"Let us sit here a moment," I suggested at last. "It is pleasant in the sunshine. I have something to show you."
Without a word she seated herself where I suggested, on a seat near the empty band-stand, and then I drew from my pocket the letter which Guy Nicholson had written to me on the night of his tragic death and handed it to her.
I watched her sweet face, so pale and anxious. In an instant she recognised the writing of the hand now dead, and read it through eagerly from end to end.
I explained how it had come so tardily into my possession, whereupon she said--
"It is true. He disliked Dad for some inexplicable reason."
"Apparently he had become aware of some extraordinary truth. It was that truth which he had intended to explain to me, but, poor fellow, he was prevented from doing so by his sudden death."
Sight of that letter had recalled to her visions of the man whom she had loved so fondly, and next instant I hated myself for having acted injudiciously in showing her the curious missive.
Ah, how deeply, how devotedly I loved her! and yet I dared not utter one single word of affection. That calm, sweet countenance, with those big, wonderful eyes, was ever before me, sleeping or waking, and yet I knew not from hour to hour that she might not be arrested and placed in a criminal dock, as accomplice of that arch-adventurer Shaw--that man who led such a strange dual existence of respectability and undesirability.
"I cannot understand what he discovered regarding the apparition of the hand," she exclaimed at last, still gazing upon the letter in a half-dreamy kind of way.
"It seems as though, by some fact accidentally discovered, he arrived at the solution of the mystery," I said. "It was to explain this to me that he intended to come over to Upton End, but was, alas! prevented."
"But why didn"t he tell me?" she queried. "It surely concerned myself for I had seen it, not in our own house, remember, but in the house of a friend at Scarborough."
"And I saw it in an obscure French inn," I said; "and previously I had been warned against it."
"Yes, I agree, Mr Kemball. It is a complete mystery. Ah! how unfortunate that poor Guy never lived to tell you his theory concerning the strange affair. But," she added, "our present action must concern dear old Dad. What do you suggest we should do? How can we give him warning?"
"I can suggest nothing," was my reply. "Tramu is watching them both.
Probably he is fully aware of some ingenious conspiracy in progress."
"Ah! I foresaw danger in his a.s.sociation with her," the girl declared, pale and anxious in her despair.
"But why has not your father returned to Lydford? Surely while his whereabouts could be preserved from Tramu he would be safer there than anywhere!"
"You might be watched, and if you visited us, you might be followed.
Tramu is, as you know, one of the most famous detectives in Europe."
"And he has, in your father, one who is a past-master in the art of evasion. But," I added, "tell me frankly, Miss Seymour, do you antic.i.p.ate that he is anxious to possess himself of the bronze cylinder?" She hesitated again.
"Well--yes. As you ask me for a plain reply, I tell you that I believe his intention is to gain possession of it."
"Why?"
"Because of the great secret therein contained."
"And of what nature is this remarkable secret?" I demanded eagerly, much puzzled by her response.
"Ah! how can we tell? It is a secret from all, save to the person who shall dare break it open and examine it."
"And dare you break it open, Miss Seymour?" I asked.
"No--a thousand times no!" she cried, alarmed at the very suggestion.
"I would rather see it taken up and cast deep into the sea. Why don"t you do that, Mr Kemball? Take it out in a boat and sink it deep in the waters, where no man--not even divers--could ever recover it. Sink it deeply," she urged, "so that all fears may be dispelled, and peace and love may reign."
But I shook my head, expressing regret at my utter inability to accede to her desire.
And then very slowly we retraced our steps back to the hotel, where an unexpected surprise was, we found, awaiting us.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
CONTAINS AN OMINOUS MESSAGE.
As we re-entered the pretty winter garden the hall-porter gave Asta a telegram, which she tore open hastily and read, afterwards handing it to me in silence.
To my surprise, I found it to be from Shaw, informing her that he was on his way to Lydford, and asking her to return home that day. The message had been handed in at Bath Railway Station, therefore it appeared that he was already on his way.
"Is there not danger, distinct danger, in this, Mr Kemball?" she queried, in great anxiety. "If Tramu were watching last night, then he will be followed home!"
"I don"t see how we can prevent him from going to Lydford now," I said.
"We have no address where a telegram would reach him."
Truly the situation was a critical one. Harvey Shaw, all unconscious of being watched, was actually returning to his highly respectable home.
"Oh, if I could only warn him!" Asta cried, wringing her hands. Yet, personally, I was not thinking of the man"s peril so much as hers. If she went to Lydford, would not she also fall into the drag-net of the police?
Yet what was the mysterious charge against her--the charge which the French police had refused to reveal to me?
While she changed her dress and packed her small trunk I had a look around my engine, and an hour later, with her sitting beside me, we were already buzzing along the Salisbury road, returning by that level way I had followed earlier that morning. From Salisbury we travelled the whole day by way of Andover, Newbury, and Oxford, the same road that I had traversed in the night on my way to Bath.
It was delightful to have her as companion through those sunny hours on the road, and she looked inexpressibly dainty in her close-fitting little bonnet, fur coat, and gauntlet gloves. An enthusiastic motorist, she often drove her father"s car, which I now understood they had been compelled to abandon in the garage at Aix. The police had taken possession of it, but as both the French and English numbers it bore were false ones no clue to the address of its owner would be obtained.
Yet though she charmed me by her voice, though her sweet beauty filled my whole being and intoxicated my senses, nevertheless I somehow experienced a strange presage of evil.
Had Harvey Shaw once again exercised those precautions against disaster and managed to elude the vigilance of the great French police-agent?
That was the main question in my mind as I drove the car hard, for Asta seemed all eagerness to get home. If Shaw had been unsuspicious, what more natural than that he should be followed by Tramu to that hiding-place where he a.s.sumed the role of country gentleman.
The autumn afternoon wore on, and I could not help noticing that the nearer we approached her home the paler and more anxious became the girl at my side. And I loved her, ah yes! I loved her more than my pen has power to describe. She possessed me body and soul. She was all in all to me.
That she was reflecting upon the letter penned by Guy almost immediately before his death I knew by her several references to it.
"I wonder what is the solution of that shadowy hand which we both have seen, Mr Kemball?" she exclaimed suddenly, after sitting in silence for some time, her eyes fixed upon the muddy road that lay before us.
"You mean the solution at which Nicholson apparently arrived?" I said.
"Yes."
"How can we tell? He evidently discovered, something--something of extreme importance which he wished to communicate to me."
"I wonder why he makes those extraordinary statements about Dad--and the locked cupboard in his room?"