CHAPTER IX.
Cursing his own ill-luck and the deftness and fleetness of foot of his antagonist, the detective hurried down the stairs and dashed out by the back door, just as he heard the voice of George Claris from above calling out to know what was the matter.
Now, there was by this time enough daylight for the detective to flatter himself that the chase would be a short one when once he got out of doors. He was surprised to find, therefore, that the mysterious creature he was pursuing had vanished altogether, leaving no trace. Dashing out among the cabbage-stumps he had a wide view over the fields and across the little river. But there was not a sound, not the flutter of a skirt, to help him in his search. He went carefully around the house, in the first place, trying the doors of the outhouses and peering about for nooks and corners in which the thief might lie hidden. As for the house itself, the lower windows were secured by shutters and bore no sign of having been tampered with, while the front door was securely fastened from the inside. He then made his way to the group of cottages which stood near, and questioned a laborer, who was just leaving one of them to go to his work, as to whether he had seen any person about within the last few minutes. The man answered in the negative.
Returning to the back of the inn, the detective was struck by the circumstance that a punt which had been moored at the inn side of the river before he made his tour of the house, was now fastened to a post by the opposite bank. He had just noted this circumstance, when the innkeeper came out. He looked very surly, and he went up to the sham commercial traveller in a threatening manner.
“So it’s you that’s been turnin’ the place upside down, is it? An’ all for what? That’s what I’d like to know. All for what?”
“You’ll know all in good time,” said the detective, dryly. “I want to see the women folk in your house, if you please, ladies and all. I dare say you know what I’ve come about. I don’t want to be of any more trouble than I can help, but I’ve got to clear this business up.”
“Well, you may ferret it out your own way, then,” said Claris, sullenly. “I’m not going to have nobody disturbed by you.”
“Well,” returned the other, in a conciliatory tone, “I don’t want to put the ladies to any inconvenience, I’m sure. But if they’ll answer a few questions, they’ll help me, and you, too. For I’m sure, sir, it’s by no wish of yours that these tales have got about, and that you’ll be very glad to hear the last of them.”
“That’s as it may be,” said George. “But I’ll not stand any inquisitor’s work to set them all in hysterics. And anyhow, by this time they’re all out an’ about, and if you want to talk to them, you may find ’em.”
The detective took Claris’s insolence very quietly. Remembering the incident of the fusee, he was able to chuckle to himself with the thought that he held the clue of which George Claris knew nothing.
“There’ll be a burn on her hand,” he thought to himself, “for many a day.”
Returning to the house by the door through which he had left it, he noticed, now in the broader daylight, that there was a large cupboard immediately opposite, under the stairs. Opening the door of this cupboard, which he found unfastened, he saw that the contents were in some disorder, and he waited about until Meg, the servant, came to it to fetch her brooms.
The woman started with a gruff exclamation at his appearance.
“There is nothing for you to be frightened about,” said he, quietly. “I only want you to tell me whether that is exactly the state in which you left the cupboard when you went to it last.”
It had needed only a very few moments for him to decide that this was not the woman of whom he was in search. Stout, broad, clumsy of movement and heavy of tread, the robust figure before him had certainly none of the nimbleness of the thief of whom he was in search. He had had experience enough to know how to assume an entirely reassuring manner with persons of her stamp, and it took her only a few minutes to recover her self-possession and to answer him intelligently.
“Why, no, it ain’t,” she said, with robust surprise and vehemence. “The things ’as been knocked down an’ trampled on, an’ all my cloths mixed up. Why do you think, sir,” she went on with round eyes, “that the thief ’isself has been in here?”
And she looked back at her brooms, her pails and her cloths with a mixture of amazement, fear and respect.
“Well, somebody’s been in there, that’s evident, isn’t it?” said he, good-humoredly.
And he decided in his own mind that the clever thief had opened and shut the back door loudly as a blind, and had secreted herself in this cupboard until he was safely out of the house.
“I suppose you don’t happen to have seen him about this morning?” he went on, in a jocular tone.
“Seen the thief! Lor, no, sir. If he’s been in the house, he must have got out again pretty quick, for I got down pretty near as soon as the master himself; an’ there was nobody about then, for sure, but ’im and me and Miss Nell.”
“The poor young lady was frightened, I’m afraid, by the commotion?”
“Oh, well, we’re used to these set-outs by this time,” replied Meg, philosophically. “Miss Nell did look very white an’ faint-like, an’ she was all of a tremble, poor thing, when she heard about the fuss. So master packed her off to the colonel’s, and told her as she was to stop there till he sent for her.”
“The colonel’s! And who is the colonel?”
“Oh, an old gentleman as lives a little way from here along the Courtstairs road. Miss Nell takes them their milk there fresh from the cow every morning and evening.”
