His breath came and went. The exhalations of the lungs showed visible perturbation. He rose and stared at us. For a second he lost his composure. Then, as bold as brass, he turned, with a cunning smile, to Mrs. Evelegh. ‘Where on earth did you pick up such acquaintances?’ he inquired, in a well-simulated tone of surprise. ‘Yes, Lady Georgina, I have met you before, I admit; but—it can hardly be agreeable to you to reflect under what circumstances.’
Lady Georgina was beside herself. ‘You dare?’ she cried, confronting him. ‘You dare to brazen it out? You miserable sneak! But you can’t bluff me now. I have the police outside.’ Which I regret to confess was a light-hearted fiction.
‘The police?’ he echoed, drawing back. I could see he was frightened.
I had an inspiration again. ‘Take off that moustache!’ I said, calmly, in my most commanding voice.
He clapped his hand to it in horror. In his agitation, he managed to pull it a little bit awry. It looked so absurd, hanging there, all crooked, that I thought it kinder to him to remove it altogether. The thing peeled off with difficulty; for it was a work of art, very firmly and gracefully fastened with sticking-plaster. But it peeled off at last—and with it the whole of the Count’s and Dr. Fortescue-Langley’s distinction. The man stood revealed, a very palpable man-servant.
Lady Georgina stared hard at him. ‘Where have I seen you before?’ she murmured, slowly. ‘That face is familiar to me. Why, yes; you went once to Italy as Mr. Marmaduke Ashurst’s courier! I know you now. Your name is Higginson.’
It was a come-down for the Comte de Laroche-sur-Loiret, but he swallowed it like a man at a single gulp.
‘Yes, my lady,’ he said, fingering his hat nervously, now all was up. ‘You are quite right, my lady. But what would you have me do? Times are hard on us couriers. Nobody wants us now. I must take to what I can.’ He assumed once more the tone of the Vienna diplomat. ‘Que voulez-vous, madame? These are revolutionary days. A man of intelligence must move with the Zeitgeist!’
Lady Georgina burst into a loud laugh. ‘And to think,’ she cried, ‘that I talked to this lackey from London to Malines without ever suspecting him! Higginson, you’re a fraud—but you’re a precious clever one.’
He bowed. ‘I am happy to have merited Lady Georgina Fawley’s commendation,’ he answered, with his palm on his heart, in his grandiose manner.
‘But I shall hand you over to the police all the same! You are a thief and a swindler!’
He assumed a comic expression. ‘Unhappily, not a thief,’ he objected. ‘This young lady prevented me from appropriating your diamonds. Convey, the wise call it. I wanted to take your jewel-case—and she put me off with a sandwich-tin. I wanted to make an honest penny out of Mrs. Evelegh; and—she confronts me with your ladyship, and tears my moustache off.’
Lady Georgina regarded him with a hesitating expression. ‘But I shall call the police,’ she said, wavering visibly.
‘De grace, my lady, de grace! Is it worth while, pour si peu de chose? Consider, I have really effected nothing. Will you charge me with having taken—in error—a small tin sandwich-case—value, elevenpence? An affair of a week’s imprisonment. That is positively all you can bring up against me. And,’ brightening up visibly, ‘I have the case still; I will return it to-morrow with pleasure to your ladyship!’
‘But the india-rubber water-bottle?’ I put in. ‘You have been deceiving Mrs. Evelegh. It blackens silver. And you told her lies in order to extort money under false pretences.’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘You are too clever for me, young lady,’ he broke out. ‘I have nothing to say to you. But Lady Georgina, Mrs. Evelegh—you are human—let me go! Reflect; I have things I could tell that would make both of you look ridiculous. That journey to Malines, Lady Georgina! Those Indian charms, Mrs. Evelegh! Besides, you have spoiled my game. Let that suffice you! I can practise in Switzerland no longer. Allow me to go in peace, and I will try once more to be indifferent honest!’
He backed slowly towards the door, with his eyes fixed on them. I stood by and waited. Inch by inch he retreated. Lady Georgina looked down abstractedly at the carpet. Mrs. Evelegh looked up abstractedly at the ceiling. Neither spoke another word. The rogue backed out by degrees. Then he sprang downstairs, and before they could decide was well out into the open.
