CHAPTER XVI.

A SCENE IN THE HOUSE

Next evening, in response to an invitation over the telephone, Gordon Cunningham snatched a couple of hours from his duties at the House and dined _en famille_ at Mrs. Beresford’s, in Gloucester Terrace.

He, however, found Maidee cold and suspicious. Her greeting was not warm and affectionate, as usual, and she seemed to be covertly watching his every movement with her big, velvety eyes. The widow, in her neat black, remained very sad, and spoke but little at dinner; therefore Gordon did not announce his intention of putting the question in the House until he found himself alone with Maidee in the pretty morning-room, the two elder ladies having gone upstairs to the drawing-room.

He took her in his arms and kissed her white brow, as was his habit; but he felt that through her ran an instinctive thrill not of love, but of repulsion.

What did she suspect?

“Maidee,” he said after a pause, “do you know that I have resolved to tackle Scotland Yard, and demand the truth concerning Sir George’s death?”

“The truth!” she echoed, staring at him. “I--I don’t understand. What do you mean? What truth?”

“Well, I have, all along, held a suspicion that Sir George did not commit suicide. Therefore I shall to-morrow put a question in the House, asking why the matter has been hushed up.”

“Perhaps for political reasons,” she remarked meaningly.

“I want your opinion,” he said, holding the pale, nervous girl in his arms. “Do you think it was suicide?”

“No,” she declared; “it was murder.” It was the first time she had admitted the truth.

“Then why have the police misled us?” he asked. “Why are they shielding the culprit?”

She glanced swiftly at his pale, intense face.

“Probably they will not shield him any longer, Gordon, when you put the question,” she said.

“I intend that the death of Sir George shall be avenged!” declared the young man firmly. “I know that from a political point it is injudicious of me to criticise our police methods at the present moment. But----”

“But the assassin must not go scot free, Gordon!” she interrupted in a low, changed voice. “Sir George was killed, and his murderer must be brought to justice--whoever he may be!”

“I intend to do all in my power to achieve that end,” he assured her, looking into her sweet countenance.

She was undecided. Were her suspicions well grounded--those horrible suspicions which had arisen within her, and to which she had referred in so veiled a manner two days before when, for a few moments, she had seen Uncle John? Or was she upon a false scent?

For the past forty-eight hours she had been sorely troubled. Scarcely had she slept because of the awful thought which had seized her--that he, the man she loved so dearly, was an assassin.

To Uncle John she had not openly expressed her belief that Gordon had knowledge of the crime. They had, however, discussed the point. So full had her mind been of the terrible suspicion which had arisen within it, that she had quite unconsciously revealed to the old man the trend of her belief.

For him, clever and crafty as he was, that had been sufficient. He had acted at once, and had now reduced Gordon Cunningham to a state of terror. For what reason was known only to himself. His actions were frequently mysterious, and yet in them there was always a definite and direct purpose.

Maidee had sunk into a big easy chair, and her lover was sitting upon the arm in an indolent attitude, his hand upon her shoulder. He had lit a cigarette at her invitation, and was slowly blowing a cloud of blue smoke from his lips.

She, on her part, remained silent, pondering. Was it fair to poor Gordon to prejudge him? she asked herself. And yet how very easy it would have been for him, a constant visitor to the house, to have entered on that fatal night at Sir George’s invitation, and strike him down while he sat at his table! Nevertheless, there was, she recollected, a serious flaw in such a theory. When Sir George was struck he had evidently been writing for some time, a proof that the assassin must have crept noiselessly into the room. He certainly was not present with the victim’s knowledge, for was not Sir George engaged in writing a most confidential document? Yet he might have entered with Sir George, and afterwards left, his host believing him to have gone home, whereas he had secreted himself in one or other of the dark rooms running off the hall.

But the main point was motive. What possible motive could Gordon have in securing Sir George’s death? As far as she could see, there was none--absolutely none.

The eyes of the pair met. The girl held her breath for a second; then, with quick resolve, she threw both her arms about his neck and kissed him--kissed him with the same passionate fervour as of old, crying:

“Gordon--oh, Gordon! I have been so very unhappy.”

