The Bungalow Mystery (21 page)

He waited a moment to frame his next question. Mrs. Miller slipped from her chair.

“I—it always upsets me to hear of that time, sir. It got on my nerves; many's the night I have not been able to sleep for thinking of it.”

“Yes, I dare say.” Roger moved forward to the door, and waited with his hand on the knob. “I am sure it must have been most trying. But, Mrs. Miller, you were in The Bungalow; if anybody is in a position to help me, you are. Can you not give me any hint? However trifling, however unimportant it may seem to you, it might yet prove of infinite service as a clue in tracking down the real criminal. Come, Mrs. Miller, think!”

The housekeeper moved a step or two forward; she threw out her hands as though to thrust Roger aside.

“No, I cannot,” she said, her face working. “And let me tell you, Dr. Lavington, if I could, I would not. I would not move one step to punish Maximilian von Rheinhart's murderer. He was a bad man, a scoundrel. It was doing good work to rid the world of such a one as he. That is my last word. Will you let me pass, please, sir?”

“I beg your pardon.” Roger stepped aside, his eves still riveted on the white, defiant face. “But if the innocent should suffer—if the guilty should go free and the innocent should suffer?”

Mrs Miller hurried past him. She bent her head.

“The innocent!” she echoed in a whisper. “Ah, Heaven will defend the innocent, Dr. Lavington.”

“If you please, sir, a lady wishes to see you in the drawing-room.”

“A lady!” Lavington echoed in displeased accents. He was hard at work perfecting an experiment upon which he had been engaged for months; after many failures, he seemed now to be on the high road to success, and he was in no mood to welcome an interruption.

“Did you tell her that I was busy and could not be disturbed?” he went on, as the footman hesitated.

“Yes, I did mention it, sir; but she was that set on seeing you, I thought maybe I had better come. She said it was most important, sir.”

Roger uttered an impatient exclamation.

“Did she give her name?”

“No, sir.” The man hesitated. “But I think—”

“Yes, yes!” Roger said testily. “What did you think? Out with it, man!”

“She asked for Sir James first, and, when I told her that was impossible, she would have me come to you, sir. I—I fancied she come from the Hall, sir; that was why I ventured to disturb you.”

“From the Hall!” Roger's face paled. Was it possible that the blow he had been dreading so long had fallen at last? He turned from the man and busied himself among the crucibles and retorts. “Tell her I will be with her in a minute.

As the man withdrew, he threw off his mackintosh overall with feverish rapidity, and taking his coat from the peg near the door pulled it on as he hurried down the passage. In the drawing-room, though the windows were open, the green venetian blinds were drawn half-way down, excluding the, sunlight; to Roger, coming from the brightness of his laboratory, it looked dark and gloomy. He paused in the door-way, feeling dazed and bewildered; at the first sight of the tall figure standing in the shadow near the conservatory door his heart beat faster. He went quickly forward.

“Miss Luxmore, you sent for me—what can I do for you?”

The girl laid her hand in his a moment; she was paler than usual to-day; she looked as though she had been crying; her lips were trembling suspiciously. But the traces of trouble were only in Roger's eyes an added beauty. He waited for her to speak.

“Is there anything I can do?” he said simply.

Elizabeth raised her eyes to his.

“Dr Lavington, I must see James. Will you manage it for me?”

Roger hesitated.

“I would do anything in my power, Miss Luxmore, but I am afraid this is impossible—”

“Ah, no, no!” she interrupted him. “It—you don't understand. It is imperative—I must see him. Tell him that it is absolutely necessary. Tell him that I have come from Daphne—that as he refuses to see her he must listen to me!”

Lavington tugged restlessly at his dark moustache; the girl's agitation was infectious; a great pity grew and deepened in his grey eyes.

“I will do the best I can,” he promised. “But so far I have not dared—no one has dared—to mention your sister's name to him.”

“Ah, but now—now you must!” Elizabeth urged, her breath coming in short, quick gasps, two red spots blazing hotly on her cheeks. “Tell him that he knows—he must know—I would not trouble him lightly, and that by the memory of the old happy days I beg him to see me for five minutes with as little delay as possible. Please—please go to him, Dr. Lavington!”

