Читать книгу The Clifford Affair - A. Fielding - Страница 5

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AN elderly-looking, round-shouldered man, whose stoop took from his real height, walked up to the gates of Thornbush half an hour later.

Pointer had looked out the hours of postal deliveries. He had timed himself so as to be on the drive when a postman overtook him. He turned.

"Any letters for me—Marbury?" he asked pleasantly. "And I'll take on any for the household at the same time."

The postman thanked him, told him there were none for him, and handed him four for the house.

Though Pointer looked a typical civil servant from his neatly-trimmed beard to his neatly-adjusted spats, he knocked at the front door with the four letters—three for Julian Clifford, Esq., and one for Mrs. Clifford—in his pocket. He might re-post them after the briefest of delays—or he might not.

"I telephoned to Mr. Clifford just now, and was told that he is not at his home." The very way in which Pointer felt for his card-case suggested near sight and a certain precise fussiness.

"Mr. Clifford is away, sir. But will you see Mr. Hobbs? Mr. Hobbs said he particularly wanted to see you, sir." The butler led the caller into a room near by. A young man rose civilly.

"Mr. Marbury? From the Home Office?"

"I called to inquire why Mr. Clifford failed to keep an appointment he had this morning with the Home Secretary. Can I see him a moment? The matter is connected with the Metropolitan Special Constabulary Reserve, and is very urgent. We are drawing up our lists."

Hobbs seemed puzzled. "Did Mr. Clifford have an appointment? I think there's some mistake."

"Exactly!" Pointer broke in. "I'm sure there is. Kindly let me know where I can reach him on the 'phone."

Hobbs stroked his smooth black hair. Then he stroked his smooth blue chin.

The Chief Inspector was by nature and training a remarkably astute reader of faces, but he was looking at one now which—like his own—hid completely the character behind it. Like himself, Adrian Hobbs looked about thirty, more or less. Like himself, too, he suggested an out-of-door man. Like himself, Hobbs was exceedingly neat in appearance. From his hair to his well-shod feet he satisfied the most fastidious eye. His mind, again like Pointer's, was clearly a tidy mind. But beyond that even Pointer could not size him up. The eyes were large and wide apart. Were they frank or merely bold? The nose was long. Was it predatory or merely self-assertive? Was the large mouth frank? Or was there something just a shade sinister to it when he smiled?

"I really can't understand it," Hobbs said finally. "I had no idea that Mr. Clifford took any interest in the matter—"

"That is precisely why I must trouble you for his address. Or a telephone number that will reach him," Pointer again put in swiftly.

"Sorry," Hobbs smiled slightly, "impossible to give you either. Mr. Clifford has gone off in search of local colour, and where he gets it is always his own closely-kept secret. He left no address. He never does. In good time—a day, a week, two weeks—he'll be back."

"But a man doesn't make an appointment a week ahead with the Home Secretary and not keep it!" Pointer ejaculated; in the tone of a man whose patience is wearing thin.

The truism seemed to worry Hobbs. He nodded, but said nothing.

"I feel sure that he has left some word with some one. He must have!" Pointer urged.

"Mr. Clifford's engagement-book shows nothing for this morning," Hobbs said finally.

"When did he leave?"

"This morning. I got down to breakfast to find that he was gone. There was a note for me to say that he had left to explore some Chinese haunts. Liverpool rather than London, I fancy."

"Incredible!" Pointer murmured. "But"—an idea seemed to strike him—"would you ask Mrs. Clifford to spare me a few minutes? I must try and get this straightened out."

"Do you mind seeing if Mrs. Clifford's in the garden?" Hobbs turned to another man who was writing at the farther end of the large room where he and Pointer were talking. A man whom Pointer knew, by Ward's description, to be Newman, Julian Clifford's private secretary, and whom he had been secretly watching. The Chief Inspector had purposely lowered his voice so that what he was saying should only be partly audible to Newman. He noticed the intent look on the secretary's face, not when he entered the room, but when he spoke of Julian Clifford in a purposely raised voice. The look that came then, was that of a man straining his ears. Ordinary curiosity might explain this with many men. But Pointer did not think that curiosity was a trait of the dark young man with the close-shut mouth, and the deep-set, reserved eyes. Newman's ordinary interest, or he misread him greatly, was concentrated in some inner life of his own. A life so interesting in its close seclusion that he lived there almost exclusively. True, he would, he must, come out into some other court for business purposes, to buy and sell. The many who penetrated thus far, might indeed think that they had the run of all that there was to the man. But Pointer felt sure that there would be walled courtyard within walled courtyard and lock after lock behind which the real man stood on guard.

