The Curse of the Reckaviles

Chapter I.
The “Final”

The Final for the Hospital Cup was being fought out between Guys and Barts, and the usual crowd of joyful medicos were making their way to the ground, dressed in every fantastic garb, ringing bells and waving hideous ear-splitting rattles. The crowd watched good humouredly, as here a coster’s cart passed with donkey and “Bill” and “Liza,” here the ex-Kaiser with carrots behind his ears, and Joan of Arc and Humpty-Dumpty, and clowns with balloons and Dilly and Dally, and the rest. The police had seen it all before, and shepherded them along with firmness and good temper.

The ground was in a state of pandemonium till the whistle blew, when silence fell on the spectators, as the teams got down to serious work.

Each was well balanced, but contained particular stars, the darlings of their supporters; here was Histon the international wing “three,” who had scored the only try for England in that great tussle with Ireland, and Blackett the Scottish forward whose name was terror.

Not least among them was Sefton, now in his last year, who was in the running for his International Cap, on the left wing, a deadly straight runner, who might easily win the match if properly fed by his centre. And so they ran through the names, and weighed the chances, while thirty young Britons in the pride of perfect fitness strove for the mastery, as many of them had fought in the Great War, with a single purpose, to win or perish as became them.

Half time came with no score, and the rattles clattered like machine guns, and the hooters hooted, and drums beat.

Then the struggle became fierce and desperate. Time after time the grand Barts pack went through with a rush, only to be stopped by the intrepid Jacks, at full back, who hurled himself on the ball regardless of life and limb, or so it seemed to the more tender of the crowd.

Time and again a passing movement on the old Welch lines, en echelon, with perfect timing nearly let the Guys’ “threes” in, but still the lines were uncrossed. Histon had tried his dangerous drops, and all but won between the posts, and Sefton with his marvellous pace had run right through, to be tackled magnificently by Barron the full back, and so the tide had veered amidst the wildest excitement on the part of the spectators.

Time was running out, and many a looker-on glanced at his watch expecting a replay, when Guys’ scrum half “sold the dummy,” and cross kicked. Sefton’s inside took it superbly, and ran straight. There was one chance, and young Sefton took it, crossing inside, he took a pass at full speed, and raced in between the posts, in a scene of wild shouting and every noise that could be made.

The match was over, and Sefton was carried shoulder high to the Pavilion, in a never to be forgotten moment of triumph.

A glorious sense of exhilaration filled him. This was a fitting ending to his career, he hoped later to get his degree, but what was that compared to having won the cup.

In the dressing room his hand was nearly wrung off, as he got rid of the mud of the match.

His one regret was that his sister Ena, who had promised to come to the match, had not put in an appearance, and the thought of this disturbed him in an unaccountable manner.

As he came from the dressing room, one of the doctors met him, with a grave face, which gave him a sense of impending disaster, and drew him into a small side room.

“I am sorry to say, Sefton, I have some very bad news for you. This telegram came during the match, and we did not like to give it to you then. I opened it in case I could answer it for you.”

The words were terrible enough when Sefton read them:

“Come at once Father dying. Ena.”

In the silence of the room, the shouting and cheering outside could be heard, and a great feeling of bitterness came over Sefton at the contrast between the happy throng outside, and his own misery. He wanted to run out and tell them to stop. It was unseemly to cheer when his father was dying. Then he turned on the doctor angrily.

“Why did you not give me this at once? I suppose you thought I would leave the ground. Now I may get there too late.”

The doctor laid his hand on his shoulder kindly.

“No my boy, but there was only ten minutes to go, and knowing how keen you were on the match, we thought you would rather we kept it for that short time.”

“Forgive me, the news has upset me. Of course if I had got it then we should not have won, it was selfish of me.”

“I have a taxi here all ready for you,” said the doctor, and he led Sefton out by the back way, and put him inside.

“I will tell the others,” he said.

The misery of the journey Sefton never forgot.

He knew his father had been in failing health for some time, but had not expected any sudden failure.

Sefton’s Mother was dead, and his young sister had only left school the summer before to look after the house.

It was an ugly bleak house in Finchley that the doctor occupied, too big and poorly furnished, for he had never made a success of his practice, being far too much occupied with research. When his wife had been in full health, he had taken in one or two patients who were on the borderline of insanity, and treated them himself, but his wife’s breakdown in health put a stop to this source of income, and if she had known it, of brilliant discovery.

When Sefton arrived, and had got rid of the taxi, he was met by Ena, on whose face were marks of tears.

“Oh I am so glad you’ve come, father had been asking for you, the doctor has just left but is coming back.”

“How is father?” he asked.

“Bad, very bad I am afraid. He had a heart attack, quite suddenly, after lunch, and I thought he had died, but he rallied. Of course, I could not leave him, and wired for you.”

Jack Sefton went straight in to his father. There had never been much love lost between these two, for the doctor had been engrossed in some research work, and did not seem to understand his son, or take any interest in his career except to urge him on to get qualified. Perhaps he knew his own days were numbered.

He was propped up with pillows and looked ghastly, with a blue tinge about his face.

“I can’t talk much, Jack,” he said slowly “and I know the next attack will be the end, but I must have a word with you alone. I am afraid I have some bad news to tell you, the fact is I have neglected my business so much lately that the practice has gone to pieces. And I have been so careless in collecting accounts that I have had to dip into the little sum I had stored away for you and Ena. I am afraid there is little left.” He sighed.

A feeling of bitterness came to Jack. “Do you mean that we shall be penniless,” then he realised what this meant “that I shall have to leave the hospital without qualifying.”

“I am afraid so, my boy, unless you can borrow …”

“Borrow, who could I borrow from? Why could you not have told me before?”

“I was afraid to, and I had hoped to have made some money.”

Jack turned away with a movement of impatience.

“Don’t be angry with me now, Jack. I shall not be here much longer, and I have tried my best. And I have something I must tell you before I go, come here. It is less strain for me to whisper.”

The doctor spoke earnestly, and Jack bent over him while he told what had to be said. At intervals, Jack gave him teaspoonfuls of brandy, for he was weakening. When he had finished he lay back and closed his eyes. “Better fetch Ena,” he said in a tired voice. Jack went out quickly and summoned the girl who came in dry-eyed and anxious. Jack telephoned in haste for the doctor, but before he arrived the end had come, and Jack and his sister were left to face the world alone.

The days that followed were full of wretchedness for the young people. There was the funeral, and the settling up, when Jack found that things were worse than even his father had thought. The house was only rented and this was behind, and there were debts to be met, even Ena’s last school bill being still unpaid.

Then he went to see the Hospital authorities, who were very kind as far as sympathy went, but adamant with regard to the future. Fees were owing already, and it would be impossible for him to go on for the next two terms to complete, unless payments were made. They were very sorry but the rules were strict. Perhaps he could find work, and later come back and complete his course, and so on.

Jack came away in utter dejection, to the house from which most of the furniture had been removed, and which they had to vacate the next day with nowhere to go.

The one bright star was Ena, who faced the situation with splendid bravery, and refused to despair.

When Jack came in, she met him with a cheery smile, and listened to his story with sympathetic interest.

“You poor boy,” she said, “you must feel it very much, but perhaps some day in the near future, things may get better, and you will be able to get qualified.”

Jack felt ashamed of his despair in face of her pluck.

“I have tried everything, but apart from becoming a professional in the Northern Union, if I was good enough, I can’t see any hope. How do we stand?”

She knew what he meant, as she it was who had gone through the accounts, and settled the bills, as soon as the lawyers had done their part and taken their heavy toll.

“We shan’t have much, dear, about fifty pounds I reckon, perhaps a little more, couldn’t you possibly manage on that?”

“Impossible, and you have to live as well, remember,” and he smiled at her. “No, there is only one thing. If I can get away to some quiet place, I may be able to do something, there is just a chance. Father told me a secret before he died, and there may be something in it, or it may be that his brain was weakening, and that he was imagining things.”

She looked at him questioningly, but understood he did not wish to say anything further.

And then the post brought a letter from a school friend of Ena’s, one of the few with whom she had kept in contact. It was to say that her parents had a summer bungalow at Portham-on-Sea, which they did not use in the winter, and that if the Seftons cared to make use of it they were quite welcome. The key was with the agent, and so on.

“There,” said Ena gaily, “I told you something would turn up.”

“Where is this Portham, I’ve never heard of it?”

“It’s on the South Coast, my friend has often told me of it, shall we go there?”

“I suppose so, we haven’t much choice, but I should imagine it’s pretty bad this weather. We can’t stay here, so had better try.”

“Oh! let’s get away from here,” said Ena, in a voice which showed how the strain was telling on her.

Jack came round and put his arm round her. “Poor old girl, you have had a wretched time, and all the worry has come on you; let’s get out of it.”

There was little to pack, and the same afternoon saw them on their way to Portham Junction, and as the dreary bungalow town opened before them, hideous and forbidding, their hearts sank within them. Even Ena’s spirits were damped, and she clung to Jack for a moment.

“I’m afraid, I don’t know why,” she said, “but I feel as though we were going into a black tunnel, ever so deep and long.”

“Never mind, dear,” he said to reassure her “as long as there’s an opening the other end.”

So Fate plays havoc with our lives.

Chapter II.
The Coming of the Stranger

Ena Sefton was returning from the local grocer, who carried on a desperate, and fortuitous existence during the winter months, hoping to reap a harvest in the summer. The place now was derelict, like a show when the season has finished, and the few inhabitants wandered round like the survivors of a plague.

Some of the bungalows had wooden shutters nailed over the windows to save the glass, and looked like houses of the dead. Others showed through the uncurtained windows dim suggestions of deck chairs, and furniture covered with sheets. Pebbles and sand covered the verandas, and pools of discoloured water stood in the rutted road.

There was no symmetry or order about the bungalows; some more pretentious than others, showed marks of distinction, such as a ship in full sail over the roof, as a wind-vane, or a conservatory where languid flowers and shrubs waited for the spring. These were the aristocrats of Bungalow Town. Nestling between two such, would come a chubby democrat, quite unashamed of his appearance, made of two railway carriages with a pent roof over them, and a notice stating that “This Desirable Bungalow” was “to be Let Furnished.”

In the summer all alike would be crowded with happy people, but now they were ruinous and depressing.

Ena made her way down the road, stopping now and then as a fierce blast struck her and a blinding spindrift nearly choked her.

Progress was difficult against the wind bitter with salt and driven sand, carrying a heavy shopping basket. The stranger almost collided with her, and drew on one side with apologies. He glanced at the girl, and then politely asked if he might carry the basket, and with quiet insistence took it from her.

“The storm is very bad just here between the bungalows,” he said. “I will come with you for a little way if I may.”

With his cultured tone there was a note of determination, and Ena was glad of his help, besides being amused at his presumption. He walked beside her regardless of the pools of water, sheltering her from the worst of the storm, till they came to her bungalow, which was all dark and forbidding.

“This is where we live,” she said “but my brother is evidently not back yet; won’t you come in and wait for the rest of the storm to blow over, he cannot be long.”

“My name is Halley,” said the man, bowing slightly. “I am staying here for a short time, but I think I had better get back; I shall have the wind behind me, you see.”

Ena glanced at him, and noticed in the dim light that he was tall and fragile-looking.

“Are you afraid of coming in?” she asked with a mocking laugh, “or is it merely a question of convention?”

“Neither, Miss …” he began.

“Sefton is my name … Ena Sefton, and my brother’s name is Jack.”

Her manner was refreshing and he judged her very young.

“I will certainly do so if you ask me in that way, but an invitation in these circumstances is often a matter of form, to be refused like a dinner invitation when one knows there is nothing to eat.”

They both laughed, and Ena opened the door. Her life was so lonely that she was rather enjoying the chance of talking to one who was evidently a gentleman.

He carried the basket in for her, helped her light a lamp, and an oil stove, which had gone out and had been smoking horribly.

“My brother will be back soon, and you must let me make you a cup of tea. You see there is something to eat from the weight of the basket.” He saw a merry smile come to her mouth, and a pair of trusting blue eyes looked into his.

Soon they were sitting over the oil stove, now giving out a welcome heat, and had started to thaw.

“I wonder where Jack can have got to?” she said. “He went out for a walk some time ago.”

Halley thought to himself “And left you to carry the supplies,” but he left the remark unsaid.

“He has taken lately to these long walks, and I find it rather lonely. I would like you to see him.”

“I shall be delighted,” answered Halley, amused at her naïve manner. “I am a stranger here, perhaps the air will do me good.”

She glanced at him, and thought he looked ill, though straight and very handsome. She imagined he had suffered in health or through some secret sorrow, and her girlish fancy was already building a romantic past round him.

The silence was becoming awkward. Outside the rain was streaming from the roof, and the wind moaned with sullen fury.

“How do you like this place?” she asked, to say something.

“It is quiet, and suits me, but …”

“What?”

He glanced at her. “Well, this horrible murder at the castle has rather upset things.”

She gave a nervous shudder. “It has upset us all. I get quite frightened, my brother is out so much, and I sit here and listen to the wind, and imagine all sorts of things.”

“You poor girl!” he said so gently that it took all the familiarity from the remark.

“The villagers, what there are of them, declare there is a curse on the Reckaviles,” she said and shivered.

“You don’t believe that?”

“I don’t know, I went and looked at the castle—it’s a dreary place, and one can picture anything happening there.”

He glanced at her anxiously, this morbid conversation must stop before he went: he heartily cursed the brother for leaving this sweet little creature alone.

“May I smoke?” he asked to change the talk.

“Why, certainly,” she said, and bit her tongue with vexation as she realised she had nothing to offer, but Halley produced his case.

“You don’t?” he asked offering it to her.

“No, that’s not one of my vices,” she laughed.

“Do you know I am so glad; I suppose I am old-fashioned, but I can never get used to girls smoking, especially young girls.”

“I’m twenty-one,” she said bridling.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Sefton, I was not thinking of any special case.”

She did not know whether to be annoyed or not, so changed the conversation.

“The wireless set is our only amusement, but I am afraid it is out of order.”

He walked across and examined it.

“It is a very good set, but there is something wrong. May I have an examination?”

“It is not ours you know; it belongs to the house, we only have the use of it while we are here.”

She watched him under the lamplight, his keen alert face and deft fingers suggested the artist. He fixed the ear phones to his head and began juggling with screws and wires in skillful manner. Ena watched him with the fascination a novice always feels for the expert, till the boiling kettle drew her to her duties with the teapot.

Halley removed the ear phones, and switched on the loud speaker, when a faint sound of music came forth.

“There is something wrong,” he said, “but I think I can put it right for you, if you will allow me to come again.”

“Why, certainly, but come and have a cup of tea now.”

They were soon sitting like old friends over the oil stove, discussing the place, and again she resorted to the gruesome crime which had fallen on the village—the murder of Lord Reckavile in his castle. Seeing that she was bent on discussing it he let her have her way.

“Did you ever see him?” he asked quietly.

“No, you know he very seldom came here. He had only been back from abroad quite a short time. It is altogether a mystery, but you know they say there is a curse on the family. No one will go near the castle now, even in the daytime, and you could not get anyone in the village to go there at night for any sum of money.”

“He was stabbed, wasn’t he? I read the bare account of the inquest.”

“Yes, in the back, and there was no one in the room,” she glanced uneasily round the lounge, and listened to the breaking of the waves and the wash of the sea outside.

His anger rose against her brother for leaving her alone, and though he knew he had no right to presume on her invitation, he stayed on as long as he possibly could.

At last he rose.

“I must really go,” he said. “I will come round and put your set right, and perhaps I can see your brother then.”

“Thank you so much. It has been so good of you to keep me company,” and there was a wistful look in her eyes.

She came with him to the door, and as he opened it a blast of the storm struck them, making the lamp flare up. Halley reeled against the door-post with a quick gasp of pain.

“What is the matter?” she asked anxiously.

“Nothing, just a touch of giddiness, an old wound which troubles me sometimes.”

She watched him down the rough road, bending with the fierce gale, and came in with a sigh.

Halley was as good as his word. He came the next evening with a parcel under his arm. All day Ena had been looking forward with pleasure to seeing him. She had told Jack of the chance meeting, which news he had received in a surly manner.

“We can’t afford to entertain, you know, Ena, and I don’t like people seeing our penury.”

“I am sorry,” she said. “I thought it would be a man friend for you, and Mr. Halley does not seem the kind of man who wants entertaining as you call it.”

“From your description he seems a sort of wandering artist fellow, and I hate that type. I don’t know that I care to see him much.”

“But Jack, you must. He cannot come here and find you out again, and he is coming to put the wireless set right. You know you would like to have it working.”

“Oh, is he?” said Jack. “Well, I can tell you what is wrong with it, it wants a new high tension battery, which costs about a sovereign, and we can’t afford it.”

Ena started—she wondered if Halley had found that out.

“You will come home won’t you, Jack?” she pleaded.

“I don’t know, Ena. I’ll try, but I can’t be certain.”

There was a shifty look in his eyes which she did not like, but he jumped up abruptly and left her without further discussion.

When Halley came the storm had gone, and the moon was shining on the water. He had quite a boyish appearance and came in with a cheerful smile. Ena greeted him with pleasure, but felt a sense of shame at Jack’s absence again.

“I am sorry to call so late, Miss Sefton,” he said “but I have been away all day, and I thought there was more chance of seeing your brother—besides it will be better for the wireless.”

“Jack promised to be in,” she said doubtfully. “He should have been here before now.”

He placed his parcel on the little table, and undid the wrapper, and she saw with misgiving what was inside.

“You have not got a new battery?” she asked, and her colour rose.

“Yes, I thought perhaps that was the trouble,” and he proceeded to fix it.

She was annoyed. It was taking a mean advantage of their poverty and she resented it, but what could she say? Offer to pay for it? That would be an insult again. She feared what Jack would say knowing how sensitive he was on this point.

“You should not have done that,” she said weakly.

“It is nothing, Miss Sefton. It is too good a set to be idle.”

But there was a feeling of restraint between them which he noticed. The adjustment made, he turned on the switch, and tuned in. A burst of music filled the room, and conversation was unnecessary.

The evening was delightful, and he stayed on giving her the best from the different programmes. At nine-thirty came the news bulletin, and weather forecast, and after that an announcement. She caught the words “Portham Junction” and heard Mr. Halley give a quick intake of breath.

Then came the stony words. “I will repeat.” “Missing from Home, Frederic Summers, Bank Manager from Tunbridge Wells, since January 20th. Aged 40. Tall, clean-shaven, dark. Last seen at Portham Junction carrying a hand-bag. He had gone on a week’s holiday, and his friends have heard no news of him since that date.” And then followed the usual request for information.

Ena looked up, and their eyes met.

“It appears to be one of those mysterious disappearances which baffle the police,” he said in level tones.

“But it’s so near to this place, and coming after the—other thing,” she said and stopped.

“There’s no need for alarm,” said he “it may be a simple case of loss of memory, or some natural explanation.”

“Of course, but this place is so lonely, and Jack is out so much.”

“You must tell him, and ask him to come in earlier, but forgive me, I have no right to talk like that.” He spread out his hands in apology, and she for a moment was reminded of something not quite English. There was just a touch of the alien, not menial, but rather belonging to the Age of Chivalry, which lives on in remote places.

“We must arrange a definite meeting,” he said. “You see, although this place is small, and quite unconventional, I cannot come here to see you. You understand that.”

“Of course, you are right. I will tell him when he comes in.”

Chapter III.
The End of the Line

“I want you to go to Portham-on-Sea, to take up the Reckavile murder, Fletcher,” said Chief Inspector Sinclair.

Fletcher was a youngster in the Service, with quick restless eyes, and an alert face; it was a great opportunity for him.

“I thought they would have to call us in, sir,” he said with a smile.

“It’s about time, too,” growled the older man “there’s the deuce of a fuss over the affair, not that the man was worth much, but he was a peer of the Realm, and a member of the House of Lords, though I don’t suppose he ever saw the inside of the building.”

“I thought perhaps you …” began Fletcher.

“Oh, I’ve got too much on hand already,” interrupted the other. “Besides it will give you a chance, and I know you younger men think I am getting too old for the work.”

There was a grim smile on the face of the old detective, as he noticed a guilty blush which Fletcher tried to hide.

“Well, just sit down and I will give you the main facts as they are known, though you have probably read the newspaper accounts.”

Fletcher nodded.

“Portham itself is a tiny fishing village, and the nearest station is Portham Junction, about two miles off. In the last few years there has grown up a bungalow town, about five miles to the west along the coast. This has been called Portham-on-Sea. Between these two is a wooded headland, and in these woods is situated Reckavile Castle. You will be able to see all this on the spot.

“Now for the crime. On January 14th last, Reckavile returned from one of his periodical journeys abroad. There is no one living at the castle except an old servant, Giles, and his wife, and most of it is permanently shut up. The whole place has run to seed, and there is only a track to the lodge where a gamekeeper of sorts, named Stevens, lives alone.

“On 20th January, at about 7 p. m. the village constable, John Brown, called to see Lord Reckavile about some alleged poachers, who had been hanging about the woods. He thought them poachers at the time, but in view of what has occurred, they may have had more sinister intentions. I suppose Giles and Brown stopped gossiping, and probably drinking the Reckavile beer, and then the servant went to tell his master.

“You must follow this carefully now. He came running back to Brown, saying he could get no answer, and that something was wrong as he heard sounds of quarrelling, though he had admitted no one to the house. He was white and trembling, and very agitated. He almost dragged the constable along, and when they reached the library door, they could distinctly hear two people talking. There were two doors, an outer one of oak, and an inner one of green baize. The constable has been thoroughly examined, though he is not very intelligent, I am afraid. He says they distinctly heard Reckavile say ‘Never, never, only over my dead body!’ The other replied ‘I only want justice and my right.’ They seemed to be angry. There was a confused noise, a sound of a blow, a horrible cry, and then silence.

“They waited a moment and knocked, but there was no answer; there was a heavy oak chair in the hall, and with this they battered down the door. The room was in a state of wild confusion—I use the constable’s words—the furniture overturned, and splashes of blood on the floor and chairs.

“Lord Reckavile was lying across the sofa, face downwards, and an ugly knife was sticking in his ribs. The room was empty, and Brown stayed there while Giles went for help. There is no doctor nearer than five miles off, so the gamekeeper rode off to the village to telephone for the doctor and the police at Ashstead, the nearest town.

“Outside the house, Giles met a certain Mr. Sefton, who was out for a walk. While he was not a qualified doctor, I believe he was a medical student, and Giles thought he might be of some service, so brought him in. He was able to pronounce the man dead—without a doubt.

“That is all. Here are the papers containing the account of the inquest, and of our confidential examinations. The best thing for you to do is to get on to the spot.”

Fletcher had produced a large pocket book, and taken notes. He now turned to them and read them through.

“May I ask a question or two, sir?” he said.

“Certainly,” said Sinclair “I should like you to do so, it will show what you are made of.”

“You say there was no one in the room. Is that absolutely certain?”

“The constable, as I told you, is rather a stupid person, but he never left the room after they burst open the door, and it was only a few minutes after that Giles returned with Sefton.”

“What about means of exit?” said Fletcher scanning his notes.

“A thorough search was made, first by the constable and the others, and afterwards by Sergeant Andrews from Ashstead. The windows were securely fastened, and there was no other door, and no trap doors or secret panels that can be found.”

“The door was locked, where was the key?” asked Fletcher again.

His Chief gave a chuckle. “Good!” he said, “there was no key found.”

“One last question, sir. What was the weapon?”

“An old dagger, with a thin blade. The waistcoat had been torn back, and the blade driven in between the ribs from the back, and had penetrated the heart. It had been cleverly done and seemed to show a knowledge of anatomy, but we must not jump to conclusions.”

“This is a tough nut, sir.”

“It is,” said the other grimly. “But before you go, I want to tell you something of the Reckaviles. It will save you hunting it up. They are a queer lot. This one was the last of his line, and people who know, say it is a very good thing. The Reckaviles always said there was a curse on them, set there by an old witch or something of that sort, but less charitable folk say there was madness in the family, and they are probably nearer the truth.

“There was one in the Eighteenth Century who had been a leader in the Medmenham orgies, and was found stark dead in the Abbey with no marks on him. There was another who lost everything he had in one night’s sitting at White’s, and left the room smiling like a fiend. He retired to a strip of woodland on the South Coast where Portham now stands, and built himself a ramshackle house. It was half of rubble and half brick, and he designed it himself, with a complete disregard to sanitation or comfort. There with what supplies of brandy he had saved from the wreck of his fortunes, he drank himself to death in a dignified way, timing his last seizure with his final bottle and apologising to his wife for the trouble he was giving.

“The father of the last Reckavile ran away with a draper’s wife, and then challenged him to fight for the lady. The draper applied for police protection, and divorce, and got both. Reckavile married the woman, and was finally drowned when returning from abroad, and his body was washed ashore near the castle.

“I gather that the family fortunes were at about rock bottom, when a speculative builder, who chanced that way, saw possibilities of a bungalow town, on the foreshore, without the irk of a town council, and interfering inspectors. The last Reckavile found himself in funds, and wandered abroad. I could tell you much more, some of it such deeds as can only be hinted at, but this will suffice.”

Fletcher lay back in his chair, lost in thought.

“What a family!” was his comment, but to himself he said “I wonder why he has told me all this,” and he looked at the shrewd face of the famous detective, which remained inscrutable.

“And now the last of the line has come to a tragic end,” said Sinclair musingly “so I suppose the Curse has worked out.”

“Curse?” said the other startled, “you don’t believe in the Curse, sir, do you?”

Sinclair looked at him.

“Oh, I don’t know, there are many things we are finding out about now, which our fathers scoffed at,” was his reply.

Fletcher gathered up the papers and went out on his quest, and managed to leap into the carriage as the train was moving, nearly falling over a young girl who was the sole occupant of the compartment, and hastily apologised.

“I hope I did not hurt you,” he said.

“Not at all,” she answered with a bright smile “but I was afraid you were going to slip between the carriage and the platform; it’s dangerous getting into trains like that you know.”

He was amused at the serious fashion in which she rebuked him. A glance at her showed him that she had a pretty face and a smart figure, and was neatly but plainly dressed.

On the floor was a letter which she had dropped, and stooping, he picked it up, and with his quick, trained eyes instinctively read the name—‘Miss Ena Sefton.’ As he handed it to her, ‘Sefton … Sefton …’ he said to himself. Where had he heard that name? Of course, the medical student who had been called in to see the dead Lord Reckavile. It was an uncommon name, and the train was going to Portham Junction. What a strange coincidence if …

“My name is Fletcher,” he said, for he had no reason to conceal his identity. “I wonder if by chance you know Portham-on-Sea.”

“Why certainly,” she replied “I live there at present, with my brother. Are you going there?”

“Yes,” he said “I am staying there a few days. It’s a sort of bungalow town, isn’t it?”

“You’ll find it terribly dull in the winter. Of course, in the summer it’s different,” she said.

“Oh, I want to be quiet and have a rest,” he replied. “I am sure I shall not find it dull,” and he glanced at the girl.

She looked at him with innocent blue eyes. She was evidently not the sort that takes offence or sees an insult in a man looking at her.

He led the conversation round with practiced skill to the crime, but her brows clouded over.

“Yes,” she said, “it upset us terribly. It was horrible and you know the castle itself suggests some dreadful crime. It is so broken down and uncared for.”

“I suppose they have no idea in the village as to who the murderer could be?” he asked.

“All the villagers—what few there are of them in the winter, are convinced that it had something to do with the Reckavile Curse.”

“You don’t believe that?”

“I don’t know, it was all so mysterious, but my brother laughs at it; you know he was called in when it occurred. He is almost a qualified doctor.”

“I saw something about it in the papers,” he said evasively.

“I believe he saw more than the stupid detective did. He told me nothing, but he hinted at things once or twice.”

Fletcher thought he had better get off dangerous ground for the present. His companion was charming, and seemed to have no objection to talking. In a short time he was possessed of all the facts about the Seftons, and Portham-on-Sea.

It was a queer collection of shanties, dumped down without plan or method; some were of wood or corrugated iron, some old Army huts, and others made of railway carriages. They straggled in two irregular lines along the foreshore, and between them was an apology for a road.

By the time the train arrived at Portham Junction Fletcher had received an invitation to call on the Seftons. As he had arranged to meet the local constable at the castle, he reluctantly parted with his companion and turned his mind to the grim problem before him.

Chapter IV.
At the Castle

Fletcher was not one to let the ground get weedy under his feet. Leaving his bag at the railway station, he made his way on foot to Reckavile Castle.

