On entering old Mr. Mutimer’s house a telegram addressed to Raife lay upon the hall-table. Tearing it open, he read the brief summons. “Come at once, urgent.—Mother.”
The words were startling in their brevity. Turning to his friend, he exclaimed in alarmed accents: “Something serious has happened at home, old man. See what the mater has wired.” He handed the telegram to Teddy.
Teddy read it and gave it back. “I’m awfully sorry, Raife. There’s a good train in about an hour from now. While you are waiting, you might ring up home and find out what’s the matter.”
“A good idea,” said Raife. And at once he entered the study, and, taking up the telephone receiver, got a trunk call.
In less than five minutes he was speaking with Edgson, the old butler at Aldborough Park, his father’s fine place near Tunbridge Wells.
“Is Lady Remington there?” asked Raife, eagerly. “Tell her I want to speak to her.”
“She’s—oh, it’s you, Master Raife, sir! She’s—I’m sorry, sir, her ladyship’s not well, sir.”
“Not well? What’s the matter?” asked the young fellow, speaking eagerly into the mouthpiece.
“Oh, sir, I—I—I can’t tell you over the ’phone,” replied the old servant. “Her ladyship has forbidden us to say anything at all.”
“But, Edgson, surely I may know!” cried the young man, frantically.
“We thought you were on your way home, sir,” the butler replied. “Can’t you come, Master Raife?”
“Yes, of course, I’m leaving now—at once. But I’m anxious to know what has happened.”
“Come home, sir, and her ladyship will tell you.”
“Go at once and say that I am at the ’phone,” Raife ordered, angrily.
“I’m very sorry, sir, but I can’t,” was the response. “I have very strict orders from her ladyship, but I’m sorry to have to disobey you, sir.”
“Can’t you tell me anything? Can’t you give me an inkling of what’s the matter?” urged Raife.
“I’m very sorry, sir, I can’t,” replied the old man, quietly, but very firmly.
Raife knew Edgson of old. With him the word of either master or mistress was law. Edgson had been in his father’s service ever since his earliest recollection, and though fond of a glass of good port, as his ruddy nose betrayed, he was the most trusted servant of all the staff.
He would give no explanation of what had occurred, therefore, Raife, furiously angry with the old man, “rang off.”
The train journey from Southport seemed interminable. His mind was in a whirl. The brief words of the telegram, “Come home at once, urgent,” kept ringing in his ears, above the roar of the carriage wheels. He had the sensations of a man in a nightmare. What could have happened, and to whom? His mother had sent the “wire,” and therefore it most probably concerned his father.
And ever and again, at the back of his mind, racked with this horrible suspense and uncertainty, was the image of the mysterious girl whose acquaintance he had made on the Southport front. He could hear the low, sweet tones of her musical voice, he could see the grace of her dainty figure. Should he ever meet her again? Would she ever be to him more than a fascinating acquaintance?
When at length he got into London, he felt he could not bear the slow torture of another railway journey. He went to a garage close to the station and hired a motor-car. From there to Tunbridge Wells seemed but a short distance: at any rate, there was action in the movement of the throbbing car, as opposed to the monotony of the train.
But even though the speed limit was exceeded many times in the course of that journey, it seemed hours to his impatient mood before they reached the lodge gates and raced up the stately avenue.
The avenue was three-quarters of a mile long, but at last, Raife Remington, at a bend in the drive, came in view of his home—a great, old, ivy-covered Tudor mansion, with quaint gables, high, twisted chimneys, and two pointed towers. At one end was the tall, stained-glass window of the private chapel, while at the other were domestic offices of later date, and in other forms of architecture.
Passing the inner gate, and between the lawns, where the flower beds were gay with geraniums, the car entered the great open gateway, and drew up in the ancient courtyard, around which the grand old place was built—that same quiet courtyard where the horse’s hoofs of King Henry the Seventh had so often echoed upon the uneven cobbles, where Sir Henry Reymingtoune, Chancellor to Elizabeth, had bowed low and made his obeisance to his capricious royal mistress, and where Charles the Second, in later days, had idled, surrounded by his elegant, silk-coated sycophants.
The Remingtons had, ever since the fourteenth century, played their part in England’s government: once a great and powerful family, and even to-day a notable and honourable house.
