CHAPTER XVII. LADY MABEL'S VISIT

Of course in daring Striver to do his worst I knew that I was running considerable risk. The man was crazy with love, and might be sufficiently reckless of consequences to himself to tell the police all that he had confessed to us. Then Gertrude would certainly be arrested on his evidence. Striver, as an accomplice after the fact would be arrested also: and then Justice would have to remove the bandage from her eyes to learn which of the two was guilty. In my own mind I had no doubt of Gertrude's innocence, but an unbiassed jury might take, and probably would take, on the declarations of Striver, a very different view. I had dared much on the spur of the moment, and had defied a jealous man. Therefore for the next two or three days I was uneasy.

But I did not permit Gertrude to see that I was doubtful of Striver's silence. When she recovered from her faint she expressed herself afraid lest he should speak out, and, in point of fact, voiced my sentiments. But in order to pacify her I made light of her fears.

"My dear, much as the man loves you, he certainly will not place his neck in a noose to be revenged on you," I said again and again. "He is too deeply implicated, by running away with my car and with your cloak, and with being in the house when the crime was actually committed, to dare to tell the police the truth. Even if he did go with his story I doubt if you would be arrested, as on the face of it he looks much more guilty."

"Do you think he is guilty, Cyrus?" she asked tremulously.

"Well," I spoke doubtfully, "some such thought struck me once or twice. He was in the house, he wanted the eye to learn the secret of the hiding-place, and he knew that you had paid a visit. He might have murdered the old lady with your hat-pin so as to throw the blame on you, and then might have hoped to implicate you still further by using your cloak as a disguise. That Giles mistook him for a woman--which he counted upon--would, of course, aid him to entangle you yet more in the snare. But I can't be sure if he is actually guilty."

"I hope not, I hope not," murmured Gertrude anxiously, "it would be such a terrible thing for him to murder his relative. I don't mind Joseph at all if he would only get rid of this crazy affection he has for me. I don't know why he loves me so?"

"Look in the glass, and you'll see," I said, kissing her.

"Oh, nonsense, Cyrus," said Gertrude impatiently, "how can you joke when things are so serious. I am a very ordinary girl, and Joseph is half mad, I really believe. Oh"--she stopped short and looked at me--"that eye."

I saw what she meant. "Yes," I nodded, "that struck me also. Joseph might have been the one who placed it on that drawing-room table to implicate you. In that case--if we can only force him to confess as much--he must be guilty of the murder."

"I hope not--I hope not," she said again shiveringly, "and yet"--then she went off on a new line of thought--"if he placed the eye there, why should he take it away again?"

"He may not have done so. Do you know, Gertrude, I should not be surprised if your Aunt Julia had it. She wanted the eye, as we know, because she desires to handle the money. Apparently she told Joseph of your visit to Mootley, so that he might go there on the same day and anticipate your learning the secret from Mrs. Caldershaw."

"But what would she gain by that?"

"She would be able to make Joseph give her part of the money when he found it," I replied quickly.

"Then you think she anticipated the murder?"

"Not for one moment, my dear. With all her faults, your aunt is not wicked enough to deliberately urge a man to commit murder. But she sent Joseph ahead first, trusting that Mrs. Caldershaw would tell him the secret before you arrived. Then he could return with the cipher and they could understand it together--solve it, that it. But, as things turned out--all this is pure theory mind--Joseph did not show her the eye."

"But he could not have had it, by his own confession," insisted Gertrude.

"Quite so. But who else could have placed the eye on the drawing-room table, my dearest? I suspected Giles; I suspected you; and, I think, in a way, I suspected Striver, since he was working in the garden. Now I am sure. He put it there, because he was unable to read the cipher and so made use of it to implicate you. Miss Destiny found it and probably now it is in her possession. That glass eye has a trick of disappearing."

"The Disappearing Eye," said Gertrude, with a wan smile, "but you are wrong about Aunt Julia, Cyrus. She was with me all the time when you saw the eye, and I walked with her to the gate myself. We were not in the drawing-room."

I was disappointed when I heard this. "In that case, she could not have taken it," I mused. "Mr. Monk, could not, as he was with me all the time."

"Cyrus, how can you think that papa would do such a thing?"

I smiled covertly. My experience of Mr. Monk showed me that he could act in an extremely underhanded and mean way when it suited his own tricky ends to do so. But, bearing my promise in mind, I did not dare to explain myself to the girl. I merely said that perhaps, after all, Striver took the eye back again, as he had every opportunity of doing so.

"But he would have produced it when we talked," insisted Gertrude again.

"No. That would incriminate him too deeply. However, this eye, as I have said, seems to have a trick of appearing and disappearing, so it will turn up again. Meanwhile we will give Mr. Striver the benefit of the doubt and assume him to be innocent, although I'm hanged if his actions look like it. He won't say anything, you may depend upon that."

Striver did not, and evidently my policy of daring him to do his worst had proved successful. He remained a week in Burwain, but did not come near the house. Then he disappeared. Mrs. Gilfin told me the news. Striver had given his cottage into the charge of some cousin and had gone away for an indefinite period.

"Didn't say where he was going," chatted Mrs. Gilfin. "I asked John to find out from the gossip in the bar, but he couldn't. But, knowing men as I do, I know where he's gone."

"Where, Cuckoo?" I asked anxiously, for, bearing in mind what the gardener knew, I was eager to know his whereabouts.

