This House to Let Part 32

Iris was not his favourite sister. She was clever in a worldly way, and had made good. But she had not the sterling loyalty of Caroline.

Davis gently checked her enthusiasm. "And how have you been getting on, Iris? Always floating on the top as usual?"

Miss Iris showed her dimples. "Always floating on the top, as you say, dear old boy. A silly, soft chap fell in love with me; wrote most impa.s.sioned love-letters. Well, he was too soppy for me to care much about him, and when his rich brother came along, offering me a price for his love-letters, I can tell you I just jumped at the chance."

"Did you get a good price?" queried her brother.

"I stuck out for ten thousand," explained the capable Iris; "but this chap was a good bargainer, and I let them go at seven. It was better on the whole. If I had married Roddie, I should have been so fed-up in a month that I should have run away from him, and then Heaven knows where I might have ended."

Davis looked at his sister approvingly. There was enough of the old Adam left in him to entertain a slight envy of his sister's chances.

Seven thousand pounds, a little fortune in itself, was a good bit of work, a handsome reward for the display of her dimples.

"Roddie who, dear? You might tell us his other name," queried Mrs Masters, who perhaps was also smitten with a sense of envy.

"That's telling," answered the sprightly Iris, who was not given to be too frank about her own affairs. "But if either of you two dear things want a little ready, apply to me. Of course, you will remember I have got to take care of myself, to make provision for my old age."

Davis and Carrie exchanged glances. They knew the volatile Iris of old.

As a child she had always been mean and grasping. Not much of the seven thousand would come their way, if they were on the verge of starvation.

Carrie spoke in cold accents. "You are really too generous, Iris. But we shall not have to trespa.s.s upon your generosity. I have enough for my humble wants. And Reggie has been able to put by, so much so that he has been kind enough to make me a very handsome money present to-night."

"Dear old Reggie," said the sweetly smiling Iris. "I am so glad you have made good."

And then Davis spoke: "Thanks, in great part, to Carrie, who told that splendid lie about the suicide, or murder, at 10 Cathcart Square. You remember that, of course?"

"Suicide, wasn't it?" said Iris, but her cheek had grown a little pale.

"I don't think so. There was a forged letter purporting to be written by me. I am going to Scotland Yard to-morrow, stating frankly who I am, and urging them to exhume the body. We will find out who the man, buried under the name of Reginald Davis, really was."

And then the agitation of his younger sister became extreme. She clutched convulsively at his arm.

"Reggie, you will not do this. What does it matter to you who the man was? Go under some other name, and let sleeping dogs lie."

Unconsciously she had used the same expression as Mrs Masters, but from different motives.

"I have been under a different name for a longer time than I care to remember," answered Davis doggedly. "I have a fancy to resume my own, and make a clean breast of it to the police. They have nothing else to charge me with."

Iris fell on her knees, and the tears rained down her cheeks.

"For my sake, Reggie, if not for your own."

"And why for your sake? Tell us what you mean," demanded her brother sternly.

And Iris spoke as clearly as she could speak amidst her strangled sobs.

"If you try and unearth that mystery at Cathcart Square, I might be dragged in, and it might be very awkward for me."

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

Davis directed a keen glance at his elder sister over the bowed head of Iris. The younger woman was by no means of an emotional nature. Light, frivolous and volatile, she had danced through life, and, on the whole, had had a good time. One could not picture her in a tragic mood.

And yet, she was the personification of deep emotion now. She could hardly speak for those convulsive sobs, and in her frightened eyes there was a deep and haunting terror. At what point, and through what circ.u.mstances, had tragedy touched this little selfish, self-centred b.u.t.terfly, gifted with a certain amount of cunning and sharpness, but utterly brainless.

"What do you know of Number 10 Cathcart Square, except what you gleaned from the newspapers?" demanded her brother sternly. "How can you be implicated in the murder of the unknown man whom Carrie mistook for me?"

"But Carrie did not mistake him for you," wailed Iris. "She told me afterwards that the idea suggested itself in a flash, and when she read the newspaper she was not sure whether it was you who had crept in there, according to the evidence, and made away with yourself, through fear of the police."

