The Dower House Mystery (28 page)

“I tell you we're not going.”

“But we must, we must! Do you suppose they'll make no search for Mrs. Grey? I tell you Julian Forsham will pull the Dower House down to find her.”

Mr. Bronson turned the key in the study door. Then he walked across to the fireplace, pressed an unseen spring, and opened a door in the panelling—all quite casually and as a matter of custom.

“I tell you he'll find her if he has to pull the place about his ears,” she said.

“Oh,” said Mr. Bronson, “they'll find her soon enough, my dear Annie. I've always intended that they should find her.”

Anastasie Lemoine, who had been Annie Brown, came quickly over to him, and looked into his face.

“Charles,” she said in a shaken voice, “what do you mean? How are they to find her? Where are they to find her?”

“In the river,” said Mr. Bronson.

Annie cried out and caught his arm. He turned an expressionless face on her.

“What else did you think, you fool?” he said.

“Not that,
not
that—never that! You don't mean it—you don't really mean it!”

“Of course I mean it. And I won't have a scene about it either. From the moment she found the passage it was inevitable. It was her or us. What did you think?”

Annie had drawn back. She looked, not at him, but at the floor. Her hands gripped one another. Mr. Bronson shrugged his shoulders, and gave her an ugly look.

“I'm not going to have sulks any more than I'm going to have scenes.”

“I won't have a hand in murder,” said Annie in a strange voice.

Bronson laid a heavy hand on her shoulder.

“Here, none of that! Do you hear? You're not asked to have a hand in it. Why do you go asking questions if you're so squeamish? There won't be any question of murder, my dear Annie. Mrs. Grey found the Dower House very gloomy. The stories about it weighed on her mind. She became very much depressed.” He shrugged his shoulders again. “She's found in the river, having left behind her an agitated scrawl saying that she can bear it no longer. The verdict will, I think, hardly be murder, and”—she looked up for a moment, saw his face, and shuddered—“I don't think, no, I really don't think that Mr. Forsham will ever get another tenant for the Dower House. It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good, you see,” concluded Mr. Bronson.

He turned as if to go; but with a sudden movement Annie sprang between him and the open door in the panelling.

“No, no,” she said in a low, desperate voice. “No, Charles, no—Don't do it—Don't!”

He took hold of her roughly. All at once her manner changed. She said in a quick, sobbing whisper,

“Charles, Angela's coming! I hear her.”

His grasp relaxed. She slammed the panel to. As he half turned to listen, they could both hear Angela's clear, boyish whistle, her firm tread. Annie pushed him towards the door.

“Quick! Unlock it! What'll she think?” she whispered.

Mr. Bronson could move quickly when he liked, and quietly too. He opened the door as Angela reached it, and met her with a smile.

Angela Bronson was dressed for dinner. She had on a bright blue velvet frock. She looked very large, healthy, and cheerful.

“You'll be late for dinner, both of you,” she said with her rather boisterous laugh. “No good jawing me about punctuality, and then setting such an awful example.”

Miss Lemoine came across the room.

“Angela is quite right,” she said. She glanced at the watch on her wrist, and then held it up for Mr. Bronson to see. “Why, look how late it is. The servants will surely think that something has happened.” She passed behind Angela, and let her eyes dwell warningly on Bronson's face. “They will certainly think that something has happened; and that will never do. Will you not finish your business afterwards? Nowadays it is necessary to consider the servants all the time.” An agonized meaning underlay the light tone.

Bronson met her glance, first with hesitation, and then with a curt nod.

“All right, let's get dinner over. I won't be ten minutes dressing. I suppose I must dress—eh, Angie?”

“Of
course
you must,” said Angela, laughing. She put her arm through his, and all three went through the hall together.

At the foot of the stairs Bronson turned back.

“Now, what
does
he want?” said Angela impatiently. “Mam'selle, you're as white as a sheet—you want your dinner; and he'll be another age, I suppose.”

But Bronson merely locked the study door on the outside, and came back with the key in his pocket.

“I've got a lot of papers lying about,” he explained; and they went upstairs.