"Perhaps I'd better go myself," Hobbs said, after a second.

Alone in the room, Pointer thought over the two men, especially the secretary. There were great potentialities in that face. Newman had lost his memory in the last year of the war, Ward had said. But was the face at which the detective officer had just glanced, so apparently casually, the face of one with no memory reaching back beyond 1918?

Pointer had seen men who had lost all recollection of their lives up to a certain point. In the eyes of each had been a look impossible to forget or mistake. A piteous, searching look. The look of those who feel that they are the consequences of days that they cannot remember, that in their characters they are reaping what, as far as their surface intelligence is concerned, they have not sown. But Newman, strange though the effect was that he produced on Pointer's keen scrutiny, had not that look. Those watchful eyes...the iron reserve of the face...Nothing could give that last but year on year of rigorous self-control. A self-control that was never set aside for a moment. Great business men sometimes have it, statesmen occasionally. Pointer had invariably seen it on those privileged to attend on royalties.

His thoughts passed on to the effect which his questions about Clifford had had on the men. Hobbs, Clifford's literary agent, had shown no emotion. But Newman? Newman was startled. Pointer knew that as well as though he had been one of these modern instruments which record heart beats. The man's rigid, sudden immobility had but one cause.

Yet, though Pointer could jump to conclusions when he could alter them, he was a very wary man when, as here, his conclusions were fundamental—were the basis on which he must build.

At that moment the door opened. Though Pointer did not know it, it was Julian Clifford's librarian who now looked in. A young man called Richard Straight, who, wandering rather aimlessly about the house, collecting missing volumes from library sets, had just met Hobbs. He had turned and stared after the literary agent. Hobbs' face was strangely set. Straight promptly popped his head into the room which the other had just left. He saw nothing to explain Hobbs' look. A stout, elderly man was trying to disentangle his glasses from his watch-chain. At sight of the librarian, the elderly caller rose.

"Mr. Newman, isn't it?"

"No." Straight came on into the room. "No, but can I be of any use? I'm the new librarian here. Very new, I'm afraid. I only arrived yesterday—from Melbourne."

"I called," Pointer explained wearily, "on a very urgent matter. I must get into touch with Mr. Clifford. I'm from the Home Office, I should mention, and Mr. Clifford was due at a meeting to discuss the lists of the Metropolitan Special Reserve Constabulary. We want him on the committee." He looked questioningly at Straight, who looked questioningly back at him. "Mr. Clifford is absent, it seems. The Home Secretary is waiting!" Pointer's tone was inimitable as he pronounced those five words.

"Where is Mr. Clifford?" Pointer went on irritably, "kindly let me have his address, and I will do what I can to straighten out this most deplorable mistake."

"I haven't it," Straight said promptly. "Mr. Clifford apparently never leaves it when he goes off to collect new material for his work. He only left this morning."

"This morning!" Pointer's tone suggested that here was indeed the last straw. "Why, the appointment was for today!"

Straight merely smiled and shook his head, as though to say that he was not responsible for his employer's habits.

Hobbs returned. He shot a swift glance from Straight to Pointer. An inquiring glance.

"Mrs. Clifford knows no more than I do, but if you feel that you would like to see her, she is willing to give you a few moments, Mr. Marbury."

Hobbs showed Pointer into a large quiet room with bookshelves shoulder-high running around it. A big writing table stood by one window. A Koran stand, various old carved reading-desks, and lecterns, and broad tables such as architects use, were here and there. It was Clifford's own room, and admirably suited to its purpose of writing. The men stood desultorily talking of the weather, which, after having given a selection of winter airs for the past week, had remembered that July was the tune which it was booked to play, and seemed at last endeavouring to provide something suitable.

