The Hunt Ball Mystery Part 1

The Hunt Ball Mystery.

by Magnay, William.

CHAPTER I

THE INTRUDER

"I'm afraid it must have gone on in the van, sir."

"Gone on!" Hugh Gifford exclaimed angrily. "But you had no business to send the train on till all the luggage was put out."

"The guard told me that all the luggage for Branchester was out," the porter protested deprecatingly. "You see, sir, the train was nearly twenty minutes late, and in his hurry to get off he must have overlooked your suit-case."

"The very thing I wanted most," the owner returned. "I say, Kelson," he went on, addressing a tall, soldierly man who strolled up, "a nice thing has happened; the train has gone off with my evening clothes."

Kelson whistled. "Are you sure?"

"Quite." Gifford appealed to the porter, who regretfully confirmed the statement.

"That's awkward to-night," Kelson commented with a short laugh of annoyance. "Look here, we'd better interview the station-master, and have your case wired for to the next stop. I am sorry, old fellow, I kept you talking instead of letting you look after your rattle-traps, but I was so glad to see you again after all this long time."

"Thanks, my dear Harry, you've nothing to blame yourself about. It was my own fault being so casual. The nuisance is that if I don't get the suit-case back in time I shan't be able to go with you to-night."

"No," his friend responded; "that would be a blow. And it's going to be a ripping dance. d.i.c.k Morriston, who hunts the hounds, is doing the thing top-hole. Now let's see what the worthy and obliging Prior can do for us."

The station-master was prepared to do everything in his power, but that did not extend to altering the times of the trains or shortening the mileage they had to travel. He wired for the suit-case to be put out at Medford, the next stop, some forty miles on, and sent back by the next up-train. "But that," he explained, "is a slow one and is not due here till 9.47. However, I'll send it on directly it arrives, and you should get it by ten o'clock or a few minutes after. You are staying at the _Lion_?"

"Yes."

"Not more than ten or twelve minutes' drive. I'll do my best and there shall be no delay."

The two men thanked him and walked out to the station yard, where a porter waited with the rest of Gifford's luggage.

"There is a gentleman here going to the _Lion_" he said with a rather embarra.s.sed air; "I told him your fly was engaged, sir; but he said perhaps you would let him share it with you."

Kelson looked black. "I like the way some people have of taking things for granted. Cheek, I call it. He had better wait or walk."

"The gentleman said he was in a hurry, sir," the porter observed apologetically.

"No reason why he should squash us up in the fly," Kelson returned. "I'll have a word with the gentleman. Where is he?"

"I think he is in the fly, sir."

"The devil he is! We'll have him out, Hugh. Infernally cool." And he strode off towards the waiting fly.

"Better see what sort of chap he is before you go for him, Harry,"

Gifford said deprecatingly as he followed. He knew his masterful friend's quick temper, and antic.i.p.ated a row.

"If you don't mind, this is my fly, sir," Kelson was saying as Gifford reached him.

"The porter told me it was the _Golden Lion_ conveyance," a strong, deeply modulated voice replied from the fly.

"And I think he told you it was engaged," Kelson rejoined bluffly.

"I did not quite understand that," the voice of the occupant replied in an even tone. "I am sorry if there has been any misunderstanding; but as I am going to the hotel--"

"That is no reason why you should take our fly," Kelson retorted, his temper rising at the other's coolness. "I must ask you to vacate it at once," he added with heat.

"How many of you are there?" The man leaned forward showing in the doorway a handsome face, dark almost to swarthiness. "Only two? Surely there is no need to turn me out. You don't want to play the dog in the manger. There is room for all three, and I shall be happy to contribute my share of the fare."

"I don't want anything of the sort--"

Kelson was beginning angrily when Gifford intervened pacifically.

"It is all right, Harry. We can squeeze in. The fellow seems more or less a gentleman; don't let's be churlish," he added in an undertone.

"But it is infernal impudence," Kelson protested.

"Yes; but we don't want a row. It is not as though there was another conveyance he could take."

"All right. I suppose we shall have to put up with the brute," Kelson a.s.sented grudgingly. "But I hate being bounced like this."

Gifford took a step to the carriage-door. "I think we can all three pack in," he said civilly.

"I'll take the front seat, if you like," the stranger said, without, however, showing much inclination to move.

"Oh, no; stay where you are," Gifford answered. "I fancy I am the smallest of the three; I shall be quite comfortable there. Come along, Harry."

With no very amiable face Kelson got in and took the vacant seat by the stranger. His att.i.tude was not conducive to geniality, and so for a while there was silence. At length as they turned from the station approach on to the main road the stranger spoke. His deep-toned voice had a musical ring in it, yet somehow to Gifford's way of thinking it was detestable.

Perhaps it was the speaker's rather aggressive and, to a man, objectionable personality, which made it seem so.

"I am sorry to inconvenience you," he said, more with an air of saying the right thing than from any real touch of regret. "On an occasion like this they ought to provide more conveyances. But country towns are hopeless."

"Oh, it is all right," Gifford responded politely. "The drive is not very long."

"A mile?" The man's musical inflection jarred on Gifford, who began to wonder whether their companion could be a professional singer. One of their own cla.s.s he certainly was not.

"I presume you gentlemen are going to the Hunt Ball?" he asked.

"Yes," Gifford answered.

"Rather a new departure having it in a private house," the man said.

"Quite a sound idea, I have no doubt Morriston will do us as well--much better than we should fare at the local hotel or a.s.sembly Rooms."

"Are you going?" They were the first words Kelson had uttered since the start, and the slight surprise in their tone was not quite complimentary.

It must have so struck the other, seeing that he replied with a touch of resentment: