CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE LADY AT THE GATE
Cleek was conscious of a sense of keen disappointment at this piece of intelligence, it so completely upset all his calculation. Hitherto, the bits of the puzzle had fitted nicely and bade fair to make a smooth and flawless whole.
"Are you sure?" he whispered, laying a tense hand upon Dollops's arm. "Don't jump to a conclusion without positive evidence. Are you sure?"
"Rath-er! Of course it's too dark to see her face, gov'ner; but when she come to the gate the first time – she's been several, sir – it was a deal lighter on account of the moon not bein' hid so much with them blessed clouds, sir; and I could see then that she was wot you might call a high-stepper – summink classy and up in the nines, gov'ner, and had a way with her that you don't pick up if you aren't born to it. She couldn't have been putting it on for effect, 'cause she didn't know there was anybody there to see. Gone she is now, sir; slipped off over the Common, and I lost sight of her among all them furze bushes, but she'll come back, never fear. She's went away like that two or three times before, but always come back and tried the door, and jist struck her hands together and rocked back and forwards like she was half beside herself when she found it locked and nobody there to meet her."
"And you didn't succeed in seeing her face at all?"
"No, sir. It never was light enough for me to do that. But even if it had been, it wouldn't 'a' been no use, sir. She had summick that looked like a white lace scarf wrapped all round her head and over her face. But I was near enough to make out as she smelt summink beautiful of voylits, and had on one of them shiny, silky-lookin' kind of mackintoshes and a dress of pink silk."
A black mackintosh and a dress of pink silk! Not a black cloak lined with ermine! Not a dress of pink gauze! Of course Dollops was right in his statement that it was not Margot; that fact alone proved it. So there was a second woman who prowled about Wuthering Grange and endeavoured to see somebody in secret, was there? Whom? Harry Raynor or Lord St. Ulmer?
Clearly the one in the pink gauze – Margot beyond all possible question – came to see Raynor, for Hamer had identified her as the woman he had seen in that young man's company that day at Kingston. Who, then, was this other woman in pink? And whom did she come to see? What was her mission, her place in this elusive puzzle?
Come to think of it, he had been a fool to imagine when Dollops first spoke of her that it could possibly be Margot. The pink dress itself ought to have told him that. For although young Raynor had said that the lady he knew as Mademoiselle Mignon de Varville nearly always dressed in pink, Margot was no such fool as to prowl round this place to-night in the identical frock she had worn at the time of the tragedy, and from which that tiny scrap had been torn by the nail head in the floor of Gleer Cottage.
True, nobody but Narkom and Ailsa and he himself knew, as yet, of the finding of that betraying scrap, but – Ah, well, you couldn't catch Margot napping! She might not know when, how, nor where that scrap had been torn off, but her shrewd eyes would detect the missing bit in the skirt: she would be on to it like a cat on a mouse. He knew her methods, knew her miscroscopic carefulness and attention to detail. What, then, was this other woman's place in the puzzle? What was she after? Whom had she come to see? He'd make it his business to find that out, and in short order, too.
These things had travelled through Cleek's thoughts rapidly. It was scarcely more than a moment after Dollops had last spoken when he addressed the boy again.
"I've got something important on hand for you, as I told you, my lad," he said in a cautious whisper. "But, first, tell me: where is this other door in the wall of which you speak, the one where the Pink Woman goes?"
"Jist about thirty feet farther up, gov'ner; there where them mulberry trees is so blessed thick. You don't notice the place till you come smack on to it, on account of furze bushes and ivy along the foot of the wall. You can creep up till you're almost on it, though, without a body seein' of you, 'specially if you go before the party comes back."
