The strange countess
of dust from her skirt with a fine air.
“Is that so?” he asked, looking at her in wonder. “Well now, I never
thought that one of the Morons would ever do me the honour of entering
my house! They’re a fine family, a handsome family. I remember the old
earl: he frequently came to the theatre, though not, I fear, in the
most presentable condition.”
Miss Lizzy Smith was not interested in the old earl. She was, however,
immensely absorbed in the new one; and when Lord Moron’s taxicab
pulled up at the side-walk she was at the door to admit him.
“I say, what an awfully jolly kitchen!” he said, looking round at a
room of which even Lizzy was not particularly proud.
“I wouldn’t have asked your lordship here----” she began.
“I say, don’t give us any of that ‘lordship’ stuff,” he pleaded. “I’m
Selwyn to my friends. That’s a wonderful frying-pan: did you make it?”
Lizzy disclaimed responsibility. But he had his views, apparently,
upon culinary apparatus, had invented an electric chafing-dish, and
had plans for a coke oven. Until then she had not known that coke was
ever cooked.
“I’ve often thought I’d like to run away from this awful ‘my-lording’
and do some work. I’ve got a bit of money of my own that even her
ladyship can’t touch--and you can bet your life that it’s pretty well
tied up, old thing, if she and the bird of prey can’t get their hooks
into it!”
He was delightfully, restfully vulgar, and Lizzy who only knew this
much about electricity, that lamps light up when you turn a switch,
without exactly understanding why, could have listened for hours to
schemes which might even have interested an engineer. But she had the
letter to discuss.
He read it through, and, by stopping at every other line and asking
for explanations, understood the gist of it. She had noticed before
how, on really important matters, Selwyn had quite intelligent views;
and that he was no fool she discovered later in the day, when he
confided to her that he had countered his mother’s veiled threats of
getting him certified as mentally incompetent to deal with his estate,
by making a visit to three Harley Street alienists in consultation,
and procuring from them a most flattering tribute to his mentality.
“I don’t know what it’s all about,” he said, as he handed the letter
back. And then, answering her pained look: “Yes, I understand the
letter, but I mean all these accidents and things--old Braime dropping
dead, or something, in the library. Madam is my mother, and I suppose
I ought not to loathe her. But she’s fearfully devilish, Miss Smith,
fearfully devilish!”
He fingered the red seam on his cheek tenderly.
“You can never be sure what she’s up to, and since that bounder Praye
and that awful boozy doctor have been around the house she’s been
queerer than ever. Do you know what she told me once? She said that if
she thought she’d be any happier by me being dead I’d be dead
to-morrow--those were her very words! Dead to-morrow, dear old Lizzy!
Isn’t it positively fearful?”
“What a lady!” said Lizzy. “You’ve heard nothing at the house about
this business--I mean Gallows Farm?”
He shook his head.
“They never talk in front of me. But _something’s_ happening: I’m sure
of that! That chap Chesney has been in with her ladyship since eight
o’clock this morning--they told you she was in bed--well, she wasn’t:
she was in the library. And the telephone seems to have been ringing
all night. I say, what do you think of that detective johnny putting
the young lady in gaol? A bit thick, what? I meant to have a few words
with him the other morning.”
“He did it for a very good reason,” said Lizzy mysteriously. “I can’t
tell you everything, Selwyn; one day you will know the truth, but at
the present moment I’m not at liberty to talk.”
“Nobody seems to be at liberty to tell me anything,” said the dismal
man. “But what’s the idea of that letter? Somebody’s got her in that
place with a fearful name!” He slapped his side. “Tappatt--the chap
who worries the wine! You know this fellow--the perfectly horrible
doctor! I’ll bet he’s the perfectly awful villain of the piece! He
hasn’t been near the house for days, and he had been sleuthing round
Chester Square a lot lately. And”--he slapped his knee again--“and
there was a trunk call came through from the country last night! I was
in the hall when the bell rang, and I’m sure he was the johnny who
called. He asked for her ladyship. Gallows Farm: that’s the place he
lives!”
Suddenly he jumped up, his eyes bright with excitement.
“She’s there--I’ll bet a million pounds to a strawberry ice! Gallows
Farm, Somerset.” He tapped his forehead. “I signed a paper about that,
I’ll swear! It is one of the job lots her ladyship bought two or three
years ago, or one of her bailiffs bought. She is always buying old
properties and selling ’em at a profit. And I know old
stick-in-the-mud has got a home somewhere--Tappatt, I mean--because
her ladyship said she’d send me there if I wasn’t jolly careful. That
rosy-nosed hound has got Miss Reddle!”
They looked at one another in silence.
“You’re a detective, Selwyn!” she breathed ecstatically, and he pulled
at his moustache.
“I’m pretty smart at some things--what about a rescue?” said his
lordship suddenly.
“A what?” Lizzy’s heart beat faster.
“A rescue,” he nodded. “What about hopping down into Somerset, seeing
old stick-in-the-mud, and saying: ‘Look here, old top, this sort of
thing can’t be tolerated in civilised society. Hand over Miss Reddle
or you’ll get into serious trouble’?”
Lizzy’s enthusiasm died down.
“I don’t think that would make much difference to him,” she said. “And
it would be unnecessary, Selwyn; if Michael Dorn is there she will be
released this afternoon.”
