The White Lie Part 1

The White Lie.

by William Le Queux.

CHAPTER I.

IS MAINLY MYSTERIOUS.

"A woman--perhaps?"

"Who knows! Poor d.i.c.k Harborne was certainly a man of secrets, and of many adventures."

"Well, it certainly is a most mysterious affair. You, my dear Barclay, appear to be the last person to have spoken to him."

"Apparently I was," replied Lieutenant Noel Barclay, of the Naval Flying Corps, a tall, slim, good-looking, clean-shaven man in aviator's garb, and wearing a thick woollen m.u.f.fler and a brown leather cap with rolls at the ears, as he walked one August afternoon up the village street of Mundesley-on-Sea, in Norfolk, a quaint, old-world street swept by the fresh breeze of the North Sea. "Yesterday I flew over here from Yarmouth to see the cable-laying, and met d.i.c.k in the post-office. I hadn't seen him for a couple of years. We were shipmates in the _Antrim_ before he retired from the service and went abroad."

"Came into money, I suppose?" remarked his companion, Francis Goring, a long-legged, middle-aged man, who, in a suit of well-worn tweeds, presented the ideal type of the English landowner, as indeed he was--owner of Keswick Hall, a fine place a few miles distant, and a Justice of the Peace for the county of Norfolk.

"No," replied the aviator, unwinding his woollen scarf. "That's just it.

I don't think he came into money. He simply retired, and next we heard was that he was living a wandering, adventurous life on the Continent. I ran up against him in town once or twice, and he always seemed amazingly prosperous. Yet there was some sort of a mystery about him--of that I have always felt certain."

"That's interesting," declared the man at his side. "Anything suspicious--eh?"

"Well, I hardly know. Only, one night as I was walking from the Empire along to the Rag, I pa.s.sed a man very seedy and down-at-heel. He recognised me in an instant, and hurried on towards Piccadilly Circus.

It was d.i.c.k--of that I'm absolutely convinced. I had a c.o.c.ktail with him in the club next day, but he never referred to the incident."

"If he had retired from the Navy, then what was his business, do you suppose?"

"Haven't the slightest idea," Barclay replied. "I met him here with a motor-bike late yesterday afternoon. We had a drink together across at the Grand, against the sea, and I left him just after five o'clock.

I had the hydroplane out and went up from opposite the coastguard station," he said, pointing to the small, well-kept gra.s.s plot on the left, where stood the flagstaff and the white cottages of the coastguard. "He watched me get up, and then, I suppose, he started off on his bike for Norwich. What happened afterwards is entirely shrouded in mystery. He was seen to pa.s.s through the market-place of North Walsham, five miles away, and an hour and a quarter later he was found, only three miles farther on, at a lonely spot near the junction of the Norwich road and that leading up to Worstead Station, between Westwick and Fairstead. A carter found him lying in a ditch at the roadside, stabbed in the throat, while his motor-cycle was missing!"

"From the papers this morning it appears that your friend has been about this neighbourhood a good deal of late. For what reason n.o.body knows.

He's been living sometimes at the Royal at Norwich and the King's Head at Beccles for the past month or so, they say."

"He told me so himself. He promised to come over to me at the air-station at Yarmouth to-morrow and lunch with me, poor fellow."

"I wonder what really happened?"

"Ah, I wonder!" remarked the slim, well-set-up, flying officer. "A mere tramp doesn't kill a fellow of d.i.c.k Harborne's hard stamp in order to rob him of his cycle."

"No. There's something much more behind the tragedy, without a doubt,"

declared the local Justice of the Peace. "Let's hope something will come out at the inquest. Personally, I'm inclined to think that it's an act of revenge. Most probably a woman is at the bottom of it."

Barclay shook his head. He did not incline to that opinion.

"I wonder with what motive he cycled so constantly over to this neighbourhood from Norwich or Beccles?" exclaimed Goring. "What could have been the attraction? There must have been one, for this is an out-of-the-world place."

"Your theory is a woman. Mine isn't," declared the lieutenant, bluntly, offering his friend a cigarette and lighting one himself. "No, depend upon it, poor old d.i.c.k was a man of mystery. Many strange rumours were afloat concerning him. Yet, after all, he was a real fine fellow, and as smart an officer as ever trod a quarter-deck. He was a splendid linguist, and had fine prospects, for he has an uncle an admiral on the National Defence Committee. Yet he chucked it all and became a cosmopolitan wanderer, and--if there be any truth in the gossip I've heard--an adventurer."

"An outsider--eh?"

"Well--no, not exactly. d.i.c.k Harborne was a gentleman, therefore he could never have been an outsider," replied the naval officer quickly.

"By adventurer I mean that he led a strange, unconventional life. He was met by men who knew him in all sorts of out-of-the-world corners of Europe, where he spent the greater part of his time idling at _cafes_ and in a section of society which was not altogether reputable."

"And you say he was not an adventurer?" remarked the staid British landowner--one of a cla.s.s perhaps the most conservative and narrow-minded in all the world.

