The Bungalow Mystery (3 page)

“I see, sir.” Constable Frost's tone was distinctly non-committal. The constable was on the look out for promotion; it struck him that this case might afford him the opportunity for which he had been longing. He crossed over to Roger, who stood with his back against the thick, dull green curtains. “That window now, sir, I heard you closing it—was it open when you came in?”

“No. I unlatched it for a minute. The room was close.”

“Just so, sir.” The constable opened it and, stepping outside, listened with his head on one side for a minute. “Seems all quiet here, sir. I have sent over to Harleswood for the inspector, but if in the meantime you will oblige me—” He took out his notebook and set down laboriously Roger's bald account of his summons by the housekeeper, his brief examination of the body and, approximately, the cause of death. Then he looked at the housekeeper.

“And you say you last saw him alive, Mrs. McNaughton?”

“About seven o'clock, it would be,” the housekeeper said tremulously. “He had his tea as usual; when I knocked at the door with the tray (he always had afternoon tea), I found him—like this. But I never thought but he had put an end to himself, poor gentleman!”

“Ay, I dessay. But, you see, Dr. Lavington here says that you were wrong. Besides, a dead man can't carry away a pistol. You can't give us any idea who done it, ma'am?”

The woman began to shiver, her eyes looked round the room, anywhere save at that stark, awful figure on the floor.

“I can't tell you anything. I never heard anybody come in.” The man stooped and picked up something that lay concealed by the dead man's coat.

“What's this? How did this 'ere come 'ere?”

Roger bent forward and looked curiously at the long dangling object, then a breath of subtle perfume seemed to reach him; with a sudden exclamation he drew back. It was a woman's long suede glove that looked so strangely out of place in the constable's big red hand. As he moved away, some small shining object dropped from it; the constable stooped stiffly to pick it up.

“A ring,” he muttered, turning it about in the lamplight. “Diamonds too. This 'ere ought to be a clue, sir.”

Roger glanced at it; it looked like some family heirloom, he thought, with its quaint, old-fashioned setting.

“Certainly it ought,” he acquiesced.

The amazement grew in Mrs. McNaughton's face, a bewilderment mixed with a kind of curious shrinking horror.

“I can't say—I don't know nothing about it.”

Lavington stepped forward.

“Well, if that is all I can tell you, Frost, I will just step indoors. I am afraid my aunt—”

“Begging your pardon, sir, I should be glad if you would stay till the inspector comes. I expect him every minute now.”

Lavington felt nettled.

“But my good man—”

“I should be blamed, sir, if I let you go afore he come,” the constable went on. “There'll be explanations as'll have to be made. There”—he held up his hand—“I hear wheels. Here he is now, sir.”

Lavington crossed the passage to the consulting-room and opened the door; then he stood still in amazement. His own easy chair was drawn up before the fire, and in it the girl was curled up, fast asleep apparently, one cheek resting on her upturned palm, her golden hair gleaming against the dark cushion. As he watched her, she drew her breath in a little sobbing cry, her delicate features contracted; then suddenly she opened her eyes and stared at him bewilderedly.

“Where am I? Oh!”—her lips trembling, a swift rush of colour flooding even her temples—“now, I—I remember. You sent—you sent me here. You will help me to get away?”

“If I can,” said Lavington uncertainly. He came into the room and shut the door. “I could not get away before, until the inspector came; and now they are searching the neighbourhood for a girl, a girl whose glove they have found—a glove with a diamond ring in the finger.”

“Ah!” The girl drew a deep breath.

Roger's eyes rested on a tiny crumpled ball of suede that lay on his writing-table, then his glance wandered to the fire-place and he uttered a quick exclamation.

“Why, some one has been burning paper,” he said in surprise, as he picked up the largest piece.

With a sharp sound of dismay the girl sprang forward and snatched it out of his hand, not, however before he had had time to read two words in the small neat handwriting. It was the outside of an envelope; part of the address was torn away; only “von Rheinhart” was readable.

“How dare you!” the girl flashed as his fingers relaxed. “You knew that you were not meant to read it.”

