The Riddle of the Night Part 9

"Hum-m-m!" said Cleek, puckering up his lips and looking grave. "You are establishing a very unpleasant fact by that statement. It proves that, in spite of your belief to the contrary, Lady Katharine revisited Gleer Cottage last night, and that, too, _after_ the affair at Clavering Close."

"How perfectly absurd! Why, she wasn't out of my sight for a single instant."

"Nevertheless, she certainly visited Gleer Cottage last night," repeated Cleek with calm persistence. "I know that beyond all possible doubt, Miss Lorne; for I myself found the capsule of that bracelet there, crushed and broken, but still showing that the St. Ulmer arms and the name 'Katharine' had been engraved upon it. Don't look at me like that, please, or you will make me hate myself for having to tell you this."

"But I tell you it is impossible," she still protested. "I tell you she was never out of my sight for one instant from the time we left this house to the time we returned. No, not for one, Mr. Cleek, up to the very moment she left me to go to bed."

"Just so. But after that?"

"After that? After----" she began; and then stopped, and grew very pale and very, very still, for there had come to her a recollection of that moment when, as she had said, she fancied she heard Lady Katharine's door open and shut in the night when all the house was still.

"And after that?" repeated Cleek, driving the question home.

"How should I know?" she gave back, in something akin to panic. "How could I? We do not sleep together. But"--with sudden brightening--"this I do know, however: the bracelet was still on her wrist and the scent globe still attached to it, even then. I saw it with my own eyes."

"A clear proof that, as the capsule was dropped after that time, she left the house last night without your knowledge, Miss Lorne."

"I can't believe it; I will not believe it!" protested Ailsa loyally. "I know that she did not! I _know_!"

"How?"

"It is likely that you have not heard it, but Katharine is an accomplished violoncellist, Mr. Cleek. She loves her instrument, and in times of sorrow or distress she flies to it for comfort, and plays and plays until her nerves are soothed. Last night, after she left me, I heard her playing in her room."

"For long?"

"No. Of a sudden something went snap and the music ceased. She opened her door and called across the pa.s.sage to me: 'Ailsa, pray for me. I am so wretched, so abandoned by fortune, that even the solace of my 'cello is denied me. I have broken the A-string and have not another in the house. Good-night, dear. I wish I could break the String of Life as easily!' After that she closed and locked the door, and I heard her go to bed."

_The A-string!_

Cleek turned away his head and took his chin between his thumb and forefinger. _The A-string!_ And it was with a noose of catgut that the Count de Louvisan had been strangled!

"I'll not believe that she left the house," went on Miss Lorne. "She is the soul of honour, the very embodiment of truth, and she told me herself that she 'slept like a log until morning.' If she had gone out after I left her, after I fell asleep----"

"It could be proved and proved easily," interposed Cleek. "The night was moist and foggy, the roads were wet and muddy. Her clothes, the hem of her skirt, the state of her shoes---- But I will not ask you to play the spy upon your friend, Miss Lorne."

"Nor would I do it!" she flashed back spiritedly; then stopped and gave a little excited exclamation and laid a shaking hand upon Cleek's sleeve. An automobile had swung suddenly into view in the drive leading up from the gates to the house, and in it were two men: one white of hair and snowy of beard but as erect as a statue; the other slim and young and fashionably dressed, and so clearly of the order "Johnnie"

that he who ran might read. The General and his son had returned from their visit to Gleer Cottage.

Miss Lorne made that fact clear to Cleek in a few words.

"Now we shall have the full account of everything in Harry Raynor's original and detestable style," she whispered. "You are so shrewd in guessing riddles, Mr. Cleek, tell me, if you can, why it is that lions so often breed a.s.ses, and that heroes so often father clowns? If you were to search the world you could find no truer gentleman, in speech, in manner, in instincts, in everything, than dear old General Raynor; and yet, if you were to search it thrice over, you could find no greater cad than his son."

"From what I can see at this distance he certainly does look like a fine example of the genus bounder, I must confess," said Cleek. "You do not appear to have much of an opinion of the young man, Miss Lorne."

"I have not. I detest him! I never did care for 'scented' men; and when they come down to the 'curling iron' and the 'dye stick' they are simply abominable!"

"The 'dye stick'?"

