The Sign of the Stranger

“I received the letter handed me by Warr, the innkeeper. It was sufficiently explanatory,” she remarked in a hard unnatural voice, standing with her hand upon the chair back, and looking straight into his calm countenance.

“We may, for the present, disregard that letter,” he said. “You will recollect what I said to you confidentially in the hall an hour ago. You admitted that you reciprocate Mr Woodhouse’s affection, and you declared that he was your friend.”

“And so I am,” I maintained.

“Exactly. Indeed, as far as I can ascertain, it seems that he is a most devoted friend. It is for that very reason that I have asked you to come here and listen to what I have to say.”

“I am all attention,” she responded blankly, with that inertness born of despair. “My enemies have combined to crush me – that I know.”

“Well, first let me tell you, Lady Lolita, that although I have shown myself antagonistic in the past, my convictions have now become changed, and I regret all that I may have done to cause you pain and injury. If you can really I forgive, will hold out my hand in friendship,” and he stretched forth his hand to her as pledge of his sincerity.

At first she hesitated, unable to believe that the man whom she had regarded as her bitterest enemy should have become so completely, and so suddenly her friend. Like myself, she could not at first bring herself to put perfect faith in him. Yet, in a few moments, seeing his evident earnestness, she took his hand, and allowed him to wring hers in genuine friendship.

“Very well,” he said in a gratified tone. “That is the first step. The second is to admit to you that while I am ready to render you assistance instead of hounding you down to destruction, as I had intended, I have also a motive – one that must remain my own secret. Mr Woodhouse, here, no doubt regards my return, my actions, and my arrival as guest in this house as suspicious. I admit that all the circumstances are exceedingly remarkable, and require an explanation – which perhaps you will give him later. But what is so immediately important is the course of action which we shall pursue, now that I am united to assist you.”

“But do you really mean to act on my behalf, Mr Keene?” asked my love eagerly, as though a new future were opened out to her by the man’s suggestion.

“I have given my hand as pledge,” was his reply. “There is an allegation against you – a fact of which I presume Mr Woodhouse is aware. And your bitterest enemy – one who, by a word, could free you – is a woman.”

“Willoughby – I mean Mr Woodhouse – has told me. It is Marigold.”

“Yes. And she refuses to speak. Our efforts must be made towards compelling her,” he said.

But in that moment I recollected how the Countess had defied him, and threatened him with a terrible exposure. Of what?

“And Marie Lejeune? Where is she?” inquired Lolita.

“She has disappeared, it seems. At least I don’t know where she is at this moment. For the present we need not be concerned about her. We have to deal with a shrewd and clever woman, whose future depends upon your future. If you live she must die, – if you die, she will live.”

He spoke the words with slow distinctness, his eyes fixed upon her, watching the effect of his utterances.

“How can I live?” she asked, in a low hoarse voice. “You know everything – you know my peril.”

“True. I know everything,” was the man’s reply. “I know, too, how you have suffered I know how Mr Woodhouse, loving you as he does, must also suffer. Believe me, Lady Lolita, although I am but a rough man unused nowadays to the ways of good society, I am not altogether devoid of sympathy for a woman, and that sympathy will cause me to guard the secret of your affection. I wish you to consider that, in me, instead of an enemy, you have a sincere friend. I am fully aware of the exposure which Mr Woodhouse might make to George, but it would not only be against my interests, but against yours.”

“Yet it would bring Marigold to her knees to beg forgiveness,” my love remarked.

“Yes. But surely you know that woman well enough to be aware that her vengeance would fall heavily upon you – that you would be hurled to ruin and disgrace before she herself would give way and fall.”

“I believed her to be my friend,” was Lolita’s remark.

“You only believed as others believe. There are many persons to whom she acts the false friend – her husband not excepted. You have only to sit in the smoking-rooms of certain London clubs in order to hear the expression of public opinion regarding her. The clubs always know more facts about a man’s wife than her own husband.”

“Well,” I exclaimed, “what is your advice? How shall we act?”

Even now I was not altogether convinced of Keene’s good-will. The horror and fear in which Lolita had formerly held him somehow clung to me, and I could not help suspecting that this man who had struck up an acquaintance with George in the wilds of the Zambesi, and had come so boldly among those whom it was his intention to unmask, was now playing us false.

