Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source:
https://books.google.com/books?id=ERQNAAAAYAAJ
(Harvard University)

2. The few instances of illegible words, indicated by [*], do not influence the flow of the story. These lacunae appear as a portion of pages 218 and 219 (8 words each).

The Disappearing Eye

BY

FERGUS HUME

AUTHOR OF
"THE SOLITARY FARM," "THE MYSTERY OF A HANSOM CAB,"
"THE SACRED HERB," "THE SEALED MESSAGE," "THE GREEN MUMMY,"
"THE OPAL SERPENT," "THE RED WINDOW," "THE YELLOW HOLLY," ETC.

G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Copyright 1908 by
G. W. Dillingham Company

The Disappearing Eye

THE DISAPPEARING EYE.

[CHAPTER I.]

A WEIRD DISCOVERY

"Adventures are to the adventurous," said Cannington, with the air of a man who believes that he is saying something undeniably smart.

"Good Lord!" I retorted, twisting the motor car round a corner. "Since when has the British subaltern given up his leisure to reading Beaconsfield's novels?"

Cannington serenely puffed his cigarette into a brighter glow. "I don't know what you're talking about, old chap," said he indifferently.

"I talk of 'Ixion in Heaven,' or--if you prefer it--of 'Coningsby.' Beaconsfield was so enamoured of his apothegm that he inserted it in both tales."

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Cannington again, and his puzzled look proved that he spoke the truth. "A chap called Marr wrote that in my sister's album, and told her it was his own."

"I daresay; more ideas are stolen than pocket-handkerchiefs, according to Balzac. And, after all, Beaconsfield may have cribbed the saying."

"Oh! I see what you are driving at: Marr copied it out of a book."

"Undoubtedly, unless he lived before 'Coningsby' and 'Ixion' were written--somewhere about the beginning of the nineteenth century."

"Oh! Marr isn't so old as that," protested the boy, chuckling; "although he isn't a spring chicken, by any means. What Mabel sees in him, I can't for the life of me imagine."

"Humph! You were never renowned for imagination, Cannington," I said kindly, "and in your particular case it doesn't much matter. You're the man behind the gun, and all you have to do is to fire against the seen enemy."

"Huh! Why, half the firing is against the unseen enemy. If I haven't got your rotten imagination, Vance, I've got common-sense, and that's what you jolly well need."

"Rash youth, to speak thus to the man at the wheel. Don't you know that, with a little dexterity, I could shoot you into yonder ditch?"

"You'd travel with me," he sniggered.

"Why not? It would be an excellent advertisement for a popular playwright."

"Playwright be hanged! You only write beastly melodramas."

"Precisely; that is why I am popular. And if I'm not a playwright, what am I?"

"A carpenter. You collar other people's ideas----"

"Like your friend Marr," I interpolated.

"And knock them into weird shapes for second-rate theatres."

"Not at all," I rejoined tartly, for the criticism piqued me. "I scour the country in search of flesh and blood tragedies, and improve them into moral lessons for the British Public. But you're talking all round the shop, my lad. Who is this Marr, of whom your sister approves, and why does he write down other people's ideas in her album?"

"Wentworth Marr." Cannington lighted another cigarette, and explained: "He's a well-preserved old buck of--I should say--fifty, and looks forty. Unmarried, with heaps of tin and no family. Mabel likes him."

"And he likes Lady Mabel, or loves her. Which is it?"

"Well"--Cannington drawled this out reluctantly--"he's in love with her, sure enough. And, of course, Mabel is as poor as I am, and Marr having no end of shekels, you see----"

"What about Dick Weston?" I broke in abruptly.

"Oh, he's too much taken up with his inventions to bother about love. Poor Mab feels it," sighed Cannington, "so she flirts with Marr."

"To keep her hand in, I suppose. She'll burn her fingers. Tell me all about it, boy, if it will relieve your mind."

"I have told you all. Mabel wants to marry Dick Weston, and I think he wants to marry her, only he's too much taken up with his airship to trouble about proposing. Wentworth Marr is wealthy and a gentleman and all that, and wants to make Mabel his wife. She likes him, but she doesn't love him. Still there's the money, you see, Vance."

"Weston is also rich," I suggested.

"Well, I know that," snapped Cannington testily, "but he's an absent-minded beggar, who lives in the clouds along with his bally airship, and won't come up to the scratch. I say," he broke off, "don't secure a paragraph for your confounded transpontine plays by running over that child."

"Little beast!" The child in question was playing "Who's across first," and I had considerable difficulty in dodging him. However, I just managed to avoid a Coroner's Inquest and swung the machine along the straight Roman road, while the escaped infant shouted insultingly behind.

Cannington giggled, but I was too much taken up with steering the Rippler through a somewhat crowded village street to tell him that he was several kinds of ass. I had known the boy since he was a forward brat at Eton, and we were intimate friends, as can be judged from the way in which he confided in me. At the present moment I was conveying him from Gattlingsands to Murchester, as he had been stopping at the former place for some days and now sought his own Mess. Previously I had motored from London to remain the night at Tarhaven, which is four miles from Gattlingsands, and thus was enabled to save Cannington a train fare. Considering that he and Lady Mabel Watton had about sixpence between them, he was duly grateful, although pointedly saucy. I was always sorry for Cannington's poverty, as he was a thoroughly healthy-minded sporting boy, who keenly enjoyed such good things of this life as he could lay hands on. A pauper commoner is an object to be met with everywhere; but a pauper lord is a more unusual spectacle. Certainly the boy was not yet knocking at the workhouse door, but, for his position, he was assuredly desperately hard-up. And thinking of these things, I made a remark when clear of the village.

"You must marry a dollar heiress, Cannington."

"O Lord! what rot. Who'd marry a pauper with a tumbledown family mansion, next to nothing a year, and several hundred waste acres?"

"You have forgotten one asset," I said dryly; "your title."

"Huh! Who cares for that in these democratic days?"

"Heaps of rich spinsters, American, Colonial, and otherwise. Besides, you're not altogether as ugly as sin, though you might be better-looking."

"Thanks, awfully. But would you mind being less personal?"

I kicked his ankles. "If I am to advise you I must quote your looks, your title, your qualities, and all the rest of it. You've got precious little money, and as a gunner subaltern it will be ages before you get promotion. Why not use what advantages you have and exchange them for an income? A rich wife--"

"Not much," interrupted the boy, with a flush. "I fancy I see myself living on a woman. Besides, I'm having a jolly time now, and see no reason to tie myself up. When I do, it will be a girl I can love, no end."

"Didn't know you had got that far."

"Well, I haven't. But one never knows."

"I agree. At four and twenty one never knows."

"Oh, stop your rotting, Vance," said he crossly. "I haven't been through the Shop and out in the cold world for nothing. One would think I was an idiot, which I certainly am not. Don't you bother your silly head about me. It's Mab I'm thinking about. She wants money, as I do; but I should hate to see her marry a fellow old enough to be her grandfather, just because he's rich. I wish you'd see her and drop a hint," he ended hesitatingly.

"My dear Cannington, I know you better than I do your sister. She might resent my hints. If you really don't want her to marry this man Marr--I never heard of him, for my part--shake Dick Weston into a proposal and he can take his wife in his new airship for the honeymoon."

"It would end in a funeral," grinned Cannington cheerfully. "Dicky's always having smashes. I don't want him to experiment with Mabel, you know, old chap. Hi! Here's Murchester, and yonder's a policeman. Slow down, Vance, you can't romp up the High Street at thirty miles an hour."

"I don't see why not," I retorted, obeying orders, for the policeman really looked a suspicious character. "There! We're crawling along like a condemned snail, if that's what you want."

"I want my tea," said Cannington irrelevantly, "don't you?"

"No! I'll drop you at the Barracks and travel on to Clankton. There I put up for the night, and go up Norfolk way to-morrow."

"What's your objective?"

"I haven't got one. That is, I am simply looking round to see if I can poach on real life for a melodramatic plot. 'Adventures to the adventurous.'"

Cannington nodded. "I thought old Marr wasn't clever enough to have made that up out of his own blessed head. But, I say, how do you expect to find your plot in a motor car?"

"The latter-day vehicle of romance, my boy. Formerly your knight rode a horse, and went into the Unknown in search of the unexpected. Now he--that's me, you know--takes out his machine and looks for the expected in the Known. You understand?"

"No, confound you. What do you hope to run across?"

"An adventure."

"What sort of one?"

"How the Charles Dickens can I tell?"

"Yet you said that the Known--"

"Cannington, you wish me to spoil my epigrams by explanation. I decline to satisfy your morbid curiosity. All I know is, that the fountains of my imagination are dried up, and that I can't write a play which ought to be written if I am to earn enough to keep this car in petrol. I am, therefore--like Balzac--chasing my genius, and who knows upon what glorious adventure I may stumble."

Cannington laughed scornfully. "All the adventure you'll drop across will be in running over some old woman, or in exceeding the speed-limit."

"I care not," was my reckless reply. "I am prepared for anything."

"Don't be an ass," urged the boy politely, as we spun through the Barrack gates. "Stop here for the night, and I'll put you up. Then we can go to London to-morrow and have a ripping time. . . . What?"

"It's good of you, Cannington, and if I hadn't an income to earn I should accept with pleasure. As things are"--I stopped the car before the Mess door--"you can get down and send out a man to carry in your portmanteau."

"Have a cup of tea, anyhow," said Cannington, slipping to the ground.

I looked at my watch. "No, thanks. It's nearing six, and I have some distance to go. Don't delay me, boy."

"Oh, very well, confound you. Wait till I get my baggage and then you can buzz off. When am I to see you again?"

"The Fates will arrange that. I'll turn up sooner or later."

"If you aren't smashed up, or locked up, meanwhile," said the boy, swinging his portmanteau off the back of the car. "I'll keep an eye on the police news for the next few days. I daresay I'll have to bail you out. Well," he gave my hand a grip, "thanks awfully, old son, for bringing me over."

"Only too pleased," I muttered, beginning to move away. "Good-bye."

I had been to Murchester before, and knew the locality moderately well. Therefore, after leaving Cannington I spun through the Barrack grounds and emerged on to a somewhat suburban road, which led towards the outskirts of the town. A dampish August twilight filled the air with rapidly darkening shadows, and a marked chill in the warmth hinted at the coming night. The sun had already withdrawn behind a bank of western clouds, before vanishing over the verge of the world. I drove the machine at half speed, as there were many country carts about, and ran down a lengthy sloping hill towards a distant glimpse of green. Clankton, which is a fishing village rapidly rising into notoriety as a seaside resort, was over thirty miles away, so if I wished to be seated at my dinner by seven o'clock, it behooved me to use all the power of which the Rippler was capable. Hunger forced me to increase the pace.

Motoring was the one form of amusement which I truly enjoyed, and which a somewhat limited income earned by hard brain-work enabled me to indulge in. But the indulgence precluded my partaking in many other pleasures of this luxurious age, for the Rippler had cost much to buy and cost a considerable sum monthly to keep going. But motoring is less expensive than horse-racing and doctors' bills; and the fresh air, after enforced sedentary deskwork, swept away possible illness. As a moderately popular playwright I made a tolerably good income, although less than I was credited with earning. Still by devoting myself to two machines, a motor and a type-writer, one for play and the other for work, I managed to keep out of debt and keep my Rippler at the same time. But because the machine was a smart one, and because I was constantly on the move between whiles of manufacturing melodramas, people declared that I was a literary millionaire. As though any writer ever became a Crœsus.

I must say that I had greater ambitions than to write cheap sensational plays, and that I did write them at all was due--as it would seem--to mere chance. After I left Oxford my parents died, and--owing to their extravagances--everything was sold. I came to London with an income of fifty pounds a year. I could not exactly starve on one pound a week, but I had a sufficiently bad time, and tried to supplement my income by writing for the papers. An old actor, boarding at a house wherein I had taken up my abode, suggested that I should attempt a melodrama. I did so with his assistance, and between us we managed to get it staged at a small theatre in the East End. To my surprise, the play was a great success, being sufficiently lurid to capture the tastes of the somewhat rough audience. Since that time I had been committed to this particular form of entertainment, and try as I might I could not escape from the memory of my first hit.

But I did not surrender my earlier ambitions, as I have before stated. I worked hard at the cheap sensational plays, which were produced at second-class theatres, and saved all the money I could, in the hope of gathering together sufficient principal to give me an assured income of five hundred a year. When independent, I determined to devote myself to writing really good plays--high-class comedies and poetic dramas for choice--but meanwhile served my apprenticeship to the writing craft under the eye of the public. On the whole, I had very little to complain about, and my portion of the viands at Life's Banquet was moderately tempting, if not superlatively delicate.

I do not think there is anything more to explain about myself, save that I was not handsome, that I had never been in love, and that I occupied a tiny flat in West Kensington, where the rents are moderate. As a rule I wrote furiously every day until a play was completed, then attended to the rehearsing and saw the production. Afterwards I took to my motor, and scoured the country, partly to get fresh air, and partly because I had a chance of stumbling across incidents in real life which afforded me material for plots, situations, scenes, and characters.

At the present moment I was in search of the new and the real, intending to weave actual facts into the sort of melodrama for which Cyrus Vance was famous, or shall we say notorious, as the penny-dreadful success I had won could scarcely be dignified by an adjective applicable only to the career of Napoleon or Cæsar. But I little thought when leaving Murchester, that I was also leaving the long lane of petty success down which I had plodded so soberly, and that the new road opening out before me was one which led to--but I really cannot say just now what it led to. And in this last sentence you will see the cunning of the story-teller, who desires to keep the solution of his mystery until the last chapter. But I am a playwright and not a novelist--two very different beings. Destiny is writing this tale, and I am simply the amanuensis. Therefore you will see how infinitely more ingenious is the goddess than the mere mortal, in constructing an intricate scheme of life and in dealing with the puppets entangled therein.

So in this life-story, which starts in the middle, as it were, and travels both ways to beginning and end, blame Destiny for whatever does not please. I merely recount what happened--simply describe the various scenic backgrounds and rough out the characters. But Destiny weaves the happenings, brings about the unexpected, and solves the mystery, which is of her ingenious contrivance. And throughout I am only the clay which she, the potter, moulds at her will.

In a motor car it is much easier to go wrong on the outskirts of a town than amidst any other surroundings that I know of. When in the open, one can rise in the car and see one's way; but bewildered by streets and houses and traffic and wary policemen, and misled by those who do not know their own locality over-well, one finds a town somewhat perplexing. Making for the west, you get twisted round and emerge into open country towards the east. A single wrong road in the suburbs will lead the complete motorist astray, and will introduce him to a new country of whose geography he is entirely ignorant. Therefore some miles beyond perplexing Murchester I became aware, by questioning an intelligent rustic, that I was going away from Clankton. After some swearing and a close examination of the map, I lighted the lamps and turned on my tracks. Having gone so far out of my way, I had unnecessarily used up a lot of power, and then the inevitable happened--I discovered, to my dismay, that I was short of petrol in the tank. I had no further supply, worse luck! and unless I could obtain some, I began to see that I should have to camp in the fields, or at all events in the nearest village. But, thanks to motoring, petrol is fairly plentiful in unexpected places. If I could discover some village, I made sure of chancing upon a shop wherein to purchase petrol, and therefore was hopeful.

But as I drove the machine slowly on--for the motive power was dwindling rapidly--I found that the necessary village was conspicuous by its absence. I crawled up narrow lanes, the twists and turns of which necessitated careful steering; I dropped down the inclines of wide roads; I skirted stagnant ponds, weedy under dank boughs; and worked my slow way past mouldering brick walls, which shut in lordly parks. It grew darker every minute and was long after six o'clock, so I soon became unpleasantly aware that I needed food as much as the Rippler needed petrol. I seemed to be in for some kind of adventure, and as I had come out to look for one in the interests of the British Public, I had no reason to be dissatisfied. But I sincerely trusted that it would be a romantic one, out of which I could weave a sufficiently good plot to recompense me for the damnable circumstances in which I found myself.

The Rippler feeling hungry, as I did, groaned complainingly up a gentle ascent, topped the rise, and stopped dead after proceeding a few yards. And now mark the cunning of Destiny. If she had not brought me to my goal, she had at least led me to a place where I could obtain motive power, for in front of me I beheld a tiny old-fashioned house of weather-board walls shaded by a mellow red-tiled roof. It stood directly on the road, and was backed by a circle of high trees--elms, I fancy they were; a quaint, odd, dreary-looking cottage, which had been awkwardly converted into a shop. Taking one of the lamps I flashed the light on to a narrow door, which stood open, on to a small window to the left of the door, and on to a right-handed wider one, behind the glass of which were displayed the various goods which one usually finds in these village stores. But the sight amazed me, especially when I saw the name of Anne Caldershaw inscribed on a broad board over the window, for I could espy no village. Why did Anne Caldershaw set up her stall here, where there was no one to buy; and why was her shop not lighted up, seeing that the door was open for any chance customer? I could not answer these questions, and became aware that here was the start of a promising adventure. I felt like Alice in Wonderland, for such a shop in such a lonely woody locality was just such a thing as Alice would have chanced upon.

However I had no time to bother over the romance of things, for I wanted petrol, and luckily saw a red board on which it was announced in black lettering that petrol was for sale. Stepping into the dark shop with my brilliant lamp, I rapped on the mean little counter. No one came. Although I called out as loudly as I could, there was still an eerie silence, so I walked towards a small door set in the inside wall and knocked. As there was still no answer I tried to open the door, and found that it was locked. A flight of steps, narrow and rude, ran up the side of the wall to some upstairs rooms, and I sang up the stairs. As this final shout produced no better result than the others, I made up my mind to waste no further time, but to fill my tank with petrol and leave the money on the counter. But even as I searched for the liquid, I kept marvelling at the strange silence of Anne Caldershaw's shop. There was not only no one to buy, but there was not even anyone to sell. The circumstances were odd in the extreme, and I scented the unexpected in the damp air.

My part of the adventure--as it seemed--was to fill my tank and get the Rippler ready to start. Whether Destiny, who was arranging details, would permit her to get under way, or me to reach Clankton in time for dinner, was quite another matter. However I was actor and not author, so I fulfilled my part--my appointed part, I presumed--by searching for the petrol. I soon discovered the orthodox red case, and having unscrewed it with some difficulty, I walked back to the car, which stood, some little distance away, directly in front of Anne Caldershaw's shop. It took me some minutes to fill up, but during that time I did not hear a single sound. And yet, as I conjectured, while replacing the cap of the tank, there must be some house or houses about, since the shop argued customers. Perhaps when I turned the corner--for the shop stood just on the angle of the road--I would find a collection of cottages, not likely to be so deserted as Anne Caldershaw's emporium.

Shortly the tank was filled, and after seeing that all was ready to start, I took the empty can back to the dark house and placed the necessary money on the counter. I would have shouted again, but that it seemed useless, as apparently no one was about, for my former cries would have awakened the dead. For one or two minutes I stood in the darkness listening for some sound in the house, and stared through the open door at the streams of light from the acetylene lamps of the Rippler. There was something very weird about the situation.

Suddenly I heard a soft faint moan, which seemed to come from behind the locked door at the back of the shop. On the impulse of the moment and with rather a grue--as the Scotch call it, for the sound was sinister and unexpected--I sprang forward and gripped the handle of the door. To my surprise, the moment I twisted it the door opened at once, and yet I swear that it was locked when I had last tried it. I looked into a dark room, and could see faintly to the right a barred window, which showed against the fast darkening evening sky. No further moan could I hear, although I listened with all my ears. Wondering if I had been mistaken, and yet uneasy about the now unlocked door, I stepped into the back room, holding on to the inside handle. As it afterwards turned out the floor of the room was lower than that of the shop, and reached by three shallow steps. I therefore stumbled, and pulling the door after me with some violence, so that it clicked to, I fell sprawling, and bruised my elbow somewhat painfully.

Still I heard no sound, but seated on the floor to collect my senses--somewhat dazed by the unexpected fall--I put out my hand to explore the darkness. It fell on soft flesh, warm to the touch, and on rough tangled hair. Thoroughly startled, and with every excuse, I withdrew my hand, and fumbled in my pockets for a match, regretting that I had not brought one of the lamps. I had half a mind to go out and fetch it, but my curiosity was so great and--to be plain--my nerves were so unstrung, that I struck the lucifer, anxious to know the best or the worst at once.

As the pale tiny light grew stronger, I beheld the form of a woman lying on the stone floor, face uppermost. And that face--I shuddered as I looked, for it was distorted into an expression of pain, with a twisted mouth and glassy, expressionless eyes. Framed in loose masses of iron-grey hair, it glimmered milky white, and bore the stamp of death on every feature. The woman was dead, and judging from the moan I had heard and the still warm flesh, she had just died. While I stared the match-light went out, and I fancied that I heard a faint click. I lighted another match hastily looking towards the door leading to the shop. It was still closed, and I turned again to gaze at the dead woman, who was old, ill-favoured, and eminently plebeian.

At that moment I heard the buzz of the Rippler. At once, in astonishment and alarm, I sprang towards the door. It was locked, and I was a prisoner. While I was still trying to grasp this astounding fact, the drone of my motor car died away in the distance.

[CHAPTER II.]

THE BEGINNING OF A MYSTERY

Here indeed was an adventure, less romantic than tragical. I was locked up in the back room of a village shop in company with the corpse of a dead woman, and some thief had gone off with my motor car. Undoubtedly the person who had stolen the Rippler, was the one who had locked the door. Indeed it would seem that the person had laid a trap, for in the first instance the door had been locked; in the second, it had been open; and in the third, it had been locked again. But the individual who had gone off with the car--as presumably was the case--had not lured me into the trap, since the moan of the now dead woman had led me on to exploring the back premises. But the unknown might have counted upon that. If such was the case, why, then--here in the darkness fumbling for the handle of the locked door a terrible thought flashed into my mind, a vague elusive thought, which I could not put into words. With a sudden terror knocking at my heart, I shook the door and cried for help.

"Hi! what's that?" asked a rough, uncultured voice in the shop; "what's wrong wi' ye, Mrs. Caldershaw?"

"Open the door!" I shook the flimsy boards again. "Open the door!"

There was a grunt of astonishment, and I heard the key turn in the lock. A moment later and the door opened, when at once I flung out past a burly man, who was blocking the way. He gripped me before I could pass him, and I heard hard breathing in the darkness. "Not so fast," said the man harshly. "What are you doing here in Mrs. Caldershaw's shop? and----"

"Don't stop me; don't, confound you!" I interrupted, and wrenching myself away I ran to the door of the shop, crying out explanations. "Someone's gone off with my motor car. There's a dead woman in there, and----"

This time it was the man who interrupted and with something more than words. As I dashed into the deserted road, looking up and down in the darkness for my Rippler, my liberator plunged after me and gripped me again. Before I could say a word or make a movement, he had borne me to the ground by sheer strength of muscle, and holding me down hard and fast, bellowed at the pitch of his voice an ominous word. "Murder! murder! murder!" shouted the man with surprising volume of tone.

