Читать книгу Inspector Furnival's Cases - Annie Haynes - Страница 22

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"So—so I am disappointed!" Peggy ended with a little shiver in her voice.

Stephen Crasster, walking by her side down the Dower House drive, set his teeth together for an instant before he turned and looked down at her, his features relaxing.

"Why are you disappointed, Peggy?"

"I have told you," Peggy answered, her eyes downcast, her face looking mutinous. "I wanted you and Lorrimer to be friends—real friends!"

There was a smile in Stephen's kind eyes as he glanced at the long upcurled lashes, at the pretty, wilful mouth.

"Won't you bring Lord Chesterham to lunch with me at Talgarth to-morrow?"

Peggy clapped her hands childishly, her small face aglow, her vexation for the time being forgotten.

"I should love to. I have been wanting to see what you have been doing at Talgarth so much. I thought it was so funny you didn't ask me."

"Did you?" Stephen questioned quietly. "Well, you must come to-morrow, Peggy, you and Chesterham. I wanted Talgarth to be in apple-pie order before you saw it. Certainly to-morrow you will have to make allowances."

"That will be ever so much more fun," Peggy returned rapturously. "I don't think I like places in apple-pie order. Oh!"—a rich blush mantling her cheeks, as a motor turned in at the lodge gates. "Why I believe this is—"

"So do I," returned Stephen with a whimsical half smile.

But she was looking at the motor; her eyes were smiling at the man in the driver's seat. She hardly heard Stephen's hurried apology for a leave-taking, hardly noticed that he had left her, striding off to the side gate which was nearest to Carew village. Chesterham pulled up the car and jumped out.

"Will you come for a spin, sweetheart? What do you think of the car? Isn't she a beauty, goes like a bird—sixty miles an hour, when the police are not about."

Peggy laughed. "I should love a ride, Lorrimer; will you take me over to Talgarth to lunch to-morrow?"

"Talgarth!" His face clouded over. "That is that fellow Crasster's place, isn't it? Why do you want to go there?"

"Because it is Stephen's place," Peggy said, with an uplifting of her brows. "Don't you realize that he is a great friend of mine, Lorrimer?"

"Friend!" Chesterham laughed out, though his eyes were glittering evilly. "I don't think friendship was exactly the gift Mr. Stephen Crasster wanted from you, Peggy."

"What do you mean?" She looked up at him with big, startled eyes, in which there lay a kind of wakening consciousness. "Stephen was my friend always."

"You were blind, child," Chesterham said with a touch of roughness that Peggy had never heard in his tone before. "The man is in love with you, it is easy to see that. And you belong to me, I cannot allow this walking and talking with him."

He drew her arm through his and led her across the grass to the shrubbery, leaving the car to the chauffeur.

"You can't allow me to talk to Stephen!" Peggy's fugitive colour was coming and going. Lorrimer was looking unlike himself to-day, she thought; he was flushed, his eyes were shining. "Don't you know that Stephen has been my friend all my life, Lorrimer? As for what you say it is nonsense—nonsense," vehemently as if trying to convince herself. "He is my friend."

"Ah, well, I am going to be your friend in the future!" Chesterham said masterfully, gazing down at her. They were out of sight of every one now, screened from the house by the belt of rhododendrons that bordered the shrubbery. He clipped his arm round her and caught her to him with a sudden warmth that half alarmed the girl. "You are mine, and I cannot spare one little bit of you, one iota of your time or thought to Crasster!" he declared vehemently, punctuating his words with hot, passionate kisses.

Half frightened, wholly indignant at his roughness, Peggy managed to free herself at last.

"How dare you?" she demanded, her face scarlet, tears of anger and humiliation standing in her eyes. "How dare you?"

"How dare I?" Chesterham laughed aloud. His bronzed face had distinctly deepened in hue, his blue eyes were gleaming oddly. "Do you think I am made of milk and water, like your friend Stephen Crasster? No! No! I am flesh and blood, Peggy, and you are most adorably pretty." He moved towards her as though to take her in his arms again.

Swift as lightning Peggy eluded him, ran past him down the path. She had never seen Chesterham quite like this before. His words about Stephen Crasster had startled and shocked her; his kisses, his passion, had filled her with a sense of humiliation. In a double sense he was tearing the veil from her eyes.

When Chesterham, giving up his undignified pursuit, stepped quietly into the drive, she was scudding across the little stretch of lawn that lay between the shrubbery and the house. He shrugged his shoulders and his face was black with anger as he followed slowly.

Meanwhile, Crasster, absorbed in meditations that were none of the pleasantest, was making his way down the road to Carew village. At the top of the street near the Carew Arms, he nearly collided with no less a person than Mr. Lennox.

"The very person I was wishing to see," he exclaimed as he stopped. "I was thinking of calling in at the Carew Arms. If you have nothing better to do this evening come in and have a taste of bachelor fare with me at Talgarth. I met with a curious case the other day that I should like to talk over with you."

Mr. Lennox paused. "You are very kind, sir. But;" with a certain hesitancy in his manner, "I am afraid that this evening it is impossible. I have an engagement—and, as a matter of fact, I am expecting some important news."

Crasster looked disappointed. "I am sorry, I am getting tired of lonely evenings, I am going back to town next week."

"I am sorry to hear that, sir." The detective took rapid counsel with himself. "I was wishing to ask your advice about something, sir. If you have nothing to do this morning, maybe you would step into my rooms at the Carew Arms."

