William Le Queux (continued 4)

Exercising caution lest I should be watched, I had immediately on arrival telephoned from my hotel bedroom to Lydford, but the response came back in a woman’s voice that “the master” and Miss Asta were still abroad. Therefore about noon on the morning following my return I went round to Bedford Row in a taxi, and was quickly shown into the sombre private room of an elderly, quiet-spoken man—Mr George Napier, head of the firm.

“I’m extremely glad you have called, Mr Kemball,” he said, as he leaned back in his chair. “I believe you were present at Titmarsh very soon after the unfortunate death of our client, Mr Guy Nicholson. Indeed, I remember now that we met at the inquest. Well, Mr Nicholson, with his father and grandfather before him, entrusted his affairs in our hands, and, naturally, after his decease we searched his effects for any papers that were relative to his estate, or any private papers which should not fall into anybody’s hands. Among them we found this letter, sealed just as you see it, and addressed to you. He evidently put it aside, intending to post it in the morning, but expired in the night.”

And taking a letter from a drawer in his writing-table, he handed it across to me.

I glanced at the superscription, and saw that it was addressed ready for the post and that a stamp was already upon it.

“Poor Nicholson’s death was a most mysterious one,” I exclaimed, looking the solicitor full in the face; “I don’t believe that he died from natural causes.”

“Well, I fear we cannot get away from the medical evidence,” replied the matter-of-fact, grey-faced man, peering through his spectacles. “Of course the locked door was a most curious circumstance—yet it may be accounted for by one of the servants, in passing before retiring, turning the key. Or, as you suggested at the inquest, the servant who entered the library in the morning may have thought the door was locked. It might have caught somehow, as locks sometimes do.”

I shook my head dubiously, and with eager fingers tore open the message from the dead.

From its date, it had evidently been written only a few hours prior to his untimely end, and it read—

“Strictly Private.

“Dear Mr Kemball,—I fear, owing to the fact that I have promised Asta to take her motoring on Sunday, that I may not be able to keep my appointment with you. Since my confidential conversation with you, I have watched and discovered certain things at Lydford which cause me the keenest apprehension. Shaw is not what he pretends to be, and many of his movements are most mysterious. By dint of constant watching both while I have been guest there and also by night when they have believed me to be safely at home, I have ascertained several very remarkable facts.

“First. In secret and unknown to any—even to his gardeners—he sets clever traps for small birds, which he visits periodically at night, and takes away the unfortunate creatures he finds therein.

“Secondly. He is in the habit of going forth in the night and walking through Woldon Woods to a spot close to Geddington village, at the corner of the road from Newton, and there meeting a middle-aged man who frequently stops at the inn. Once I followed them and overheard some of their conversation. They were planning something, but what I could not make out. However, I feel sure that they both discovered my presence, and hence he seems in fear of me and annoyed whenever I visit Lydford.

“Thirdly. In his bedroom there is a cupboard beside the fireplace. The door is enamelled white, and at first is not distinguishable from the rest of the panelling. Examine it, and you will see that it is secured by two of the most expensive and complicated of modern locks. What does that cupboard contain? The contents are not plate or valuables, for there is a large fireproof safe downstairs. Some mystery lies there.

“Fourthly. Though he makes most clever pretences of devotion to Asta, he hates her. Poor girl, she loves him, and cannot see those black, covert looks he so often gives her when her back is turned. But I have seen them, and I know—at least, I have guessed—the reason.

“Fifthly. If you are a frequent guest there, you will hear him sometimes utter a strange shrill whistle for no apparent purpose, as though he does it quite unknowingly. But it is with a purpose. What purpose?

“I feel that Asta is in danger, and it is therefore my duty to protect her and elucidate the mystery of the strange conspiracy which I feel convinced is now in progress. It is to discuss these matters, and to combine to keep vigilant watch, that I am anxious to spend a few hours with you. Think carefully over these five points, and if I am unable to come on Sunday I will motor over on Monday about eleven in the morning.

“Meanwhile be careful not to show that you either know or suspect anything. I know Shaw suspects me, and therefore by some means I must remove his suspicions.

“That, however, will be a matter for us to discuss seriously when we meet.

“Asta has told me of a strange and extremely weird incident which occurred to her one night a little while ago in the house of a friend—the apparition of a black shadowy hand. I believe I have the solution of the mystery—a most remarkable and terrible one.

“I ask your assistance in this affair, and am eager to meet you to discuss it fully. Kindly destroy this letter.—Yours very sincerely,—

“Guy Nicholson.”

I sat dumbfounded. It was just as I had believed. The man struck down so suddenly had discovered the actual truth! He had watched in patience and learned some strange and startling facts.

The reference to the hand filled my mind with the hideous recollection of what I had seen in that roadside inn at Arnay-le-Duc—and of Arnold’s strange warning. Who was Harford—the name I was to remember. Asta had told her lover of her own experience, and he had solved the mystery!

Yet he had not been spared to reveal it to me. His lips had been closed by death. The name of Harford was still unknown to me.

How long I sat there staring at the closely written letter in my hand I know not. But I was awakened to a consciousness of where I was by Mr Napier’s quiet voice exclaiming—

“I see that my late client’s letter has made a great impression upon you, Mr Kemball. I presume it is of a purely private character, eh?”

“Purely private,” I managed to reply. “It does not concern his affairs in any way whatsoever, and it is marked ‘strictly private.’”

“Oh, very well. I, of course, have no wish whatever to inquire into your private affairs with my dead client,” replied the solicitor. “I believed that it might contain something important, and for that reason hesitated to send it through the post.”

“Yes,” I said meaningly, “it does contain something important—very important, Mr Napier. Had this been placed in my hand in time, my poor friend’s life might have been saved.”

“What do you mean?” he asked quickly, staring at me across the table. “Have you evidence—evidence of foul play?”

“No evidence, but I find a distinct motive.”

“Anything upon which we could work in order to bring the culprit to justice—if Mr Nicholson did not really die a natural death?”

“I tell you he did not!” I cried angrily. “The village jury were impressed by the medical evidence, as all rustic juries are. Your client, Mr Napier, discovered another man’s secret, and the latter took steps to close his lips.”

“But can you prove this? Can you name the man?”

“Yes,” I said, “I can name the man. And one day I shall prove it.”

“You can! Why not place the matter in the hands of the police, together with what is revealed in that letter?” he suggested. “Allow me to act.”

“I shall act myself. At present it is not a matter for the police. Certain facts have come to my knowledge which, if told at Scotland Yard, would not be believed. Therefore at present I intend to keep my knowledge strictly to myself,” and replacing the dead man’s message in its envelope, I put it safely into my breast-pocket, and, taking leave of the solicitor, was soon in my taxi whirling along Holborn.

Why had Nicholson suspected that Shaw’s affection for his foster-daughter was only feigned? Why did he allege that Shaw hated her? Why was he in such mortal terror lest some evil should befall her?

Perhaps, after all, in watching so closely he had, as is so easy, discovered certain circumstances and misjudged them, for certainly as far as I could see Shaw was entirely devoted to the girl who had been his constant companion ever since her childhood days. Nevertheless, that strange letter, penned by the man whose intention it had been to reveal to me the secret of the weird shadow of the night, had caused me to determine to continue the vigil which had been so abruptly ended.

I, too, would watch closely as soon as I learnt of their hiding-place, as closely as the dead man had done. If Asta were in actual peril, then I would stand as her protector in place of the upright, honest young fellow who, it seemed, had lost his life in the attempt.

But the days, nay weeks, went on. September ended and October came with rain and chilly wind, and though I returned to Upton End, and frequently made inquiry over the telephone to Lydford, yet, though I wrote to Davis at the Poste Restante at Charing Cross, I could learn no news of them. They had descended those back stairs of the hotel at Aix, and disappeared as completely as though the earth had swallowed them up.