"My dear fellow, travel broadens a man's mind," exclaimed the naval officer. "A man may be a cosmopolitan without being an adventurer. d.i.c.k Harborne, though there were so many sinister whispers concerning him, was a gentleman--a shrewd, deep-thinking, patriotic Englishman. And his death is a mystery--one which I intend to solve. I've come over here again to-day to find out what I can."

"Well," exclaimed Goring, "I for one am hardly satisfied with his recent career. While he was in the Navy and afloat--gunnery-lieutenant of one of His Majesty's first-cla.s.s cruisers--there appears to have been nothing against his personal character. Only after his retirement these curious rumours arose."

"True, and n.o.body has fathomed the mystery of his late life," admitted Barclay, drawing hard at his cigarette and examining the lighted end.

"I've heard of him being seen in Cairo, a.s.souan, Monte Carlo, Aix, Berlin, Rome--all over the Continent, and in Egypt he seems to have travelled, and with much more means at his disposal than ever he had in the ward-room."

"There are strange mysteries in some men's lives, my dear Barclay.

Harborne was a man of secrets without a doubt. Some of those secrets may come out at the inquest."

"I doubt it. Poor d.i.c.k!" he sighed. "He's dead--killed by an unknown hand, and his secret, whatever it was, has, I believe, gone to the grave with him. Perhaps, after all, it is best."

"The police are very busy, I understand."

"Oh, of course! The Norfolk Constabulary will be very active over it all, but I somehow have an intuition that the crime was one of no ordinary character. d.i.c.k must have dismounted to speak to his a.s.sailant.

If he had been overthrown his machine would most probably have been damaged. The a.s.sa.s.sin wanted the motor-cycle intact to get away upon.

Besides," he added, "the victim took over an hour to cover the three miles between North Walsham and the spot where he was found. Something unusual must have occurred in that time."

"Well, it can only be left to the police to investigate," replied the tall, country squire, thrusting his hands into his jacket pockets.

"They won't discover much--depend upon it," remarked the naval officer, who, as he strolled at his friend's side, presented the ideal type of the keen, British naval officer. "d.i.c.k has been the victim of a very carefully-prepared plot. That is my firm belief. I've been making some inquiries at the Grand Hotel, and learn that d.i.c.k came over from Norwich on his motor-cycle at nine o'clock yesterday morning for some purpose, and idled about Mundesley and the neighbourhood all the day. The head-waiter at the hotel knew him, for he had often lunched there. But yesterday he evidently came here with some fixed purpose, for he seemed to be eagerly expecting somebody, and at last, a little before two o'clock, a young lady arrived by the motor-bus from Cromer. They describe her as a neat, dark-haired, good-looking young person, rather well-dressed--and evidently a summer visitor. The pair walked about the village, and then went down to the beach and sat upon deck-chairs to chat. They returned to the hotel at half-past three and had tea together, _tete-a-tete_, in a small sitting-room. The waiter tells me that once, when he went in, suddenly, she was standing up, apparently urging him to act in opposition to his own inclinations. Her att.i.tude, he says, was one of unusual force, it being evident that d.i.c.k was very reluctant to give some promise she was endeavouring to extract from him.

She left again by the motor-bus for Cromer just after four."

"Ah! There you are! The woman!" exclaimed the owner of Keswick Hall, with a smile. "I thought as much."

"I don't think she had anything to do with the affair," said Barclay.

"The police this morning obtained a detailed description of her--just as I have done--and they are now searching for her in Cromer, Runton, and Sheringham, believing her to be staying somewhere along this coast. She was dressed in a pale blue kit of a distinctly seaside cut, so the police are hoping to find her. Perhaps she doesn't yet know of the tragic fate that has befallen poor d.i.c.k."

"I wonder who the girl can be? No doubt she'd be able to make a very interesting statement--if they could only discover her."

"I think she left Cromer last night," Noel Barclay suggested to his companion.

"She would, if she were in any way implicated. Perhaps she has already gone!"

"No, I don't agree. I believe she is still in ignorance."

"What, I wonder, was the motive for their meeting here--in this quiet, out-of-the-world little place?" asked Goring. "If he wanted to see her, he might have motored to wherever she was staying, and not have brought her over here in a motor-bus. No, it was a secret meeting--that's my opinion--and, as it was secret, it probably had some connection with the tragedy which afterwards occurred."

The two men were now close to the "Gap," or steep, inclined cart-road which ran down to the sands. On their right, a little way from the road, stood a small, shed-like building where the rocket life-saving apparatus of the Board of Trade was housed. In front, the roadway, and indeed all down the "Gap" and across the sands to where the waves lapped the sh.o.r.e, had been recently opened, for upon the previous day the sh.o.r.e end of the new German telegraph-cable connecting England with Nordeney had been laid. At that moment, while the cable-ship, on its return across the North Sea, was hourly paying out the cable, a German telegraph engineer was seated within the rocket-station, constantly making tests upon the submerged line between the sh.o.r.e and the ship.

Up from the trench beside the rocket-house came the cable--black, coiled, and snake-like, about three inches in thickness--its end disappearing within the small building.