It was a wet afternoon, and dusk was coming on when he got within sight of the building. Traces of flower-beds and garden plants showed through the tangle of growth, like the ruins of an old civilisation, giving the place an air of desolation. The castle was a depressing structure, massive and dim and the wet dripped ceaselessly from the trees. Time had covered the building in parts with ivy, and on the rest of the walls green patches of lichen grew like a disease.

The blind upper windows looked like dead eyes, and in spite of his cheery nature, Fletcher shuddered as a figure stepped suddenly from the shadow without noise.

“Who’s that?” said Fletcher in a louder tone than he intended.

“Brown, sir, I suppose you are Mr. Fletcher?”

The latter felt a sense of relief; the constable was a stalwart ex-guardsman.

“What are you doing out here in the wet?” he asked shaking the other by the hand.

“To tell the truth, sir, I don’t like the place, and I thought I would wait here; we cleared the Giles out after the murder, and locked it up.”

He produced a great key, and led the way to the front door.

It was a massive portal surmounted by carved stone work, now green and crumbling. The hall was square and lofty, with a great open fireplace, cheerless and empty. The last light of the dying afternoon showed portraits on the walls, and a staircase leading upwards.

“I’ll get a light,” said the constable, and stamped off to the kitchen, returning with a lamp which threw a bright light on the walls and timbered ceiling.

“That’s better,” said Fletcher, “this place is confoundedly damp.”

“There were only two rooms used by the Giles,” said Brown, setting down the lamp, “the kitchen and a bedroom next to it, but they always kept Lord Reckavile’s rooms ready, as they never knew when he was coming back. He only used his library, and a bedroom on the ground floor. All the rest of the house is shut up, and full of rotting furniture.”

“Let’s have a look at the library then,” Fletcher said, and the constable led the way. Everything had been left untouched; the battered door still hung loose, and inside the furniture had been tossed and thrown about.

“There’s where the body was, lying over the sofa, and you can see the stains of blood on the floor and the armchair.”

Fletcher examined the dark marks of ill omen.

“Everything is just as it was. I made a careful list,” said Brown. “There is the wireless, a four valve set, and this is his desk, a very old one I should say, and that cabinet contains what they call a dictaphone, though I call it a gramaphone. His Lordship was very keen on these things. Here is a sketch I made, very rough I am afraid,” and he handed it to Fletcher.

It was a comfortable room, in contrast with the rest of the house; the furniture was good, and rows of books in shelves gave it a homely look.

“You found no trace of anyone when you entered?” asked Fletcher.

“There’s no doubt about that, sir,” was the reply. “When old Giles and I came in there was no sign of the murderer, and the whole place has been searched. There are no secret passages or trapdoors, such as one reads of in books.”

“Any finger prints?”

“No, sir, or foot marks either. Sergeant Andrews is pretty smart at that sort of thing; he had the dagger examined.”

“Someone who knew what he was about evidently,” said Fletcher.

The other looked at him queerly, without a word.

“Was anything else found which could throw a light on the subject?”

“No, sir, we have all the exhibits here; after the inquest I took charge of them.”

He went to a side table and removed a cloth. Neatly laid out were various objects. There was a case containing a few pound notes, some letters, a cigarette case, and silver match box, and a passport. There was also a well-worn, leather object which caught the detective’s eye. It was round, and looked as though it had been made to hold a golf ball.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“No one seems to know,” said the constable, “it’s a puzzle.”

Fletcher picked up a letter case.

“Where did this come from?” he said.

“That was lying on the floor,” said Brown.

Inside was a faded miniature of a very beautiful girl, and a young boy, and in faint letters “Mother and Roy,” and a date some twenty years before.

“Lord Reckavile when a child, with his mother, I suppose,” said Brown.

Fletcher took it to the lamp. The boy had sad sweet features, almost Italian.

“Is there a portrait of Lord Reckavile anywhere?” he asked.

“Yes, sir, in the hall,” and Brown led the way with the lamp.

Paintings of Reckaviles looked down from the walls. Fletcher had imagination, and he could see the latent madness in their eyes, but there was more. They could be capable of great deeds or great sins; he could picture a Reckavile doing a stupendous act of heroism or a vile thing which would blanch the cheek.

His thoughts were interrupted by Brown.

“That’s the last of them, sir,” he said pointing to a portrait of recent date. Fletcher looked at a handsome ascetic face, wherein was cruelty and lust, but a pride which nothing could daunt.

“And who is that?” said he pointing to a stout lady of mature charms.

“That was his mother, the last Lady Reckavile, but that was before my time. She used to live here; since her death the house has been shut up, most of the year.”

Fletcher was still holding the miniature in his hands; he looked at the portrait on the wall and then at the other, and was about to speak, but the bovine face of the constable stopped him.

Instead he said, after a pause, “About those poachers, Brown, I understand you saw some in the woods a few days before the murder?”

“Yes, and I mentioned it to Stevens. I did not see them close enough to recognise them. There were two. Stevens told me to come up and see Lord Reckavile about it, the very day the murder took place.”

“I see. Well, let’s have a look at the house, bring the lamp.”

They passed into the rooms on the ground floor, and as they opened the doors they were met with a damp, musty smell as from a vault. Everything was in ruin and decay and dust was heavy over all.

There was a great dining room, with hanging chandeliers, which had witnessed many a midnight orgie, now silent and given to the moth.

The drawing room was bare, haunted only by the ghosts of past Reckaviles, and so on in the upper rooms, where gaunt fourposters and faded hangings showed within, with dimly seen bedroom furniture.

In one of these a picture fell with a crash, waking the echoes of the house. It had been hanging by a thread which the opening of the door had snapped.

“I’ve seen enough,” said Fletcher with a shiver. “I suppose the whole house has been searched?”

“Every corner, sir, it’s all the same. It doesn’t look as though anyone had been into the rooms for years.”

They returned to the library, where Fletcher walked to the wireless set, and turned the switch.

“It’s no good, sir, it’s out of order, we’ve tried it. The valves light all right, but something’s wrong; Giles says it hasn’t worked since Lord Reckavile came back this last time.”

“I must have a look at it,” said Fletcher. “I’m rather fond of these things.”

“The gramaphone works, we have tried the records,” said Brown, “so the other ought to.”

Fletcher smiled at his knowledge of scientific matters, then faced him squarely.

“Now, Brown, I want you to tell me fairly, your opinion of the whole thing, because you have been here from the beginning.”

A sudden change came over the constable, and he glanced round uneasily, a look of fear in his eyes.

“I don’t know, sir,” he said, “I don’t think his Lordship was killed by any living man.”

“Nonsense, what on earth do you mean? You don’t believe in spooks, do you?” said Fletcher contemptuously.

“Well, it’s very queer, the villagers say …”

“Oh! I see, you’ve been talking in the village, and heard all about the Reckavile Curse, and that sort of thing; let’s have common sense.”

“We heard them talking quite plain,” the constable replied. “Reckavile and the Other, and when we broke in there was Lord Reckavile dead, and It had gone.”

“It? Don’t talk like that, it’s foolish,” but in spite of his words Fletcher felt a cold shiver; the place was eerie.

“I don’t like it, sir, there are queer tales about, and the Reckaviles were a very rum lot.”

“Enough of this,” said the other impatiently. “I wanted clues or anything suggestive, and you give me ghosts.”

But before that night was over, even Fletcher was shaken.

Chapter V.
The Reckavile Horror

The constable had gone. Being off duty, he had volunteered to fetch Fletcher’s bag from the station, while he remained as he said to ‘get the atmosphere of the place.’ A large fire had been kindled, and the room certainly looked more cheerful, but Fletcher wanted to damp down the feeling of uneasiness which the surroundings had aroused. He was sure this was a straightforward problem, if he could only get a clue to start with. He wandered round the room, pausing to listen to the wind, which had now risen to a gale. The boughs of the trees, which had grown close to the house, were scraping against the windows, as if trying to get in, and all the timbers were groaning and creaking in desire to tell him something. He shook himself; this would never do, he would have a look at the books as he was getting morbid.

Someone had said that a man can be known by his books, but here was a catholicity of choice, books on science, art, history, and novels. He picked out volumes, but his mind was still on the strange noises all over the house.

At last he found a leather-bound book without title and idly opened it. To his surprise the writing inside was in manuscript; the ink faded, but by the spelling he judged it was not of very ancient date.

It was called Tales of the Reckaviles.

As he turned the pages and read the horrors recorded there, he first wondered that these things could have happened, and then that anyone should have set himself in cold blood to write them out.

He came to a tale which arrested his attention. It was called How the Curse Came, and was one of the milder stories:

A certain Sir Hugh Reckavile was a very evil knight. He feared neither God nor Devil. He was shunned by all men of good repute and consorted with vile men, cutthroats and worse. This knight had conceived a great desire for the young wife of the Lord of Glarne, though he had a wife and children of his own, and nothing would stay his purpose. As he was revelling with his companions, as his custom was, he took a dreadful oath that he would that night carry off the lady from her room in the Tower, and staked his soul on the venture, calling down a Curse on his family if he lost. His companions tried to dissuade him, but he would have none of their advice, and rode off. There was one at the table not all besotted in crime, who mounted and rode fast and hard, and came to the Castle before him, and told the Lord of Glarne.

When Sir Hugh came to the Tower, he saw a fair damsel beckoning him from her high window, who was a maid dressed as the lady, and he essayed to climb the wall. They who had laid the trap looked to see him fall, but he came at the window, where men were waiting who bound him fast. For three days they left him there and then one was sent to see how he fared, returned all of a sweat, saying that he had heard Sir Hugh talking with One who told him of his damnation, and that a perpetual Curse would be laid on his family.

That night there were howlings and dreadful crying heard. The next morning Sir Hugh lay on the grass, thrown from the window by no mortal hand, and his face was stamped with horror unspeakable. And so it is in life, for thus by the impious act of trafficking with the Devil, this evil man brought a Curse upon his innocent family which abides even to this day.

Fletcher got thus far. “Pooh!” he said, “it’s the usual stuff one finds in these old chronicles, still it throws a light on the Reckaviles.”

He dropped the book from his hand, and in doing so happened to glance behind him.

The green baize door was slowly opening.

For a moment Fletcher sat where he was, rigid, with every nerve on a stretch. All the stories he had ever heard of vampires and devils gathered round him. The next his common sense and courage rose to his aid, and he stood up, not without an effort, and faced round. He clapped his hand to his pocket, but he was unarmed.

For want of a better weapon he seized the poker and waited. The door was opening in little jerks, not smoothly; then a hand came round the corner, a hand wrapped in a bandage, or some white fabric, and clutched the door. Then, very slowly, a face appeared, a vacant dead-looking face, surrounded by a mass of white hair streaked with yellow.

Without a word or sound there came into the room, an old bent man. Fletcher waited; man or ghost, here was no formidable antagonist.

Suddenly light dawned on him, and he could almost have laughed.

“Why of course,” he said, “I suppose you are Giles?”

The old man remained rooted to his place by the door, and then in a high piping voice, said, “Giles I be, and who be you?”

“I suppose I ought to tell you, I am a friend of Brown the constable, and I am waiting for him.”

It was most awkward, as he had wished to remain unknown in his true character, but the old man looked nearly an idiot.

At that moment a loud knock was heard, which came as a relief to Fletcher.

“That must be Brown,” he said.

“I’ll go and let ’ee in,” said the old man, and turned without a sound.

“That’s a good thing,” thought Fletcher, “but I must warn the constable to keep his mouth shut.”

A sound of steps came along the hall, and Brown came in, dripping wet. “Sorry to have been so long, sir,” he said putting down the bag.

“I am very glad to see you,” said Fletcher, “old Giles let you in, I suppose?”

Brown looked at him in surprise, “Giles? No, the door was open, I forgot we did not fasten it. I left Giles at Stevens’ cottage just now.”

“But, he’s just been here, not a minute ago, I have been talking to him. He came to see who was here.”

“Giles, sir, you must have been mistaken. What was he like?”

“An old, white-haired man, with a white beard.”

The constable looked blankly at him. “That’s not Giles, sir. You must have been dreaming.”

“Nonsense, he came in through that door not five minutes ago.”

“What did you say he was like?”

Fletcher repeated the description minutely and Brown’s face took on a look of horror.

“Oh Lord, sir! That was an old Reckavile, the father of the one who was drowned.”

“Nonsense,” said Fletcher sharply, “don’t talk that rot.”

“Come and see, sir,” said he, and his voice shook.

They went into the hall with a lamp, and Brown pointed with a shaking finger to a portrait on the wall. There, gazing at them with a sardonic smile, was Fletcher’s visitor, clear and unmistakable.

A cold, numb feeling gathered round his heart, but Fletcher realised that he must keep his nerve at all costs.

“You must be right, I have been dreaming,” he said in a voice he tried to make light. “Well, I am very tired, let’s shut the place up, and get off.”

Brown looked at him uneasily. “Very good, sir, I shan’t be sorry,” he said. “The night’s bad outside, but it’s worse here,” and he glanced round the hall, where shadows flickered from the lamplight.

The fire was nearly out, so they left it, and locking up, made their way through the rank vegetation, damp and unwholesome.

With a sigh of relief Fletcher emerged from the woods, and skirted the shore to the little fishing village of Portham, now in complete darkness.

“That’s the Black Horse, sir,” said Brown pointing to a dark mass.

“Now look here, Brown, I want to impress on you that I am here to find out all I can, and no one must know what I am or they will be suspicious of me. You understand?”

“Certainly, sir.”

“And you must not call me ‘sir,’ at all. I am just an old friend of yours, what shall we say, on a holiday after an illness. Now, goodbye, I will go to the place alone; they know I am coming?”

“Yes, I booked the room as you told me to.”

Fletcher waited till the constable had gone, and then went to the door, and knocked. After some time a light showed inside, and the door was opened. The landlord, a black-looking, shock-headed man with streaks of grey in his hair, stood in the doorway. “Good-evening,” said Fletcher, “my name is Fletcher. I have booked a room here.”

The landlord, Southgate, eyed him with suspicion, and muttered something about waiting up for him, but Fletcher was used to dealing with all classes of men, and quickly summed his host up. With apologies for his lateness, which he put down to having lost his way in the storm, he asked mine host whether he would join him with some liquid refreshment, and suggested whiskey; he himself was quite done up, and too tired for food.

Having closed and locked the door, the landlord conducted him into an old dirty room, black with smoke, which had a wonderful old fireplace whereon a fire was burning, and black beams in the ceiling. A cloth was spread on the table on which was cold beef and bread.

Soon they were sitting by the fire discussing hot grog, which the landlord prepared with practiced skill. He was the descendant of a long line of smugglers, and was not slow in telling Fletcher what he thought about the bungalow town, and its inhabitants.

Fletcher was too tired for conversation, but determined to get on good terms with Southgate the landlord, and so they gossipped on till he felt himself nodding, and with a “good-night” to the landlord, retired for the night.

Chapter VI.
Portham-on-Sea

Fletcher was up early, and after a good breakfast, set out to walk to Bungalow Town. The day was clear, and the events of the night before appeared less sombre, in the light of the morning. Of course, there must be some logical and common-sense explanation for it all. He had all the papers connected with the inquest, and there were several people he wanted to see.

The walk did him good, and his mind was clear when he rounded the headland and came in sight of the bungalows. It was indeed a hideous place. At one end was an unfinished row of gaunt shops of which only a few had been opened. The builder had made some attempt at decoration by planting two rows of palms in tubs along the road, which gave the place a bizarre appearance. The first building he came to was a large corrugated iron bungalow, styled the Club, which all bungalow dwellers were invited to join for a small subscription according to a notice board. It had a withered tennis court, a bathing shed, and a license, and in the summer the place was much patronised. Fletcher made his way along the muddy road, to where a large board bore the legend “Estate Office.”

Entering he found a little, short-sighted man with sandy hair getting thin. He looked up wearily as Fletcher came in.

“Mr. Cook, I believe?” said the latter.

“That is my name,” said he, and waited.

“I came to ask you what bungalows you have for sale?” said Fletcher with that disregard for truth, which seems to be permitted to detectives.

Soon they were deeply engrossed with plans and photos. Fletcher worked the conversation round by easy stages to the subject of the murder, and found little difficulty in getting Cook to talk.

“It’s not been a bad thing for us,” he said, “it’s given the place a splendid advert. Pictures were in the papers, and quite a lot of people have been down here.”

“I suppose you knew Lord Reckavile quite well?” said Fletcher knowing how the flattery would please.

“I can hardly say that, but I used to take his ground rents to him; when he came back he would send for me. He was a queer customer, and allowed me to collect all the rents till he came to England, and then pay him in cash. He said he went off so suddenly that it was useful.”

“Well, that’s plausible enough,” said the other.

“I had paid over quite a large sum to him on the very day he was murdered.”

Fletcher looked up quickly.

“Really! I did not see …” and then stopped.

Luckily Cook was not taking much notice.

“I read the account of the affair,” Fletcher continued, “but I did not see that mentioned.”

“I did not see that much could be gained by saying anything,” said Cook, showing some signs of confusion.

“That’s most interesting,” said Fletcher casually, “what did you pay him in?”

“Well, of course, I do not keep the money here, but I always bank it at Ashstead. When he wanted paying I drew it out.”

“Ah! Then the bank manager would have the number of the notes?”

“Of course, they were five and ten pound notes; he entered them all in his book. I did not keep a record.”

Fletcher felt he was asking too many questions.

“What do you think about it?” he said, leaning back in his chair.

“I believe he was afraid of something. He was always running off abroad, and back again, like a man hunted by something.”

“You mean the Curse?” said Fletcher in irony.

“Exactly,” said Cook gravely.

“Mr. Cook, you don’t tell me that as a man of the world you believe in that superstition, especially after what you have told me about the money!”

“Don’t misunderstand me,” said the other, “the villagers will tell you something outside the pale, but I have it in mind that there is something much more tangible; something connected with the past, perhaps, and I am not at all sure that that ruffian Southgate at the Black Horse does not know a bit about it. He came here the other day wanting to buy a bungalow, and I am sure he never made the money out of that old pub of his.”

After talking on general matters for a few minutes, Fletcher took his leave.

As he made his way along the road deep in thought, he was aware of two people coming to meet him. They were conversing in eager tones, and did not notice him. One of the two was Miss Sefton, the other a tall good-looking young man with light hair.

Fletcher greeted them and was introduced to Jack Sefton by his sister. He was quick to notice that there was a restless worried look about the man, as though his nerve had gone. They turned together and walked along the foreshore.

“What do you think of this place, Mr. Fletcher?” said Ena.

Before he could reply Sefton had intervened.

“It’s a rotten show,” he said, “and you will be bored to death before long. I am sick of it already.”

Ena looked at her brother as though surprised at his tone, but he stopped and said bitterly:

“You see, beggars can’t be choosers, and my sister and I are compelled to live in this God-forsaken hole until the visitors come, and then I suppose we shall be kicked out.”

It was a strange outburst to a mere stranger.

“Come and see our bungalow,” said the girl hastily, and they walked on in silence.

When they arrived at the house, Fletcher was surprised to find a very charming bungalow, with a central lounge, from which the other rooms opened, tastefully furnished, and very pleasant after the desolate appearance outside, where most of the bungalows were shut up for the winter.

“What a charming little place,” he said, “I could enjoy a holiday here very well.”

He saw a look of gratitude on the girl’s face, but Sefton said, “A holiday, yes. But supposing you were condemned to live here all the year round, you would find it different.” He glanced round as though looking for something, and then sprang to his feet. “Come and see our Club,” he said with a harsh laugh.

“Have you got a Club here then?”

“Oh! It is called a Club,” he replied, “it is a sort of tin shanty, but we can get a decent drink there, and one can talk.”

Fletcher was surprised at his manner, but one glance at his eyes showed him that there was a devil biting him. With apologies to Ena, whose company he preferred to that of her brother, he made his way to the bungalow referred to, and was soon deep in conversation. After all, duty came before pleasure, and he was down here to find the solution to the problem, not to talk to a pretty girl.

“Yes,” said Sefton in answer to a question, “I was mixed up with this business. When I got there the man was as dead as mutton—it did not require much skill to tell that; it is a curious thing too …”

“What?” said Fletcher quite casually.

Sefton seemed to take a decision.

“Well, I don’t mind telling you, but I didn’t see any point in telling the police. It was most curious, but I did not want to be accused of sensationalism. You know the chairs in the room had been overturned, as though there had been a struggle, there was blood on some of them, and on the floor. Well, I have enough medical knowledge to know that the clean stab which killed the man could not have caused all that amount of blood.”

“You mean …?” said Fletcher.

“I mean,” said the other, leaning forward, “that the blood came from the assailant whoever he was. It was impossible to have come from Reckavile.”

“That is interesting,” said Fletcher.

There was a pause, then Sefton went on.

“That is not all. Of course, this is only between ourselves.”

“Of course,” said Fletcher.

“If you read the reports you will appreciate what I am going to say. I bent down to examine one of the overturned armchairs, the constable was holding the light and it shone full on the chair. Stretched from the leg to the floor there was a spider’s web—a fully formed one.”

“Are you quite sure?” asked Fletcher.

“Quite, and I turned the chair over—there was a deep depression underneath on the soft carpet, and for another thing, the blood was dry, in most places, I passed my hands over the stains—though some was not …” he added musingly.

“Let’s have another drink,” said Fletcher to hide his excitement.

Chapter VII.
In the Dark Night

Fletcher was satisfied with his day’s work. He returned to the Black Horse tired and hungry. Here at any rate were clues in abundance if he could only piece them together.

After a substantial meal he wrote out his report for Sinclair, and having smoked a contemplative pipe, he sought his landlord.

He found him also smoking, and in a surly mood, but with the aid of spirituous liquid he was able to thaw his reserve.

It appeared that business was slack, and he spent a great part of his time at his old trade of fishing. Only when Fletcher tried to work the conversation round to the affair at Reckavile Castle, the landlord shut up like an oyster.

As the night advanced, however, he became a little more communicative. A second bottle had been opened, from which the landlord helped himself liberally, and Fletcher with caution. The night had turned rough, and the wind was rising. Fletcher listened for a moment, and then said:

“Do you get many wrecks round these parts?” and knocked out his pipe against the old fireplace.

“I don’t recall as ther’s ben one for nigh on thirty year,” said the other helping himself to another drink. “That were when old Reckavile came home.”

Fletcher pricked up his ears and waited.

“ ’E were mad, like ’em all,” continued the landlord “and ’e swore ’e would land, weather or no. ’E’d come over from France in a ’urry. ’E raved and swore, and wouldn’t go to Port like a sensible man.

“The Skipper ’e was a Frenchy, and Reckavile ’eld a pistol to ’is ’ead, and told ’im to put ’im ashore. They launched a boat somehow, but it overturned as any sensible man would ’a known. ’Ow the rest got ashore I don’t know. They all sat in this very room shivering and chatting in their lingo, but Lord Reckavile ’e was washed ashore that night.”

Fletcher waited; a sudden gust of wind swept round the inn, and smoke blew into the room.

“There was a fine to do,” the landlord continued “but ’e was the only one drownded, and they being foreigners it was ’ushed up. The Ketch was a total wreck, and the crew were sent ’ome.”

“What about his wife?”

A cunning look came into the man’s eyes. “Oh! She was up at the castle; the new Lord Reckavile was born that very night.”

“And that was how long ago?” said Fletcher.

“Thirty-two year come next March,” said he.

“Then Lord Reckavile was about thirty-two when he was murdered?” he slipped out unwarily.

The landlord darted him a look of suspicion.

“I dunno nothin’ about that. I ’ad no dealings with this one,” he said and kicked the fire savagely.

Without another word he finished his drink and departed.

Fletcher could not sleep; either the wind or the problem kept him awake. At last he rose and went to the table for matches; he would read, but at the window he paused. The curtains did not meet, and through the crack he could see a faint light in the roadway outside. He gently drew it back, and below he could dimly make out a muffled figure standing by the door, holding a ship’s lantern.

The door opened cautiously as he watched and another figure in oilskins came out whom he had no difficulty in recognising as the landlord.

Without a word they turned and went into the night.

Fletcher waited. What should he do? He had not come prepared for midnight expeditions in the rain, and it was a wild night. At last his sense of adventure got the better of him, and hastily dressing, he slipped downstairs, and seized his greatcoat from the peg in the hall.

As he approached the front door, a voice called over the bannisters.

“Who’s there?”

“It is only I … Mr. Fletcher,” said he, feeling a fool.

He saw the vision of Mrs. Southgate in very negligee costume, leaning over the stairs, and behind her a dim suggestion of a domestic and felt some explanation was called for.

“I thought I heard a noise, and came to see what it was,” he said lamely. He felt far from being a hero with these two females watching him, and the worst part was that he was quite sure they were really laughing at him, under the guise of being frightened.

Mrs. Southgate spoke.

“Oh! I expect you heard my ’usband going out a-fishing. ’E always tries ’is luck about this time. But Lord, ’ow you did frighten me, Mr. Fletcher! You see when my ’usband goes it’s so lonely, and what with the storm, and the neighbours not being too respectable.”

“Quite so,” said he irritably, to shut her up, and he made his way to his room.

“A pretty detective you are,” he said bitterly to himself as he slipped into bed.

The morning was bright and clear, and the storm had abated.

As he wandered out of the house the first sight which met him was the innkeeper, hanging out a damp net to dry. For a change he greeted him with a smile.

“Mornin’ sir,” he said “we ’ad a rough night; my missus says you was scared in the night. Lord, no one would come to my place; I expect you ’eard me a-goin’ out.”

“Had any luck?” said Fletcher, knowing quite well, even as a townsman, that the night was far too rough for fishing.

“Pretty fair, sir, pretty fair.”

The conversation was interrupted by the appearance of Brown striding towards the inn. Fletcher cast a shrewd look towards the innkeeper, but he was quite unperturbed.

The constable saluted. “May I have a word with you, sir?” he said.

“Come inside,” replied Fletcher with an angry look.

Once within the room he shut the door, and turned on Brown.

“You damned fool, what do you mean by coming here and saluting, after what I told you. You’ve fairly messed things up.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” said the constable abashed, taking off his helmet. “I never thought of it. I wanted to come and tell you the news.”

“Go on then.”

“Well, sir, you told me to watch the castle; I didn’t like the job, but I walked round, and about one o’clock I saw a light inside. You know what a rough night it was, and it fairly gave me the creeps, but I thought I had to do my duty, so I opened the front door, and crept to the library where the light was. My hair was fairly lifting on my head.

“When I got to the door, there I saw two men bending over the desk, and a lantern between them.”

“Did you recognise them?”

Brown looked confused.

“No, sir, they were too cunning for me. As I crept forward I fell right over on my face. They had stretched a wire across the doorway. When I got up the light was gone, and so were they, and the window open.”

In spite of his annoyance Fletcher laughed.

“Stick to your duties as a village constable, Brown,” he said, “you will never make a detective. Well what happened?”

“I gave chase,” said the rueful constable, “but it was no good, the night was too wild. So I thought I’d better come and see you before reporting it to Sergeant Andrews who is my Chief here.”

Fletcher ignored him for a moment, and took a turn up and down the room.

He glanced at the window and saw the innkeeper, still hanging out his nets.

“All right, Brown,” he said at last “the mischief is done, but I can’t stay here any more. You’d better make a report for Andrews. You saw nothing else?”

“Nothing appeared to have been touched, and they had left nothing behind. I examined the desk, but it seems to have been intact; you know, sir, it has already been searched.”

Fletcher dismissed him, and turned to his correspondence and breakfast.

A letter from the bank manager at Ashstead contained the numbers of the missing bank notes for which he had telephoned. He put it in his pocket. Then a thought came to him, and he rang the bell.

“I am afraid I must get back to London to-day,” he said to the innkeeper’s wife. “Please let me have my bill.”

“I am sorry sir,” she said, “I ’ope as ’ow it’s not because of you being frightened in the night, sir.”

There was a note of raillery in the voice which was most galling.

He made no answer, and in due course an illiterate scrawl was brought which indicated by its total that piracy still ran in the blood of these people. Fletcher produced a ten pound note; it was a long shot but worth trying.

“Could you oblige me with change?” he said.

“I’ll see, sir,” said the woman, and retired.

He saw her call her husband, and a colloquy took place.

Presently she reappeared; on the plate was a five pound note and some loose silver. This was not the type of house where five pound notes are flung about, so when the door was shut he produced his letter.

With a thrill he saw by the number that it was one of the missing notes. Then a doubt came; surely these people were not quite so simple as that; all their conduct was against it.

He rang the bell, for the time for further disguise had passed.

“Can you tell me,” he said sternly, “where you got this note?”

The woman gave a baffling look of innocent surprise.

“I don’t know, sir, I’ll ask my husband.”

She returned with the innkeeper, who had the same air of innocence.

