White Motley: A Novel

by Max Pemberton

He would not admit this at the beginning, or even contemplate a house of shadows. Knowing Luton Delayne, he thought it very likely that he had gone to one of the neighbouring towns for his dinner; while the old woman, taking advantage of his absence, would have run down to the village to her home there. Going round to the back of the house, which looked upon the lake, he found it shut and barred, and no evidence of occupation whatever—but the bars were no obstacle to such a wit as his, and forcing the kitchen window, he climbed in and began to search the place. A fleck of fire reddened in the grate; there were dirty plates upon a bare table, with a candle and a box of matches. Benny lit the candle, and passed on into the hall. The shanty had been occupied that day, so much was evident.

It was here that a strange hallucination took possession of him, and one he had some little difficulty to stifle. Suddenly, and without warning, he thought that he heard Luton Delayne's voice from one of the inner rooms; but when he entered it there was no sign of occupation whatever, no evidence that it had been used for many months. This should have set his mind at rest, but no such result followed upon the discovery. For the second time he heard the voice calling him from another quarter of the house; and, refusing to believe that he could be mistaken a second time, he crossed the narrow hall, and entered the room he had used as his study. Here at last were those visible evidences of occupation he had sought vainly elsewhere. The remains of such a meal as a man would have ordered were still upon the table. A fire burned in the grate, and a flask of red wine stood upon a side table. Whoever had occupied this room had left it during the day, and, what was more, he had written a letter shortly before he left.

Benny set down the candle upon the side table, and knelt to warm himself before the fire, upon which he heaped fresh logs. The window showed him the broad expanse of the lake with the mountains upon the far side of it, and the star cluster of Magadino at their feet. A man of indomitable courage, he was astonished to discover how greatly the hallucination of the voice had shaken him, and how real it had seemed when it called him. He had never realised the remoteness of the shanty before, nor its isolation from the towns by the lakeside. Presently a fit of shivering seized him, and he started up fearing that he was about to be ill, and determined that his will should master the situation. He heaped up the logs until the fire roared in the chimney, and then searching the kitchen for candles made such an illumination as that little room had never witnessed before. The light cheered him—he drank what was left of the wine in the flask, and ate of the bread and butter upon the table.

He had pipe and tobacco, and these had ever been his good friends in every kind of emergency. A long smoke by the fireside cleared his brain of the cobwebs, and gave him a clearer vision. And first he said that Luton had left the house, and it was doubtful if he would return. Had it been otherwise, had he gone across to dine at one of the neighbouring towns, assuredly the beldame would have returned to her kitchen by this time and made her preparations for the night. So it was clear that Delayne had left the shanty, and that he, Benny, had come too late. Whether this were a good thing or a bad he had as yet no means of knowing. The darker suggestion that the man had been arrested by the police, and that the old woman had fled the shanty in consequence, was not to be put aside. That seemed a very likely thing to have happened; but if it had happened, he would hear of it soon enough, and so would every newspaper in Switzerland.

This latter thought grew with the minutes and awakened every instinct to the danger. He wondered that it had not occurred to him directly he found the shanty deserted, and was going on to say that it was the absolutely obvious thing, when a sound arose which chilled him to the very marrow. A moment later he laughed aloud, and picked up one of the candles. Of course, the telephone still ran to the shanty. There is hardly a decent house in Switzerland which does not possess it.

A telephone bell ringing clearly in the silence of the house! Well, it was a thing to give a man a start—and his nerves were not what they should be! Not until he had the receiver in his hand, and began to reply to the unknown at the other end of the wire, did he bethink him that here was companionship of a sort after all. This telephone would summon help from Ascona, if he needed it. He took heart at the thought, and cried "Halloa" in his old tone. This was the Benny of yesterday—the man who had done what no man had ever done before.

"Halloa—halloa!—this is the Villa Favorita—who do you say you are?—I don't hear you!—Halloa—halloa!—the Abbé Villari?—Good God! Abbé—how did you know that I was here?—What, you didn't know?—then that's the rummest go of all—You wanted Sir Luton Delayne—Well, I'm d——d!"

He dropped the instrument and laughed aloud. His talk had been half in French, half in English, and he remembered that the abbé understood both tongues perfectly. But it was no time to apologise. The news was too astounding; he would not lose a word of it.

"You heard all about it from Susette—yes, I suppose she would tell a priest—And you warned the man this morning?—I wish you'd told me, Abbé—it would have saved me a matter of five thousand pounds. Of course, it was done for the best—all that's granted.—Did you say you were at Brigue?—going up to the Hospice?—Yes, I remember, now—well, he's away all right—the bird has flown.—Oh, I don't know where—I hope it's south—you'll understand that—You haven't seen Lady Delayne?—Ah! you never did like that charming lady, did you, Reverence?—Speak up a little, I don't quite catch that.—The boy, Philip, has gone over the pass, did you say?—He might have been here, for all I know—I shall try to find out in the morning—Let me know if you hear anything of Lady Delayne—It was a big thing for you to do, and a very kind thing under the circumstances.—She won't forget it, nor will I.—Good night, sir—and don't forget to ring up in the morning."

He stood a little while when the abbé had ceased to speak, holding the instrument in his hand, and realising anew the weird stillness of the house. It was as though he remained incredulous, and could not grasp the meaning of the few words which had come across the mountains upon the frail wire—words which revealed in a twinkling the acumen of the little abbé and the reality of his friendship. Benny could have sworn that the priest did not know one word of the story, had hardly heard Sir Luton's name, and would as soon have thought of connecting it with the episode upon the Zaat as with his own flight across Mont Blanc. And now the abbé had undeceived him in an instant, and spoken of his own shrewdness and perception beyond possibility of question.