SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS
Maxwell Fair, an Englishman who has amassed a colossal fortune on ’Change, inherits from his ancestors a remarkable tendency to devote his life to some object, generally a worthy, if peculiar one, which is extravagantly chivalrous, even morbid. The story opens with Fair and Mrs. Fair standing over the body of a man who has just been shot in their house—a foreigner, who had claimed to be an old friend of Mrs. Fair. Fair sends her to her room, saying: “Leave everything to me.” He hides the body in a chest, and decides to close the house “for a trip on the Continent.” Fair tells the governess, Kate Mettleby, that he loves her, that there is no dishonor in his love, in spite of Mrs. Fair’s existence, and that, until an hour ago, he thought he could marry her—could “break the self-imposed conditions of his weird life-purpose.” They are interrupted before Kate, who really loves him, is made to understand. While the Fairs are entertaining a few old friends at dinner, Kate, not knowing that it contains Mrs. Fair’s blood-stained dress, is about to hide a parcel in the chest when she is startled by a sound.
CHAPTER V (Continued)
“HSS—hss,” once more came the noise, and this time she realized that it proceeded from the doorway. With a frightened look she saw a man peering and smiling at her between the portières.
“Why, who are you?” she asked, involuntarily retreating toward the bell.
“Sh-h. They are at dinner—a very good dinner, from the smell, too,” answered the stranger, entering the room with an air of such thorough good-nature and easy friendliness that Miss Mettleby gained courage. He was a little, wiry, dapper, insinuating fellow whose cockney smartness of attire and knowing, “between ourselves” manner suggested almost anything, from an upper groom or a veterinary’s assistant to a rising young follower of the turf or a successful burglar with aristocratic connections.
“I will ring,” said Miss Mettleby, puzzled whether to scream or laugh.
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that, you know,” suggested the visitor pleasantly, more like one throwing out a friendly suggestion than a burglar intimidating a very frightened young governess. “You see, miss, I have business with Mr. Fair—rather nasty business, too, and I never broach a disagreeable subject until after dinner, do you?”
“But what do you mean by prowling about people’s houses?” asked Kate, with a dignity born of growing assurance that the man did not contemplate her immediate murder.
“Oh, I say, let up, miss, you know,” deprecated the invader ruefully. “You see, when you have passed a few hours back of pianos and under beds and in wardrobes you grow attached to a house, don’t you, miss? I’m that attached to this house that you’d be surprised if I was to tell you how much. You’ll be the governess now, I dare say?”
“Yes, but on my word, you are the coolest thief—” replied Kate, and the cool one broke in:
“Oh, oh, pretty young lady, recall that there wile insinuation, you know.”
“Well, since you are so cool about it and come here where you are sure to be seen, I’ll believe you,” answered Miss Mettleby. “But what do you want? Really, this is refreshing.”
“Ain’t it just, miss?” acquiesced the cool one, sitting down. “Askin’ your pardon, I’ll smoke. Now, miss, that we’re so cozy like, I’ll ask you a few questions. A dark foreign gentlemen called here about an hour ago.”
“Perhaps he did—what of it?” asked Kate, with a very feeble effort to cover the alarm which his words created.
“You saw him?” went on the stranger, with an exasperating coolness.
“If I did, I don’t see what business that is of yours,” retorted Kate haughtily enough, but inwardly quaking. “Who are you, sir?”
“I am Ferret, miss,” he answered, rising and bowing; “Mr. Samuel Ferret, of the Scotland Yard private detective force—your servant.”
“Good gracious,” cried Miss Mettleby, springing up in spite of her effort to betray no feeling. “A detective? But why should you come here?”
Poor Kate’s alarm would have been considerably heightened had she only known that three or four other insinuating and evanescent gentlemen had been in and out of the premises for the past hour, and that still more of them were at that moment watching the house, front and rear.
“Well, you see, miss,” replied Ferret, trying by his manner to reassure the young woman, “I’ve been taking an interest in my foreign friend for a week. He came here today. I haven’t seen him go away again? Have you?”
