Mystery of the inn by the shore

by Florence Warden

CHAPTER XIX.

It was about a month after the shipwreck which brought such strange consequences to the Blue Lion and its inmates that Clifford King, much against his will, found himself, for the first time that winter, at a dance. He detested dancing, never accepted an invitation to a ball if he could help it, and never turned up if he found himself compelled to accept.

But this entertainment was an exceptional one, being given in honor of the “coming out” of Otto Conybeare’s youngest sister, and the mines laid for him had proved successful.

When he got to the house, however, he found the sight such a pretty one that he could not tell even himself that he was a martyr in having to come. The rooms were large and beautifully decorated with ferns and daffodils, “just like a church on Easter Sunday,” as Otto said.

Clifford’s attention was attracted early in the evening by the sight of a girl whose face he knew, who looked at him again and again, as if she expected him to recognize her, but whose name he could not remember. In fact, the more often he met her eyes, the more sure he felt he did not even know it.

Before long Clifford saw her speak to Otto and glance in the direction of himself.

“Now,” thought he, “I shall get to the bottom of the mystery.” For he had had no opportunity of getting hold of Otto, or of any one who could tell him who she was. Otto came straight toward him.

“I want to introduce you to Miss Lansdowne,” said he.

Lansdowne! The name was quite unfamiliar to Clifford. But as soon as he was introduced the puzzle came to pieces.

“I wanted so much to know you, Mr. King,” said the girl, who was pleasant, unaffected and amiable-looking. “I can see you don’t know me, and yet I know you very well.”

“That is not quite fair,” said Clifford. “I do remember your face perfectly well; it is your name only which is unfamiliar to me. I am certain I have never spoken to you in my life; you may be sure I should not have forgotten if I had.”

“I live near Stroan,” said Miss Lansdowne.

Clifford started, and his face clouded.

“I have often seen you about there,” went on the girl, “and I know intimately more than one of your friends there.”

“I have no friends there now,” said Clifford, with a sudden change to grave bitterness in his voice and manner.

“Well, you had friends there at one time, I think. Miss Bostal and her father, the Colonel, would, I am sure, be rather hurt to know that you no longer reckoned them as your friends.”

“The Bostals! Oh, yes,” answered Clifford, indifferently. “I know them, but Miss Bostal would hardly reckon me as a friend. I lost my place in her esteem, if I ever had any, by walking from Courtstairs to Stroan on a Sunday in a tourist’s suit.”

Miss Lansdowne smiled.

“She is an odd little creature,” she said, “but she has a very good heart. To hear her deplore the disappearance of a young girl whom she was fond of and kind to,” and Miss Lansdowne looked steadily away from Clifford as she spoke, “no one could doubt the depth of her feelings.”

Clifford was silent for a few moments. Then he glanced at the face of the girl beside him, saw that it invited confidence, and guessed that her last words had been carefully chosen.

“You mean that Miss Claris has disappeared?”

“Yes. You had heard about it, I suppose?” she asked, with a pretense of indifference.

“Of course.”

“And that nobody knows more than this—that she and her uncle have gone away?”

Clifford answered, with scarcely a pretense on his side of concealing the emotion he felt:

“I went down to the place myself, saw the house shut up, deserted, and found that nobody could tell me more than this—that George Claris had gone mad, and that he was in an asylum; and that his niece had gone away at the same time. If you can tell me anything more, I shall be very grateful to you.”

“I don’t know any more than you do. One can only guess—or repeat the guesses of others.”

“Well, let me hear the guesses.”

“They say—people think—that the girl has been shut up, too.”

“In an asylum?” asked Clifford, hardly able to control his voice.

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe it!” said he, hoarsely.

“Well, isn’t it better than believing—anything else?”

“Believing—that she is a thief, a—”

Clifford could not go on.

“Do you know what happened on that morning when George Claris was found mad?” asked Miss Lansdowne, abruptly.

“The woman at the nearest cottage told me the story,” he answered, shortly.

“Did she tell you—” Miss Lansdowne hesitated—“that Miss Claris fainted when they told her what had happened to her uncle, and that they found under her pillow—a canvas bag containing the money collected for some shipwrecked sailors the night before?”