Again the fear knocked at my heart, for now the elusive thought had been put into concrete form by this yokel, as I took him to be from his roughness and accent. Anne Caldershaw--I believed the body to be hers--had been murdered by the assassin, who had escaped with my motor car. He--I naturally thought of the assassin as a "he"--had waited until I was bending over the corpse of his victim, and then locking me in, had made use of the Rippler. By this time he would be beyond any chance of recapture, and here was I placed unexpectedly in a compromising situation, with the chance--and upon very good circumstantial evidence--of being accused of the crime. And yet, as even then I thought confusedly, there was nothing to show that the woman had really been murdered, as I had seen neither wound nor blood.

"Let me up!" I gasped, striving to throw off the dead weight of the big man.

But he only continued to roar for help, gripping my arms and pressing his knee into my chest. Had not the villagers arrived, I verily believe that there would have been a second, if unconscious murder, so brutally did the fellow bear on my prone body. But I heard distant cries, and shortly there came the flash of lanterns borne by men and women running round the corner of the road. As by magic, I was surrounded by an alarmed crowd all asking questions at once and turning their many lights on to my face. My captor gave a breathless explanation.

"Murder! murder!" he shouted, still dwelling on a top note. "I found the devil locked in the back room without a light, and the shop," he pointed across the way, "is without a light also. He comes out yelling that there was a dead woman left behind. It's Mrs. Caldershaw for sure, and he's done for her. Murder! murder! Where's the police?"

Almost before he finished his explanation, which was not quite a full one, since he gave no account of my motor car being stolen, the men and women were running into the shop. My captor jerked me roughly to my feet, on which I could scarcely stand, so roughly had he handled me, and so sore were my bones. "Come along," he shouted, much excited, and dragged me across the road and into the shop. "Look on her as you've done for."

"Don't be a fool," I protested; "I'm a gentleman."

"But a murderer none the less," he retorted, and pushed me furiously down the three steps into the back room, which was now filled with men and women.

Some of the latter were on their knees examining the body, which I now saw to be that of an elderly person, plainly clothed in a maroon-coloured wincey dress, with a belt round her waist, whence dangled a bunch of keys and a cheap lace collar fastened with a gaudy cairngorm brooch. What with the disconcerting way in which my captor handled me--it seemed vain to resist--and the restless light of the lanterns, I could not see much more. One of the men looked up.

"Why did you cry out murder, Giles?" he asked the rough-looking man who held me. "There isn't a wound on her body. It's a fit, I believe."

The man Giles loosened me. "If I've been mistaken," he began, when a cry from a little woman cut his speech short.

"Her eye's out; her eye's out--the left one. Look! look!" and she seized a bystander's arm in terror.

Sure enough the left eye was missing, and I wondered why I had not noticed that such was the case when I examined the body by the light of the lucifer-match. I remembered distinctly the glassy, expressionless eyes, and yet, now there was only one, as I now saw plainly enough. Doubtless in the flickering light of the match and in my agitation, I had omitted to see that there was but one eye. Even at so critical a moment I began to wonder how I could have overlooked so obvious a fact, and then recalled the story a friend had told me of a man he had met with in the States, and to whom he spoke for five minutes, thinking there was something odd about his appearance, before he saw that both ears were missing. So easily, as I considered, even when placid can we fail to notice what is plainly apparent, much less when unnerved as I was when examining that dead face in the match-light. It was an odd thought at the time, considering that I stood in such peril. Had this cottage been in America I daresay I should have been lynched by the rough crowd of villagers around me.

"It's not murder maybe," growled Giles, seizing me again. "But this devil has torn her eye out, so----"

"There's no blood," said another man wisely. "If the eye had been torn out----"

"It was a glass eye," breathed a stout, dark woman with a heavy face. "Anne told me as much when we had tea together. She didn't like it to be known, poor soul, being proud like, and took great pains to get the best eye she could. But it's gone, sure enough." She peered into the dead face and then at me. "Perhaps this gentleman will tell us why he took it."

By this time, since apparently Anne Caldershaw had not been murdered and the eye was merely glass, the current of popular feeling was running more in my favour. I might be a thief, with the eye in my pocket, but I was not a murderer, so the villagers gave me time for explanation.

"I quite understand that things look black against me," I said hastily, "but I know nothing about the matter. I arrived in front of this shop in my motor car and stopped to get petrol. After I filled up and left the money--you will find it on the counter, if you look--I heard a moan and stepped into this room to see what was wrong. While looking at the body, after lighting a match, someone locked me in and ran off with my motor car."

The villagers looked at one another, and apparently thought that my explanation was a lame one. But Giles, who had treated me so roughly, grudgingly admitted that he had seen the motor car.

"I came round the corner to get a pound of bacon for supper," said Giles reflectively, "and I saw the engine"--so he phrased it--"before the door. A lady was stepping in----"

"A lady!" I interrupted. "Are you certain?"

"Yes--sir," he said, giving me the polite address doubtfully. "I saw her plain enough in the light of them bright lamps. She had a long white sort of gown on, and a cap with a veil flying behind on her head. I just caught a glimpse of her, when she went off as hard as she could."

"In what direction?"

"Murchester way, if you want a good big town to go by," said Giles.

"Then send for the police and tell them to telegraph to Murchester to stop the car. It's a Rippler, No. 14539 Z, and belongs to me. The woman has stolen it, I tell you. Where are the police?"

"There's no policeman until we get one from Arkleigh, and the telegraph office is there also. Now you, sir, must wait until the police come."

"Of course," I assented readily. "I quite understand that you look upon me as a doubtful character. Lock up this house until the police arrive and take me to your inn if you have one. I want something to eat and drink."

"But the eye," said the heavy dark woman; "give back the eye."

"I haven't got the eye," I snapped, for with hunger and thirst and excitement, and the unpleasantness of being unjustly suspected, I was not in the best of tempers. "You can search me if you like."

The dark woman would have done so readily, being evidently of a meddlesome nature. But Giles interposed. "Let the gentleman alone, Mrs. Faith," he said gruffly; "I caught him, and I'll keep him till Warshaw comes. I daresay it's a mistake on my part, and I'm sorry if----"

"Oh, I don't blame you, Mr. Giles," I interposed easily, and lighted a cigarette to show my nonchalance. "I should have acted in the same way myself. So come along and take me to gaol."

A relieved smile made the man's rugged face quite pleasant to look at, as my exculpation of himself, and my ready offer to be searched, evidently reassured him greatly. In his eyes, at all events, I was not the desperate criminal he had taken me to be. But his fellow-villagers still looked dubious. "Mrs. Caldershaw had heaps of money hidden away," ventured one little rat of a man with a squeaky voice.

"Search my pockets then," I said again with open impatience. "All I have told you is correct. My name is Cyrus Vance, and if you send to the Artillery Barracks at Murchester, my friend Lord Cannington will have no difficulty in identifying me."

As I thought it would, the title acted like a charm, and the tension somewhat slackened. Giles, who appeared to be the most sensible of the lot, beckoned me into the dark shop, leaving his friends to guard the house and look after the corpse of the unfortunate woman. I walked beside him round the corner, and sure enough--as I expected--came upon the twinkling lights of quite a dozen houses. The late Mrs. Caldershaw had customers after all, it would seem.

"What's the name of this place?" I asked abruptly.

"Mootley," replied Giles, now less suspicious and more human. "It ain't a very large village, but we've more cottages than these here scattered along the road up yonder," and he jerked his thumb to the left where a lane ran from the high-road towards a woodland.

"It's too dark to see anything," I said idly, "but to-morrow you can show me round. I daresay I shall have to pass the night at your house, Mr. Giles, unless you think that I may rise in the night to kill you. By the way," I added with a bantering air, "you don't hold my arm. Aren't you afraid I'll bolt?"

"No, sir," said the man, now perfectly polite. "I see that I have made a mistake. I know your name, if you're the Mr. Vance who writes plays."

"I am; but that is odd knowledge for a villager in these out-of-the-way parts to possess."

"Oh, I haven't lived at Mootley all my life, sir, although I was born here forty years ago. I went to London, and stopped in Southwark for years. I'd a greengrocer's shop there, and did fairly well. But London didn't suit my wife's health, sir, so I sold up some time back, and bought a cottage and an acre of land here with my savings. I know your name, sir, because I've seen one or two plays of yours at The Elephant and Castle Theatre. And very good plays they were, sir, too."

"Humph! It seems to me, Mr. Giles, that I am now the wrongly suspected hero of a much more mysterious and lurid melodrama than any I have written."

"It is strange," admitted Giles, with a side glance. I saw the glance by the light which gleamed from a cottage window.

"My murdering Mrs. Caldershaw?" I inquired coolly.

"We don't know yet that she has been murdered," he replied quickly.

"Then my stealing that glass eye of hers?"

"No, sir. But your being locked up in the dark with the corpse."

"She wasn't a corpse when I entered, Mr. Giles. Her moans attracted me into the room. While I was seeing by match-light what was the matter, someone locked the door, and bolted with my motor."

"The lady I saw, sir."

"No doubt, since I did not bring a lady with me."

"I wonder if she got the eye," muttered Giles half to himself.

"She must have got something that wasn't hers, else she would not have made use of my car to escape."

"Then she must have taken the eye," Giles muttered again.

"What the deuce are you talking about? Why should she steal a glass eye?"

"That's what I'd like to know, sir. It's an odd thing to steal. And I never knew that Mrs. Caldershaw's left eye was a glass one, though she told Mrs. Faith about it. Well, it's gone----"

"And the lady who stole my motor car took it. At least it seems so. But I tell you what, Mr. Giles, I'm too hungry to discuss the matter just now. The whole business is a mystery to me, and Destiny has dragged me into it in a most unpleasant way."

Giles nodded. "It's easy seen you're innocent, sir," he said with an air of relief. "You wouldn't talk so, if you weren't."

"I don't know so much about that. Guilt can wear a mask of brazen innocence if necessary. How do you know I haven't murdered Mrs. Caldershaw, and at this moment may not have the celebrated glass eye in my trouser pocket?"

"We don't know yet that she's been murdered, Mr. Vance. There was no wound----"

"Pooh! She might have been poisoned."

"Why do you think so, sir?" asked Giles quickly.

"Because I write melodramas, and always look on the most dramatic side. Oh, this is your cottage, is it? Quite a stage cottage, with plenty of greenery about the porch."

Giles did not know what to make of my chatter.

"You're a funny gent, sir."

"A hungry one, at all events, my friend. Is this your wife? How are you, Mrs. Giles? I am your husband's prisoner, and for the time being your cottage is a gaol. Mrs. Caldershaw's dead, and I've stolen her glass eye."

"Mrs. Caldershaw dead!" gasped Mrs. Giles, a rosy-faced little woman, who turned pale at the sudden announcement. "What does the gentleman mean, Sam?"

"Sit down, sir," said Giles, pushing forward a chair, then turned towards his astonished and somewhat terrified wife to explain. In a few minutes Mrs. Giles was in full possession of the facts which had led me to her abode. She listened in silence, her face now quite white and drawn. "What does it all mean, Sam?" she asked under her breath.

"That's what we've got to find out, Sarah. Warshaw has been sent for from Arkleigh, and when he comes, we'll see what is to be done."

"Warshaw and Caldershaw," I murmured; "rather similar names. I hope your policeman friend will wire to Murchester about my car."

"There's no telegraph office hereabout, sir. I expect he'll send in a messenger to Murchester for the Inspector, and for your friend, sir."

"Lord Cannington? Oh, yes. He can identify me as Cyrus Vance."

"What!" said Mrs. Giles, who was recovering her colour, "the gentleman who wrote them lovely plays?"

"The same," I assented, "and the gentleman's very hungry."

"You shall have supper in a few minutes," cried Mrs. Giles, much impressed with the angel she had hitherto entertained unawares. "Sam, did you bring back that bacon?"

"Nor I didn't, my dear, 'cos there wasn't anyone to sell the bacon, Mrs. Caldershaw being dead."

"Ugh!" shuddered the little woman. "I'll never be able to eat another thing out of that shop. A murder----"

"We don't know that it's a murder," interposed her husband hastily.

I laughed. "You shouted murder lustily enough when you had me down, Giles."

The man looked sheepish. "I made a mistake and thought you was a robber, until I saw you were a gent."

"Well a gent can be a robber, you know. Many gents are."

"They steal something more valuable than glass eyes, sir."

I rather liked Giles, who was a burly, heavy-faced animal man, with, as I said before, a most engaging smile. His jaw was of the bull-dog order, but his eyes were extremely intelligent, so I judged that his native wits had been considerably sharpened by his sojourn in the Borough of Southwark. Such a man could easily master the less travelled villagers, and I found that such was the case. Giles acted as a kind of headman of Mootley, and his opinion carried great weight in the village councils. It was just as well that I had fallen into the hands of such a man, otherwise, unable to see that I was innocent of assault and robbery, I should have been less hospitably treated. As it was, I found myself extremely comfortable.

Mrs. Giles bustled about in a cheery way, although the news of Mrs. Caldershaw's death seemed to have somewhat scared her. While getting the supper and laying the cloth and attending to the kettle she would frequently pause to consider her husband's story. "I rather think she expected it," said Mrs. Giles, putting a pot of jam on the table.

"Expected what, Sarah?" asked her husband, guessing what she alluded to.

"Death, Sam, death. She told me once that she was sure she would not die in her bed."

"Then you think that she has been murdered?" I questioned.

"Yes, I do think so, sir; else why should she speak in that way? And in church she always said that part of the Litany about being saved from battle, murder, and sudden death louder than any."

"There was no blood and no wound," muttered Giles, turning this speech over in his mind. "Frampton said he thought it was a fit. But come and draw your chair, in, sir. We're humble folk, but what we have is at your service."

"You're very kind folk," I said, obeying the invitation. "Frampton and Mrs. Faith would have tied me up and starved me."

"Ignorant people, sir, who don't know any better. Bread, sir? jam, sir? yes, sir."

He was really most polite for a greengrocer, and I grew to like him more and more, as I did his busy, bright-faced little wife. The supper was homely but very nourishing, and I drank tea and devoured bread and jam, until my hunger was quite satisfied. During the meal the husband and wife told me that Mrs. Caldershaw had kept the corner shop--so they called it--for the last five years, and had never been popular amongst her neighbours. It was believed that she had miserly tendencies and had much money tucked away in a stocking. Her age was sixty, but she was an active woman for her years and lived entirely alone. It seemed that she had been born in Mootley, but had been absent for many years out at service--so she said, although she spoke very little about her past. With her savings--again this was the story of Mrs. Caldershaw--she had returned to die in her native village and, for the sake of something to do, had opened the corner shop.

"Did she have many callers?" I asked, mentally noting details.

"She never said so," remarked Mrs. Giles, who being somewhat of a gossip took the lead in the conversation. "She was a close one, she was. And the shop being round the corner, sir, we"--I presume she meant herself and the other gossips--"could never see who came or went. She lived quite outside our lives, sir, owing to the position of the shop and her own way of keeping to herself. Once she did say she'd never die in her bed, and that's what makes me think as she may have been done away with. But I never knew, Sam, that she'd a glass eye."

"I didn't know either," said Sam, who was devouring huge slices of bread and butter. "She told Mrs. Faith, though. I've seen her heaps of times, but I never spotted that one eye was living and the other dead. And why it should have been stolen by that lady who went off with your motor, Mr. Vance, sends me fair silly."

"What was the lady like, Sam?"

"I can't exactly tell you, Sarah, as it was growing so dark. She was tall, with a long white cloak, a cap, and a veil. That's all I know. Hullo!"

He started from his seat, as the sound of excited voices was heard. A moment later and the cottage door was violently flung open to admit the stout, dark-faced woman, whom Giles had addressed as Mrs. Faith. She was half leading, half supporting another woman, small and wizen and weak-looking. Behind came a disorderly crowd of women and men. Evidently Mootley, unused to sensational happenings, was making the most of this one.

"It's a lady as come in a cart, sir," began Mrs. Faith excitedly, when Frampton, looking over her shoulder, interrupted.

"A trap, sir; a trap driven by another woman."

"O dear me," moaned the little creature, who had now been deposited in a capacious chair. "Where am I now?"

"With friends, dear, with friends," said Mrs. Giles, stroking her hands. "Sam get the whisky; it's in the cupboard near the fire. And all you people clear out. She'll never get well if you stop here upsetting her."

"I'll see to it," cried Mrs. Faith, and forthwith in a most masterful way bundled the crowd out-of-doors. They would not have gone so easily, had not the magnet of the shop containing the corpse drawn them; but go they did, and Mrs. Faith closed the door.

"Warshaw has arrived," she explained dramatically, "and is examining all the place. He'll be along here soon, sir, to take you in charge. This lady," she waved her large hands towards the little half-unconscious woman, "came along in a cart with another one driving----"

"Another lady?" I asked curiously.

"Another woman," snorted Mrs. Faith contemptuously, "and only one horse the cart had; for cart it was, though Frampton called it a trap. But she came along, sir," she continued officiously, "and said as she saw your motor engine run into a field. It smashed a gate, it did, and----"

"Stop," cried the little lady, opening her eyes and half rising. "I'll tell the gentleman all about it. Miss Destiny; sir, Miss Destiny--my name," and she curtsied.

[CHAPTER III.]

AFTER EVENTS

Here was a freakish thing. I had talked about Destiny as a dea ex machina, and the goddess personally had come to superintend the drama in which I was supposed--as I shrewdly suspected by this time--to take a leading part. However, as open confession is good for the soul, I may as well state, and at the eleventh hour, that this story was written when the mystery was solved and justice had been done--I threw it, as it were, into a fictional form. Thus, as I knew the odd name of the little lady when writing I played upon its oddity, and saw in her the incarnation of the goddess who maps out the future. You can take this explanation with or without the proverbial grain of salt, as you choose. Meanwhile, here we are on the threshold of a mystery, and a flesh and blood creature, with the significant name of Destiny appears on the scene.

When the new-comer stood up and turned her face to the light I had a better view of her. She was even smaller than Mrs. Giles--what one would call a tiny woman--and was perfectly shaped. Not quite a dwarf, but very nearly one, and her face, pointed, wrinkled, and of a parchment hue, looked as old as the Pyramids. The most youthful thing about her was the undimmed brilliancy of her eyes. These, dark, piercing, unwinking, and marvellously steady, blazed--I use the word advisedly--under a Marie Antoinette arrangement of wonderfully white hair, like spun silk. Her hat had been removed by the officious Mrs. Faith, so I could take in her looks very easily. She wore a shabby black silk dress, much worn, an equally shabby black velvet mantle, old-fashioned and trimmed sparsely with beads, and had cotton gloves--black ones--on her skinny hands, with cloth boots on her tiny feet. From her general appearance she might have stepped out of a child's fairy-book, as a representation of Cinderella's godmother. As her first faintness had passed away--thanks to Mrs. Giles' whisky--she was now wonderfully composed, and stood before me dropping elfish curtseys without a tremor of the face, or a blink of the eye.

"Miss Destiny," she said again; "and you, sir?"

"Cyrus Vance," I answered, "at present in custody as a suspected robber."

Giles murmured something incoherent to the effect that this was not so, but Miss Destiny paid no attention to him. "Robber of what, sir?"

"Of Mrs. Caldershaw's glass eye."

"O dear me!" The little lady sat down promptly. "Do you mean to say that she has lost it at last, and that you took it?"

"I did not take it, madam, although I am credited with the theft, but it is assuredly lost. But why--at last?"

Miss Destiny moved her hands in the shabby black cotton gloves nervously and swallowed something--possibly the truth, although I had, on the face of it, no reason to suspect her of lying. "I was on my way to see Anne Caldershaw," she said timidly.

"What?" Mrs. Faith's dark countenance lighted up with curiosity. "You knew her--you knew her."

"Intimately," replied Miss Destiny, somewhat primly. "She was my brother's housekeeper at Burwain for years. Then he died, and Anne came here. Burwain, which is between Gattlingsands and Tarhaven, is subject to fogs," explained the little lady, "and Anne believed that clear inland air would suit her chest better."

I knew Burwain as a somnolent hamlet set in a flat country and muffled with woods and tall hedges. This very day had I passed it in the Rippler, when conveying Cannington to Murchester. It was odd that this little woman should mention it of all places.

"You know that Mrs. Caldershaw is dead," I ventured to remark.

Miss Destiny threw up her hands. "The shock of it," she whimpered. "I was coming to see her and remain for the night. My servant, Lucinda, drove me from Burwain in my trap."

"Cart," struck in Mrs. Faith vehemently, while Giles and his wife, standing near the fire, held their peace.

"It is a cart," admitted Miss Destiny, "which I have turned into a trap, as I am very, very, very poor." Her voice ascended to the last word. "Yesterday morning I started, and stayed last night with a friend at Saxham, which is half way to Murchester. This morning we drove on again, and were approaching Mootley when the motor car nearly smashed my trap."

"My motor car?" I asked quickly.

"I heard something about its belonging to a gentleman," said Miss Destiny; "it was, however, driven by a woman in a long white cloak----"

"The lady I saw," murmured Giles, of whom Miss Destiny took no notice.

"She drove headlong down a steep incline, and came within a handbreadth of the trap, Mr. Vance. Then she swerved round and went smashing through a wooden gate, not too securely fashioned, into a field. I was very much upset, and Lucinda--always mindful of my comfort--drove on to Mootley as quickly as possible. There"--Miss Destiny rose and became quite dramatic--"I was met with the news that Anne Caldershaw had been found dead. The news upset me so that I nearly fainted. But this good woman," she indicated Mrs. Faith with a gracious bend of the head, "brought me here; and I am obliged to these honest people," she nodded towards Giles and his wife, "for reviving me. Where I am to stop the night I don't know, as Anne informed me in her letter that there is no inn here."

"There's a public-house," put in Giles reflectively, "but it isn't fit for a lady like you. If you will stay here, ma'am, for the night----"

"If it's not very expensive," interrupted Miss Destiny.

"It will cost nothing, ma'am," said Giles curtly. "I'm none so poor, but what I can't give a bite and a bed to a stranger."

"Then I accept with pleasure," replied Miss Destiny, and really seemed delighted at the idea of getting bed and breakfast for nothing. Either she was very poor, or she was avaricious. I could not decide which, but gave her the benefit of the doubt, and looked upon her as a reduced gentlewoman.