After a minute or two the door opened. Pointer had never seen any one quite like Alison Clifford. He had expected beauty, for Julian Clifford had written of many a lovely heroine. But this was not beauty as he understood it.

She was very tall, very slender, and very pale. Lint-white the short, soft hair, so fine that, as she turned to shut the door, it stirred above her head like thistledown. With every movement, with her very breathing, it seemed to rise and fall like the hair of a spirit. Her skin was white too. White and smooth, with a sheen as of a lily's petals. Even her lips were but a hint of colour. Her eyes were a clear aquamarine, veiled by lashes so white that they looked as though thickly floured. Something about the face made the Chief Inspector think of a face seen under water, or through a veil.

Pointer explained again about the meeting at the Home Secretary's.

"So sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Clifford, but I thought that perhaps you might remember some trifle which would help to locate Mr. Clifford—"

Mrs. Clifford regretted that she could be of no use. "My husband often disappears for a short time. Generally, of course, he lets me know where he will be, but not always. And I'm afraid he has a very poor memory for engagements."

"Sometimes he's writing, or dictating, and gets to a passage which needs local knowledge," Hobbs put in, "when he'll stop, think a moment, and without a word leave the room, take down his hat and topcoat, and be off. To return with the necessary information and atmosphere perhaps after a week."

Mrs. Clifford smiled acquiescence. "I'm afraid we must possess our souls in patience. He left me a note saying that he might be delayed until Friday."

"Delayed?" Pointer wondered at that word.

"I've heard, of course, of your wonderful powers," he went on politely. "Couldn't you ascertain by means of them where Mr. Clifford really is?" It was a test question. What would the woman's reply be?

"I've been watching him in my crystal off and on all morning," she said at once, smiling faintly with down-dropped lids—lids so thin that Pointer could see the colour of the iris through them.

Even as she spoke she touched the antique silver clasp of a small black velvet bag beside her. Within it Pointer saw a ball of what looked like glass. Bending lower she looked into it. He watched her. Seen like this, with the light on her silvery hair and amber frock, he saw her charm for the first time. There was something very alluring about the picture which she made. She looked like a tree sprite talking for a few moments to a mortal.

"There he is now!" she exclaimed suddenly. "I can always get results quicker if I am with some one who wants to see what I do. Yes, there he is!"

She half turned a shoulder so that both Pointer and Hobbs could look. Pointer saw but the shifting light beautifully reflected in the ball. Hobbs had stalked to the window, and stood with his back to the room, disapproval in every line of his body.

"What is Mr. Clifford doing? Where is he?" Marbury asked, gaping. Was the faint smile that curved her pale mouth mischievous or malicious?

"I'm afraid there's no address given in a crystal. I only see a street...a very winding street..." She was staring into the ball with what looked like concentrated attention, turning it now and then in its nest of velvet.

"Gables," she went on, "built like steps running up into heaven, are on both sides of him. Now he's lighting a cigarette. He's pulled out his watch. Now he's gone!"

"Gables built like steps running up into heaven?" Pointer echoed. "What sort of houses would they be on?"

Mrs. Clifford shot Hobbs a glance from under her lids as she shut her velvet bag. Pointer fancied that she regretted those words, and hoped that her cousin had not heard them.

"Oh, just irregular gables," she said hurriedly.

"Wonderful!" Marbury fairly gaped; "really wonderful! Thank you so much. And when Mr. Clifford returns, will you ask him to have a message sent me? We may clear up the mystery then. For I confess I find Mr. Clifford's unexpected absence a mystery."

His rather yellow eyeballs—there are drops, very beneficial to the eye, which yellow the balls for the rest of the day— turned vaguely towards the figure of a young woman who had just sauntered down the gravel path towards them past their window. At his words, spoken very clearly, even though in Marbury's little staccato voice, it stopped with the small head a little forward on the long neck, the large eyes glancing into the room at Mrs. Clifford—at Hobbs—at their visitor. Dwelling on each in turn for a length of time that meant uneasiness to Pointer. By what, or by whom, was the uneasiness caused? "Is that Miss Clifford?" Marbury asked, taking a step towards her, "perhaps she—"

"There is no Miss Clifford," Alison said, while the girl outside stood still. No one made any move towards mentioning her name.