Selwyn was disappointed.
“Besides,” Lizzy went on, “what would her ladyship say if you were
away all day?”
“Blow her ladyship!” He snapped his fingers. “I’ve had enough of her
ladyship--I have really. I’ve made up my mind that I’m through with
Chester Square, and I’ve got my eye on a dinky little flat in
Knightsbridge,” he said rapidly. “I feel it is time I asserted myself.
My idea is to live incognito. I’m going to call myself Mr. Smith----”
“Indeed?” said Lizzy coldly.
“It’s a pretty good name. Anyway, Brown is as good.” He amended his
plans in some haste. “Now what about a little bit of lunch somewhere?”
An hour later Lizzy went dizzily into the great dining-room of the
Ritz-Carlton, and Lady Moron, entertaining a guest at a corner table,
looked at her through her lorgnettes and shrugged her large shoulders.
“Selwyn is sowing his wild oats rather late in life,” she said, and
Chesney Praye, who had returned from Paris that morning, was mildly
amused.
Chapter Thirty
Though she could remember one or two uncomfortable days in her life,
Lois Reddle could not recall one that bore any comparison with the
twenty hours that followed her departure from Gallows Farm. She had
been awakened by the woman at some unknown hour in the middle of the
night, ordered to dress and come downstairs. The first order was easy
to obey, for she had not taken off her clothes. When she came down
into the passage she found the doctor waiting for her. He was wearing
his heaviest overcoat, and carried a thick stick, and was testing a
flash-lamp as she joined him.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, as he led her across the yard to
the accompaniment of the savage chorus of the dogs.
“You’ll find out in good time,” was the unpromising reply. “I don’t
want you to ask questions or to speak until I tell you. After you
leave this house you are to be silent--understand that?”
They mounted the gentle slope of the downs and presently descended
into a valley on the other side. Although the moon was obscured, there
was sufficient light to enable her to pick her way across the rough
ground and to dispense with the arm he offered her. Once they made a
wide detour to avoid a marshy patch, and once he had to help her
through a fence of hawthorn. Ahead of them was a dark line of trees,
which was on the estate. He told her there were twelve hundred acres
of land attached to the farm, only a small portion of which had been
sub-let, and none of which was under cultivation.
“It is poor land, anyway--most of this downland is. That is Gallows
Wood,” he said, indicating the trees ahead. “The farm takes its name
from the wood. There used to be a gallows on the crest of the hill
years ago. Not scared, are you?”
He chuckled when she answered “No.”
After a while they struck a rough track which led into the heart of
the copse, and now for the first time he produced the flash-lamp; a
necessary precaution, for the path was overgrown and difficult to
follow. Although her voice was steady and her attitude one of sublime
confidence, Lois was inwardly quaking. There was something very
ominous in this move. Yet it was not the fear of what would happen in
the wood that frightened her. She guessed that the doctor was moving
her from the farm because he expected the return of Michael Dorn. She
dreaded only this; that Michael would search the house and be
satisfied that she was not there. Would the doctor move the
grey-haired woman too, she wondered? After ten minutes’ walk he
stopped, and she thought he had lost the way, until the light of his
lamp revealed a small stone cottage, standing back from the path and
almost hidden by trees and undergrowth. This, then, was the new
prison, she thought.
“Hold this light,” he ordered, and she obeyed, whilst he tried key
after key in the lock.
After a while the door swung open and he went in, turning his head to
see that she was coming after. The floor was thick with dust; the only
furniture in the room into which he invited her was an old backless
chair. On one of the walls was a yellow almanac for the year 1913, and
probably the house had not been occupied since then.
“You’ll stay here and keep quiet. There will be light in a few hours.
If you want anything, ask Mrs. Rooks--she will be here presently.”
He went out, but did not lock the door; she found afterwards that it
was lacking in this appendage. Followed half an hour’s wait, and then
she heard footsteps in the hall, heard another door open, and a mutter
of conversation. Something dropped with a thud on the passage, and for
a second Lois’ heart came into her mouth. But it seemed that Mrs.
Rooks, who, she guessed, was the sallow-faced woman, had come heavily
laden, for the sound of her complaining reached the girl. Evidently
she had brought the provisions necessary for the party--the weight of
them was not very promising, and Tappatt was seemingly prepared for a
long stay.
“Nearly broke my back,” she grumbled. “Why couldn’t she carry it,
doctor?”
Lois crept nearer to the door and listened, hoping to hear something
that would confirm her theory that she was being hidden because the
doctor expected a return visit from Michael Dorn.
“Get a chair from the other room,” she heard him growl. “What are you
making all this fuss about? It is no worse for you than for me. This
isn’t the first time you’ve sat up all night, is it?”
“I don’t see why you should take all this trouble,” grumbled the
woman. “He’ll not come back again, and, if he did, what’s to stop him
coming into the wood?”
“He will come back--you need have no doubt about that. I know the man.
And you can make your mind easy about his finding them. He isn’t
likely to search every copse in the neighbourhood.”
A few minutes later the front door slammed as he went out, and she
heard the woman grumbling to herself. She was sitting within a few
feet of the door, and could hear every sound and move in the bare
room. To open the window might be possible, but to do so without her