“That note, sir, we doesn’t ’ave notes ’ere as a rule, but I changed this for young Mr. Sefton, the medico from the Bungalows. ’E ’ad some food ’ere t’other day.”

There was nothing more to be done here, so taking his bag, he departed, but he had not gone far towards Bungalow Town, where he was determined to stay, when he was met by Sergeant Andrews with startling news.

Chapter VIII.
“The Red Cote”

Sergeant Andrews was a shrewd man and ambitious. He had been rather offended when the Reckavile case had been taken out of his hands, and was not particularly pleased when he heard that an official as young as Fletcher had been sent down by Scotland Yard, but he showed nothing of this in his manner when he addressed him.

“I am pleased to meet you,” he said, “Brown told me you were working down here, and of course I was informed by the Yard that you were coming. How are you getting on?”

“It is difficult to say at present, I have a mass of information that must be sorted out, for it seems to be a complicated affair; but you wanted to see me?”

“Yes, I suppose you have heard of the disappearance of the bank manager, Summers, of Tunbridge Wells?”

“Just what I have read, that’s all, he was last seen at Portham Junction, wasn’t he?”

“That is as far as the official report goes, but I have further information.” Andrews took the other by the arm, and glanced round to see that no one was listening.

“He has been seen here in Bungalow Town,” he added.

Fletcher gave a start. “Are you sure?” he asked.

“There is no doubt of it; there is a bungalow called The Red Cote which has somehow got a sinister reputation in the village—I do not know why—and we have been keeping our eye on it for some days. It is apparently unoccupied, but every night the rooms are lighted up. I had a special man to watch it, as in a place like this with so many empty bungalows in the winter, there is a great chance for burglars. For three nights running two men have been seen lurking round the place, and my man swears one of them is the missing bank manager.”

“And the other?”

“Ah, that is more difficult to say, and if we knew that we might find out a lot of things. The nights were dark, and they evidently tried to avoid observation, but we have our suspicions. Now for the past three days no trace has been seen of Summers, and the other man has been seen alone, so it looks bad.”

While they had been talking, Andrews had lead the way along the beach to the bungalow which had been the subject of conversation. It was innocent enough to look at, consisting of two railway coaches set parallel to each other with a lounge between, and was furnished with violet basket chairs and sofa, and a green carpet. The door was locked but as there were no curtains or blinds, it was possible to see the whole interior.

“What do you make of it?” asked Andrews.

“There’s nothing remarkable about it that I can see, and I really don’t know why you attach so much importance to seeing two strangers about at night time.”

“Have a look at the back,” said Andrews with a smile.

Fletcher did so, and returned to the other. “Well,” he said “there’s just a little kitchen.”

Andrews assumed an air of mystery.

“You see this sitting room, what do you make its length by guessing?”

Fletcher put his eye to the window. “About twelve feet, I should say,” he said.

“Right, and the kitchen at the back I make about five feet in depth. Very well, that makes roughly seventeen feet in all, but these railway coaches are thirty-five feet in length, and the question is, what is in between?”

Fletcher became interested. “By Jove, I believe you have got hold of something,” he said. “We’d better have a look.”

Andrews demurred. “We can’t get in without committing a burglary,” he said.

“Oh nonsense,” said Fletcher, “there’s no one about, here goes,” and with a quick movement he swung himself up to the roof, and crawled along the top; in a few moments he was back again, dusting his knees.

“You are right, Andrews,” he said “there is something funny here, there’s a glass window lighting a central room, but it is whitened all over, to make it impossible to see inside. I wonder if our friend is merely an amateur photographer, and we are making fools of ourselves, or whether it has some other meaning.”

“I thought as you are down here, you would like to know, and I suggest that we two watch to-night, and see what happens, there’s nothing like doing a thing one’s self, and it’s just possible this may lead you to the solution of your problem as well.”

Fletcher was all attention. “There may be something in what you say, it’s worth trying anyhow. I’ll meet you at ten o’clock. I have had to leave the Black Horse, and am trying to get a room at what they call the Club, it’s nearer to the scene of action.”

“Very good,” said Andrews. “At ten o’clock.”

Fletcher made his way in a thoughtful mood to the Seftons’ bungalow. He wanted to see Sefton, and it must be admitted he also felt strangely drawn to the girl of the train.

Ena let him in herself, and a tall man rose to his feet, and was introduced to him.

“Mr. Halley,” said the girl. “This is Mr. Fletcher about whom I told you.”

The two men shook hands with a curious feeling of antagonism, for which Fletcher was unable to account.

“I am sorry my brother is out,” said Ena. “Mr. Halley has been very kind in putting our wireless set right, and it has made a great difference to us in the evenings, as there are no amusements in the village.”

“You are living in Portham, Mr. Halley?” asked Fletcher.

“My health has not been good,” replied the other in a frigid tone, which Ena was quick to notice was very different from his normal voice. “And I find the air of this place does me good.”

“And have you been here long?” asked Fletcher with a disregard for courtesy.

“A few weeks only,” replied the other.

Fletcher was puzzled, for there was a haunting suggestion in his mind that he had met Halley before, though he could not recollect where or when he had done so. He could not continue to ask questions of a stranger he had just met, but made a mental note for further inquiry.

“I hope you have succeeded in getting a suitable bungalow, Mr. Fletcher,” said Ena.

“Not yet, Miss Sefton, but I have my eye on one called The Red Cote which seems to be empty. Do you know it?”

“Only by sight,” she replied, but Fletcher had been watching Halley out of the corner of his eye, and saw him give a slight start at the name.

Somehow he felt in the way, as though he were not quite welcome, and the thought vexed him; he was annoyed to find Halley so much at home, and turning to him he said, “Are you coming my way by any chance?”

“That depends on where you are going to,” answered Halley with a frigid smile.

“I was just going to the Club to see whether I could get a room for a day or two; it will be more comfortable than the Black Horse.”

“Oh you’ve been staying there, have you? How did you like our friend Southgate?” There was a shade of raillery in the tone which annoyed Fletcher, and he replied with more heat than he intended. “Is he a friend of yours? In my opinion he is a confounded ruffian.”

“Quite possibly,” said Halley unruffled. “I expect if he had lived some time ago he would have been a smuggler or a pirate.”

“And now he’s very likely a thief,” said Fletcher unguardedly.

“How jolly! Like the Pirates of Penzance, you remember.… ‘Let’s vary Piracy with a little Burglary’.”

Fletcher saw he must keep his temper, and said stiffly:

“I am afraid I have never seen that play. Well, I must get along, Miss Sefton,” and took his departure.

“You don’t seem to like Mr. Fletcher?” said Ena when he had gone.

“I neither like or dislike him,” replied Halley. “He strikes me as an inquisitive busybody, that’s all.”

“Look there,” said Halley pointing out of the window “who’s that with him now?”

Ena looked and saw Fletcher and her brother walking slowly towards the Club deep in conversation.

Chapter IX.
The Mysterious Bungalow

When Jack Sefton got home that night, he found his sister waiting for him in a mood in which he had seldom seen her. It was late, and he would have slipped off to bed, but she stopped him.

“Jack, I want to know why you persistently try to avoid meeting Mr. Halley. He has been most kind, and it makes things very unpleasant for me when I keep on telling him that you will be in, and each time you are out. Then to-day, you were walking with Mr. Fletcher and must have known Mr. Halley was here, but you never took the trouble to come in.”

After the manner of men who know themselves in the wrong, he worked himself up into a temper.

“Why should I meet this fellow? You have scratched up a friendship with him, and you know nothing about him. I think you should have waited till I had seen him before you became so pally.”

She looked at him with her clear eyes. “What has come over you, Jack, lately? It is your duty to be at home sometimes. If you were working I would be only too pleased, but you are away all day, and I don’t know where you get to.” She laid a hand on his arm. “Please don’t think I want to inquire into your affairs, but I am so much alone, and so worried about the future.” There were tears in her voice.

“I am sorry, old girl, but give me a few weeks and I will explain everything. Don’t worry me now.”

“Very well, but there is one thing I must trouble you with; I am sorry but I have no money to carry on with. We cannot run up bills here, and you know I have always paid cash for everything.”

A look of relief came over his face. “You poor child,” he said. “Is that all? Why didn’t you tell me?”

He put his hand into his coat pocket, and produced a bundle of notes. “This will do to go on with,” he said, laying down three five pound notes.

A look of fear came to Ena’s eyes, and a vague terror clutched her heart.

“Where did you get this money from?” she asked, shrinking from the notes as though they were poisoned.

“Oh, just a story I wrote for the magazines,” he said airily.

“What magazine? You never told me.”

“An American paper,” he answered, and then with sudden anger, “Do you think I stole it? If so, say so.”

“I can’t take them, Jack.”

“What nonsense! It was a little surprise I had for you. You would rather have smaller ones? All right, I’ll change them and give you pound notes.”

He picked them up, and strode from the room.

She sat long in the darkness gazing out at the dim sea, desolate and menacing. She wanted company badly, someone in whom she could confide. Then there came a knock at the door, she almost feared to go, but it was such a gentle tap. She opened the door and saw Halley in the doorway.

“Miss Sefton,” he said, hurriedly raising his hat. “I must apologise for coming at this hour, and if your brother is not at home, of course, I will not come in, but I want to help you if I can.”

“What is it? You frighten me.”

“I am sorry. It was really your brother I wanted to see. I wanted to ask him what he does at The Red Cote.”

“The Red Cote, the bungalow without blinds?” she asked.

He nodded gravely. “Believe me it is of the utmost importance, the police will be here directly.”

Her hand sought her throat. “Police?” she gasped. “What do you mean?”

“You know The Red Cote?”

“Of course I do, the house without blinds they call it in the village. Come in,” Ena said, “I did not want you to stand outside, but your coming was so unexpected; I will tell my brother.”

She led him into the sitting room, and he lighted a lamp for her. Suddenly he turned. “You were all in the dark?” he said, and there was a tender note in his voice.

Without another word she went and called her brother.

He came in and the two men met at last. “This is Mr. Halley—my brother,” she said.

Sefton looked at Halley, and started with a puzzled look on his face, and half turned back to his room. With an effort he pulled himself together, and held out his hand.

“I am glad to meet you,” he said “and thank you for what you have done for my sister,” but there was a false ring in his voice which Ena was quick to notice.

Halley spoke rapidly. “Mr. Sefton, I wish I had met you before; now I am afraid I come on a rather unpleasant business. I am sorry. I want you to believe me a friend; I will do anything to help.”

“What on earth do you mean?” asked Jack crossly.

“I want to ask you one question; please don’t think me impertinent; what do you do at The Red Cote?”

Sefton staggered for a moment, and then sat heavily on a chair. His face was ghastly.

“The Red Cote?” he said in a hoarse voice.

A loud knock sounded at the door, and both Sefton and his sister were frozen in their places, while Halley rose and walked across the room and opened the door. Outside three men were standing—Fletcher, Sergeant Andrews, and Brown the Constable. It was Andrews who spoke.

“Is Mr. Sefton inside?”

“Come in,” said Halley. “I am a friend and was calling on them when I heard you knock.”

Without a word the men entered; Fletcher appeared very uncomfortable and would not look at Ena.

“Mr. Sefton,” said Andrews, “we are sorry to intrude on you at this time of night, and I must apologise to you, Miss Sefton,” he continued, bowing to the girl, “but we wish to ask you one or two questions, perhaps you would prefer to come outside with us.”

Sefton’s face was white and set, but he seemed to take a sudden resolution.

“No,” he said, “you can ask any questions you like here, you have plenty of witnesses,” and he threw his hand round with a nervous gesture.

“In the first place, can you give us any information with regard to the mysterious disappearance of Summers, the missing bank manager?”

“I can give no information whatever,” he replied.

Andrews continued. “Can you tell us in that case, what you were doing with Summers at the bungalow called The Red Cote?”

“I refuse to give you any information whatever,” replied Sefton starting to his feet.

“Mr. Sefton, you are behaving in a strange way,” said Andrews sternly.

“Are you bringing an accusation against me?”

“Not at present,” said the sergeant gravely, “but I think it would be better for you to be open with us. All three of us saw you distinctly go to The Red Cote and open it with a key this very evening, though how you got out is a mystery. Some few days ago Mr. Summers, in company with a man, we know now to be yourself, was seen to go into the same bungalow. If there is a plain, straightforward explanation, why do you not tell us?”

Sefton looked round like a hunted animal.

“I tell you there is no crime and no mystery, and in a few days I can clear the matter up; at present I will say nothing.”

Halley had approached the girl during this conversation, and stood as though protecting her; he now spoke for the first time.

“I am quite sure that Mr. Sefton is only keeping you in ignorance of the facts from some perfectly honourable motive,” said he quietly.

Brown the constable started, and looked at Halley as though he had seen a ghost, his face became suffused with red, and Fletcher turned in surprise to him. “What is the matter, Brown?” he said.

The constable collected himself. “Nothing, sir,” he said “but I could have sworn …”

He was interrupted by Sergeant Andrews.

“This is very unsatisfactory, but if you refuse to say anything, we can take no further steps at present,” he added significantly.

Fletcher was torn between duty and another feeling. He was longing to ask Sefton how he came to be possessed of one of the missing notes, but he knew that such a question would make Ena turn against him, so he would defer it for the moment.

There was an awkward pause. Brown was furtively looking at Halley, and there was a puzzled look on his face as if he were trying to recall something to mind which eluded him, while Sefton was nervously twisting his fingers in and out.

And then with startling suddenness the clock struck the hour of twelve.

“We can do no more here,” said Fletcher.

“We? I don’t understand,” said Ena coldly.

“I ought to explain,” said Fletcher. “Sergeant Andrews is an old friend of mine, and asked me to watch The Red Cote with him, though of course I had no idea it had anything to do with your brother.”

“A sort of spy,” said Ena, with contempt, and there was an ominous glitter in her eye.

“I hope you don’t think that,” he said. “I thought it was just an adventure.”

Rather shamefacedly the men trooped out of the room.

When the door had closed, Sefton went up to Halley, and held out his hand. “If you don’t mind shaking hands with a man under suspicion,” he said “I want to apologise for my seeming rudeness.”

Halley understood and shook hands with a hearty grip.

“You need not say anything. I believe I can guess something at any rate; you may rely on me.”

Tears came into Ena’s eyes in spite of herself, if this man could trust her brother, what right had she to have doubts?

“Jack, I will believe you, but do clear up the whole thing, dear.”

“At the end of next week,” he said as though taking a sudden decision.

“Thank God for that,” she said, and they parted for the night.

Chapter X.
In the Churchyard

Ena Sefton was on her way to the village church on Sunday morning. It was the old church which had stood there for centuries, long before such a thing as a bungalow town was heard of. She was rather late and the bell was already ringing, so she quickened her pace. A long avenue of trees led up to the old churchyard, and as she rounded the corner she saw Halley walking slowly in front of her, and somehow it came as a shock to her, for she had not associated him with church-going. He turned and when he saw her he raised his hat with a smile of welcome.

“I did not know that you usually patronised our village church,” she said.

“I am afraid I cannot claim to do much in that line,” he answered “but I really came here for another object; I am interested in old inscriptions, and I am told there are some in this churchyard.”

They walked along together, and passed through the Lych Gate. “Are you coming in?” she asked.

“I hardly think so, if you will not think it rude of me, but I will wait in the churchyard for you if I may.”

When the simple service was over, she found him standing at the corner of the churchyard where the Reckavile family vault was situated. He was deep in thought and did not look up until she touched him lightly, then he gave a start.

“You were looking at the graves of the past Lord Reckaviles?” she asked.

His face clouded over. “It is an ugly record,” he said. In front of them was the tomb of the last Lord Reckavile, a simple stone tablet giving his name, and age, and the date of his death, and beneath, the sombre words “Vengeance is mine and I will repay.” Beyond that was the tomb of his father drowned at sea, whose body had been washed ashore.

“Age thirty-two,” he said in a puzzled tone, “it is strange.” And he turned with her and walked by her side without speaking.

“Mr. Halley,” she said to break the silence, “you will please forgive me asking this question, but you seem so entirely alone, I have often wondered whether you have any relations living. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Not in the least, Miss Sefton,” he replied with that peculiar sad smile of his “I can answer the question very simply. I have no relations, and no friends.”

“That is unkind of you,” she said “surely you count us as friends.”

“I would like to think so,” he said “but we have only known each other a short time.”

“Do you think friendship must necessarily be a growth of years?” she asked.

“On the contrary,” he replied, “I believe that when people meet for the first time they are either friends or not, there is a sort of instinctive affinity or repulsion, although it may not be felt at the moment.”

She looked at him with a roguish smile. “And which was it in my case?” she said.

He did not answer to her mood. “You are on dangerous ground, you do not know who you are taking as a friend.” There was almost a note of warning in his voice. He had always been reserved and self-contained, but of a sudden he stopped and said with emotion:

“Would to God I had never come to England!”

She was startled, for it was the first revelation of what had been dimly at the back of her mind, that he was not entirely English.

He collected himself, and then walked on.

“I am sorry, for forgetting myself, perhaps I ought to tell you I was born in Italy and my mother was Italian, although my father was English. I shall be going back soon, when my work is over.”

“Your work!” she said.

“I have a task to accomplish,” he said in a solemn tone “and I cannot allow my thoughts to stray to—other things. What am I to do with love or the lighter side of life?” It was almost as though he was talking to himself, but a deep blush spread over Ena’s face, and she turned her head away.

As they emerged from the churchyard avenue the village was spread out below them in all its hideousness, like some great Fair, when the show is over. As they came to the foreshore, a figure rose over the bank from the beach. It was Fletcher, and a look of annoyance crossed his face when he saw Halley, although he tried to hide it.

“Good morning, Miss Sefton, I suppose you have been to church. I should hardly have thought that was in Mr. Halley’s line,” he said with a sneer.

“Right,” said Halley. “I did not go to church, but I met Miss Sefton there. I have been looking at your interesting graveyard.”

“What a cheerful subject,” said the other. “I am not much interested in tombstones myself.”

Halley darted a keen glance at him. “They say,” he said, “there are sermons in stones, there may be also stories on tombstones of even greater interest and value.”

“Well, I prefer something a little more amusing,” said Fletcher, and there was something in his tone which seemed to anger Halley.

Very quietly he said, “I suppose the investigation of crime is an amusing subject.”

Fletcher stopped dead, and his face went white. “Crime!” he said “what on earth do you mean?”

Ena was looking from one to the other of the two men.

“Only this,” said Halley lighting a cigarette, “that as you are a Scotland Yard detective, I suppose most of your life is spent in that way.”

“A Scotland Yard detective,” blurted out Fletcher.

Halley held up his hand. “Please do not take the trouble to deny it. I know you were sent down by Scotland Yard to investigate the murder.”

Fletcher’s mind was in a whirl, it was obviously impossible to deny the statement made in such an emphatic tone.

“How on earth do you know anything about me?” said he unguardedly.

Halley shrugged his shoulders.

“What about you?” said Fletcher angrily. “Who and what are you? You have come here from no one knows where, and have no apparent occupation except loafing about and enquiring into other people’s business, and imposing on trusting girls.”

A look of contempt was on Ena’s face.

“Is it true, Mr. Fletcher? Are you really a detective?”

“It is quite true, Miss Sefton, though how your friend became acquainted with this, I do not know.” There was an unpleasant emphasis on the word “friend.” “I suppose you have no objection to detectives?”

“A man’s business is his own,” she replied with spirit, “but I do not like anyone who goes under false pretences.”

Fletcher’s usual self-control was deserting him. He saw the interest which this girl might have had in him gone for ever.

“False pretences,” he repeated “and what about him? Who is he? For all you know he may be the criminal we are after.”

“If you are going to say things like that,” she replied, “perhaps we had better say good-day,” and she turned away without another word.

Halley gave one glance at the angry detective and then followed her.

“All right, my boy!” said Fletcher to the departing couple. “You’ve scored one point, but wait until I have got a little more information and then we will see what opinion Miss Ena will hold of you!”

Ena walked in silence for a while.

“How horrible,” she said at length. “That man came down with me by the same train, and scratched up an acquaintance. I suppose he was trying to ‘pump’ me, as they say; that is why he came the other night, with the police sergeant. I will never trust anyone again.”

Halley looked at her for a moment.

“Did I not tell you not to make friends at sight?” he said bitterly, but she turned quickly to him.

“Oh! I am so sorry, I did not mean that, of course I was not referring to you.”

“But why not? You know as little about me as you did about Fletcher.”

She was confused, and took refuge in his own words.

“But then you said friendship was an instinctive thing. I never took to Mr. Fletcher, though I knew nothing against him, and he was a stranger.”

The lunch at the Sefton’s bungalow was cheerful, in spite of the cloud hanging over the affairs of all three. Jack was a changed being now that he had taken his resolve, and listened with interest to the tales of foreign travel with which Halley regaled them, for Halley was in a mood they had never seen before. His usual gravity was gone, and they realised what a wonderful talker he could be when he liked, and in the days which followed they looked back on this meal with especial pleasure. The men had just settled to smoke, when there came a hasty knock at the door. Southgate was standing outside panting, for he had walked fast, and his face was red, but there was an anxious look in his eyes.

“Come away at once, Mr. Halley,” he said urgently. “I have something to tell you.”

With apologies Halley went outside.

“I am sorry,” he said when he returned to the others “I must go with Southgate, and I am afraid I shall have to go to London to-morrow. I will get back as soon as I can.”

Chapter XI.
The Meaning of “The Red Cote”

The following Saturday Sefton was waiting in his bungalow, and Ena was with him, rather nervous, but glad that the shadow was to be lifted at last. Jack had written to Andrews to tell him that he was going to make an explanation with regard to The Red Cote, and asked him to be present. Fletcher he had deliberately ignored, though he felt certain that he would turn up. Halley had not returned from London, and there had been no news of him.

Andrews arrived punctually to the minute, and as was expected, Fletcher was with him. Sefton found seats for them, and began in quiet tones, different indeed from the irritable manner of the past weeks.

“You asked me the other day, what I was doing at The Red Cote. I am now in a position to tell you, thank God. When my father died, I had almost finished my course at the Hospital, and was within sight of being a qualified doctor. I was unable to go on through lack of funds. Before he died, my father entrusted a secret to me. He had been carrying out researches in certain obscure nervous diseases. My father firmly believed in Psychoanalysis, and had also a special appliance of an electrical nature with which he was experimenting.

“Not being qualified, I could not practice openly, nor did I wish to reveal to the medical world the exact nature of the process, until I had thoroughly tested it. You will remember, Ena,” he said turning to his sister, “that when we first came here, I was writing a large number of letters, and you thought that I was trying to get work of some sort. My real object was to get hold of patients, who wished to be treated privately. I was obliged to take a bungalow for the treatment, and was perhaps over-anxious to keep the matter secret, so constructed a room in which I could work, in the centre of the bungalow. I rather foolishly thought that if the place was lighted up it would be less conspicuous than if it was in darkness, but it seems to have called attention to it instead.

“I could not bring them here as they were practically lunatics.

“Among my patients was Summers the bank manager from Tunbridge Wells.” The listeners gave a start of surprise.

“Summers was in a curious state when he came to me,” Sefton continued. “He was not mad, but was on the border-line, and I was afraid that he would commit suicide. He should have told his people, but I could see that the slightest suggestion of such a thing would have spelt disaster. He was convinced that he was dead. The treatment was doing him good, and I had hopes that he would make a complete recovery, when you got busy over the so-called mystery, and I had to exercise the utmost caution. Then Summers disappeared.”

Andrews lifted his eyebrows and glanced at Fletcher.

Sefton was quick to notice it. “No,” he said. “I should not have been quite such a fool as to tell you this story, if I could not produce the man. He will be here presently, but for obvious reasons an explanation was first necessary.”

“When you called on me I had no more idea where he was than you had, and I could see that if he had committed suicide, my position would be black.”

Fletcher’s face was suffused with red, and he banged the table.

“I see it all now,” he said. “Summers and Halley are one and the same man. That’s what he was doing here.”

There was a look of contempt on the face of Sefton.

“If that’s what a detective is paid for I don’t think much of the service. Wasn’t Halley here last week when you came to ask questions? If I am not mistaken here is Summers himself.”

In answer to a knock, Ena went to the door, and admitted a tall man answering exactly to the description given in the papers and on the wireless of the missing man. He bowed to the company, and shook hands with Sefton.

“This is Mr. Summers,” said he introducing him to the others.

Summers passed a nervous hand over his eyes, and said “I am afraid I can’t talk much. I am not very well, but thanks to Mr. Sefton I am making a wonderful recovery. He has told me I was wrong to run away, but I had dreams and was haunted; now I can see things better.”

Ena went to him with the instinct of a true woman. “My brother has been telling us all about you. You will be all right now; you are among friends, and must come and stop here till you are well.”

A look of deep gratitude come to his thin face, and he seemed calmer and more self-possessed.

“Thank you,” he said. “I have entire confidence in your brother, and I will do whatever he wishes.”

So here was the explanation of The Red Cote, commonplace as all explanations are when you hear them.

Fletcher felt that he had cut a poor figure, and was eager to retrieve his reputation; he had another shot in his locker, but to use this would extinguish his last chance to stand well with Ena. He glanced at her and hesitated. Andrews rose to his feet.

“Your story has been quite interesting, and as far as I am concerned, convincing,” he said holding out his hand. “You could not have done otherwise than you have done.”

“One moment,” said Fletcher, having made his decision. “Mr. Sefton, can you explain with equal ease how it was that you changed a five pound note at the Black Horse with Southgate which was one of those stolen from Lord Reckavile?”

There was an ominous silence in the room; Ena’s eyes flashed, while Andrews looked at the floor, marvelling at the crudity of the question, but Sefton remained calm.

“If you had asked your question in a less offensive manner, I would have answered you; now you can find out for yourself.”

He saw the look of pain in Ena’s eyes, and remembered how worried she had been about the money.

“But for my sister’s sake I will tell you,” he added. “I have only changed one such note at the Black Horse, and that was for old Giles. He asked me whether I could change it for him, and I did so. You can ask him yourself.”

“Humph,” said Fletcher, “we shall see about that,” and he rose. “Come on, Andrews, we shall do no more with these people.”

Chapter XII.
The Unknown Speaker

The whole case was getting on Fletcher’s nerves. He had paid a visit to Giles, to follow up the clue about the money.

The old man was quite straightforward; it was true, he had asked Sefton to change a five pound note for him, which had been given him by Lord Reckavile as wages. When his Lordship was away he never sent any money, but when he came home, he had been in the habit of giving the old servant quite large sums to carry on with.

It was quite possible, and there was nothing to be said about this, but yet Fletcher felt somehow that all these people were combining to thwart his efforts and were secretly laughing at him.

What was Halley doing in Portham? And what was Southgate up to in his nocturnal visit to the castle, for he was sure that that was where he had gone in the night, though he had no definite proof.

Halley had returned from London, so much he had learnt, and was again visiting the Sefton’s bungalow, where Summers was now openly staying as a paying guest, under Sefton’s care.

He returned from a troubled walk; his stay at Portham was already lasting too long, and hints from Headquarters had been thrown out that if he could not manage the job, he had better return.

He had allowed his thoughts to stray to the fair grace of Ena Sefton, only to have the cup dashed to the ground by the revelation of his profession, as if there was anything to be ashamed of in being a detective. It was better than an unknown adventurer anyhow, he kept on telling himself in self pity.

He arrived at the Club in a despondent mood, and was met by Brown, the constable.

The latter had an air of mystery about him.

“Well, what is it, Brown,” he asked “anything fresh?”

“Yes, sir,” said the other, glancing round.

“It’s all right, you may talk here,” said Fletcher testily.

“Well, sir, you remember that I told you that when I heard that Mr. Halley speaking it reminded me of something. I have been worrying over it, and it has all come back to me now. I am quite certain that it was he who was in the room with Lord Reckavile when he was murdered. It was his voice we heard. It came through two doors and was muffled, but there is no mistaking his tone.”

Fletcher started back; here was news indeed.

“Are you absolutely certain, Brown?” he said “remember this is of the very utmost importance, you must not make a mistake.”

“I am certain,” said the constable doggedly.

“And I’ll tell you another thing, sir, when I found those two men in the library, although I only had a glimpse, I am nearly positive one of them was Halley.”

“Can you swear to that?” said Fletcher gripping the other’s arm in his excitement.

“No, sir, I can’t swear to that, only in my own mind I am pretty sure.”

“Well, we have something to go upon at last,” said Fletcher. “Not a word of this to anyone. We must get some more details. I knew that fellow with his superior manners and hypocritical ways was a crook, though why he should make love to a penniless girl like Ena Sefton, is beyond me.”

