Читать книгу The Lonely Bride - Fred M. White - Страница 9

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The morrow came, but with it no explanation of the mystery surrounding the extraordinary attack on the life of James Holder. It had not been proved as yet that the worthy old cashier had received any definite message to attend the bank on that fateful evening. A careful search had elicited the information that nothing whatever was missing except the duplicate key of the safe. And as this duplicate key was of no use without the counterpart in the possession of Mark Anstey, it was difficult to see why the thief had taken it away. It was still more difficult to understand why Holder had visited the bank at all. Such an act was absolutely contrary to his usual routine, for he was a man of regular habits, he could always be relied upon to do the same thing exactly at the same time. Enquiries at Leverton Hospital had resulted in the information that the injured man was still absolutely unconscious, and that his life hung on a thread. So it was just possible that he might recover, for he had a regular life and good constitution on his side, but even if he did shake off the illness that bound him he was never likely to be the same man again. Expert opinion held it that the injury to the brain would mean something like idiocy in future.

All this Anstey told Grace over breakfast.

"I have just ridden back from Leverton," he said. "I am afraid it is a very bad case."

"A deplorable case," Grace murmured. "It would be deplorable in any event, but, when I realise that you had such a hand in bringing it about I can hardly contain myself. If you had not written that letter, poor Holder would never have visited the bank, and there would be one less crime for you and me to carry between us."

"But there is no crime, so far as I am concerned," Anstey cried. "My dear child, you do not understand."

"I can understand the evidence of my own eyesight," Grace said coldly. "You will not perjure yourself by denying that you wrote that letter to your poor servant."

"I did write it," Anstey muttered. "But under the strongest possible compulsion. Grace, there is a trouble hanging over me that I dare not mention even to you. In waking up in the night I sweat and tremble and shiver over it. It is under the pressure of this vile thing that I wrote the letter. And when I did write that letter I had not the faintest idea what would come of it. If I had known I would have cut my right hand off before a word of that note was penned; I never dreamt of such vile uses——"

"But you must have known something of it," Grace protested. "And you were not alone in the matter, either. What has become of the man who was here on that fateful night? Could he tell a story?"

"Aye, many," Anstey said bitterly. "If I heard now that he was dead I should be glad, but I must do the fellow justice. He had no more to do with the attack on poor Holder than I had myself."

"But how am I to be sure of that?" Grace asked. "You protest your innocence, and yet I saw you coming away from the bank premises in the dead of the night, with the face of a criminal and the marks of blood upon your clothing. You told me also that Mr. Cattley left the house an hour or more before Mr. Holder came down here. And you did not tell me the truth."

"But I have," Anstey protested. "I saw Cattley leave the house; in fact, I let him out myself not a moment after half-past ten. I heard the stable clock strike."

"Oh, why palter with me in this way?" Grace cried passionately. "Did I not tell you that that man's face was familiar to me. In fact, when I saw him he made allusions to his past, then stopped, as if conscious of the fact that he was betraying himself. If you will recollect, I spoke about that pearl shirt stud of his, and how it seemed to recall faded childish recollections. Now, I was in the bank myself soon after Mr. Holder's body was removed to Leverton, and on the floor I found the head of Mr. Cattley's pearl shirt stud. It had evidently broken off in a struggle. If the man had departed at the time you said he did, how came his shirt stud on the bank floor, and how could he have passed those massive doors without a key? These are questions to which I think I have a right to an answer. What have you to say to them?"

Grace glanced keenly at her father as she spoke. But to her great surprise there was no suggestion of guilt about his face, he only looked utterly surprised and bewildered.

"In this matter I am telling you nothing but the truth," he protested. "I swear to you that I saw Cattley off the premises at the time I mentioned; I fastened the door behind him so that it was impossible for him to return. And even if he had returned he could not have made his way from here into the bank without my keys or those of Holder. Now my keys have never been out of my possession, and Holder's bank keys were found yesterday in his desk at his lodgings. Only the key of the safe is missing and that would be no use to anybody without my key as well, and even both of them would have been useless had the thief failed to get in the bank premises at all. It is a maddening mystery to me."

"Well, anyway I found the stud there," Grace said. "Indeed, I have it in my possession at the present moment."

