The Stowmarket Mystery, Louis Tracy [best romance novels of all time .txt] 📗

fought fiercely. By Jove, it was no stage combat or French duel. They went for each other as if they meant it. There was no stopping to take breath, nor drawing apart after a foiled attack. Each man tried to kill the other as speedily as possible. Three times they circled round in furious sword-play. Then the stranger got his point home. The other, in mortal agony, dropped his weapon, and tried with both hands to tear his adversary’s blade from his breast. He failed, and staggered back, the victor still shoving the claymore through his opponent’s body. Then, and not until then, I saw the face of the man who was wounded, probably killed. It was my cousin, Alan Hume-Fraser.”

David Hume stopped again. His bronzed face was pale now. With his left hand he swept huge drops of perspiration from his brow. But his class demands coolness in the most desperate moments. He actually struck a match and relighted his cigarette.

“I suppose you occasionally have a nightmare after an indigestible supper, Mr. Brett,” he went on, “and have experienced a peculiar sensation of dumb palsy in the presence of some unknown but terrifying danger? Well, such was my exact state at that moment. Alan fell, apparently lifeless. The stranger kissed his blood-stained sword, which required a strong tug before he could disengage it, rattled it back into the scabbard, rejoined his companion, and the two rode off, without once looking back. I can see them now, square-shouldered, with hair tied in a knot beneath their quaint hats, their hips absurdly swollen by the huge pockets of their coats, their boots hanging over their knees. They wore big brass spurs with tremendous rowels, and the cantles of their saddles were high and brass-bound.

“Alan lay motionless. I could neither speak nor move. Whether I was sitting or standing I cannot tell you, nor do I know how I was supposed to be attired. A darkness came over my eyes. Then a voice—Helen’s voice—whispered to me, ‘Fear not, dearest; the wrong is avenged.’ I awoke, to find the trembling butler shouting in my ear that his master was lying dead outside the house. Now, Mr. Brett, I ask you, would you have submitted that fairy tale to a jury? I was quite assured of a verdict in my favour, though the first disagreement almost shook my faith in Helen’s promise, but I did not want to end my days in a criminal lunatic asylum.”

He did not appear to expect an answer. He was quite calm again, and even his eyes had lost their intensity. The mere telling of his uncanny experience had a soothing effect. He nonchalantly readjusted his watch and chain, and noted the time.

“I have gone far beyond my stipulated half hour,” he said, forcing a deprecatory smile.

“Yes; far beyond, indeed. You carried me back to 1763, but Heaven alone knows when you will end.”

“Will you take up my case?”

“Can you doubt it? Do you think I would throw aside the most remarkable criminal puzzle I have ever tackled?”

“Mr. Brett, I cannot find words to thank you. If you succeed—and you inspire me with confidence—Helen and I will strive to merit your lifelong friendship.”

“Miss Layton knows the whole of your story, of course?”

“Yes; she and my father only. I must inform you that I had never heard the full reason of the duel between the first Sir Alan and his nephew. But my father knew it fairly well, and the details fitted in exactly with my vision. I can hardly call it a dream.”

“What was the nephew’s name?”

“David Hume!”

Brett jumped up, and paced about the room.

“These coincidences defy analysis,” he exclaimed. “Your Christian name is David. Your surname joins both families. Why, the thing is a romance of the wildest sort.”

“Unhappily, it has a tragic side for me.”

“Yes; the story cannot end here. You and your fiancée have suffered. Miss Layton must be a very estimable young lady—one worth winning. She will be a true and loyal wife.”

“Do you think you will be able to solve the riddle? Someone murdered my cousin.”

“That is our only solid fact at present. The family tradition is passing strange, but it will not serve in a court of law. I may fail, for the first time, but I will try hard. When can you accompany me to Stowmarket?”

The question disconcerted his eager auditor. The young man’s countenance clouded.

“Is it necessary that I should go there?” he asked.

“Certainly. You must throw aside all delicacy of feeling, sacrifice even your own sentiments. That is the one locality where you don’t wish to be seen, of course?”

“It is indeed.”

“I cannot help that. I must have the assistance of your local and family knowledge to decide the knotty points sure to arise when I begin the inquiry. Can you start this afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“Very well. Come and lunch with me at my club. Then we will separate, to meet again at Liverpool Street. Smith! Pack my traps for a week.”

Brett was in the hall now, but he suddenly stopped his companion.

“By the way, Hume, you may like to wire to Miss Layton. My man will send the telegram for you.”

David Hume’s barrier of proud reserve vanished from that instant. The kindly familiarity of the barrister’s words to one who, during many weary days, suspected all men of loathing him as a murderer at large, was directed by infinite tact.

Hume held out his hand, “You are a good chap,” he said.

Chapter IV Through the Library Window

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Hume did not send a telegram to the Sleagill Rectory. He explained that, owing to the attitude adopted by the Rev. Wilberforce Layton, Helen avoided friction with her father by receiving his (Hume’s) letters under cover to Mrs. Eastham.

The younger man was quick to note that Brett did not like this arrangement. He smilingly protested that there was no deception in the matter.