“He doesn't trust me—he doesn't trust me. He's locked the door because he doesn't trust me. Oh, what am I going to do?” The words went round and round in Annie's head. They said themselves over and over whilst she exchanged a couple of laughing sentences with Angela.

“Your father says ten minutes; but I must have fifteen at least.”

When her door was shut, she leaned against it, shaken with terror, irresolute. If only he had not locked the study door, she could have made a bargain with Amabel Grey—something that would have given them a few hours' start. But now—what to do now? She sickened at the memory of Bronson's face when he said, “They'll find her in the river.” Bronson's face, and Julian's—the two faces were before her eyes. Something rose up in her and ended the moment of wavering fear. She drew a long breath, and stood up straight. Charles would be ten minutes, neither more nor less. He must think that she was dressing. She went quickly to the bathroom that opened out of her bedroom, and set the water running. She locked the bathroom door and put the key in her pocket. Then she opened her own door a cautious inch, and looked out. The corridor was empty. Bronson's door opposite to hers was shut; she could hear him moving about. Without the least noise she slipped into the passage, closed the door, and ran down the great staircase. There was a footman in the hall—she thought he looked at her strangely. The front door was impossible—he would think her mad. She turned at the foot of the stairs, and walked with her usual slow grace to the morning-room.

If Angela were there, what should she do? She had no plan, really—only the impulse that had risen in her and which was driving her in spite of herself. The morning-room was empty and dark; Angela was not there. The faint glow of the fire just thinned the darkness into dusk. Upstairs she heard a door shut—voices. Next moment she had crossed the room, parted the curtains, and was slipping back the bolt of the glass door behind them. The air blew in, cold and sweet. She stepped out upon the terrace and closed the window behind her.

The rain had stopped. There was a high wind, and scudding clouds that let the moon through. Annie Brown went quickly along the terrace to the corner of the house. She turned the corner and came out into the drive. For a moment she looked back at the house with its lighted windows—one of them was hers. A sense of the irrevocable swept over her. She ran down the drive as if her terror had taken shape and was visibly in pursuit.

Chapter XXXVI

Julian left Forsham Old House in the state of mind which thrusts its fears behind bolts and bars, and will not look at them because to look would be to face despair. At the foot of the drive he saw lights in the lodge, and remembered that Mrs. King had said that she was moving in to-day—Nita King whom he half suspected of being Annie Brown. All his suspicions gathered themselves together as he looked at the lighted windows of the lodge. If she were Annie, she might have some guilty knowledge of what had made Amabel Grey write those tremulous words: “I can't stand it any longer.”

As the thought came, he was knocking at the lodge door and demanding Mrs. King of the elderly woman who opened it. Another moment, and he was in the tiny sitting-room with its disarray of chair covers half on and litter of ornaments not yet in their places.

Nita King jumped up to meet him.

“I'm so
untidy
, Mr. Forsham!” she exclaimed, her hands at her hair.

Julian cut her short.

“Mrs. King—” he began.

“Mr. Forsham, what is it? Has anything happened?”

“If you are Annie Brown,” said Julian, “you know what's happened; and if you're not, you probably think I'm mad.”

Nita King gave a little scream.

“Oh, what do you
mean
? Mr. Forsham, really!—you're not well.”

Julian looked at her with a long, steady look keen with anguish.

“No, you're not Annie,” he said at last, “you're not Annie—you can't be.” He turned as if to go, and then swung back, voice and manner suddenly violent. “If you're not Annie, why did you send Agatha Moreland to Mrs. Thompson? Tell me that. Why did you send her to that medium?”

Nita King retreated before him. Her face was white. She put out her hands as if to ward off a blow, and said feebly,

“Don't look at me like that.” Then she burst into tears.

“You've got to tell me!” said Julian. “Why did you send Agatha Moreland to that medium?”

“B' because Mr. B' Bronson said he'd give me a d' diamond brooch if I did. He said it was a b'b' bet,” sobbed Mrs. King.

There is something about the unvarnished truth which carries conviction. Nita King very seldom spoke the truth; but at this moment she was too badly frightened to think of a lie.