“No,” answered Kate, with an indifference which she did not feel; “but he must have gone, of course. There is no such person about the premises. I must ring and advise Mr. Fair.”
“Now, really, you know,” exclaimed Ferret, jumping up to intercept her; “I wouldn’t do that, would you? When a gent goes into a house and don’t come out again, it is just possible to imagine that he is somewhere near that house, not to say in that house. You follow me, I hope? Well, my dear foreign friend came into this here very elegant mansion and he didn’t go out of it again, so by a stretch of fancy I think he may be in London yet, and in that part of London which is up in your attic. Now, don’t jump. If you make a row, you’ll frighten the great folks at dinner—such a deucedly good dinner, too—and besides give my foreign friend advance knowledge of my little surprise party—I just love surprises, don’t you? And them there foreign gents can get out through a smaller hole than a self-respecting Englishman, let me tell you.”
“But who is the man?” asked Kate, forgetting her alarm as Ferret, with the oddest winks and gestures with his long thumbs, delivered his speech. “And what is he doing here? And what do you propose to do about it?”
“Me? What do I propose to do about it?” inquired Ferret as if the thought that he would be expected to do something about it had just struck him. “Well, first of all, I propose to ask you to be a nice young lady and help me a bit. You see, miss, my friend don’t mean any great kindness to Mr. and Mrs. Fair. Not a bit of it—that ain’t like my friend. In fact, there’s going to be a row—now, now, don’t jump, you know—I was saying that there is going to be a row, unless you and I prevent it, you know.”
“Then I insist upon telling Mr. Fair at once—this is awful,” cried Kate, beginning again to believe that the alleged detective was simply a clever sneak-thief who was playing upon her ignorance.
“Hawful is it?” smiled Ferret, warning her to remain seated with a hand lifted eloquently; “but it won’t be hawful, but just a pleasant little picnic if you will do just what I tell you. Come now, don’t be a fool, miss, but a dear, good, cool-headed young lady. Will you help me?”
“Yes,” replied Miss Mettleby; “of course I will do anything to help Mr. Fair—I mean, Mrs. Fair.”
“Of course you will,” said Ferret encouragingly. “I knew you was a Christian the minute I see you, miss. You stop in this room until I come back. I am going out to telephone, you see.”
“Oh, we have a telephone in the house, you know,” eagerly remarked Kate, not liking the idea of being kept a prisoner in the library while this man roamed about the house at his leisure.
“Yes,” jeered Ferret; “and it would be a fine thing, wouldn’t it, for me to yell through your telephone downstairs that I wanted the Yard to send me six constables at once to nab a foreign gentleman—with the foreign gent himself lying under the very mat on which I was standing. Innocent! No. I must go out to telephone—and if you sort of want to see me safe out of the house, why, come down to the door with me—yes, that’s it. I want you to sit in the little room by the street door, and when my friend goes out the door follow him—follow him, miss, you understand. He will go across the street, down the next street to the square, turn to the left, and call a cab at the corner. You call the next cab and direct the driver to follow the first one. Watch him, follow him, don’t lose sight of him.”
“But he wouldn’t be such a fool as to go out by the front door,” replied Kate, thoroughly puzzled by Ferret’s mysterious instructions, which she, of course, did not understand were merely attempts on his part to get her out of his way and fixed permanently in some known room.
“Never fear,” answered Ferret; “that’s just what he will do. He’ll go out of the front door as if he owned the house. In all likelihood I’ll be over the way when he and you come out, and then of course I’ll follow him myself, but if I ain’t there, you must do as I say. Follow him no matter wherever he goes—and then come to Scotland Yard and report.”
“I don’t know about all this,” stoutly returned Kate, shaking her head. “Why can’t Mr. Fair be advised at once? This is all wrong—and strange.”
