The Blue Diamond

by Annie Haynes

  The Coroner glanced at him quickly.

  “How did you know it?”

  “Because I was in the habit of calling on old Mrs. Marston, and I had seen her daughter on several occasions and heard that she was unemployed. I offered to walk down to the village and interview Mary Marston,” Garth proceeded. “I did so, and though she was a little unwilling to leave her mother, who was not well, she consented to go until they could get some one else. I met her accidentally in the avenue as she was going up to the Manor in the afternoon, and that was the last time I saw her. I heard nothing more until Miss Hargreave informed me the next morning that she had disappeared.”

  “May I put a few questions to the witness, sir?”

  The foreman of the jury was standing up, holding a piece of paper in his hand.

  “Certainly!” the Coroner assented.

  The foreman was a sleek and prosperous grocer, a man who had been a thorn in Sir John Davenant’s side for years, partly from the fact that his shop was his own and, standing like an oasis amid the Davenant property, was a veritable Naboth’s vineyard to Sir John. He was by no means inclined to let Garth off lightly.

  “Do you now declare on your oath that the note produced in Court and found in the deceased’s pocket was not written by you to her on the night of Wednesday, the 6th of June last?” he asked severely.

  “It was not. It was written during the preceding week, on Wednesday the thirtieth of May.”

  Garth’s tone was clear and distinctly audible throughout the room.

  “Then how do you account for the fact that it was still in her pocket the following week, and also for the terms in which you addressed the deceased?” fixing a searching glance upon the young man.

  Garth’s countenance did not alter beneath his scrutiny.

  “I can only conclude that it was slipped into her pocket and forgotten. As for the terms I employed, they were those in which I usually addressed Mary Marston.”

  “‘Yours, G.D.’ Would that be your usual signature?”

  “To her it would,” Garth answered without hesitation. “Mrs. Marston nursed me. I had known and liked her daughter all my life, and Mary was a favourite with us all.”

  As the foreman paused the Coroner interposed:

  “I understand, Mr. Davenant, that you state on your oath that this note was written on the preceding Wednesday—that on Wednesday, the 6th of June, you swear you did not see Mary Marston after you met her in the avenue on her way to the house?”

  “That is so, sir.” Garth’s tone rang out as decidedly as ever.

  “Why should you ask her to come out to meet you?”

  The old man’s tones were sharp; he glanced keenly at Garth.

  For a moment, and for the first time, there was a noticeable hesitation in Garth’s manner.

  “I wished to speak to her without her mother hearing what I had to say,” he answered.

  “Why?” The Coroner fired the word at him rather as though it had been a pistol-shot, and again Garth’s pause was noticeable.

  “My conversation was of a private nature. I am not at liberty to disclose it—at present.” He added the last words in a lower tone.

  The Coroner consulted his clerk for a moment; then he turned to the young man again, his tone markedly colder.

  “I understand that you were walking with this young woman in Exeter a few days before her coming to the Manor?”

  “On the Saturday before,” Garth assented.

  “Had you met by appointment?”

  This time not only did Garth hesitate, but his colour manifestly changed.

  “We had,” he replied.

  “For what reason?” The Coroner eyed him closely.

  “It was on the business to discuss which I asked her to meet me outside her mother’s cottage.”

  The reply was an enigmatic one, and the Coroner pondered it for a moment.

  “Then you decline to enlighten us with regard to this private understanding which undoubtedly existed between Nurse Marston and yourself?”

  “I have no choice but to do so at the present stage of the proceedings; I assure you”—and Garth’s expressive voice was very earnest now—“that it could have had no bearing whatever on the mystery which surrounds her death.”

  “Um! We are hardly in a position to judge of that,” said the Coroner. “You can stand down, Mr. Davenant, and I cannot help commenting upon the extremely unsatisfactory way in which you have elected to give your evidence.”

  Garth’s mouth was set in grim lines, his eyes looked pained and tired as he moved back to his place. It seemed to him that all the eyes in the room were fixed upon him with unfriendly criticism.

  Sir Arthur made his way to him.

