The mysterious Mr. Quin
to matter so little, to have so negative a personality. He was merely a
glorified listener.
"No," said Porter, "she ought never to have come."
Mr. Satterthwaite knew instinctively that it was not of Mrs. Scott he
spoke. "You think not?" he asked.
Porter shook his head as though in foreboding. "I was on that trip,"
he said abruptly. "The three of us went. Scott and I and Iris. She's a
wonderful woman--and a damned fine shot." He paused. "What made them
ask her?" he finished abruptly.
Mr. Satterthwaite shrugged his shoulders. "Ignorance," he said.
"There's going to be trouble," said the other. "We must stand by--and
do what we can."
"But surely Mrs. Staverton--"
"I'm talking of Scott." He paused. "You see--there's Mrs. Scott to
consider."
Mr. Satterthwaite had been considering her all along, but he did not
think it necessary to say so, since the other man had so clearly
forgotten her until this minute.
"How did Scott meet his wife?" he asked.
"Last winter, in Cairo. A quick business. They were engaged in three
weeks, and married in six."
"She seems to me very charming."
"She is; no doubt about it. And he adores her--but that will make no
difference." And again Major Porter repeated, using the pronoun that
meant to him one person only, "Hang it all, she shouldn't have come."
Just then they stepped out upon a high grassy knoll at some little
distance from the house. With again something of the pride of the
showman, Mr. Satterthwaite stretched out his arm. "Look," he said.
It was fast growing dusk. The window could still be plainly descried,
and apparently pressed against one of the panes was a man's face
surmounted by a plumed Cavalier's hat.
"Very curious," said Porter. "Really very curious. What will happen
when that pane of glass gets smashed some day?"
Mr. Satterthwaite smiled. "That is one of the most interesting parts of
the story. That pane of glass has been replaced to my certain knowledge
at least eleven times, perhaps oftener. The last time was twelve years
ago when the then owner of the house determined to destroy the myth.
But it's always the same. _The stain reappears_--not all at once; the
discoloration spreads gradually. It takes a month or two as a rule."
For the first time, Porter showed signs of real interest. He gave a
sudden quick shiver. "Damned odd, these things. No accounting for them.
What's the real reason of having the room boarded up inside?"
"Well, an idea got about that the room was--unlucky. The Eveshams were
in it just before the divorce. Then Stanley and his wife were staying
here, and had that room when he ran off with his chorus girl."
Porter raised his eyebrows. "I see. Danger, not to life, but to morals."
_And now_, thought Mr. Satterthwaite, _the Scotts have it. I wonder_--
They retraced their steps in silence to the house. Walking almost
noiselessly on the soft turf, each absorbed in his own thoughts,
they became unwittingly eavesdroppers. They were rounding the corner
of the holly hedge when they heard Iris Staverton's voice, raised
fierce and clear from the depths of the Privy Garden: "You shall be
sorry--sorry--for this!"
Scott's voice answered, low and uncertain, so that the words could
not be distinguished; and then the woman's voice rose again, speaking
words that they were to remember later. "Jealousy--it drives one to the
devil--it _is_ the devil! It can drive one to black murder. Be careful,
Richard; for God's sake, be careful."
And then, on that, she had come out of the Privy Garden, ahead of them,
and on round the corner of the house without seeing them, walking
swiftly, almost running, like a woman hag-ridden and pursued.
Mr. Satterthwaite thought again of Lady Cynthia's words. A dangerous
woman. For the first time he had a premonition of tragedy, coming swift
and inexorable, not to be gainsaid.
Yet that evening he felt ashamed of his fears. Everything seemed normal
and pleasant. Mrs. Staverton, with her easy insouciance, showed no sign
of strain. Moira Scott was her charming, unaffected self. The two women
appeared to be getting on very well. Richard Scott himself seemed to be
in boisterous spirits.
The most worried-looking person was stout Mrs. Unkerton. She confided
at length in Mr. Satterthwaite.
"Think it silly or not, as you like, there's something giving me the
creeps. And I'll tell you frankly, I've sent for the glazier, unbeknown
to Ned."
"The glazier?"
"To put a new pane of glass in that window. It's all very well. Ned's
proud of it--says it gives the house a tone. I don't like it. I tell
you flat. We'll have a nice, plain, modern pane of glass, with no nasty
stories attached to it."
"You forget," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "Or perhaps you don't know. The
stain comes back."
"That's as it may be," said Mrs. Unkerton. "All I can say is, if it
does, it's against nature!"
Mr. Satterthwaite raised his eyebrows, but did not reply.
"And what if it does?" pursued Mrs. Unkerton defiantly. "We're not so
bankrupt, Ned and I, that we can't afford a new pane of glass every
month--or every week if need be for the matter of that."
Mr. Satterthwaite did not meet the challenge. He had seen too many
things crumple and fall before the power of money to believe that even
a Cavalier ghost could put up a successful fight. Nevertheless, he was
interested by Mrs. Unkerton's manifest uneasiness. Even she was not
exempt from the tension in the atmosphere--only she attributed it to
an attenuated ghost story, not to the clash of personalities among her
guests.
Mr. Satterthwaite was fated to hear yet another scrap of conversation
which threw light upon the situation. He was going up the wide
staircase to bed. John Porter and Mrs. Staverton were sitting together
in an alcove of the big hall. She was speaking with a faint irritation
in her golden voice.
