Читать книгу The Peacock of Jewels - Fergus Hume - Страница 8

"Now that we have finished our secret conversation," said Fuller some time later, when the pair were returning towards the avenue, "I shall call and pay my respects to your uncle."

"I don't think he wants to see you," answered Marie very candidly, "he is quite aware that I love you and wishes to keep us apart."

"No doubt, my dear, but I don't intend him to get his own way. He never can, so long as you remain true to me."

Marie squeezed the arm she held. "As if there was any question of that. All the same, Uncle Ran is sure to be nasty if you call."

"He was amiable enough yesterday when we met, and outwardly he has no reason to overstep the bounds of politeness. I intend to call in order to show him that I am quite friendly, and if he objects he can speak out."

"He's asleep yet, I expect," objected Marie anxiously.

"All the better. We shall have a longer time to ourselves, and you can give me a cup of tea."

"Uncle Ran would assuredly object to that," said the girl with emphasis. "He is becoming a perfect miser. Every penny he obtains he turns into jewels, Alan, although owing to want of money he can only buy cheap stones."

"So long as he uses his own money and not yours he can do what he likes, I suppose, Marie. But you have an income and the house, so he has no right to object to your extending afternoon-tea hospitality to me."

"I never get any of my own money except a few shillings a week for my pocket," admitted Marie rather mournfully. "You know Uncle Ran was left my sole guardian, and I do not come of age for another year. Then he says he will account to me for my money, which he declares he is saving."

Remembering Mr. Sorley's shifty eyes and slack mouth, Fuller had his doubts as to the truth of this statement, and merely grunted. But when Marie went on to say that her uncle was selling portions of the furniture he raised his eyebrows. "He has no right to do that without your consent, my dear."

"He says that he has, and that there is too much furniture in the place. I understand from him that he is selling the furniture in order to invest the money for me."

"Hum! It may be so, but I should not be too sure of that. I wish I were your husband now, Marie, and then I could look after your interests."

"You don't trust Uncle Ran?"

"Candidly, I don't, although I have no very strong reason to say so. Do you trust him yourself, Marie?"

"I don't know; I can't say," said the girl slowly; "of course he has been kind to me since I returned a year ago from Brighton, where I was at school, Alan. He doesn't interfere with me, you know."

"He lets you run wild, if that's what you mean, my dear," retorted the solicitor hotly. "Now that it does you any harm of course, as you are a sensible girl. But Mr. Sorley should take you out visiting and let you go to dances occasionally, and you should have a few days in London every now and then. He should not neglect you as he does."

"We are too poor to afford such things, Alan. But some day when we find the treasure, we--you and I of course--shall have a splendid time. Remember the prophecy, my dear," and she repeated two lines of the same:

"Jewels and gold from over-seas

Will bring them peace and joy and ease."

Alan was struck by the quotation from a three hundred year old oracle after hearing Marie's story of the secret which possession and examination of the peacock would reveal. "Jewels and gold," he repeated slowly, "yes; it does sound as though that line referred to the Begum's hoard. Odd, very odd indeed."

"It will come true, it will come true," sang Marie, dancing a step or two in her gleeful way, and with the exuberant joy of twenty. "Then we'll pension Uncle Ran off, and have The Monastery and the money to ourselves. Oh, Alan, let us build castles in the air."

"They won't turn into bricks and mortar until we find the peacock," said Mr. Fuller gloomily, "and that will not be easy, seeing it means the capture of poor Grison's assassin. Moon can find out nothing and if he fails how can mere amateur detectives such as Dick and I are succeed. However, we know that he was murdered for the sake of the peacock, and this strange story of yours helps a bit to strengthen the clue. But let me impress upon you again, Marie, not to tell your uncle."

"Certainly not, though I really don't know why you mistrust him."

"I scarcely know myself," said Alan candidly, "but I certainly do."

By this time--walking demurely apart in case Mr. Sorley should be awake and on the watch--they had entered the house, to find themselves in a large and chilly hall, with a black and white pavement and marble busts of the Cæsars set round about it close to the walls. No rosy glow came from the old-fashioned fireplace, since Mr. Sorley deemed it waste of coal to heat such a mausoleum; so, with a shiver, the two crossed into the library, which was at the end of a lordly corridor to the right.

"There's a fire here," said Marie as they entered, "it's Uncle Ran's favorite room, and you can trust him to make himself comfortable, even if he has to pay for it."