“Unhappy, darling!” he exclaimed. “Why?”

“Because--because of all this terrible trouble which has lately fallen upon our house--because of the mystery of it all,” she sobbed, bursting into tears.

“I know,” he said in a low voice. “I know how greatly you must have been upset. I wonder that you and Lady Ravenscourt don’t go abroad somewhere for a time.”

“Abroad!” she echoed, raising her pretty face to his. “No, she won’t go abroad. She intends, she says, to remain and see if she can assist the police in unravelling the mystery.”

“Scotland Yard will very quickly become active when I ask the question,” he said with a grim laugh. “No Government Department likes a question put in the House, for it always reflects upon it.”

“The police are bunglers,” declared Maidee. “They ought to have solved the problem long ago.”

“I can’t think why they hushed it up and secured a verdict of suicide,” remarked her lover. “Depend upon it, there is much more mystery surrounding the affair than we imagine. Because of that, Scotland Yard took such an unusual course.”

Maidee looked again into her lover’s face, and there saw honesty and straightforwardness written. Its expression was entirely unlike that when he had discussed the affair with his whilom friend Tulloch. But Gordon Cunningham was a very good actor. He had “played to the gallery” ever since he had left college--and with remarkable success.

He smiled upon his well-beloved, and, with her soft little hand held in his, he bent and imprinted a long, passionate kiss upon her ready lips--a kiss which she reciprocated.

He realised that, just as Tulloch had predicted, whatever suspicions she had held, they were now swept away by his apparent boldness in putting a poignant question in Parliament.

“Do you know, darling,” he said, as his arm stole around her neat waist as she sat in the chair, a sweet and pretty figure in her dinner-gown of black chiffon, which increased the whiteness of her neck and arms, “do you know that a great deal of your disquietude would have been avoided if you had only told me your suspicions from the first? Instead of that, you led me to believe that you agreed with the verdict of the coroner’s jury.”

“I was compelled. The police made us all promise silence. Had you not told me of your suspicions, Gordon, I should not have mentioned mine.”

“Surely the precautions of the police are in themselves mysterious,” he exclaimed. “I suppose it is not possible that some constable or detective is the criminal--that they know it, and have hushed it up in order to prevent a sensation--eh?”

“I never thought of that!” gasped Maidee, half starting from her chair. “If such were the case the authorities would combine in a conspiracy of silence, would they not?”

“Exactly; just as they are doing now,” replied her lover. “A constable may have entered the house in secret, and perhaps, in a fit of homicidal mania, struck down Sir George.”

The girl was silent. The suggestion appealed to her as a possible solution of the mystery. How unjust she had been, she reflected, to have entertained suspicions of dear Gordon--the man who was all the world to her.

She entwined her bare arms about his neck once again, and kissed him fondly of her own accord, while his heart beat quickly in secret gratification that his diplomacy should have been so successful.

She loved him very dearly. Of that he was well aware. He, on his part, thought of no other woman but her. She was very young, it was true, but all London had voted her to be one of the prettiest girls in society, while Gordon had long ago realised that her disposition was an extremely sweet one, that her intelligence was remarkable, and that they possessed an affinity of soul.

She had suddenly brightened and become her own vivacious self again.

“Yes,” she said eagerly; “ask the question, Gordon. Awaken the police from their apathy, and compel them to solve the mystery. Their action has been simply disgraceful!”

“To-morrow, at question time, I shall do so,” he said. “I have already framed it and put it down. The Home Secretary is furious, I hear.”

For nearly an hour the well-matched pair sat together, happy in each other’s love, he smoking in a careless attitude, his arm about her waist, and she gazing up at him with eyes full of an unbounded affection. And their lips met in solemn pledges of undying love.

Afterwards they ascended to the drawing-room, where sat Mrs. Beresford and Lady Ravenscourt, the former playing patience and the other reading.

Maidee seated herself at the grand piano, and, at Gordon’s request, sang several of those sweet little French _chansons_ which always charmed him so. Possessing a well-trained soprano voice, and knowing French so well, she sang them with wonderful vivacity.

