Читать книгу Annie Haynes Premium Collection – 8 Murder Mysteries in One Volume - Annie Haynes - Страница 52

Table of Contents

“Well, it is about as queer a go as I ever heard of. I can’t see daylight in it at all yet, but one thing I am clear about, that there’s more in the affair than meets the eye—a great deal! Some of us will be surprised before we hear the last of it, I’m thinking!” Superintendent Stokes stroked his chin thoughtfully as he looked up at the Manor House. “I just wonder if it was her or not?”

Lost in thought, he remained stationary for a few minutes. The night was dark and cloudy; little scuds of rain beat in the superintendent’s face every two or three minutes; a mild westerly wind was rising and rustling the leaves.

Suddenly there was a quick step behind him, a strong hand was laid on his shoulder.

“What are you doing here, my man?”

Superintendent Stokes wrenched himself free.

“I beg your pardon, Sir Arthur!” he said as he recognized his assailant.

“Oh, is it you, Stokes? Why are you prowling about here at this time of night? I am sure I don’t know what people may be taking you for if they see you. Anyhow, you may be quite sure that they will be pretty well scared. Have you heard the latest reports—that Mary Marston haunts the shrubbery and grounds? My sister and Miss Hilda”—Arthur brought out the Christian name with some hesitation; it was distinctly awkward, he often found, to have to speak of some one without a surname—“both declare they saw her the other night. I don’t believe I could get either of them in the shrubbery after midnight for a king’s ransom.”

The superintendent nodded, still surveying the lighted windows of the house before him.

“Ay, I have heard of the ghost, Sir Arthur! I reckon there is not many in Lockford that haven’t, as far as that goes. About the young ladies, I think you are mistaken, Sir Arthur. I am pretty well sure I saw one of them not many minutes ago.”

“What, here alone in the dark!” Sir Arthur exclaimed incredulously. “You are out this time, Stokes; I am sure my sister would not venture—”

Superintendent Stokes paused a moment before speaking and scraped up the dry leaves into a little heap at his feet.

“I didn’t say it was Miss Hargreave,” he said in a deliberate tone at last, “and I didn’t say she was alone.”

There was a pause. Sir Arthur’s face was very stern.

“What do you mean, Stokes?”

The superintendent took off his cap and held up his face to the cool, damp air with a sigh of relief.

“I saw somebody out here a quarter of an hour ago, Sir Arthur, somebody talking to a young man; I am pretty sure that it was the strange young lady. I wondered at the time what she was doing out here.”

“A quarter of an hour ago!” Arthur exclaimed wrathfully. “Why, a quarter of an hour ago I was sitting with the ladies myself before I came out for a smoke, so I know that it is a mistake!”

“A quarter of an hour, more or less, I take it to be, Sir Arthur, though I did not look at my watch,” the superintendent returned stolidly. “But if she was with you it could not have been the young lady—wearing a dark dress she was, and I thought I caught the gleam of her yellow hair.”

“Miss Hilda has a long clinging white thing on to-night.”

“Seems as it couldn’t be her, then,” concluded the superintendent. “Must have been one of the maids out with her young man, I suppose. It was this business of the ghost that brought me up here, Sir Arthur. To my mind it wants looking into.”

“The business of the ghost brought you up!” echoed Sir Arthur in amazement. “Why, Stokes, you can’t mean that you put any faith in such rubbish?”

Superintendent Stokes permitted himself a short laugh.

“I can’t say as I do—not as ghosts, Sir Arthur, but they have a value of their own in a case like this disappearance of Nurse Marston.”

“I believe Nurse Marston is hiding somewhere, and coming out at night to frighten people,” Sir Arthur cried wrathfully. “Let me catch her, that is all, and I will—”

Stokes so far forgot his dignity as to emit a low whistle.

“What on earth has put that in your head, Sir Arthur? Mary Marston is not in hiding at Lockford—not alive,” he said significantly. “You can take my word for that.”

Sir Arthur shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, I am not inclined to accept the ghost theory.”

“I never believed in a ghost yet, and I don’t think that I am going to start now,” said the superintendent placidly.

“Bless you, man! What do you think then? If it was neither Mary Marston in the flesh nor in the spirit, what was it?”

“Was there anything at all, Sir Arthur?” The superintendent’s tone was oddly eager, or so the young baronet fancied.

“Oh, as to that, I do not fancy there can be any question!” he said decidedly. “My sister is not a likely person to imagine anything of the kind, and she saw her distinctly.”

“Umph! Well, it is a strange case, and I don’t know what to make of it,” said Stokes. “I should be glad to clear it up, if only for Mrs. Marston’s sake; the old woman is fretting herself to death for her daughter.”

“I have sometimes thought that she may have been persuaded into taking some long journey and lost her memory in the same sort of way as Miss Hilda has,” Sir Arthur went on meditatively.

Dark though it was, Stokes gave a quick glance towards him.

