CHAPTER XXIX.

FURTHER MYSTERY

Next morning, readers of the _Daily Express_ were much intrigued by a paragraph below a heavy head-line, “The House of Mystery,” which appeared in that journal.

Albert Ashe’s habit was to have the paper brought by the man with his early tea, and as he lazily scanned it, his eye caught the heading. He read it through, then, springing suddenly from his bed, he crossed to the telephone near the door and rang up Mrs. Wilcox at the Great Western Hotel.

In a few moments he was put through to her.

“Listen, Etta! Get the _Daily Express_ and read what’s there. Have your breakfast first, and then come over here to me,” he said guardedly.

“What’s in the paper? Anything wrong?” asked the woman in quick apprehension.

“I can’t tell you on the ’phone. Just get the paper and read it. See you later.” And he rang off. His full face was pale and his hands trembling, for he was evidently terrified at what he had read.

He sat upon the side of his bed in his pyjamas and reread as follows.

“For some months great curiosity and much controversy have been evoked by the reopening of an ancient mansion, the Guest House, at Hampton Court--so called because it was used by Cardinal Wolsey to house his guests when, with his boundless hospitality, they overflowed from Hampton-Court Palace. It’s romantic history, and the reason its late owner closed it years ago, has already been told in the _Daily Express_, but some entirely inexplicable occurrences have lately happened there from time to time which have led the local residents to regard it as a House of Evil.

“After a recent auction sale, in which the whole antique contents were cleared at enormous prices, a firm of decorators--Messrs. Hudson & Brown, of Hammersmith--were given orders to entirely renovate and redecorate the place, so that it might be refurnished and rendered fit for the new proprietress--a young lady who benefited under the will--to take up her residence there. Following the reopening of the place, after being closed for over thirty years, there were curious circumstances. Several men were unaccountably taken ill, and, after a critical period, recovered, while in one case, at least, a victim of the evil influence, a caretaker and ex-police-constable named Farmer, died mysteriously--all being affected by some fatal disease of the heart.

“The latest mystery connected with these premises, upon which a sinister influence appears to rest, occurred at four o’clock yesterday afternoon, when, the redecoration of the premises being near completion, a French-polisher named Burton, living at the Mall, Hammersmith, while at his work upon the main staircase, suddenly collapsed, and within five minutes expired.

“The police were at once notified, and the body was, in due course, removed to the mortuary, where an inquest will be held.”

“Damn it! What next!” ejaculated Ashe, and then with hard, serious face he shaved and dressed, ready to meet the woman to whom he had posed as servant at West Halkin Street.

An hour later she stood in his room.

“Well? You’ve seen it, eh?” he exclaimed. “The poor devil died, and now there’ll be yet another inquiry! Suppose Sibell goes there and she gets affected! What about her marriage, and what about us? She has to be protected: you’ll admit that?”

“Of course, my dear Albert,” replied the handsome woman standing at the window and looking aimlessly down upon the dull, narrow West End thoroughfare. “What I’m working for is the amalgamation of the two fortunes. If we can do that, we can screw up Gussie to almost any figure we like. Sibell must not be frightened into giving up her inheritance, as she very well may be. If so, Gordon Routh will reap all the benefit of our constant labors. And we can’t afford that, eh?”

“I see in the same paper that Wyndcliffe is coming home on the _Homeric_,” he said.

“Not yet. I cabled to him yesterday saying that I was bored with London, and would join him next month, and go across to California with him. I’m getting him to buy an orange ranch there to keep him employed. So his return here is only paper talk. The further he is out of the way the better. Don’t you agree?”

“Of course I do, my dear girl. This occurrence last night is, however, most unfortunate, as it brings another official inquiry, and the more the public curiosity is aroused, the more insecure our position. The girl’s a damned little fool not to marry Gussie straight away and cut that young bug-hunter out of it. She must--she must!” he cried vehemently.

“Yes, Albert,” declared the woman, “I agree that she must, for the sake of all of us.”

“But what do you suspect to be the true secret of the Guest House? I ask you that,” he demanded.

“My dear Albert, I tell you quite frankly that I’m just as much in the dark as you are. It’s horrible--demoniac, one might say.”

He paused.

“Well, don’t, for heaven’s sake, let us take any risks ourselves.”

“I shan’t, because I’m a woman,” she said. “You may--as a man.”

“God help me, I hope not. But I tell you that, after reading this report, I’m absolutely afraid to enter the place,” Ashe said.

“Lots of other people are, too. This affair of the man Burton is absolutely amazing! Yet, if no woman has been affected, why should not Sibell be immune? That’s a problem.”

“But has it never occurred to you that the girl Forrester, whom Henry Dare was about to marry years ago, was taken ill there, and died mysteriously?”

“Not taken ill actually in the house,” Lady Wyndcliffe retorted. “According to what we know, she was walking in Bushey Park--up the chestnut avenue one spring morning, to be exact--and suddenly she felt faint, stumbled, and fell, and was carried to the Guest House to die. Again”--and she lowered her voice to a whisper, and said--“remember that Rupert did not feel any ill-effects of his visit to the place until at sea six days later. How can anybody account for it?”

