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GLADYS EDSON LOCKE


ΚΕ1800





THAT AFFAIR AT
PORTSTEAD MANOR
BY
GLADYS EDSON LOCKE
Author of "Queen Elizabeth,” etc.

KIZENIA
LEGE
QUOD
LEGAS
BOSTON
SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY
1914


KE 1800
G COLLEGE
HARVARD Ca
COPYRIGHT, 1914
SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY


CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER
I ALL ON ACCOUNT OF A NECKLACE . . 1
II MR. CLAVERING TAKES THE FIELD.
III WHERE HAD MELDRUM BEEN? . . .
IV MR. CLAVERING HAS A NIGHT OF Ad-
VENTURE . . . . . . . .
V MR. ROBERT SYLVESTER . . . . 85
VI MR. CLAVERING INVADES THE NORTH
I WING . . . . . .
·
VII SURMISES AND SUSPICIONS . . . .
VIII MORE MYSTERY . . . . . . .
IX ACCUSATIONS . . . . . . . 77
X Mavis . . . . . . . . 85
XI THE CLUE OF THE BROKEN CRUTCH . 90
XII THE DRESSING-TABLE DRAWER . . . 100
XIII THE RETURN OF ROBERT SYLVESTER · 112
XIV PORTSTEAD'S WILL . . . . . . 121
XV MR. CLAVERING MUDDIES HIS Boots . 133
XVI A GAME OF PIQUET . . . . . 144
XVII MR. CLAVERING VISITS WILD ROSE
VILLA · · · · . . . . . 153
XVIII Cross PURPOSES . . . . . . . 161
XIX THRUST AND PARRY . . . . . 170
XX UNDER FIRE . . . . . . . . 183
XXI MARY GREY SURPRISES MR. CLAVERING 199
m
minim
union, and also in Maratonika eller


CHAPTER
PAGE
XXII The Missing Lady's Maid . . . . 211
XXIII MERCEDES QUERO TO THE FORE . . 221
XXIV “THE SPORTING BARONET” . . . 229
XXV MR. CLAVERING LEARNS More or DE-
TECTIVE METHODS . . . . . 235
XXVI THE CONFESSION . . . . . . 245
XXVII OFF FOR THE CONTINENT . . . . 258


THAT AFFAIR AT PORTSTEAD MANOR





CHAPTER I
ALL ON ACCOUNT OF A NECKLACE
The chances are that had the Honourable Archi-
bald Clavering suspected what adventures would
befall him at Portstead Manor and what a sorry
figure he would present in most of them, he would
never have left his correct bachelor chambers in
Mayfair to join Lady Ursula's house party, held
in the ancestral home of the Sylvesters.
Portstead Manor was one of the finest old
Elizabethan houses in England — a great, ram-
bling, irregular structure of carven oak and
painted plaster, with towers and turrets, gabled
roofs, ivy-festooned chimneys, and quaintly-pro-
jecting upper stories.
Round about the mansion stretched lawns and
terraces and wonderful gardens, encircled by a vast
park of noble old trees, in the midst of which was
a large lake, where the limpid-eyed deer came to
drink. Beyond were acres of rich meadow lands,
bordered by dense, dark woods. An abode of his-
toric interest and placid charm was Portstead
Manor, and the last place in the world where one
would expect to meet mystery and tragedy.
It all began with Lady Pevensy insisting upon


2
THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
sending to town for a priceless family heirloom
in the shape of a magnificent diamond necklace.
With this she meant to dazzle the eyes of Port-
stead gentry at the first ball held there since the
Manor was given to Lady Ursula by her brother
at the time he came into his title. That was over
ten years ago.
When Lady Ursula remonstrated with her
guest for running such a risk so needlessly, Lady
Pevensy replied that she should feel perfectly
safe with the necklace since Mr. Clavering was of
the party. Now the Honourable Archibald was
a disciple of Sherlock Holmes in an amateur and
theoretic way; that is, he understood that remark-
able person's methods but had never had oppor-
tunity to put them into practise. This tribute
to his latent detective powers flattered him, and,
moreover, as he was plagued by a tender sentiment
for the payer of it, he was at once set on his mettle
and assured Lady Pevensy that she could wear
the necklace with absolute security. .
“So good of you, dear Mr. Clavering," she
exclaimed, with a gushing enthusiasm that ad-
vancing years — she owned to forty-five — could
not quench. "Otherwise I should almost feel
obliged to have a detective down to watch it. It is
really a great responsibility.”
The necklace arrived on the afternoon of the
day the ball was to be held. It was guarded on
the journey by Lady Pevensy's family solicitor
and her companion, Mary Grey.


ON ACCOUNT OF A NECKLACE
3
Lady Pevensy apologised to her hostess for in-
troducing Mary Grey into the household, but de-
clared that the girl was indispensable to her.
“Why, I did not know that you had a compan-
ion,” remarked Lady Ursula in surprise.
“Oh, I haven't had her long,” and Lady
Pevensy changed the subject.
Now that the necklace had arrived Mr. Claver-
ing felt to the full the responsibility of his posi-
tion as guardian of its safety. He saw it borne
upstairs in impressive state by Lady Pevensy,
attended by Mary Grey, and he then decided,
in the bare event of anything untoward happening,
that it would be just as well for him to become
somewhat acquainted with the habits of the house-
hold. In view of what did happen, he later took
no little credit to himself for this foresight.
His fellow-guests he passed by with scarcely a
thought. They were well known to him; and, let
it be confessed, Mr. Clavering had the failing of
most amateur detectives — he could not see beyond
preconceived opinions. Trouble, then, if there
should be any, must come from the servants.
The staff of servants was remarkably small for
so large a house as Portstead, but then it was a
distinct innovation for the Manor to be open to
guests. Lady Ursula had always kept her town
house for such gatherings, and her country resi-
dence merely, as Lady Pevensy put it, as a shelter
for broken-down old servants. She had only
opened it now at the urgency of her brother.


4
THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
The Earl of Portstead, before leaving for what
was believed to be a secret diplomatic mission,
although he called it a pleasure trip down the
Nile, had wished to spend a few days with friends
at Portstead Manor. His sister had yielded to
his wishes. She generally did.
On this occasion she had increased the staff of
servants by a butler, three footmen, and two under-
housemaids. The others were real old family
pensioners and, from what the head gardener told
Mr. Clavering, resented the intrusion of guests and,
more than all, of the new servants. Mr. Claver-
ing also learned from the gardener that the new
butler had departed that morning after two days'
service and without giving notice. That ac-
counted, then, for his absence at luncheon and
for Lady Ursula's worried and distraught man-
ner.
Mr. Clavering had taken particular notice of
Thompson, the butler. There was a smouldering
fire in the fellow's black eyes which belied the im-
passivity of the British servant, and he obviously
chafed at receiving orders. “Evidently a man
who has seen better days," was Mr. Clavering's
inward comment. Moreover, there was a hint
of something familiar in the thin, dark, frowning
visage of Thompson. Where and under what cir-
cumstances had he met this man before?
After dinner, and before the Portstead gentry
began to arrive for the ball, Mr. Clavering went
down the circular stairs from the west wing into


ON ACCOUNT OF A NECKLACE
5
the great, vaulted library for a half-hour's con-
templation. This sombrely splendid apartment,
with its deep, leaded windows, its massive carven
furniture, and its darkly-wainscoted walls lined
with bookshelves reaching to the ceiling, had not
been prepared for the coming guests and was il-
lumined only by a few softly-burning tapers,
whose shadowed light had a soothing effect upon
Mr. Clavering's excited nerves.
Although he would not admit it even to himself,
his responsibility was beginning to weigh upon
him. In books, at least, diamond necklaces had
such a deucedly unpleasant way of disappearing.
He had several such cases in mind and was labou-
riously recalling the manner of their recovery when
Mary Grey glided into the room and, passing
quickly to the outer door, went down into the
gardens.
Mr. Clavering looked after her with interest.
She was a young woman of perhaps twenty-eight
or nine, tall and slender, with brown hair simply
coiled in her neck, large brown eyes, and a very
pale face. She wore a simple gown of soft, cling-
ing grey. Indeed, simplicity was the keynote of
her appearance.
A studied simplicity Mr. Clavering decided, but
he mentally pronounced her attractive and was
about to stroll into the gardens — the moon was
just silvering the trees of the park — when Lady
Pevensy rushed down the circular stairs in a state of
violent hysterics, so violent that her négligée was


6
THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
flying open and her switch, loosened at one end,
bobbing wildly over her powdered nose.
“ The necklace, Mr. Clavering!” she fairly
screamed. “ The necklace has been stolen!”
“Wha-at?” he gasped, leaping to his feet.
His great opportunity had suddenly come.


8
THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
ory? " snapped Lady Pevensy, with a vehemence
worthy a Billingsgate fishwife. “You seem not
only to have forgotten the important matter you
had to tell me, but now you don't even remember
your note asking me to come at once to your dress-
ing-room.”
Lady Ursula's amazement deepened. “But I
wrote you no note," she protested.
Here Mr. Clavering, with a professional air,
stepped between the two excited ladies. “There
appears to be a double mystery here. Have you
this note, Lady Pevensy?"
She held out a crumpled bit of paper. “But I
don't care anything about this !” she cried petu-
lantly. “I want my necklace found. Where's
Mary Grey?”
Then Lady Ursula did a strange thing. Be-
fore Mr. Clavering could open the note, she
snatched it from his hand and tore it into shreds.
“ Well, really,” he began, bristling with indigna-
tion, “ you have very likely destroyed a valuable
clue.”
Lady Pevensy whirled upon him with increas-
ing hysteria. “ Archibald Clavering, don't stand
there talking of clues that you don't know anything
about. Do something! Find Mary Grey, if you
can't do any more.”
With ominous dignity Mr. Clavering advanced
to the garden door.
“Forgive me, Mr. Clavering,” burst forth
Lady Ursula impulsively. “I did not know what


CLAVERING TAKES THE FIELD
9
I was doing. I— the loss of the necklace has
completely upset me.”
“Pray don't mention it, Lady Ursula,” he re-
turned stiffly. “You are not the only one who
is upset.” His glance, as it rested on Lady
Pevensy, spoke volumes.
At that moment Mary Grey stepped through the
doorway. There was a slight flush on her pale
face and her eyes were very brilliant.
Lady Pevensy ran towards her. “ The neck-
lace has been stolen ! ” she proclaimed with hys-
terical wrath.
Mary Grey stopped short, staring at her.
“ Do you hear?” demanded Lady Pevensy
shrilly. “ The necklace has been stolen!”
“I hear you, Lady Pevensy,” replied Mary
Grey in her quiet voice, and, brushing by her, went
swiftly up the stairs.
“ Well, of all the —" gasped Lady Pevensy.
But Mr. Clavering interrupted with a question.
His mind had been working quickly. He scented
a clue.
“ Did you go to Lady Ursula's dressing-room?"
“ Certainly, but she was not there. I thought
it was strange and hurried back to my own room,
thinking I might have misread the letter. I found
the dressing-table drawer open and the necklace
gone.”
“ Had the lock been forced?” he asked eagerly.
“Of course it had. Did you think the neck-
lace walked through the keyhole? ”


10 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
Mr. Clavering grew red in an effort to swallow
his indignation. “At just what time was this?”
he persisted..
But Lady Pevensy's loss had put her in a most
abominable temper. “For Heaven's sake, don't
ask any more silly questions! Of course it wasn't
more than ten minutes ago.”
“If I am to assist you in the recovery of your
necklace, Lady Pevensy,” observed Mr. Clavering
in his stiffest manner, “it will be necessary for
me to ask you certain questions.”
“To tell you the truth, Mr. Clavering," she
flamed, with quite brutal frankness, “I hardly
think you will be of the slightest assistance in re-
covering the necklace.” Wherewith she fled up
the stairs, sobbing dismally.
Mr. Clavering was now fairly apoplectic.
Lady Ursula laid a soothing hand on his arm.
“ Don't notice her, Mr. Clavering. She is too
unstrung to realise what she is saying. When
she is calmer, I am sure she will not only beg your
pardon, but ask your assistance in recovering the
necklace. She really has a high opinion of your
detective powers,” she added, in what was, per-
haps, more a spirit of kindliness than of convic-
tion.
But Mr. Clavering did not take it in this way.
He brightened perceptibly. “You think so?”
“Did she not say as much before us all? " Lady
Ursula evaded, with a faint smile.
“ So she did,” he assented, and, his self-esteem


CLAVERING TAKES THE FIELD 11
restored, began to follow the clue again by ques-
tioning Lady Ursula as to where she was when
Lady Pevensy went to her room.
“With — my brother," she answered vaguely.
“ I should like to know if your maid was in the
room then," pondered Mr. Clavering.
“My maid?” A startled look flashed over her
features. “I don't know, I am sure. It is quite
likely. I left her there when — I went to my
brother.”
“Is your maid a reliable person ? "
“ Rose reliable? ” she echoed slowly.
Her eyes darkened, and it seemed to Mr. Claver-
ing that her beautiful face hardened.
“Rose is reliable — in the ordinary sense of
the word,” she said at length, in a cold voice.
“ She would not steal. I have never missed so
much as a handkerchief in the three years that she
has been with me. Surely you do not suspect
her?"
“ In a case like this it is well to suspect every
one till they are proved innocent,” observed Mr.
Clavering, with a wisdom born of long study.
“If you do not object, I should like to question
this girl.”
“Oh, I do not object." Yet there was a cu-
rious note of constraint in her voice. Ringing, she
requested that Rose be sent down to the library.
The footman was gone some time. When he
returned, his impassivity was manifestly shaken.
“Rose is not to be found, my Lady."


12 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
“ You mean she is not in my room?"
“She is not in the 'ouse, my Lady," dropping
an “h” in his agitation.
“ Ah!” murmured Mr. Clavering significantly.
“Rose gone!" ejaculated Lady Ursula in a tone
of horror, and rushed excitedly up the stairs.
Mr. Clavering hastened after, but instead of
following her to her room, turned into the east
wing and went on to Lady Pevensy's. Observing
that the door was open, he approached and asked,
rather timidly, if he might enter and see if there
were any clues to be discovered.
Lady Pevensy had recovered her temper, also
settled her switch, so she not only granted him
permission to search for clues, but even murmured
an apology for her former tartness. Mr. Claver-
ing accepted it magnanimously and remarked with
gallantry that he should never rest till he saw the
necklace sparkling about her throat.
As he entered the room, Mary Grey passed out.
Their eyes met and the expression in hers was
baffling — a half-mocking defiance, so he read it.
“A curious young woman,” he mused, and made
up his mind to observe her more closely.
To his chagrin, he was able to discover no clues
in the room, nothing in any way bearing upon the
mystery save the open and empty dressing-table
drawer. The lock had been neatly forced by
some burglar's implement, which was missing. As
the diamond-paned windows looked down upon the
terrace with a sheer drop of thirty feet, the thief


CLAVERING TAKES THE FIELD
13
must have entered by the door; in fact, he was
probably concealed in the hall or some nearby
chamber, waiting his chance, for although to reach
the west wing where was Lady Ursula's room Lady
Pevensy had been obliged to traverse the long
main corridor, she declared that she had not been
gone over ten minutes at the most.
In lieu of questioning Rose, Mr. Clavering in-
sisted upon interviewing Lady Pevensy's elderly
maid, Parkins; but to all appearance she was as
innocent of the theft as her mistress. Moreover,
it was to her that Lady Pevensy had first an-
nounced her loss, and she had found her diligently
preparing the bath.
So Mr. Clavering, perforce, mentally crossed
Parkins off the list of suspects, but underscored
the name of Mary Grey.
“ Did you," he inquired of Lady Pevensy,
“notice when you stepped into the hall that any
door near yours was ajar?”
“Mercy me!” she shivered, “ do you think that
the thief was hiding in one of the guests' rooms,
watching for me to go out?”
“ It is quite likely,” he responded impressively.
Lady Pevensy was duly appalled and Mr.
Clavering found difficulty in calming her sufficiently
so that she might answer his question. He finally
learned that she had observed one door ajar, the
one directly opposite hers — Lord Meldrum's.
“But he was there himself,” she asserted ex-
citedly. “He looked up as I opened my door.


14 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
When I came back, his was shut; it has been shut
ever since.”
Mr. Clavering felt that he must abandon the
clue of doors ajar. It was hardly possible to sus-
pect Lord Meldrum, reputed one of the wealthiest
peers in the Kingdom, of connivance in the theft
of the necklace. So he went back to the evolving
of his first clue. Lady Ursula's maid had not
disappeared without cause, and it was altogether
probable that she was the deliverer of the decoy
note, if not the actual thief.
Suddenly he remembered that the torn shreds
of that note were even now lying upon the library
floor where Lady Ursula's nervous fingers had
flung them. The piecing together of those torn
shreds should be his first step in the unravelling of
this mystery.
But when he reached the library not a scrap of
the note was to be found. He even got down on
his knees in his immaculate evening clothes and
peered under every article of furniture in the vain
hope that a breeze from the open garden door had
blown the bits of paper about.
“ Have you lost something, Mr. Clavering?”
suddenly asked a soft voice, with just the faintest
suggestion of mockery.
Mr. Clavering hastily raised his flushed and
perspiring face from the dusty depths beneath the
escritoire. Mary Grey stood smiling in the gar-
den doorway. As she repeated her question, Mr.
Clavering rose to his feet with what dignity he


CLAVERING TAKES THE FIELD 15
could, and with his handkerchief carefully flecked
the dust from the knees of his trousers. He was
aware that his position had been a very ungrace-
ful one for a man of his standing and — years,
and it pleased him still less that this cool, self-
possessed young woman, whose every glance at once
angered and attracted him, should have discovered
him at such a disadvantage. Worse than all, his
hitherto always immaculate collar was actually
wilted under the stress of his detective zeal. Archi-
bald Clavering, the acknowledged Beau Brummell
of the Portstead Manor house party, for the first
time in his life blushed at himself. One thing
only comforted him — Lady Pevensy was not
there.
To hide his embarrassment he assumed a pom-
pously stern air.
“I was searching, Miss Grey, for a letter which
I had reason to believe I left here."
“ Under the escritoire? ” she queried sweetly.
Mr. Clavering was a gentleman and he restrained
himself.
“ Letters have been known to drop,” he re-
turned, acidly dignified.
“Quite so," she assented, and with another
smile, was gone.
Mr. Clavering walked rapidly to the bell-rope,
and when the footman appeared, once again his
impassive self, he bade him find out if any of the
maids had recently removed torn bits of paper
from the library floor. The report of the inquiry


16 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
was that no one of the maids had entered the li-
brary since dinner.
Mr. Clavering was not surprised. Decidedly
Mary Grey required watching.
3


CHAPTER III
WHERE HAD MELDRUM BEEN?
The ball was not a success. Lady Ursula, al-
ways so gracious a hostess, was abstracted and
nervous; her brother's chilling remoteness of man-
ner had never been more noticeable ; Lady Pevensy
remained in her room nursing a sick headache;
while Lord Meldrum had suddenly been called
to the city, though the time of his departure and
the reason for it formed another of the mysteries
that troubled Mr. Clavering. He was simply
gone, and would be back before the ball ended;
that was all the explanation Lady Ursula vouch-
safed.
That it did not satisfy her brother was ap-
parent, and Mr. Clavering suspected that politics,
in which the Earl of Portstead and Meldrum held
radically different opinions, were at the bottom of
this sudden absence. Mr. Clavering was of those
who did not believe that Portstead's impending
trip to Egypt was solely for pleasure. Port-
stead had never been one to set aside time for
pleasure; work, untiring and ceaseless, was his
principle of life, and he had an open contempt for
those who thought otherwise. Nothing short of
17


18 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
a complete breakdown had sent him to the Manor
for a few days' rest before sailing.
Mr. Clavering knew that Meldrum looked with
little favour on Portstead's Egyptian trip, and if
it were the government matter he believed it to be,
Meldrum would naturally oppose it. The fact
that Portstead had brought his secretary to the
Manor and intended taking him to Egypt
strengthened Mr. Clavering's belief. Moreover,
he noticed that the cold politeness with which
Portstead and Meldrum treated one another when
they were brought together socially was now verg-
ing on open hostility. There seemed also a grow-
ing breach between Portstead and his sister.
The Earl had always frowned on her friendship
with Meldrum, who had frankly been in love with
her for years. She was generally believed to re-
turn his affection and the only apparent obstacle
to their marriage was Portstead's opposition.
Lady Ursula had long been strangely submissive
to her brother's wishes, though as a girl she had
been too high-spirited to brook restraint even
from her father, who had died while she was travel-
ling on the Continent, without expressing a wish
that his only daughter should come to his bed-
side. A hard old man had the late Earl been,
and his heir was singularly like him in his cold
and rigid morality, which made him so severe a
judge of the faults of others, notably those of his
brother, Robert Sylvester, who had been “going
the pace” for some years now.


WHERE HAD MELDRUM BEEN? 19
Altogether the air of the Manor was charged
with unpleasantness which affected every one, and
the ball ended early, to the relief of all. Meldrum
had not yet returned.
Lady Pevensy, in a very despondent mood,
came downstairs with Mary Grey when the last
guest had departed. Portstead called a sort of
court of inquiry in the sombre, great library to de-
termine the best means of recovering the necklace.
He strongly advised telegraphing to Scotland
Yard for a detective, and expressed surprise and
disapproval that it had not already been done.
Mr. Clavering felt highly indignant at this ad-
vice. Portstead evidently did not in the least ap-
preciate his efforts or have faith in his ability. Mr.
Clavering had never been drawn to Portstead.
The Earl had always let him clearly understand
that he regarded his life of bachelor ease on a
comfortable income as a mere butterfly existence,
without aim or excuse for being.
While Lady Pevensy was appealing to Lady
Ursula as to whether she should or should not send
to Scotland Yard, Mary Grey unexpectedly spoke
a word in Mr. Clavering's favour.
“Why should Lady Pevensy need a detective
when Mr. Clavering is here and trying his utmost
to recover the necklace? Do you not agree with
me, Lady Pevensy? " She looked at her ear-
nestly as she spoke.
“Why — why yes, of course," Lady Pevensy
answered furriedly.


20 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
Flattered though Mr. Clavering was, he yet had
enough of the true detective in him to watch how
the others received Mary Grey's unsolicited and
rather officious advice. Lady Ursula showed
barely concealed relief, and her brother, after a
quick glance had flashed between them, something
approaching the same, while Lady Pevensy, usu-
ally with such positive ideas of her own, received
it with unquestioning submissiveness. It would
almost seem that Mary Grey had some secret hold
over her, for once before, earlier in the evening,
Mr. Clavering had observed the girl override her
opinions in highly authoritative manner.
“If I were you, Aunt Louisa," spoke up pretty,
fair-haired Elsie Baring, who had once been re-
ported engaged to Robert Sylvester, “I should
send for that woman detective, Mercedes Quero.
All London is talking about her since the Dexter
Case. I am sure that Mr. Clavering,” she added
mischievously, “would not mind working in con- .
junction with her.”
“Not at all,” he replied rather stiffly, “ if Lady
Pevensy thinks it advisable to send for her.”
Lady Pevensy opened her mouth as though to
say something, but catching Mary Grey's eye,
preserved silence.
“I have no confidence in a woman detective,”
remarked Lord Portstead in his decisive manner.
“ Women are not at all suited to detective work.
They are illogical and carried away by senti-
ment."


WHERE HAD MELDRUM BEEN? 21
“ Pray spare us an enumeration of women's fail-
ings, Cecil,” interrupted Lady Ursula wearily.
Portstead transfixed her with his cold grey eye.
“ You, Ursula, have frequently proven the truth of
my criticism of women.”
Lady Ursula, flushing angrily, precipitately left
the room, muttering something under her breath.
“ Ungenerous ! ” it sounded like to Mr. Claver-
ing.
“ Come, Mr. Clavering, cannot you defend us
poor women?” exclaimed Mrs. Neville-West, shak-
ing her fan reprovingly at Lord Portstead, who
stood looking after his sister with grimly-set
face.
“I could not do other than defend you, my dear
Madame," he returned, with a hint of early-Vic-
torian gallantry, “because I know nothing but
good of you.”
But neither this nor Mrs. Neville-West's sallies
could remove the constraint Portstead had caused
and all, save Mr. Clavering, were glad to escape to
their rooms. He was too full of clues to think
of sleep.
Sitting down in the library, he went over what
he had in hand. He eliminated from his list of
suspects all the servants save the runaway, Rose.
The butler had been gone several hours before the
necklace had even been brought into the house, so
he need not be considered. It was a thing impos-
sible to suspect of any of his fellow-guests — all
people of the best standing: Lady Pevensy's


22 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
nephew and niece, Walter and Elsie Baring;
Colonel Darryll, a hero of the first Egyptian Cam-
paign, and his wife; Mrs. Neville-West and her
ward, Beatrice Knollys; Sir Gerald Leslie, an ad-
mirer of Elsie Baring; and Lord Meldrum.
Strange what had sent Lord Meldrum away in
such haste. Meldrum, ridiculous! Politics, of
course. But politics or not, he was an uncon-
scionably long time in returning. Now that Mr.
Clavering thought of it, he remembered to have
heard the whistle of the last train from the city a
good hour ago. Where was Meldrum?
Unable to answer this question and angered by
the persistence with which it recurred to his mind,
he fixed his thoughts on Mary Grey. Mary Grey
with the elusive eyes and mocking smile! If she
had picked up the torn note as he believed, she
had done so with deliberate purpose. What that
purpose was it was for him to find out.
From Mary Grey his thoughts wandered to Lady
Ursula's missing maid. He had gone to no little
pains in questioning the servants in regard to her,
but had learned little save that Rose, whom he
remembered as an extremely pretty girl with light
hair, was not a favourite with the other servants,
especially the women, who pronounced her “ a de-
signing minx " and declared that “ she gave herself
the airs of a lady.” The servants were divided in
opinion as to whether she had taken the necklace,
the consensus of opinion seeming to be that she had
simply left the Manor in order to join some mys-


WHERE HAD MELDRUM BEEN? 23
terious lover, who, according to her own accounts,
had promised to make her a lady. But when Mr.
Clavering pressed for particulars concerning this
man, the servants, one and all, became singularly
uncommunicative. Either they did not know who
he was, or for some reason were unwilling to tell.
Mr. Clavering judged the latter supposition to be
the case. At all events, Rose's flight had evidently
been premeditated, for a search through her room
revealed the fact that she had taken with her a
travelling bag and clothing. None of the servants
could give any clue as to when she had gone or
where she would be likely to go.
While Mr. Clavering was puzzling over his vague
suspicions, he heard a cautious fumbling at the
garden door. He turned quickly in his chair. A
tall, magnificently-proportioned, fair-haired man
was entering.
“ Meldrum!” he cried, rising to his feet.
The lights were burning low in the library, and
the newcomer had not at first seen Mr. Clavering,
who had been sitting with his back to the garden
door, sunk in the depths of a big Morocco chair.
But as the light from the candelabra under which
he stood, revealed his short, somewhat rotund
figure, almost bald head, and round, freshly-
coloured face, surprise — and, more, dismay-
showed itself on Meldrum’s handsome countenance.
He made an effort to recover himself.
“ Why, hallo, Clavering,” he called in his hearty
voice. " What keeps you up so late?”


24 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
Mr. Clavering's ugly suspicion grew. Why
must Meldrum come creeping in like a — Non-
sense! He indignantly rejected the thought.
“Oh, we all feel greatly concerned over the
theft of Lady Pevensy's necklace," he answered,
as easily as he could, but watched the effect of his
words on Meldrum. “I was sitting here having a
quiet — ah — cogitation.”
“Has Lady Pevensy sent yet to Scotland
Yard? ” asked Meldrum with concern.
“Not yet,” replied Mr. Clavering guardedly.
He did not like this question coming so abruptly
from Meldrum. “ I thought you had missed the
last train," he remarked. “I heard it over an
hour ago.”
“ The last train? ” repeated Meldrum vaguely.
A quick flush covered his whole face. This blond
giant, typical of his race, looked then for all the
world like a guilty schoolboy. “Oh, I — caught
it,” he said hurriedly. “I walked from the sta-
tion; there was no carriage; it's a — er — longish
walk, especially at night,” he finished lamely.
Lord Meldrum was not good at lying. He was
as conscious of the fact as Mr. Clavering.
He paused, one foot on the stairs. “ Coming
up, Clavering?”
“ When I am through my — ah — cogitation.”
Meldrum smiled, showing two rows of perfect
white teeth. His smile gave him an almost boyish
appearance.
“ Don't overtax your cogitating apparatus,


WHERE HAD MELDRUM BEEN? 25
Clavering, old fellow," he said affectionately.
“Goodnight — Mr. Sherlock Holmes ! ”
Mr. Clavering sat staring after him. He said
that he had walked from the station. But the road
from the station was dry and dusty.
Meldrum’s boots were covered with boggy mud.
Where could he have been?


