The strange countess
On the journey back to London he told Lois what had happened to him.
“I pretty well knew that he’d get you out of the house in the night,
but I also knew that he couldn’t take you far. It was impossible to
watch all sides of the house, and besides, it would have been as
impossible to get back on foot in time to intercept him. As I
expected, the house was empty when I made my search. I had formed a
plan which was fairly elementary. When he showed me the underground
cellar room, I slipped a spare gun and a small kit of tools amongst
the bedding, for I guessed that would be the place he would put
me--that is, if he managed to catch me. Honestly, I don’t believe he
thought of drugging me until I suggested it myself, and then he did
his work in the most clumsy way. He told me that he heard somebody
moving outside in order to distract my attention, and of course my
attention was distracted. When he had dropped the dope into my coffee,
I had a little distraction of my own. I found an excuse to go out into
the yard, poured away the coffee, and when I came back I stood in the
doorway, giving him the impression that I was drinking. I was standing
and he was sitting, so he couldn’t tell whether there was coffee in
the cup or not. But he was so smugly satisfied that he did what I knew
he would do--‘lured’ me down into the underground room--and I was glad
to be lured. I knew that the moment I was safely under lock and key,
he would bring you back again. I had cached my gun and tools, and when
he came in and found me unconscious, he did not trouble to search the
room again. If he had, he would have been shocked to have had a most
unpleasant beating from the helpless creature on the bed!”
“But how did you get out?”
“That was easy. Almost any key could have opened that old-fashioned
lock, and I came prepared with several. I waited all day because I was
certain that he would not bring you back until night. The handcuffs
were the most difficult part; I hadn’t a key to fit them. It took me
two hours’ hard work and a nearly dislocated thumb to slip them off.”
They stopped at an all-night filling station, replenished the tank,
and continued their way to London.
“I know one person who will be happy to-night,” said Michael, as the
car sped up the Bayswater Road. “I wonder whether she got the day
off?”
“Whom do you mean?” asked the girl, aroused from an unpleasant
reverie.
“Miss Elizabeth Smith.”
“Mr. Dorn, do you really think that there’s no danger to my mother?”
she asked, for the moment oblivious to everything except the woman’s
danger.
“None, I should imagine,” he said.
The car stopped before the house in Charlotte Street, and Mr.
Mackenzie answered the knock.
“Have you Miss Smith with you?” he asked, after he had welcomed the
girl.
“Lizzy?” said Lois in surprise. “She wasn’t with me. I haven’t seen
her. Why do you ask?”
“She went to Gallows Farm with his lordship.”
“With his lordship?” said Michael, in surprise. “Do you mean Lord
Moron?”
“They left at eight o’clock,” said the old man, “in a hired car.”
Michael and the girl were in the old man’s room when he gave them this
information, and the two exchanged glances. Here was an unforeseen
complication.
“I saw no sign of a car, hired or otherwise,” he said. “And
Moron--phew!” He whistled.
“Perhaps they lost their way,” suggested Lois, and he seemed prepared
to accept the suggestion.
“If you don’t mind, Miss Reddle, I’ll wait here until they have
returned,” he said, and then: “You don’t wish to call up Lady Moron, I
suppose?”
Lois shuddered.
“No, no, not that terrible woman.”
“So you know--or rather, you guess?”
Lois shook her head.
“I know nothing. The whole thing is a mystery to me. It is so
confusing that I think I should go mad, only I’m so grateful to be
here,” she smiled, and held out her hand. “And I knew that it would be
you who would come for me, just as I know it will be you who will
restore my mother to me.”
He took her hand and held it, his eyes searching hers.
“I’m going to tell you something,” he said in a low voice. They were
alone in the little room, and she felt her heart beating in time with
the cheap American clock on the table. “I suppose I really oughtn’t to
say anything,” he said, “because I have no right. But I feel if I
don’t tell you I may never have another opportunity.”
She had dropped her eyes before his, but now she looked at him again.
“I love you,” he said simply. “I can’t marry you, I won’t ask you to
marry me, and that is what makes this folly of mine all the more mad!
But I want you to believe that it has been a happiness to work for
you.”
“For me?” she said. “Why, of course, you’ve worked very hard for me.”
“And I have been paid very well,” was the disconcerting rejoinder.
“But I would do it again and pay all the money I have in the world for
the privilege.”
Suddenly he released her hand, and when she smiled up at him he, too,
was smiling.
“Two declarations of love in one night is more than any reasonable
girl can expect,” he said flippantly.
“One declaration of love,” she said in a low voice, “and one offer of
marriage--quite different, isn’t it?”
“I’m not an authority on these matters,” he said with a sigh, and
looked up at the loud-ticking clock.
Michael saw the hour and frowned.
“I’m rather worried about these people; where on earth can they have
got? You don’t feel worried about sleeping here to-night alone--if you
have to sleep alone?”
She shook her head.
“I’m troubled about Lizzy,” she said. “Poor Lord Moron! I wonder what
his mother would say if she knew.”
“She probably knows,” said Michael.
It was at that moment they heard Lizzy’s voice in the hall and the
sound of feet on the stairs.
Lois ran out to the landing and looked down into the lighted hall.
“Michael!” she called wildly, and he was at her side. “Look--oh,
look!” she said in a hushed voice.