"Then he can't be a genuine miser," remarked Fuller, walking towards the fire, which was a tolerably good one; "they starve themselves in every way, my dear, and--oh, I beg your pardon."

This last was addressed to a small elderly woman who suddenly rose from a deep grandfather's chair which looked like a sentry-box. She had sandy hair smoothly plastered down on either side of a sallow, wrinkled face; also thin, firmly compressed lips and hard blue eyes, staring and unwinking. Her figure was lean, her waist was pinched in, and her shoulders were so sloping that the worn black velvet cloak she wore would have slipped off had it not been firmly fastened down the front with large buttons of cut jet. As the cloak was down to her very heels, the dress she had on could not be seen, but her head was adorned with an early Victorian bonnet and her thin hands were covered with drab thread gloves. She had crape on her bonnet, and crape round her neck, but it did not need this evidence of mourning to assure Fuller that he beheld the sister of the dead man, since he remembered Dick's description fairly well.

"Miss Grison," said Marie, coming forward when she heard her lover's speech and offering her hand. "I heard you were down here."

Miss Grison took the hand, gave it a limp shake and dropped it. "Thank you, my dear," she said in a cold, precise voice. "I came down for my brother's funeral. He always wished to rest in Belstone churchyard and have the service read over his remains by Mr. Fuller, so I felt it was only due to his memory to do what he desired."

"This is Mr. Fuller's son," said Marie, introducing Alan.

"How do you do," said the visitor, still coldly. "I remember you years ago as a little boy with bare legs and a pinafore. You have grown since then."

"It is impossible to have bare legs and a pinafore at twenty-seven," said Alan, not knowing if she was laughing at him.

"Twenty and more years ago I saw you," said Miss Grison, who certainly seemed to have no sense of humor. "Ah, how the time passes. You were just born when I left Belstone to live in London," she added, glancing in her hard way at Marie, "a mere infant in arms."

"I have seen you a few times though," murmured Marie politely.

Miss Grison nodded stiffly. "Occasionally I have come down to stay with Selina Millington," she explained, "and we met before you went to school at Brighton. But since your return a year ago we have not met, as I have not been down here. How did you recognise me?"

"You are not changed in any way," said Marie bluntly.

"I should be," remarked the little woman with a sigh, "my poor Baldwin's death has broken my heart."

"It was very terrible," Marie hastened to assure her. "I read about it in the newspapers. Who killed him?"

"That's what I intend to find out," cried Miss Grison with a flash of her blue eyes. "Poor Baldwin never harmed a soul, and had no enemies--except one," she ended with an afterthought, and her lips closed firmly.

"Perhaps the one enemy killed him."

"I don't know. I can't prove anything. And the police seem to be doubtful about tracing the man."

"It was a man then who murdered your brother?" asked Alan suddenly.

Miss Grison gave him a scrutinizing look. "Yes, it was a man, as I truly believe, although there is no evidence to show the sex of the murderer."

"What is the name of the person you think was your brother's enemy?"

"Never mind, Mr. Fuller. I may misjudge him, and until I am sure I shall mention no names. But I shall watch and search and think and work until I avenge poor Baldwin's death!" And the fierce, determined look on her yellow face showed that she thoroughly meant what she said.

"Can I help you in any way?"

"Why should you?" she asked cautiously.

"Because I take an interest in the case," Alan explained equally cautiously. "A friend of mine, Mr. Latimer, who was at the inquest, told me all about the sad circumstances, and the death is so mysterious that both of us wish to learn the truth, if only out of curiosity."

The little woman paused almost imperceptibly and cast a swift look at the young man and the girl by his side before replying. Then she accepted the well-meant offer in her usual unemotional way. "I shall be glad of your assistance, Mr. Fuller," she said, producing a printed card from a bead bag which dangled from her lean wrist; "this is my address in Bloomsbury. I keep a boarding-house."

"So Mr. Latimer told me. You stated as much at the inquest. Tell me," he asked, putting the card into his vest pocket, "have you any clue to------"

"I have no clue you would call reasonable, Mr. Fuller!"

"That hints some ground on your part for----"

"Never mind what it hints," interrupted Miss Grison sharply. "If you call on me in London, and I feel that I can trust you, then I may speak out."

"Anyone could trust Alan," said Marie indignantly.

The visitor gave a thin-lipped smile. "You are quite right to defend him, my dear, and your defence is natural enough since Selina Millington told me that Mr. Fuller admires you. But he's a man and all men are bad----"

"Except Alan, who is engaged to be married to me."