Gordon said nothing to the widow of his intentions of the morrow, for fear of paining her, and about eleven o’clock he bowed over the hands of the two ladies, saying:

“A division is expected about midnight, so I have to get across to the House again,” and, wishing them good-night, he kissed Maidee in the hall, and, entering the taxi which had been telephoned for, drove away.

Next afternoon, just before the House went in to prayers, a small knot of members stood in the lobby discussing Cunningham’s question upon the paper.

“Most injudicious at this moment!” snapped a stout, bald-headed man representing a Scottish constituency.

“Merely for self-advertisement!” declared a younger man, jealous of Gordon’s fame. “It’s scandalous that the time of the House should be taken up like this.”

“Well,” exclaimed another, a short, rather ill-dressed man, “there’s some mystery about Sir George Ravenscourt’s death, no doubt. I, for one, would like to see it satisfactorily cleared up. There are some funny rumours in the clubs.”

“No mystery at all,” asserted the bald-headed man. “He committed suicide. That was proved at the inquest.”

“We shall see,” replied the member for South-East Berkshire.

The lobby was the centre of an animated scene, as it always is before the Speaker takes the chair; members chattering eagerly, bustling to and fro, obtaining their correspondence from the post-office, giving instructions to their secretaries, or seated aside on the benches in private discussion. Two men, members of the public, were standing together in the corner of the lobby. One was a fair-haired young man--the other the thin, sad-faced Italian priest, now dressed in dark tweeds.

At last the members went into prayers, after which the Press and strangers were admitted to the galleries, and the House opened with a loud and commanding:

“Order-r-r! Order!” from the Speaker.

On each side of the House question-papers fluttered in the hands of members as, one after another, the questions were replied to by the Government, ever strenuous to retain the confidence of the country.

There were some very awkward ones regarding certain events in India, until at last Gordon Cunningham rose and called attention to the question put down in his name.

It was to ask the Home Secretary “if his attention has been directed to the suspicious and mysterious death of Sir George Ravenscourt, Baronet, a member of this House, who died in London on the night of January the seventeenth; whether it is not a fact that the coroner’s jury have returned a verdict of suicide; whether it is not a fact that all the evidence pointed conclusively to murder; whether the authorities have not taken strenuous steps to hush up the matter, and whether the police have not in their possession a certain document or documents of a very remarkable nature bearing upon the case?” He also asked whether the police had, in face of the verdict of the jury at the inquest, taken any steps to investigate the strange affair.

When Gordon resumed his seat, the Home Secretary rose from his seat on the Treasury bench, annoyance plainly apparent upon his clean-shaven countenance.

Gordon, breathless in expectation, sat looking at him on the other side of the House, with its rows of lounging members in all sorts of indolent attitudes.

The Minister was in the act of fumbling among his many papers, preparatory to replying, when a note was suddenly thrust into Cunningham’s hand.

The young man took it, tore it open, and glanced at its ill-written, ill-spelt contents. Then, with a strange look upon his face, he crushed it quickly into his jacket pocket.

A low cry escaped his lips next second, and several members seated near saw him half rise from the bench, then reel and fall heavily forward in a crumpled heap upon the floor, striking his head as he collapsed.

In an instant there was considerable confusion, and the Home Secretary, wondering what had occurred, resumed his seat without answering the question.

“The honourable member has fainted!” shouted someone, addressing the Speaker; and the proceedings were stopped while Cunningham was carried forth into the open air.

“Ah! nervous breakdown!” many members declared, shaking their heads wisely. “He’s been overworked,” said some; “Been burning the candle at both ends for a long time,” exclaimed others. “Poor Cunningham!” exclaimed several old parliamentary hands. “Feared he was too brilliant a young fellow to last! They say he takes drugs!”

And as he lay unconscious, with a doctor at his side, there, crushed in his jacket pocket, reposed a half-sheet of thumbed note-paper, blotted and scrawled, which gave plainly the cause of his sudden faintness--a message which, at any moment, might be discovered and read!