"What about me, Giles?" I asked when this was settled.

"It's early yet, sir, so if you will wait here until Lord Cannington comes from Murchester, you can go back with him, after seeing Warshaw."

"Oh, I don't want to go back. I am anxious to see the end of this tragedy."

"In that case, sir, the missus can put you up too, if you don't mind a shake-down. There's room enough for all."

"I can make you comfortable in the parlour," said Mrs. Giles, thinking of ways and means, "the lady can sleep in the spare bedroom."

"With Lucinda," put in Miss Destiny. "She is outside with the trap, and if you will see that the horse is put into some stable and that Lucinda is brought in to have supper, you will be conferring a great favour on me. I really couldn't sleep without Lucinda, as my nerves are not what they ought to be, and this dreadful occurrence has upset them greatly."

Giles, who seemed to be singularly generous and hospitable, nodded and went out to see after Lucinda and the trap, while Mrs. Giles boiled a couple of eggs for the visitor who had so unexpectedly appeared. Mrs. Faith, with her hands on her hips, and her dark face alive with curiosity, stared hard at the frail figure of the shabby little lady. "About the glass eye," she asked eagerly, with a side glance at me, "which this gentleman took?"

"I didn't take it," I said sharply, for the way in which the woman assumed me to be guilty was unbearable. "So far as I remember, Mrs. Caldershaw had two eyes when I saw her body, though, to be sure, I might have been mistaken, seeing I had only a match. And I was mistaken," I added vigorously, "for if the woman who stole my motor car took the eye, she must have done so before I saw the corpse. But why should the eye be stolen?" I looked at Miss Destiny for an answer.

The little old lady shook her head. "It's the oddest thing," she said at length and in a lively manner. "When Anne was my brother's housekeeper, it was well known that she had a glass eye to which she appeared to attach a ridiculous value. She often declared that she would not lose it for a fortune. What she meant I can't say; but since the eye has been stolen, she must have meant something."

"It's remarkably strange," I muttered, for the mystery of the eye was beginning to attract me. "Have you no idea----"

"I know nothing more than I have told you," said Miss Destiny sharply. "By the way, how did Anne die?"

"No one knows," said Mrs. Faith, determined to join in the conversation and restless at having kept silence for so long. "Frampton declared that she had a fit."

"Nonsense. Anne, so far as I know, never had fits. A lean, spare woman such as Anne was, could not have a fit."

"Lean people may have fits as well as fat ones," said I wisely.

"I am not doctor enough to say," said Miss Destiny wearily, "and I am very tired with the journey and the news I have received. Poor Anne, she was a good and faithful servant."

"She wasn't popular here," said Mrs. Faith tartly.

"She kept very much to herself," said Mrs. Giles, placing the eggs before Miss Destiny; "a very close woman."

"Anne never was one for gossip," observed Miss Destiny, sipping a cup of hot tea. "None knew her better than I."

"Tell us all about her," said Mrs. Faith curiously.

Miss Destiny shook her head. "I am too tired," she confessed, "and after I have had my supper I shall go to bed, if this honest woman permits. To-morrow I shall tell the police all I know."

"The police," said Mrs. Giles, with a start.

"Certainly." Miss Destiny looked hard at the greengrocer's wife. "As Anne is so mysteriously dead, and as her glass eye is missing, and as this gentleman's motor car has been carried off--so they told me at the shop--the police will certainly ask questions. I shall answer them."

Mrs. Faith struck in again. "But can you give any reason?"

"I shall say nothing at present," interrupted Miss Destiny, with quite a grand air of rebuke. "Oh, Lucinda!"

The door had opened while she spoke and a gigantic figure, whether of man or woman, stepped cumbrously into the room. I doubted the sex, because although Lucinda wore petticoats, she also wore a distinct moustache, and displayed a rugged flat face, masculine in contour. With a man's cap on her scanty drab-hued hair and a man's pea-jacket clothing her spare body, with large driving-gloves and a red muffler, and nothing feminine about her save a short dress of light blue, beneath which appeared a pair of large lace-up boots, I may be excused for my doubts. Her eyes were grey and small and tired-looking, but they lighted with tender love when she beheld her mistress. Miss Destiny, looked smaller than ever, as the huge woman strode towards her to speak in one of the sweetest voices I have ever heard. These nightingale notes, proceeding from a kind of female Blunderbore, were scarcely in keeping with the coarse exterior.

"Are you rested, mistress? have you eaten? is your head bad? are your feet cold?" demanded Lucinda in a breath and with a voice of an archangel.

"I am much better, Lucinda," said Miss Destiny wearily, "but I should like to go to my room," and she closed her bright black eyes.

"I'll take you there, mistress," said the Amazon, and picked up the little woman like a feather, turning to address Mrs. Giles as she did so. "Where's the bedroom, mum?"

"I'll show you," said Mrs. Giles, and conducted the odd couple into an inner room with an air of amazement, which showed that Lucinda had startled her also by the mixed sexual appearance she presented. I could not help thinking that Giles and his wife were a singularly good-natured couple to allow the house to be stormed in this fashion.

"What do you think of it all?" asked Mrs. Faith when we were alone. I was beginning to dislike the woman for her unwarrantable curiosity.

"It is amusing."

"Amusing!" She stared aghast.

"The unexpected is always amusing," said I. "But come outside and we'll see Giles. I want him to take me to Mrs. Caldershaw's shop again. It is necessary for me to see Warshaw and tell him my story. I don't want a garbled version to reach him, as it is hard to remove first impressions."

Mrs. Faith, keeping a jealous eye on me--I verily believe that she still credited me with knowing more about the death that I would confess--shepherded me round the cottage into a small stable, where Giles was attending to the horse. After delivering me into his charge with the air of a police officer, she remarked that she would go home and drink a cup of tea. I was glad to see the back of the inquisitive woman, and said as much to Giles.

"Ay," he remarked, smiling quietly, "she's a rare one for other people's business is Mrs. Faith. Well, sir, what's to be done now?"

"I want you to come with me to Mrs. Caldershaw's shop, as I must see the policeman. And I say, Giles," I added, as we turned out of the yard and walked along the dark, damp road, "it's ridiculous all of us using your cottage as a hotel in this fashion. If Miss Destiny doesn't pay you I shall do so, and in any case, I shall pay for myself."

"You're of a forgiving nature, Mr. Vance, seeing how nearly I broke your neck, sir," said Giles, smiling again.

"Pooh! I would have done the same myself, seeing that I was taken, as it were, red-handed. By the way, you heard of the way in which this strange woman has run my motor into a field?"

"Yes, sir. Lucinda--she told me her name--explained what had happened."

"I hope my car isn't smashed up," I grumbled, turning up my coat collar, for the night was growing chilly. "I don't suppose that thief of a woman could drive for nuts. Well, well, it's a queer business altogether. I wonder how it will all end?"

"We must wait and see, Mr. Vance. These things are in the hands of Providence, you know," said Giles soberly, and then I gathered that the retired greengrocer had a strong religious vein--evangelistical for choice.

"Or in the hands of Miss Destiny," I murmured, for I still held to the fantastical belief that the shabby little woman had come from Olympus.

During the two hours which had elapsed since Giles took me into custody, law and order had been established in and about the tragic shop. Warshaw--as I afterwards learned--had come post-haste from Arkleigh, which was no very great distance away, and had brought with him a brother constable. This last was on guard at the shop door, before which a group of people were chattering excitedly, and Warshaw himself attended to the inside of the house. A few words to the Cerebus gained Giles and myself admission, and we were informed incidentally that a messenger on bicycle had been sent to the Murchester Inspector with details of the death and of the loot of the motor car. Shortly, said the policeman at the door, the Inspector would arrive to take charge of the case.

Warshaw proved to be a lean, red-haired, sedate young constable, who had been in the army and who knew a gentleman when he saw one. He was therefore extremely civil to me, and heard my story with great gravity. Afterwards he questioned Giles, and then logged both tales in his pocket-book. He did not seem to suspect that I was guilty of assault or robbery, but intimated politely that it would be just as well if I remained in his company until Inspector Dredge arrived from Murchester. Then I offered him a cigarette and we began to chat.

"What do you think of the case?" I asked, lighting up.

"I don't know what to think of it, sir," he replied with a doubtful air. "The deceased is dead, but, not being a doctor, I can't see how she came by her death. Her left eye--which I believe was a glass one--is missing, and a man said it was in her head at five o'clock when she attended to him in the shop. Yes," he shook his closely cropped hair, "it's a queer case."

"Do you think she was assaulted and rendered insensible for the sake of this glass eye?"

"I can't say, sir, and if I might suggest to you, sir, it will be best to ask no questions and to say nothing on your part until Inspector Dredge arrives."

"I shall only ask one question, Warshaw. Has anything been stolen?"

"No, sir. It isn't a case of burglary, I swear."

After Warshaw's hint, of course, I held my tongue. We were in the back room, and the corpse of Mrs. Caldershaw was still lying on the floor with a rug over it. Until Dredge and a doctor arrived the local policeman wisely decided to leave it as it had been found. I shuddered a trifle at the cold clay of the unfortunate woman, which I knew lay under the gaudy rug, and glanced round the room. It was of no great size and furnished in a plain way--comfortable enough, but not luxurious. The walls were adorned with a flamboyant red paper, scrolled aggressively with some unnatural green vegetation; and on the floor a diapered black and white linoleum lay under a white-washed ceiling. The furniture consisted of an Early Victorian horsehair mahogany suite, adorned with vividly tinted antimacassars; a sticky-looking varnished side-board, upon which stood a decayed wedding-cake top under a glass shade; a moderately sized round table covered with a blue cloth, and over it a home-made swing bookcase, containing antique and uninviting volumes, chiefly concerned, as I discovered, with religion. Also there was an old-fashioned grate in which a diminutive fire smouldered, a grandfather clock--now indicating the hour of nine--and finally, on the glaringly covered walls a few cheap oleographs, apparently taken from the Christmas numbers of illustrated papers. A tall brass-pillared lamp, giving out an exceedingly bad light, stood on the round table, and but faintly illuminated the homely apartment.

Later my attention was attracted by a photograph on the mantelpiece--a sumptuous photograph by an artistic London firm, set in an ornate silver frame, far too expensive for the late Mrs. Caldershaw to have purchased herself. I struck a match to examine it. Out of the semi-darkness flashed a truly lovely face, with the sweetest smile I had ever beheld. In the flickering light, I saw the head and shoulders and bust of a girl--a lady, a goddess I might say. She was arrayed in an evening dress of the simplest kind, untrimmed and unadorned in any way. Not even a necklace appeared on the swan-like grace of the neck, and no bracelets accentuated the outline of the finely-moulded arms. And the face--I fell in love with it at sight--with its haunting eyes and grave, tender, wishful smile. The hair was dressed in the plain Greek fashion, and the head, being turned a trifle to one side, ravished me with its chaste loveliness. Doubtless the picture represented a modern young lady, but to me it gleamed forth from the darkness as a revelation of Diana, but not of the Ephesians. No! here was the virginal huntress, who slew Actæn, who solaced the dying Hippolytus, and who came to Endymion in dreams on Mount Latmus. I was no raw boy, and--I have confessed it before--I had never been in love; but this exquisite face captured my heart, my fancy, my psychic senses, and all that there was in me to respond to the mystery of sex. Love at first sight was a mighty truth after all. Here was--my wife.

"Nonsense," said I aloud at this point, and the match went out after burning my fingers. The men looked up inquiringly, and keeping well back in the gloom I coloured warmly. "It's nothing. An idle thought passed through my mind. I wonder,"--here I hesitated, as I was on the verge of asking the two what they knew about the portrait. But an inexplicable sense of nervous shame kept me silent on this point and I finished my sentence in another way. "I wonder when the Inspector will arrive," said I with a yawn.

At that moment, as if in answer to my question, the sound of approaching wheels was heard, and we sharply walked into the shop to see a trap halting before the door. A tall, military-looking man descended and stalked forward, followed by a policeman and a cheerful red-faced individual, who looked what he was--a country practitioner. A carefully cultivated habit of observation--invaluable to playwright or novelist--has quickened my comprehension, so I guessed the doctor's profession the moment he entered the shop. Dredge was grim and hard-mouthed and steady-eyed, and sparing of words on all occasions. He listened to Warshaw's report without committing himself to speech, and then tersely asked the doctor--Scoot was his queer name--to inspect the corpse in his presence. I remained with Giles in the shop, as I had no desire to participate in the gruesome examination. The policeman who had come from Murchester, took up his station at the door along with his comrade, and to him I addressed myself.

"Do you know if the messenger who came to see Inspector Dredge went on to the Barracks?" I asked, for I was wondering why Cannington had not arrived.

"Yes, sir," said the officer saluting. "As soon as the Inspector heard of the murder he sent him on, and then we drove here."

"Strange!" I murmured, for I knew that Cannington was not the boy to let grass grow under his feet when a friend was in trouble. As it was still early he would not be in bed, and as some hours had elapsed, there was ample time for him to arrive. Indeed I had expected him to precede the police.

Giles frowned and shook his head. "I think Ashley was sent," he said in his rough voice, "and he's but a wastrel. I only hope he has gone to the Barracks, and is not drinking in some public-house. News of a murder will get him many free drinks."

I shrugged my shoulders. "That may be the case, Giles. However, it doesn't matter. I can stay with you, and to-morrow we can send a more reliable messenger to Lord Cannington."

"Oh, his lordship may arrive yet," ventured the ex-greengrocer.

"Perhaps. But I doubt it. He would have arrived before had he heard of my dilemma. Ah, here's the Inspector."

Dredge looked more gloomy and forbidding than ever. I understood, although he did not inform me, that Dr. Scoot was still examining the dead body, and that Dredge had come to ask questions. I was right in my latter surmise, at all events, for he examined me thoroughly and set down my replies in a book. Then he gave me a piece of information.

"Your motor car, sir, is standing in a field some distance from Murchester, abandoned. We saw it through the broken gate, when we drove past. A hasty examination showed us that it has not been much injured."

Before I could reply, the agitated voice of Scoot was heard calling for the Inspector. I followed Dredge into the back room. The doctor had opened the dead woman's bodice and was pointing to a gleam of blue glass.

"See! see!" he said loudly, "the head of a hat-pin!" He drew it out. "Yes, this poor wretched woman has been murdered by having a hat-pin thrust into her heart."

I thought of the white-cloaked female who had stolen my car, but said nothing.

[CHAPTER IV.]

FACTS

Next morning brought Cannington in a towering rage to Mootley. He arrived in a motor while I was breakfasting at nine o'clock, and explained with many apologies that he had become aware of my difficulties only one hour previously.

"That silly blighter you sent," said the boy volubly, "never came to the Barracks last night. After telling the police what had happened, he started to come to me--this is his story, remember--but on the way dropped into a pub. There he talked about the murder, and was supplied with so many free drinks that he wasn't in a fit state to leave."

"Humph!" said I, going on with my breakfast, "Giles was right it seems. This Ashley animal is a wastrel. Well?"

"Well," echoed Cannington, fuming, "there is no well about it. The intoxicated beast only turned up this morning at nine o'clock. I was in bed when my servant brought in the message, and when I saw him I told him off, confound him for a silly ape. Then I got Trent to loan me his car and came along here as soon as I could bathe and dress."

"Have you had breakfast?"

"Oh, damn breakfast! No."

"Well, sit down and have some, if Mrs. Giles," glanced at the little woman, who was hovering round the fire, "permits."

"I'll set another cup and plate at once, sir," she said, evidently fluttered at the idea of entertaining a real live lord, "but I'm afraid, sir, that eggs and bacon and tea ain't what the young gentleman's used to."

"I don't know anything better," said Cannington graciously, and soon was occupied industriously in filling up. "And I do call it beastly," he said between mouthfuls, "that I should have been out of all the fun. If I'd only come along with you, Vance----"

"You'd have been arrested, as I am," I finished.

"Oh, come now, that's a bit too thick. You didn't rob this woman, or murder her for one of your melodramas, did you?"

"Who said she was murdered?" I asked, taking another cup of tea.

"That blighter who came this morning."

"How the deuce does he know? The murder was only found out after he went to Murchester. Everyone--myself included--thought that it was merely robbery of a glass eye."

"A glass eye!" Cannington stared. "Who the deuce would steal a glass eye?"

"The woman who annexed my motor car, and who murdered Mrs. Caldershaw by sticking a hat-pin into her heart, stole it."

"Whose glass eye was it?"

"Mrs. Caldershaw's."

"Who is she?"

"The dead woman."

Cannington gulped down a cup of tea and requested particulars. "You see I was in such a rage that I heard very little from the messenger," he explained apologetically. "All I gathered was that some woman had been murdered and robbed, and that you were suspected. I hurried along to tell the police that they were idiots, and----"

"Oh, not such idiots," said I, pushing back my chair and lighting a cigarette. "You see I was caught red-handed by Mrs. Giles' husband."

"Oh, sir," put in the greengrocer's wife deprecatingly.

"Begin at the beginning," commanded Cannington, who was still eating with the healthy appetite of a young animal, "and go on to the end. I'm not clever enough to make up a story out of scraps."

Thus adjured I detailed all that had taken place from the time I had left him at the Mess-room door on the previous day. He became so interested that he ceased to eat, and at the conclusion of my narrative jumped up from his chair with an ejaculation. "By Jove," said he, recalling our conversation in the Rippler, "adventures are to the adventurous, aren't they? This real life business beats any of your melodramas."

"I agree. Truth is always more impossible than fiction."

"An epigram doesn't meet the case," snapped Cannington.

"It sums it up, my boy. Who could ever invent such a situation--I speak as a playwright, you understand. I could never have imagined the tragedy of an old woman killed by a hat-pin for the sake of her glass eye, much less the implicating of an inoffensive stranger, and the theft of his motor by the murderess."

"You are sure she is guilty?"

"Certainly! Who but a woman would use a hat-pin to slay, and who but a woman would have a hat-pin to use?"

"But why should she kill the old woman?"

"That question can only be answered when we know more about the lady in the white cloak, who bolted with my car."

"Who is she?"

"Helen of Troy, for all I know. What silly questions you ask, Cannington."

"I'm not Sherlock Holmes," he retorted, "and I did come on straight to help you through this business."

"Forgive me, boy; you're a brick. What about your duties?"

"I got leave from the adjutant. That's all right. What's to be done now?"

"We must see Inspector Dredge, and look after my motor, which is still piled up in the field where the lady left it. Clever woman that. She knew that she might be traced by the number, and so got rid of the car. I daresay she footed it to Murchester, and went on to London by the night train."

"In a white cloak she'd be traced."

"If she was fool enough to wear it," said I dryly, "but I daresay we'll find that white cloak packed away in the car."

"Come along and let us see," cried Cannington, greatly excited.

"One moment. Mrs. Giles, what about Miss Destiny and her servant?"

"She's not up yet, sir, and Lucinda has taken in her breakfast."

"Is she returning to Burwain to-day?"

"I think so, sir. But Sam told Inspector Dredge of what she said last night, and he wishes to ask her questions about Mrs. Caldershaw's past."

I nodded. "No doubt. In Mrs. Caldershaw's past will be found the motive for the committal of this strange crime. That glass eye was a dangerous possession, Mrs. Giles."

"Lor', sir, do you think that has anything to do with it?"

"Everything, if you remember what Miss Destiny said about the value Mrs. Caldershaw attached to that glass eye. She is dead, and evidently--since the eye is missing--was murdered for its possession. Depend upon it, Mrs. Giles, when Inspector Dredge learns the history of that eye, he will be able to lay his hand on this lady who so ingeniously escaped."

"But after all," said Cannington, looking back from the door, "you really aren't arrested, Vance, are you?"

"You can put it that I am under surveillance, boy."

"What rot."

"Come and tell Dredge so," said I, taking his arm. "I'll be back soon, Mrs. Giles, so tell your husband," and with a nod I went out.

We found Cannington's--or rather Trent's--motor at the door, and got into it to proceed to the shop round the corner. Here we found Inspector Dredge, surrounded by his myrmidons, and I explained to him that my friend had come to vouch for my respectability; also that I desired to go in search of my Rippler. The Inspector, although as grim-faced, was less taciturn than on the previous night, and received my explanation most kindly, assuring me that there was little need for Lord Cannington to state my honourable qualities. "Although," he added, "his lordship is welcome to depose to your position, as a matter of form."

"Oh, Mr. Vance is all right," said Cannington cheerily, "he only commits murders on the stage."

"I don't think even on the stage I ever committed so ingenious a murder as this one seems to be," I retorted.

Dredge nodded. "Yes. This unknown woman is singularly clever."

"Then you think she is guilty?"

"What else can I think, Mr. Vance?" said Dredge, raising his eyebrows. "From what you tell me, I am inclined to think that she was hiding in an upstairs room--there are two--when you entered the shop. Possibly the sound and appearance of your car drove her there after she had murdered the unfortunate Mrs. Caldershaw. You did not enter the shop immediately?"

"Well, no, I was a few minutes looking into things connected with the car."

"And the shop was in darkness?"

"Complete darkness."

"I thought so. This woman heard your car coming, and later on saw it. She doubtless slipped out of the back room, where she had just stabbed her victim, and had the eye--this seems to be the motive for the commission of the crime--in her pocket. She could not walk into the road without running a chance of meeting you, so she sprang up the stairs yonder"--he pointed to the steps, which clung to the wall on one side and had a light railing on the other--"and took refuge in the bedroom. When she heard you enter the back room, she came down turned the key, and ran away with your car."

"Humph!" said I, after a pause, "permit me to put you right on one point, Mr. Inspector. I believe that the woman was in the back room when I entered the shop, for when I tried the door in order to find someone, it was locked."

"Really!" Dredge made a hasty note. "Was the key on the outside?"

"I don't remember. All I know was that I could not pull open the door."

"She would not have had time to change the key from the inside to the outside," mused the Inspector. "I daresay the key all along was on the outside, as it is now." He glanced at the door leading into the back room, and sure enough there was the key. "Possibly, she shot the bolt--there is one on the hither side of the door, as I noticed. Well?"

"Well, while I was filling the tank of my car with petrol she must have emerged, and--as you say--unable to escape without observation by the road, she must have slipped upstairs. When I found the door open on trying it for the second time, I entered the back room, attracted by the last moan of the dying woman. Then she--the murderess, I mean--must have come down, and after softly turning the key, have gone off in my car."

"But why should she leave the car in a field?" asked Cannington.

"To the more easily escape," said Dredge, raising his eyebrows. "A car with a number could easily be traced. She took it as near Murchester as she dared, then abandoned it, and walked to the town. That is my theory, and then she could either remain in Murchester or take the train to some other place. It will be a hard matter to find her, as she has concealed her trail very successfully."