"What! No help towards solving the puzzle of where Mr. Clifford is! Dear, dear!"

Mr. Marbury dropped first one glove then the other. The girl outside in the garden had stiffened where she stood. Now she passed on.

"That's a Miss Haslar, a niece of Mr. Clifford's," Hobbs said quickly, and turned towards the door.

Diana Haslar walked on as though deep in thought—unpleasant thought. Tall and slender, she looked a mere girl, but she was close on thirty. She had a fascinating rather than a pretty face. There were subtle lines in it. There was both mockery and mischief in her smile. And her large eyes looked as though few things would escape them. Had there been a greater warmth in it, her face would have been more universal in its charm. Yet there were hints of fire in the tawny eyes, in the beautiful lustre of her close-clipped, wavy hair, in some tones of her rather deep voice. At last, still apparently lost in thought, still unpleasant thought, she stepped into one of the rooms, and laid a hand on the young librarian's shoulder.

Richard Straight, as he had told Marbury, had only landed yesterday from Australia. He had been head librarian in a large Melbourne civic library. Julian Clifford had met him while on a world's lecturing tour, and had been struck with his original views on how private libraries should be, and could be, run. On his return, the author had offered him the post of his librarian. A small position, but one that could bring Straight into contact with many people worth meeting. Straight had thought it over for a month, and finally accepted it. Had he known what Diana Haslar carefully did not tell him until his decision was made, that the great writer was a connection of hers, Straight would not have hesitated for a day. He had been a constant visitor at the big Haslar house in Melbourne. A friend of Arnold Haslar's, it was not his fault if he was not by this time his brother-in-law. As it was, he still hoped to win Diana.

"Dick!"—the two were about the same age, and Christian names come easily in Australia—"tear yourself away from first editions, isn't a man from the Home Office the same as from the police?"

Richard Straight tore himself away from books very promptly at the tone in which that question was put. He looked at her in surprise.

"You'll be had up for slandering the Force if you mean that benevolent old dear in the morning-room. He certainly can't be the same as a policeman. Why?"

Diana seated herself on the table and ruffled the pages of a book in a way to set a conscientious librarian's teeth on edge. Dick did not seem to mind.

"He came about Uncle Julian...I heard him say his absence was a mystery..."

"Well?" Dick asked easily.

Diana looked at him a moment in silence. Then she turned away. Straight knew that a door had been gently shut in his face.

"How do you think you're going to like your work at Thornbush?" she asked, after a moment.

"I think I'm going to like it very much here." This was high praise from Straight. He was an ugly, clever-looking young man with a certain air of quiet self-possession. An air which still annoyed Diana Haslar exceedingly at times. "I should like any place where I could be near you," he added rather fatuously.

She gave him a rallying smile.

"Any place? I really can't imagine your liking any place, Dick. You're rather a particular young man. Besides, when Uncle Julian has finished his Life of my grandfather, I'm off. It's only the fact I can check the family dates better than any one else can that keeps me here, though I like the work." She finished thoughtfully with a certain critical note in her voice.

"But not the house?" he asked, quickly looking up.

"We're so frank 'down under,'" she said a little wistfully, "dreadfully frank, you used to think when you first came out. And Thornbush—" She seemed to seek for the right word.

"Thornbush isn't?"

"Not frank. No. Not lately. I seem to be always interrupting people in most private conversations. I think I shall be glad when the Life is finished and I'm free once more. Though I love being with Uncle Julian."

"He's a splendid chap, isn't he!" Straight said warmly. "His welcome to me was kindness itself."

"He is kind. Yet he can be hard. When it's a question of his work."

Again there was a tone to her voice that intrigued him. Straight was fond of conundrums.

"Your uncle said in the notes he left each of us this morning that he had gone for local colour. Is it possible that you think 'local colour' should be spelled Mazod Orr?"

This time it was Diana's expression that puzzled Straight as she looked at him. She was far too modern a young woman to be shocked at the suggestion. Yet there was a something in her eye...

