The Man Without A Face

by The Man Without a Face (retail) (epub)

  “Thank you for the compliment, Henry,” answered Harrison. “But she may have as much confidence in herself as you have in me. At any rate, we have no idea yet of the kind of key that fits the lock. It’s all very queer, Henry, and I don’t like the look of it at all. It’s like one of those children’s games which is really a practical joke. The child who doesn’t know it is the victim. I can’t help thinking there’s something serious on foot—very serious, I should say.”

  “But what are you going to do, sir?”

  “What is there to do, Henry?”

  “You might go down to the ‘Sun,’ sir, and see if you can pick up anything there yourself.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t help, Henry. If Miss Williams has arranged for me to be here she would not have arranged anything nearly as simple as that to give me a clue. No, Henry, I have been allotted the part of spectator at the famous play ‘The Rise of the Marstons,’ and all I propose to do is to play my part. Come along.”

  Most of the guests were assembled in the drawing-room, to which Harrison made his way, and Mrs. Marston was busy explaining the arrangements for the afternoon. There was no sign of Miss Williams, and Harrison inquired after her, in his most sympathetic voice.

  “She seems to be very much better this morning,” answered Mrs. Marston. “I haven’t seen her myself, but I gather she had an early breakfast and dashed off in that car of hers.”

  “Do you think she is avoiding me?” said Harrison, with a laugh.

  “Good heavens, no,” said Mrs. Marston. “She is dying to meet you, I know. I expect she thinks it tactful not to worry you at the moment.”

  “Oh,” said Harrison, “by the way, what part is Sir Jeremiah playing in this afternoon’s performance?”

  “Yes, do tell us,” said a girl who had come across the room and joined them.

  “That’s Livia’s secret,” answered Mrs. Marston, with a significant look at Harrison. “I should get into fearful trouble if I told you. She says everyone is to be anonymous—except her father—until it’s over.”

  “How intriguing—but I expect Mr. Harrison will guess everything straight away,” commented the girl, with a gushing glance at him. Small talk seemed clearly the only sequel, and, finding that no more information was to be gained, Harrison resigned himself to it.

  Mrs. Marston explained to the guests that luncheon would be taken very early as the play was fairly long and they wanted it finished in good time for the evening’s festivities. All of them had places allotted. “Two very convenient seats for you,” she said, with a smile at Harrison.

  It was not long before the meal was finished and the guests were sauntering across the garden in the warm and cloudless afternoon to the spot appointed for the great celebration. It was a large amphitheatre looking towards a wood, which made an admirable background for the proceedings. The wood was some distance away, obviously allowing for the effectual entry of anything in the nature of a procession, and Livia Marston had certainly chosen the best possible stage for her production. Residents and villagers for miles around were gathering at this spot, and, as Harrison looked towards the wood, he murmured to Henry, “This brake shall be our tiring-room,” but received no responsive look of understanding.

  Facing the wood, at the farther end of the amphitheatre, were rows of chairs, the centre ones being reserved for the house-party. Harrison found that Mrs. Marston had allotted him two next to a gangway and mentally congratulated her on her thoughtfulness. Livia Marston was fluttering in front of the audience, receiving guests and birthday wishes. As Harrison settled down, she looked at him fiercely, and immediately turned to greet other guests.

  “Miss Livia doesn’t seem to like me,” said Harrison.

  “Very obvious,” answered Henry. “I should also say very bad-mannered.”

  “She merely objects to my being here at all, Henry,” said Harrison. “She may be justified.” Henry snorted and there was a moment’s silence. “Feel anything, Henry?” asked Harrison.

  “No, sir,” was the answer. “What do you mean?”

  “Feel anything’s going to happen?” asked Harrison. “Instinct, and that sort of thing, you know?”

  “Can’t say I do, sir,” answered Henry.

  “Nor do I,” said Harrison. “We’re pretty poor detectives, aren’t we, Henry? If anything is going to happen to-day, it’s not in our bones.”

  Henry snorted again and said nothing.