“Oh,” remarked the detective, highly satisfied at having tapped the fount of Meg’s loquacity, “I should have thought she was too much of a fine lady for that, your Miss Nell.”
“Ah, but she wouldn’t do it for anybody else,” replied Meg, anxious to defend her mistress. “You see, the colonel an’ his daughter are real gentlefolks, only they’re poor—very poor. An’ they don’t keep no servant, an’ Miss Theodora does all the work herself. So, you see, as she’s been kind to Miss Nell, an’ got the master to give Miss Nell her fine eddication, and French an’ the pianner, why, Miss Nell don’t seem to know how to do enough for her. That’s how it is, sir. I’d be glad to take the milk myself, or we could easy get the boy to do it, only Miss Nell likes to do it herself like.”
The detective was about to interrogate Meg further, when the voice of the innkeeper, shouting to her to know why breakfast was not ready, prevented his hearing any more. And, much to his regret, he found, on his next meeting with her, that the poison of suspicion had been instilled into her mind by her master, and that she was communicative no longer.
Finding this source of information dry, therefore, the detective, who shrewdly concluded that Nell would not return until he had taken his departure, sent a boy off toward Stroan with his luggage on a barrow, and paid his bill and went away.
But he did not go very far. Overtaking the boy, he made him leave his luggage at Stroan station, and as soon as the lad was out of sight, he had it taken to one of the inns of the place.
This done, he had his luncheon and walked back to the Blue Lion.
He did not want to put in an appearance until he knew whether Miss Nell had returned from her visit to her friend. But it was a slack time of day at the inn, and there was nobody about of whom he could ask a question. He managed to get a peep into the bar as he walked past the house, but there was no one there, either in front or behind. When he had hung about the place some time, keeping as much out of view of possible watchers as he could, he saw the robust figure of Meg at the side-door. She was shaking out a cloth. She started and uttered a little gasp at sight of him.
“Why,” said he, getting, by a dexterous movement, between her and the door, “what’s the matter? You look scared at the sight of me.”
“Well, I don’t want to have any more to say to you, and that’s the fact,” replied stalwart Meg, with her hands on her hips. “It seems you’re nothing better than a detective chap, what’s come ferreting about the place, asking questions and trying to get us all into trouble. Ugh! I’m ashamed to be seen talking to you!”
“Well, now, can’t you see that it is for the good of all of you that this affair should be cleared up, and that it should be known who it is that has brought the bad name on the house?” said the detective, persuasively. “I’m very sure you ladies must be frightened out of your lives to hear the things that are said. It’ll end by your all going away from the place like Miss Nell has done.”
“Oh, but she’s come back!” replied Meg, quickly, with the idea that there was reproach to her young mistress implied in the suggestion that she had been frightened away. “She didn’t wait long after the master sent for her, I can tell you!”
“And she’s in the house now?” asked the detective, with interest.
“Yes, but not for you to see,” retorted Meg, rudely. “You can worry me with your questions, if you like, but you don’t get at her, if I can help it!”
At that moment, a window was opened above their heads, and the detective, without answering the servant, looked quickly up. He saw Nell standing at the casement, crumbling a piece of bread which she put on the ledge for the birds. Noticing something with a quick eye, he stared up silently, until Nell, whose head was turned away, moved and perceived him. She blushed crimson, and was about to shut the window hastily, when he stopped her by an imperious gesture.
“Beg pardon, Miss, but could I speak to you a minute?”
For an instant she seemed to hesitate; and in that instant he could see that she grew deadly pale. At last, however, she made a movement to signify assent, closed the window, and disappeared.
The detective, who thought he had reason to fear that she would again attempt to escape him, pushed brusquely past Meg, and opened the side-door.
“What are you going in like that for, without so much as ‘with your leave, or by your leave’?” asked she promptly.
“You heard the young lady say she’d see me,” replied the detective, as, without further ceremony, he passed into the house.
At the foot of the stairs he met Nell.
“What do you wish to say to me?” she asked, in a very tranquil tone.
It was now so dark in the passage that they could hardly see each other’s face.
“Well, in the first place, Miss, I should like to speak to you in a better light,” replied the man.
“In here, then,” said she, leading the way, after another moment of apparent hesitation, into the little sitting-room at the back of the house.
There was a fire, and there was a lamp. The detective turned up the wick.
“You’ll excuse me, Miss, but I want very particularly to see you while I speak.”
She had gone round the little table, and was standing at the other side of it. With a sudden movement, the detective swooped round upon her, and seizing her by the wrist in a firm grip, pointed to the back of her right hand.
On the soft, white skin there was a little blister freshly made, with a pink line of inflammation round the base.