Clifford’s face changed.

“No,” said he at once, in the tone of a man who has made up his mind on some weighty point, “they did not tell me that.”

“It is true, though. After that, who could doubt the girl’s guilt?”

“I could,” said Clifford, quietly.

“And one other person—Miss Bostal. And you are both equally unreasonable.”

“Miss Bostal takes her part? I didn’t think the dried-up little creature had it in her!” said Clifford, with admiration. “I shall go and see her.”

“That is just what she wants you to do,” replied Miss Lansdowne. “She has said so to me so often that I thought, when I saw I had a chance of speaking to you, I would not let it slip.”

“It is very good of you,” said Clifford. “Which was the dance you said I might have?”

The next morning, before luncheon-time, he was at Stroan.

It was a bright day, and there was only just enough wind to stir the air pleasantly on his way across the marsh road. The sun shone on the white, chalky soil, and the place where the body of Jem Stickels had been found was now no longer distinguishable by any outward sign from the rest of the grass-grown border to the road. People had begun to forget the tragedy, and even the fresh interest excited by the more recent events at the Blue Lion had by this time faded in their minds, relegated to the background by the pressure of some less stirring but newer occurrence.

The Blue Lion itself looked melancholy enough, having been uninhabited for a month. With its doors closed, its shutters barred, with broken panes in its upper windows, it was a dreary contrast to the little inn he had known. No market-carts now drew up before the door; the ducks and the chickens no longer wandered about the road; the shed where the cart had stood was empty and already out of repair. Clifford, after one walk round into the little garden and down to the shed where he had first met Nell, hurried away from the desolate spot and made haste to reach Shingle End.

But a change had come over this place also. To begin with, the storms of the winter had dealt harshly with the old house. Some slates had been carried away and had not been replaced, and a tree, blown down by a southwesterly gale, now blocked the little bit of ground which formed the front garden. It had injured the corner of the house in its fall, had carried away one of the outside shutters of the drawing-room front window and smashed half a dozen of the small panes of glass, which had been left broken. Sheets of brown paper had been pasted on the inner side of the window, completing the desolate appearance of the old house. Clifford, as he approached the gate, found that the tree had fallen in such a manner that it was impossible to get in. Looking up doubtfully at the windows, he caught sight of a little, withered face, gray, haunting, peeping out at him from behind the meager muslin curtain.

Was it or was it not Miss Bostal’s? For a moment he stood undecided with his hand upon the gate. Had some terrible calamity—the death of the Colonel, the illness of his daughter—fallen upon the place like a blight? Should he go back and make inquiries at the nearest cottage before he ventured to intrude upon what might be some great grief?

There was an ancient cottage close by which had once been a toll-house. He thought he would knock at the door and try to find out something, and was retreating for that purpose, when a hurried tapping on the glass of the upper window made him look round again. Miss Bostal—if it was indeed she—made a sign to him to go round to the back of the house.

Obeying her mute direction, he found his way back to the little side-gate in the paling, passed through into the garden and presented himself at the back door. He noticed with surprise, as he passed the two lower windows, the one at the side and the other at the back of the house, that the blinds were drawn down. Surely, then, the Colonel was dead, he thought. He had not time to speculate as to why, in that case, the upper front rooms had had their blinds up, when he heard the sound of some one within drawing back a bolt and then another and another.

Then the door was opened by Miss Bostal, who put out her head to throw one frightened glance round the garden, and then, seizing his proffered hand, drew him hastily inside, and began immediately to replace the bolts.

Clifford could not help feeling amused, although he took care not to show it. It seemed to him clear that the recent occurrences in the neighborhood had got on the poor little woman’s brain, and made her absurdly nervous about the safety of her own little person and not very valuable property.

“You are well secured against burglars, I see,” said he, as he insisted upon doing the work of bolting the door for her, and was surprised to find how solid and strong the protection was.

The little woman started, almost jumped.

