The mysterious Mr. Quin
"I'm talking about Richard Scott. Do you pretend you've never heard of
him?"
"No, of course not. He's the big-game man, isn't he?"
"That's it--'Great big bears and tigers, etc.,' as the song says.
Of course, he's a great lion himself just now--the Unkertons would
naturally be mad to get hold of him--_and_ the bride! A charming
child--oh! quite a charming child--but so naïve, only twenty, you know,
and he must be at least forty-five."
"Mrs. Scott seems to me very charming," said Mr. Satterthwaite sedately.
"Yes, poor child."
"Why poor child?"
Lady Cynthia cast him a look of reproach, and went on, approaching the
point at issue in her own manner. "Porter's all right--a dull dog,
though--another of these African hunters, all sunburn and silence.
Second fiddle to Richard Scott and always has been--lifelong friends
and all that sort of thing. When I come to think of it, I believe they
were together on that trip--"
"Which trip?"
"_The_ trip. The Mrs. Staverton trip. You'll be saying next you've
never heard of Mrs. Staverton."
"I _have_ heard of Mrs. Staverton," said Mr. Satterthwaite, almost with
unwillingness.
And he and Lady Cynthia exchanged glances.
"It's so exactly like the Unkertons," wailed the latter; "they are
absolutely hopeless--socially, I mean. The idea of asking those two
together! Of course they'd heard that Mrs. Staverton was a sportswoman
and a traveler and all that, and about her book. People like the
Unkertons don't even begin to realize what pitfalls there are! I've
been running them, myself, for the last year, and what I've gone
through nobody knows. One has to be constantly at their elbow. 'Don't
do that! You can't do this!' Thank goodness, I'm through with it now.
Not that we've quarreled--oh! no, I never quarrel--but somebody else
can take on the job. As I've always said, I can put up with vulgarity,
but I can't stand meanness!"
After this somewhat cryptic utterance, Lady Cynthia was silent for a
moment, ruminating on the Unkertons' meanness as displayed to herself.
"If I'd still been running the show for them," she went on presently,
"I should have said quite firmly and plainly, 'You can't ask Mrs.
Staverton with the Richard Scotts. She and he were once--'"
She stopped eloquently.
"But were they once?" asked Mr. Satterthwaite.
"My dear man! It's well known. That trip into the interior! I'm
surprised the woman had the face to accept the invitation."
"Perhaps she didn't know the others were coming," suggested Mr.
Satterthwaite.
"Perhaps she did. That's far more likely."
"You think--"
"She's what I call a dangerous woman--the sort of woman who'd stick at
nothing. I wouldn't be in Richard Scott's shoes this week-end."
"And his wife knows nothing, you think?"
"I'm certain of it. But I suppose some kind friend will enlighten her
sooner or later. Here's Jimmy Allenson. Such a nice boy. He saved my
life in Egypt last winter--I was so bored, you know. Hullo, Jimmy, come
here at once."
Captain Allenson obeyed, dropping down on the turf beside her. He was
a handsome young fellow of thirty, with white teeth and an infectious
smile.
"I'm glad somebody wants me," he observed. "The Scotts are doing the
turtledove stunt, two required, not three, Porter's devouring the
Field, and I've been in mortal danger of being entertained by my
hostess."
He laughed. Lady Cynthia laughed with him. Mr. Satterthwaite, who was
in some ways a little old-fashioned, so much so that he seldom made fun
of his host and hostess until after he had left their house, remained
grave.
"Poor Jimmy," said Lady Cynthia.
"Mine not to reason why, mine but to swiftly fly. I had a narrow escape
of being told the family ghost story."
"An Unkerton ghost," cried Lady Cynthia. "How screaming."
"Not an Unkerton ghost," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "A Greenways ghost.
They bought it with the house."
"Of course," said Lady Cynthia. "I remember now. But it doesn't clank
chains, does it? It's only something to do with a window."
Jimmy Allenson looked up quickly. "A window?"
But for the moment Mr. Satterthwaite did not answer. He was looking
over Jimmy's head at three figures approaching from the direction
of the house--a slim girl between two men. There was a superficial
resemblance between the men, both were tall and dark with bronzed faces
and quick eyes, but looked at more closely the resemblance vanished.
Richard Scott, hunter and explorer, was a man of extraordinarily vivid
personality. He had a manner that radiated magnetism. John Porter, his
friend and fellow hunter, was a man of squarer build with an impassive,
rather wooden face, and very thoughtful gray eyes. He was a quiet man,
content always to play second fiddle to his friend.
And between these two walked Moira Scott who, until three months ago,
had been Moira O'Connell, a slender figure, big wistful brown eyes, and
golden-red hair that stood out round her small face like a saint's halo.
_That child mustn't be hurt_, said Mr. Satterthwaite to himself. _It
would be abominable that a child like that should be hurt._
Lady Cynthia greeted the newcomers with a wave of the latest thing in
parasols. "Sit down, and don't interrupt," she said. "Mr. Satterthwaite
is telling us a ghost story."
"I love ghost stories," said Moira Scott. She dropped down on the grass.
"The ghost of Greenways House?" asked Richard Scott.
"Yes, you know about it?"
Scott nodded. "I used to stay here in the old days," he explained.
"Before the Elliots had to sell up. The Watching Cavalier, that's it,
isn't it?"
"The Watching Cavalier," said his wife softly. "I like that. It sounds
interesting. Please go on."