  The seats were rapidly filling, and Mrs. Marston herself had appeared and had settled down in the middle of the front row. Next to her was an empty seat, which Harrison conjectured was for the mysterious Miss Williams. He waited eagerly to see it filled and to verify his suspicion of a previous meeting.

  Time went on and the whole place was now practically filled. The seats were all occupied except for the one next to Mrs. Marston, and many of the menfolk were standing behind, but still there was no sign whatever of Miss Williams.

  A few minutes before the play was timed to start Harrison jumped up and went across to Mrs. Marston.

  “I’m keeping my eyes open,” he said, looking at the empty chair.

  “That’s for Helen Williams,” replied Mrs. Marston.

  “I thought so,” answered Harrison. “Where is she?”

  “Poor soul,” said Mrs. Marston, “—although I shouldn’t say that because I’m really rather angry with her. She’s been very foolish, to my mind. She came to me, just at lunch-time, and told me that driving the car had brought her head-ache on again and she was going to lie down. I don’t think she should have gone driving at all if there was any risk of that, do you? I told her to take some aspirin and I would keep a seat for her next to me. I expect she’ll come soon. She knows I shall be really vexed if she misses the play altogether.”

  “Quite understandable,” said Harrison.

  “I know it’s frightfully mean of me to talk like that,” said Mrs. Marston. “If the poor girl’s got a bad headache I can sympathise with her. Helen is such a dear, and I would hate her to miss just what she is down here for.”

  “Miss just what she is down here for,” Harrison repeated to himself, rather impressed by the phrase, and wondered if that could be possible. He was about to speak when Mrs. Marston exclaimed, “They’re beginning,” and so he slipped back to his seat, just as the first group began to make its way out of the wood.

  As the group moved steadily across the enclosure and advanced near the spectators it was seen to be composed of diaphanously dressed damsels. Harrison could not make up his mind whether they were meant to represent angels, although Henry seemed quite certain on the point. They marched in stately procession, and one walking alone in the centre was seen to be holding high a dish containing something suspiciously like a table jelly. Behind her walked a girl with a banner bearing the words “Protoplasm, the start of the Marstons.”

  A shout of laughter greeted this revelation, and the group slowly wound its way back to the wood from which it had come, and disappeared. Meanwhile Harrison turned his eyes in the direction of Mrs. Marston and noticed that the chair reserved for Miss Williams was still unoccupied.

  In a few minutes a roar was heard from the wood and there sprang from it a collection of men and women dressed in prehistoric fashion. They were all uttering wild shrieks, while the men occasionally beat the women or dragged them along the ground.

  “I wonder which of them is the Marston in that lot,” said Henry.

  “Not very easy to guess,” answered Harrison, “especially as they seem to be keeping right in the distance. Miss Marston seems to have a fund of ideas. Rather working on film lines. First a ‘close-up’, then a ‘long-shot’—I think that’s what they call them. Look, Henry, they’re going back into the wood without coming near us at all.”

  As Harrison spoke, the prehistoric band gave a last shriek and, waving their primitive weapons, rushed back, in a confused mass of men and women, to the point from which they had come.

  Much amusement was cause
d when, for the next scene, a Saxon swineherd in appropriate costume, accompanied by a person whom Henry described as “his girl friend”, appeared from the wood driving an unruly collection of pigs. These ran hither and thither all over the field, and some time was needed by willing but inefficient helpers to get them together and pilot them in the direction they should go. Great applause greeted the disappearance of the last pig into the wood. Harrison again looked towards Mrs. Marston and still the chair beside her was vacant.

  A stately procession then began to emerge slowly from the wood, to the sound of none too certain trumpets.

  “Another ‘long shot,’ Henry, I expect,” said Harrison.

  Very soon, behind the small retinue of soldiers, there appeared a man dressed in a conventional cook’s costume, white cap, apron and all, brandishing a long cooking-ladle.

  “I don’t think I should have recognised the host I saw at dinner last night,” commented Harrison.