“Nobody can, my dear Etta, and nobody ever will, if we still remain astute and wary,” said the big, athletic man. “Your plan, now that Rupert doesn’t trouble us any more, is to get Sibell to marry Gretton. I’m broke to the world--and so are you, I expect. I’ve about fifty quid between myself and a Rowton House, that’s all. The landlord of this place will never be paid, I can assure you”; and he chuckled hoarsely to himself. “Men who pay landlords are fools--unless they live in hotels. Then the weekly bill on one’s dressing-table has to be settled, aye or nay.”

“What are we to do, Albert?” the woman asked eagerly.

“Wait and see what the coroner’s jury have to say; and let’s hope that Sibell doesn’t see the case in the papers. If so, she’ll be more scared than ever.”

“Perhaps it will induce her to throw up the inheritance and fall into Gussie’s ready embraces. I only hope so.”

“Heavens! So do I,” laughed the man. “We must wait, my dear girl, and that’s all. But we must also find out from the old man first why he is at the Ferry at Cookham, and, secondly, who is the friend who walks with him there.”

“I’m a bit suspicious of that young fellow,” declared the woman. “And yet the old man is the most clever and elusive person I’ve ever met--and I’ve met a few men in my time. You know what I mean?”

After that Ashe nodded, and his visitor, swallowing a liqueur brandy which he poured out for her, wished him a merry adieu, and left him.

The report of the mysterious death of the workman Burton was seen by Gordon Routh, who at once showed it to his ward, hoping thereby, as Etta hoped, that it would bring her to a decision to forgo her evil inheritance and accept Gussie.

The girl read the account and shuddered. The Guest House was, indeed, a house of death, and hers was only a fatal inheritance.

Was she to share the same fate as Henry Dare’s fiancée in the Victorian days? She reflected that the innocent girl who, like herself, was in a few days to be a bride, had not been taken ill in the house, but outside, in the public park close by. Again, it was more than curious that, though so many women had entered the house since its reopening, viewing its contents and attending the three-days’ sale, no one had suffered any deleterious effect.

Two days later the result of the inquest was reported. The man Burton had died of a heart attack, revealed by the post-mortem examination, hence, to the public, the affair was no longer a mystery.

On that day Etta, who was pretending to Sibell to be staying with some friends at Hampstead, went down to the Myrtles to remain for a couple of nights, her real object being at all hazards to induce the girl to accept Gretton. Sweet and lovable as was Sibell’s nature, she was also a girl of strong and determined will. Once she made a decision, it was almost impossible to persuade her otherwise. She had lost the one and only love of her life, therefore she felt that she could never simulate affection for any other man than Brinsley, her ideal, her soul-mate, and the controller of her destiny.

Hour by hour she sat in that dull country cottage, with the old hunchback ever working out his eternal “systems” of roulette and _trente-et-quarante_. In those hours she dissected her own soul, becoming more and more convinced that marriage with Gretton was utterly impossible.

When her aunt very discreetly broached the subject after dinner, while they were alone, she told her quietly and frankly that her unalterable decision was to remain single.

“What, live alone in that awful place?” cried her aunt. “Why, my dear Sibell, it would be all too impossible! You’re absolutely mad to think of such a thing! And then, if you don’t live there, you will be compelled to relinquish your fortune!”

“As a matter of fact, I’ve already decided to live there, and discover the cause of this strange evil which appears to pervade the place,” was the girl’s calm, well-thought-out reply. “Already I have given orders for the carpets, and a portion of the furniture. I’ve given the people carte blanche to furnish it up to three thousand pounds. That will be a beginning.”

“But surely you won’t live alone there?” her aunt said, her eyes staring as she suddenly realized that not only her fat commission, but Routh’s share, were also slipping from them.

“I can hire a companion. Lots of girls are fond of adventure. I know one who was at school with me at Cheltenham.”

“Well, my dear, I tell you frankly that I’d be scared out of my wits if I had to live in such an awful tomb. Satan himself seems to dwell there.”

“My dear auntie,” replied the girl, “you don’t understand! Now that I’ve lost Brin I’ve lost all interest in everything in life, except to solve the problem of that house of evil,” she went on in a hard, despairing tone quite unusual to her. “In three weeks the house will be finished in readiness for me. I made up my mind over a week ago. Old Martha, who was Mrs. Sherwood’s servant at Ripley before her death, is coming as my housekeeper, and she is engaging the servants.”

Etta’s alert mind was quickly at work.

“You’ll surely want a man in the house, dear, if you really intend to embark upon this curious housekeeping,” she said. “Why not let me try and find Ashe? He was an excellent man. I fear I was rather peevish with him that day when I dismissed him so abruptly. I’ve been sorry ever since.”

“Well, you said all sorts of nasty things against him, auntie,” remarked the girl. “But certainly I know him, and perhaps, after all, he’d be better than a stranger. I wonder where he is.”

“Oh, I’ll find out,” replied her aunt quickly. “You really can’t do better than engage him, if you are actually going to set up house alone. I expect the agency in Marylebone Street from which I engaged him will know. He’s awfully loyal, and such an excellent man at table. It will be funny, when I come as your guest, that he will wait upon me, won’t it?”