Yet in word and manner he was perfectly open and straightforward.

“Have patience, Lady Lolita,” he urged. “Mr Woodhouse will assist me in this very difficult piece of diplomacy that we are about to undertake. Had it not been for the fact that our friend here unfortunately gave Marie Lejeune warning that night in Chelsea, when the police were waiting to trap her, we should have had no necessity for this present scheming. The truth would then have been revealed and the guilty would have gone to their just punishment.”

“I know! I know!” I cried. “It was foolish on my part. But I believed I was acting in Lady Lolita’s interests. I see, however, that I made a mistake – a fatal mistake.”

“We must rectify it,” he said. “Her ladyship has been frank with me concerning your mutual affection, and I will not stand by and see her hurled to her grave by the dastardly schemes of her enemies. You admitted to me that you discovered upon the body of Hugh Wingfield a certain paper in cipher. Will you not allow me sight of it?”

“A paper in cipher!” gasped my love, glancing at me. “Was that found upon him?”

“Yes,” was my reply. “I discovered a paper in a woman’s hand, and written in the chequer-board cipher.”

“And the keyword was what?” she inquired in breathless eagerness, turning her great blue eyes to mine.

“Ah! I haven’t any idea of the keyword,” I admitted.

“Then you haven’t been able to make it out!” she remarked, breathing more freely. “You don’t know to what it refers?”

“No,” I responded frankly. “I am in ignorance. But if you will remain a moment I’ll go to my room and fetch it.”

“You need not,” was her reply. “It is quite unnecessary.”

“Why?”

“Well, because I chance to know what is contained in it, and that there was nothing of importance.”

Did she imply that she had written that secret message herself? I glanced at her countenance, and somehow became convinced that she was still bent upon the concealment of the truth, a conviction that was both irritating and tantalising.

Mystery had succeeded mystery, until I admit that I was now overcome by blank bewilderment.

Chapter Twenty Seven

Which Tells of a Heart’s Desire

The result of our consultation did not, as far as I was concerned, enlighten me upon one single point connected with the puzzling affair.

Certain matters were arranged between the man Keene and the woman I so dearly loved, but strangely enough both were equally careful to allow me no loop-hole through which to gain knowledge of their motives or the secret they held.

I made no mention of the remarkable affair at the lonely farm a few miles distant, nor did I inquire of Keene his object in lying concealed there, or of the identity of those foreigners who were the man Logan’s friends in hiding. I felt it wise to keep all this knowledge to myself.

I told Lolita, however, how I had discovered that the police had introduced a female detective as servant to the Stanchester household, and that her inquiries had been directed towards endeavouring to discover the Ownership of the Louis Quinze shoes, the print of which had been found at the spot where Wingfield had fallen.

The news fell upon her like a thunderbolt. She stood utterly unable to reply.

Keene said nothing. He merely looked at her, and then, sighing, turned away.

I did not tell them that a week ago, when passing the cottage of Jacobs, one of the gamekeepers, the man asked me to enter and see something. I had followed the man in, and producing a muddy damp-stained ermine cloak much soiled and ruined by exposure to the weather, he said —

“I found this yesterday in the Monk’s Wood, sir, an’ I’ve been wondering if it might belong to anybody up at the Hall?”

Instantly I had recognised it as Lolita’s, the one she must evidently have worn on the night of the tragedy! It was torn in one part, and a small piece was missing – the piece which had been found near where the dead man lay!

In a moment I had invented an excuse.

“Why,” I said, “that’s the cape my sister lost when she was staying with me. She went out with her little daughter to pick wild flowers, laid it down in the wood and forgot all about it.”

Then I gladly took possession of it, gave Jacobs a tip, dropping a hint at the same time that it was not necessary for him to talk about it, for if he did there would be all sorts of wild theories formed as to its connexion with the mysterious tragedy. “The police would be sure to begin worrying over nothing,” I added.

“I quite understand, sir,” was the gamekeeper’s answer. “Mr Redway and his men are worse than useless. They’ve made a lot of fuss and haven’t even found out yet who the poor young man was! I shall say nothing about it, for they’d only begin to question and worry me, as well as you.”