But if he had hit at last on the real criminal, there was something still hidden. What could be more stupid than for a man to commit a murder, and then remain on in the village for no reason, unless …

He recalled to his mind cases where men who had fallen in love had committed every kind of indiscretion and jeopardised their safety. He had on his journeyings visited the Castle of Blois, and seen the spot where the Duc de Guise had stood eating prunes, while waiting for the summons of the King which had been a call to death, and all because in spite of warnings, he had remained on, in attendance on his mistress.

Giles, when he was examined was less sure than the constable.

“I couldn’t be sartin’,” he kept on repeating, “I were that flustered, and I be ’ard of ’earing. No I dun’no as ’ow I cud swear to any voice for sartin’.”

Fletcher was cute enough to see that such evidence was worthless, and that the stubborn old man would not alter his evidence in the Box.

But a startling new piece of information came to hand by accident, when he returned to the Club, and fell into conversation with the steward.

Their talk turned on Sefton, and the mystery which was no longer a mystery.

“Yes, sir,” said the steward, “I knew he was a doctor. He brought a gentleman in here sometime ago, who was bleeding like a stuck pig. I held the basin for him, and the way he bound him up showed me he had some experience.”

“When was this?” said Fletcher without suspecting anything important. The other laughed; “I can easily tell you that,” said he “it was the night the murder took place at the castle.”

“What?” said Fletcher “and who was the man?”

“That I can’t tell you for certain. He was on a seat outside the Club, and the night was dark. Mr. Sefton thought he had fallen down and cut himself. I thought it was just a case of drunkenness. I believe it was Mr. Halley who’s staying in the village.”

There was only one thing to do, although Fletcher knew he would not meet with a genial reception from Sefton.

He made his way to his bungalow, and asked for him. The tousled maid who did odd jobs, and did them mighty badly, informed him that the “Doctor,” as she called him, was in, but Miss Sefton was out, at which Fletcher was rather relieved.

Sefton came to the door and eyed his visitor with little favour.

“Well, what is it?” he asked.

“Mr. Sefton,” said the Detective formally “I would not come to you if it was not on a matter of great importance, but I believe you can give me some information.”

“What is it now?” said Sefton.

“On the night of the murder, I understand you bound up a man who was wounded or injured in some way, at the Club. Would you mind telling me who that was?”

“Really, Fletcher,” said Sefton “you have a lot to learn in your profession. Your questions are very crude. If I treat a man medically I no more disclose his name than a priest does one who comes to confession.”

His manner annoyed Fletcher.

“That’s all nonsense,” he said “you are not a real doctor and in any case in the interests of justice …”

Sefton cut him short.

“The interests of justice are concerned with criminals, and as the man in question had nothing to do with the crime, there is no reason to reveal his name. You will excuse me, but I am rather busy.”

“Yes, and I know why you refuse,” said Fletcher “because it was that fellow Halley. I believe you are all conspiring together to shield him but I’ll …”

Fletcher was left to face a closed door, and turned away with death in his heart. Were the whole village in league to cheat the ends of justice?

In a furious mood he made his way to the telephone to call up Sergeant Andrews.

Chapter XIII.
Detained on Suspicion

“Mr. Halley, will you accompany us to Ashstead, I have a car outside; you will probably know why we have come.”

It was Sergeant Andrews who spoke these ominous words. By his side was Fletcher with a smile of triumph on his face. He had run his enemy to earth at last, and even though he might be treated with scorn by Ena, what would be her opinion of his rival? There was a tense silence; Halley stood motionless, not a muscle moved. Fletcher with deliberate cruelty had staged this scene at the Sefton’s Bungalow.

“As you are police officers, I suppose I may take it that you suspect me of some crime,” said Halley calmly.

“We wish to ask you some questions with regard to the murder of Lord Reckavile, and these are better dealt with by the proper authorities,” said Andrews, who disliked his task.

“I will come with you,” said Halley. “Am I to be handcuffed or anything of that sort?” There was irony in his tone which was galling to Fletcher.

“Not at present,” he said sharply.

Before another word could be said there was a cry, a door was flung open, and Ena came into the room. Her eyes were blazing with anger, as she walked straight across to Halley and stood by his side.

“What was this I heard,” she said “Police! Arrest! They must be mad.”

“We shall see about that,” said Fletcher, “when your precious friend is in the Dock.”

“It is untrue,” she said. “Tell them that it is utterly false.” In spite of her complete trust in him there was a terrible lurking suspicion at the back of her mind. She knew that he was not a murderer, but the facts that had leaked out from her brother’s statement, that a struggle had taken place at the castle might mean that he had acted in self-defence, but surely not with a knife, she could not believe that he would, even in anger, deal so cowardly a blow.

Halley spoke.

“Miss Sefton,” he said, “to these police officers I would have said nothing, but since you have asked me, I can tell you that I did not commit this crime.” Fletcher gave a contemptuous laugh, which made even Sergeant Andrews look at him in reproof—it was unprofessional.

Halley continued calmly. “What is more to the point is that I can easily prove my innocence.”

Her faced cleared. “I knew there must be some terrible mistake,” she said.

Sergeant Andrews felt the conversation had gone far enough.

“I am very sorry, Miss Sefton, that you were here at all. Mr. Fletcher told me that you were not at home, and that we merely came for Mr. Halley. I had just driven to fetch him, so we had better get off.”

Ena came to the door, her face was white, but she had a look of pride and confidence.

“Come back to us soon,” she said, “you will receive a warm welcome,” and she glanced a look of hatred and contempt at Fletcher.

“Do not worry about me, it will only be a matter of a few hours,” Halley said as the car drove off.

The examination was short, but Halley for the first time felt the indignity of his position, for the surroundings in which he found himself were enough to disgust any man of decent breeding.

The police at the station pushed him along as though he had been caught in the act of stealing a purse or cutting a throat. He realised how utterly futile is the old adage that a man under British Law is considered innocent until he is proved guilty.

The short sharp questions of the Inspector grated on him, and behind it all was the vision of one young girl torn with anxiety and waiting to know the issue of this day’s business.

His pride would have made him keep silent, but the image ever before him forced him to speak.

“If I studied my own interests,” he said “I would let you go on with this absurd charge, and burn your fingers over the matter. If you are wise you will let me clear myself immediately. The murder of which you accuse me took place on the 20th of January and on that night I have at least three witnesses who can testify that I was with them during the entire evening, and therefore could not have been at Reckavile Castle.”

The firmness of his tone and the quiet manner in which he spoke disconcerted the Inspector, and he turned to Fletcher for advice.

“I have evidence,” said Fletcher “of the most compromising character, and in spite of what this man says I would strongly advise that he be detained, and brought before the Magistrates, where the whole matter can be gone into. I may add,” he said with meaning, “that I represent Scotland Yard in this matter.”

The Inspector was at a loss as to what to do; on the one hand he had a heavy respect for the Yard; on the other Halley’s manner had impressed him.

“Who are your witnesses?” he asked Halley.

“If you care to send for a certain Mr. Southgate of the Black Horse at Portham Village and his wife, they will both confirm what I have said. And there is a fisherman who also saw me there on that night. I merely say this in your own interests,” he added “for it does not bring the police force into good repute when they make wrongful arrests.”

The Inspector scratched his head in perplexity.

“I think, Mr. Fletcher,” he said “we had better either send for these witnesses, or wire for instructions from Scotland Yard.”

For the first time, serious doubts crossed Fletcher’s mind and he addressed Halley in a more conciliatory tone.

“But if you can prove an alibi, can you account for the fact that Brown is willing to swear an oath that it was you who were talking with Lord Reckavile immediately before his murder.”

Halley shrugged his shoulders. “It is not for me to prove my innocence,” he said, “but for you to prove my guilt. I am always to be found, I do not intend to run away, but you must have better evidence than you have at present before you can prove your case.”

“I think on the whole,” said the Inspector, “we had better send for these people.”

Fletcher remained silent, and the Inspector took this for acquiescence. He rang his bell, and an officer appeared.

“Tell Sergeant Andrews,” he said “to motor in at once and bring out the landlord of the Black Horse, and his wife, and get the name of the fisherman whom Mr. Halley says was with him on the night of the murder.”

The officer saluted and went out.

There was an awkward pause. The Inspector had not any special liking for the interference of Scotland Yard, and was rather pleased with the prospect of proving their envoy in the wrong.

“Can you help us to throw any light whatever on this mysterious matter?” he said to Halley.

“I could say a good deal,” said Halley, “but while I am an accused person I refuse to make any statement whatever.”

“Then I may take it that you have information which might lead to the detection of the criminal and are deliberately withholding it?”

“Which criminal?” said Halley.

The Inspector gave an impatient gesture. “You know what I mean, the murderer of Lord Reckavile.”

“Oh, I understand, I thought you meant the other.”

“Are you talking in riddles to amuse yourself?”

Halley shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps you will learn the answer some day.”

After a wait of half an hour, Sergeant Andrews arrived in the car accompanied by Southgate, his wife and a fisherman. There was a look of vexation on the Sergeant’s face.

“I am afraid there is something wrong, sir,” he said to the Inspector. “It appears that on the night when the murder took place, Mr. Halley was at the Black Horse with Southgate and his wife, and was also seen by a considerable number of other people. I would not trust the landlord much myself, but the evidence of an alibi is overwhelming.”

Fletcher intervened. “There are certain movements of Southgate’s which require explanation. He had a habit of going out at night on the excuse of fishing, when it is impossible for anyone to put a boat to sea.”

The landlord grinned broadly. “I am afraid this gentleman suffers from nerves. ’E was very scared when ’e stopped at my poor place.”

When all the evidence had been heard, there was only one thing to do; Halley was released with profuse apologies from the Inspector, and was sent off in the same car in which he had been brought in as a suspected person. The police officers stared blankly at each other.

The Inspector was a man of few words.

“You have made a pretty mess of things,” he said to Fletcher, “I should think Scotland Yard will be rather pleased.”

Fletcher flushed angrily.

“If all the information that your police officers give me is as accurate as what I have just had, I do not think much of their efficiency.”

“Well, it is no good quarrelling,” said the other “you have tried to pin the crime on to young Sefton, on to Mr. Halley and now I can see you suspect Southgate, though he also has a complete alibi. Who is going to be your next victim?”

Halley got out of the car before he reached Portham, and walked slowly to the Sefton bungalow. Sefton was at The Red Cote, where he worked all day, and Halley knew that Ena would be alone and anxious. He softly approached the house and walked in without knocking, as he had been accustomed to do for some time. There were no signs of the girl in the lounge, and he tapped softly on her door.

“Who is that?” a muffled voice replied.

“It is I, Halley,” he said.

There was a sharp cry from within, and Ena came out; her face showed signs that she had been crying, and she had a strained look, but she came forward with a glad welcome and took both his hands in a frank open manner.

“Oh, I am so glad you are back,” she said “I know it was all a mistake, but how terrible it has been for you.”

He did not let go of her hands, but said quietly:

“And for you too?”

She looked down now and murmured. “The most terrible time of my life.”

“Ena,” he said, and she did not resent the use of her Christian name, “even you were not quite sure of my innocence; I could see it.”

“Oh! don’t think that,” she replied “it is not true, I knew you had never committed a murder, but I thought …” and she stopped.

“What was it you thought?” he said almost sternly.

“Oh, you know what my brother says about the struggle in the room, and that Lord Reckavile must have struck his assailant, and the words he said suggested a quarrel. I thought perhaps he might have assaulted you.”

“And that I had stuck a knife into him,” he said sadly.

“Oh. No! No! I knew you could not have done that.”

A sudden look of amazement came into Halley’s face.

“My God,” he said “I think I can see light, but if so how devilish! How fiendishly cunning!”

She was startled and tried to release her hands, but he led her gently to a seat and sat beside her.

“Let us forget this horrible business if we can. I want to tell you something. There is a mystery in my life, which I cannot explain even to you at present. Some day perhaps I may be able to do so. This alone has prevented me from saying something to you which has been burning into my head since first I saw you.”

Ena gave him a quick glance, and then looked down.

“I think you can guess what it is, and if you have nothing to say to me, I will walk out of this room and out of your life sooner than hurt your feelings. When first I met you on that windy afternoon, when you were battling against the storm so bravely, and I learned that this was the symbol of your life—battling against the Storm, my heart went out to you in sympathy such as I have never felt to anyone else in the world, and during those following days, when your sweet companionship meant so much to me—more than you perhaps will ever know—I knew that for the first time in my life I loved, and would go on loving for all time, whether you cared for me or not.”

His voice was very tender.

“Love I take it,” he said “is sacrifice and service. My whole mind and body has been in your service and yours only since first we met, and if my life could have been given to lift the burden, which I saw was hanging over you, I would willingly have made the sacrifice.”

“I know,” she said softly, and tears were falling unrestrainedly and she made no effort to wipe them from her face.

He waited for a moment and then continued.

“It is possible that I have hurt you by what I have said. I will not insult you with the usual question as to whether there is someone else to whom you have already given your heart, nor will I ask you for an answer now.”

Then she looked up at last.

“Surely you men must be completely blind. I think you are the only one of our acquaintances who has not seen the truth that I have loved you all the time.”

With a great sigh he gathered her into his arms. She nestled her head on his shoulder and with a happy laugh said,

“If you had not spoken to me, I think I should have to have spoken to you. My brother has been constantly warning me that I am throwing myself away on you. Fletcher taunted me with the same thing, and I am sure all those police constables must have seen the state of things to-day, when I gave myself away completely.”

His manner was gay, in contrast to his usual gravity.

“Well you have given yourself away now completely, I hope. Come, let’s walk to The Red Cote, and tell your brother.”

With a happy smile, she took his hand and they went out together.

Chapter XIV.
A Vision of the Night

The news that Halley and Ena were engaged was the last straw to Fletcher. One thing was now firm in his mind, to find out the truth of the whole matter, and not to fail in this at any rate, for failure was intolerable after all the indignities he had suffered.

In spite of his common-sense mind, he began to have a feeling that something not altogether natural had played a hand in the affair.

There was the mysterious “Other Man” who obtruded himself at every turn, elusive and vague, but always felt.

The man who had talked with Reckavile, and whose voice Brown had sworn was Halley’s. The man who had been in the library with one who, he was morally certain, was Southgate. The one who had appeared to him in the library under such strange circumstances, and the man with a bleeding wound who had been bandaged up by Sefton.

At every turn he was met by this mysterious individual. Was there anything in this Curse theory after all? Surely we had outgrown these ideas!

There was only one thing to do; for some unexplained reason attempts had been made to get into the library after the murder. What was the object? And had that object been accomplished?

The queer old man, the memory of whom sent a cold shudder down his back, had done nothing, and the supposed burglars had been disturbed, but had they tried to come again?

Here was evidently the key to the mystery.

Fletcher made up his mind that he would spend his nights in the room, and stake all on this chance.

For nights he watched, a tortured man. He sat in the dark, and tried to reconstruct the scene. Here was Lord Reckavile talking to—someone. Then there was a sudden attack—but by whom? Reckavile or the other. By the evidence Reckavile was the aggressor, but nothing could alter the fact that a knife was sticking in his ribs.

His mind turned in a curious way to the round leather object found on the dead man. What was it, and had it any bearing on the crime?

There were signs of the coming dawn, and a very dim light was filtering into the room, for the blinds were not drawn, when very faintly a slight jarring noise came to his ears; someone was approaching through the Hall. He silently slid behind the sofa, and lay there clutching the powerful electric torch which he had brought with him. The sounds grew louder and there was a creak of a board, then he heard a whisper which told him that more than one person was approaching. His senses were strained to catch the slightest indication as to who the visitors might be. He was convinced now that they were standing close to him. He could hear rapid breathing, but no other sound broke the silence. Now was the time for action. This time he had come armed, and holding his revolver in the right hand, he rose to his feet and switched on the torch.

Utter amazement kept him spellbound. Close to the old desk, and bending over it were two men, who rose and faced him at the sudden flood of light. The one was his mysterious visitor, the old man who had appeared before, but strange as this was, the sight of the other is what filled him with astonishment, for this was no other than Sinclair, his own Chief at Scotland Yard.

“Who is that?” asked Sinclair shading his eyes from the glare of the torch.

Fletcher advanced. “I am Fletcher, sir. But what on earth are you doing here?”

With all his sense of respect, there was a note of suspicion in his voice, at which Sinclair laughed heartily.

“Oh! we are not committing a burglary,” he said “but as things were hanging fire, I thought I had better come down and have a look at matters for myself.”

“And may I ask,” said Fletcher rather annoyed that his Chief had come without informing him, “who is that with you?”

The old detective seemed to hesitate for a moment.

“Giles I be,” said the old man, with a senile chuckle, and Fletcher recalled that he had used exactly the same words on the former occasion. Was the place really haunted, and were these two figments of his own brain?

“Why didn’t you tell me that you were coming down, sir?” he said to Sinclair.

“To tell you the truth, I did not know myself until this afternoon, but something has happened which led me to intervene in the case. I was pretty certain of the true solution from the very first.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand even now. You say you are not committing a burglary, sir,” said Fletcher, and stopped.

The old man drew himself up with some dignity, and said in a very different voice.

“As the castle belongs to me I do not think we need discuss that; if anyone is unlawfully intruding, it is you.”

He turned on an electric lamp, though the dawn shed a ghostly light into the room.

Sinclair broke the silence.

“I think we had better have a round-table conference. We wanted to make the final discovery first, but as things have gone so far, we had better have all the cards on the table.”

“But I don’t understand,” said Fletcher “if you know everything, who was the murderer, and who is this—gentleman?”

“As to the first question,” said Sinclair impatiently, “there is no doubt about that, and as to the other, you shall know. Now go off, and ask these people to come here at ten o’clock punctually. Remember, you have not done too well in this case, so I rely on you to carry out these instructions. You will ’phone for Sergeant Andrews and Brown. Use my name. Then you must get Southgate and Giles, and Mr. Sefton and his sister.” He looked at the old man, who nodded.

“Giles must come and tidy the place a bit and arrange a conference room. Everything hangs on that. Don’t forget. At ten o’clock.”

Fletcher went out like a man in a dream: What on earth was the meaning of it all? Even now he was as much in the dark as ever. Why this conference and who among those invited was the murderer? Also why had the very man of all others whom he suspected still, Halley, been omitted. Or, stay, was it because Sinclair had already got Halley? The thought thrilled him.

At any rate he had a job of work to do.

Thanks to old Giles’ efforts the library was transformed when the strange party began to arrive, and it looked more like a Board Room, with a large table and chairs set round it.

The police representatives were the first to arrive, as nonplussed as Fletcher, and feeling rather aggrieved that such a man as Sinclair should have acted without telling them anything.

This drew them together, and Fletcher, Andrews and Brown seated themselves at one end of the table, and waited. Jack Sefton and his sister came next, the latter nervous and rather pale. She gave a formal bow to the other men and with her brother took the opposite end of the long table.

The genial Southgate, who had obviously prepared himself for the meeting with refreshment from his cellar, entered and greeted the others with a cheery good morning. He looked at Fletcher, and laughed.

“Young man,” he said “you’ll ’ave a ’igh old time in a moment,” and he slapped his leg.

Giles had been hovering about, making things comfortable, and was quite the old butler again, but all waited for the principal figure. It seemed as though the whole thing had been staged for effect.

The door opened and Sinclair entered accompanied by the old man whom Fletcher had seen, and they took their seats in astonished silence.

There was one vacant chair, which Fletcher supposed was reserved for Halley.

“He’s late,” said Sinclair looking at his watch.

“I think I hear someone, sir,” said Giles, going to the door.

“Mr. Cook,” Giles announced, and the house agent came in and smiled nervously at the company.

“Take a seat, Mr. Cook,” said Sinclair. “Now I think we are all here. We are going to piece together this mystery.”

The others looked at the house agent in astonishment. What was he doing in this gathering? Their speculations were interrupted by Sinclair who spoke slowly and with a solemn tone in his voice.

“This has been a problem of some difficulty and I am not going to disguise the fact that at one time it nearly baffled the authorities. Now it is quite clear.”

“It may be to you, sir,” said Fletcher “but to me it is as dark as ever.”

A flicker of a smile came to Sinclair’s grim face.

“Perhaps you would like to ask a question or two?” he asked.

“Who was talking with Lord Reckavile in this room when the murder took place?” said Fletcher.

“No one, at least no living thing.”

“How did the other man escape from the room?”

“He did not escape, there was no other man.”

“Had the Reckavile Curse anything to do with the crime?”

“Yes, everything.”

“Did it kill him?”

“Yes,” said Sinclair solemnly.

“This is absurd,” said Fletcher impatiently, “I don’t believe in bogies.”

“Go on,” said Sinclair imperturbably.

“I suppose you will say Lord Reckavile committed suicide?”

“In one sense, yes.”

“Then he was not murdered?”

“Oh yes he was, and …” Sinclair leaned forward in his chair and said slowly: “The murderer is in the room at the present moment.”

There was utter silence, except for the breathing of those present. The room seemed to grow dark, and the air became oppressive. Those round the table looked at each other with horror and suspicion in their eyes, and a vague shadowy something seemed to be gathering in the room.

Ena shuddered. Where was her lover? Why was he not there of all people, when he had actually been accused of the crime?

Was there something in the Curse after all, and some unseen visitant hovering about them?

She could bear it no longer, and in a strained voice asked:

“Where is Mr. Halley, Mr. Sinclair, and why is he not here?”

“Mr. Halley does not exist,” then hastily as he saw the girl’s face. “Don’t be alarmed, Miss Sefton, he never did exist.”

Doubts as to Sinclair’s sanity began to fill the minds of the others.

“But why all this mystery, sir? If you know all about it, why not tell us?” asked Fletcher.

“I did not say I knew all about it. Well as no one seems disposed to speak, we had better get on with the story, eh Lord Reckavile?” He turned to the old man beside him.

An exclamation of astonishment, mixed with superstitious terror came to those present. Giles reeled and turned ashen, while the breath soughed between his teeth, and his eyes bulged from his head. He was standing behind the old man. Sinclair saw him.

“Oh, I am sorry Giles, you should not have been standing, come and sit down, no I insist, it was too bad keeping you standing all this time,” and he conducted the old servant to a chair. “Are you feeling better now?”

“Yes, thank you, sir,” he answered faintly.

The strange old man addressed as Lord Reckavile deliberately took hold of his hair and beard and removed them disclosing the face of Halley, looking grotesque enough with patches of grease paint where the hair had not covered his face, and white eyebrows which he pulled off with difficulty.

“Well I’m damned,” said Fletcher and hastily apologised to Ena.

“I give it up,” said Sefton.

Ena’s eyes were fixed on Halley. An awful suspicion was gathering in her mind that he too was a detective in disguise and had been acting a part, perhaps with her, but she dismissed it as unworthy.

Sinclair was speaking. “I had hoped for a final link in the chain, but since we have not got it I am going to ask Lord Reckavile to tell us his story. It is a long one, but you will find it interesting I think.”

“Lord Reckavile …?” began Fletcher.

“Wait,” said Sinclair “you shall know the truth now.”

Chapter I.
The Convent School

A great Cathedral Church rises high over the river, a beautiful landmark for miles round. It is not an old Gothic church, for these passed into the hands of the Anglicans at the Reformation, but is a model of modern Gothic, stately and tall, with stained glass windows between the slender buttresses.

Below nestles the little town, terraced on the slope above the marshland where a sluggish river winds to the sea.

Here in this quiet world a convent school was bedded in the woods, where the patient nuns devoted their lives to the education of all—whether of their own religion or not—who came under their charge.

On a summer day nearly half a century ago, there came to the convent school an Italian lady, with a young girl, fresh as a rose bud, half formed, but giving promise of rare beauty.

The mother was past her first youth, and like so many southerners was showing signs of fading charms, but still dangerously beautiful.

The child, who spoke no English, gazed shyly round, as they were admitted through the gates to the lovely garden within, and into a cool large room, there to await the Mother Superior.

The woman was dressed in excellent taste, the only jarring note being the quantity of jewelry she wore, which betrayed a certain vulgarity in her otherwise faultless appearance.

The Mother Superior entered with a calm and sweet face as of one whose life was one long sacrifice.

“I wish to leave my little daughter Carlotta with you,” said the Italian. “She is fourteen years old, and has been educated in Verona, but circumstances have arisen which render it necessary for me to part with her—for a time at any rate.”

The Mother Superior bowed and waited. Although shut up in seclusion she knew the world, and was a shrewd judge of its people.

“Her father is dead,” said the other, in a careless voice and crossed herself. “And I am about to marry a very dear friend, Count —, but perhaps I had better leave the name unsaid.

“He has known me for many years, and at last I have agreed to yield to his appeal.” She shook out a fold of her cloak, and looked at the other.

A grim look came to the eyes of the Mother Superior, seldom seen there, as she said. “And so the little one is to be left in our care? And is she to remain in our charge during the holidays? It is far to go to Italy.”

“Yes, it would be better. You see Marco does not care for her to be at home, when we are first married, and I—well, it reminds me of advancing years,” and she gave a hard laugh.

“I understand,” said the Mother Superior, then “poor child. She has been confirmed?” she asked.

“Oh, yes. I have the certificate here,” and she opened her bag.

“And her birth certificate? That may be necessary for examinations.”

“No, I am afraid I have not got that. I lost it—I did not think it would be necessary.” She hesitated.

“I think I understand,” said the other looking straight at her.

“Our fold is open to all, especially to those children—without birth certificates.”

“The fees shall be paid regularly,” the Italian went on hastily. “Marco is very rich, and will grudge nothing, you need have no anxiety.”

The conversation had gone on in English of which Carlotta understood no word, but looked questioningly at each in turn, clinging shyly to her mother.

When the time for parting came, she cried bitterly, silently.

Her mother gave her a formal kiss, and told her to behave well in her new school. She would write to her, she said, and perhaps come and see her next year. Meanwhile the Sisters would look after her.

And so she took her departure, impatient to be gone, and would not even stay for food which was offered her.

“Poor lamb,” said the Mother Superior, and brought her to the Sisters. She handed her over to Sister Ursula, who was versed in these cases, who soon had Carlotta smiling, and in a few days her troubles were almost forgotten. Life was fair, and the English June beautiful as a picture. Roses were out in the gardens, the trees were in fresh green, and the flowers along the old wall were such as she had never seen. The Sisters were particularly kind to Carlotta; she was so fragile, with an exotic prettiness, given to sudden crying at times. And there was a wistful look in her eyes, as though gazing out over the sea to her southern home. She had beautiful dark eyes, with long lashes, was grave and composed at her lessons, and attentive in the dim chapel, where she would kneel with a devotion beyond her years, at the wonderful services, her eyes fixed as though in ecstasy.

But she was happiest in the Chapel of Our Lady, where she would adore with clasped hands. The Mother Superior was disturbed, she did not like to see too much fervour in one so young. She knew the reactions which so often come later.

“It is all so beautiful,” Carlotta said to Sister Ursula. “When I grow up I shall be a sister. Do you think they will let me or am I too wicked?”

The Sister smiled and stroked her black hair. “My dear, we must do as Our Blessed Lady directs,” she said, “we can seldom choose for ourselves. To some is given the quiet and holiness of a religious life, but others are called to go out into the world, and to face the evil there—perhaps to marry.”

A far away look came into her eyes, and a sigh escaped her.

Carlotta did not see it; she rose and stamped her little foot. “I shall never marry,” she cried with passion “Never! Never!”

“Hush, my child, you must not speak like that,” but she folded her in her arms.

Of her mother Carlotta never spoke, and the promised letters never came. The fees were paid regularly for a year, but there was no mention of a visit from her mother, and then came silence, and when a letter was sent to her address, it was returned, undelivered. The Mother Superior sent for Ursula, and showed it to her without comment.

“But you will not send her away?” she cried in alarm.

The other was grave, but she smiled as she said. “I expected this, the so-called Count has got tired of her. We shall hear no more of them, but this sweet child, no, she shall remain with us. She must not be told. Mother Church does not cast out her children.”

And so another year passed, and the promise of the bud was revealed in the flower. Carlotta ripened early as southerners do, and at sixteen would have lured St. Anthony from his devotions. Black curls fell round her sweet face, and the great, dark, innocent eyes, wondrous as the mirror of the sea, in their changeful emotions, looked out on the world fearless yet timid, dreaming of what lay in the glory of the future.

Her figure was straight and supple, like one of the flowers in the garden she loved so passionately.

Ursula was anxious. The child had fits of silence, when she would get away from the others, and sit motionless in the garden.

With the other girls she was a favourite, for though she did not excel either at work or games, she was always kind and gentle, and took keen delight in the success of others.

The early summer had come which was Carlotta’s happiest time, for she pined in the winter.

