Ah! What fun we had had in that house long ago!
My friends the Thorolds had entertained largely, and their acquaintances had all been bright, amusing people, so different, as I had sometimes told my friends, from the colourless, stupid folk whose company one so often has to endure when staying in the houses of acquaintances. I often think, when mixing with such people, of the story of the two women discussing a certain "impossible" young man, of a type one meets frequently.
"How deadly dull Bertie Fairbairn is," one of them said. "He never talks at all."
"Oh, he is better than his brother Reggie," the other answered.
"Whenever you speak to Bertie he says, `Right O!""
The door of the apartment that had been the large drawing-room was locked. On the bunch of keys, I soon found the key that fitted, and I entered.
Phew, what a musty smell! Most oppressive. The blinds were drawn half-way down the windows and, by the look of them, had been so for some considerable time. The furniture that remained was all hidden under holland sheets, and the pictures on the walls, draped in dust-proof coverings, looked like the slabs of salted beef, and the sides of smoke-cured pork one sees hung in some farmhouses. The carpets were dusty, moth-eaten and rotten.
Gingerly, with thumb and forefinger, I picked up the corners of some of the furniture coverings. There was nothing but the furniture underneath, except in one instance, where I saw, upon an easy-chair, a plate with some mouldy remnants of food upon it. No wonder the atmosphere was foetid.
I was about to leave the room, glad to get out of it, when I noticed in a corner of the ceiling a dark, yellow-brown stain, about a yard in circ.u.mference. This struck me as curious, and I went over and stood under it, and gazed up at it, endeavouring to discover its origin. Then I saw that it was moist. I pulled up one of the blinds in order to see better, but my scrutiny failed to give me any inkling as to the origin of the stain.
I went out, shut and locked the door, and entered several other rooms, the doors of all of which I found locked. One room was very like another, the only difference being that the smell in some was closer and nastier than the smell in others, though all the smells had, what I may call the same "flavour"--a "taste" of dry rot. I wondered if Sir Charles knew how his house was being neglected, how dirt and dust were being allowed to acc.u.mulate.
This was Lady Thorold"s boudoir, if I remembered aright. The inside of the lock was so rusty that I had difficulty in turning the key.
Everything shrouded, as elsewhere, but, judging from the odd projections in the coverings, I concluded that ornaments and bric-a-brac had been left upon the tables.
Nor was I mistaken. As I lifted the cloths and dust sheets, objects that I remembered seeing set about the room in the old days, became revealed. There were several beautiful statues, priceless pieces of antique furniture from Naples and Florence, curious carved wooden figures that Sir Charles had collected during his travels in the Southern Pacific, cloisonne vases from Tokio and Osaka, a barely decent sculpture bought by Sir Charles from a j.a.panese witch-doctor who lived a hermit"s life on an island in the Inland Sea--how well I remembered Lady Thorold"s emphatic disapproval of this figure, and her objection to her husband"s displaying it in the way he did--treasures from different parts of China, from New Guinea, Burmah, the West Indies and elsewhere.
Another cloth I lifted. Beneath it were a number of photographs in frames, piled faces downward in heaps. I picked up some of them, and took them out to look at. A picture of Vera in a short frock, with a teddy-bear tucked under her arm, interested me; so did a portrait of Lady Thorold dressed in a fashion long since past; and so did a portrait of my old father in his Guards uniform. The rest were portraits of people I didn"t know. I looked at one or two more, and was about to replace the frames where I had found them, when I turned up one that startled me.
It was a cabinet, in a bog-oak frame, of the man whose likeness had caused the commotion at Houghton, the man who had called himself Smithson. But it was not a portrait similar to the one I had taken away. The same man, undoubtedly, but in a different att.i.tude, and apparently many years younger.
Closely I scrutinised it.
The enigma presented was complete. I am not a pilferer, but I considered that I should be justified in putting the portrait into my pocket, and I did so without another thought. Then I replaced all the frames where I had found them, and resumed my ramble over the house.
In the rest of the rooms on that floor, I found nothing further of interest. On the floor above, however, a surprise was in store for me.
The first two rooms were bedrooms, neglected-looking and very dusty.
