The Avenger, E. Phillips Oppenheim [uplifting book club books txt] 📗

far, I believe that neither of you have succeeded. Morris Barnes has been murdered in vain; Bentham the lawyer, who telephoned to me on the night of his death, has shared his fate. To whose account do these two murders go, yours or the others'?"

"I cannot answer that question, Mr. Wrayson," the Baroness said.

"Do you know," Wrayson demanded, dropping his voice a little, "that, but for my moral, if not actual perjury, Louise herself would have been charged with the murder of Morris Barnes?"

"She had a narrow escape," the Baroness admitted.

"She had a narrow escape," Wrayson declared, "but the unfortunate part of the affair is, that she is not even now safe!"

The Baroness looked at him curiously. She was in the act of drawing on her gloves, but her fingers suddenly became rigid.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I mean," Wrayson said, "that another person saw her come out of the flats that night. It was a friend of mine, who kept silence at first because he believed that it was a private assignation of my own. Since then events have occurred to make him think differently. He has gone over to the other side. He is spending his time with young Sydney Barnes, and he has set himself to discover the mystery of Morris Barnes' murder. He has even gone so far as to give me warning that I should be better out of England."

"Who is this person?" the Baroness asked calmly.

"His name is Stephen Heneage, and he is a member of my club, the club to which Louise's father also belongs," Wrayson replied.

The Baroness suddenly dropped her veil, but not before Wrayson had seen a sudden change in her face. He remembered suddenly that Heneage was no stranger to her, he remembered the embarrassment of their meeting at the Alhambra.

"You know him, of course," he repeated. "Heneage is not a man to be trifled with. He has had experience in affairs of this sort, he is no ordinary amateur detective."

"Yes! I know Mr. Stephen Heneage," the Baroness said. "Tell me, does Louise know?"

Wrayson shook his head.

"I have had no opportunity of telling her," he answered. "I might not have thought so seriously of it, but this morning I received a note from Heneage."

"Yes! What did he say?"

"It was only a line or two," Wrayson answered. "He reminded me of his previous warning to me to leave England for a time, and he underlined it. Louise ought to know. I want to tell her!"

"I am glad you did not tell me this before," the Baroness said, as they left the room together, "or it would have spoiled my luncheon. I do not like your friend, Mr. Heneage!"

"You will give me Louise's address?" he asked. "Some one must see her."

"I will send it you," the Baroness promised, "before the day is out."

CHAPTER XXII

THE CHÂTEAU OF ÉTARPE

"One would scarcely believe," Wrayson remarked, leaning back in his chair and drawing in a long deep breath, "that we are within three miles of one of the noisiest and most bustling of French watering places."

"It is incredible," his companion admitted.

They were seated in a garden behind the old inn of the Lion d'Or, in the village of St. Étarpe. Before them was a round table, on whose spotless white cloth still remained dishes of fruit and a bottle of wine—not the vin ordinaire which had been served with their repast, but something which Wrayson had ordered specially, and which the landlord himself, all smiles and bows, had uncorked and placed before them. Wrayson produced his cigarette case.

"How did you hear of this place?" he asked, watching the smoke curl upwards into the breathless air. "I fancy that you and I are the only guests here."

Wrayson's companion, tall, broad-shouldered, and heavily bearded, was busy filling a pipe from a pouch by his side. His features were unmistakably Saxon, and his cheeks were tanned, as though by much exposure to all sorts of weathers. He was still apparently on the right side of middle age, but his manners were grave, almost reserved.

"I was in the neighbourhood many years ago," he answered. "I had a fancy to revisit the place. And you?"

"I discovered it entirely by accident," Wrayson admitted. "I walked out from Chourville this morning, stayed here for some luncheon, and was so delighted that I took a room and went straight back for my bag. There isn't an emperor in Europe who has so beautiful a dining-room as this!"

Together they looked across the valley, a wonderful panorama of vine-clad slopes and meadows, starred with many-coloured wild flowers, through which the river wound its way, now hidden, now visible, a thin line of gleaming quicksilver. Tall poplars fringed its banks, and there were white cottages and farmhouses, mostly built in the shelter of the vine-covered cliffs. To the left a rolling mass of woods was pierced by one long green avenue, at the summit of which stretched the grey front and towers of the Château de St. Étarpe. Wrayson looked long at the fertile and beautiful country, which seemed to fade so softly away in the horizon; but he looked longest at the chateâu amongst the woods.

"I wonder who lives there," he remarked. "I meant to have asked the waiter."

"I can tell you," the stranger said. "The château belongs to the Baroness de Sturm."

"A Frenchwoman?" Wrayson asked.

"Half French, half Belgian. She has estates in both countries, I believe," his companion answered. "As a matter of fact, I believe that this château is hers in her own right as a daughter of the Étarpes. She married a Belgian nobleman."

"You seem well acquainted with the neighbourhood," Wrayson remarked.

"I have been here before," was the somewhat short answer.

Wrayson produced his card-case.

