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 Act?n, 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.