The girls were allowed in the woods with the Sisters, and Carlotta loved the green and fragrant hollows where the bluebells made a carpet, and the birds sang for joy.

One day she had wandered off by herself, for she was allowed a certain freedom, on account of her queer moods, and the others were not far off.

She was aroused from her dreaming by the sound of a voice.

“What a face to paint! Ye gods! I’ve never seen so perfect a picture.”

She looked up in alarm and saw a young man standing before her. In her secluded life she had spoken to no men save the old priest who heard her blameless confessions. This one was tall and clean, and the face was moulded like one of the old Greek gods.

Had she known more of the world she would have seen a restless hungry look in the eyes, but at present they were filled with the light of admiration.

“Who are you, little goddess?” he asked in a musical voice. “And what do you among these woods? Perchance you are an Oread strayed from your home.”

Carlotta was unafraid, and replied innocently.

“I am at the convent school, The Convent of the Sacred Heart, and the others are near here, but I came to hear the birds, they sing so sweetly.”

“And what do they tell you, little Daphne?”

“They sing of something I cannot understand,” she said with a smile, “but it is very beautiful.”

The man laughed outright. “What a quaint little girl you are. Shall I tell you what they sing about? It is Love. They are telling each other how much they love, and that all should love on such days as this.” He stretched his hands out to the sky.

Carlotta suddenly remembered herself.

“I must not talk to you,” she said “it is forbidden. I must go and find the others. Sister Ursula would be very angry if she knew I had been talking to a man.”

The man smiled. “And is a man so very dreadful?” he asked.

“I suppose you are taught that they are terrible creatures, ogres who are waiting to eat little girls.”

“I don’t know,” she said “I have never spoken to one before,” and she opened wide her great eyes.

“I must not keep you,” said the man. “I am a painter, I won’t say artist, and when I saw you, I thought what a beautiful picture I could make of you, for a Madonna.”

“Oh, hush!” said Carlotta shocked. “I, as a picture of Our Blessed Lady, I must not listen,” and she rose in haste.

“What a funny little girl you are,” he said, laying a hand on her arm. “We always have to use models; all artists have, even for the Christ or the Blessed Virgin; there is nothing wicked in that.”

She looked at him doubtfully.

“Well if you must go, tell me when I can see you again,” he said. “You’ve haven’t told me your name yet?”

“My name is Carlotta, but they call me Carlot,” she said.

“Carlot! That’s the name of my dog,” and he laughed boisterously.

Carlotta was hurt. “That is not kind of you,” she said and turned to go.

“One moment. I am sorry, but so sweet a face deserves a better name. I shall call you Daphne. When can we meet?”

For the first time she was alarmed. Sitting on the ground was one thing, but standing beside him and seeing how tall and strong he was, she felt a vague fear.

“Carlot … Carlot … where are you?” came a call.

A sudden realisation of her wickedness in talking to a man came to her, and she turned and fled away.

He did not try to detain her.

“What a sweet face. What lovely eyes,” he said, and the sight of her little breast rising and falling with emotion as she spoke, appealed to more than the artist in him.

“Now which is it?” he said aloud. “You blackguard, is this going to be a dream to think of and something on the credit side, or a mere seduction? You devil, I never know which way the balance will turn.”

He went slowly into the town, the vision with him all the way.

“Mr. Desmond, there is a Mrs. Wheatland to see you,” said the head waiter deferentially.

“Oh! Damn!” said he, “that spoils the vision beautiful. All right, show her to my sitting room.”

A young woman was ushered in, with a fascinating rather than pretty face, one who, a keen judge would have said, would not stand the wear and tear of life for long. The hands and feet were large, and though at present she was in the glory of early womanhood, there were unmistakable signs of latent vulgarity.

She came forward at once, and flung her arms round the man’s neck, and almost smothered him.

“Oh, Hugh! I have found you at last. Where have you been all this time? I have been longing for you. And my husband is getting worse than ever. I could just bear with him until I met you, but since then everything has been so different, and he is so common, so plebeian. But what is the matter, dear? You don’t seem glad to see me?”

“Of course I am, Winnie, but you have taken me by surprise,” he said disengaging himself. “I am delighted to see you, but you know it is dangerous coming here.”

“You need not be afraid,” she answered in a tone almost of contempt. “My husband is in Germany buying goods, or something of that sort—I don’t understand trade—and he will be away a fortnight.”

“Oh, well, that’s all right, let’s have something to eat.”

“What’s the matter with you, you don’t seem a bit pleased to see me?” she said petulantly. Desmond roused himself; the vision was still with him, but here was something more tangible.

“I am sorry, dear, I have been having a long walk in the woods, and I got tired. When we have had a decent dinner and a bottle of the best we can talk over things.”

She looked at him doubtfully for a moment, and then said:

“Perhaps you would rather I went?”

He laughed. “Of course not. It is delightful seeing you. Come on, go and get dressed, I suppose you have brought your things?”

“I left my bag at the station, as I was not certain you were here. Shall I send for it?”

For the moment he hesitated. “Yes, of course. I will tell the waiter. But you gave your name as Mrs. Wheatland?”

“Never mind.”

Desmond rang the bell.

“Have Mrs. Wheatland’s bag fetched. Here is the ticket, and reserve a room for her,” he said in a tone used to command.

When he saw her enter the dining room he was thrilled.

She was certainly a very beautiful woman, he thought, and after all one must have some fun out of life.

Her evening gown was not lacking in scantiness, and displayed as much of her body as could reasonably be expected in those austere times.

Soon they were deep in the enjoyment of the other’s company, and oblivious of the other guests.

They had much to talk over, for a jealous husband had kept them apart in a most unfeeling fashion. Perhaps that was what had whetted appetite. Two bottles of champagne—for she was fond of a glass of good wine helped to cheer the evening.

By the time bedtime came, he took both her hands in his, and whispered. “And what did you say was the number of your room?”

“I did not say any number, you silly boy,” she answered, showing her fine teeth, “but as a matter of fact it is No. 13.”

“An easy one to remember,” he said lightly, “Good-night,” and he turned to the smoking room for a night-cap.

Chapter II.
Flight

Hugh Desmond was more of a hunter than a libertine. What he desired, he pursued, but after the capture he was sated, and would turn to a fresh venture. If he could stop short before the “kill” he would have been content. A devil drove him on to the very edge, and then some instinct less ignoble urged him to restraint.

For, though he went as Hugh Desmond, which was his family name, he was in reality the seventh Lord Reckavile, with a reputation so sinister that every decent woman shrunk from him till she knew him, and then fell in love with him.

A soldier of fortune, who had not the patience to remain in the Army, he had sought death deliberately instead of glory, in each of the foreign campaigns in which he had fought, always driven from country to country by the Curse, and too poor to take a position in which he might have earned distinction. He was hounded by a desire which knew no satisfaction, and a pride which claimed a high regard for honour.

Such had been the contradiction and the Curse of his race. It was with a sigh of relief that he stood on the platform and saw the train bearing Winnie back to London, and to her husband, slowly steam away. She had been lacrimose and vowed that she would never have a day’s happiness till he saw her again.

He had agreed to her acclamations, but wished to be quit of her, feeling angry with himself for a lack of ardour he could not induce.

On the way back to the hotel he made up his mind for another of those wild expeditions abroad which had filled most of his life.

Some evil fate led him to pass the Cathedral Church, where the organ was playing. The artist in him made him pause in rapture, and he entered softly. The sensuous odour of incense and the gorgeous music of the benediction service greeted him, and the dim lights, the towering pillars, and the blaze of the high altar, appealed to his aesthetic fancy, after the gross life of the last few days. How happily he could have become a monk, mortifying the flesh and flogging himself when unholy desires came to taunt him.

To devote his life to the Holy Virgin, and crush down the base part would be a fight worthy of his pride.

The organ ceased and the dreams with it. He looked round, and in the seats opposite to him, were the girls from the convent school, for this was a saint’s day.

With a sudden quickening of the pulse he saw his little wood nymph, her hands clasped and her face alight with devotion, but now a saint, transfigured, adorable.

He watched entranced; he could have bent before her, offering fealty, pleading only for some token so that he might remain her true knight, serving only in her cause.

The baser part of him was gone at that moment, and then she looked round for a brief moment, and their eyes met.

She turned quickly away, but he could see a dark flush spread over her lovely face; she had seen him, and the sight had not affected her as that of a mere stranger. The blood rushed to his head. He hastily scribbled a note on a leaf from his pocket book, and wrapped it in his hand.

The mood of piety had gone, and the hunting instinct was dominant. As the worshippers left the building he passed to her side, and as she turned to bow to Christ on His altar, he slipped the note into her hand.

The awful impiety of the act almost made her drop it, but she clutched it to her with a look of pain, and went out of the sacred building. In the privacy of her room, she furtively opened the crumpled piece of paper and read:

Dear little Angel. When I saw you tonight I adored you. You are far removed from all other beings. If you wish to save a suffering mortal, meet me in the woods where we last saw each other. Otherwise my death may be on your hands. Fear nothing, I will guard you as my own sister. At three tomorrow, but I will wait till you come.

Your devoted servant and knight,

Hugh Desmond.

In her maiden breast strange feelings were stirring. She knew it was wrong, that she ought to take the note to Sister Ursula at once and tell her the story which she had even withheld from the father at confession, but that was not possible. He had been so kind, he had not tried to stay her, or to say anything at which she could take offence. And now he said his life was at stake; perhaps he had some terrible trouble in which she could help him. If so surely she was doing right to give him aid.

So she hid the note under her pillow and dreamt of the morrow.

Desmond waited in the woods, picturing her as she had sat there in her girlish sweetness, when he had seen her, till the dusk of evening was coming on and the birds had ceased to sing. He rose stiff and cramped. Well, the gods had decided against him, so there was no use complaining. She had probably torn up the note or perhaps even handed it over to the Mother Superior.

Suddenly she stood before him, panting, and like a fairy in the twilight. He had not heard her approach, and stood enraptured with the sight.

“Oh, I know I ought not to have come,” she said “but we did not go out this afternoon, and then I thought that you would be waiting, and after what you said about being in trouble, I felt I must come, but I cannot stop or they will miss me.”

“Little Daphne, you have been very kind. I have ached to see you. I have been here all the afternoon, and would have stayed all night if there had been a chance of meeting you.” He approached her, and she did not shrink from him, only crossed her hands over her breast, and stood expectant.

“What did you want to tell me?” she asked.

“Only that you are the loveliest maid in the world, and I have longed for you since we met. You have been with me night and day. Oh Daphne, I love you dearly, and without you I shall certainly die.”

She drew back then with a quick movement.

“But you said your death would be on my hands if I did not come?”

“If you will not love me I shall die,” he said, but the phrase sounded hollow to him.

The setting sun was on her, and an expression of bewilderment showed on her face. She could not understand deliberate deceit, and thought she must have misunderstood him. They remained for a moment in silence, and in that pause a fight was taking place in Desmond’s mind, but the sight of her proved too much, and with one swift tiger-like movement he took her in his arms.

Had she resisted, or struggled, his hunting instinct would have overmastered him, but she remained, neither consenting nor resisting, just as a child might lie in the arms of its father.

His hot breath was on her cheek, and in a whisper he said, “I love you, little Daphne, the night is round us, come, we will love while we may.” His lips were close to hers, but some invisible force restrained him. What had he written; he would treat her as a sister. The word of a Reckavile was inviolate, whether for good or evil, and slowly he released her from his close embrace.

“I will take you back,” he whispered. “It is too late for you to be out.”

“Thank you, I ought to go, but it is so lovely here, and you are so good to me.”

“Come with me,” he said unable to trust himself further.

He took her to the garden wall where she had jumped down, and lifted her young warm body like a feather.

She was again adorable, and his mood was exalted. She reached down, and he took her hand to kiss, but she put two soft arms round his neck and kissed him frankly as a child might kiss.

“I shall be here every night till you come again,” he said, disarmed completely.

There was a movement above, and she was gone.

This meeting was the first of many. Desmond stayed on at the hotel, and the foreign expedition was postponed.

Each night he would wait beneath the wall, which bordered the woods, till all hope of seeing her had gone. Then he would go to the hotel not angry but hoping for a happier chance on the morrow.

She would slip out when she could, fearfully at first, but as discovery seemed remote, with growing confidence.

A change came over her. She found herself thinking more of Hugh as he had taught her to call him, and less of her devotions. Even at mass his image was before her, and she felt wicked, but could not alter her feelings. Longing seized her for something she only dimly comprehended; she became moody and irritable, and neglected her work. Sister Ursula was distressed, she had grown to love the girl. She misread the symptoms and thought Carlotta was pining to be free, like a caged bird. When they met the talk was all of the strange places he had seen, and she would listen all eyes and ears, drinking in every word. And so Desmond stayed on, cursing himself for the vile thing he was planning, yet persisting in his scheme. At last he came to the same spot now sacred to both, and lifted her down. Both were disturbed. The autumn was coming on, the time Carlotta dreaded, for she hated the cold and damp, and the death of the flowers.

“Daphne, my darling,” he said holding her in his arms, “I have to go away tomorrow to my own home to see to matters there. I shall be away for a week at least. When I come back I will see you again.” He spoke almost coldly, and she gave a little cry of pain, and realised perhaps for the first time what his absence would mean. She held fast to him.

“Oh, must you go?” she asked with a moan.

“I must, I have been here too long as it is, but I will come back.”

“Don’t be long, I shall miss you. It is so lonely without you.”

“Would you come with me to Italy for the winter?” he whispered, “away from all this cold and wet, into the sunlight. We can see Venice, you have never been there, and find your mother,” he added falsely.

Her body quivered in his embrace, but she stood silent. When it came to leaving the Convent and its quiet shelter, and the good Sisters, a gulf seemed to open beneath her feet.

“I could not,” she said, but the vision of all the beauties he had pictured, actually possible to her was dazzling her very soul.

“I will come for you,” he said “and you must decide for yourself. Only if you don’t come with me, I must go away altogether.”

“Don’t,” she answered, “it would be too cruel. If you leave me I shall die. I cannot live without you.” Her fierce passion was something he had not seen before. He took her in his arms then, and kissed her on the mouth, the eyes and hair, holding her close, and she returned his kisses with utter abandon, her soft arms round his neck. He was the first to recover, and gently disengaged himself. He was trembling; he had never felt like this in any of his affairs.

“You must go, my darling,” he said very gently, and lifted her to the wall, not daring to say more.

She was crying now, softly as she always did, and the tears fell on him like rain.

“Good-bye,” he said hoarsely, and turned away through the dark woods.

“You scoundrel,” he said to himself. “Now what are you going to do? She is not like the others, she will never forget.

“Are you going to leave her, and break her very soul. She has no mother and no friends outside the convent. Or are you going to take her, she is yours for the asking, and ruin her?”

There was another possibility, but he would not allow his thoughts in that direction—marriage, but that was horrible. To settle down as a married man; no that could never be for him.

And so he went irresolute, torn by conflicting feelings, the sweetness of her kisses an abiding and tormenting memory.

And Carlotta, for her the old life was done. It was all biting pain now. She had been instructed by the Sisters, and she knew right from wrong. She had been playing with fire, and now she was burnt.

The days passed in weariness; she tried to forget in her devotions, but the old fervour would not come. Perhaps she might have recovered in time, might even have forgotten, but fate was playing a part.

He had been gone a week when the Mother Superior sent for Carlotta.

“Come here, my child,” she said, “I want to talk to you about your future. We must discuss what you are to do.”

“I do not understand,” said Carlotta.

“My poor child, it is time you were told the truth,” and she recounted the story of her mother, and of her treatment. Carlotta could have died with shame; her sensitive soul was deeply wounded. That she had been kept on out of charity, a foundling; it was awful.

“And so you see, my dear,” the Mother continued, “we must look out for something for you. We have places where we train girls, and I think we can get you into one of those.”

“And I am to leave here?” Carlotta gasped.

“I am afraid so, my dear child, the rules will not allow you to stay after you are seventeen, and that will be in a few months.”

She went on talking quietly, but Carlotta heard nothing. It was as though she were sinking in deep waters, and a faint sound of a voice far away was speaking.

She did not cry, but her face was white and pinched.

“You understand?” asked the Mother and kissed her.

“Yes, Mother, I will do what you want.”

“That’s a good child, run along now. I will have another talk when I have heard from the training college.”

For once her judgment was at fault; she thought Carlotta had taken it very well, and would be reconciled to her new life.

No sleep came to Carlotta that night. She tossed on her bed, and a dry fever tormented her.

“Oh, Holy Mother!” she prayed “take this shame from me, what can I do?”

When dawn came she was calm; she had made up her mind once and for all. She was Italian, and had not the calculating mind of the northerner; she would go to him, yes, this very evening, and her courage rose high at the thought.

Desmond was waiting by the wall; the Curse had driven him back. He must see her, if only to say good-bye. How often has the Devil tried this game with success.

She came to the wall, which on the garden side was low, and leant on the parapet. He noticed with a start that she was holding a little hand-bag, so small and dainty that even at the moment he wondered what on earth she could get into it.

“I am coming with you, if you will take me,” she said quite calmly.

“My God!” he said, staggering back, “do you mean it?”

“Of course. You asked me last week, and said you would come for me.”

He was at a loss. This dainty little girl was talking like some practiced woman of the world, or was it sheer innocence?

Then he was swept away, and all moderation left him. He gathered her from the wall and seized her roughly in his arms.

“Daphne, my darling, come. We will fly together, over the blue seas, and love each other dearly, and no one shall come between us. It will be all Heaven, and you shall be my angel, my Love! My Queen!”

The hours sped by in the soft velvet night, and he took her by the hand, and led her to the town. His senses came to him, and his quick mind saw the danger. She would be missed, and a search made. He went to his hotel, but not to the front door. He had brought a young fellow from his estate to look after him, Southgate, son of a publican, who had some training as a valet. He had taken him with him before and knew his loyalty and discretion.

He roused him up from the servants’ quarters.

“Go to the King’s Head down the street, and hire a trap. Mention no name except a false one, and say it is an urgent case—an accident. Here is money. You can return the trap tomorrow evening. Bring it to the Cross by the London Road. Hurry, mind, and don’t arouse any suspicion.”

“Yes, my lord,” said the valet, who was used to his master’s vagaries.

Desmond led Carlotta down the silent street, and waited at the Cross. She was quiet, and filled with pure happiness and trust. She had yielded herself to this man absolutely, and for ever. The die was cast, and she was content.

They drove off into the night, and he held her in his arms where she slept like a tired child.

Mile after mile was covered, and dawn was breaking when she woke to find herself at the door of an old inn. Southgate jumped down, and held the steaming horses, while Desmond lifted her down, and carried her to the house. The door was opened by an old woman, who curtseyed to Desmond.

He said something to her in a low voice, and passed on up the stairs to a door, which the woman opened, holding a candle for them.

Very gently Desmond laid her on the bed, and kissed her.

“This good woman will see to you,” he said. “You will be quite safe here.”

She was so weary that she could scarcely touch the hot soup which the woman brought her, and soon was lost in happy dreams.

Chapter III.
The Marriage

“When are we going to Italy?” asked Carlotta. She was sitting happily on Hugh’s knee, and the sunlight came through the window of the old Inn.

“I have got the tickets, and booked our passages. The boat sails on Saturday from Dover, and we go through France by train.”

She clapped her hands with pleasure.

He looked at her with delight, what a perfect little girl she was!

“And I’ve got lots of clothes for you. You must come and see them. Mrs. Southgate has laid them all out in your bedroom.”

“You are a dear,” she said, and kissed him.

His method had been simple. He had written to London, explaining that he required a complete outfit, and giving a description of the lady. It was not the first time, and the articles had arrived by return. He had a wealth of faults, but always paid his debts; it was a peculiarity of the family.

Carlotta was delighted; what a child she was. She had worn the school costume, sombre and uninteresting, so long that the sight of all these lovely things made her joyous.

Desmond sat and watched her with a glow of pleasure.

Nothing would satisfy her but to try them on, and she came to him to do up fastenings or hooks.

It was all joy and happiness, then quite suddenly she came and put her arms round his neck, and said:

“Where are we going to get married, here or in Italy?”

The question staggered him. There was nothing coaxing or challenging in the voice, and the question was asked so simply, as though she was asking where they were going to dine.

Her great dark innocent eyes looked at him, and a wave of pity, and something as near remorse as he was capable of, touched him.

“Why, damme,” he said with a laugh, and with one of those strange resolutions which madness dictated. “I had not thought of that, little Daphne, so you would really like to marry me?” He watched her narrowly. If there had been tears or reproach he would have stiffened, but she merely said “Yes please, if you would like to,” and he was disarmed. He gave a great laugh and held her to him.

“Caught! By Jove. Very well, sweetheart, we will get married. Why not, after all? Married women have a pretty good time, so why not men?” She looked at him with grave eyes.

“Fancy being your wife. It will be lovely.”

They had no time to spare, as although the Southgates were loyal and true, the search for the girl might find them at any moment. He obtained a special license, and they set out by road for Dover with gaiety in their hearts, and in his case an unusual sense of virtue. If she wondered that she had not met his family or friends, she put it down to the fact that they must escape pursuit. He told her they would come back when all the bother was over and he would show her London.

At a little village church, where a friend of Desmond’s was parish priest, and keener on hunting than his work, they were made man and wife. She was a Catholic, and did not understand the ceremony, which was witnessed by young Southgate and the verger, but when he placed the ring on her finger, whispering “It was my Mother’s,” she thought it all very beautiful.

The parson entertained them to a gargantuan meal, and both the men were soon happily and noisily drunk, but Carlotta noticed nothing.

“Reckavile, you ruffian, this is the last straw,” said the parson. Carlotta had never heard the name before, but in after years she remembered.

“You married! Oh Lord! I thought your line would at last end with you—at any rate on the right side. You dog!”

Drunk as he was Reckavile turned grey. “I had sworn the Curse should die with me. The Devil has a hand in most things. Pass the bottle.”

Southgate and the parson’s man helped him into the chaise, and the parson kissed the bride.

“God bless you, my dear,” he said unsteadily. “Come and see me again.”

But it was not to be. A stroke took the worthy man off the next night with consequences which none of them could have foreseen.

The weeks that followed were one dream of delight to Carlotta.

They journeyed from town to town, discovering fresh beauties everywhere. He was charmed with his young bride, and for a moment the horrible craving for something new was stayed.

She thought he was showing her Italy, but the restless craze drove him on, only now he was happy at last, and satisfied with her sweetness.

At Ancona, where they stayed for several days, he got his letters.

He was utterly careless in these matters, but his butler sent him a batch now and then.

They had been watching the Bay from the battlements, with the sun flashing on the Adriatic waters, when he took a bulky packet from his pocket, and opened it carelessly.

There were some bills, some letters from his Club, and statement from his butler. Nothing to worry about. Then his eye caught a familiar writing, and with a quick catch in his breath, and a dull presentiment of evil he broke the seal.

It was from Winnie, as he had known by the writing, and he read it through twice. The large scrawly handwriting was clear enough, but the news was startling.

My Darling Hugh,

Where have you hidden yourself all this time? I have enquired everywhere, but no one knows anything about you. I am in such dreadful trouble, I must see you at once. It is too awful. My husband knows all about us. When he came back from Germany the servants told him I had been away, and he found that we had been stopping at that hotel. He put a lawyer on the track, and discovered everything. Oh! What are we to do! You must come and advise me, and you will stand by me won’t you? You know how much I love you, and you know you made me unfaithful to my husband. You will not leave me now? He is getting a divorce and what am I to do? I am staying with my mother, as he will not have me. Do come to me.

Your broken-hearted

Winnie

There were tear stains, and corrections, and crosses at the end. The letter was unfair and gross, and as Hugh looked up from reading it, he contrasted in his mind the fair young girl, now throwing little stones over the hedge to see them drop far below, and the flamboyant beauty of the other, to whom now he must go, for so the twisted honour of his race would have it.

“Come, Daphne, let us go back. It is getting late,” he said, but there was a solemn note in his voice, which made her ask. “Have you had bad news?”

“Oh no, just the ordinary worries, but it will probably mean I shall have to go to England. Business affairs you know, but don’t trouble, little girl, I shall not be away from you for long.”

A shadow crossed her lovely face. It was the first separation.

“Can’t I come too? I would love to see England properly, London and the big cities.”

“I am afraid not this time, and besides you would hate the winter. I must get a villa for you, and you can make everything ready for me when I come back. It will be quite exciting for you, furnishing.”

And so it was arranged. Everything had to be done in a hurry, but then he was used to that. He bought a charming little Villa at Murano, and obtained servants for her, while she was to stay in Venice till she had furnished it. On the last night she was sad.

“Come back soon,” she said “I shall be so lonely without you, and …” she stopped.

He was tender with her, but there was a hunted look in his eyes. He could see only one way out of the mess, and that he could not tell her.

She faced the parting bravely, and he was proud of her. There was no scene such as he had been accustomed to with others; she smiled at him, and waved as the train moved out. Only when she got home to the hotel, she went to her room and burst into a passionate flood of tears.

Reckavile found all London talking about the case. The worthy draper had filed his petition, and only awaited his turn to come to the courts. Winnie he would not see, and rumour gathered round the action Reckavile would take. Betting was about even on his marrying the woman or killing the draper.

Those who knew him were certain he would face the music.

He paid two visits, one to his family lawyer to enter a defence, and one to an intimate friend, Captain Wynter. He found the latter at the Club, and with his usual abruptness opened at once.

“You’ve heard of this silly business about the man Wheatland, eh?” Wynter nodded.

“Well, I want you to take a challenge to him. Tell him I’ll fight him for the lady.”

“My dear fellow,” said the other, dropping his eyeglass in his astonishment, “are you joking? That sort of thing is quite out of date, unfortunately, otherwise one would not have to put up with the insults one meets with nowadays.”

“I mean it quite seriously, I am in a devil of a mess, and if he can plug me, all the better. It will end the line, and everyone will be satisfied.”

Wynter looked at him, and realised he was serious, and in a dangerous mood. It would be best to pacify him, and rather a joke to frighten the draper; perhaps even it might stay proceedings.

He drew up the challenge with all the formality of a century ago, and showed it to Reckavile, who gravely agreed, without apparently seeing any humour in the situation.

Wynter dressed himself in his best, and hailing a hansom cab, drove to Wheatland Emporium in Highbury.

He found him, an anxious worried little man, pompous and vain, with horrible mutton chop whiskers.

He had risen by energy and hard work through the stages of assistant to shop-walker and manager, until he had obtained a shop of his own, and his middle aged affection had been lavished on his cashier Winnie, then a beautiful young girl, and ambitious.

She had married him for his money, hoping to twist him round her fingers, and found him vain and jealous, and exacting in his ideas both of marital duty and spending limits.

Wynter he greeted with the artificial smile of the business man expecting custom, and the latter bowed politely; he was enjoying his part. “Mr. Wheatland, I believe?” he said.

“The same, sir, at your service,” answered the other.

“May I have a word with you, sir?” said the soldier.

“Certainly, come to my office.”

Seated in Wheatland’s private room, Wynter felt a sudden distaste at his mission. After all, this poor man had been treated badly, and he had his rights like anyone else.

“I am afraid I have come on an unpleasant errand,” he said “I represent Lord Reckavile.”

The draper stiffened. “I do not wish to hear anything from that man, my lawyer has the matter in hand.”

Wynter waved his hand. “This is not a lawyer’s business, but a personal one—my friend Reckavile feels that you have a distinct grievance, in fact that you have the right to demand satisfaction. He is willing to waive his rank, and will meet you, if you will nominate a second with whom I may arrange details.”

“A second, I don’t understand,” said the bewildered Wheatland.

“Exactly, a friend who will act for you. You can then fight for the lady. He feels that as the aggrieved party you have the right to challenge, but you might feel diffident on account of the disparity in rank.” He produced his Cartel and spread it out.

The little man’s eyes fairly bulged in his head.

“Either you are playing a very discreditable practical joke, or your friend is mad. Fight, sir, I never heard such rubbish. Are we back in the Middle Ages? The Law, sir, will give me protection, and I shall immediately communicate with my solicitor to stop this murderous ruffian.”

Then his manner changed, and in a whining tone he said, “Is it not enough that he has seduced my wife, whom I loved with all my heart, but he must seek my life as well.”

Wynter felt uncomfortable, and cursed himself for coming.

He rose to his feet, and buttoned up his coat, thrusting his famous challenge into his pocket.

“Then I may take it, Mr. Wheatland, that you will not fight,” he said.

“Certainly not, sir, I never heard anything so preposterous in my life,” said the other.

“Very good, but on one point you are wrong. Reckavile is a strange creature, and he does not wish to kill you; in fact he was hoping you would kill him.”

Wheatland gazed at him open-mouthed.