One day in the middle of October, with sudden resolve to carry out Nicholson’s injunction to investigate, I drove over to Lydford, and on arrival, about noon, found all smart and well-kept as though its owner were in residence.

I told a rather lame story to the housekeeper, who, knowing me, came to me in the long, chintz-covered drawing-room, the blinds of which were down. She had not heard from her master for a month past, the pleasant-faced woman explained. He was then in Aix. I said that I had left him there and returned to England, and was now anxious to discover where he was.

Then, after a brief chat, I exhibited my left forefinger enveloped in an old glove, and told her that on my way I had some engine-trouble and had hurt my finger.

“I believe Mr Shaw keeps up in his room a small medicine chest,” I said, for I recollected that he once told me that he kept one there. “I wonder if I might go up and try and find a piece of bandage.”

“Certainly,” replied Mrs Howard, and she led me upstairs to the apartment over the drawing-room, which I had come to Lydford for the purpose of examining. It was a large, airy, and well-furnished room, with a big book-case at one end and a canary in a cage at the window.

Without much difficulty she discovered the small black japanned box, containing various surgical drugs and bandages, and I at once sent her down to obtain a small bowl of warm water.

Then, the instant she had gone, I sought for the cupboard indicated by the dead man’s letter.

Yes, it was there, a long, narrow cupboard beside the fireplace, secured by two large locks of a complicated character such as one finds on safe or strongroom doors.

I bent and examined them thoroughly.

The bed, I noticed, was set so that the eyes of any one lying in it would be upon that door.

What secret could be concealed there? What had the dead man suspected? Ay, what indeed?

Chapter Twenty Three.

“A Foreigner.”

I remained a long time attending to my damaged finger—which in reality had been injured a week before—at the same time thoroughly investigating the missing man’s apartment. Except for the cupboard, secured so mysteriously by those combination locks, there was nothing extraordinary about it. The outlook was pleasant across the wide undulating park, and the chairs with soft cushions and couch showed plainly that Harvey Shaw loved to take his ease.

In no hurry to depart, I chatted affably to Mrs Howard, wandering about the big, old-fashioned home, into regions I had never been before.

“Poor Mr Nicholson used to stay here sometimes, didn’t he?” I inquired presently, in a casual way.

“Oh yes, sir, the master used to delight in having the poor young gentleman here, sir. He used to have the blue room, nearly opposite Mr Shaw’s—the one which looks out over the front drive. Poor Mr Nicholson! We all liked him so much. Wasn’t it sad, sir?”

“Very sad, indeed,” I said. “The blow must nearly have broken Miss Asta’s heart.”

“Ah! It did, sir. At first I thought the poor child would have gone out of her mind. She was so devoted to him. Mr Shaw was also very fond of him, I know, for I once heard him say that he was the only man he would choose as Miss Asta’s husband.”

“When did he say that?”

“He was sitting in the smoking-room with a friend of his—one of the justices—Sir Gilbert Campbell, one evening after dinner, about a fortnight before the poor young gentleman died. I happened to be; passing and overheard his words.”

I pondered for a moment. Either Shaw was a past-master in the art of preparing a coup, or else Guy’s surmises were wrong. Here, in the intimacy of the family, it was declared that Shaw was devoted to Asta. Certainly my own observations went to confirm that supposition.

“I wonder who knows Mr Shaw’s whereabouts?” I said presently. “I want to communicate with him upon a very important matter.”

“Well, sir, it’s very funny that he hasn’t written to me. He’s never been silent so long before.”

“How long have you been with him?”

“Oh, about three years now, sir.”

Then together we descended the broad oak staircase, and I went forth into the beautiful gardens chatting with the old white-bearded head-gardener, and going through the grape and peach houses, all of which were most perfectly kept.

How strange, I reflected; what would this large staff of superior servants think if they knew the truth—that their master, a man of mystery, was a fugitive from justice—that he and Asta had crept down the back stairs of an hotel and disappeared into the night while the police had entered from the front.

As I drove back in the evening through those autumn-tinted lanes, with smiling meadows everywhere, I calmly reviewed the situation. After all, there was really no actually mysterious fact in Harvey Shaw having in his bedroom a cupboard so securely locked. He, upon his own admission, led a double life, therefore it was only to be supposed that he possessed a good many papers, even articles of clothing, perhaps, which he was compelled to hide from the prying eyes of his servants.

I recalled the whole of Guy’s letter, and found that the chief point was the fact that he had solved the weird mystery of that strange hand—that shadowy Something which I myself had witnessed, and against which I had been warned by Arnold.

What was it?

But I put aside the puzzle. My chief thought was of Asta. Where could she be? Why had she not sent me word in secret of her hiding-place? She had, by tacit agreement, accepted me as her friend, hence I was disappointed at receiving no word from her.

That night, after reading my London paper over a cigar, as was my habit, I left the library about eleven o’clock and retired to my room.

I must have been sound asleep when, of a sudden, the electrical alarm which my father years ago had had placed upon the door of the big safe in the library for greater security went off with a tremendous clatter, and I jumped up, startled.

Taking my revolver from a drawer in the dressing-table, I rang the bell in the servants’ quarters and switched on my electric hand-lamp. But already the household was alarmed, and the dogs were barking furiously at the intruders, whoever they were.

Accompanied by my man Adams, I descended the front stairs and, revolver in hand, entered the library, the window of which stood open, while below the safe door there lay upon the carpet a cheap bull’s-eye lantern with two cylinders containing gas and some other paraphernalia, showing that the thieves were men of scientific method, for their intention had, I saw, been to use the oxy-hydrogen blow-pipe. The heads of some of the rivets had been removed and a small hole drilled through the chilled steel three-quarters of an inch thick.

All had gone well until they had touched the handle of the safe door, which had set off the alarm, the existence of which they had never suspected. Then their only safety lay in flight, and they had escaped, leaving behind them the objects I have enumerated.

Adams telephoned for the police, while Tucker came up from the Lodge, and I let loose the dogs and went outside into the drive. But, unfortunately, the thieves were already safely away, and were not likely to be caught, for in response to the telephonic message I was told that the rural constable was out on his beat, and was not expected back for another couple of hours.

We three men, with several of the maid-servants, stood outside on the lawn discussing the affair with bated breath in the dead stillness of the night when, of a sudden, we distinctly heard in the far distance down in the valley beyond the King’s Wood the starting of a motor-car and the gradual faintness of the sound as it receded along the high road.

“There they go!” I cried. “They came in a car, and it was awaiting them at the foot of the hill near the Three Oaks crossways.”

Then I rushed to the telephone instrument and spoke to the police-sergeant on duty in Newport Pagnell, asking him to stop any car approaching from my house, informing him what had occurred.

But half an hour later he rang up to tell me that no car had entered the town from any direction; therefore it was apparent that in preference to passing through Newport Pagnell it had been turned into one of the side roads and taken a cross-country route to some unknown destination.

I said nothing, but to me it was quite apparent that the object of the attempt upon my safe was the mysterious bronze cylinder, which I held in trust from Melvill Arnold.

When alone in the room I opened the safe with my key, and to my satisfaction saw the battered ancient object still reposing there, together with the letters and the translation of the hieroglyphics.

Once again I took out the heavy cylinder, the greatest treasure of the strange old fellow who had deliberately destroyed a fortune, and held it in my hand filled with wonder and bewilderment. What could it contain that would astonish the world? Surely nothing nowadays astonishes this matter-of-fact world of ours. We have become used to the demonstrations of wonders, from the use of steam to the development of aviation, the telephonic discovery and the application of wireless telegraphy.

How I longed to call in a blacksmith, cut through the metal, and ascertain what was therein contained. But I did not dare. I held the thing in trust for some unknown person who, on Thursday, the third day of November, would come to me and demand its possession.

All that I had been told of the misfortunes which had fallen upon its possessor, and the mysterious fate which would overtake any who attempted to tamper with it, flashed through my brain. Indeed, in such train did my thoughts run that I began to wonder if possession of the thing had any connection with the appearance of that mysterious hand.