There were fewer coverings here. Dust was upon the floor, on the beds, on the chairs and tables, on the window-sills, on the wash-stands, on the chests of drawers, on the mantelpiece--everywhere. In the next room, the door of which I was surprised to find unlocked, just the same.
A table of dark mahogany was thickly coated with dust.
Hullo! Why, what was this? I thought at once of a detective friend of mine, and wondered what he would have said, what opinion he would have formed and what conclusion he would have come to, had he been in my place at that moment. For on the table, close to the edge of it, was the clear outline of a hand. Someone had quite recently--apparently within the last few hours, and certainly since the previous day--put his hand upon that dusty table. I scanned the outline closely; then suddenly I started.
There could be no doubt whatever--it was not the outline of Taylor"s hand. The fingers that had rested there were long and tapering. This was not the impression of a man"s hand, but of a woman"s--of a woman"s left hand.
Evidently some one had been in this room recently. From point to point I walked, looking for further traces, but there were none that I could see. What woman could have been in here so lately? And did the old man asleep downstairs know of her entry? He must have, for she could not have entered the house, had he not admitted her. I felt I was becoming quite a clever detective, with an exceptional gift for deduction from the obvious. Another gleam of intelligence led me to conclude that this woman"s presence in the house probably accounted for Taylor"s determination not to let me go over the house.
I thought I heard a sound. I held my breath and stood still, listening intently, but the only sound that came to me was the distant shrill whistle of some one summoning a taxi. Outside in the pa.s.sage, all was still as death. I walked to the end of the pa.s.sage, peeped into other bedrooms, then returned to the room with the table bearing the imprint of the hand.
The windows overlooked Belgrave Street--double windows, which made the sound of the traffic down below inaudible. Carelessly I watched for some moments the vehicles and pa.s.sers-by, unconsciously striving to puzzle out, meanwhile, the problem of the hand. Suddenly, two figures approaching along the pavement from the direction of Wilton Street, arrested my attention. They seemed familiar to me. As they came nearer, a strange feeling of excitement possessed me, for I recognised the burly form of Davies, or "Smithson," and as he had called himself, and, walking beside him, Sir Charles Thorold. The two appeared to be engaged in earnest conversation.
They disappeared where the street turned, and as I came away from the window I noticed, for the first time, that the room had another door, a door leading presumably into a dressing-room. I went over to it. It was locked.
I tried a key on the bunch, but at once discovered that a key was in the door. The door was locked on the inside!
I knocked. There was no answer. And just then I distinctly heard a sound inside the room.
"Who"s there?" I called out. "Let me in!"
A sound, resembling a sob, reached me faintly. I heard light footfalls.
The key turned slowly, and the lock clicked.
I turned the handle, and went in.
CHAPTER EIGHT.
MORE MYSTERY.
I halted on the threshold, wondering and aghast.
Vera, in her hat and jacket, stood facing me a few yards away. She was extremely pale. There were dark shadows under her eyes, and I saw at once she had been weeping.
For a moment neither of us spoke. Then, pulling myself together--
"Why, darling, what are you doing here?" I asked.
She did not answer. Her big, blue, unfathomable eyes were set on mine.
There was in them an expression I had not seen there before--an odd, unnatural look, which made me feel uncomfortable.
"What are you doing here?" I repeated. "Why did you call upon me with Davies?"
Her lips moved, but no words came. I went over and took her hand. It was quite cold.
Suddenly she spoke slowly, and hoa.r.s.ely, but like some one in a trance.
"I cannot tell you," she said simply. "I wanted to see you."
"Oh, but you _must_!"
Her eyes met mine, and I saw her arched brows contract slightly.
"n.o.body says, `must" to me," she answered, in a tone that chilled me.
"Vera! Vera!" I exclaimed, dismayed at her strange manner, "what is the matter? What has happened to you, darling? Why are you like this?
Don"t you need my help now? You told me on the telephone that you did."
"On the telephone? When was that?"
"Why, not three weeks ago. Surely you remember? It was the last time we spoke to each other. You had begun to tell me your address, when suddenly we were cut off."
I saw her knit her brows, as though trying to remember. Then, all at once, memory seemed to return.
"Ah, yes," she exclaimed, more in her ordinary voice. "I recollect. I wanted your help then. I needed it badly, but now--"