“May I ask, Mr. Vereker, how you came to hurt yourself?” she said solicitously. “I didn’t like to be inquisitive when you didn’t proffer any explanation. Are you in any pain?”
“No, Mrs. Cathcart, I am quite comfortable, thank you, but the bandage has worked loose.”
“Let me fasten it for you,” she said, rising quickly to her feet and bending over him. Deftly untying the knots at the back of his head, she readjusted the handkerchief, and in doing so her cool, soft fingers swept in an unconscious caress across Vereker’s brow. Her proximity to him exercised again that magic thrill which he had experienced on a previous occasion. Her touch and an exquisitely delicate perfume emanating from her made the blood throb in his temples. A feeling almost akin to fear came over him. He had never before responded so swiftly and deeply to the personal magnetism of any woman; never before had he felt that the reins guiding his emotions, apparently so secure in his hands, might be so easily taken from his grasp by the overwhelming attraction of beauty.
“I think that’s secure now,” said Mrs. Cathcart, eyeing her handiwork critically. “Would you like something to drink? You are tired and want a stimulant.”
“Not in your presence,” he said, smiling, and it seemed to him as if the words had been uttered in spite of himself.
“It’s very charming of you to say so,” she replied, flushing slightly, “because I’ve got a long story to tell you. But you haven’t let me know how you came by your hurt.”
“It’s entirely your fault,” replied Vereker jocularly. “You see, I went down to Bramblehurst this evening, hoping to find you there. The house was in darkness, and I was just about to depart when I thought I’d go round and see if there were any lights at the back. There were none, but, to my surprise, I found the kitchen window wide open.”
“Good gracious, I wonder how that happened!” exclaimed Mrs. Cathcart, her eyes wide with astonishment.
“I can’t say. Thinking some one had effected an entrance with questionable motives, I climbed in and explored. I reached the drawing-room and discovered that all your personal belongings had gone and, coming to the conclusion that you had flown, I was about to retrace my steps when some one flashed an electric torch in my face. The next moment I was struck down by a violent blow on the forehead. On regaining my senses I beat a diplomatic retreat and returned to town.”
“Did you see your assailant?” questioned Mrs. Cathcart anxiously.
“Yes, and in my excited frame of mind I thought it was Lord Bygrave. Since then I have come to the conclusion that it cannot possibly have been he.”
At the conclusion of this narration Vereker noticed that Mrs. Cathcart had gone deathly pale and was trembling violently. She appeared about to faint.
“Can you give me a little brandy, Mr. Vereker?” she said weakly. “You will find a flask in the cabinet.”
Vereker jumped up from his chair and, bringing the restorative, applied it to Mrs. Cathcart’s lips. With an effort she managed to swallow the liquid, and in a few minutes the colour had returned to her blanched cheeks and she was once again able to sit erect in her chair.
“It must be he!” she exclaimed to herself distractedly. “It must be he! Am I never to escape from the beast?”
“Who do you think it was, Mrs. Cathcart?” asked Vereker solicitously. “Don’t be afraid to tell me, and you needn’t fear that you will come by any harm if you will just put yourself in my hands. I’ll see Inspector Heather of Scotland Yard to-morrow, and he’ll look after your personal safety.”
“No, no,” came the bitter cry, “don’t inform the police—you must not—I beg you, Mr. Vereker!”
“Then may I—may I look after you?” asked Vereker haltingly.
“Will you, Mr. Vereker?” she pleaded, looking up to him with fear-haunted eyes and seizing his hands in hers.
“Certainly, Mrs. Cathcart, if you will trust me. But who is this man of whom you live in dread?”
Bowing her head as if in shame, she muttered:
“My present husband.”
