CHAPTER XXXVI

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A MOUSE-HOLE.

“Well,” said Allington grimly, “you ruined a fine theory for me last night with your wire. I thought for a solid hour that I could put my fingers on the man who killed Levallion.”

The two were strolling up and down the open lawn at Levallion Castle. Perhaps Mr. Allington made a guess as to what had deferred Adrian Gordon’s arrival till three in the afternoon, but he said nothing. The face of the new Lord Levallion, who in a few more days would be plain Adrian Gordon once more, did not encourage comment.

“You did mean you thought it could be the cook?” he cried, standing still in the autumn sunshine.

“I did. But”--he flicked the ash from his cigar significantly--“it all went like that.”

“What put it into your head at all?” drearily.

“A boot-boy. The only servant who was not called at the inquest.” And he told Sir Thomas’ tale of the beating, and the subsequent tender care of Monsieur Carrousel in finding his protégé a new place.

“That set me thinking,” he continued. “I went down to the housekeeper’s room last night when the house was quiet, and I found it led into the still-room.”

“I don’t see much in that,” interrupting him. “We all know that. It’s to keep the still-room under her eye. That’s all. There’s no second door from the still-room.”

“Isn’t there?” said Allington quietly. “Did it never strike any one that a portion of those shelves in that room covers a door, that opens, shelves and all, into the ‘boothole’ under the kitchen stairs. I confess last night that with that discovery, and the carting off of the boot-boy, I felt jubilant. But it was all rubbish. The housekeeper had a letter from the boy I thought the cook had made away with, to say he liked his new place which Monsieur Carrousel had found for him. Something Square it was dated, and postmarked Paddington.”

“It’s all one what it was postmarked,” Gordon returned dully. “It wasn’t Carrousel I saw last night; and I agree with you that the boot-boy business was all bona fide enough. A clever Frenchman might pound a stupid boy to a jelly from exasperation, and then turn round and be kind to him.”

“Who did you see last night?” curiously. “I suppose you’ve been playing detective on Mrs. Murray, eh?”

Adrian nodded.

“I don’t know why,” he said, “for she was in Boulogne all summer. Couldn’t have been down here at all. But I took lodgings opposite and lay doggo to watch her. Much I got! No one went into her house except her lawyers in that case of hers,” as indifferently as if it concerned him not at all and did not spell ruin, “till last night, when I saw a man go up her steps. Something about him startled me, his back looked familiar; I don’t know why, but I could have sworn I’d seen him down here. Yet I knew he was none of the house-party. He went in, and I ran out and wired to you. But before your answer came I knew I’d made an ass of myself. I’d just got back to my door when I saw the fellow come out, and it was no one I’d ever seen in my life. I saw his face quite plainly as he lit a cigar. If I’d seen it like that in the first place I’d never have wired at all. He was just a pal of Hester’s.”

Allington nodded. He was as disappointed as a dog that has discovered an empty rat-hole.

“What do you think of doing now?” he said. “The detectives are quite hopeless of finding Sir Thomas’ mysterious man and woman, I may tell you. That woman who levanted from the bungalow was their first thought, but she has apparently fallen off the earth. As for the man”--snapping his fingers--“after pouncing on twenty innocent young farmers, they have given him up. Unless----” He stopped awkwardly. Somehow he could not say to Adrian Gordon that he had yet to prove he was not himself that man. Not that Allington thought so, but there was no doubt the police did.

“Unless he turns up, directly under their noses,” said Adrian coolly. But Allington could make no guess at what he meant.

“What do you think of doing?” he repeated.

“Go back to town, and----” he hesitated. “Look here, Allington, you don’t think this business of Hester Murray’s looks queer bang on top of Levallion’s death, do you?”

“No,” unwillingly. “She’d be afraid to try it--in that case. In any case, you say you know she was in Boulogne.”

“I suppose I do. She gave me an address of a pension there, and I wrote. It was all straight enough. Hello! here’s Tommy!” with annoyance. He had not wanted to see Tommy. The boy’s eyes were too clear, even a lie untold might be written in Gordon’s face, he thought vexedly.

“Hello! where’ve you been?” he said uncomfortably, and then stopped short.

“My God, Tommy! what is it?” he cried, the dreadful look on the boy’s face meaning only one thing to him. Ravenel was guilty, and her brother had found it out!

“Don’t speak to me!” said the boy hoarsely; “let me think. I’ve been--and I thought it might mean something, but--it can’t!”

Wherever he had been he had been running, and his face was white and red in streaks. Allington pulled him down on a garden bench.

“Get your breath,” he said, but he was afraid, too.

At the two pale faces the boy suddenly laughed out hysterically.