"Right you are," said Cleek in reply. "I'll act on that tip, my lad. Now, then, listen here. There's a ruin in the grounds of this place, and that ruin I particularly wish to have closely watched to-night. For one thing, the man who murdered the Common keeper made his way to that place and buried his victim's clothing there; and for another – oh, well, never mind. That will keep for later. Miss Lorne" – he turned to Ailsa, who all along had remained silent and closely huddled back in the shadow of the wall-angle and the trees – "Miss Lorne, we shall have to defer our stroll on the Common until later, I'm afraid. I shall have to look into the matter of this mysterious woman in pink before we can give any further thought to Lady Clavering and her possible anxiety over her stepson. In the meantime, will you, as silently and as expeditiously as you can, steal back through the grounds and show Dollops the way to the ruin? Afterward, you and I can meet again here. And you, Dollops, listen closely to what I say. The chances are that some one, either man or woman, will secretly visit that ruin to-night. Keep yourself well hidden and your eyes wide open. If a woman comes, slip away from the place as quietly as you can, come round to the shrubbery near the front entrance to the house, and hoot like an owl three times in succession; then lie low until I come out and join you. But if, on the other hand, it should be a man who puts in an appearance – here, lay hold of this pair of handcuffs – look sharp! At all costs, at any hazard, get those things on him and then blow your police whistle as a signal to me. I'll be with you like a shot. Now, then, cut along with you. Show him the way, Miss Lorne, and be as quiet as you can in your movements, both of you."
"Mice'll be fools to us, sir," whispered Dollops.
Cleek waited a minute to let them get well on their way, then stooped in the darkness, crept to the wall door, opened it cautiously, and went down on all-fours upon the strip of grass and the row of furze bushes that flanked that wall upon the outer side and made a narrow black alley between it and the crowded mulberry trees.
The moon had ridden farther than ever into the depths of the thick, slow-moving clouds, and the darkness was almost opaque. To the left the great Common stretched out, a thing of gloom and shadows, blotted here and there with deeper black where the furze clumps were thickest or the full-leaved tree reached up above the skyline. On the right, the blank wall rose, flat, smooth as your hand, so tall it shut out even the lights in the windows of the Grange; and between these lay Mulberry Lane, a black funnel leading on to deeper darkness and the shapelessness of crowded trees.
In the shadows of that narrow alley made by the wall and the furze bushes Cleek crouched a moment and listened before he ventured to move another inch. Not a sound, not the merest ghost of a sound. If the woman were in the immediate neighbourhood, she was keeping extremely quiet; therefore it behoved him to progress with infinite caution. Inch by inch, on hands and knees, he moved up that narrow alley, stopping every now and then to prick up his ears and listen breathlessly. But upon every occasion he found the stillness yet unbroken and no sign or sound of breathing life anywhere about him.
Two minutes passed – three – five – half a dozen, and still all was as it had been in the beginning. By this time this slow, cautious creeping had carried him over two thirds of the distance, and he was now within ten or eleven feet of the hidden gate; and still no sound or sign of the woman's return. Indeed, no sound of any sort until, with one hand outstretched and one knee lifted to edge forward yet a trifle more, he paused abruptly, sucked in his breath, and huddled softly down, becoming but a mere dark heap on the damp, dark grass.
A sound had come at last! The unmistakable sound of some one moving cautiously through close-pressing branches and crowded leaves.
It was so faint a thing that ears less keen than his might not have detected it. Yet, at the first rustle of the first stirred leaf he caught the hiss of it and knew it was not the woman that made it; for the prickly foliage of furze makes no rustling sound when a passing body brushes it, and there was nothing upon the outer side of the wall but furze that was low enough to be brushed in passing.
Clearly, then, the sound was from the other side of the wall, from within the grounds of the Grange! Some one was coming to keep the tryst – some one who, evidently, had been delayed past an agreed time, otherwise the woman would not have made all those anxious pilgrimages to the door and been so upset when she found it still locked and nobody there to meet her.
Well, this was a stroke of good fortune at all events; for if by any chance the woman did not return there would at least be the satisfaction of discovering – A sound interrupted: a cat's mew to the life. And from the shadow of a thick furze hedge on the Common side of the lane it was answered.
"Yes, I am here," a shrill, eager voice called out in a sharp, keen whisper. "Oh, come quickly or I shall go insane!"
Almost instantly there was a rustle of silken garments, a patter of footsteps, the swift moving of a figure across the lonely lane, followed by the rattle and click of a key in a spring lock, the creak of an in-swung gate moving upon its hinges, and with these things the sound of an excited man whispering warningly, "Sh-h-h!" as the woman swept down upon him in a state bordering on absolute hysteria.
