“Do you recognise that boat, sir?”
Morgan had come out from the hotel and was standing behind me with a pair of glasses in his hand.
“I’m not sure, Mr. Morgan. Is it the German barque?”
“Yes, that’s her.” He looked through his glasses.
“And what is the signal she’s flying?”
“Ah! What is it?—that’s just the point, sir. Her signals are in a private code, and there’s nobody here can tell you what they mean. Odd, isn’t it? Because, you see, if she runs up a signal she must intend somebody to take notice of it.”
Chapter II
1
I am bound to say that I dreaded the return of Hilda Reisby. In fact, I definitely hoped that her mother would be so frightfully ill that she could not return until we had left Aberleven.
In psychological jargon, I had got a complex about Mrs. Reisby. I liked her, I was even moderately fond of her, but I could not help feeling that she was indirectly responsible for what had happened. She had allowed Eric to know that she was by no means indifferent to his affection, and she had, presumably, allowed him to come again to Scarweather. With all the fatuous precision of my youthful mind, I decided that she had been acting unwisely.
On Monday morning the Professor received a telegram from his wife announcing her return in the afternoon. I thought I would go over and see her after supper, but I got a note at the hotel from Mrs. Reisby herself, soon after five o’clock, asking me to go round immediately if I was free.
I found her waiting for me in the drawing-room, alone. Decidedly awkward, I thought. All my life I have dreaded emotional scenes, particularly with a woman. They are so unbecoming, and they usually destroy those fine decorums on which we have come to depend for our social comfort.
However, there was no cause for alarm. Mrs. Reisby was cool, dignified, and eminently practical. She asked me what arrangements I intended to make, what were my views and those of Ellingham. Her sorrow was expressed in a gentle, measured voice, so low, so controlled, that I wondered if she were really heartless. Well!—it was better than a sobbing effusion! Then I saw that she was trembling, and I felt ashamed of myself and really very miserable. She was pale, too, and that made her look magnificent in a tragic sort of way.
“Mr. Farringdale,” she said, “there is one thing I want to tell you. I did not ask your cousin to come here. My husband sent the invitation after I had gone to stay with my mother, and I knew nothing about it. Apparently your cousin was not able to come immediately. He did not come when Tolgen expected him, but several days later. Please do not ask me to explain my reason for telling you this. I think you ought to know: that is all.”
“You did not know—” I stammered.
“Not until I got my husband’s letter this morning.”
She took a handkerchief from the table by her side, and I saw that she was nervously twisting it up into a ball.
This change in her manner, and this unexpected communication, made me feel uncomfortable. I could not put my thoughts in order, and I observed with dismay that she was looking suddenly forlorn and wretched. There might be a scene, after all.
“Mrs. Reisby,” I said, “I am dreadfully sorry for you.”
Her calmness returned, though not without a visible effort. There was a moment of silence, and in the silence we could hear, coming through the open window, the dismal note of the bell on the Scarweather buoy.
“Thank you, Mr. Farringdale.”
Simple words, even conventional or trivial words, are often associated with memorable events in our lives. The tone of Mrs. Reisby’s voice when she said “Thank you” made me look at her with an unaccountable degree of warm sympathy and of rapid understanding. When you are only twenty-one, you cannot be entirely unaffected by the sight of a beautiful, noble and youthful woman in distress. And yet I had been afraid of meeting her! All that can be said in my favour is that I was very young and that I had never consciously fallen in love.
Of course I told Ellingham what Mrs. Reisby had said, and he was evidently interested.
“Oh, indeed!” he remarked, with a quick flicker of his eyebrows. “Do you know if the Professor was in the habit of writing to your cousin?”
“He had written before, I think.”
“Frequently?”
“I cannot say.”
“On archaeological matters?”
“Yes—as far as I recollect.”
“You saw the letters?”
“One or two of them.”
“And they were friendly—familiar?”
“Certainly. Why do you want to know?”
He did not answer my question.
2
On Tuesday the 28th I returned to London. I managed to get through a good deal of family business on the evening of the same day, including a painful interview with Miss Foster. But I shall relate only what is essential.
The morning of the 29th was mainly occupied with legal business, and it was not until the early afternoon that I had time for the enquiry concerning Ludwig Mackenrode.
I knew that Ellingham was not greatly interested in this man, whoever he might be, and I was determined to show him that I was not incapable of conducting an important investigation without his advice or encouragement.
As I gave my taxi-driver the address in Hackney I thought he looked at me with considerable surprise. He conveyed me, at length, to a sordid, melancholy row of tenements and obscure lodging-houses, palpably disreputable. I felt a little uneasy as I rapped at the door of No. 27.
