by Molly Thynne
She made a little gesture with her hand, a hand so frail that Fayre turned his eyes away from it quickly. His protest was as much for his own reassurance as for hers.
“I don’t think Edward’s of the kind to lose anything once he’s got it,” he asserted with a cheeriness he tried to feel. “He’s a very lucky man, Sybil.”
He was more moved than he cared to show, and for a time he sat smoking in silence. When he spoke, it was to lead the conversation back to its original subject.
“I’m intrigued about our friend the minx,” he said. “What’s she up to that she should arrive at country houses in the middle of the night?”
Lady Kean laughed.
“That’s an exaggeration of Edward’s. She’s motoring over and dining with a Miss Allen on the way. She’ll probably be here before twelve. As to what she’s up to, I’ve got my own suspicions.”
Fayre settled himself comfortably in his chair.
“This is gossip,” he said fervently. “Tell me some more.”
“It isn’t gossip; on the contrary, it’s solid fact. Cynthia is at present engaged in bringing down her mother’s grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. The result is that she’s having rather a thin time at home just now.”
“It’s a long time since I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Cynthia’s mother,” remarked Fayre thoughtfully. “But I seem to remember that I never liked her.”
“She set her heart on a good match for Cynthia and of course the inevitable happened. The wretched child has engaged herself to a boy with nothing to recommend him but a fine war record and an inadequate pension. Her mother is beside herself and, in a way, I don’t blame her. Cynthia might have married anybody.”
“Instead of which she’s marrying a nobody. And you like him.”
“How on earth did you know that?” said Lady Kean, startled. “You’re quite right, I do. John Leslie’s a nice boy and he knows how to manage Cynthia. There’s plenty of money on her side of the family and he’s working hard, farming on a small scale, and, I believe, manages to make it pay. The last I heard of the affair, he had been forbidden the house.”
“In spite of which, the engagement continues?”
“Of course! And I happen to know that Cynthia’s people went up to London this afternoon. John Leslie’s farm is halfway between Callston and Miss Allen’s. All of which accounts largely for Cynthia’s decision not to arrive here till late this evening. I don’t know anything; this is pure conjecture.”
“It seems sound reasoning. Who is this Miss Allen?”
“Mrs. Draycott’s sister.”
“Oh!” remarked Fayre, taking another cigarette and lighting it thoughtfully.
Lady Kean regarded him with approval.
“That was nice of you,” she said. “I don’t like her, either. The sister’s quite different, though. She went on to stay with her yesterday. I expect Cynthia’s meeting Mrs. Draycott to-night and if she doesn’t like her she’ll say so!”
Fayre meditated, enjoying his cigarette.
“No, I don’t like her,” he said at last. “We get women like that in India.”
“We get them in England too.”
Lady Kean’s voice sounded suddenly flat and lifeless and Fayre, realizing suddenly how late it was, decided that she was tired and that he had better leave her to herself for a time. In any case, he had no desire to discuss Mrs. Draycott. She had been his fellow-guest at Staveley for the past week and he had been glad to see her go.
He had just risen to his feet when the door opened and Lady Cynthia came in.
She stood in the doorway, straight and slim, sheathed in vivid blue, her dark shingled hair clinging in tight waves about her beautiful little head and, at the sight of her, Fayre realized the truth of Lady Kean’s description. There was something “gallant” about this quaint mixture of youth and self-reliance, and it appealed to him at once. That she was popular, there could be no doubt. A chorus of welcome greeted her entrance, and Lady Staveley swept to meet her and draw her up to the fire.
“Cynthia, dear, you must be frozen. Your hands are like ice. Is it bitter outside?”
The girl nodded.
“Pretty bad. The wind’s dropped, though.”
To Fayre, observing her with frank curiosity, her voice sounded tense and there was a glitter in her eyes and a flush just beneath them that troubled him. Was the “modern” girl, he wondered, usually as exotic as this? If so, heaven help her! He watched her as she bent over Lady Kean and was struck by the real affection and solicitude she showed in her manner.
