by Michael Sims
As soon as Dorcas had gone I began to loosen the Colonel’s collar, but I had hardly commenced before, with a deep sigh, he opened his eyes and came to himself.
“You’re better now,” I said. “Come—that’s all right.”
The Colonel stared about him for a moment, and then said, “I—I—where is the lady?”
“She’ll be here in a moment. She’s gone to get some brandy.”
“Oh, I’m all right now, thank you. I suppose it was the excitement, and I’ve been travelling, had nothing to eat, and I’m so terribly upset. I don’t often do this sort of thing, I assure you.”
Dorcas returned with the brandy. The Colonel brightened up directly she came into the room. He took the glass she offered him and drained the contents.
“I’m all right now,” he said. “Pray let me get on with my story. I hope you will be able to take the case up at once. Let me see—where was I?”
He gave a little uneasy glance in my direction. “You can speak without reserve before this gentleman,” said Dorcas. “It is possible he may be able to assist us if you wish me to come to Orley Park at once. So far you have told me that your only daughter, who is five-and-twenty, and lives with you, was found last night on the edge of the lake in your grounds, half in the water and half out. She was quite insensible, and was carried into the house and put to bed. You were in London at the time, and returned to Orley Park this morning in consequence of a telegram you received. That is as far as you had got when you became ill.”
“Yes—yes!” exclaimed the Colonel, “but I am quite well again now. When I arrived at home this morning shortly before noon I was relieved to find that Maud—that is my poor girl’s name—was quite conscious, and the doctor had left a message that I was not to be alarmed, and that he would return and see me early in the afternoon.
“I went at once to my daughter’s room and found her naturally in a very low, distressed state. I asked her how it had happened, as I could not understand it, and she told me that she had gone out in the grounds after dinner and must have turned giddy when by the edge of the lake and fallen in.”
“Is it a deep lake?” asked Dorcas.
“Yes, in the middle, but shallow near the edge. It is a largish lake, with a small fowl island in the centre, and we have a boat upon it.”
“Probably it was a sudden fainting fit—such as you yourself have had just now. Your daughter may be subject to them.”
“No, she is a thoroughly strong, healthy girl.”
“I am sorry to have interrupted you,” said Dorcas; “pray go on, for I presume there is something more than a fainting fit behind this accident, or you would not have come to engage my services in the matter.”
“There is a great deal more behind it,” replied Colonel Hargreaves, pulling nervously at his grey moustache. “I left my daughter’s bedside devoutly thankful that Providence had preserved her from such a dreadful death, but when the doctor arrived he gave me a piece of information which caused me the greatest uneasiness and alarm.”
“He didn’t believe in the fainting fit?” said Dorcas, who had been closely watching the Colonel’s features.
The Colonel looked at Dorcas Dene in astonishment. “I don’t know how you have divined that,” he said, “but your surmise is correct. The doctor told me that he had questioned Maud himself, and she had told him the same story—sudden giddiness and a fall into the water. But he had observed that on her throat there were certain marks, and that her wrists were bruised.
“When he told me this I did not at first grasp his meaning. ‘It must have been the violence of the fall,’ I said.
“The doctor shook his head and assured me that no accident would account for the marks his experienced eye had detected. The marks round the throat must have been caused by the clutch of an assailant. The wrists could only have been bruised in the manner they were by being held in a violent and brutal grip.”
Dorcas Dene, who had been listening apparently without much interest, bent forward as the Colonel made this extraordinary statement. “I see,” she said. “Your daughter told you that she had fallen into the lake, and the doctor assures you that she must have told you an untruth. She had been pushed or flung in by some one else after a severe struggle.”
“Yes!”
“And the young lady, when you questioned her further, with this information in your possession, what did she say?”
“She appeared very much excited, and burst into tears. When I referred to the marks on her throat, which were now beginning to show discoloration more distinctly, she declared that she had invented the story of the faint in order not to alarm me—that she had been attacked by a tramp who must have got into the grounds, and that he had tried to rob her, and that in the struggle, which took place near the edge of the lake, he had thrown her down at the water’s edge and then made his escape.”
“And that explanation you do accept?” said Dorcas, looking at the Colonel keenly.
“How can I? Why should my daughter try to screen a tramp? Why did she tell the doctor an untruth? Surely the first impulse of a terrified woman rescued from a terrible death would have been to have described her assailant in order that he might have been searched for and brought to justice.”
“And the police, have they made any inquiries? Have they learned if any suspicious persons were seen about that evening?”
“I have not been to the police. I talked the matter over with the doctor. He says that the police inquiries would make the whole thing public property, and it would be known everywhere that my daughter’s story, which has now gone all over the neighbourhood, was untrue. But the whole affair is so mysterious, and to me so alarming, that I could not leave it where it is. It was the doctor who advised me to come to you and let the inquiry be a private one.”
“You need employ no one if your daughter can be persuaded to tell the truth. Have you tried?”
“Yes. But she insists that it was a tramp, and declares that until the bruises betrayed her she kept to the fainting-fit story in order to make the affair as little alarming to me as possible.”