As the car drew up at the door, Raife sprang out, and rushing through the great stone hall, the flags of which were worn hollow by the tread of generations, and where stood the stands of armour of dead Reymingtounes, he came face to face with old Edgson, grave and white-haired.
“Ah, Master Raife!” cried the old man, “I’m so glad you’ve come, sir. Her ladyship is in the boudoir awaiting you.”
“What’s happened, Edgson?” demanded the young man.
“Please don’t ask me, sir. Her ladyship will tell you,” was the old servant’s response, in a half-choked voice, and he turned away.
A few moments later, Raife entered the small, cosy little room, with the high, diamond-pane windows, whereon were stained-glass escutcheons. Two women were there, his mother seated with her face buried in her hands, sobbing bitterly, and, beside her, her faithful companion, an elderly spinster named Miss Holt, who had been in the family for many years and had, indeed, been at school with Lady Remington.
Miss Holt, who was on her knees trying to comfort Raife’s mother, rose as the son entered.
“Mother!” he cried, rushing towards her. “What’s the matter? Tell me—for heaven’s sake! Edgson will tell me nothing.”
But all the response from the agonised woman was a long, low groan.
“Miss Holt,” he said, turning to her companion. “Tell me, what has happened?”
The angular woman, whose face was pale and thin, raised a warning finger, and pointed in silence to the sobbing lady. Then she whispered:
“Come into the next room, and I will tell you.”
Both passed into the inner room, and when Miss Holt had closed the door, she said:
“I am sorry to have to break the awful news to you, Mr. Raife, but a most remarkable and terrible affair occurred here, early this morning. From what I am able to gather, your father, who—as you know—sleeps over the library, was awakened about three o’clock by an unusual noise, and, listening, came to the conclusion that a slow, sawing process was in progress in the library—that some one was below.”
“Burglars!” ejaculated Raife.
“Your father took his revolver and the little electric flash-lamp which he always has in his room, and, preferring to investigate before ringing and alarming the household, crept downstairs and noiselessly opened the library door. Inside, he saw a small light moving. In an instant, a man who had already opened the safe, drew a revolver and fired point blank at your father.”
“Shot my father!” gasped Raife, staring at her. “Yes. Unfortunately the bullet struck Sir Henry. He fell, but while on the ground, and before the burglar could escape, he fired and shot him dead. We were all alarmed by the shots—and for the rest, well, you had better ask Edgson. He will tell you. I must go back to your poor mother.”
“But my father?”
“Alas! he is dead,” was the thin-faced woman’s hushed response.
“Dead!” gasped Raife, staggered. “Then the fellow murdered him!”
Miss Holt nodded in the affirmative.
At that moment old Edgson entered with a message. The doctor had returned to see her ladyship.
Raife barred the old servant’s passage, saying:
“Miss Holt has told me, Edgson. Explain at once what had happened when you were all alarmed.”
“Well, Master Raife, I rushed down, sir,” replied the old fellow, white-faced and agitated. “Burton, the footman, got down first, and when I rushed into the library I found the poor master lying on the carpet doubled up, with blood all over his pyjama-jacket. He recognised me, sir, and declared, in a low, weak voice, that the thief had shot him. At first I was so scared that I couldn’t act or think. But, on switching on the lights, I saw the body of a stranger—an elderly man, wearing thin indiarubber gloves—lying near the French window.”
“Then my father was still conscious?”
“Quite. I sent Burton to the telephone to ring up Doctor Grant, in Tunbridge Wells, while I did all I could to restore the poor master. He was then quite sensible. With Burton’s aid I managed to get him on to the couch in the bedroom, and then he spoke several disjointed sentences while we waited for the doctor’s arrival. He asked for you, sir, and told me to give you a message.”
“A message, Edgson! What message did he leave for me?” asked the son, eagerly.
“His words were these, sir: ‘Tell Master Raife that the blackguard deliberately shot me! Tell him—to be careful—to be wary of the trap. I—I hesitated to tell the boy the truth, but now, Edgson, alas! it is too late!’ ”
“The truth!” ejaculated young Remington. “What did he mean, Edgson? What did he mean about being careful of the trap?”