"I see that Arnold has been repeating the silly tittle-tattle which is going the round in some quarters," she said scornfully. "Why, Alison and Mazod Orr are tremendous friends—she is seeing her off herself for Paris this morning."

There was a pause.

"And how's Arnold?" Straight asked; "was it anything serious?" The name of Mrs. Orr had suggested that of Arnold Haslar to him, for Diana's brother was madly in love with the widow. Straight knew that Diana had had a telephone message early this morning that had made her hurry home, a message about Arnold having been found beside his breakfast table in a state verging on collapse.

"The doctor says it's trying to be 'flu. I wanted to stay, but Arnold's not to see any one. If he remains in bed and keeps absolutely quiet, the doctor thinks he may escape and be up to-morrow."

"Odd if Arnold should catch 'flu," Straight thought. "He always seemed to be immune. He looked all right last night."

"The doctor says he must have had a shock of some kind, or some great excitement. Do you know of anything?" She looked at Straight rather narrowly. He did not, and said so.

"Must have happened when he was called out of town last night," he suggested. "It was a business call, he told me, else we had planned to celebrate my arrival, as you know, by some crimson paint. If it isn't due to business worry, then it may be remorse at his having cut me dead this morning. Absolutely dead."

"Where was this?" she asked sceptically.

"Just outside a huge building on the corner of a main road near here. I got lost trying to take an after-breakfast stroll."

"Heath Mansions." Diana tapped her fingers on the table restlessly. "He didn't see you evidently," she went on in a rather absent-minded, ruminative voice.

"That's just it," he retorted. "Arnold shouldn't moon by daylight. I waved a friendly paw, and he fled as though it held a writ. Probably he was feeling ill. He looked perfectly ghastly."

Once more an odd look crossed Diana's face.

"And he left you early last night?" she asked, as though worried by that fact.

"Nearly as soon as I got there," Straight said, with a smile. "But in response to a telephone call, which made it less of a snub direct."

She did not smile. A silence fell on the room.

Suddenly Diana drew back farther into the shadow. Newman, her uncle's secretary, was walking past the open window outside. He looked up. Their eyes, his and hers, met. Newman's cigarette-case dropped with a sharp tinkle, as though something in her glance had startled him. He retrieved it instantly, and passing on, lit a cigarette rather hastily.

His movements were singularly free from hurry, as a rule. Like his face, they suggested plenty of reserve power. There was something foreign about his appearance: a little in his easy grace, more in his seldom-seen, faintly ironic, smile, most of all in the melancholy of his dark, brooding eyes, which rarely looked up. Newman had a habit of carrying on a whole conversation with his eyes on his cigarette, or looking out of the window. In build he was exceptionally lean and lithe, with small, strong bones.

"I must ask Newman about these Spanish books," Straight murmured. "Mr. Clifford told me in that talk we had last night after dinner, that he's making himself into quite an authority on Spain."

Diana said nothing.

"Mr. Clifford seemed to think him very clever, but—" Then Straight too decided to say no more.

"Oh, he is!" Diana spoke with a certain grimness, "so clever that one wonders why he remains content with life at Thornbush year after year. There's some reason why he refuses every offer, and he's had some good ones. Just as there's some reason why he cultivates Arnold as he does. Mr. Newman does nothing without a reason."

Diana spoke half under her breath.

"You sound afraid of him!" Straight gave her a very sharp glance.

Diana's laugh failed to achieve carelessness.

"I loathe him. I can't think why he should try so tremendously to ingratiate himself with Arnold, who, unfortunately, has taken the most tremendous fancy to him."

"Perhaps the fact that Arnold's your only brother," Dick suggested.

"Mr. Newman and I feel alike about each other," Diana said shortly, "mutual dislike. On my side, distrust as well. Profound distrust."

"I must keep out of his way," Straight said lightly.

"On, he won't bother you! You're of no importance to him. There's nothing to be gained by cultivating you"—she flushed at her own rudeness and added hastily, "except the best of pals. And possibly Mr. Newman may scent the rising man in you that you are, Dick. However, even so, you'll be safe. I can't imagine any one pulling the wool over your eyes."