“Perhaps she may, Sir Arthur,” he assented placidly. “But about this ghost; I should like to watch for it a bit longer, if you have no objection. I have a fancy that, if I could see it, it might clear things up for me a bit.”

“Well, watch as long as you like,” Sir Arthur agreed as he walked away. “I shall be glad to hear the result if you meet with any. Good night.”

“Good night, Sir Arthur!”

Left alone, Superintendent Stokes judiciously stepped behind a clump of trees.

“I don’t suppose I could be seen—it is too dark,” he remarked inwardly. “Still, one never knows.”

He had been standing there for some little time when he caught a whiff of tobacco and heard footsteps on the path. They stopped short of his hiding-place, and as the Superintendent peered forth cautiously he heard a woman say:

“No, I wouldn’t come a step farther, not if it was ever so, Jim. I daren’t. I should be frightened I might see her again.”

“More silly you!” The superintendent fancied the voice was not very brave. “We’ll stay here then. Now, Minnie, I want you to promise me that as soon as this jollification is over you will be ready for me.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Jim! I can’t promise!”

The superintendent, looking a little farther, fancied that the girl was crying. He had his own private disappointment too, for it seemed to him that the man before him was the one whom, but a few minutes before, he had seen talking to the girl he had taken for Hilda.

“I suppose it must have been this one all the time,” he soliloquized. “Yet I made sure it was the other. Well, well! A bit of a hint won’t do Sir Arthur any harm, anyway.”

He paid a little attention to the pair on the path; very soon he had gathered that the man was pleading for a speedy marriage, which the girl was tearfully refusing, but all this was not particularly interesting to Stokes, with his mind full of a different subject. He had allowed his fancy to travel along an obscure path, and was knitting his brows over a difficult problem he had encountered, when a sentence spoken by the girl roused him effectually from his absorption.

“I can’t do it, Jim,” Minnie was saying in a voice broken by sobs. “I can’t bring myself to it, not until we know what became of her—Nurse Marston.”

“Haven’t I told you times without number that that has got nothing to do with us where Nurse Marston went?” was the man’s reply, impatiently spoken. “You have got to let that alone and make up your mind, Minnie.”

“Ah, it is all very well, but I can’t get it out of my head that if it hadn’t been for me she might have been alive and well now.”

A rough exclamation broke from the man.

“Be quiet about it, can’t you? I tell you what, Minnie, many a time of late you have pretty near made me lose my patience with you.”

“I can’t help that,” the girl wailed. “It—you don’t know how I have been taking on, Jim. I have just sat down and cried and felt like a murderess.”

“The more silly you, then,” the man said angrily, “What call have you got to say as she is dead, if you come to that, much less as you have anything to do with it?”

“Ah, I have deceived myself long enough!” the girl murmured, with a sob. “I have tried to persuade myself as she would come back again all right after a while, and all the time something was whispering to me that she never would. Now that I have seen her I am sure. You won’t shake me, Jim. She pointed at me! I have never known what it is to have one moment’s peace, and I don’t expect to any more. I wish I was dead, I do!”

“Ugh! Ghost!” the man said contemptuously. “Why should she point at you, pray? You go out and imagine things and then put yourself into this state about them.”

“I didn’t imagine that,” the girl asseverated. “No, I saw her plain enough. It wasn’t to say dark, and there she stood. Alice Brown saw her too—she told you she did. As to why she pointed at me—you know, Jim, you know!”

“I don’t know what you are driving at,” was the sullen answer.” It is my belief as this is all an excuse, Minnie, and the truth of the matter is that you are hankering after that Greyson still.”

“I am not—you know I am not!” Minnie cried indignantly. “It is only—”

“Well, if you are sure,” the man said slowly, “I promised not to tell, but I can trust you, Minnie. Listen!”

There was a pause; the superintendent, craning forth a little further, could just make out through the darkness that the two heads were close together, that the girl was whispering to her lover. A not unreasonable disappointment overtook him; it might be that the very clue to the mystery which he was seeking lay there at his hand, and he was unable to avail himself of it. At length, while he was still impatiently chafing at his inability to hear, Minnie laughed aloud.

“So that was it?”

“That was it,” the man replied. “Now, Minnie, don’t you go fidgeting yourself over it again.”

“Oh, no,” the girl said in a satisfied tone.” I shall be only too glad to put it out of my head, Jim.”

“You’ll think about fixing the day?” the man pleaded. “I can’t wait much longer, Minnie.”

“Well, I won’t promise,” the girl responded coquettishly, “but—”

She paused; the clock was striking.

“Ten!” she said in alarm. “Why, I don’t know what Mrs. Parkyns will say!”

“I was to be at the house at ten o’clock,” the man interrupted. “Sir Arthur was coming to speak to me. He may be a bit late, but I must run. You won’t be afraid to go back alone, Minnie? You see, if I kept Sir Arthur waiting—”

“Oh, I shall not be a bit afraid now,” the girl said cheerfully, “now I know there’s no call to be! You make haste, Jim.”