CHAPTER IV
MR. CLAVERING HAS A NIGHT OF
ADVENTURE
Mr. Clavering went up to bed but not to sleep.
It was the beginning of a series of sleepless nights
for him and all at Portstead Manor.
He found himself weary and yet wakeful,
obsessed by unwelcome suspicions, and tossing
restlessly from side to side in vain search for the
sleep that would not come. Far away a chiming
clock struck one, but otherwise a deathly hush held
the old house. Suddenly came a sound to his ear,
muffled, though resonant and unmistakable — a
woman's sob, the heavy, strangling gasp of one in
the throes of anguish or despair.
Mr. Clavering sat up in bed and listened in-
tently. The noise could not have been far away
and was probably in the west wing near his room.
It could not have come from Lady Pevensy for
she slept in the east wing. The only women whose
rooms were near his were Lady Ursula and Elsie
Baring. He did not think it could be Elsie Baring
whose sob he had heard. If it were Lady Ursula,
was Meldrum the cause? How that suspicion
would obtrude itself!
26


A NIGHT OF ADVENTURE
27
He waited, nerves tense, but the sob was not
repeated, and he was about to lay down again
when there fell on his ear another sound, faint but
distinct, a peculiar sound — a tap, tap, tapping.
It was a rhythmic noise and growing louder.
What was it? Where did it come from? Appar-
ently from the floor above and it was not unlike a
ghostly rapping. Certainly it sounded ghostly at
that hour of the night.
But Mr. Clavering was a materialist and he was
about to get up and investigate when there came a
clattering and a thud, followed by a piercing
scream that caused him to leap from the bed. Be-
fore he could don his dressing-gown, he heard a
door near his open and close and some one running
down the hall.
Struggling with his dressing-gown, which seemed
to have no arm-holes, he hurried down the dark
corridor in the direction whence the noise had
come. He heard other doors opening and excited
voices crying out to know what the matter was.
At the foot of a flight of stairs leading up to the
unused north wing he saw a woman standing, look-
ing upward. The moonlight, flooding through an
uncurtained window, shone upon the gold-red hair
and white, shocked face of Lady Ursula. She was
still in her ball-gown.
“Oh, Mr. Clavering,” she cried breathlessly, as
he advanced toward her with solicitude, “ have I
roused the entire household? It was so dark I lost
my footing and fell the whole flight. I think I -


28 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
I have sprained my ankle.” She sank down
weakly on the bottom stair and buried her face in
her hands, shuddering.
Mr. Clavering looked at her perplexedly. What
could she have been doing after midnight in the
north wing — a portion of the Manor which she
had told her guests was unfinished and had once
been used for storage, but had now not been opened
for years? He had little time for speculation.
Guests and servants, in all stages of disarray, were
flocking to the stairs. Lady Pevensy, in a marvel-
lous headgear of the genus boudoir-cap and with
her face swathed in a big motor veil, brought up the
rear, excitedly demanding if the thief had been
captured.
Lord Meldrum, his face full of concern, pushed
through the circle about Lady Ursula.
“ Did you fall down the stairs? Are you
hurt? "
“ Just a little — my ankle,” she said faintly.
Mr. Clavering noticed with surprise that Mel-
drum was fully dressed as he had seen him last, even
to the mud-soaked boots that had roused his sus-
picions. Portstead, too, had evidently not been to
bed, though he had exchanged his evening suit for
a lounging-robe. He looked haggard and care-
worn, and evinced more displeasure than solicitude
over his sister's fall. Mr. Clavering wondered
why he did not inquire what she was doing in the
north wing at that hour. But it apparently did
not interest him.


A NIGHT OF ADVENTURE
29
It was Elsie Baring who put this not unnatural
question. Lady Ursula made some confused ex-
planation that no one could understand, and
hastily accepted Meldrum's proffered arm to assist
her to her room.
As she limped past Mr. Clavering, leaning on
Meldrum, perhaps more than was needful, he saw
that her eyes were red and swollen. It was she,
then, whose sob he had heard. But this being the
case, how could it have been she who fell down the
stairs? He had heard no door open till the fall
and scream and he was sure that the person who
ran down the hall in response to it was a woman —
the steps were light and there had been a swish of
skirts. Presumably this was Lady Ursula. But
if so, who had fallen down the stairs?
At that moment Mr. Clavering received a shock.
Lady Pevensy's veil came unwound and he was then
and there initiated into certain secrets of that
lady's night toilet. Being a gentleman of extreme
delicacy of feeling, he immediately looked away and
hurried to his room.
As he approached Lady Ursula's, he saw Mary
Grey in the doorway. She was offering to bathe
and bind Lady Ursula's ankle in the absence of
Rose. She would not hear to a refusal, and having
enlisted Lord Meldrum on her side, proceeded to
remove Lady Ursula's satin slipper, plainly
against her wishes.
Mr. Clavering went on to his own room to pon-
der over Lady Ursula's parting words to Meldrum,


30 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
said in earnest, pleading tones: “ Please go to
bed now, Wilfred. What is, can't be helped.”
When Mr. Clavering lighted his lamp — he
could never think clearly in the darkness — he re-
ceived a second shock. He found that in his
excitement he had forgotten to put on his slippers
and had gone about the house in his bare feet.
That accounted, then, for Mary Grey's amused
glances and for Beatrice Knollys' ill-suppressed
giggles. He wondered if he would ever have the
courage to face the ladies in the morning, especially
Mary Grey. To a man of Mr. Clavering's nature,
immaculately and fussily correct, no loss was so
great as the loss of dignity. For the second time
in his life he blushed at himself. So far his detec-
tive work had brought him only embarrassment.
But he would get at the heart of the mystery yet
and win Lady Pevensy's approval — if not more.
It was some comfort to remember that she, too, had
appeared at disadvantage, though the recollection
of what the veil covered, or should have kept cov-
ered, still jarred on his æsthetic temperament.
However, perhaps she did not every night put on
those hideous plasters —
Just then he heard Lady Ursula's door open.
Mary Grey must have finished her ministrations.
He listened for her to pass his room as she must
do to return to the east wing where she slept. In-
stead the steps went down the hall in the opposite
direction, toward the stairs to the north wing.
Strange what should take her back there. It


A NIGHT OF ADVENTURE
31
came into his mind that it might have been she
who fell down the stairs.
He decided to investigate. He went through the
halls on tiptoe and without a lamp, wishing to come
upon her unawares. As he drew near the stairs
he saw tiny lights flashing up and down them and
the sound as of some one creeping upward.
He stole forward with added caution, scarcely
drawing his breath. He was certainly on the
track of an important clue.
“Won't you hold the flashlight for me, Mr.
Clavering?” suddenly spoke up Mary Grey in the
most matter-of-fact tone.
Mr. Clavering gasped. So, she was actually
going to brazen it out. The minx!
“ It's not dangerous, Mr. Clavering,” said she
softly.
Again he had the disagreeable sensation that she
was making sport of him. It was not to be en-
dured.
“Miss Grey," he returned very stiffly, “I think
that your presence here at this hour requires ex-
planation. If you are unwilling to explain to me,
I must insist on your doing so to Lady Ursula."
“Don't you think, Mr. Clavering," she asked,
without a trace of anger, " that Lady Ursula owes
her guests an explanation — a true explanation —
of the fall and scream that roused us from our
sleep?"
“ Lady Ursula gave an explanation.”
“ Yes, but did you believe it?"


32 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
“Miss Grey,” said Mr. Clavering severely, “I
did not follow you here to answer questions, but
to put them.”
Mary Grey bent toward him over the balustrade.
“ Mr. Clavering, you aspire to be a second Sher-
lock Holmes, but you are on the wrong clue de-
cidedly. It is not I who stole the necklace, or even
fell down the stairs.”
Mr. Clavering resented this reading of his
thoughts. Moreover, it seemed to him suspicious.
“I have not accused you of being the thief, Miss
Grey. But I repeat that your presence here re-
quires explanation.”
“Hold the flashlight and you shall have the ex-
planation,” she answered quickly.
Mr. Clavering, his astonishment deepening, took
the light.
“ Flash it! Flash it!” she said impatiently.
“ There, do you see on this stair and the one above,
on every one except the upper, a long scar — a
fresh scar?"
He followed her pointing finger. “ I see it,” he
responded eagerly.
“ What do you make of it?”
His eyes sought hers, no longer mocking, but
earnest, brilliant. “ The clattering noise!” he ex-
claimed.
“ Ah! There was a clattering noise? ” she de-
manded breathlessly. “My room was so far away
I could not be sure. That explains the scar. Mr.
Clavering, the person who fell down the stairs car-


A NIGHT OF ADVENTURE
33
ried a stout stick or cane, and it was not Lady
Ursula. She lied about her ankle. It was not
sprained or bruised in the slightest.”
Mr. Clavering was hardly surprised, but he was
bewildered. He could not yet feel much faith in
Mary Grey. At best, she was a person of mys-
tery.
Again she seemed to read his thoughts. “I have
as much interest as you in discovering the thief,”
she said earnestly. “As Lady Pevensy's hired
companion, I am naturally placed in a very un-
pleasant position by the theft of the necklace.”
It was all very plausible, but Mr. Clavering's
doubts remained.
“ You do not trust me," she said, with a queer
little sigh.
He did not deny the imputation, but resorted
again to questioning. “Do you think that the
person who fell down the stairs is in the north wing
now?"
Mary Grey put her head on one side and ap-
peared to be listening. “I think,” she answered
in crisp, quick tones, “ that somebody is trying to
enter the library who may not be wanted there.”
Mr. Clavering listened tensely. He heard it,
too, the sound of a key stealthily turning in a
lock. The circular stairs leading down to the
library were but a few feet away. He hastened
toward them.
“Remember that you are unarmed,” whispered
Mary Grey.


34 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
He had indeed forgotten. While he hesitated,
steps, heavy and rather unsteady, were heard cross-
ing the library.
“ He is coming up!” whispered Mary Grey,
pulling Mr. Clavering back against the wall.
He surely was coming up, slowly and stum-
blingly. Mr. Clavering, casting about him for
some means of defence, ruthlessly snatched down
a curtain of rare old tapestry hanging above him.
Peering down from the dark hall, he could see the
man now, a shadowy, slender figure, with top-hat
at rakish tilt.
As he mounted the last spiral of the stairway,
Mr. Clavering swooped upon him, flinging the tap-
estry about his head. The intruder gasped and
struggled to free himself from the enveloping folds,
but only succeeded in winding them the tighter.
Mr. Clavering threw both arms about his prisoner
and bore him to the floor.
.6 Now, then, who are you, sir?” he demanded
sternly.
.“ Hang it all, do you want to suffocate a fel-
low? ” growled a muffled voice from the tapestry.
“ I'm Mr. Robert Sylvester. Who the devil are
you?”


CHAPTER V
MR. ROBERT SYLVESTER
Mr. Clavering went back to bed after his capture
of Robert Sylvester and remained there until called
by his valet. By breakfast time Robert had slept
off his unsteadiness of gait, and before the meal
was over sauntered nonchalantly into the room.
The manner of his arrival was known to all, but
apparently Mr. Clavering felt more embarrassed
over it than did he. Robert's chief concern seemed
to be to ingratiate himself with his brother, who
plainly resented this addition to the house party.
Lady Ursula was manifestly very fond of her
scapegrace younger brother, though somewhat dis-
concerted by his coming. He appeared fond of
her, too, in a careless, boyish fashion, and there
came an angry flash in his eye when Portstead
directed some sarcastic remark to her. A similar
flash leaped into Meldrum's eyes, and he brought
his clenched hand down upon the table.
There was a marked resemblance between Lady
Ursula and Robert. Both had fair hair shading
to red; dark eyes; and clear-cut, delicate features.
But in the case of Robert, the mouth was loose,
the chin weak, and the complexion becoming pasty.
35


36 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
Yet, in spite of these defects, there was much that
was attractive in his face. If it lacked the ascetic
strength of Portstead's, it lacked also its repel-
lent hardness.
Elsie Baring was visibly confused by Robert's
presence and piqued by the nonchalance of his
greeting. But to judge from the way his glance
constantly travelled back to her, his nonchalance
was assumed. He expressed a proper sympathy
over Lady Pevensy's loss, and Mr. Clavering
wondered why Portstead's keen, cold eye rested
so sharply on him. Altogether it was an uncom-
fortable meal.
Mr. Clavering noticed that Lady Ursula still
kept up the fiction of a sprained ankle, and being
unwilling to suspect her of worse motives, per-
suaded himself that it might be mainly for the
sake of bringing out the protective tenderness of
Meldrum's nature. He insisted upon fairly carry-
ing her to the terrace and ensconcing her in the
most comfortable chair, banked with innumerable
cushions. He gave up a game of bowls with Col-
onel Darryll and Sir Gerald Leslie — always his
favourite sport — to sit by her and amuse her.
It was good to see how his blue eyes, rather severe
and determined, softened when they met hers and
how the bronzed pink of his complexion deepened.
“ There,” thought Mr. Clavering, “ are two peo-
people who might be happy, if —” If what?
He glanced toward the tall, spare frame of
Portstead, who was regarding them disapprov-


MR. ROBERT SYLVESTER
37
ingly. Why should he be the arbiter of his sister's
destiny? Why should he assume toward her the
authority of a master rather than the affection of
a brother? Portstead was an excellent fellow,
of course, but he was immensely unpleasant to live
with. Small wonder he had never found a woman
willing to link her life to his. But, pondered Mr.
Clavering, did he know any reason outside of poli-
tics why Meldrum should not marry his sister —
anything against Meldrum? It was unanswer-
able.
Mr. Clavering still felt a little fearful of meet-
ing the railleries of the ladies and wandered away
by himself, spending the morning in fruitless search
for clues.
At luncheon Robert Sylvester asked his brother
for a few minutes' private conversation, but Port-
stead answered curtly that he and his secretary
were occupied with state papers and that he would
not be at liberty to attend to personal matters
until late in the evening. Robert cast a furtive,
hopeless glance at his sister, who shook her head
as hopelessly.
“I should be glad, Lord Meldrum,” remarked
Portstead, in cold, distinct tones at the conclu-
sion of the meal, “ if you would come to the li-
brary to-night at ten. I do not expect that I
shall be free until then. There are certain mat-
ters which you and I must come to agreement
upon.”
“ Cecil!” cried his sister imploringly.


38 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
“I have decided,” he responded, with an air of
finality.
There was dumb misery in Lady Ursula's eyes,
but she said nothing more.
That afternoon the library was closed to the
guests, and Mr. Clavering, in his wanderings about
the garden, saw, through the leaded-glass door
of the library, Lord Portstead and his secretary
hard at work upon a pile of official-looking docu-
ments.
“ Has it ever occurred to you, Mr. Clavering,”
queried a soft voice at his ear, “ that Lord Port-
stead is somewhat of a tyrant to his sister?"
Mr. Clavering turned to survey Mary Grey dis-
pleasedly. “I do not think it proper to discuss
my host and hostess," he replied with emphasis.
“No, of course not,” she murmured contritely.
“ You know best what is proper.” But again
there was that inscrutable light in her eyes that
made him so uncomfortable.
What a way she had of stealing about, and what
a strange taste always to dress in grey! There
was something uncanny about her.
“Mr. Clavering,” resumed the soft voice with
its hint of mockery, “Lady Pevensy is getting im-
patient for you to discover the thief, or at least
some clue to his identity. She will give you three
more days in which to investigate and then — she
really thinks that she will send for that woman-
detective, Mercedes Quero, of whom Miss Baring
spoke.”


MR. ROBERT SYLVESTER
39
Mr. Clavering was at once on his mettle.
“ Three days should be ample time for my investi-
gations. But I must beg Lady Pevensy to re-
member that the necklace was not missing until
last night. I hardly think that even this famed
Mercedes Quero could have recovered it in so
short a time.”
“Oh, I am sure she could not,” returned Mary
Grey, with perhaps a little too much warmth to be
wholly sincere. “ In fact, I told Lady Pevensy
so and advised her to give you three days more.”
Mr. Clavering reddened. This girl was actually
patronising him. Oh, but this was too much!
She must be shown her place.
“ That was kind of you, Miss Grey," he re-
marked pompously, “but I scarcely think that
your — ah — intervention was necessary. Lady
Pevensy would possibly have come to the same de-
cision herself.”
“Oh, I fear not,” she gently demurred.
Mr. Clavering bestowed upon her an exceedingly
haughty, aristocratic stare, and was rewarded by
a piquant and — yes, irresistible — smile. He
was furious with himself for yielding to it.
“Mr. Clavering, let us be friends !” she ex-
claimed impulsively. “Let us work together.
We both have strong motives for wishing to dis-
cover the thief. Why should we not join forces ? "
But Mr. Clavering had withdrawn into his shell.
He was not going to allow this young woman to
beguile him with her soft, sly ways.


40 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR ·
“ You will pardon me, Miss Grey," he replied
with dignity,“ but in a matter of this kind I prefer
to work alone.”
She was not at all crestfallen, but flashed an-
other smile at him — absolutely without pique.
“You are quite right, Mr. Clavering," she
agreed sweetly. “By working alone we shall
be better able to form independent conclusions.
Of course you have accounted by now for the dis-
appearance of the person who fell down stairs ?
Probably you have investigated the north wing?"
Well, no, he hadn't. Before he could explain
that he felt a natural delicacy in poking about a
section of the house obviously closed to guests,
Mary Grey had slipped away into the park.
Mr. Clavering pondered long over his conversa-
tion with this strange young woman. Was she
honest or was she not? Was it his duty, as she
had suggested, to investigate the north wing? He
hardly thought so. It need not be that the person
who fell down the stairs was the thief.
A light suddenly broke in upon him. Mary
Grey wished him to believe so. But why should
she wish it? Why, indeed, save to divert suspi-
cion from herself? He made up his mind then
and there that he would abandon his absurd dis-
trust of Meldrum and devote himself to studying
Mary Grey. With this resolution, he went to
dress for dinner.
This meal was even more markedly unpleasant
than the preceding. The dining-hall, seen by the


MR. ROBERT SYLVESTER
41
subdued light of shaded lamps, was a place of
shadow and gloom, a long, lofty apartment,
heavily raftered by huge beams of black oak that
hung like a pall above one's head. Here one's
voice would involuntarily become hushed and one's
spirit oppressed even without the constraining
presence of Portstead. The Earl had allowed
himself a recess from his labours. He had rigid
ideas of what was owing to his guests, but the
younger people, at least, felt that his presence
was a courtesy with which they would have been
willing to dispense.
Robert's ingratiating manner was gone and he
appeared sulkily defiant, deliberately introducing
topics that he knew were offensive to his brother.
In vain Lady Ursula sought to turn the conver-
sation. From racing and ballet dancers Robert
drifted to Sir Julian Travers, “the sporting
Baronet,” whose name had long been taboo in polite
circles.
Travers, who had dissipated his own and his
mother's fortune and had finally fled England to
escape the consequences of a spectacular forgery,
was Portstead's pet aversion. Robert's unfor-
tunate introduction of Travers' name gave the
Earl opportunity to dilate upon the heinousness
of his crimes and thence to draw a parallel between
his life and Robert's aimless, spendthrift one.
Robert retaliated by a contemptuous remark,
cuttingly personal, that whipped the colour into
Portstead's bloodless cheeks. He controlled him-


42 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
self, however, and steadily observed that there
was a train leaving for London at half after eight
and that there would be a carriage at his brother's
disposal at a quarter to eight.
Robert responded by an oath that caused
Lady Pevensy to clasp her jewelled hands over her
ears in horror and Elsie Baring to flush pain-
fully.
“ You think you're a demi-god or the Lord Al-
mighty himself because you have come into the
money and title,” shouted Robert, shaking his
fist in his brother's face in an access of unbridled
fury, “but to have isn't to hold. Just you re-
member that, you cold blooded, domineering
saint!” With this he rushed from the room.
That was the last seen of him for many anxious
hours.
There was a half-hearted attempt at playing
6 bridge” in the evening, but when at ten o'clock
Meldrum excused himself to keep his appointment
with Portstead, all were glad to avail themselves
of the opportunity to escape to their rooms. Mr.
Clavering observed that Lady Ursula's eyes fol-
lowed Meldrum anxiously, almost fearfully, and
he suspected that the interview in the library
would be a stormy one.
Mr. Clavering was far from satisfied with his
detective efforts so far. He had really expected
better of himself. But one thing at least he had
discovered. Lady Pevensy had reluctantly ad-
mitted that Mary Grey had come to her practi-


MR. ROBERT SYLVESTER
cally unrecommended. Apparently she was a
person of mysterious antecedents. Why Lady
Pevensy should have taken such a person into her
service was not clear to him, but he presumed
that she had been attracted by her ladylike ap-
pearance. She was undeniably a gentlewoman.
He had also learned from the same source that
Mary Grey contemplated a trip to London in the
morning on some private business. He had de-
cided to go up to the city on the same train.
If she had taken the necklace, this would be her
chance to dispose of it.
He sat up until after midnight listening for a
repetition of the weird tapping of the night be-
fore, but heard nothing in any way unusual, so
decided to go to bed. However, he thought it
well, in case of unforeseen happenings, to keep a
night-lamp burning and his dressing-gown and
slippers within easy reach. He could not explain
why but there seemed something menacing in the
very stillness of the old house.
Finally he dozed off to dream of all manner of
impossible clues. At two o'clock in the morning
he was roused by a pistol-shot. It came ap-
parently from the floor below. For a moment he
found himself unable to move. Then, shaking off
the paralysis of terror that held him, he got into
his dressing-gown and slippers and resolutely
stepped into the corridor, bearing the night-lamp
and armed with his silver-knobbed walking-stick.
Doors were opening from all parts of the house


44 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
and he was greeted by low screams and excited
questions. Colonel Darryll pushed by him and
sprang down the broad, curving staircase into the
great main hall. Mr. Clavering was not sorry to
see a pistol gleaming in his hand.
The women, guests and servants, their faces
white patches in the darkness, were leaning over the
square, balustraded gallery that ran around the
top of the Great Hall and were peering down
into the black gulf below. Mary Grey, however,
hastened after Colonel Darryll, showing an aston-
ishing eagerness and lack of fear. Mr. Clavering
was ashamed not to follow her, but the night-
lamp shook in his hand as he went.
He was amazed to behold Lady Ursula coming
swiftly from the drawing-room, for he could not
understand how she had descended the stairs be-
fore the others. He had not seen her at all until
now as she stood there before them, hastily
wrapped in an evening-cloak, and her face blue-
white in the moonlight that streamed through the
thin, high windows of the Hall.
“ The shot was not in here," she cried. “I
think it was in the — the library.”
Mary Grey was the first to reach the library
door. It was locked. There was no light under
it. She knocked several times, but received no
response.
“ Cecil!” screamed Lady Ursula, beating
against the door, “ Cecil!”
“ Lady Ursula," interposed Colonel Darryll


MR. ROBERT SYLVESTER
45
gravely, “ we must enter this room. Have I your
permission to break down the door? ”
She nodded mutely. She was on the verge of
collapse.
“ It will not be necessary to break down the
door, Colonel Darryll,” spoke up Mary Grey
quickly. “ Simply grasp the knob firmly in both
hands and press your knee just below the lock
with all your strength. It will yield.”
Colonel Darryll gave her a peculiar look, but
obeyed. Mr. Clavering had a feeling of repul-
sion toward her as the lock gave with the least
possible amount of noise and the door flew open.
He had read of how burglars employed this same
trick for forcing locks. How came she to know of
it?
The huge library lay before them, black-
shadowed, awesome. There came a rush of air
through the open garden-door, and the moonlight
flooding in made visible a dim form outstretched
upon the floor.
While even Colonel Darryll, rough old cam-
paigner that he was, stopped horrified upon the
threshold, Mary Grey sprang by him into the
room and, dropping to her knees, bent over the
still form.
“He is dead!” she said after a moment, in a
hushed voice. “Mr. Clavering, bring your lamp
here."
Colonel Darryll strove to prevent Lady Ursula
from entering, but she pressed past him and,


46 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
snatching the lamp from Mr. Clavering, held it
over the upturned face of the dead man.
“ Cecil, o Cecil!” she moaned, and, swaying,
was caught in Colonel Darryll's arms.


CHAPTER VI
MR. CLAVERING INVADES THE
NORTH WING
As Colonel Darryll placed Lady Ursula upon
the couch, a powerful figure loomed up in the
garden doorway. A moment later Lord Meldrum
bounded into the room. He stopped short, staring
at the still form on the floor.
“ My God! He is dead? " burst from his lips.
Mary Grey suddenly rose and deliberately
flashed the lamp full in Meldrum's face. He was
flushed and breathing hard, and his eyes held
utter horror and something of consternation, too.
Harry Brooks, Portstead's secretary, sprang
toward him.
“Lord Meldrum," he cried, “ there has been
more than murder done. The papers with which
I have been assisting his Lordship have been
stolen!”
Meldrum slowly turned his eyes from the dead
Earl to the small, dark, commonplace young man
who had been his secretary. “Well?” he said,
interrogatively and half-dazedly.
“ You know the importance of those papers,
Lord' Meldrum," asserted Harry Brooks, with
47


48 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
meaning unmistakable. “ You know what gain
it would be to the party whose interests are yours
if they should get possession of them before they
anday
are ready for presentation to the House."
hamon
Meldrum flushed tremendously and his brows
niin
drew together. “Brooks,” he said sharply, “ you
forget yourself.”
He went over to Lady Ursula, who was recover-
ing from her faintness. The severity of his ex-
pression vanished and was succeeded by a pity-
ing tenderness as he begged her to return to her
room.
“I cannot go and leave Cecil there!” she
shuddered. “Why does not somebody carry him
upstairs ? "
“He cannot be moved until the coroner comes,"
interposed Mary Grey.
“ The coroner!” gasped Lady Ursula. “Why,
it is suicide — nothing more. You must see that
it cannot be — worse," she emphasised, piteously.
“I am afraid we cannot see that, Lady Ursula,"
returned Mary Grey seriously. “The pistol with
which Lord Portstead was killed is not here. But
in any case it will be necessary to summon the
coroner.”
Mr. Clavering regarded her with indignation.
What she said was perfectly true, but she need not
be so cold-blooded about it.
Lord Meldrum attempted to draw Lady Ursula
from the room, but she shrank from him with a lit-
tle moan. “ Don't touch me!”


THE NORTH WING
49
Meldrum went slowly white. “I beg your par-
don,” he muttered.
“I want to be alone!” she cried, catching the
amazement on the others' faces. “I am going
up to my room. I don't want any one to come
to me till —” she shuddered again, “ till it is
necessary.”
Meldrum, his features working, watched her as
she tottered from the room. Then he wheeled upon
Harry Brooks so fiercely that the little secretary
recoiled.
“ If I hear more of your beastly implications,
you will answer for them. Do you understand?”
With that he strode from the library, as though
fearing to trust himself longer. Mr. Clavering
had never before seen the jovial Meldrum in a rage,
and he was startled by the slumbering fires that
Harry Brooks had aroused. He wished that he
had not seen this hidden side of Meldrum's na-
ture.
A doctor had already been sent for, and now
Colonel Darryll advised that the coroner be im-
mediately notified and that in the interim a search
be made through the gardens. Mr. Clavering
gave it as his advice that Mary Grey, who showed
a strange and, it seemed to him, unwomanly curi-
osity in the whole tragic happening, should return
to Lady Pevensy, whose hysterical screams were
unpleasantly audible.
But when the gentlemen came back from a vain
search through the grounds, Mary Grey was just


50 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
re-entering the library from the small book-room
leading off it, and separated from it only by a
heavy curtain of old tapestry. Colonel Darryll
had already searched this room before going into
the gardens, but had discovered nothing there save
old books, stacked about the walls with that pre-
cision in which Portstead had delighted. As the
room possessed but the one doorway opening
from the library, it could offer no clue to the dis-
appearance of the assassin, and Mr. Clavering
wondered what Mary Grey had been doing there.
She met his reproving eye with provoking uncon-
cern and even followed him into the hall, where
candles had now been lighted.
“Mr. Clavering,” she murmured coaxingly, after
assuring herself that they were alone in the hall,
“ if you will promise not to look quite so cross,
I will show you something that I found — some-
thing that should interest you."
Mr. Clavering's eagerness overcame his amaze-
ment at her impertinence and he forbore to re-
buke her.
“ What do you make of this?" she asked, open-
ing her handkerchief and disclosing some small,
dark particles.
Mr. Clavering took down a candle from the
silver sconce above him and studied them care-
fully.
“Why, it is mud,” he decided at length, “ mud
that is just beginning to cake."


THE NORTH WING
51
Mary Grey nodded. “I found this on the
library floor.”
Mr. Clavering stared accusingly at the small
cakes of mud. “ The person who — shot Lord
Portstead must have had muddy boots,” he de-
clared hoarsely.
Mary Grey nodded again. “And yet it has
not rained for nearly two weeks! There's a neat
little problem for you, Mr. Clavering.”
But he was deaf to the mocking challenge in
her voice. His old suspicions were taking shape.
How did Meldrum, fully dressed, even to his hat,
happen to be outside the garden door at the
time the shot occurred? He remembered with a
shock that Meldrum's boots on the night before
had been covered with much the same dark, slimy
mud as that which Mary Grey had gathered from
the library floor. Were they so covered now?
The possibility that they were made him sick at
heart, and leaving Mary Grey abruptly, he went
upstairs for a solitary reflection.
Lady Pevensy, in the same barbarous headgear
and big motor veil that he recalled so vividly, ac-
costed him excitedly in the upper hall. Her eyes
were wide with terror.
“ Mr. Clavering,” she exclaimed with shrill im-
pressiveness, “ it was no human being that killed
Lord Portstead!”
Mr. Clavering regarded her with anxious con-
cern. “There, there, dear Lady Pevensy," he said


52 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
soothingly, “ if you will only go back to bed and
try to sleep, you will feel more composed in the
morning.”
“ Archibald Clavering,” she snapped, “ do you
mean to insinuate that I am not in my right mind?
I tell you this house is haunted. I am convinced
of it.”
Mr. Clavering had heard that it was well to
humour the mentally sick, so he asked, “What
makes you think so ? "
Lady Pevensy bent toward him. “ Sounds!”
she whispered. “ Sounds in the wall!”
His concern grew. He wondered if temporary
aberration were likely to prove serious.
“I think I will call Miss Grey,” he said, back-
ing toward the stairs.
But Lady Pevensy clutched his arm. “I don't
want Mary Grey," she objected with venom.
“ She is worse than useless. I intend to discharge
her in the morning. My nerves are in a frightful
state. If it didn't look like deserting Ursula in
her trouble, I would leave the house this minute,
even if I had to walk to London. Mr. Clavering,
I did hear sounds in the wall — footsteps — just a
few minutes before that awful pistol shot.”
“ It was somebody walking in the hall,” sug-
gested Mr. Clavering, more excited than he cared
to own.
“ It was not in the hall, it was in the wall,” re-
iterated Lady Pevensy testily, “and there were
other sounds too; there were — rappings!”