Presently, however, I put the cylinder back into its place and relocked the safe, for the police from Newport Pagnell had arrived, and I bade them enter.

They made a minute examination of the room and took possession of the objects left behind by the intruders, but upon them no finger-prints could be found. My visitors were evidently expert thieves, for they had worn gloves. And they had, no doubt, been in the house a full hour before they had tried the safe handle and unconsciously set off the alarm.

Had they applied the powerful jet to the steel door, and fused a hole through it, then they might have accomplished their object without disarranging the alarm at all.

Next day, however, packing the cylinder, the old newspaper, and the letters in the bag, I took them up to London, where I placed them in a box in the Safe Deposit Company’s vaults in Chancery Lane. Afterwards I lunched at my club and returned again to Upton End the same evening.

Suddenly it occurred to me while I sat alone eating my dinner that night that if Harvey Shaw and Mrs Olliffe were actually friends then the latter would probably be aware of his whereabouts.

The suggestion aroused me to activity, and it being a fine bright evening with the prospect of a full moon later, I got out my thick motor-coat, packed a small bag, and after tuning up the car set out on the long run towards Bath.

My way lay through Fenny Stratford and Bicester, through Oxford, and down to Newbury. When I passed the Jubilee clock in the latter town it was a quarter-past two, while in the broad street of Marlborough, eighteen miles farther on, I stopped to examine the near tyre. It had, as I expected, a puncture. Therefore I leisurely put on my Stepney, and with thirty odd miles before me drove out upon the old highway over the hill through Calne, and up Black Dog Hill, to Chippenham, where in the market-place stood a constable, with whom I exchanged greetings.

There is a certain weird charm in motoring at night, when every town and village is dark and in slumber. Yet it is surprising how many people are out at an early hour. Even ere the first flush of dawn one finds sturdy men going to work with their day’s food in the bag upon their backs and teams of horses being driven to the fields.

It was nearly half-past five when I sped down the steep incline of Box Hill, and, slipping through Box Village and Batheaston, found myself winding round that leafy road with the city of Bath lying picturesquely below.

At six I was once again at the York House Hotel, and after a wash went for an early-morning stroll in the town. Then, after breakfast, I took my hat and stick and strolled out for nearly three miles along the road to the inn at Kelston, where I called for a glass of ale, and sat down to chat with the white-bearded landlord, who at once recognised me as having been a customer on a previous occasion.

For a long time, as I sat in the cosy little parlour, the table of which was dark and polished with the ale of generations spilt upon it, we chatted about the weather, the prospects of harvest, and the latest iniquity of taxation, until in a careless way I remarked—

“I suppose in summer you have lots of visitors down from London.—I mean the people who have big houses about here entertain a lot?”

“Oh, I dunno!” replied the old fellow, sipping his glass which he was taking with me. “The Joiceys do have a lot o’ visitors, and so do the Strongs, but Mrs Olliffe’s been away, an’ has only just come back.”

“And Mr King?”

“He’s been away too. Ridgehill’s been shut up and half the servants away on ’oliday.”

“And they are back now?”

“Yes; Mrs Olliffe’s been abroad—so the butler told me yesterday. But there—” and his lips closed suddenly, as though he had something to say, but feared to utter it.

“Rather a funny lot—so I’ve heard, eh?” I remarked.

“Yes. Nobody can quite make ’em out—to tell the truth. Only the night before last, or, rather, about a quarter to five in the morning, Mrs Olliffe, her brother and another gentleman went by ’ere in a car on their way ’ome. They’d been out all night, so the chauffeur told me yesterday. Mr King drove the car.”

“Out all night!” I echoed, in sudden wonder.

“Yes. And they’d been a long way, judging from the appearance of the car. I ’appened to get up to see the time, and looked out o’ my window just as they came past. It isn’t the first time either that they’ve been out all night. The village knows it, and every one is asking where they go to, and what takes ’em out o’ their beds like that.”

“Who was the gentleman with them?” I inquired eagerly.

“Ah! I couldn’t see ’im very well. He was in a big frieze coat, and wore a black-and-white check cap. I didn’t catch his face, but, by his clothes, he was a stranger to me.”

“You’ve only seen him on that occasion.”

“Only that once, sir. The chauffeur told me, however, that ’e isn’t staying at Ridgehill, and that nobody saw him. So ’e must ’ave got out after passing through the village. Perhaps it was somebody they were givin’ a lift to. I’ve seen Mrs Olliffe a-takin’ notice of some queer people sometimes. And funnily enough, only yesterday a gentleman came in ’ere and was a-making a lot of inquiries after her. ’E was a foreigner—a Frenchman, I think.”

“A Frenchman!” I cried. “What was he like?”

“Oh! Like most Frenchman. ’E ’ad finnikin’ ways, was middle-aged, with a brown beard which he seemed always a-strokin’. ’E ’ad lunch ’ere, and stayed all the afternoon smokin’ cigarettes and lookin’ through this window as though he hoped to see ’er pass. ’E was so inquisitive that I was glad when ’e’d gone. I suppose,” the man added, “’e’s somebody she’s met abroad, eh?”

But I knew the truth. His inquisitive visitor was Victor Tramu!

Chapter Twenty Four.

A Woman’s Word.

A hot, dusty walk took me beside the telegraph wires back to Bath, and the remainder of the day I spent in idleness in the hotel.

If the great French detective were in the vicinity then I had no desire to be seen by him. Therefore I deemed it best to lie quite low until nightfall.

At four o’clock, after great delay I got on to Tucker on the telephone, and inquired if there had been any letters or messages for me.

“The police have been here again, and there’s a telephone message, sir,” replied the old man’s voice. “It came about eleven o’clock, from a lady, sir. I took it down.”

“Read it over,” I said.

Then, listening intently, I heard the old man’s voice say—

“The message, sir, is: ‘Please ask Mr Kemball to ring up, if possible, 802 Bournemouth—the Royal Bath Hotel—at six o’clock this evening—from Miss Seymour.’”

My heart gave a bound of delight.

“Nothing else, Tucker?”

“No, sir. That’s all the lady said. She seemed very anxious indeed to speak to you.”

“All right, Tucker. I’ll be back in a day or two. By the way, send on my letters to the Grand Hotel, Bournemouth.”

“Very well, sir.”

“And tell the police not to worry any further over the burglary. Tell them I will see the inspector in Newport Pagnell on my return.”

“All right, sir.”

And then I hung up the receiver and rang off.

Asta was at Bournemouth! My first impulse was to start at once to see her, but recollecting the reason I had come there to Bath, I managed to curb my impatience, eat my dinner in the quiet, old-fashioned coffee-room, and afterwards wait until darkness fell.

I had no fixed plans, except to approach the Manor-House unobserved. I longed to call boldly upon the woman whom I knew to be an adventuress, but I could not see what benefit would accrue from it. If any conspiracy were in progress, she would, of course, deny all knowledge of Shaw’s whereabouts.

Therefore I bought some cigars, which I placed in my case, and when the autumn twilight had deepened into night I put on my motor-cap, and taking my stick, set out again to cover the three miles or so which lay between the hotel and the residence of the wealthy widow.

I did not hurry, and as I approached the village and passed the inn with the red blinds I kept a wary eye, fearing lest Tramu might be in the vicinity.

That it was he who had been making inquiry of the landlord there was no doubt. In what manner the French police had gained knowledge of the woman Olliffe’s address I knew not, and why he was in England watching her, was equally a mystery. One fact was evident—namely, that the Paris Sûreté had some serious charge against her; and further, that she must be all unconscious of the presence of the renowned police-agent.

Should I discover any hint or gain anything by giving her warning? I asked myself.

