“Mr. Blick,” answered Mr. Fransemmery in his gravest accents, “your profession being what it is, I can speak freely to you. And I will speak freely to Mrs. Braxfield, things having developed as they have. What I am going to say has only been known to me for a few hours; I think it may be known to the Markenmores’ solicitor by now—it may be—and possibly to Harry Markenmore. But I’ll tell you and Mrs. Braxfield what it is, now—it may save some trouble. Mind, this is nothing that I can personally vouch for!—it is only something that I have heard. And it is this—I may tell you that I have spent the whole day searching for Baron von Eckhardstein; I have been all up and down in the lonelier parts of the woods and in some of the Down valleys. About noon I was in that very out-of-the-way valley on the other side of one hill, called Grayling Bottom—a wild, solitary place, Mr. Blick. There is just one human habitation in it, tenanted by a woman whom Mrs. Braxfield no doubt knows—Margaret Hilson. It was very chilly in that valley—a sunless, cold place always—and I asked Margaret Hilson to let me sit by her cottage fire while I ate my lunch, which I had carried out with me. This woman is a close, reserved person—the sort, I should say, who could keep secrets for ever if she chose—but she talked to me with some freedom about the present events and situation. And finding that I was a lawyer, she talked still more freely, and in the end—knowing, as she said, that things would have to come out—she said she would tell me something that she had kept entirely to herself for four years. Briefly, it was this: Margaret Hilson says that at just about the time of Guy Markenmore’s disappearance from these parts, there also disappeared a girl named Myra Halliwell, a very pretty girl, one of two daughters of a small farmer in this neighbourhood, whose sister, Daphne Halliwell, she said, went out to India as lady’s-maid to Mrs. Tretheroe, came back with her, and is now in her service at the Dower House. This Myra, says Margaret Hilson, was considered to be engaged to be married to a man named Roper—James Roper—a woodman, still, I believe, employed on the Markenmore estate. But, as I have said, she, according to Margaret Hilson, completely disappeared at the same time that Guy Markenmore left the Court. That,” observed Mr. Fransemmery, pausing in his narration and glancing significantly at the detective, “is an important matter to keep in mind—in view of what follows.”
Blick nodded. But he was not watching Mr. Fransemmery so much as he was watching Mrs. Braxfield. Obviously she was more than deeply interested in the story which was being so unexpectedly revealed to her, and since the introduction of Myra Halliwell’s name her interest had deepened almost to the point of agitation. Her colour came and went; her lips were alternately compressed and relaxed; clearly, thought Blick, this woman was distinctly anxious, not to say alarmed. And when Mr. Fransemmery paused, she kept her eyes on him with an expression which showed that she was waiting, with almost frightened eagerness, to know what was coming next.
“Well,” continued Mr. Fransemmery, “what follows is this: Margaret Hilson, some four years after the disappearance of Myra Halliwell from these parts, went to London to visit a sister of hers who lived near Wandsworth Common. Margaret usually went out on the Common of a morning, to take the air, while her sister, a working-man’s wife, was engaged on her household tasks. One morning, as she was strolling about, she saw a young, smartly dressed woman whose appearance seemed familiar to her, and who had with her a nursemaid in charge of a perambulator in which was a child. They came near, and in the smart young woman Margaret Hilson recognized Myra Halliwell. The recognition was mutual; they stopped and spoke to each other. And the result was that Myra Halliwell, pledging Margaret to secrecy, confided to her that she was married to Mr. Guy Markenmore, and that the child in the perambulator, now three years old, was their son——”
Mrs. Braxfield suddenly smote the table with her clenched fist.
“A lie!” she exclaimed hoarsely. “A lie—all through! Why!—he asked Mrs. Tretheroe to marry him, the night he was here! You both heard her swear it—in the witness-box; you know you did!”
Blick said nothing. He was watching Mr. Fransemmery now—convinced that there was more in and behind this story than he had at first imagined. Its various phases were opening up new ideas, new visions to him; he was becoming professionally excited over it.
“I have not yet finished, Mrs. Braxfield,” said Mr. Fransemmery quietly. “Allow me—now, Margaret Hilson, who, in my opinion, is just the woman to keep close thoughts—promised young Mrs. Guy that she would keep the secret, and she did. But, a year ago, Margaret Hilson went to visit her sister again—at the same place. Again, she took her walks on Wandsworth Common. And, one morning, she met, not Mrs. Guy Markenmore, but the same nurse, with the same child, then grown into a sturdy boy of five. She spoke to the nurse, who told her that the mother was dead—had died a year previously, of pneumonia; the child, she said, was being brought up by a lady to whose care he had been entrusted on his mother’s death, and she, the nurse, remained with him. The nurse, who probably saw no reason why she should not talk freely to a woman with whom she had seen her late mistress in close and intimate conversation, added some details. She said that the child’s father came to see him twice a week, and always spent Sunday afternoon with him; she, the nurse, spoke of him as a handsome and well-to-do man. She further said that the child was called after him—Guy. Finally, she told Margaret Hilson where her late mistress was buried, and Margaret Hilson went to see the grave. She found it easily enough from the particulars given her, and she saw the inscription on the tombstone—Myra, wife of Guy Markenmore. That, too, Margaret Hilson has kept to herself—but, Mrs. Braxfield, she was not going to keep it to herself longer than tonight! Her intention, when I called at her cottage, was to tell Mr. Chilford all that she knew, this evening; as I did call, she told me. I advised her to tell Chilford at once—by now, she may have done so—I suppose she has. I don’t think there’s the slightest ground for doubting the truth of her story—why should there be? And it is, of course, absolutely certain that if the late Guy Markenmore’s little boy is alive—why, he’s the heir to the title and the estates!”
CHAPTER XVIII