CHAPTER XLVIII—ON MURDER AS A SOCIAL INCIDENT.

THIS is not the story of a murder. However profitable as well as entertaining it would be to trace through various mysteries, false alarms, and intricacies the following up of a clue by the subtle intelligence of a detective, until the rope is around the neck of the criminal, such profit and entertainment must be absent from this story of a man’s conquest of the Devil within himself. Regarding the incident of the murder of Lord Fotheringay much need not be said.

The sergeant appeared at the inn with replies to the telegrams that he had been instructed to send to the railway officials, and they were found to corroborate all the statements made by Harold. A ticket of the number of that upon the one which Harold still retained, had been issued previous to the departure of the four-fifty-five train from London.

“Of course, I knew what the replies would be,” said Major Wilson. “But you can understand my position.”

“Certainly I can,” said Harold. “It needs no apology.”

They drove to the junction together to catch the train to Abbeylands station. An astute officer from Scotland Yard had been telegraphed for, to augment the intelligence of the County Constabulary Force in the endeavour to follow up the only clue that was available, and Major Wilson was to travel with the London officer to the scene of the crime.

In a few minutes the London train came up, and the passengers for the Abbeylands line crossed to the side platform. Among them Harold perceived his own servant. The man was dressed in black, and carried a portmanteau and hat-box. He did not see his master until he had reached the platform. Then he walked up to Harold, laid down the portmanteau and endeavoured—by no means unsuccessfully—to impart some emotion—respectful emotion, and very respectful sympathy, into the act of touching his hat.

“I heard the sad news, my lord,” said the man, “and I took the liberty of packing your lordship’s portmanteau and taking the first train to Abbeylands. I took it for granted that you would be there, my lord.”

“You acted wisely, Martin,” said Harold. “I will ask you not to make any change in addressing me for some days, at least.”

“Very good, my lord—I mean, sir,” said the man.

He had not acquired for more than a minute the new mode of address, and yet he had difficulty in relinquishing it.

Abbeylands was empty of the guests who, up to the previous evening, had been within its walls. From the mouth of the gamekeeper, who had found the body of Lord Fotheringay, Harold learned a few more particulars regarding his ghastly discovery, but they were of no importance, though the astute Scotland Yard officer considered them—or pretended to consider them—to be extremely valuable.

For a week the detectives were very active, and the newspapers announced daily that they had discovered a clue, and that an arrest might be looked for almost immediately.

No arrest took place, however; the detectives returned to their head-quarters, and the mild sensation produced by the heading of a newspaper column, “The Murder of Lord Fotheringay” was completely obliterated by the toothsome scandal produced by the appearance of a music-hall artist as the co-respondent in a Duchess’s divorce case. It was eminently a case for sandwiches and plovers’ eggs; and the costumes which the eaters of these portable comestibles wore, were described in detail by those newspapers which everyone abuses and—reads. The middle-aged rheumatic butterfly was dead and buried; and though many theories were started—not by Scotland Yard, however—to account for his death, no arrests were made. Whoever the murderer was, he remained undetected. (A couple of years had passed before Harold heard a highly circumstantial story about the appearance of a foreign gentleman with extremely dark eyes and hair, in the neighbourhood of Castle Innisfail, inquiring for Lord Fotheringay a few days after Lord Fotheringay had left the Castle).

Mrs. Lampson, the only daughter of the deceased peer, had received so severe a shock through the tragic circumstances of her father’s death, that she found it necessary to take a long voyage. She started for Samoa with her husband in his steam yacht. It may be mentioned incidentally, however, that, as the surface of the Bay of Biscay was somewhat ruffled when the yacht was going southward, it was thought advisable to change the cruise to one in the Mediterranean. Mrs. Lampson turned up on the Riviera in the spring, and, after entertaining freely there for some time, an article appeared above her signature in a leading magazine deploring the low tone of society at Monte Carlo and on the Riviera generally.

It was in the railway carriage on their way to London from Abbeylands—the exact time was when Harold was in the act of repeating the stanzas from Shelley—that Helen Craven and Edmund Airey conversed together, sitting side by side for the purpose.

“He is Lord Fotheringay now,” remarked Miss Craven, thoughtfully.

Edmund looked at her with something of admiration in his eyes. The young woman who, an hour or two after being shocked at the news of a tragedy enacted at the very door of the house where she had been a guest, could begin to discuss its social bearing, was certainly a young woman to be wondered at—that is, to be admired.

“Yes,” said Edmund, “he is now Lord Fotheringay, whatever that means.”

“It means a title and an income, does it not?” said she.

“Yes, a sort of title and, yes, a sort of income,” said he.

“Either would be quite enough to marry and live on,” said Helen.

“He contrived to live without either up to the present.”

