"I will telephone to St. George"s," I said, a little later, "and ask for the latest news. You"d better not go to see him until the house-physician gives you leave. He asked me to tell you that."
The reply was satisfactory. Sir Charles was not in pain, the hall-porter said. He was slightly feverish. That was all. What grim consolation!
Two eager days pa.s.sed. Still Lady Thorold showed no sign of life. I had telephoned to Messrs. Spink and Peters. Also I had telegraphed to Houghton Park, as it was said Lady Thorold intended to return there.
But to no purpose. One thing that surprised me was that Whichelo had not been to the hospital. Where was he during these days? Had he, too, not heard of the calamity?
"You have not heard the exciting news," I said to Faulkner, when I met him outside the Devonshire on the way to his club.
"What exciting news?" he inquired, in his cool phlegmatic way. "You get excited so easily, d.i.c.k, if you will forgive my saying so."
He listened with interest to the news, and when I had done talking, he said quite calmly--
"Curious to relate, I saw the Baroness, Paulton and Henderson not ten minutes ago."
"Saw them!" I gasped. "Where?"
"In Piccadilly, not thirty yards from here. They turned up Dover Street, and went down in the tube lift."
"Are you positive?"
"Quite. I couldn"t well forget them. They were walking together, laughing and chatting as though nothing were amiss. I admire that kind of nerve."
Meanwhile, the newspapers were full of the remarkable discovery of the mummified man in Sir Charles Thorold"s house in Belgrave Street. The hole cut in the ceiling gave rise to all sorts of wild surmises.
It did not, however, occur to any of the reporters that the body might have been hidden between the ceiling and the floor.
What the newspapers worried about most was the mummy"s age. Experts put their heads together, and put on their spectacles. Some were of the opinion that it must be centuries old. Sir Charles, the one man who might have thrown some light upon it could not, of course, be questioned. Only one medical expert, an old professor, differed from his _confreres_. A wizened little man, himself not unlike a mummy, he maintained, in the face of scientific ridicule, that the mummy found in Belgrave Street had been dead "less than twenty years." Further, he p.r.o.nounced that the method of embalming was a process uncommon in this country or in Egypt, but still in vogue in China and in Mexico. He believed the body to be, he said, that of a man of middle-age, a Spaniard, or possibly a Mexican.
The news of Sir Charles" condition was more satisfactory that evening, inasmuch as the sister at the hospital told me, when I called, that he was still no worse. Perhaps, after all, Dr. Agnew had been mistaken.
Oh, how I hoped he had been, for my own sake, almost as much as for my darling"s.
"I think," I said to Vera, whose spirits rose a little when she heard my report, "that to-morrow morning I will run down to Oakham, to have another look at Houghton."
"What on earth for?" she exclaimed, in a tone of surprise. "I intended asking father to-day, when I saw him at the hospital, if the report that he intended returning to Houghton were true. He seemed so hot and restless however, that I decided not to ask him until to-morrow. I do believe he is going to get better, don"t you? But now, tell me what good do you think you will do by going out to Houghton?"
"Good?" I answered. "I don"t expect or intend to do good. No, it is merely that something--I can"t tell you what--prompts me to go again to see the place."
"How silly!" Vera declared, as I thought rather rudely. Modern girls are so dreadfully outspoken. I do sometimes wish we were back in the days when a matron would raise her hands in dismay and exclaim: "Oh, fie!" or "Oh, la!" when a young girl did aught that seemed to her "unladylike."
Yet, in spite of Vera"s remonstrance, I caught a train to Oakham early next morning. Sir Charles had had a restless night, the hospital porter told me on the telephone, before I started, but his condition was surprisingly satisfactory.
Then I rang up Dr. Agnew.
"Don"t you think he may, after all, recover?" I inquired eagerly.
In reply the doctor said he "only hoped and trusted that he might."
More than that, he would not tell me. I gathered, therefore, that he still had serious fears.
I arrived at the _Stag"s Head_, in Oakham, in time for lunch. Directly after lunch I started out for Houghton in a hired car.
What a lot had happened, I reflected, as in the same car in which the chauffeur had been shot, we purred down the main street, since I had last set out along that road. What a number of stirring incidents had occurred--incidents crowded into the s.p.a.ce of a few weeks. But at last they seemed to be coming to an end. That thought relieved me a good deal. Ah, if only--if only Thorold would recover!
The drive to Houghton from Oakham was a pretty one, past woods and rich grazing pastures until suddenly, turning into the great lodge-gates, we went for nearly a quarter of a mile up the old beech avenue to where stood the old Elizabethan house, a large, rambling pile of stone, so full of historic a.s.sociations.
On pulling up at the ancient portico, I found to my surprise, the front door ajar. I pushed it open and entered. There was n.o.body in the big stone hall--how well I remembered the last day when we had all had tea there after hunting, and that fateful message from the butler that "Mr.
Smithson" had called to see Sir Charles. I made my way into the drawing-rooms, then into the morning-room, and afterwards into the dining-room. The doors were all unlocked, but the rooms were empty. It was while making my way towards the kitchen quarters that I heard footsteps somewhere in the house.
They were coming down the back stairs.
I waited at the foot of the stairs, just out of sight. They were firm, heavy footfalls. A moment later, a tall man stood facing me.
It was the dark giant I had first met at dinner at the _Stag"s Head_, when we had shared a table on the night of the Hunt Ball--the man whom I now knew to be Henry Whichelo.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
MR. SMITHSON AGAIN.
He gave a hardly perceptible start on seeing me. Then he extended his big hand and grasped mine in the most friendly way.
"Well, this is a real surprise--a very pleasant surprise, Mr. Ashton,"
he said, looking me full in the eyes. "I have often thought of you since the evening we met and had that pleasant meal together, and I told you my name was Smithson, because I knew the name would puzzle you. And what are you doing here? Making an ocular survey--as I am?"
The ready lie rose to my lips. It is very well for moralists to tell us we should always speak the truth. There are occasions when an apt.i.tude for wandering into paths of falsehood may prove extremely useful. It did so now.
"No," I answered, "I"m not. I am on my way to my little place about twenty miles from here--it is let now, but I think of returning to live there--and it occurred to me to look in at Houghton again. I saw it mentioned, in some paper the other day, that the Thorolds are returning."
"Yes, that is so," Whichelo answered. "Sir Charles has instructed me to see to everything, and make all arrangements. I have only to-day heard that he is very ill at the hospital. Have you seen him?"
I told him the latest bulletin. Then I asked him if he had any idea of Lady Thorold"s whereabouts.
"All I know," he answered, "is that she was abroad when last I heard of her."
"Abroad? Was that lately?"
"About a week ago. She was then somewhere in the Ba.s.ses Alpes. Has she not been to see Sir Charles?"
"No. We don"t know where she is."
"Who do you mean by `we"?"
"Vera Thorold and myself."
"That"s strange," he said thoughtfully. "Oh, of course Lady Thorold can"t have heard of his illness. She would have come at once, or at any rate have telegraphed, if she had."
We talked a little longer--we had strolled into the morning-room, and sat down there--when Whichelo said suddenly--
"That discovery of a mummy in Sir Charles" town house is curious, eh?
How would you account for that, Ashton? And for the hole in the ceiling?"