“Good God!” exclaimed Vereker in spite of himself. “But—but I thought—I thought—”
“I know what you are thinking,” she interrupted almost fiercely; “and you are right. I have committed bigamy. There’s no use my mincing matters. After what I have suffered a phrase cannot torture me any more. But I committed bigamy, as they call it, through the lying machinations of this Mr. Cathcart. His name is not Cathcart at all; it is George Darnell, and he is a full cousin of Henry Darnell, Lord Bygrave. I discovered this after my marriage to him in America. I met him in Boston during the height of my popularity as an operatic singer and, probably through his remarkable resemblance to my former husband, I fell in love with him. He proposed to me, and I had to reveal to him the fact that I was already married. Not many months afterwards he brought me a newspaper cutting announcing the death of Henry Darnell, Lord Bygrave, and, thinking that I was at last free, I accepted his renewed proposal. Our married life was unhappy from the very beginning. He is a cowardly man with an ungovernable temper and, after a few months, began to terrorize me into supplying him with money, which he squandered on other women. I left him and put myself in the hands of solicitors, who promptly saw to it that he should not molest me further.
“Then he actually stooped to forging my signature to a cheque for several thousand pounds. Not wishing to become the subject of gossip for a hemisphere, I let that pass, and he then informed me that Henry Darnell, Lord Bygrave, my husband, was alive and that the Henry Darnell who had died was Lord Bygrave’s cousin. Under the threat that he would expose the fact that I had committed bigamy, he tried to extort further sums of money from me. I promptly flung up my career on the plea of failing health and secretly fled from America to escape from him. Since then I have learned that he underwent a long sentence of imprisonment for a very clever forgery previous to our marriage, and that that was the reason of his change of name to Cathcart. Ever since my arrival in England I have lived in dread that he would pursue and persecute me anew, and now my worst fears have been realized.”
“Did he resemble Lord Bygrave facially?” asked Vereker, his eyes alight with a new excitement.
“Very much so, but there is a sinister cast about his whole countenance, and when roused to anger he looks as if he were a maniac.”
“He was without doubt my assailant at Bramblehurst to-night,” said Vereker. “You have given me a living portrait of the man. Did Lord Bygrave know of his cousin’s criminal career?”
“I cannot say, Mr. Vereker; but there is one thing certain, and that is on his arrival in England he would try to extort money from Lord Bygrave. When you brought me that receipt and also the envelope addressed to me in what you thought was Lord Bygrave’s hand, I had a very strong suspicion that George Darnell was in England and was continuing here his nefarious career. That is the principal reason why I have suddenly decided to go abroad.
“Had you any other reason, Mrs. Cathcart?” asked Vereker tentatively.
“Yes,” she said wearily, “I have. I will tell you some day—it has nothing to do with the Bygrave case.”
Vereker rose preparatory to taking his departure.
“When do you leave for the Riviera?” he asked.
“To-morrow, without fail,” she replied. “I cannot live a day longer in the same country as George Darnell.”
“And if he follows you out there?” asked Vereker.
A look of terror sprang again into Mrs. Cathcart’s eyes; she trembled and, drawing close to Vereker, laid a hand on the lapel of his coat.
“You said you would look after me,” she murmured. “Will you keep that promise?”
“I will,” replied Vereker. “If ever you feel in danger of violence from this beast, will you wire or cable me?”
“At once, Mr. Vereker,” she replied. “You inspire confidence in me. I am not afraid when you are near me. Good night.”
She extended to him a soft, faintly dimpled and beauti
fully shaped hand. He grasped it warmly in his own, and the next moment had pressed it swiftly to his lips.
“Good night, Mrs. Cathcart,” he said. “May I see you off to-morrow?”
“Do come, Mr. Vereker,” she said eagerly, “and I’ll try not to cry as the train moves off.”
Next moment Vereker was walking swiftly homewards. The stars seemed to him to be superbly bright, and his blood was racing madly through his veins. For the first time in his life he felt that he was in love.
Chapter Twenty
On arrival at his flat, Vereker slipped off his jacket and shoes, donned a warm woollen dressing-gown and slippers. Lighting a pipe, he sat down at his writing-desk. An hour later he was still sitting there scribbling as if possessed: he was drawing up an orderly account of his lengthy investigations in the Bygrave Mystery up to the moment of his discovery of the existence of Mr. George Darnell, alias Cathcart, as one of the principals in the case. The sudden intrusion of that unsavoury figure into the field of his observation was of paramount importance to Vereker. As iron filings fly and adhere to a magnet, so did all the loose facts which he had so patiently collected, and which had so far proved intractable, gather round this startling discovery and cohere as if by magic. He was too excited to sleep and, having completed a detailed summary of his work on the case, rose from his desk, poured himself out a stiff whisky and soda, and sat down in his arm-chair by the fire.
