That Affair at Elizabeth Part 15

"And could they tell you anything?" I asked.

"Neither the man, the cook, nor the house-girls could tell me a thing. They'd all been busy preparing for the wedding, and didn't know anything was wrong until the maid, whose name is Lucy Kingdon, told them Miss Lawrence had disappeared. The house-girls had been pa.s.sing back and forth all the time, and had caught a glimpse of Miss Lawrence now and then, but had noticed absolutely nothing unusual, had seen no stranger about the place, nor heard any outcry. One of them pa.s.sed Miss Lawrence in the hall as she was talking with the decorator, and says that she was radiant with happiness.

"But the maid?" I asked, anxious to hear what he had got from her.

"Ah, she was different. She's been with the family a long time. She seems to be a kind of privileged character-a trusted confidante; though why any one should wish to trust her is beyond me-she's not an attractive woman, rather the reverse."

"And what did she tell you?"

"She didn't tell me anything," answered G.o.dfrey, with some heat. "She beat about the bush and finally got angry. But I'm sure of one thing, and that is that she knows where Miss Lawrence is. Indeed," he added, "I'm pretty certain that Miss Lawrence pa.s.sed the night in the Kingdon cottage."

"Why?" I asked, with lively interest at this confirmation of my own belief.

"I don't know-just a sort of intuition. And then-they wouldn't let me in to see."

"Oh-you tried to get in, did you?"

"I certainly did-tried my level best, but couldn't make it. Those Kingdon sisters are a pair of Tartars. Both of them were there. The elder one was a beauty when she was young, I fancy, but she's seen some trying times since, to judge from her face. She's got mighty handsome eyes, even yet-and my! how they can flash. Well, they sent me to the right-about as soon as they learned my errand. I tried all my wiles," he added, with a little rueful smile, "and in vain."

"But intuition's hardly enough to go on," I suggested.

"Of course there's more than that. It's the only house she could have reached without being seen. There's a path leads to it through a grove which screens it from the street. If she'd gone in any other direction, she'd have had to venture out into the open, where somebody would have been sure to see her. Remember, she was in her wedding-dress, and there were probably a good many people standing around watching the house, as they always do at these fashionable weddings."

Perhaps something in my face betrayed me; at any rate, he looked at me with a sudden intent interest.

"See here, Lester," he said, "I believe you're in on this thing yourself."

"Not for publication."

"Agreed. Now let's have it."

"Well," I explained, "I'm working for Curtiss. I'm trying to find Miss Lawrence. He thinks he's ent.i.tled to an explanation."

G.o.dfrey nodded quickly.

"Any man would think so," he said. "How are you going about it?"

"I'm going to take advantage of the hint you just gave me."

"And go to the Kingdon house?"

"Yes. I believe Miss Lawrence is there, myself. I thought so last night when I came to it after following that path through the grove."

"So you'd discovered it, too! Well, I wish you luck. Of course, we may be all wrong. I don't believe there are any other pointers I can give you," he added, "or I'd be glad to. I suppose you saw Mrs. Lawrence?"

"Oh yes."

"How was she affected?"

"Not so deeply as you'd expect," I said.

He gazed at me with narrowed eyes.

"Has it occurred to you, Lester," he said, at last, "that Miss Lawrence may not have gone away of her own accord at all; that there may be a plot against her; that she was forced to go, or perhaps even shut up in some room in the Lawrence house?"

"Yes; I'd thought of it. I even put it to Mrs. Lawrence."

"And what did she say?"

"She laughed at me. She said her daughter was a strong girl, who wouldn't let herself be abducted without a struggle, and that a single scream would have alarmed the house."

"But suppose she'd been drugged," suggested G.o.dfrey. "Then she would have neither screamed nor struggled."

"Last night," I said, "I was half-inclined to believe that something of the sort had happened. I'd forgotten one fact which absolutely disproves it. She left a note behind her-or, at least, wrote it and sent it back after she ran away."

"Ah-she did?"

"Yes-a note saying the marriage was impossible, though her love was unaltered, and that Curtiss wasn't to attempt to find her."

G.o.dfrey sat suddenly upright with grim countenance.

"Then there's only one explanation of it," he said. "There's only one thing could make a girl drop everything and run away like that-only one thing in the world. She's already married, and her first husband's turned up."

"I'd thought of that, too; but her mother swears her daughter never had a love affair previous to this one."

"Of course she'd say so. Has any other possible explanation occurred to you?"

"No," I answered frankly. "And I've tried mighty hard to find another."

"Let's go back a bit. The discovery-whatever it was-was made at the last moment."

"Yes-at the moment she left the decorator and started upstairs to get her veil."

"Was it made accidentally?"

"I don't know."

"But I do. It was not accidentally-it was by design. Things don't happen accidentally, just in the nick of time."

"No," I agreed, "they don't."

"It was his revenge," continued G.o.dfrey, with growing excitement. "He wanted to get even, and he waited till the last moment. It was certainly artistic."

"If he really wanted to crush her," I suggested, my lips trembling with the horror of the thought, "he'd have waited a little longer."

G.o.dfrey stared at me with glittering eyes.

"You're right," he agreed, after a moment. "He didn't want to get even, then; he wanted her back. So he sent a letter--"