"Oh, if you could but know what agonies I have suffered, what horrors of suspense I have endured!" she said in a wailing sort of whisper, "I feared that you might not be able to come, after I have risked so much to be here; but when I heard the cat's mew, I wonder that I did not scream."
And again the man's whispered "Sh-h-h!" sounded, but fuller than ever of excitement and fear.
But Cleek scarcely heard it. Other and more startling things were claiming his thoughts. A scent of violets was in his nostrils; a sting of bitter recollection was in his memory. What was it the dying Common keeper had said? "All shiny pale green satin, sir, with sparklin' things on her bosom, and smellin' like a field of voylits in the month of May!"
He did not need Ailsa Lorne to point her out to him after this. He knew without anybody telling him; knew in that first moment, as surely as he ever lived to know in moments yet to come, that this veiled and night-hidden woman who stood there by the garden door keeping tryst with a man was she who had been out on the Common last night: Sir Philip Clavering's wife!
And the man she was meeting, this crafty fellow who hung back in the shadow of the solid gate, who and what was he? What part was his in this grim riddle of death?
It was Lady Clavering herself who gave the answer.
"Oh, it is so easy to say that," she went on, answering his warning "Sh-h-h" in a whisper that was shrill with agony and despair, "but the dread of shrieking will be on me forever after this, the horrible dread that if I do not cry out in my waking moments I may unconsciously do so in my sleeping ones. I know it was mad of me to do this thing, to take this dreadful risk in coming here; but I couldn't sleep until I saw you, until I had told you that I know! I think I knew it yesterday; I think I foresaw it when you wrote and warned me, and if I had not been a coward, if fate had not sent him to Clavering Close last night and let me see that it was written he should come back into my life again – "
Her voice snapped off and failed her for an instant, sinking down to a dull, whimpering sound like the wail of an animal that is beaten; then it came back to her and she spoke again.
"I knew you would kill him, I knew that you would!" she said in that horrible, excited whisper. "I felt it in my soul the moment he looked up and recognized me, and I knew what I – what you – had to dread. It was that that drove me out on the Common. I wanted to find you; I wanted to stop you. But it was too late, too late! I know that you did it for my sake as much as for your own, but the thought of the thing, the thought of it! If anything can palliate that, if God can in any way excuse it, it will be that you got the letters; that you tore them up, burnt them, did anything in the world but let them fall into that woman Margot's hands! Oh, did you? I cannot sleep until I know. For if you did not – "
Here her voice snapped again, but for quite another reason this time, a reason which made Cleek groan inwardly.
Far down at the other end of the dark alley where he lay breathlessly listening, a faint rustling sound had suddenly risen – the sound of some one creeping gently toward him. He knew and understood what was happening, what an unkindly blow fate had dealt him. Ailsa was returning. She had taken his expression, "Afterward you and I can meet here again," to mean after she had conducted Dollops to the ruin, not after Cleek's own work was done; and lo! here she was returning at this inopportune moment. She was creeping along on tiptoe, it was true, and moving as stealthily and as silently as she knew how, but in that utter stillness, with silk skirts that brushed the wall as she advanced —
The end came abruptly. There was just one second of breathless listening, then without a word the two people at the open doorway parted. Lady Clavering jumped back, darted across the lane, and vanished in the blackness of the Common; the wall door closed, the spring lock clicked, and the sound of a man's running echoed faintly from the other side. No time this for craft and finesse. Here was a call for action, a demand for muscle, not brain. If that man was a member of this household, if fleet running could do it, if any man who should be under that roof was not there —
Cleek was on his feet like a flash. He scudded down the lane openly, he ducked into the door and vanished into the gardens without so much as a word to Ailsa, he struck through the plantation and made a short cut for the lawn and the front door, and with jaw squared and teeth shut, ran and ran and ran.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE MOUSETRAP
Cleek covered the distance between the wall angle and the door of the Grange in a fraction over a minute, and he had neither heard any one nor seen any one on the way. He went up the steps two at a time, and, swinging into the hallway, made hot foot for the dining-room. An inward push on the door and all that lay beyond it was in view.