The head of an untidy young woman appeared in the lower window of the adjoining house. Her cheeks were brightly coloured, and she gave me a most repulsive wink. Other heads appeared at other windows, and I stood miserably on the doorstep, aware that I was blushing and entirely without confidence. A group of slatternly women, chattering in a doorway on the other side of the street, became suddenly silent and eyed me with offensive curiosity. A man walking along the pavement with a cage full of twittering bullfinches whistled in a manner decidedly sarcastic. I began to wish that I had given a little more thought to the matter. But now there was no help for it.
I knocked again, resolutely fixing my gaze upon the blistered green panels of the door. A heavy tread came down the staircase, and the door was opened by a police inspector.
Naturally I was surprised, though really glad to see him. I considered myself, already, to be an embryo representative of the law; and there was something particularly grateful in this image of respectability.
He looked at me sharply, and with evident suspicion. I have a horrid notion that he took me for a newspaper reporter.
“What is your business here?” he said.
“I have come to enquire about Mr. Ludwig Mackenrode.”
“Is he a friend of yours?”
“No.”
“Then what are you enquiring about?”
“Well—as a matter of fact—look here, inspector, can’t we go inside the house?”
Spectators were now assembling in every window or halting by every door.
“No, sir, it’s no good. You can’t see Mr. Mackenrode.”
“Why not?”
“He’s dead—that’s why.”
I was painfully shocked, and then I felt a glow of excitement, not unmingled with importance.
“But I have a letter from this man, written only a few days ago.”
“Oh! Then you’d better show it to me. Here—Mrs. Pingle—I want to see this gentleman alone in the parlour for a few minutes. Come in, sir.”
The explanation was brief. Of course the inspector, a dull though not incapable fellow, saw nothing remarkable in the death or disappearance of poor Eric, but he said the coroner would certainly require Mackenrode’s letter, and I must hand it over and make a statement and so forth.
“It’s an ord
inary suicide,” he said, “if I’m not mistaken. The doctor is upstairs with my sergeant. Mackenrode was nearly starving. He’s a German student from Hamburg. About twenty-five. Working at the British Museum. We often get this kind of thing. Cyanide. No friends in particular. No letters from the gentleman you were mentioning. Nothing at all. Good character. Relatives poor. That’s all I can tell you. Troublesome cases—usually Germans or Russians. Another about a week ago. Now I shall have to get on with it. Your permanent address, if you please—”
That was all. I could get no further information, nor could I talk to the dithering landlady who fluttered about in the passage and wiped her eyes on a dirty apron. As I left the house a police ambulance, a black and sinister vehicle, drove up to the door.
So it was a common occurrence, and they were mostly Germans and Russians! It was a very depressing thought. I could not help wishing that poor Herr Mackenrode had not been so precipitate, had at least waited until I had seen him. Perhaps he only needed a few pounds or a little encouragement. I was overcome, nauseated, by the squalor, the wretchedness of the whole affair. What had Eric to do with this unfortunate youth?
I wondered if his old aunt, Miss Tallard Foster, knew anything about it. In any case I had promised to call on her again before I went back to Aberleven. I got a taxi in Hare Street and went on to Highgate.
3
Miss Foster was a kindly, intelligent old woman. She had for many years kept house for her brother, a district magistrate in India, and after his death in 1899 she had come back to England and bought the house at Highgate in which she continued to live for the rest of her life. Eric’s parents had been well known to her during her residence in India, and she had undertaken the charge of the orphan as a matter of course. Her affection for Eric had been that of a kind, vicarious mother, and she had jealously preserved all the privileges of guardianship. Miss Foster was one of those women who have an extensive, though partly fanciful, knowledge of their own families; she had a singular practice of referring to absent, imaginary or defunct relatives. Like many other spinsters, her view of life was essentially a family view: her interests and affections were almost wholly occupied by the Royal Family and her own. But she was no fool. Indian society had not left her ignorant of the ways of intrigue and of the manners or morals of ambitious men. She had a steady head and a cool judgment, and a will that no person in the world could ever force to surrender. She was, in fact, one of those immensely valuable old women who contribute so much to the honour, stability or charm of English life. Her little fresh-coloured face was dignified, serenely vital. Her voice, her manners, were those of an aristocrat. She dressed in clothes of an indescribable Victorian complexity, with glittering spangles of black jet and sundry intricate masses of lace.
Private sorrow is not a theme on which I can willingly dwell. I will therefore relate only those parts of my conversation with Miss Foster which are strictly relevant to this narrative.
She had never heard of Ludwig Mackenrode. Eric was a lad of a singularly generous nature, and it was quite likely that he would help a poor student. He had several friends—most of them medical students—who used to visit him at Highgate. They were all very nice young men. (As if he would bring to his aunt’s house anyone who was not a nice young man!)
“He was very like dear George,” said Miss Foster, “with a touch of dear Henry’s excessive caution.” Evidently she had resigned herself to the idea of his death.
“But you know, John,” she told me, “I was rather troubled by his liking for Mrs. Reisby. She came here once or twice. I’m not inquisitive or nasty-minded, but I could not help seeing they were very fond of each other.”
“What did you think of her?”