“Ah! I don’t know, Master Raife,” replied the old servant, shaking his head gravely. “Some secret of his, no doubt. I pressed the master to reveal it to me; but all he would reply was: ‘I was a fool, Edgson. I ought to have told my boy from the first. Every man has a skeleton in his cupboard, Edgson. This is mine!’ Then he murmured something about ‘her’ and ‘that woman’—a woman in the case, it struck me, Master Raife.”
“A woman!” echoed young Remington.
“So it seemed. But, Master Raife, in my position I couldn’t well inquire further into the poor master’s secret. Besides, her ladyship and others came in at the moment. So he uttered no other word—and died before Doctor Grant could arrive.”
“But what does this all mean, Edgson?” asked the dead man’s son, astounded.
“I don’t know, Master Raife,” replied the grave-faced old man. “I really don’t know, sir.”
“To my mind, it seems as though his secret was, in some mysterious way, connected with the fellow who shot him,” declared the young fellow, pale and anxious. “My poor mother does not know—eh?”
“She knows nothing, Master Raife. In the years I have been in the service of your family, I have learnt discretion. I have told you this, sir, because you are my master’s son,” was the faithful man’s response.
“You had no inkling of any secret, Edgson?”
“None in the least, sir, though I have been in Sir Henry’s service thirty-two years come next Michaelmas.”
“It’s a complete mystery then?”
“Yes, sir, a complete mystery. But perhaps you’d like to see the master’s murderer? We’ve taken his body over to the empty cottage at the stables. I’m expecting the detectives from London every minute. Inspector Caldwell, from Tunbridge Wells, has wired to Scotland Yard for assistance.”
“Yes. Take me over there, Edgson,” said Raife, boldly. “I wonder if I know him! This secret of my father’s which he intended to reveal to me, though prevented by death, I mean to investigate—to unravel the mystery. Come, Edgson.”
And the young master—now Sir Raife Remington, Baronet—followed the grave old man out of the house and down the broad, gravelled drive, where, in the sunshine, stood the big square stables, the clock of which, in its high, round turret, was at that moment clanging out the hour.
Upon a bench in the front room of the artistic little cottage, the exterior of which was half hidden by Virginia creeper, lay the body of the stranger.
He was of middle age, with a dark, well-trimmed moustache, high cheek-bones, and hair slightly tinged with grey. He was wearing a smart, dark tweed suit, but his collar had been disarranged, and his tie removed, in the cursory examination made by the police when called.
Upon his cold, stiff hands were thin rubber gloves, such as surgeons wear during operations. They told their own tale. He wore them so as to obviate leaving any finger-prints. Upon his waistcoat there was a large damp patch which showed where Sir Henry’s bullet had struck him.
Old Edgson stood beside his young master, hushed and awed.
“He’s evidently an expert thief,” remarked Raife, as he gazed upon the dead assassin’s calm countenance. The eyes were, closed and he had all the composed appearance of a sleeper. “Have they searched him?”
“I don’t know, sir,” replied the old man.
“Then I will,” Raife said, and, thereupon, commenced to investigate the dead man’s pockets.
The work did not take long. From the breastpocket of his jacket he drew out a plain envelope containing three five-pound notes, as well as a scrap of torn newspaper. The young fellow, on unfolding it, found it to be the “Agony” column of the Morning Post, in which there was, no doubt, concealed some secret message. There were, however, a dozen or so advertisements, therefore which of them conveyed the message he was unable to decide. So he slipped it into his pocket until such time as he was able to give attention to it.
In the dead man’s vest-pocket he found the return half of a first-class ticket from Charing Cross to Tunbridge Wells, issued four days previously, while in one of the trousers-pockets were four sovereigns, some silver, and in the other a bunch of skeleton keys, together with a small, leather pocket-case containing some strange-looking little steel tools, beautifully finished—the last word in up-to-date instruments for safe-breaking.
Raife, holding them in his hand, carried them to the window and examined them with keen curiosity. It was, indeed, a neat outfit and could be carried in the pocket without exciting the least suspicion. That the unknown assassin was an expert thief was quite clear.
Old Edgson was impatient to return to the house.
“Perhaps her ladyship may be wanting me, sir,” he suggested. “May I go, sir?”
“Yes, Edgson,” replied the young man. “Tell my mother, if you see her, that I’ll be back presently.”
And the old servant, with his mechanical bow, retired, leaving his young master with his father’s murderer.
