From Behind the Hedge
The man’s swarthy rage added force to the taunt. David Hume leaped up, but Brett anticipated him, gripping his arm firmly, and without ostentation.
Margaret, too, had risen. She appeared to be battling with some powerful emotion, choking back a fierce impulse. For an instant the situation was electrical. Then the woman’s clear tones rang through the room.
“I am mistress here,” she cried, “Giovanni, remain silent or leave us. How dare you, of all men, speak thus to my cousin?”
Certainly the effect of the barrister’s straightforward statement was unlooked-for. But Brett felt that a family quarrel would not further his object at that moment. It was necessary to stop the imminent outburst, for David Hume and Giovanni Capella were silently challenging each other to mortal combat. What a place of ill-omen to the descendants of the Georgian baronet was this sun-lit library with its spacious French windows!
“Of course,” said the barrister, speaking as quietly as if he were discussing the weather, “such a topic is an unpleasant one. It is, however, unavoidable. My young friend here is determined, at all costs, to discover the secret of Sir Alan’s murder. It is imperative that he should do so. The happiness of his whole life depends upon his success. Until that mystery is solved he cannot marry the woman he loves.”
“Do you mean Helen Layton?” Margaret’s syllables might have been so many mortal daggers.
“Yes.”
“Is David still in love with her?”
“Yes.”
“And she with him?”
David Hume broke in:
“Yes, Rita. She has been faithful to the end.”
A very forcible Italian oath came from Capella as he passed through the window and strode rapidly out of sight, passing to the left of the house, where one of the lines of yew trees ended in a group of conservatories.
Margaret was now deadly white. She pressed her hand to her bosom.
“Forgive me,” she sobbed. “I do not feel well. You will both be always welcome here. Let no one interfere with you. But I must leave you. This afternoon—”
She staggered to the door. Her cousin caught her.
“Thank you, Davie,” she whispered. “Leave me now. I will be all right soon. My heart troubles me. No. Do not ring. Let us keep our miseries from the servants.”
She passed out, leaving Hume and the barrister uncertain how best to act. The situation had developed with a vengeance. Brett was more bewildered than ever before in his life.
“That scoundrel killed Alan, and now he wants to kill his own wife!” growled Hume, when they were alone.
Brett looked through him rather than at him. He was thinking intently. For a long time—minutes it seemed to his fuming companion—he remained motionless, with glazed, immovable eyes. Then he awoke to action.
“Quick!” he cried. “Tell me if this room has changed much since you were last here. Is the furniture the same? Is that the writing-table? What chair did you sit in? Where was it placed? Quick, man! You have wasted eighteen months. Give me no opinions, but facts.”
Thus admonished, scared somewhat by the barrister’s volcanic energy, Hume obeyed him.
“There is no material change in the room,” he said. “The secretaire is the same. You see, here is the drawer which was broken open. It bears the marks of the implement used to force the lock. I think I sat in this chair, or one like it. It was placed here. My face was turned towards the fire, yet in my dream I was looking through the centre window. The Japanese sword rested here. I showed you where Alan’s body was found.”
The young man darted about the room to illustrate each sentence. Brett followed his words and actions without comment. He grabbed his hat and stick.
“We will return later in the day,” he said. “Let us go at once and call on Mrs. Eastham.”
“Mrs. Eastham! Why?”
“Because I want to see Miss Helen Layton. The old lady can send for her.”
Hume needed no urging. He could not walk fast enough. They had gone a hundred yards from the house when Brett suddenly stopped and checked his companion.
Behind the yew trees on the left, and rendered invisible by a stout hedge, a man was running—running at top speed, with the labouring breath of one unaccustomed to the exercise. The barrister sprang over the strip of turf, passed among the trees, and plunged into the hedge regardless of thorns. He came back instantly.
“There is a footpath across the park, leading towards the lodge gates. Where does it come out?” he asked, speaking rapidly in a low tone.
“It enters the road near the avenue, close to the gates. It leads from a farmhouse.”
“A lady is walking through the park towards the lodge. Capella is running to intercept her. Come! We may hear something.”
Brett set off at a rapid pace along the turf. Hume followed, and soon they were near the lodge. Mrs. Crowe saw them, and came out.
“Stop her!” gasped Brett.
Hume signalled the woman not to open the gate. She watched them with open-mouthed curiosity. The barrister slowed down and quietly made his way to the leafy angle where the avenue hedge joined that which shut off the park from the road.
He held up a warning hand. Hume stepped warily behind him, and both men looked through a portion of the hedge where briars were supplanted by hazel bushes.
Capella was standing panting near a stile. A girl, dressed in muslin, and wearing a large straw hat, was approaching.
“Great Heavens! It is Helen!” exclaimed Hume.
Brett grasped his shoulder.
“Restrain yourself,” he whispered earnestly. “Luckily, Capella has not heard you. I regret the necessity which makes us eavesdroppers, but it is a fortunate accident, all the same. Not a word! Remember what is at stake.”
They could not see the Italian’s face. His back was heaving from the violence of his exertion. Miss Layton was walking rapidly towards the stile. Obviously she had perceived the waiting man, and she was not pleased.
Her pretty face, flushed and sunburnt, wore the strained aspect of a woman annoyed, but trying to be civil.
It was she who took the initiative.
“Good day, Mr. Capella,” she said pleasantly. “Why on earth did you run so fast?”
“Because I wished to be here before you, Miss Layton,” replied the man, his voice tremulous with excitement.
“Then I wish I had known, because I could have beaten you easily if you meant to race me.”
“That was not my object.”
