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Show WOMAN WHORiNUNG . AulKor of 'CKeAMMEUR CRACKSMAN. RAFFLES. Etc. ILLUSTRATIONS hv O. IRWIN MVERS i . I, I., CHAPTER XIII Continued. 12 And yet he seemed to make no secret se-cret of it; and yet it did explain his whole conduct since landing, as Toye had said. She could only shut her eyes to what must have happened, even as Cazalet himself had shut his all this wonderful week, that she had forgotten forgot-ten all day in her ingratitude, but would never, In all her days, forget again! "There won't be another case," she heard herself saying, while her thoughts ran ahead or lagged behind like sheep. "It'll never come out I know it won't." "Why shouldn't It?" he asked so sharply that she had to account for the words, to herself as well as to him. "Nobody knows except Mr. Toye. and he means to keep it to himself." "Why should he?" "I don't know. . He'll tell you himself." him-self." "Are you sure you don't know? What can he have to tell me? Why should he screen me, Blanche?" His eyes and voice were furious with suspicion, but still the voice was lowered. "He's a jolly good sort, you know," said Blanche, as if the whole affair was the most ordinary one in the world. But heroics could not have driven the sense of her remark more forcibly home to Cazalet. "Oh, he is, is he?" "I've always found him so." "So have I, the little I've seen of him. And I don't blame him for getting get-ting on my tracks, mind you; he's a bit of a detective, I was fair game, and he did warn me in a way. That's why I meant to have the week " He stopped and looked away. "I know. And nothing can undo that," she only said; but her voice swelled with thanksgiving. And Cazalet Caza-let looked reassured; the hot suspicion suspi-cion died out of his eyes, but left them gloomily perpiexea. "Still, I can't understand it. I 'don't believe it, either! I'm in his hands. What have I done to be saved by Toye? He's probably scouring London Lon-don for .me if he isn't watching this window at this minute!" He went to the curtains as he spoke. Simultaneously Blanche sprang up, to entreat him to fly while he could. That had been her first object in coming to him as Bhe had done, and yet, once with him, she had left it :to the last! And now it was too late; he was at the window, chuckling significantly to himself; he had opened 'it, and he was leaning out. "That you, Toye, down there? Come up and show yourself! I want to see you." He turned in time to dart in front of the folding doors as Blanche reached them, white and shuddering. The flush of impulsive bravado fled from his face at the sight of hers. " You can't go in there. What's the matter?" he whispered. "Why .should you be afraid of Hilton Toye?" How could she tell him? Before she ' r " "had found a word, the landing door opened, and Hilton Toye was in the room, looking at her. "Keep your voice down," said Cazalet Caza-let anxiously. "Even if it's all over with me but the shouting, we needn't start the shouting here!" He chuckled savagely at the jest; nd now Toye stood looking at him. "I've heard all you've done," continued contin-ued Cazalet. "I don't blame you a bit. Tf it had been the other way about, I might have given you less run for your money. I've heard what you've found out about my mysterious movements, move-ments, and -you're absolutely right as far as you go. You don't know why I took the train at Naples, and traveled trav-eled across Europe without a handbag. hand-bag. It wasn't -quite the put-up job you may think. But, If it makes you any happier, I may as well tell you that I was at Uplands that night, and I did get out through the foundations!" The Insane Impetuosity of the man was his master now. He was a living fire of impulse that had burst into a blaze. "I always guessed you might be crazy, and I now know it," 6aid Hilton Toye. "Still, I judge you're not so crazy as to deny that while you were in that house you struck down Henry Craven and left him for dead?" Cazalet stood like red-hot stone. "Miss Blanche," said Toye, turning to her rather shyly, "I guess I can't do what I said just yet. I haven't breathed a word, not yet, and perhaps I never will, if you'll come away with me now back to your home and never see Henry Craven's murderer again!" "And who may he be?" cried a voice that brought all three face-about. face-about. The folding-doors had opened, and a fourth figure was standing between the two rooms. CHAPTER XIV. The Person Unknown. ' The intruder was a shaggy elderly man, of so cadaverous an aspect that hi3 face alone cried for his death-bed; and his gaunt frame took up the cry, as it swayed upon the threshold in dressing-gown and bedroom slippers that Toye instantly recognized as belonging be-longing to Cazalet. The man had a shock of almost white hair, and a lesB gray beard clipped roughly to a point. An unwholesome pallor marked the fallen features; and the envenomed eyes burned low in their sockets, as they dealt with Blanche but fastened on Hilton Toye. "What do you know about Henry Craven's murderer?" he demanded in a voice between a croak and a crow. "Have they run in some other poor devil, or were you talking about me? If so, I'll start a libel action, and call Cazalet and that lady as witnesses!" "This Is Scruton," explained Cazalet, "who was only liberated this evening after being detained a week on a charge that ought never to have been brought, as I've told you both all along." Scruton Scru-ton thanked him with a bitter laugh. "I've" brought him here," concluded Cazalet, "because I don't think he's fit enough to be about alone." "Nice of him, isn't it?" said Scruton Scru-ton bitterly. o"I'm so fit that they wanted to keep me somewhere else longer than they'd any right; that may be why they lost no time in getting hold of me again. Nice, considerate, I kindly country! Ten years isn't long enough to have you as a dishonored guest. 