IV
During lunch, a Mr. Findon, who had driven over with one of the Colonel’s neighbours, asked Sybil Reynor whether the peculiar and far from beautiful ring which she invariably wore was Oriental. From his conversation I gathered that he was something of an expert.
“It is generally supposed to be Phœnician, Mr. Findon,” she answered; and slipping it from her finger she passed it to him. “It is my lot in life to wear it always, hideous though it is!”
“Indeed! An heirloom, I suppose?”
“Yes,” replied the girl; “and an ugly one.”
In point of fact, the history of the ring was as curious as that of the Riddle. For generations it had been worn by the heir of Ragstaff from the day of his majority to that of his eldest son’s. Colonel Reynor had no son. Hence, following the tradition as closely as circumstances allowed, he had invested Sybil with the ring upon the day that she came of age—some three months prior to the time of which I write.
As Mr. Findon was about to return the ring, Lorian said:
“Excuse me. May I examine it for a moment?”
“Of course,” replied Sybil.
He took it in his hand and bent over it curiously. I cannot pretend to explain what impelled me to glance towards Hulme at that moment; but I did do so. And the expression which rested upon his dark and usually handsome face positively alarmed me.
I concluded that, beneath the cool surface, he was a man of hot passions, and I would have ascribed the fixed glare to the jealousy of a rejected suitor in presence of a more favoured rival, had it centred upon Lorian. But it appeared to be focused, particularly, upon the ring.
The incident impressed me very unfavourably. A sense of mystery was growing up around me—pervading the atmosphere of Ragstaff Park.
After lunch Lorian and I again set out in company, but my friend appeared to be in anything but sporting humour. We bore off at a sharp angle from the Colonel and some others who were set upon the rough shooting on the western rim of the moors and made for the honeycombed ground which led one upward to the cliff edge.
Abruptly, we found ourselves upon the sheer brink, with the floor of the ocean at our feet and all the great Atlantic before us.
“Let us relent of our murderous purpose,” said Lorian, dropping comfortably on to a patch of velvety turf and producing his pipe. “I have dragged you up here with the malicious intention of talking to you.”
I was not sorry to hear it. There was much that I wished to discuss with him.
“I should have stayed to say something to some one,” he added, carefully stuffing his briar, “but first I wanted to say something to you.” He paused, fumbling for matches. “What,” he continued, finding some and striking one, “is Felix Hulme’s little game?”
“He wants to marry Miss Reynor.”
“I know; but he needn’t get so infernally savage because she won’t accept him. He looked at me in a positively murderous way at lunch to-day.”
“So you noticed that?”
“Yes—and I saw that you noticed it, too.”
“Listen,” I said. “Leaving Hulme out of the question, there is an altogether more mysterious business afoot.” And I told him of the episode of the previous night.
He smoked stolidly whilst I spoke, frowning the while; then:
“Old chap,” he said, “I begin to have a sort of glimmering of intelligence. I believe I am threatened with an idea! But it’s such an utterly fantastic hybrid that I dare not name it—yet.”
He asked me several questions respecting what I had seen, and my replies appeared to confirm whatever suspicion was gathering in his mind. We saw little enough sport, but came in later than anyone.
During dinner there was an odd incident. Lorian said:
“Colonel, d’you mind my taking a picture of the Riddle?”
“Eh!” said the Colonel. “What for? Your father made a drawing of it.”
“Yes, I know,” replied Lorian. “I mean a photograph.”
“Well,” mused the Colonel, “I don’t know that there can be much objection, since it has been copied once. But have you got a camera here?”
“Ah—no,” said my friend thoughtfully, “I haven’t. Can anybody lend me one?”
Apparently no one could.
“If you care to drive over to Dr. Mason’s after dinner,” said our host, “he will lend you one. He has several.”
Lorian said he would, and I volunteered to accompany him. Accordingly the Colonel’s high dogcart was prepared; and beneath a perfect moon, swimming in a fleckless sky which gave no hint of the storm to come, we set off for the doctor’s.
My friend’s manœuvres were a constant source of surprise to me. However, I allowed him to know his own business best, and employed my mind with speculations respecting this mystery, what time the Colonel’s spirited grey whisked us along the dusty roads.
We had just wheeled around Dr. Mason’s drive, when the fact broke in upon my musings that a Stygian darkness had descended upon the night, as though the moon had been snuffed, candle-wise.
“Devil of a storm brewing,” said Lorian. “Funny how the weather changes at night.”
Two minutes after entering the doctor’s cosy study, down came the rain.
“Now we’re in for it!” said Mason. “I’ll send Wilkins to run the dogcart into the stable until it blows over.”
The storm proved to be a severe one; and long past midnight, despite the doctor’s hospitable attempts to detain us, we set off for Ragstaff Park.
“We can put up the grey ourselves,” said Lorian. “I love grooming horses! And by going around into the yard and throwing gravel up at his window, we can awaken Peters without arousing the house. This plan almost startles me by its daring originality. I fear that I detect within myself the symptoms of genius.”
So, with one of Dr. Mason’s cameras under the seat, we started back through the sweet-smelling lanes; and, at about twenty minutes past one, swung past the gate lodge and up the long avenue, the wheels grinding crisply upon the newly wetted gravel. There was but little moon, now, and the house stood up, an irregular black mass, before us.
Then, from three of the windows, there suddenly leapt out a dazzling white light!
Lorian pulled up the grey with a jerk.
“Good God!” he said. “What’s that! An explosion!”
But no sound reached us. Only, for some seconds, the hard, white glare streamed out upon the steps and down on to the drive. Suddenly as it had come—it was gone, and the whole of Ragstaff was in darkness as before!
The horse started nervously, but my friend held him with a firm hand, turning and looking at me queerly.
“That’s what shone under your door last night!” he said. “That light was in the hall!”