"All men are bad," repeated Miss Grison stolidly. "I only knew one good man, and he was my brother Baldwin.

"H'm!" murmured Alan, remembering what Sorley had said on the previous day.

If Miss Grison heard the ejaculation, and understood its purport, she gave no sign of such knowledge. "What does your Uncle Randolph say to your being engaged to Mr. Fuller?" she asked turning to Marie abruptly.

"He says nothing, because he knows nothing."

"Then don't let him know. He will ruin your happiness in life if he can, as he ruined mine. A hard, cruel man is your Uncle Randolph, my dear."

Marie stared at this wholesale condemnation. "Do you know him well?"

"Do I know him well?" Miss Grison gave a hard laugh, and her eyes glittered viciously. "Yes, I may say that I know him very well."

Alan, looking closely at her, wondered if the enemy of her brother to whom she had referred so positively was Mr. Sorley, and thought that it was extremely likely from the vicious emphasis with which she spoke. But Miss Grison, giving him no time to make any comment on her last speech, continued as though she had not stopped to draw breath.

"I know the house very well also," she said calmly, "and I have been walking all over it, while waiting to see Mr. Sorley."

"Walking all over it," repeated Marie rather indignantly. "A stranger?"

"I am not a stranger either to Mr. Sorley or to The Monastery," replied the small woman with great coolness. "When my brother was his secretary here, years ago, I used to spend days wandering about the rooms and corridors. I know every nook and corner of it, my dear, and could tell you of many a secret hiding-place and hidden passage which were used in ancient times. Your mother made a friend of me in those days, and we used to explore the house together before you were born."

"Still Uncle Ran would not like you walking about the place when I was out and he was asleep. Didn't Jenny or Henny stop you?"

"Do you mean the servants?" inquired Miss Grison smoothly. "Well they did express surprise when I walked into the kitchen. But I told them I had come to see Mr. Sorley, and they showed me in here to wait for him--as if I required showing," ended Miss Grison disdainfully.

Fuller stared at her hard. She seemed to be in her right senses and what she said was reasonable enough, but it struck him that there must be something eccentric about her when she ventured to enter a house and explore it without the owner's permission. Again Miss Grison gave him no time to make a comment, but went on talking in the shrill voice which Latimer had noted and mentioned.

"Henrietta and Jane Trent are twins," she explained to Marie as if the girl knew nothing about her own servants. "I remember them as little toddlers in the village. The mother took in washing. Fine bouncing women they have grown into, my dear: red cheeks and black hair and wooden expressions, just like two Dutch dolls. Are they good servants?"

Marie was so taken aback by the audacity of her visitor that she replied, as she would have done to her schoolmistress: "They are very good and do all the work of this big house."

"There is a lot to do, I admit," said Miss Grison, nodding, "but I notice that many of the rooms are shut up, my dear."

"We--uncle and I, that is--do not require so many."

"I looked into some, and found them bare of furniture," pursued Miss Grison calmly, and with her hard, unwinking stare. "Yet in my time there was a lot of valuable----"

"Pardon me, Miss Grison," interrupted Fuller, seeing the consternation of Marie, "but don't you think you are taking rather a liberty in entering the house and in talking like this?"

"It may appear a liberty to you, Mr. Fuller," she rejoined quietly, "but it will not to Mr. Sorley. We are old friends."

"Friends," said Alan with emphasis.

She turned on him with a flash in her eyes. "Did he ever give you to understand otherwise?" she demanded, drawing quick breaths. "Has he ever mentioned my name to you?"

She waited for a reply but none came, as Alan was deliberating whether it would be wise to inform her of the way in which Mr. Sorley had spoken. Also he wondered if Miss Grison knew that her brother had been murdered for the sake of the peacock, and if she could tell how Baldwin became possessed of the same. But he felt that it would be best not to ask questions, or to make answers, until he knew his ground better. With her hard look, the little woman waited for him to speak, but he was saved the trouble by the unexpected entrance of Mr. Randolph Sorley. He was perfectly dressed as usual in a well-cut suit of blue serge and wore patent leather boots, together with a smart scarf of white silk fastened with a black pearl breast-pin. If he was a miser in some things, as Marie asserted, he assuredly was not so in the matter of clothes, for no one could have been better turned out, or have looked more aristocratic. His carriage was so upright, his hair so short, his face so bronzed and his greenish eyes so alert that he had quite a military appearance. He even looked young in the dusky atmosphere of the big room, and it was only when he came forward more into the light that he betrayed his sixty years. And that was possibly because Alan knew his true age, for the smooth, clean-shaven face looked much younger in spite of the white hair.