"As we seem likely to see something of one another during the next few days, nolens volens," he remarked, "may I introduce myself? My name is Wrayson, Herbert Wrayson, and I come from London."

The stranger took the card a little doubtfully.

"I am much obliged," he said. "I do not carry a card-case, but my name is Duncan."

"An Englishman, of course?" Wrayson remarked smiling.

"I am English," Mr. Duncan answered, "but I have not been in England for many years."

There was something about his manner which forbade any further questioning on Wrayson's part. The two men sat together in silence, and Wrayson, although not of a curious turn of mind, began to feel more than an ordinary interest in his companion. One thing he noticed in particular. Although, as the sun sank lower, the beauties of the landscape below increased, Duncan's eyes scarcely for a moment rested upon them. He had turned his chair a little, and he sat directly facing the chateâu. The golden cornfields, the stained-glass windows of the grey church rising like a cathedral, as it were, in the midst of the daffodil-starred meadows, caught now with the flood of the dying sunlight mingled so harmoniously with their own time-mellowed richness, the increasing perfume of the flowers by which they were surrounded,—none of these things seemed for one moment to distract his attention. Steadily and fixedly he gazed up that deep green avenue, empty indeed of any moving object, and yet seemingly not empty to him. For he had the air of one who sees beyond the world of visible objects, of one who sees things dimmed to those of only natural powers. With what figures, Wrayson wondered, idly, was he peopling that empty avenue, what were the fancies which had crept out from his brain and held him spellbound? He had admitted a more or less intimate acquaintance with the place: was he, perhaps, a former lover of the Baroness, when she had been simply Amy de St. Étarpe? Wrayson forgot, for a while, his own affairs, in following out these mild speculations. The soft twilight stole down upon them; here and there little patches of grey mist came curling up the valley. A bat came flying about their heads, and Wrayson at last rose.

"I shall take a stroll." he remarked, "and turn in. Good night, if I don't see you again!"

The man named Duncan turned his head.

"Good night!" he said, mechanically.

Wrayson walked down the garden and passed through a wicket-gate into the broad white road. Setting his back to the village, he came, in a few minutes, to the great entrance gate of the château, hung from massive stone pillars of great age, and themselves fashioned of intricate and curiously wrought ironwork. The gates themselves were closed fast, and the smaller ones on either side, intended for pedestrians, were fastened with a padlock. Wrayson stood for a moment looking through the bars into the park. The drive ran for half a mile perfectly straight, and then, taking an abrupt bend, passed upwards into the woods, amongst which was the château.

"What do you want?" an abrupt voice demanded.

Wrayson looked round in surprise. A man in gamekeeper's clothes had issued from the lodge, carrying a gun.

"Good evening!" Wrayson said. "Is it permitted for the public to enter the park?"

"By no means," was the surly answer. "Cannot monsieur see that the gates are locked?"

"I understood from the landlord of the Lion d'Or" Wrayson said, "that the villagers were allowed the privilege of walking in the park."

The man looked at him suspiciously.

"You are not of the village," he said.

"I am staying there," Wrayson answered.

"It makes nothing. For the present, villagers and every one are forbidden to enter. There are visitors at the château."

Wrayson turned away.

"Very well," he said. "Good night!"

The man did not answer him. Wrayson continued to climb the hill which skirted the park. He did not turn round, but he heard the gates open, and he was convinced that he was being watched, if he was not followed. He kept on, however, until he came to some more iron gates, from which stretched the grass avenue which led straight to the gardens of the château. Dimly, through the gathering dusk, he caught a view of it, which was little more than an impression; silver grey and quiet with the peace which the centuries can bring, it seemed to him, with its fantastic towers, and imperfectly visible outline, like a palace of dreams rather than a dwelling house, however magnificent, of material stone and brick. An owl flew out from the trees a few yards to the left of him, and drifted slowly over his head, with much flapping of wings, and a weird, soft call, faintly answered in the distance by his mate; from far away down in the valley came the slow ringing of a single evening bell. Save for these things, a silence almost wonderful reigned. Gradually Wrayson began to feel that sense of soothed nerves, of inexpressible relief, which Nature alone dispenses—her one unequalled drug! All the agitation and turmoil of the last few months seemed to fall away from him. He felt that he had been living in a world of false proportions; that the maze of doubts and fears through which he had wandered was, after all, no part of life itself, merely a tissue of irrelevant issues, to which his distorted imagination had affixed a purely fictitious importance. What concern of his was it how Morris Barnes had lived or died? And who was Bentham that his fate should ever disturb him? The secrets of other people were theirs to keep. His own secret was more wonderful by far. Alone, from amidst the tangle of his other emotions, he felt its survival—more than its survival, its absolute conquest of all other feelings and considerations. It was truth, he knew, that men sought after in the quiet places, and it was the truth which he had found. If he could but see her coming down the avenue, coming to him across the daisy-strewn grass, beneath the shadow of the stately poplars! The very thought set his heart beating like a boy's. He felt the blood singing in his veins, the love-music swelling in his heart. He shook the gates. They, too, were