"Then she went to stay with a girl friend--and got ill. Her uncle heard of her, and got her down to keep house for him. So there you are again.
I heard the particulars only this morning. The Yard can find out everything, you see."
Whether the other saw or not, he smiled, enigmatically. Perhaps he was wondering whether "The Yard" knew as much about what his then colleague had been telling him as he did himself.
"She wasn"t there at the time of the--happening," he said. "No, not till--what? Nearly a month afterwards? And now she has been there over a fortnight. No, Nashby. Whatever the Yard can find out--or can"t,"-- again that smile came forward, "you can rule Miss--er--Seward out of this business altogether."
The inspector felt a trifle disappointed. He thought he had found a new, and complicating, and rather interesting element in the case. He was a little inclined to feel rebellious against Helston Varne"s opinion, but then he had a very considerable respect for Helston Varne.
"The tale about Heath Hover--it"s rather interesting," went on the latter. "I might have said extraordinary, but then, I don"t know. I"ve met with just such extraordinary cases in the course of my experience, and have been the means of unravelling at least two of them. Now I"m going to try and see if this one will hang up at all on the same peg as our mystery, but--I don"t know, I don"t know."
He had subsided into a meditative, almost dreamy tone, gazing into the fire, and emitting slow puffs of smoke. Nashby was eyeing him with a touch of increased veneration--likewise expectation. He was hoping to get those narratives before their evening had closed.
"Have another whisky," he said, jumping up with alacrity. "I"m sorry, I"m sure. I ought to have seen you were empty."
"Thanks. By the way, do you mind telling me again what is precisely the source of scare that hangs round Heath Hover?"
Inspector Nashby looked as if he rather did mind, for he seemed to hesitate.
"Oh, it"s only a lot of countryside superst.i.tion," he said. "But no one who took the place has ever been able to stick it long. I don"t know either, that any one has ever _seen_ anything. I think they only _hear_."
The other nodded.
"Just so. Reminds me of one of the cases I was just now referring to, one I was instrumental in clearing up. That was a matter of sound. I think I shall really have to obtain entrance to Heath Hover. You say this man gets it rent free?"
"At a nominal rent, yes."
"Well, why doesn"t the owner pull it down, and run up another house on another site?"
"Because--to put the matter nakedly--he"s afraid to."
"Afraid to?"
"Yes. Afraid it would bring him bad luck--fatally bad luck. Old Sir John Tullibard"s a bit of a crank, and believes in that sort of thing.
What"s more, he"s rather proud of owning a place with that kind of reputation."
"And that door--what did you say it does?"
"Why, it opens of itself, when something is going to happen. It"s a curious thing that Mervyn should have sworn it did this very thing the night of this double barrelled event. But he did--and stuck to it."
"Yes. It"s certainly curious. Mervyn doesn"t strike me as the sort of man who"d decline to believe his eyesight. He"s rather a hard-headed looking chap I should say, and I can"t get anything out of the surrounding yokels about it. I"ve expended--let me see--at least two half crowns in the neighbouring pubs during the three days--and a half-- since I came, trying to make them talk. But they shut up like steel traps when you try and get them on the subject of Heath Hover."
"So they would," said Nashby, "and for the reason that they hold it to be dead unlucky even to talk about the yarns that hang around the place."
"Oh," and Varne smiled. He had noticed that very reluctance about Nashby himself.
"Do you believe there"s anything in all that?" he said, facing the other with a very direct look. "You, yourself?"
"Well, the fact is, Varne--and there"s no denying it--very curious things do happen in some places. Things that there"s no explaining or clearing up."
"I agree with you, Nashby--as to the first. Very curious things do happen in some places--yes, very curious things. But as to there being no explaining them, or clearing them up--why I don"t go with you there.
Now look here--I don"t say it to brag--but given time, and no interference, _and_ it being made worth my while, I undertake to dis-ghost every haunted house in England."
His keen face had lighted up. Nashby looked at him rather admiringly.
The latter was an ordinary square-headed, broad-built policeman, who, unarmed, would have advanced to arrest an armed criminal without the smallest hesitation or wavering. But he was country born and bred, and country superst.i.tion is an ingrained thing.
"Well, Mr Varne, at that rate there"s a new line in front of you, and no mistake, and it ought to be a paying one," he rejoined. "Why not begin on Heath Hover for one?"
"Because none of my conditions would apply to it. Time--that might--no interference, that certainly would not, for I should have to stay in the house for a while. And--making it worth it, would apply less still, since this Mervyn is only a tenant, doesn"t seem to care a d.a.m.n about the haunting part, and is poor into the bargain you say?"
"Yes. He"s hasn"t got too much rhino. He was something in India and retired on a pension. He commuted about half of it to run an invention which he thought would make his fortune, and it didn"t."
