"Don't. Stumped"
"Next week, then?" He nods. She casts a critical look around. "Our most brilliant gathering, I think."
"Jolly," he says, and, being by this time exhausted, he leaves her at the fountain, where, presently, she is joined by other guests, with whom she carries on an animated conversation.
The grounds, with their thousands of coloured lights, are dotted with the attractive dresses of the ladies and the soberer costume of the gentlemen. Pleasure shows its smiling face, and doors are shut upon black care. No face brighter than that of Lady Wharton, none more free from the least suspicion of anxiety. Her hearty voice rings out, an invitation to mirth and gaiety. And yet as time wears on there is an anxious thought in her mind. "Why does the man not come?" she thinks. "He promised to be here faithfully, and it must be now nearly one o'clock." She consults a jewelled watch. "Yes, it is--one o'clock." The fact is, my lady is pressed for money, and she is expecting to receive a thousand pounds to-night in ready cash, half of which must go to her dressmaker in the morning. For, come what may, my lady must be dressed. So she stands at the fountain, and taps her foot impatiently. Soft gleaming lights, fair sky with its panoply of stars and bright moon shining, sounds of rippling laughter, gay forms gliding and flitting through the lacework of the trees: a fairy scene, made not less beautiful by the dark spaces wherein the pines, their topmost branches silvered by the moon, stand apart, picturesque sentinels of the night.
To my lady a liveried footman, who presents a card. She moves into the light to read it.
"At last!" she says. "Where is the man?"
"He is waiting to see you, my lady."
She follows the servant, and steps into the shadow of a cluster of trees.
* * * * *
What connection is there between that gay scene in Bournemouth and this more sombre scene in Samuel Boyd's house in Catchpole Square, where, an hour after midnight, Dick moves in search of the body of Abel Death? The invisible links are in the air. Will they ever be brought to light and united to form another chain in the mystery?