The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective, Catherine Louisa Pirkis [world best books to read TXT] 📗

All this time Loveday stood watching him.

“You have a capital machine there,” she said, as the young man mounted his bicycle once more, “and I hope you will turn it to account in following the movements of these Sisters about the neighbourood. I feel confident you will have something definite to tell me when you bring me your first report at one o’clock.”

White once more broke into a profusion of thanks, and then, lifting his cap to the lady, started his machine at a fairly good pace.

Loveday watched him out of sight down the slope of the hill, then, instead of following him as she had said she would “at a leisurely pace,” she turned her steps in the opposite direction along the village street.

It was an altogether ideal country village. Neatly-dressed chubby-faced children, now on their way to the schools, dropped quaint little curtsies, or tugged at curly locks as Loveday passed; every cottage looked the picture of cleanliness and trimness, and although so late in the year, the gardens were full of late flowering chrysanthemums and early flowering Christmas roses.

At the end of the village, Loveday came suddenly into view of a large, handsome, red-brick mansion. It presented a wide frontage to the road, from which it lay back amid extensive pleasure grounds. On the right hand, and a little in the rear of the house, stood what seemed to be large and commodious stables, and immediately adjoining these stables was a low-built, red-brick shed, that had evidently been recently erected.

That low-build, red-brick shed excited Loveday’s curiosity.

“Is this house called North Cape?” she asked of a man, who chanced at that moment to be passing with a pickaxe and shovel.

The man answered in the affirmative, and Loveday then asked another question: could he tell her what was that small shed so close to the house—it looked like a glorified cowhouse—now what could be its use?

The man’s face lighted up as if it were a subject on which he liked to be questioned. He explained that that small shed was the engine-house where the electricity that lighted North Cape was made and stored. Then he dwelt with pride upon the fact, as if he held a personal interest in it, that North Cape was the only house, far or near, that was thus lighted.

“I suppose the wires are carried underground to the house,” said Loveday, looking in vain for signs of them anywhere.

The man was delighted to go into details on the matter. He had helped to lay those wires, he said: they were two in number, one for supply and one for return, and were laid three feet below ground, in boxes filled with pitch. These wires were switched on to jars in the engine-house, where the electricity was stored, and, after passing underground, entered the family mansion under its flooring at its western end.

Loveday listened attentively to these details, and then took a minute and leisurely survey of the house and its surroundings. This done, she retraced her steps through the village, pausing, however, at the “Postal and Telegraph Office” to dispatch a telegram to Inspector Gunning.

It was one to send the Inspector to his cipher-book. It ran as follows:

“Rely solely on chemist and coal-merchant throughout the day.—L. B.”

After this, she quickened her pace, and in something over three-quarters of an hour was back again at her hotel.

There she found more of life stirring than when she had quitted it in the early morning. There was to be a meeting of the “Surrey Stags,” about a couple of miles off, and a good many hunting men were hanging about the entrance to the house, discussing the chances of sport after last night’s frost. Loveday made her way through the throng in leisurely fashion, and not a man but what had keen scrutiny from her sharp eyes. No, there was no cause for suspicion there: they were evidently one and all just what they seemed to be—loud-voiced, hard-riding men, bent on a day’s sport; but—and here Loveday’s eyes traveled beyond the hotel court-yard to the other side of the road—who was that man with a bill-hook hacking at the hedge there—a thin-featured, round-shouldered old fellow, with a bent-about hat? It might be as well not to take it too rashly for granted that her spies had withdrawn, and had left her free to do her work in her own fashion.

She went upstairs to her room. It was situated on the first floor in the front of the house, and consequently commanded a good view of the high road. She stood well back from the window, and at an angle whence she could see and not be seen, took a long, steady survey of the hedger. And the longer she looked the more convinced she was that the man’s real work was something other than the bill-hook seemed to imply. He worked, so to speak, with his head over his shoulder, and when Loveday supplemented her eyesight with a strong field-glass, she could see more than one stealthy glance shot from beneath his bent-about hat in the direction of her window.

There could be little doubt about it: her movements were to be as closely watched to-day as they had been yesterday. Now it was of first importance that she should communicate with Inspector Gunning in the course of the afternoon: the question to solve was how it was to be done?

To all appearance Loveday answered the question in extraordinary fashion. She pulled up her blind, she drew back her curtain, and seated herself, in full view, at a small table in the window recess. Then she took a pocket inkstand from her pocket, a packet or correspondence cards from her letter-case, and with rapid pen, set to work on them.

