The detective bent another quick glance at the baronet.
“Did the cabman make any further discoveries?” inquired Atkins.
“One or two, of some importance,” said Ryan. “In the first place, there were too few servants for so grand a house. In the second place, the young lady, with an older woman, had come up here within a week. In the third place, the house-maid said that her young mistress was called Miss Wroat, but that that was not her real name, for the young gentleman had asked for her by another name. And altogether, an air of mystery seems to hang about the young lady. But the fact of the most importance of all is, that on the way home from Heather Hills last night, young Black got up on the box with the cabby, and asked him no end of questions about the Scotch laws concerning marriage—if licenses were necessary, if publication of banns was usual, and so on. And the young man asked him which was the best church to step into for a quiet, informal marriage, without license or publication of banns, but the marriage to be perfectly legal and binding.”
“Ah!” said Atkins. “That begins to look as if he meant business.”
“Young Black seemed to be in gay humor all the way home,” said Ryan. “He sung to himself, and talked and laughed, and acted as if he had had a fortune left to him. And as they drove into Inverness, he told the cabby that he wanted him to take him to church this morning at a quarter to ten o’clock, and he told him that he was going to be married to a great heiress whom he adored.”
“Is there not some mistake?” asked Lord Towyn excitedly. “Can he be in love with some other lady?”
“I should say not,” said Atkins dryly. “Heiresses are not as plenty as oat cakes in Scotland. He’s been courting Miss Wynde since last July, and was dead in love with her, as any one could see. He could not shift his affections so soon, and fix them upon another heiress. The young lady is Miss Wynde, fast enough. And she is either deluding him, meaning to denounce him to the minister at the altar, or to escape from him in Inverness, or else her courage is weakened, and she believes herself helpless, and has yielded to her enemies in a fit of despair.”
“If she were alone upon the cliffs, she might then have attempted an escape,” said Lord Towyn, thoroughly puzzled. “I cannot feel that this smiling, loving bride is Neva. I know she is not. But we will present ourselves at the marriage, and if the bride be Neva, we will save her!”
“I cannot think that she is Neva,” said Sir Harold thoughtfully. “And yet, as Atkins says, where could he have found another heiress so soon? And how, if he loved Neva so devotedly, could he be so deeply in love with this young lady who has just come up to Inverness?”
“She comes from Kent,” said Ryan. “The housemaid has heard her speak of being at Canterbury within the month.”