"Mr. Fuller! Miss Grison," he said slowly, "this is indeed a surprise. I am delighted to see you both."

And indeed he appeared to be so, for his smile was open, his speech soft and his manner frank. After what he had said about the woman on the previous day Fuller quite expected that he would be rude to her and--since he had other plans in his head--the young man quite expected that he would be rude to him also. But Mr. Sorley was apparently too well-bred to act impolitely in what he regarded as his own house, even if that same house was the property of Marie Inderwick. Miss Grison's blue eyes glittered a trifle more as he shook hands with her cordially but otherwise she remained her impenetrable self. And remembering what she had said about her host, Alan was as amazed at her behavior as he was at Sorley's. As to Marie, she was so relieved that her uncle received Alan courteously that she never gave a thought to the possibility that he might be acting a part for reasons best known to himself.

"Have you had tea?" inquired Mr. Sorley, poking the fire. "Marie, my dear, why did you not offer your guests tea?" And he rang the bell promptly.

"I did not like to without your permission, Uncle Ran," she said timidly.

"My dear child, this is your house, and here you are the mistress. I am only your guardian and live here, as it were, on sufferance. Miss Grison I am truly grieved to hear of your brother's death."

"Oh, indeed," said the small woman sarcastically, "in that case, I wonder you didn't come to the funeral."

"No! no! no! That would have awakened memories of the past."

"There is a proverb," remarked Miss Grison coldly, "which bids us let sleeping dogs lie."

"Very good advice," assented Mr. Sorley, "suppose we adopt it by letting the sad past alone and coming to the sad present. Have the police discovered who murdered your brother?"

"No," snapped Miss Grison impassively.

"Are they likely to?"

"If I can help them, they certainly are."

"Then you know of some clue?"

"I may, or I may not. This is not the time to speak about such things."

"My dear lady," said the host with great dignity, "I am under the impression that you came here to receive my sympathy."

"Then you were never more mistaken in your life," retorted Miss Grison grimly. "I came to say what I shall say, when tea is at an end."

"Nothing unpleasant, I trust?" asked Sorley distinctly uneasily.

"That is for you to judge," she returned, and the entrance of Henny Trent with a tray put an end to this particular conversation.

While Henny, who was large and red-cheeked and black-eyed, and who really resembled the Dutch doll Miss Grison had compared her to, was arranging the tea-table, Alan stole furtive looks at Mr. Sorley. The old gentleman seemed to have suddenly aged, and a haggard look had crept over his deceptive face, while his eyes hinted uneasiness as he watched Miss Grison. It seemed to Fuller that Sorley for some reason feared his visitor, and the fact that she had so audaciously walked over the house appeared to indicate that she was quite sure he would not rebuke her for the liberty. And, remembering the man's bluster, which contrasted so pointedly with his present suave talk, Alan felt confident that there was an understanding between them. He asked himself if such had to do with the murder, but replied mentally in the negative. If Sorley knew anything about the matter, Miss Grison would then and there have denounced him, since she appeared to hate him as much as he dreaded her. But beyond short answers and sinister glances, she gave no sign of her enmity, while Sorley masked his uneasiness under the guise of small talk. In spite of the almost immediate occurrence of the murder, and the fact that Miss Grison had come down for the funeral, Fuller noted that the tragedy was scarcely referred to--at all events during the earlier part of the conversation. Along with Marie, he remained silent, and allowed the other two to converse.

"Are you staying long down here, Miss Grison?" asked the host, handing a cup of tea to her and a plate of thin bread and butter.

"Why don't you call me Louisa as you used to do?" she demanded. "We were great friends, you know, Marie, before you were born." She turned to Miss Inderwick.

"Yes yes," said Sorley, taking his cue. "You called me Randolph; but we are both too old now to use our Christian names." He laughed artificially.

"Are we?" said Miss Grison shortly. "Perhaps we are. How are you getting along with that book on precious stones, may I ask?"

"You may," said Sorley blandly. "I am getting on slowly but surely. It has taken me years to gather material."

"Precious stones, I suppose."

"Certain gems of small value amongst other material, such as legends and superstitions connected with jewels. It will be an interesting book."

"I'm sure it will," said Miss Grison more graciously, "but don't work too hard at it. You are fond of exercise?"