Crasster hesitated a moment, then he turned to Lennox. "I don't mind if I do. Although," he said, "it doesn't look as if I should be much help to you, Mr. Lennox."

"Oh, I think you will, sir," the other returned confidently as he led the way to his private room at the Carew Arms.

The detective's room was a very pleasant one overlooking the garden, and with a capital view of the arbour outside. Two high-backed wooden arm-chairs stood in the window, and Lennox drew one forward.

Please to take a seat, sir. I know you have been wondering what brought me down here, sir.

Crasster laughed. "Well, I must acknowledge to a little natural curiosity. A prolonged residence at the Carew Arms seemed hardly in keeping with what one expects of the best-known of modern detectives. One wouldn't expect to find any very interesting criminals in Carew village."

"Perhaps not," the detective said slowly. "And yet my stay here has distinctly forwarded me in my investigation into one of the most mysterious of modern tragedies."

"Really?" Stephen looked up a trifle incredulous. "I must confess at times, inspector, that I have been inclined to attribute it to Célestine's bright eyes."

Mr. Lennox waved his hand as if to brush the very suggestion aside. "Pish! Célestine," he said lightly. "Célestine has her uses, sir, but," looking Crasster full in the face with his keen frosty blue eyes, "I came here in connection with the Abbey Court murder, sir. You must have guessed that, knowing what you do."

"Impossible!" Stephen stared at him. "You don't mean that you placed any reliance—what in the world could Carew have to do with the Abbey Court murder?"

"Not much at first sight," the detective returned amicably. "As a matter of fact it wasn't so much what I expected to discover at Carew village, but that it was a sort of centre. Still I may say that my stay has not been unproductive. I am glad I came to the Carew Arms."

"You don't say so!" Stephen sat back in his chair and looked at him.

It was essentially a peaceful and pleasant scene they looked upon through the open window, one that seemed far removed from that horrible, sordid crime in the Abbey Court flats. Yet, as he looked at the inspector's face, a terrible prevision of evil took possession of Stephen, a certainty that the shadow of some frightful calamity overhung the quiet village.

"What do you mean?" he said at last curtly.

The inspector did not answer for a moment, his eyes strayed to a wooden box that stood on the sideboard at the end of the room. At last, he said slowly:

"You may remember that nothing was ever discovered with regard to the identity of the man who called himself C. Warden—I mean no hint as to his past, no knowledge of his friends or where he came from."

"I remember," said Stephen slowly. "That was one of the most baffling features of the case. Not a single paper of his was to be found. It looked as if he had deliberately destroyed everything that could give any clue to his identity."

"Yes! either he had or his murderer had," Mr. Lennox finished significantly. "Well, sir, I don't say I have found out who it was, or where he came from; but it was because I thought the answer to those two questions might be found in this neighbourhood that I came down to the Carew Arms."

"The last place in the world where I would have thought you would be likely to obtain any help," Stephen said energetically; yet the inspector saw plainly enough that a shade passed over his face as he heard the words. "Why, man alive, haven't you discovered that in a country place like this everybody knows everybody else and everybody else's business? There is no room for mysteries or unknown personages down at Carew."

The inspector nodded. "I know what you mean, sir. But now let me tell you. I believe Lord Chesterham is a great friend of yours, isn't he, Mr. Crasster?"

The suddenness of the question, of the extraordinary change of topic, almost took Crasster's breath away.

"I know him of course. Yes, he is a friend," he answered, loyal to Peggy's trust in him: "But what possible connexion do you imagine he could have had with the—"

The inspector laughed a little. "Oh, I don't go so far as to imagine that he had any connexion with the tragedy, sir. But my stay here is indirectly connected with him all the same. You may not have noticed the paragraphs that appeared in the papers when he succeeded to the title?"

"I don't think I did," Stephen said uncertainly. He was watching the inspector's face. What in the world had all this to do with the Abbey Court murder? He could not make it out.

"I am sure I did not," he added more positively.

"I always look through the papers pretty carefully myself," said the inspector, "and note anything special that strikes me. It often comes in useful. Well, sir, I had two reasons for coming to Carew. The first one—well, that I may tell you later; the other I found in those paragraphs relating to the succession to the Chesterham peerage. Several of them spoke of a blue star which was supposed to be the peculiar birth-mark of the Chesterham family, and which, of course, distinguishes the present peer. Perhaps you didn't notice it, sir?"

"Certainly I didn't!" Stephen answered, a gleam of sudden comprehension lighting up his eyes. "I don't even remember hearing of his succession at the time. But you don't mean that—"

"Just that." The inspector nodded. "I made inquiries and the Chesterham Star is a blue mark, on the arm, just above the wrist, identical in every respect with the mark you will remember seeing on the arm of the man who died in the Abbey Court flats."

"I remember," Stephen said slowly. "But it is inconceivable that—"

"It is almost certain to my mind that he was a member of the Chesterham family—either with the bar sinister or otherwise," the inspector went on, "though I haven't traced him yet. But, when I have, half the mystery surrounding the Abbey Court murder will be cleared up, sir."

"But how—" Stephen began.

He was interrupted by a familiar ting-ting, from the other end of the room.

"The telephone," said the inspector. "If you will excuse me one moment, sir, I am expecting an important message!"