Raife gazed in silence upon the face of the dead stranger. Then, presently, speaking to himself, he said:
“I wonder who he is? The police will find out, no doubt. He’s probably known, or he would not have been so careful about his finger-prints. By jove!” he added, “if I’d met him in a train or in the street I would never have suspected him of being a criminal. One is too apt to judge a man by his clothes.”
The local police had evidently gone through the man’s pockets for evidence of identification, but finding none, had replaced the articles in the pockets just as they had found them. Therefore, Raife did the same, in order that the London detectives might be able to make full investigation. The only thing he kept was the scrap torn from the Morning Post.
He turned the body over to get at the hip-pocket of the trousers, when from it he at length drew a bundle of soft black material, which, when opened, he found to be a capacious sack of thin black silk, evidently for the purpose of conveying away stolen property.
This he also replaced, and when, on turning the body into its original position, the shirt became further dragged open at the throat he noticed around it something that had probably been overlooked by the local constable who had opened the dead man’s clothes in an endeavour to discover traces of life—a very fine silver chain.
Suspended from the chain was a tiny little ancient Egyptian charm, in the form of a statuette of the goddess Isis, wearing on her head the royal sign, the orb of the sun, supported by cobras on either side.
He removed it from the neck of the unknown, and, holding it in his palm, examined it. The modelling was perfect as a work of ancient art. It was cut in camelian about an inch and a quarter long, and, no doubt, five or six thousand years old. Up the back, from head to foot, were inscribed tiny Egyptian hieroglyphics, the circle of the sun, the feather, the sign of truth, a man kneeling in the act of adoration, a beetle and an ibis, the meaning of which were only intelligible to an Egyptologist.
“He wore this as a talisman, no doubt,” remarked Raife, speaking to himself. “Perhaps it may serve as a clue to his identity. Who knows?”
And, gathering the little goddess and its chain into his palm, he transferred it to his pocket.
Just as he did so, voices sounded outside the cottage. Edgson, with three men in overcoats and bowler hats were coming up the garden path.
They entered the room without ceremony, and old Edgson, who accompanied them, said:
“These are the gentlemen from London, Master Raife.”
Two of the men respectfully saluted the young baronet—for he had now succeeded to the title—while the third, Raife recognised as Inspector Caldwell from Tunbridge Wells.
“Well, Caldwell,” he said. “This is a very sad business for us.”
“Very sad, indeed, sir,” was the dark-bearded man’s reply. “We all sympathise with you and her ladyship very deeply, sir. Sir Henry was highly respected everywhere, sir, and there wasn’t a more just, and yet considerate, magistrate on any county bench in England.”
“Is that the popular opinion?” asked Raife, thoughtfully.
“Yes, sir. That’s what everybody says. The awful news has created the greatest sensation in Tunbridge Wells. I wonder who this blackguardly individual is?” he added.
The two detectives from Scotland Yard had crossed to where the dead man was lying, his white face upturned, and were scrutinising him narrowly.
“I don’t recognise him,” declared the elder of the pair. “He’s done time, no doubt. Look at his gloves.”
“An old hand, that’s quite certain. We’ve got his finger-prints in the Department, you bet,” remarked the other. “We’d better take off his gloves and take some prints as soon as we can; they will, no doubt, establish his identity. Mr. Caldwell, will you please telephone to a printer’s somewhere near for a little printing-ink?”
“Certainly,” replied the inspector. “I’ll ’phone back to Tunbridge Wells and have it sent out by a constable on a bicycle.”
The three officers then proceeded to make a minute examination of the body, but Raife did not remain. He returned to the house, accompanied by Edgson.
A few minutes later he stood in the library before the open safe, plunged in thought. The sunshine streamed across the fine old room filled with books from floor to ceiling, for Sir Henry was a student, and his library, being his hobby, was cosily furnished—a pleasant, restful place, the long, stained-glass windows of which looked out upon the quaint old Jacobean garden, with its grey, weather-beaten sundial, its level lawns, and high, well-clipped beech hedges.
Raife stood gazing at the safe, which, standing open, just as it was when his father had surprised the intruder, revealed a quantity of papers, bundles of which were tied with faded pink tape: a number of valuable securities, correspondence, insurance policies, and the usual private documentary treasures of an important landowner. Papers concerning the estate were mostly preserved at the agent’s office in Tunbridge Wells: only those concerning his own private affairs did Sir Henry keep in the library.