  “Mavis wants to speak to you,” he said quietly. “She is in Mrs. Owens’s private sitting-room.”

  It seemed to Garth that the young man’s tone was distinctly less friendly, that his eyes rather avoided him, and he braced himself up for an ordeal. Mavis’s friends must have convinced her that her faith was misplaced; he told himself bitterly that in any case it could not have lived through his evidence, and his step was heavy and his spirit flagged as he turned down the passage.

  The door was open and Mavis was standing alone in the middle of the room waiting for him. As he came in sight she smiled instantly at him and held out her hands.

  “Garth, my poor boy!”

  The reaction was so great that as Garth held her in his arms, as she rested against his shoulder, for a moment he could not speak; his clasp became a convulsive one as he pressed his lips to her hair. Presently Mavis put up her hand and touched his cheek softly.

  “I am so sorry, Garth!”

  “Sorry for what, sweetheart?”

  “Sorry that people are so stupid,” she said, nestling up to him with a little laugh. “That they don’t see you did not ask Nurse Marston to come out that night—that they don’t seem to trust you!”

  Garth felt her trembling as she clung to him. Very tenderly he raised her face and gazed into her eyes.

  “How can I tell you how much I thank you for your brave words in the room, Mavis? Tell me—tell me that nothing has changed you, since?”

  There was a moment’s silence; then Mavis drew herself erect and raised her eyes bravely to his.

  “I shall never change, Garth. I trust you now and for always. Tell me you will never doubt me again. It—it hurts me somehow,” with a wistful, pathetic little smile.

  Garth bent down and kissed her slender fingers again and again.

  “It is only that I cannot realize your goodness to me,” he murmured brokenly; “Oh, Mavis, Mavis, am I—is any man worthy of such love as yours?”

  A sound in the passage made them start asunder; Lady Laura’s skirts rustled as she came down attended by the obsequious landlady.

  “We shall be ready in five minutes, Mrs. Owen,” she said as she came in. “I will tell Miss Mavis—Oh, is that you, Garth?” coldly. “I wondered—”

  Mavis’s cheeks flamed.

  “Mother, won’t you tell him that you are sorry, that you believe in him?” she exclaimed unwisely.

  Lady Laura looked at her with obvious displeasure.

  “Certainly I believe Garth in so far as I do not suppose he had anything whatever to do with Nurse Marston’s death; but—as the young man turned to her in mute gratitude—“I do think it is exceedingly tiresome of you, Garth—Yes, Mavis, I shall speak out. I think it is very annoying of you to refuse to tell exactly why you wished to see her, and thus incur all this odium and suspicion. I had not the faintest idea that you were in the habit of requesting private interviews and making clandestine appointments with young women when I gave my consent to your engagement with my daughter, or—”

  Garth was about to speak, but Mavis checked him with a look as she prepared to follow Lady Laura out of the room.

  “She is tired and a little cross, poor mother!” she observed softly. “All this has been a terrible shock to her.”
/>
  Garth relieved her of her wraps and escorted her down to the waiting carriage. As they drove away and he turned back the echo of a loud voice speaking in the adjacent taproom caught his ear:

  “Adjourned for a week to give the police time to complete their inquiries indeed! I think I could ha’ helped ’em to come to a verdict sooner. It runs in the family, that is what it does; and if Mr. Garth Davenant had been a poor man—”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “AND TO think that this is the day to which we have looked forward for so long!” Mavis said with a sigh as she clasped her bracelet.

  “Yes, things haven’t turned out as we expected, miss! But then I don’t think they often do in this world. It is full of disappointments.”

  “That is not a very cheerful doctrine, Minnie.” Mavis glanced doubtfully at her maid.

  It had struck her of late that the girl was looking pale and worried, but to-day, for the first time, she fancied that something was really amiss. Minnie’s lips were trembling, and there were great circles round her eyes.

  “You don’t look well, Minnie,” she said kindly. “I wonder if you want a rest? If you would like to go home for a few days I could spare you.”

  Minnie shook her head.