And Michael Dorn looked--and wondered!
Chapter Thirty-five
As the gates burst open violently and the car lurched on to the
road, Lizzy pulled her companion back to the shadow of the wall. At
that moment a man came flying through the gateway and leapt upon the
running-board. Again the car slowed perceptibly.
“He’s there,” whispered Lizzy fiercely. “Quick--luggage rack!”
In an instant she was flying after the machine, caught the iron rail
of the rack and sprang on. The car was gathering speed as Selwyn Moron
stumbled forward, his hand gripping the rail, his legs moving faster
than nature had intended. Kneeling down, Lizzy caught him by a garment
which ladies do not mention, let alone grab, and hauled him up to her
side, breathless, almost dead.
“Hold tight!” she squeaked in his ear, and there was need for the
caution, for the car was bumping from side to side over the uneven
road, at a speed beyond her computation.
“A thousand miles an hour!” she jerked into his ear, and he nodded his
complete agreement.
Now they were on the post road. The bumping had ceased, and the
machine was going even faster. Lizzy held tight to the luggage support
and adopted an attitude of passive fatalism. Once a motorcyclist
snapped past, going in the other direction, and she had a glimpse of a
uniform cap. It was a policeman, but by the time she realised the fact
he was out of sight.
The seat was most uncomfortable. She began to realise the sensations
of a herring on a gridiron and wondered if the luggage rack would
leave the same marks.
Selwyn was trying to whisper to her; he had recovered most of his
breath and all his sense of obligation.
“What about that car of ours? We hired it by the hour,” he whispered
hoarsely, and she put her lips to his ear.
“Shaddles will pay,” she said gaily, and found a delight in the
prospect.
A little while later the car stopped, and the two unauthorised riders
got ready to jump. Peeping round the back of the machine, Lizzy saw
the cause of the delay. They had pulled up at a sort of sentry box and
one of the party was unlocking the door. She knew that the hut was an
automobile station equipped with a telephone, before she heard a
muffled voice speaking. Presently the telephoner came out.
“All right,” he said, as he climbed in and the car started again.
They had not gone twenty miles when, to her surprise, the machine
slackened its speed again, slowed almost to a halt, and then turned
suddenly through a pair of old gates that had been opened for them.
She felt a communicated excitement from her companion as he bent over
towards her.
“Old family estate,” he whispered. “Country seat and all that sort of
thing! Knew it as soon as I saw the gates.”
“Whose?” she asked cautiously.
“Mine,” was the surprising reply.
And then, feeling that he had overstated the case, he added:
“Her ladyship’s really. Beastly house--never liked it. Moron Court,
Newbury. Rum place----”
They passed up a long avenue of elms, going slower and slower. Selwyn
tapped her on the shoulder and dropped off the rack, and, recognising
his wisdom, she followed, darting into the shadow of an elm only just
in time, for at that moment the car stopped and the voice of Lady
Moron sent a shiver down the back of her son.
“Go to the west entrance: you’ll find nobody there. What were you
doing in Somerset, Chesney?”
“I will tell you later,” he said shortly.
The car passed on and the two watchers saw the tall woman walking
slowly in its wake. How had she known they were coming? And then Lizzy
remembered the car stopping at the telephone box on the side of the
road.
“Queer old crib, eh?” Moron was whispering. “See that bump in the
roof? That’s the alarm bell--works from the music-room… in case of
fire and all that sort of thing.”
They waited till Lady Moron had disappeared from sight, then they
followed cautiously. The west entrance was reached through a
glass-covered porch, and the door was closed when they came up to it.
Moron smiled benignly at the girl, and took a small object from his
pocket.
“Pass-key,” he whispered, so loudly that he would have been heard if
there had been a listener.
Inserting the key, he turned it and signalled the girl to follow.
Before them stretched a vista of red-carpeted corridor; a light burnt
in a ceiling lamp at the farther end. Moron crept along with
extravagant caution, and he was half-way up the passage when he
stopped and raised a warning finger, pointing energetically to a door
before he beckoned her past it. A little farther along was a broad
marble staircase. Up this he went, with Lizzy, feeling like a
conspirator, at his heels.
They must have presented a terrifying sight. White from head to foot,
their faces were masks of dust. Lizzy’s crumpled hat hung drunkenly
over one ear. At the top of the stairs was another corridor, with the
same meagre illumination. He drew her head to his.
“That is the gallery of the music-room!” He indicated a small door.
“For heaven’s sake don’t make a row,” he implored her, and opened the
door an inch at a time.
The door itself was shadowed by the broad musicians’ balcony from the
light in the room below. They heard voices talking as they came in,
and, keeping flat to the wall, they edged forward until it was
dangerous to go any farther. Then Selwyn gave a start that nearly
betrayed their presence. Turning, he communicated what he had seen.
“She’s not there--Miss Reddle, I mean. It’s an elderly lady with white
hair.”
“So you have seen your daughter, Mrs. Pinder?”
“Yes, madam, I have seen Lois.”
Lois! Lizzy clapped her hand over her mouth. Lois Reddle’s mother, and
her name was Pinder!
“A very beautiful girl,” said Lady Moron suavely.
“A dear, sweet girl! I am very proud, whatever happens to me.”
“What do you think will happen to you?”