“But you see, miss,” quickly protested Ferret, “Mr. Fair has private reasons for not wishing us to trouble the foreign gent, so he wouldn’t help us to nab him. Funny, isn’t it? But it often happens that we poor detectives has to catch all sorts of gents in spite of the very parties on whose accounts we wants ’em. The aristocracy has objections against appearing in court even against their own murderers. Now Mr. Fair does not know this gent’s little game and so he trusts him. We’ve got to do all this business ourselves—and, I tell you, it’s life and death. So, is it a go? Will you be a sensible young woman and not make a row, and help me?”
“I will,” answered Kate, convinced by the fellow’s irresistibly frank air—and moved by the comforting thought that her consent to his plan would at least get him out of the house—when she would of course advise Mr. Fair of the whole matter, even if it did spoil a good dinner.
“That’s a real lady for you,” gallantly remarked Ferret. “Now I’m off. Come downstairs if you want to see me out of the house—you suspicious young thing. No? All right. Thanks, but you really must sit in that little room, you know, for he may be leaving the house at any minute.”
“I’ll get my hat first,” replied Kate, “so that I can be ready to follow him if he goes out.”
Ferret slid noiselessly out of the library with a warning finger at his lips, and Kate congratulated herself upon having so cleverly deceived him. She would hide the parcel containing the surprise and then send word to the dining-room that she must see Mr. Fair at once.
She sat for a moment trying to think out the impressions which had been pouring in upon her in this hour of cataclysm and departure. What had brought the foreign gentleman to the house? What had he done to make him the subject of police suspicion? And why should Mr. Fair wish to protect him from the law? And—oh, how the thought came crushing back into her heart after being dislodged by the detective’s sudden appearance—of what crime had Mr. Fair spoken? The temporary calmness that the diversion had purchased for her gave way now to all the torment that had preceded it. Springing up to carry out her resolution—action being at all events less dreadful than idle horror—she took the parcel from the table, and going hurriedly across the room, lifted the lid of the old carved chest. She dropped the parcel into it—and fell.
Allyne had just elicited a laugh by one of his characterizations of a certain great personage, when the party at dinner heard a shriek that brought them all to their feet. Mr. and Mrs. Fair dashed upstairs with who can say what horror of expectancy in their minds. They found the governess lying beside the chest in the library. Fair acted promptly.
He heard the others running up the stairs, so as he raised Kate from the floor he said to Mrs. Fair; “Sit on the chest, Janet—never mind why—and do not rise from it until I get them all out of here. It is only Miss Mettleby, the governess—she has fainted,” he added as Mrs. March and Allyne entered followed by Travers.
“Oh, my dear Mrs. Fair, how pale you look—what has really happened?” asked Mrs. March anxiously.
“Miss Mettleby has had a bad turn—that’s all. Pray, all of you go,” replied Fair, for Mrs. Fair, with a white face and vacant look, sat as if unconscious of what passed.
“Allyne, take Mrs. March down, won’t you?” asked Travers, to relieve the situation, and then, after Allyne and Mrs. March were gone: “Is there nothing that I can do, Fair? My God, man, what does it all mean?”
“Thanks, old chap,” answered Fair as he laid Miss Mettleby upon the leather lounge; “nothing. Go down now, or Lady Poynter will fear there is something serious the matter. Janet, my love, let Travers see you down.”
Mrs. Fair suffered Travers to lead her away, walking in a trance.
“Kate—Kate,” said Fair, bending over the governess and chafing her hands which now began to twitch convulsively.
“Has he gone?” asked Kate, opening her eyes and staring nervously around the room.
“There is nobody here, Miss Mettleby,” quietly answered Fair, helping her to her feet. “Are you better?”
“I must have fainted—how stupid of me,” replied Miss Mettleby, getting herself together and shuddering as the reality came back upon her. “It is nothing, Mr. Fair. Now please go back to your dinner—oh, how foolish and annoying of me to disturb you all in this way! I will get my hat and take the air for a few minutes. Come.”
They walked slowly out of the library, and in the passage Kate insisted on his returning to the dining-room while she ran up to her own room.
Fair went down accordingly, tortured with the fear that she had opened the chest. Miss Mettleby, hastily preparing for the street, slipped out of the house and fled along to the corner, where she took a cab and was driven off at a mad pace.