  “It isn’t that, Miss Mavis. I have been a bit upset over—over things,” vaguely, “and then that night we saw her—Nurse Marston—she beckoned to me. She appeared to you and Miss Hilda too, didn’t she, miss?”

  “Well, we did think we saw something,” said Mavis reluctantly. “But now I think we must have been mistaken, Minnie.”

  “I didn’t make any mistake, miss.” Minnie shivered, her eyes growing dark with awe. “I saw her plain enough, Miss Mavis. Oh”—throwing her black silk apron over her eyes—“I shall see her till I die!”

  Mavis looked at her in some perplexity.

  “Your nerves are out of order, that is what it is, Minnie. If you do not seem better in a day or two I shall insist upon your taking a holiday.” She glanced at her tall, slim figure in the glass. “I shall do very well. Garth always likes me in white,” turning almost with a shudder from the dainty, glistening fabric that Minnie had spread out on the couch, the lovely frock of palest rose-pink chiffon that had been prepared for her to wear to-night. “You need not wait up for me, Minnie,” she added as she picked up her gloves. “Make haste and get early to bed. I dare say after a good night’s rest you will feel different.”

  Her heart was heavy in spite of her reassuring words as she went down to the drawing-room; the contrast of this evening with the one to which they had been for so long looking joyously forward could not but strike her afresh. All the festivities connected with Sir Arthur’s coming of age had been abandoned or postponed, the dance would probably take place in the winter and the old people’s treat would become a “Christmas Tree.”

  To-day, the actual day of the celebration, instead of the great gathering that had been expected, only the quietest of dinner-parties, almost a family affair, was being given—a brother of Lady Laura’s, an old friend or two from a distance, the Mainwarings, and the Davenants. Mavis, in spite of some objections from Sir Arthur, had had her own way—no difference whatever was to be made in the treatment of Garth Davenant at the Manor, in spite of the suspicion that was generally cast upon him and the fact that he was popularly supposed to be under police surveillance. He was in the drawing-room now, but Mavis, who had purposely dressed early to have a little chat with him before the others were down, was disappointed to see her uncle already in possession and buttonholing Garth on the hearthrug.

  “I never heard anything like it out of a novel—never!” her uncle was remarking as Mavis came into the room.

  “It is too terrible, Uncle Robert,” she said as Garth greeted her, “but you know we agreed that it was not to be mentioned to-night.”

  The Honourable Robert Gore was a short, stout, choleric-looking man, about as unlike Lady Laura as it was possible for anyone to be.

  “Bless my life,” he said explosively, “I am not talking about that poor murdered girl. I am speaking of Arthur’s madness, for I can call it nothing else. Does he imagine that I am going to sit down quietly and let my nephew make an utter fool of himself? I used to think it was absurd of the Hargreaves to put off the heir’s majority always until he was five and twenty, but upon my word I have come to the conclusion that if it had been delayed until Arthur was forty it would not have been too long. If your mother had had the gumption of a guinea-fowl the thing would never have occurred.”

  Mavis coloured—she was inclined to resent the blame of her mother.

  “I don’t think mother could have acted otherwise, Uncle Robert.”

  “Not have acted otherwise, not have acted otherwise!” Mr. Gore stormed, his wrath for the moment diverted to his niece. “Don’t talk that nonsense to me, Mavis. She could have sent the girl to the nearest workhouse, I suppose? Do you fancy for one moment if I found some unknown young woman wandering about my place at Norman’s Heath that I should ask her into my house and say, ‘Will you please marry me?’”

  Mavis could not forbear a smile as she caught Garth’s eye.

  “It was not quite so bad as that, Uncle Robert. Besides, you must see that Arthur had some excuse. Hilda is very beautiful, you must acknowledge that.”

  “Umph! Speaking for myself, I should never admire a lunatic!” Mr. Gore snorted. “I am surprised at you, Mavis, upholding your brother in such suicidal folly.”

  “I don’t uphold him, indeed, Uncle Robert. I am extremely sorry about it; but what can I do?”

  “Do! Do!” raged her uncle. “Why, telegraph for the best detective in London to come down here and make inquiries into her antecedents—that is what I shall do in the morning.”