THE NORTH WING
53
“Rappings!” repeated Mr. Clavering, startled.
He thought of the peculiar tapping he had heard
the night before. “It did not come from the floor
above?” he asked tentatively.
“ It came from the wall of my room,” she an-
swered with conviction.
He saw that it was useless to attempt to reason
her out of her delusion or persuade her to return
to her room, so he took her to Elsie Baring's.
The glimpse he had of Elsie Baring's wan face
gave him rather of a shock. The grim tragedy
down in the library had been very hard on the
women.
Before going to his own room he glanced sym-
pathetically toward Lady Ursula's closed door
and was struck by its proximity to the circular
stairs leading to the library. It had not occurred
to him before that it was almost directly opposite
these stairs. Standing by it now he could hear the
grave, low-pitched voice of Colonel Darryll and
the tense voice of Harry Brooks, both of whom
were keeping vigil with the dead. The shot must
have sounded startlingly loud to Lady Ursula.
He remembered that the single door in the library
at the foot of the circular stairs had been open
when Colonel Darryll forced the other door. If
her door, too, had been open, she might have heard
more than the shot. The thought was not a pleas-
ant one. Mr. Clavering had never before felt such
desire to escape from himself and his thoughts.
His uneasiness drew him on down the corridor to


54 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
the stairs leading up to the north wing. He
wished that he had brought a light. He would
have liked to examine again the scar made on them
the night before. He was about to go back for
his lamp when he heard a sound that held him
rooted to the spot. Somewhere in the black
region stretching above a door slammed.
There was not a breath of wind to blow it.
Somebody must be in the north wing!
He did not stop to consider that he was un-
armed. His detective zeal was too strong. On
tiptoe and rapidly he mounted the stairs to what
might have been Egyptian darkness for all he could
see. On the top stair he halted. He had the
distinct impression that there was somebody near
him. He fancied that he could hear quick breath-
ing.
Realising that by standing there outlined against
the lighter hall below, he was but making a target
of himself if any one cared to attack, he took a
groping step forward.
The next instant something crashed violently
into his face. Reeling backward under the blow,
he thudded over the stairs, head foremost.


CHAPTER VII
SURMISES AND SUSPICIONS
He landed with a jarring shock and lost count
of time and space from that moment until he be-
came vaguely aware of a pair of strong and rough
hands that shook him by the shoulder. Next in-
stant he felt himself drifting, rising, dragged along
through space and finally let fall with a cruel jar
by those same strong, rough hands upon some
hard, unyielding substance which he took to be the
floor.
Again he lost himself in void and then, half
conscious, grew dimly irritated at a sudden glare
of light beating into his face. Again a hand shook
him by the shoulder, but this time gently, though
none the less determinately, and the light burned
into his eyes persistently. He heard his name
called from a distance, and pushing open his heavy
lids, stared up into the pale, concerned face of
Mary Grey, who was bending over him, candle held
aloft.
She met his wondering gaze with a little flashing
smile of relief. “I was really getting worried,
Mr. Clavering."
He sat up with caution and the effort cost him
55


56 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
a groan. He feared his head would burst and
the dark wainscoting was all starred with flecks
of light. Slowly his vision cleared and it all came
back to him, the slamming of the door in the
north wing, the crashing blow, the fall. He
looked about him painfully for the stairs down
which he had thudded. In an access of bewilder-
ment he caught at Mary Grey's slim hand. There
were no stairs above him, only the corridor stretch-
ing straight beyond in the grey dimness of the
coming dawn. Before him, in the candle light, he
made out the curve of the circular stairs — the
circular stairs which led down to the library.
How did he come there, was the question that
whirled through his throbbing head. Then he
remembered those strong, rough hands that had
gripped and raised him. He turned accusingly to
Mary Grey. She was regarding him with a curi-
ous intensity.
“ Did you carry me here?” he demanded.
She rose to her feet, and drawing her slender
figure to its full height, glanced down scathingly
at Mr. Clavering's undeniable rotundity. “Do
I look as though I could carry you anywhere?”
He was obliged to admit that she did not. “But
some one carried me here from the north wing
stairs,” he maintained.
A light broke over Mary Grey's face. It
seemed to him that mirth shone in her eyes.
“ What sort of gyrations were you performing on
the north wing stairs?” she queried.


SURMISES AND SUSPICIONS
57
Mr. Clavering pulled himself with difficulty to
his feet and steadied himself against the wall, his
head whirring like a top and the wainscoting again
star-flecked.
“Miss Grey,” he made answer at length, with
a kind of desperate dignity, “I have been taught
the painful lesson that the reward of the detec-
tive is rarely proportionate to the dangers he
incurs."
She gave a little low, amused laugh. “So you
have been prying in the north wing!” she cried.
“ Investigating, Miss Grey,” he corrected.
“ Well, I wouldn't do it again if I were you,"
she smiled.
In view of the injuries he had sustained, Mr.
Clavering thought it hardly likely that he would.
He put his hand to his forehead. There was an
ugly protuberance jutting over his brows; he was
sure that his nose was broken ; and there was an-
other even larger swelling on the back of his head.
“ Am I very badly disfigured?” he inquired
anxiously.
Mary Grey, to do her justice, this time controlled
her twitching lips. “Brown paper soaked in —
vinegar, I think, might improve your appearance,"
she parried demurely.
Mr. Clavering stiffly rejected the idea of brown
paper and vinegar, and was about to remark that
arnica would probably be sufficient when there
sounded a ponderous knocking through the Manor.
It was the doctor and the coroner arriving to-


60 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
lace, she had sat up late, had heard the report of
a pistol, and fearing she knew not what, had gone
downstairs to investigate.
“Did your Ladyship go down by these circular
stairs? " suddenly interrupted Burton, the detec-
tive.
Inspector Burton was a youngish man with keen,
aggressive eyes and a bull-dog set to his jaw.
Mr. Clavering, surprised at the question, saw
Mary Grey lean forward in her chair and scan
Lady Ursula's face.
As for Lady Ursula, she gave Burton a quick,
startled look and answered hastily, " Why — why,
no, I went down the main stairway. Why should
you ask?”
“ Oh,” replied Burton easily, unabashed by
the coroner's frown at his officiousness, “ a serv-
ant told me that your room was very near the cir-
cular stairs and I noticed that you just now came
down them.”
Lady Ursula went a shade paler. “ When I
heard the shot, I came down the main stairs," she
reiterated tonelessly.
Mr. Clavering gripped the arm of his chair.
Was she telling the truth? To go down the main
stairway she must have passed his door, and he
was certain that no one had passed it between the
time of the shot and his opening of the door. If
she had passed it afterwards, how came she down-
stairs before any one else when he had no recol-
lection of seeing her in the halls? She had come


SURMISES AND SUSPICIONS
61
out from the drawing-room. Could she have been
downstairs before the shot? He felt a cold chill
running over him. He tried resolutely to banish
the ugly thought, but it refused to be banished.
Through a cloud of distorted fancies he heard
the coroner put some questions concerning the
discovery of the body. Mary Grey was able to
give the best account - cool and concise. He
felt that there was something unnatural about her
composure, something unwomanly. Not having
wide acquaintance with the modern, nerveless young
woman, he believed that more or less hysteria was
only woman's prerogative upon a harrowing oc-
casion like this. For a woman to be even more
composed than the men argued that she must be
abnormal and unsexed.
The coroner took a few notes upon Mary Grey's
testimony, but he seemed anxious to make the next
train back to the city. He gave some instructions
to Burton, set the public inquest for Tuesday week,
and after gravely shaking hands with Lady Ursula,
took his departure, accompanied by the doctor.
“May I ask your Ladyship just one or two
more questions? ” interposed Burton, as she was
about to leave the room.
Lady Ursula paused, one slippered foot on the
circular stairs, almost a hunted look in her eyes.
Meldrum went over quickly and stood by her
side. Mr. Clavering fancied that she shrank a
little.
“ Can't you see,” demanded Meldrum indig-


62 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
nantly, “ that her Ladyship needs rest and quiet?
You must not torture her with questions now."
But Lady Ursula drew herself up with some-
thing of her usual stateliness. She would not give
way to weakness before this obtrusive police of-
ficial. “I am quite well,” she said calmly.
“ What do you wish to ask me, Mr.- Burton, I
believe? "
The detective stepped nearer. “ Your Lady-
ship has a younger brother," he said with delibera-
tion. “Has he been notified yet of the tragic
happening that has brought him into the title and
estates of — the late Earl of Portstead? "
In spite of herself, Lady Ursula shivered.
“ Not yet."
“I have been told,” pursued Burton, “ that
Mr. Robert Sylvester has been here for a day or
so. May I ask where he is now?”
Lady Ursula was watching the detective curi-
ously. “I don't know," she admitted faintly.
Elsie Baring suddenly pressed forward. “Why
should it matter to you, Mr. Burton, where Robert
Sylvester is now?"
Burton turned his keen, hard eyes upon her.
She faced him, trembling, but with a certain de-
fiance in her attitude, and repeated her question.
“ Why," answered Burton with a drawling
enunciation peculiarly at variance with his gen-
eral aspect of alert aggressiveness, “I simply
thought it was Mr. Robert Sylvester's place to be
here and help his sister bear up.”


64 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
it can do no good to take the world into our con-
fidence. A secret search will be far more likely
to bear fruit."
“Well, I think you are right about that, Lord
Meldrum,” remarked Burton, and jotted down a
few more notes.
But Brooks was not satisfied. He seemed to be
possessed of vindictiveness toward Meldrum.
“ If I were a detective,” he said significantly, “I
should ask Lord Meldrum what he was doing out-
side the garden door at two o'clock in the morn-
ing."
Lady Ursula caught her breath sharply. Mel-
drum flushed again, but he showed no anger, rather
a sort of tolerant contempt for the secretary.
“ You are overwrought, Brooks," he said, with
a touch of class hauteur.
“It might be just as well, Lord Meldrum,"
insinuated Burton softly, “if you would tell us
what you were doing out in the garden.”
Lord Meldrum hesitated. Lady Ursula's eyes
sought his fearfully. There was a painful silence.
At last Meldrum said, quickly and somewhat in-
coherently, “ I had a late interview in the library
with Lord Portstead. I felt unable to sleep after
it and I went out into the garden."
“Leaving the door open?” unexpectedly de-
manded Mary Grey.
Meldrum turned toward her in surprise. “I
do not remember.”
Burton was taking notes rapidly now.


SURMISES AND SUSPICIONS
65
Brooks edged nearer Lord Meldrum. There
was no mistaking his hatred of the blond giant
towering above him.
“I should like to know if this interview was an
unpleasant one?” he asked, with a ring of triumph
in his voice.
Lady Ursula clutched Meldrum's arm. From
his splendid height he looked down upon the little
secretary as though he would have crushed him.
“ That, Brooks, is no affair of yours," he said
sternly.
Burton closed his memorandum with a snap.
“ Thank you very much, Lady Ursula, for putting
up with me so long. I don't think I've got any
more questions to ask just now. I guess I've got
enough here —" he gave his little book an affec-
tionate slap -_“I guess I've got enough here to
keep me ruminating for a while.”


MORE MYSTERY
67
threads of the mystery were to be sought in her
rooms rather than in the north wing.
Perhaps Mr. Clavering was a little over-eager
to accept the belief that no clue was to be found
in the north wing. However, viewed in the mat-
ter-of-fact daylight, the slamming of a door be-
came less significant. There might have come a
sudden gust of wind, and what had crashed into
his face might have been a falling piece of furni-
ture, though why it should fall without human
agency was not quite clear to him, and at the time
he had had the impression that it was a stout
chair wielded by a pair of powerful arms that
had sent him thudding over the stairs — the same
pair of arms presumably that had borne him to
the top of the circular stairs.
But with such a throbbing head as his it brought
him some small comfort to explain away incon-
sistencies and resolve to confine his investigations,
for a while, at least, to Lady Pevensy's rooms.
He knew that she had declined to enter them again
and he now sent Jenkins to Lady Ursula to inquire
if he might not have these rooms, on the plea that
he had always been accustomed to a chamber
lighted by the morning sun, which was perfectly
true.
Jenkins brought back word that Lady Ursula
was willing, but suggested that there were other
empty rooms in the east wing larger than Lady
Pevensy's and equally sunny, and that Mr. Claver-
ing had best make his choice of these. But he


170 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
and he proceeded to make entries in his book with
an air of suppressed triumph.
Mr. Clavering felt indignant. It was clear
enough whom Burton suspected.
“Mr. Burton,” he said, with an assumption of
authority, when Lady Ursula had withdrawn, “ you
are altogether wrong in trying to fasten this un-
speakable crime on Robert Sylvester. I know that
he is wild and everything he should not be, but he
is a good-hearted boy and utterly incapable of
taking his brother's life.”
“ I should like to agree with you, sir,” returned
Burton civilly, “but in the face of this, it's a bit
hard."
He held out a silver-mounted pistol.
Mr. Clavering examined it gingerly. On a
small plate on the handle the name “ Robert
Sylvester” stared up at him.
“ Where was this found?” he demanded
hoarsely.
“Under the cushion of one of the library chairs.
If you will look through the chambers, you will see
that one of the bullets has been discharged.”
“But — but Robert Sylvester was not in the
Manor at the time of the murder," Mr. Clavering
set forth in protest.
“That will have to be proved,” replied Burton
ominously.
At dinner Mr. Clavering ate a desultory meal
in company with Mary Grey. To his relief, it was
served in the breakfast room instead of the great,


MORE MYSTERY
gloomy dining-hall. The other guests, with the
exception of Lady Pevensy, Elsie Baring, and
Lord Meldrum, had returned to their homes. But
Lady Pevensy and her niece were hardly less
prostrated than their hostess, while Meldrum had
gone to the Country Club in search of Robert.
Mary Grey's usual vivacity had vanished, and
she seemed plunged in thought. She scarcely
spoke until they were rising from the table when
she abruptly asked, “ What do you think of Burton
as a detective?”
“ I think he is on the wrong clue decidedly,"
responded Mr. Clavering, with emphasis. “As a
matter of fact, I should classify his methods as
commonplace and unfruitful. He lacks imagina-
tion, he —
“ He does lack imagination,” she assented
quickly. “Once he lights on what seems to him a
clue and he follows it up like a bloodhound. Mr.
Clavering, do you share his suspicions of Robert
Sylvester?”
“No,” he answered, but his voice wavered.
“ Neither do I,” she said, “ in spite of the pis-
tol.”
“ He told you of the pistol!”
“ It was I who found it."
Mr. Clavering stared amazedly, but before he
could question her, she had left the room.
He was too weary to do anything that evening
other than go to bed early. He felt that now at
least he could pass a night of peace; the tragedy


72 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
had happened. But he should have learned by
now that peace and Portstead Manor were alien
to one another.
After two or three hours' sleep from pure ex-
haustion, he awoke with the sensation that some-
thing was wrong. His night lamp had burned out
and the room was intensely dark. He heard fur-
tive footsteps — but whether in the room or in
the corridor without he could not be certain —
then followed a peal of thunder that shook the
house, and the wind shrieked in the old gables and
the rain came driving in at the open casement.
Thoroughly awakened now, he realised that the
countryside was in the grasp of a terrific electric
storm.
The rain and the thunder were more severe than
the lightning, and, while groping about in the dark
for matches, he came into painful collision with
the dressing-table. But he forgot the pain in the
discovery he made. The dressing-table drawer
was wide open as though hastily pulled out! It
had been tightly closed when he went to bed.
His senses were at once alert. There had been
some one in his room; he was convinced that there
was some one there now. His straining ears
caught the sound of quick, smothered breathing.
He stretched forth his hands and took a step for-
ward. A slight rustling warned him that the per-
son, whoever it was, was trying to escape. He
moved rapidly in the direction of the intruder,
and suddenly his groping hands touched other


MORE MYSTERY 73
hands, those of a woman — a lady — slim and
soft.
With a little gasping cry she shrank away. He
caught at her dress, filmy and flowing, but she
slipped from him — was gone. A vivid flare of
lightning showed the room to be empty, also that
the two doors leading from it were closed. He
groped his way first to one and then to the other
and found that both were locked as well, just as
he had left them upon retiring. In view of the two
locked doors, there could be but one explanation
of his visitor's disappearance. There must be a
secret entrance to the room! Secret passages
were by no means unusual in Elizabethan houses.
It might well have been through this passage that
the thief had entered and stolen Lady Pevensy's
necklace, but why should any one come into the
room now, and who could it have been?
Mary Grey flashed into his mind. She wore
just such filmy gowns as that which he had caught
at. He had an unpleasant moment while in im-
agination he pictured this mysterious young
woman, who had no proper feminine shrinking at
violent death, bending over his pillow while he
slept.
The darkness was intolerable and the lightning
too intermittent to admit of his finding the matches.
He opened the hall door, hoping that there would
be a light in the corridor. There was none, but
from somewhere below, perhaps from the Great
Hall, came a burst of elfish laughter. Shrill,


74 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
witchlike, weird, it echoed through the wind-
lashed Manor. Mr. Clavering shuddered at the
sound. Who could laugh out like that in this
house of tragedy?
Arming himself with a heavy brass and iron
candlestick, and stopping only to don dressing-
gown and slippers, which he had succeeded in dis-
covering, he crept down the long corridor of the
east wing toward the great main staircase, deter-
mined to make sure who it was that had come into
his chamber and then had dared to laugh out in
elfish glee, for he did not doubt that they were
one and the same person. He reached the foot of
the stairs in safety, but he found the immense,
stone-flagged hall an eery place in the dark and
hush of midnight — a hush broken only now by the
shrieking of the wind and the lashing drive of
the rain.
The thunder was dying away in the distance,
but occasional flashes of lightning through the
high-set windows gave transient glimpses of ant-
lered heads upon the black walls and ghostly ar-
moured figures in dim recesses. Once it seemed
to Mr. Clavering that something moved among the
shadows by the stone-pillared fireplace. Courage
was not his strongest virtue; the mystery of the
great, dark hall filled him with dread, and he was
beginning slowly to retreat up the stairs when he
heard quick, cautious steps crossing the large
drawing-room.
Now that there was need for action some rem-


76 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
her she had disappeared into the rain-swept gar-
dens.
A step on the circular stairs made him turn
quickly.


78 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
neither, however. Instead, she went to the garden
door and tried the lock.
“ You must be mistaken,” she said quietly; “ the
door is locked.”
“ The person — it was a woman — had a key
and locked it after her.”
“Nonsense, Mr. Clavering,” she protested, with
an attempt at a smile, “ burglars don't lock doors
after themselves. You must tell a better story
than that or I shall believe that you have had the
nightmare.”
“ That is a malady from which I am happily
free,” he returned with dignity. “This person —
this woman — came first into my chamber, for
what purpose I cannot imagine, and escaped
through the secret door.”
“ The secret door!” Her voice rang high.
“ What do you mean, Mr. Clavering?”
He felt that he should be more considerate of
her nerves — she was trembling violently — but
he could not let pass the imputation of nightmare,
so his answer was strictly to the point.
“ The woman must have gone by some secret
door. Both doors of my chamber were locked and
she could hardly have escaped by a window. Have
you never heard of a secret passage to that room,
Lady Ursula ? "
“Oh, I have heard some servants' gossip of there
being secret passages here; there are in most old
houses,” she murmured vaguely,“ but I have never


ACCUSATIONS
79
felt interested in them. It is my belief that they
were stopped up years ago.”
At this juncture, Mr. Clavering suddenly
darted to the outer door and peered through the
dripping glass. Did he hear above the howling of
the wind through the garden spaces the sound of
carriage-wheels on the driveway, or was it merely
fancy? The darkness was impenetrable now that
the lightning had ceased.
" What is the matter now, Mr. Clavering?”
demanded Lady Ursula nervously. “You are
positively uncanny to-night.”
“I thought the storm was coming back,” he
prevaricated, and wondered at himself for doing
so.
" Why, the storm is passing off. I hope it is
passing off,” she added, with a curious earnest-
ness. She, too, seemed to be listening to some-
thing outside. “Mr. Clavering,” she asked
abruptly, “I don't suppose you could describe this
woman whom you say came into your chamber,
vanished in some mysterious fashion, and later
went out through the garden door?”
“In a general way I could. I saw her quite
distinctly in a flash of lightning.”
The candle shook in Lady Ursula's hand.
“ You think you would recognise her if you should
see her again?”
“ It is possible I might," he answered, after re-
flection, wondering at the intensity with which the


ACCUSATIONS
81
the matches and spent the remainder of the night
in vain search for a secret door. Lady Ursula had
not shaken his conviction that there was one.
He had breakfast with Lord Meldrum and Elsie
Baring. The latter was pale and seemed on the
verge of tears. Her feverish questioning as to
the whereabouts of Robert Sylvester showed why
the tragedy had taken such hold upon the light-
hearted and insouciant girl. But Meldrum could
give her no satisfaction. Robert Sylvester had
completely vanished from the knowledge of his
acquaintances. Her persistent and pointed ques-
tioning, however, finally wrung from Meldrum the
reluctant admission that Robert was no longer to
be sought for at the Country Club; he had been
debarred from there on account of a brawl in
which he had been chief participator.
“ When did this occur?” asked Elsie, with
quivering lip.
“ Tuesday night," answered Meldrum regret-
fully.
She shivered. Tuesday was the night of the
murder.
“At what time? ” she persisted. “Please do
not keep anything back from me. It is best that I
know all.”
Lord Meldrum gave her a look of deep sympathy
as he replied gravely, “ The quarrel took place
about eleven o'clock. Robert had been in a sullen
mood from the time of his coming there, and the
taunts of a man named Belmont, to whom he owed


82 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
money, roused him to fury. He violently assaulted
Belmont, and other members of the club were
obliged to separate them. Robert was forcibly
ejected and has not been seen since.”
Elsie rose, trembling. “ Lord Meldrum," she
begged, tears in her eyes, “ do not let that detec-
tive know of this. He is determined to fasten this
crime on Robert, but -- but I will not believe him
guilty!"
“ Burton shall learn nothing from me,” Mel-
drum assured her, “but if he makes inquiries at the
club, he will surely be told. Don't you think you
are making too much of this quarrel? After all,
it proves nothing against Robert.”
“ It proves,” she answered, white-faced, “ that he
did not go to London that night and that he —
might — have — returned — here."
Meldrum was silent.
“But if he did return here,” she went on hys-
terically, “it was not to kill his brother. I know
it was not. Oh, say that you know it, too!” she
pleaded.
Meldrum appeared genuinely distressed. “I
don't think there's any real vindictiveness in Rob-
ert,” he evaded.
The half-heartedness of his reply enraged the
distraught girl.
“ I do not see why all suspicion should fall on
Robert,” she cried. “You, as well as he, were far
from being on friendly terms with Lord Portstead
that night, and, as the secretary asked,' What were


ACCUSATIONS
83
you doing in the gardens at that hour of the
night?'"
The shot told. Meldrum compressed his lips
and a forbidding expression crossed his face.
“What I was doing in the gardens, Miss Baring,
is solely my own affair,” he answered coldly.
Elsie Baring's girlish face grew hard and dis-
trustful.
“I think, Lord Meldrum,” she said slowly and
deliberately, “ that you know more about the mur-
der than you wish to admit."
With that she left the room, her young figure
uncompromisingly erect.
For a moment Meldrum sat staring after her, as
though not comprehending the full significance of
her words. Then horror dawned in his eyes and
he turned with quick appeal to Mr. Clavering, who
had been a silent and amazed witness of the scene.
“ Clavering, old fellow,” pleaded Meldrum, with
a trace of his ingratiating, boyish smile,“ you don't
believe I had any hand in Portstead's death, do
you?”
Mr. Clavering twisted uncomfortably on his
chair. The conscientious honesty of his nature had
often caused him distress, but never more so than
now. In Meldrum's presence it was impossible to
believe harm of the big, boyish, lovable man, and
yet so many of his actions were inexplicable and
even suspicious.
Meldrum noticed his hesitancy. “ By Jove,
Clavering, you don't think —”


84 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
“I think,” Mr. Clavering hastily interposed,
" that you ought to explain what you were doing in
the gardens at two o'clock in the morning.”
Again Meldrum compressed his lips and his eyes
grew severe and determined. “I cannot explain.”
“I am sorry," was all Mr. Clavering could man-
age to utter.
At that moment Harry Brooks came precipi-
tately into the room. At sight of Meldrum his
face darkened and he turned to withdraw.
“ I hope you will pardon me, Mr. Clavering," he
said stiffly, “but I understood that you had fin-
ished your breakfast. I came here for mine, at
Lady Ursula's request, in order to save the serv-
ants trouble at this most distressing time.” His
small, vindictive eyes were fastened on Meldrum as
he said this.
Meldrum advanced toward him. “Brooks," he
said frankly, “ I take it we both lost our heads a
bit the other night. Shall we shake hands and for-
swear hard feelings?” Smiling, he held out his
hand.
Brooks flushed darkly. “I do not care to shake
hands with you, Lord Meldrum," he replied point-
edly.
Mr. Clavering expected to see fire flash in Mel-
drum's eyes, but instead a pained expression came
into them.
“ You misjudge me, Brooks,” was all he said,
and quietly walked from the room.


CHAPTER X
MAVIS
Mr. Clavering had made up his mind to investi-
gate the near and dense woods which the windows
of his chamber looked out upon, and he decided
that no time could be better than this morning,
when every one seemed occupied with their own
concerns. The day was of that cool freshness
which so often follows a severe storm, there was
just wind enough to dry the pools of rain-water,
and the sky was washed a bright, cloudless blue —
altogether an ideal day for walking.
Before starting out, however, he carried up to
Lady Pevensy's room a primly exquisite bouquet
of roses from the gardens. He impressed upon
her elderly maid, Parkins, the fact that each
flower had been picked by his own hands. Pos-
sibly this delicate attention affected Lady Pevensy,
possibly she was becoming weary of her own so-
ciety; however it was, she consented to come to
the door and thank him in person. As he was the
first male creature to whom she had shown her
face since Tuesday night, he felt properly flattered
and even went so far as to hint that he had a
fairly definite clue as to the hiding-place of the
thief and murderer.
85


86 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
“Well, whatever comes of it,” observed Lady
Pevensy, none too encouragingly, “ you can't do
much worse than that detective fellow and he
hasn't done anything.”
Mr. Clavering rather bridled at this and ab-
ruptly set off for the woods, resolved to prove to
Lady Pevensy that it was possible for a careful
student of detective methods to succeed where a
professional had apparently failed. Emerging
from the spacious park encircling the Manor on
all sides, he saw that a direct route to the woods
must lead him across a somewhat spongy-looking
meadow. But a few steps therein soon convinced
him that the longest way around would be the
most advisable, if he wished to preserve the im-
maculateness of his patent leathers and delicate
fawn-coloured gaiters. Accordingly, he took to
the road, a branch of which dipped and wound to
the entrance of the woods.
As he walked along the sweet-smelling lane, now
and again flecking at the high-waving bracken with
his silver-topped cane, he was conscious of a thrill
of expectation. What secret might not these tall,
dark woods contain? Was it not probable that
he would meet there the evil genius of Portstead
Manor? His British stolidity strangely shaken,
he involuntarily tightened his grip upon his cane
and walked on with grim resolution.
Suddenly from behind came the rattle of wheels,
the clatter of hoofs, and shrill, eager cries. He
turned hastily and saw dashing toward him out


88 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
of Mr. Clavering, short, rotund, perspiring and
breathless, feebly brandishing his cane, yet the
fact remained that the man fled at sight of him.
Mr. Clavering had time only to observe that he
wore a full, dark beard, and that there was some-
thing vaguely familiar about him. Left thus in
possession of the field, it was only natural that he
should, with somewhat of a conqueror's air, assure
the woman and child that they need have no fur-
ther fear for he would continue to protect them.
“ Fear! Corpo di Bacco!” ejaculated the
woman, with a withering glance at her panting
knight, “I have not fear. I need not protection.
Only for the Signorina, I should have jumped down
and beaten him, I, myself. You should see. I
am strong. He has fear of me.”
Mr. Clavering was about to give the woman a
fitting rebuke for her lack of gratitude, but his
words died away. in amazement as he studied the
dark, passion-flushed face. He knew her — knew
her for the woman whom he had seen in the light-
ning's flare the night before in the library at
Portstead Manor!
Fiercely she resented his stare, and snatching
the reins from the child, jerked the pony about.
The action roused the child, who had sat huddled
in a sort of stupor since their assailant's disap-
pearance,
“ Stop, Elena!" she commanded shrilly, laying
a thin, imperious little hand upon the reins. “I
wish to thank the man. Whoa, Tony!”