“Oh, Mr. King!” gasped she, in a tone of acute terror. “Don’t make jokes about it. It’s too dreadful! I never feel safe! Last night—Oh!” she paused, closing her eyes as if on the point of fainting. And Clifford saw, by the light that came through the dusty panes above the front and the back door, that her little, pinched face had grown livid at some terrible thought.

“Well, what happened last night—Oh?” said Clifford, speaking in as cheerful a tone as he could, in the hope of soothing her nerves. But instead of answering at once, little Miss Bostal, suddenly opening again her faded light eyes and staring at him with solemn intentness, led him to the door of the drawing-room, which she unlocked and threw open with a tragic gesture.

“Look in there!” whispered she.

Clifford obeyed, and saw nothing whatever; for it was dark. When, after a few minutes spent in rather uncanny silence on the part of the lady, his eyes got used to the gloom, he saw that the windows had been barricaded from the inside in the most thorough and ingenious manner with furniture and with planks nailed across from side to side.

“Why,” said he, in astonishment, “you seem to be preparing to stand a siege.”

He had already made up his mind that the eccentric little lady had gone out of her mind.

“We are besieged,” she whispered, with a look which confirmed Clifford’s hypothesis. “I can see that you don’t believe me, that you think it is only my fancy. But ask my father.”

And before Clifford could make any answer, she had quickly crossed the stone-flagged passage, had thrown open the door of the dining-room, and with a gesture invited Clifford to enter.

As the young man did so, rather fearing what sort of conversation he should have to hold with her, he was much relieved to find that the Colonel was there, sitting by the fire, with his spectacles on, reading a weekly paper. But to Clifford’s astonishment and alarm, the change in the old man was as great as in his daughter.

Colonel Bostal, although his clothes were always shabby and old-fashioned, had always retained an air of soldierly trimness, had always kept his hair closely cut and his snow-white mustache well trimmed, so that he had borne a certain air of smartness and distinction. Now he had lost every trace of it. His shoulders were bent. His hair had been allowed to grow long. His mustache hung ragged and untrimmed over a rough and straggling beard. More than this, there was in his eyes a look as pitiful in its restlessness as the haunting expression which Clifford had noticed in Miss Theodora’s.

The old man started when he saw the visitor, rose and held out his hand with mechanical, old-fashioned courtesy; but it was doubtful whether he recognized him.

Miss Bostal went softly round his chair with her quick, bird-like little steps, and put her hand gently on his shoulder.

“Dear papa,” she said in a whisper, “don’t you remember Mr. King? He was here in the summer. You do remember, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes, certainly I do; of course I do, Theodora,” responded the Colonel, with a slight frown at the implication that he was losing his memory. “Sit down, Mr. King, and tell us what the great world is doing.”

Then Clifford saw that in a moment the old man had become quite himself, and it was the weight of some care which had given him his changed appearance. The young man was sorry when Miss Theodora at once recalled her father to the anxiety which was pressing upon both of them.

“I want you to tell Mr. King, papa,” she said, as Clifford took the chair offered him, “about the terrible persecution we have been subjected to lately since the Blue Lion has been shut up.”

“It’s not a very lively subject,” objected her father, whose face fell at his daughter’s words. “However, I will tell you, if the story is worth telling.”

Clifford, although he was indeed curious to hear the narrative, protested that he did not wish to do so, as he saw that his host was by no means anxious to relate it. But Miss Theodora insisted.

“Well, then,” said the old gentleman, “it is simply this: At least half a dozen times since the Blue Lion has been deserted we have been annoyed by knocks and blows on our doors and windows at night. And although we have done our best to find out who it is that annoys us in this manner, we have been unable to do so.”

“And have you no idea, no suspicion?”

The Colonel shook his head in a troubled and anxious manner, but Miss Theodora pursed her lips and looked shrewd.

“I have a theory,” she said. And she waited to be asked what the theory was.

Clifford expressed the wished-for curiosity.

“I believe,” she went on, with conviction, “that it is the person who was at the bottom of the mysteries we have been suffering from here lately.”