“Kill him, sir, and how much better off should I be if I were hanged for murder, than if I were murdered myself. And what would become of my business; I should look ridiculous.”

Wynter felt he had better terminate the interview.

“Good-day, Mr. Wheatland,” he said bowing slightly.

Wheatland laid a hand on his arm.

“He will marry her, won’t he sir, when I have my divorce; I should not like to think he would desert her.”

There was something in the tone which went to Wynter’s heart. This stubborn man, who would not forgive, and who was willing to face publicity for the sake of his personal honour, yet hoped that the woman would find happiness or at any rate safety by marrying the man.

“I’ll tell him,” said Wynter hurriedly, and went out.

Reckavile was waiting for him in the Club. He had occupied his time in tossing a friend for sovereigns, and had liberally attended to his needs for liquid refreshment.

He listened in scornful silence to Wynter’s recital.

“And so the merchant won’t fight,” he said.

“Not likely,” said Wynter with a loud laugh “and the best of the joke is he wants you to marry the woman.”

Reckavile sat up straight and Wynter eyed him narrowly.

“Of course, that’s your affair, old man, but it certainly looks as though you are caught at last,” and he slapped the other on the back. “We all know about the Reckavile honour. You are all blackguards of the worst type, but men of honour of a sort—a curious sort.”

There were several in the group, and they laughed boisterously.

“Damn you, you need not remind me of that,” said Reckavile, his thoughts were with a little lady with great eyes in Italy, watching for his coming with a lovelit face, whom this same sense of honour has compelled him to marry. He shook himself.

“You’ll all dine with me,” he said “and we’ll have a flutter afterwards, but I’m sorry the merchant would not fight.”

Chapter IV.
The Divorce and After

Wheatland got his divorce. There was no defence, for when Reckavile considered the matter with his family lawyer, he decided not to have certain letters read in court, and all the details published in the papers.

He wandered restlessly between London and his castle at Portham, not able to leave for Italy till the case was over. He wrote Carlotta, passionate love letters, but gave no address, for to her he was Hugh Desmond, and no other.

In spite of all the appeals made to him by Winnie in tearful and illiterate letters, he made no answer, nor would he see her. He told his lawyer to look to it that she wanted for nothing, and there the matter rested.

It was the day after the decree nisi had been pronounced when Reckavile went to his lawyer, Mr. Curtis, head of Curtis, Figgis and Brice, for a final interview as he was leaving for Italy the next day.

The thought thrilled him, as he pictured her whose whole longing was bound up in him, with no aspiration after title, or social position, and trust—absolute trust—that was the very devil.

Curtis was speaking.

“Of course, I don’t know what you propose to do, Lord Reckavile, when the decree is made absolute—it is hardly my affair, except—ahem—as the old family lawyer who knew your father, perhaps …” he stopped confused.

“Well?”

“What I meant to convey was, that if you made the lady an allowance as you are doing, it would appear sufficient. In your position I do not think an alliance would be desirable or even necessary.”

Reckavile’s face hardened.

“You mean as I have compromised the lady, I should now desert her—of course, with an allowance,” he added bitingly.

Curtis was uneasy, for he knew the Reckaviles; but the marriage must be stopped. He tried once more.

“It would never do. You know that the estate is heavily mortgaged, and you are well—rather careless in money matters. I had hoped that you would marry some desirable lady of your class, with sufficient funds to put the family in a satisfactory position. I think that is very necessary.”

He paused at the look on Reckavile’s face. His eyes were dull black, like a snake’s, and his mouth was twisted in a fiendish smile.

Curtis knew that look only too well.

“Thank you, Curtis,” he said “I was undecided, and thought of tossing for it, but you have made up my mind for me. I shall certainly marry the woman—or at least give her my name for what it is worth, and that should be sufficient punishment for anyone.”

“But, my Lord …”

Reckavile held up his hand. “There is no need for further discussion.”

A knock sounded at the door, and the clerk came in.

“A lady wishes to see Lord Reckavile,” he said to Curtis “she would not wait, sir, and seemed very impatient.”

He was brushed aside, and Winnie swept into the office. Her colour was high, and she certainly looked a beauty at that moment.

The worry of the last few months instead of marring her looks, had softened the lines of her face, and her fine eyes were appealing. She came straight to Reckavile, ignoring the lawyer altogether, but something in the sternness of his face made her pause.

“Oh Hugh!” she said, not venturing to go to him, “why have you treated me like this? You have taken no notice of my letters, and refused to see me. Are you going to desert me after you have ruined me?” Her voice broke, and there were signs of coming tears.

“You need have no apprehension on that score,” he answered coldly. “I have already discussed the matter with Mr. Curtis here. When the time comes, you shall become Lady Reckavile, and have my honoured name. You have a witness here,” and he smiled like Satan at Curtis.

“But Hugh, you are so hard, so cold. It is your love I want as well as to be your wife,” she added hastily.

He was unmoved.

“I have said, Winnie, that you shall become my wife. Anything else I do not care to discuss, especially before another.” Curtis had remained in the hope that he could dissuade Reckavile from his purpose, but he now hastily made to go, when the other stopped him.

“No, Curtis, don’t go. There is nothing to add. I am leaving England, and you know where to find me. This lady can communicate with you, and you will continue her allowance. When my presence is necessary I will come. You can arrange the details at a registry office, as quietly as possible. No fuss, please, and above all keep it out of the papers.”

Winnie turned red with anger and shame. How brutal he was and callous, it was worse than anything that had gone before. Before she could collect her thoughts Reckavile had turned on his heel, and strode from the room.

She would have tried tears, or a passionate appeal, but what was the good of that with a dry old lawyer, whose face was impassive.

“What a way to treat me after all I have been through for him,” she blazed out, but Curtis remained silent.

“He said he loved me, and that he would remain true to me,” she went on.

“I am afraid Lord Reckavile has said that to many,” said Curtis dryly, drawing a paper towards him, “and as for standing by you, you are the first who has had the honour of becoming Lady Reckavile.”

His tone was final, and she felt the futility of talking to a parchment faced lawyer, whose sympathies were obviously with Lord Reckavile, and who considered she was getting out of it very well. With a toss of her head she went, vowing she would never enter the place again.

And Reckavile paced the deck of the Channel boat, deep in thought. His mind ran on suicide, which was the common weakness in his family, and generally the solution of impossible positions.

Then another thought came to him, and the more he turned it over, the better he liked it. Why not end the Line without violent means. He would give Winnie his name and the Estate for what it was worth. As Lord Reckavile he would cease to exist, but in sunny Italy, Hugh Desmond would bury himself with his little wife, and he would earn a living by his painting, for he was no mean artist.

The idea pleased him. Flowers and kisses, and lying in the sun, with not too much work, and perhaps a minor war or so to chase away boredom. By the time he had reached Italy he had made up his mind. There was only one more hurdle, the ceremony in London, and then happiness awaited him. The bigamy did not worry him in the least, such trifles were nothing to a Reckavile.

At Venice he waited all day, and a strange feeling of apprehension came to him. Suppose something had happened to Carlotta in his absence; he had left her, a mere girl—alone, with only servants of whom he knew nothing. Suppose she were ill, or even dead. A nervousness never felt before beset him. Impatiently he drove out to Murano, and came to the Villa San Rocco. Night was falling as he passed through the lovely garden, and approached the windows from which a soft light shone. She was sitting inside, a piece of work had dropped from her hands to the floor, and her great eyes were gazing at nothing. How sweet she looked and how dainty, but so sad. He had never seen her thus, and pity filled his heart, and reproach.

He entered through the open window, and with a great cry she came to him, holding out both arms. He took her to himself in a passionate embrace, and with a feeling deeper than the old stirring of desire. She raised her radiant face to his in perfect happiness.

“Oh, Hugh, I am so happy. You’ve come back to me.”

There was no word of reproach, no shadow of fretfulness at his long absence.

The past and future were gone, and for the moment the pure bliss of being together absorbed their beings.

She roused herself with a happy laugh, and kissed him, her face rosy with delight.

“I must tell the servants about dinner, and you will want to dress won’t you?”

She looked older, more self assured, but more beautiful than ever, he thought.

He had left his bag in the carriage, and went for it, and to pay the driver.

When he returned, she was waiting for him, and led him shyly to their room, fragrant with flowers, and the odours of the night.

She showed him everything with childish pleasure, all arranged for his return, and his dressing room on which she had lavished such care, overlooking the rose garden.

Dinner was laid in the loggia, and he seated himself with a sigh of contentment. The spotless linen and sparkling glass and silver added to his sense of happiness. She rose and filled his glass, and he made her sip from it first, the scent of her hair and the nearness of her warm body intoxicating him. He would have taken her into his arms, but that the servants were hovering near.

She was dressed in a soft evening gown, which showed the perfect lines of her young body, and he wondered at her beauty.

Never once did she ask him where he had been, or what he had been doing, but listened as he told her of England, and then recounted the little trifles of her life, so pathetically filled with the sorrow at his absence though she did not speak of it.

They sat over their coffee while he smoked a cigar from his Club, which had never seemed so fragrant before.

At last he rose.

“It is getting chilly, darling,” he said in a voice he tried to steady. “Let’s go to bed.”

A deep blush dyed her neck and face, as she rose and took his hand.

Chapter V.
The Second Marriage

The summons had come, and Hugh braced himself to meet the call. Would to God he could have refused to go; to pretend that he was dead, anything to get out of it. But the perverted honour of the Curse drove him to play the last scene to the end.

“I shall only be away for a week, Darling,” he told her. “There is a certain property of mine I must look after.” That was true.

“When I come back this time, I shall not leave you again.”

She smiled at him; the wrench was not so bad this time, and she had other things to think of. When he came back she would tell him, and she hid her secret close, nursing the thought in her breast.

She came with him to Venice, careful that he had everything for the journey, papers and cigars. He watched her with a dull sense of pain; the deception hurt him as nothing had done before.

He had converted a shed into a studio, and she had posed for him, as he had said at their first meeting. Already one picture was finished, and he would have sold it, but could not bear to part with it. Another was half done, which he would finish when he came back, he told himself.

In London, summer was at its height, but he had no pleasure in it. The Club nauseated him, and the old companions found him changed, dull and uninteresting. He was out of touch with things. Only Wynter and a few intimates who knew, surmised that the prospect of marriage had caused the change, and behind his back betted how long he would retain faithful to his marriage vows.

Winnie he met only at the lawyer’s the day before the wedding. She found him cold and reserved, but he was startled with the change in her. She was sweetness itself, her voice subdued and a look in her eyes he had never seen before. He thought her much improved, and was glad of it. She made no mention of his absence, nor did she speak of the past, she seemed to be seeing a vision. Wynter and two friends had promised to come to the registry office with him, prepared for a joke, but his face subdued them, and they became silent. A visit to the Club first was insisted upon. Reckavile wore his ordinary clothes, with no sign of the bridegroom about him.

“Cheer up, man,” said Wynter “it’s not an execution you know, and after all there are worse things. You will have a better chance as a married man, they always get the pick of the bunch.”

They all laughed, and Reckavile seemed to rouse himself.

“Another bottle,” he said with his old gaiety, “why are we going thirsty? Call that damned waiter.”

They were far from thirsty, when they came to the place where Curtis looking like an undertaker, met them with the marriage settlement. It was the most wicked document he had ever drawn up, for Reckavile had made over everything which was not entailed to his wife, no doting swain sick with love could have bartered himself away so completely. It was the price he was paying for his folly, but Curtis little knew what was in his mind. It appeared to him sheer madness. Winnie had scarcely looked at it, and she went up in the opinion of the old lawyer, who expected a sordid interest. She seemed quite content to have Hugh without any thought of money. And she certainly was beautiful, more so than ever before, thought Hugh, not realising that every woman is transfigured on her bridal day.

Then for a moment something comes to her in a flash, whether with the organ pealing in some grand old Church, or in the squalid surroundings of the registry office, a light from the Unknown illuminates her soul, and departs leaving only the memory of a guest that tarrieth but an hour.

Winnie had brought a girl friend with her, a devoted little soul who had stuck by her all through and borne with her moods. That she was young and attractive was quite enough for the amorous Wynter, who began to make violent love to her at once.

The ceremony was over, with that blinding swiftness which has an element of indecency in it. Before they realised that it had started, they were signing their names, and the step had been taken from which there is no retreat. The situation was beginning to appeal to Reckavile’s cynical mind. After all Italy was far, and why the devil should one be tied up with one woman. To hell with convention. He had been too solemn, too wrapped up in domesticity; it was a great mistake. There was an awkward pause, and Winnie looked shyly at him, while the fussy little registrar buzzed around getting signatures of witnesses.

Well, why not? Reckavile took Winnie by both hands and kissed her, if not with affection, at any rate with a satisfying thoroughness.

The ice was broken, and Wynter and the two friends he had brought followed suit, taking liberal toll both with Winnie and Florrie, her friend, whose surname no one troubled to ask.

Even the old lawyer began to thaw, now that the irrevocable step had been taken.

Wynter had arranged for a private room at the Gloucester, and thither they adjourned. Curtis protested, but was lifted bodily into a cab by the others, and brought along as a trophy.

The lunch was a merry one; Reckavile threw off all his moodiness. It would be time enough to tell Winnie what he intended to do later on. He was going to send her to Reckavile Castle, where he had arranged matters with the butler, and he was for Italy. He knew there would be a scene, and it would be as well to play the farce out first.

Soon corks were popping, the wine was running free and Wynter filled Curtis’ glass to the brim.

“But I never take anything now,” he protested “I suffer much with the gout.”

“That shows what a wicked youth you were,” said Wynter “but all doctors agree about the hair of the dog that bit you. Drink up old Deed Box, and smile at the Bride.”

As the meal proceeded the guests became more riotous. Wynter was one who seldom showed signs of excess; he became solemnly humorous, and then slept, but now he rose unsteadily to his feet and gazed around with an owlish expression.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I rise to propose t’health of the Bride. ’Ont congratulate you. Reckavile is sad dog, like all his family, but hope fot’ best. Congratulate Hugh, damned pretty woman, beg pardon, Ladies, but ’struth. Wish I had married her myself. Never mind. Lucky to have hooked him, many tried unsuccessively—wrong—unsuccess …, without success, t’ats better.

“Well, don’t want long speeches. Here’s to Bride, and all the little Reckaviles, past, present and to come,” and he sat down.

“Get up you ass, and propose the toast,” said Harding, one of the guests attempting to pour port into Curtis’ glass, and spilling most on the table.

“I never take port now,” said the unhappy Curtis “the doctor has absolutely forbidden it.”

“Stupid ass, the doctor,” said Harding “Port best thing for gout in the world.”

Wynter rose again with difficulty and gave his toast which was drunk with musical or unmusical honours. A waiter entered to ask whether anything was required, and Harding hit him with a ripe watermelon, which exploded over his shirt front, and he retired.

“Speech,” said Wynter clapping his hands vigorously.

Winnie’s face was flushed though she had drunk sparingly. In a few tasteful words she thanked Wynter, and hoped that she would make a good wife for Hugh, and that he did not regret the step he had taken. It was a good little speech, and Reckavile was pleased with her. She was a damned good sort, he found himself repeating, and the subaltern on his left whose very name he had forgotten agreed heartily with him.

Florrie had left the table and was sitting at the piano playing soft tunes, while Harding was tickling her neck with a peacock’s feather he had taken from an ornament on the mantelpiece.

Wynter rose to his feet again.

“Young couple want to start on Honeymoon. Got a proposiss … a proposal. They want to go to Reckavile Castle. The trains no good, too unromantic, I got my coach here, won competition yesterday, or day before, I forget which. Bring it round here, and we’ll all go in style. Only just beyond Brighton eh? No distance. What der say Hugh, old bounder?”

It suited Reckavile’s mood. Anything to get into the air, and the swift motion especially with the excitement of being driven by a drunken man appealed to him. After all he might just as well see her to the Castle, it was more seemly, then he could slip away from there.

Wynter issued his orders to a waiter who peeped through the door, holding it like a shield in case of attack. The meal had now become an orgy; even Winnie had let herself go, and Curtis was reciting risqué stories which had lain dormant in his mind for a generation. The subaltern had slipped to the floor, and Florrie was sitting on Harding’s knee, while he proposed solemnly to her again and again. Reckavile was singing Tom Bowling to his own accompaniment, while empty bottles strewed the floor, and the spilt wine ran on the table like the blood of a sacrifice.

The sound of a horn outside roused the revellers, and Wynter gathered his passengers together.

They must all come, he would take no refusals. Only Curtis was adamant, and at last they gave up trying to persuade him. The rest were packed away, and they started off, the horses trotting bravely out of London.

They were all sound asleep before they reached Portham, and the gloomy old castle in the woods, only Wynter had driven at a cracking pace, and the air had sobered him.

“Sound your horn, now, a joyful blast,” he said to the groom, and the lad responded with vigour.

All was bustle and excitement when they arrived, the servants crowded to the door, the butler leading, and helped the stiff party down. They had expected only Lady Reckavile, as Hugh had told them, but the great kitchen was soon busy, for in those days when telephones and motors were unknown every country house was well stocked, and soon chickens and hams were simmering, and the table groaned with good fare.

“Brandy, and plenty of it,” said Reckavile swallowing a lump in his dried throat.

Winnie went straight to her room; she wanted to look her best at dinner. The mad party had no luggage, except Wynter who had brought his on the coach, and there was much merriment as Wynter’s two friends raided Reckavile’s ample wardrobe.

The night was far spent when they rose to seek repose.

Reckavile through a mist saw a vision of loveliness, and Italy was forgotten.

“There’s a lot to be said for Mahomet, and his sporting religion,” he said musingly. “It’s a dull life with only one woman.”

Chapter VI.
The Blow Falls

Three days they kept it up. Wynter discovered new wonders in the cellar each day, and while at breakfast everyone was discussing trains, towards evening departure had been forgotten. Reckavile was first down, in a dressing gown, and stood before the great fireplace in the hall, now empty and black.

The morning was far gone, but none of his guests showed any sign of appearing.

The butler approached him with The Times newspaper, and a large bumper of brandy. He idly opened the paper, and glanced at the news, then a pang shot through him as he read of an earthquake shock which had been felt in northern Italy, and several houses had been demolished near Venice. A great wave of disgust went over him, and his thoughts went back to the little villa, and the poor girl waiting for him, perhaps overtaken by this hideous menace.

The moment he thought of this fair child in danger, he sickened of his surroundings. God, what a hog he was. He looked in the glass and saw the blotched face and heavy eyes, and with a blow he smashed the heavy mirror, careless of a bleeding fist. The butler came in alarmed at the sound, though he was inured to most things in that house.

“Have you hurt yourself, my lord?” he asked.

“It’s nothing, get one of the servants to clear up that mess.”

“They say it’s unlucky, my lord, breaking a mirror,” said the butler, gazing ruefully at the ruin.

“Unlucky, be damned, you fool, have you ever known a Reckavile anything else but unlucky. Get me another brandy.”

There was only one thing to do. He would write no farewell letter, that was so common, so vulgar; he would melt away. Never mind luggage, he had the money he had got ready to take with him after the wedding.

“Where is Lady Reckavile?” he asked.

“Her maid has taken breakfast to her, my Lord.”

“Very good, you may go, here take this glass with you,” and he handed his empty glass to the butler.

At the corner of the drive he paused; the wood closed thick beyond, and he looked back at the sombre pile of the old house, for some instinct told him that he would never see it again. Then the woods swallowed him up, and he set his face to the distant railway at Portham Junction.

Carlotta was waiting for him in the little haven of rest, so calm after the turgid days that had passed, and he felt at peace again.

It was so charming to sit and listen to the small trifles of interest which had come to Carlotta’s quiet life, the earthquake which had not touched them, but had been much talked of, and the hot weather which was causing a drought.

When they were sitting together after dinner, she shyly took up a piece of work, and plied her needle while he smoked and watched her.

A great contentment settled on his soul.

He would get on with his pictures, and the old past would fade. There would be no ghosts this time, and after a time the new Lady Reckavile would presume him dead, perhaps marry again, it was all one to him.

The soft night air played about them, and only the sound of some night insect came from the garden.

All at once his attention was rivetted by the sight of what Carlotta was sewing. Half consciously he looked at it, wondering at first, and then his mind became focussed, and he could not take his eyes from the little garment. Slowly realisation came, and a wave of mixed emotion swept over him. Horror, exaltation, pity and regret were equally blended.

In a hushed voice he said “Little Daphne, what are you working at?”

Her face sunk down over her work, and a crimson like a sunset dyed her neck.

“Can’t you guess?” she whispered. “I could not tell you.”

A tumult of many waters went over him. What did this mean? He knew of course, what she was telling him, there was no doubt of that, but what in God’s name was to be the outcome now.

The line he had sworn to end, with its Curse and madness. And the child. What of that? By all the laws of God and man this was the heir, and why should he be kept from his title? What right had he to say that this should be plain Desmond, when he should be Reckavile. He was dumb, and rose and fled into the night without a word. Here he paced the rose garden wrestling with his thoughts. Cursed fool! He had never thought, never realised.

And that farce in London, if he had only known before. Oh God! talk about honour, where was the honour in giving his name to a woman who had sought trouble with her eyes open, when he had betrayed an innocent child unborn, and sold his birthright for a freakish principle. Well, he need not decide now, sufficient for the day; that was the old motto. Anything might happen. And then a sudden realisation of what Carlotta must be feeling struck him like a blow, and he turned to the loggia.

She was weeping quietly, as she had always done, but passionately and with abandonment.

She had misunderstood, he was an artist, and she knew he admired her beauty. She had thought he was angry that her loveliness would be marred, and she would be unsightly, hideous to him.

She wished he had not come back. Then he came in and took her into his arms.

“Don’t cry, little Daphne,” he said very tenderly, “I have guessed your secret, poor child, and you had not told me.”

“Are you angry with me?” she murmured. “I thought you would be pleased. Fancy … but I must whisper it.”

She was only a child, delicate and sensitive as a flower.

“I understand, Darling, but it came as a shock at first. Poor little Daphne! How you must have been worrying by yourself.”

“It doesn’t matter, only I thought you would be pleased,” and the light shone in her starry eyes. “I would have told you before you went away, only I did not like to.”

He burst into a wild discordant laugh, which frightened her.

“Oh, the Curse. This is real humour, only a joke of the worst taste.”

Then he saw her white puzzled face, and set himself to comfort her. She had little secrets to tell him. There was a cot hidden away which must be brought out, a delicate fairy thing of blue silk, and lace, and a casket fitted with tiny brushes and ivory boxes.

It made him feel clumsy and awkward—out of place. He knelt by her and took her hands.

“Do you remember, little Daphne, when we met in the woods, and I said I would paint you as a Madonna, and how shocked you were?”

She nodded gravely; it had been their first meeting, and the memory of that had always been with her.

“Perhaps I shall paint you as our Blessed Lady with the Bambino.”

She blushed deeply, and her eyes spoke her thoughts.

“It would be too much honour, but …” and the tears which came so easily now, started to her eyes.

He was very gentle with her in the days that followed, and the old unrest was quieted. They would walk in the rose garden, amid the flowers, and all that was best in the man shone out like a star in a cloud wrack, calm and strong. She leaned more on him as the time went on, and found him a rock of support. There was no painting now, only sweet companionship and expectancy.

An English doctor came post haste in answer to Hugh’s message, and while he was within Hugh stamped up and down the garden, cursing, angry with the futile wrath of a man who would gladly offer up his blood, his life, to save from pain one over whom the Dark Shadow was resting.

How unfair that he who could stand anything with a cold disdain, should be impotent, while this tender girl was suffering. It touched his pride as well; he had been used to sympathy and respect for his endurance. He would have preferred that she should watch how indifferent he was to pain and admire him. It was most unfair.

But the ordeal was over at last, and the doctor, Halley, came from the house, his face beaming.

“It is all over, Mr. Desmond,” he said, “and you need have no anxiety. She was brave, splendid—and the child is a fine boy—a credit to his mother; you will be proud of them both.”

Damp perspiration stood on Hugh’s forehead, and he felt a fool. He was not made for domesticity, and a feeling of repulsion mixed with the relief.

“Come in and have a drink, Doctor,” he said “these things are very worrying.”

Dr. Halley understood men, and he followed Hugh into the lounge where they toasted the new arrival.

No peace was now in Hugh’s tortured soul, the Curse had him in its grip. He was fiercely jealous of the child for monopolising all Carlotta’s time and attention, exacting in his demands and resentful if not dissatisfied. And he must now share her with this intruder, no longer was she wholly his, responsive to his very word. Another claimed her, and the old restless mood returned; he was drunk three parts of the day, and sulked during the rest.

Carlotta sorrowed in secret, but the little one kept her busy; later he would take an interest; it was unreasonable to expect a man to care for a senseless piece of humanity, which demanded only food and sleep. At times he would rouse himself, and the great picture was begun, in the fair garden, the Holy Mother with her Child, but he wanted to paint the child as a fiend, the bodily representative of the Curse, which had stolen his little Daphne.

And so the months passed, and the spring had come. A strange friendship had sprung up between the Doctor, Halley, and Hugh. Like everyone with whom he came in contact, Hugh exercised a fascination over the Doctor. His charming manners, and beautiful face, even the sadness which pervaded him, attracted while they repelled.

He was a frequent visitor at the villa, first for professional reasons, then to see Hugh, and at last for another reason which he dared not confess even to himself.

He was dining with the Desmonds with a few friends, when the blow fell. As Hugh came down for dinner, he picked up a letter in the hall, and put it into his pocket.

He knew the writing only too well, it was from Curtis.

It was a pleasant little party, but a strange foreboding made Hugh distrait. When the ladies had gone, and the men were smoking, he took the letter from his pocket, and asking permission of his guests broke the seal. Inside was another letter, and his heart gave a bound as he saw the scrawly writing of Winnie. He had received letters full of appeal from her—asking him to come back. She had thought him at some foreign war, and could only write through Curtis, who was Sphinx-like as to his place of abode. Finally he had told Curtis not to forward any more. Why had he broken this instruction?

He balanced this one in front of the fire; better burn it and let the dead past bury its dead, but something stayed his hand, and he broke the seal.

He sat so long staring into the fire, that his guests gave sidelong glances at him. His face was ashen, and there was a devil peeping out of his eyes. At last the silence became intolerable, and the Doctor asked, “Nothing wrong, Desmond, I hope.”

Hugh gave a horrible laugh which sent a shudder down the backs of his listeners.

“Wrong! No, splendid news. I am sorry to be so rude. A great friend or enemy of mine, I am not certain which, is about to become a happy father, good luck to him. Let’s come and join the ladies.”

His gaiety that evening was contagious, and Carlotta hoped that he was getting over his moods, and coming back to his old self.

When the others had gone he kissed her tenderly good-night.

“I shall not be coming yet, Daphne,” he said, using the old name. “I want to have a think.”

“All right, Darling,” she replied, lifting her sweet eyes to him. “But you look tired and worn, poor Hugh!”

“Never mind me,” he said almost impatiently “Daphne, where do you keep your marriage certificate?”

The question startled her. She treasured this sacred document with her most intimate possessions though she had never looked at it. She had never refused him a request in her life, but something made her hesitate to tell him.

“Do you want to see it, Darling?” she pleaded.

“Yes, please,” he said in the tone she knew meant obedience, and she fetched it for him.

“You will take care of it, Darling, won’t you?”

It was placing her honour in his hands.

She went slowly out of the room, feeling as though he had taken her child from her.

All night Hugh paced the garden. Winnie was going to have a child, and little Roy in his cot upstairs was to be dispossessed of his birthright. The crisis had come at last, which he had refused to meet. Only one course was open to him, and that he would take to the bitter end. The Curse had handed him his poison cup, and he must drink as became a Reckavile.

He would go to England, yes at once, without farewells which he hated, or an explanation which he could not give with those clear eyes on him.

He would produce the marriage certificate, that would be necessary, and proclaim his infamy. He must put Carlotta in her place, and Roy as his heir, and then, of course, follow the path so many of his ancestors had done, with dignity and unfaltering courage. Only in his case it must be swift, he would never suffer arrest.

Chapter VII.
A Nameless Wife

A terrible gale was blowing up the Channel, and wise mariners made for port before it was too late, while wives shuddered at the howling whose menace they knew too well.

Off the South Coast a small French vessel was beating its way against the blast, and coast-guards looked with astonishment at its manoeuvers, finally shrugging their shoulders at the madness of the foreigner. Had they seen what was taking place on the deck they would have opened their eyes still wider.

The French skipper was holding to the rail, shouting orders, while a madman, without hat or coat, and with a set white face, was pointing a pistol at his head.