"Of course not. Inventions have been known to make fortunes, but practically never for the inventor. Now how could I get a look in at Heath Hover? It wouldn"t do as being concerned in this case, you know."
"Oh Lord, no," said the other, with some alacrity. "Why, it"s supposed to be dead and forgotten, and that"s just the stage at which we expect to be able to get something out of it--if we ever do at all, that is."
"Hasn"t he got any old oak in the place? Panelling, doors--that sort of thing? Might work in on the connoisseur, scientific lay, don"t you see?"
"I don"t know. Perhaps. Yes, now I think of it there"s rather a rum old fireplace. It"s in the room where the door is, too, and, now I think of it again, the door itself is rather a quaint affair, with a curious handle, and lock, and all that. You could "make up" a bit. You know--look like a sort of scientific professor, and all that."
"No. I don"t think I"ll make up. I"ll just chance it as I am. And I think, Nashby, that within the next day or two I shall have found out all about the inside of Heath Hover--as far as it concerns our case."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
OVERREACHINGS.
It might have been somewhere in the middle of the morning, or a trifle earlier, that Mervyn, from his bedroom window descried a well-looking, comfortably-dressed stranger leisurely descending the stair-like path which led down from the sluice, and him he eyed with curiosity, for visitors were scarce.
He himself, being unseen, was able to take in every detail of the new arrival"s outward appearance with all the more ease and accuracy. He noted for instance that the other had a keen, clear, sunburnt face, and a light, firm, easy step, that showed the very pink of condition, that he was tall, and carried himself well, and then he fell to wondering who the devil he was and what he wanted. Some friend of Melian"s perhaps, possibly a former admirer--and somehow the idea of such a contingency seemed unpalatable. Here they were--the two of them--as jolly as possible together; he, at any rate, didn"t want any interloping nuisance from outside.
But from that his mind flew off to another conjecture--one less palatable still. He had had about enough of mysterious strangers, he told himself. What if this one had come on the same sort of errand, and with the thought he slipped his Browning pistol into a handy pocket, and made up his mind to keep the other man carefully in front of him.
Likewise he took his time about admitting the said other man.
"I"m afraid I"m taking rather a liberty," began the latter. "The fact is, Mr Mervyn, I"m particularly interested in old houses, old furniture, old panelling, and such like, and I have heard a good deal about Heath Hover in that line. Allow me to introduce myself,"-- tendering a card.
"Yes? Come in, Mr--Helston Varne," said the other, having glanced at it. "There are odds and ends of old sticks, but they are for the most part stowed away in unused rooms that would take about a week"s dusting to render fit for entrance. That"s a quaint old fireplace, if you notice."
"I should think it was," answered Varne, vividly interested. And then he expatiated in technical terms, which increasingly bored his host and made the latter wish him at the devil more heartily than ever. That was the worst of these collectors and antiquarians and people, they were always ramming their jargon down unappreciative throats. It was a pity Melian was not on hand, he began to think. She had an eye to all that sort of thing, and could answer with knowledge. And then he suddenly decided that his own boredom was the lesser evil. The stranger was a well-looking man--a fine looking man--and spoke with a pleasant voice and refined accent. Her uncle preferred Melian fancy free, at any rate for some time to come. Were she here, these two would be finding out tastes in common. Yes, on the whole, he was glad she had driven into Clancehurst with old Joe after breakfast. Up till then he had not been glad; in fact, hardly was she out of sight than he had regretted not having accompanied her. It was rare indeed that he failed to accompany her anywhere; but that morning he had felt somewhat out of sorts.
The stranger pa.s.sed from one thing to another, admiring the panelling and discanting thereon. Then he said:
"I should like to take another view of the house from outside, Mr Mervyn. It"s marvellously picturesque as seen from the road, and now I"ve seen the interior I shall be able to read new beauties into it."
"Certainly," a.s.sented Mervyn, beginning to think the speaker was a little over enthusiastic, or a little cracked--only he didn"t look the last. "We"ll go up to the road. The path you came down is the shortest."
They went up, Mervyn contriving that the other should lead. When they gained the sluice, Varne stood expatiating afresh, on gables and old chimney stacks. His host was more bored than ever, and was wishing to this and to that he would straightway take himself off as he had come.
Would he?
"That"s a curious old door I noticed in the corner of your room, Mr Mervyn," he said, when he had exhausted his instructive technicalities, which Mervyn had defined to himself as a d.a.m.ned boring prosy lecture.
"If I might venture to trespa.s.s upon your kindness for a minute or two further I should so greatly like to examine it. The fact is," he went on, "I"m quite a stranger in these parts, I found a homely little pub quite by the merest chance, _The Woodc.o.c.k_, at Upper Gidding, homely but clean--you know it, I dare say--and I concluded to rest there for a day or two, and look around this lovely bit of country. I"ve got a bicycle with me, but I walked over here to-day."