“One more piece to fit into the puzzle,” he soliloquized, “and the picture is complete. The sequel to the discovery of Mr. George Darnell is positively amazing, and Heather has an inkling of that sequel. That I know. I wonder if he has unearthed this all-important factor leading up to the sequel.”
He thereupon swiftly drew up his plans for the morrow. He would go and see Mrs. Cathcart off on her journey southwards and immediately afterwards seek an interview with Heather. The inspector would at once set his trained pack on the hunt for Mr. George Darnell and run him to earth. Celerity was essential, for the quarry (now that he had scented danger, as was evident from his attack on Heather and himself at Bramblehurst) would take the first opportunity to quit the country.
Vereker finally turned in, but slept little. Excitement kept him awake and his brain, almost feverishly active, vacillated between reviewing the morbid episodes of the Bygrave Mystery and building very pleasant castles in Spain, castles in which there ever dwelt a very beautiful woman whom he knew.
The appointed hour saw him at Victoria Station patiently awaiting the arrival of Mrs. Cathcart. As the time drew nigh for the departure of her train he began to grow uneasy. He glanced anxiously at his watch as he kept a vigilant eye on passengers making their way through the barrier on to the platform. At length she appeared, and his heart leaped. She was heavily veiled and alone, but he recognized her at once by her bold, graceful carriage, that almost Spanish deportment which he so much admired.
“And where is Lossa, Mrs. Cathcart?” he asked. “I thought she was staying with you.”
“She went back to school—a convent school in Belgium—about a week ago. This is her last term. She is looking forward to its conclusion because—well, it’s a great secret—she’s engaged to be married to a very wealthy young American. A very charming young man he is too: Lossa is one of the world’s lucky ones.”
“She is,” echoed Vereker, “in having you as a foster-mother.”
“Now, you flatterer!” said Mrs. Cathcart, and added tangentially. “You know, Mr. Vereker, I have often wondered what your Christian name is.”
Vereker smiled broadly.
“My actual Christian name is Anthony,” he said, “and my parents always called me Tony, but my name by use and wont—it was given me at college—is Algernon. It will follow me to the grave. It is my reward for having perennially played the buffoon.”
“You don’t mean to say you prefer Algernon to Anthony?” she asked, looking up at him seriously.
“I prefer Muriel to both,” he replied, “and, if I may, I shall always call you by your Christian name.”
“I wish you would, Tony,” she replied, with a radiant smile. “And now we must hurry or I shall miss my train.”
“If you catch it, I shall miss you, Muriel,” he replied, and slipped his arm through hers.
As she leaned out of her compartment window she suddenly appeared depressed and very much subdued. Her bright loquacity had suddenly vanished and she was silent.
“You seem sad, Muriel,” ventured Vereker, “and you ought to be as cheerful as a cricket, going off to sunshine and flowers and a heavenly sea.”
“They are entrancing enough,” she replied, “but to me—well, they often seemed to put, by contrast, a keener edge to grief. And now that I have met you and made one of the very few friends I have ever had a relentless Fate tears you away from me, and doesn’t even, as consolation, disclose if I shall ever see you again.”
“I am coming out to the Riviera as soon as I have finished with the Bygrave case,” he replied; “and that won’t be long. We’ve got to settle the fate of Mr. George Darnell and his confederate, and then for a holiday with my paint-box—”
At the mention of the Bygrave case Muriel Cathcart frowned and tossed her head as if to shake off the memory of an unpleasant and evil experience. Turning gravely to Vereker, she asked:
“Tony, do you really know what has happened to Lord Bygrave?”
“I’m afraid, Muriel, poor Henry Darnell is dead. He was murdered, and there is nothing more to do now than bring the crime home to the perpetrators. The chain of evidence is almost complete: their arrest is imminent.”
As Vereker concluded his sentence the guard blew a shrill, warning blast on his whistle.
Vereker clasped Muriel Cathcart’s hands in his own. She swiftly bent down close to him, and he kissed her.
“Au revoir, dear,” she said, as the train broke into motion, “and don’t be long.”
“Au revoir, darling,” he replied.
“You needn’t bother to bring your paint-box,” she counselled with a gay laugh, and next moment was out of ear-shot.
