The Corinthian (18 page)

She caught her breath on a sob, and stiffened in his hold. He felt her little hands close on his arm. Then she began to tremble.

'No, there is nothing to frighten you,' he said in his cool way. 'You will be better directly.'

'Oh!' The exclamation sounded terrified. 'Who are you? Oh, let me go!'

'Certainly I will let you go, but are you able to stand yet? You do not know me, but I am perfectly harmless, I assure you.'

She made a feeble attempt to struggle up, and succeeded only in crouching on the path in a woebegone huddle, saying through her sobs: 'I must go! Oh, I must go! I ought not to have come!'

'That I can well believe,' said Sir Richard, still on his knee beside her. 'Why did you come? Or is that an impertinent question?'

It had the effect of redoubling her sobs. She buried her face in her hands, shuddering, and rocking herself to and fro, and gasping out unintelligible phrases.

'Well!' said a voice behind Sir Richard.

He looked quickly over his shoulder. 'Pen! What are you doing here?'

'I followed you,' replied Pen, looking critically down at the weeping girl. 'I brought a stout stick too, because I thought you were going to meet the odious stammering-man, and I feel sure he means to do you a mischief. Who is this?'

'I haven't the slightest idea,' replied Sir Richard. 'And presently I shall have something to say to you on the subject of this idiotic escapade of yours! My good child, can't you stop crying?'

'What is she doing here?' asked Pen, unmoved by his strictures.

'Heaven knows! I found her lying on the path. How does one make a female stop crying?'

'I shouldn't think you could. She's going to have a fit of the vapours, I expect. And I do
not
see why you should hug people, if you don't know who they are.'

'I was not hugging her.'

'It looked like it to me,' argued Pen.

'I suppose,' said Sir Richard sardonically, 'you would have had me step over her, and walk on?'

'Yes, I would,' replied Pen promptly.

'Don't be a little fool! The girl had fainted.'

'Oh!' Pen moved forward. 'I wonder what made her do that? You know, it all seems extremely odd to me.'

'It seems quite as odd to me, let me tell you.' He laid his hand on the sobbing girl's shoulder. 'Come! You will not help matters by crying. Can't you tell me what has happened to upset you so?'

The girl made a convulsive effort to choke back her hysterical tears, and managed to utter: 'I was so frightened!"

'Yes, that I had realized. What frightened you?'

'There was a man!' gasped the girl. 'And I hid, and then another man came, and they began to quarrel, and I dared not move for fear they should hear me, and the big one hit the other, and he fell down and lay still, and the big one took something out of his pocket, and went away, and oh, oh, he passed so close I c-could have touched him only by stretching out my hand! The other man never moved, and I was so frightened I ran, everything went black, and I think I fainted.'

'Ran away?' repeated Pen in disgusted accents. 'What a poor-spirited thing to do! Didn't you go to help the man who was knocked down?'

'Oh no, no, no!' shuddered the girl.

'I must say, I don't think you deserve to have such an adventure. And if I were you I wouldn't continue sitting in the middle of the path. It isn't at all helpful, and it makes you look very silly.'

This severe speech had the effect of angering the girl. She reared up her head, and exclaimed: 'How dare you? You are the rudest young man I ever met in my life!'

Sir Richard put his hand under her elbow, and assisted her to her feet. 'Ah—accept my apologies on my nephew's behalf, ma'am!' he said, with only the faintest quiver in his voice. 'A sadly ill-conditioned boy! May I suggest to you that you should rest on this bank for a few moments, while I go to investigate the—er—scene of the assault you so graphically described? My nephew—who has, you perceive, provided himself with a stout stick—will charge himself with your safety.'

'I'll come with you,' said Pen mutinously.

'You will—for once in your life—do as you are told,' said Sir Richard, and, lowering the unknown on to the bank, strode on down the track towards the clearing in the wood.

Here the moonlight bathed the ground in its cold silver light. Sir Richard had no doubt that he would find Beverley Brandon, either stunned, or recovering from the effects of the blow which had felled him, but as he stepped into the clearing he saw not only one man lying still on the ground, but a second on his knees beside him.

Sir Richard trod softly, and it was not until he had approached to within a few feet of the little group that the kneeling man heard his footsteps, and looked quickly over his shoulder. The moonlight drained the world of colour, but even allowing for this the face turned towards Sir Richard was unnaturally pallid. It was the face of a very young man, and perfectly strange to Sir Richard.

'Who are you?' The question was shot out in a hushed, rather scared voice. The young man started to his feet, and took up an instinctively defensive pose.

'I doubt whether my name will convey very much to you, but, for what it is worth, it is Wyndham. What has happened here?'

The boy seemed quite distracted, and replied in a shaken tone: 'I don't know. I found him here—like this. I—I think he's dead!'

'Nonsense!' said Sir Richard, putting him out of his way, and in his turn kneeling beside Beverley's inanimate body. There was a bruise on the livid brow, and when Sir Richard raised Beverley his head fell back in a way that told its own tale rather horribly. Sir Richard saw the tree-stump, and realized that Beverley's head must have struck it. He laid his body down again, and said without the least vestige of emotion: 'You are perfectly right. His neck is broken.'

The boy dragged a handkerchief out of his pocket, and wiped his brow with it. 'My God, who did it?—I—I didn't, you know!'

'I don't suppose you did,' Sir Richard replied, rising to his feet, and dusting the knees of his breeches.

'But it's the most shocking thing! He was staying with me, sir!'

'Oh!' said Sir Richard, favouring him with a long, penetrating look.

'He's Beverley Brandon—Lord Saar's younger son!'