About an hour and a half afterwards, White, coming in, according to his promise, to report proceedings, found her still seated at the window, not, however, with writing materials before her, but with needle and thread in her hand with which she was mending her gloves.

“I return to town by the first train to-morrow morning,” she said as he entered, “and I find these wretched things want no end of stitches. Now for your report.”

White appeared to be in an elated frame of mind. “I’ve seen her!” he cried, “my Annie—they’ve got her, those confounded Sisters; but they sha’n’t keep her—no, not if I have to pull the house down about their ears to get her out.”

“Well, now you know where she is, you can take your time about getting her out,” said Loveday. “I hope, however, you haven’t broken faith with me, and betrayed yourself by trying to speak with her, because, if so, I shall have to look out for another deputy.”

“Honour, Miss Brooke!” answered White indignantly. “I stuck to my duty, though it cost me something to see her hanging over those kids and tucking them into the cart, and never say a word to her, never so much as wave my hand.”

“Did she go out with the donkey-cart to-day?”

“No, she only tucked the kids into the cart with a blanket, and then went back to the house. Two old Sisters, ugly as sin, went out with them. I watched them from the window, jolt, jolt, jolt, round the corner, out of sight, and then I whipped down the stairs, and on to my machine, and was after them in a trice and managed to keep them well in sight for over an hour and a half.”

“And their destination to-day was?”

“Wootton Hall.”

“Ah, just as I expected.”

“Just as you expected?” echoed White.

“I forgot. You do not know the nature of the suspicions that are attached to this Sisterhood, and the reasons I have for thinking that Wootton Hall, at this season of the year, might have an especial attraction for them.”

White continued staring at her. “Miss Brooke,” he said presently, in an altered tone, “whatever suspicions may attach to the Sisterhood, I’ll stake my life on it, my Annie has had no share in any wickedness of any sort.”

“Oh, quite so; it is most likely that your Annie has, in some way, been inveigled into joining these Sisters—has been taken possession of by them, in fact, just as they have taken possession of the little cripples.”

“That’s it!” he cried excitedly; “that was the idea that occurred to me when you spoke to me on the hill about them, otherwise you may be sure—”

“Did they get relief of any sort at the Hall?” interrupted Loveday..

“Yes; one of the two ugly old women stopped outside the lodge gates with the donkey-cart, and the other beauty went up to the house alone. She stayed there, I should think, about a quarter of an hour, and when she came back, was followed by a servant, carrying a bundle and a basket.”

“Ah! I’ve no doubt they brought away with them something else beside old garments and broken victuals.”

White stood in front of her, fixing a hard, steady gaze upon her.

“Miss Brooke,” he said presently, in a voice that matched the look on his face, “what do you suppose was the real object of these women in going to Wootton Hall this morning?”

“Mr. White, if I wished to help a gang of thieves break into Wootton Hall tonight, don’t you think I should be greatly interested in procuring from them the information that the master of the house was away from home; that two of the men servants, who slept in the house, had recently been dismissed and their places had not yet been filled; also that the dogs were never unchained at night, and that their kennels were at the side of the house at which the butler’s pantry is not situated? These are particulars I have gathered in this house without stirring from my chair, and I am satisfied that they are likely to be true. A the same time, if I were a professed burglar, I should not be content with information that was likely to be true, but would be careful to procure such that was certain to be true, and so would set accomplices to work at the fountain head. Now do you understand?”

White folded his arms and looked down on her.

“What are you going to do?” he asked, in short, brusque tones.

Loveday looked him full in the face. “Communicate with the police immediately,” she answered; “and I should feel greatly obliged if you will at once take a note from me to Inspector Gunning at Reigate.”

“And what becomes of Annie?”

“I don’t think you need have any anxiety on that head. I’ve no doubt that when the circumstances of her admission to the Sisterhood are investigated, it will be proved that she has been as much deceived and imposed upon as the man, John Murray, who so foolishly let his house to these women. Remember, Annie has Mrs. Copeland’s good word to support her integrity.”

White stood silent for awhile.

“What sort of a note do you wish me to take to the Inspector?” he presently asked.

“You shall read it as I write it, if you like,” answered Loveday. She took a correspondence card from her letter case, and, with an indelible pencil, wrote as follows—

“Wooton Hall is threatened tonight—concentrate attention there.

“L. B.”

White read the words as she wrote them with a curious expression passing over his handsome features.

“Yes,” he said, curtly as before. “I’ll deliver that, I give you my word, but I’ll bring back no answer to you. I’ll do no more spying for you—it’s a trade that doesn’t suit me. There’s a straightforward way of doing straightforward work, and I’ll take that way—no other—to get my Annie out of that den.”

He took the