The Riddle of the Night Part 27

The wine and the spirits in the decanters on the table of the dining-room had all tasted alike. This liqueur tasted like them.

He made no comment, wasted no time. The instant he had decided that point he left the room and went back to the hall and to the gardens beyond the entrance.

Ailsa Lorne waited for him at the shrubbery; but it was not to the shrubbery he went! His way lay round the angle of the house, past the path to the ruin, past the windows of the dining-room where a drugged man lay, and on through the darkness, until he stood in the shelter of the trees directly opposite a broad stone terrace, upon which the swinging French window of the library gave.

It was bright with inner light, when first he came in sight of it; but he had barely halted before that light went out--and left it as black as pitch.

But a moment later Cleek drew farther back in the shadow of the trees.

He had warned General Raynor to be careful to lock that window, and now here he was not only disregarding that warning, but pushing the sashes wide apart.

"Coming again, is she, General?" said Cleek in the soundless words of thought. "A bad move, my friend, a very bad move. One may not recognize a man's voice from a simple 'Sh-h-h!' but when he steps out of a library with a black mud-spot on the toe of his house shoes and a green smudge on his cuff----"

He stopped and crouched back under the trees, and was very, very still.

Through the darkness a faint rustling sound had suddenly risen, the soft falling of a foot, the careful pa.s.sage of a body between lines of leaves.

Some one was advancing cautiously toward that darkened and opened window.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

THE VIEW HALLOO

That the nocturnal visitor would prove to be Lady Clavering Cleek had not the smallest shadow of a doubt, although he marvelled much at her temerity in venturing into the grounds of the Grange after that experience at the wall door so short a time previously, and he therefore remained as breathless and as still as the shadows surrounding him, and waited the coming of events. Not, however, without some slight feeling of disappointment at the thought that, intricate and puzzling as this case had been, it now promised to be solved in such a tame and paltry manner; for if the newcomer should prove to be Lady Clavering, as, naturally, he had every reason for supposing, the affair would resolve itself into simply playing the part of eavesdropper at her interview with the General, and then making capital of the information thus obtained.

The intruder was advancing with extreme caution, but lacking his own peculiar gift of soundless stepping and noiseless movement, did not succeed in pa.s.sing between hedge and coppice without the betraying rustle of disturbed leaves; and it was out of this circ.u.mstance the mischief which followed was formed.

The shrubbery where Ailsa was waiting lay but a rope's cast distant from the spot where Cleek now crouched; and as if the ill-luck which had balked him once before to-night was intent upon flooring him at all quarters, he had no sooner grasped the unwelcome fact--made manifest by the clearer sound of the approaching body as it came into closer range--that the steps were advancing in a direct line with that shrubbery than a thin, eager whisper pierced the stillness.

It was the voice of Miss Lorne, saying cautiously, yet distinctly:

"Goodness gracious! Why, Purviss! You don't mean to tell me it's you?"

Purviss! Not Lady Clavering, but Geoff Clavering's old valet, Purviss?

Here was a facer to be sure. Well, well, you never can tell which way a cat will jump, and that's a fact.

Purviss, eh? So he, too, was in the know, was he? Of course he must be, to be playing the role of Mercury and carrying messages between them in this secret manner. Cleek decided to have a look at Mr. Purviss, and a word or two as well, by George! For now, of course, he would make no attempt to go near that window.

The thought had no sooner presented itself to him than he acted upon it.

With the speed of a hound, but with no more noise than a moving shadow, he left his hiding-place, skirted the house, got round to the front of it, crawled up the steps, then, rising suddenly, appeared to come out of the doorway and down the steps whistling, as he descended to the gardens and moved leisurely along in the direction of the shrubbery.

When he was within a foot of it he suddenly stopped, pulled out his cigarette case, struck a match as if for the purpose of smoking, and by the aid of that light saw standing within a yard of him Miss Ailsa Lorne in close conversation with a mild-mannered, mild-faced elderly person, upon whom the word "valet" was clearly written.

