The crimson circle
Mr. Harvey Froyant preserved a tight-lipped silence. He was a stickler
for the conventions, where their observations benefited himself.
They had reached the crest of the rise, when suddenly his arm was
gripped, and he turned to see Jack Beardmore, staring at the bole of
the tree. Froyant followed the direction of his eye and took a step
backward, his unhealthy face a shade paler. Painted on the tree trunk
was a rough circle of crimson, and the paint was yet wet.
Chapter IV.
Mr. Felix Marl
Jack Beardmore looked round, scanning the country. The only human
being in sight was a man who was walking slowly away from them,
carrying a bag in his hand. Jack shouted, and the man turned.
“Who are you?” demanded Jack. Then, “What are you doing here?”
The stranger was a tall, stoutish man, and the exertion of carrying
his grip had left him a little breathless. It was some time before he
could reply.
“My name is Marl,” he said, “Felix Marl. You may have heard of me. I
think you are young Mr. Beardmore, aren’t you?”
“That is my name,” said Jack. “What are you doing here?” he asked
again.
“They told me there was a short cut from the railway station, but it
is not so short as they promised,” said Mr. Marl, breathing
stertorously. “I’m on my way to see your father.”
“Have you been near that tree?” asked Jack, and Marl glared at him.
“Why should I go near any tree?” he demanded aggressively. “I tell you
I’ve come straight across the fields.”
By this time Harvey Froyant arrived, and apparently recognised the
new-comer.
“This is Mr. Marl; I know him. Marl, did you see anybody near that
tree?”
The man shook his head. Apparently the tree and its secret was a
mystery to him.
“I never knew there was a tree there,” he said. “What--what has
happened?”
“Nothing,” said Harvey Froyant sharply.
They came to the house soon after, Jack carrying the visitor’s bag. He
was not impressed by the big man’s appearance. His voice was coarse,
his manner familiar, and Jack wondered what association this uncouth
specimen of humanity could have with his father.
They were nearing the house when suddenly and for no obvious reason
the stout Mr. Marl emitted a frightened squeal and leapt back. There
was no doubt of his fear. It was written visibly in the blanched
cheeks and the quivering lips of the man, who was shaking from head to
foot.
Jack could only look at him in astonishment--and even Harvey Froyant
was startled into an interest.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Marl?” he asked savagely.
His own nerves were on edge, and the sight of the big man’s
undisguised terror was a further strain which he could scarcely
endure.
“Nothin’--nothin’,” muttered Marl huskily. “I’ve been----”
“Drinking, I should think,” snapped Froyant.
After seeing the man into the house Jack hurried off in search of
Derrick Yale. He discovered the detective in the shrubbery sitting in
a big cane chair, his chin upon his breast, his arms folded, a
characteristic attitude of his.
Yale looked up at the sound of the young man’s footsteps.
“I can’t tell you,” he said, before Jack had framed his question, and
then, seeing the look of astonishment on his face, he laughed. “You
were going to ask me what scared Marl, weren’t you?”
“I came with that intention,” laughed Jack. “What an extraordinary
fellow you are, Mr. Yale! Did you see his extraordinary exhibition of
funk?”
Derrick Yale nodded.
“I saw him just before he had his shock,” he said. “You can see the
field path from here.”
He frowned.
“He reminds me of somebody,” he said slowly, “yet I cannot for the
life of me tell who it is. Is he a frequent visitor here? Your father
told me he was coming, and I guessed it was he.”
Jack shook his head.
“This is the first time I’ve seen him,” he said. “I remember now,
though, that father and Froyant have had some business dealings with a
man named Marl--dad mentioned him one day. I think he is a land
speculator. Father is rather interested in land just now. By the way,
I have seen the mark of the Crimson Circle,” he added, and described
the newly-painted “O” he had found on the elm.
Instantly Yale lost interest in Mr. Marl.
“It was not on the tree when I went down into the valley,” said Jack.
“I’ll swear to that. It must have been painted whilst I was talking
to--to a friend. The trunk is out of sight from the boundary fence,
and it was quite possible for somebody to have painted the sign
without being seen. What does it mean, Mr. Yale?”
“It means trouble,” said Yale shortly.
He rose abruptly and began pacing the flagged walk, and Jack, after
waiting a little while, left him to his meditations.
In the meantime, Mr. Felix Marl was comparatively a useless third of a
conference which dealt with the transfer of lands. Marl was, as Jack
had said, a land speculator, and he had come that morning bringing a
promising proposition which he was wholly incapable of explaining.
“I can’t help it, gentlemen,” he said, and for the fourth time his
trembling hand rose to his lips. “I’ve had a bit of a shock this
morning.”
“What was that?”
But Marl seemed incapable of explanation. He could only shake his head
helplessly.
“I’m not fit to discuss things calmly,” he said. “You’ll have to put
the matter off until to-morrow.”
“Do you think I’ve come here to-day for the purpose of listening to
that sort of nonsense?” snarled Mr. Froyant. “I tell you I want this
business settled. So do you, Beardmore.”
Jim Beardmore, who was indifferent as to whether the matter was
settled then or the following week, laughed.
“I don’t know that it is very important,” he said. “If Mr. Marl is
upset, why should we bother him? Perhaps you’ll stay here to-night,
Marl?”