MAVIS
89
The woman, sullenly submissive, relinquished the
reins, and the child, with a smile that transformed
her shrewish little face, extended her hand to
Mr. Clavering.
“ Thank you,” she said earnestly. “Elena is
a savage. She does not know. Please, what is
your name?”
As Mr. Clavering gravely informed her, the
woman suddenly snatched up the reins again and
gave the pony a cruel crack of the whip. As the
dog-cart lurched forward, the child screamed an
angry protest, but there was no stopping Tony
now. Head in air, bit between teeth, he whirled
and dashed and galloped, the dog-cart rocking
perilously from side to side, now on the road, now
off, now through the trees upon the greensward,
now back again upon the road.
At the risk of her neck the child leaned out.
“My name is Mavis —" she called. What else she
said was drowned in the clatter of Tony's hoofs
and the cracking of the whip, wielded by Elena.
“I live at Wild Rose Villa !” shrilled the child
defiantly, and then the plunging wagonette and the
red-haired little fury and the mysterious Elena
were lost in the distance.
Mr. Clavering, being the most methodical of
men, always carried about with him a small mem-
orandum-book in which he jotted down, under al-
phabetical headings, whatever he might need for
future reference. He now carefully inscribed
therein: “Mavis, Wild Rose Villa."


CLUE OF THE BROKEN CRUTCH 91
Mary Grey thrust forth a trim little foot and
surveyed it carelessly.
“My boots are wet, but I never take cold," she
said indifferently. “Mr. Clavering, did you ever
see more beautiful ferns than these? The woods
are filled with them."
But Mr. Clavering did not look at the feathery
bouquet of ferns she held out to him. His eyes
were attracted by the dark, slimy mud covering
her dainty boots and staining her skirts.
She followed his glance and a shade of annoy-
ance passed over her face. She turned abruptly
toward the Manor.
“ I had no idea the meadow was so boggy,” she
observed, with slightly heightened colour.
Nor was it sufficiently boggy to muddy her boots
and skirts as they were muddied, Mr. Clavering
felt sure. Moreover, she had picked her way
across the meadow with great care. He preserved
an austere silence as he strove to keep pace with
her. She, on her part, chattered inconsequen-
tially of the various species of fern to be found
in different sections of the country.
Upon entering the Manor Mr. Clavering sought
out Burton, whom he finally found in the last place
he had expected to find him; that is, in his own
chamber, where his presence was causing great
distress to Jenkins. Mr. Clavering was not pleased
at the intrusion in his absence, but he had enough
of the detective in him to feel that it might be
excusable.


92 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
Burton was busily sounding the walls with ham-
mer and mallet, while Jenkins stood by, the picture
of outraged dignity.
“I didn't countenance this entering and ’ammer-
ing, Mr. Clavering, sir,” he began apologetically,
“ but he would come in, sir; said it was in the
'interests of justice. I made so bold as to sug-
gest, sir, that justice could wait till you came
back, but he wouldn't hear of it, sir.”
“No time like the present, Jenkins,” remarked
Burton, without ceasing his hammering. “No of-
fence, I hope, Mr. Clavering?”
“Not at all,” replied Mr. Clavering, but his
tone was cold. “ You may go now, Jenkins.
May I ask, Mr. Burton, what you expect to find
in this room? I have myself carefully sounded
the walls and was able to discover nothing."
“ Then you didn't do your work thoroughly,"
said Burton brusquely. “ The wall on this side is
hollow, indicating without doubt a secret passage,
by means of which the necklace was stolen. If I
don't find the entrance soon, I shall ask her Lady-
ship’s permission to make one; and if she doesn't
give permission, I'll go ahead myself — in the
interests of justice,” he added with grim hu-
mour.
“I am bound to remark that I consider your
work more or less a waste of time,” observed Mr.
Clavering disapprovingly. “Granted that you
discover a secret passage, what will it avail you
when the thief and murderer is still at large?


94 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
verse for clues, you don't see what is right under
your nose. We know where our man is, even if
his own sister doesn't.”
“ Even if his own sister doesn't!” Mr. Clavering
found himself blankly repeating the words. Burton
then was convinced of Robert Sylvester's guilt.
He himself was arriving at that stage where he no
longer dared to have convictions. Robert had
never been a favourite of his, and now his unex-
plained absence, following upon the finding of
his pistol in the library, was certainly damaging,
but he felt that it behooved him, as an old friend of
the family, to speak a word for the boy, and he
was about to do so when there came a quick tap
upon the door.
“ Her Ladyship, I'll bet a guinea !” exclaimed
Burton with a confidential wink, the familiarity of
which roused Mr. Clavering's indignation.
But it proved to be Mary Grey, girlish and
dainty in some filmy frock. Burton did not appear
pleased.
“ I heard that you were here, Mr. Burton,” she
began lightly, apparently unconscious that she was
not welcome, “ and I thought as I was so familiar
with the room, it having been Lady Pevensy's,
that I might be able to help you in whatever you
were searching for.”
“I don't know that I need any help,” growled
Burton.
“ Oh, then you have found the entrance?"
Stepping quickly past the astounded Mr. Claver-


CLUE OF THE BROKEN CRUTCH 95
ing, she crossed to the massive, wrought fire-
place and pressed upon one of the broad long
panels in the dark oak chimney-breast at the right
of the hearth. With a slight creaking, the panel
opened, disclosing a narrow space beyond.
Mary Grey laughed in Burton's disgruntled
face. “I have heard of your fondness for de-
molishing whatever baffles you and I want to spare
this fine old Manor. Follow me, gentlemen, and
we will investigate!”
She slipped into the passage, with Burton like
a bloodhound at her heels. Mr. Clavering followed
cautiously. He wondered at her effrontery in ac-
knowledging her familiarity with this passage,
particularly before him. Any doubts that he had
felt as to who had entered his room the night be-
fore were now dispelled. With a sense of chok-
ing indignation he followed her guidance through
the stuffy, winding corridor that would have been
absolutely dark were it not for her pocket flash-
light.
“ Didn't I tell you this old place was honey-
combed with passages ? ” chuckled Burton trium-
phantly, quite as though the discovery had been his.
Mr. Clavering groaned assent. He felt that he
must suffocate if he did not soon breathe fresh air.
Stumblingly, he followed his guides up a narrow
flight of stairs, on which their footsteps echoed
ghostlike. Even then he fell to speculating on the
terror it would cause Lady Pevensy, should she
chance to hear the sound.


96 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
“ Can you imagine where this is leading us?"
asked Mary Grey.
“ North wing,” gasped Burton.
“ Scotland Yard is clever.” She laughed softly.
Apparently she alone did not find the air oppres-
sive.
Soon she stopped before a door that yielded
readily to pressure, and, in a moment, the three
stood blinking in a large and lofty room, through
whose age-worn hangings the sun shone cheerily.
It had been a sleeping-chamber of former genera-
tions as the huge, high-canopied bed testified.
“ We are now in the oldest part of the Manor,
unrestored, I believe, since the time of the Tudors,"
said Mary Grey, in a reverent tone that sent her
up a peg or two in Mr. Clavering's esteem.
Already his antiquarian eye was travelling with
eager interest over the ivory coffers and the cypress
chest with carved legs and inlaid heraldic devices
that stood near the black oak wardrobe. While he
touched appreciatively the favourite form of
Elizabethan candlestick, the image with clasped
hands, Burton was diligently prowling about the
chamber, peering behind the tapestries, poking into
the wardrobe, and finally pulling out the truckle-
bed and examining it.
Mary Grey stood watching him with a curious
smile which deepened as he pounced upon a small
crutch, broken in two, which lay under a blanket
in the centre of the truckle-bed. Mr. Clavering
echoed his cry of astonishment.


CLUE OF THE BROKEN CRUTCH 97
“ Nothing antique about this,” argued Burton
contemplatively. “ It's of modern make and
proves that this room has been occupied recently
and by some one who used a crutch. That's clear,
isn't it?” he demanded abruptly of Mary Grey.
Before he could reply, Mr. Clavering took the
crutch excitedly from his hands.
“ This exonerates Robert Sylvester,” he declared
with relief, after a brief examination.
“How so? ” demanded Burton, with an exas-
perating drawl.
“ Robert Sylvester is not lame. He has never
had occasion to use a crutch.”
“ If he happened to be wounded in the leg or
the thigh he would have occasion to use one.”
Mr. Clavering stared uncomprehendingly.
“ Sorry to disprove you, Mr. Clavering,” re-
sumed Burton implacably, “but I have got to-
gether considerable information about Robert
Sylvester. For one thing I know that he was more
or less battered and bruised in a brawl at the
Country Club on Tuesday night. I also know
that there has been some one secreted in this room
from Tuesday night until very recently, and that
person has been sick, too. Look here!”
From behind the curtains of the large bed he
drew forth a bottle of liniment and some strips of
cloth, cut in the shape of bandages.
“ Circumstantial evidence," he remarked suc-
cinctly, and with satisfaction.
Mr. Clavering felt his defence slipping away.


CLUE OF THE BROKEN CRUTCH 99
ber at the end is entirely worn off! Therefore I
deduce that its owner was permanently lame.”
“Really, Mr. Clavering, that is rather clever!”
exclaimed Mary Grey impulsively.
Burton scowled at her. “ More book rubbish!”
he growled. “You take my word for it, Mr.
Clavering, while you're beating the country for
your small, thin, permanently lame man, I'll have
my suspect up for trial. Now I'm done with de-
duction and I'm going to search every corner of
this bally north wing for evidence."
He set about it vigorously and his companions
assisted, but they found few traces of recent habi-
tation in the dust-choked rooms opening off the
long, bare corridor. Some were used for store-
rooms, as Lady Ursula had said, others showed only
bare walls and barer floors. Near a locked door
at the end of the corridor which, from its location,
they knew opened on to the stairs, was a heavy
chair, overturned.
Mr. Clavering viewed it with mistrust. He
wondered if it could be that which had crashed into
his face when he had made his first invasion into
the north wing.
With the discovery of this chair and of a pitcher
half-filled with water, Burton was forced to be con-
tent. They were about to descend by the way
they had come when they heard a key turning
rapidly in the locked door at the end of the cor-
ridor.
“Her Ladyship!” surmised Burton.


THE DRESSING-TABLE DRAWER 101
Coldly she remarked, " I suppose I must excuse
the incursions of a detective, no matter where mis-
taken zeal or mere idle curiosity may lead him,
but I am surprised that you, Mr. Clavering, should
be willing to accompany him to a part of the
Manor which I have expressly let it be known was
not open to my guests. Miss Grey best knows
what is her excuse for joining you."
Mary Grey accepted her rebuke in silence, but
Mr. Clavering attempted a lengthy apology in
which he became hopelessly involved.
Lady Ursula cut him short. “It really doesn't
matter, Mr. Clavering,” she said wearily, “ only
I am disappointed in you, that is all.”
She turned again to Burton and her tone was
hostile. “I think, sir, I have a right to ask what
presumable clues you have found in this closed
section of my house."
Burton appeared a little nonplussed by her
change of manner. She had succeeded in subdu-
ing all visible emotion, and now, with the great
lady's air of calm, and subtly convincing supe-
riority, was making him feel himself an unwar-
ranted and unworthy intruder. But his abashment
was only momentary; in the exercise of what he
conceived his duty he would never permit himself to
be long humbled, and so, summoning back his as-
surance, he sought by his customary bull-dog per-
tinacity to break down the barrier of class hauteur
she had interposed between them and to put her
again upon the defensive.


102 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
“Well, my Lady,” he drawled, with a gleam in
his eyes at variance with his languid tone, “ you
shall judge for yourself whether my clues are pre-
sumable or not. In this closed section of your
house — to be exact, in the chamber to which the
secret passage from Lady Pevensy's former room
leads — I find a bed, carefully made up, but show-
ing evidences of having been slept in ; behind the
curtains of this bed I find a bottle of liniment and
some bandages, and in the dressing-room opening
off this chamber a pitcher, half-filled with fresh
water; that is, it could not have been standing over
a day at the very most.”
If Burton had expected to see her quiver again,
he was disappointed.
“ And that is all you found? ” she inquired with
quiet contempt.
“ No, my Lady, that is not all.” Burton's tone
was decidedly brutal now. “ There was a truckle-
bed pushed under the larger bed. Rolled up in
the blankets I found a crutch, broken in two."
“A - a crutch!”
She was moved now. She put forth a trembling
hand and steadied herself against a Jacobean
writing-table.
Something impelled Burton to glance down at
its dust-covered surface and he gave a start of
surprise. On it, clear and distinct, was the im-
print of a hand — a hand short and somewhat
broad, with widened finger-tips.


THE DRESSING-TABLE DRAWER 103
He called Lady Ursula's attention to it with a
ring of triumph in his voice.
“ Another clue, my Lady!”
She looked down at it, caught her breath
sharply, slipped her hand along the table, and the
imprint was obliterated.
Burton regarded her with a sardonic smile.
“ That won't do, my Lady. Miss Grey, you'll
bear in mind, and you, too, Mr. Clavering, the
smallness of that hand and its peculiar shape.
That last characteristic, of course, might have
been exaggerated by pressure upon the table,
which would account for the wideness of the finger-
tips. The person who made that imprint was
probably unsteady on his feet.”
“ And what do you hope to prove from all
this?” demanded Lady Ursula scornfully.
“ Just what you hope to conceal, my Lady."
“ And that is ? "
Her challenging scorn so exasperated Burton
that he almost forgot his professional caution.
“ That a man with a remarkably small hand,”
he growled, “has been hidden here in this north
wing with your Ladyship's knowledge and con-
nivance."
“I shall be interested to see how you will prove
that,” she retorted evenly.
Burton swore between his teeth, Mary Grey
smiled at him unsympathetically, and Mr. Claver-
ing felt utterly bewildered. Was it possible that


THE DRESSING-TABLE DRAWER 105
Mr. Clavering had not supposed her capable of
womanly sympathy and he was accordingly sur-
prised.
Lady Ursula seemed touched. The hard light
in her eyes softened.
“ Thank you,” she murmured gratefully.
“ That detective is such a brute!”
“ He is just a human bloodhound, to be sure,”
assented Mary Grey, “but you must not think
that all detectives are so devoid of feeling."
“I do not think of them at all,” responded
Lady Ursula wearily, “ except that they are prob-
ing my very heart with their merciless question-
ing."
“I am sorry,” said Mary Grey again. “I wish
that you might be spared,” and regretfully she
followed Burton.
Mr. Clavering stood by, ill at ease and at a loss
for words. Lady Ursula addressed him vexedly.
“I suppose that detective has been told your
wild-goose tale of the gipsy who came into your
room and then escaped through the library door,
locking it after her?”
“I gave you my word, Lady Ursula," he re-
sponded in an aggrieved tone, “ that I would in-
form no one of the fact.”
She bit her lip. “ You persist in the story
then ? "
“ Lady Ursula, it has received corroboration. I
saw the woman again this morning."
“ You — you saw her this morning?"


106 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
Gravely he told of the encounter on the lonely
woodland road, omitting only that the child had
given him her name and place of dwelling. Why
he did not tell this he could not have explained
to himself.
Lady Ursula was unable to conceal her agita-
tion. “You are sure the man did not follow
them? ” she amazed him by asking.
“Perfectly sure. He skulked off into the woods
as soon as I came up. Something in his appear-
ance puzzled me. I think that I have seen him be-
fore.” He studied her tense face a moment.
“ Lady Ursula,” he questioned, with sudden in-
spiration, “ have you any idea who the man could
be?”
Lady Ursula glanced at him, startled. Then
she echoed, with a forbearing smile, “ Have I any
idea who the man could be? My dear Mr. Claver-
ing, I did not even see him!”
Mr. Clavering, humbled and abashed, meekly
agreed to her suggestion that they descend to the
lower floor by means of the secret corridor, though
he had vowed when passing through it that he
would never again be inveigled into it.
“I have a curiosity to explore this corridor,"
she remarked. “It seems that my guests and the
officials of Scotland Yard know more of the Manor
than I do myself.”
Mr. Clavering could not control a blush of con-
scious guilt. He felt that he had irretrievably
damaged his reputation as a gentleman by thus


THE DRESSING-TABLE DRAWER 107
prying into his hostess's private concerns and that
no amount of excuses or apologies could reinstate
him in her esteem or his own. He decided then
and there that the tracking of criminals was not
work for a gentleman and was best left to those
on the fringe of society.
Lady Ursula broke in upon his resolutions.
“ Where is the entrance to this interesting pas-
sage, Mr. Clavering? ” she inquired, with a show
of eagerness.
Yet there was a hint of a false note in her voice,
and Mr. Clavering felt strongly perturbed as he
drew aside the tapestry in the bedchamber and re-
vealed the passageway beyond.
Lady Ursula murmured something about the
sight of that passage giving her quite a creepy,
mediæval feeling and protested that she should
have to rely on Mr. Clavering for guidance through
it. But it struck him, after a few steps in the
dark stuffiness of the corridor, that she might
make the better guide of the two, for whereas he
was constantly stumbling and bumping his head
at some unexpected turning, she walked along un-
scathed and with even footfall.
At length, to his relief, they stepped out into
Lady Pevensy's former chamber, and Lady Ursula
carefully closed after them the panel in the massive
frame of the fireplace as though unwilling that
others should share the secret of the passage-
way.
6 And so you think,” she remarked, with a forced


108 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
lightness of manner, “ that your gipsy woman
came through here into this room?"
“I am not at all certain,” he answered guard-
edly, " that the person who came into this room
was the gipsy whom I saw later at the library
door.”
This unexpected reply startled her. “What
do you mean? ” she cried. “You talk in para-
doxes.”
Mr. Clavering cleared his throat impressively.
His self-possession was returning and with it his
detective zeal.
“ This is what I mean to convey, Lady Ursula.
I grasped the hands of the person who came into
this room and they were the hands of a lady, soft
and slender -”
“One who did not know, might accuse you of
being a connoisseur in the texture of ladies'
hands,” she interrupted, with a nervous laugh.
“But pray, may not an occasional gipsy have
soft and slender hands?”.
“ It is possible,” he admitted, “but this par-
ticular one has not. I took especial notice of her
hands this morning; they were large and coarse.
Moreover, I do not now think that she is a gipsy."
“ Indeed! ” with a smile of half-amused annoy-
ance. “What do you think she is ? "
“ An Italian.”
“ An Italian!” Lady Ursula's brows drew to-
gether. “ Italians are a rarity in this sleepy lit-
tle village. I should sooner think her a gipsy, but


THE DRESSING-TABLE DRAWER 109
I am still inclined to believe that your nocturnal
adventure was mostly nightmare and that when
you saw that woman this morning, gipsy or what-
ever she may be, your fancy invested her with the
face of your dream woman.”
“No," said Mr. Clavering emphatically, “ I am
a prosaic man. I do not indulge in flights of
fancy, and nightmare, as I have assured you, I
have never been addicted to.”
Lady Ursula shrugged impatiently. “As you
will, then. But what possible reason could any
woman, gipsy or lady, have for coming into your
chamber at that hour of the night? Have you
found anything missing, or even out of place?"
Mr. Clavering pondered. “Ah!” he exclaimed
suddenly, “ the dressing-table drawer! Lady
Ursula, when I got up in the dark to search for
that woman I discovered in a — er — rather pain-
ful fashion — that the dressing-table drawer was
wide open, although it had been tightly shut when
I went to bed.”
Lady Ursula showed intense interest. “Well,"
she demanded breathlessly, “and what did you do
then ? "
“I closed it. I did not wish to come into con-
tact with it again. When I returned from the
library I was so disturbed by what had happened
that I entirely forgot about the drawer until this
moment.”
“But it must have been opened for some pur-
pose," she suggested.


110 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
“ That is so,” he agreed, “but Lady Pevensy
left nothing in it. I examined it myself directly
after the necklace was stolen.” He crossed to the
dressing-table and opened the drawer. “ You can
see for yourself it is —” He stopped short, as-
tounded. “ The necklace !” he cried. “Lady
Ursula, look here!”
She sprang to his side as he drew from the
drawer and held up in the sunlight a magnificent
chain of diamonds — a circlet of living fire.
Large, perfect, rainbow-flamed were the gems —
jewels worthy indeed a king's ransom.
Tears of joy and relief shone in Lady Ursula's
dark eyes. “Thank Heaven, thank Heaven!”
she murmured. “It is Lady Pevensy's necklace
and not a stone missing!”
Mr. Clavering still held the gleaming crystals
dazedly aloft. “How did this get back in the
drawer? " he was asking for the dozenth time.
“ What does it matter how as long as it did!”
exclaimed Lady Ursula impatiently. “ Lady
Pevensy must be told at once. She will be mad
with joy."
Mr. Clavering collected himself at mention of
Lady Pevensy. “I will take the necklace to her
immediately,” he said, advancing to the door with
alacrity.
At that moment the door opposite opened and
Lord Meldrum stepped into the hall. He caught
sight of Lady Ursula and of the necklace in Mr.
Clavering's hand, and a glance fraught with sig-


THE DRESSING-TABLE DRAWER 111
nificance flashed between them. Lady Ursula
brushed by Mr. Clavering and flung out appealing
hands to Meldrum.
“ Wilfred! no news yet of Robert and that hor-
rible Burton will never rest till he has hounded
him to despair! What am I to do?”
Meldrum caught her hands and held them
firmly. “Trust to me, Ursula. Robert shall be
saved from arrest, at least."
She smiled at him a tremulous, grateful smile.
“I knew you would not let the poor boy suffer.
O Wilfred,” she broke off, sobbing, “this awful
thing is tearing my heart in two!”
Meldrum drew her into his arms, kissed her
with grave tenderness, released her, and walked
away, his face white and grim in its determina-
tion.


CHAPTER XIII
THE RETURN OF ROBERT SYLVESTER
Lady Pevensy's joy over the recovery of her
necklace was so exuberant that she all but em-
braced Mr. Clavering.
“Now," she said ecstatically, “I feel that I can
help Ursula bear her trouble with equanimity.”
Within two hours the bothersome jewels were on
their way to the safe-vault in the city, guarded by
a brace of detectives and Lady Pevensy's family
solicitor, who had been hastily summoned.
Burton pounced upon Mr. Clavering's vague
story of how he had discovered the necklace, liter-
ally tore it to shreds, and questioned and cross-
questioned its author until he finally took refuge
in indignant silence. Not as yet had Burton
dragged from him any mention of the woman,
Elena. Lady Ursula should have no reason to
reproach him on the score of not keeping his word
to her.
On the next day was held the funeral of the
Earl of Portstead. By Lady Ursula's wish, it was
as quiet a one as was possible in view of the tragic
nature of his death and his prominence as a states-
man. Throughout the services Lady Ursula bore
112


RETURN OF ROBERT SYLVESTER 115
Upon the return to the Manor Harry Brooks
was waiting to assist Lady Ursula from the car-
riage. Her fortitude was at the snapping point.
Like most high-strung women, now that the hour
of trial for which she had steeled herself was past,
collapse was near. But the secretary said some-
thing to her in a low voice that brought back to
her eyes the indomitable light of endurance.
“ Mr. Clavering,” she said, choosing to ignore
the arm that Brooks, with respectful solicitude, of-
fered her, “ I want you to come with me to Robert's
room. He has returned. I shall not need you,
Mr. Brooks."
The secretary bowed politely, but a shadow
fell across his face.
“ That is an officious young man,” panted Mr.
Clavering, striving with his short legs to keep pace
with Lady Ursula as she flew up the stairs.
“ Shall you retain him in your service?”
“ No, no," impatiently, “I shall dismiss him as
soon as possible. I have never liked him. Ah,
Robert, Robert !” She had reached her brother's
room, flung wide the door, and stood regarding,
with a great pity in her eyes, the dejected, boyish
figure sunk in the big armchair by the window.
Robert started up at her cry. A moment only
she hesitated, and then, running forward, clasped
him in her arms, sobbing over him. For the liv-
ing brother she could weep.
“Robin, Robin,” she sobbed, using her old
pet-name," where have you been all these days?"


116
THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
“ God only knows, Ursula! In Hell, I think!”
“ Robin, why didn't you come to me before?
You must have known how I worried, how I needed
you!”
all hope; it wond racked by
thing has
Robert raised from his sister's shoulder his pal-
lid, seamed face; gone from it was all youthful-
ness, all hope; it was the face of a man prema-
turely old, rended and racked by mental agony.
“ Ursula, I just couldn't! This thing has
stunned me. I think I've been crazed ever since.
I know I was that night.”
“ That horrible night!” she shuddered, holding
him close, “and, O Robin, your quarrel at the
Country Club. That is known now and the worst
constructions put upon it, but now that you have
come back, you will speak and disprove —”.
He pushed her from him almost roughly. “I
will say nothing and disprove nothing."
“ Robert!” she cried aghast, “ you must speak!
Even if it kills me, you must!”
Robert caught her fiercely by the shoulders.
“ Ursula,” with a sudden show of manliness, “ I'm
a beastly cad, and a drunkard, and every sort of a
worthless devil, but you're my sister and the only
person on earth who has stuck by me, and I'll be
d-d if I'll speak!”
“ Then, Robert Sylvester,” she cried passion-
ately, though a great admiration shone in her eyes,
“ I will speak!”
“ You shall not! I forbid it. If you do, I'll
say that you're lying to save me — that it was I


RETURN OF ROBERT SYLVESTER 117
shot Cecil. Oh, they'll believe me fast enough,”
with an outburst of bitterness.
“ You mean," she demanded, with whiter face
now than his, “ that you will swear it was you
shot Cecil?”
“ If you open your lips to say a word about
the murder, I will, so help me!”
“ And if — I say nothing?"
“ Then I will say nothing, too."
“ But, Robert,” she objected despairingly,
“ they will convict you on circumstantial evi-
dence.”
“ Let them!” he answered with a reckless laugh.
“ Cecil always told me I would hang some day.”
Lady Ursula turned to Mr. Clavering with a
piteous appeal to reason with her brother. At
that juncture Burton, followed by Lord Meldrum
and Harry Brooks, entered the room without wait-
ing to knock.
“ You be jolly careful what you say, Ursula,"
cautioned Robert, though some of his defiance gave
way to fear at sight of Burton. “I meant what
I said.”
She did not reply, but cast a withering glance
upon the secretary. “ So you are working in
conjunction with Scotland Yard, Mr. Brooks?”
He quivered under her scorn, and she turned
with contempt from him to Burton. “Well, sir,
what now? You choose a strange time to torture
me with fresh questions — when I have but just
come from my brother's new-made grave."
to knock.


118 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
Burton's colour mounted, but he preserved his
usual drawl as he answered, “I did not come to
question your Ladyship, but to give a 'welcome
home' to your other brother, Mr. Sylvester. Beg-
ging your Ladyship's pardon, I should say Lord
Portstead," he corrected himself, with obvious in-
tent.
Robert went a shade whiter at the suddenness
of the new appellation, and Lady Ursula visibly
trembled.
She was the first to recover herself. “Then,
sir,” she remarked to Burton, “ since you have
performed your self-imposed duty and greeted my
brother, Lord Portstead," she spoke the title with-
out faltering,“ perhaps you will be good enough
to rid us of your presence.”
Burton resented her scorn. He scowled darkly
and his jaw had more of a bull-dog set to it than
ever.
“ Certainly, my Lady. I can understand that
you and Lord Portstead have a good deal to talk
over, but I've got something to talk over with his
Lordship, too. Shall I see your Lordship in half
an hour in — say, in the library?” He shot a
sharp glance at Robert as he spoke..
Robert's knees shook under him. “ Not in the
library!” he exclaimed with horror.
Burton smiled. “In the music-room then.”
And he quickly withdrew.
“ Robert," implored Lady Ursula, “ you will
let me speak now? You must ! ”


RETURN OF ROBERT SYLVESTER 119
“No!” he muttered, and averted his face that
she might not see the effort it cost him.
“Robert,” she declared, with streaming eyes,
“ you are the noblest, bravest, maddest boy I ever
knew of!"
“For God's sake, go away and leave me!” he
cried irritably. “Do you want to have me blub-
bering like a baby?”
He crossed swiftly to the window, his features
twitching.
Lady Ursula turned to Lord Meldrum, who had
been gravely watching them, and said in a low,
piteous tone, “ Wilfred, he has sealed my lips.
They will hang him unless —"
“ They shall not hang him, Ursula,” responded
Meldrum in a firm voice.
She dropped her face in her hands with a little
moan. “ It seems as though I could not bear
this !”
Lord Meldrum made a movement toward her, but
checked himself. “ Dear heart, you must bear it
for Robert's sake — for mine, too,” he added in
a whisper.
She raised her head with determination. “ You
are right, Wilfred. I must bear it, and I will!
But Heaven have pity on me!” She burst forth
into sobbing and hastily left the room.
Meldrum passed his hand across his eyes, then
straightened resolutely.
Mr. Clavering wondered how much of all this
the glowering little secretary had understood.


120 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
!
He was not ordinarily a man of passions, but at
that moment, when he saw how malignantly
Brooks's eye rested on Meldrum, he would have
given much to have soundly thrashed the little
secretary.
Robert's bravado broke down when his sister
had gone. He held out a shaking hand to Mel-
drum.
“I say, Mel, old chap, you'll stand by me,
won't you?”
Lord Meldrum gripped his hand encouragingly.
“ You can count on me, my boy!”