"Hullo, Miss Lorne, enjoying an evening ramble, too? May I be allowed to join you?"

"With pleasure, Mr. Barch," said Ailsa. Then she motioned toward the valet, who had stepped meekly back.

"Purviss has just come over from Lady Clavering to inquire for Mr.

Geoffrey----"

"Ah, yes," said Cleek, smiling to himself unnoticed in the dark. "He left this afternoon, did he not? You have evidently just missed Sir Philip, who was himself here."

"Yes," added Ailsa, "I was just telling him, but it seems he has a message for General Raynor from Lady Clavering----"

"I thought as much," said Cleek to himself triumphantly, though aloud he remarked, calmly enough: "Ah! but the General has gone to bed. I heard him say that he was not to be disturbed, but if you care to give any message or letter, I'll go and knock him up."

"Oh, no, there's no need to do that, sir," replied Purviss hurriedly.

"It's only a request for a gardening book if I happened to see General Raynor; of no importance at all, sir."

"I quite understand," said Cleek, the smile on his face hidden in the screening darkness.

"As for Mr. Geoffrey," put in Ailsa kindly, "he is quite safe. He went up to town on an errand for Lady Katharine----"

"Thank you, Miss," returned Purviss respectfully. "That will be a relief to her ladyship to know that. She was very anxious. Good-night, Miss!

Good-night, sir!" With a deferential salute, the man turned and disappeared swiftly into the night.

"You see now," said Ailsa, "that I was right, that Geoff's absence would create such a panic at the Close that they would scour the place for news of him. First his father, and now Purviss. I thought you would be satisfied as to the truth of his mission directly I spoke."

"Yes," said Cleek quietly, "but he did not come here to seek Geoff Clavering. That was a lie. He came for the purpose of having an interview with some one else, and for the second time this night, Miss Lorne, you have unfortunately prevented me from hearing something which might have cleared this mystery up without any further search on my part. You remember how I rushed past you at the time when Dollops had set me on the track of the lady in pink? She came and she had an interview, or, at least, she had the beginning of an interview, with the man she was there to see. What's that? No, she was not Margot. She was Lady Clavering. Sh-h-h! Quiet! Quiet! Yes, she was Lady Clavering. And she had just accused the man she came to meet of having murdered De Louvisan, when your approach startled the pair of them and made them separate hurriedly. Miss Lorne, can you stand a shock? Good! Then hold your nerves under tight control. The man Lady Clavering met at the wall door to-night was the master of this house, General Raynor!"

She all but collapsed when she heard that.

"General Raynor?" she breathed in a horrified voice. "General Raynor?

And Lady Clavering? Oh, but why, but how? Dear Mr. Cleek, it--it is like some horrible dream! What possible connection could there be between those two people of all others?"

"I don't know. I have a suspicion--it is my business to have that, you know--but I want something stronger. I shall have it soon. My work here in this house is pretty well finished, I fancy. Maybe to-morrow, maybe the next day, but this week certain, I shall be off to Malta. I am going to hunt up a man's army record there."

"The General's?"

"Yes. His and--well, possibly, some one's else. When I come back I promise you that I will have the solution to this riddle in my hands.

What's that? Oh, yes, Margot is in it."

"Then why--then how can Lady Clavering----"

"Lady Clavering, it appears, knows Margot. So does the General, evidently, for she mentioned her name to him."

"Dear heaven! And you say that she accused him of the murder? Accused him? How could she?"

"She was there--at Gleer Cottage--_last_ night. She went there to meet him. But she was not, however, the first to direct my suspicions against the General. That was done hours before and by a totally different person."

"Whom?"

"His son," said Cleek, and forthwith told her of that memorable interview with Harry Raynor after dinner, and of the typewritten letter he had abstracted from the young wastrel's coat pocket. "Miss Lorne, I waste no sympathy upon that worm," he went on. "From the top of his empty head to the toe of his worthless foot there's not one ounce of manhood in him. But he spoke the truth! His father did type that forged letter and for the purpose he declared."

"To get him out of the neighbourhood for the night?"