“You look tired, child,” said her hostess. “Was it very dull at Miss Allen’s?”
“It wasn’t dull,” answered Lady Cynthia slowly. “Anything but.”
She stood by the fire warming her hands in silence; then, abruptly, as if she had come to a sudden decision, she drew herself up and faced the room.
“You’ll hear it to-morrow, so I may as well tell you now,” she cried with a ring of defiance in her voice. “Mrs. Draycott was killed this afternoon. She was found shot in John’s sitting-room at the farm.”
CHAPTER IV
Sir Edward Kean’s separation from his wife was to prove shorter than he had anticipated. On the local train which dawdled its lazy way to Whitbury he dozed fitfully, only to have the fumes of sleep drastically swept from his brain by the biting wind that met him as he stepped onto the platform at the Junction. The journey from Staveley was always a tedious one, with its change from the slow train to the London express at Whitbury and the long wait at Carlisle where the dining-car was picked up. This, however, was the only long stop and after a passable dinner Sir Edward was able to settle down to a long evening’s work, being one of those fortunate people who can concentrate their minds as easily in a crowded train as in the seclusion of their studies.
He alighted at Euston probably having slept less than any of his fellow travellers and looking infinitely less jaded. Also he had got through all the work he had intended to do on the journey and was ready for a strenuous morning at his Chambers. His wife had been right in saying that only a man with an iron constitution could have stood the pressure under which he lived.
He drove straight to his house in Westminster, where breakfast was awaiting him and then, after a bath and change of clothes, took a taxi to his Chambers.
“Farrer, ring up Mr. Carter and tell him I should like to see him before he goes into Court,” he called to his head clerk as he hurried to his room.
“You know the case is postponed, Sir Edward?” ventured the old man nervously. He had not expected Kean until late in the evening and was uncomfortably aware now that he should have wired instead of writing about the postponement of the case.
Sir Edward stopped dead, his hand on the latch of the door.
“What’s that?” he said sharply. “Strickland v. Davies postponed?”
“Yes, Sir Edward. We understood that you were leaving the North this morning and that a letter would reach you if it was posted yesterday afternoon. Had we known …”
His voice trailed off into silence. In all the years he had worked for Kean he had never seen him look so angry.
“Knowing you were coming up, in any case, for the other consultation,” he began again.
“My instructions were that I was to be notified immediately.” Kean’s voice was icy.
“I wrote, Sir Edward.”
“And gave me a night’s journey for nothing! Always telegraph if there is any doubt as to my movements. You knew I was coming up to-day.”
“Yes, Sir Edward.”
“In the future I should be grateful if you would obey my instructions. I suppose the witnesses have been notified?”
“Bentley’s will have seen to that, Sir Edward.”
Kean closed the painful interview abruptly by vanishing into his room.
“All because he’s missed twelve hours up in the North,” muttered Farrer, as he hurried thankfully out of range. “He never used to be so set on holidays
. His heart’s more with her Ladyship than his work, nowadays.”
Sir Edward, having said his say, did not refer to the matter again, but he proved a difficult task-master all through that day. He worked ferociously and his staff found themselves hard put to it to keep the pace he had set. It was late before he left his Chambers and then it was with a sheaf of papers that kept him hard at it till the small hours, in spite of which an accumulation of work still remained which would keep him in town till late the following day. Ever since a severe heart attack had brought Lady Kean almost to death’s door he had dreaded leaving her for any length of time and, on the few occasions on which any great distance lay between them, he was a difficult man to work with. He went to bed fretted and out of patience and his first act on reaching his Chambers in the morning was to ring up Staveley, ostensibly to let his hostess know when to expect him, but actually in the hope of a few words with his wife and an assurance that all was well with her.
There was the usual vexatious delay over the trunk call, but when he did get through, he was surprised to hear Lady Kean’s voice at the other end. She should, by rights, have been breakfasting in her room according to her wont, and he said so.