Lady Georgina was the first to break the silence. ‘After all, my dear,’ she murmured, turning to me, ‘there was a deal of sound English common-sense about Dogberry!’
I remembered then his charge to the watch to apprehend a rogue. ‘How if ‘a will not stand?’
‘Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go; and presently call the rest of the watch together, and thank God you are rid of a knave.’ When I remembered how Lady Georgina had hob-nobbed with the Count from Ostend to Malines, I agreed to a great extent both with her and with Dogberry.
5. THE ADVENTURE OF THE IMPROMPTU MOUNTAINEER
The explosion and evaporation of Dr. Fortescue-Langley (with whom were amalgamated the Comte de Laroche-sur-Loiret, Mr. Higginson the courier, and whatever else that versatile gentleman chose to call himself) entailed many results of varying magnitudes.
In the first place, Mrs. Evelegh ordered a Great Manitou. That, however, mattered little to ‘the firm,’ as I loved to call us (because it shocked dear Elsie so); for, of course, after all her kindness we couldn’t accept our commission on her purchase, so that she got her machine cheap for £15 from the maker. But, in the second place—I declare I am beginning to write like a woman of business—she decided to run over to England for the summer to see her boy at Portsmouth, being certain now that the discoloration of her bangle depended more on the presence of sulphur in the india-rubber bottle than on the passing state of her astral body. ‘Tis an abrupt descent from the inner self to a hot-water bottle, I admit; but Mrs. Evelegh took the plunge with grace, like a sensible woman. Dr. Fortescue-Langley had been annihilated for her at one blow: she returned forthwith to common-sense and England.
‘What will you do with the chalet while you’re away?’ Lady Georgina asked, when she announced her intention. ‘You can’t shut it up to take care of itself. Every blessed thing in the place will go to rack and ruin. Shutting up a house means spoiling it for ever. Why, I’ve got a cottage of my own that I let for the summer in the best part of Surrey—a pretty little place, now vacant, for which, by the way, I want a tenant, if you happen to know of one: and when it’s left empty for a month or two——’
‘Perhaps it would do for me?’ Mrs. Evelegh suggested, jumping at it. ‘I’m looking out for a furnished house for the summer, within easy reach of Portsmouth and London, for myself and Oliver.’
Lady Georgina seized her arm, with a face of blank horror. ‘My dear,’ she cried. ‘For you! I wouldn’t dream of letting it to you. A nasty, damp, cold, unwholesome house, on stiff clay soil, with detestable drains, in the deadliest part of the Weald of Surrey,—why, you and your boy would catch your deaths of rheumatism.’
‘Is it the one I saw advertised in the Times this morning, I wonder?’ Mrs. Evelegh inquired in a placid voice. ‘”Charming furnished house on Holmesdale Common; six bedrooms, four reception-rooms; splendid views; pure air; picturesque surroundings; exceptionally situated.” I thought of writing about it.’
‘That’s it!’ Lady Georgina exclaimed, with a demonstrative wave of her hand. ‘I drew up the advertisement myself. Exceptionally situated! I should just think it was! Why, my dear, I wouldn’t let you rent the place for worlds; a horrid, poky little hole, stuck down in the bottom of a boggy hollow, as damp as Devonshire, with the paper peeling off the walls, so that I had to take my choice between giving it up myself ten years ago, or removing to the cemetery; and I’ve let it ever since to City men with large families. Nothing would induce me to allow you and your boy to expose yourself to such risks.’ For Lady Georgina had taken
quite a fancy to Mrs. Evelegh. ‘But what I was just going to say was this: you can’t shut your house up; it’ll all go mouldy. Houses always go mouldy, shut up in summer. And you can’t leave it to your servants; I know the baggages; no conscience—no conscience; they’ll ask their entire families to come and stop with them en bloc, and turn your place into a perfect piggery. Why, when I went away from my house in town one autumn, didn’t I leave a policeman and his wife in charge—a most respectable man—only he happened to be an Irishman. And what was the consequence? My dear, I assure you, I came back unexpectedly from poor dear Kynaston’s one day—at a moment’s notice—having quarrelled with him over Home Rule or Education or something—poor dear Kynaston’s what they call a Liberal, I believe—got at by that man Rosebery—and there didn’t I find all the O’Flanagans, and O’Flahertys, and O’Flynns in the neighbourhood camping out in my drawing-room; with a strong detachment of O’Donohues, and O’Dohertys, and O’Driscolls lying around loose in possession of the library? Never leave a house to the servants, my dear! It’s positively suicidal. Put in a responsible caretaker of whom you know something—like Lois here, for instance.’