And so I had taken the fur cape, and that same night had surreptitiously buried it in my garden.

When at last the stranger’s consultation with Lolita had ended, I recognised how completely my love was in the man’s thraldom. He held power over her inevitable and complete. Why?

Was it because he knew her guilty secret?

She had, in a moment of desperation, declared that he did, and besought him to spare her.

“I will do my best,” was his rather evasive answer. “The man who loves you, Lady Lolita, will help me, and between us we may, I hope, effect your freedom.”

“I am ready to do anything – to go anywhere in order to serve her ladyship,” I declared, with deep earnestness. “I am only glad that we have now come to a thorough understanding.”

“Your attention must be directed towards the actions of the Countess,” was Keene’s reply. “Watch her, and see what she does, and whom she meets. I am unable to approach her because she fears me, and also – well, to be frank – she is no friend of mine any more than she is of Lady Lolita.”

“Very well,” I agreed. “I will leave Lady Lolita to your protection and turn my efforts towards watching the Countess. But,” I added, “I am puzzled by all this mystery and all these conflicting motives.”

“No doubt,” he said, as my love wished us good-night, grasping both my hands in trustful thankfulness. “It is but natural. When you know the real facts you will find it to be stranger than you have ever dreamed – more tragic – more terrible – more bewildering. The truth, Mr Woodhouse, will stagger you – as it will the world!”

And with that emphatic expression of opinion we rejoined the men in the smoking-room, had a final whisky-and-soda and cigarettes, and then parted for the night.

Next morning at five the cry of the hounds passing across the park awakened me, and I knew that the Earl was already out cubbing, leaving his party to go shooting after breakfast. Therefore I rose, and was early at work at my desk, for a quantity of the kennel accounts had come in overnight and required checking.

My mind was full of what had passed between us in the red room, and I was anxious to obtain opportunity to watch the young and brilliant mistress of the house.

The shoot that day was over at Beanfield Lawns, and after breakfast the men, including Keene, drove there in the new Mercedes car, a merry party, leaving the ladies to accompany the luncheon. Through the morning I was busy. Once I encountered Lolita in one of the corridors, and found her just a trifle more hopeful.

“Act on Mr Keene’s suggestion,” she urged. “Watch Marigold closely, and ascertain what she is doing. From what I’ve seen to-day I believe there is something curious in progress.”

“Rely upon me,” I answered, “to serve you dearest. I will do anything – that you know.”

“Yes – I feel sure you will,” she responded smiling sweetly upon me, a fresh erect figure in her clean cotton blouse. “I put my trust entirely in you.”

“And I will not betray it,” I declared in deep earnestness.

Then we parted. She had her hat on, and was going out, I knew, to her Saints’ Garden, in order to give directions to the gardener who attended to it. The thought brought back to me a recollection of my recent conversation with the Countess at that same spot, and I returned to my room and was soon again immersed in my rather onerous duties.

About noon the ladies left in the Panhard, carrying the luncheon, and a quiet fell upon the great old mansion. I interviewed the house-steward and his wife regarding stores to be ordered, ate my luncheon in my room, and afterwards started out to walk to my house at Sibberton, for when there were guests at the Hall, and especially during the shooting-season, I was seldom able to get home, owing to my multifarious duties.

I was passing the Countess’s boudoir – the door of which stood open – and having been urged to keep careful watch upon her, I searched her waste-paper basket. The torn letters, however, were of no account – the usual correspondence a fashionable woman receives. Therefore I was disappointed. In her ladyship’s every movement I now scented suspicion. Hitherto I had watched Lolita, and found mystery in all her movements, and now it was the giddy handsome woman so popular in her own gay set of banjo-playing, skirt-dancing, cake-walking and bridge-playing. I would have gone with the shooting-party over to Beanfield, but I had been prevented by pressure of work, and now I was rather sorry that I had not deferred the accounts and taken a gun.

About three o’clock the ladies returned, a gay bevy of well-dressed beauties, and as I stood chatting with them in the hall, a servant handed the hostess a telegram.

