by Annie Haynes
“Ah!—you are a devil! I hate you!” Célestine burst forth, her whole frame shaking with fury, her eyes blazing.
“Do you? I am sorry for that!” Crasster said coldly, “but you will forgive me by and by, mademoiselle, when you realize that your friend the inspector is guiltless in the matter of breaking hearts. And as for another situation, why I am sure Lady Palmer will be pleased to do all she can to help you to get one. It will be the least she can do, since you tried so hard to help her when you were at Heron’s Carew.”
“Ah, ah!” with a moan like some wounded animal, Célestine stared at him for a moment, then she turned her back on them, and flew down the path, a small tornado of wrath.
“Phew!” The inspector took off his cap and rubbed his forehead. “That was an awkward quarter of an hour, sir. If it hadn’t been for you—”
“Well, I have no scruples, in dealing with Célestine,” Crasster laughed. “She was perfectly willing to sell her mistress to anyone. She was carrying on an underhand flirtation with that scoundrel Lee, or Chesterham, and doubtless giving him information, which he could use for his own purposes; and certainly at one time she was in Lady Palmer’s pay, and that lady is, as we know, anything but a friend of Lady Carew. Oh, I don’t think you have anything to reproach yourself with, inspector.”
Sir Anthony Carew led his wife, at the close of the proceedings at the police court, from the seat she had occupied between the Dowager Lady Carew and Mrs. Rankin, to their own carriage. As he took his place beside her, he saw that she was very pale, that every line in her attitude spoke of utter exhaustion. Though every impulse was bidding him to take her in his arms, tell her that he would hold her thus against all the world, the whiteness and the weariness of her seemed to forbid it.
She did not open her eyes, or move unless it were to shrink further from him into her corner, as he looked at her, and for very pity her husband forebore to speak. That day’s ordeal had been terrible to her he knew, though the kindness of the magistrates and the counsel had minimized it as far as might be. Though the nature of the tie that had bound her to Stanmore had not yet become common property, he knew that it must be inevitably disclosed at the trial, and the knowledge was gall and wormwood to him.
Yet his thought now was not of his sullied pride, of the disgrace she had brought upon his name, but of her, his wife, the woman he loved, lying there before him, humbled to the very dust, her fair beauty dimmed, the very life of her seemingly quenched. His touch was very tender as the carriage stopped before the door of Heron’s Carew, and he helped her up the steps and across the wide low hall into the drawing-room. A great roomy Chesterfield stood before the fire, and he placed her in it, propped her up with pillows. Then, seeing her wanness, her utter exhaustion, he went himself and brought wine and delicate sandwiches, and coaxed her to eat and drink, not resting until he had seen a fair amount swallowed and a faint tinge of colour coming back to the white cheeks and lips.
As she gave him back the glass, and lay lack in her cushions, he bent over her.
“Judith!”
The big eyes, looking almost black in the shadow, glanced up at him for one moment, then veiled themselves in their long lashes, her breath quickened. “Is it really true that you—that I am—”
He knelt down beside her, and took the weak hand, on which her wedding ring shone, in his. “It is certain, Judith. I put Shapcote on, and there can be no doubt that Cyril Stanmore”—he gulped over the name—“married an actress, one Phyllis Champion, when he was a young fellow, not one and twenty, and she was living a year ago. Therefore there can be no doubt. You are my wife—you have always been my wife!”
“Your wife!” Judith stirred restlessly and turned her face towards the sofa cushions. “Anthony, what can I say? I am not worthy—it is only for Paul’s sake—and yet how can I be glad when I remember that but for this you would be free—you could begin again.”
“Begin again!” Anthony had captured both the small cold hands now, he chafed them, laying them against his heart. “How should I begin again, child? What do you mean?”
Judith’s head was very low now; her golden hair dropped on the cushions.
“I thought perhaps you were sorry you had married me before—” she said painfully. “When Sybil Palmer—” in answer to his questioning exclamation.