CHAPTER XIV
PORTSTEAD'S WILL
Robert came from his interview with Burton
white and shaken, but refused to divulge to his
sister what had passed between them.
“ Don't you worry, Ursula,” he said, with a
valiant attempt to reassure her, “ I'm still a free
man.”
After fortifying himself with several brandy-
and-sodas, he stumbled out upon the western ter-
race where Lord Meldrum and Mr. Clavering sat
smoking in silence. Impersonal conversation had
become an impossibility, and Mr. Clavering lacked
the moral courage to introduce the subject that he
knew lay heavy upon them both. For his part, he
was tormented by the constantly recurring ques-
tions: “What secret knowledge of the murder
did Lady Ursula share with Robert; did it concern
Meldrum; did Robert persist in his silence and
hers in order to shield himself, or Meldrum, or
whom?” Mr. Clavering looked steadily at Mel-
drum, and he could not, would not, believe him
guilty.
Meldrum's eyes were fixed in reflection upon the
setting sun. From the gardens below was wafted
121


122 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
the sweet fragrance of roses and mignonette, and
the only sounds that broke the tranquillity of the
sunset hour were the cawing of the rooks in the
long avenues of elms and beeches and limes that
enfiladed the park, or the gentle lowing of a cow
from the meadow-lands beyond. Nature was at
peace, if not those in the pilastered old ivy-grown
Manor. The beauty of the sundown was lost on
Robert Sylvester.
“ Mel, old chap,” he began weakly, “ I'm in a
deuce of a mess!”
Meldrum, recalled from his abstraction, sprang
up, and taking the boy by the arm, pushed him
into a chair.
“Robert, you have been drinking,” remarked
Mr. Clavering severely.
Robert's heavy eyes blazed. “ Drinking! Con-
found it all, wouldn't you drink if you had your
neck in a noose and couldn't get it out? "
Meldrum laid a restraining hand on his shoulder.
“ Calm down, my boy. It's not as bad as that.”
Robert's anger died away in a burst of self-pity.
“I always was the unluckiest dog. The pater
never had the ghost of a fatherly feeling for me
and Cecil's sanctimony was enough to drive any
one to the devil, and now I've got to hang for
him!”
“ You are not going to hang for him, Robert,"
said Meldrum gravely.
At this, Robert made an effort to pull himself
together. “Look here, Mel, Ursula's been talking


PORTSTEAD'S WILL
123
to you. I know she has, but don't you believe
her; she doesn't know what she's saying, she is
half-crazed with worry and all that. What did
she tell you anyway? ” he demanded excitedly.
“Your sister told me nothing, Robert; only
asked me to save you, and I promised that I
would.” There was a new sternness in Meldrum's
manner, but Robert did not observe it.
“ You can't save me,” he muttered, “nobody
can. Why, great Heavens, Mel,” his flushed face
turning ashen, “it was my pistol that Cecil was
shot with — my name on the plate.”
“I did not know that !” exclaimed Meldrum
in horror and amazement.
“ That’s Burton's exhibit No. 1,” said Robert,
with a reckless, bitter laugh. " Oh, he's got me
right enough, and you can't save me — and Ursula
can't."
“I shall save you for your sister's sake," said
Meldrum in sterner voice.
Robert glared with peculiar rage at the man
who proposed to aid him.
“ You keep out of this mess, Lord Meldrum, or
I'll — well, you'll wish you had, that's all! I'm
looking out for my sister and I won't have any
of your bally interference. I have blackened her
life long enough, and if I choose to drop out of
it ”_his weak mouth quivered—“ that's my busi-
ness, not yours.” With this, he flung into the
Manor.
“ Poor, wretched boy!” sighed Meldrum. “He


124 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
is more than half right, Clavering; his father and
brother were hard on him, beastly hard.”
At that moment a girlish, white-clad figure
hastened toward them from the gardens.
“ Mr. Clavering,” called Elsie Baring tremu-
lously, “ was not that Robert who just went in?”
“It was Robert.” He spoke compassionately.
He thought it a pity that this once glad-hearted
young girl should be made to suffer through mis-
placed affection for a graceless scamp; for, at
best, that was all that Robert was.
“ Miss Baring,” said Meldrum persuasively, “I
think Robert is in need of a little kindness. The
world is using him rather hard just now, and a
few kind words would mean a good deal to him.”
Elsie Baring flushed faintly. It was the first
time she and Meldrum had met since the morning
she had practically accused him of knowing more
of the murder than he should.
“ I did not suppose you would speak for Rob-
ert,” she faltered, and then stopped, conscious
of what she had said.
Meldrum smiled painfully. “Perhaps you have
misjudged me, Miss Baring,” he remarked quietly.
She looked up into eyes that met hers squarely.
“ Perhaps I have. I hope I have,” she added im-
pulsively, and hurried into the Manor.
Later that evening Lady Ursula came to Mr.
Clavering and asked him for a loan of several
thousand pounds.
“ That man, Belmont, whom — whom Robert


PORTSTEAD'S WILL
125
quarrelled with at the Country Club," she ex-
plained shamefacedly, “and some other —
leeches ” — indignation made her bitter –“ have
sworn out a warrant for Robert's immediate ar-
rest unless he can meet his debts to them. I can-
not help him,” she said hopelessly.
Mr. Clavering assured her of his willingness to
assist her in any way, and forthwith wrote out the
cheque. He knew that Lady Ursula scarcely ever
had ready money, though the rents from the Port-
stead tenantry should have been adequate and he
understood that Cecil had made these over to her
without reserve at the time he settled the Manor
upon her. He suspected that her father had left
her but a mere pittance, and he knew that he had
practically disowned Robert, so this must ex-
plain the slenderness of her resources. From
childhood, Robert had always had the lion's share
of her possessions, and his drains upon her of late
must have been frightful. Mr. Clavering had never
ceased to blame the old Earl for the lack of
feeling — a sort of refined brutality — which he
had displayed toward his two younger children.
Both were of a warm-hearted, impetuous nature,
so foreign to his and that of his heir that he was
totally unable to understand them, so sought to
rule them with a rod of iron, and failing, laid all
the fault at their door.
“ Cecil's will is to be read to-morrow," Lady
Ursula was saying. “I should like you to be
present at the reading."


126 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
Mr. Clavering was rather flattered by the way
in which she depended on him, but he did think it a
bit hard on Lord Meldrum, whom she seemed to
avoid and who was obviously wounded by it.
Mary Grey made herself rather unduly con-
spicuous that night, Mr. Clavering thought. She
insisted upon making friends with Robert, and
finally drew him from the defiant taciturnity into
which he had settled after Elsie Baring had tried
in vain to convince him that she still believed in
him. She wished to be kind to him, to show faith
in him, but it was easy to read the doubt in her
mind, and this Robert resented.
Mr. Clavering watched Mary Grey uneasily as
she subtly led Robert on to talk of himself, his
pleasures and pursuits, now and again stealing at
him strange, sly little sidelong glances. Robert
had drank just enough to make him very voluble
when once he was started, and not particularly
discriminating in his choice of topics. Yet not the
faintest flush disturbed the clear pallor of Mary
Grey's cheek as he discoursed of his friends of the
turf, the demi-monde, and even described in detail
a recent champagne orgy at which he had stood
sponsor, and the bills for which were unpaid and
likely to remain so until, he said, with his reckless
laugh, “the estate is settled up.” Mary Grey
simply smiled her pensive smile and encouraged
him to talk on.
“I say, she's an uncommon jolly young woman,
by George, she is !” he confided to Mr. Clavering


PORTSTEAD'S WILL
127
in a burst of enthusiasm as she wished him a smil-
ing “ good-night,” and glanced back at him from
the great staircase with big, elusive brown eyes.
“ She is a minx, a scheming minx !” admonished
Mr. Clavering indignantly.
“Old boy,” Robert spoke with the easy authority
of a man of the world, “ you don't know a fine
piece of woman-flesh when you see it," and laugh-
ing in a superior way, he went up to bed with
noithe unsteadiness
different moods, and vouch-
In the morning a different mood held him. He
was dejected, irritable, and suspicious, and vouch-
safed no response to Mary Grey's bright “ good-
morning."
“ You were right, Mr. Clavering," he said
soberly, “ that girl is an artful puss. She was
leading me on last night to make a bally ass of
myself. But what did she do it for, eh? I didn't
say anything about "— his eyes rolled in fear -
“ about Tuesday night, did I?”
“ No," answered Mr. Clavering severely, “ your
conversation was limited to men of evil reputation
and women of none at all. If you continue to in-
dulge your appetite for drink, I daresay that you
will place yourself in an even more critical position
than you are in now.”
Robert turned a sickly white and cast a curious,
furtive glance about. This was becoming a habit
of his when he was not sure where Burton was.
“ You're right, Mr. Clavering,” he said again.
“ You may be a bettyfied old fogy, but you're right


PORTSTEAD'S WILL
129
business man and he left more wealth than Mr.
Clavering had dreamed of, but his disposition of it
was odd, though consistent with his hard and
implacable nature. To Robert, his heir, he
bequeathed practically an empty title, since the
entailed estates, without the means to keep them
up, would yield a very inadequate income. But
Portstead had held out a straw of hope to his
brother in a clause which stated that one third of
his personal wealth was to be held in trust “ until
such time as said Robert shall reform his manner
of living and become an honourable and upright
English gentleman.” In the event of his failing
to reform, said third of money was to pass to a
training school for diplomats in which Lord Port-
stead had taken interest.
Robert emitted a short, bitter laugh as this
clause in his brother's will was read.
“By George!” he muttered aloud, “if that
isn't Cecil to the life — strike a chap when he's
down.”
“Hush, oh, hush!” warned Lady Ursula, plac-
ing her hand over his mouth, and glancing in ter-
ror at Burton to see if he had heard.
His expression told her that he had.
“ Unto my sister, the Lady Ursula Sylvester,"
resumed the solicitor, after a shocked look over his
gold-rimmed spectacles at Robert, “I give and
bequeath one third of all personal property, the
mansion at Belgrave Square ”— then followed an
enumeration of two country seats, one in Sussex


CHAPTER XV
MR. CLAVERING MUDDIES HIS BOOTS
It being late afternoon, Mr. Clavering went up
to his room, and upon going to the window, his
gaze was irresistibly drawn to those dense woods,
darkling against the east. His desire to investi-
gate them was returning. He wondered if the man
were still lurking there who had accosted Mavis —
Mavis Travers — that name was still buzzing
through his head, suggesting, always suggesting,
something that he should recall or connect with
some half-forgotten memory.
Looking out thus to the woods, his eye was
attracted by the distant figure of a man hastening
toward them across the meadows. He recognised
at once that tall, powerful form. But why should
Lord Meldrum seek the woods in the gathering
twilight? The old, unwelcome suspicions came
flooding back, and he made up his mind to follow, if
he could not overtake him.
But by the time Mr. Clavering had issued from
the Manor and descended the double terrace into
the gardens, which he must cross in order to reach
the meadows and the woods beyond, Lord Meldrum
had passed from sight. To judge by the haste
193


134 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
he made, he was bound upon a mission of more
importance than a desultory stroll through the
woods.
Mr. Clavering was quite red in the face from his
attempt to overtake him when he finally arrived
at the border of the meadows which, to his dismay,
he found to be marshy; but he manfully went for-
ward, although it cost him a pang as his beauti-
fully polished patent leathers slipped in the oozy
grass.
Lord Meldrum evidently knew well the shortest
cut to the woods, but what was Mr. Clavering's
surprise, upon emerging from the meadows and
entering the shadow of the great trees, to discover
that a well-defined path led shortly to a small
clearing, beyond which he saw the dim outlines of a
rough cottage or wood-cutter's abandoned hut.
In his excitement and eagerness to reach it he
failed to observe a small morass that lay between
it and him, and at the first step forward plunged
into the mire half way to his knees. With a groan
of despair for his ruined elegance, he made frantic
efforts to extricate himself, but only succeeded in
floundering deeper. At length, really fearing that
he would be sucked down by the mire, he raised a
long, dismal shout for help.
In answer, the figure of Meldrum towered in
the doorway of the hut. Mr. Clavering repeated
his cry, desperately waving his arms; otherwise
he did not move; he dared not.
Lord Meldrum hurried toward him, keeping to


CLAVERING MUDDIES HIS BOOTS 135
the narrow grass-grown path that skirted the
morass. When he was near enough to recognise
the gesticulating little man caught in the grip of
the mire, consternation and amusement struggled
with each other across his face.
.“ By Jove, Clavering, my dear fellow, what
possessed you to come here?”
“If you will be kind enough to assist me out of
this predicament, I will endeavour to explain,”
answered Mr. Clavering testily, resenting Mel-
drum's obvious desire to laugh.
“Forgive me, old chap,” said Meldrum, with an
expansive smile, “but you know you look deuced
funny stuck there in the mire.”
“ This is not the time to indulge in humour,"
rebuked Mr. Clavering with rising indignation,
after another fruitless effort to free himself. “A
moment more and I shall be sucked under.”
“ Not the slightest danger of that,” reassured
Meldrum, choking down a laugh, “ the bog is not
deep enough; but here, wait a minute and I'll get
you out.”
Withdrawing into the clearing, he shouldered a
stout branch that lay upon the ground, and hurry-
ing back with it, approached as near Mr. Claver-
ing as he could without being himself drawn into
the mire. Holding firmly one end of the branch,
he bade Mr. Clavering grasp the other and hold
on tight. Then he drove his heels into the turf,
exerted all his strength, and Mr. Clavering rose
precipitately from the bog. His boots caught,


136
THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
slipped upon the soft, wet turf, caught again as
Meldrum threw his powerful weight into the scale,
and the next moment he fell, clear of the bog, on
his hands and knees at the feet of his rescuer.
There was a twinkle in Meldrum's eye as he
assisted Mr. Clavering to rise, but with praise-
worthy gravity he remarked that it was fortunate
he had happened to be near at hand.
Mr. Clavering was not a profane man, but
when he beheld the state of his boots and his once
immaculate dark grey trousers and black frock
coat, he was obliged to set his teeth.
“ I cannot return to the Manor in this con-
dition,” he said despairingly.
“But, dear boy, there's no help for it,” and now
Meldrum's hearty, ringing laugh awoke an echo
in the woods.
Indeed, Archibald Clavering, dripping with
mire, hatless, dishevelled, and with eyes still round
with fear, was cause sufficient for mirth. He, how-
ever, saw no humour in his predicament and was
highly incensed with Meldrum.
Meldrum laid his hand affectionately upon his
shoulder.
“Dear old chap, if you could only see your-
self -"
“I have no wish to," snapped Mr. Clavering.
“ If you have a trace of friendly feeling for me,
you will go at once to the Manor and send Jen-
kins here with a change of clothing." !
“ But, Clavering, you mustn't stand here shiver-


CLAVERING MUDDIES HIS BOOTS 137
ing by the edge of the bog," objected Lord Mel-
drum.
“I will stand here all night rather than return in
this condition,” responded Mr. Clavering obsti-
nately.
Lord Meldrum doubtless knew how impossible it
was to move him when he had a spell of stubborn-
ness, yet, as a last expedient, he mentioned that
gentleman's favourite bugbear — a severe cold —
against which he was always fussily guarding.
But Mr. Clavering was obdurate; he would permit
no one else save Jenkins to behold him in this
plight.
“If I feel chilly," he said, “ I can go into that
hut.”
“I wouldn't go in there,” said Meldrum quickly.
“ Why not? ” suspiciously. “You were there.”
Dark as it had grown, he fancied that he could
see Lord Meldrum flush at this assertion.
“ Oh, I— er — just looked in,” he answered,
with an attempt at nonchalance. “It's a bare
place; you wouldn't find it attractive."
“I do not find this bog attractive,” retorted Mr.
Clavering, determined now to explore the hut.
“But you know, old chap," opposed Meldrum,
“ somebody may be living in that hut, after all, and
if he should come back and find you there, there
might be trouble."
Mr. Clavering felt himself grow cold, but it took
hardly less courage on his part to risk being seen
by Lady Pevensy in such a plight as this than to


138 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
face a potential inhabitant of the woodcutter's
hut. Moreover, his detective zeal was aroused.
“I shall remain here,” he said resolutely.
Lord Meldrum turned away with a resigned
shrug.
Instantly Mr. Clavering felt his courage waning.
“I say, Meldrum,” he called after him des-
perately, “ you haven't a — a weapon of any sort,
have you?”
Meldrum came quickly back to where Mr. Claver-
ing stood, drew a revolver from his hip pocket, and
handed it to him.
“You don't know much about firearms, Claver-
ing, so don't play with the trigger. It might go
off. If you should see any one prowling about
here, don't lose your head. I will be back as soon
as I can. By the way, Clavering,” with abrupt
directness,“ how did you happen to come here?”
Mr. Clavering hesitated. Prevarication had
grown no easier for him in the course of his detec-
tive work.
“From my window I saw you making across the
meadow,” he replied finally. “I felt like a stroll
in the woods myself, so I attempted to overtake
and — ah — join you.”
“ Sorry you didn't mention your desire at
luncheon,” remarked Lord Meldrum dryly. “It
might have saved you a dip in the mire and would
have given me a companion. Well, look out for
yourself, old chap; I shan't be long."
Left there with the dark woods encircling him,


CLAVERING MUDDIES HIS BOOTS 139
Mr. Clavering placed the revolver with great care
in his own pocket and thereupon breathed easier.
He was not accustomed to firearms and had almost
a womanish fear of them.
Looking down upon the morass which showed
now as a black patch in the darkness, he knew well
where Meldrum had gained the boggy mud that
caked his shoes on the night on which Lady
Pevensy's necklace was stolen and he had pro-
fessed to have walked from the railway station
along a dry and dusty road. As always, he re-
called with a shock how Mary Grey had gathered
particles of similar mire from the library floor
on the night of Lord Portstead's death. But she,
too, judging from the condition of her boots and
skirts, must have crossed the bog herself that morn-
ing when she claimed to have gone into the woods
to gather ferns. What was the object of her pry-
ing interest in the case ? Blackmail? He was
convinced that she was a Becky Sharp.
But Meldrum! If Burton knew of this incrim-
inating evidence against him, added to his own
admission of having gone into the gardens after his
interview with Portstead instead of going up to
his room, the detective could not but abandon his
persecution of Robert and — arrest Meldrum!
The fact that Portstead was killed with his
brother's pistol by no means proved conclusively
that it was Robert who had fired the shot.
Mr. Clavering writhed in mental agony. Mel-
drum, though nearly twenty years younger than


140 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
he, was his one intimate friend and had been so
since the time he was a big, overgrown, fun-loving
boy at Eton and Mr. Clavering had been appointed
his guardian, jointly with his widowed mother.
Mr. Clavering was not of the nature to make
friends readily with other men; to begin with, he
had no interest in sports, that magic bond of union
between Englishmen, and though he belonged to
several select clubs, he had become a member rather
because he believed it the correct thing for a gentle-
man of his standing to do than from any spirit of
good-fellowship.. As a boy at school his almost
womanish prudishness and precision of dress had
made him a butt for ridicule, and as a man these
characteristics, combined with a pompous stiffness
of manner, alienated many and caused others to
hold him in a sort of tolerant contempt as a betty
and old fogy. But Meldrum, with the frank heart-
iness which endeared him to all who knew him,
with the striking exception of the Earl of Port-
stead, broke through this prim reserve and
pomposity, found the true man,— sensitive, con-
scientious, and kindly,— and forthwith began with
him a warm friendship.
Mr. Clavering, on his part, regarded the jovial,
virile Meldrum with a species of mild adoration and
in no event could he or would he voice the sus-
picions he had been forced to hold of him. If he
had killed Lord Portstead, it must have been done
under strong provocation in a moment of passion;
and if he were the great-hearted man Mr. Clavering


CLAVERING MUDDIES HIS BOOTS 141
believed him to be, he would not allow the brother
of the woman he loved to suffer for him. His
own words proved that he intended to save the
boy, and, at the same time, they might be taken
as self-incriminating. Mr. Clavering decided that
in any case he could do no more than let matters
drift to a crisis, in the meantime gathering secretly
whatever clues he could; for it might be that Lord
Meldrum was as much a victim of circumstantial
evidence as Robert appeared to be. As a begin-
ning, he would explore the hut which Meldrum had
evidently come to visit.
As he approached it, he beecame aware how very
black and ominously still the woods were — so still
that the sudden, strident screech of an owl set him
shivering with vague terror. The great trees,
arching over the cottage, seemed to reach out men-
acing arms toward him, but when he turned and
would have fled from them, the fear of falling
again into the quagmire sent him shivering to the
very door of the hut. And now the shadows all
about seemed to be filled with eerie sounds which in
his nervous fear he could not identify, and he
sprang into the cottage as into a refuge, one hand
on his hip-pocket, bulging with Meldrum's re-
volver, the other grasping his silver-topped cane,
which had been rescued from the bog, and with
which he was now striking at the blackness in the
room.
Presently, however, convinced that no immediate
danger threatened him, he laid down his cane and


142 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
lighted a match. Before it flickered out he had
time to observe that the door had fallen from its
hinges, the one window was broken, and that there
was no one but himself in the room. A second
match revealed a rough table in a corner, and on
it a half-burned candle. After several failures he
succeeded in lighting the candle, and immediately
felt more courageous as the darkness became dissi-
pated. The room he was in was a very small one,
and devoid of all furniture save the table. A stout
partition with a door midway led into a second
room. He entered this with no little trepidation,
but found it empty as the first.
The sight of a square trap-door in the boarded
ceiling, with a rudely-constructed ladder hanging
underneath against the wall, gave him an unpleas-
ant start. But he made up his mind that if he were
to remain in this hut until Meldrum's return, he
must discover whether or not he was alone in it, so,
raising his cane, he rapped smartly upon the trap-
door, though his heart quaked. There was no re-
sponse, only the sighing of the wind through the
trees outside. Emboldened, he lifted down the
ladder, and mounting with some difficulty — not
being accustomed to ladder climbing — cautiously
raised the trap. Holding the candle above his
head, he surveyed a small, low garret. It was
empty, but in one corner was a bundle of hay which
had clearly served as a bed, for on it was a pair of
blankets, of excellent make, as he discovered upon
closer inspection. Poking about in the hay for


CLAVERING MUDDIES HIS BOOTS 143
clues to the identity of the owner, he found a false
black beard. That was all, but it was sufficient to
convince him of what he had already suspected:
that the recent occupant of the hut was the same
man who had accosted Mavis and her nurse, Elena.
Moreover, the man was likely to return, and Mr.
Clavering had no desire to be caught by him like a
rat in a trap, so he descended more quickly than he
had come up, closed the door, and hung up the lad-
der as he had found it. He then went into the
front room, thinking it the safest place in which
to await Meldrum, for whose speedy coming he
devoutly prayed. Having set the candle in a
convenient notch in the table, he was about to take
up his station in the doorway, with cane in one
hand and revolver in the other, when a snapping
of twigs caused him to glance in alarm toward the
window.
There he saw a man peering in at him, his face
pressed against the broken pane — a thin, dark
face, stamped and seared with evil. Almost in-
stantly, as Mr. Clavering looked, the man dodged
back into the shadows, but in that one brief glimpse
he knew him.
He was Thompson, Lady Ursula's former butler!


A GAME OF PIQUET
145
where the candle glowed feebly. “So you have
been exploring!” he exclaimed, and his voice held a
curious note. “ What did you come upon that up-
set you so, eh?”
“ Upset me so ? " stammered Mr. Clavering. “I
was not aware —”
“ You look as though you had seen a ghost,"
said Meldrum briefly. “But come,” leading the
way into the hut, “ let me help you into your
clothes. I didn't bother to bring Jenkins.”
“Meldrum,” said Mr. Clavering, while his Lord-
ship with well-meaning awkwardness was attempt-
ing to play the part of valet, “I have found out
who lives in this hut.”
Lord Meldrum twisted a button off the waistcoat
he was fastening over Mr. Clavering's plump chest,
and muttered an apology.
“ Ah! you have. Who is it, old chap?"
“ Thompson,” in an accusing tone.
“ Thompson? " echoed Meldrum vaguely.
“ Yes, Thompson,” repeated Mr. Clavering se-
verely; “ Lady Ursula's butler, who left her on the
day Lady Pevensy's necklace was stolen.”
Lord Meldrum hurried Mr. Clavering into his
swallow-tail.
“Oh, yes, Thompson. I remember now. But
how do you know that he has been living here?”
“ I saw him looking in at the window.”
“ But that doesn't prove —”
“ It proves it to my satisfaction,” replied Mr.
Clavering with finality. “Meldrum,” he asserted,


148 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
this impression. She was still so jubilant over its
recovery that the mystery of its theft and inexplic-
able return troubled her but little,- in truth, far
less than it did Burton, who evidently saw close
connection between the theft and the murder.
“I am shockingly bored!” she complained to
Mr. Clavering, as Lord Meldrum quietly slipped
into the Manor before she could question him con-
cerning the miry clothes. “ Ursula is completely
absorbed in Robert, and Elsie is about as cheerful
as an image on a tombstone. Do you think —
after you have had dinner - that there would be
any harm in a quiet little game of piquet?”
Mr. Clavering had private misgivings as to its
propriety on the very day following their host's
funeral, but to be invited by Lady Pevensy to play
piquet was an appreciated, and increasingly rare,
favour, so he assured her that he thought there
could be no real harm in it, though it might be con-
sidered unconventional, and promised not to be
long at dinner. It had often struck him as odd
that Lady Pevensy never asked or seemed to expect
Mary Grey, her companion, to amuse her. As a
matter of fact, they were scarcely ever seen to-
gether, Mary Grey being everywhere but with her
patroness. Still, he felt that he should be the last
one in the world to reprehend as it gave him added
opportunities to enjoy Lady Pevensy's society.
“ This seems like old times,” she observed senti-
mentally, as they sat down later in the music-room
with a little square card table between them.


A GAME OF PIQUET
149
“ Poor dear Eustace was fairly jealous of our
games of piquet."
“Really, is that a fact? " murmured Mr. Claver-
ing, surprised. He had always held the opinion
that the departed Eustace was singularly unappre-
ciative of his wife's charms and utterly indifferent
as to her diversions.
“Oh, Eustace was shrewd. He saw a good deal
more than you thought he did," and Lady Pevensy
shook her fan at him with coquettish reproof.
He blushed painfully. “I was not aware that
my - ah — attachment — my — eminently re-
spectful attachment — was known to Sir Eustace."
Lady Pevensy made a grimace behind her fan.
“ Dear Eustace was not greatly worried. On the
whole he was amused. Carte blanche! ” she cried
triumphantly, holding up her cards. 6 Score me
ten, Mr. Clavering.”
He stiffly obeyed.
“ Now you are offended with me,” she said pet-
tishly. “Oh, yes, you are," as he denied the impu-
tation, “but, really, you have made me admire
your detective powers. I am sure that the wretch
who stole my necklace would never have returned it
if he hadn't known that you were on his clue and
would have ultimately forced him to.”
“That may be so," conceded Mr. Clavering, re-
laxing. “It is your play, Lady Pevensy."
“ Repique!” she murmured absently.
“But that is impossible!” expostulated Mr.
Clavering. “You have just had carte blanche."


A GAME OF PIQUET
151
pected that there was some secret in Portstead's
life; I am convinced of it now — and this child was
the secret. Why is it that none of us has ever
heard of her before? I tell you it is unnatural and
impossible for a man to be as indifferent all his
life to women as Portstead professed to be."
There was a personal rancour in Lady Pevensy's
tone. The Earl had been at no pains to conceal
the contempt he felt for her worldliness.
“My dear Lady Pevensy!" ejaculated Mr. Cla-
vering, horrified. “What are you hinting at?"
“ Scandal in high circles, of course," she an-
swered serenely. “But what I can't understand
is how any woman, of any condition in life, could
possibly have been attracted to Portstead.”
Little as Mr. Clavering had cared for Port-
stead, the vulgarity of Lady Pevensy's suspicions
pained him. He had always accepted Portstead
at his own valuation and secretly looked up to him
as to a superior being, and now to have this idol
suddenly pulled down to the common level was a
decided shock.
“No, no,” he said, but weakly, “ I am sure that
you are wrong in your suspicions."
“ Woman's intuition rarely fails — mine never
does," returned Lady Pevensy confidently.
“ Find out the parentage of this Mavis Travers
and who will be the gainer, even indirectly, by her
being named as Portstead's beneficiary, and it's my
belief you will find the murderer.”
Mr. Clavering stared at her in admiration.