“I might have known you’d be up to your tricks as soon as I turned my back,” he told her.
“In spite of which, you were going to ask for me and drag me out of bed in your usual heartless way,” she mocked.
“You could have gone back again as soon as I’d done with you. As it is, I suppose you are up and dressed and in for a strenuous day. The folly of women!”
For the first time since his arrival in London he ceased to feel at odds with the world. Even at this distance his wife’s influence made itself felt and already all his annoyance had evaporated in the mere delight of listening to her voice.
“There’s wisdom in my madness this morning, though,” she assured him. “I guessed you’d ring up early and I wanted to catch you myself. I should have rung up yesterday if I had not known you were too busy to help. I’m worried, Edward, and I want you.”
In an instant he was on the alert.
“You don’t feel seedy?”
“No, no. I’m all right. It isn’t that. But come back as soon as you can, my dear. That child, Cynthia, is in trouble and I want you to see her.”
Kean’s face darkened. As far as it was in him to take an interest in any woman besides his wife he liked Cynthia Bell, though it is doubtful whether, if it had not been for Lady Kean’s fondness for the child, he would have paid any special attention to her. He did not, however, propose to have Sybil worried by the consequences of any of that young woman’s mad escapades.
“What has she been up to?” he demanded sharply.
“Nothing. It’s not her fault this time. But that young man of hers is in a very nasty position, from all accounts. Come back as soon as you can, dear, and see what you can do.”
Kean’s scowl deepened.
“Young Leslie? I’d forgotten that affair of hers. Well, what’s he been doing?”
He paused for a moment as though trying to control his impatience, then:
“I won’t have you worried over the affairs of a couple of children, Sybil!”
Sybil Kean laughed in spite of herself at the intense exasperation in his voice.
“My dear, it doesn’t do me any harm and, anyhow, I shall worry much less if I know that you have taken a hand in things. They really do need advice, Edward.”
“If you take my advice, you’ll keep out of the affair. Let them settle their troubles in their own way.”
“You don’t even know what their troubles are! Don’t be difficult, Edward!”
Lady Kean’s voice was very appealing. She did not often take this line with her husband, but when she did she almost invariably got her own way.
“Well, I want you to keep out of it, whatever it is,” he said curtly.
“Edward, John Leslie’s mother was a great friend of mine and she was extraordinarily kind to me as a girl. I really do owe her something and I am fond of both John and Cynthia. I can’t keep out of it and I am counting on you to stand by me. Be nice about it and come back as soon as you can.”
“Well, you haven’t told me yet what is the matter,” he temporized.
In as few words as possible she repeated all she had been able to learn from Cynthia, supplemented by the account of Dr. Gregg, who had turned up on a professional visit to Lady Kean on the day after the girl’s arrival. Kean heard her in silence and, for some moments after she had finished, made no comment. Then he gave vent to a muffled exclamation.
“What did you say?”
“I said ‘The Devil!’” he replied grimly. “What on earth did the young idiot want to go roaming all over the country for at that time of night? Very well, I’ll see what I can do, though I should have preferred it if you had managed to keep out of it altogether. It’s bad for you and I don’t like it.”
“When can you come? Cynthia’s aching to see you. Nobody seems to be doing anything and the inaction is hard on the child.”
“I can’t get away before this evening, but I’ll come straight through on the night train. It means I shall have to come up again for a consultation at once. After that I shall be free for a bit.”
“When were you coming if this hadn’t happened?”
“I had intended to drive down the day after tomorrow. I’m going to bring the car and take you back by road when we go. It’s less tiring for you than the train.”
“My dear! Two night journeys and then a long motor drive!” Lady Kean’s voice was full of compunction. “Don’t do it,” she went on. “Stick to your original plan and come down with the car the day after to-morrow. I don’t suppose the extra day will really make much difference. It’s only that the child’s fretting.”