"She might have left some evidence behind in the car," I suggested.

Dredge shook his head. "I examined the car myself this morning," he remarked. "There is not a vestige to show that any woman occupied it. She has not left even so much as a pin behind."

"Pardon me; she left a hat-pin!"

"Yes," said the Inspector grimly, "in the heart of the unfortunate Mrs. Caldershaw. But your car is still in that field near Murchester, Mr. Vance, and I shall leave you to take it away. I don't know how much it is injured."

"Last night you said that it wasn't much hurt," I said hastily.

"Quite so, sir," said Dredge imperturbably. "But last night my examination was necessarily perfunctory, as I was in a hurry to reach the scene of the crime. This morning I examined the car more carefully, and I am not sufficiently an expert to see what damage has been done. Remember, it was driven violently through a wooden gate."

"On purpose?" asked Cannington quickly.

The Inspector cast a side glance at his fresh-coloured face. "I can't say, my lord. I think not. The woman, driving down the incline, nearly ran into Miss Destiny's trap. To avoid a complete collision, she may have turned the steering-wheel too completely round, and so probably dashed by mischance through the gate. Indeed, I think that is the true explanation."

"Then, but for this accident," said Cannington pertinaciously, "she would have driven the car to Murchester."

"I really can't offer an opinion on that point, my lord. We are working in the dark just now, and all I have said is mere theory founded upon circumstantial evidence. However, Mr. Vance," he turned to me, "you can go and see after your car, and tell me what you think That is," he glanced at his watch sharply, "after I have examined Miss Destiny. I am told by Giles that she knew Mrs. Caldershaw, and was coming here to pass the night."

"You want me to be present?"

"If you will so far oblige me."

"I shall be delighted. I wish to hear of everything connected with this most interesting case. Do you mind if Lord Cannington is present also?"

"Not at all," said Dredge graciously, and shuffled his notes, which were lying on the counter. "Miss Destiny will be here in a few minutes, and we can go into the back room where the crime was committed."

"Where is the body?" asked Cannington abruptly.

"It has been laid out in one of the bedrooms upstairs. Do you wish to view it, my lord?"

"Oh, hang it, certainly not," gasped Cannington hastily, and with all the repugnance which the upper classes exhibit towards such morbid sights. "I was only asking, as I don't wish to sit in the room with a corpse."

The Inspector threw open the door to display the back premises. "You see," he said, inviting us by a gesture to enter, "the body has been removed."

In the grey daylight, for there was no sun to graciously soften crudities, the room looked forlorn and chill and lonely. Cannington stepped at my heels with a nervous shiver, for he was somewhat impressionable. I now noticed that there were two windows in the outer wall, which looked on to a kind of fenced clearing, sown with cabbages, potatoes and leeks. These jostled each other in a disorderly fashion, and the paths between the beds were so grass-grown that it was apparent but little interest had been taken in her garden by the late owner of the corner shop. The paling fence, unpainted and broken, which surrounded the oblong of the cultivated ground, seemed to push back the encircling elms, forming a small untidy wood behind. There was no gate in the fence, so the sole means of egress was through the shop. Between the windows was a door, leading into this dismal garden, standing cheek by jowl with a cumbersome chimney. The back door was locked. "We found it like that last night," exclaimed Dredge, now more communicative and less grim. "The odd thing is that the key is missing."

"Perhaps Mrs. Caldershaw never went into her garden," I remarked. "It does not look inviting."

"Oh, she must have gone out of that door sometimes," insisted the Inspector. "For there is a small shed filled with coals and wood outside; she must have replenished her fire occasionally, you know, Mr. Vance."

"Well then, she probably had locked the door for the night, when she was murdered by this white-cloaked woman."

"I daresay; but why should the key be missing?"

Cannington made a suggestion. "The woman locked it when she escaped."

"She escaped through the shop, after locking Mr. Vance in," retorted Dredge, "so why should she have troubled to steal the back-door key, which, on the face of it, she did not require?"

"Huh," said the boy, "she seems to have a weakness for taking queer things, Mr. Inspector. Witness the glass eye."

Dredge nodded. "I hear Miss Destiny knows something about that."

At this moment, as if in answer to her name, the little old lady stepped daintily into the back room. She looked as shabby and frail as ever, but she undoubtedly was a gentlewoman, and her eyes still revealed a strong vitality. With a curtsey to me and to Cannington, she addressed herself graciously to Inspector Dredge.

"My trap is at the door, sir, and I am anxious to return to my home at Burwain, since this poor woman I came to see is unfortunately dead."

"Murdered," said Dredge laconically.

Miss Destiny blinked with her wonderfully youthful eyes, and recoiled with a nervous gesture of her hand. "Murdered," she whispered, half to herself. "They did not tell me that."

"Who did not tell you, ma'am?" demanded the Inspector brusquely.

"Lucinda, my servant, Mr. Giles and his wife," she replied brokenly. "How was she murdered, sir?"

"An ordinary hat-pin with a blue glass bead for a head was thrust into her heart, ma'am. She must have died immediately."

"How dreadful. But why should she be murdered, poor soul?"

"So far as I can gather, on account of her glass eye, which is missing. I should like to hear what you have to say on that point, ma'am?" and Dredge fixed his stern eyes inquisitively on the little old lady.

Miss Destiny sat down quietly, and appeared to make an effort to recover her composure, which had been sorely shaken, and very naturally, by the news of the strange murder. "All I can say is, that Anne had a glass eye to which she appeared to attach a ridiculous value"--at this point I became aware that she was repeating word for word her speech of the previous night, and certain of it, when she continued. "Anne often declared that she would not lose it for a fortune. Now it is lost, and she is dead. Dear me!"

"It has been stolen, and she has been murdered," corrected the Inspector smartly. "I should like to know why Mrs. Caldershaw attached such value to the eye?"

"I can't tell you that, Mr. Inspector, because I do not know. Anne was always very close and kept her business to herself."

"Who is the woman?" asked Dredge impatiently.

"Who was the woman, you mean, sir," corrected Miss Destiny smartly in her turn. "I can tell you that. She was my brother's housekeeper at Burwain for many years. When he died five years ago, more or less," added Miss Destiny precisely, "she retired with her savings to this place, which was her native village, and here set up this shop."

"Have you seen her since she came to live here?"

"At intervals, sir. Anne was a valued old servant, whom I respected, and at times--say once a year, I came over to stay the night with her."

"Had she any enemies?"

"Not to my knowledge, sir."

"Was she happy here?"

"As happy as a grumbler like Anne could be. For there is no denying, poor soul, that she was a grumbler," ended the little old lady regretfully.

"What was your brother's name, ma'am?" said Dredge, producing his note-book.

"Gabriel Monk, sir. He was a bachelor, and lived at The Lodge, Burwain. I kept house for him with Anne as our servant until he died. Then Anne came here and I took a small cottage in the village, where I now am."

"And The Lodge?" asked Dredge, somewhat irrelevantly I thought.

"His brother, Walter Monk, inherited The Lodge and the money of his deceased relative. He lives there now with my niece."

"Oh!" The inspector here saw a point which in my opinion he ought to have noticed before. "Then Gabriel Monk was not exactly your brother?"

"I called him so, because I looked after his house for him, but he really was not, sir."

"Your brother-in-law, then?"

"Not even that, Mr. Inspector. Let me explain. My sister married Walter Monk, the brother of Gabriel, and became a widower with one child, a girl. Gabriel took Gertrude, the girl, to live with him, when she was a small child, and asked me to take charge of her. I did so, and therefore fell into the habit of calling Gabriel my brother; but, as you see, he was no relation. And pardon me, Mr. Inspector, but I do not see what all this private business has to do with the murder of Anne Caldershaw."

Dredge snapped the elastic band on his closed pocket-book. "I wish to learn all I can about the dead woman's past," he said gruffly, "and so ask you to tell me all you know."

"I have told you all I know," said Miss Destiny, rising. "And now may I take my departure, as I have a long way to drive?"

Dredge nodded. "You may have to return for the inquest," he said abruptly, "and in any case, I shall come over to Burwain to ask questions."

"By all means. Anyone will tell you where I live," said Miss Destiny with dignity, "and I trust that my expenses will be paid, should I be required as a witness at the inquest." Here I noted she again revealed a miserly tendency.

"Oh, yes, that's all right," said Dredge, and Miss Destiny, again making her queer little curtsey to Cannington and myself, was about to depart, when I stopped her with a question.

"Will you please tell me the name of this lady?" I asked, indicating the photograph in the silver frame.

Miss Destiny's eyes were too keen to require glasses, and she recognised the face at once. "Dear me, it is a photograph of Gertrude."

"Your niece?"

"Certainly. Anne nursed her, you know, and Gertrude was always greatly attached to her. She will be distressed when she hears of this tragedy. Dear me, I never knew Gertrude had given Anne her portrait, and in such a very expensive frame. Waste! waste! But why do you ask about it, sir?"

I coloured. "I thought the face was so lovely," was my reply, made in a low and somewhat awkward voice.

Miss Destiny gave me a piercing glance, and nodded in a friendly manner, evidently amused by my embarrassment. "Gertrude is as good as she is beautiful," she said smiling. "Good-day, gentlemen," and she left the shop to mount the trap. Lucinda wrapped the rug carefully round her knees and the oddly assorted pair drove away.

Meanwhile Cannington--who was always much too clever when dulness would have been more diplomatic--laughed meaningly, and whispered.

"Adventures are to the adventurous," said Cannington wickedly.

"So you said before, and the remark isn't original in any case," I answered tartly. "What you mean----"

"Oh, of course," he chaffed softly. "I haven't got eyes in my head, and you're a Joseph where a pretty girl is concerned. And she is pretty"--he turned to look at my goddess--"she is----"

"Oh, shut up!" I interrupted crossly. "Mr. Inspector, I am going to look after my motor car. And the inquest?"

"Will be held in this house to-morrow at ten o'clock."

This settled matters for the time being and I departed with the boy, who still chaffed me, like the silly young ass he was. "Old Vance in love. Ho, ho!" said this annoying boy.

[CHAPTER V.]

AN IMPORTANT DISCOVERY

On examination, the Rippler appeared to have suffered but trifling hurt. Either by accident, or design, the flying lady had driven the machine straight through an ancient five-barred gate, which fortunately was much too decayed to present any serious obstacle. Across a stubbled field--as the ripping and ploughing of the grounds showed--the car had reeled drunkenly, until by its own weight it was bogged in the friable furrows. Here it had been deserted, with smashed lamps, a slightly damaged front, and with a considerable amount of paint scraped off. But an immediate test showed that the machinery was in excellent working order.

It was no easy task to restore the derelict to the hard levels of the high-road. But Cannington collected a gang of agriculturals from unknown quarters and we set to work. With spades and crowbars, broad weather-boards from an adjacent incomplete building as temporary tram-lines, and a tow-rope from Trent's machine to mine, we managed the job fairly expeditiously, considering the environment. With water from the nearest pond for the outside of the car, and oil and petrol for the interior, I managed to get the Rippler into working order, although she was more or less shaken, and did not run very smoothly. Fortunately the lady had abandoned her loot within half a mile of Murchester, so with careful driving I contrived to get over that distance in safety. After storing the Rippler in a convenient garage, to be repaired and overhauled, I went on to the Barracks with Cannington in Trent's motor. Here I proposed to put up until the inquest was at an end and I was free to leave the neighbourhood. It was rather a nuisance to be thus publicly housed, as one might put it, for everyone, from the Colonel to the latest-joined subaltern, asked questions and aired impossible theories. My intimate connection with the affair made me an object of interest to one and all. And small wonder that it should be so, for the mystery of the affair was most enthralling.

On the way to his quarters, Cannington--perhaps to distract my thoughts from more immediate troubles--mentioned casually that Wentworth Marr had left a card for him at Mess, just before we had arrived on the day of the murder. I did not take any interest in Marr, as I had never seen him, so it was a matter of indifference to me whether he had called or not. But the boy fidgeted over the matter, as he made sure he was about to be asked a knotty question officially, as the head of the Wotton family.

"I am certain that Marr wishes to know if I will agree to his marrying my sister," said Cannington irritably. "And I don't know what to say."

"Refer him to the lady," I suggested absently.

"I sha'nt. He's too old for Mabel, and I don't want her to marry him in any case. I wish Weston would come up to the scratch, for he told me that he loved Mabel, and I was quite pleased. Weston's no end of a good sort, and we--that is Mabel and I--have known him almost as long as we have you, Vance. Marr's all right, and deuced rich from all one hears. But I don't want such an old chap as a brother-in-law, for all his thousands of pounds."

"Oh, very well then," said I ungraciously. "Tell him to keep off the grass, or you'll punch his head. Is he stopping at Murchester?"

"I suppose so. His card has the Lion's Head--that's the best hotel here--pencilled on it. He called somewhere about three yesterday, before we arrived, and he said he'd turn up again. I expect to find him waiting for me now, and I'm hanged," lamented Cannington, "if I know what to say."

But, as after events proved, the boy was worrying himself needlessly, for Wentworth Marr did not reappear at the Barracks. On inquiry, we learned that he stayed only the one night in Murchester, and then went back to London in his motor--for he also travelled in the latest vehicle of transit. I only mention these apparently trivial facts, because they form certain links in the chain of evidence which led up to the discovery of the amazing truth. Meanwhile, not foreseeing the importance of trifles, I was rather annoyed with Cannington for babbling. My mind was far too much taken up with the mystery of Mrs. Caldershaw's murder, and with--I must confess it--the face of Gertrude Monk, to permit me to think of Lady Mabel Wotton and her wooers, elderly or otherwise.

Lady Mabel herself appeared a day or so later, and at an inopportune moment, for her brother and I were greatly fatigued with what had occurred during the interval. However, we returned from Mootley in my renovated Rippler on the third day, and found her waiting impatiently for afternoon tea in Cannington's quarters. She was a tall, fresh-coloured, dashing girl, amazingly like her brother, and if he had worn her tailor-made dress instead of his khaki, I do not think anyone, unless a very close observer, would have been the wiser. I had known the family for more years that I cared to remember, and liked Lady Mabel immensely, as she was outspoken and companionable, and did not want a man to be always telling her that she was a goddess. All the same, she could flirt when inclined, although she never did so with me. It could not have been my age, for I was younger than this confounded Marr she came to talk about; so I presume she looked upon me as Cannington's elder brother. At all events, our friendship was always prosaic and matter of fact.

We had tea, while Lady Mabel presided and told us that she had just come down for an hour, and that she was very miserable, and that Cannington ought to have written her, and that she did not know what to do, though Cyrus--that was me--might give some advice and----

"I never give advice," I interrupted hastily. "I'm not clever enough."

"I never said you were," she retorted. "But you are slow and sure."

"Thanks, Lady Mabel."

"I think you're just horrid, and why you should be so stiff with me I don't know, seeing that you knew Cannington and myself since we could toddle."

"Oh, come now, I'm not so old as all that."

"You are, and ever so much older, you--you bachelor."

"I can't help that, since you refuse to marry me," I said smiling.

"You've never asked me to--not that I would accept you," she replied promptly. "All the same, you needn't call me Lady Mabel, as if you were keeping me off with a pitchfork."

"Well, then--Mabel."

"That's better." She gave me a friendly pat on the shoulder. "You know that I look on you as a good sort, Cyrus, and the oldest friend we have."

I wriggled. "Why do you emphasise age so much?"

Cannington laughed, and I knew that he was thinking of my admiration of Miss Monk's photograph. "Vance doesn't like to be reminded of his age--now."

"Why now?" questioned Lady Mabel suspiciously.

"Oh, never mind," I said crossly. "What do you want my advice about?"

Our fair companion put down her cup in despair. "Haven't I been telling you for the last half hour. Mr. Marr wants to marry me. He asked me four days ago, and then came down to enlist Cannington on his side."

"Huh," said the boy, sagaciously, "that sounds as though you had refused him."

"No, I didn't."

"Then you accepted him."

"No, I didn't," she said again. "I left it an open question, until I consulted you and Cyrus. After all he is rich, and not bad-looking."

"Oh, Mabel," cried Cannington, rising to perambulate the narrow room, "you know very well that you love Dickey Weston."

"What's the use of loving a man who won't speak his mind? Dickey always lives in the moon, and I only love him from habit.

"You never loved me from habit," I remarked lazily.

Mabel put her head on one side, and surveyed me critically. "No, I never did," she said candidly, "and yet you're better-looking than Dickey. But he's got a way with him--I don't know what it is."

"Absent-mindedness," suggested Cannington. "May we smoke, Mab?"

"Oh, yes, and you can give me a cigarette also, if they're Egyptian. Thanks awfully." She accepted one, and I struck a match for the lighting. "Of course, Dickey Weston is absent-minded and selfish," she continued frankly. "All the same, I love him and I don't mind anyone knowing it."

"Every one does, except Dickey," said I with a shrug.

"I suppose you think that's clever."

"It's the truth. After all, I don't see why you need be shy with a man you have known for centuries. Why not go to Dickey and tell him that you want to marry him and go trips in his airship?"

"Dickey would agree, and never know what had happened until he found me breakfasting opposite to him without a chaperon. Well, what's to be done?" She leaned back, and placed her hands behind her head. "Dickey won't ask me to be his wife, and Mr. Marr--who is rich--wants me to marry him right away."

"Do you love Marr, Mabel?" asked Cannington seriously.

"No," she said promptly.

"Then refuse him."

"He's too rich to refuse."

"Mabel"--I spoke this time and severely--"you are much too nice a girl to make such a sordid match, and with a man who might be your father. Chuck him, and chuck it, and make Dickey Weston do his duty."

"Which Dickey will be quite willing to do," said Cannington amiably, "especially as he told me that he loved you, Mab."

"Oh," the girl jumped up and with a fine blush threw the half-finished cigarette into the fireplace. "Why didn't you tell me that before, Cannington? I know what I'll do." She reflected for three seconds. "I'll tell Mr. Marr that he shall have his answer as a Christmas box, and meanwhile I'll see if I can't make Dickey jealous. Cannington, you are sure that Dickey said what you say he said?"

"Quite sure. He said it twice."

"Then he must mean it," cried Mabel energetically. "So I can hold off Mr. Marr and make Dickey jealous by pretending to flirt with him. After all I love Dickey and Dickey loves me, so why shouldn't we marry?"

"I am sure," said I cynically, "that if you put the position clearly to Weston in that way he would do his duty."

"I don't want him to do his duty, just as if I was driving him to the altar," she said, much exasperated. "I wouldn't marry Dickey if I didn't love him, not if he were twice as rich."

"What about Marr?"

She wilfully chose to ignore my hint. "He can remain as a second string to my bow, Cyrus. After all I must marry money. Aunt Lucy"--this was Lady Denham, the late earl's sister--"is always grumbling about my dresses. And--and--and--oh, well, then, never mind, I must be getting back to town." She looked at her bracelet watch. "There's a theatre party and supper at the Ritz to-night, so I haven't much time.

"And the situation?" asked Cannington, helping her on with her cloak.

"I'll temporise and give Dickey a chance."

"Which means that Marr will have none," I said gravely, "that's not fair."

Mabel shrugged her shoulders, and made the truly feminine answer. "You're a man and don't understand. Oh," she stopped at the door suddenly, "by the way, Aunt Lucy told me that your name was in the papers, Cyrus, about some murder. I've just thought about it. Aren't you accused of sticking pins into some one? Tell me all about it on the way to the station; it will amuse me, you know."

This refreshing candour made me laugh right out, as we descended the stairs. "I am glad that you have even an afterthought of my amusing position," said I, very drily.

She had the grace to colour. "Oh, I didn't quite mean that, Cyrus; but after all, I can't think of everything at once."

"Cannington did that, Mabel. He has been a brick, and but for his assistance I should never have pulled through."

"What rot," muttered the boy, but he was secretly pleased.

"Then you are in danger?" cried Mabel, startled.

"I have been," I replied with emphasis, "as I discovered the body. But my own spotless reputation and Cannington's asseverations of my honesty, prevented my being arrested."

"I'm so glad, Cyrus. Such a horrid thing for one's friend being arrested for a nasty pin-sticking crime."

"Horrid indeed--for the friend."

"Where did you hear of the murder, Mab?" questioned her brother.

"Oh, the papers yesterday and this morning were full of it. Aunt Lucy drew my attention to them, as she knew that I knew you," said Mabel incoherently. "You were at the inquest, weren't you, Cyrus, and gave evidence? Tell me all about it, as I only read scraps."

"There's very little to tell," I answered, yawning, for really I felt extremely tired. "I found Mrs. Caldershaw dead in the back room, and a woman in a white cloak, presumably her murderess, ran off with my motor car."

"I read all that. What else?"

"Nothing else, save that we found the car and not the woman. A jury of twelve good and lawful yokels brought in a verdict of murder against some person or persons unknown."

"But I thought you said this woman was guilty?"

"It is presumed so, since she bolted with my car and hasn't turned up. Her name is unknown, so the verdict is quite right."

"But persons," persisted Lady Mabel inquisitively.

"A mere graceful addition to round off the sentence. I believe that this woman stabbed Mrs. Caldershaw with a sapphire-headed hat-pin."

"Sapphire-headed; she must have been rich."

"Oh, Vance is drawing on his theatrical imagination," struck in Cannington impatiently, "the sapphire he talks of was only blue glass."

"Oh, that reminds me that the papers said something about a glass eye."

"I expect they said a very great deal about it," I assented gravely. "Catch your journalist missing a chance of hinting at mystery."

"Is it a mystery?" asked Mabel, walking before us into the station.

"More or less--possibly more. Mrs. Caldershaw was murdered by this unknown woman, presumably for the sake of her glass eye."

"But why?"

Cannington laughed. "That's what the police are trying to learn; not that they ever will. I believe the truth will never be discovered."

"Are there no letters, no papers? Is there no gossip likely to----"

I interrupted, impatiently, for the absence of circumstantial evidence bothered me greatly. "Inspector Dredge looked over all the papers and letters of the dead woman, and found nothing likely to lead to the discovery of the guilty person's name. As to gossip, it appears that Mrs. Caldershaw kept to herself in the corner shop, and little was known about her. She came to Mootley five years ago with her savings, having been the housekeeper of Gabriel Monk of Burwain, near Gattlingsands. There she started a shop, and at times received a visit from Miss Gertrude Monk, whom she nursed, and from Miss Destiny, who is the young lady's aunt."

"Two women," breathed Mabel, facing me; "do you think----"

"That either one is guilty?" I interrupted again and somewhat sharply. "No, I certainly do not. Miss Destiny was on her way to stay the night with Mrs. Caldershaw when the crime was committed; and at the inquest she stated that she left her niece behind at The Lodge, Burwain."