Dorcas Dene rose. “What time does the last train leave for Godalming?”
“In an hour,” said the Colonel, looking at his watch. “At the station my carriage will be waiting to take us to Orley Court. I want you to stay at the Court until you have discovered the key to the mystery.”
“No,” said Dorcas, after a minute’s thought. “I could do no good to-night, and my arrival with you would cause talk among the servants. Go back by yourself. Call on the doctor. Tell him to say his patient requires constant care during the next few days, and that he has sent for a trained nurse from London. The trained nurse will arrive about noon to-morrow.”
“And you?” exclaimed the Colonel, “won’t you come?”
Dorcas smiled. “Oh, yes; I shall be the trained nurse.”
The Colonel rose. “If you can discover the truth and let me know what it is my daughter is concealing from me I shall be eternally grateful,” he said. “I shall expect you to-morrow at noon.”
“To-morrow at noon you will expect the trained nurse for whom the doctor has telegraphed. Good evening.”
I went to the door with Colonel Hargreaves, and saw him down the garden to the front gate.
When I went back to the house Dorcas Dene was waiting for me in the hall. “Are you busy for the next few days?” she said.
“No—I have practically nothing to do.”
“Then come to Godalming with me to-morrow. You are an artist, and I must get you permission to sketch that lake while I am nursing my patient indoors.”
It was past noon when the fly, hired from the station, stopped at the lodge gates of Orley Park, and the lodge-keeper’s wife opened them to let us in.
“You are the nurse for Miss Maud, I suppose, miss?” she said, glancing at Dorcas’s neat hospital nurse’s costume.
“Yes.”
“The Colonel and the doctor are both at the house ex
pecting you, miss—I hope it isn’t serious with the poor young lady.”
“I hope not,” said Dorcas, with a pleasant smile.
A minute or two later the fly pulled up at the door of a picturesque old Elizabethan mansion. The Colonel, who had seen the fly from the window, was on the steps waiting for us, and at once conducted us into the library. Dorcas explained my presence in a few words. I was her assistant, and through me she would be able to make all the necessary inquiries in the neighbourhood.
“To your people Mr. Saxon will be an artist to whom you have given permission to sketch the house and the grounds—I think that will be best.”
The Colonel promised that I should have free access at all hours to the grounds, and it was arranged that I should stay at a pretty little inn which was about half a mile from the park. Having received full instructions on the way down from Dorcas, I knew exactly what to do, and bade her good-bye until the evening, when I was to call at the house to see her.
The doctor came into the room to conduct the new nurse to the patient’s bedside, and I left to fulfil my instructions.
At “The Chequers,” which was the name of the inn, it was no sooner known that I was an artist, and had permission to sketch in the grounds of Orley Park, than the landlady commenced to entertain me with accounts of the accident which had nearly cost Miss Hargreaves her life.
The fainting-fit story, which was the only one that had got about, had been accepted in perfect faith.
“It’s a lonely place, that lake, and there’s nobody about the grounds, you see, at night, sir—it was a wonder the poor young lady was found so soon.”
“Who found her?” I asked.
“One of the gardeners who lives in a cottage in the park. He’d been to Godalming for the evening, and was going home past the lake.”
“What time was it?”
“Nearly ten o’clock. It was lucky he saw her, for it had been dark nearly an hour then, and there was no moon.”
“What did he think when he found her?”
“Well, sir, to tell you the truth, he thought at first it was suicide, and that the young lady hadn’t gone far enough in and had lost her senses.”
“Of course, he couldn’t have thought it was murder or anything of that sort,” I said, “because nobody could get in at night—without coming through the lodge gates.”
“Oh! yes, they could at one place, but it ’ud have to be somebody who knew the dogs or was with some one who did. There’s a couple of big mastiffs have got a good run there, and no stranger’ud try to clamber over—it’s a side gate used by the family, sir—after they’d started barking.”
“Did they bark that night at all, do you know?”
“Well, yes,” said the landlady. “Now I come to think of it, Mr. Peters—that’s the lodge-keeper—heard ’em, but they was quiet in a minute, so he took no more notice.”
That afternoon the first place I made up my mind to sketch was the Lodge. I found Mr. Peters at home, and my pass from the Colonel secured his good graces at once. His wife had told him of the strange gentleman who had arrived with the nurse, and I explained that there being only one fly at the station and our destination the same, the nurse had kindly allowed me to share the vehicle with her.
I made elaborate pencil marks and notes in my new sketching book, telling Mr. Peters I was only doing something preliminary and rough, in order to conceal the amateurish nature of my efforts, and keep the worthy man gossiping about the “accident” to his young mistress.
I referred to the landlady’s statement that he had heard dogs bark that night.
“Oh, yes, but they were quiet directly.”
“Probably some stranger passing down by the side gate, eh?”
“Most likely, sir. I was a bit uneasy at first, but when they quieted down I thought it was all right.”
“Why were you uneasy?”
“Well, there’d been a queer sort of a looking man hanging about that evening. My missus saw him peering in at the lodge gates about seven o’clock.”
“A tramp?”