No; she was far too clever for that. If, as I had suspected, she had had any hand in poor Guy’s death, then it was only right that the inquiries and action of the police should not be interfered with. Again, was it not a highly suspicious circumstance that, with her husband—the man King, who posed as her brother—together with a stranger, she had returned home at that early hour in a car, a few hours after a car had left the King’s Wood, half a mile from my own house?

I passed through the village unobserved, and out again up the steep hill, until I came to that low wall behind which lay the part surrounding Ridgehill Manor—that same wall from which a few weeks before I had obtained my first sight of the house of the adventuress. Fortunately, the night had become cloudy, threatening rain, and the moon was hidden. So, mounting the wall, I entered the park and walked across towards the broad lawn in front of the manor. A dry ditch separated the lawn from the park to prevent cattle from approaching, and this I presently negotiated, at last standing upon the lawn itself. Near by, I saw a weeping ash, and beneath its bell-like branches I paused and there waited.

From where I stood I could see into the big lighted drawing-room, the blinds of which were up, but there was no one within, though the French windows stood open.

I could hear voices—of the servants, most probably—and the clatter of dishes being washed after dinner. But the night was very still; not a leaf stirred in the dark belt of firs which lay on my left, and which presently afforded me better shelter, allowing me to approach nearer the house.

The night-mists were rising, and the air had become chilly. Certainly this woman of many adventures, even though she were a convicted criminal, managed to live amid delightful surroundings.

As the evening wore on I caught a glimpse of her crossing the room in a black low-cut dinner-dress edged with silver—a truly handsome gown. She swept up to the piano, and next moment there fell upon my ear the music of one of the latest waltzes of musical comedy.

Then her husband, cigar in hand and in well-cut evening-dress, came to the French window, looked out upon the night, and retired again.

But after that I saw nothing until an hour later, when the butler closed the window carefully and bolted it, and then one by one the lights in the lower portion of the fine mansion disappeared and those upstairs were lit. Two windows, evidently the double windows of a corner-room opposite me, were lit brilliantly behind a green holland blind, but half an hour later they also were extinguished.

I glanced at my watch. It was then half-past eleven, and the house was in total darkness. Yet I still waited, wondering vaguely if Tramu were still in the vicinity.

I found an old tree-stump, and sitting upon it, waited in watchful patience, wondering if the agent of French police would make his appearance. Suddenly, however, a bright stream of light, evidently from an electric torch, shot from one of the upstairs windows, and continued for some seconds. Then it was shut off again, only to be renewed about a minute later.

It was a signal, and could be seen from the high road!

My curiosity was now thoroughly aroused, and I moved cautiously across the lawn to such a position that I could see any one leaving or approaching the house by the drive.

Again I waited for fully twenty minutes, when a slight movement caused me to turn, and I saw the figure of a woman hurrying along the side of the lawn in the shadow of the belt of firs. At first I was puzzled as to who it might be, but presently, when she was compelled to pass out of the shadow into the grey light cast by the clouded moon, I saw that it was the woman who called herself Olliffe. She wore a dark dress with a dark shawl thrown over her head.

In her eager hurry she had not noticed my presence as I stood there in the shadow; therefore, when she had passed out into the misty park with its dark clump of trees, I quickly followed with noiseless tread over the dewy grass.

She had evidently signalled to somebody, unknown to her husband!

Straight across the wide grass-lands I followed until she gained a spot where a stile gave entrance to a dark wood on the opposite side of the park. There she halted, and I was only just in time to draw back in the shadow and hide myself.

I watched, and a few minutes later I was startled at hearing that peculiar whistle of Shaw’s, and next moment he emerged from the wood and joined her.

“Well, what’s the fear?” I heard him ask her quickly. “I had your wire this morning, and got to Bath by the last train. Couldn’t you have written?”

“No; it was highly dangerous,” was her low response; and then she uttered some quick explanation which I could not catch.

Was it possible that she had learnt of Tramu’s visit, for I distinctly heard him cry—

“You fool! Why did you bring me here? Why weren’t you more wary?”

But in her reply she turned her back upon me, so that I could not distinguish her words.

They stood close together in the darkness, conversing in low tones, as though in earnest consultation, while I, holding my breath, strove in vain to catch their words.

The only other sound was the mournful hooting of an owl in the trees above; for the dead stillness of the night was now upon everything.

“Exactly,” I heard the woman say. “My own opinion is that he suspects. Therefore you must act quickly—as before.”

“I—I am hesitating,” the man’s voice replied. “I can’t bring myself to do it. I really can’t!”

“Bosh! Then leave it to me,” she urged, in a hard, rasping voice. “You’re becoming timid—chicken-hearted. It isn’t like you, surely.”

“I’m not timid,” he protested. “Only I foresee danger—great danger.”

“So do I—if you don’t act promptly. Get her away from Bournemouth. Go anywhere else you like.”

They were speaking of Asta! I strained my ears, but her further words were inaudible.

In a moment, however, I became conscious of a slight stealthy movement in the bushes near where I was standing, and turned my head quickly.

The next second I realised that only a few yards distant from me the dark figure of a man had come up through the undergrowth, but so carefully that he had made no noise.

He stood ten yards away, peering out at the pair, but all unconscious of my presence there. He was watching intently, and by his silhouette in the darkness I recognised the bearded face of none other than the great agent of the Paris Sûreté, Victor Tramu!

Chapter Twenty Five.

In the Night.

Fearing lest his quick eye should detect my presence, I stood there motionless as a statue.

The pair, in earnest conversation, suddenly strolled away over the fallen leaves at the edge of the wood, whereupon Tramu emerged silently from his hiding-place and crept after them, I being compelled to remain where I was.

So the French police had traced Shaw to his place of concealment!

I longed to give him warning, but was unable. What should I do? How should I act?

Asta was at the Bath Hotel at Bournemouth. At least I could ring her up on the telephone, and tell her what I had seen! So the watcher and the watched having disappeared, I hurried across the park until at length I gained the main road, and went on at a brisk pace till I was back again at my hotel.

It took me a full hour to get on to Bournemouth, and after long delay I at last heard her sweet, well-remembered voice at the instrument.

I expressed regret at awakening her, but told her that I was leaving by motor in half an hour to meet her.

“Where is your father?” I inquired.

“I don’t exactly know. He left me at Burford Bridge Hotel, at Box Hill, last Monday, and I came here to await him. Five days have gone, and I’ve had no letter.”

“Then he hasn’t been to Bournemouth?”

“No.”

“Well,” I said, “do not go out of the hotel until I arrive, will you?”

“Not if you wish me to remain in,” was her reply; and then, promising I would be with her at the earliest moment, as I wished to see her on a matter of gravest importance, I rang off. Half an hour afterwards I paid my bill, even though it were the middle of the night, and going out to the garage, started my engine, and with my bag in the back of the car sped away in the drizzling rain eastward out of Bath.

I chose the road through Norton St. Philip, Warminster, and Wilton to Salisbury, where I had an early breakfast at the old White Hart, and then, striking south, I went by Downton Wick and Fordingbridge, through Ringwood and Christchurch, past the grey old abbey church and on through suburban Boscombe until, just after nine o’clock, I pulled up before the big entrance to the Bath Hotel in Bournemouth.

Into the pretty palm-court, where I waited, Asta, my lost love, came at last with outstretched hand, smiling me a welcome greeting. She looked dainty in blue serge skirt and muslin blouse, and there being no one else in the place at that early hour,—the idlers not yet having arrived to read the papers and novels,—we sat together in a corner to chat.

By the pallor of her soft, delicate countenance, I saw that she was nervous and troubled, though she showed a brave front, and affected a gay lightheartedness that was only feigned.

“Tell me, Miss Seymour,” I said presently, bending to her very seriously, “what happened to you on that night in Aix?”

“Happened!” she echoed, her dark eyes opening widely. “Ah! It was, indeed, a narrow escape. Had Dad not provided himself with a key to the back stairs in readiness for emergencies, we should have both been arrested—just as you were.”

“Yes,” I smiled. “But I was released. What happened to you?”