"You needn't be so cross about it," said Mabel, staring at my acrid tone. "I only suggested possibilities. What are you laughing at, Cannington?"

"Nothing," said the boy untruthfully, and looked hard at me. The fact of my admiration for Miss Monk's pictured face--we had discussed her several times before and after the inquest--was in his mind, as I well knew. But he had grace enough to keep this to himself, and not set Lady Mabel's too ready tongue chattering.

"I wish you wouldn't giggle, Cannington," she said, accepting the excuse, "it's growing on you. Well," she faced me, "and what are you going to do?"

"About what, if you please?"

"About this murder?"

"What the deuce should he do?" cried Cannington, openly surprised. "He's well out of an awkward situation, so there's no more to be said. I daresay he'll write a melodrama on the case and solve the mystery in the wrong way."

"I am not so sure," said I pointedly, "that I won't try to solve it the right way."

"What do you mean by that?" asked my friend, staring.

"I mean that the mystery of Mrs. Caldershaw's glass eye fascinates me, and that I intend to follow up what clues there are."

"There aren't any," said Cannington promptly. "You heard what Inspector Dredge remarked at the inquest."

"He admitted that he could find no evidence, it is true, but that doesn't mean to say that evidence is not to be found."

"Are you about to turn an amateur detective?"

"Why not? Now why are you laughing?"

"Oh, he's crazy," said Mabel disdainfully. "Here comes my train. I'll have a rush to reach town and dress. Aunt Lucy is always so punctual, I'm sure to get into hot water."

"Ask Mr. Wentworth Marr to get you out of it," said I jokingly.

"He could," she replied seriously, leaning out of the carriage window. "Aunt Lucy thinks no end of him, and would be glad to see me his wife."

"Don't you do anything in a hurry, Mabel,"--began Cannington, when his expostulations were cut short by the departure of the train. When the ruddy tail light of the guard's van disappeared, he took my arm with a friendly hug. "I didn't give you away, did I, Vance?"

"There's nothing to give away," I said gruffly.

"Oh! oh! oh!" said Cannington, in three distinct keys. "What about love at first sight, old man? You intend to follow up this case, so as to get into touch with the original of that photograph."

"Rubbish! You are jumping in the dark."

"Don't you jump," advised the boy shrewdly. "Your fancy has evidently been caught by Miss Monk's face, and if you meet her, there's no telling but that you may be a married man before Christmas."

I denied this hotly, and proceeded to show that my interest in the case was more or less official. "Mystery piques every man," said I insistently, "so I mean to learn why Mrs. Caldershaw was murdered, and why she attached such value to that glass eye of hers."

Cannington laughed and declined to believe, but being a thoroughly good fellow, ceased to chaff me when he saw that I looked annoyed. "All the same," he remarked, as we strolled back to his quarters, "I shall keep an eye on you, Vance. You're too inflammable, and I don't want you to marry in haste and repent at leisure."

Of course I laughed, uneasily maybe, for Cannington was right in the main. I certainly was anxious to solve the mystery, but I doubted if my zeal would have been equal to so arduous a task, had not the memory of that lovely face lured me onward, like a will-o'-the-wisp. I had long since wished to secure the photograph, so as to have the image of my divinity constantly before my eyes, but Dredge very reasonably declined to permit the illegal annexation. Mrs. Caldershaw's will, which had been found by the Inspector amongst her shop accounts, left all she died possessed of to her nephew, Joseph Striver. He proved on inquiry to be a Burwain gardener in the employment of Mr. Walter Monk. "If Striver will give, or sell you the portrait," said Dredge, with official phlegm, "I have no objection; it isn't my property."

The police-officer was much too grim and unromantic to guess why I sought to possess the photograph, and needless to say, I did not tell him. Also he was considerably annoyed by his failure to solve the mystery of Mrs. Caldershaw's murder, since its solution would have procured him both praise and promotion. So no one but Cannington guessed my silly infatuation, which assuredly was silly, for who but an idiot would fall in love with a pictured face on the instant. But there was no denying it, that I was in the toils of Venus, so, although angered by such unaccountable weakness, I was bent upon meeting the original. Then,--ah, well, the future is on the knees of the gods.

However, since I was minded to trace out the truth of the crime, it was necessary to find some clue to start the trail. All that evening after dinner, and later in the billiard-room, where I played snooker with sundry young officers, I inwardly wondered how I could and should begin. The hat-pin revealed nothing, as every woman uses hat-pins, and such with blue-glass heads were probably common enough. The missing eye might have thrown some light on the darkness, but that was safe in the pocket of the assassin. It will be noticed that, in spite of the open verdict of the jury, I clung to the idea that the white-cloaked woman was guilty. Not only had she fled with my car, but she had locked me in with her victim to prevent immediate pursuit. Also the abandonment of the motor pointed to guilt. She had been seen by Giles, by Miss Destiny, and by Lucinda, but from the time my machine had been sent crashing through the five-barred gate by her reckless, or intendedly reckless, driving, she had vanished as completely as though the earth had opened to swallow her up. Yet she might have guessed that the aggressively striking white cloak would betray her. In my opinion, a woman who had so cleverly engineered her escape would scarcely be foolish enough to risk detection by her dress, so I conjectured that she must have got rid of the cloak as she had got rid of the Rippler. With this idea in my head, I settled, without telling Cannington, to explore the field wherein the machine had been abandoned.

When at rest for the night, I remembered that Mrs. Giles, who had not been called as a witness, had stated how Mrs. Caldershaw entertained the idea that she would not die in her bed. I had questioned the greengrocer's wife on this point, but she could tell me nothing more. Mrs. Caldershaw gave no hint of any enemy, or even of the possibility of a tragic death. All she had done was to make the above statement to Mrs. Giles in a burst of confidence, and to shiver when the Litany mentioned "murder and sudden death." Mrs. Giles was particular about this point. "I was sitting next to her in the same pew," said Mrs. Giles insistently, "and she shivered and shook and looked over her shoulder, apprehensive like. It happened three times, and that was what made me observe it. I'm sure she was frightened of something or of someone."

This might have been the case, but Mrs. Caldershaw never explained, and carried the reason of her fright in silence to her untimely grave. Connecting Mrs. Giles' story with the remark of Miss Destiny as to the value set on the glass eye by the woman, and with the sinister fact that the glass eye was missing, I felt certain that the way to begin the search was to take the eye itself as a clue. Local gossip in Mootley revealed few useful facts, as Mrs. Faith appeared to be the sole person who had been told about the eye by its owner, and none of the villagers seemed to know that one eye had been different to the other. But in Burwain, where Mrs. Caldershaw had lived for years as Gabriel Monk's housekeeper, and as nurse to his niece, the truth might be found by careful inquiry. If I could learn where the unfortunate woman got her glass eye, and what accident had brought about the necessity for a glass eye, the chances were that I might learn something which would enable me to trace the truth. Therefore I determined to go to Burwain and hunt out all information about Mrs. Caldershaw's past. Meanwhile there remained the field near Murchester to be explored.

Next morning Cannington was engaged on some court-martial so I was left to my own devices, although he wanted to hand me over for entertainment to a less busy brother officer. I excused myself on the plea that I wished to walk off a headache, and so contrived to leave the Barracks unhindered. It was nine o'clock when I set out, and the morning was wonderfully clear for misty August. The field, as I stated before, was only half a mile from Murchester, so I speedily arrived therein. I left the middle of it, where the Rippler had been stranded, severely alone, and skirted round the sides to examine the hedges. These were ragged and untrimmed, with deep ditches on their inner sides, and consisted of holly, bramble, hawthorn, and various saplings. I scratched myself more or less severely for quite one hour, but without discovering any sign of the white cloak. Perhaps, I thought, much discouraged, the woman had risked wearing it after all. Yet I could not believe that she had been such a fool, seeing how cleverly she had manipulated her escape.

Then I noticed that there were two gates to the field, one with the broken bars, through which she had entered from the high-road in the car, and the other on the far side, to the right-hand looking from the road. It then occurred to me that the flying lady, scared by meeting Miss Destiny's trap, and perhaps afraid lest she had injured it and would be stopped for damages, might have left the field by this last gate. I immediately walked towards it and found that it opened on to a narrow lane, which in winter must have become a stream of mud. The hedges were very ragged and tangled here, and the gate was nearly hidden, a common five-barred, unpainted gate, in a worse condition than that opening on to the road.

I knew that I had struck on the flying woman's trail, almost as soon as I arrived at this hidden gate. On one of the brambles a filmy scrap of gauze fluttered in the wind. Apparently while getting over the gate in her hurried flight, the woman's veil had caught in the thorns and she had twitched it irritably away, leaving the scrap unthinkingly behind as evidence. I secured the same and placed it in my pocket-book, then made a thorough examination of the gate on both sides. No further evidence was forthcoming until I searched the ditch, which in this instance was on the farther side of the hedge. There, hidden amongst the dank weeds, thrust into a convenient rabbit-hole in the crumbling clay bank, was the cloak itself. I drew it out with a sensation of triumph, and from it was wafted the torn veil. I had the outfit complete, save for the motoring cap.

Evidently the rending of the veil had drawn the woman's attention to the eccentricity of a white cloak worn on a chilly autumnal evening. Acting promptly, as was her custom--I guessed that from the theft of my car--she had concealed cloak and veil, and then had vanished down the muddy lane, heaven only knows whither. But I had now the evidence.

It was a white cloak, of good and even expensive material. Round the neck, down the front, and along the hem, two letters were embroidered repeatedly in blue silk so as to form a pattern. They were G. M. I dropped the cloak and gasped with dismay. G. M., in twisted fanciful letters, formed the running adornment of the cloak worn by the woman who had stolen my car and who had, to all appearances, murdered Mrs. Anne Caldershaw. And the name of the child she had nursed, of the woman with whose portrait I had fallen so unexpectedly in love, was Gertrude Monk.

"It's a lie," I said aloud to nobody in particular. "I don't believe it."

All the same, the accusing initials were there, G. M.--Gertrude Monk.

[CHAPTER VI.]

MY RIVAL

Had I not been in love--and with a face, instead of the flesh and blood woman--I suppose I would have gone off at once to Dredge to announce my discovery and show what I had found. But, in spite of evidence to the very strong contrary, I could not believe that Gertrude Monk was guilty of her old nurse's murder. She might have locked me in, she might have run off with my car and practically wrecked it, and she might have hidden in the hedge these incriminating garments: but she assuredly had not--in my now terribly biassed opinion--thrust the hat-pin into Mrs. Caldershaw's heart. Unless she confessed her guilt to my face, I resolutely declined to believe that she had perpetrated a sordid crime.

However, it was useless to stand in that chilly field weighing pros and cons, when I knew nothing of the woman, save that she was exquisitely lovely, and had captured my fancy against my will, as it were. I had a natural revulsion of doubt; then believed in her more than ever, even to the extent of vowing, that if by chance she were guilty, she should never go to the scaffold through me. But if I wished to prevent that, there was no time to be lost in getting rid of that infernal cloak and veil, for Inspector Dredge with unexpected insight might come nosing about the field. Not that I credited him with such perspicuity, but--as I swiftly determined--it was just as well to be on the safe side. I therefore rolled up veil and cloak into as small a compass as possible, and thrusting them under my overcoat--I wore one as the morning was breezy--I regained the road and hastened my return to Murchester Barracks. I felt that I was compounding a crime one minute, and exulted the next that I was saving the life of an innocent woman. And yet, on the face of it, she was surely guilty.

Luckily, when I arrived at Cannington's quarters he was still absent on duty, so I unpacked a portmanteau, which had been sent down from London, and stowed away the incriminating evidence at the bottom of some books, manuscripts, shirts, and pyjamas. Then I strapped and locked the portmanteau, so that Cannington's soldier servant should not officiously wish to pack my belongings. He could use the other portmanteau, I thought. Just as I completed my task, Cannington entered unbuckling his sword.

"Ouf! I am tired," said he pitching himself into a chair. "What a bore it is sitting on court-martials."

"What was the punishment?" I asked, lighting my pipe, and asked more for the sake of regaining my self-control, shaken by my discovery, than because I took any interest in Private Tommy Atkins.

"Five days C. B. It was only a drunken fight. Throw me over the cigarettes, Vance. Thanks, awfully." He fielded the case deftly. "Wait till I change, and we'll go to luncheon. I'm shockingly hungry. Where have you been? Fighting with the Barracks cat I should say, from the scratches."

But I did not intend to say too much even to Cannington. "I went for a cross-country walk," I answered carelessly, "and met some brambles on the way. What are you doing after luncheon?"

"Well, I was just coming to that," said the boy, who was now busy changing his kit, smoking the while. "I have to run up to town for three or four hours, as my lawyer wants to see me. I'm trying to raise some cash for a Christmas spree." He grinned. "Hope you won't mind my leaving you. But there's Trent, of course, who can look after you."

"Oh, hang it, I'm not a child to require a nurse," I snapped, for my nerves were worn thin with the situation. "You leave me alone, Cannington, and I'll attend to myself."

"All right old son, don't get your hair off. I believe this murder case has got on your nerves."

"It has," I confessed, very truthfully. "Sorry I spoke like a fractious brat. To make amends I'll let you take the Rippler to town."

"Oh, that will be frabjious," said Cannington, who had lately been reading, "Alice through the Looking-glass." "Won't you come too?"

"Thanks, no. I'm walking out to Mootley this afternoon."

"Huh! I should think you had enough of walking. What's on?"

"Mrs. Caldershaw's funeral."

"They aren't losing much time in planting her," said Cannington, with a shrug. "It's only five days since the death. But I say, old son, don't you think you might give this business a rest? It's getting on your nerves, you know, and isn't good goods at the best."

"Oh, that's all right, I only want to see the last of the poor woman."

"And then?" Cannington's tone was highly suspicious.

"I'll go over to Burwain."

"After that girl?"

I scratched my chin and eyed him severely. "See here, I'm not quite the infant you take me to be. Miss Monk's face attracted me, I admit, but that doesn't mean I am in love with her."

"You talked enough about her anyhow."

"All the more reason that you shouldn't talk," I retorted. "I can say all I want to say for myself. Do stop rotting."

Cannington nodded with an air of resignation. "I shan't say another word, Vance. Didn't think you were in earnest."

"I am in earnest about searching out this mystery, if that is what you mean, and I go over to Burwain to-morrow to make a start."

"With Miss Monk?"

"Yes," I replied, feeling qualmish. "She was Mrs. Caldershaw's nursling, and may be able to throw some light on that glass eye. I feel convinced that therein lies the solution of the mystery."

"The worst of you literary men," said Cannington, addressing the ceiling, "is that you talk too much like a book. Touched wood! touched wood!" He fled for the door, as I swung up a chair cushion. "Don't disarrange my hair, but come along to luncheon."

I obeyed. "But don't tell anyone that I am going to Mootley," said I hastily.

"Right oh. I'll take the Rippler and light out for town at two o'clock. I shall meet you at dinner, and then you can tell me all about the funeral."

So it was arranged, and we made a very good meal. At least the boy did, being unworried with secret disagreeables; but I did not eat much myself. The knowledge of what was hidden in my second portmanteau lay heavily on my mind, and I fear I betrayed my discomfort, for Cannington remarked it. It occurred to me that a murderer would have to possess amazing nerve to conduct himself as an ordinary human being, seeing that I, with no crime on my mind, was so easily discomfited. . . . Of course, under the circumstances, I should have thought of a guilty "she" rather than of a guilty "he"; but I really could not bring myself to believe that Diana of the Ephesians had murdered her old nurse.

Cannington did not waste the Rippler on himself. He invited a cheery subaltern to join him, and the two boys went off in the highest spirits, with his lordship spanchelled between the seat and the wheel. I resisted a kindly-meant invitation of Trent to play stickey, and turned my face in the direction of Mootley, thankful to be by myself. During the few miles to that village I had ample to think about, and could not help wondering at the strange whirl of circumstances which had gathered round me during the last week. I had come out to seek an adventure and had found one with a vengeance. How it would end I could not tell.

The sun came out during the afternoon, so I found the walk--but for disturbing thoughts--extremely pleasant. On passing the field, I congratulated myself that I had emptied it of its incriminating contents. Whatever inquiries Dredge made, on the face of it he could learn nothing, as I alone possessed a tangible clue. And as that clue, so far, led to Miss Gertrude Monk, and a thorough explanation would have to be forthcoming before it could go past her, it was just as well for her own peace of mind, and mine also, that she should give it to a friendly-disposed inquirer. Thinking of this, and wondering how she would explain her flight from the corner shop in my motor car, I drew near the outskirts of Mootley. The famous shop, which had appeared in several illustrated daily papers, was closed, so I did not pause but went on. Directly round the corner I met Mr. Sam Giles, the ex-greengrocer, who greeted me in a most friendly manner.

"You're just too late, sir!" said he, touching his hat, and quite ready to give all information, "she's planted."

"Mrs. Caldershaw?"

"Yes, sir. It was quite a pretty funeral, with plenty of mourners and wreaths for the coffin. We made a holiday of it this morning, and I don't think, sir, that there's much doing this afternoon, as the excitement was too great." I could not help smiling, in spite of the gravity of my errand, at the idea of the villagers extracting pleasure from such a dismal affair as the funeral of a murdered woman. But Giles apparently had the morbid love of his class for such things, and went on supplying information in high spirits.

"A heap of gentlemen of the press came from London," he said importantly, "and they photographed the grave. What with motor cars and bicycles and traps and carts, the place was like a fair. It will advertise Mootley a lot, and I shouldn't wonder if land went up in value hereabouts."

I nodded. "Mrs. Caldershaw has been quite a benefactress to the village, Mr. Giles. By the way, did Miss Monk and Miss Destiny appear at the funeral?"

"No, sir, and none of Mrs. Caldershaw's Burwain friends came to see the last of her, poor soul, which was unkind, I take it. Only Mr. Striver put in an appearance. But to be sure he could not do less," added Giles thoughtfully, "since she left him all her property."

"Striver! Striver! That's the nephew?"

"Yes, Mr. Vance, and a handsome young man he is. A gardener, I believe, who works for Mr. Walter Monk at Burwain. Not that he'll do much work now, for I daresay his aunt has left him enough to live like a gentleman. Her lawyer--he's a Murchester man in a small way of business--told me that there was over five hundred pounds in the bank; besides there's the lease of the shop for two years and its contents."

"Lucky Mr. Striver, and it's all left to him," I bantered.

"Yes, sir, along with the glass eye."

I had set my face towards the village, but wheeled at the last word. "Why the dickens did she leave him the glass eye?"

"Goodness only knows, Mr. Vance, but leave it she did. Mr. Striver's quite annoyed he hasn't got it and intends to offer a reward for it."

"He'll have to find the guilty person first," I said grimly.

"The white-cloaked lady, sir?"

I winced. "She may not be the guilty person, after all. There! there!" I went on hastily, as Giles showed a disposition to argue. "I know nothing more about the matter than you do"--this was an absolutely necessary white lie considering the circumstances--"but tell me, Mr. Giles, does this young man know why his aunt valued her glass eye so greatly?"

"No, sir. He told me that he couldn't guess why it was left to him. He is all on fire to find out, and that is why he intends to offer the reward. At present he's in the shop looking over things."

"Does he intend to give up his gardening and turn shopkeeper?" I asked.

"I don't know, sir; nothing has been settled. But he returns to Burwain--so he told me--this evening. I'm going to Murchester myself, sir, on an errand for the wife, so if you will excuse me----"

"One moment, Giles. Has anything fresh been discovered?"

"No, sir; and you mark my words, sir, nothing more ever will be discovered. The woman in the white cloak has vanished entirely, glass eye and all. You are taking an interest in the case, Mr. Vance."

"Can you wonder at it, seeing how I am mixed up in the business. I want to solve the mystery if I can, out of sheer curiosity. Here's my address, Mr. Giles," I hastily scribbled it on a card, "and if you hear of anything new, let me know at once."

Giles took the pasteboard, and promised faithfully to keep his ears and eyes open and his mind on the alert. Then he moved away down the road to Murchester, with a parting advice that I should inspect the grave. "It's a pretty grave," said Giles cheerfully, "with a lovely view!"

But I did not go to look at the grave, or at the view, which the corpse--I presume--was supposed by Giles to appreciate, for it struck me that Striver being in the corner shop it would be an excellent opportunity for me to gain possession of the photograph. I therefore turned back, and in a few minutes was knocking smartly at the closed door. Shortly it was thrown open, and on the threshold appeared one of the handsomest young men I had ever seen. There were signs of good breeding about him also, and in his navy-blue serge, with a tweed cap and brown boots--rather an odd dress for a funeral, I thought--he looked less like a gardener and more like a smart city clerk. And yet in his bearing there was a smack of the West-End.

Mr. Joseph Striver was moderately tall and perfectly made--slim in figure, with the alert poise of an athlete. His hands and feet certainly betrayed the plebeian, but no one could deny the beauty of his clean-shaven face. I say "beauty" advisedly, although it is an odd adjective to apply to a man. It was a Greek face and a Greek head, clean-cut and virile, of the fair, golden Saxon type, yet more intellectual than the same generally is. A fashionable lady might have envied his transparent complexion, his blue eyes, and the curve of his lips. His form also was irreproachable, and his small head, set proudly on the white column of his throat, possessed a snake-like grace. On the whole, Mrs. Caldershaw's heir was a singularly handsome young fellow, and with her small fortune added to his personal advantages would be certain to succeed in life. It seemed quite a pity that so splendid a youth should be a mere gardener. Yet the employment is eminently respectable, since Father Adam originally took up the profession.

He looked inquiringly at me, so I opened the conversation. "My name is Vance, Mr. Striver, and----"

"Oh," he interrupted, in a very pleasant and somewhat cultured voice. "You are the gentleman who gave evidence at the inquest. Come in please." He stepped aside to let me past. "I am very glad to see you, as I wish to ask you some questions."

I proceeded him into the shop, while he closed the door. "I said all I had to say at the inquest," I answered quickly.

"I read all about it in the papers, Mr. Vance."

"You did not come to the inquest then?"

"No, you might have guessed that, seeing you were present. I only came over to the funeral, when I heard that my aunt had left me her money--not in very appropriate clothes, I fear, though; but I had no time to get an outfit, you see. Now I am looking into things."

We were in the back room by this time, and a heap of letters and papers lay untidily on the floor. Miss Monk's photograph still smiled from the mantelpiece, and I stole a glance at it, which left me more enthralled than ever. "You won't mind my going on with my sorting," said Striver, placing a chair for me, and dropping on his knees; "but I want to get things straight before dark, as I have to return to Burwain for a few days."