"I'm done brown quite often," he murmured sadly.

"Not you!" she scoffed. "I always know that if ever any of us gets into a hole you'll get us out." She bit her lip, as though the words had slipped out. "Edward Clifford thinks the paper you sent in to the Libraries Association a masterpiece. He said he was going to keep an eye on you."

"A benevolent or a watchful eye?"

Both laughed. Straight looked down into her face not so far below his own.

"Were you pleased?" he asked abruptly.

"For your sake—very much." She laughed again, but Straight did not laugh back.

"Can't you manage to love me, Diana?" he asked, with a sudden passion in his voice.

"I thought we talked that over in Melbourne." She turned away, not shyly—Diana was never shy—but with something almost of impatience in her big eyes.

"Love!" she repeated under her breath. "Who does love, really? What is it? How does it come? How do you know when it's real, when it's not? I like you, Dick. I respect your character immensely—"

"Then give me a chance Give me a try-out!" he urged again.

Diana only shook her head.

"I'll make you love me"—he spoke as though vowing a vow unto himself—"with the real love. The love that stands by a man when all else drops away. You have it in you, that I'll swear. You could love, Diana!"

Diana was very pale.

"Not with the love that calls the world well lost." There was a note of contempt in her voice. Was it for herself? or for the subject of their talk? It was hard to tell with Diana.

"I haven't that in me. For your own sake, make no mistake! But apart from that, I could be a good helper to an ambitious, rising man. If ever I do agree to marry any one, I'll back him up well."

"But you won't agree to marry—any one—now?" Straight asked in his usual, rather measured voice.

"Not yet. Perhaps I shall never have any better answer. It won't be any loss, believe me. I'm not deep. I'm shallow. Shallow, and pleasure-loving, and greedy for good things." Her tone was trivial again. "And now, let's talk of something else. I mean it." Her eyes warned him not to press her for the present.

"Well, then, let us discuss whether the Foreign Office secret-service men will catch that chap Sir Edward talked about so much yesterday at dinner. The anarchist with the odd name..." Straight looked to Diana to help him out. She did not glance up.

"Et—Etch—Sounds as if I were sneezing!" he said crossly. "Etche—What was it?"

She made no suggestion.

The door opened. A girl looked in. It was Maud Gillingham, a great admirer of Alison Clifford's.

"Di—but how white you are! Or is it that frock? Mrs. Clifford has a message for you. A very important one. She's out in the garden."

Maud Gillingham slid an arm through Diana's, and the two sauntered out on to the lawn to where, under a cedar tree, Mrs. Clifford lay in a long garden-chair looking more like the sketch of a woman than actual flesh and blood. She lifted her strange aquamarine eyes as the two came up to her.

"I have a message for you from your grandfather, Diana." She spoke as casually as though she had just met the dead man in the street. "From Sir William Haslar. It spelled itself out on my Ouija board. I would have sent for you at once, only some tiresome person came in about an appointment of Julian's...But this message—'Tell Day' it began. Evidently you are Day."

Diana started. That was her grandfather's name for her, not heard for many a long year, and certainly not known to Alison Clifford.

"...not to mind whatever it is that you are minding," Mrs. Clifford went on. "That it will all come right. That he could see the end, and it will all come right."

She signalled to Newman, who was standing watching them, to come closer.

"Come along, Maud!" Diana turned to the girl beside her, "let's take a stroll around the rosary. You know"—Diana began when they were out of earshot—"there are times when I can't bear Alison. Spiritualists can be so smug, and generally are!"

"It's like talking to a woman from Mars sometimes," Maud agreed, "but she can be wonderful. With Mr. Newman, for instance. But I forgot—you don't like your uncle's secretary."

"I'm sorry for him," Diana said rather reluctantly.

Maud Gillingham nodded. "Naturally. Anybody would have to be sorry for a man who lost his memory in the war. But instead of pitying him, as we all do, Mrs. Clifford makes him feel that what he's lost is so tiny a thing in the immensity of our eternal life that it really isn't worth while fretting over."