  Henry laughed, for behind the cook came a man, in mean clothing and obviously wearing a wig, capering up and down and making mocking gestures at the cook in front of him.

  “That’s good,” said Henry.

  “Must be a scullion,” said Harrison, “making light relief of his master, the cook.”

  The audience roared, and, as if warned thereby, the cook turned round to discover the scullion making one of his most extravagant gestures. More laughter while the cook raised his cooking-spoon angrily and brought it down on the unfortunate scullion’s head. The audience roared again as the scullion tumbled into a heap on the ground and was picked up by two other servants, who carried him off behind the rest of the procession into the wood.

  Great applause followed this effort. Miss Marston’s play was turning out a great success.

  “Quite good byplay that, Henry,” said Harrison,

  “Some sense of humour,” answered Henry, chuckling. “I enjoyed that. Look, here’s another scene.”

  A number of ladies and gentlemen in Elizabethan costume came out of the wood and moved up close to the audience. They executed a species of gavotte. Miss Livia, thought Harrison, has realised the need of a little padding to make her show last the required length. After an elegant if somewhat leisurely display, an Elizabethan servant appeared from the wood carrying a box which he brought up to the group.

  He took from it a collection of bowls which he placed on the ground. He was followed by a number of gentlemen, led by one who was obviously intended to represent Sir Francis Drake, arm in arm with, presumably, an Elizabethan Marston.

  After greeting the company, Sir Francis settled down to his famous game of bowls, and a messenger was just emerging from the wood when Harrison saw a manservant, with a scared face, come quickly through the audience and speak to Mrs. Marston.

  Mrs. Marston also looked very scared and the colour left her face as she listened, and she seemed hardly able to regain her composure. She excused herself to her neighbour and, giving an instruction to the servant, moved quickly away.

  In a few moments Harrison found the servant standing beside him. “What is it?” he asked in a whisper.

  “Mrs. Marston wants you to come at once, sir,” said the man, who still seemed terribly frightened.

  Harrison gave Henry a quick look and left his seat. He found Mrs. Marston right behind the spectators.

  “What on earth has happened?” he asked.

  “Sir Jeremiah,” was all she could say, in a choking voice.

  “Something has happened to him?”

  “Yes, Mr. Harrison, I had to send for you. They think he’s dead.”

  “Good heavens!” said Harrison. “But I thought he was in the play?”

  “He was,” answered Mrs. Marston. “My husband must have hit him too hard,” she added, every word seeming difficult.

  “You don’t mean to say that—”

  “Yes, Mr. Harrison,” she replied, “he was the man they carried off the field. I told you he didn’t want people to know too much about him. He practically insisted on being in a scene with William, and so Livia made him the scullion. She thought that was going to be one of the most amusing scenes in her play.”

  “But that blow couldn’t have killed him,” said Harrison. “He must have had a weak heart or something like that.”

  “I don’t know,” answered Mrs. Marston, sadly. “My servant said they thought he was dead, and told me that I was wanted at once. Oh, I am glad you are here, Mr. Harrison; you will be a great help to me. Come along.”

  She took him by the arm and led him towards a corner of the wood where a path seemed to lead into its depths.

  “An accident happens to the King’s scullion,” thought Harrison, “and they think I can be useful. This beats Henry for belief in my efficiency.”

  Part II

  How

  Chapter IV

  Miss Williams At Dinner

  Harrison followed Mrs. Marston until he came to a rustic summer-house of fairly substantial proportions which was being used as a headquarters for the performers. Here Sir Jeremiah Bamberger had been carried, and they gathered that Dr. Manning, the local practitioner, had also been summoned from the audience and was at that moment inside the summer-house.

  “I’ll wait outside for you,” said Mrs. Marston. “You go in and see if you can help.”

  “Very well,” answered Harrison.

  “And if my husband is there,” she continued, in a low voice, “tell him I am here. He may need me.”