Forgetting everything but the urgency of her errand, she caught Roger's arm and drew him to the door. With a strange feeling of unrest, an intolerable throb of mad longing, Lavington looked down at the white, ungloved hands tugging at his coat-sleeve. If he could press his lips to the cool fingers! For one moment he almost yielded to the overpowering impulse that possessed him; he bent his head. Then as he saw the girl's unconscious face, met the pleading in her brown eyes, his better self conquered; he drew himself upright, his forehead flushing darkly.

“I will try my best to induce Courtenay to listen to reason, Miss Luxmore. You may trust me.”

“Thank you, I know I can,” said Elizabeth quietly. Her hands dropped to her side; she looked up at Roger questioningly. Surely she was mistaken; he could not have made a movement to throw them off, to withdraw his arm.

He met her gaze unfalteringly, his eyes full of grave kindliness.

“Courtenay is in the study. If you will wait a minute I will go to him and see what I can do.”

“Thank you,” Elizabeth said mechanically. Surely she had made a mistake. He would not have dared. When the door had closed behind him she stood for a moment looking out of the window, then she turned and gazed round the room. It had been in process of being redecorated for Courtenay's bride when the news of the accident was brought to the Manor; she could remember going with Daphne to choose the design for the ceiling; the true lovers' knots that crept round and about so cunningly in the cornice; the rose-garlanded Cupids that peeped out coyly from the shadows.

Tears filled Elizabeth's eyes as she glanced round and saw a hundred mementoes of the past; the tragedy that had wrecked her sister's life seemed so causeless, so inexplicably cruel. Presently she heard Roger's footsteps returning.

“Sir James will see you, Miss Luxmore,” he said, as he opened the door, “but he asks that you will be as brief as possible; and, as his medical adviser, I must warn you that all excitement is bad for him.”

Elizabeth paused as he held the door for her. Her eyes were filled with tears.

“I am afraid what I have to say will excite him rather,” she said with a new air of timidity which Lavington found adorable, “but it would be worse after if he did not see me, if he had to hear it from anyone else. I will try not to hurt him, Dr. Lavington.”

“I am sure you will,” he said as he preceded her across the hall to Courtenay's study.

Sir James sat in his wheeled chair in the middle of the room. By his orders the blinds had been pulled up to their fullest extent; the sunbeams, slanting across his head and chest, showed every line and wrinkle in the worn face, the droop of the round shoulders, the curving in of the hollow chest, with pitiless accuracy.

Elizabeth halted, her form swayed; for one moment Roger thought she was about to faint. Then she recovered herself and went forward.

“James—oh, James!”

A slow satirical smile overspread the cripple's face. Her pause had not passed unnoticed by him.

“What? You have made up your mind not to be frightened! Upon my word, your business must be urgent!”

Roger moved away, but as he closed the door he could not help hearing the pitiful quiver in the girl's voice, could not help catching her words.

“I had to come, James—I had to come, for Daphne's sake!”

He waited in the smoking-room with the door open, so that he could not miss her coming out. To him had ever seemed so long; more than once he glanced at the great clock in the hall—surely it must have stopped. But, no. Slowly, ponderously it was still ticking the moments away. Ten minutes, a quarter of an hour, twenty minutes. Roger tortured himself by picturing the scene going on in the next room. Had Elizabeth learned at last of her sister's danger? Had she come to beg Courtenay to put forth the power he had vaguely hinted he possessed to save Daphne—to save the girl he had once passionately loved from the terrible fate that threatened her? Roger asked himself in vain what could be Courtenay's answer.

At last he heard the door open, and Elizabeth's voice, clear, but with a sort of unutterable weariness:

“Then, that is all—I can do no more?”

“No, I am sorry to be disobliging, but you ask impossibilities.”

Conscious they had no idea of his proximity, Roger hurried into the hall. Elizabeth glanced at him; even in the dimness of the shadow cast by the great staircase, he could see the pallor of her face, the big, blue marks beneath her eyes. She turned back for one moment.

