all her contemporaries.”
“Will she indeed?” Sir Anthony questioned ironically. “I suppose the fact that Lord Chesterham is three times her age, and that he bears a bad reputation will not be taken into consideration.”
Lady Palmer opened her great dark eyes to their fullest extent. “Dear Anthony, what does age matter? If Peggy is willing to overlook the little disparity, certainly it does not seem to me that it matters to anyone else. As to Lord Chesterham’s reputation, well, you must not rake up old scandals. And now I must confess I had another, a selfish reason, for coming over this morning. I have had a letter to say that some of my jewels—the sapphires poor dear Palmer gave me on my first birthday after our marriage—were heirlooms. Now I know—”
“But, my dear Sybil, I have heard from Spencer, and he says—” Sir, Anthony drew her outside on the terrace.
Judith glanced at Stephen Crasster. In the clear morning light his pleasant dark face looked worn a little weary. He laughed a trifle cynically as he looked after the two on the terrace.
“I fancy the trustees will have some difficulty in persuading Lady Palmer to part with the sapphires,” he remarked caustically.
“I dare say they will,” Judith assented absently. She was trying to screw up her courage to question Crasster about the flat tragedy; probably she would never have a more favourable opportunity. “Have you been very busy lately?” she asked tentatively. “I saw in the paper that that case you were interested in, when some one was shot in a flat, had come to an end.”
There was a pause. Stephen’s eyes were still fixed on Sir Anthony and his cousin as they strolled up and down on the terrace. The echo of Anthony’s remonstrances, of Lady Palmer’s exclamations, could be heard plainly in the breakfast-room.
“Yes,” he said slowly at last. “The inquest is finished, anyhow; so one stage
is over.”
“One, stage!” Judith repeated blankly. “But I thought it said the police had no clue—that they had given up the case. I fancied it was all over.”
Stephen smiled. “Furnival is not so easily beaten. It was no use adjourning the inquest again. But nothing would surprise me more than to hear that he had given up the case. I happen to know that it excited his interest enormously; there were so many curious points about it.”
“Were there?” Judith said faintly. She had sat down again in her place behind the tea-urn. She was touching the cups aimlessly. “Won’t you have some tea or coffee, Mr. Crasster? I fear in our excitement over this morning’s news I must have appeared very inhospitable.”
“I think I will have a cup of coffee, thanks.” Crasster followed and took a seat near her at the table. “I believe Furnival feels sure that the capture of the real criminal in the flat case is only a matter of time,” he went on after a minute or two. “With all the clues the police have at their disposal it is hardly possible the criminal should escape.”
CHAPTER XI
“I thought Anthony would be pleased,” Peggy said wistfully.
She and Stephen Crasster were standing on a wide grassy path that ran down the centre of the rosery at Heron’s Carew. All round them was a wealth of roses, great climbing gloire de Dijons, crimson ramblers, pink and crimson ramblers, golden glowing William Allan Richardson. Peggy, in her white gown, with her big dewy eyes, her exquisite pink and white skin, her soft red lips, looked the fairest rose of them all, the man thought, gazing at her with a very human longing in his kind eyes.