“Well, now you have attained it, whatever it may have been, please allow me to get over the stile. I will be late for luncheon. My father wished me to ascertain how Farmer Burton is progressing after his spill. He was thrown from his dog-cart whilst coming from the Bury St. Edmund’s fair.”
It was easy for the listeners behind the hedge to gather that the girl’s affable manner was affected. She was really somewhat alarmed. Her eyes wandered to the high road to see if anyone was approaching, and she kept at some distance from the Italian.
“Do not play with me, Nellie,” said Capella, in agonised accents. “I am consumed with love of you. Can you not, at least, give me your pity?”
“Mr. Capella,” she cried, and none but one blind to all save his own passionate desires could fail to note her lofty disdain, “how can you be so base as to use such language to me?”
“Base! To love you!”
“Again I say it—base and unmanly. What have I done that you should venture to so insult your charming wife, not to speak of the insult to myself? When you so far forgot yourself a fortnight ago as to hint at your outrageous ideas regarding me, I forced myself to remember that you were not an Englishman, that perhaps in your country there may be a social code which permits a man to dishonour his home and to annoy a defenceless woman. I cannot forgive you a second time. Let me pass! Let me pass, I tell you, or I will strike you!”
Brett, in his admiration for the spirited girl who, notwithstanding her protestations, seemed to be anything but “defenceless,” momentarily forgot his companion.
A convulsive tightening of Hume’s muscles, preparatory to a leap through the hedge, warned him in time.
“Idiot!” he whispered, as he clutched him again.
Were not the others so taken up with the throbbing influences of the moment they must have heard the rustling of the leaves. But they paid little heed to external affairs. The Italian was speaking.
“Nellie,” he said, “you will drive me mad. But listen, carissima. If I may not love you, I can at least defend you. David Hume-Frazer, the man who murdered my wife’s brother, has returned, and openly boasts that you are waiting to marry him.”
“Boasts! To whom, pray?”
“To me. I heard him say this not fifteen minutes since.”
“Where? You do not know him. He could not be here without my knowledge.”
“Then it is true. You do intend to marry this unconvicted felon?”
“Mr. Capella, I really think you are what English people call ‘cracked.’”
“But you believe me—that this man has come to Beechcroft?”
“It may be so. He has good reasons, doubtless, for keeping his presence here a secret. Whatever they may be, I shall soon know them.”
“Helen, he is not worthy of you. He cannot give you a love fierce as mine. Nay, I will not be repelled. Hear me. My wife is dying. I will be free in a few months. Bid me to hope. I will not trouble you. I will go away, but I swear, if you marry Frazer, neither he nor you will long enjoy your happiness!”
The girl made no reply, but sprang towards the stile in sheer desperation. Capella strove to take her in his arms, not indeed with intent to offer her any violence; but she met his lover-like ardour with such a vigorous buffet that he lost his temper.
He caught her. She had almost surmounted the stile, but her dress hampered her movements. The Italian, vowing his passion in an ardent flow of words, endeavoured to kiss her.
Then, with a sigh, for he would have preferred to avoid an open rupture, Brett let go his hold on Hume. Indeed, if he had not done so, there must have been a fight on both sides of the hedge.
He turned away at once to light a cigarette. What followed immediately had no professional interest for him.
But he could not help hearing Helen’s shriek of delighted surprise, and certain other sounds which denoted that Giovanni was being used as a football by his near relative by marriage.
Mrs. Crowe came out of her cottage.
“What’s a-goin’ on in the park, sir?” she inquired anxiously.
“A great event,” he said. “Faust is kicking Mephistopheles.”
“Drat them colts!” she cried, adding, after taking thought; “but we haven’t any horses of them names, sir.”
“No! You surprise me. They are of the best Italian pedigree.”
Meanwhile, he was achieving his object, which was to drive Mrs. Crowe back towards the wicket.
Helen’s voice came to them shrilly:
“That will do, Davie! Do you hear me?”
“Why, bless my ’eart, there’s Miss Layton,” said Mrs. Crowe.
“What a fine little boy this is!” exclaimed Brett, stooping over a curly-haired urchin. “Is he the oldest?”
“Good gracious, sir, no. He’s the youngest.”
“Dear me, I would not have thought so. You must have been married very early. Here, my little man, see what you can buy for half-a-crown.”
“What a nice gentleman he is, to be sure,” thought the lodge-keeper’s wife, when Brett passed through the smaller gate, assured that the struggle in the park had ended.
“Just fancy ’im a-thinkin’ Jimmy was the eldest, when I will be a grandmother come August if all goes well wi’ Kate.”
The barrister signed to the groom to wait, and joined the young couple, who now appeared in the roadway. A haggard, dishevelled, and furious man burst through the avenue hedge and ran across the drive.
“Mrs. Crowe,” he almost screamed, “do you see those two men there?”
“Yes, sir.”
The good woman was startled by her master’s sudden appearance and his excited state.
“They are never to be admitted to the grounds again. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
Capella turned to rush away up the avenue, but he was compelled to limp. Mrs. Crowe watched him wonderingly, and tried to piece together in her mind the queer sounds and occurrences of the last two minutes.
She had not long been in the cottage when the butler arrived.
“You let two gentlemen in a while ago?” he said.
“I did.”
“One was Mr. David and the other a Mr. Brett?”
“Oh, was that the tall gentleman’s name?”
“I expect so. Well, here’s the missus’s written order that whenever they want to come to the ’ouse or go anywheres in the park it’s O.K.”
Mrs. Crowe was wise enough to keep her own counsel, but when the butler retired, she said:
“Then I’ll obey the missus, an’ master can settle it with her. I don’t hold by Eye-talians, anyhow.”