"Yes, I take a great deal."

"Ah, Selina Millington told me that you had bought a motor bicycle."

"Yes," said Sorley stiffly and still laboriously polite. "I ride it round the country."

"And up to London?"

"No," he replied swiftly. "I have not yet travelled on it to town."

"I don't think it takes many hours to get to town on so rapid a machine," said Miss Grison in a musing tone. "But perhaps you are wise; you might get knocked over in the streets."

What answer Sorley made to this speech Alan did not hear. Marie, who had resented his attention to the speech of the elderly couple, now insisted that he should converse with her. He did so rather unwillingly, in spite of his genuine love. But his brain was running on the odd and somewhat spasmodic conversation, and he wondered why Miss Grison so pointedly referred to the motor bicycle. Also it seemed strange that Sorley should be on such familiar terms with a humble woman who kept a Bloomsbury boarding-house. To be sure her brother had been the man's secretary, and Sorley probably had been intimate with the visitor in early days. Perhaps--and here Fuller started--perhaps the two had been in love, and the hatred Miss Grison felt for the well-preserved old gentleman was that of a woman scorned. When he again caught the drift of the conversation she was talking about cryptograms, and this also Alan thought strange.

"My poor brother was always trying to work out secret writings," said she.

"Why?" asked Sorley, again uneasy at this mention of the dead.

"I don't know," answered Miss Grison indifferently. "He wanted to learn some secret that would bring him money."

"In connection with what?"

"I don't know."

"Did he ever decipher the secret writing you refer to?"

"I don't know," said Miss Grison again. "He spent his days and nights in trying to work out the cryptogram.'

"Alan," murmured Marie under her breath on hearing this, "there is some cryptogram connected with the peacock, I fancy."

"Yes! yes, and he had it," said Fuller hastily. Then he raised his voice. "Are you talking about ciphers, Miss Grison? I am fond of solving them myself and indeed I am rather good at it."

"Are you?" It was Mr. Sorley who replied and not the woman. "I think that I could puzzle you."

"No, you couldn't," rejoined Alan deliberately boastful. "Set me any cryptogram and I am sure I can solve it. I go on the system of Poe."

"What is that?"

Before he could answer Miss Grison rose, and shaking the crumbs from her dress walked to the door. There she halted, and turned to fix cold eyes on her astonished host, who had not expected so abrupt a move in the midst of an agreeable conversation.

"I have eaten and drunk in this house," said Miss Grison sternly, "a thing I never believed that I could bring myself to do. Now I shall say what I came to say to you, Mr. Randolph Sorley, and shake the dust from my feet."

"Hadn't you better speak to me privately?" asked Sorley, rising with a wan smile and a white face.

"I think not. What I have to say can be heard by both these young people, who are aware of the opinion I have of you. You are a wicked and cruel and sinful man, worse than the worst of men, although all are bad now that my poor brother is dead."

"Your brother Bald----"

"Don't dare to take his name on your lips," interrupted Miss Grison in a fierce way. "His death is due to you."

"To me? How dare you accuse me of the murder?" Sorley was whiter than ever and seemed much shaken by the abrupt accusation.

"I don't. But I accuse you of having wrongfully dismissed Baldwin from this house, over twenty years ago."

"I dismissed him, if you will have the truth told in the presence of others, because he forged my name to a check."

"He did not. You malign the dead. You turned him out and soiled his name and ruined his life without a shadow of excuse. That he sank to a slum in Rotherhithe is your work; that he was murdered there is your work, for if he had not been in Rotherhithe he would not have died by violence. If you had dared to come to the funeral I should have spat on your wicked face."

"How dare you! how dare you! Marie, go to your room."

"Marie shall stay until she hears what I think of you," cried Miss Grison grimly. "With that meal you hoped to smooth me down. But I shall never forgive you for having laid Baldwin in the dust. You have had your turn: now it is my turn. Wait, wait and see how iniquity can be punished," and, shaking a menacing finger, she stalked out of the room.

"Mad! mad. She is mad," gasped Mr. Sorley and literally tottered out of the library, presumably to follow his denouncer.

"What does it all mean, Alan?" asked Marie with awe. "Why did she turn so suddenly on Uncle Ran?"

"And why did she mention that her brother was trying to solve some secret writing which he hoped would bring him money?" asked Fuller quickly.

"Her brother had the peacock and----"

"Exactly. Now Marie we have a clue to the truth."