The lights were still burning, the decanter and the glasses still en évidence, and, what was still more to the point, there lay Mr. Harry Raynor with his arms sprawled out over the tablecloth and his head between them, snoring away in a semi-drunken stupor, with his mouth wide open and his flushed face a little less attractive in slumber than it was in wakefulness.
Not he, then!
Cleek dashed out of the room and flew upstairs to Lord St. Ulmer's room. No time for craft and cunning this. At whatever risk, at whatever cost, he must assure himself of where that man was at this particular moment; and, even if he had to break down the door to get in – The possibility ceased to exist while it was yet taking shape in his mind.
For he had reached the second landing, had come within three feet of Lord St. Ulmer's room, when he heard a voice from within it say, "Then if there is nothing more, your lordship, allow me to thank your lordship and to say good-night" – and was in time to see the door open and Johnston, the butler, come out. More than that, to look past him and see the figure of a man lying in bed with his back to the door, his face to the wall, and one pajama-clad arm lying outside the bedclothing.
Not St. Ulmer either, eh? Then who the dickens – He turned and made a bolt for the staircase again.
"Anything I can get you, Mr. Barch?" inquired Johnston. "I've just returned from town, sir, so if there's anything Hamer has neglected to do in my absence – "
"No, thanks, don't want anything!" flung back Cleek, not waiting for him to finish; and then cut downstairs again in such hot haste that his feet beat an audible tattoo upon the padded steps and gave such evidence of excitement that he was not at all surprised when the key of the library click-clacked sharply, the door opened, and General Raynor appeared.
"What's this? What's the meaning of all this confounded hubbub when I expressly said" – he began – and then, looking up and seeing Cleek, stopped short and changed his tone. "Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Barch; I didn't know it was you! Is there anything wrong?"
"No, General," replied Cleek. "Sorry if I disturbed you. Just looking for – " Then he, too, stopped short and changed his tone. For of a sudden his ear had caught the shrilling note of a distant police whistle, and excitement swayed him.
"Dollops, by Jupiter!" he cried unthinkingly. "Got him! Got him, the little brick!" and without another word he faced about, ran down the hall, and pelted off through the grounds in the direction of the ruin.
And all the time the police whistle was shrilling, and Dollops's voice was sounding, and the darkness was full of scuffling sounds. For the noise of the whistle had disturbed the servants, and Cleek was hard put to it to get to the scene of the uproar before them. He did, however; but they were close upon his heels and as excited as he when, upon nearing the ruin, they came upon two struggling figures linked together and careering about like a couple of fighting tomcats.
"Here yer are, gov'ner; ketched him foul, the rotter," sang out Dollops as his master came scudding up with all that troop of servants pounding along in his wake. "Look! See!"
Then an electric torch clicked, and lo, there he was, with one end of a pair of handcuffs snapped on his own wrist and the other locked fast upon that of a distinguished-looking man in a spring overcoat and evening clothes.
A stranger to Cleek this man, but not to the servants of Wuthering Grange; and it came as a shock when he heard them speak his name.
It was Sir Philip Clavering.
The man's identity had no sooner been made known than he broke forth with a storm of indignant protest.
"What is the meaning of this outrage, and who is this young person?" he demanded with heat. "As some of you have good enough eyes to recognize me, perhaps you will have good enough wits to go for your master and let me get to the bottom of this extraordinary proceeding as soon as possible. I should like to know what on earth this means. Ah, Raynor, is that you?" he added, as he caught sight of the General forcing his way to the front. "Glad you've put in an appearance. Perhaps you can throw some light upon this affair. Who's this fellow?" twitching his head toward Dollops. "What's he doing here? And what is the meaning of this astonishing business, if you please?"
"Good heavens above, how do you expect I am going to know? Never saw him in all my life," exclaimed the General in bewilderment. "Look here, young man, what's the meaning of this? Who are you? What are you doing in this place? Speak up.
"Name's Dollops," replied that youth serenely. "Business: Scotland Yard. Lay: Doin' wot I'm told by my gov'ner. Boss: Mr. 'Amilton Cleek, Es-quire. All other questions I refers to him."