“Helen would never consent to anything that savoured of subterfuge,” he explained. “Her father knows well that she hears from me constantly. He is a studious, reserved old gentleman. He was very much shocked by the tragedy, and his daughter’s innocent association with it. He told me quite plainly that, under the circumstances, I ought to consider the engagement at an end. Possibly I resented an imputation not intended by him. I made some unfair retort about his hyper-sensitiveness, and promptly sent Helen a formal release. She tore it up, and at the same time accepted it so far as I was concerned. We met at Mrs. Eastham’s house—that good lady has remained my firm friend throughout—and I don’t mind telling you, Brett, that I broke down utterly. Well, we began by sending messages to each other through Mrs. Eastham. Then I forwarded to Helen, in the same way, a copy of a rough diary of my travels. She wrote to me direct; I replied. The position now is that she will not marry me without her father’s consent, and she will marry no one else. He is aware of our correspondence. She always tells him of my movements. The poor old rector is worried to know how to act for the best. His daughter’s happiness is at stake, and so my unhappy affairs have drifted aimlessly for more than a year.”

“The drifting must cease,” said Brett decisively. “Beechcroft Hall will probably provide scope for activity.”

They reached Stowmarket by a late train. Next morning they drove to Sleagill—a pretty village, with a Norman church tower standing squarely in the midst of lofty trees, and white-washed cottages and red-tiled villa-residences nestling in gardens.

“A bower of orchards and green lanes,” murmured the barrister as their dog-cart sped rapidly over the smooth highway.

Hume was driving. He pointed out the rectory. His eyes were eagerly searching the lawn and the well-trimmed garden, but he was denied a sight of his divinity. The few people they encountered gazed at them curiously. Hume was seemingly unrecognised.

“Here is Mrs. Eastham’s house,” he said, checking the horse’s pace as they approached a roomy, comfortable-looking mansion, occupying an angle where the village street sharply bifurcated. “And there is Beechcroft!”

The lodge faced the road along which they were advancing. Beyond the gates the yew-lined drive, with its selvages of deep green turf, led straight to the Elizabethan house a quarter of a mile distant. The ground in the rear rose gently through a mile or more of the home park.

Immediately behind the Hall was a dense plantation of spruce and larch. The man who planned the estate evidently possessed both taste and spirit. It presented a beautiful and pleasing picture. A sense of homeliness was given by a number of Alderney cattle and young hunters grazing in the park on both sides of the avenue. Beechcroft had a reputation in metropolitan sale-rings. Its two-year-olds were always in demand.

“We will leave the conveyance here,” announced Brett “I prefer to walk to the house.”

The hotel groom went to the horse’s head. He did not hear the barrister’s question:

“I suppose both you and your cousin quitted Mrs. Eastham’s house by that side-door and entered the park through the wicket?”

“Yes,” assented Hume, “though I fail to see why you should hit upon the side-door rather than the main entrance.”

“Because the ball-room is built out at the back. It was originally a granary. The conservatory opens into the garden on the other side. As there was a large number of guests, Mrs. Eastham required all her front rooms for supper and extra servants, so she asked people to halt their carriages at the side-door. I would not be surprised if the gentlemen’s cloak-room was provided by the saddle-room there, whilst the yard was carpeted and covered with an awning.”

Brett rattled on in this way, heedless of his companion’s blank amazement, perhaps secretly enjoying it.

Hume was so taken aback that he stood poised on the step of the vehicle and forgot to slip the reins into the catch on the splashboard.

“I told you none of these things,” he cried.

“Of course not. They are obvious. But tell this good lady that we are going to the Hall.”

Both the main gate and wicket were fastened, and the lodge-keeper’s wife was gazing at them through the bars.

“Hello, Mrs. Crowe, don’t you know me?” cried Hume.

“My gracious, It’s Mr. David!” gasped the woman.

“Why are the gates locked?”

“Mrs. Capella is not receiving visitors, sir.”

“Is she ill?”

“No, sir. Indisposed, I think Mr. Capella said.”

“Well, she will receive me, at any rate.”

“No doubt, sir, it will be all right.”

She hesitatingly unbarred the wicket, and the two men entered. They walked slowly up the drive. Hume was restless. Twice he looked behind him.

He stopped.

“It was here,” he said, “that the two men dismounted.”

Then a few yards farther on:

“Alan came round from the door there, and they fought here. Alan forced the stranger on to the turf. When he was stabbed he fell here.”

He pointed to a spot where the road commenced to turn to the left to clear the house. Brett watched him narrowly. The young man was describing his dream, not the actual murder. The vision was far more real to him.

“It was just such a day as this,” he continued. “It might have been almost this hour. The library windows—”

He ceased and looked fixedly towards the house. Brett, too, gazed in silence. They saw a small, pale-faced, exceedingly handsome Italian—a young man, with coal-black eyes and a mass of shining black hair—scowling at them from within the library.

A black velvet coat and a brilliant tie were the only bizarre features of his costume. They served sufficiently to enhance his foreign appearance. Such a man would be correctly placed in the marble frame of a Neapolitan villa; here he was unusual, outré, “un-English,” as Brett put it.

But he was evidently master. He flung open the window, and said, with some degree of hauteur:

“Whom do you wish to see? Can I be of any assistance?”

His accent was strongly marked, but his words were well chosen and civil enough,