I watched how her countenance changed as she read it, then crushing it in her hand, she suddenly recovered herself and thrust it into her pocket. The message contained something that caused her anxiety – of that I was convinced. Her guests had not noticed the quick opening of her eyes, and the slight movement of the mouth betraying apprehension, as the words were revealed to her. What could they be? How I longed to discover.

Lolita, who, lounging in a chair, was chatting with a pretty young girl in tweeds, the daughter of a very up-to-date mother, looked across at me quickly, as though to place me on the alert, and then I fell to wondering how to obtain knowledge of that message.

To try and get hold of it through her maid would be a too risky proceeding, and besides if it contained anything secret she would no doubt destroy it. Therefore the difficulty seemed insurmountable. She had re-composed herself, and had at that moment declared her intention of dressing and going out again to pay an afternoon call, inviting two of her guests to go with her.

Of a sudden an idea occurred to me; therefore I went out through the servants’ hall, and obtaining the bicycle belonging to Murdock, his lordship’s valet, I mounted and rode down the avenue to Sibberton post-office.

“Oh, Miss Allen,” I said, addressing the daughter of the village post-master, “Lady Stanchester received a telegram just now, and doesn’t quite understand it. She wishes it repeated, please,” and I placed sixpence on the counter, adding, “Her ladyship believes there is some mistake. I suppose it won’t take long to repeat, will it?”

“Oh! not very long,” replied the red-haired rustic beauty.

Whereupon I told her she need not send the copy up to the Hall, but as I was going back presently I would deliver it myself.

Warr was at the door of the inn as I passed, and he called me in. When we were in his back parlour he said to me with a mysterious air —

“Do you know, sir, that that tramp who gave me a sovereign tip has been in Sibberton again? I saw him walking through the village the day before yesterday with another gentleman – one who’s staying up at the Hall.”

“No, you’re mistaken,” I answered laughing. “It’s Mr Smeeton, who’s very much like him, an old friend of his lordship’s. I fell into just the same error myself when I first saw him,” I added, in order, if possible, to remove any suspicion from the worthy man’s mind.

“Well, do you know,” he said laughing, “I could have sworn it was the same man, except that his beard has been trimmed. Of course he looks different, dressed as a gentleman.”

“No,” I reassured him. “The man you have evidently seen is Mr Smeeton, with whom his lordship hunted big game in Africa a year or two ago.” Then after a brief chat, in which he expressed surprise that the police had now relinquished all their efforts to discover the identity of the murdered man or his assassin, I went out, returning to the little low-thatched cottage in which was the village post-office.

The red-haired girl handed me a telegram addressed to the Countess of Stanchester, remarking that no error had been discovered in its transmission, and placing it in my pocket I mounted the cycle and rode away up the avenue. As soon, however, as I was alone under the trees, I took out the envelope, tore it open, and saw that the message had been handed in at Ovington in Essex. It was unsigned and read —

“To-night, Charing Cross, nine. Only bring handbag.”

It showed that her ladyship was on the point of flight! Therefore I at once resolved to ascertain her destination and watch her doings.

On returning to the Hall I learnt from the servants that she had not gone out visiting as she intended, but was in her room. The men had not returned, so I took Lolita aside, showed her the telegram, and told her to go upstairs and watch if there was any sign of her intended departure. A quarter of an hour later my love came secretly to my room and told me that she had remarked casually to her that she intended to go to town to fit a dress, which she specially wanted for a garden-party, and would probably go up to town that evening.

That was sufficient for me. I kissed my love fondly, and telling her to remain under Keene’s care, crammed some things into a bag and took the train at five-thirty from Kettering to St. Pancras.

I travelled by the train previous to the one she would catch, therefore I dined leisurely at the café Royal, and at a quarter to nine stood beneath the clock on Charing Cross platform, watching the idlers keeping their appointments and the bustle of departing passengers by the midnight mail for the Continent.

I had to exercise a good deal of caution to avoid detection; but at last, just before the hour, I saw her approach dressed in a dark-brown travelling-gown with a brown gossamer veil that gave her the appearance of an American globe-trotter, and was so thick that it would prevent recognition of her features.

She hurried across from the booking-office to the platform where the Continental express was on the point of starting, as though in fear that some one might detain her.

She was not alone, but at her side walked a man in grey felt hat and long grey overcoat. In him all my interest was centred, for he was none other than Logan.