“We caught the Paris express—only just as it was leaving; but Dad, fearing that our flight had been telephoned to Paris, decided to get out at Laroche, where we stopped to change engines, and from there we took train by Troyes and Nancy to Strassbourg. Then, once in Germany, we could, of course, escape Tramu’s attentions,” and she smiled.

“And from Germany?”

“We remained a week in Berlin; thence we went to Copenhagen by way of Kiel and Korsor, and ten days ago crossed from Hamburg to Harwich—home again.”

“Your father is certainly extremely clever in evading the police,” I said, with a laugh.

“Our only fear was for you,” she said; “whether they would learn any thing by watching you.”

“They learnt nothing, even though they submitted me to a very close examination. But,” I added, “how did you know Tramu was in Aix?”

“I was ascending in the lift that evening, and as we passed the first floor I saw him talking with the hotel manager. Dad had once pointed him out to me at Monte Carlo. So I suspected the reason of his visit there, and scribbled you a line of warning before we took our bags and slipped away.”

“But for what reason is he so anxious to secure your arrest?” I asked, looking straight into her face. “Cannot you tell me the truth, Miss Seymour? Remember, I am your friend,” I added earnestly.

“Please do not ask me,” she urged. “I cannot betray the man who has been father to me all these years,” she added in a low, pained voice.

“But are you quite certain that he is as devoted to you as he professes?” I asked very gravely.

“Absolutely. Am I not the only real friend he has?”

I recollected that letter written by the man who had loved her, and the allegations he had made.

“Do you know,” I said, “the other night I had burglars at my home. They tried to break open the safe which contains that mysterious cylinder given into my charge by Mr Melvill Arnold.”

“The cylinder!” she gasped, instantly turning pale as death. “Ah! that hateful cylinder, which brings upon its possessor misfortune and disaster. Why don’t you get rid of it, Mr Kemball?”

“I have. It is now in the Safe Deposit Company’s vaults in Chancery Lane.”

She held her breath, her gaze fixed upon me. Then involuntarily she laid her slim white hand upon my coat-sleeve, and said—

“I—I always fear for your safety, Mr Kemball, while that thing is in your possession. Give it away. Destroy it—anything—only get rid of it!”

“But I cannot until the third of November. I accepted a sacred trust, remember, given by a dying man,” I said.

“Yes—but—”

“But what?” I asked. Then in a low voice, as I bent towards her, I added: “Miss Seymour, I have deep suspicion that your father—a friend of Arnold’s—knows what the cylinder contains, and is extremely eager to get possession of it. Is not that so?”

She was silent. Her lips moved nervously. Her indecision to speak told me the truth. We were friends, therefore she could not deliberately lie to me.

A faint smile overspread her pale, refined features. That was all, but it told its own tale.

“Well,” I said, “the burglars, whoever they were, were experts, and only the electric alarm prevented the theft. What the ancient cylinder really contains I cannot imagine. Indeed, I am filled with anxiety and impatience for the dawn of November the third, when, without doubt, I shall learn the truth.”

“Yes, no doubt,” she said in a slow, tremulous tone. “And the truth will surely be a stranger one than you have ever dreamed.”

Our tête-à-tête was suddenly interrupted by a woman entering the lounge; therefore, as Asta had her hat and coat with her, I suggested that we should walk down to the beach, an idea which she readily adopted.

Then, when there was no one to overhear, I told her of my adventure in the night, of Tramu’s inquiries in the neighbourhood of Ridgehill Manor, and of his surveillance of the movements of Mrs Olliffe and her father.

“Tramu!” she gasped, her face white as death. “Then he has found poor Dad! Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Because I had no wish to alarm you unduly, Miss Seymour,” I said very quietly.

“But Dad may be arrested!” she cried. “Ah! how fatal to associate again with that accursed woman.”

“She is certainly no friend of yours.”

“But she makes great pretence of friendship. I have often been her guest.”

“For the last time, I trust.”

“Yes. But what can we do? How can I warn Dad?” she asked in deep anxiety.

“Ah, Miss Seymour,” I said, after a brief silence, “I fear that you think a little too much of your foster-father, and too little of your own self.”

“Why?” she asked quickly, with some resentment. Again I hesitated. We had wandered upon the pier, but it was as yet early, and few people, save the early-morning exercise men, were about.

“Let us sit here a moment,” I suggested at last. “It is pleasant in the sunshine. I have something to show you.”

Without a word she seated herself where I suggested, on a seat near the empty band-stand, and then I drew from my pocket the letter which Guy Nicholson had written to me on the night of his tragic death and handed it to her.

I watched her sweet face, so pale and anxious. In an instant she recognised the writing of the hand now dead, and read it through eagerly from end to end.

I explained how it had come so tardily into my possession, whereupon she said—

“It is true. He disliked Dad for some inexplicable reason.”

“Apparently he had become aware of some extraordinary truth. It was that truth which he had intended to explain to me, but, poor fellow, he was prevented from doing so by his sudden death.”

Sight of that letter had recalled to her visions of the man whom she had loved so fondly, and next instant I hated myself for having acted injudiciously in showing her the curious missive.

Ah, how deeply, how devotedly I loved her! and yet I dared not utter one single word of affection. That calm, sweet countenance, with those big, wonderful eyes, was ever before me, sleeping or waking, and yet I knew not from hour to hour that she might not be arrested and placed in a criminal dock, as accomplice of that arch-adventurer Shaw—that man who led such a strange dual existence of respectability and undesirability.

“I cannot understand what he discovered regarding the apparition of the hand,” she exclaimed at last, still gazing upon the letter in a half-dreamy kind of way.

“It seems as though, by some fact accidentally discovered, he arrived at the solution of the mystery,” I said. “It was to explain this to me that he intended to come over to Upton End, but was, alas! prevented.”

“But why didn’t he tell me?” she queried. “It surely concerned myself for I had seen it, not in our own house, remember, but in the house of a friend at Scarborough.”

“And I saw it in an obscure French inn,” I said; “and previously I had been warned against it.”

“Yes, I agree, Mr Kemball. It is a complete mystery. Ah! how unfortunate that poor Guy never lived to tell you his theory concerning the strange affair. But,” she added, “our present action must concern dear old Dad. What do you suggest we should do? How can we give him warning?”

“I can suggest nothing,” was my reply. “Tramu is watching them both. Probably he is fully aware of some ingenious conspiracy in progress.”

“Ah! I foresaw danger in his association with her,” the girl declared, pale and anxious in her despair.

“But why has not your father returned to Lydford? Surely while his whereabouts could be preserved from Tramu he would be safer there than anywhere!”

“You might be watched, and if you visited us, you might be followed. Tramu is, as you know, one of the most famous detectives in Europe.”

“And he has, in your father, one who is a past-master in the art of evasion. But,” I added, “tell me frankly, Miss Seymour, do you anticipate that he is anxious to possess himself of the bronze cylinder?” She hesitated again.

“Well—yes. As you ask me for a plain reply, I tell you that I believe his intention is to gain possession of it.”

“Why?”

“Because of the great secret therein contained.”

“And of what nature is this remarkable secret?” I demanded eagerly, much puzzled by her response.

“Ah! how can we tell? It is a secret from all, save to the person who shall dare break it open and examine it.”

“And dare you break it open, Miss Seymour?” I asked.

“No—a thousand times no!” she cried, alarmed at the very suggestion. “I would rather see it taken up and cast deep into the sea. Why don’t you do that, Mr Kemball? Take it out in a boat and sink it deep in the waters, where no man—not even divers—could ever recover it. Sink it deeply,” she urged, “so that all fears may be dispelled, and peace and love may reign.”

But I shook my head, expressing regret at my utter inability to accede to her desire.

And then very slowly we retraced our steps back to the hotel, where an unexpected surprise was, we found, awaiting us.

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.”

Chapter Twenty Seven.

In the Balance.

“How did you get this?” I asked the youth. “Who are you?”