There was a moment’s silence; then Judith found her arms drawn round her husband’s neck. “Sybil Palmer!” he repeated, with a contemptuous laugh. “I never knew you had heard that story, Judith. Yes, I thought myself very fond of Sybil in the old days, but I know now that it was never real love at all, never for a day. And now—now, surely my wife knows that the world holds only one woman for me.”
A soft ray of light was stealing over Judith’s white face now, and yet it seemed too good to be true. Her arms slackened their hold.
“You will never be able to forgive me for deceiving you.”
Sir Anthony drew her slight form to his breast. He laid his face against the gleaming hair. “There is no need for forgiveness between us sweetheart,” he said tenderly. “But,” as he felt her quick movement, “if there were—if you had done anything that in any way wronged me, don’t you know that a man forgives anything—everything to—”
Judith was resting now against his broad chest, her cheek pressed against the rough cloth of his coat, her hair lying across his shoulder in glittering disorder, her soft white arms twined round his throat. She trembled as she lay there, as she heard the quiver in his strong voice.
“Yes, he forgives everything to whom, Anthony?” she questioned softly.
He stooped nearer, drew her closely to him in his strong arms, laid his lips tenderly, passionately on hers. “To the woman he loves,” he whispered. “Didn’t you know that Judith, my darling, my wife.”
THE END
About The Author
Annie Haynes was born in 1865, the daughter of an ironmonger.
By the first decade of the twentieth century she lived in London and moved in literary and early feminist circles. Her first crime novel, The Bungalow Mystery, appeared in 1923, and another nine mysteries were published before her untimely death in 1929.
Who Killed Charmian Karslake? appeared posthumously, and a further partially-finished work, The Crystal Beads Murder, was completed with the assistance of an unknown fellow writer, and published in 1930.
Also by Annie Haynes
The Bungalow Mystery
The Secret of Greylands
The Blue Diamond
The Witness on the Roof
The House in Charlton Crescent
The Crow’s Inn Tragedy
The Master of the Priory
The Man with the Dark Beard
The Crime at Tattenham Corner
Who Killed Charmian Karslake?
The Crystal Beads Murder
ANNIE HAYNES
The House in Charlton Crescent
Protruding from the dead woman’s breast was the gold and jewelled dagger she had shown them half an hour before. And, looking horribly incongruous among the laces of her fichu, a deep stain was spreading.
Elderly cantankerous widow Lady Anne Daventry summons a private detective, Bruce Cardyn, to her London home. He is tasked to find out one thing: just who is trying to kill her?
Any number of relations have a financial interest in her death. Then there is Lady Anne’s recently dismissed private secretary, her lady’s maid and the butler…
Despite Cardyn’s efforts, Lady Anne is murdered and Inspector Furnival, in his second golden age mystery, is on the case, with Cardyn playing Watson. Originally published in 1926, this new edition is the first printed in over eighty years. It features an introduction by crime fiction historian Curtis Evans.
“Miss Haynes’ new book shows all the merits of its predecessors. Careful plot, a villain concealed, natural setting, observation of character—for all these it scores points.” Morning Post
CHAPTER I
Lady Anne Daventr
y was not a pleasant old lady. Her nearest and dearest found her difficult to get on with, her servants called her “cantankerous,” and her contemporaries—those who remembered her in her far-off beautiful youth—said she had a good heart.
She was not so very old really, not as people count age nowadays. More than a whole year lay between her and that seventieth birthday that makes such a very definite landmark in most people’s lives. Trouble and ill-health had combined to make her look far older than her actual years. No one would have thought her younger than her only remaining brother—The Rev. and Hon. Augustus Fyvert— the rector of North Coton. Yet, in reality, Lady Anne had been a child in the nursery when he was a big boy going to Eton.