Julian went on looking at her for a moment; then, without a word of explanation, he turned on his heel and flung out of the room, out of the house. The door banged behind him. He was in the drive again.

Bronson—Bronson had paid her; Bronson had sent Agatha Moreland to Mrs. Thompson. He stood quite still, not knowing whether to go back and tackle Bronson, or on to the Dower House.

He had just decided that he must see Miller before he did anything else, when he heard the sound of running feet. Someone was running down the drive from the Old House. He stepped forward, flashing on his torch. A woman screamed faintly. The light fell on the face of Miss Lemoine. She was bare-headed, and without any wrap. He called out sharply, “What is it?”—and she had him by the arm.

“Julian! Mr. Julian!”

“What is it?”

“Do you want to save her? Come at once if you do!”

“What do you mean? Come where?”

“The Dower House. Come quickly!”—she was still holding on to his arm.

She dragged him towards the gate. They came out on to the road, and began to run. It was very dark. The wind came in gusts. Between the gusts he could hear the woman's quick, distressed breathing.

“Where is she?” he said. “What has happened?”

“She's at the Dower House—she found the passage—Jenny and I found it long ago when we were children.”

Light broke in on Julian, a light that showed confused and threatening things.

“Annie!
You
are Annie!” he said.

Her pace slackened. He felt her press nearer to him, and heard her say,

“Yes, Jenny and I found the passage when we were playing hide-and-seek—oh, it's so long ago—, and Jenny was too frightened to go down, but I went. And Mrs. Grey—Mrs. Grey found it to-day. Oh, Mr. Julian, come quickly!”

He urged her forward. They were in the Dower House garden now.

“I don't understand. Where is Mrs. Grey?”

Annie let go his arm.

“That's all you care for! Oh, yes, I know that's all you care for. She's there in the passage—I'm taking you there—I'm doing it for you, and because—because I can't stand by and see murder done.”

“Murder! For God's sake—”

“No, there's time—we shall be in time—we must!”

As they came round the corner of the house, the hall door was open and the light streamed out on to the wet gravel.

Inside the hall stood a little group of people: Miss Miller, in her out-door things, her face very anxious and disturbed; Mr. Ferdinand Miller at his sharpest and sternest; and Jenny, weeping bitterly, her hands over her face. Mr. Miller was addressing her:

“You found a passage when you were children? Where does it open? Come, speak up!”

Jenny's shoulders heaved.

“Come, speak up!” he repeated. “Where did it lead to? The Old House? Forsham Old House? Come along, you've got to say!”

As Julian came in, Jenny turned and slipped away down the kitchen passage. Mr. Miller made a step forward.

Annie Brown ran right through the hall and up the stairs without looking at anyone. At the door of Miss Harriet's room she paused, and looked round to find Julian beside her, and Mr. Miller a pace behind. She put on the light, crossed the room, and pulled open the doors of the press. Neither of the two men saw quite what she did next. Her voice came to them from the dark cupboard:

“Mr. Julian, your torch!”

He passed it to her, and the beam showed them what it had shown Amabel—an open space, and the tiny chamber beyond, with steps going down from it.

Annie went on and down the steps, and the two men followed her. There were twenty steps, steep and rough; at the bottom just standing room, and then a door. Annie opened it and went through. They were in a cellar, empty except for a few packing-cases. She put her finger on her lips, and crossed to a door in the opposite wall. Here her hand dropped to her side, and she fell back against Julian, leaning on him heavily.

“In there—if we're in time,” she breathed. A throb of emotion, of horror, seemed to pass from her to him.

He caught the torch from her hand, stepped forward, and flung the door open. They looked into another cellar. It had whitewashed walls and a stone-flagged floor. Three pendant lights illuminated every detail.

At the sight of what the room contained, Mr. Ferdinand Miller uttered a sharp exclamation. The room in which Mr. Bronson carried on his business spoke for itself. After twelve months' patient work Mr. Miller saw before him the evidence of his dreams—he saw the problem of the French note forgeries triumphantly solved. He exclaimed, “Got 'em!” in a tone of triumph.