“I’m John May, sir,” was his answer. “I work in the gardens at Lydford, an’ last night, soon after eleven, as I was a-comin’ home from Rockingham, I met Miss Asta out in the drive. She was like a mad thing. She ’ad the letter and wanted it delivered at once. So I went to the stables and, sayin’ nothink, came away.”

“Then she had written this note, and gone out in the hope of finding some one to deliver it?” I exclaimed, glancing at his horse, and noticing that it was absolutely done up after an all-night ride.

“I didn’t know it was you, sir, that passed me in a motor-car,” the young gardener went on.

“No,” I said, re-reading the mysterious summons for help. “But you and your horse must remain here and rest. I shall return to Lydford in the car.”

Full of anxiety, I put on my mackintosh and cap, for it was raining steadily, and within a quarter of an hour of receiving the note I was already on my way along the autumn-tinted roads.

The morning was that of the first of November. Regardless of speed-limits or of police-traps, I tore along until, just before eleven, I again pulled up at the ancient stone porch of the Hall.

A maid-servant opened the door, and I eagerly inquired for Miss Seymour.

“She’s very ill, sir,” was the girl’s reply. “Mr Shaw’s been called on the Bench this morning, but he’ll be back in an hour. Doctor Redwood is here, sir.”

“Redwood! Then what’s the matter?” I gasped.

“I hardly know, sir. But here’s Mrs Howard!” and looking along the wide hall I saw the grave-faced woman in black standing out of the light.

“Oh, Mrs Howard?” I cried, walking up to her. “What’s happened to Miss Asta? Tell me. Is she ill?”

“Very, I’m afraid, sir,” replied the housekeeper in a low voice. “The doctor is upstairs with her. What happened in the night was most extraordinary and mysterious.”

“Tell me—tell me all, I beg of you,” I cried quickly.

“Well, sir, it was like this,” said the woman. “Last night, about eleven, I heard Miss Asta go along the corridor past my room, and downstairs into the servants’ quarters. She was gone, perhaps, twenty minutes, and then I heard her repass again to her room and lock the door. I know she did that, because I heard it lock distinctly. Miss Asta sleeps at the other end of the corridor to where I sleep—just at the corner as you go round to the front staircase. Well, I suppose, after that I must have dropped off to sleep. But just after two o’clock we were all awakened by hearing loud, piercing screams of terror. At the first moment of awakening I was too frightened to move, but realising that it was Miss Asta I jumped up instantly, slipped on a dressing-gown, and ran along to the door of her room. Several of the other servants, awakened by the cries, were out in the corridor. She had, however, locked her door, and we could not get in. I shouted to her to open it, for she was still shrieking, but she did not do so. At that moment Mr Shaw came along in his dressing-gown, greatly alarmed, and with his assistance we burst in the door.”

“Then he helped you to do that?”

“Yes, sir,” replied the woman. “Inside, we found the poor young lady in her nightdress crouched down on the floor by the ottoman at the foot of the bed. She was still crying hysterically and quivering with fear from head to foot. I bent, and taking her in my arms asked her what was the matter, for as we had entered, somebody had switched on the electric light. For a moment she looked at me fixedly with a strange intense expression, as though she did not recognise me. Then she gasped the words: ‘Death!—hand!— hand!’ That was all. Next moment she fell back in my arms, and I thought her dead. Mr Shaw was beside himself with grief. He helped to lift her on to her bed and tried all he could to restore her with brandy and sal volatile, but without avail. In the meanwhile I had telephoned to Doctor Redwood, who arrived about half an hour later, and he’s been here ever since.”

“And how is Miss Asta now?” I inquired eagerly. “Still unconscious. The doctor has, I fear, but little hope of her recovery, sir. She has, he declared, received some great and terrible shock which has affected her heart.”

The circumstances were strangely parallel with those of Guy Nicholson’s mysterious end.

“No one has formed any conclusion of what caused the shock?”

“No, sir. None of us, not even the doctor, can guess what ‘hand’ and ‘death’ could signify more than the usual figure of speech,” the woman replied. “To me, when she spoke, she seemed to be strangely altered. Her poor face seemed thin, pinched, and utterly bloodless, and when she fell back into my arms I was convinced that the poor thing had gone.”

“You are quite certain the door of her room was locked?”

“Absolutely. I heard her lock it, as was her habit, and being the first person there on hearing the screams for help, I tried the door and found it still secured on the inside. Mr Shaw is half demented, and would not at first leave the poor young lady’s side—until compelled to go to the Petty Sessions. It seems that there is an important case, and no other magistrate is at home to take his place on such short notice. But I’m expecting him back at any moment now.”

“And is Miss Asta still in her room?” I asked. “I think you said that the door was broken open.”

“Yes, sir. For that reason we’ve carried her into the green guest-room, which is lower down the corridor, nearer to my own.”

“Thank you, Mrs Howard,” I said. “I’ll go up and find the doctor. I know my way.” Then, in quick anxiety, I breathlessly ascended the broad, thickly carpeted oak staircase, and a few moments later was in the room which I knew, by the door, was the apartment in which the weird occurrence had taken place.

I recollected only too vividly my own terrible experience, and by those ejaculations which had so puzzled everybody, I knew that she had again witnessed that claw-like hand.

The room, cosy, well-furnished and upholstered in pretty cretonne, was in great disorder. The bed—a brass one, with cretonne hangings over the head to match the furniture—was tumbled with half the clothes upon the floor, while the green satin down-quilt had been tossed some distance away. A chair lay overturned, and water and towels were about, showing the attempts at restoration.

Upon a little wicker-table near the bed stood a shaded electric light, and a novel which my love had evidently been reading on the previous night, lay open. Yet though I investigated the room with careful deliberation, fearing every moment lest Shaw should return, I could detect nothing to account for the singular phenomenon.

The window stood slightly open, but Mrs Howard had explained how it had been unlatched by herself.

I examined the lock of the door. The key was still on the inside, while the hasp was broken; while the hasp of a small brass safety-bolt above had also been forced off. Hence the door must have been both locked and bolted. Certainly there could have been no intruder in that room.

One object caused me curiosity, and my heart beat quickly. Upon the mantelshelf was a little framed snapshot of myself and her father which she had one day taken outside the Casino at Aix.

But what had she seen within that room to cause her such a shock—nay, to produce upon her almost exactly the same symptoms which in the case of Guy Nicholson had terminated fatally?

I heard a footstep in the corridor, and emerging from the room came face to face with the fussy old doctor in his rough tweeds.

My unexpected appearance caused him to utter an exclamation of surprise, but when I asked breathlessly for news of his patient, he looked very grave and said—

“A weak heart, and brain trouble, my dear Mr Kemball. To tell you frankly, alas! I fear the worst.”

“Come here a moment,” I said, taking him by the arm and pulling him into the disordered bedroom. “Now,” I added, as I pushed the door to as well as it would go. “Tell me truthfully. Doctor Redwood, what do you make of this affair?”

“Nothing at present,” he replied with a peculiar sniff, a habit of his, “Can’t make it out at all. But I don’t like the symptoms. Only once she has spoken. In her delirium she whispered something about a hand. She must have seen something or other—something uncanny, I think. And yet what can there be here?” he asked, gazing amazedly round the apartment.

“Look here, Redwood,” I exclaimed firmly, “the facts are very similar to those at Titmarsh. Poor Nicholson saw Something, you’ll recollect. And he had locked himself in—just as Miss Seymour did.”

The doctor stroked his ruddy, clean-shaven chin.

“I quite admit that in many of the details it is quite a parallel case. But I am hoping to get the young lady round sufficiently to describe what happened. The servants say that the screams were loud piercing ones of horror and terror. Shaw himself told me that he had the greatest difficulty in breaking down the door. They found her crouched down in fear—yonder, behind the ottoman. And she shrieked out something about a hand. To what could she have referred, do you think? She’s quite sane and of perfectly sound mind, or I should attribute the affair to some hallucination.”

