Chapter Thirteen. The Young Countess Makes a Statement.

The harvest had been garnered and on the glorious “first” the young Countess returned from the Continent, just in time to receive her annual house-party.

The instant she arrived Sibberton always put on an air of gaiety which it never wore during her absence. Full of verve and go, she lived only for excitement and pleasure, and always declared the Hall as dull as a convent if it were not full of those clever, well-known people who constituted her own particular set. Therefore she seldom brightened the place with her presence unless she brought in her train a dozen or so merry men and women of the distinctly up-to-date type, some of whom were fashionable enough to have scandal attached to their names.

Has it ever occurred to you that feminine beauty in the higher circle of society is unfortunately, but very surely, deteriorating? It is remarkable how the type has of late years changed. When our grandmothers were celebrated and toasted in old port as beauties, quite a different ideal reigned. The toast was then something petite, womanly, of a pink complexion, of a delicious plumpness and animated by a lively and natural emotionalism. But with the introduction of athletic, open-air exercise, motors and mannish achievements, we have developed an entirely different type.

The modern athletic girl is generally ugly. She begins early, and continues till after her marriage to cycle, shoot, ride and play golf and tennis, all of which ruin her figure and consequently her health. She shoots up tall, flat-chested, colourless and lacking in reasonable proportions, with one hip larger than the other if she rides regularly to hounds. She becomes wried and atrophied by rough wear and unseemly habits, and the womanly delicacy shrinks and withers from the form of health and beauty.

Glance over any social function in town or country, any meet of hounds, or any shooting-party where ladies are included, and you will not fail to recognise how women, by overtaxing their physique, are fading and gradually becoming asexual.

The Countess of Stanchester’s house-parties were always merry ones, and generally included an Ambassador or two, a Cabinet Minister, a few good shots, and a number of ladies of various ages. The gigantic place was liberty hall, and both the young Earl and his wife carried out to the letter the traditions of the noble house for boundless hospitality. There was no better shooting in all the Midlands than that furnished by the Earl of Stanchester’s huge estate, extending as it did for nearly thirty miles in one direction; and the bags were always very huge ones.

Twenty-eight guests arrived on the same day that the young Countess returned home, and dinner that night was served as it always was on the first night of the shooting-season, upon the historic service of gold plate presented by Queen Elizabeth to the first Earl of Stanchester. I was invited to dine, and after music in the blue drawing-room retired with the men to the cosy panelled smoking-room with the grotesque carvings over the mantelshelf.

Many were the anecdotes and low the laughter, until at about midnight I rose and went back to my study, intending to get through some correspondence before retiring.

I suppose I must have been writing half-an-hour when the door opened and the Countess entered, greeting me merrily, saying—

“Well, Mr Woodhouse! I’ve had no time to talk to you to-night. And how have you been all this time?”

“As usual,” I responded, smiling, for notwithstanding her faults she was so beautiful, merry and witty that her companionship was always pleasant. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Yes. I want you, please, to send out cards for dinner next Tuesday to this list.” And she handed me half a sheet of note-paper on which she had hastily scribbled some names. “These county people, as they call themselves, are a fearful bore, and their women-folk are a terribly dowdy lot, but I suppose I must have them. It’s only once a year—thank Heaven.”

I laughed, for I knew that outside her own set she had withering sarcasm for the lower grade of society. With poor people she was always pleasant and popular, but with that little circle which called itself “the county,” and which consisted of hard-up “squires,” country parsons, men who had made money in the city and had bought properties, and the tea-and-tennis womankind that came in their wake, she had no common bond. They were a slow, narrow-minded lot who held up their hands at what she would term a harmless game at baccarat, and would be horror-stricken at tennis-playing or even bridge on Sundays.

Yet from time immemorial these people had been invited to dine at the Hall once during the shooting-season, and it was her husband’s wish that all the old customs of his noble house should be strictly observed. For hospitality, the house of Stanchester had always been noteworthy. The Earl’s grandfather, whom many aged villagers in Sibberton could still remember, used to keep open house every Friday night, and any of his friends could come up to the Hall and dine with him at six o’clock, providing they left or sent their cards on the previous day, in order that the cook should know how many guests would be present. It was the one evening in the week when his lordship entertained all his hunting friends, and on that day he did them royally for the port was declared the best in the country.

In these modern go-ahead days, however, with the giddy young Countess as chatelaine, this sort of thing was of the past. She tolerated people only as long as they amused her. When they ceased to do that, she calmly and ruthlessly struck them off her list. In town, she petted young foreign musicians and got them to sing or play at her concerts and brought them into notoriety by paying them cheques of three figures for their nightly services. But their reign usually lasted only half the season, when they were cast aside, disappointed and dejected, and other popular favourites rose to take their places.

She noticed my cigarettes in the big silver box the Earl had given me, and walking across, selected one, and slowly lit it with that free-and-easy air that was essentially that of the latter-day woman. An exception to the general rule that beauty in women of the higher class is growing rarer, she was extremely good-looking—fair-haired, grey-eyed, with handsome regular features and a clear pink complexion devoid of any artificial “make-up.”

Her dress was magnificent, the latest Paquin creation for which I had sent a cheque only the week before for one hundred and ten guineas. It was a study in cream, and trimmed with sparkling sequins which caused the gauze to shimmer and sparkle with every movement. The curves of her figure were graceful in every line, and at her throat she wore the magnificent collar of rubies which Queen Anne had given to the beautiful Countess of Stanchester, wife of Her Majesty’s Ambassador to France.