“Nonsense, my dear,” interrupted her father, quickly, and not without nervousness. “What on earth should such a person want with us? We have nothing in the house worth stealing; and if we had, do you suppose that the person who was so very skillful in getting away and in evading justice, would try to batter our doors in? You are talking nonsense, Theodora.”

But Theodora looked stubborn. Then Clifford made a suggestion.

“If you think that, why don’t you inform the police? They would lay an ambush for this person, and would certainly free you from the annoyance of his visits, in any case.”

To the young man’s surprise, Colonel Bostal’s face assumed an expression of alarm which he tried in vain to hide; but Miss Theodora broke in triumphantly:

“That is just what I tell him, Mr. King, but he won’t hear of it. Perhaps you will be better able to persuade him than I.”

The Colonel, for answer, leaned back in his chair and drew his daughter’s little thin hands round his shoulders.

“I always think,” he said, after a long silence, during which strange suspicions rushed through Clifford’s mind, “that it is better not to stir up scandals that are past and done with. I may have my own suspicions that the annoyance we suffer from is connected with the uncanny stories we have heard so much about. But still I will not interfere, and I refuse to call in the aid of the police. We must not forget that in delivering up this unknown person who annoys us, we might be exposing others to danger.”

“What others, papa?” asked Miss Theodora quickly.

But the Colonel would not answer. He turned the conversation to another subject, and the interesting topic was not again touched upon until Clifford, having taken leave of the Colonel, stood in the hall with Miss Theodora.

“Do you know why I came down here to-day?” he then asked.

“Not to see us?” asked Miss Theodora. “We could hardly have hoped for that.”

“It was to see you and to thank you for your trust in Nell. I met Miss Lansdowne in town one evening, and she told me you were the one person who still believed in her innocence.”

But, to his chagrin, the little lady sighed and looked down. At last she said:

“I did hold out as long as I could against the thought of her guilt, Mr. King; but I must confess that I, too, have had to give way to overwhelming evidence. In face of some fresh circumstances which have now come to my knowledge, I don’t see how I can escape the conclusion that she did commit these crimes.”

Clifford drew himself up with a great shock of disappointment. Here, where he expected a fortress, he found a quagmire.

“In fact, it is because my father feels sure that the person who comes here to annoy us is the very same creature who instigated the girl to commit these crimes, that he refuses to give information to the police.”

“And who is the person?” asked Clifford, quickly.

“A young man who has obtained a great influence over her, and who has probably by this time become her husband,” replied Miss Bostal.

Clifford could not repress a movement of anxiety at these words. Miss Bostal tried to persuade him to come back into the dining-room with her and to stay to tea. But he excused himself and, with a rather colder leave-taking than he had expected, he left the house by the back door, and heard Miss Theodora draw the bolts before he reached the end of the garden.

This visit had left an extraordinary impression upon him.

There had flashed through his mind, as he noted the effect which Theodora’s prattle made upon her father, an uneasy suspicion whether the Colonel himself was not in some way implicated in the murder of Jem Stickels and the robberies at the Blue Lion. It was quite clear that poor Miss Theodora had no inkling of this, for she had chattered away without even noticing her father’s uneasiness. It was in vain, however, that Clifford tried to imagine any series of circumstances by which the old Colonel could have been implicated in the crimes. On the other hand, they remained just as inexplicable at the hands of any other person.

It was with a great sinking of the heart that Clifford began to feel his own belief in Nell’s complete innocence giving way. He was forced again to take refuge in the belief that, if she had been an agent in these criminal acts, she had been an unconscious one. And the thought which was uppermost in his mind was: What steps should he take to find her? The feeling which was strongest in his heart was the desire to shelter her from the consequences of those acts.

But the question was: How to find her? Clifford had been down to Stroan already to make inquiries, but had been unable to obtain any tidings of the uncle or the niece more definite than the vague rumor that George Claris was “shut up somewhere.”

Clifford paused for a few moments outside the garden gate of Shingle End, wondering whether he would apply for information to the police at Stroan. It was a step he dreaded to take, although he began to think it was the only one likely to lead to his obtaining the details he wanted.