“And so are you!” he retorted grimly. “No, I’ll come to-night and see what I can do, though I don’t suppose there’s much. I’m inured to journeys and I can work in the train. Meanwhile, don’t wear yourself to fiddle-strings. It will all come right in the end. I know you haven’t much opinion of the law, but it doesn’t often make mistakes. If the boy’s innocent, he will come out of it, you’ll see.”
“Thank you, Edward. I don’t believe you’ll ever fail me!”
There was more in her tone than in the words and he felt amply repaid for having yielded as he hung up the receiver. But he found it difficult to fix his mind on his work that morning and he wished with all his heart that his wife had been safe in London at the time of the murder. He knew that she would not know a night’s real rest so long as any friend of hers was in trouble and, in spite of his brave words on the telephone, he thought things looked awkward, to say the least of it, for John Leslie.
And once more he cursed the Fates that had decreed the postponement of the case of Strickland v. Davies. For Leslie had been subpoenaed as a witness and, if things had taken their normal course, would have been in London at the moment when Mrs. Draycott met with her tragic end. And if it had not been for that unfortunate blunder of old Farrer’s he would have heard in time about the postponement and would have been at Staveley instead of in London when Lady Cynthia arrived with the news.
Kean was usually studiously courteous in his dealings with underlings, but he was positively brutal to the old head clerk when, later in the day, he had occasion to pull him up for a slight error in the wording of a letter.
CHAPTER V
At the best of times Whitbury Junction cannot be described as an attractive spot, with its three long platforms, flanked on either hand by sidings with their usual array of cattle-trucks and, apparently derelict, third-class coaches. An uninspiring collection of faded posters, imploring the weary traveller to hasten at once to Ostend or the Cornish Riviera and a row of battered milk-cans embellish the platforms; and the porters, elderly men of pessimistic habit, take even the arrival of the London train with complete lack of enthusiasm. At seven o’clock on a chilly March morning the Junction is at its wo
rst, and Sir Edward Kean, alighting somewhat stiffly from his first-class carriage after a night of mingled boredom and discomfort, eyed his surroundings with marked disapproval. The fact that he would have over an hour to wait before taking the local train to the little station of Staveley Grange did not serve to cheer him, and he was entirely unprepared for the apparition of Cynthia Bell, the last person he desired to see under the circumstances, waiting for him on the platform.
There was a hint of shyness in her greeting. Sybil Kean’s distinguished husband was one of the few people of whom she stood in awe and she not only felt responsible for his presence at an unearthly hour at this dreary spot, but was quite aware that, but for his wife’s persuasion, he would not have made the journey at all. It was this knowledge that had decided her to meet the train and see him first alone, in the hope of winning his sympathy and inducing him to take more than a cursory interest in John Leslie’s affairs. The sight of his dark, inscrutable face and thin-lipped, relentless mouth sent her courage into her boots and she felt pitifully young and very helpless as she hurried to meet him.
“I wanted to see you and thank you, Sir Edward,” she began rather breathlessly. “Sybil told me you were coming down on purpose. …”
In spite of his annoyance Kean was touched by her distress.
“It seemed better to look into things at once,” he said kindly. “Sybil said you were anxious to see me.”
“I wanted to ask your advice. There’s something I’m worried about and no one seems to know in the least what’s going to happen or what one ought to do. It’s the waiting that’s so hard. It makes one imagine things. They haven’t even said they suspect John yet, but they behave all the time as if they did and they’ve searched the farm as if they expected to find something. Meanwhile one hangs about. …” She was getting almost incoherent and Kean could see that she was on the verge of tears and was holding them back with difficulty.
“You’ve let this get on your nerves,” he said quietly. “I suggest that we shelve the subject altogether till you’ve had some breakfast. We’ll go over to the station hotel and see what they can do for us, and afterwards you shall put the whole case before me and I’ll give you what advice I can. There’s plenty of time before my train goes and you’ll take a different view of things after you’ve eaten something.”