‘Lois!’ Mrs. Evelegh echoed. ‘Dear me, that’s just the very thing. What a capital idea! I never thought of Lois! She and Elsie might stop on here, with Ursula and the gardener.’
I protested that if we did it was our clear duty to pay a small rent; but Mrs. Evelegh brushed that aside. ‘You’ve robbed yourselves over the bicycle,’ she insisted, ‘and I’m delighted to let you have it. It’s I who ought to pay, for you’ll keep the house dry for me.’
I remembered Mr. Hitchcock—‘Mutual advantage: benefits you, benefits me’—and made no bones about it. So in the end Mrs. Evelegh set off for England with Cécile, leaving Elsie and me in charge of Ursula, the gardener, and the chalet.
As for Lady Georgina, having by this time completed her ‘cure’ at Schlangenbad (complexion as usual; no guinea yellower), she telegraphed for Gretchen—‘I can’t do without the idiot’—and hung round Lucerne, apparently for no other purpose but to send people up the Brünig on the hunt for our wonderful new machines, and so put money in our pockets. She was much amused when I told her that Aunt Susan (who lived, you will remember, in respectable indigence at Blackheath) had written to expostulate with me on my ‘unladylike’ conduct in becoming a bicycle commission agent. ‘Unladylike!—the Cantankerous Old Lady exclaimed, with warmth. ‘What does the woman mean? Has she got no gumption? It’s “ladylike,” I suppose, to be a companion, or a governess, or a music-teacher, or something else in the black-thread-glove way, in London; but not to sell bicycles for a good round commission. My dear, between you and me, I don’t see it. If you had a brother, now, he might sell cycles, or corner wheat, or rig the share market, or do anything else he pleased, in these days, and nobody’d think the worse of him—as long as he made money; and it’s my opinion that what is sauce for the goose can’t be far out for the gander—and vice-versâ. Besides which, what’s the use of trying to be ladylike? You are a lady, child, and you couldn’t help being one; why trouble to be like what nature made you? Tell Aunt Susan from me to put that in her pipe and smoke it!’
I did tell Aunt Susan by letter, giving Lady Georgina’s authority for the statement; and I really believe it had a consoling effect upon her; for Aunt Susan is one of those innocent-minded people who cherish a profound respect for the opinions and ideas of a Lady of Title. Especially where questions of delicacy are concerned. It calmed her to think that though I, an officer’s daughter, had declined upon trade, I was mixing at least with the Best People!
We had a lovely time at the chalet—two girls alone, messing just as we pleased in the kitchen, and learning from Ursula how to concoct pot-au-feu in the most approved Swiss fashion. We pottered, as we women love to potter, half the day long; the other half we spent in riding our cycles about the eternal hills, and ensnaring the flies whom Lady Georgina dutifully sent up to us. She was our decoy duck: and, in virtue of her handle, she decoyed to a marvel. Indeed, I sold so many Manitous that I began to entertain a deep respect for my own commercial faculties. As for Mr. Cyrus W. Hitchcock, he wrote to me from Frankfort: ‘The world continues to revolve on its axis, the Manitou, and the machine is booming. Orders romp in daily. When you ventilated the suggestion of an agency at Limburg, I concluded at a glance you had the material of a first-class business woman about you; but I reckon I did not know what a traveller meant till you started on the road. I am now enlarging and altering this factory, to meet increased demands. Branch offices at Berlin, Hamburg, Crefeld, and Düsseldorf. Inspect our stock before dealing elsewhere. A liberal discount allowed to the trade. Two hundred agents wanted in all towns of Germany. If they were every one of them like you, miss—well, I guess I would hire the town of Frankfort for my business premises.’
One morning, after we had spent about a week at the chalet by ourselves, I was surprised to see a young man with a knapsack on his back walking up the garden path towards our cottage. ‘Quick, quick, Elsie!’ I cried, being in a mischievous mood. ‘Come here with the opera-glass! There’s a Man in the offing!’