Half an hour later Vereker was back in his flat. On his arrival he found a letter lying on the floor of the hall, and picked it up. He glanced at the handwriting on the envelope and, flinging down his gloves and stick on a table, swiftly tore it open. It was a communication from Winslade:
Dear Vereker,
Just a line to let you know that Mary and I are now man and wife, and are just leaving England for our honeymoon. This news, I’m sure, won’t surprise you, as you have known for some time that the event was in the offing.
Of more consequence to you will be the information that I have just received an urgent note from my uncle, from 8 Causeway Street, Kingsland Rd., E., asking me to send him a couple of hundred pounds, as he is destitute of money. It would be extremely difficult and inconvenient for me to send him this sum at the moment, as it amounts to all the spare cash I have in the world. I ask you as a great favour to try and help me out of my quandary. Would you see to it that he receives the money? As you are aware of all the facts surrounding his unhappy case, there is nothing that I can say further that can be helpful. Relying on you, my dear Vereker—
Yours,
David Winslade
Without further ado Vereker seized stick and gloves and hurried to the nearest post office. There he despatched a wire to Winslade setting his mind at rest about the question of immediately financing Lord Bygrave and wishing him bon voyage. He then rang up Inspector Heather and asked him to join him without fail at Jacques’ for lunch, and hinted at a startling discovery with regard to the Bygrave case.
“Good,” replied Heather imperturbably. “I’m as hungry as a hunter and will do the lunch justice, but you know, Mr. Vereker, these foreign restaurants never keep a drop of decent beer.”
“You shall have the run of the finest wine-cellar in London, Heather,” replied Vereker. “Beer’s not good for you. You’re much too corpulent already.”
Punctually at that hour Inspector Heather arrived and joined Vereker at a table in a secluded corner of the famous restaurant, where they could converse without fear of being overheard by other patrons.
“Well, Mr. Vereker, what is the nature of your new and staggering discovery?” asked the inspector without any preamble.
“I’ve found the missing link, Heather, the link that at once makes all my deductions concatenate as they ought to and give a background of purpose to all the incidents of this mysterious case, which seemed utterly unintelligible before. It affords also a sense of satisfaction to me, in as much as my reasoning ran in the right direction and was based on correct deduction.”
“And who is this missing link, Mr. Vereker?”
“No other than George Darnell, a cousin of Lord Bygrave’s, who went to America when I was quite a kid in knickerbockers. He contracted a marriage out there with Mrs. Cathcart after persuading her by the production of a newspaper cutting that her former husband, Lord Bygrave, was dead. She was unaware that he was a Darnell, because he had assumed the name of Cathcart. This alias was to hide his identity, because he had some years previously served a sentence of imprisonment for a clever forgery in New York. He very closely resembles Bygrave in appearance, and it is this asset which has proved so useful to him in misleading us, his pursuers. You can at once see daylight through the fog which has all along enveloped our investigations.”
“Where did you acquire this information?” asked Heather, pointedly interrupting Vereker’s narrative.
“From Mrs. Cathcart, yesterday. She rang me up and told me all about her unhappy life with this criminal. But to revert to my story: it was George Darnell who induced Bygrave to visit the Mill House, probably to extort money from him. A quarrel must have ensued, or he may have deliberately planned to murder his cousin. I prefer the former theory, because Bygrave dead was not of much use to him from a financial point of view. It was he who impersonated Bygrave in that car ride with Winslade as far as the cow-pond, and also at the White Bear Inn. When Winslade told me his story of their visit to the Mill House I was (feeling that my impersonation theory was correct) particular to note the fact that before descending the stairs to join Winslade the supposed Lord Bygrave turned out the light on the landing above. Their conversation amounted altogether to a few sentences only, and excitement alters a man’s voice to such an extent that Winslade failed to notice anything unusual in the timbre. I was very eager to know whether the lamp on the road, just at the Mill House gates, was alight when the two men entered the car. Winslade remembered that it was alight prior to his entering the approach, but was not sure whether it was so subsequently. If it had been alight Winslade could hardly have failed to discover the impersonation, because it shines full on the approach of the house. But I am certain (I will give my reason later) that it had been extinguished.
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