He was so amazingly cheerful, that I could not help saying so. He looked up smiling. "You can't expect a poor man who has come in for money to be miserable," said Striver, with much truth. "Besides my aunt never did care for me, and I was quite surprised to learn that I was her heir. Had we been at all attached to one another I should have come to the inquest, and even before, seeing she met with so dreadful a death. But there wasn't much love lost between us, Mr. Vance, so only as her heir did I come to the funeral. I can't pretend to feel very sorry."

"That sounds rather heartless, seeing how you have benefited by her death."

Striver shrugged. "I daresay; but I never was a hypocrite. Put yourself in my place. If a disagreeable old woman left you the money she could no longer use, would you break your heart?"

I laughed. "No, I can't say that I would."

"Very well, then," he reiterated coolly, "put yourself in my place. I'm sorry, of course, as I would be for any human being who was murdered. Otherwise," he shrugged again, "well, there's no more to be said."

There came a pause. "I believe you hinted that you wished to ask me some questions?"

Striver straightened himself. "Well, yes. Have you any idea who murdered my unfortunate aunt?"

"Not in the least."

"What about the lady in the white cloak?"

"Appearances are against her. All the same, she may be innocent."

The young man's blue eyes flashed like sapphires. "I doubt that; else why should she run off with your motor car and lock you in?"

"Well," I drawled, not very sure of my ground, "she may have found your aunt dead, and in a fright----"

"Oh, that won't wash," he interrupted in a somewhat common way. "You swore at the inquest, that you were attracted into this room by a groan from my aunt, in which case she could not have been dead when this lady went up the stairs."

"That is true," I admitted, "but I don't hold a brief for the escaped lady, remember."

"You speak as though you did," he retorted and went on with his sorting. "Has anything been heard of her?"

"Nothing. I found my motor car in the field; but the lady has vanished."

"Don't you think," Striver raised himself up to ask this question, "that she could be traced by means of that white cloak?"

I shrugged in my turn and fenced, as I was not going to admit the truth. "I daresay the cloak was noticeable enough. All the same, she has not been traced. Now, she never will be. I should not be surprised if the police gave up the case."

The young man rose quickly. "No," he said promptly, "I intend to offer a reward."

"Ah! You wish to have this lady hanged."

"If she is guilty, why not?" he asked bluntly, "But if you will have the truth, Mr. Vance, I don't care either one way or the other about a possible hanging. I want to find the glass eye."

"And you think the lady has it?"

"I--I--I suppose so," he muttered in a hesitating manner, then burst out: "Yes, indeed, I do want to find the glass eye. There's a fortune connected with it, Mr. Vance--a large fortune."

"Oh!" I could not help betraying surprise. "So this was why Mrs. Caldershaw attached such value to it?"

"Exactly. In some way--I don't exactly know how--that eye reveals the whereabouts of the fortune I speak of."

"Humph. Do you mean to say that Mrs. Caldershaw concealed her money and concealed its whereabouts in her glass eye?"

"Yes, I do, in a way. That is, this fortune does not consist of my aunt's savings. I have those and the shop also. But when she lived at Burwain, she talked of a large fortune--some fifty thousand pounds, she mentioned on one occasion--which was concealed somewhere."

"Whose fortune was it?"

"I can't say. But my father, her brother--he's dead now--was always bothering her about the money. She never would tell him anything, but said that when she died he could learn all he wanted to know from the glass eye. As my father has passed over, of course the glass eye along with the money comes to me,--the fortune also. Fifty thousand pounds!" He raised his arms with an ecstatic expression. "What couldn't I do with such a heap of coin, Mr. Vance. Why I could marry----" He halted, cast an uneasy look on me, and again began to sort the letters.

"Oh, you're in love," I said smiling.

"A man of my age is always in love," he remarked curtly. "But never mind about that, I want to find some clue to the glass eye," and he tossed over the papers feverishly.

"To its whereabouts?"

"No, I know that much. The person who murdered my aunt has the eye, and killed her for the sake of learning the secret. But my aunt may have left some letter, or paper, or description, saying how the eye can reveal the whereabouts of the fifty thousand pounds. Can you imagine," he sat back on his hams, "how the eye can be the clue?"

"No," I said, after a pause, "unless there is a piece of paper hidden in it."

"Oh, that's impossible. Do you know what a glass eye is like?"

"Well, no, I have never seen one, unless fixed in a person's head."

Striver laughed. "I had the same idea about a piece of paper," he explained carefully, "and went to an optician in Tarhaven to examine an eye. I suppose you think--as I did--that an artificial eye is the shape and size and the fatness of an almond."

"Something like that," I admitted, "with the paper enclosed within."

Striver laughed again. "It's shaped exactly like a small sea-shell: simply a curve of thin glass, convex and concave, and fits into the socket like a--a--what shall I say?--like a cupping-glass."

"Humph! In that case, it would be impossible to conceal a piece of paper behind it without damage."

"Of course, taking also into consideration the smallness of the eye. The only thing I can think of," he added, half to himself, "is that there is a plan or some writing on the back part, which reveals the whereabouts of this money."

"But there's no space to write in," I objected, considerably interested.

"Why not. Writing done with a magnifying-glass, you know. I have seen the Lord's Prayer written on a sixpence."

I nodded. "There may be something in what you say," I admitted, "and, as it appears that Mrs. Caldershaw was murdered for the sake of the eye, it must have some value. Perhaps," I added with a brilliant afterthought, "she hid a diamond behind it."

"It would have to be a very large diamond to bring in fifty thousand pounds," said Striver, seriously. "No, I believe that the eye is simply a clue to this treasure."

"Treasure?"

"Well, money, jewels, gold, bank-notes, what not. All I know is that my aunt certainly mentioned fifty thousand pounds to my father."

"Why didn't she secure the treasure herself?"

"Perhaps she did and has buried it somewhere. Well, never mind," he turned over the papers again, "come what may, I must find the eye."

"You won't find it there," I said, rising to take my leave, and with one eye on Miss Monk's photograph. "Better get the police to trace the white-cloaked lady, since you believe she has taken it."

"I don't see who else could have committed the murder and have stolen the glass eye," said Striver decisively. "In one way or another, she must be found, somehow."

"And then----?"

"Then she must deliver up the glass eye."

"And be hanged."

"I don't want to go so far as that," he muttered nervously. "Of course, she is a woman."

"And being so, is clever enough not to be caught. I daresay she will learn the secret of Mrs. Caldershaw, procure the fortune, and bolt to America." I moved towards the door, and Striver straightened himself to show me out. Then with an apparent afterthought I drew his attention to the smiling face of Miss Monk. "I admire that," said I, pointing.

The effect was somewhat unexpected. "Why?" he asked roughly, and flushed scarlet through his fair skin, looking more handsome than ever.

"Why?" I stared at him in surprise. "Why not? you should ask. It is a very lovely face, and I admire it as a work of art."

"Oh, as a work of art. That's all right," he retorted quickly, "but it happens to be the photograph of a real person."

"Miss Gertrude Monk."

"How do you know that?" demanded the young man, again flushing angrily.

"Miss Destiny told me that the photograph was one of her niece. I suppose, Mr. Striver, you would not mind my buying it."

"I'll see you hanged first," he retorted vehemently, and clenched his fists. "What is Miss Monk to you?"

"I have never met her, Mr. Striver, so calm yourself. But you display such heat at my apparently simple question, that I must ask, what is she to you?"

Striver stared at me and his eyes were as hard as a piece of jade. "I love her," he said defiantly.

I was taken aback by this statement, and flushed in my turn, making the not very polite reply, "Nonsense!"

"And why nonsense," shouted Striver, who had by this time completely lost his temper, "how dare you say that? Even though I am a gardener I have the feelings of a human being."

"But your difference in rank," I exclaimed hotly.

"Love levels all ranks."

"Indeed. Then I take it that Miss Monk favors your suit?"

"Mind your own business, Mr. Vance."

"I intend to make it my business," I snapped, now as angry as he was, for it did seem ridiculous that this Claud Melnotte, handsome as he was, should aspire to the apple on the topmost bough.

"You're talking damned rot and damned insolence. If you have never seen Miss Monk, you can't possibly be in love with her," he raged furiously.

"I said nothing about love. But that photograph took my fancy, and I wish to buy it if possible."

Striver snatched the photograph, silver frame and all, off the mantelpiece to cram it roughly into his pocket. "There," he cried vehemently, "that's all you'll ever see of it."

"Then I must seek out the original," said I, walking into the shop.

He was after me in a moment. "If you dare to come interfering," he growled in a voice thick with passion, "I'll break your neck."

"That is easier said than done," I jeered, now being content that the young man was my rival and a dangerous one at that. "Let me pass."

Striver paused irresolutely, then did as he was asked. I left the shop leisurely, and glanced back when some distance down the road. Mr. Joseph Striver drew the photograph out of his pocket and insolently kissed it, apparently to intimate that I was odd man out.

[CHAPTER VII.]

A FRIEND IN NEED

I returned to Murchester, rather annoyed to find that I had a rival, even though he was but a gardener. There was no denying that the fellow was uncommonly handsome, and thus might captivate the affections of a woman above him in stations. As I have said before, I can lay no claim to good looks, so if Miss Monk was a young lady whose heart was in her eye, as the saying goes, I stood rather a poor chance. Certainly Striver, while professing that he loved her, had not ventured to say that there was any response to his daring. Still, for all I knew, the romance might be a reversal of King Cophetua and the beggar-maid, in which not unlikely case, a journey to Burwain would certainly destroy my peace of mind. If I loved the picture of the goddess, how much more would I love the goddess herself, when she became flesh and blood to my hungry eyes. When searching for an adventure, I had not counted upon this entanglement.

However, on reflection, I did not see why I should not stand as good a chance as the gardener. He assuredly was better-looking and younger, possessing a certain amount of money, if not a man of any exalted rank. I was a gentleman, in the prime of life, and well on the way to make a comfortable income, if not exactly a fortune. Also I possessed a recognised position as a rising dramatist, and I had a large circle of pleasant, well-to-do friends to whom I could introduce my wife. So I made up my mind to stick to my guns, or in other words, to see Miss Monk, and learn how the land lay. Of course if she loved young Striver, there was nothing more to be said; but if she did not, and the love was all on his part, I could then try my luck. And at this point I recalled the memory of that infernal glass eye.

If good looks did not tempt the lady, fifty thousand pounds might do so, and should Striver become possessed of the glass eye he stood a remarkably good chance of securing that fortune. So far we were equal, for I knew as much about the case as he did. Nay, I knew more, since I had found the famous cloak with the initial embroidery. I wondered whether it would be better to tell Miss Monk nothing about my discovery, or dare the utmost, and show her that she was in my power. She certainly was, as the mere production of the cloak would result in her arrest. With regard to possession of the goddess, I was therefore in a stronger position that Mr. Striver, and yet I did not see how I could make use of the weapon I had in my hand. A man could not very well force a lady to marry him because he could hang her if she did not. Moreover she might be able to exonerate herself completely, although I did not see how, and then would scornfully refuse to have anything more to do with--let me put it plainly--such a blackmailing ruffian.

No! Come what might, I decided to play the game fair. Not only that, but I decided to use my information, as best I could, to protect Miss Monk from the gardener. In making inquiries, he might possibly chance upon a clue which would reveal the fact that Miss Monk was the heroine of the missing motor car. In that case, it might be that he would use his knowledge to insist upon the unequal marriage. I could then intervene,--I did not see very plainly at the moment to what purpose,--but at any rate I could offer myself as the lady's champion. But then--here was the crux of the matter--for all I knew Miss Monk might be as much in love with Striver as he apparently was with her. Only a visit to Burwain and a personal interview with my goddess would prove the truth of that.

Then another thing occurred to me while I slowly dressed for dinner. If Miss Monk had stolen the motor car and had locked me in the back room along with the dead Mrs. Caldershaw, she must necessarily be the possessor of the glass eye. On the face of it, she appeared to be guilty, but I could not bring myself to condemn her. Yet she could scarcely have the glass eye unless she had murdered her old nurse with that damned hat-pin, which was so grave a proof that the assassin was a woman. But the eye was the clue to some concealed treasure--this appeared to be plain enough from what Striver had said of his late aunt's babble--so if Miss Monk became unexpectedly wealthy, it would prove that she was a thief, if not a murderess. It seemed to be that there was nothing to be done but to take up my abode in Burwain, meet the lady if possible, and then play a waiting game. Whether Mr. Striver or his master's daughter got the fifty thousand pounds, her guilt would be manifest, since he could only get the glass eye from her, to learn the clue to the treasure. And if she had the glass eye, she must have----

"No no! no!" I said aloud at this point, and startled Cannington's servant, who was valeting me. "It's nothing, Johnston," I said, and went on mentally with my defence of Miss Monk, although I could not deduce a single particle of evidence in her favor. "She can't be guilty," my thoughts ran furiously, "she is much too lovely to be guilty. There must be some mistake. She undoubtedly will be able to explain. And yet--and yet--oh, hang it, I'll not decide the question either one way or the other until I see her."

This being settled so far--although I unsettled my mind again and again through the long night--I went to mess and made a pretence of eating. Cannington and his friend had not yet returned, which made me believe that the two featherheads had smashed my car. If so it was a great nuisance, as I wanted the Rippler to drive over to Burwain on the morrow. However, the two arrived about midnight with a long account of a police trap which had detained them, and I went off to bed, leaving them to their supper. Cannington came to my bedside to relate his London adventures, but I used such bad language that he retreated promptly. Next morning I departed immediately after breakfast, more puzzled than ever over the problem I was setting out to solve. Had Miss Monk the glass eye? If so, was she guilty? If she had not the glass eye, who had? Did she love Joseph Striver? Would he find the glass eye, and consequently the fortune? If he did, would he marry Miss Monk, etc. etc. etc.: my brain was an absolute chaos.

"Well, good-bye, old chap," said Cannington, taking leave, and looking very spic and span in his uniform. "Tell me all about it in London."

"Tell you what?"

"I may not mention her name," he said, and winked solemnly.

"Don't be an ass," I retorted, leaning down to whisper, "things are much more serious than you guess."

"What? Have you learned anything about--"

"Shut up! When I return from Burwain to town I may need your assistance."

"Right oh," said Cannington, looking grave, for he saw I was in deadly earnest.

"And don't tell anyone where I am going."

"No. You're supposed to be on your way to London. But, I say----"

"Oh, I can't stop to chatter. Hold your tongue and wait until I see you again, boy. Understand?"

"Yes, that is----"

He would have detained me for I had, very cruelly perhaps, raised his curiosity immensely. But I gave the steering-wheel a twist, and the machinery being in motion, glided away before he could ask further questions. I glanced back to see him shake his fist at me, and then spun rapidly through the gritty square of the Barracks, down the road, into the street, and finally emerged through a steep lane into the country proper. A long smooth Roman road without twists or turns lay before me, and as there was no policeman in sight I let the Rippler go up to her full speed of forty miles an hour. The motion somewhat relieved my mind, which was considerably worried. I wondered if I was held up for exceeding the speed limit, and if my second portmanteau was examined, what the police would say. I knew very well what they would do, that is, lodge me in the nearest jail as an accomplice of the lady in the white cloak. Fortunately the luck held, and I got through safely.

I can't say that my drive was over-pleasant, as the rain came on, just after I left Murchester and it poured steadily throughout the day. Then as the wheels would not bite in particularly soaked and slippery places, the car skidded considerably; also the gear jammed on two occasions, and once I ran short of petrol. Never was there such a series of accidents, and my temper was none of the best when I struck Tarhaven. Here I halted for luncheon, and went to the post-office to see if any letters awaited me. I found only one from my agent, but as that contained two weeks' fees for my new melodrama it proved to be most acceptable. A visit to the haberdasher's took up some of my time, and it was late in the afternoon when I turned the Rippler in the direction of Burwain. However, the distance from Tarhaven was but a short one, and I soon slowed down before the one hotel of the village. I call it an hotel, but it was really a tumbledown inn, quaint, old-fashioned, and comfortable, with a robin red-breast for its sign.

Burwain is an isolated little place, lying low in a hollow depression of the land, some distance from the sea. On its outskirts the road ran through levels of stunted shrubs not big enough to be called trees, and there were also tall hedges, which muffled the village as though it were wrapped in cotton-wool. By reason of this the place is stuffy, and the air seems to be twice breathed. The streets stretch to the four quarters in the form of a crooked cross, and there was a tolerably wide green in the centre, which is faced by the Robin Redbreast Inn. I pulled up, and jumped out to meet the landlady in the passage and receive a great surprise.

"Cuckoo!" I said, halting in much astonishment. "Well, I'm blest."

"Mrs. Gilfin now, Master Cyrus," said the old lady, as amazed as I was. "Well, well to think that you of all gentlemen should come here."

"It's fate," said I, for I knew that from Mrs. Gilfin, if anyone, I could obtain all necessary news, unless she had changed her gossiping habits, which I did not think at all likely.

Still exclaiming at our unexpected meeting, Mrs. Gilfin led the way to a small sitting-room, and we faced one another to talk over the past. Mrs. Gilfin had been my mother's cook when I was a schoolboy, and then we had been the greatest of friends. As a child I had always called her Cuckoo, from some dim association with her employment, and many a time had I been indebted to her for tit-bits. When the home was broken up she had vanished into the unknown, but now reappeared in the character of a married woman and the landlady, of this old-world inn. She was a fat little woman, with a pudding-face, who wore spectacles, behind which sharp little pig's eyes twinkled knowingly. In old days she had always been a great talker, and did not seemed to have changed in this respect: a cause of rejoicing to me, since I hoped to learn all I could about Miss Monk and her dead nurse.

"What brought you to Burwain, Master Cyrus?" asked Mrs. Gilfin, when we had complimented each other on the gentle way in which time had dealt with our looks.

I had already arranged what to say, as, if I wanted Mrs. Gilfin's assistance, it was necessary to take her, in some degree, into my confidence. Moreover, I knew of old that she was a very worthy and silent--when it suited her--woman. "Love brings me here, Cuckoo," I replied, "and love will keep me here for at least a week, if not longer. So give me a sitting-room and a bedroom and recall the special dishes I like. Don't ask questions just yet. I shall tell you all when I have had dinner, but just now I am much too hungry to talk. Have you been long here?" I asked, contradicting my last assertion.

"Ten years, Master Cyrus. First as cook, and afterwards as mistress. My husband had this inn from his father, but was letting it go to wreck and ruin when I arrived, owing to his being fat. So he married me, so that I could look after it. I would only stay when I saw the wedding-ring."

"Owing to his being fat?" I questioned, rather puzzled.

"Come Master Cyrus and see?" said Mrs. Gilfin, and led me into a low-ceiling bar of the Dickens epoch, all white-wash and smoky oaken beams. Here I beheld a pre-historic ingle-nook in which was placed a capacious armchair, and in it was seated the fattest man I had ever set eyes on. He smoked a churchwarden pipe and drank beer from a huge tankard placed on a small table beside him. "This is my husband," said Mrs. Gilfin and introduced me.

Mr. Gilfin, who smoked with his eyes closed, opened them sleepily! "Glad to see you sir. I hope you'll be comfortable. The missus will look after you. It's fine weather for this time of the year, although I ain't been out to see!" and having made these original remarks, he closed his eyes again and pulled at his pipe, a large mass of adipose, contented and purely animal.

"He doesn't talk much," explained Mrs. Gilfin, beaming through her spectacles on her Daniel Lambert, "but folk come for miles to see his size. He don't go out of doors either, Master Cyrus, but sits there smoking and eating and drinking so as to keep himself in good condition to be a draw."

"To be a draw?" I echoed, while Mr. Gilfin blinked drowsily.

"Customers come to look at him, and wish they were like him, Master Cyrus. I look after things, but John is the attraction. The Burly Beast of Burwain they call him, and though it ain't polite, it makes people curious to call. And you can see, Master Cyrus," added Mrs. Gilfin, as she left her husband to his pipe and beer, "how the inn, with such a man, was going to wreck and ruin. It was a good job he married me, not but what I'm thankful to be the mistress of the Robin Redbreast. It's poor work being a cook at my age, and under mistresses who don't know their place ain't in the kitchen. Your poor dear ma, now, Master Cyrus, always stopped in the doring-room, as a lady should."

I assented, as there was little use in arguing with Mrs. Gilfin, who--as I knew of old--always had an answer to the most pertinent objections. Although not so fat as her spouse, she was still very stout, and her looks, along with those of John, said a good deal for the style of living obtainable at the inn. I engaged the sitting-room in which we had our first conversation and a bedroom immediately over head. Then I had my traps taken into the house, and having stowed away the Rippler in a convenient outhouse, sat down to besiege Burwain in due form. After dinner--and a very good dinner it was too--I told Mrs. Gilfin as much as I thought necessary, which did not include any reference to the discovery of the cloak.

"Dear! dear!" said Mrs. Gilfin, who had frequently raised her fat hands at intervals, during my narrative, "to think of the young gentleman, who was so fond of my custards, being in love, and with Miss Gertrude, of all young ladies. Well, she's the beauty of the world, and no mistake, Master Cyrus."

"So I thought from the photograph, Cuckoo. By the way, did you not know this poor woman who was murdered?"

"Do I know the nose on my face?" asked Mrs. Gilfin, severely. "Of course I knew her well, when she was housekeeper to Mr. Miser Monk."

"Miser Monk--you mean Gabriel Monk?"

"No I don't, Master Cyrus, if you'll excuse me for contradicting you. Gabriel he was christened, I daresay, but Miser he was called by them who knew how he hoarded up money."

"He was a genuine miser then?"

"Genuine." Mrs. Gilfin's fat hands flew up, and her pigs' eyes twinkled, "he would skin a flea for its hide and squeeze blood out of a stone, and take the trousers off a Highlandman, Master Cyrus. A nasty stooping lean old man, with a black-velvet skull-cap and a stick and a suit of clothes you wouldn't have picked up off the dung-hill. Of good family too," added Mrs. Gilfin, nodding, until her cap-ribbons quivered. "The Monks are an old Essex family, who used to own Burwain and all the land from Gattlingsands to Tarhaven. But they came down in the world, and only The Lodge remained to Mr. Miser Monk, as his father was a spendthrift, and scattered everything. But the miser invested what was left, Master Cyrus, and I believe had an income of five hundred golden pounds a year, although he never spent a penny of it. He never repaired The Lodge, or attended to the garden, or gave a farthing to the poor, but saved and saved. As he lived for eighty years, Master Cyrus, you may guess that his savings came to a pretty penny. He died five years ago, when Anne Caldershaw took her savings and herself to live at Mootley."

"What became of his money?" I asked, anxiously.