“It was more than hallucination,” I assured him, recollecting my own experience, yet determined not to assist him towards the elucidation of the mystery. The dead man had evidently made a discovery immediately, before his fatal seizure. I recollected that brief urgent note of Asta’s. Had she, too, made a similar discovery?

Yes. There could be no evasion of the fact. The two cases were in every way identical.

For nearly a quarter of an hour I stood discussing the amazing affair with Redwood. I could see that he was both mystified and suspicious, therefore I extracted from him a pledge of secrecy, and promised to assist him towards a solution of the extraordinary problem. I made no mention to anybody of Asta’s message to me, which I intended should remain a secret.

At my earnest appeal he allowed me to creep on tiptoe into the darkened chamber, wherein still lay unconscious the woman I loved so profoundly—she who was all the world to me.

I bent over the poor white face that presented the waxen transparency of death, and touched the thin, soft hand that lay outside the coverlet. Then, with eyes filled with tears, and half choked by the sob which I was powerless to restrain, I turned away and left the room.

“Will she recover?” I managed to ask the doctor. But he merely raised his thick eyebrows in blank uncertainty.

What devil’s work had been accomplished within that locked room? Ay, what indeed?

Against the man Shaw, who had so cleverly misled her into the honest belief that he adored her, there arose within me a deep and angry hatred. Why was he not there, knowing Asta’s precarious condition? His excuse of enforced attendance at the Petty Sessions was no doubt an ingenious one. Little did he dream that before the occurrence Asta had summoned me, and for that reason I was there at her side.

So strange had been all the circumstances from that moment when the man of mystery—Melvill Arnold—had breathed his last, that I had become utterly bewildered. And this amazing occurrence in the night now staggered me. Only one person had solved the mystery of the shadowy hand, and he, alas I had not lived to reveal what, no doubt, was a terrible truth.

In the corridor I stood discussing my beloved’s condition in low, bated whispers with the fussy country practitioner, a man of the old fox-hunting school—for nearly every one rides to hounds in that grass-country. He had already telephoned for Doctor Petherbridge, in Northampton, to come for consultation, and was now expecting him to come over in his car.

“I have done all I can, Mr Kemball,” he said. “But as we don’t know the cause, the exact remedy is rather difficult to determine. Every symptom is of brain trouble through fright.”

“Exactly the same symptoms as those you observed in Nicholson!” I remarked. Whereat he slowly nodded in the affirmative, and again stroked his rosy, clean-shaven chin.

“Well, doctor,” I said, “I intend to make it my business to investigate the cause of this peculiar phenomenon.”

And I sat down and wrote an urgent telegram to Cardew, who was, I knew, now stationed at Aldershot.

Chapter Twenty Eight.

Another Revelation.

The dark anxious hours of that dismal autumn morning went slowly by.

Doctor Petherbridge arrived in hot haste from Northampton, and had a long and earnest consultation with Redwood. Both men were greatly puzzled. I met them after a long and eager wait, when they emerged in silence from the sick-room.

“We are doing all we can, Mr Kemball,” declared Petherbridge. “The young lady is, I regret to say, in a most precarious condition—in fact, in a state of collapse.”

I begged him to remain, and he did so. For several hours they were constantly at her bedside, while Mrs Howard, anxious and solicitous for the welfare of her young mistress, expressed surprise that Mr Shaw did not return.

My own suspicion was that he had already fled, yet it proved ungrounded, for at half-past two he arrived in eager haste, in a hired carriage, his car having broken down. Both doctors came forward and explained that the condition of Miss Asta had in no way improved. She was suffering from some obscure malady which they had diagnosed as affecting both heart and brain.

“Poor girl! Poor girl!” he cried, tears welling in his eyes. “Do your best for her, I pray of you both,” he added. “She’s all the world to me. Can’t we summon a specialist?”

“Sir George Mortimer, in Cavendish Square, might see her,” remarked the doctor from Northampton.

“Let’s wire to him at once,” urged Shaw, eagerly. “I accept your diagnosis entirely, yet I would like to have a specialist’s opinion.”

Both medical men acquiesced, and a telegram was dispatched to the great specialist on brain trouble.

As Redwood, seated at the library table, wrote the telegram, his close-set eyes met mine. The glance we exchanged was significant.

“How did you know of this terrible affair, Kemball?” asked Shaw, abruptly, a little time afterwards.

“I came over to invite you both to dine next Wednesday,” I said, of course concealing the secret message I had received from the woman I had grown to love.

In response, he gave a grunt of dissatisfaction, and walked down the hall in hasty impatience. Was his impatience an eagerness to hear of the poor girl’s end?

Surely that could not be, for was he not utterly devoted to her! And yet her seizure and her symptoms were exactly similar to those of poor Guy Nicholson!

The whole day I remained there, watching closely Shaw’s demeanour and his movements.

Once, when he found me alone looking forth from the window of the morning-room, he came up beside me, and, looking at me with those small quick eyes of his, said—

“This is a terrible blow for me, Kemball. I have been quite frank with you, therefore be frank with me. I’ve not been blind. I’ve noticed that you’ve been in love with the poor child, and—well, to tell the truth, I secretly hoped that one day you would propose marriage to her. My own position is, as you know, one of hourly insecurity, and my keenest wish was to see her happily settled before—before the crisis.”

“You guessed the truth,” was my reply. “I do love her—I love her more than I can tell.”

He sighed deeply, a sigh that echoed through the big silent room.

“Well,” he said, “our grief must be mutual, I fear. Petherbridge has just told me that they do not believe she can live another hour.”

Hardly had those words left his mouth when Mrs Howard ushered in a tall, thin, white-haired man, the eminent specialist, Sir George Mortimer.

Without delay he was taken to the poor girl’s room, and then a long period of anxious waiting, while the trio of medical men remained with the door closed.

I suppose it must have been about an hour afterwards when, on passing along the carpeted corridor near Shaw’s room, next that of Asta, I saw that the door was shut, but as I passed I heard him utter that peculiar whistle, yet so very low that it was only just audible. Twice I heard it, and halting, found myself involuntarily copying him. He was whistling so softly that it could scarcely be overheard beyond the walls of his own room.

What was the meaning of that sound? Probably it only escaped his lips when deep in thought. Some men invariably whistle softly or hum tunes while dressing. Yet in any case it was curious that he should do this while Asta lay dying.

All was chaos and disorder in that usually calm, well-ordered household. Just about seven o’clock Redwood came to me and called me to one of the upstairs rooms, where the great specialist awaited me alone.

“I believe that a friend of yours, a Mr Nicholson, died a little time ago in somewhat similar circumstances to the present case,” said Sir George, standing upon the hearthrug with his arms folded. “Now, as far as I can make out, the young lady’s illness is due to brain trouble, brought on perhaps by fright. I have seen several similar cases in my experience—and I have treated them.”

“But Miss Seymour—will she live?” I asked in frantic anxiety.

“Ah! That I cannot foretell,” he replied calmly, in his soft-spoken voice. “I have administered two injections, and I’m glad to tell you that she is infinitely better. Indeed, I expect her very soon to regain consciousness, and we may hope for a turn.”

“Thank God!—thank God!” I cried, with over burdened heart. “She is very dear to me, Sir George,” I added with emotion, “and I thank you deeply for your efforts to save her.”

“I understand—I quite understand, my dear sir,” he said with professional calmness. “Yet, from what my two colleagues have told me, I can’t help thinking that there is—well, a little mystery somewhere, eh?”

“A little mystery?” I echoed. “Ah, Sir George, there is a very great mystery, one which I intend at all hazards to investigate—now that Asta has fallen a victim.”

But as I spoke the door was unceremoniously pushed open, and Shaw, who had put on a dark blue suit, and who looked unusually pale and haggard, entered, and inquired for the latest bulletin of the patient.