“I did not think it was an impossibility I asked. But—well, if you refuse we must leave it there.”

“What else would you have me do?” Courtenay's voice had the cold, sarcastic inflection that Roger knew and hated. “You must remember that I am heavily handicapped. The loss of both legs—''

“Ah!” Elizabeth's breath was strangled in a sob.

Roger drew her hand through his arm with scant ceremony, and guided her to the drawing-room. There, after he had seen her comfortably settled in a capacious arm-chair, he brought her a glass of wine, which he insisted upon her drinking, despite her mute protest.

“Rest there,” he said authoritatively, when he saw the colour begin to creep slowly into her cheeks.

“Lie back against the cushion—so. Now I am going to leave you alone for a few minutes, and then I shall come back and see how my prescription works.”

“Thank you; you are very kind,” Elizabeth said faintly. Her upward glance thrilled his pulses.

He found Courtenay, to all outward appearance, unmoved; only a streak of crimson on his sallow brow, a faint quickening of his breath, spoke of his inward excitement. He was sitting before his desk, apparently engaged in writing some document which presented some amount of difficulty. The waste-paper basket was full, and the floor was littered with torn-up papers. There was a scowl on his face as he looked round.

“You may remember, Lavington, that I told you an hour ago that I had an important letter to write, and that I wished to be alone.”

Roger stepped back,

“I beg your pardon. I was anxious to see—”

“Whether the interview upon which you insisted had proved as harmful as you expected!” Courtenay finished the sentence with a sardonic twist of the lips that was meant for a smile. “You are a nice sort of doctor, aren't you, Lavington? But, for your comfort, let me tell you that Elizabeth Luxmore is not so disturbing an element to me as to you. What”—as Roger, feeling as though he had unexpectedly received a douche of cold water, began a speech of incoherent indignation—“you did not know that I had guessed that? My dear fellow, must I remind you once more that the loss of my legs has not affected my power of penetration. You keep your secret somewhat after the fashion of a peewit's nest.”

“I don't think you are entitled—” Roger said hotly.

“I'm sure I'm not,” Courtenay agreed with ominous blandness. “I will take my misdeeds for granted, Lavington, for I'm particularly anxious to finish this letter, so—”

Roger would not trust himself to reply; he closed the door behind him with somewhat unnecessary violence. In the hall he paused a moment to collect his thoughts. Courtenay was evidently in one of his most captious moods; Roger had always found them trying. His introduction of Elizabeth's name, his jeers at the love which Roger had fondly believed to be unguessed by all the world save Daphne Luxmore, rendered him particularly exasperating to-day.

Presently, when he had cooled down a little, he opened the drawing-room door.

“I hope you are feeling better?”

There was no answer. He walked up to the armchair by the window—it was empty; the room was tenantless! As he gazed round in bewilderment, he realized that Elizabeth had not waited for him, that she had taken the first opportunity of slipping away. The open window, a stand of flowers that had been pushed aside, gave him the clue to the direction she had taken. Scarcely allowing himself time to think, to frame some excuse for attempting to overtake her, he hurried after her.

He followed the stream down to the bridge, realizing with a throb of disappointment, as he reached it, that Elizabeth must either have had too long a start or else had chosen to go back by the entrance gates; in either case it was hopeless to think of overtaking her now. He leaned against one of the supports of the bridge, and gave himself up to speculation. If, indeed, Elizabeth's errand had been to ask Courtenay's aid, he saw no ground—taking the latter's state of mind into consideration—for supposing she had been successful.

Roger was still meditating when he heard the swish of a woman's dress behind him. The thought struck him that perhaps after all he had been wrong—that Elizabeth had merely stepped out on to the terrace, crossed his mind as he turned. A woman of middle height, with an elaborate short gown of light silk and a much-befeathered hat, was regarding him intently.

“Good afternoon, Dr. Lavington,” she said shortly.

He started violently as he raised his hat.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. von Rheinhart. I didn't expect to see you here.”

“So I perceive.” She smiled disagreeably. “This is the spot to which Miss Daphne Luxmore comes every evening, isn't it? I have heard of it.”