I had, however, no time for reflection. Only just sufficient, indeed, to dash back to the booking-office, obtain a ticket for Paris, and enter the last compartment of the train before it moved off to our unknown destination.

Chapter Twenty Eight

What! Saw in the Night

The night mail for the Continent backed into Cannon Street for the postal-vans, and then rushed away into the wet stormy night for Dover Pier.

The journey, as far as there, proved uneventful, but as soon as I stepped out upon the rain-swept landing-stage, I saw that our crossing was to be a “dirty” one. Beneath the electric lamps brawny seamen passed in shining oil-skins, and amid the bustle and shouting I saw the neat figure of the Countess with her companion hurry across the gangway to the shelter of a private cabin, wherein she entered and closed the door, while Logan went below to get a drink, and change some money with the steward, an action which was that of the constant traveller.

Not wishing to appear too obtrusive, I remained on deck watching the mails being counted in, until the last bag had been flung into the hold, the cry “All out!” sounded, the hatches were closed, and then slowly the packet began to move out into the rough open Channel.

When Logan emerged on deck I stood back in the darkness, taking a good view of him. He was dressed with every appearance of a gentleman, but from the manner in which he paced the deck I saw that he was greatly agitated and concerned, whether of the Countess’s safety or of his own I could, of course, not determine. Neither had I any idea why the pair were fleeing from England, unless it was to escape some exposure which her ladyship knew to be imminent.

That woman was the enemy of my love; she had deceived me. Therefore the compassion I held for her had been succeeded by a fierce and unrelenting antagonism, and I intended to watch her and discover the truth.

I sat beneath the bridge under shelter from the driving rain, and hidden by the darkness, while the man Logan walked to and fro, utterly heedless of the storm. He did not go to her ladyship’s cabin to inquire after her, therefore it struck me that perhaps they might have quarrelled. In any case his anxiety was intense.

On landing at Calais he took her into the buffet, where they had hot coffee, and a few moments later were joined by a thin black-haired sallow-faced man, evidently a foreigner from the studied manner in which he bowed before her as she sat at the table of the restaurant.

Then the trio sat together in earnest consultation.

The Paris express was announced to depart, but to my surprise they took no heed. The French capital proved not to be their destination, for presently they rose and walked to the Bâle express, the wagon-lit of which they entered, the conductor apparently expecting them.

I was compelled therefore to return to the booking-office and obtain a ticket. As, however, there was but one sleeping-car I could not travel in it for fear of detection, and was therefore forced to enter an ordinary first-class carriage, with the prospect of a twelve hours’ tedious journey.

On we travelled until the dawn spread into a grey damp day, then the sun shone, it grew warmer, and I stretched myself upon the cushions and slept. To descend to get anything to eat was to invite detection; therefore I starved upon a pull from my flask and a couple of sandwiches with which I had provided myself at the Calais buffet.

From Bâle I followed them to Lucerne, and from Lucerne by the Gothard railway to Milan, where we arrived late at night, her ladyship driving alone to the Hotel Metropole, opposite the Duomo, and the two men going off in a cab in another direction.

As soon as I had watched the Countess into the Metropole I went along to the Cavour, where I quickly turned in and was very soon asleep. Milan seemed to be their destination, for at the station they had been met by a second foreigner, an Italian evidently, a short ferret-eyed little man, smoking the stump of a cigar, and after the exchange of a few words he parted from them quickly and was lost to sight.

My own idea was that he had met Logan and his friend and had told them to what address to drive. I, however, could not follow them, being bent upon watching Marigold. Next morning I sent a telegram to Keene informing him of my whereabouts, and then set myself to keep observation on the Countess’s movements.

Milan, the most noisy city of modern Italy, was parched and dusty at that season of the year, and save for a few German tourists the hotels seemed empty. There are, of course, visitors from all corners of the earth at all seasons of the year to see the wonders of the cathedral, but to the man who knows his Italy, and who loves it, there is something so incongruous, so ugly, so utterly rasping upon the nerves in Milan that it is decidedly a city to get away from. The place bears the impress of all that is bad in Italian art of to-day, combined with all the worst features of that complex life which is known as Modern Italy.