"I hadn't the least idea the Scotts were going to be here. I daresay,
if I had known, I shouldn't have come; but I can assure you, my dear
John, that now I am here, I'm not going to run away."
Mr. Satterthwaite passed on up the staircase out of earshot. He
thought, _I wonder now. How much of that is true? Did she know? I
wonder. What's going to come of it?_
He shook his head.
In the clear light of the morning he felt that he had perhaps been a
little melodramatic in his imaginings of the evening before. A moment
of strain--yes, certainly--inevitable under the circumstances--but
nothing more. People adjusted themselves. His fancy that some great
catastrophe was pending was nerves--pure nerves--or possibly liver.
Yes, that was it, liver. He was due at Carlsbad in another fortnight.
On his own account he proposed a little stroll that evening just as it
was growing dusk. He suggested to Major Porter that they should go up
to the clearing and see if Mrs. Unkerton had been as good as her word,
and had a new pane of glass put in. To himself, he said, _Exercise,
that's what I need. Exercise._
The two men walked slowly through the woods. Porter, as usual, was
taciturn.
"I can't help feeling," said Mr. Satterthwaite, loquaciously,
"that we were a little foolish in our imaginings yesterday.
Expecting--er--trouble, you know. After all, people have to behave
themselves--swallow their feelings and that sort of thing."
"Perhaps," said Porter. After a minute or two he added, "Civilized
people."
"You mean?"
"People who've lived outside civilization a good deal sometimes go
back. Revert. Whatever you call it."
They emerged onto the grassy knoll. Mr. Satterthwaite was breathing
rather fast. He never enjoyed going up hill.
He looked toward the window. The face was still there, more lifelike
than ever.
"Our hostess has repented, I see."
Porter threw it only a cursory glance. "Unkerton cut up rough, I
expect," he said indifferently. "He's the sort of man who is willing to
be proud of another family's ghost, and who isn't going to run the risk
of having it driven away when he's paid spot cash for it."
He was silent a minute or two, staring, not at the house, but at the
thick undergrowth by which they were surrounded. "Has it ever struck
you," he said, "that civilization's damned dangerous?"
"Dangerous?" Such a revolutionary remark shocked Mr. Satterthwaite to
the core.
"Yes. There are no safety valves, you see."
He turned abruptly, and they descended the path by which they had come.
"I really am quite at a loss to understand you," said Mr.
Satterthwaite, pattering along with nimble steps to keep up with the
other's strides. "Reasonable people--"
Porter laughed. A short, disconcerting laugh. Then he looked at the
correct little gentleman by his side.
"You think it's all bunkum on my part, Mr. Satterthwaite? But there are
people, you know, who can tell you when a storm's coming. They feel it
beforehand in the air. And other people can foretell trouble. There's
trouble coming now, Mr. Satterthwaite, big trouble. It may come any
minute. It may--"
He stopped dead, clutching Mr. Satterthwaite's arm. And in that tense
minute of silence it came--the sound of two shots and, following them,
a cry--a cry in a woman's voice.
"My God!" cried Porter, "it's come."
He raced down the path, Mr. Satterthwaite panting behind him. In a
minute they came out onto the lawn, close by the hedge of the Privy
Garden. At the same time, Richard Scott and Mr. Unkerton came round the
opposite corner of the house. They halted, facing each other, to left
and right of the entrance to the Privy Garden.
"It--it came from in there," said Unkerton, pointing with a flabby hand.
"We must see," said Porter. He led the way into the enclosure. As
he rounded the last bend of the holly hedge, he stopped dead. Mr.
Satterthwaite peered over his shoulder. A loud cry burst from Richard
Scott.
There were three people in the Privy Garden. Two of them lay on the
grass near the stone seat, a man and a woman. The third was Mrs.
Staverton. She was standing quite close to them by the holly hedge,
gazing with horror-stricken eyes, and holding something in her right
hand.
"Iris," cried Porter. "Iris. For God's sake! What's that you've got in
your hand?"
She looked down at it then--with a kind of wonder, an unbelievable
indifference.
"It's a pistol," she said wonderingly. And then--after what seemed an
interminable time, but was in reality only a few seconds: "I--picked it
up."
Mr. Satterthwaite had gone forward to where Unkerton and Scott were
kneeling on the turf.
"A doctor," the latter was murmuring. "We must have a doctor."
But it was too late for any doctor. Jimmy Allenson, who had complained
that the sand diviners hedged about the future, and Moira Scott, to
whom a gypsy had returned a shilling, lay there in the last great
stillness.
It was Richard Scott who completed a brief examination. The iron nerve
of the man showed in this crisis. After the first cry of agony, he was
himself again.
He laid his wife gently down again. "Shot from behind," he said
briefly. "The bullet has passed right through her."
Then he handled Jimmy Allenson. The wound here was in the breast and
the bullet was lodged in the body.
John Porter came toward them. "Nothing should be touched," he said
sternly. "The police must see it all exactly as it is now."
"The police," said Richard Scott. His eyes lit up with a sudden flame
as he looked at the woman standing by the holly hedge. He made a step
in that direction, but at the same time John Porter also moved, so as
to bar his way. For a moment it seemed as though there was a duel of
eyes between the two friends.
Porter very quietly shook his head. "No, Richard," he said. "It looks
like it--but you're wrong."
Richard Scott spoke with difficulty, moistening his dry lips. "Then