CHAPTER XVII
MR. CLAVERING VISITS WILD ROSE VILLA
The next day, being Sunday, Mr. Clavering did
not deem a proper one for attempting to solve the
mystery of Mavis Travers' identity. But on Mon-
day morning, directly after breakfast, he set forth
on this quest in obedience to Lady Pevensy's wishes.
As a preliminary, he asked that fund of ready
information, the head-gardener, where Wild Rose
Villa was situated.
The gardener removed his broad hat and
scratched his head contemplatively.
“Never 'eard of it, sir,” he said, finally, “an'
I've lived in this 'ere village for sixty year.”
This was not encouraging, but Mr. Clavering
would not be turned from his purpose. Not wish-
ing to be hampered by the attendance of an in-
quisitive groom, he decided to walk to the village.
By the time, however, that he had traversed the
three-mile avenue from the Manor to the lodge
gates, he wished that he had accepted the trap which
Lady Ursula had placed at his disposal. He had
never had a predilection for walking, and the day,
with the blue haze of midsummer lying over the
church spires and the gabled roofs of the village
of Portstead, bade fair to be hot.
153


154 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
With a sigh he resisted the temptation to sit a
while and rest in the cool, ivy-grown lodge, and in-
stead descended the high hill into the village, along
a picturesque lane, winding between copses of pine
and larch, with glimpses of green meadows and the
heather-clad downs. The air was sweet with the
new-mown hay, and in the distance were groups of
reapers, quaint figures in smock-frocks and wide-
brimmed straw hats.
Hot and weary as Mr. Clavering was, he was
made to feel the pastoral charm of Portstead vil-
lage. The long and straggling lane, flanked by
hawthorn hedges, which boasted the proud title of
High Street, led past curious old thatched cot-
tages, a tiny creeper-covered church, and finally to
the school, a low, half-timbered structure, through
the open windows of which he saw rows of comic
rustic heads. Beyond to the right lay the village
hostelry, a queer, rambling old place with a mighty
sign lazily creaking above the door.
Here at the inn he stopped and inquired the
way to Wild Rose Villa, but the landlord knew no
more about it than did the gardener. Mr. Claver-
ing felt wholly unequal to searching the entire vil-
lage, so bluntly told the landlord that Wild Rose
Villa was the dwelling of a child named Mavis
Travers, of whom he must surely know.
A ray of intelligence lighted up the landlord's
bucolic countenance.
“I don't know the name, sir, but do little miss


WILD ROSE VILLA
155
’ave red 'air and a pony that she drives main
'ard?”
Mr. Clavering assured him that she possessed
both these qualifications.
“Eh, then, sir, I know where she lives. They
do say, sir, little miss is an Eye - Italian.” He
looked to Mr. Clavering for verification.
“Indeed!” murmured that gentleman uncom-
municatively. “I trust it is not far to Wild Rose
Villa ? "
The landlord swallowed his disappointment at
Mr. Clavering's brevity of manner. “No, sir, 'tis
not far if that's 'ow the cottage is called. Turn
down the first street to the left. Little miss lives
in the third cottage facing the west. You'll see
'er at the window, sir; when she's not drivin' the
pony she's sure to be sittin' there. The woman
who 'as charge of 'er, don't let the children play
with 'er, but they runs after 'er in the pony-cart
and, lawks, sir, if they gets in the way, she don't
mind runnin' 'em down. She's a wild ’un, little
miss is.”
From the loquacious landlord Mr. Clavering
learned further that Mavis had been in the village
but a very short time. Wild Rose Villa, never
before dignified by any distinguishing appellation,
had stood vacant over a year until its present
tenants moved in; but where they came from, and
the hour and manner of their arrival was a mys-
tery. Even Mrs. Jones, the observant neighbour


156 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
opposite, had not been aware that the cottage was
tenanted until, as early as seven o'clock on the
morning of the second day after the Earl's murder
— the landlord was very exact as to the date —
she had beheld Mavis sitting at the window. The
child and her foreign nurse, then, must either have
arrived at sunrise or in the storm the night be-
fore. That afternoon Mrs. Jones's youngest baby
was rescued from under the very hoofs of the
Shetland pony, and now, said the landlord in con-
clusion, “ When that red-’aired little wild-cat goes
a-flyin' through the village, the babies and old
folks are kept indoors.”
Mr. Clavering, following the landlord's direc-
tions, continued along High Street, and turning
down the lane to the left, came presently to a small
cottage with red-tiled roof and white-washed walls,
bowered and wreathed in roses, even to the pointed
gable over which these bright flowers of England
poured in cascades. The garden and the little
gate, too, were fairly overrun with roses; in the
wildest profusion they grew, red, pink, white, and
yellow, anywhere, everywhere about the cottage.
Wild Rose Villa it was in truth. At one of the
tiny, latticed windows, curtained with roses and
honeysuckle, Mr. Clavering beheld the ruddy-gold
hair and elfish face of Mavis.
She knew him instantly, and nodding and smil-
ing, beckoned him in with imperious little hand.
He unlatched the gate and pushed his way through
the tangle of roses in some embarrassment. What


WILD ROSE VILLA: 157
was he to say to this child? How was he to ques-
tion her?
Elena received him frowningly in the porched
doorway and seemed determined to bar his en-
trance.
“Stand away, Elena! I will have him come in,"
cried Mavis with shrill anger.
Elena obeyed, but there was a fierce hostility
in her great black eyes. She stood with one hand
in the bosom of her blouse and the other clenched
at her side, while Mr. Clavering made some con-
fused inquiries in regard to the pony.
“Oh,” answered Mavis, with a toss of her bright
hair, “ I make Tony run faster every day, just to
see Elena get cross and the stupid village people
stare. That amuses me.”
“ Some day you will be thrown out,” said Mr.
Clavering disapprovingly.
“ That I tell the Signorina, but she will not lis-
ten," spoke up Elena, eyeing Mr. Clavering with
a slightly lessening hostility.
“Be still, tiresome Elena!” cried the child. “I
will drive Tony as fast as I wish to, and talk to
everybody I wish to, and do everything I wish
to."
Mr. Clavering expected to see Elena's temper
fly, but instead she went over to the child and
caressed her with murmured words of endearment
in Italian.
Mavis pushed her away petulantly. “I don't
love you, horrid Elena! You won't let me do any-


158 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
thing but just sit here and sit here, and that's
stupid and I don't love you!”
“ How can you talk so to the faithful Elena,
who has watch and tend you all the days of your
life?” asked the woman reproachfully.
Mavis tilted her pointed little chin in the air.
“ Bring me a seed-cake,” she commanded.
Elena cast a doubtful look at Mr. Clavering,
hesitated, and then hurriedly left the room.
As soon as the child saw that they were alone
together, she bent toward her visitor, and fixing
on him her sharp, birdlike eyes, demanded in a
shrill whisper, “ Who died at the Manor?”
Mr. Clavering started and was dumb with sur-
prise.
“Quick, tell me ! ” insisted the child impatiently.
“ Elena won't; she says nobody died, but she tells
me lies. I saw the funeral carriages winding
down the hill from the Manor. I saw them from
this window. Look!”
Mr. Clavering's eye followed her pointing finger
and beheld the distant turrets of Portstead Manor,
rearing themselves above the low roofs of thatch
and tile. It gave him a peculiar sensation to
realise that under the very shadow of the hoary
old Manor this child, so strangely linked to its
dead master, had sat curiously watching the pas-
sage of his funeral, and not known whose it was.
Her intense interest in the Manor had dispelled
the slightest doubt he had felt as to her being the
identical Mavis named in the will. But why had


CHAPTER XVIII
CROSS PURPOSES
“ Did you enjoy your call at Wild Rose Villa,
Mr. Clavering?” queried a notably sweet voice
that made him turn in surprise.
Mary Grey was crossing the lane toward him,
having apparently come from Mrs. Jones's cot-
tage opposite.
The curious smile that curved her lips aroused
the antagonism which he always felt in her pres-
ence.
“ You have done me the honour, then, to follow
me? ” he demanded stiffly.
She shook her head and her smile widened.
“No, indeed. I was on my way to the village
while you and Lady Pevensy were at breakfast,
but I knew that you would go to the villa.”
Mr. Çlavering's annoyance grew. He was not
pleased that Lady Pevensy should discuss him
with this assertive and ubiquitous young woman,
as she had evidently done.
“Miss Grey,” he said, striving to speak with
a dignity that should put the young woman in her
proper place, “ you appear to me to take an ex-
traordinary interest —I might say a morbid
interest - in this whole sad affair.”
161


162 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
“I know that my interest must appear extraor-
dinary to you,” she admitted frankly, “but, Mr.
Clavering, I am a keen student of human nature.
Mankind to me is the most fascinating of studies.
I never tire of it and every day I learn more.
In this case, for instance, I find the most ele-
mental types, the most elemental passions."
Her frankness was disarming Mr. Clavering in
spite of himself. He walked more slowly, at a
pace better adapted for conversation.
“ What elemental passions have you observed
in your study of this case?” he condescended to
ask.
“Love, passionate and unreasoning, and hatred
as passionate, and even more unreasoning," she
answered with conviction. “ These I feel sure
were the motive powers that sent the Earl of Port-
stead from this life.”
Mr. Clavering had never heard her speak so
seriously before and he was impressed. Perhaps
he had done her an injustice. There was nothing
about her now to suggest the adventuress, still —
“ You don't quite trust me yet, Mr. Clavering,"
she surmised, with an intuitive flash of her brown
eyes.
“I cannot understand you," he confessed.
“No one does. I am a very much misunder-
stood person,” she said, with a little moue and a
reproachful sidelong glance from under her lashes.
Mr. Clavering found himself yielding to the sub-
tle charm that he had long recognised in her, but


CROSS PURPOSES
163
had been unwilling to admit. Resolved to con-
quer this weakness, he abruptly shifted the sub-
ject by asking if she had ever called at Wild Rose
Villa.
“ Guilty,” she conceded, with a smile of reminis-
cence," and I was ordered out just as you were.
An enfant terrible, the little Mavis, but interest-
ing,” she added thoughtfully. “ And as for Elena,
ouf ! she is a tigress — there's no taming her.”
· It came to Mr. Clavering then whom Elena had
meant by “ the sleek and smiling woman.” The
description was not inapt as applied to Mary
Grey.
“What passions do you think actuate Elena ? "
he asked, curious to see what she would answer.
Mary Grey's expression became enigmatic.
“I really shouldn't care to say — just yet; but
when she showed me to the door, I thought it
prudent to go. You know,” with a twinkle in her
eye, “what they say about a live coward, Mr.
Clavering.”
Yes, he knew, and he half-suspected that she was
poking fun at him in her soft, sly way.
“How did you know about this Mavis Travers
and where she lived? ” he asked in a hostile tone.
Mary Grey looked at him ingenuously.
“ Lord Portstead's will was such an interesting
document, really illuminating — Lady Pevensy
told me all about it, and I had an irresistible de-
sire to see the principal beneficiary.”
Mr. Clavering viewed her with the old distrust.


166 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
is not so formidable nor so uncommunicative," he
could not refrain from remarking.
Mary Grey gave another soft little laugh in
which there was no trace of rancour.
“Mr. Clavering, you are positively delightful!
You are frankness itself, and I verily believe you
have twice the intuition of our friend, Burton.”
Mr. Clavering could not prevent a flush of grati-
fication, although he tried to appear indifferent.
“ Do you know of any vehicle we could engage
to carry us back to the Manor?” he asked, in
the blandest tone in which he had ever addressed
her.
They had come now to the inn, and the long walk
back to the Manor in the heat of the day seemed
to him a Herculean feat.
Mary Grey undertook to inquire for some means
of conveyance, and being a persuasive and per-
sistent young woman, induced the landlord to
harness his own horse and drive them to the Manor.
As soon as Lady Pevensy had opportunity she
asked Mr. Clavering what success he had had, and
upon learning how the child's nurse had received
him, was more than ever convinced of the correct-
ness of her suspicions.
Burton was still about the house, the inevitable
notebook in hand, now questioning the servants,
now bullying Robert. He was getting his final
report ready for the inquest on the morrow.
Lady Ursula stood in visible dread of the in-
quest and grew more apprehensive as the day ap-


CROSS PURPOSES
167
proached. There was still a curious aloofness in
her manner toward Meldrum, and yet Mr. Claver-
ing would often find her gazing at him with a yearn-
ing intensity. It was as though she were forcing
herself to crush her love and it would not be
crushed. Meldrum, obviously pained by her cold-
ness, no longer sought her society, but kept much
to himself, and it was to Robert that Lady Ursula
clung in these hours of suspense.
A change had come over Robert in the past two
days. He had not tasted liquor in that time and
there was less of the boy and more of the man
about him. His attitude toward his sister had
altered, too. Formerly it was she who had sus-
tained him; now he appeared the stronger, and
his manner toward her was both affectionate and
protective. It would seem that in acquiring his
brother's title he had acquired something, too, of
his dignity and strength.
“ Robert has in him the makings of a man,"
observed Lord Meldrum thoughtfully, as he and
Mr. Clavering stood out upon the terrace that
night, watching the moon rise. “He only needs
a chance, poor boy!”
Mr. Clavering was puffing nervously at his
cigar. “What do you think will be the outcome
of the inquest? "
“I think,” Meldrum answered with delibera-
tion, “ that there will be an indictment. Burton's
heart is set upon it. He intends to distinguish
himself in a prominent case like this."


168 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
Mr. Clavering flung away his cigar. He had
lost all appetite for it.
“ You mean that Robert will be indicted? ”
The moonlight shone softly on Meldrum's grave,
calm face.
“Not necessarily Robert. Haven't you your-
self said that there is pretty black evidence against
me?"
“I said so, but nothing will convince me that
you are guilty.”
Meldrum clasped his hand warmly. “Thank
you, old chap!”
Mr. Clavering looked away, ashamed of the sus-
picions he had once harboured.
“ Meldrum,” he said contritely, “ I confess that
at first I—I did have doubts, but they were un-
worthy of us both, knowing you as I do. Yet
I must say that your conduct is inexplicable in
many ways and to a stranger must appear sus-
picious. I believe that you either know or sus-
pect who the guilty person is and it is your duty
to yourself to denounce him, no matter who must
be the sufferer."
“ No matter who must be the sufferer," repeated
Meldrum slowly. “That conviction may be right-
eous, Clavering, but it is pitilessly hard."
“ Is it any harder than for you to place your
life in jeopardy for the sake of shielding some
unworthy person?” demanded Mr. Clavering in-
dignantly.
“Go slow, old fellow," said Meldrum affection-


CROSS PURPOSES
169
ately. “I am not of the stuff that martyrs are
made, and if I keep silent about certain matters
and tell bungling lies about others, it is not to
shield an unworthy person, but because I find it
the best and only thing, under the circumstances,
to do.”
Mr. Clavering began to feel provoked at his
Lordship's perversity.
“I am afraid such a plea would do more to con-
vince a jury of your guilt than of your innocence,"
he said testily.
“I am afraid it would myself," Meldrum
answered soberly, “especially when added to
Harry Brooks's testimony. He is determined to
prove me guilty of the theft of those papers at
least. The fact is, Clavering, my constituents
would have been hard pressed if those measures of
Portstead's had reached the House before we were
prepared to resist them. I certainly had provo-
cation enough to steal them.”
“ But you did not steal them,” asserted Mr.
Clavering.
Meldrum stared out over the moonlit gardens.
“Somebody did, old chap, and I am the only one
here who could have had any possible interest in
doing so. Brooks's reasoning is sound.”


CHAPTER XIX
THRUST AND PARRY
The inquest was held in the hall of the school,
that building being the largest and only modern
one in Portstead village, and it was, of course,
crowded to its utmost capacity by curious vil-
lagers and sensation-seeking strangers from the
city and the neighbouring hamlets. It was, in-
deed, an incongruous assemblage, where men and
women of fashion and title - avid to behold, as
a break in the boredom of their lives, the harrow-
ing spectacle of those of their own class, bearers
of an ancient name, pilloried before the mob —
jostled elbows and pushed and fought for seats
with gaping yokels and the usual morbid throng
of idlers who follow up every inquest that bids
fair to be sensational.
The case had aroused widespread interest ow-
ing to the prominence of the murdered man and
the publicity given it by the newspapers, which
latterly had been hinting broadly of the probable
implication in the murder of a certain member of
the deceased Earl's family. While Robert's name
had not been definitely mentioned, it had been so
glaringly suggested that the public had already
mentally tried and condemned him.
170


THRUST AND PARRY
171
Robert, upon entering the hall, seemed to be-
come aware of this hostile attitude toward him,
for he at once assumed his old reckless air of
defiance, which brought upon him the coroner's
frown and the greater prejudice of the spectators.
He flung himself down with studied nonchalance
between his sister and Elsie Baring, and proceeded
to stare out of countenance any curious person
who looked his way.
Lady. Ursula realised the bad impression he was
creating, and sought in vain to make him lower
his coolly insolent gaze. But although in driving
over to the village he had shown her the greatest
consideration, he was now doggedly intractable.
Elsie Baring plucked once or twice warningly at
his sleeve, but desisted when she saw that it only
made him angry.
Lady Ursula had guarded against the stares of
the curious by enveloping her face in a thick,
black veil which successfully concealed her fea-
tures. The apprehensiveness which she had
evinced in the hours before the inquest was no
longer apparent. She had evidently steeled her-
self to composure and sat with a quiet dignity,
exquisitely dressed as always, her black-gloved
hands lightly folded in her lap. She paid no
heed to the ostentatious, half-patronising bows of
acquaintances. Perhaps she did not see them
through the meshes of her veil.
Lady Pevensy sat upon her left in extravagant
mourning — she always went into black upon the


172 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
slightest provocation, believing that it gave her
a distinguished appearance — and indeed Mr.
Clavering, in spite of the solemnity of the occa-
sion, could not prevent his thoughts from dwell-
ing upon how handsome and well-preserved a
woman she was.
He sat across the aisle from her together with
Lord Meldrum. It seemed to him that Meldrum
looked years older than he had done yesterday.
It was as though something of the oppressiveness
and sordidness of the courtroom had descended
upon him, crushing the boyishness and the exu-
berance of spirits which he had hitherto kept alive
in spite of conventional training and the responsi-
bilities of manhood. The bronzed pink of his
complexion had given way to pallor, his eyes were
shadowed, their bright blue darkened, and his
clean-shaven mouth wore a severe, determined ex-
pression. But his bearing was perfectly calm,
perfectly correct, as conventionality required, and
he was apparently unconscious of the glances of
mingled curiosity and admiration bent upon him.
Harry Brooks was seated directly behind Lady
Ursula, and his nearness to this exquisite woman
of the world served only to emphasise his own
commonplaceness. Once he ventured to lean for-
ward and whisper to her — a proceeding which
seemed to annoy her extremely and elicited from
her a very curt reply. The secretary sank back
abashed, but with an angry gleam in his eyes,


174 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
was asking a question the significance of which ap-
palled him.
“ You have stated, Doctor," he observed, “ that
the shot was probably fired from a distance of
several feet and that the body was found lying
midway between the garden door and the circular
staircase. Now in your opinion could the shot
have been fired by a person standing either by the
stairs or by the garden door?”
The physician considered before he answered,
“In my opinion, Mr. Coroner, it could have been,
and probably was, fired by a person standing either
by the stairs or by the garden doorway.”
At this Robert Sylvester, with white face, sud-
denly sprang up as if to refute the statement,
then set his lips and as suddenly sat down again.
His action created a stir of commotion through
the hall and the usher called for order.
The report of the coroner's physician came
next and was mainly corroborative of the preced-
ing testimony. The post-mortem examination
showed that the bullet had entered the chest in
the third left intercostal space and had taken an
oblique course backward, piercing the heart and
lodging in the muscles to the left of the spinal col-
umn. He reiterated the improbability of the
wound being self-inflicted, and in response to the
coroner's question stated, as his colleague had
done, that the shot might have been fired from
the circular stairs or from the garden door-
way.


176
THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
With a quiet “thank you ” she accepted the
chair offered her, after having kissed the Bible
and taken the oath. Mr. Clavering expected that
her glance would fall on Robert, whose agitation
was so great as again to draw the attention of the
coroner upon him, but instead her gaze sought Mel-
drum's and held it steadily, until the coroner, after
a few preliminary questions, startled her from her
studied calm by asking when she had last seen
the deceased Earl alive.
“At dinner Tuesday night,” she faltered, now
flashing a peculiar glance at Robert.
“ And not later? ” questioned the coroner.
“ No.”
“ Your Ladyship is sure?”
Lady Ursula raised her head with a haughty
gesture. “I have answered you, sir.”
The coroner received the rebuke with darkening
face, and his voice was hard as he put the next
question.
“What were your relations with your deceased
brother? Were you on affectionate terms ? "
There was a slight, barely perceptible curl of
Lady Ursula's lip.
“My brother, the late Earl of Portstead, was
not a man to be on affectionate terms with
any one. His was a cold and restrained na-
ture.”
The coroner tried once more. “Well, then,
were you on friendly terms ? "
Lady Ursula fenced again. “He was my


178 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
Lady Ursula compressed her lips and awaited
in disdainful silence the next question, which
amazed others as well as herself.
“ What were the relations between your de-
ceased brother and Lord Meldrum? »
The colour mounted now in Meldrum's cheeks,
but Lady Ursula went white.
“They held differing political opinions, as I
presume you know,” she answered, with lip which
would quiver.
“Had they any personal quarrel?” persisted
the coroner.
Lady Ursula struggled to recover her poise.
She looked again upon Meldrum’s fine face and
said, with a proud ring in her voice which she did
not seek to still, “ Lord Meldrum is not a man to
indulge in petty personal disagreements or quar-
rels; and my deceased brother, as I have stated,
was of a cold and restrained nature.”
But the coroner was not satisfied. “I am told
that Lord Meldrum had a late interview in the
library Tuesday night with the deceased Earl.
Was it an amicable one?”
Harry Brooks bent forward at this and fixed his
burning eyes on Lady Ursula. Mr. Clavering for
the second time had a strong desire to thrash the
little secretary. He knew at whose suggestion
this question had been put.
Lady Ursula studied the coroner's face as though
to read his purpose in this last question; then she


180 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
The coroner's manner grew openly aggressive.
“ Your Ladyship heard the shot with “horrible
distinctness' even with the door closed,” he said
harshly, “ and yet you have just stated that under
the same circumstances you would not have been
able to hear the sounds of a quarrel.”
Lady Ursula bit her lip. “I have said," she
responded with hauteur, “ that neither Lord Mel-
drum nor my deceased brother would have been
likely to indulge in vulgar quarrelling. In any
case, I think you will admit that a pistol shot has
remarkable carrying qualities.”
The coroner conceded this, but he was deter-
mined to press her beyond retreat. “I am to
understand then that your Ladyship heard no
sounds from the library — no sound of voices
raised in dispute — until the shot?”
“I have given you to understand that, sir.”
At this juncture Burton, whom Mr. Clavering
had not observed before, hastily stepped forward
and passed a card to the coroner. He read it
slowly, and turning again to Lady Ursula, asked:
“ You did not, then, hear your younger brother,
Robert Sylvester, when he returned from the
Country Club, entering the Manor by the garden
door into the library where the deceased Earl was
waiting up?"
Mr. Clavering heard a gasp from Elsie Baring
and saw a bitter smile cross Robert's face. Lady
Ursula started up from her chair, her eyes flash-
ing like those of a baited animal at bay. The in-


THRUST AND PARRY
181
sistent official had at last succeeded in breaking
completely through her defences. She had not
even the barrier of hauteur left.
“Who says that my brother returned?" she
demanded desperately.
“No matter who says so, my Lady. Did he
return?”
“ No! no!” she cried vehemently.
It was easy to see that not a soul in the hall
believed her. The coroner felt that he could afford
not to urge the point.
“We will go back a little, my Lady,” he said,
striving to speak in a calm, official tone. “When
you heard the pistol shot, what did you do?”
“I-I obeyed impulse and rushed down the
stairs."
“ The circular stairs? " suggested the coroner
gently.
“ Yes — that is, no," hastily correcting herself.
“I went down the great staircase — the main
staircase.” .
Mr. Clavering had the same sensation of doubt
and misgiving that he had experienced when she
had previously stated that she had gone down the
great staircase.
There was almost compassion in the coroner's
eyes as he asked, “Is it not rather strange that
with the circular stairs directly opposite your
door you should not descend them, but instead
should traverse the entire west wing and go down
by the main stairs? "


CHAPTER XX
UNDER FIRE
The coroner sternly motioned Robert to his
seat.
“ Your testimony will come later, Lord Port-
stead. The Honourable Archibald Clavering is
the next witness.”
Upon Robert's angry insistence that he be al-
lowed to testify then and there, Lord Meldrum
stepped forward and, taking him by the arm, forci-
bly drew him back. Meldrum then with tender
concern assisted Lady Ursula from the stand. It
was all done so naturally and so unobtrusively
that the coroner gave him a glance of appreciation..
When Mr. Clavering took the stand, he found
himself in the most uncomfortable position he had
ever before been placed in. There was but one
idea clear in his head and that was his determina-
tion to shield Meldrum at any cost, though he had
little confidence in his ability to do so, especially
when the coroner proceeded to trip him up in his
simplest statements and so contort them that he
hardly knew what he had said. He judged from
the furious glances that Robert directed at him
that he was making a bad matter worse.
Swiftly the coroner turned the questioning into
183


184 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
the channel he dreaded, and he looked in despair
at Meldrum, as admission after admission was
wrung from him. The coroner was bent upon
proving that a violent quarrel had taken place in
the library between Meldrum and the late Earl,
with Lady Ursula as the cause, and Mr. Claver-
ing realised that in spite of his best efforts his
testimony was only serving to implicate his friend.
Burton apparently did not like the trend of af-
fairs and he passed another card to the coroner.
That official read it with a shade of annoyance
and the inquiry was brought around again to
Robert.
In response to a direct question, Mr. Clavering
reluctantly confessed that he had met the claims
of Robert's most insistent creditors and so saved
him from arrest.
“At the present Lord Portstead's request ? ”
asked the coroner.
“No," said Mr. Clavering in his stiffest manner.
“ At whose request, then ? "
Mr. Clavering looked regretfully at Lady
Ursula. His innate chivalry revolted at the ne-
cessity of again introducing her name.
“At his sister's request,” he finally admitted,
when pressed.
Here Burton was ready with another card.
The coroner, angered at his officiousness, bade
him remember who was in charge of the inquest,
but nevertheless he asked the question upon the
card.


UNDER FIRE
185
“ Has the present Lord Portstead, in your pres-
ence, or to your knowledge, ever uttered threats
or shown feelings of vindictiveness toward his de-
Oceased brotheing was dism. His mind te night when
Mr. Clavering was dismayed at the question and
at a loss how to reply. His mind reviewed with
painful clarity that dinner on Tuesday night when
Robert had openly insulted his brother. Both
words and manner had conveyed a threat.
“We are waiting, Mr. Clavering,” the coroner
· reminded him.
He contrived to pull himself together. Some-
thing had to be said. “ The present Lord Port-
stead is of a - ah — impetuous nature," he
evaded. “He may in a moment of — impatience
have been a little — ah — unguarded — in his
speech.”
:
“ In short then you have heard him use violent
speech of his brother — even to him ? "
Mr. Clavering, alarmed at the pitfall he was
rushing into, made a desperate attempt to retreat.
“I am unwilling to state that his language was
actually violent. I should term it — ah — impet-
uous, such as any man in a moment of irritation
might use."
“ You mean to imply then that the present Lord
Portstead is of a highly impetuous, but not vin-
dictive, nature?”
“ Just that, just that,” Mr. Clavering assented,
with hasty relief.
For some reason the coroner was content to


186 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
:
let this analysis of Robert's character stand. Mr.
Clavering later saw why.
“ Have you,” inquired the coroner slowly,“ ever
heard any other person use violent, or shall we
call it 'impetuous,' language to, or in regard to,
the deceased ? ”
This question put Mr. Clavering in great puzzle-
ment. What was the coroner leading up to?
“ I cannot recollect that I have," he finally said.
The coroner's next question revealed his pur-
pose. He was bringing the inquiry back to the
starting-point.
“ You have stated that Lord Meldrum has been
actively the deceased Earl's political opponent
for a space of six years. In that time has he,
in your presence, or to your knowledge, uttered
threats or shown vindictiveness toward the de-
ceased ? "
There was a tense silence in the hall. All felt
that this question, so abruptly leading the inquiry
back to its starting-point, and that starting-point
Lord Meldrum, was more or less in the nature of
an accusation. Yet not a muscle in Meldrum's
face or body moved as every eye turned toward
him. He continued to gaze steadily and calmly
at the coroner.
But Mr. Clavering trembled with indignation
and fear for his friend.
“I have known Lord Meldrum since he was a
boy,” he replied with heat, “ and there is not a
trace of vindictiveness in his nature.”


188 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
Baring slipped her hand into hers. Robert's at-
titude was puzzling - a mixture of defiance, sul-
lenness, and fear — in no way calculated to win
him sympathy.
The coroner wasted little time in preamble, but
abruptly asked Robert if it were true that he had
returned to the Manor Tuesday after midnight.
“ Yes," admitted Robert, with a scowl at Bur-
ton.
Lady Ursula caught her breath sharply and
cast an appealing glance at Robert, but he persist-
ently looked away from her.
“What was the hour of your Lordship's re-
turn? ” pursued the coroner.
“I didn't consult my watch,” growled Robert.
“ It might have been a little before two ? "
“ You know as well as I do that it was," as-
serted Robert surlily.
The coroner plainly resented his manner, and
his voice was harsh and peremptory as he asked,
“ Why should you return at that hour? Had you
not been practically ordered out of the house by
your brother?”
“ It was not the first time he had ordered me
out,” said Robert bitterly. “I came back because
I needed money."
“How did you enter the Manor?”
“ By the garden door into the library; it was
open.”
“ Who was in the library?”
“My brother."


190 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
The coroner consulted his notes. “Where were
you, my Lord, when the pistol shot occurred?"
“ In — in the gardens," he said thickly.
“Not in the library?” suggested the coroner.
Robert flung up his head with a defiant gesture.
“What's the use of my denying it? Nobody will
believe me.”
Lady Ursula rose as though in protest, but at a
warning look from Robert she sat down again, her
slender hands clenched together.
The coroner opened a narrow box on the table
in front of him and drew out a silver-mounted
pistol.
“ Is this your pistol?” he asked curtly.
Robert's mouth quivered; the sweat-drops stood
out on his brow.
“ It is my pistol.” His voice was hardly louder
than a hoarse whisper.
“ Very well. That will do,” said the coroner
quietly.
The next witness was a young man who proved
to be a clerk from a well-known London ammuni-
tion store.
Robert walked unsteadily to his seat beside his
sister, and remained with face hidden in his hands
during the whole of the young clerk's testimony,
which consisted in proving that the bullet found
in the deceased Earl's body had been discharged
from a pistol of the size and make of Robert's.
The cylinder with its one empty chamber was then
shown to the jury.