“No, no, no,” the man’s voice rose almost to a shout. “No, I won’t
stay here, if you don’t mind--I would much rather not!”
“Just as you like,” said Jim Beardmore indifferently, and folded up
the papers he had prepared for signature.
They walked out into the hall together, and there Jack found them.
Beardmore’s car carried the visitor and his bag back to the station,
and from there on Mr. Marl’s conduct was peculiar. He registered his
bag through to the city, but he himself descended at the next station,
and for a man who so disliked walking, and was by nature so averse
from physical exercise, he displayed an almost heroic spirit, for he
set forth to walk the nine miles which separated him from the
Beardmore estate--and he did not go by the shortest route.
It was nearing nightfall when Mr. Marl made his furtive way into a
thick plantation on the edge of the Beardmore property.
He sat down, a tired, dusty but determined man, and waited for the
night to close down over the countryside. And during the period of
waiting, he examined with tender care the heavy automatic pistol he
had taken from his bag in the train.
Chapter V.
The Girl Who Ran
“I can’t understand why that fellow hasn’t come back this morning,”
said Jim Beardmore with a frown.
“Which fellow?” asked Jack carelessly.
“I’m speaking of Marl,” said his father.
“Was that the large-sized gentleman I saw yesterday?” asked Derrick
Yale.
They were standing on the terrace of the house, which, from its
elevated position, gave them a view across the country.
The morning train had come and gone. They could see the trail of white
smoke it left as it disappeared into the foothills nine miles away.
“Yes. I’d better ’phone Froyant, and tell him not to come over.”
Jim Beardmore stroked his stubbly chin.
“Marl puzzles me,” he said. “He is a brilliant fellow I believe, a
reformed thief I know--at least I hope he is reformed. What upset him
yesterday, Jack? He came into the library looking like death.”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said Jack. “I think he has a weak
heart, or something of the sort. He told me he gets these spasms
occasionally.”
Beardmore laughed softly, and going into the house returned with a
walking-stick.
“I’m going for a stroll, Jack. No, you needn’t come along. I’ve one or
two things I wish to think out, and I promise you, Yale, I won’t leave
the grounds, though I think you attach too much importance to the
threats of these ruffians.”
Yale shook his head.
“What of the sign on the tree?” he asked.
Jim Beardmore snorted contemptuously.
“It will take more than that to extract a hundred thousand from me,”
he said.
He waved a farewell at them as he went down the broad stone steps, and
they watched him walking slowly across the park.
“Do you really think my father is in any kind of danger?” asked Jack.
Yale, who had been staring after the figure, turned with a start.
“In danger?” he repeated, and then after a second’s hesitation. “Yes,
I believe there is very serious danger for him in the next day or
two.”
Jack turned his troubled gaze upon the disappearing figure.
“I hope you’re wrong,” he said. “Father doesn’t seem to take the
matter as seriously as you.”
“That is because your father has not the same experience,” said the
detective, “but I understand that he saw Chief Inspector Parr, and the
inspector thought there was considerable danger.”
Jack chuckled in spite of his fears.
“How do the lion and the lamb amalgamate?” he asked. “I didn’t think
that head-quarters had much use for private men like you, Mr. Yale?”
“I admire Parr,” said Derrick slowly. “He’s slow, but thorough. I am
told that he is one of the most conscientious men at head-quarters,
and I fancy that the head-quarters chiefs have treated him badly over
the last Crimson Circle crime. They have practically told him that if
he cannot run the organisation to earth he must send in his
resignation.”
Whilst they were speaking, the figure of Mr. Beardmore had disappeared
into the gloom of a little wood on the edge of the estate.
“I worked with him during the last Circle murder,” Derrick Yale went
on, “and he struck me----”
He stopped, and the two men looked at one another.
There was no mistaking the sound. It was a shot near and distinct, and
it came from the direction of the wood. In an instant Jack had leapt
over the balustrade and was racing across the meadow, Derrick Yale
behind him.
Twenty paces along the woodland path they found Jim Beardmore lying on
his face, and he was quite dead, and even as Jack was staring down at
his father with horrified eyes, a girl emerged from the wood at the
farther end, and stopping only long enough to wipe with a handful of
grass something that was red from her hands, she flew along the shadow
of the hedge which divided the Froyant estate.
Never once did Thalia Drummond look back until she reached the shelter
of the little summer house. Her face was drawn and white, and her
breath came gaspingly as she stood for a second in the doorway of the
little hut, and looked back to the wood. A swift glance round and she
was in the house and on her knees tugging with quivering hands at the
end of a floor board. It came up disclosing a black cavity. Another
second’s hesitation, and she threw into the hole the revolver she had
held in her hand, and dropped the board back into its place.
Chapter VI.
“Thalia Drummond is a Crook”
The Commissioner looked down at the newspaper cutting before him and
tugged at his grey moustache. Inspector Parr, who knew the signs,
watched with an apparently detached interest.
He was a short, thick-set man, so lacking in inches that it was
remarkable that he had ever satisfied the stringent requirements of
the police authorities. His age was something below fifty, but his big
red face was unlined. It was a face from whence every indication of
intelligence and refinement was absent. The round, staring eyes were