As he stood looking vaguely along the road, he suddenly perceived that an old woman, who was standing at the door of the ancient turnpike cottage, was blinking and nodding at him in a mysterious manner. He took a few steps in her direction, and she came out in the road to meet him.

“So, you’ve been a-visiting, have you, sir?” she said, in a deep, gruff whisper, glancing up at the gloomy windows of Shingle End. “Aye, they want a few lively folk to come and see ’em and cheer ’em up, for sure!”

And she gave him a series of nods and shakes of the head, all of which were meant to carry weighty meaning.

“Well, this isn’t the best place in the world for people who are fond of ‘company,’ is it?” said Clifford. “I dare say you feel lonely yourself sometimes, don’t you?”

“Well, I get some I don’t expect sometimes, sir,” she answered, with mystery. “Two nights ago, now, I had a young lady in ’ere—a young lady you may know, sir, who was very much talked about last year, poor dear—”

Clifford’s sudden start into vivid interest made her break off and look at him attentively. She smiled knowingly.

“Maybe you know who I mean, sir?”

“Miss Claris?” asked he, with as much apparent indifference as he could.

“Aye, sir. She was in my cottage over an hour, and sorry enough I felt for her, I must say, whatever people think.”

And the old woman, who probably knew more than she affected to do about Clifford and his feeling toward Miss Claris, gave a sigh, and again found relief in her feelings in a shake of the head.

“Where is she now? Do you know?” asked Clifford, no longer disguising his interest. “If it’s a secret,” he went on, as the old lady said nothing, “I think you will not do wrong in confiding it to me, as I wish her all the good in the world.”

“It’s well there’s some as do, sir,” said she, with a suddenly lowered voice. “And I don’t know as I’m doing harm in telling you she is staying at Courtstairs, up Paradise Hill, Number 45, sir. And you can tell her if you see her as I wouldn’t have told nobody but you.”

Clifford was overwhelmed with joy at this unexpected piece of good fortune, and he promised at once to give her message.

“By the bye,” he said, just as he was about to start off in the direction of Courtstairs, “are you at liberty to tell me what she was doing here? Was she visiting the Bostals?”

“You mustn’t ask me any more,” she said. “There’s things one mustn’t so much as guess at,” she added, enigmatically, as she retreated to her own doorway.

Clifford did not trouble his head about these hints. It was enough for him that Nell was now within his reach. And he set off for Courtstairs with a set purpose in his mind.

The walk along the straight marsh road, with the wind in his face, and the sea a misty blue line on his right hand, seemed never-ending. Clifford had no eyes for the effect of sunset on the chalk cliff to his right, for the picturesque little farm perched up high above the water’s edge, as he drew near to Beach Bay.

Past the Shooter’s Arms, the wayside inn which happily forms the limit of the explorations of the devastating hordes from the East End of London with which benevolent railway companies have ruined one of the pleasantest spots in England. Past the tiny village of Beach, with its picturesque, steep miniature street, and its hideous new Convalescent Home and waste of brand-new tea-garden. Up on the Beach road, in full sight of the sea and of the fishing fleet coming in upon the breast of the tide. Clifford saw nothing, thought of nothing but how to save a yard, a minute, so that he might lose no time in reaching his darling.

He had to inquire for Paradise Hill, which proved to be one of the innumerable back streets of mean houses of which the town chiefly consists. He found No. 45 easily enough. It was one of a row of small, yellow brick houses, with bay-windows on the ground floor, which would formerly have been called cottages, but which, since the School Board brought in pretension, have become “villas.”

Clifford’s heart sank a little as he asked for “Miss Claris.” This stuffy little dwelling, after the fresh air of the rambling inn by the shore, must be a torture to the girl.

The woman who opened the door looked at him sulkily.

“I’ll see if she’s in,” she said, as if the proffered service was a great condescension.

And then she disappeared into the front room. When she came out again she was followed by Nell herself.

Or was it Nell? This thin-faced, white girl, with the dull, frightened eyes? For the first moment Clifford was hardly sure.

But she started violently, and the expression of her face changed. The look of alarm gave place to one of such joy, such comfort and radiant delight that Clifford was too much moved to speak.