“I tell you, sir,” said the shaking seaman, “we dare not run in close to the shore, we shall be driven in onto the rocks. It is sheer madness.”

“Very well,” said Reckavile calmly “lower a boat and I will go ashore.”

The other made a gesture of despair. “It is impossible, no boat would live for five minutes. Why not let me run to shelter, or ride out the storm?”

“I tell you I will not wait, though all Hell were in the storm. You can choose, either you lower a boat for me, or I shoot you.” His calmness overawed the other.

“It is death, sir, for you, and perhaps for us too.”

“The first is my affair, and the other is in the hands of God or the Devil.”

“Oh, Mon Dieu!” said the frightened man, crossing himself. “Very well, since you will have it so, and I will even go as near to the land as I dare, though I am risking the lives of the crew.”

With a sense of relief he gave the order, hoping that he might save his life and his vessel, by casting this blasphemer.

And so Hugh, seventh Lord Reckavile went to his death, driven by the Curse, and his body bruised and broken but still recognisable, was washed ashore by the old Black Horse at Portham, and brought by the Southgates on a shutter to the castle, while the storm shouted a requiem, and the fiends seemed to be laughing at their last effort at humour.

Winnie was summoned, for the news must be broken, but it was dangerous in her condition, as her time had almost come.

The butler in faltering accents, told her the sad tidings.

She listened stony-eyed, and without tears. The news stunned her. Much also as she thought she loved him, his base desertion had cut her to the quick, and his refusal to answer any letters hurt her pride. She came and viewed the poor relic, now decently laid out, and saw the quiet beauty of the face, at rest at last, and peaceful. Then the tears came, and she sobbed bitterly till the nurse gently led her from the room, reminding her that another life might depend on her courage and restraint.

More to take her mind off the horror than for any other reason the nurse placed into her hands the sea-soaked contents of his pocket, and Winnie idly examined them, her mind far removed from the articles, and seeing only his flushed handsome face, as she had last seen him alive.

A parcel, damp with sea water, and sticky to the touch seized her attention, and she opened the sheets of paper. The first words were sufficient to rivet her mind on the writing.

Be it known to all that I Hugh Desmond, seventh Baron Reckavile, being of sound mind, wish, as far as lies in my power to make restitution for a great wrong which has been committed.

As she read on, fear clutched her. The document told of his marriage, and the birth of his heir, and of his bigamy with Winnie. Enclosed was the marriage certificate at the little village of Steeping among the Sussex Downs.

The letters were blurred before her eyes. Surely this must be hallucination. She staggered as she read, and the quiet nurse came at once to her aid, guiding her to the bed, where she lay quivering.

The nurse gave one look at her, and went out to summon the Doctor, after seeing that she could be left safely.

Then all Winnie’s faculties came back, and she was the fierce Mother fighting for her offspring in some primeval forest.

She half rose, determined to destroy the document before it could be seen by other eyes. That must be done at all costs, but great waves of pain came over her. She tried to rise, but could not. Then as a cold numbness gripped her, she grasped the packet in a despairing effort to throw it into the brightly burning fire.

Delirium was coming on, and in the corner of the room a formless shape was gathering, from the sea-mist which pervaded the house. To her startled imagination a dreadful shape emerged, and the dead form of Hugh stood before her, the face stern and grim, and the dead eyes gazing at her in a fixed stare. Though no sound came from the closed blue lids, she heard him say “Destroy that paper, and the Curse will light on you. I will give you no peace, nor your unborn son. In sorrow and shame you shall bring forth a nameless thing to bear my name and title.”

With a wild shriek, she sank back fainting on the bed, as the nurse hurried into the room.

That night, the eighth Lord Reckavile was born, with the mocking voice of the storm fiends wailing round the old castle, and the very foundations shaking with the fury of the tempest, while in the Bay, gallant men were bringing half drowned Frenchmen safe ashore from the wreck of the vessel, and below a still form was lying with a smile of devilish satisfaction on the dead lips.

When Winnie, like a pallid ghost crept downstairs for the first time, the nurse shook her head.

“She must have loved him very much to take on so,” she said to the housekeeper.

But Winnie had one purpose in view. At all costs the damning papers must be hidden, destroy them she could not after the horrible vision, even though her reason told her it was a nightmare born of her condition. Hugh had told her of the secret drawer of the Reckaviles, and she placed the documents there.

“The villain,” she muttered “that accounts for all his absences abroad, leading a double life, and then trying to do my son out of his rights at the end.” For black hatred had come to her of the man who still haunted her in her dreams, and more of the innocent girl and her son, far away in Italy, who would hang like a dark cloud over her son’s head for all his life. Truly the Curse was heavy on the family.

And in Murano poor Carlotta awaited with yearning anxiety for the man who would never come back to her, and the weeks went on without news. Bitter tears fell over that little cot, and she would talk to the tiny mite lying there as though he could understand, in baby language. But the weeks went on, and her only friend was Doctor Halley, who came with unfailing regularity, always sympathetic and hopeful. She grew to look for his visits, and if business kept him, she became fretful. Time was taking its toll with her, and sad lines came to her beautiful face, which the doctor noticed with secret anguish.

At last he came with a solemn look on his usually cheerful face.

“Mrs. Desmond,” he said “I am afraid I have some terrible news for you. You must try and be brave.”

“He is dead,” she gasped with quick intuition.

“It is worse than that, I grieve to say.”

“Worse?”

He slowly unfolded an English paper, where an account was given of the wreck, and the drowning of Lord Reckavile.

It was of old date, but a print was given of the dead man, and the likeness was unmistakable, apart from the name below, “Hugh Desmond, Lord Reckavile.”

At first she did not understand.

“It looks like Hugh,” she said in a hollow voice. “It must be a relative.”

The Doctor shook his head. “I am afraid there is no doubt,” he said gently “I never told you, but on the night when your husband went away, he dropped an envelope on the floor. I picked it up from a sense of tidiness, intending to throw it in the fire, when the name arrested my hand. It was Lord Reckavile, and was part of the letter he had opened in our presence, and which had evidently disturbed him. There is no doubt that it was his real name. He was Lord Reckavile.”

A vague memory floated back to her mind. The parson at their wedding had called him by that name. She remembered the very words.

“ ‘Reckavile, you ruffian, this is the last straw!’ he had said.”

Even then she did not realise the full meaning of the terrible news the doctor had brought.

Hugh was dead, and that stunned her for the time, but Halley was speaking.

“I am so sorry to be the bearer of ill tidings, but I felt you must be told. Poor little Roy. It will be dreadful for him.”

“Yes, of course,” she replied wondering. How would it matter when he was too young to understand.

“Mrs. Desmond, you are a brave woman, I know that. Don’t you see what this means. Here is an account of the affair. Lady Reckavile gave birth to a son and heir on the same night.”

“Lady Reckavile!” she whispered. “You mean he was married. He had a wife.”

“I am afraid so, he married you as Hugh Desmond, having a wife already,” his voice was hard and bitter.

She was up in arms at once. Every true woman can so easily forgive a cruel wrong done her if it is for Love.

“He loved me only, I am sure of that, and if he had another wife, at any rate he left her for me.”

The Doctor was wisely silent. The realisation of the wrong done to the child upstairs would come later.

“I have been so long away from England,” he said “that I have lost touch with the people there. I seem to have heard of the Reckaviles.”

It all came back to her when she lay on her sleepless bed that night. His hesitation and the delay in getting married, and then the secrecy, and the hurried flight to Italy. Yes, it was all clear now.

“Hugh, darling,” she said to herself, condoning the wrong, in her great love as is the way with a woman. “What you must have suffered.” She never doubted his love for her, but she knew vaguely that people in his station sometimes had to make loveless marriages for social reasons.

All was black and hopeless, but she must live on for her child’s sake. Relief came from the parched fever when she bent over the cot where the child lay, and a passionate flood of tears woke the sleeping boy, and the need for comfort was come. She rocked him in her arms, and sobbed out her broken little heart. The good Doctor was her one solace. With unselfish kindness he saw her through this time of horror, and fought inch by inch to help her forget. Each month an allowance arrived from the lawyer in London without explanation, for Hugh had arranged this with Curtis, though the lawyer had no idea who the lady was, and imagined it was one of Reckavile’s past fancies, who had been pensioned off.

It was to continue during her lifetime, for at the time there had been no thought of a further contingency.

Halley had retired from practice, but lingered on in Venice. When he thought suitable interval had elapsed, he came suppliant to Carlotta, his motives love and chivalry equally blended.

“I know you will never allow anyone to take Hugh’s place,” he said humbly, “but you need some one to protect you and help you to fight on. I can only offer you my love, and I will devote my life to you. But I fear I am hurting you.”

She had half risen with a look of horror on her face, but sank back again.

“You don’t understand, Doctor, and you are very kind, especially as you alone know how I really am, a nameless wife, but you do not realise. I am Italian, and I love but once. Whatever you think of Hugh, I can never forget him and the very thought of marrying again is like committing a foul crime.”

Halley was one of those rare beings who can love and sacrifice. Whatever he felt, no sign appeared.

“Then you must allow me to be your protector only,” he said, with a smile which hardly hid his pain.

She was quick to see it. “You are a true friend, and I am afraid I have hurt you horribly. Believe me I do feel deeply for you, and am so grateful for all you have done. Anything I can do to return your friendship, I will do.” She stopped there, and he understood.

Chapter VIII.
Roy at Oxford

Doctor Halley grew old in his service for Carlotta, ungrudging and without hope of reward. His hair grew white, and the road to Murano became heaviness to him, but he never complained. As soon as the boy was old enough he quietly took over his education, and watched with growing anxiety the change that was taking place in Carlotta.

She never referred to the past, but seemed to live only for the child, and would gaze expectantly down the garden path, as though she still held a lingering hope. Her beauty paled, and she was more and more withdrawing herself from the world.

Halley grieved in secret, but his devotion was deeper than admiration, and his loyal service continued through these years.

Carlotta had written to the lawyers, asking them what would happen to the child in the event of her death, with regard to the allowance. Curtis was dead, and she received a formal answer that the sum paid was a personal grant and would cease at her death.

So she lived as simply as possible, that Roy should not go penniless when her time came, and the Doctor was convinced that this fear more than anything else kept her alive.

Roy was fifteen, a fine clean looking boy, with his mother’s eyes and his father’s classical beauty, untouched with his sardonic smile. Halley had carefully taught him all he knew, which was wide knowledge. Carlotta had insisted on making Italian his mother tongue, and never spoke English herself—if spoken to in that language, would answer in Italian. She would also write in Italian, and only once broke her self-imposed edict, when she handed a miniature of herself and the boy to Halley, under which she had written “Mother and Roy.” Halley looked at it in surprise, but she simply said, “In case you ever meet him when I am gone.” The curious doubt about her husband’s death distressed him, but seemed to give her a strange comfort.

But her time had come; all Halley’s devotion and medical skill availed nothing against her broken heart, though there was no specific disease that he could find. She was merely fading like a flower after the summer is done. She called him to her, while the boy was playing in the garden.

“My old and faithful friend, the best friend I ever knew, the end has come, and you know it. Don’t worry, it is all for the best. My loneliness is such a torment, that only your great affection, and Roy’s, could have made me stay so long. I am going to ask of you one more service, as we always do of those who have served only too well, you will look after Roy, won’t you?”

The old Doctor’s head was bowed, and he did not dare to show his face, he merely nodded, and kneeling by her side, took her thin hand.

“I want you to see that he grows up an English gentleman, as befits his birth,” she raised her head proudly, as if in challenge.

“I will devote what remains of my life to him,” said the old man simply.

She pressed his hand. “Thank you, I knew I could rely on you, and you must tell him after I have gone—you know—about his father. I could not bear to do it. I should hate to see a look of anger or loathing on his young face. You will understand?”

“I will do it, you may trust to me,” he said in a shaking voice.

“I am very tired, leave me now, but bring Roy in presently, I must tell him I am going.”

Very reverently the Doctor took her hand, and kissed it.

“You may kiss me now,” she said dreamily, “it is all that I can give you.”

Halley rose from his knees, and the blinding tears fell freely as he bent over that sweet face, which he had loved so dearly without hope of reward. He gently kissed her forehead, as one might a little sleeping child, and hurried from the room, for he knew the time was short. He found the boy in the garden among the roses for which he had all his mother’s passionate affection.

“Roy, my boy, you must be very brave as you know an English gentleman should be. Your mother is very ill, and you must go to her at once, I am afraid she will not be very long with us now.”

The boy turned pale. “Do you mean she is going to die, Uncle?” he said in an awestruck voice, face to face with the grim terror for the first time in his life.

“Yes, I am afraid so, but it is in God’s hands.”

“But, you are a Doctor, can’t you do something?” he protested with something of his Father’s fiery impatience.

“It is because I am a Doctor that I know,” was the quiet reply, “come we will go to her.”

But when they entered the room where she was lying, another visitant had been there first, and on her sweet face was an expression of such peace as neither had seen before. It was as though the long separation were over and a joyful reunion had come.

“If ever a woman’s love can save a soul from Hell, she has saved him,” said the Doctor in a choking voice, kneeling reverently by the couch, oblivious of the boy who stared at the face, so quiet and lovely in death.

Then realisation came to him, with quick intuition. The Doctor’s attitude and his bowed head showed the truth more than spoken word, and in a passion of grief, he flung himself beside her.

“Mother! Mother! Don’t leave me, say something—only speak! Don’t go without a word!”

The sound brought their old servant into the room, and she and the Doctor gently led the weeping boy away.

It was only after the last sad ceremony had been carried out, and Michael and all the Archangels had been invoked to bear this pure soul to the feet of God, in the beautiful liturgy of the Catholic service, that the two broken hearted mourners came back to the villa, now hateful to both. In time it would acquire a memory like a shrine, but the loss was too near, too sudden, and it was haunted with the dear ghost, which brought a torture of longing. Halley saw this, and realised that to a young boy change was essential. For himself, he would have lingered on, dreaming of her, and hoping that in some twilight evening, in the hush before dark, a dream figure would come down the rose garden, and touch his hand, bidding him come to join her, and the man she had loved so well, in a fairer Garden, where there is no marrying nor giving in marriage, but where they might be as the angels in Heaven.

It would never do for the boy to become morbid, and so the broken man set himself to face the future with a brave resolve.

“Roy, we must talk of the future. Your dear mother left you in my hands, and I will do what I can to make you a happy, and a good man. I am going to take you to England, and we can look out a good school, where you would like to go, and meet other boys of your age, and play games and win prizes.”

With a boy, sorrow can be deep, but not overwhelming, and the thought of doing what he had always longed for, as the Doctor knew, sent a thrill of pleasure through him.

“Oh, Uncle, how good of you! I have always longed to see England, and should love to go to one of the great public schools, I have read about. And my father was English, wasn’t he?”

The Doctor gave a start, for the boy had never before asked about his father.

“How did you know that?” he asked.

“Mother told me,” and the tears filled his eyes, “you know when she signed that miniature. She said she wrote in English because he was an English gentleman, and she wanted me to grow up like him.”

A grim smile played round the Doctor’s mouth.

“Yes, Roy, he was English, and I will tell you something. You are old enough to know now, and your mother asked me to tell you.”

The boy stood eagerly waiting, and as the Doctor looked at him, he realised something of what the father must have looked when he too was young, and he sighed.

“Your father was Lord Reckavile,” he said slowly.

“Lord Reckavile?” exclaimed the boy, “then I am …” and he stopped, for something in the Doctor’s sad old eyes frightened him. “But my mother’s name was Desmond, as mine is?” he exclaimed.

“Yes, that was Lord Reckavile’s family name. Oh, you must not think evil of your sainted mother. She married him, thinking he was plain Mr. Desmond.”

“And he was Lord Reckavile all the time?” asked the boy.

“Yes Roy,” said the old man taking the boy’s hand in his. “But he was married in England before he met your mother. There was a Lady Reckavile. Your poor mother did not know, until he was drowned.”

A terrible look came into the boy’s eyes, the Reckavile look.

He was not too young to understand.

“You mean to tell me that he married my mother when he had another wife alive,” he said slowly. Halley had no wish to shield the man, but the memory of Carlotta’s sweet face made him say:

“He loved your mother only, you must not judge your father too harshly. People in his position are sometimes forced to marry, against their wills, but I am sure it was your dear mother he loved.”

The boy stiffened, he had suddenly grown up.

“He was a villain, and I hate him—hate him! I am glad he died. If he had lived I would have killed him.”

Here was a Reckavile indeed. His eyes blazed, and Halley understood why Carlotta had not told him; she knew her son.

For a moment he stood with fists clenched, then he collapsed and a bitter flood of tears came.

“Go away,” he said fiercely as Halley tried to comfort him. “I want to be left alone.”

In the evening when the shadows were stretching over the garden, and a chill mist was coming up from the sea, the boy came in with a set face, hard and proud.

“Uncle Halley,” he said firmly, “I want to go to England, let’s go at once, as soon as possible, I want you to let me take your name. If you are looking after me, let me be Roy Halley. Do you mind?”

The Doctor understood the proud young heart of the boy.

“My dear boy,” he said “nothing would please me better. You were left to me, and I have only you to look after in my old age. You shall bear my name and be my adopted son.”

The boy threw his head up.

“Then I shall call you ‘Father,’ and I will try and forget the hated name of Desmond, which never was my mother’s. You are the only father I have ever known,” and he came and kissed the old man with the sweet grace of his mother.

They went to England, when everything had been settled up.

The villa Halley could not bear to let or sell; he arranged for the old servant to live there with a small pension for her needs. Halley paid everything himself, and retained Carlotta’s savings for the boy against his need.

Time works miracles with the young, and Roy in the glories and the struggles of life at a public school, soon retained only a hallowed memory of his mother, and refused to let his mind dwell on the other horror.

At Oxford his voice and acting first became noticeable. He was much in request for his playing and singing, and was looked upon as a promising amateur actor. His easy grace of manner, and the recklessness of his spending, due not to extravagance, but to the family tradition which spoke loud in him, made him a general favourite, and he was no mean athlete, which in the glorious days of the varsity, counts for more than brains or money.

In his third year he was occupying a position which perhaps never comes again to a man. In the little kingdom of his college he was a small god. In after life men hold great positions, but then disillusionment has come and the freshness of youth has gone.

In his college team at most games, and playing for his varsity at rugger, as his father had before, if only it had been known, and with a force of character welcomed and admired everywhere, no wonder if he lost himself in the celsitude of his power. But the high gods will not suffer such happiness, and in the middle of the dream came an awakening. A telegram to tell him that Doctor Halley had passed away in his sleep brought him up to reality.

In bitter sorrow he went to London where the old man had taken up his residence. From the first he had determined not to commit the mistake of living at Oxford or near it. He wanted the boy to enjoy life there unfettered by visits of a relation, and he chose London, so that the boy should be able to come to him in the ‘vacs,’ and have plenty of amusement. He effaced himself for the son, as he had for the mother. He knew his heart was very weak, but kept the knowledge from Roy, lest he should distress him.

And so his peaceful end came, his duty done, and his great chivalrous soul went to join her, whose image was never absent from his mind. Roy’s journey was a terrible ordeal of self-blame. He saw how selfish he had been, how little he had repaid the great debt. He recalled with the acute self-analysis of a sensitive mind all the times when he had studied his own fancies, and left the old man alone, when he should have been with him, looking after him. And now it was too late. More than all remorse filled him when he found that the old man had been meeting all his extravagant expenses, by selling out his own money, and that the sum his mother had saved, not large, but which had grown with the years, was still intact.

He went back to his college a changed man. The old gaiety had gone, and a bitter self-scorn had come which brought out something of the old Reckavile spirit. Women he shunned with horror, as the image of the one perfect woman he had known made the others seem hollow, and talkative beyond measure.

He plunged into wild ‘rags,’ which brought him before the Warden, and drink to which he had never turned, threatened to make shameful his career.

And then the gods relented, and the cloud of War settled on the land. To Roy it was like a call to his own kingdom. Others born of generations of peaceful citizens took arms with sober patriotism, as a duty which must not be shirked, but to him generations of fighters called, with exultant shouting. Death! What did that matter! The only two he had ever loved were on the Other Side, and he wished nothing better than to pass over to them.

For glorious years he lived at grips with death, first as a private in the muddy trenches, and later with a commission, known as a reckless patrol leader, and a born fighter. He might have risen high in that Hell’s academy where such qualities mean promotion, but in ’16 he was smashed by a bomb and his wrecked body only mended in time for the final advance.

When Peace came, he heard around him the officers joyously discussing a return to civil life, and of all that they were going to do. Some were going to wives or sweethearts, one talked of his job at the bank which he hoped was still open to him. To Roy, it was an end of a mighty adventure. There was nothing to look forward to, but a bare struggle to live. He had no friends, no welcoming smile to greet him.

He knew that for the Nation it was a wonderful day of rejoicing, but to him nothing remained.

Another year in the wildest parts of Russia kept his spirit cheerful, and then he returned to demobilisation.

He had not the heart to go back to Oxford, but sought for some form of employment, where excitement and feverish activity could give forgetfulness.

His knowledge of languages, a tuneful voice, and his natural charm secured for him successive jobs in travelling companies in Europe, where in gilt and motley he sung in choruses in grand and comic opera, till fate drove him back to England, and to a small part in a travelling company of Gilbert and Sullivan’s operas. It was all hopeless, and he felt that he had only to wait till a merciful death ended the life which had become distasteful to him.

Chapter IX.
A Ghost from the Past

Coming from the theatre after a matinee, along the Strand, Roy was making his way to an obscure restaurant where food was comparatively cheap, when he nearly collided with two men hastening round the corner. The wind was bitter, and rain was falling, so that all the men had coats closely buttoned and collars turned up.

Roy muttered an apology, and would have passed on, but one of the two seeing his face in the light, suddenly drew back, and exclaimed “By God, Reckavile, by all that’s unholy. I did not know that you were in England again. How are you, old thing?” and he held out his hand. A wild fantasy whirled before Roy’s mind, and for a moment he was without sense or speech, then he said coldly.

“I am afraid you have made a mistake, sir; my name is not Reckavile.”

The other scrutinised him closely.

“No, by Jove, you’re not. I am sorry, but look, Raymond, what a likeness!”

Roy’s anger was rising, he was not a waxwork to be inspected, and he turned to go his way, but the first speaker caught his coat.

“No, sir, you must not go like that, I have been rude enough to address you by mistake, but I will make amends if I may. Will you come to my Club, if you will do us the honour, and let me apologise in suitable manner for having taken you for one of the worst blackguards, but the most charming of men.”

Roy could not well refuse a request so politely put, and curiosity goaded him on, so he went with his chance companions, Sir Raymond Halliday, and Captain John Wynter, son of the Late Brig. General Wynter V.C. who had perished at Loos.

In the smoking room of the Club, Roy unthawed. The atmosphere was more to his liking than the dressing room of a travelling company, and he felt at home with these men.

They were soon discussing old days at the war, and exchanging yarns of people and places where they had met for a brief moment, and then gone down the long trail. To Roy it all came back; the nights he had come back from a little frolic at Etaire, where real oysters could be had, and Veuve Cliquot 1904, a change from trench fare, and then a ride back to the trenches with the ominous line of Verey lights marking the enemy lines, and the sudden whirl of a “heavy” coming over, mingled with the flickering rat-tat of the machine guns.

How real it all seemed and how desirable in the warm firelight of the smoking room.

Presently Raymond broke silence.

“You are not a relation of the Reckaviles, Mr. Halley, are you? Excuse the rudeness of the question but you are extraordinarily like him.”

“None whatever,” said Roy firmly.

“I am glad to hear it, eh Wynter?” said Raymond.

“Well, it’s not a pleasant family, so Mr. Halley is well out of it. You know my father was mixed up with that affair, the Reckavile Divorce they called it, though it was really the Wheatland Divorce.”

“Oh, I was too young to remember,” said Raymond carelessly, but Roy was all attention.

“What was that?” he asked, steadying his voice.

“Old Reckavile, the father of this Johnny, got mixed up with a draper’s wife, and the worthy man didn’t like it and got a divorce. The joke was that Reckavile offered to fight for the girl, and properly put the wind up the draper. Well, he did what’s called the right thing, and married her, my father was at the wedding, and a pretty thick time it was from all accounts but he never settled down with the lady, he buzzed off somewhere and got killed or something, I forget how.”

Roy was now on wires, but he showed nothing, his training on the stage served him in good stead.

“When was that?” he asked, lighting a cigar with studied care.

“I can never remember dates,” said the other “about thirty years ago I should say at a guess, but you’ll find it all in the old papers, if it interests you. We keep them upstairs, but no one ever looks at them. Here, I am sorry we are going dry, touch that bell will you?”

The rest of the evening passed like a dream till Roy rose to get back to the theatre for the evening performance, but though he sang and played his part, his mind was disturbed with thoughts which would intrude on him, and the old memories he had stifled rose to mock him. He knew he would have no peace till he had read that long dead story. His friends had asked him to come again, and he took them at their word at the risk of being a bore.

In the musty reading room, seldom visited by the members of this joyous Club, he found the old copies, with the help of a spectacled librarian, who seemed detached from the world without and only en rapport with his yellowing tomes.

He showed Roy the files in which the sordid story was told, but only one line stood out in letters of burning fire, the date at the head of the paper. That was damning and convincing. Nothing could alter that, and while his eyes were reading the account of the affair, his mind saw only one deadly fact, that the date was after the marriage of Reckavile with his mother. This overwhelmed him so utterly that he could hardly thank the old man, and hurry from the place. His mind was in a whirl. There must be some mistake, the marriage, must have been illegal or something; he could not grasp a deliberate cold blooded bigamy; he would dismiss it from his mind. Why had this spectre from the past come to torment him? It would be quite simple. To settle the matter he would go to Somerset House, and pay the fee for inspection, and lay the ghost.

As he expected after a long search he failed to find any reference to the marriage. He little knew the reason, or the sudden death of the parson, before he had been able to send the record for registration. But it was sufficient, and he plunged back into his work determined to dismiss the whole thing from his mind.

But the maggot was gnawing at his brain, and the old restlessness came on him. He would go abroad, but something drew him to the home of his ancestors; he must see Portham, and Reckavile Castle, before he finally turned his back on England.

Wynter and Raymond were now fast friends, caught with his charm which never failed to captivate.

“After all you have told me about Reckavile, I am going to have a look at the place,” he said one night at dinner.

Wynter’s usually jolly face became grave. “I shouldn’t if I were you,” he said “you know half the people there will take you for Reckavile, and there may be unpleasant things said.”

“What do you mean?” asked the other sharply.

“Well, you know old man, when a commoner bears a striking resemblance to a peer of the Realm, especially to one with such a reputation, unpleasant things are said, which I know you would resent. Do you get me?”

“Quite,” said Roy, swallowing his anger with difficulty, and he said no more.

When the run of the series of revivals was over, and he was free, Roy refused to re-engage, to the disappointment of the manager, and the company.

“I was hoping, Mr. Halley, to give you the leading tenor in our Number I Touring Company,” he said.

“Thank you, I am most grateful, but I am going abroad,” Halley replied.

And so he came at last to Portham, and fate drove him to the Black Horse, kept by Southgate, grizzled and seaworn, who alone knew the truth, though not the whole truth.

Chapter X.
At the “Black Horse”

Halley knocked at the door of the Black Horse and Mrs. Southgate opened to him. He raised his hat politely, saying “Have you a room here I could have for a few days?”

She looked at him dubiously. “We don’t take in people as a rule, sir, you see it is hard to get things out here.”

Then seeing how tired he looked, she added, “I’ll go and ask my husband.”

“Thank you, I have walked from Portham Junction with this bag.”

He entered and sat down in the kitchen, and gazed round with interest at the old room.

From the inside quarters he heard the sound of a conversation, and presently the landlord emerged with a scowl on his face.

“I am sorry, sir,” he began, and stopped dead. His jaw dropped, and he looked in amazement at Halley. “I beg your pardon, my … Oh Lord! Who are you?”

“My name is Halley, and I asked your good wife if you could put me up for a few days, I shall be very little trouble.”

The landlord stood with a puzzled look on his face.

“I’m darned if I understand it,” he muttered “are you sure you are not playing a joke on me, my lord, I could have sworn …”

“For whom did you take me, then?”

“Why, Lord Reckavile, you’re ’is living image.”

Halley smiled. “I am sure you can accommodate me, even though I am not Lord Reckavile.”

“Why yes, sir, if you don’t mind roughing it a bit; we are plain folk.”

So the bargain was struck, but Halley noticed that every time the landlord came in he fixed his eyes on him in the same bewildered fashion.

When he had set the table for a simple lunch in the old timbered room Halley asked casually:

“Who is this Lord Reckavile for whom you took me? I should like to see him.”