  “Arthur has already had the police,” Mavis reminded him.

  “Oh, yes, I dare say Arthur has!” he mimicked, too angry to mince matters. “And I can pretty well guess what Arthur said to them. ‘Here is this charming young lady whom I am going to marry—doesn’t quite know how she came into our park. If you can make a few inquiries in a quiet way I shall be obliged to you’; and naturally they can make nothing out. What I shall say will be, ‘Here’s this fool of a nephew of mine intending to marry a girl who says she has lost her memory—she is either a lunatic or a murderess. Will you find out which?’ That is how I shall set to work!”

  “Oh, Uncle Robert, I don’t think that will be quite fair!” Mavis remonstrated. “I feel sure Hilda is a lady—it is the mystery about her that I don’t like; but I fancy her memory is coming back gradually. She suddenly remembered her father the other day and that people called him General, but she couldn’t recall the name.”

  “I dare say she couldn’t!” Mr. Gore sniffed. “I wonder you can be so simple, Mavis! She might tell me she had suddenly remembered that her father was the Shah of Persia if she pleased; I should want a little more proof than her assertion. Here Arthur comes! I have a good mind to tell him what I think of his conduct without more ado. I had no idea of the depths of his folly until your mother told me about the affair just now. She tells me your father’s brother refused to come down altogether, and I am not surprised to hear it. I shall—”

  “Oh, please don’t say anything to-night, Uncle Robert!” Mavis entreated in alarm. “We—things are all wrong somehow, and Arthur is not very good- tempered as it is; we do want to-night to pass off without any bother.”

  Sir Arthur certainly did not look in the best of tempers as he strolled towards them, one of his favourite orchids in his buttonhole, but his face brightened as Lady Laura, with Hilda and Dorothy, came into the room; Lady Laura turned to her brother, Dorothy joined Garth and Arthur drew Hilda aside.

  The girl was looking her best to-night. Arthur had insisted that she should wear the gown that had been ordered for the dance from Mavis’s dressmaker; it was of her favourite pale blue, and its long straight lines showed every curve of her rounded figure, while the colour threw up in high relief he
r brilliant complexion and the sheen of her golden hair. At her breast she wore a cluster of delicate orchids, and round her firm white throat a string of pearls, exquisite in shape and colour—Sir Arthur’s latest gift.

  Arthur’s gaze never left her face as they chatted in low tones. More than once the others, as if compelled by her beauty and charm, paused in their conversation to look at her; but it was obvious that the girl was nervous and ill at ease.

  “You are not afraid of my uncle, surely, dearest?” asked Arthur as he bent nearer to her.

  “Your uncle?’’ Hilda repeated vaguely; then she started. “Oh, I beg your pardon, Arthur. I was thinking —yes, I believe I am a little afraid of your uncle. He looks rather formidable.’’

  “Oh, he only wants knowing! He will love you like everybody else directly,” Arthur finished with cheerful optimism.

  Despite their best efforts the dinner-party was a dreary affair: the shadow that lay over the house seemed to affect the spirits of every one, and no one was sorry when the evening came to an end.

  In the hall Dorothy caught Mavis’s arm.

  “I—I am going to sleep with you to-night, Mavis. I can’t help remembering the scream I heard. If I stayed in my own room I know I should hear it again.”

  Mr. Gore buttonholed his nephew.

  “Come on, Arthur, you and I must have a long talk over matters.”

  Arthur turned towards the smoking-room with him unwillingly. Fresh from the contemplation of Hilda’s beauty, he was in no mood to listen to his uncle’s remonstrances patiently. Mr. Gore soon found that he was doing more harm than good, and he reluctantly concluded that he must leave the matter until he was in a position to present his argument more forcibly.

  Little attention as Arthur paid to his uncle’s words, they served to irritate his nerves, already overstrung by the events of the preceding week, and his dreams were haunted by forebodings of some calamity yet to come. It was with a feeling that his presentiments were about to be fulfilled that he woke up suddenly with a sense of having been called. He sat up in bed and waited.