“I’m glad to tell you, Mr Shaw, that she will probably recover,” replied the eminent man. “In an hour we trust to have her conscious again, and then she will, I hope, tell us what happened—what she indicated when, in her fright, she made mention of this mysterious hand.”

The hand! I recollected those written words of Melvill Arnold.

“She was delirious, I suppose, poor girl!” Shaw said. “But this is real good news that she is getting better! You are quite sure that she will not be taken from us?”

“I hope not. I have treated similar cases.”

“Ah! then there is nothing abnormal in this?” he cried eagerly.

“I cannot exactly say that, Mr Shaw. When the poor young lady recovers she will be able to tell us what really occurred to cause her mysterious seizure,” Sir George replied gravely.

“Yes,” said Shaw. “I hope she will be able to clear up the mystery. You think in an hour or so she will be conscious again?”

“I sincerely hope so.”

And then both men left the room together. Towards nine o’clock the crafty-faced butler came to inform me that Captain Cardew wished to see me, and, a few seconds later, I grasped hands with Guy Nicholson’s friend.

The dining-room was empty, for, though the table had been laid, nobody had thought of dinner. Contrary to expectations, alas! Asta had not recovered consciousness. Only ten minutes before I had seen Redwood, who admitted that she had taken a slight turn for the worse, and that their anxiety had been considerably increased thereby.

I had then sought Shaw, but could not find him. He had gone over to the garage for a moment, Mrs Howard told me.

As soon as I got Cardew alone, however, I told him as briefly as I could what had occurred.

“Then Miss Seymour’s case and Guy’s are practically identical!” he cried, staring at me.

“Yes. And I want you to stay here with me and investigate,” I said. Then I related how, on the door of her room being burst in, she had, before losing consciousness, made reference to some mysterious hand.

“That’s distinctly curious,” Cardew declared. “I wonder what she could have meant?”

“Ah! that remains to us to discover. Will you assist me?”

“Of course,” cried the Captain enthusiastically. “Only I hope the poor young lady will recover. Surely the doctors ought to be able to diagnose something!”

“They can’t say anything definite. It’s for you and me to furnish proofs.”

“What do you suspect, Kemball?” he asked, looking straight into my face.

“Wait and see,” I replied. “At eleven o’clock, if Asta is not then conscious, we will go and investigate the room in which she was lying when seized.”

We ate some cold meat and drank a glass of claret, for I had touched nothing that day, while he had had a long journey from Aldershot. Then again we sought news of my beloved.

Her precarious condition had not altered, and she remained still unconscious. Afterwards I was told by Mrs Howard that Shaw was in the library, writing. He was greatly upset at the girl’s continued unconsciousness, and had expressed a desire not to be disturbed. As I passed the door I heard him speaking over the telephone to some one. All I heard was the number—the number of the woman Olliffe! I tried to gather what he said, but was unable. He was purposely speaking in a low voice—so as not to be overheard.

When the long old grandfather’s clock in the hall had chimed eleven, I ascended the wide staircase with Cardew, and with an electric torch which I had several hours ago found in the library, we gained the landing.

Redwood brushed past in haste, and in reply to my question gave but little hope of my poor love’s recovery. “Mortimer is about to make a last effort with another injection,” he said. “But I fear, Mr Kemball, that we must now abandon all hope.”

My heart stood still. His words fell upon me as though he had struck me a blow.

“No hope?” I managed to gasp.

“No, none, Mr Kemball,” replied the doctor, and he hurried away to fetch something from the servants’ quarters.

I made no further remark. Mere words failed me. If Asta were lost to me, then it was my duty to avenge her death. Therefore I drew Cardew into the dark bedroom in which the dying girl had witnessed the hideous apparition of the hand, and then, with difficulty—for one hinge was broken—I closed the door.

Afterwards, I switched on the electric light and we made a minute and careful examination of the apartment. But we discovered nothing. Before entering there I noticed that the door of Shaw’s room adjoining was closed, for he was still downstairs writing.

Presently, when we had satisfied ourselves that in the room was nothing suspicious, I pointed out to my friend that if we remained quietly in the darkness, without speaking, no one would suspect us of being there.

“Now,” I added, “I’m going to lie on that bed while you sit in yonder armchair in the corner; you take the torch, and at sign of the slightest movement flash on a light at anything you may see. Don’t hesitate, for—well, perhaps my life may be in danger, like Guy’s. Who knows?”

I had taken from the corner Asta’s small ash walking-stick which she sometimes used when tramping about the country, and with this in my hand I lay down upon the pillow, fully dressed as I was.

Then Cardew, breathless with excitement, switched off the electric light, plunging the room in darkness.

Gradually, when our eyes became used to it, we could distinguish a faint grey light from the window, but it was not sufficient for me to distinguish my friend, seated as he was in the corner with light and weapon ready.

An hour passed, but nothing happened. We were waiting there, every nerve strained to the utmost tension, but in vain.

At last a sudden suggestion crossed my mind, and leaving Cardew in the room, with his torch ready, I went next door into Shaw’s room, which was still dark, and, having closed the door, imitated that peculiar whistle of his. Three or four times I whistled, surprised that I could imitate him so exactly. Then I waited, listening intently.

I could hear nothing.

So I crept back again to the bed in Asta’s room, for I think Cardew was now becoming impatient. Then, while lying upon the bed, I cautioned him to be very careful.

“Open your light at the slightest sound, remember.”

I held my breath, and could hear my own heart beating in the dead silence. Then after the lapse of a few moments—for we were both listening to the hum of a receding motor-car, and wondering whose it was—I suddenly gave vent to that low, curious whistle.

Once, twice, thrice I repeated it, low and cautious, so that any one passing the door might not be attracted by it.

Then I listened again with bated breath.

A few seconds went by—seconds of intense anxiety.

Then, of a sudden, my quick ears caught a curious ticking sound, and next moment a flood of white light fell upon the bedclothes close to my head.

I sprang up with a shriek, for there—close to me—I saw Something—the terrible claw-like Hand!

Chapter Twenty Nine.

Discloses Shaw’s Secret.

The Thing was ugly, hairy, and horrible—a huge dark brown tarantula, the size of a man’s palm, which, the instant it was discovered, turned and sped across the bedclothes and disappeared in the darkness.

Cardew had jumped to his feet with a wild, startled ejaculation of horror, having switched on the light, but though we rapidly searched the room high and low, yet nowhere could we find the horrible arachnid. But the secret was out! The revolting hairy thing, which had on that night in Arnay-le-Duc appeared to me like a weird hand, was that huge venomous spider whose bite was as fatal as that of a cobra!

Armed with sticks, Cardew and I groped into every hole and corner of that room, but it had vanished so suddenly that we could not decide in which direction it had gone.

“Well!” gasped my friend, amazed. “By Gad! I never expected that!”

“Neither did I,” was my breathless reply. “But the reason of poor Guy’s death is now vividly apparent. He was bitten by that arachnid, which Shaw, in all probability, purposely left in his young friend’s library, prior to returning home on that fatal night. I think I realise the truth!” I cried. “This particular species of lycosa tarantula is, I have read, found in the primeval forests of Peru, and will only attack human beings when they are motionless or asleep. Its bite is most deadly. It causes stupor, followed by coma or paralysis, and the victim rapidly dies. Yet if the mark of its bite be concealed and unsuspected, as it may easily be in the hair, then the symptoms are identical with those of inflammation of the brain—the disease which from poor Guy is supposed to have died!”

“Then you suspect Shaw of having kept the horrible thing as a pet—eh!” he gasped, staring at me amazed.

“Both as a pet and as an instrument of murder,” I replied. “The thing being nocturnal in its habits would, if introduced into a room, remain carefully hidden all day, and only attack the victim at night while he is sleeping. I had a narrow escape while motoring in France with Shaw,”—and then, in a few words, I described my own experience, and also Asta’s previous sight of what had appeared to both of us as a weird, uncanny hand.