"Yes. You mustn't be deceived by that waxed and delicately darkened moustache of Mr. Harry Raynor's, Mr. Cleek. It would be as sandy as his hair if the wretched little dandy didn't darken it with black cosmetic because he is ashamed of the cow colour which nature so appropriately bestowed upon it."

Cleek screwed round on his heel and looked at Mr. Harry Raynor with renewed interest.

"I suppose I ought not to have said that," she continued, "but I do detest him so. I think I had better run and tell Kathie that they have come back, but I will not keep you waiting many minutes." She smiled brightly at Cleek, and with a little nod ran lightly off, leaving him to await her return.

But, despite his interest in Mr. Harry Raynor, Cleek dropped discreetly out of sight and into one of the many winding paths with which the grounds abounded. A few minutes' gentle stroll along this particular one brought him to the rear of the house, and before he quite realized it he found himself within the precincts of the stable. The yard itself was deserted save for a single groom who was evidently hard at work polishing a boot, and which, judging from the muddy appearance of its companion, must have proved no easy task.

Cleek gave one look at the expensively cut article of footgear, then he lounged across the yard.

"That's a pretty tough job, isn't it?" said he offhandedly. The groom looked up, but meeting the visitor's disarming smile, only gave vent to a grunt.

"Should think it is a tough job," he muttered. "They're his lordship's boots, an' 'ow 'e comes to make 'em in such a state beats me to fits.

Fair caked with mud, and 'im in bed with a sprained ankle. It's that valet of 'is, I s'pose----" He broke off, then looked questioningly at Cleek.

"I've lost my way," he said, plunging his hand into his pocket. "I strolled down a path from the lawns in front of the house. Which one will take me back?"

"First path to the right, sir, and thank you," said the gratified groom, and a minute later found Cleek back at the spot where Ailsa had left him.

He certainly had to admit that the whole affair was most perplexing, and he was still pondering over the various points of the case when Ailsa Lorne returned, and for a few moments they paced the lawn in silence; then Cleek turned with a little smile.

"I suppose we shall have to go and meet the General," said he serenely.

"Shall we meet Lady Katharine's father as well?"

"Oh, dear, no! The man's in bed with a sprained ankle. Can't put his foot to the ground."

"Oh! Indeed? Then that explains it, of course. I wondered."

"Explains it? Explains what?"

"Why, his not being about at such a time--not appearing to take any interest in his daughter's affairs, especially her deliverance from a loveless marriage. It struck me as curious when I saw her. But I set it down to the possibility of there being bad blood between them. Is there?"

"No, there is not," said Ailsa, falling unconsciously into the trap.

"Kathie is not the kind of girl to hold a grudge against any one, Mr.

Cleek. She is intensely emotional, but she is also intensely loyal. The very last person in the world she would be likely to treat spitefully would be her father."

"I see. She is fond of him, then? Probably I have heard the wrong version of the story. Have I? I was told that it was he who compelled her, very much against her will, to accept the attentions of the--er--Count de Louvisan and to become engaged to him. That she begged her father to save her from marrying the man, but he would not--or could not--consent."

"That is quite true. You have not been misinformed. She did just what you have been told. Indeed, I happen to know that she even went so far as to get down on her knees to Lord St. Ulmer and implore him to kill her rather than to compel her to give up Geoff--and especially for a man she loathed as she did the Count de Louvisan. It was useless, however.

That same night Lord St. Ulmer asked her to come to him alone in the library at Ulmer Court. They were together for two hours. The next day she accepted the Count de Louvisan."

"I see!" said Cleek. "Of course, his lordship told her something which influenced her beyond her own will and desires. Do you happen to know what that something was?"

"No. She has never told me one word beyond that she went into that library with a breaking heart, and came out of it with a broken one."

"And in spite of all that, she still loves this father who compelled her to give up all that life held, eh?"

"I didn't say that. I said that she was loyal to him, not that she loved him. How could she love a father whom she had not seen since she was a baby--whom she did not even know when he came back to claim her? Why, she hadn't even a picture to tell her what he looked like, and in all the years he was away he never wrote her so much as one line. A girl couldn't love a father like that. She might like him, she might be grateful to him, as Katharine is, for loading her with all the things that money can buy; but to love him---- What is the matter, Mr. Cleek?

What in the world made you say 'Phew' like that?"

"Nothing! Do you happen to know if the late Count de Louvisan was ever in Argentina, Miss Lorne?"