“Yes, poorly.”

“Not palatially, certainly, but still pleasantly.”

“Will he ask her to marry him now, do you think?”

“Her?”

“Yes, you know—Beatrice Avon.”

“Oh—I think that—that I should like to know what you think about it.”

“I think he will ask her.”

“And that she will accept him?”

She did not know how much thought he had been giving to this question during some hours—how eagerly he was waiting her reply.

“No.” she said; “I believe that she will not accept him, because she means to accept you—if you give her a chance.”

The start that he gave was very well simulated. Scarcely so admirable from a standpoint of art was the opening of his eyes accompanied by a little exclamation of astonishment.

“Why are you surprised?” she said, as if she was surprised at his surprise—so subtly can a clever young woman flatter the cleverest of men.

He shook his head.

“I am surprised because I have just heard the most surprising sentence that ever came upon my ears. That is saying a good deal—yes, considering how much we have talked together.”

“Why should it be surprising?” she said. “Did you not call upon her in town?”

“Yes, I called upon her,” he replied, wondering how she had come to know it. (She had merely guessed it.)

“That would give her hope.”

“Hope?”

“Hope. And it was this hope that induced her to accept Mrs. Lampson’s invitation, although she must have known that Mrs. Lampson’s brother was not to be of the party. I have often wondered if it was you or Lord Fotheringay who asked Mrs. Lampson to invite her?”

“It was I,” said Edmund.

Her eyes brightened—so far as it was possible for them to brighten.

“I wonder if she came to know that,” said Helen musingly. “It would be something of a pity if she did not know it.”

“For that matter, nearly everything that happens is a pity,” said he.

“Not everything,” said she. “But it is certainly a pity that the person who had the bad taste to stab poor Lord Fotheringay did not postpone his crime for at least one day. You would in that case have had a chance of returning by the side of Beatrice Avon instead of by the side of some one else.”

“Who is infinitely cleverer,” said Edmund.

At this point their conversation ended—at least so far as Harold and Beatrice were concerned.

Helen felt, however, that even that brief exchange of opinions had been profitable. Her first thought on hearing of the ghastly discovery of the gamekeeper, was that all her striving to win Harold had been in vain—that all her contriving, by the help of Edmund Airey, had been to no purpose. Harold would now be free to marry Beatrice Avon—or to ask her to marry him; which she believed was much the same thing.

But in the course of a short time she did not feel so hopeless. She believed that Edmund Airey only needed a little further flattery to induce him to resume his old attitude in regard to Beatrice; and the result of her little chat with him in the train showed her not merely that, in regard to flattery, he was pretty much as other men, only, of course, he required it to be subtly administered—but also that he had no intention of allowing his compact in regard to Beatrice to expire with their departure from Castle Innisfail. He admitted having called upon her in London, and this showed Helen very plainly that his attitude in respect of Beatrice was the result of a rather stronger impulse than the desire to be of service to her, Helen, in accordance with the suggestions which she had ventured to make during her first frank interview with him.

She made up her mind that he would not require in future to be frequently reminded of that frank interview. She knew that there exists a more powerful motive for some men’s actions than a desire to forward the happiness of their fellow-men.

This was her reflection at the precise moment that Harold’s face was bent down to the face of Beatrice, while he whispered the words that thrilled her.

As for Edmund Airey, he, too, had his thoughts, and, like Helen, he considered himself quite capable of estimating the amount of importance to be attached to such an incident as the murder of Lord Fotheringay, as a factor in the solution of any problem that might suggest itself. A murder is, of course, susceptible of being regarded from a social standpoint. The murder of Lord Fotheringay, for instance, had broken up what promised to be an exceedingly interesting party at Abbeylands. A murder is very provoking sometimes; and when Edmund Airey heard Lady Innisfail complain to Archie Brown—Archie had become a great friend of hers—of the irritating features of that incident—when he heard an uncharitable man declare that it was most thoughtless of Lord Fotheringay to get a knife stuck into his ribs just when the pheasants were at their best, he could not but feel that his own reflections were very plainly expressed.

He had not been certain of himself during the previous two months. For the first time in his life he did not see his way clearly. It was in order to improve his vision that he had begged Mrs. Lampson—with infinite tact, she admitted to her brother—to invite Beatrice to Abbeylands. He rather thought that, before the visit of Beatrice should terminate, he would be able to see his way clearly in certain directions.

But now, owing to the annoying incident that had occurred, the opportunity was denied him of improving his vision in accordance with the prescription which he had prepared to effect this purpose; therefore——

He had reached this point in his reflections when the special train, which Mr. Lampson had chartered to take his guests back to town, ran alongside the platform at the London terminus.

This was just the moment when Harold looked up to the window from the Priory grounds and saw that vision of white glowing beauty.