Life had not been kind to Lady Anne. The parents, whose petted darling she had been, had both died without seeing their youngest and most dearly-loved child grow up, and the man to whom she had been engaged in her youth, and whom she had passionately loved, had been false to her. Her subsequent marriage with Squire Daventry, of Daventry Keep, had been in the nature of a compromise, and her life with him had not been an easy one. One consolation she had had—the two bonny boys, who grew up to handsome manhood within the walls of Daventry Keep. Then, following swiftly on the old Squire’s death, had come the great war; Christopher Daventry and his brother Frank had both died gloriously, fighting for England and freedom, and Lady Anne was left desolate.
The effect upon her of the double blow was devastating. For a time they feared for Lady Anne’s life and reason, but she was not made of the stuff that goes under. Her vigorous vitality reasserted itself, and very soon Lady Anne came out into the world once more.
But she was never quite the same; grief seemed to have hardened, not softened, her whole nature. She who had been gracious and charming became snappy and irritable, and finally, when the rheumatism, from which she had suffered for years, became chronic and brought about a permanent stiffness of the limbs, Lady Anne, while saying little of her sufferings, was a distinctly cross and unpleasant old lady.
In her boys’ time she had lived principally at Daventry Keep, which, by the terms of the old Squire’s will, remained hers for life, but after the death of her sons she had found the quiet of the country oppressive, and for years now she had rented on a long lease the town house of the Daventrys in Charlton Crescent.
It overlooked the Park, and from her bedroom windows she could watch the stream of London traffic ebbing and flowing along the capital’s great artery.
Lady Anne’s sitting-room was on the first floor and looked out on the beautiful old-world garden beyond. It remained unchanged in its Victorian splendour as it had been at the time of her marriage; there were no modern furnishing vagaries for Lady Anne. The floor was carpeted all over in luxurious velvet-pile—Lady Anne liked its warmth and softness—the curtains were of lovely old brocade in faded pinks and blues, that was matched in the comfortable, spacious arm-chairs and settees. There were panels of beautiful old tapestry on the walls, quaint old lustre and cut-glass ornaments on the high marble mantelpiece; daguerreotypes and old- fashioned photographs of the relatives and friends of Lady Anne’s young days were everywhere. One table was devoted entirely to miniatures on ivory. There was even a spinet, which Lady Anne loved for the sake of the dear dead-and-gone women whose fingers had touched it, and a big jar of potpourri stood by one of the windows.
Lady Anne’s escritoire was facing it—a very beautiful specimen of old Georgian workmanship. When let down for writing it disclosed a front and sides richly inlaid. The tiny drawers at each side had golden knobs. The cupboard in the middle, misnamed secret, had a door inlaid all over in a curious arabesque pattern, inset with ivory and jade, and in it gold, silver and copper were oddly mingled.
The big revolving chair before this table was Lady Anne’s favourite seat. She came of a generation that did not believe in soft seats for themselves, even when crippled by rheumatism.
She was sitting there this morning, a quantity of papers on the slip-table before her, which she was perusing steadily and then docketing methodically on a small file. On her right hand there lay an open manuscript book, richly bound in grey and gold, with the word “Diary” scrawled across it in golden letters. She made several entries in this book as she filed her papers.
Every now and then her eyes strayed mechanically to the trees outside. It was evident that, busy as she seemed, her attention was wandering, her thoughts far away.
She was a picturesque figure in her black silk gown with its fichu of priceless old lace, a magnificent diamond crescent brooch gleaming amidst the filmy folds. Her still abundant snow-white hair was drawn back from her forehead over a Pompadour frame, and, with a fine disregard for the present fashion, coiled high on the top of her head and crowned with a tiny scrap of lace which she referred to sometimes as “my cap.”
For the rest she was very pale; her skin with its network of wrinkles was the colour of old ivory. The once beautiful mouth had fallen in, but the big, very light blue eyes, beneath her still dark, straight brows, gave character to her face. Not on the whole an agreeable character! Lady Anne was an irritable, impatient old lady, and looked it!
At last she pushed the papers from her with a jerk, and opening one of the small drawers of the escritoire took out a tiny box, just a very ordinary-looking little pill-box. She opened it. Inside there were eight little pills, all sugar-coated; ordinary-looking enough contents for an ordinary box; yet Lady Anne’s face went very white as she gazed at them.