‘A what?’ Elsie exclaimed, shocked as usual at my levity.
‘A Man,’ I answered, squeezing her arm. ‘A Man! A real live Man! A specimen of the masculine gender in the human being! Man, ahoy! He has come at last—the lodestar of our existence!’
Next minute, I was sorry I spoke; for as the man drew nearer, I perceived that he was endowed with very long legs and a languidly poetical bearing. That supercilious smile—that enticing moustache! Could it be?—yes, it was—not a doubt of it—Harold Tillington!
I grew grave at once; Harold Tillington and the situation were serious. ‘What can he want here?’ I exclaimed, drawing back.
‘Who is it?’ Elsie asked; for, being a woman, she read at once in my altered demeanour the fact that the Man was not unknown to me.
‘Lady Georgina’s nephew,’ I answered, with a tell-tale cheek, I fear. ‘You remember I mentioned to you that I had met him at Schlangenbad. But this is really too bad of that wicked old Lady Georgina. She has told him where we lived and sent him up to see us.’
‘Perhaps,’ Elsie put in, ‘he wants to charter a bicycle.’
I glanced at Elsie sideways. I had an uncomfortable suspicion that she said it slyly, like one who knew he wanted nothing of the sort. But at any rate, I brushed the suggestion aside frankly. ‘Nonsense,’ I answered. ‘He wants me, not a bicycle.’
He came up to us, waving his hat. He did look handsome! ‘Well, Miss Cayley,’ he cried from afar, ‘I have tracked you to your lair! I have found out where you abide! What a beautiful spot! And how well you’re looking!’
‘This is an unexpected——’ I paused. He thought I was going to say, ‘pleasure,’ but I finished it, ‘intrusion.’ His face fell. ‘How did you know we were at Lungern, Mr. Tillington?’
‘My respected relative,’ he answered, laughing. ‘She mentioned—casually—’ his eyes met mine—‘that you were stopping in a chalet. And as I was on my way back to the diplomatic mill, I thought I might just as well walk over the Grimsel and the Furca, and then on to the Gotthard. The Court is at Monza. So it occurred to me…that in passing…I might venture to drop in and say how-do-you-do to you.’
‘Thank you,’ I answered, severely—but my heart spoke otherwise—‘I do very well. And you, Mr. Tillington?’
‘Badly,’ he echoed. ‘Badly, since you went away from Schlangenbad.’
I gazed at his dusty feet. ‘You are tramping,’ I said, cruelly. ‘I suppose you will get forward for lunch to Meiringen?’
‘I—I did not contemplate it.’
‘Indeed?’
He grew bolder. ‘No; to say the truth, I half hoped I might stop and spend the day here with you.’
‘Elsie,’ I remarked firmly, ‘if Mr. Tillington persist
s in planting himself upon us like this, one of us must go and investigate the kitchen department.’
Elsie rose like a lamb. I have an impression that she gathered we wanted to be left alone.
He turned to me imploringly. ‘Lois,’ he cried, stretching out his arms, with an appealing air, ‘I may stay, mayn’t I?’
I tried to be stern; but I fear ‘twas a feeble pretence. ‘We are two girls, alone in a house,’ I answered. ‘Lady Georgina, as a matron of experience, ought to have protected us. Merely to give you lunch is almost irregular. (Good diplomatic word, irregular.) Still, in these days, I suppose you may stay, if you leave early in the afternoon. That’s the utmost I can do for you.’
‘You are not gracious,’ he cried, gazing at me with a wistful look.
I did not dare to be gracious. ‘Uninvited guests must not quarrel with their welcome,’ I answered severely. Then the woman in me broke forth. ‘But indeed, Mr. Tillington, I am glad to see you.’
He leaned forward eagerly. ‘So you are not angry with me, Lois? I may call you Lois?’
I trembled and hesitated. ‘I am not angry with you. I—I like you too much to be ever angry with you. And I am glad you came—just this once—to see me.… Yes,—when we are alone—you may call me Lois.’
He tried to seize my hand. I withdrew it. ‘Then I may perhaps hope,’ he began, ‘that some day——’
The Lady Sleuths MEGAPACK ™: 20 Modern and Classic Tales of Female Detectives Page 141