With careless abandon she threw herself into an armchair opposite where I sat, stretched out her tiny shoes upon the rug, gazing steadily at me, and blew a cloud of blue smoke from her lips. Yes, as I gazed upon her I really did not wonder how completely Lord Sibberton had been fascinated. Magnificent was the only word that described her.

“I’ve only just heard about this awful affair in the park,” she commenced. “George says he knows nothing very much about it. He says you found a man murdered. Tell me all about it—I’m interested.” And she placed the cigarette to her lips and gazed lazily at me through the haze of smoke. Knowing the strong bond of friendship existing between her husband and myself, she always treated me with a flippant equality that would be viewed with some surprise in any other circle of society. But to-day it seems that the more daring a wealthy woman is in words and actions, the greater is her popularity.

“Yes,” I answered, turning towards her upon my revolving writing-chair. “It is a mystery—an entire mystery.” And then I briefly related the curious facts, omitting, of course, all mention of the connexion between the murdered man and her sister-in-law, whom, be it said, she secretly ridiculed as a pious stay-at-home.

Lolita did not care for the ultra-gay set who formed the shooting parties, therefore was absent from them when she could escape. She hated bridge and baccarat, and had nothing in common with those women about whom scandalous tales were told in boudoirs and smoking-rooms.

“I suppose Doctor Pink has been exercising his talents in trying to discover the assassin?” she remarked.

“Yes. But the young man has remained unidentified,” I answered. “And for my own part, I believe the affair will remain an absolute mystery.”

“Why? What causes you to anticipate that?”

“Because there are certain features which are utterly incomprehensible. The young man came along the avenue that night to keep a secret appointment—that’s very certain. And the person who met him coolly murdered him.”

“Yes. But it really isn’t very nice to have a tragedy at one’s very door, and yet be unaware of the identity of the assassin! Who was the murderer? Who is suspected?”

“A woman,” I responded, whereupon, to my great surprise, I noticed in her eyes a strange expression, but whether of fear or of surprise I could not determine.

“A woman!” she repeated. “How is it that the police suspect a woman?”

I told her how Redway had discovered certain footmarks, and how at least two of the prints were those of a woman’s shoe.

“That’s very strange! Most interesting!” she remarked. “Sounds almost like what you see in a drama on the stage—a dark wood, man meets a woman who stabs him, then rushes away full of remorse—green lights, and all that sort of thing. You know what I mean.”

“But this is no theatrical effect,” I said. “It is a hard solid tragic fact that an unknown man has been murdered in the park here not half-a-mile away, and the affair is still a complete mystery except, as I have said, a woman was certainly present.”

“Exactly. She might have been present—and yet innocent,” she said, with a slightly triumphant ring in her argument, I thought. Was it possible that she, too, knew something of Lolita’s secret and, suspecting her, sought to divert suspicion from her?

Her beautiful face was sphinx-like. She continued to discuss the startling affair, and I somehow felt convinced that she knew rather more of its details than she would admit. Yet probably she had read some report of it in the papers. Nevertheless, certain remarks of hers were distinctly curious, especially her eagerness to know exactly what suspicions the police entertained, and in what direction their inquiries were at present directed.

As to the latter, I could tell her nothing, for I had not met Redway for several days. Indeed I had not heard of his presence in the neighbourhood, and I had begun to believe that he and his men were giving up the matter as a mystery that would never be solved save by confession or by mere chance. They were evidently pursuing that policy of masterly inactivity of which local police officers are past-masters. Gossips all of them, they are full of pretended activity on false scents, and prone to discover clues wherever beer chances to be deposited.

“I hear that Warr, the innkeeper, was with you when you found the man,” the Countess presently remarked. “If the dead man were not an absolute stranger surely he, of all men, would have recognised him!”

“But he was an entire stranger—and apparently a gentleman,” I said. “From his clothes, his appearance was that of a foreigner—but of course that’s only mere surmise. He may have been abroad and purchased foreign clothes there.”

“A foreigner! And who in Sibberton could possibly have any business with a foreigner?” she laughed. “Why, half the villagers haven’t been as far away from their houses as Northampton, and I don’t believe, with the exception perhaps of our studsman James, that any one has crossed the Channel.”

“Yes,” I admitted, “the whole affair is a profound puzzle. All that is known is that a certain young man who, from his exterior appearance and clothes, was well-bred, met in the park a certain woman, and that afterwards, he was found stabbed in the back with some long, thin and very sharp instrument. That’s all!”

“And the police are utterly confounded?”

“Utterly. They photographed the unfortunate man.”

“Did they? Where can I see a copy?” asked the Countess quickly, bending forward to me in her eagerness. “I would so very much like to see one. Could you get one?”

“I have one here,” I replied. “The police sent it to me a week ago, in response to my request.” And unlocking a drawer, I took out the inartistic picture of the dead man.

So keenly interested was she that she sprang from her chair, and came quickly to the edge of my writing-table in order to examine the picture.

“God!” she gasped, the colour of her cheeks fading pale as death as her eyes glared at it. “The woman has killed him, then—just as I thought! Poor fellow—poor fellow! The police don’t even know his name! It is a mystery—then let it remain so. They regard it, you say, as a strange affair. Yet if the real truth were known, the remarkable romance of which this is the tragic dénouement would be found to be most startling—one so curious and mysterious indeed as to be almost beyond human credence. Yes, Mr Woodhouse,” she added in a low voice as she straightened herself and looked at me, “I know the truth—I know why this man was sent to his grave—and I know by whom!”