The very suddenness of the attack momentarily disconcerted Lavington, the softness and the smallness of the hands gripping his, the wrath in the great brown eyes alike took him aback. But, as he saw her tear the offending scrap of paper into the minutest fragments and throw it on the top of the smoking heap in the fire-place, he awoke to the full consciousness of the situation.

“I did not wish to read anything written there,” he said gravely. “I had no thought at the moment that it was yours; but I could not help seeing the name ‘von Rheinhart' and I know that Maximilian von Rheinhart is lying dead next door and that papers and valuables have been taken from his body.”

In spite of her anger, as the last word left his lips, the girl visibly flinched.

“Not valuables—papers. And”—raising her head defiantly—“I took them—stole them, if you will. But he ought to have given them up long ago. He had no right to keep them. Now, they can do no more harm.” And with the point of her buckled shoe she pushed the ashes farther down.

Lavington's grey eyes were stem.

“I believe that it is my duty to summon the police at once and to tell them everything.”

The girl turned sharply; the anger on her face changed to terror.

“You—you couldn't!” she gasped, catching at her throat with both hands. “Listen—listen! I will tell you—you shall judge. He was a bad man—Maximilian von Rheinhart—a cruel man. There had been a story. Oh, you are a man, you can guess it; it was all over, quite over and done with—but there were letters and he traded on them, he threatened. At last he promised to give them to me, if I came alone, late at night, to-night. I came, and I found—oh, I cannot tell you any more!” shuddering and burying her face in her hands. “It was awful. But I think if I had been your sister, you would have asked another man to be kind to her, you would not—”

“Stop!” Roger held up his hand. “It is for her sake, my child sister's and for my mother's, and because you are a woman, and I have your word for it that you have been sorely tried, that I am going to help you now. But how to do it? That is the question. I don't know—” He paced up and down the small room in perplexity.

The girl watched him with puzzled eyes.

“If you will keep silence just a little while, I will make my way to the nearest station; and then—”

“Nearest station!” Lavington laughed aloud though there was little enough of real mirth in his merriment “Don't you know that every stranger at any of the stations round here will be watched and interrogated? Oh, yes; with the help of the telegraph and telephone, Inspector Stables has done his work well—for miles round the police are searching for the woman who wore the suede glove that lay beside the body of Maximilian von Rheinhart, for the owner of the diamond ring.”

The colour slowly faded from the listener's face.

“What am I to do then?” she exclaimed in consternation. “How am I to get away?”

Lavington shook his head.

“At present I can see no way out of it. You are safe here now—but for how long?” shrugging his shoulders hopelessly.

“Do you mean that I cannot get away to-night?” she demanded, her face twitching nervously.

“Certainly not,” Lavington confirmed promptly. “It is out of the question.”

“But I cannot stay here.”

“I am afraid you will have to,” gloomily.

The girl stared at him a moment incredulously, then her full underlip began to tremble; to Roger's horror she buried her face in her hands and burst into a perfect passion of tears.

He watched her for a minute or two in a species of helpless fascination, wishing vainly that some form of comfort likely to be efficacious would occur to him; the idea of applying to his aunt for help occurred to him, only to be rejected. Miss Chilton was too old and too frail to be troubled with such problems as this girl's safety involved. The veriest hint of the terrible peril which hung over their guest would be enough to make her absolutely ill, as her nephew well knew. If only his cousin Zoe had been there, he thought vaguely, he would have been able to appeal to her. The recollection of Zoe turned his thoughts to her letter, which still lay on the mantelpiece.

As he looked at it, vaguely wishing he could ask her advice, a sudden idea flashed into his mind. Zoe's place, Zoe's room were waiting for her, his aunt and the servants were expecting her. Suppose, for the nonce, their guest were to become Zoe! The audacity of it almost took his breath away; and yet, the longer he thought of it, the more plainly he saw that it distinctly offered a solution of the difficulty. His eyes turned back to the girl, now sobbing aloud, apparently in the last extremity of despair.

“Can you act?” he asked suddenly.

