Chapter Twenty Six. Contains an Ominous Message.

As we re-entered the pretty winter garden the hall-porter gave Asta a telegram, which she tore open hastily and read, afterwards handing it to me in silence.

To my surprise, I found it to be from Shaw, informing her that he was on his way to Lydford, and asking her to return home that day. The message had been handed in at Bath Railway Station, therefore it appeared that he was already on his way.

“Is there not danger, distinct danger, in this, Mr Kemball?” she queried, in great anxiety. “If Tramu were watching last night, then he will be followed home!”

“I don’t see how we can prevent him from going to Lydford now,” I said. “We have no address where a telegram would reach him.”

Truly the situation was a critical one. Harvey Shaw, all unconscious of being watched, was actually returning to his highly respectable home.

“Oh, if I could only warn him!” Asta cried, wringing her hands. Yet, personally, I was not thinking of the man’s peril so much as hers. If she went to Lydford, would not she also fall into the drag-net of the police?

Yet what was the mysterious charge against her—the charge which the French police had refused to reveal to me?

While she changed her dress and packed her small trunk I had a look around my engine, and an hour later, with her sitting beside me, we were already buzzing along the Salisbury road, returning by that level way I had followed earlier that morning. From Salisbury we travelled the whole day by way of Andover, Newbury, and Oxford, the same road that I had traversed in the night on my way to Bath.

It was delightful to have her as companion through those sunny hours on the road, and she looked inexpressibly dainty in her close-fitting little bonnet, fur coat, and gauntlet gloves. An enthusiastic motorist, she often drove her father’s car, which I now understood they had been compelled to abandon in the garage at Aix. The police had taken possession of it, but as both the French and English numbers it bore were false ones no clue to the address of its owner would be obtained.

Yet though she charmed me by her voice, though her sweet beauty filled my whole being and intoxicated my senses, nevertheless I somehow experienced a strange presage of evil.

Had Harvey Shaw once again exercised those precautions against disaster and managed to elude the vigilance of the great French police-agent? That was the main question in my mind as I drove the car hard, for Asta seemed all eagerness to get home. If Shaw had been unsuspicious, what more natural than that he should be followed by Tramu to that hiding-place where he assumed the rôle of country gentleman.

The autumn afternoon wore on, and I could not help noticing that the nearer we approached her home the paler and more anxious became the girl at my side. And I loved her, ah yes! I loved her more than my pen has power to describe. She possessed me body and soul. She was all in all to me.

That she was reflecting upon the letter penned by Guy almost immediately before his death I knew by her several references to it.

“I wonder what is the solution of that shadowy hand which we both have seen, Mr Kemball?” she exclaimed suddenly, after sitting in silence for some time, her eyes fixed upon the muddy road that lay before us.

“You mean the solution at which Nicholson apparently arrived?” I said.

“Yes.”

“How can we tell? He evidently discovered, something—something of extreme importance which he wished to communicate to me.”

“I wonder why he makes those extraordinary statements about Dad—and the locked cupboard in his room?”

“I don’t know. Have you ever seen inside that cupboard?” I asked quickly, my eyes still upon the road.

“Never. But poor Guy seems to have regarded it as a kind of Bluebeard’s cupboard, doesn’t he?”

“He seems to have entertained a curious suspicion concerning your father,” I admitted. “Of course, he did not know half that I know.”

“Of course not,” she sighed. “He simply believed—as others do—that he is a country gentleman. And he would have been if—”

“If what?”

“If—if it had not been for that horrible woman,” she added, in a low hard voice. “Ah, Mr Kemball, if only you could know the truth—if only I dare tell you. But I can’t—I can’t betray the man who has been so good and kind to me all my life.”

“But could I not, if I knew the actual truth, be of service to him?” I suggested. “Could I not be of service to him for your sake?” I added, in a low earnest tone, my eyes fixed upon her pale, troubled countenance.

She looked at me in sharp, startled surprise. Her cheeks flushed slightly. Then, lowering her eyes, she turned her glance away, straight before her again, and in pretence that she had not understood my meaning, replied simply—

“If the heavy hand of disaster falls upon him, then I fear it must fall upon me also.”

How sweet she looked—how serious and pensive her beautiful countenance.

“I must act as your friend and use my best endeavours to ward it off,” I said.

“Did you not do so in Aix, Mr Kemball? We have to thank you for everything. They expected to learn a good deal through you, and while you engaged their attention we were enabled to make a hurried exit. It is, indeed, fortunate that I recognised Victor Tramu!”

