Scarhaven Keep, J. S. Fletcher [best romantic novels to read .TXT] 📗

in succession whenever he went that way on tour—and once safely bestowed in them he pulled out a certain old-fashioned trunk, which he had owned since boyhood and lugged about wherever he went in two continents, and from it, after much methodical unpacking, he disinterred a brown paper parcel, neatly tied up with green ribbon. From this parcel he drew a thin packet of typed matter and a couple of letters—the type script he laid aside, the letters he opened out on his table. Then he took from his pocket the letter which Audrey Greyle had given him and put it side by side with those taken from the parcel. And after one brief glance at all three Mr. Dennie made typescript and letters up again into a neat packet, restored them to his trunk, locked them up, and turned to the two hours' rest which he always took before going to the theatre for his evening's work.

He was back at Scarhaven by eleven o'clock the next morning, with his neat packet under his arm and he held it up significantly to Audrey who opened the door of the cottage to him.

"Something to show you," he said with a quiet smile as he walked in. "To show you and your mother." He stopped short on the threshold of the little parlour, where Copplestone was just then talking to Mrs. Greyle. "Oh!" he said, a little disappointedly, "I hoped to find you alone—I'll wait."

Mrs. Greyle explained who Copplestone was, and Mr. Dennie immediately brightened. "Of course—of course!" he explained. "I know! Glad to meet you, Mr. Copplestone—you don't know me, but I know you—or your work—well enough. It was I who read and recommended your play to our poor dear friend. It's a little secret, you know," continued Mr. Dennie, laying his packet on the table, "but I have acted for a great many years as Bassett Oliver's literary adviser—taster, you might say. You know, he had a great number of plays sent to him, of course, and he was a very busy man, and he used to hand them over to me in the first place, to take a look at, a taste of, you know, and if I liked the taste, why, then he took a mouthful himself, eh? And that brings me to the very point, my dear ladies and my dear young gentleman, that I have come specially to Scarhaven this morning to discuss. It's a very, very serious matter indeed," he went on as he untied his packet of papers, "and I fear that it's only the beginning of something more serious. Come round me here at this table, all of you, if you please."

The other three drew up chairs, each wondering what was coming, and the old actor resumed his eyeglasses and gave obvious signs of making a speech.

"Now I want you all to attend to me, very closely," he said. "I shall have to go into a detailed explanation, and you will very soon see what I am after. As you may be aware, I have been a personal friend of Bassett Oliver for some years, and a member of his company without break for the last eight years. I accompanied Bassett Oliver on his two trips to the United States—therefore, I was with him when he was last there, years ago.

"Now, while we were at Chicago that time, Bassett came to me one day with the typescript of a one-act play and told me that it had been sent to him by a correspondent signing himself Marston Greyle; who in a covering letter, said that he sprang from an old English family, and that the play dealt with a historic, romantic episode in its history. The principal part, he believed, was one which would suit Bassett—therefore he begged him to consider the matter. Bassett asked me to read the play, and I took it away, with the writer's letter, for that purpose. But we were just then very busy, and I had no opportunity of reading anything for a time. Later on, we went to St. Louis, and there, of course, Bassett, as usual, was much fêted and went out a great deal, lunching with people and so on. One day he came to me, 'By-the-bye, Dennie!' he said, 'I met that Mr. Marston Greyle today who sent me that romantic one-act thing. He wanted to know if I'd read it, and I had to confess that it was in your hands. Have you looked at it?' I, too, had to confess—I hadn't. 'Well,' said he, 'read it and let me know what you think—will it suit me?' I made time to read the little play during the following week, and I told Bassett that I didn't think it would suit him, but I felt sure it might suit Montagu Gaines, who plays just such parts. Bassett thereupon wrote to the author and said what I, his reader, thought, and kindly offered, as he knew Gaines intimately, to show the little work to him on his return to England. And this Mr. Marston Greyle wrote back, thanking Bassett warmly and accepting his kind offer. Accordingly, I brought the play with me to England. Montagu Gaines, however, had just set off on a two years' tour to Australia—consequently, the play and the author's two letters have remained in my possession ever since. And—here they are!"

Mr. Dennie laid his hand dramatically on his packet, looked significantly at his audience, and went on.

"Now, when I heard all that I did hear at that inquest yesterday," he said, "I naturally remembered that I had in my possession two letters which were undoubtedly written to Bassett Oliver by a young man named Marston Greyle, whom Oliver—just as undoubtedly!—had personally met in St. Louis. And so when the inquest was over, Mr. Copplestone, I recalled myself to Mrs. Greyle here, whom I had known many years ago, and I walked back to this house with her and her charming daughter, and—don't be angry, Mrs. Greyle—while the mother's back was turned—on hospitable thoughts intent—I got the daughter to lend me—secretly—a letter written by the present Squire of Scarhaven. Armed with that, I went home to my lodgings in Norcaster, found the letter written by the American Marston Greyle, and compared it with them. And—here is the result!"

The old actor selected the two American letters from his papers, laid them out on the table, and placed the letter which Audrey had given him beside them.

"Now!" he said, as his three companions bent eagerly over these exhibits,
"Look at those three letters. All bear the same signature, Marston
Greyle—but the hand-writing of those two is as different from that of
this one as chalk is from cheese!"