'I know very well who he is. You, I apprehend, are Mr Piers Luttrell

'Yes. Yes, I am. I knew him up at Oxford. Not very well, because I—well, to tell you the truth, I never liked him much. But a week ago he arrived at my home. He had been visiting friends, I think. I don't know. But of course I—that is, my mother and I—asked him to stay, and he did. He has not been quite well—seemed to be in need of rest, and—and country air. Indeed, I can't conceive how he comes to be here now, for he retired to his room with one of his sick headaches. At least, that was what he told my mother.'

'Then you did not come here in search of him?'

'No, no! I came— The fact is, I just came out to enjoy a stroll in the moonlight,' replied Piers, in a hurry.

'I see.' There was a dry note in Sir Richard's voice.

'Why are
you
here?' demanded Piers.

'For the same reason,' Sir Richard answered.

'But you know Brandon!'

'That circumstance does not, however, make me his murderer.'

'Oh no! I did not mean—but it seems so strange that you should both be in Queen Charlton!'

'I thought it tiresome, myself. My errand to Queen Charlton did not in any way concern Beverley Brandon.'

'Of course not! I didn't suppose—Sir, since you didn't kill him, and I didn't, who—who did, do you suppose? For he did not merely trip and fall, did he? There is that bruise on his forehead, and he was lying face upwards, just as you saw him. Someone struck him down!'

'Yes, I think someone struck him down,' agreed Sir Richard.

'I suppose you do not know who it might have been, sir?'

'I wonder?' Sir Richard said thoughtfully.

Piers waited, but as Sir Richard said no more, but stood looking frowningly down at Beverley's body, he blurted out: 'What ought I to do? Really, I do not know! I have no experience in such matters. Perhaps you could advise me?'

'I do not pretend to any very vast experience myself, but I suggest that you should go home.'

'But we can't leave him here—can we?'

'No, we can't do that. I will inform the magistrate that there is—er—a corpse in the wood. No doubt he will attend to it.'

'Yes, but I don't wish to run away, you know,' Piers objected. 'It is the most devilish, awkward situation, but of course I don't dream of leaving you to—to explain it all to the magistrate. I shall have to say that it was I who found the body.'

Sir Richard, who knew that the affair was one of extreme delicacy, and who had been wondering for several minutes in what way it could be handled so as to spare the Brandons as much humiliation as possible, did not feel that the entry of Piers Luttrell into the proceedings would facilitate his task. He cast another of his searching looks over the young man, and said: 'Your doing so would serve no useful purpose, I believe. You had better leave it to me.'

'You know something about it!'

'Yes, I do. I am on terms of—er—considerable intimacy with the Brandons, and I know a good deal about Beverley's activities. There is likely to be a peculiarly distasteful scandal arising out of this murder.'

Piers nodded. 'I was afraid of that. You know, sir, he was not at all the thing, and he knew some devilish odd people. A man came up to the house, enquiring for him only yesterday—a seedy sort of bully: I dare say you may be familiar with the type. Beverley did not like it above half, I could see.'

'Were you privileged to meet this man?'

'Well, I saw him: I didn't exchange two words with him. The servant came to tell Beverley that a Captain Trimble had called to see him, and Beverley was so much put out that I—well, I fear I did rather wonder what was in the wind.'

'Ah!' said Sir Richard. 'The fact that you have met Trimble may—or may not—prove useful. Yes, I think you had better go home, and say nothing about this. No doubt the news of Beverley's death will be conveyed to you tomorrow morning.'

'But what shall I tell the constable, sir?'

'Whatever he asks you,' replied Sir Richard.

'Shall I say that I found Beverley here, with you?' asked Piers doubtfully.

'I hardly think that he will ask you that question.'

'But will he not wonder how it came about that I did not miss Beverley?'

'Did you not say that Beverley gave it out that he was retiring to bed? Why should you miss him?'

'To-morrow morning?'

'Yes, I think you might miss him at the breakfast-table,' conceded Sir Richard.

'I see. Well, if you feel it to be right, sir, I—I own I would rather not divulge that I was in the wood to-night. But what must I say if I am asked if I know you?'

'You don't know me.'

'N-no. No, I don't, of course,' said Piers, apparently cheered by this reflection.

'That is a pleasure in store for you. I came into this neighbourhood for the purpose of—er—making your acquaintance, but this seems hardly the moment to enter upon a matter which I have reason to suspect may prove extremely complicated.'

'You came to see
me?
' said Piers, astonished. 'How can this be?'

'If,' said Sir Richard, 'you will come to see me at the "George" to-morrow—a very natural action on your part, in view of my discovery of your guest's corpse—I will tell you just why I came to Queen Charlton in search of you.'

'I am sure I am honoured—but I cannot conceive what your business with me may be, sir!'

'That,' said Sir Richard, 'does not surprise me nearly as much as my business is likely to surprise you, Mr Luttrell!'

Chapter 9

H
aving got rid of Piers Luttrell, who, after peering at his watch surreptitiously, and several times looking about him as though in the expectation of seeing someone hiding amongst the trees, went off, rather relieved but much bewildered, Sir Richard walked away to rejoin Pen and the unknown lady. He found only Pen, seated on the bank with an air of aloof virtue, her hands folded primly on her knees. He paused, looking her over with a comprehending eye. 'And where,' he asked in conversational tones, 'is your companion?'

'She chose to go home,' responded Pen. 'I dare say she grew tired of waiting for you to come back.'

'Ah, no doubt! Did you by any chance, suggest to her that she should do so?'

'No, because it was not at all necessary. She was very anxious to go. She said she wished she had not come.'

'Did she tell you why she had come?'

'No. I asked her, of course, but she is such a silly little missish thing that she would do nothing but cry, and say she was a wicked girl. Do you know what I think, Richard?'

'Probably.'

'Well, it's my belief she came to meet someone. She seems to me exactly the sort of female who would feel romantic just because there is a full moon. Besides, why else should she be here at this hour?'