“Then I suppose you have had previous narrow escapes?”

“One or two,” she replied, smiling. “But Dad is always so very wary. He is generally forewarned.”

“By whom?”

“By the man who watches him always—a man named Surridge, who never allows his identity to be known, but who acts as our watchdog, to give us warning of any unwelcome watcher.”

“But he failed at Aix.”

“Because Dad foolishly sent him upon an errand to somebody in Paris.”

“He is a friend of your father’s, I suppose?”

“Yes, a great friend. He was once in the London detective police, but on his retirement he found his present post a very lucrative one—the personal guardian of one for whom the police are ever in search! You saw him on his cycle on the afternoon I overtook you in the car—the first time we met?” and she smiled as she spoke. “His vigilance is never relaxed,” she added, “and his true métier never suspected. No doubt he is near my father now on his journey back to Lydford.”

“Then he would not allow him to go if he were still being watched by Tramu?”

“Certainly not. We can, I think, after all, make our minds quite easy upon that score,” she replied.

And as I sat at the steering-wheel I found myself wondering whether any other man had loved in circumstances so curious and so unusual.

At the hotel in Bournemouth we had carefully concealed our destination, telling the hall-porter we were going to London, lest any inquiry be made after our departure. We had tea at the Randolph at Oxford, and it was nearly half-past seven before we drew up before the grey stone front of Lydford Hall, where the butler threw open the door.

The sound of the car brought Shaw out in surprise, and as soon as we had washed we all three sat down to dinner in the fine old dining-room.

About Shaw there was no trace of the least anxiety, yet when the man had gone and I told him in a whisper of what I had seen when watching in the park at Ridgewell, he started, and his face underwent a change.

“I was a fool to have gone there,” he said. “But it was unfortunately of necessity. Surridge was in Bath, but did not know that I went out to Ridgehill.”

“Tramu may have had you watched, Dad.”

“No fear of that, child,” he laughed. “Surridge arranged for a hired car for me to-day from Bath to Westbury, where I took train to Newbury, and the ‘sixteen’ met me there and brought me here. So for Tramu to follow is out of the question. I have not seen Surridge, but merely carried out his arrangements. He may, of course, have had a motive in them.”

“No doubt he had, Dad.”

The butler at that moment returned with the next course, therefore our intimate conversation was abruptly interrupted.

As I sat at that table, lavishly spread and adorned with a wealth of flowers and a profusion of splendid old Georgian silver my eyes wandered to the sweet-faced girl who, in a low-cut gown of palest eau-de-nil chiffon, with velvet in her hair to match, held me so entirely and utterly entranced.

Later that evening, while I had a cigar alone with Shaw, who lay back lazily in his chair, I detected his annoyance that I should have watched him meet the woman Olliffe. And yet how cleverly he concealed his anger, for he was, on the contrary, apologetic for the abrupt ending of our motor-tour, and profuse in his thanks to me for my silence when interrogated by the police at Aix.

Was this actually the man who had made the attempt to break open my safe and secure the bronze cylinder of Melvill Arnold?

No! I could not believe it. He was an adventurer, without a doubt, but men of his stamp are invariably loyal to those who show them friendship. What, I wondered, had caused Guy Nicholson to doubt his affection for Asta? I certainly could detect nothing to cause me to arrive at such conclusion.

The girl entered the room to obtain a book, whereupon, removing his cigar from his mouth, he said, in a low voice—

“Come and sit here, dear. I haven’t been with you lately. I fear you must have found Bournemouth dreadfully dull.”

“Well, I did rather. Mr Kemball’s unexpected arrival was most welcome, I assure you,” she declared, sinking into a chair and placing both hands behind her beautiful head as she leaned back upon the yellow silk cushion.

“I confess I had no suspicions that Mr Kemball was in Bath,” declared her father, with a smile. Then turning to me, he added: “I feared to communicate with you, lest Tramu might be watching your correspondence. He is one of the few really intelligent police officials that France possesses.”

“He is evidently extremely anxious to make your acquaintance,” I laughed.

“I believe so. And I am equally anxious to avoid him. While I remain here, however, I am quite unsuspected and safe. It is really surprising,” he added, “what an air of respectability a little profuse charity gives to one in a country district. Become a churchwarden, get appointed a justice of the peace, sit upon the board of guardians, give a few teas and school-treats, and subscribe to the church funds, and though you may be an entire outsider you can do no wrong in the eyes of the country folk. I know it from experience.”

