The mysterious Mr. Quin
at Mr. Quin. "_You_ were there. _You_ were there outside the window
looking in. You saw what we did, Hugo and I. I _knew_ there was someone
looking in; I felt it all the time. And yet when I looked up there was
nobody there. I knew someone was watching us. I thought once I caught a
glimpse of a face at the window. It has frightened me all these years.
And then I saw that picture with you standing at the window and I
recognized your face. You have known all these years. Why did you break
silence now? That is what I want to know."
"Perhaps so that the dead may rest in peace," said Mr. Quin.
Suddenly Aspasia Glen made a rush for the door and stood there flinging
a few defiant words over her shoulder.
"Do what you like. God knows there are witnesses enough to what I have
been saying. I don't care, I don't care. I loved Hugo and I helped him
with the ghastly business and he chucked me afterward. He died last
year. You can set the police on my tracks if you like but, as that
little dried-up fellow there said, I am a pretty good actress. They
will find it hard to find me." She crashed the door behind her and a
moment later they heard the slam of the front door also.
"Reggie," cried Lady Charnley, "Reggie." The tears were streaming down
her face. "Oh, my dear, my dear, I can go back to Charnley now. I can
live there with Dickie. I can tell him what his father was, the finest,
the most splendid man in all the world."
"We must consult very seriously as to what must be done in the matter,"
said Colonel Monckton. "Alix, my dear, if you will let me take you
home, I shall be glad to have a few words with you on the subject."
Lady Charnley rose. She came across to Mr. Satterthwaite and laying
both hands on his shoulders she kissed him very gently.
"It is so wonderful to be alive again after being so long dead,"
she said. "It was like being dead, you know. Thank you, dear Mr.
Satterthwaite." She went out of the room with Colonel Monckton. Mr.
Satterthwaite gazed after them. A grunt from Frank Bristow, whom he had
forgotten, made him turn sharply round.
"She is a lovely creature," said Bristow moodily. "But she's not nearly
so interesting as she was," he said gloomily.
"There speaks the artist," said Mr. Satterthwaite.
"Well, she isn't," said Mr. Bristow. "I suppose I should only get the
cold shoulder if I ever went butting in at Charnley. I don't want to go
where I am not wanted."
"My dear young man," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "if you will think a
little less of the impression you are making on other people, you will,
I think, be wiser and happier. You would also do well to disabuse your
mind of some very old-fashioned notions, one of which is that birth has
any significance at all in our modern conditions. You are one of those
large-proportioned young men whom women always consider good-looking,
and you have possibly, if not certainly, genius. Just say that over
to yourself ten times before you go to bed every night and in three
months' time go and call on Lady Charnley at Charnley. That is my
advice to you, and I am an old man with considerable experience of the
world."
A very charming smile suddenly spread over the artist's face. "You
have been thunderingly good to me," he said suddenly. He seized Mr.
Satterthwaite's hand and wrung it in a powerful grip. "I am no end
grateful. I must be off now. Thanks very much for one of the most
extraordinary evenings I have ever spent."
He looked round as though to say good-by to someone else and then
started. "I say, sir, your friend has gone. I never saw him go. He is
rather a queer bird, isn't he?"
"He goes and comes very suddenly," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "That is one
of his characteristics. One doesn't always see him come and go."
"Like Harlequin," said Frank Bristow, "he is invisible," and laughed
heartily at his own joke.
THE BIRD WITH THE BROKEN WING
Mr. Satterthwaite looked out of the window. It was raining steadily. He
shivered. Very few country houses, he reflected, were really properly
heated. It cheered him to think that in a few hours' time he would be
speeding toward London. Once one had passed sixty years of age, London
was really much the best place.
He was feeling a little old and pathetic. Most of the members of the
house party were so young. Four of them had just gone off into the
library to do table turning. They had invited him to accompany them but
he had declined. He failed to derive any amusement from the monotonous
counting of the letters of the alphabet and the usual meaningless
jumble of letters that resulted.
Yes, London was the best place for him. He was glad that he had
declined Madge Keeley's invitation when she had rung up to invite him
over to Laidell half an hour ago. An adorable young person, certainly,
but London was best.
Mr. Satterthwaite shivered again and remembered that the fire in the
library was usually a good one. He opened the door and adventured
cautiously into the darkened room.
"If I'm not in the way--"
"Was that N or M? We shall have to count again. No, of course not,
Mr. Satterthwaite. Do you know, the most exciting things have been
happening. The spirit says her name is Ada Spiers and John here is
going to marry someone called Gladys Bun almost immediately."
Mr. Satterthwaite sat down in a big easy chair in front of the fire.
His eyelids drooped over his eyes and he dozed. From time to time he
returned to consciousness, hearing fragments of speech.
"It can't be P A B Z L--not unless he's a Russian. John, you're
shoving. I _saw_ you. I believe it's a new spirit come."
Another interval of dozing. Then a name jerked him wide awake.
"Q U I N. Is that right?" "Yes, it's rapped once for Yes." "Quin. Have
you a message for someone here? Yes. For me? For John? For Sarah? For
Evelyn? No--but there's no one else. Oh! it's for Mr. Satterthwaite,
perhaps? It says, 'Yes.' Mr. Satterthwaite, it's a message for you."
"What does it say?"