Cleek! The name produced universal excitement. There was not one person present that had not, at one time or another, heard it and did not recollect of what it was the synonym. It stood for the Law and the coming of the Law! And last night a man had been done to death within a gunshot of this house.
"It is too absurd, too absurd!" said Sir Philip, after a moment, speaking with a little shaky laugh and looking Dollops up and down with half-contemptuous interest. "I hope, Raynor, that you – Good heavens above! What asinine mistakes the law does sometimes make. And it is all so easily explained. Superintendent Narkom of the Yard will speak for me if it is necessary. There can, by no shadow of possibility, be anything to connect me with that abominable case."
It was here that Cleek chose to take part in the affair, and with a warning glance at Ailsa, who had come up and joined the gathering, stepped forward and addressed Sir Philip.
"My dear Sir Philip Clavering, allow me to introduce myself," he said suavely, serene in the confidence that Dollops, hearing, would take the cue and act accordingly. "My name is Barch; I am at present a guest of the General's, and I am taking this liberty because I, too, happen to be a friend of Mr. Narkom's. I have heard him speak of you time and again, and always with the warmest interest. Perhaps, then, if we question this young man – " He turned to Dollops, and Dollops looked at him and never turned a hair! "Boy, what's all this thing about? How came you in this place, and for what reason?"
"Come in by the garden door, sir, 'arf an hour or so back. Told off by my gov'ner to lie low and wait for somebody who might come a-sneakin' about, meanin' to break into the house, I suppose, and with his eye on the plate."
"I see! Well, better take my advice, my lad, and unlock those handcuffs, and set this gentleman at liberty before they do come, or you're likely to have a sharp talking to from Superintendent Narkom. By the way, what induced you to snap them on him in the first place? You surely do not expect us to believe that a gentleman of Sir Philip Clavering's standing was acting suspiciously? What was he doing, if you please, that you should have gone to such a length?"
"Sneakin' along and feelin' about the bushes like he was huntin' for somethin'," said Dollops as he unlocked the handcuffs and put them in his pocket.
"He is quite right in that, Mr. Barch. I was looking for something," said Sir Philip, wiping his wrists with his handkerchief, as though to remove something of the infection with which he felt he had come into contact. "As a matter of fact, I was looking for my way. I had come into the grounds from a point where I had never before entered them, and I was endeavouring to find a path which would lead me to the house. As it was as black as a pocket, nothing was left me but to feel my way. I got hopelessly muddled up, and was just telling myself that I would have done better to make my call in orthodox fashion and by the regular entrance, when, the first thing I knew, this enterprising young man jumped out of the dark and pounced on me like a monkey. You see, it was this way, Raynor," glancing up at the General, who was looking at him fixedly, and with a curious ridge between his brows, as if, for some reason, he only half believed him, though for years they had been tried and trusted friends; "I was in such a dickens of a hurry to see you that when I came off the Common and found that wall door open – "
"Open? What wall door open?" interposed the General agitatedly.
"The one at the angle of the wall, where your boundary flanks the waste land between here and the right-of-way across the fields."
"And you found that door open? Open? Why, man alive, it has been locked and screwed up for years."
"Has it, indeed? Well, it was open to-night, then. As I was saying, when I found that open, I thought that, possibly, it might be a short cut to the house, so I dashed in and got into this abominable fix."
"But why did you wish to take a short cut to the house, Clavering? Was there any reason for such a thing?"
"None but that I was anxious; that I am anxious still, when it comes to that. About my boy, Geoff, you know."
"About Geoff?"
"Yes, you know how foolish Marise and I are over him. He left to come over here early this afternoon, and said he would not be long, but he did not return even for dinner. Of course Marise was disappointed, for she had said that after so much gloom and depression we must do all that we could to brighten him up and to appear merry, and even went to the length of getting out a pink silk frock which he had always admired, when she dressed for dinner to-night. She was distressed when he didn't come, and anxiety brought on a splitting headache, so bad, in fact, that she went to her room to lie down and rest. Later, Celine came down to tell me she had taken a sleeping draught and there was every likelihood of her sleeping until morning. I was glad when I heard that, for I knew how she would worry if she were awake and the boy did not return at a reasonable hour; and when it crept along to be nine o'clock and after, I don't mind confessing that I began, myself, to worry."