'Won't you come back for another week, and see if we can't arrange ar-range for a nice little sudden death and burial for you?' But they couldn't you see, blast 'em!" He subsided into the best chair in the room, which Blanche had wheeled up behind him; a moment later he looked round, thanked her curtly, and lay back with closed eyes until suddenly sud-denly he opened them on Cazalet. "And what was that you were saying say-ing that about traveling across Europe Eu-rope and being at Uplands that night? I thought you came round by sea? And what night do you mean?" The night it all happened." said Cazalet steadily. "You mean the night some person unknown knocked Craven on the head?" "Yes." ' The Bick man threw himself forward for-ward in the chair. "You never told me this!" he cried suspiciously; both the voice and the man seemed stronger. strong-er. "There was no point in telling you." "Did you see the person?" "Yes." "Then he isn't unknown to you?" "I didn't see him well." Scruton looked, sharply at the two mute listeners. They were very Intent, In-tent, indeed. "Who are these people, Cazalet? No! I know one of 'em," he answered himself in the next breath. "It's'' Blanche Macnair, isn't it? I thought at first it must be a younger sister grown up like her. You'll forgive prison manners, Miss Macnair, if that's still your name. You look a woman to trust if there is one and you gave me your chair. Anyhow, you've been in for a penny and you can stay in for a pound, as far as I care! But w'ho's your Amer'-can Amer'-can friend, Cazalet?" "Mr. Hilton Toye, who spotted that I'd been all the way to Uplands and back when I claimed to have been in Rome!" There was a touch of Scruton's bitterness bit-terness in Cazalet's voice; and by some subtle process It had a distinctly mollifying effect on the really embittered embit-tered man. "What on earth were you doing at Uplands?" he asked, in a kind of con' fidential bewilderment. "I went down to see a man." Toye himself could not have cut and measured more deliberate monosyllables. monosyl-lables. "Craven'?" suggested Scruton. "No; a man I expected to find at Craven's." "The writer of the letter you found at Cook's office in Naples the night you landed there, I guess!" It really was Toye this time, and there was no guesswork in his tone. Obviously he was speaking by his little lit-tle book, though he had not got it out again. "How do you know I went to Cook's?" "I know every step you took between be-tween the Kaiser Fritz and Charing Cross and Charing Cross and the Kaiser Fritz!" Scruton listened to this interchange i with keen attention, hanging on each man's lips with his sunken eyes; both took it calmly, but Scruton's surprise was not hidden by a sardonic grin. "You've evidently had a stern chase with a Yankee clipper!" said he. "If he's right about the letter, Cazalet, I should say so; presumably it wasn't from Craven himself?" So." "Yet it brought you across Europe to Craven's house?" "Well to the back of his house! I expected to meet my man on the river." "Was that how you missed him more or less?" "I suppose It was." Scruton ruminated a little, broke Into his offensive laugh, and checked it instantly of his own accord. "This is really interesting," he croaked. "You get to London at what time was it?" "Nominally three-twenty-five; but the train ran thirteen minutes late," said Hilton Toye. "And you're on the river by what time?" Scruton asked Cazalet. "I walked over Hungerford bridge, took the first train to Surbiton, got a boat there, and just dropped down with the stream. I don't suppose the whole thing took me very much more than an hour." "Aren't you forgetting something?" said Toye. "Yes, I was. It was I who telephoned tele-phoned to the house and found that Craven was out motoring; so there was no hurry." "Yet you weren't going to see Henry Craven?" murmured Toye. Cazalet did not answer. HiB last words had come in a characteristic burst; now he had his mouth shut tight, and his eyes were fast to Scruton. Scru-ton. He might have been in the witness-box already, a doomed wretch cynically supposed to be giving evidence evi-dence on his own behalf, but actually only baring his neck by Inches to the rope, under the joint persuasion of judge and counsel. But he had one friend by him still, one who had edged a little nearer In the pause. "But you did see the man you went to see?" said Scruton. Cazalet paused. "I don't know. Eventually somebody brushed past me in the dark. I did think then but I can't swear to him even now!" "Tell us about it." "Do you mean that, Scruton? Do you Insist on hearing all that happened? hap-pened? I'm not asking Toye; he can do as he likes. But you, Scruton you've' been through a lot, you know you ought to have stopped in bed da you really want this on top of all?" "Go ahead," said Scruton. "I'll have a drink when you've done; somebody give me a cigarette meanwhile." Cazalet supplied the cigarette, struck a match, and held It with unfaltering un-faltering hand. The two men's eyes met strangely across the flame. "I'll tell you all exactly what happened; hap-pened; you can believe me or not as you like. You won't forget that I "What Do You Know About Henry Craven's Murderer?" knew every inch of the ground ex cept one altered bit that explained itself." Cazalet turned to Blanche with a significant loolif but she only drew an inch nearer still. "Well, It was in the little creek, where the boat-house boat-house is, that I waited for my man He never came by the river. I heard the motor, but it wasn't Henry Craven Cra-ven that I wanted to see, hut the man who was coming to see him. Even tually I thought I must have made a mistake, or he might have changed his mind and come by road. Th6 dressing-gong had gone; at least 1 supposed it was that by the time. II was almost quite dark, and I landed and went up the path past the back premises to the front of the house. Sc far I hadn't seen a soul, or been seen by one, evidently; but the French win dowa were open in what used to be my father's library, the room was all lit up, and just as I got there a man ran out into the flood of light and " "I thought you said he brushed bj you In the dark?" interrupted Toye. "I was in the dark; so was he in an other second; and no power on earth would induce me to swear to him. Do you want to hear the rest, Scruton, or are you another unbeliever?" "I want to hear every word moit than ever!" TO BE COKTIXUKD.) |