“You must be a stranger in these parts; why, ’is Lordship ’as a place near ’ere, Reckavile Castle.”

“And is he here now?” Halley asked eagerly.

“No, ’e is ’ardly ever at ’ome, but we expect ’im as ’e comes about this time as a rule.”

“I must have a look at this castle then, it ought to be an interesting place.”

Southgate cast a shrewd glance at his visitor.

“I dunno if you ’ad better,” he said sullenly “they be ’ard on poachers there; no, I shouldn’t go if I were you.”

Halley stretched himself before the fire while Southgate cleared away.

He thought it peculiar that he should do this himself, instead of getting a servant to perform the office, but when he had finished he came and stood beside Halley’s chair, fidgetting awkwardly.

“Sit down, landlord, and join me with something if you can spare the time,” said Halley taking a sudden resolve.

“Thank you kindly, sir, I don’t mind if I do. Things be powerful quiet nowadays, except in the evenings there be nothing doing.”

When he had fetched a bottle and glasses, Halley turned to him, and asked abruptly.

“Will you answer me a straight question?”

“If I can, sir.”

“I believe you acted as valet to the late Lord Reckavile many years ago?”

The landlord’s face set like a mask.

“I may ’ave done,” he said evasively.

“I want to ask you plain and straight, were you present at his marriage to his first wife, an Italian lady with whom he had eloped.”

Southgate leapt to his feet with a snarl.

“What do you want to know?”

“Sit down, please, I will tell you. I am his son, born in Italy, and she was my mother—now you know.”

Southgate covered his head with his hands, and something like a sob escaped him.

“My God! If I ’ad only known,” he cried.

He remained so long silent that Halley could stand it no more.

“Well?” he said.

“To think that Miss Carlotta ’ad a son. I tell ’ee sir, afore God, that if I ’ad known I would ’ave spoken. When ’is Lordship was drownded trying to land at this very spot, and the present lord was born the same night, I didn’t know what to do, I thought as ’ow poor Miss Carlotta must be dead. It seemed no good saying anything and getting into trouble, and not being believed, so I thought I best let matters bide, and if she were alive, she would come along; but time went and nothing ’appened, so I just kept quiet. When I saw you come in that ’ere door, I thought you was ’is Lordship, and then I suppose I must ’ave guessed. You are like ’im, but also like your mother, poor sweet young lady!”

“I understand,” said Halley gently “I cannot blame you. It was a difficult position. But tell me, where was my mother married?”

“I wish I could say, sir, indeed I do. That was one reason why I kept quiet. You see we ’urried off from ’ere as was always ’is way, and travelled to Dover. I didn’t know anything about the wedding till we stops at a village. It was such a rush, and we all ’ad as much as we could carry. I may ’ave ’eard the name, but I’ve clean forgot it.”

Halley groaned.

“And this was before he married—the late Lady Reckavile?”

Halley stuck over the title.

“Oh, yes sir, for I remember them all coming down after the wedding, and of course, I thought poor Miss Carlotta was dead. But why didn’t you come before, sir?”

There was a note of suspicion in his tone, which Halley noticed, and he told him as much of his story as he thought expedient.

“Well this be a pretty mess,” said Southgate “what are you going to do?”

“I must see Lord Reckavile, but I cannot stay here after what you have told me about the likeness. Can you find somewhere for me to go until Lord Reckavile comes back?”

Southgate smoked in silence for some minutes, at last he said:

“I was allers fond of the old master wild as ’e was, and your mother was a sweet young thing. Lady Reckavile I never could abide…. I got a cottage on the shore, we sometimes uses for … well least said the better, and we sometimes lets it in the summer. You can go there if you don’t mind things rough, tomorrow. Mrs. Southgate can look after you.”

Halley took the other’s hand gratefully.

“This is most good of you, and I hope one day I may be able to repay you.”

The landlord was embarrassed. “I don’t see why you should be a done out of your rights, but you’ll ’ave a tough time with Lord Reckavile; ’ese a nasty customer to get foul of.”

“Only let me know when he comes back, and I’ll see him.”

The next day Halley moved to the lonely little cottage on the shore. Its isolation and the numerous entrances gave a hint as to its use for revenue dodging purposes in the old days, but he was glad of any place of refuge for his tell-tale face, and with the issues at stake. For days he waited consumed with feverish impatience. Now that he had come so far he was determined to see the thing through, regardless of consequences.

At last when his nerves were nearly gone, Southgate came with the momentous news that Lord Reckavile had come home.

They sat long over the fire in converse. Halley now had Southgate as a willing slave, who would follow him to the death, and a plan was arranged between them.

“We must try and see whether we can get an interview with him privately,” said Halley.

“We must not delay matters, for ’e is off like a flash,” said the other “it’s almost as though ’e was afeared to stay long.”

“Tonight, then,” said Halley.

Chapter XI.
Halley Continues the Narrative

There was silence in the room after Halley had told his story, in fewer words than are given here. Not a sound had broken the stillness and all eyes had been fixed on him, as part at least of the truth was revealed.

Halley looked round at his audience. Ena’s eyes were wet, and she had furtively used her handkerchief from time to time, but there shone on her face the light of enthusiasm and trust. Fletcher was obviously incredulous, and Brown stolid as ever.

The silence was broken by Sefton.

“So you are really Lord Reckavile?” he asked.

“In actual fact I am, but I cannot establish my title. I am a nameless man, unless by some miracle the marriage certificate is found—if it still exists, or we can find the village church where the wedding took place.”

“That should not be impossible,” said Sinclair in a firm voice, and Ena looked at him gratefully.

“Finish the story, Lord Reckavile,” he continued, and the very use of the title suggested something hidden in that inscrutable mind.

“There is little more to tell,” said Halley. “Southgate and I tried to get to the castle after dark, and prowled around, but we were chased by a constable,” and he laughingly threw a glance at Brown.

“Oh, that was it, was it?” Brown spluttered without regard to grammar. “So you were the two I were after. I thought Southgate was one of them.”

“Yes, so after that I lost patience, and determined to call at the castle whatever the risk. I went boldly to the front door. Lord Reckavile never seemed to leave the place, or I would have tried to waylay him on the road. Giles opened the door for me.”

“You never mentioned a word of this, Giles,” said Fletcher angrily.

“Lord Reckavile’s callers were none of my business,” said the old man slowly. Fletcher was about to say something but Sinclair stopped him with a gesture.

“Giles showed me in,” Halley continued, “and I shall never forget Reckavile’s face when he saw me. He went deathly white, and his lip curled back and back like a wolf about to snarl, but no sound came from his lips. We stood and stared at each other in absolute silence.

“The likeness was so striking that it was almost as though I was looking into a glass. The strong Reckavile strain has risen salient and complete in spite of our mothers, though I was darker and had a touch of Italian if one had looked closely.

“He seemed to recover himself, and turned to Giles.

“ ‘You can leave us,’ he said, and the old man went out of the room.

“Then he turned to me, and his face was hardly human. ‘Hast thou found me, oh mine enemy!’ he hissed. He never seemed to have the least doubt as to who I was. Poor fellow! The thought of my coming had haunted him like a nightmare, and driven him to furious wanderings. He was like a man under sentence of death, who was leading feverish years, not knowing at any time that the grim spectre would appear. So much he told me. His mother had confided the whole story to him on her death bed, and adjured him to keep the document which would mean his undoing should I ever appear. His life must have been hell on earth.

“He listened to my story without a word, but I could see that his mind was working all the time to devise a plan, and I knew I was in imminent peril. At the end he rose and paced the room. ‘You must give me time to think,’ he said, ‘I shall want the fullest proofs of your identity before I can say anything. Come and see me tomorrow night, at eight o’clock. Don’t come to the front door, I will have the French windows open for you.’ He let me out by the window, and I went to my cottage, half inclined to throw up the whole thing and go away. I was sorry for him, and it was only the thought of all that my mother had suffered that kept me to my purpose.

“I told Southgate nothing, as I had involved him quite enough. The next night I kept the appointment, I will confess in some trepidation, he had been so calm, so self-possessed, that I felt he had something behind it all. I found the window open and went in. The room was in semi-darkness.

“Reckavile did not offer to shake hands, but started at once in a voice of intolerable insolence. ‘Mr. Halley,’ he said ‘I have been considering your story, and congratulate you on your powers of invention. In any ordinary case I should simply send for the police and have you arrested on a charge of blackmail, but there are so many reasons for wishing to avoid a public scandal or digging up the past that I offer you a handsome sum, let us say 10,000 pounds, if you will take yourself off, and never come to England again.’

“For the moment I was going to leap at him, and take him by the throat, but some curious instinct held me back. In a flash I saw what his game was. He wished for some reason to provoke me to attack him. Perhaps then he could have killed me, and pleaded self-defence. He may have had witnesses for all I knew. Anyway I kept my temper. ‘Give me the marriage certificate of my mother’ I said, and I pulled out the miniature I had always carried with me. ‘That is her picture with me as a child’ I said. ‘It is her honour I am concerned with. Otherwise I would leave you alone with your title.’

“ ‘Wait a moment’ he said, and walked across the room to the cabinet containing the dictaphone there.”

Halley paused and pointed to the object, on which all eyes were fixed.

“ ‘You will take my offer?’ he asked. I noticed a curious clicking sound, but at the time thought nothing of it, it was only afterwards it came back to my mind, and the significance dawned on me. ‘You are trying to insult me,’ I said, and I am afraid I lost control of myself.

“ ‘Sign a document to say that your mother never married my father, and the money is yours,’ he said and smiled at me like a devil.

“ ‘Curse you’ I said advancing to him ‘I don’t want your dirty money; I only want justice and my rights.’

“ ‘Over my dead body’ he cried, and even at that moment it seemed that the words were theatrical, as though spoken for some purpose, but I was too far gone for thinking and I sprang for him. I can see now that he had been waiting for me, and a crashing blow descended on my head, bringing me to the ground. I rose, pouring with blood, and flew at him, and we grappled together, but loss of blood, and the shock were too much for me, and I suppose I must have fainted.

“When I recovered, I found Reckavile bending over me, surprisingly gentle, and full of apologies.

“ ‘I am sorry, my dear fellow’ he said ‘but you know you attacked me first, I hope you are better.’

“I murmured something, I suppose I was lightheaded, but he helped me to the sofa, and then to my intense surprise he said ‘You are knocked up tonight, but if you can get away without assistance it will save a scandal, and come tomorrow night at seven. Here is the marriage certificate, and you shall have it then.’ He walked to that desk, and pulled it out and showed it. If I had not been so weak I should have snatched it from him, but he held it away from me, with a mocking smile. ‘I swear that you shall be restored to your rights tomorrow’ he said, ‘but meanwhile not a word about tonight.’

“I gave my word, and at last was able to totter out of the room, and by slow stages to get home.

“The next day I spent in bed, but in the afternoon I walked to Bungalow Town as my head was splitting, and I had to think the whole thing out. I was sure there was some trap but could not fathom the plot. You know the rest. The wound broke open, and I nearly fainted. Mr. Sefton here found me in a broken condition, and bound me up at the Club. I staggered down to the Black Horse. By doing so I was too late to keep my appointment and I saved my neck from the halter,” he added gravely.

“You mean that had you gone to the castle, you would have been accused of the murder,” said Sefton.

“I believe he had planned the whole thing with diabolical cunning. When I read the account of the murder I recognised at once that the conversation heard by Giles and Brown was the one which took place the night before, and guessed a dictaphone, which had caused the ticking sound I had heard. He had arranged for me to come, and either was going to commit suicide, which is the Reckavile way, with damning evidence against me, or to bolt, in which case I should certainly have been arrested, and exposed to ignominy and degradation, though without the body they could not prove murder. There would be my footmarks and probably my presence, and the conversation, though how he would have disposed of the record without an accomplice I cannot say.”

“I begin to see light,” said Fletcher “then I suppose you and Southgate came to try and find the certificate?”

“And the record, yes. I came first by myself, and when hiding in the house came across some old costumes, and wigs, and being as you know, an actor, I had no difficulty in disguising myself as old Reckavile. As you all saw the family likeness was striking, and I thought that if anyone saw me they would take me for a ghost.”

“So that was it?” said Fletcher.

“It was not hard to guess,” said Sinclair with a twinkle in his eye.

“Then my good friend Southgate came with me, and we were nearly caught by Brown,” and Halley laughed.

“You caught me properly, sir,” said the rueful constable.

“You see, I was afraid that Reckavile had destroyed the document, but as he had kept it all those years for some queer superstition, and as I had seen him put it into the desk, I thought it was worth while trying to find it. It was my only chance, Southgate most loyally helped me. Is there any more to explain?”

Fletcher moved restlessly. “All this is most interesting, but I don’t see that we are any nearer to a solution. In fact you seem to have incriminated yourself. After all, we cannot get over the fact that the dead man was found with a knife in his back, and the windows fast shut instead of wide open as they should have been from your account.”

Sinclair fixed his gaze on Fletcher. “I think you had better wait,” he said “we have not done yet.”

Chapter XII.
The Secret Out

“I don’t see that we are any further towards the solution of the murder,” said Fletcher. “All that we have heard sheds no light on the actual crime at all.”

Sinclair remained for a moment in thought, then he said slowly, and with great deliberation, his eyes fixed on vacancy.

“Will the murderer confess?”

The sunlight outside seemed to accentuate the grim horror within, it was here that the crime had been committed, and the shadow of the dead man was almost visible to their eyes of imagination. Sinclair waited, and in that pause a chill feeling of fear made manifest seemed to pervade the room. In utter silence he waited, then in sharp, incisive words he said “Very well, then we must take extreme measures. Mr. Cook, will you please explain exactly what happened when you came here to see Lord Reckavile on the day of the murder?”

The wretched man seemed to crumple into a heap.

“Me, sir,” he stammered, his face like chalk. “Oh, God, what do you mean?”

He sprang to his feet, and gripped the back of his chair for support. The police officers looked at him with that gaze of proprietorship which they keep for a prospective candidate for the gallows. Brown was unconsciously wondering what length of drop would be required for him, and Andrews was wondering whether he had a pair of handcuffs to fit.

“Well,” said Sinclair, “don’t stand there saying nothing. You came and saw Lord Reckavile on the afternoon of the murder, that we know—what happened?”

“It is true that I came to him, and gave him his ground rents, as I have always done, but I swear to God that I simply took my receipt and went, I did not even come into this room. I saw him in the hall. That is why I never mentioned it before, I was afraid of being accused of the murder. I was only here a few minutes, Giles knows that don’t you?” and he looked wildly at the old butler.

Giles spoke slowly, evidently under deep emotion.

“May I say a word, sir,” he said to Sinclair.

“Certainly.”

“You asked just now who killed Lord Reckavile—I did.”

If a bombshell had exploded in the room there could not have been a greater sensation.

“At last,” said Sinclair, and there was a note of triumph in his voice. “Thank you, Giles. That is what we wanted. Mr. Cook, I offer you a profound apology for the bad moment we gave you, but it was the only way to get a confession from him. That was why the whole meeting was arranged. It was Mr. Halley’s idea, and you know he has been on the stage.”

Then turning sternly to Giles, he said. “I have to warn you that anything you say may be used as evidence against you, but I know most of the story, and I do think a frank confession is your best chance.”

“I have no desire to keep anything back, nor do I regret what I have done. An hour ago I wanted to live for one thing, to complete what I had begun, but after what I have heard of all the suffering of Mr. Halley and his mother, that desire has gone.”

“But we are all in the dark …” began Fletcher.

“You shall know,” said Sinclair. “First, Giles is not his name; he once bore another, is that not so, Mr. Wheatland?”

Giles started. “That is so, though how you know it I cannot guess. I am an old man, and I know my days are numbered, so I do not care what happens to me. They can hang me if they like, though I am sorry for Mrs. Giles for she has been a good wife to me.

“Well, here is my story. Mr. Sinclair has told you my real name. After the shame and disgrace of the divorce, and the loss of my wife, whom I loved dearly,” his voice broke for a moment, “I lived for one thing only, to be revenged on the man who had robbed me. I was too much of a coward to fight him, but when he married Winnie and then deserted her, I swore to kill him. My business went to pieces, and I seemed to lose heart in it. I sold it up, and brooded over my wrongs. Then I determined to destroy the last of this accursed breed, and waited for him to come to England, and the next thing I heard was that he had been drowned. That would have ended it for me, but Winnie had a son, and I determined that the whole hated race should come to an end, for the blood was rotten. I waited and watched for years, and at last I heard that Winnie was dying, and hurried down to see her.

“She hardly knew me at first, but when she recognised me she was overjoyed, and clung to me to the last, imploring my pardon for the wrong she had done me. I will not dwell on that, it is too sacred, but she confided to me the dread secret of the other Reckavile, who was somewhere in the world for all she knew, and might turn up at any time to dispossess her son. I could hardly hide my delight when I heard of the tortures he was enduring, hunted through the world by the thought of that other, but I soothed her last hours, and then set myself to thought. What was the good of killing this Reckavile and leaving the other alive. I wished to destroy them both.”

The madness of the old man was plainly in his eyes, and Ena drew away, sick with horror.

“I carefully trained myself as a butler, and obtained the post here without much difficulty. It was a sinecure, as Reckavile was nearly always abroad.

“All those years I waited. I could have killed him at any time, but then the thought of the other brother coming forward and perhaps gloating over me at my trial stayed my hand. I knew somehow my chance would come, and at last it did. Southgate and I were old friends, and I heard of the stranger who had come to the Black Horse. Mrs. Southgate told me about him, and from the description I had no doubt as to his identity. I knew he was hidden away somewhere, and Southgate had asked me to let him know when Lord Reckavile came back. How little he realised what he was asking! I found the thought of my hour of triumph coming at last, and everything seemed to play into my hands, as though Fate or the Reckavile Curse was taking a part. I brought Mr. Halley in to Lord Reckavile, and the sight of his face was like wine to me. Already I was having my revenge, and it was sweet. I heard some of their conversation, though not all.

“That night Winnie came to see me, and she smiled at me as though to say how pleased she was.

“The next day Lord Reckavile sent for me and told me to tell Stevens to get Brown the constable to come up about the poachers. He was to be here just before seven o’clock. How I laughed to myself, I saw his trap. He had arranged for Mr. Halley to be outside his window at seven.

“Mr. Cook came in the afternoon and Lord Reckavile saw him in the hall. I knew why—the library he intended to keep as it was for his own vile purpose. He kept it locked all day, but when Mr. Cook had gone I followed him on tiptoe, and when I found he had forgotten to turn the key I knew he was delivered into my hands, and that the time had come. I carried my knife ready, I had kept it always sharp for such an occasion.

“I opened the door very slowly and carefully, and peeped in, and nearly spoilt everything by crying out, for the first words I heard were those of Mr. Halley and himself on the previous day. Of course, I guessed he was using his dictaphone. He never would have a secretary or typist in the house, and used to send his records away to London or somewhere to be written out. I don’t think he ever wrote a line at all with his pen except to sign cheques.

“I saw his horrible plan at once. He could turn this record on and slip out of the window. Then Mr. Halley would be found in the room with all the marks of a struggle. How I chuckled! Yes, Mr. Halley would fall into the trap all right, but not such as had been devised.

“He was bending over the dictaphone and laughing a fiendish laugh, when I stole up to him. He had taken his coat off, and was in his shirt sleeves, when I drove the knife home, wearing a glove to prevent any finger prints showing and shouting out that Winnie was revenged at last, I could see her looking at me and nodding her head to show how grateful she was.

“He gave one horrible gasping cry, and I caught him as he fell, and threw the body on the sofa. I put his coat on, as I thought it would look more natural. I had just finished when I heard a knock and knew it was Brown.

“I waited sufficient time, as I thought for Mr. Halley to be outside, then went to the door and turned on the Dictaphone, and came back for Brown—but in my excitement I made one fatal mistake, I forgot to open the French window. I could have kicked myself, but it was too late.

“While Brown was examining the body I whipped off the record and hid it. That was all. I waited each day, hoping Mr. Halley would be arrested, and then I hoped to get a chance of killing him. If I had known that it was he who was sitting in that chair he would have been a dead man. But I am glad now. After hearing his story I felt he too had suffered, and I should have been content with my revenge. It was only when you accused Mr. Cook, and I thought an innocent man might suffer for my crime that I determined to tell the whole truth. I am an old man and shall not live long now in any case.”

He ceased and Sinclair took the statement from Fletcher, who had written it down.

“Sign this statement,” he said “if you are satisfied with it.”

The old man read it through carefully, and signed it with a firm hand.

“Now Giles—or Mr. Wheatland—if you wish to make an act of reparation—it lies in your power. Do you know where the marriage certificate is hidden?”

“Why of course. My wife told me when she was dying. I never touched it as I felt it was a magnet which would bring the other Reckavile home some day.”

He rose and went to the old desk. Brown carefully walking beside him. Stooping down he touched a secret spring, and a drawer, carefully hidden in the carving at the back, sprang open. Giles drew out a faded package and a record, and placed them on the table.

Sinclair opened the packet and handed the contents to Halley who turned white with relief.

“At last,” he said taking out the faded document, which meant so much to him. Without a word he handed it to Ena. It was much faded, and had been soaked with sea water, but was still readable.

Sinclair rose and put the record on the Dictaphone which he wound up and started. Of all the gruesome things that this room had witnessed this was the strangest. The now familiar words of the quarrel were repeated between the dead and the living.

Brown was shaking as though he had seen a ghost, and the others were strangely moved.

“Oh, shut it off, for Heaven’s sake,” said Sefton, and at the moment with the final shriek it ceased with a click.

All eyes had been rivetted on the instrument, when Sinclair rose with a cry of alarm.

“Stop him,” he shouted, pointing a finger at Giles.

Brown and Andrews seized the old man, who made no resistance, but smiled at them.

“No, you fools, he’s taken poison,” and Sinclair rushed round the table, and forced open the grim jaws, but it was too late, and with a heavy groan the old man collapsed. Sefton sprang to Sinclair’s side and ripped open Giles’ waistcoat. A moment’s examination was sufficient.

“He’s dead,” he said solemnly, “it must have been a terribly rapid poison.”

Ena had burst into tears, the strain had been too great, and Halley rose and went to her side.

“Fool that I was,” said Sinclair. “I might have guessed. This was what was contained in that little leather case we found. Reckavile must have carried it about with him for such a crisis as he knew might occur. You know suicide is in the family,” he added in a low voice so that Halley should not hear. “I have seen something like that in India. It was probably some deadly alkaloid. Giles must have got hold of it from Reckavile, and kept it for such a contingency. Still,” he said musingly “perhaps it is for the best. The old man had become a monomaniac brooding over his revenge, and it would have been dreadful to have sent him to the gallows.”

Brown and Andrews carried the body, already stiffening, into the bedroom, and covered it with a sheet.

The rest rose to their feet.

“You will make a full report on this, Andrews,” said Sinclair when the officer returned, “and I will report in London. There is no particular object in making more of a sensation than we are obliged, but the whole thing will have to come out when Lord Reckavile here makes his claim to the title.”

“I will go back to London, sir,” said Fletcher, and his face was white. “I seem to have made a pretty mess of things all round.”

Sinclair laid a kindly hand on his shoulder. “Don’t take this too much to heart, my boy, we all have to learn, and you are young yet. Only I think you owe an apology to Lord Reckavile.”

Fletcher looked with gratitude at his Chief.

“I owe an apology all round, and I tender it now,” he said.

He shook hands with each, and when he came to Ena, he smiled sadly, “I wish you both the greatest happiness.”

Chapter XIII.
The Last

The sun was sparkling on the sea, and all nature was rejoicing as though pleased that the black shadow had been lifted at last.

Southgate and his wife were setting luncheon in the old timbered room at the Black Horse, with great care. There were flowers on the table, and a row of bottles on the sideboard.

“That will do I think,” he said, standing back to admire his work. A sound of voices outside announced the coming of the guests, and the Southgates melted away to smarten up.

Ena and her brother came in with Lord Reckavile and she looked a pretty sight in the sunlit room, a picture of happiness, now that the clouds had gone. In Reckavile also there was a subtle change. He appeared younger and the sad look had given place to a merry twinkle of the eye. He walked more briskly, and with a self assurance unknown before.

Sefton was thoroughly contented. There was a very good prospect of being able to go back to the Hospital to qualify, and his experience had taught him that his father’s discovery was no idle dream. They took their seats and waited for Sinclair who was due to complete the party.

Reckavile rang the bell, and Southgate appeared.

“Have you no servants?” asked Reckavile in mock anger.

“Yes, sir—I mean, my lord,” stammered the landlord.

“ ‘Sir’ will do Southgate, for the present—why do you not do as I asked you?”

“What was that, sir?”

“Lay two places more for yourself and Mrs. Southgate.”

“Oh sir! We couldn’t.”

“Nonsense, either you lunch with us, or we don’t have any meal at all.”

“Very good, sir,” said the gratified man “I will tell the missus.”

A car drove up to the door, and Sinclair came in.

“I hope I’m not late,” he said shaking hands.

“Not a bit, you’re just in time,” said Reckavile.

Soon they were gathered round the table, as merry a party as one could wish to see.

“How are things going, Lord Reckavile?” asked Sinclair, when Southgate had uncorked the bottles.

“It will take some time to get these matters settled, as the whole question will have to come before the House of Lords, but my lawyers think there will be no real difficulty, and have been very good in covering my temporary needs. Now tell us all about the case, as you promised to do, you know we all want to know how you managed to solve the problem.”

“There is no magic about it,” said Sinclair modestly. “You see from the very first I saw clearly that, as we do not live in the age of witches and magic, there was only one man who could have had access to Reckavile, and that was old Giles, however much the problem was surrounded with difficulties. When I got Fletcher’s report, I saw the whole thing. Don’t misunderstand me. It is a matter of experience, not of cleverness. Fletcher had all the clues in front of him. The mention of a Dictaphone told me all I wanted to know. I had given him a broad hint when I told him the history of the Reckaviles, and I will admit that I thought he had committed suicide, a diabolical suicide to get his half brother hanged. I am not at all certain even now that that was not his real intention. He would have hidden the record, and swallowed the poison—you saw how quickly it worked—and things would have looked very bad for you, Lord Reckavile.”

“I wonder,” said the latter. “I saw something in his eyes at the last interview which made me suspicious of such a plot.”

“Well,” Sinclair continued “my mind being set on Giles, I pursued the usual practice, for which I take no credit, in hunting up his antecedents, and traced him as Wheatland. Then the whole thing was clear as daylight, but there was not a shadow of real evidence.”

“You remember,” said Reckavile, taking up the tale, “Southgate came to your bungalow, Ena, with important news that Sunday morning. The police had been down there making enquiries about me, and things were getting warm, so I thought the wisest course was to go to London and see Sinclair, and tell him the whole story. That was why he came down, but of course I knew nothing of his suspicions.”

“I see,” said Sefton “that was why you disguised yourself the second time.”

“It was my suggestion,” said Sinclair “if my theory was correct I saw that he was in very great danger from Giles, and the only way was to keep up the disguise till we had forced a confession from him, or got hold of such evidence that we could obtain an arrest. The record, which I was certain had not been destroyed, as Giles had no chance of doing so, and the certificate, were the things we were after, and I was so convinced that they were in the desk that we were prepared to break it to pieces if necessary, but Fletcher interfered, and afterwards Giles saved us the trouble. That I think explains the whole thing. I can only say how thankful we ought to be to have come out without another tragedy. But come, let’s talk of something more pleasant.”

Southgate rose at a signal from Sinclair, and filled their glasses with a very extra special champagne.

Sinclair rose. “To the health of the future Lord and Lady Reckavile,” he said.

The toast was drunk with enthusiasm. Sinclair set his glass down with deliberation, and said musingly “Good stuff that. I wonder how much it paid towards the revenue,” and he grinned broadly at Southgate who looked sheepish.

“Come along,” he said with a wink to Sefton “let’s examine Southgate’s cellars,” and with a laugh they went out, leaving Reckavile and Ena alone.

“We will go to Italy, dear,” he said taking her hand.

“Yes, I want to see your mother’s grave, and the little cottage where you were born. How happy she would be if she knew everything had come right,” and her eyes were wet.

“Perhaps she does. If you will take me as I am, we will get married, and get away from this place with its evil memories.”

“Yes, Mr. lord,” she said, making him a curtsey “but don’t forget it was here you met me, is that one of the evil memories?”

“That is the happiest memory I have ever had,” he made answer, catching her to him. “I came here in winter, and now spring has come, and soon it will be summer. When another winter comes it will find us together. The Curse has died out in one fiendish act of evil, and revenge, but by God’s grace we will establish a new line with nobler thoughts.”

He kissed her then, and she hid her blushes in his passionate embrace.