"Ask me something I know, Master Cyrus? The Lodge and the few acres round it and the five hundred a year, which was so tied up that it couldn't be touched, went to Mr. Walter Monk. Miss Destiny didn't like that, though why she should have expected to be remembered in the will, when she was only Mr. Miser Monk's brother's sister-in-law, I can't make out."

"She lived with Mr. Monk, didn't she?"

Mrs. Gilfin nodded. "For years and years, and so got into his misery habits."

"Ah," said I, recalling certain traits of the little old lady at Mootley, "so I should imagine. Miss Monk lived with her uncle also, it seems."

Mrs. Gilfin nodded again. "Mr. Miser Monk loved his niece: she was the only person he ever loved. Mr. Walter Monk was always away, as he is now, and being a widower, there was no one to look after the child. Mr. Miser Monk took Miss Gertrude to live with him, when she was quite a baby, and asked Miss Destiny to come to him also. Anne looked after the house, and the four lived together in that tumbledown old place like rats in a cheese. If Miss Gertrude hadn't gone for years to a boarding-school at Hampstead and got good food there, she never would have grown into the handsome young lady she is."

"Ah," I exclaimed, greatly interested, "then she is handsome?"

"As paint, Master Cyrus, and the sweetest young lady you ever met. Takes after her pa, she does, who is nice enough, though he's selfish I don't deny."

"In what way?"

"Why," said Mrs. Gilfin, casting about in her mind for an explanation, "he's hardly ever at home, being always in London, on business he says, though I think he's too lazy to do much, especially," added Mrs. Gilfin with emphasis, "as he has five hundred a year sure. But he only comes down here once in a blue moon, as you might say, and leaves that poor young lady to live the life of a nun at The Lodge along with one servant to do all the housework."

"Why doesn't Miss Destiny continue to live with her niece?" I asked.

"Ah!" Mrs. Gilfin nodded vigorously, "she'd be glad to do so, as being a miser like the late Mr. Gabriel Monk, it would save her living expenses. But the fact is, Master Cyrus, that Miss Destiny don't like Miss Gertrude, and Miss Gertrude don't like Miss Destiny: nor does Mr. Walter Monk, for the matter of that. The five hundred a year being left to him is a sore point with Miss Destiny, so she cleared out when Mr. Miser Monk died, and now lives at the end of the village in a small cottage along with that half-mad creature, Lucinda Tyke, she picked up in the Rochford workhouse, and don't pay no wages to."

I was playing with the poker as Mrs. Gilfin spoke. "Then I take it that Mr. Walter Monk has five hundred a year, and no more?"

"Except The Lodge and the three or four acres round about, Master Cyrus. He spends most of the money on himself too, and Miss Gertrude has enough to do to make both ends meet, though from her looks she should be a queen and sit on a throne."

"But if the late Mr. Gabriel Monk was a miser, what became of his savings?"

"Ah!" said Mrs. Gilfin, significantly, "now you're growing hot, Master Cyrus, as the children say. The will left the money and the property to Mr. Walter Monk, and the savings--he didn't mention the amount--to Miss Gertrude with her uncle's dear love. But search as they might, they could not find out where the money was hidden. And as Mr. Miser Monk saved nearly five hundred a year for eighty years more or less, he must have hidden away a heap of gold. Forty thousand pounds I daresay," ended Mrs. Gilfin with relish.

"Or fifty thousand," I mused, recalling the sum mentioned by the gardener, and beginning to see light. "Have they searched everywhere?"

"Everywhere," echoed Mrs. Gilfin, nodding again. "Miss Gertrude's an innocent, who believes that her pa's an angel, which he ain't, though nice enough in his ways. She'd give him her head if he asked her and never complains of him keeping her short and being always away spending his five hundred a year. He knew if he found his brother's savings--forty thousand pounds, I'm certain," added Mrs. Gilfin decidedly, "that, though lawfully Miss Gertrude's, she'd hand them over to him. So he turned the house upside down, and even dug up the garden, to say nothing of searching the meadows. He wanted the spending of the money, you see, Master Cyrus. But they couldn't find even as much as a shilling. What's become of all the money, no one knows, unless Mr. Miser Monk gambled and lost. He certainly went up to London every now and then," mused the landlady, "and them old men can't be trusted any more than the young ones, saving your presence, Master Cyrus, But there it is, sir," she spread out her pudgy hands and shrugged her fat shoulders, "plenty of money, belonging to that poor young lady hidden away, and she with scarcely enough to dress on, let alone keep the bread in her mouth, though to be sure she hasn't got to pay rent, and her pa gives the servant her wages regular. Ah," Mrs. Gilfin sighed, "and such a beauty. I wonder she ain't been married ages ago."

"Does her father love her?"

"Yes and no. He loves her when she don't cross his path, and thinks her a bother when she do. Some times he takes her to London for a treat, being free with his money, when he spends it on himself. He got her picture taken by a swell photographer once, but I daresay that was to show her to one of his rich friends and get her married off well, so that he could live on his son-in-law."

"That must have been one of the photographs I saw on the mantlepiece in the Mootley corner shop," I exclaimed.

"Like enough, Master Cyrus. And I daresay her pa gave her the silver frame when he was feeling generous-like, as he do on occasions. Queer," said Mrs. Gilfin rubbing her nose, "one brother a miser, and the other taking after his father is a spendthrift. Luckily the five hundred a year's so tied up that he can't get at the principal, and it comes to Miss Gertrude when her pa joins Mr. Miser Monk in the graveyard. So she's all right, the dear sweet young lady she is."

"Have you ever seen the photograph, Cuckoo?"

"Oh yes, Master Cyrus. Mr. Joseph Striver's got one. Begged it off her, and she being an angel gave it to him, though he's only the gardener."

"Does she love him?" I asked tremulously.

"No, she don't," said Mrs. Gilfin shortly.

"Does he love her?" I persisted.

"He do: the impertinence! him only being a gardener, though handsome, I will say. Mr. Walter Monk don't pay him much for gardening at The Lodge, yet he stays on there because he loves Miss Gertrude, as if she'd look on such dirt as Anne Caldershaw's nephew. His father left him with fifty pounds a year so that's why he can afford to stop on, and now I hear he's come in for money from his aunt. But if he dares to raise his eyes to Miss Gertrude, Master Cyrus, you break his neck," advised Mrs. Gilfin.

"But if she loves him----"

"How can she, when he ain't a gentleman born," snapped Mrs. Gilfin, "she don't love anybody but a dog she have, and lives in that shabby old house like a nun in a convent, or a toad in a stone. Where the young men's eyes are I don't know," ended Mrs. Gilfin, virtuously indignant.

My spirits rose as she spoke. "I'm glad she's fancy free," I said, rejoicingly, "there's a chance for me then?"

"You being well-looking, I should think so, Master Cyrus," said Mrs. Gilfin.

[CHAPTER VIII.]

THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD

I usually invent my plots, arrange my business and consider my circumstances when in bed, which is by far the best place for such thought-work. Alone in the darkness of the silent hours, there is no external influence to prevent concentration, therefore conclusions of the best can be reached speedier than in the daytime. On the night of my arrival at Burwain, I took advantage of the opportunity to think hard and long. It was necessary that matters should be adjusted clearly in my own mind before I could hope to deal with the situation. After Mrs. Gilfin's report, I desired more than ever to make Gertrude Monk my wife, but there were obstacles in the way, which only deliberate and continuous action could remove. A clear understanding of the position was decidedly imperative.

I now began to see that Anne Caldershaw's hint to her brother had reference to the missing monies of Gabriel Monk. Certainly, even if he had saved every penny of his income for eighty years, he would not have accumulated fifty thousand pounds: but it was more than probable that his visits to London were connected with various investments, and that in one way or another he had gained the fortune mentioned by Mrs. Caldershaw. But--as I asked myself frequently--if Monk had invested the money, why was it not discoverable, since investments cannot very well be concealed. On reflection I decided that the man being a genuine miser, loving the color and weight and feel of gold, had probably turned his investments, whatever they might be, into hard cash, and had hidden this carefully away. In some way Mrs. Caldershaw had learned the whereabouts of the specie, and the missing eye indicated the hiding-place. The money, by Gabriel Monk's will, belonged to Gertrude Monk, but the ex-housekeeper wished her nephew to get it, and so had left him the clue to the place where it was concealed. Perhaps she knew that Striver loved her young mistress, and thought that if he married her, after acquiring the fortune, that justice would be done. She wished, as the saying is, to kill two birds with one stone.

But two things puzzled me greatly in connection with the matter. In the first place it was odd that Mrs. Caldershaw, aware of the whereabouts of the money, should not have laid hands on it, and in the second it was difficult to understand how she could arrange that her glass eye should be a clue to its possession. Then I began to believe that the dead woman had removed the coin from where the miser had hidden it, and had drawn a plan of its new resting-place, which she had concealed behind the eye. But having regard to the shell-like shape of the eye, as described by Joseph Striver, the plan could not be delineated on a piece of paper however small, as there was no shield at the back of the artificial eyes to protect it from wear and tear. The plan, I fancied, as did Mr. Striver, was drawn on the inward curve of the eye itself, although it was difficult to imagine that the details had not been obliterated by the moisture of the flesh. But this last conjecture was for the moment beside the matter. What I knew was that Mrs. Caldershaw's glass eye indicated the whereabouts of fifty thousand pounds belonging by will to Gertrude Monk. To find that treasure and marry the girl was what I determined to do. And to manage this, it was necessary to prevent the fortune from falling into Striver's hands, by getting the glass eye into my own possession. That was no easy task, on account of the obscurity which involved the murder and the theft which had led to the murder.

Of course Gertrude Monk knew that she was legally entitled to her uncle's money, so it was possible, that having learned Mrs. Caldershaw's secret, she had gone to Mootley to insist upon the eye being given up, for the purpose of obtaining her rights. But in that case, she would scarcely have murdered the woman, since all she had to do was to compel Mrs. Caldershaw by law to confess the truth. It might be that she had quarrelled with the old woman, who would not be inclined to disarrange her plans for the well-being of her nephew; but I did not think that a girl with so lovely a face and so high a character--as Mrs. Gilfin avouched for--would have stooped to committing a crime. Had she done so and had obtained the money, her conscience would not permit her to rest. Therefore I acquitted the young lady of homicide, and cast about in my mind to think, who could possibly have slain Mrs. Caldershaw for the sake of the fortune.

Miss Destiny certainly grudged her niece the money, and being a miser would have been glad to acquire it, but she was too frail a little woman to commit the murder. Also, at the time, she was driving to Mootley, and had not yet reached the place, as the story of her encounter with my looted motor car clearly proved. She had established an indefeasible alibi. Mr. Walter Monk was in London at the time of the murder: Mr. Joseph Striver was at Burwain, and I could think of no other person who would be driven to murder Mrs. Caldershaw for her secret. The more I thought of the matter the more complex did it become. All I could do--I decided this about three o'clock in the morning--was to revert to my original decision and play a waiting game. Then I fell asleep and woke at nine o'clock with a headache, the result of over-thinking.

However, a cold bath, a good breakfast, and a half-hour's gossip with the landlady banished my pains, and somewhere about eleven I walked forth to spy out the land. I wished to call on Miss Destiny, and through her, to gain an introduction to her niece. Once in touch with Miss Monk, I might learn in some cautious way, how her cloak came to be in the field. Certainly on the fact of it, I fancied she had worn it herself and had stolen my Rippler, but it was just possible that she had given it to Mrs. Caldershaw, and had not been near Mootley at all. In which case, I, began to wonder more than ever, who was the clever woman who had taken possession of it. But such wondering was futile, as I had no certain facts to go upon. Gertrude Monk alone could give the clue, seeing that the cloak, whether worn by herself or not, was her property.

There was little difficulty in finding the abode of Miss Destiny who appeared to be as well-known in Burwain as St. Paul's Cathedral is in the metropolis. Her miserly character appeared to be common talk, and when I reached the end of the village and sighted her cottage I could well understand why it was no secret. A gentlewoman with a certain amount of money, however small, would never have dwelt in such a hovel, unless she grudged every farthing to render it sightly and comfortable. For Miss Destiny had her abode in a tiny house of galvanized tin, standing some distance from the main road, and almost hidden by a dank growth of tall weeds, and shrubs and neglected trees. A sod fence fringed the roadway, and therein was placed midway a rickety wooden gate with a broken hinge. From this a crooked pathway made by feet and worn by feet and preserved as an entrance by feet, meandered to the green-painted front door. On either side docks and darnells and brambles and coarse grasses and weeds flourished in profusion breast-high. And overhanging the tin shed--it could scarcely be called a cottage--were two gigantic elms, which dropped their decayed branches on the roof and round the walls, where they lay to add to the sordid confusion of the place. Viewing this desolation, I could only think of the chateau of the Yellow Dwarf, as described by Madame D'Aulnoy.

I walked up the sodden path--the tin shed seemed to have been built in a swamp, so oozy was the ground--and rapped smartly at the narrow front door. On either side were two small windows, through the glass of which I caught a glimpse of iron bars, which proved that Miss Destiny had made necessary provision against burglars. What struck me as odd was the absence of a chimney, but I had no time to consider this, for shortly I heard the rattle of a chain and the sound of bolts being drawn back. Then the door was opened an inch or two to reveal the dull eyes and mustached lip of Lucinda. The expression of her face was aggressive and watchful.

"What do you want?" she demanded in her beautiful voice, which struck me anew as singularly sympathetic despite her rough greeting.

"I am Mr. Cyrus Vance, who was at Mootley," I explained elaborately, "and I wish to see Miss Destiny."

Before I ended my request I heard a little, low, fluttering laugh, and Lucinda, opening the door widely, moved aside to show the tiny figure of her mistress with outstretched hands. "Prince Charming come in search of the Sleeping Beauty," cried Miss Destiny, romantically, "and all because he saw a portrait of the lady. Come in, Mr. Vance, come in. I can promise you flesh and blood this time, my dear adventurer."

There was little change about the old lady. She still wore the threadbare black silk dress, though without the velvet mantle, and her snow-white hair was still piled up after the fashion of Louis XVI's ill-fated queen.

I thrilled when I heard her words, as I guessed that I had arrived in a happy moment, and that Miss Destiny's niece, the goddess of my dreams, was seated within that pauper house. Even Lucinda grinned in a friendly way, as she saw the color come and go in my face. With all my self-control I could not suppress that sign of emotion.

"Prince Charming," said Miss Destiny, introducing me directly into a bare sitting-room, for there was no passage in the cottage, "yet me present you to The Sleeping Beauty," and she looked more like a fairy godmother than ever as she clapped her skinny hands.

Gertrude Monk was seated in a well-worn horsehair armchair, near the oil stove which did duty as a fireplace to warm the bleak room. She was plainly dressed in blue serge, with a toque of the same on her dark head, and had a muff and boa of silver-fox fur. Nothing could have been more Puritanic than her array, but the close-fitting frock showed off her fine figure to advantage, and she looked uncommonly handsome. I have already described her from her photograph, so there is no need to go over old ground, but she was even more beautiful and unapproachable than I had believed her to be, and looked more like the goddess Diana than ever. The sole thing I found lacking to complete her perfection was color, for her face was the hue of old ivory, and even her lips looked pale. Also there was a troubled look in her large dark eyes, and she welcomed me with some embarrassment. But this last probably was due to the oddity of our introduction, since Miss Destiny had evidently informed her of my admiration for her portrait.

"I am glad to meet you, Mr. Vance," she said sedately and with a stately bow of her head, "my aunt informed me of your connection with the sad death of my old nurse."

"I think my connection with the matter is public property, Miss Monk," I said, nervously, "for my name has been in all the papers."

"As a playwright that should please you," she said coldly, "anything for an advertisement. Well, tell us what has been discovered?"

"Nothing as far as I know, Miss Monk."

"Oh!" she raised her fine eyebrows. "I understood," she glanced at Miss Destiny, "that you promised to come and inform my aunt of any new developments. As you are here, I thought that something had been discovered."

"Nothing has been discovered, Miss Monk. I simply came here to see an old servant of my mother's, who keeps The Robin Redbreast, and intend to stay for a few days." Of course this was a white lie, but I had to make some excuse, for her troubled eyes were searching my face intently.

"Mrs. Gilfin," said she, a smile relaxing the corners of her mouth and heaving what I took to be a sigh of relief, "I am fond of Mrs. Gilfin."

"And she is fond of you, Miss Monk. Had she never spoken to you about me?"

"No," was the reply, so my artful question, failed in its effect. Then the conversation languished, and Miss Destiny babbled to excuse her lack of hospitality. Lucinda had left the room.

"I should give you a cup of tea, Gertrude, and you also, Mr. Vance. But the kettle is not boiling, and the baker has not come, so you must excuse me."

"I am not hungry, thank you, Miss Destiny. What a comfortable little place you have here."

In my desperate desire to propitiate the little woman, I told a lie, and Miss Monk saw that I did, for her lip curled, so contemptuously, that the color came to my cheeks. I had been undiplomatic, for the word I had used did not apply in the least to the bare surroundings. The shed--it had originally been a shed, as I afterwards learned--was divided by frail partitions into four small rooms: two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a parlor. These were furnished with the flotsam and jetsam of auction rooms, in an insufficient manner. If Miss Destiny had contracted the vice of avarice from the late Gabriel Monk, she had done so very thoroughly. The bare wooden walls, the drugget on the floor, the four or five sticks of shaky furniture, and the evil-smelling oil stove, made up a picture of insistent penury. And Miss Destiny, lean-faced, keen-eyed and restless, looked like the hag Poverty herself, as she hovered about the bleak room. And even she saw through my lying remark.

"Comfortable, no indeed, Mr. Vance," she tittered nervously, "comfort, to my mind, means laziness and self-indulgence. Lucinda and I live the simple life, and require only the bare necessities of civilization. And I'm so poor----"

Her niece intervened coldly. "Is it necessary to inform Mr. Vance of your private business, aunt?"

"Oh, my dear, he knows it. For instance, that I am your aunt only by courtesy."

"What do you mean? You are my mother's sister."

"Yes. Poor dear Jane; what a bad marriage she made with that spendthrift."

"Aunt! aunt! Leave my father alone."

"My dear, I refuse to be contradicted. I never liked Walter, and I never will, so I disassociate myself from him in every way, as a sister-in-law, and look upon myself as your aunt by courtesy: merely by courtesy."

Miss Monk rose with a flush. "This conversation cannot be interesting to Mr. Vance," she said, quietly. "If you have any business with him, I shall leave you together."

"No, no, I have no business with him, my dear. Merely I should like to know if Anne's will really leaves all her property to Joseph."

"If you mean Mr. Striver, I understand that he had got the money and the lease of the corner shop to say nothing of the contents," said I, in detail.

"Merely I should like to know if Anne's will really did think Anne would have remembered me. We were such friends. And with a little money I could have made myself more comfortable. The garden for instance: I'm sure I live in a kind of jungle. Gertrude, I wish you could let Joseph come and put it right. Then we could talk about his good fortune."

"Joseph takes odd jobs at times," said Miss Monk, trying to speak calmly, for really her aunt was very trying with her unnecessary frankness, "if you offer him a good wage, he will come with pleasure."

"Oh, I can't afford to pay money," said Miss Destiny hurriedly, "it is not to be expected, especially since Gabriel left me nothing. Ah! Gertrude, you are the lucky one. Fifty thousand pounds," Miss Destiny smacked her lips, "oh, if it only could be found.'

"It is not likely to be found."

"Mr. Striver intends to find it," I said incautiously, and could have bitten out my tongue the moment afterwards for so crude a remark.

Both the women turned to face me: Miss Destiny with vulture-like eagerness, and Miss Monk with an expression of astonishment. "What has Joseph to do with my money?" asked the latter, pointedly.

"Perhaps he doesn't know that it is your money, Miss Monk."

"What do you mean, exactly?"

"Simply that Striver is searching for the sum of fifty-thousand pounds. That being the amount of some money belonging to you which is missing, as Miss Destiny said just now, I apprehend that it is the same."

"It must be: it must be," cried the little old lady clapping her skinny hands, "for Anne never could have saved so much out of her wages. Gertrude I always declared that Anne knew where the money of Gabriel was hidden. Now, it seems, she told Joseph about it."

"She did not inform him of its whereabouts," I struck in, eager to enlist Miss Monk's attention, "but he hopes to trace it by means of the glass eye."

"The glass eye," echoed Miss Monk, very much amazed. "I know that Anne had a glass eye, and that it is missing. But----"

"I see: I understand," said Miss Destiny feverishly, "don't interrupt me, Gertrude, for I see it all. Anne always attached a great value to that glass eye, so in some way--from what Mr. Vance says--it is connected with the hiding-place of Gabriel's money. Perhaps Gabriel got Anne to assist him in hiding it. Dear me, and the eye is missing. If it could only be found, Gertrude, you would be quite an heiress."

"I don't believe that the eye or the money will ever be found," said Miss Monk impatiently, and walked towards the door. "Are you returning to the village, Mr. Vance?"

The hint was unmistakable, and I was only too glad to take advantage of it, since it meant a tête-à-fête with my goddess. "Mrs. Gilfin will wonder what has become of me," I said, glancing at my watch.

"Oh, don't go, don't go," implored Miss Destiny, grasping my arm. "I do so want to learn all about this glass eye and the money."

"Ask Joseph Striver then," I replied, disengaging myself, "he knows all that I know, and more," I ended significantly.

"Really and truly. Oh, I must tell Lucinda," and Miss Destiny vanished into the back room crying for her handmaid. Miss Monk seized the opportunity to open the front door and slip out, raising her eyebrows at me meanwhile. I took the hint at once.

We walked down the meandering path between the weeds, and out on to the high road. Miss Monk kept silence for some distance, but I was so taken up with admiring her face, and was so delighted to be in her presence, that I did not mind her lack of speech. With compressed lips she stared straight in front of her, then spoke abruptly.

"You seem to know a great deal about our family affairs, Mr. Vance."

"Nothing more than has to do with the murder of Mrs. Caldershaw," I replied, quietly, "and I am so mixed up in that----"

"Yes! yes!" she interrupted impatiently. "I understand so far. But my aunt has been talking to you."

"Well, yes and no. I have not gathered much information from Miss Destiny."

"Why should you wish to gather any information at all?" asked the girl with some sharpness.

"My dear young lady. This murder interests me, and I wish to learn the truth. Naturally I seek for information."

"Oh! And you have come here to question my aunt."

"No, indeed. I don't see what she can tell me."

"She can tell you nothing," said Miss Monk, with decision, "my aunt is not quite sane, as you can easily see. She has a moderately good income, yet prefers to live in that miserable place, which you"--she was sarcastic here--"called comfortable, Mr. Vance."

"I wished to put Miss Destiny in a good humor," said I uneasily.