What had his dead father meant by those dying words uttered to old Edgson? That warning to be careful of the trap! What trap? What could his father fear? What truth was it which his father had hesitated to tell him—the important truth the telling of which had been too late.
He recollected his father’s words as uttered to the faithful old servant: “I was a fool, Edgson. I ought to have told my boy from the first. Every man has a skeleton in his cupboard. This is mine!”
“And, further, who was the woman whom he had referred to as ‘her’?”
The young man gazed upon the dark patch on the carpet near the door, soaked by the life-blood of his unfortunate father. The latter, so suddenly cut off, had carried his secret to the grave.
That big, sombre room, wherein the tragedy had taken place, looked pleasant and cheerful with the bright, summer sunlight now slanting upon it. The big, silver bowl of roses upon the side-table shed a sweet fragrance there, while the spacious, old-fashioned mahogany writing-table was still littered with the dead man’s correspondence.
The writing-chair he had vacated on the previous night, before going to bed, stood there, the silk cushion still crushed just as he had risen from it. His big briar-pipe lay just as he had knocked it out and placed it in the little bowl of beaten brass which he used as an ash-tray.
The newspapers which he had read were, as usual, flung upon the floor, while the waste-paper basket had not been emptied that morning. The servants had not dared to enter that room of disaster.
Young Raife re-crossed the room, and again examined the open door of the safe.
He saw that it had not been forced, but opened by a duplicate key—one that had, no doubt, been cut from a cast secretly taken of the one which his father always carried attached to his watch-chain. So well had the false key fitted that the door had yielded instantly.
In the darkness in that well-remembered room, the room which he recollected as his father’s den ever since he was a child, the two men—the baronet and the burglar—had come face to face.
“I wonder,” Raife exclaimed, speaking to himself softly, scarce above a whisper. “I wonder if there was a recognition? The words of the poor guv’nor almost tell me that, in that critical moment, the pair, bound together in one common secret, met. They hated each other—and they killed each other! Why did the guv’nor admit that he had been a fool? Why did he wish to warn me of a trap? What trap? Surely at my age I’m not likely to fall into any trap. No,” he added, with a bitter smile, “I fancy I’m a bit too wary to do that.”
He paced up and down the long, silent, book-lined chamber, much puzzled.
As he did so, the sweet, pale, refined face of Gilda Tempest again arose before him. He had only met her casually, a few hours ago, yet, somehow why he could not explain, they had seemed to have already become old friends and, amid all his trouble, anxiety and bewilderment, he found himself wondering how she fared, and whether the dear little black pom, Snookie, was guarding his dainty little mistress.
True, a black shadow had fallen upon his home, a tragic event which had rendered him a baronet, and in a few months he would be possessor of great estates, nevertheless that thought had not yet occurred to him. His only concern had been for his bereaved mother, to whom he was so devoted, and from whom his father had hidden his strange secret. Through that dark cloud of mourning, which had so suddenly enveloped him, arose the beautiful countenance of the girl into whose society chance had so suddenly thrown him, and he felt he must see her again, that he must stroll at her side once again, at all hazards.
As his father’s only son, he had a right to investigate the contents of the open safe, for he knew that one executor was away at Dinard, while the other, an uncle, lived in Perthshire. At present, his father’s lawyer had not been communicated with, therefore he crossed again to the safe and methodically removed paper after paper to examine it.
Most of them were securities, mortgages, bonds, and other such documents, which, at that moment, did not possess much interest for him.
One bundle of old and faded letters which he untied were in a handwriting he at once recognised—the letters of his mother before she had become Lady Remington. Another—a batch written forty years ago—were the letters from his grandfather, while his father was at Oxford. With these were other letters from dead friends and relatives; but, though he spent an hour in searching through them, Raife discovered no clue to the strange secret which Sir Henry had died without divulging.
Then he afterwards replaced the papers, closed the safe and re-locked it with the false key which still remained in it.
His mother was still too prostrated to speak with him, therefore he again went across to the cottage where the police were with the dead assassin.
As he entered, one of the detectives was carefully applying printer’s ink to the tips of the cold, stiff fingers, and afterwards taking impressions of them upon pieces of paper.
The secret of the dead thief’s identity would, they declared among themselves, very soon be known.