"Yet don't you think she'd fret if she lost her memory?" Diana checked herself. "Maud, I never can quite make up my mind about Alison. Is she posing, or is she quite sincere?"

"Heavens, Di, if she weren't sincere she'd have to be an utter liar. Surely you don't think that of her?" Maud was aghast. She was an honest soul who knew no half-tones. You were white or you were black to Maud.

"N—no. No, of course I don't think that." Diana spoke rather as though dropping a trap-door on something within herself that wanted to peep out. "No, of course not. Every one knows that Alison, however mistaken, has a beautiful mind. But that message from my grandfather..." There was a pause.

"Did he call you Day?" Maud asked curiously.

"He did. But..." There was another pause. "This message from him for me: Maud, doesn't it ever strike you that Alison always gets the messages from the other world that she wants to get? Hears the things she wants to hear?"

Maud reflected a moment.

"I think there's more than that in it, Di. Oh, much more! Look at this last Saturday afternoon. But I don't think you were in the room. Mrs. Orr was here, and was scoffing as usual in her laughing way at something I said about Mrs. Clifford's powers. But I stuck to it that she could 'see'—sometimes—with her hands. Mrs. Orr whipped out a letter from her bag, folded it, and held it folded on Mrs. Clifford's knee, and said, 'Read this, then, Alison darling.' And she did! Mrs. Clifford did! She pressed her hands hard down on the letter and read out a whole sentence. 'If you keep your end up, no one will suspect us.' She would have gone on, only Mrs. Orr put the letter back into her bag. It was from a friend on her honeymoon. Even she looked startled. And no wonder! If that wasn't white magic, what is?"

Now Diana had been in the room; had heard and watched the whole strange little scene. But what had struck her most had been Julian Clifford's face as his wife began slowly—laboriously— like some one reading a distant signpost, to almost spell out the words. If Mazod Orr had looked startled, so had he. Diana thought that his hand had palpably twitched to snatch the envelope with its contents from under his wife's fingers. He and Mrs. Orr had drifted on into his study to look at some new prints which he had bought, and Diana saw again Mrs. Clifford's equable smile as she looked after them. Yet there had been a new element in her expression. Diana's perceptions were very quick. In Alison Clifford's eyes was a look almost of sarcasm. It was the smile with which skill might watch transparent make-believe through which it sees absolutely, but from which, for reasons of its own, it prefers not to tear the cloak away. It was not an unkind smile—Alison never looked unkind—but it had made Diana wonder. The two girls were back again by the cedar tree now. Mrs. Clifford was talking to Newman.

"But even so, why not let me get into touch with your forgotten memories? They're not important, but still, why not have them? I might be able to lift the veil for you."

Newman flicked the ash off his cigarette with an impatient gesture which had something almost of contempt in it. There was a certain haughty, hawk-like look about his whole face.

"I'd rather not. Thank you immensely for caring, Mrs. Clifford. But I have a very definite feeling against having the veil lifted that way. Your powers are very wonderful, but something tells me, warns me, if you like, not to use them for this purpose."

Diana gave him a long, long look. It amounted to a stare. "I should never be able to resist the chance if I were you!" panted Maud.

"You mean if I were you," Newman said looking at her under his heavy, brooding lids—lids that lifted slowly. There was something watchful about his gaze always—not suspicious—just watchful.

Dick Straight joined the group, and when they moved towards the house, sauntered after them with the secretary, of whom he asked a question or two about a couple of old Spanish works on the shelves. They were soon discussing Spanish bindings, and Straight found that his companion was indeed well up in the subject. Diana passed them again.

"I'm off to see how Arnold is, though he hates me to fuss over him." She made her remark exclusively to Dick Straight.

"Interesting girl, Miss Haslar," Dick said casually as she walked on.

"Most girls are," was the equally casual reply. Newman's dark eyes glanced for the barest second at Straight's face; that face was not usually considered a tell-tale one, yet Dick felt certain that the man beside him was aware from it of the state of affairs between himself and Diana.

Straight took an instant dislike to the man.

"Dago blood of some sort," he told himself, as Newman left him with a civil excuse, and turned off into the hall.