"Leave Carrie out of it for the moment," said Davis. "Whatever she did was well thought out. Of course, we both know her object was to identify me, if possible, and put Scotland Yard off the scent. What we want to know is, how did you come to be acquainted with the house? What do you mean by saying that, if further investigations are made, you might be dragged in?"

"I was there on four occasions: on the last a few days before the murder, or suicide, whatever it was."

Davis gasped, and Carrie lifted her hands in horror. What did this confession mean? It was impossible that this slim, weak girl had herself been the murderess, could have killed a big, powerful man of the same build as the supposed Davis, with those slim, weak hands.

She saw the horror in their faces, and hastened to rea.s.sure them. "Oh no, not that, I swear to you. I am no more a murderess than you were a murderer, Reggie. But if the whole thing is raked up, and the man whom I believe it to be, accurately identified this time, things might look very black for me."

Davis lifted her from her kneeling position, and placed her in an easy-chair. "Calm yourself, and tell us the whole story of why and how you came to be in Cathcart Square at all."

Iris waited a few moments till the convulsive sobbing ceased. She spoke with little occasional gasps, but it was very evident it was a relief to unbosom herself.

"It is a very long story," she began tremulously.

"If the telling of it lasts till midnight, we must have it," said her brother in an inflexible voice.

And compelled by his resolute manner, the girl, whom they had always regarded as a frivolous b.u.t.terfly, embarked upon her strange and thrilling narrative.

"It all arose out of the sale of those letters I spoke to you about.

Carrie just now asked me the name of the man who wrote them. Well, I didn't get further than Roddie, which doesn't carry you very far. If it had not been for your threat of going to Scotland Yard, I should have stopped at that. A still tongue makes a wise head, you know."

They could quite believe that. In spite of her ceaseless chatter, Iris had always been very reticent about her own affairs. She had seen next to nothing of her brother for a few years, not very much of Carrie Masters. And, on these occasions, she had always avoided, in a marked manner, any allusion to her private affairs.

"I told you of a soppy young chap who started to make love to me last year. I didn't care a snap for him, but he was very persistent, and at last wrote me most urgent letters imploring me to be his wife. His full name was Roderick Murchison, a member of the great brewing family; his father has been dead for some time, he died during the War, and Roddie came in for tons of money, although he was not the eldest son. I don't know if you have ever heard of him?"

No, neither Davis nor Carrie had known of the existence of such a young man. They had a hazy idea that there was a big brewing firm of that name, that was all.

"Well, as I say, I didn't care a snap for him, although he was awfully good and generous, overwhelmed me with, all kinds of lovely presents: rings, bracelets, fur coats, etc. In our life, you know, one accepts these things from the mugs who are gone on us without attaching very much importance to the fact." It was evident that Miss Iris had struck out her own line of life, and made a very good thing out of it.

"Well, then, Roddie began to grow desperate, and declared he couldn't live without me. It was all so genuine that at last I began to think seriously of it. There were tons of money, and although I didn't cotton much to the sort of life I should have to lead as his wife, still there were worse things than being Mrs Roderick Murchison, with the future well a.s.sured, and a handsome settlement."

Davis and his elder sister exchanged wondering glances. So this b.u.t.terfly little girl, whom they had always regarded as rather shallow and feather-brained, had had this wonderful chance of marrying a gentleman and a rich man.

"It was difficult to bring myself up to the scratch, in spite of the advantages, for he was so soft and soppy that he irritated me in a thousand-and-one ways, and I knew in a very short time I should grow to hate and despise him. Then one night, after a very excellent champagne supper at the `Excelsior,' he got me in a yielding mood, and I promised to marry him."

Brother and sister could only marvel at the girl's extraordinary good fortune, reluctant as she seemed to avail herself of it.

"He told me that before he went to bed that night he wrote to his family acquainting them with the news, antic.i.p.ating fully their objections, but expressing his strong determination to brook no interference or remonstrance. You see he was his own master, n.o.body could take his money away from him, and he didn't care whether his relatives were offended or not."

"And how did the family take it?" queried Davis.

"I am coming to that," replied Iris. She was growing much calmer now.