“Ah! you are a little too reckless sometimes, Dad,” exclaimed the girl, shaking her head. “Remember that when you’ve not taken Surridge’s advice, you’ve run into danger.”

But the man with the small, shrewd eyes smiled at the girl’s words of wisdom.

Again and again there recurred to me those strange expressions in the letter of poor Guy. Ah! if he only had lived! And yet if he were still alive my love for the girl before me must have been a hopeless one. Only on those last weeks had she abandoned her deep! black. That she often sat for hours plunged in bitter memories I knew full well. Would she ever sufficiently forget to allow me to take his place in her young heart?

Knowing her nature, her honest, true, open-hearted disposition, I sometimes experienced a strange heart-sinking that, after all, she could never reciprocate my love. Yet now, as the weeks had gone on, my affection had become stronger and stronger, until I was seized by a passion akin to madness. I loved her with my soul, as truly and as well as ever man has loved a woman through all ages.

Yet, for what reason I cannot even now determine, I felt a strange foreboding that evil was pursuing her. I experienced exactly the same feeling that Guy Nicholson had felt when he penned that letter to me, the delivery of which was, alas! so long delayed.

Presently, when Asta had risen again and left the room, Shaw turned to me and said—

“Poor girl, Guy’s death was a great blow to her, but she is gradually getting over it—don’t you think so? I should never have risked going to the Continent had it not been for her sake—in order to give her a change. But in these last few weeks we’ve had sufficient change, in all conscience. She’s always so cool and level-headed that I feel lost without her, Kemball.”

His words were surely not those of an enemy. No, more than ever was I convinced of his devotion to the girl who, as a tiny child, he had adopted as his own daughter.

Mention of Nicholson, however, afforded me opportunity to tell him how tardily I had received a letter from the dead man.

“It was written only an hour before he died,” I added.

“Written, I suppose, after his guests had left, eh?” asked Shaw, his face a little hard and changed, I thought. “He mentioned me. What did he say? What did he tell you?”

“Nothing,” I replied, sorry that I had spoken so injudiciously.

“Poor Guy didn’t like me, I fear,” declared my host quietly. “He didn’t know what you know, and hence he viewed me with suspicion. I couldn’t very well tell him the truth—or he would have cast poor little Asta aside.”

“I quite understand,” I said.

“Well, what did he say against me?” he asked, looking at me strangely with those small, mysterious eyes of his.

“Nothing whatever.”

“You are deceiving me. I know what he has told you. He has revealed to you something—something—”

“He has revealed nothing,” I declared. “Why should he?”

But the man lying back in his chair drew at his cigar hard and contemplatively, a strange smile overspreading his broad features. I saw that he was unconvinced, and that upon his countenance was a curious dark expression such as I had never before seen.

Yet it was only for an instant, for next moment he was smiling, and invited me, as I was, to remain there the night.

I, however, declined, for I expected some important business letters at home, and was compelled, therefore, to return to Upton End, towards which destination I set forth about ten o’clock.

I had travelled about ten miles, when three miles the other side of Corby village, a double calamity befell me. Not only did one of my back tyres burst, but something went wrong with my magneto. Hence in the darkness, and with rain beginning to fall, I was brought to a complete standstill. Midnight passed. I was several miles from anywhere, and magnetos are tricky things. I could not get the car to budge, even though I had put on my Stepney wheel.

I must, I suppose, have been pottering about for fully three hours, and not a soul had passed me in either direction. The distant chimes of a church somewhere had struck two, and when just about to give up the attempt to readjust the magneto, I suddenly heard the sound of a galloping horse approaching in the darkness.

As it came up I saw it was ridden by a youth, and I was just about to hail him and ask him to fetch assistance when, with the perversity of such instruments, the magneto started again quite merrily. Therefore I once again mounted at the wheel, and flashing past the lonely horseman, pushed on through the rain over the many weary miles till I at last reached my own home.

Next morning, while seated alone at breakfast, I heard a sound, and, to my great surprise, recognised the same young horseman, muddy and wearied, coming up the drive. With curiosity I went forth to meet him, when he handed me a note, saying—

“Miss Seymour, of Lydford, asked me to bring this at once, sir. It is very important. I’ve been riding all night.”

“Yes,” I cried. “Why, I remember I passed you in my car!”

I tore open the letter, and found in it some scribbled words in pencil, which read—

“I am in deadly peril! If you are my friend come here at once, and save me!—Asta.”