They both stood silent until the woman had reluctantly disappeared into the back room of the house. Then Nell went into the front room, inviting him, still without a word, to follow her.

He did so, shut the door, and seized her in his arms. He could scarcely see her face for the mist before his eyes.

“I didn’t know you, Nell.”

“Didn’t you? Ah, well, it doesn’t matter.”

She spoke hopelessly, her first impulse of joy at the sight of him seeming to have died within her already.

“No, of course it doesn’t matter, for I mean you to look your own self again immediately. Do you know why I have come here, Nell?”

She was silent.

“I have come to marry you.”

Nell shook her head, but she drew a long sigh of satisfaction.

“I like to hear you say so. It is good of you,” she said, in a gentle, timid voice, “although it is impossible.”

“Why?”

“Oh, you don’t want me to go over the old ground again. Can’t you be satisfied that it is impossible?”

“No, I can’t, unfortunately. My darling, you can’t hold out any longer. It was dignified to refuse before; now it would only be foolish. Who is going to take care of you now, Nell, if you won’t have me?”

But he had touched a tender spot, and she began to cry softly.

“Poor uncle!” sobbed she. “It nearly broke my heart when he did not know even me. And then when they took him away—”

“Was he harmless?” asked Clifford, interrupting.

“Yes; he was quite harmless, and would let me manage him always. And the police came and—and took him away.”

“The police? Do you mean that?”

“Yes. They have haunted us both ever since we left the Blue Lion,” whispered she, earnestly. “And I know they are trying to find out the mystery—you know what—through him. Isn’t it dreadful!”

Clifford did not answer at once. It seemed to him that the chances of his being able to save the girl were growing small indeed. Her own utter hopelessness, her nervous dread, had affected him during the short silences between their questions and answers to each other; she seemed to be always listening, straining her ears for any sound outside. The cry of a street urchin made her start, a cart passing quickly at the corner of the street sent the blood to her forehead. Her nerves, poor child, were altogether shaken.

Clifford looked at her in dismay. Even the strong love which had stood every test was apparently powerless to give her more than momentary comfort.

“My darling,” he whispered, “let me take you up to town to-night. I will take you straight to your aunt’s, and in the shortest time possible I will marry you, and take you out of England altogether.”

Nell drew back and stared at him.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “This case is really coming on now. The police don’t disguise that they know enough to go upon now. I have the strongest reason, the very strongest, for believing that they will come for me to-day.”

“To arrest you?” cried Clifford, hoarsely. She began to tremble and to look at him askance.

“No, not to arrest me,” and she shuddered. Then a look of terror, more acute than ever, came into her eyes. “Perhaps that is it. Perhaps that is really what they mean to do,” she whispered doubtfully. “They said it was only my evidence they wanted, but—but—”

She hesitated—stopped. Clifford’s heart was wrung. Surely no jury that ever sat could convict this poor, helpless, gentle girl of anything but unconscious crime. He would have staked his life that she was as innocent of these mysterious crimes in intent as he was himself of them in deed.

“My darling!—my poor darling!—of course they only want your evidence.”

But his own voice shook and his eyes were dim. He tried to cheer her, to encourage her, to say words which he could hardly feel, but the girl scarcely seemed to hear him. Suddenly, in the midst of his vain efforts at consolation, she stood up.

“They are come,” said she.

Clifford started up. He had heard nothing. But Nell’s patient ears were keener than his. In another moment there was a knock at the outer door. And then a knock at the door of the room. He looked round wildly, and, seizing her arm, would have had her hide herself behind the little sofa, but she smiled sadly and shook her head.

“Come in!” she said.

And as the girl had foretold with uncannily correct prophecy, a sergeant of police from Stroan, very civil, very apologetic and humane, presented himself.

“Very sorry, Miss, to have to intrude,” said he. “But I must ask you to come along with me as far as Stroan, just to tell the magistrate something that will help us on a bit.”

“This is not an arrest?” said Clifford, trying to hide his anxiety.

“No, sir.”

But Nell’s white face seemed to betray the belief that it was.