UNDER FIRE
191
Elsie Baring slightly and involuntarily recoiled
from Robert, but Lady Ursula slipped her hand
within his arm, flashing a peculiarly bitter glance
at Lord Meldrum. He responded by one that was
reassuring and yet sad.
Mr. Clavering felt decidedly nervous when he
heard Mary Grey's name called next, but his fears
became allayed as he found that she confined her-
self to the briefest and most evasive answers, and
made no mention whatever of the particles of mud
on the library floor, her excursion into the woods,
nor even her acquaintance with Mavis Travers.
He was both relieved and surprised that she should
conceal these facts — he, too, had somehow suc-
ceeded in doing so; indeed she glossed over in every
way the evidence against both Robert and Mel-
drum, to the very visible indignation of Burton,
who had been besieging the coroner with cards
from the moment she stepped upon the stand,
flashing an elusive smile in his direction.
She corroborated Mr. Clavering's by no means
coherent story of the recovery of Lady Pevensy's
necklace, the theft of which evidently appeared to
the coroner the starting-point of the mystery and
crime which overhung the Manor Viewed in any
aspect, the return of the necklace was unaccount-
able. Mary Grey said she should not presume to
account for it, but stamped as absurd Burton's
elaborate theory, revealed by the questions in-
stigated by him, that Robert was the thief and that
he had lain concealed in the north wing from di-


192 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
rectly after the murder until a day or so later,
and that then, owing to pressure brought to bear
upon him or difficulty in disposing of the necklace,
had been induced to return it.
“ Mr. Burton's theories are ingenious and so
interesting,” she said sweetly, “but”— with an
expressive elevation of her eyebrows —“ quite im-
possible.”
This brought upon her a savage frown from
Burton and a stern reproof from the coroner, who
informed her that she was there to state facts and
not to ridicule the logical theories of an experienced
and official detective. She acknowledged her
error with a maddening little smile, and then coolly
went on to explode others of Burton's obviously
apparent theories, without, however, advancing
any of her own.
The coroner in despair finally dismissed her.
Not a single new fact had he succeeded in eliciting.
Then was called the witness whose testimony Mr.
Clavering dreaded above all else — the secretary,
Harry Brooks.
Mr. Clavering's fears had not been in vain this
time. With little or no attempt to conceal his
hatred of Lord Meldrum, Brooks dwelt in detail
upon every incriminating fact against him: the de-
ceased Earl's well-known objection to his atten-
tions to Lady Ursula ; the resultant coolness be-
tween the two men, bordering upon open hostility
on the day of the murder; the late interview in
the library; and Meldrum's presence in the gar-


UNDER FIRE
195
:
interview in the library had had to do with these
papers.
Meldrum replied that it had not.
“ With what, then, did it have to do?”
“ With matters of a private nature,” Meldrum
answered, with evenness, but none the less with
finality.
The coroner recognised the uselessness of at-
tempting to press the point. He knew enough of
men to realise that under Meldrum's correct civil-
ity lay a substratum of indomitable reserve that
no amount of cross-examining could break
through. He leaned back in his chair a moment
and made a rapid analysis of his uncompromising
adversary, for as adversaries he had come to re-
gard those who stood before him in the witness-
box. He saw, as others saw, the typical man of
the English upper classes — correct in bearing;
faultless in appearance; his face high-bred and
impassive; the hair, of that fairness of tint which
shows gold in the high lights, neatly-groomed; the
clothes perfectly-tailored; and the hands, though
large, and slightly bronzed from the open-air life
Meldrum loved, shapely and carefully tended.
But the coroner saw more than this. He saw in
the severity of the eyes, the rigidity of the mouth,
a baffling, an inscrutable purpose that he knew
would never falter. He had an irresistible desire
to fathom this purpose, the more because he was
dimly certain that he would not be able to do
so.


196 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
Having measured his opponent, he returned
again to the attack. “Was your interview with
the deceased Earl of an amicable character?”
“ Of an indifferent character,” replied Meldrum
with unruffled placidity.
“ You parted on friendly terms? "
“ We parted with civility.”
There was again a pause. The coroner closed
his eyes and stroked his chin. He felt the steel
reserve in Meldrum's polite tone. He tried now
a deeper thrust, permitting his voice to appear
harsh and his manner increasingly authoritative.
“Do you assert that you went directly into the
gardens after the interview?”
“I do not assert it,” said Meldrum, to every-
body's amazement.
“ What do you mean by that ? ” demanded the
coroner sharply.
That baffling rigidity tightened about Meldrum's
mouth.
“ Simply that I do not assert it,” he responded
with unalterable calm.
The coroner leaned back in his chair in irritated
perplexity. After a moment he sat forward quite
fiercely and began again his attack upon that steel
composure. He thrust obliquely this time.
“How long after the interview was it before you
went into the gardens?”.
Lord Meldrum did not attempt to evade the
thrust. “I prefer not to state,” he said, straight-
forwardly and without emotion.


CHAPTER XXI
MARY GREY SURPRISES MR. CLAVERING
The coroner's jury brought in the verdict that
Mr. Clavering had feared, and Lord Meldrum was
held for trial. Robert was utterly astounded at
the turn affairs had taken and showed more indig-
nation over Meldrum's detention than relief at his
own unexpected escape.
Lady Ursula had been carried from the hall
before the verdict was returned and it devolved
upon Mr. Clavering to inform her of it, Lady
Pevensy having declared that her nerves were un-
equal to the strain, and Elsie Baring, in her joy
at Robert's acquittal, taking no thought of any
one else. It seemed to Mr. Clavering that most
unpleasant things fell to his lot.
Lady Ursula received the news of the indict-
ment in exactly the way he had dreaded, and when
she learned that Meldrum was already being taken
to the jail in Westhaven, the nearest town to Port-
stead, her grief became frenzied and uncontrol-
lable. It was only by promising to visit Meldrum
that night and assure him of her love — but not
faith, Mr. Clavering was pained to note — that
he succeeded in getting her into the carriage.
199


200 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
Robert showed scant sympathy with his sister's
grief, did not even ride in the carriage with her,
but returned to the Manor on foot and alone.
Mr. Clavering was puzzled and considerably ex-
asperated by his conduct. The boy was a mys-
tery, and he certainly possessed the faculty of
alienating what few friends he had.
Mr. Clavering was driven to Westhaven that
evening, and after a good deal of difficulty gained
admission to the miserable building that did duty
as a jail. His distress was so great at finding
Meldrum in a wretched little unplastered room,
which contained but a single barred window, that
the prisoner had to turn consoler and try to make
him believe that he had never been in more com-
fortable quarters.
“You shall not pass many more nights in this
unspeakable place,” said Mr. Clavering, actually
with tears in his eyes. “I am going to clear you
in spite of yourself.”
“Dear old chap,” responded Meldrum grate-
fully, “ don't take it so to heart.”
“I intend,” persisted Mr. Clavering, “ to un-
mask the murderer who is hiding behind your mis-
placed generosity."
The severity came again into Meldrum's eyes
and his mouth tightened.
« Clavering, I want you to let this matter rest.
I have practically admitted my guilt, and that
must be an end of speculation.”
“I am going to clear you," reiterated Mr.


MARY SURPRISES CLAVERING 201
Clavering stubbornly, “and I shall not depend
on speculation.”
Meldrum gave an exasperated smile. “You
always were confoundedly obstinate, old man, but
don't, if you want to win my appreciation, mix
yourself up any further in this case. It's a bad
one. I am perfectly comfortable here, I haven't
a complaint against a soul, and now that you have
brought me Ursula's message, I am happy — very
happy. Old chap," he begged earnestly, “ stand
by her; don't let the detectives worry her. Robert
means well, but he's only a boy, and weak.”
“I will stand by her,” Mr. Clavering promised,
“and I shall stand by you, too, Meldrum.”
Meldrum gave his hand a strong, hearty grip.
“ Dear old fellow, you are the best friend —
and the most troublesome — that ever a man had.”
Mr. Clavering rođe soberly back to the Manor,
where he passed an unpleasant and wakeful night.
He could not get Meldrum in his miserable cell out
of his thoughts, and toward midnight he heard
vague sounds of stirring through the house. In
the light of what had happened on former nights
he thought it advisable to get up and investigate,
but by the time he had donned dressing-gown and
slippers and stepped into the corridor, there was
perfect silence over the old house. Deciding that
his nerves had played him false, he returned to
bed. Since the discovery of the secret passage he
had had a heavy oak wardrobe pushed in front of
the entrance, so he had no fear of intruders.


202 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
i
He slept fitfully until a little before dawn when
he was roused by further sounds of stirring -
as vague and indefinite in location as the previous.
Feeling sleepier then than he had felt all night,
he found it easy to persuade himself that it was the
servants rising early, and turning over, continued
his sleep until the sun awoke him with its bright-
ness.
As was his custom, he went down into the gar-
dens for a short stroll before breakfast. His old
acquaintance, the head-gardener, paused in his
weeding as he approached.
“Great excitement in the village last night, sir.”
“ Excitement!” echoed Mr. Clavering with in-
terest. “What happened, David? ”
“ Didn't you 'ear the pistol shots, sir? But, no,
I s'pose you wouldn't, bein' up 'ere so far away.”
“ Pistol shots !” Mr. Clavering was quite agi-
tated. “Was it a — another murder?”
David rose stiffly and painfully from his knees.
“ That’s ’ard to tell, sir. Nobody left to say.”
“ You mean everybody concerned is dead?”
gasped Mr. Clavering.
“Don't rightly know, sir," said David laconic-
ally. “Everybody is gone some 'ow; cottage be
hempty — Eh, now I think, sir, I b’lieve 'tis the
very one you was haskin' about. They calls it
Wild Rose Villa.”
Mr. Clavering waited to hear no more, but set
out for the village with speed and resolution. It
was not until he reached the lodge and saw through


MARY SURPRISES CLAVERING 203
the open lattice the table spread with snowy cloth
and tempting dishes that he remembered his for-
gotten breakfast. He almost yielded and turned
back, but finally conquered the inner man and
walked briskly down the hill without daring a
backward glance.
Along a branch of the road — a grassy lane gay
with bright hedge-flowers — he heard the soft,
quick thud of a horse's hoofs, and presently a fa-
miliar chestnut mare and high, yellow-wheeled dog-
cart swung into view. But instead of a pompous
coachman in the Portstead livery, Lady Ursula
was driving, and she was alone, without even a
groom to attend her.
Mr. Clavering waited until the mare came up to
him, and he fancied that Lady Ursula was some-
what disconcerted at seeing him. In any case,
her greeting was not over cordial. It seemed to
him that she looked more worn and weary than she
had the day before; there was about her a certain
tense anxiety, a restless nerve-energy; but it was
not to be wondered at, she must have passed a
sleepless night thinking of Meldrum awaiting trial
in Westhaven jail.
“You are abroad early, Lady Ursula,” Mr.
Clavering remarked, trying to say something that
should be impersonal and natural; but he felt stiff
and ill at ease under her questioning, half-irritated
gaze.
Somehow this remark displeased her. He could
feel that her irritation was growing.


204 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
“ The morning air,” she said vaguely, and the
hand that held the whip tightened, “ there is noth-
ing like the morning air for a drive. But come,
get in and I will take you back to the Manor. It
must be breakfast time.”
He thanked her, but declined her invitation,
saying that he was on his way to the village to
investigate David's story of a disturbance there
that night.
Lady Ursula's eyes held a curious light and she
snapped at the air with her whip, which caused the
mare to curvet. She pulled her down sharply.
“ David is getting in his dotage; if there had
been any serious disturbance we should have been
informed of it. You had best let me drive you
back. You will miss breakfast.”
Upon his declining a second time she gave the
mare a smart cut of the whip, and she flew up to
the lodge gates with a dash and a vim worthy a
certain little Shetland pony.
Mr. Clavering stood staring helplessly after
them. For the life of him he had never had the
courage to mention the name of Mavis Travers
to Lady Ursula, although he could have had no
better opportunity to do so than now. She must
know that her brother's principal beneficiary was
living in the village, and she should know that the
disturbance was said to have taken place at her
cottage. Then why had he not told her, he angrily
asked himself.
Unable to find an answer, he hastened onward


MARY SURPRISES CLAVERING 205
again, pondering as he went why Lady Ursula,
who was a notoriously late riser, should take such
a very early drive, and without coachman or groom.
Could she have been to Westhaven in the hope of
seeing Meldrum? It was hardly likely as she
must then have started before dawn in order to be
back by now. But, however it was, why had her
manner toward him been so curt and irritated?
Well, his stay at Portstead Manor had been on
the whole very unpleasant, and he thought with re-
gretful longing of his quiet, well-ordered chambers
in Mayfair. Were it not for his unfortunate —
he felt it now to be unfortunate — interest in things
criminal, he might at this moment be reclining in
gentlemanly ease in those decorously peaceful pre-
cincts instead of pushing onward, hot, dusty, leg-
weary and breakfastless, toward another scene of
violence. Puck's reflection upon mortals ap-
pealed to him then as being peculiarly apt.
But the drowsy little village, as he passed along
its main street, gave no hint of harrowing excite-
ment to be found there — quaint, placid, sweet-
scented as an old-world garden, it slumbered on in
the deep blue haze of the summer day. Yet when
he turned down the lane where Mavis Travers lived,
he saw there a quickening, an excitement, and Wild
Rose Villa was the scene of the awakening.
The little garden was thronged with a curious
crowd of country folk of both sexes and all ages,
from the white-capped old grandame to the apple-
cheeked toddler, and the roses rioting there were


206
THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
being ruthlessly trampled under foot. At the
flower-curtained window was now no elfish child
face, framed in a flying mass of red hair, no for-
midable Elena in the porched doorway, but in their
places round-eyed, excited rustics, all talking at
once. In the tiny entry-hall Mr. Clavering beheld
a very fat, self-important village magistrate taking
copious notes. Mr. Clavering, striving to hide his
own agitation under a mask of impressive dignity,
made his way toward this functionary through a
group of smock-frocked haymakers, who fell away
in admiring wonder before this elegant gentleman
with the silk hat and silver-topped cane.
But before he could address the note-taking per-
sonage a slim, girlish figure detached itself from a
circle of substantial-looking village women and
came toward him. He gave a gasp of astonish-
ment.
“I knew you would come, Mr. Clavering,"
smiled Mary Grey.
“May I ask,” he began, “how you hap-
pened —”
“ You may,” she interrupted, “but please
don't! You mustn't expect me to take the time
now to explain. I want you to come out upon
the porch. I have something to show you
there."
Motioning back the women who would have fol-
lowed, she led him out upon the porch and pointed
to the door, which swung wide. A little above mid-
way in the door were three round, blackened holes,


MARY SURPRISES CLAVERING 209
“ Suppose you trace them, then," Mary Grey
responded, with her provoking little smile. “I
am quite sure that they and the pony have parted
company by now, and nobody in the village can
account for their whereabouts, but perhaps you
could discover.”
“I think,” said Mr. Clavering, resenting her
manner, " that the man with the wounded leg
had better be traced first. If he is the man I
think he is, he is a desperate character.”
“What do you know about him? ” she asked
quickly.
Mr. Clavering felt that her circumspect testi-
mony at the inquest entitled her to a little of his
confidence, and, moreover, he believed that she, too,
had investigated the cottage in the woods, so he
told her of the man who had accosted Mavis and
Elena, but said nothing of Meldrum's connection
with him.
“Do you know who this man is ? ” she asked,
watching his face curiously.
“He calls himself Thompson," he answered,
“and he was Lady Ursula's butler for a few
days.”
He thought she seemed disappointed.
“ It happens he is being traced by the police,”
she said quietly. “He is wanted on more than
one charge.”
“Well, you have been in the woods," asserted
Mr. Clavering, “and you must know where this
man has been hiding. The constable should be


212 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
While breakfasting at the Portstead Arms, and
again while waiting at the railway station for the
London train, he drew out with a sense of elation
a sheet of foolscap on which were pasted some torn
scraps of paper. These bits of paper were por-
tions of a letter extracted by Mercedes Quero
from the wastebasket in Robert's chamber. They
formed a by no means complete letter, as many bits
were missing, in all probability having been swept
up from the floor by one of the maids and burned.
This letter, scrawled in an untutored hand, had
been torn into such small pieces that Mr. Claver-
ing, when they were first shown to him, had been
able to make nothing of them. Indeed, the sheet
of foolscap presented more or less the appearance
of a jig-saw puzzle. It read something like this
(the dashes showing the spaces between the pasted
bits of writing):
1 Ba -- et -- et
Th -- rough
wi-- t a shill --
eep -- prom -- come
ill spea -- ease
come ---
Ro
Mercedes Quero, in filling the gaps, said that
the first two lines must form the writer's address,
and was probably meant to read 1 Barnet or Bab-
bet Street, The Borough. In this way, calling on
her imagination and supplying letters and in some


THE MISSING LADY'S MAID
213
cases whole syllables, she had evolved the follow-
ing, a copy of which Mr. Clavering also carried
with him as a sort of cipher:
1 Ba(rn) et (Stre) et
The(e) (Bo)rough
wi(thou)t a shill(ing) ---
(k)eep -- prom (ise) --come--
(w)ill spea(k) ---
(pl)ease com(e)
Ro(se)
Rose, as Mr. Clavering remembered, was the
name of Lady Ursula's missing maid, and he
agreed with Mercedes Quero's theory that she
must have written to Robert, asking his aid and
threatening some disclosure.
Mercedes Quero said that the mystery overhang-
ing the Manor had reached such a point that she
did not think it advisable to leave the village for as
long a time as would be necessary in looking up
the missing lady's maid, and she suggested that
Mr. Clavering go in her stead.
“I have a pretty shrewd suspicion,” she ob-
served, “ of what the disclosure is that Rose
threatens, and I only want my theory verified ;
otherwise I should feel obliged to go myself.”
This remark had served to cool somewhat Mr.
Clavering's elation at being chosen the coadjutor
of Mercedes Quero, and he had responded, rather
humbly for him, that he would endeavour to ques-
tion the girl with all adroitness.


214 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
“ And don't be too gentle with her," the detec-
tive admonished. “ Women of this girl's stamp
often will tell the truth only when frightened into
it.”
Mr. Clavering had assured her that he would
leave no means untried to force the truth from the
girl, and said that while he rejoiced at this let-
ter, since it must be a factor in helping to prove
Lord Meldrum's innocence, he deeply regretted
that it must again bring suspicion upon Robert
Sylvester.
Mercedes Quero smilingly shook her head.
“I am not playing into Burton's hands, Mr.
Clavering: You don't read between the lines.”
“But it is perfectly plain that this girl is
threatening Robert with disclosure,” he asserted in
surprise.
A baffling expression came into Mercedes Quero's
brown eyes.
“ Are you sure it is Robert she is threatening?”
He stared at her astonished. “Great Heavens !
Who then? ”
She turned away with an impatient little shrug.
“ That is for you to find out.”
So it was that Mr. Clavering, with hope and fear
in his heart, boarded the London train. Would
Rose's testimony help to clear Lord Meldrum, or
would it only serve to implicate him further?
At Waterloo Station Mr. Clavering took a
hansom cab— he had a deep-rooted mistrust of
taxicabs — and was driven through the slums of


THE MISSING LADY'S MAID
215
Southwark, along by the narrow, muddy, and mal-
odorous Bankside. As he had always heretofore
kept carefully within the confines of West End
London, he felt himself lost in this wilderness of
obscure byways and mean houses, and had it not
been for the view across the river of the dome of
St. Paul's, he would not have believed himself in
London at all.
Barnet Street proved to be a squalid little alley
twisting off from the Bankside. At house number
one Mr. Clavering inquired in vain for the lady's
maid. No girl answering the description of Rose
Harris was known there. Mr. Clavering was in
despair until he remembered that Mercedes Quero
had suggested that the figure one might be only
the last part of the number. He tried then house
eleven with no better success and with a growing
horror of the unsavoury neighbourhood he found
himself in. He was some time making up his mind
to inquire at number twenty-one, for this had a
particularly foul and hangdog appearance, and the
lower floor front was occupied by a dingy tobac-
conist's shop.
Finally he conquered his fastidiousness, and en-
tering the shop, where the fumes of stale tobacco
smoke set him to coughing, he inquired for Rose
Harris of the frowsy woman behind the counter.
The woman eyed the immaculate gentleman dis-
trustfully.
“ What might ye 'want with Rose 'Arris?
Mind, I don't sy she's 'ere."


216 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
Mr. Clavering recalled the instructions Mercedes
Quero had given him for such a case as this.
“I know that Rose Harris is here,” he asserted
firmly. “She is expecting me.”
“Oh,” said the woman, her manner becoming
respectful, “ so you're the gentleman she's lookin'
for? ”
Fortunately she had turned toward the door at
the back of the little shop, otherwise Mr. Claver-
ing's expression of mingled amazement and tri-
umph would have betrayed him.
“ Ye wyte 'ere, sir," said the woman, as he pre-
pared to follow her. “I'll tell Rose ye've come.”
The woman was back in a few moments. Her
manner was now profusely obsequious.
“She sez if ye'll go right up, sir, up them stairs,
sir, second door from the 'ead.”
Mr. Clavering mounted the dirty stairs in a be-
wildered state of mind. What would Rose do when
she found her visitor was not Robert Sylvester?
While he stood deliberating at the top of the
stairs, the second door was opened suddenly and a
flaxen-haired girl in a pink silk wrapper ran out
into the hall.
“ O Mr. Thompson!” she began joyfully, and
then stopped short, dismay written on her pretty,
insipid features.
Mr. Clavering regained self-assurance in face of
the girl's confusion.
“I think you know who I am, Rose,” he said se-
verely.


THE MISSING LADY'S MAID
217
“Y—yes, sir,” looking all the time as though
she wanted to run away.
“I have something of a private nature to say to
you, Rose,” he went on, “ and this hall is hardly
the place ---"
“ There's my room, sir,” she faltered.
A very wretched little room Mr. Clavering found
it, bare and untidy. Rose swiftly and surrep-
titiously removed some clothing from the single
chair before Mr. Clavering could sit down. She
herself sat upon the carelessly-made bed, swinging
her little pink-slippered feet and trying not to look
frightened.
“ Why did you run away, Rose? ” was Mr. Cla-
vering's opening question.
The girl paled and then flushed.
“ I've left service for good, sir," with a toss of
her pretty head.
“ You have been given other employment?” he
asked coldly.
Rose bestowed an admiring glance upon the sil-
ver buckles adorning her slippers.
“I didn't want employment, sir,” she replied
with a very disdainful air.
“Rose,” he said sternly, “ you must tell me the
truth about the theft of Lady Pevensy's neck-
lace.”
The girl went white again. “Why do you ask
me, sir?" she whimpered. “I wasn't her maid.”
“ But you stole the necklace,” he asserted, obedi-
ent to the instructions given him by Mercedes


218 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
Quero. She had bidden him waste no time in pre-
liminaries, but come straight to the point by di-
rectly taxing the girl with the theft.
Rose shivered at the directness of the attack and
sat a moment silent. Then she flung up her head
defiantly.
“I 'aven't got the necklace, sir. You can
search every one of my belongings.”
“I am perfectly well aware that the necklace is
not in your possession now," he answered, “but
what I want to know — what the police want to
know”- Rose shivered again -“ is the name of
the man to whom you gave the necklace.”
This, too, was at the instance of Mercedes
Quero, who had briefly outlined the questions she
wished put to Rose.
The girl locked her little hands together. She
recognised that denial of her share in the theft
was useless. She took refuge again in defiance.
“I won't tell ! ” she declared.
“ You do not need to," retorted Mr. Clavering.
“ The man to whom you gave the necklace, is the
man whom you expected would visit you to-day —
Thompson, Lady Ursula's former butler."
Rose quivered, but she stubbornly pursed her
pretty, pouting lips.
“ I shan't never say it was!”
“What is this man to you that you should steal
for him?" demanded Mr. Clavering, resisting a
desire to shake the little minx.
A gleam of exultation shone in Rose's china-blue


THE MISSING LADY'S MAID
219
eyes. “He is going to be my husband !” she an-
nounced, with an uptilt of her rounded chin.
“Nonsense,” said Mr. Clavering sharply.
“ The man has been deceiving you.”
“ He hasn't; he daren't!” But the girl was all
a-tremble.
. “If he meant to marry you, he would not leave
you here in this miserable place without a shilling."
“ He will come soon,” she persisted, but the lines
of her face grew pinched. “He gave me his word
- his word as a gentleman. He's not really a
butler; he's a gentleman, just like you, sir," she
added, with another flash of pride.
“He is a thief and a probable murderer,”
objected Mr. Clavering with asperity, not in the
least relishing this comparison of himself with
Thompson.
“He didn't have nothing to do with the mur-
der!” she flamed. “It was Lord Meldrum; the
papers say so."
“ The papers will soon tell another story,” said
Mr. Clavering indignantly.
“But he didn't do it, sir,” she protested shrilly.
“ If it wasn't Lord Meldrum, it — it must have
been-” she broke off with quivering lip, as though
a sudden suspicion had come to her.
“ It must have been whom?” demanded Mr.
Clavering testily.
Tears were very near the girl's eyes, but Mr.
Clavering refused to be moved and sternly repeated
his question.


CHAPTER XXIII
MERCEDES QUERO TO THE FORE
“ Ask Lady Ursula !”
That was all Mr. Clavering could anger or
frighten Rose into saying, nor would she account
in any way for the return of the necklace. In fact,
her surprise at learning that it had been returned
appeared so genuine that he was forced to believe
that she really knew nothing about it from the mo-
ment it had passed into Thompson's hands.
She did, however, give a rather lame, but appar-
ently truthful, explanation of how she had come
to write to Robert Sylvester for aid. He was
always “ a kind-spoken young gentleman,” she
said, and had sometimes taken notice of her. She
was absolutely penniless and friendless in London ;
Thompson had not sent her his address as he had
promised to do, so she could not apply to him; and,
owing to the circumstances under which she had
left the Manor, she dared not try for another po-
sition as lady's maid.
In her difficulty Robert Sylvester had suddenly
occurred to her as a possible source of assistance.
It seems she had once approached him on the sub-
ject of getting her a place in the chorus of some
221


222 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
musical piece — knowing that he had a wide ac-
quaintance among the London music-halls and
variety theatres. He had promised to look her
up a place and then had promptly forgotten all
about it. Rose, remembering his offer, had sought
out his London lodgings, and not finding him
there, had written to him at the Manor.
Nothing more than this could Mr. Clavering
wring from the girl. But the fact that she was
possessed of intense bitterness toward Lady Ursula
for some cause at which she would only vaguely
hint, and in which Thompson seemed to be unac-
countably concerned, was very evident. It was
clear, too, that her trust in Thompson was shat-
tered, and that the disclosure which she had threat-
ened in her letter to Robert referred to him and
would not be long delayed if he did not speedily
fulfil his promise to her.
Mr. Clavering finally left the girl, still in an ex-
cited and bitter mood, and re-entering the waiting
hansom, was driven at once to Waterloo Station.
There he ate a leisurely lunch, as there was no
train to Portstead for a couple of hours.
Upon his arrival at the Manor he was unable to
find Mercedes Quero. He wished to consult with
her before questioning Lady Ursula — a proceed-
ing from which he shrank — so he wandered
through the gardens and park in search of her.
He came at length to the pastures where the Manor
horses were grazing. From the group of thor-


MERCEDES QUERO TO THE FORE 223
oughbreds, outlined against the wide background
of cool green meadow, frisked a pony, tossing his
long white mane, kicking his little hoofs in the air,
rearing on his haunches, and chortling in sheer
mad glee.
Mr. Clavering almost cried out in his astonish-
ment. He knew that piebald, shaggy little Shet-
land pony. In answer to his call of “ Tony!” the
mettlesome little creature bounded up to the fence,
and stood a moment regarding him, with restless
eyes glancing fire. But when Mr. Clavering put
forth a cautious hand to stroke the velvety pink
nose, the pony was off again in frolicsome, mad
flight.
As Mercedes Quero did not return to the Manor
that afternoon or evening, Mr. Clavering was
forced to keep this discovery to himself. He was
very curious to know where the detective had gone,
and her unexplained absence caused him to feel
that she was on the verge of making a disclosure,
and he dreaded it without knowing exactly why.
He could not bring himself to question Lady
Ursula in regard to Thompson, and he saw that
she was as nervous over the detective's absence —
her identity was now known to all — as he was
himself. She seemed to be expecting some message
and to be unable even to attempt composure. Of
Meldrum she spoke several times, feelingly, and
with a certain pride. Indignation over his deten-
tion she showed none. Her attitude toward him


224 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
made Mr. Clavering more apprehensive. If she
could believe Meldrum guilty, it would be hard
indeed to convince others of his innocence.
He would have given much to be able to read this
woman's heart and find out what she really be-
lieved and what she knew about her brother's mur-
der. As it was, he could only wait until Mercedes
Quero should return.
Robert had spent the day in Westhaven inter-
viewing magistrates and lawyers in Meldrum's be-
half, and though he had met with utter failure in
his attempt to release him, it was his intention to
try again the next day. Robert was very bitter
against the whole legal profession and his warm
advocacy of Meldrum raised Mr. Clavering's
opinion of him, although his manner toward his sis-
ter was rather unsatisfactory. He was kind to
her, and even at times affectionate, but it seemed
that he cherished some hidden resentment against
her. Mr. Clavering would often catch him staring
at her in a curious, frowning way.
She appeared unconscious of this, and whenever
she could free her mind from what was weighing
on it, treated him as she always had, with a fond
and doting affection, the unwisdom of which had
helped to spoil him as much as had his father's and
brother's harshness. To her he would always be
“Robin,” the little brother to be petted and
shielded.
Robert spent the evening on the terrace with
Elsie Baring, and Mr. Clavering, seeing them so


MERCEDES QUERO TO THE FORE 295
happy and absorbed in each other, was seized with
a pang of loneliness, and conquering the little hard
feeling he cherished against Lady Pevensy, asked
Perhplay piquet. against Lady
Perhaps she was somewhat ashamed of the de-
ception she had practised on him; at any rate, she
was extremely gracious and allowed him to win
every rubber. In the flush of his victories he
found courage to ask her the question that he had
long contemplated. She affected to be overcome
by the suddenness of it, and protested that it was
so unexpected that an answer at present was fairly
impossible. Finally, when urged, she admitted,
with much play of fan and eyes, that there was no
one in the world whom she so honoured and
esteemed as she did Mr. Clavering, but she said
she could not yet bear the thought of putting any
one in dear Eustace's place. She did not offer to
be a sister to him, but instead promised to set apart
two nights a week for playing piquet.
Mr. Clavering went up to his room rather for-
lornly, but an hour's reflection did much toward
convincing him that possibly things were best as
they were. If Lady Pevensy had chosen to marry
him, he would have had to give up his treasured flat
in Mayfair; probably the invaluable Jenkins,-
since Lady Pevensy and the valet cordially disliked
each other; and of course his clubs — the deceased
Eustace had been obliged to. It was doubtless
pleasanter to have a dictatorial woman like Lady
Pevensy for a friend than for a wife. Consoled


226 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
by this reflection, he summoned Jenkins to prepare
him for bed, where he was soon asleep and dream-
ing of playing piquet with the deceased Eustace.
The next morning, as he was coming from the
breakfast room, he heard the sound of wheels on
the driveway, and hastening to the door, saw
Mercedes Quero alighting from a fly. She wore a
travelling-suit and carried a small bag. She
looked tired; her pallor was more noticeable than
usual, her features a little drawn, but her eyes
were positively brilliant — a sign that she had
successfully followed up some clue.
“You have been to London ? " demanded Mr.
Clavering, after a brief greeting.
“I was there last night,” she answered in quick,
incisive tones.
“ So you couldn't trust me to question Rose? ”
he said disappointedly.
“I haven't been wasting my time on that silly
little fool,” she said impatiently. “Where is Lady
Ursula? I must see her at once.”
Mr. Clavering rang for a footman, who finally
discovered that her Ladyship was in the south
garden.
On the way there Mr. Clavering, who was burst-
ing with the importance of the clue he had come
upon, informed the detective that he had seen
Mavis's Shetland pony in the Manor pastures.
“Pshaw!” shrugged Mercedes Quero, “I knew
he was there before I went down to the village yes-
terday morning."