The very incongruity of the question seemed to rouse the girl. She raised her eyes, tear-filled, her cheeks still wet.

“Act!” she repeated, in bewilderment.

“Yes, act,” Lavington returned impatiently. “Because if you could, I think I see a way. I believe we might manage—”

A gleam of hope came into the brown eyes watching him.

“If you would explain, I think perhaps I might.”

Lavington caught up his copy of the play.

“Have you ever taken part in any theatricals? Do you think you could help in this?” holding it out.

The girl glanced at it in his hand; a tinge of colour was creeping back to her pale cheeks.

“I think I could. I have always been fond of that sort of thing. But when? I cannot understand.”

“To-morrow night,” Lavington explained quickly. “My cousin Zoe was expected, but she is down with influenza. Luckily, I have not told anyone that she is prevented; and, if until after to-morrow evening you could take her place, the next day I might go to London with you, and I do not think any suspicion would be roused.”

She turned the pages over rapidly.

“I could soon learn the part, but the dress—”

“Oh, that is all waiting for Zoe at Freshfield. You see, the scene is laid in Japan. You are the Japanese maiden who fascinates the hero, while Elsie Thornton personates the English girl who finally wins. But the Thorntons were so much afraid that the get-up wouldn't be correct that they have ordered the Japanese costumes from town. They're all loose, flowing garments, so that it is only a question of height; and I shouldn't think ''—eyeing her critically —“that there can be an inch between you and Zoe.”

Though the tears were still standing in her eyes, a tiny dimple played for one moment round the girl's mouth.

“That will be all right, then.”

“Yes; I think so.” Lavington acquiesced. “And now, the sooner we go in to my aunt the better. I will tell her you managed to get away by the last train to-night, instead of the first to-morrow—the one by which she expected you.”

“In one moment.” She turned to the small mirror over the mantelpiece and, with a few deft touches, restored her hair to order and, after pinning her fur toque securely in its place, pulled a veil over her face.

“Now, tell me what I have to do,” she said, turning to Roger with a charming air of dependence.

Lavington briefly put her in possession of the circumstances, and told her all that he thought necessary of Zoe's surroundings. In a very few moments she professed herself ready to accompany him to his aunt.

Miss Chilton was still sitting in the little drawing-room where he had left her, her hands busy with her knitting, her thoughts on household cares intent. Secretly, she was rather inclined to dread the coming of Roger's London-bred cousin, and to feel distinctly glad that the young lady had postponed making her acquaintance to the last possible moment. Her usually tranquil smile was scarcely as placid as usual when Lavington put his head in at the door.

“Who do you think I have brought you, Aunt Minnie?”

Her expression changed to one of real alarm as she said hastily, “Not—not—”

“Zoe!” he finished, with a laugh. “Here she is, to speak for herself. She found she could get away to-night after all.”

“And I hope you will not mind?” this new Zoe said, coming swiftly into the room as Roger stood aside. “You must not let me give you any trouble. Really, I was obliged to come.”

Miss Chilton took the outstretched hand in hers.

“Do not talk of trouble, my dear,” she said with her pretty air of old-fashioned hospitality. “Your coming here is only a pleasure to us, I am sure.” Then as if moved by some sudden impulse, she drew the girl down and kissed the fresh, young cheek. “I am sure I shall love to have you, and I hope you will stay a long time with us, if you can put up with my old-fashioned ways.”

The brown eyes looked very grateful as the girl returned the kiss heartily.

“You are very kind. I should love to stay with you. But this time, I am afraid—”

“Uncle John is not very well, Aunt Minnie,” interposed Roger, coming to the rescue, “and Zoe is his right hand. He could hardly be persuaded to spare her even for the theatricals. Later on, perhaps. But now I am sure that Zoe must be tired and hungry after her journey—perhaps you will just show her to her room, and then we will have dinner.”

“Of course, my dear. What was I thinking of?” The old lady rose in a bustle and rolled up her knitting in a ball. “Your room is all ready, my dear, and dinner will be ready in a minute.”