“No, a gentlemanly sort of man, but he gave my missus a turn, he had such wild, staring eyes. But he spoke all right. My missus asked him what he wanted, and he asked her what was the name of the big house he could see, and who lived there. She told him it was Orley Park, and Colonel Hargreaves lived there, and he thanked her and went away. A tourist, maybe, sir, or perhaps an artist gentleman, like yourself.”
“Staying in the neighbourhood and studying its beauties, perhaps.”
“No; when I spoke about it the next day in the town I heard as he’d come by the train that afternoon; the porters had noticed him, he seemed so odd.”
I finished my rough sketch and then asked Mr. Peters to take me to the scene of the accident. It was a large lake and answered the description given by the Colonel.
“That there’s the place where Miss Maud was found,” said Mr. Peters. “You see it’s shallow there, and her head was just on the bank here out of the water.”
“Thank you. That’s a delightful little island in the middle. I’ll smoke a pipe here and sketch. Don’t let me detain you.”
The lodge-keeper retired, and obeying the instructions received from Dorcas Dene, I examined the spot carefully.
The marks of hobnailed boots were distinctly visible in the mud at the side, near the place where the struggle, admitted by Miss Hargreaves, had taken place. They might be the tramp’s—they might be the gardener’s; I was not skilled enough in the art of footprints to determine. But I had obtained a certain amount of information, and with that, at seven o’clock, I went to the house and asked for the Colonel.
I had, of course, nothing to say to him, except to ask him to let Dorcas Dene know that I was there. In a few minutes Dorcas came to me with her bonnet and cloak on.
“I’m going to get a walk while it is light,” she said; “come with me.”
Directly we were outside I gave her my information, and she at once decided to visit the lake.
She examined the scene of the accident carefully, and I pointed out the hobnailed boot marks.
“Yes,” she said, “those are the gardener’s probably—I’m looking for some one else’s.”
“Whose?”
“These,” she said, suddenly stooping and pointing to a series of impressions in the soil at the edge. “Look—here are a woman’s footprints, and here are larger ones beside them—now close to—now a little way apart—now crossing each other. Do you see anything particular in these footprints?”
“No—except that there are no nails in them.”
“Exactly—the footprints are small, but larger than Miss Hargreaves’—the shape is an elegant one: you see the toes are pointed, and the sole is a narrow one. No tramp would have boots like those. Where did you say Mrs. Peters saw that strange-looking gentleman?”
“Peering through the lodge gates.”
“Let us go there at once.”
Mrs. Peters came out and opened the gates for us.
“What a lovely evening,” said Dorcas. “Is the town very far?”
“Two miles, miss.”
“Oh, that’s too far for me to-night.”
She took out her purse and selected some silver.
“Will you please send down the first thing in the morning and buy me a bottle of Wood Violet scent at the chemist’s. I always use it, and I’ve come away without any.”
She was just going to hand some silver to Mrs. Peters, when she dropped her purse in the roadway, and the money rolled in every direction.
We picked most of it up, but Dorcas declared there was another half-sovereign. For fully a quarter of an hour she peered about in every direction outside the lodge gates for that missing half-sovereign, and I assisted her. She searched for quite ten minutes in one particular spot, a piece of sodden, loose roadway close against the right-hand gate.
Suddenly she exclaimed that she had found it, and, slipping her hand into her pocket, rose, ha
nded Mrs. Peters a five-shilling piece for the scent, beckoned me to follow her, and strolled down the road.
“How came you to drop your purse? Are you nervous to-night?” I said.
“Not at all,” replied Dorcas, with a smile. “I dropped my purse that the money might roll and give me an opportunity of closely examining the ground outside the gates.”
“Did you really find your half-sovereign?”
“I never lost one; but I found what I wanted.”
“And that was?”
“The footprints of the man who stood outside the gates that night. They are exactly the same shape as those by the side of the lake. The person Maud Hargreaves struggled with that night, the person who flung her into the lake and whose guilt she endeavoured to conceal by declaring she had met with an accident, was the man who wanted to know the name of the place, and asked who lived there—the man with the wild eyes.”
“You are absolutely certain that the footprints of the man with the wild eyes, who frightened Mrs. Peters at the gate, and the footprints which are mixed up with those of Miss Hargreaves by the side of the lake, are the same?” I said to Dorcas Dene.
“Absolutely certain.”
“Then perhaps, if you describe him, the Colonel may be able to recognize him.”
“No,” said Dorcas Dene, “I have already asked him if he knew any one who could possibly bear his daughter a grudge, and he declares that there is no one to his knowledge. Miss Hargreaves has scarcely any acquaintances.”
“And has had no love affair?” I asked.
“None, her father says, but of course he can only answer for the last three years. Previously to that he was in India, and Maud—who was sent home at the age of fourteen, when her mother died—had lived with an aunt at Norwood.”
“Who do you think this man was who managed to get into the grounds and meet or surprise Miss Hargreaves by the lake—a stranger to her?”
“No; had he been a stranger, she would not have shielded him by inventing the fainting fit story.”
We had walked some distance from the house, when an empty station fly passed us. We got in, Dorcas telling the man to drive us to the station.