Moving them very gingerly with the tip of her finger, she scrutinized each one with meticulous care as she did so.
“Yes, yes. There can be no doubt,” she murmured to herself. Then, as if coming to some definite decision, she put on the lid of the pill-box firmly and laid it back in its place in the inlaid drawer. She waited again when she had pushed the drawer back.
Opposite, there hung a beautiful old mirror; Lady Anne loved that mirror. It had been given her when she was a young girl. She had taken it to the Keep when she married, and when she made up her mind to live in London she had brought the mirror with her. Now it seemed like an old friend. It had shown her herself as a young girl, as a bride, as a happy mother, then as a sorrow- stricken woman and one verging on old age, but never had there looked back at her such a reflection as she saw this morning. The cheeks, even the lips, were white. The big light eyes, still beautiful in shape and size, were wide with fear. Altogether the face in the glass looked like that of a woman oppressed by some terrible dread—some nameless horror!
Lady Anne stared straight at it for a minute or two as at the face of a stranger, then a long shiver shook her from head to foot. Like a woman returning from a trance she pressed her handkerchief over her lips, and turning back to her papers she drew from among them what looked like a list of business firms. She scrutinized it for a moment with knit brows, running her pen up and down the column as she did so; at last she stopped—Wilkins and Alleyn, Private Inquiry Agents, Parlere St., Strand, she read. “Yes, think that is the firm.”
She turned to the telephone which stood beside her and rang up Wilkins and Alleyn. Fortunately the line was clear and she was able to be put through at once. It was evidently a woman’s voice that answered, and Lady Anne frowned. She had no opinion of her own sex in business.
“Messrs. Wilkins and Alleyn,” she said sharply, “I wish to speak to one of the principals—Lady Anne Daventry.”
There was a pause, and then a man’s voice—a cultured man’s voice—spoke:
“I am Bruce Cardyn, a junior partner in the firm of Messrs. Wilkins and Alleyn. You wished to speak to me?”
“Yes.” Lady Anne’s voice faltered, then gathered I strength as it went on. “I wish to consult a member of your firm. As I am a chronic invalid, unable to get out much, I cannot come to you. Besides, under the circumstances, I should not wish it to be known that I have paid a visit to your office, so I should be glad if one of your principals could call upon me as soon as possible. And I dare
say that you will think this a strange request, but possibly you are used to them. Would you be kind enough to say at the door that you are applying for this post as secretary? I dismissed my secretary a few days ago and am now looking out for another. If you will allow it to be supposed that you are coming after the post, your being admitted will excite no surprise or suspicion in the household, and I am most anxious to avoid this.”
Another pause. Lady Anne fancied that there was a consultation, then the same voice spoke again.
“Certainly. That would be the best plan. Would it suit you if I came in an hour’s time?”
“Yes, it would,” Lady Anne said decidedly. “Unless,” she added grimly, “you could come in half an hour’s time!”
Lady Anne did not move; very often on her bad days she did not go down to the dining-room for meals, but had something brought to her in her room. To-day, however, she gave orders that she was not to be disturbed until Mr. Cardyn’s arrival.
It seemed a very long hour to her, and the soft spring gloaming had merged into something like darkness before Mr. Cardyn came.
The blinds had been closely drawn and the electric light turned on fully. In the old days Lady Anne had loved the twilight, but now she had got into the habit of glancing into the corners in a frightened fashion, and if she were alone the light was always turned on at the earliest possible moment.
She looked with curiosity at the man who came forward when the door closed.
“Mr. Bruce Cardyn?”
He bowed.
“You look very young,” Lady Anne said discontentedly. “I hoped to see some one much older and with more experience.”
Mr. Cardyn permitted himself a slight smile.
“I have had a good deal of experience and—I am not so young as I look, perhaps, Lady Anne; I am thirty-one.”