XXXVI
THE WALKING STICK
Had there been, next morning, any curious eyes to watch the conduct ofthe gentleman who had come to rent a sporting estate, they wouldprobably have surmised that he had found something to please his fancystrangely, and yet that some perplexity still persisted. They would alsohave put him down as a much more excitable, and even demonstrative,young man than they had imagined. On a lonely stretch of shore hard bythe little town he paced for nearly an hour, his face a record of thedebate within, and his cane gesticulating at intervals.
Of a sudden he stopped dead and his lips moved in a murmuredejaculation, and then after standing stock still for some minutes, hemurmured again:
"Ten to one on it!"
His cane had been stationary during this pause. Now he raised it oncemore, but this time with careful attention. It was a light bamboo with asilver head. He looked at it thoughtfully, bent it this way and that,and then drove it into the sand and pressed it down. Though to theordinary eye a very chaste and appropriate walking stick for such agentleman as Mr. Carrington, the result of these tests seemed todissatisfy him. He shook his head, and then with an air of resolutionset out for the town.
A little later he entered a shop where a number of walking sticks wereon view and informed the proprietor that he desired to purchasesomething more suitable for the country than the cane he carried. Infact, his taste seemed now to run to the very opposite extreme, for thepoints on which he insisted were length, stiffness, and a long and ifpossible somewhat pointed ferule. At last he found one to his mind, lefthis own cane to be sent down to the hotel, and walked out with his newpurchase.
His next call was at Mr. Simon Rattar's villa. This morning heapproached it without any of the curious shyness he had exhibited on theoccasion of his recent visit. His advance was conducted openly up thedrive and in an erect posture, and he crossed the gravel space boldly,and even jauntily, while his ring was firmness itself. Mary answered thebell, and her pleasure at seeing so soon again the sympathetic gentlemanwith the eyeglass was a tribute to his tact.
"Good morning, Mary," said he, with an air that combined very happilythe courtesy of a gentleman with the freedom of an old friend, "Mr.Rattar is at his office, I presume."
She said that he was, but this time the visitor exhibited neithersurprise nor disappointment.
"I thought he would be," he confessed confidentially, "and I have cometo see whether I couldn't do something to help you to get at the bottomof these troublesome goings on. Anything fresh happened?"
"The master was out in the garden again last night, sir!" said she.
"Was he really?" cried Mr. Carrington. "By Jove, how curious! We reallymust look into that: in fact, I've got an idea I want you to help mewith. By the way, it sounds an odd question to ask about Mr. Rattar, buthave you ever seen any sign of a pipe or tobacco in the house?"
"Oh, never indeed!" said she. "The master has never been a smokinggentleman. Quite against smoking he's always been, sir."
"Ever since you have known him?"
"Oh, and before that, sir."
"Ah!" observed Mr. Carrington in a manner that suggested nothingwhatever. "Well, Mary, I want this morning to have a look round thegarden."
Her eyes opened.
"Because the master walks there at nights?"
He nodded confidentially.
"But--but if he was to know you'd been interfering, sir--I mean whathe'd think was interfering, sir--"
"He shan't know," he assured her. "At least not if you'll do what I tellyou. I want you to go now and have a nice quiet talk with cook for halfan hour--half an hour by the kitchen clock, Mary. If you don't look outof the window, you won't know that I'm in the garden, and then nobodycan blame you whatever happens. We haven't mentioned the word 'garden'between us--so you are out of it! Remember that."
He smiled so pleasantly that Mary smiled back.
"I'll remember, sir," said she. "And cook is to be kept talking in thekitchen?"
"You've tumbled to it exactly, Mary. If neither of you see me, neitherof you know anything at all."
She got a last glimpse of his sympathetic smile as she closed the door,and then she went faithfully to the kitchen for her talk with cook. Itwas quite a pleasant gossip at first, but half an hour is a long time tokeep talking, when one has been asked not to stop sooner, and it sohappened, moreover, that cook was somewhat busy that morning and beganat length to indicate distinctly that unless her friend had some matterof importance to communicate she would regard further verbiage withdisfavour. At this juncture Mary decided that twenty minutes waspractically as good as half an hour, and the conversation ceased.
Passing out of the kitchen regions, Mary glanced towards a distantwindow, hesitated, and then came to another decision. Mr. Carringtonmust surely have left the garden now, so there was no harm in peepingout. She went to the window and peeped.
It was only a two minutes' peep, for Mr. Carrington had not left thegarden, and at the end of that space of time something very disturbinghappened. But it was long enough to make her marvel greatly at hersympathetic friend's method of solving the riddle of the master'sconduct. When she first saw him, he seemed to be smoothing the earth inone of the flower beds with his foot. Then he moved on a few paces,stopped, and drove his walking stick hard into the bed. She saw him leanon it to get it further in and apparently twist it about a little. Andthen he withdrew it again and was in the act of smoothing the place whenshe saw him glance sharply towards the gate, and the next instant leapbehind a bush. Simultaneously the hum of a motor car fell on her ear,and Mary was out of the room and speeding upstairs.
She heard the car draw up before the house and listened for the frontdoor bell, but the door opened without a ring and she marvelled andtrembled afresh. That the master should return in a car at this hour ofthe morning seemed surely to be connected with the sin she had connivedat. It swelled into a crime as she held her breath and listened. Shewished devoutly she had never set eyes on the insinuating Mr.Carrington.
But there came no call for her, or no ringing of any bell; merely soundsof movement in the hall below, heard through the thrumming of thewaiting car. And then the front door opened and shut again and sheventured to the window. It was a little open and she could hear hermaster speak to the chauffeur as he got in. He was now wearing, shenoticed, a heavy overcoat. A moment more and he was off again, down thedrive, and out through the gates. When she remembered to look again forher sympathetic friend, he was quietly driving his walking stick oncemore into a flower bed.
About ten minutes afterwards the front door bell rang and there stoodMr. Carrington again. His eye seemed strangely bright, she thought, buthis manner was calm and soothing as ever.
"I noticed Mr. Rattar return," he said, "and I thought I would like tomake sure that it was all right, before I left. I trust, Mary, that youhave got into no trouble on my account."
She thought it was very kind of him to enquire.
"The master was only just in and out again," she assured him.
"He came to get his overcoat, I noticed," he remarked.
Mr. Carrington's powers of observation struck her as very surprising forsuch an easy-going gentleman.
"Yes, sir, that was all."
"Well, I'm very glad it was all right," he smiled and began to turnaway. "By the way," he asked, turning back, "did he tell you where he isgoing to now?"
"He didn't see me, sir."
"You didn't happen to overhear him giving any directions to thechauffeur, did you? I noticed you at an open window."
For the first time Mary's sympathetic friend began to make her feel atrifle uncomfortable. His eyes seemed to be everywhere.
"I thought I heard him say 'Keldale House,'" she confessed.
"Really!" he exclaimed and seemed to muse for a moment. In fact, heappeared to be still musing as he walked away.
Mary began to wonder very seriously whether Mr. Carrington was going toprove merely a fresh addition to the disqui
eting mysteries of thathouse.
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