“I’ve made a fool of myself,” he said. “I thought I’d found something. Look here. I went over to the farm where--you know the Umbrella died?” incoherently.

“She didn’t know anything!” cried Allington. “I turned the farmer’s wife inside out. I suppose you mean by the Umbrella the woman who wrote those letters to Lady Levallion that can’t be found?”

“I don’t know what she knew,” said Tommy sharply. “And we never will. I went out toward the station to see if Gordon had come down by the two-twenty, and he hadn’t. Coming home I met Mrs. Ward, the farmer’s wife, and she asked me what she was to do with the Umbrella’s old bonnet or something, but she really stopped me to know if any of us would pay for the Umbrella’s board. It seems she stayed a week there, and Ravenel hadn’t sent her enough money to pay for that and her funeral. I don’t know! Anyhow, I strolled up with old Mother Ward to see just what the Umbrella had left in the way of clothes, and to view the undertaker’s bill for myself. For old Ward’s a beast. There were some old rags of clothes with nothing in the pockets, and I said you’d pay the undertaker,” turning to Allington. “I was staring round the place and I saw a piece of paper, just an edge, sticking out between the floor and the wall. I hooked it out, and there was a mouse-hole behind it; the mice had dragged the thing in there.

“Old Mother Ward gave a yell. Said the Umbrella had held that thing in her hand till she died, and she’d wondered what had become of it. I thought--oh! I don’t know what I thought,” miserably; “but it isn’t any good. Here’s the thing, and it doesn’t mean anything.”

“It’s a torn telegram,” said Allington, peering over Gordon’s shoulder as he snatched the paper. “What’s that on the back of it?”

“Nothing,” said Tommy, “only 1 pound, or something.”

Adrian Gordon, like a man in a dream, stared at the dirty mouse-eaten thing he held. It might be meaningless enough to Tommy and Allington, but to him.

“By ----!” he said, below his breath, “Hester!”

“What do you mean?” cried Allington, startled.

“Look!” grimly, his eyes as hard as Levallion’s had ever been.

And Allington made out the tattered telegram.

“Wire descript-- Bocage. Imme----” the address was eaten away, there was no signature.

“I don’t see what you mean!” he exclaimed.

Gordon pulled from his pocket that letter from Pension Bocage concerning Mrs. Murray.

“Now do you understand?” he cried. “She was in Boulogne all summer--according to that. Yet the man who wrote it wired to her to describe herself. The meaning’s clear enough. ‘Wire description to Bocage immediately,’ that’s how the telegram ran. It was Hester Murray Tommy saw that night--and she dropped it.”

“But how could the woman who died come by it?” said Allington doubtingly.

Tommy jumped up.

“You never knew her!” he cried. “She was always creeping and crawling round. You bet she saw that man and woman the night I did, and that was what she wanted to tell Ravenel. Oh, if she hadn’t died!” he caught his breath. “She had sharp ears, the Umbrella. She may have heard every word they said. And now we’ll never know.”

“Now, on the contrary, we’ve the only clue we’ve ever had,” Gordon returned. “You’re a fool, Tommy!” staring at the reverse of the telegram, “with your ‘1 pound!’ It’s ‘I found’ written on the back of it, and something else I can’t make out. But even without it, we’ve enough for--Hester Murray,” savagely.

Sir Thomas dived into his pockets.

“Whoever the woman was,” he cried, hunting vigorously, “I’ve got something belonging to her. You didn’t know that when Jacobs went for the man that night he tore the woman’s cloak, did you? And--oh! here it is!” gladly. “I’ve had it ever since.”

He laid in Allington’s hand a scrap of black satin, with a torn bit of chinchilla hanging to it.

Adrian stared at him.

“Why, in Heaven’s name!” he said blankly, “didn’t you show that at the inquest?”

“Because I’m not a fool,” returned Sir Thomas.

“The room was full of men. How did I know any of ’em hadn’t been drinking champagne in the moonlight with a lady, and would go off and tell her she’d been seen looking in windows. Besides, then, mind you, I thought it was you I saw on the rock, and I didn’t care who it was with you, because I’d proved it wasn’t my sister.”

Adrian winced.

“I can’t say much for your eyesight!” he cried, with sarcasm. “Last night Allington says you were quite ready to think the man was Carrousel.”

The words cut.

“I never said it was Carrousel I saw on the rock that night,” said Tommy, suddenly very white and quiet. “I never thought it. He’s got a beard. But I’d tell you this much: If you’ll find the woman who owns that cloak, and give me time--I’ll find the man!”

“Time’s just what we haven’t got. And I don’t believe you’d know the man if you fell over him,” unbelievingly.

“I mightn’t,” said Tommy composedly. “But--Jacobs would.”

And neither man believed him.

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