MERCEDES QUERO TO THE FORE 227
Mr. Clavering was too crushed to ask how she
knew and he preserved an abashed silence until
they caught sight of Lady Ursula among the
roses, a shade hat upon her bright hair, and on
her arm a garden basket filled with the flowers she
had been gathering.
When she saw Mercedes Quero an expression of
unqualified terror flashed into her face.
“I am sorry that you should have had difficulty
in finding me,” she remarked, struggling to subdue
her emotions, “but I wanted to pick these flowers
myself for — for Lord Meldrum. I had intended
driving to Westhaven this morning."
“ You will not need to, Lady Ursula," said Mer-
cedes Quero gently. “I have just come from
Westhaven. Lord Meldrum has been set free.”
Mr. Clavering feared that Lady Ursula was
again going to faint, but she recovered herself by
sheer force of will.
“Lord Meldrum freed!” she repeated in a
dazed manner. “What can that mean? ” There
was almost horror in her tone.
Mr. Clavering viewed her with a righteous in-
dignation. Here was he, simply a friend, hardly
able to contain his joy at Meldrum's unexpected
acquittal, while she, the woman on whom Meldrum
had lavished the unselfish devotion of years, ex-
hibited no emotion save dismay.
“ It means," answered Mercedes Quero in her
quiet voice, “ that I have convinced the authorities
that Lord Meldrum is not your brother's assassin.”


228 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
“ You know who is ? "
Mercedes Quero looked pityingly at Lady
Ursula's anguished face.
“ Yes; I know.”
Lady Ursula shook, but she spoke no word.
“ My Lady," asked the detective very gently
and sympathetically, “ do you feel able to take
the eleven o'clock train to London? Sir Julian
Travers is dying.”
« Sir Julian Travers !” Mr. Clavering echoed
the name with almost a shout. How stupid he
had been! It all came to him in a flash. Thomp-
son, the butler, whose frowning visage had seemed
so vaguely familiar, was Travers, “ the Sporting
Baronet,” whose spectacular crimes had driven
him from England some fourteen years ago. He
wondered now how he could have failed to recog-
nise him, changed though he was by the passage
of years.
Lady Ursula showed no surprise at the name of
Sir Julian Travers, but her face hardened and her
mouth assumed a bitter curve.
“ Is it necessary that I go?”
“ He has asked for you."
Lady Ursula put her hands to her throat as if
she choked.
“I will go,” she said with an effort.


CHAPTER XXIV
“ THE SPORTING BARONET”
On that hurried journey to London, Mr. Claver-
ing rode in the compartment with Lady Ursula.
“You knew — Julian,” she said, “and I must
have some one go with me.”
It was an unpleasant journey. Lady Ursula
did not speak from the time she boarded the train,
but sat motionless in her corner of the compart-
ment, glooming out over the flying landscape. She
did not rouse herself until the deep, multitudinous
roar of the monster city they were plunging into
made itself heard above the noises of the train.
“ London!” she exclaimed with sharply drawn
breath.
She was among the first to alight from the
train, but Mercedes Quero was already waiting
on the platform. She had ridden in the carriage
behind.
“We had best take a taxicab,” she said to Lady
Ursula, in a voice which had in it a ring of pity,
“ we have some distance to go.”
“ Very well,” responded Lady Ursula dully,
“ we will take a taxicab.”
Mercedes Quero, with business-like celerity, en-
229


230 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
gaged the cab, Mr. Clavering appearing somewhat
stupefied. In obedience to her injunction the
chauffeur made what speed he could amid the
stream of traffic. At every halt the detective
visibly chafed.
Suddenly Lady Ursula spoke. “Is he — really
dying?”
“Yes," answered the detective gently. “I am
afraid we may be too late.”
A shudder racked Lady Ursula. “It is — the
bullet wound?”
“ Yes; blood-poisoning has developed rapidly
from exposure and neglect.”
“He is not fit to die,” said Lady Ursula, a dry
sob escaping her; “but Elena should not be
blamed; she was doing only what she believed her
duty, protecting Mavis. He would have taken
the child away; he had tried before.”
Mr. Clavering was too bewildered by all that
had happened and all that he felt was still to
happen to remind Lady Ursula that only a few
days before she had affected to disbelieve the
existence of Elena. She was now speaking as
though Mavis and Elena had long been paramount
issues in her life. He found it impossible to collect
and analyse the doubts and suspicions that whirled
through his head. He understood only that Mavis
Travers stood in some close relation to Sir Julian
Travers, toward whose death-bed they were hasten-
ing, and that Lady Ursula knew — and had long


232 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
!
e echoed with with bhurleo
middle-aged woman with a sad, motherly face, came
from the bedside and spoke to the detective.
“ Dr. Blair has just gone. He can do nothing
more. It is only a question of minutes."
With a wondering and pitying look at Lady
Ursula, who was steadying herself against the door,
the nurse went softly from the room.
Mr. Clavering plucked Lady Ursula by the
sleeve. “I—I don't think I would go in,” he
said nervously. “This is hardly the place for
you."
“ Why not? ” bitterly. “Have you not guessed
what Julian Travers is to me? He is my hus-
band.”
“ Your husband?” he echoed blankly.
“My husband,” she repeated without emotion.
“ Should you not say my place was with him?"
At the sound of her voice the dying man hurled
himself up from the bed.
“Ursula! You came! I didn't think that you
would.”
Lady Ursula's bitterness melted at sight of the
pitiful wreck before her. She went over to the
bed, and slipping an arm about Travers' thin
shoulders, eased him down upon the pillow.
“I am sorry, Julian.”
The glazing eyes stared up at her resentfully.
“ No, you're not! Why can't you be honest ?
This is a lucky release for you. For years I have
been a millstone around your neck. You told me
so yourself.”


“ THE SPORTING BARONET”
233
“I am sorry," Lady Ursula repeated, smooth-
ing back the damp, black hair,“ very sorry, for
you — for us both.” There was a world of com-
passion in her tone.
With his little remaining strength, Travers
pushed her away.
“ Cut that rot!” he bade, in his hard, gasping
voice, “I haven't lived like a saint and I'm not
going to die like one. I didn't send for you to
hear a deathbed repentance or to preach one.
Hang me if I know why I did send for you.
You've no love for me and God knows you've no
reason to have. You won't water my grave with
your tears and I don't ask you to — Meldrum
will console you.” The leer on the face of the
dying man was ghastly. Lady Ursula turned
away that she might not see it.
When Travers spoke again it was with greater
difficulty, but his old bitter bravado stood by him
on the very threshold of death.
“I shan't lay any injunctions on my sorrowing
widow, but there's something — I'll ask you.
Mavis — she's a rum little filly — I like her —
don't — let her know — much about me — there's
no — need.”
They were his last words. Lady Ursula fell
on her knees by the bedside, sobbing. Mercedes
Quero stepped softly to the door and beckoned
to some one down the hall.
A moment later a big, blond man came quietly
in.


236 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
" It did not occur to me to question the serv-
ants in regard to — to Thompson,” said Mr.
Clavering, chagrined at his failure to do so and
evidently believing that he could have persuaded
the servants to talk as well as could the detective.
“In fact, I did not see how – Thompson could
have had any connection with the case, since he
left the Manor some hours before the necklace
arrived.”
“But he did not leave the village, Mr. Clavering.
That afternoon he was drinking at the Portstead
Arms. Rose joined him there later and evidently
brought the stolen necklace. It seems to have been
no secret that Lady Pevensy had sent for it, and
he must have planned the details of its theft before
he left the Manor, as the result of a violent quarrel
with Lady Ursula.”
“ But,” demurred Mr. Clavering, “I cannot
understand why he should return the necklace, nor
how it was returned.”
Mercedes Quero shot a glance at Mr. Clavering
from her luminous brown eyes expressive of her
wonder at his slowness of comprehension.
“ That explains itself. Lady Ursula suspected
that he had stolen the necklace, and on the night of
its theft she sent Lord Meldrum — ah, you begin
to understand — to his hiding-place in the woods
to beg him to give up the necklace. Travers had
occupied the wood-cutter's hut before he played at
being butler; he knew that the police were trailing
him. He evidently offered to restore the necklace


DETECTIVE METHODS
237
on payment of money, for Lord Meldrum went
to him again on the next night, directly after his
interview in the library with the Earl, and I am
convinced that he carried with him the money from
the Portstead rents which Lady Ursula had that
morning received. You will recollect that only
three days later she was without money and was
forced to appeal to you to satisfy her younger
brother's creditors. Moreover, I discovered that
Lord Meldrum had instructed his bankers to trans-
fer from his account to Lady Ursula's, without her
knowledge, a sum exactly equivalent to the revenue
from the Portstead rents. There you have the
explanation of Lord Meldrum's suspicious actions.
Lady Ursula, of course, could not return the neck-
lace openly without entering into explanations.
This she was unwilling to do, and so, apparently at
her wits' end, she came through the secret passage
into your chamber and replaced the necklace in the
dressing-table drawer, hoping that it would soon
be discovered."
The detective's tone bore the ring of convic-
tion, but Mr. Clavering was still a little puzzled.
“ Lord Meldrum knew then that Thompson was
Travers — Lady Ursula's husband?”
“ He may have suspected, but I think — I feel
sure — that he did not know the whole truth until
his interview with the Earl. I believe that Lord
Portstead summoned him to the library in order
to tell him that Lady Ursula was Travers' wife.”
“Of course he did,” agreed Mr. Clavering, view-


238 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
ing the detective with unbounded admiration,“ but
I cannot yet see how you came to discover Lady
Ursula's marriage and Travers’ identity.”
Mercedes Quero gave a superior little smile.
“ Incidentally, I first discovered Mavis — before
you even knew of her existence. I made a shrewd
guess as to whose child she was, and the more I
observed Lady Ursula, the more convinced I be-
came. I knew that — Thompson — had some hold
over her, and granting that there was a union be-
tween them, regular or even irregular, the Earl's
excessive opposition to Lord Meldrum's attentions
to her was comprehensible. But I admit it was the
will which really showed me the truth. There was
given Mavis' surname, which I had not been able
to learn, and her former place of residence, if not
birth.
“I wired an Italian detective to search the mar-
riage and birth registers in the vicinity of Teg-
giano, and he found records of the marriage of
Lady Ursula to Sir Julian Travers and of the
birth of their daughter, Mavis. I next sent to
Scotland Yard for a personal description of
Travers — I knew him well enough by reputation,
as I fancy every tracker of criminals does. The
description tallied with that of the supposed but-
ler, and I was also told that Travers had been
seen recently in England. The police had been
on his track and then he suddenly dropped out of
sight.
“Of course you will understand that during the


DETECTIVE METHODS
239
period of his disappearance he was in the vicinity
of the Manor, harrying Lady Ursula for money
and attempting to gain possession of Mavis, for
he knew that if he had the child, his hold on Lady
Ursula would be strengthened. Lady Ursula very
unwisely removed Mavis from the north wing of the
Manor to Wild Rose Villa, but it was hard to keep
the child secreted in the north wing — before the
house-party she had had the run of the Manor and
of course could not understand why she must be
locked up now. Elena was a strict jailer, but oc-
casionally Mavis would escape her vigilance and
go roaming about the house. One night, as you
know, she fell downstairs. She bruised her-
self rather badly, and Elena, to prevent any further
roamings, broke her little crutch and hid it in the
truckle-bed where Burton found it.”
“ Her crutch!” echoed Mr. Clavering in as-
tonishment.
Mercedes Quero looked astonished in her turn.
“ Didn't you know that Mavis was a cripple?”
“Why, no; I only saw her twice. Once in the
dogcart, and the second time sitting in the window
at Wild Rose Villa.”
“I wonder that Elena allowed her to be seen
there so often,” remarked the detective, “ when she
knew that Travers was trying to get possession of
her. But I suppose she had confidence in her
own ability to protect the child. She certainly
showed herself an excellent marksman two nights
ago when he tried to break into the Villa. He was


240 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
so maimed by the shot that he could do no more
than drag himself into that tangle of bushes be-
hind the shed. While he lay hidden there, Elena
harnessed Tony and with the child drove to the
Manor. I am fortunately a light sleeper and I
heard them drive up. As Elena is provided with
the key to the library door — Lady Ursula trusts
her implicitly and the woman is devoted to her -
they did not have to rouse the servants. At sun-
rise the next morning Lady Ursula drove them
over to the railway station at Westhaven, where
they caught the early train for London. She evi-
dently considered Belgrave Square a safer resi-
dence for Mavis now than Portstead village. She
could not foresee that Travers would go up to
London on the very next train. He was driven
to the station by the village ne'er-do-weel who
had brought him food while he was living in the
woods, and was waiting down the lane with a
wagon when he tried to break into the Villa.”
Mr. Clavering looked very grave. “ Travers
led a bad life from the time he was expelled from
Eton. I often wondered at the fascination he
exercised over Lady Ursula. He was several
years older than she and steeped in vice while
she was still a schoolgirl. Her father did his best
to break off the attachment, but opposition served
only to increase her infatuation, and at the time
of his public disgrace she was brought into un-
pleasant prominence. From then until her father
died she lived abroad. He never forgave her for


DETECTIVE METHODS
241
bringing the old name into such painful notoriety.
He was a very proud man.”
“So, evidently, was his heir," commented Mer-
cedes Quero dryly; “ proud and cold and hard.
He did his duty by his sister and her child, as
far as maintaining them went, but it was with the
stipulation, as the clause in his will shows, that
Lady Ursula keep her marriage a strict secret,
and he exacted payment for what he considered
his magnanimity by forcing her to live under a
system of constant espionage and merciless criti-
cism. She must have lived in continual torture;
hounded for money by a husband she was ashamed
and forbidden to own, obliged to hide her child
from the world, and subjected daily to the petty
tyranny of a man who would never permit her to
forget his sublimity and her own abasement. I
wonder that she endured so long."
“ She must indeed have led a wretched life,”
agreed Mr. Clavering. “ I do not wish to speak ill
of the dead, but Lord Portstead had an exag-
gerated idea of his own righteousness, and Travers
was a man of unspeakable degradation. Yet it is
hard to think of him as being the murderer of his
wife's brother.”
“ As a matter of fact he was not,” remarked
Mercedes Quero quietly.
Mr. Clavering gaped in amazement. “But —
but I thought — why, everything points to him."
“On the contrary,” replied the detective, with
her enigmatic smile, “I have indisputable proof


CHAPTER XXVI
THE CONFESSION
I have sent for arranged in the present at a
That evening Mercedes Quero informed Mr.
Clavering that she desired him to be present at a
conference she had arranged in the library.
“ I have sent for Robert Sylvester — Lord Port-
stead,” she said, “and for the secretary too. I
thought Brooks could take down in shorthand any-
thing of importance that is brought out."
Mr. Clavering felt sure that she had had some
ulterior purpose in sending for Brooks, and he
said so.
She gave a low, amused laugh. “Really, Mr.
Clavering, you are very discerning. You don't like
Brooks, do you?”
“ Do you? " he retaliated.
That baffling expression came into her eyes.
“ The late Earl placed confidence in him," she
fenced. “ Ah!” as a bell clanged loudly through
the house, “ that must be Lord Portstead and
Brooks now. Mr. Clavering, will you kindly ask
Lady Ursula to come to the library?”
“ Surely you are not going to torture that poor
woman with questions now," he expostulated,
“ when she has just come from her husband's death-
bed? »
245


246 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
“I must,” but there was real regret in the
detective's voice. “I have been retained by the
late Earl's constituents to bring his murderer to
justice, and the sooner the suspense is over the
better. After all, as I have no actual proof, I may
fail in the experiment I have planned, but I hope
to succeed, and I have purposely chosen to-night
because Travers' death must be a decided shock
to every member of this household, and conceal-
ment is not easy when the emotions run high.
You are not more sorry for Lady Ursula than I
am. I am a woman and I can appreciate her
sufferings, but it would not be right for me to let
this matter drift on and continue to involve those
who are innocent. Don't you realise that in the
eyes of the world there are just three people who
had incentive and opportunity for killing the
Earl of Portstead? You know who those three
are, Mr. Clavering: Lord Meldrum, Robert Syl-
vester — and Lady Ursula.”
“Not Lady Ursula !” he cried, the more sharply
because of his growing doubts.
“ Please call her,” Mercedes Quero said quietly.
He found Lady Ursula in the music-room with
Robert. The boy was white and agitated. They
were talking of Travers, but stopped abruptly
as Mr. Clavering entered.
Lady Ursula shivered slightly as he gave her
Mercedes Quero's message. Robert put his arm
about her with a new and manly tenderness.
“ See here, Mr. Clavering,” he burst out in-


THE CONFESSION
247
dignantly, “I won't have my sister bullied by that
detective woman. You go tell her that Lady
Ursula doesn't choose to come to the library.”
“ Hush, Robin!” reproved Lady Ursula gently.
“ We will come directly, Mr. Clavering.”
He led the way to the library, increasing dread
in his heart. At the threshold he paused in as-
tonishment.
There, at the far end of the long room, leaning
forward in a big leather chair, sat Mavis, and
opposite her Lord Meldrum. Between them was a
chess-board, and both were so intent on the game
that they did not look up. Mavis's small crutch
had slipped to the floor, her sharp little face was
flushed with excitement, and her red hair gleaming
in the light of the pendent lamp above her. Mel-
drum was studying a move.
“ I'm going to put your king in check soon,"
he laughed as he advanced his knight.
Mavis shot out a nervous little finger and played
the threatened king to the queen's bishop's square.
“ You can't, you can't !” she cried with shrill
glee. “I've castled my king!”
Meldrum laughed again with easy good humour.
“ You little witch, I'll checkmate you yet! ”
It was then that he glanced up and saw Mr.
Clavering, Lady Ursula, and Robert in the door-
way. Advancing down the hall were Mercedes
Quero and Elena.
He coloured in some confusion. “I thought
there would be no harm in a few — ah — quiet


250 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
allan.
became cold and hostile. The secretary showed
anger at her rebuff and glowered at Lord Meldrum
with all his former vindictiveness.
Mercedes Quero stepped quietly to the door and
closed it when Elena would have left the room.
“ This will be a very trying hour for Lady
Ursula,” she remarked; “ I think that you had best
remain."
Robert surveyed the detective with indignation
and Elena viewed her savagely. Of a sudden she
caught Lady Ursula's hand and kissed it passion-
ately, murmuring endearments in Italian.
Lady Ursula smiled at her reassuringly. “I am
very well, Elena mia,” she said affectionately.
“ You must not worry about me.”
At this juncture Mercedes Quero placed a chair
for herself near the centre of the library, and her
action caused at once a tense silence to fall upon
the room. Elena took her stand near Lady Ur-
sula, her great black eyes devouring her mistress's
white face.
“I have asked you all to come here,” Mercedes
Quero began in a low, though clear and thrilling
voice, “ because I am going to tell you now, as the
result of my investigations, the truth about the
theft of the government papers and the death of
the late Earl of Portstead.”
She paused, perhaps naturally, perhaps for ef-
fect, and looked about her. Lady Ursula had
steeled herself to composure and there was a mar-
ble-like rigidity to her features. Lord Meldrum,


THE CONFESSION
255
I am safe in assuming that her Ladyship refused
to believe in his guilt.”
The rigidity of Lady Ursula's features relaxed
and she smiled up into Meldrum's grave face.
“ Lady Ursula returned to her room,” pursued
the detective, “ and the Earl remained in the li-
brary, waiting until Lord Meldrum should come
back. The Earl knew that he had gone on a
mission for — her Ladyship.”
A sharply drawn breath from Lady Ursula and
a sudden tightening of Meldrum's lips showed that
the detective's surmise — if it were no more —
was correct.
“At about one-forty-five,” she continued,
“ Lady Ursula, unable to endure longer the sus-
pense of Lord Meldrum's absence -- he had gone
on such missions before and returned much sooner
- determined to go in search of him. The Earl
had extinguished the lights in the library, and she
supposed that he had gone to bed and that she
could leave the house without detection. Lady
Ursula,” suddenly flashing a glance in her direc-
tion, “ you will set me right if I overstep the
truth in my deductions.”
Lady Ursula sat in stony silence, and the de-
tective, resuming her story, said, “Her Ladyship's
way would lead her into the woods, and she dared
not go there at that hour without a weapon of
some sort, so she procured her younger brother's
pistol.”
Robert seemed about to cry out in indignation,


THE CONFESSION
257
will drive my Lady out into the night with so
cruel words, and I take the pistol from the stair
where my Lady has drop it, and I kill, yes, and I
am glad!”
Before the Inspector, summoned from the hall
by her cry, could cross the threshold, steel flashed
in Elena's hand and she fell at Lady Ursula's
feet.


CHAPTER XXVII
OFF FOR THE CONTINENT
Months had passed and Mr. Clavering was
lunching at Claridge's with Mercedes Quero. He
had formed a kind of Boswell-Johnson friendship
with the young detective, whose fame had been
enhanced by the Portstead Manor case. She still
sometimes yielded to the temptation of making
merry at his expense, but on the whole, as she ap-
preciated his sterling qualities, she was kind to
him, and when in a particularly gracious mood,
would listen to the laborious theories he pro-
pounded apropos the cases she was engaged upon.
Born and bred a gentlewoman, a sudden turn
of fortune had thrown her upon her own resources,
and as her life since had been lonely, her pro-
fession precluding her from former friendships,
she was probably grateful for the honest admira-
tion of this very estimable gentleman.
A quiet little wedding which Mr. Clavering had
attended in Belgrave Square that morning had
brought to the minds of both the tragedy at Port-
stead Manor, and Mr. Clavering again expressed
his wonderment at the detective's cleverness in
discovering the guilty person.
258


260 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
Lady Ursula would make her bitter and resentful
toward the Earl. No one could know better than
she the bondage under which he held his sister.
The more I studied Elena, the more convinced
I became of her guilt. But, granting that she had
motive, how was I to prove her presence in the
library at two o'clock ?
“I began by questioning Elsie Baring. I had
always felt that she was withholding information
and that her importance as a witness had been very
much disregarded. I was more successful than
I had expected. When I made her realise that I
was not trying to incriminate Robert, I found her
surprisingly communicative. As her room was
next to Lady Ursula's, she had been awakened by
the Earl when he came to call his sister into the
library. From the tone of his voice she knew that
he was in an unpleasant humour. Fearing that
Robert was the cause, she became so nervous and
worried that she was unable to sleep. She heard
Lady Ursula return to her room and for over an
hour sob and moan. Miss Baring was about to
go to her when she heard her unlock her door and
hurry down the corridor. Anxiety prompted
Miss Baring to follow her and she saw her go into
Robert's room, come out immediately with some-
thing in her hand which she suspected was Robert's
pistol, and then go up the stairs into the north
wing. You see, Mr. Clavering, Lady Ursula knew
well where her brother kept his pistol; she was in
the habit of lending it to Lord Meldrum when he


OFF FOR THE CONTINENT
261
went on his night missions for her. He did not pos-
sess one of his own until the day after the murder,
when he sent up to London for it. So he told
the truth at the inquest when he stated that Rob-
ert's pistol had been in his possession, though, of
course, his refusal to answer whether it had been
in his possession on the night in question was in-
tended to divert suspicion from Robert to him-
self.
“ To come back now to Miss Baring. After she
saw Lady Ursula vanish into the north wing, she
became so fearful of what might happen that she
lingered about the stairs, expecting some tragedy
and yet not daring to follow Lady Ursula further.
It was from the hall window that she beheld Robert
Sylvester return to the Manor. Lady Ursula re-
mained in the north wing about a quarter of an
hour and then she came down, accompanied by
Elena, whose existence Miss Baring had never be-
fore suspected. Neither Lady Ursula nor Elena
noticed Miss Baring, who was hiding behind the
tapestry which lines the walls of that corridor,
and they hurried down the circular stairs into
the library.
“ Miss Baring crept after them, and from the
head of the stairs heard the voices of Robert and
the Earl. Robert was in a passion. Then she
heard Lady Ursula pleading for Robert and the
Earl sarcastically and cruelly upbraided her.
Miss Baring crept far enough down the stairs
to see that the library was in darkness and that a


262 THAT AFFAIR AT THE MANOR
man was entering by the garden doorway whom
she recognised by his voice, when the Earl taxed
him with the theft of the government papers, as
Lord Meldrum. Of what happened next she had
only a confused notion. There were bitter recrim-
inations, and suddenly a shot rang out. She had
no idea who fired it and remembered only rushing
up to her own room and locking herself in. But
she suspected either Robert or Lord Meldrum, for
she believed that Lady Ursula had given the pistol
to one or the other.
“I made a diagram of the library and the prob-
able positions of those present at the time of the
shot, in order to understand how it was possible
for three people to suspect one another. I de-
cided that the Earl was standing in the centre of
the room, Lady Ursula at the foot of the circular
stairs, Robert between her and the Earl, and Lord
Meldrum by the garden doorway, since Robert
knew that the shot came from the circular stairs
and it did not occur to him to suspect Lord Mel-
drum. Lady Ursula was too overwrought to have
any idea of the direction whence the shot came, and
I doubt if she could even have told where Lord
Meldrum was standing. But as she had been in
the habit of going down the circular stairs to give
the pistol to him, I believe that in her terror and
bewilderment she thought she had done so this
night. Such cases of mental suggestion through
terror are not uncommon, and Lord Meldrum sub-
sequently said nothing to disprove her belief.


OFF FOR THE CONTINENT
263
“Miss Baring has stated that Elena remained
standing on one of the spirals of the staircase
and I believe that no one in the library, save Lady
Ursula, knew of her presence. In the confusion
following the shot she must have escaped into the
north wing, unnoticed. Robert, in his horror at
what he believed his sister's act, fled from the
Manor, and Lord Meldrum went in pursuit of him.
But he soon turned back, probably to stand by
Lady Ursula, or possibly he had some half-formed
idea of shouldering for her sake what he believed
to be Robert's responsibility. He could not have
known then that the shot was fatal. You will re-
member his exclamation when he came into the
library and saw the Earl stretched upon the floor:
My God, he is dead!!
“ In the meantime Lady Ursula, obeying mad
impulse, had rushed from the library, locking the
door after her, and fled into the front of the
Manor. Elena must have come down later, after
the coroner had gone, and hidden the pistol behind
the cushion of the chair where I found it. Now,
Mr. Clavering, I think I have explained everything
as far as I can.”
“ It was a deplorable tragedy,” said he with a
deep sigh, “but at least it has made a man of
Robert Sylvester, and I believe he will do well in
the government secretaryship Lord Meldrum has
procured for him."
“I believe he will," assented Mercedes Quero,
“and now, Mr. Clavering,” consulting her tiny, sil-


OFF FOR THE CONTINENT
265
thought you were going to be late for the first time
in your life.”
Lady Ursula detached herself from the little
group and came toward Mr. Clavering with hand
outstretched.
“ Wilfred doesn't tell you,” she smiled, “ that he
almost made us late because he would stop to buy
Mavis more candies. He is spoiling the child and
ruining her digestion."
Meldrum laughed boyishly. “Oh, I'll do better
in a few days, Ursula. You'll have to make al-
lowances for a while. I'm so awfully happy, you
know.”
She smiled into his glowing face. “So am I
' awfully happy,' Wilfred;” and her slim, gloved
hand sought his a moment.
Just then the guards blew their whistles. Rob-
ert threw his arms about Lady Ursula and gave
her several loud, boyish kisses.
“ Good-bye, and best happiness, you dearest of
sisters!”
Lady Ursula clung to him fondly. “Don't for-
get, Robin, that you and Elsie have promised to
spend part of your honeymoon with us.”
“ That we won't," he answered with a choke in
his voice as he helped her aboard the train. Then
he turned and wrung Lord Meldrum's hand.
“Good-bye, Mel, old chap! Keep Ursula smil-
ing.”
Mr. Clavering was beginning to feel strangely





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