They separated, and the superintendent, watching them, saw the man hurry off round the corner of the house. Minnie turned back towards the kitchen entry.

Superintendent Stokes came to a sudden resolution, and stepping quickly forth from the shadows, he laid his hand on her shoulder. The girl shrieked aloud, nor did her terror seem allayed when she recognized him.

“Oh, it’s the superintendent! What were you wanting with me?”

“Only just to have a little chat with you,” he said blandly. “It is Miss Spencer, Miss Hargreave’s maid, isn’t it? Ah, I thought so! Just the person I wanted! There is a question—”

“I haven’t any time to answer questions now,” Minnie said, with a sulkiness underlying which there was an element of fear, as the superintendent was quick to discover. “If I am not back in a minute Mrs. Parkyns will be fine and angry.”

The superintendent kept pace with her hurried steps.

“Maybe, then, I had better come in with you and tell Mrs. Parkyns how things are, and that I have a question or two to put to you,” he suggested as they crossed the stable-yard and came in sight of the brightly-lighted kitchen entrance. “Perhaps that will be best; we shall be quieter than we should be out here.”

Minnie stopped suddenly and faced him.

“Pretty talk there would be if you were to do anything of the kind, as you know, Mr. Stokes! Will you tell me what you want to know?”

The superintendent stood with his back to the open door, and by the light from the inside he could see the girl’s face, while his own remained in shadow.

“I want to know first why you think you are as good as Mary Marston’s murderess?”

The girl shrank back as if he had given her a blow.

“You—you were listening?” she gasped.

“It would be as well for you to keep a civil tongue in your head, young woman. If I am taking a walk in the shrubbery of an evening, me being employed on business as brings me there by Sir Arthur, and you and your young man choose to stand there talking out loud and taking no heed who is about—well, you must expect to have your words brought up against you, that is all I can say; and naturally, me being looking into this case of Mary Marston, when I hear a young woman say that often and often when she thinks of Nurse Marston she feels like a murderess—why, I come to her to know what she means by it.”

“I never harmed Nurse Marston,” said Minnie shortly, “and I don’t believe anyone else did either.”

He glanced at the bright, defiant eyes, at the hot red spots that were beginning to burn on her white cheeks.

“Why should you feel like a murderess, then?” he asked in the crisp, concise manner that was familiar to subordinates.

Minnie paused.

“Because I was a fool,” she burst out at last. “It was me as took her message from my lady as she was to go to the small library, and it was me as showed her the way there, and if she hadn’t gone there none of this might have happened.”

The superintendent looked at her.

“I don’t see that you have any call to blame yourself for that.”

“Don’t I tell you that I was a fool to think about it?” said Minnie testily. “But there, ever since that cuff was found I have had it on my mind as I was the one to take her the message. Then when we saw her the other night in the shrubbery, me and Alice Brown, she pointed at me. I thought as it was her ghost then; but now I feel sure that it was her herself.”

“What has made you change your mind?”

Minnie fidgeted.

“I don’t believe in ghosts.”

“Sensible girl!” he commented gravely. “What has made you feel sure that there are no such things as ghosts?”

Minnie moved her head as if his steady glance embarrassed her.

“Oh, sometimes I think one thing and sometimes another!” she said evasively. “We are all alike for that, I expect.”

“Just so! just so!” he assented suavely; then with an oblique glance, “It wasn’t for instance, anything that Jim Gregory said to you just now that brought you round to his way of thinking?”

“Said to me!” Minnie repeated. “Why, what should Jim Gregory have to say to me about it?”

“Ah, that is for you to tell me!” parried Superintendent Stokes. “You and him had got your heads pretty close together when he was talking to you.”

He fancied a shade of relief flitted over the girl’s face, and she even smiled slightly as she looked down.

“Bless you, Mr. Stokes, do you think it was of Mary Marston we were talking then?” she asked coyly. “It—we have other matters to think about, Jim and me, we are going to have our banns put up a month on Sunday. If that is all you want to know I must be going in, or I shall get into trouble.”

“You can’t tell me any more?”

“Haven’t I told you I can’t?” she retorted. “You’ll get no more out of me if you keep me here until midnight.”

“Ah, well, I shall not do that,” he said carelessly. “We will have another little talk one day before long, Miss Spencer. Good night.”

He stood still a little while after she had left him.

“That girl is telling lies,” he ruminated. “Why, I wonder? I can’t see how she could be mixed up in it. I may have been on the wrong scent all this time, but it don’t seem likely. However, I will look Miss Minnie Spencer up a bit; and while I am about it”—he pulled his lower lip out thoughtfully—“I shall devote a little of my attention to Mr. Jim Gregory also. I wish he had whispered in my ear instead of in Minnie Spencer’s!”