Anstey rose wearily from the table as if the thing were too much for him, and turned his footsteps in the direction of the bank. Mechanically Grace went about her duties; she had others to think about besides herself. There was to be a tennis party in the charming old grounds that afternoon, and the guests would have to be received just as if nothing out of the common had taken place. Grace was in the garden superintending the laying out of the tables when Rice put in an appearance. Grace was not alone, for she had enlisted the willing services of young Walters who was not at all averse to get away from his routine duties for an hour or so. Cyril Walters was not the ordinary type of bank clerk, he had only been sent into the house by an exceedingly rich father with an eye to learning business likely to enable him to manage a large estate later on. The boy did not appear to notice Grace's preoccupation. He looked up presently and scowled as he saw Rice approaching.

"Here is the beast again," he said. "It is no business of mine, of course, Miss Grace. But why does your father encourage him here? Shall I go away or shall I stay?"

"Stay by all means," Grace said. She forced herself to smile as Rice came up and extended her hand.

"You have come over early," she went on. "You are more or less behind the scenes. But what have you been doing to your face?"

Rice's dogged features looked a little more repellent than usual, for his upper lip was cut and twisted and there were the marks of deep discoloration round his right eye. He flushed suddenly and savagely—there was something very brutal about him, Grace thought. He appeared to glance in a furtive kind of way at Walters, whose features suggested amusement.

"Poachers," Rice explained. "A gang of them after the rabbits. I happened to be out very late and came upon our keepers in the thick of the fray. It wasn't bad fun while is lasted, but I am likely to keep the marks my man gave me for some time. Walters, just run into the bank and tell Mr. Anstey I want him."

"Go and carry your messages yourself," Walters replied somewhat rudely. "Can't you see that I am busy here helping Miss Grace? Besides I am not an office boy."

Rice turned away with something that sounded like a muttered threat. He walked across the grass in the direction of the bank and Walters chuckled.

"I like to take a rise out of that bounder," he said. "He is such a liar, too, and as for poachers, I don't believe a word of the story. He seemed to forget that his father is one of the men who is dead against all kinds of field sports, indeed old Mr. Rice hasn't a keeper on his estate."

"Then why should he tell us that story?" Grace asked.

"Because he doesn't want the truth to be known," Walters said. "It is just as likely as not that the thing happened in some public-house brawl. As a matter of fact, I can tell you exactly where Rice got those marks from. I don't think our bullying friend is likely to forget Max Graham in a hurry."

"Max," Grace cried. "Do you mean to say that Max——"

"Indeed I do," Walters laughed. "I was dining at Brooks' last night and so was Rice. Old Max came in late and for once in his life appeared to be thoroughly put out about something. He refused to play bridge and moped about all the evening till it was time to go. Just as Rice was ready to take his departure Max went up to him and said he would walk part of the way down the drive, as he had something to say to Rice. I did not take any notice of it at the time. But I overtook them presently just outside the lodge gates. I was on my bicycle, so they did not hear me coming. As Rice was driving his own motor nobody was present but myself to see the fun. I heard a few high words, then I saw blows struck. My word, it was pretty one-sided. Rice is the bigger man, but he is puffy and out of condition, and Max is as fit as a fiddle. Mind you, I don't mind confessing that I enjoyed it. I didn't let them know I saw them, but came back by the side road. I wouldn't mention it to Max if I were you unless he alludes to it himself."

Grace listened uneasily. She did not like the idea of this vulgar brawling into which her name might be dragged at any moment. She turned coldly away from Rice, who was now coming back across the lawn.

"Did you see anything last night of Mr. Graham?" she asked.

"No, I didn't," Rice lied readily. "He was at the Brooks' house last night, but he left before me. I was driving my own motor. But why do you ask me this?"

Grace might have replied hotly, only just at that moment she caught sight of another figure crossing the lawn. This was a tall well-set-up man with grey hair and moustache, who carried himself with a soldierly bearing. Grace had always been fond of Max's father and she advanced to meet him now with one of her sunniest smiles.

"I thought you never went to garden parties," she cried.

"I don't," General Graham explained. "I came here to-day because I was exceedingly uneasy about that boy of mine. It seems to me that young people in love are not responsible for their own actions. But I have always regarded Max as a rather level-headed fellow. Did he stay late serenading you last night?"

"He didn't stay late at all," Grace said. "Max was not here more than half-an-hour altogether. He said he had promised to go to the Brookses and left us quite early."

General Graham's bronzed face paled a little under his healthy tan. He tugged his moustache nervously.

"God bless my soul! what can have become of the boy?" he cried. "My dear Grace, do you know that he has not been home all night?"

"Not all night?" Grace faltered. She suddenly saw the force and the inner meaning of the quarrel between Max and Stephen Rice. And the latter had denied that he had seen Max at all. "My dear general, this matter must be looked into. I think——"

"Foul play," the general said hoarsely. "Something terrible has happened to my lad."