Miss Foster was trying to be fair. She nodded her little head up and down in silence, and then she said decidedly:
“In my time a young married woman would not have allowed herself so much freedom. I cannot imagine dear Mary or dear Constance behaving in such a way.”
“But surely, Aunt Muriel, her manners—”
“Her manners were quite perfect. I don’t mean anything of that sort. Anyone can see that she’s a lady, and that’s why she ought to know better.”
“Better—how?”
“Well, I think she was quite wrong in going about with Eric—going to theatres and that sort of thing. Perhaps, dear John, you are too young to realise my point of view, and I should be sorry to put unjust or foolish ideas into your head. Indeed, poor Mrs. Reisby is very young too; but then she’s a married woman, and that makes all the difference.”
“I’m sure they were only thinking of each other as great friends.”
The old lady smiled sadly, dabbed the corner of a lace handkerchief into her eyes, and replied with gentle resignation:
“He may have thought so.”
Remembering what I actually knew, I felt it was almost treacherous not to agree with her. But I also felt myself called on—I could not have said for what particular reason—to defend strenuously the honour of Mrs. Reisby.
“I could almost swear there was nothing wrong in it, Aunt Muriel.”
“You remind me of dear Richard, your uncle, when you talk like that. So eager to convince! You’ll make a fine barrister, John.”
“Do, please, believe me—”
“I am quite anxious to believe you, but since you are the chief representative of the family in this matter I am obliged to tell you frankly what I think. Of course my views are not of much importance now—and yet—well, well! It is all very strange. I cannot help wishing that dear Roger was here to give us his advice. But I know, dear John,”—here she lightly touched my hand—“that you will do everything that is necessary and proper.”
“Aunt Muriel, do you know if Mrs. Reisby wrote to Eric?”
“That is what I wanted to ask you. The poor dear boy has not left many private things, but there is a box full of letters and papers. I do not wish to look at them. What do you think we ought to do?”
“I think we ought to seal the box and hand it over to the lawyers. They will open it when it is legally assumed that Eric is dead.”
“She did write to him. I know that, because he used to tell me about her letters. Professor Reisby also wrote. It was the Professor, you know, who sent him the invitation.”
“But the Professor had written more than once?”
“Several times, I fancy. I have no distinct recollection. He wrote about things they were digging up. He appears to have been very fond of Eric.”
“And Eric was very fond of the Reisbys—both of them.”
“Yes, yes! I know. He was always talking about them and saying how wonderful they were.”
“There’s one other thing, Aunt Muriel. Do you think Eric was being worried in any way? Of course he had been working very hard, and he may have been slightly overstrained. What I mean is, did he seem to have anything on his mind?”
She gave me a sad yet penetrating glance.
“No—that’s impossible,” she said, answering my thoughts instead of my words.
“He was quite happy?”
“He had not been quite happy since he came home after that Easter visit. He was oddly excited. But I do not think there was anything on his mind—anything to make him—to make him abnormal.”
She asked me if I would care to look at his room, but I said I would rather not. The idea of seeing that room with all its pathetic reminders touched a chord of acute sensibility which I had never suspected.
It was not easy to continue the conversation. I said that I should return to London as soon as I was quite satisfied that nothing more could be done at Aberleven. That really meant, “When they have given up all hope of recovering the body.” She understood.
“I know you will do what is best, my dear John. You are a curious mixture of dear Henry and your dear Uncle Rupert, with a touch of dear Fanny’s confid
ence. But please—please get one idea out of your mind, and refuse to allow it, even as a theory. Nobody knew Eric as well as I did. He was a good boy. His death, however it came about, was not a voluntary death. Of that I am certain.”
4
On Thursday, the 30th of July, I was back at Aberleven.
Nothing had occurred in my absence which could throw any light on the mystery, or the tragedy. The police regarded it as a simple bathing accident, and had no intention of investigating any further. It was considered highly improbable that the body would be washed ashore, and all the local boats which were out on Friday night had now returned to harbour. People had been carefully watching all along the coast, and all the fishermen were keeping a sharp look-out near the Bank. The idea that Eric might have been picked up by a coasting vessel was not seriously entertained by anyone.
I told Ellingham about my investigation of the Mackenrode case, and I was not a little chagrined to perceive his lack of interest.
“Very distressing, my good young friend,” he said in a dry and rather casual manner, “but unrelated to our problem.”
“Ah!—then you still regard it as a problem?”
“Of course I do. Whatever is not consistent with ordinary occurrence or with ordinary behaviour is a problem.”
“But what can we do?”
“Judging from all the obviously bellicose intentions of all the European powers, including ourselves, we shall soon have more than enough to do in another field of action. If we can stay here for a day or two longer I propose to conclude certain investigations in which I am now engaged—including one which has nothing whatever to do with our main problem. I also propose that we should both have a final interview with Professor Reisby.”
“So you think Mackenrode’s letter was of no consequence?”
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