"Why?"

She was so very direct that I nearly came out with the truth. But it was absurd, on the face of it, to confess a crazy love for one I had known only half an hour: she would take so sudden a declaration as an insult. I therefore held my peace and fenced. "Miss Destiny, from what she said at Mootley, seems to know something about that glass eye, which was stolen from Mrs. Caldershaw's head when she was dead. I wish to learn all about it, so as to discover why the eye was stolen and the woman murdered."

"Then you did come here to question my aunt, in spite of your denial?"

"Well, if I must confess it, I came to ask about the glass eye."

Miss Monk walked on in silence, and then again spoke abruptly. "You should be honest with me, Mr. Vance."

"I am honest."

"Pardon me, you are not, since you said that you did not see what my aunt could tell you." And she looked like an offended goddess.

This was brutally true: I had equivocated. "I throw myself on your mercy."

She turned a pair of surprised eyes in my direction. "Why on mine?"

"I appear to have offended you," I hesitated.

"What does that matter? we are strangers."

"I wish we were not," said my rash tongue, and Miss Monk stopped.

"I really don't understand you, Mr. Vance. Why should it matter to me whether we are strangers or not?"

"Your aunt's words when she introduced me----"

Miss Monk flushed and cut me short. "That is my aunt's nonsense," she said hastily. "You don't expect me to believe that you followed me here because you admired my photograph."

That was exactly what I had done, but it did not do to tell her so, for she looked more like an offended goddess than ever. "I came here about the eye," was my cautious answer.

"You think that a true knowledge of why Anne Caldershaw attached a value to that eye would enable you to trace her assassin?"

"Yes, I do think so. Do you, Miss Monk?" I spoke with the cloak in my mind. "Do you wish me to trace her assassin?"

"Why not. She should certainly be captured and punished and the eye recovered, especially, as you seem to think it can indicate where the money left to me by Uncle Gabriel is hidden."

"She! she! she!" I positively gasped.

"Of course." Again she looked surprised. "I understand from the report in the papers, that the woman who ran off with your motor car is the assassin."

It was with some difficulty that I commanded my voice. Miss Monk, I thought, must be very sure that she had hidden her trail successfully, else she would scarcely dare to speak in this way. But, of course, as I remembered, she did not yet know that I had found her cloak. "You would like to have the woman traced?"

"Yes," she said coolly, "and the eye recovered, if it means the recovery of my money. I inherit fifty thousand pounds by----"

"I know: I know," said I hastily, "Mrs. Gilfin told me."

Miss Monk's face clouded. "I daresay," she remarked bitterly, "the story of the missing money is common property. No doubt Mrs. Gilfin told you that my uncle Gabriel was a miser."

"Yes. She told me a good deal."

"You asked her?" questioned the girl, suddenly.

"I admit it: in the interests of the case."

"Of course," she said, whether ironically or not I could not determine, and then walked on in silence.

Shortly we were abreast of a mouldering red-brick wall on the outskirts of the village. Beyond could be seen the mellow-tiled roofs of a large mansion.

Miss Monk stopped abruptly. "I live here," she said, with some coldness, "and must go in. Good-day, Mr. Vance."

She vanished through a heavy green gate, and left me staring down the deserted road. To me, the sun seemed to have vanished from the sky.

[CHAPTER IX.]

GERTRUDE'S FATHER

Hitherto I have explained everything in detail, from the time I adventured out to seek romance and found tragedy instead. Now I must be more or less exact, as it is well nigh impossible to set down everything. For an indefinite period I lodged at The Robin Redbreast, and met Miss Monk frequently here, there, and everywhere. The moth had come to the candle, and was hovering round the flame with dangerous pertinacity. Not that the lady accepted me straight away, for the most romantic of women have their practical side. Miss Monk, at first acquaintance, apparently liked me: but I puzzled her, and she questioned Mrs. Gilfin about me, so as to be sure of her ground. A very necessary precaution in the face of circumstances.

"You seem to have made quite an impression on that sweet young lady, Master Cyrus," said the landlady, a day or so after I had visited Miss Destiny, "she met me by chance last night and asked me to tell her all about you."

"I hope you gave me a good character," said I anxiously, and very pleased to think that my interest in Diana of the Ephesians was reciprocated.

"I told her that you were always the best of boys Master Cyrus, and that fond of my custards, as I had always to give you one every day when you was little and sweet-toothed."

I reddened. "Oh, nonsense! Miss Monk doesn't wish to hear tales of my childish greed, Cuckoo."

"She wished to hear everything," said Mrs. Gilfin, phlegmatically, "being wonderfully took up with your pleasant ways. And I don't blame her," said the ex-cook, beaming through her spectacles, "seeing as you're a gentleman grown, Master Cyrus, and handsomer than I ever thought you'd become. Not that Miss Gertrude cares for good looks without good birth, and good manners, or she'd have run off with Joseph ages ago."

"Is he back?" I asked, starting, for I had to reckon with the gardener.

"Oh, yes, he's back," grunted Mrs. Gilfin, disgusted, "and always hanging about that house picking weeds. So he says, but it's to look at what he'll never get, as I'll tell him some fine day. Such sauce!"

"He hasn't had the insolence to speak to Miss Monk on the subject of his confounded feelings?" I asked, anxiously, for there was no denying that the man's aggressive good looks constituted him a dangerous rival.

"Not he, and if he did she'd soon send him to the right about with a flea in his ear. Good looks ain't good manners, Master Cyrus, say what you will."

"Well," I laughed. "I hope you told her that I was the best-mannered and most good-natured man in the universe, Cuckoo."

"I told the truth, you may be sure, Master Cyrus," rebuked Mrs. Gilfin, "saying you was that honorable and clever and thoughtful and kindhearted, as I'd trust you with my very own heart to do what you liked with. Not that you want my heart, bless you," ended Mrs. Gilfin, beaming again and becoming one vast substantial smile like Mrs. Fezziwig in "The Christmas Carol."

"You want Miss Gertrude's."

"Good heavens, Cuckoo! you didn't tell her that I hope?"

"Not in so many words, Master Cyrus. But bless you," added Mrs. Gilfin significantly, "women in these matters ain't fools, sir."

I was rather perturbed over this, as it was not impossible that the maidenly modesty of Gertrude might take offence, if she guessed my undeclared sentiments. And in any case, the slightest hint of such an attitude might embarrass our conversation. By this time, it was useless to deny that I was fathoms deep in love. I suppose I had brooded so long over the beauty of the pictured face, that when the original proved to be even more attractive, the egg of love was promptly hatched into the actual chick From the moment my eyes met those of Gertrude, and soul read soul, I adored her with a headstrong passion, which I should have scouted in another man. If ever there was an impulsive being who aptly illustrated Marlow's dictum, as to love at first sight, I was that uncommon individual. For I take it that sudden passions of this unthinking sort, are unusual in an age, when lovers--a most unsuitable name for such cautious creatures--wish to inspect the lady's check-book before proposing.

But I need not have worried my mind over any possible embarrassment on Miss Monk's part. She was more composed than I was when we next met; and that was in the village store, whither I had gone to procure some stationery. It was necessary to write Cannington and advise him of my actual whereabouts, if only to keep him out of the way. I did not wish him to come down and spoil my wooing, as an inconvenient third. Besides, as a feather-headed boy, he might be indiscreet with regard to the Mootley murder, and I wished to supply all information on that matter, by word of mouth. It was the sole excuse, which I had for seeking the society of my goddess, and I did not wish it to be staled by other people's repetitions.

While I was purchasing blotting-paper, ink and pens and stationery from a genial old woman in a mob-cap, Miss Monk entered the shop. She was dressed as she had been when I last saw her, but this time carried a dog-whip in place of a sunshade. Gamboling round her was a large ungainly Newfoundland year-old puppy, who answered to the odd name of Puddles. At least that was his pet name, as Miss Monk afterwards told me that he was registered as Ion, after the hero of Judge Talfourd's famous play. Puddles lounged against me with exuberant friendliness, and had to be corrected with the whip. When the commotion subsided, his mistress found time to speak and apologize, looking handsomer than ever, with the color of exercise in her cheeks.

"You mustn't mind the dog," she said gravely, "he won't bite you."

"I hope not," I replied with equal gravity, "I am extremely timid, you know."

She smiled at this. "I think I would trust you in a moment of danger, Mr. Vance. But to be friends with me, you must be friends with Puddles."

"I quite understand. Love me, love my dog."

"I didn't say anything about love," she laughed, her color deepening. "But in any case, you have put the cart before the horse. Love my dog and love me, you should say."

"Certainly! Puddles!" I dropped on one knee, and held out a caressing hand, "try and love me--as a beginning."

"A beginning to what?" asked Miss Monk, smiling and crimson.

"Puddles knows, Puddles understands: see, he gives me his paw. Good dog." I shook the huge paw, patted the huge head, and rose to be conventional. "It is a beautiful day, isn't it, Miss Monk."

"Of course, and the horse is the noblest of all animals," she replied with up-lifted eyebrows. "I thought you were more original, Mr. Vance."

"I assure you that is a mistake. I am that harmless, and necessary person, the repeater of platitudes."

She shuddered. "Don't repeat them to me, please, I hate copy-book phrases."

"Yet what good sense they contain. Your remark about the horse is one, and is absolutely true."

"So true," she mocked, "as to make the statement unnecessary." She turned to purchase a bag of dog-biscuits. "Are we fighting a verbal duel, Mr. Vance?"

"It would seem so, Miss Monk, but the buttons are on our foils."

With the bag in her arms, she wheeled nervously. "Why do you say that?" and there was apprehension in her dark eyes.

"I speak for the sake of speaking."

"No," her anxious eyes searched my face, "you are not that kind of man. If you----" she stopped and bit her lip, and with a curt nod walked rapidly out of the shop followed by Puddles. I did not attempt to follow, as I saw that my cryptic speech had interested her, and wished to give her time to think over my personality. While I remained in her thoughts, there was every hope that she would seek me again. Better that she should be afraid of me, than indifferent to me.

And as I sauntered back to The Robin Redbreast, I felt convinced that she was afraid of me: my dark sayings had made her afraid. At our first meeting under the tin roof of Miss Destiny's hovel, I had seen the fear in her eyes, and at this second meeting I saw it again, more apparent. But, what could she be afraid of in connection with me? There was only one common-sense answer: Gertrude Monk was the lady who had stolen my motor-car, and who had--but no; I could not bring myself to believe the worst, even in the face of the obvious certainty that she was concealing something, which had to do with the weird circumstances at Mootley. She would explain when the time came, and that would be when she was sufficiently well acquainted with me to regard Mrs. Gilfin's eulogy as justified. Then--well I would wait until then, for in the pursuit of the impossible, I was developing a fine quality of patience.

During the next few days, I occasionally met Miss Destiny and her servant in the village. They went shopping together, and the little old lady beat down the prices of everyone, however cheap the goods she wanted might originally be. I believe she enjoyed the squabble, and certainly her tongue clacked from morning to night in the endeavor to get her own sordid way. She was a miser, pure and simple, and had contracted the disease--for that it was--from the late Gabriel Monk. Everyone hated Miss Destiny, for in addition to being avaricious, she had a desperately evil tongue, and dealt with one and all from the point of view of a misanthrope. That is, she never said a good word of anyone, but babbled out many bad ones, so that she set people by the ears constantly. She might have abused me, for all I knew, but if she did, her demeanor to my face was extremely pleasant. When we met, she always hinted roguishly at my love for her niece, and chaffed me about the same. At times I wondered if she discussed my presence at Burwain with Gertrude. I thought not, as my meetings with the goddess were always marked by a perfectly unembarrassed manner on her part. Moreover, aunt and niece did not get on well together, and only exchanged formal visits. Miss Destiny--as I gathered from Mrs. Gilfin's ready tongue--had never forgiven Gertrude for inheriting the missing fortune, and always expressed herself pleased that it could not be found.

Although I had been over a fortnight at Burwain, Mr. Walter Monk was still absent from the old Jacobean mansion, and Gertrude lived there with one servant in nun-like seclusion. She read a great deal, and played the piano and attended to Puddles--a great stand-by against loneliness. Joseph also was frequently about the garden, but I don't think she ever gave him a word--on Mrs. Gilfin's authority I can say this--unless it had to do with his duties. But he hung round the place like a stray dog, satisfied if he could catch only a glimpse of Gertrude, and was in the seventh heaven if she addressed a word to him. Miss Destiny spoke to me of the gardener's infatuation, which was apparent to everyone.

"You have met Joseph?" she asked me one day in her mincing manner.

"At Mootley, when he was setting his aunt's house in order," I informed her genially. I was always genial with Miss Destiny, as for my own purposes I wished to keep on good terms with her.

"Ah, yes. He inherited Anne's savings. Quite a nice little sum, I believe. And the lease of the shop also," added Miss Destiny musingly, "Gertrude might do worse."

"What do you mean?" I asked sharply, and, I fear, angrily.

The little old lady raised her twinkling sharp eyes to my annoyed face. "I forgot," she said impishly, "you are the other one."

"The other what, Miss Destiny?"

"Lover--the second Prince Charming; though I think," she remarked in a very spiteful tone, "that the first Prince is the handsomer."

I went straight to the point. "Miss Destiny, I don't for one moment suppose that you would like to see Miss Monk become Striver's wife."

"Why not. He has looks, if not birth; and money, if not position."

"The thing's absurd. A lady marry a gardener."

"Other ladies have done so and have been happy," she persisted. "Besides Gertrude may not be able to help herself."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Nothing and everything," she replied enigmatically. "Mr. Striver is in possession of all Anne's private papers," she hesitated.

"Well? well? well?" I said impatiently.

"Ask Gertrude," she snapped out.

"Ask what?"

Miss Destiny winced, and her black eyes twinkled again. "Ask her to be your wife, Mr. Vance, else you will find her Mrs. Striver before six months are ended. Now don't ask questions here," she pointed to her flat bosom, "ask them of Gertrude. Again I say, Joseph has Anne Caldershaw's private papers."

"Well?" I was more bewildered than ever.

"That is all," said Miss Destiny, and dropping one of her old-fashioned curtseys, she trotted off, laughing malignantly like a wicked fairy.

What the terrible old woman meant I could not imagine, but I determined to take her advice and ask questions in the right quarter. I had now been some time at Burwain, and, as yet, had learned nothing likely to throw light on the darkness of the Mootley murder. Striver evidently had made up his mind to stay where he was as gardener at The Lodge, and although we never spoke, he always eyed me savagely when I paid a visit to the mansion. It is true that Gertrude did not invite me into the house, and always saw me in the garden; but that I should dare to come and worship at his private shrine was quite enough to make Striver desperately angry.

And in his working clothes the fellow looked handsomer than ever. I really wondered that Gertrude did not fall in love with him, as he was by way of being a rustic Apollo, and was possessed of some education. But she was always extremely cool to him, and scarcely displayed more warmth towards me. A most inscrutable girl. I could not make her out, for try as I would the secret of her noli-me-tangere attitude baffled and disconcerted me.

"My father is returning for a few days this evening," said Gertrude to me when we met by chance on the village green.

"I should like to meet him," I said promptly.

"Why?" she demanded with her usual directness.

It was a difficult question to answer. "I admire his daughter," was my lame reply. "Surely you can understand----"

"That you are talking nonsense," she interrupted quickly. "Yes I can," she stopped for a moment, then went on impetuously, "I wish you would go away."

"I see no reason why I should," I remonstrated.

"I do. I do. You are not hot; you are not cold; you are neither fowl, fish, nor good red-herring. Go away," and turning on her heel she walked away so swiftly that I had no time to ask further questions.

What did she mean? I could not understand. Later I met with Miss Destiny, and could understand the aunt no more than I understood the niece. The first told me to go away in a most peremptory manner, while the second hinted that because Joseph possessed Mrs. Caldershaw's private papers, Gertrude was likely to become Mrs. Striver within six months. It was really all very perplexing, and the sole way to end such perplexity was to show Miss Monk her cloak and demand explanations. But this I did not wish to do, until I was more certain of my ground: until I understood her feelings towards myself better. For by this time, what with Striver's persistence, her own dismissal of myself, and Miss Destiny's strange hints, I was beginning to believe that she favored my handsome, humble attentive rival.

"I sha'n't stand it any longer," I thought, turning my steps towards the inn. "This very evening, I shall call and see her. We must have an explanation straight away!" And this resolution I adhered to so firmly that I found myself at the door of the Jacobean mansion one hour after dinner--that is, seeing I dined early in the country--at seven o'clock.

The grounds of The Lodge--thanks to Striver's love-lorn devotion--were most beautifully kept. The flower-beds had no weeds, the lawns were smoothly clipped and rolled, and the whole place had an orderly trim look, which contrasted oddly with the tumbledown appearance of the house itself. This, of mellow red brick, overgrown with ivy, stood on a slight rise, and a wide terrace of stone with shallow steps descending to the lawns, ran round three sides of it. Some Vandal had put French windows into the drawing-room, and these looked quite out of keeping with the old-world air of the mansion. It was a very ancient house, and I verily believe that only the ivy held the mouldering bricks together. The porch was large and chilly, and when I pulled the bell, its jangling echoes, followed by the baying of Puddles, added to the lonely impression produced by the place. Miss Destiny called her niece "The Sleeping Beauty!" so this dismal dwelling might well have been her palace. Only Mr. Striver's trim garden looked modern and well-cared for: the house itself was a slight improvement on the ruins of Carthage.

The one servant of the Lodge--a white-capped, sober, sedate old creature called Trumble--came to the door, and seemed doubtful about admitting me. The place was like a convent and evidently Trumble did not wish any male to enter. But while I argued with her, Miss Monk appeared, and intimated that I could come in. I would have thanked her, but that her beauty took my breath away. Even in the dim light of the hall lamp, she shone like a star; but it was not until we were in the drawing-room that the full perfection of her loveliness burst upon me. I stared like an oaf, or like the misnamed Cortez in Keats's sonnet.

She was in a pale-blue evening dress, which displayed her beautiful neck and arms to perfection. As in the photograph, she wore no necklace, or bracelets, or rings, or brooches, or indeed ornaments of any description. The dress also was plain and devoid of trimming, so that it revealed fully the noble lines of her figure. As usual her hair was bunched at the back of her shapely head in ancient Greek fashion, and she more than ever reminded me of Diana. I did not look at a mere picture this time, but at the flesh and blood divinity, who had descended in gracious splendor from high Olympus. Though indeed, her somewhat stern face did not look very gracious at the moment.

Owing to my intention of calling, I had arrayed myself in a dress suit for the occasion, although I did not usually prepare myself for dinner in this way at The Robin Redbreast. But, manlike, I had a feeling of vanity that I also was ultra-civilized. Had I come in tweeds I should have been ashamed to face this gracious vision. And yet I am not a vain man, though, as the somewhat unworthy sentiment flashed into my mind, I thought what a conceited ass I was. And all because I loved a woman and wished to appear at my best before her. Truly human nature is strange and--as in the present personal instance--trifling.

"Well," asked Miss Monk, a slight smile breaking the severe curve of her lips, as she saw how persistently I stared, "why have you called, Mr. Vance?"

"Is it a crime?" I asked, somewhat annoyed.

"In my eyes it is, because I asked you to go away."

"Ah, I came here to seek for an explanation."

"I have none to give. Still, as you are here, you may as well sit down. I cannot see you for more than half an hour, as my father is returning."

I sat down on the chair she indicated, and she placed herself on the opposite sofa which stretched diagonally before the fire. There were three lamps with rosy shades in the large low-ceilinged room, and we sat in a kind of Paphian twilight, eminently suited to a proposal. What with the subdued light amidst which she glimmered like an exquisite star, and my own tumultuous feelings, I wonder that I did not take her in my arms, then and there to kiss her into consenting to be my dear wife. But prudence came to my aid and I was spared the necessity of a refusal, which certainly would have been forthcoming had I acted as I felt inclined to do.

She was silent, and I was silent, and the only sound in the room was the crackling of the fire and the ticking of the French clock on the mantelpiece. Then, as Gertrude did not speak, I was forced to begin the conversation, else my half-hour would be wasted.

"You puzzle me, Miss Monk," I said bluntly, and purposely said it, so as to enchain her attention.

"Do I? Why?"

"Your aunt also puzzles me," I went on, ignoring her question.

"Why?" she asked again, and the uneasy troubled look came into her eyes.

"She declares that you will become Mrs. Striver within six months----"

"Mr. Vance!" She rose impulsively, and looked highly indignant.

"Because," I continued remorselessly, and repeating Miss Destiny's exact words, "Joseph has Anne Caldershaw's private papers."

Miss Monk turned white, gasped, and sank back nervously into her seat. "My aunt is mad to say such a thing," she stammered.

"Possibly," said I dryly. "I have no very great idea of Miss Destiny's sanity myself. But, it may be that you can explain the madness."

Gertrude looked round the room, as if in search of help, and placed both hands on her breast as though to still the beating of her heart. "I would explain--to a friend," she muttered, and her face was whiter than the statue of Parian marble on the bracket by the fireplace.

"I am a friend, Miss Monk."

"A true friend?"

"Test me and find me so." I bent over her. "Can you not understand?"

She put out her hand and pushed me back slightly. "My friend--not yet."

I retreated. "Friend--so cold a word."

"It is sufficient for the present," and then I saw that her whiteness was drowned in a rising tide of crimson. I would have spoken, for a sudden leap of my heart told me that her feelings were not so indifferent as I had imagined them to be. But again she put over her hand. "No, say nothing; let us remain friends until----"

"Until when?" I asked eagerly.

Pressing her hands between her knees she stared into the fire, then spoke in a low steady voice. "I never had a friend, either man or woman, and I have always wanted one. When you came I thought--it was foolish on my part perhaps--but I thought that you might help me."

"I wish to help you in every way."

She went on without heeding my impetuous speech. "I doubted: one always doubts a man. I asked Mrs. Gilfin about you. What she told me, confirmed the impression I had gained from your looks. I felt certain from many times we have met that Mrs. Gilfin spoke truly. You are a man I can trust."

"Yes! yes! But am I a man you can love?"

"Let it remain as trust for the time being. I still had doubts, and to-day I told you to go away."

"Why?"

"Because you said nothing, you did nothing. You were neither hot nor--ah well, remember what I said to-day when we met. I could not make a friend of anyone who was indifferent. But now, as I see you mean to be my friend, I may trust you. I need sympathy: I need help: I need"--she started to her feet and held up an anxious finger. "Hark! hark! Not a word to him."

To him? I wondered what she meant, until the door opened and a man walked delicately into the room.

"Here I am, daughterling," said the man gaily.

[CHAPTER X.]

A SURPRISE