But Mr. Satterthwaite seemed somewhat loath to do so. He assured her
that it was not really interesting at all.
"Now you've done it, Satterthwaite," said Richard Scott sardonically.
"That hint of reluctance clinches it."
In response to popular clamor, Mr. Satterthwaite was forced to speak.
"It's really very uninteresting," he said apologetically. "I believe
the original story centers round a Cavalier ancestor of the Elliot
family. His wife had a Roundhead lover. The husband was killed by the
lover in an upstairs room, and the guilty pair fled; but, as they fled,
they looked back at the house and saw the face of the dead husband at
the window, watching them. That is the legend, but the ghost story is
only concerned with a pane of glass in the window of that particular
room, on which is an irregular stain, almost imperceptible from near
at hand, but which from far away certainly gives the effect of a man's
face looking out."
"Which window is it?" asked Mrs. Scott, looking up at the house.
"You can't see it from here," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "It is round the
other side, but was boarded up from the inside some years ago--forty
years ago, I think, to be accurate."
"What did they do that for? I thought you said the ghost didn't walk."
"It doesn't," Mr. Satterthwaite assured her. "I suppose--well, I
suppose there grew to be a superstitious feeling about it, that's all."
Then, deftly enough, he succeeded in turning the conversation. Jimmy
Allenson was perfectly ready to hold forth upon Egyptian sand diviners.
"Frauds, most of them. Ready enough to tell you vague things about the
past, but won't commit themselves as to the future."
"I should have thought it was usually the other way about," remarked
John Porter.
"It's illegal to tell the future in this country, isn't it?" said
Richard Scott. "Moira persuaded a gypsy into telling her fortune, but
the woman gave her her shilling back, and said there was nothing doing,
or words to that effect."
"Perhaps she saw something so frightful that she didn't like to tell it
me," said Moira.
"Don't pile on the agony, Mrs. Scott," said Allenson lightly. "I, for
one, refuse to believe that an unlucky fate is hanging over you."
_I wonder_, thought Mr. Satterthwaite. _I wonder._
Then he looked up sharply. Two women were coming from the house, a
short stout woman with black hair, inappropriately dressed in jade
green, and a tall slim figure in creamy white. The first woman was his
hostess, Mrs. Unkerton; the second was a woman he had often heard of,
but never met.
"Here's Mrs. Staverton," announced Mrs. Unkerton, in a tone of great
satisfaction. "All friends here, I think."
"These people have an uncanny gift for saying just the most awful
things they can," murmured Lady Cynthia, but Mr. Satterthwaite was not
listening. He was watching Mrs. Staverton.
Very easy--very natural. Her careless "Hullo! Richard, ages since we
met. Sorry I couldn't come to the wedding. Is this your wife? You must
be tired of meeting all your husband's weather-beaten old friends."
Moira's response--suitable, rather shy. The elder woman's swift
appraising glance that went on lightly to another old friend.
"Hullo, John!" The same easy tone, but with a subtle difference in
it--a warming quality that had been absent before.
And then that sudden smile. It transformed her. Lady Cynthia had been
quite right. A dangerous woman! Very fair--deep blue eyes--not the
traditional coloring of the siren--a face almost haggard in repose. A
woman with a slow dragging voice and a sudden dazzling smile.
Iris Staverton sat down. She became naturally and inevitably the center
of the group. So, you felt, it would always be.
Mr. Satterthwaite was recalled from his thoughts by Major Porter's
suggesting a stroll. Mr. Satterthwaite, who was not, as a general rule,
much given to strolling, acquiesced. The two men sauntered off together
across the lawn.
"Very interesting story of yours just now," said the Major.
"I will show you the window," said Mr. Satterthwaite.
He led the way round to the west side of the house. Here there was
a small formal garden--the Privy Garden, it was always called, and
there was some point in the name, for it was surrounded by high holly
hedges, and even the entrance to it ran zigzag between the same high
prickly hedges.
Once inside, it was very charming with an old-world charm of formal
flower beds, flagged paths, and a low stone seat, exquisitely carved.
When they had reached the center of the garden, Mr. Satterthwaite
turned and pointed up at the house. The length of Greenways House ran
north and south. In this narrow west wall there was only one window, a
window on the first floor, almost overgrown by ivy, with grimy panes,
and which you could just see was boarded up on the inside.
"There you are," said Mr. Satterthwaite.
Craning his neck a little, Porter looked up. "H'm, I can see a kind of
discoloration on one of the panes, nothing more."
"We're too near," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "There's a clearing higher up
in the woods where you get a really good view."
He led the way out of the Privy Garden and, turning sharply to the
left, struck into the woods. A certain enthusiasm of showmanship
possessed him, and he hardly noticed that the man at his side was
absent and inattentive.
"They had, of course, to make another window, when they boarded up this
one," he explained. "The new one faces south, overlooking the lawn
where we were sitting just now. I rather fancy the Scotts have the room
in question. That is why I didn't want to pursue the subject. Mrs.
Scott might have felt nervous if she had realized that she was sleeping
in what might be called the haunted room."
"Yes. I see," said Porter.
Mr. Satterthwaite looked at him sharply, and realized that the other
had not heard a word of what he was saying.
"Very interesting," said Porter. He slashed with his stick at some tall
foxgloves, and, frowning, he said, "She ought not to have come. She
ought never to have come."
People often spoke after this fashion to Mr. Satterthwaite. He seemed