Mr. Satterthwaite was broad awake now, sitting taut and erect in his
chair, his eyes shining.
The table rocked and one of the girls counted. "L A I--it can't
be--that doesn't make sense. No word begins L A I."
"Go on," said Mr. Satterthwaite, and the command in his voice was so
sharp that he was obeyed without question.
"L A I D E L--and another L--Oh! that seems to be all."
"Go on."
"Tell us some more, please."
A pause.
"There doesn't seem to be any more. The table's gone quite dead. How
silly."
"No," said Mr. Satterthwaite thoughtfully. "I don't think it's silly."
He rose and left the room. He went straight to the telephone. Presently
he was through.
"Can I speak to Miss Keeley? Is that you, Madge, my dear? I want to
change my mind, if I may, and accept your kind invitation. It is not so
urgent as I thought that I should get back to town. Yes--yes--I will
arrive in time for dinner."
He hung up the receiver, a strange flush on his withered cheeks. Mr.
Quin--the mysterious Mr. Harley Quin. Mr. Satterthwaite counted over on
his fingers the times he had been brought into contact with that man
of mystery. Where Mr. Quin was concerned--_things happened_! What had
happened or was going to happen--at Laidell?
Whatever it was, there was work for him, Mr. Satterthwaite, to do. In
some way or other, he would have an active part to play. He was sure
of that.
Laidell was a large house. Its owner, David Keeley, was one of those
quiet men with indeterminate personalities who seem to count as part
of the furniture. Their inconspicuousness has nothing to do with brain
power--David Keeley was a most brilliant mathematician and had written
a book totally incomprehensible to ninety-nine hundredths of humanity.
But like so many men of brilliant intellect, he radiated no bodily
vigor or magnetism. It was a standing joke that David Keeley was a real
"invisible man." Footmen passed him by with the vegetables, and guests
forgot to say how do you do or good-by.
His daughter Madge was very different. A fine upstanding young woman,
bursting with energy and life. Thorough, healthy, and normal, and
extremely pretty.
It was she who received Mr. Satterthwaite when he arrived. "How nice of
you to come--after all."
"Very delightful of you to let me change my mind. Madge, my dear,
you're looking very well."
"Oh! I'm always well."
"Yes, I know. But it's more than that. You look--well, blooming
is the word I have in mind. Has anything happened, my dear?
Anything--well--special?"
She laughed--blushed a little. "It's too bad, Mr. Satterthwaite. You
always guess things."
He took her hand. "So it's that, is it? Mr. Right has come along?"
It was an old-fashioned term, but Madge did not object to it. She
rather liked Mr. Satterthwaite's old-fashioned ways.
"I suppose so--yes. But nobody's supposed to know. It's a secret. But
I don't really mind your knowing, Mr. Satterthwaite. You're always so
nice and sympathetic."
Mr. Satterthwaite thoroughly enjoyed romance at second hand. He was
sentimental and Victorian. "I mustn't ask who the lucky man is? Well,
then all I can say is that I hope he is worthy of the honor you are
conferring on him."
_Rather a duck, old Mr. Satterthwaite_, thought Madge.
"Oh! we shall get on awfully well together, I think," she said. "You
see, we like doing the same things, and that's so awfully important,
isn't it? We've really got a lot in common--and we know all about each
other and all that. It's really been coming on for a long time. That
gives one such a nice safe feeling, doesn't it?"
"Undoubtedly," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "But in my experience one can
never really know all about anyone else. That is part of the interest
and charm of life."
"Oh! I'll risk it," said Madge, laughing, and they went up to dress for
dinner.
Mr. Satterthwaite was late. He had not brought a valet, and having his
things unpacked for him by a stranger always flurried him a little. He
came down to find everyone assembled, and in the modern style Madge
merely said:
"Oh! here's Mr. Satterthwaite. I'm starving. Let's go in."
She led the way with a tall gray-haired woman--a woman of striking
personality. She had a very clear, rather incisive, voice and her face
was clear-cut and rather beautiful.
"How d'you do, Satterthwaite," said Mr. Keeley.
Mr. Satterthwaite jumped. "How do you do," he said. "I'm afraid I
didn't see you."
"Nobody does," said Mr. Keeley sadly.
They went in. The table was a low oval of mahogany. Mr. Satterthwaite
was placed between his young hostess and a short, dark girl--a very
hearty girl with a loud voice and a ringing, determined laugh that
expressed more the determination to be cheerful at all costs than any
real mirth. Her name seemed to be Doris and she was the type of young
woman Mr. Satterthwaite most disliked. She had, he considered, no
artistic justification for existence.
On Madge's other side was a man of about thirty whose likeness to the
gray-haired woman proclaimed them mother and son.
Next to him--
Mr. Satterthwaite caught his breath.
He didn't know what it was exactly. It was not beauty. It was something
else--something much more elusive and intangible than beauty.
She was listening to Mr. Keeley's rather ponderous dinner-table
conversation, her head bent a little sideways. She was there, it seemed
to Mr. Satterthwaite--and yet she was not there! She was, somehow,
a great deal less substantial than anyone else seated round the oval
table. Something in the droop of her body sideways was beautiful--was
more than beautiful. She looked up--her eyes met Mr. Satterthwaite's
for the moment across the table--and the word he wanted leaped to his
mind.
_Enchantment_--that was it. She had the quality of enchantment. She