"Why?" said Cleek, dropping in an unexpected query.
"My dear Mr. Barch, you wouldn't ask that if you knew what a bond of affection exists between my son and me," Sir Philip replied. And Cleek heard, or fancied that he heard, the General give a sort of sigh, as if he were contrasting this man's heir with his own. "Besides, after that mysterious and abominable affair last night – after a man had been murdered in this identical neighbourhood, to have my boy out and alone – Oh, well, you can understand. I got a bit nervous – a bit dotty, if you like. I imagined all sorts of things, and when it got to be half-past nine I set out to walk across the Common to meet him. I didn't, however, so I suppose he is still here; and in the enjoyment of Lady Katharine's society and the hope that has so unexpectedly returned to them both, has forgotten all about the time and the probable worrying of his silly old dad. That's why I was so anxious to get to the house as quickly as possible, Raynor, and why I was foolish enough to take what I fancied might be a short cut. I wanted to be certain that the boy is still here; I wanted to walk back with him when he goes home. No harm can possibly come to him then."
Not once during all this had General Raynor's eyes left the man's face, nor had the faint pallor and the curiously tense look departed from his own. He stood looking at Sir Philip in intense and unbroken silence, his lips tightly set, a worried look in his fixed eyes, as if he were trying to believe this thing and found it difficult to do so. Now, however, he turned to the assembled servants, ordered them back to the house, made one or two uneasy turns up and down for a distance of three or four yards, then halted suddenly and looked into Sir Philip's face again.
"Clavering," he said in his abrupt, direct manner, going straight to the point, as was his custom. "Clavering, are you sure that you are telling the truth about this? Are you sure? Will you swear, will you give me your word of honour, that it was to seek your boy, that and that alone, which brought you to this place to-night?"
"Raynor! By the Lord Harry, sir – "
"No, don't fly into a passion. Anger is no answer, and an answer is what I want. A man of honour responds promptly to an appeal to that honour; and I am asking you on yours if you are telling the truth?"
"On my word of honour, then, I am!" said Sir Philip indignantly.
"And you will swear by it that you came only to meet your son? That you had no other purpose in coming whatsoever?"
"Yes, decidedly I will swear it. Are you taking leave of your senses, Raynor? What other reason could I have?"
An expression of intense relief drove that other and darker look from the General's face and eyes.
"I don't know," he said, fetching a deep sigh; "but I am glad to have your word for it, glad to say that I accept it. Still, why should I not ask? Why should I not question everything, any statement, in the face of to-night?"
"I don't know what you are driving at, I am sure."
"Don't you? Then let me tell you: your boy is not here. He left this afternoon; came and stayed but a little time, and left so early that there has been time and to spare for him to get back to Clavering Close a dozen times over. On the top of that, you tell me that a door in my garden wall, a door that has been locked up, and screwed up, and even rusted up, for years was found standing open. And on top of that again, an emissary of the police, of Scotland Yard, of that man Cleek, is here in these grounds. Who opened that door? What brings the police to Wuthering Grange? That is what mystifies me; that is what I want to know. What brings the police here, of all places in England? Do you know, Clavering? Do you know, Miss Lorne? Do you know, Mr. Barch?"
"Not the ghost of an idea, I assure you, General," said Cleek serenely. "Never knew the beggars were here until this young person declared himself. But, yes, by Jove! We'll have 'em here in full force presently, I'm afraid, if those sounds go for anything. Coming in answer to that blessed whistle, I'll lay my life. Here, boy!" – this to Dollops – "nip off as quickly as you can, and head them off. Tell 'em it's a mistake; tell 'em you didn't mean to blow that whistle for assistance. Move sharp; we don't want that lot in here, or – Hullo! I say, what's the matter, Sir Philip? A bad turn, is it? Upon my soul, you look as white as a sheet!"
It was no exaggeration. The moon, coming suddenly out from behind the clouds at that moment, showed him leaning heavily against a tree and looking pale as a dead man.