  Harrison looked admiringly at the woman for a moment and then went into the summer-house. It was not too light, but he was soon able to distinguish a grey-haired figure, obviously the Dr. Manning mentioned, leaning over a form stretched on a rough garden bench. Beside it stood William Marston, still in his costume of the king’s cook, while on a chair was the cooking-ladle with which the blow had been struck.

  “Any hope, doctor?” asked Harrison.

  The doctor looked round and, not recognising his questioner, looked up at Marston, as if for permission to answer. Marston half nodded and the doctor stood up and turned to Harrison.

  “None, I’m afraid,” was his reply.

  “I’m sorry,” said Harrison.

  “Instantaneous, I should say,” said the doctor. “A terrible accident.” Marston gave a gulp but said nothing.

  “Mrs. Marston is outside, sir,” said Harrison, sympathetically. “I think it would be better to go to her. You can do nothing by staying here.”

  “I want to stay,” answered Marston, in a low voice. “What do you think, doctor?” asked Harrison.

  “Well, of course, if you don’t mind, Mr. Marston,” said the doctor, with some hesitation, “I think it would be far better for you, for your nerves, indeed for us all, if you went with Mrs. Marston.”

  “But I do mind,” said Marston, angrily.

  Harrison went to the door and called Mrs. Marston.

  “What is it, Mr. Harrison?” she asked.

  “Your husband, Mrs. Marston,” he said. “He is feeling the strain very badly. It would be far better for him to leave the summer-house, but he absolutely refuses. We can’t make him go, you know, but I thought that you—”

  “Of course, Mr. Harrison,” was the reply. “Poor William. It must have been a terrible shock. And Sir Jeremiah?”

  “The worst, I am afraid,” answered Harrison. “That’s why I want to get your husband away. Go up to the house with him and I will soon follow you.”

  “But must I go in there?” asked Mrs. Marston, looking into the summer-house.

  “I’m afraid so,” answered Harrison. “Your husband needs you.”

  Again Harrison had a spontaneous feeling of admiration for the woman who, without another word, walked briskly into the summer-house and went up to her husband.

  “Come along, William,” she said. “I want you to come up to the house with me.”

  “I’m not going,” was the determined answer.

  Mrs. Marston took her husband’s arm and, again s
aying gently, “Come along,” she led him to the door. Marston, who seemed in a kind of trance, followed obediently and the doctor and Harrison were left alone with the dead man.

  “I didn’t like to ask before,” said the doctor, “but I’m sure you will pardon me for not knowing your name. There are so many people down here to-day, you know.”

  “Clay Harrison,” was the answer.

  “A close friend of the family, I presume,” commented the doctor.

  “Hardly,” answered Harrison, with a smile; “but Mrs. Marston is relying on me in certain matters at the moment.”

  “Oh,” said the doctor, rather puzzled.

  Harrison had gone across to the body and was looking at the wound on the head.

  “Curious wound,” he said. “What do you make of it, doctor?”

  “A little medicine, too, eh?” said the doctor.

  “A little of everything,” said Harrison. “A general practitioner, in life, may I say, doctor?”

  “Good,” said the doctor. “An excellent profession, Mr. Harrison. You are certainly right about the wound. I would have expected him to have been hit somewhere where the wig covered the skull. If that had been the case, the blow would have been softened and nothing might have happened—”

  “He was killed by the blow? No heart complications or anything like that?”

  “I should say not, on a rough examination,” answered the doctor. “The blow was a pretty heavy one, and would have been sufficient to kill, in my opinion. Just where the wig finishes. What is your opinion, Mr. Harrison?”

  “I’m afraid I’m not as expert as all that,” said Harrison; “but I can see you have an opinion of your own, doctor?”

  “I have, for what it’s worth,” answered the practitioner with a self-satisfied beam. “I should say Marston aimed his blow at Sir Jeremiah, fully intending to hit him on the wig-covered part of his head and therefore unlikely to do any damage. Sir Jeremiah twisted around or slipped or did something similar, and, before Marston could stop himself, he had struck Sir Jeremiah on an unprotected spot.”