XLVIII
The bane of life that day had been the London reporters. The Red Lion Inn at Chelfordbury was already filled with them, and not an hour passed that one did not make his way to the house in a vain endeavour to interview the Second Son. One intercepted him in Elm Drive, and to him, as to the rest, he gave the same reply.
“You boys can’t expect me to tell you any more than I already know,” he said, at bay. “My brother has disappeared, but I believe he is still alive.”
“Who do you think is responsible for these outrages, Mr. Alford?” asked the reporter.
Dick shook his head.
“If I knew, it isn’t reasonable to suppose that I should be discussing the matter with you.”
“Is it the Black Abbot?”
“The Black Abbot has nothing whatever to do with this crime,” said Dick shortly. “Unless I credit you with being so foolish as to believe in ghosts, it is unnecessary for me to tell you that there is no such thing as a Black Abbot, and the figure that has been seen in these grounds was somebody masquerading for his own purpose.”
“A practical joke?” suggested the newspaper man.
Dick shook his head.
“I don’t think it was a practical joke; indeed, I am sure there is something very serious behind it. But I can’t tell you any more.”
“Mr. Alford,” said the reporter, “I’m going to ask you a very delicate question, and I hope you won’t think it an impertinence. If your brother is dead, then the title comes to you, does it not?”
“Yes,” said Dick.
“You won’t be offended if I tell you that there is a little talk in the village of some antagonism between your brother and you. I am told there have been frequent quarrels.”
Dick mastered his anger with a great effort, realizing that the reporter was not intending to be impertinent, but simply epitomizing the gossip of the countryside.
“My brother was very nervous and quick-tempered,” he said, “but I’ve never had a serious quarrel with him in my life.”
“Is it true that Lord Chelford’s fiancée, Miss Leslie Gwyn, recently broke off her engagement with your brother?”
“Perfectly true,” said Dick, stifling his impatience.
“And yet she is staying at Fossaway Manor as your guest?” The keen eyes of the reporter were watching him closely. He saw the blood mount to his victim’s cheeks and hastened to add: “I’m merely telling you what other people will tell you, Mr. Alford. I have a much wider experience of the uncharity and suspicion that surround every man associated with a crime like this. If you are annoyed with me I can understand it, but I can assure you that I only want to help you.”
“That I quite believe,” said Dick with a smile. “But you can understand just how embarrassing your questions are. I will tell you the truth and you may put it into your paper. I am satisfied there is a very terrible danger overhanging Miss Leslie Gwyn, and it is for that reason, and that reason alone, I have asked her to stay at the hall, which is under police protection and where I know she will be safe. Her brother has gone abroad, and I cannot allow her to stay at Willow House alone.”
“You mean she is in danger from the same person that killed Thomas the footman, and who is responsible for the disappearance of Lord Chelford?”
Dick nodded, and the newspaper man made a mental note.
“Thank you,” he said. “You will find that this little talk has cleared the air. In cases like this, if you clear up the minor mysteries as you go along, it makes for everybody’s comfort.”
Dick, who had been trembling with anger through the interview, had to agree, in the calm moments which followed, that the reporter had taken a sane view of the matter. When he met Leslie a few minutes later, he told her of the interview. She was in the study alone, and had just finished writing a letter, which lay face downward on the blotting-pad. She saw him glance at the envelope and turned it up. It was addressed to Fabrian Gilder.
“What have you said?” he asked.
“I’ve told him that I’ve considered the matter, and I’ve decided that I could not marry him—in any circumstances it would be impossible now, so soon after Harry’s disappearance.”
He picked up the letter and, taking out his pocket case, tore off a stamp and affixed it.
“I’ll see that this goes,” he said grimly. Then, seeing her tired face: “Poor old girl, you’re having a bad time.”
The pressure of her hand, the love and sympathy in her voice, were almost too much for him, and he had to set his teeth or he would have taken her in his arms, and, in that place of tragedy and horror, told her of the love that was shaking him, and which had added a new and fearful burden to his overstrung nerves.
“Go to bed early,” he said, with an effort at gaiety, “and rise with the dawn. I shall be busy till very late.”
“The butler was telling me that you have ordered a basket of food for the policemen.”
Not a muscle of his face moved.
“That is so; one or two men who are patrolling the cutting need a little light refreshment. They cannot get to the house and we haven’t men to relieve them.”
She was sensible enough not to pursue the subject.
It was only on her earnest entreaty that, as the night grew on, Mary Wenner remained. The girl was a bundle of nerves, started at every sound, paled and flushed with the opening of a door, and the sound of a falling plate in the servery whilst they were at dinner had made her scream.
“I can’t help it, my dear; I’m naturally temperamental,” she explained. “And this house has got me shivering. I can’t leave another young lady without a chaperon, or I’d fly off to London before it got dark.”
She had been in the library that afternoon, she told Leslie, and the sight of that familiar room with its empty chair had been almost the last straw.
“I had to have a good cry,” she confessed, “and I’m not ashamed of it. Harry was one of the best—you don’t mind me calling him Harry, do you, dear?” And, when Leslie shook her head: “I can’t say that I was fond of him as a young girl ought to be fond of a man she loves, but he was very nice. He had his tempers, the same as the rest of us, but they were only his high spirits. I could never understand why he hated Mr. Alford.”
Leslie looked at her incredulously.
“Hated Mr. Alford?” she repeated. “Surely you’re mistaken? They were very good friends.”
Mary shook her head.
“No, they weren’t,” she said. “It all arose out of her ladyship’s picture.”
“The late Lady Chelford?”
“That was the lady,” nodded Mary. “It happened three years ago. Dick Alford suggested that the portrait should be moved to the gallery. I think he was silly to say it, knowing how Harry adored his mother, and when he said the picture was depressing—and that was the silliest thing of all—Harry got right up in the air! It was dreadful, the things he said to Mr. Alford—and before me, too! Dick Alford realized his mistake: I could see that, and he tried to pacify Harry, but for a fortnight they didn’t speak.”
Leslie was silent. Slowly the inner life of Fossaway Manor was beginning to reveal itself to her; she had seen nothing of these cross-currents, had not suspected, even dimly, the conflicting antagonism which must have been visible to Harry Chelford’s secretary.
“They were very friendly sometimes. You’d think that Harry was fond of him, and I think he was,” Mary continued; “but the quarrels used to break out every now and then, once because Dick always stood with his back to the picture, and never looked at it at all. He hated it, I’m sure of that. Of course, he never took me into his confidence. We were not what you might term good friends. I suppose it was foolish of me to take up Harry’s quarrel, but I never liked Dick—you don’t mind me calling him Dick?—after that.”
She glanced nervously through the window. The sun had set, and dusk was creeping over the great park.
“If I get any sleep to-night I’ll be lucky,” she said. “Do you mind if I leave my door open and keep a light burning?”
“Why, of course not,” smiled Leslie.
“There is a lock on the door, and I asked Glover to find me the key,” Miss Wenner went on. “And I’ll tell you frankly, Leslie, that if he hadn’t found it I wouldn’t have stayed, not for all the money in the world.”
Leslie felt that it would be indiscreet to offer encouragement to a further discussion of this subject, for she was as reluctant to spend the night under that roof as her new-found friend.