CHAPTER XIV BY PRIVATE TREATY

There was little need for the three deeply interested listeners to look long at the letters—one glance was sufficient to show even a careless eye that the hand which had written one of them had certainly not written the other two. The letter which Audrey had handed to Mr. Dennie was penned in the style commonly known as commercial—plain, commonplace, utterly lacking in the characteristics which are supposed to denote imagination and a sense of artistry. It was the sort of caligraphy which one comes across every day in shops and offices and banks—there was nothing in any upstroke, downstroke or letter which lifted it from the very ordinary. But the other two letters were evidently written by a man of literary and artistic sense, possessing imagination and a liking for effect. It needed no expert in handwriting to declare that two totally different individuals had written those letters.

"And now," observed Mr. Dennie, breaking the silence and putting into words what each of the others was vaguely feeling, "the question is—what does all this mean? To start with, Marston Greyle is a most uncommon name. Is it possible there can be two persons of that name? That, at any rate, is the first thing that strikes me."

"It is not the first thing that strikes me," said Mrs. Greyle. She took up the typescript which the old actor had brought in his packet, and held its title-page significantly before him. "That is the first thing that strikes me!" she exclaimed. "The Marston Greyle who sent this to Bassett Oliver said according to your story—that he sprang from a very old family in England, and that this is a dramatization of a romantic episode in its annals. Now there is no other old family in England named Greyle, and this episode is of course, the famous legend of how Prince Rupert once sought refuge in the Keep yonder and had a love-passage with a lady of the house. Am I right, Mr. Dennie?"

"Quite right, ma'am, quite correct," replied the old actor. "It is so—you have guessed correctly!"

"Very well, then—the Marston Greyle who wrote this, and those letters, and who met Bassett Oliver was without doubt the son of Marcus Greyle, who went to America many years ago. He was the same Marston Greyle, who, his father being dead, of course succeeded his uncle, Stephen John Greyle—that seems an absolute certainty. And in that case," continued Mrs. Greyle, looking earnestly from one to the other, "in that case—who is the man now at Scarhaven Keep?"

A dead silence fell on the little room. Audrey started and flushed at her mother's eager, pregnant question; Mr. Dennie sat up very erect and took a pinch of snuff from his old-fashioned box. Copplestone pushed his chair away from the table and began to walk about. And Mrs. Greyle continued to look from one face to the other as if demanding a reply to her question.

"Mother!" said Audrey in a low voice. "You aren't suggesting—"

"Ahem!" interrupted Mr. Dennie. "A moment, my dear. There is nothing, I believe," he continued, waxing a little oracular, "nothing like plain speech. We are all friends—we have a common cause—justice! It may be that justice demands our best endeavours not only as regards our deceased friend, Bassett Oliver, but in the interests of—this young lady. So—"

"I wish you wouldn't, Mr. Dennie!" exclaimed Audrey. "I don't like this at all. Please don't!"

She turned, almost instinctively, to seek Copplestone's aid in repressing the old man. But Copplestone was standing by the window, staring moodily at the wind-swept quay beyond the garden, and Mr. Dennie waved his snuff-box and went on.

"An old man's privilege!" he said. "In your interests, my dear. Allow me." He turned again to Mrs. Greyle. "In plain words, ma'am, you are wondering if the present holder of the estates is really what he claims to be. Plain English, eh?"

"I am!" answered Mrs. Greyle with a distinct ring of challenge and defiance. "And now that it comes to the truth, I have wondered that ever since he came here. There!"

"Why, mother?" asked Audrey, wonderingly.

"Because he doesn't possess a single Greyle characteristic," replied Mrs. Greyle, readily enough, "I ought to know—I married Valentine Greyle, and I knew Stephen John, and I saw plenty of both, and something of their father, too, and a little of Marcus before he emigrated. This man does not possess one single scrap of the Greyle temperament!"

Mr. Dennie put away his snuff-box and drumming on the table with his fingers looked out of his eye corners at Copplestone who still stood with his back to the rest, staring out of the window.

"And what," said Mr. Dennie, softly, "what—er, does our good friend Mr.
Copplestone say?"

Copplestone turned swiftly, and gave Audrey a quick glance.

"I say," he answered in a sharp, business-like fashion, "that Gilling, who's stopping at the inn, you know, is walking up and down outside here, evidently looking out for me, and very anxious to see me, and with your permission, Mrs. Greyle, I'd like to have him in. Now that things have got to this pitch, I'd better tell you something—I don't see any good in concealing it longer. Gilling isn't an invalid curate at all!—he's a private detective. Sir Cresswell Oliver and Petherton, the solicitor, sent him down here to watch Greyle—the Squire, you know—that's Gilling's job. They suspect Greyle—have suspected him from the very first—but of what I don't know. Not—not of this, I think. Anyway, they do suspect him, and Gilling's had his eye on him ever since he came here. And I'd like to fetch Gilling in here, and I'd like him to know all that Mr. Dennie's told us. Because, don't you see, Sir Cresswell and Petherton ought to know all that, immediately, and Gilling's their man."

Audrey's brows had been gathering in lines of dismay and perplexity all the time Copplestone was talking, but her mother showed no signs of anything but complete composure, crowned