"To London town," said Mrs. Gilfin solemnly, "young men with money always go there to have a spree. And since you've caught the eye of Miss Gertrude, Master Cyrus, dear, that young man's given up trying. With his aunt's money he's gone to enjoy himself."

I doubted it. Striver was too deeply in love to get rid of his crazy passion so easily. Still it was possible that he had gone to London to drown his disappointment in an orgy, so I took the news of his departure to Gertrude, although I did not tell her of Mrs. Gilfin's belief. I found the girl puzzling over a letter from her father.

"He's going to New York on business," she said, handing me the letter; "now I wonder what his business can be, Cyrus. And why did he go away without coming down to tell me personally and say good-bye?"

I read Mr. Monk's precise handwriting carefully. He had kept to my agreement with him, and had left the country. He would be away, he wrote to his daughter, for an indefinite period, and hoped to return a wealthy man. I guessed that such a mean creature would probably stay in America and marry there, leaving his daughter to look after herself. Luckily there was a postscript stating that if Gertrude wanted money she was to apply to a lawyer whose address was given. I handed back the letter with a shrug. Since Mr. Monk had departed there was no reason for me to say anything at all, although I had limited my silence to a fortnight.

"I expect he's found some business which will make him rich, and has had to go off in a hurry. You can't miss him very much, Gertrude, darling, for he is never here."

"No, that is true," she said thoughtfully, folding up the letter, "and since you have come into my life, Cyrus, I miss my father very little, still he might have come to say good-bye. I am afraid," she ended, sighing, "that papa is a little selfish."

"Well, never mind. He'll return with wealth, as he says."

"Do you think he will?"

"I am sure of it," I replied, kissing her, for if Mr. Monk did appear in Burwain again, a contingency I could not be sure would take place, he would doubtless admit his possession of the Australian cousin's money to his daughter. Meanwhile, as I pointed out, he was gone, and Striver was gone, so all we had to do was to enjoy ourselves.

"Then there's no danger of Joseph seeing the police?"

I kissed her again. "No. Set your mind at rest!" And truly, when day after day went past and no news came I began to believe that Mr. Striver and his suggested revenge had passed away altogether. The murder of Mrs. Caldershaw--unless the gardener was guilty--still remained a mystery, but so long as Gertrude was not troubled I cared very little if it were never solved.

September passed into October, and that damp month gave place to foggy November. I remained very comfortably lodged at the Robin Redbreast, and saw Gertrude every day. The lawyer sent her a weekly sum, so all was well financially, and for the rest, she no longer felt lonely, since she had my company to an unlimited extent. We motored a great deal, we sometimes visited the Tarhaven theatre, and we spent long evenings together over the piano, for Gertrude was a very good musician. If ever a man had an opportunity of knowing what kind of wife he was marrying, I was that lucky individual. Our wooing was odd and unconventional, to say the least of it, and I was known in Burwain village as "Miss Gerty's young man." Only Puddles acted as chaperon, although Miss Destiny sometimes assumed that office.

The little old lady was extremely gracious to me, and actually asked me to afternoon tea in her tin house, an unprecedented favour, considering her avaricious nature. Gertrude privately informed me that her aunt did not again refer to the hidden money, and evidently was quite ready to wait until it was found. If it was, and she did not receive her half, I had no doubt that she would show her teeth, but meanwhile she was bland and smiling and agreeable. I disliked her myself, as I knew she was holding a whip over Gertrude. Still, so long as she did not use it, I had no cause to complain. Gertrude's position--owing to circumstances over which she had no control--was an extremely delicate one, and Miss Destiny, as a possible scandalmaker, had to be propitiated. I was therefore as amiable to her as she was to me, but I fancy she hated me under her feigned mask of friendship, as several times I caught sly glances revealing the smouldering fires of her suppressed feelings.

I had, through those damp months, a companion at the Robin Redbreast in the small person of Dicky Weston. True to his intention, he had leased a few acres of waste land outside the village and, having enclosed it with a high tin fence, had erected sheds for his three or four workmen--in the construction of his airship he did not retain more--and for the housing of the vessel (as I presume it may be called). The various parts were brought from London, and Weston spent his days in putting them together. Meanwhile he lived along with me at the inn, and we had a common table. I rather liked Weston, although he was confoundedly absent-minded. He told me--for we grew confidential--that he had proposed to Mabel and that she had refused him.

"I believe she's in love with that Marr fellow," said Weston savagely.

"She is in love with you, my dear chap," I assured him; "anyone but a half-blinded inventor could see that."

"Then why didn't she accept me?"

"Do you expect a girl to drop into your mouth like a ripe apple, just because between the intervals of what you regard as more important business you propose to her. Women need to be wooed in order to be won, Weston, and Lady Mabel--very rightly, declined to be considered a side issue of your life interest."

"But I love her no end, Vance."

"Pooh! You would sacrifice her and a dozen like her to your Moloch of an airship," I said lightly.

"I wouldn't," he insisted; "but Mabel couldn't expect me to throw over everything to dance at her heels."

"She could expect it, and she did expect it. Weston, you don't know the sex."

"I know Mabel, and I love Mabel," he muttered, "but since she won't have me there is no more to be said. I expect to hear she has married Marr."

"You expect wrongly then," said I with a shrug; "Marr has gone to America for an indefinite period, and is out of the running."

"Then there's a chance for me," he said, his dark face lightening up.

"If you play your cards properly."

"Show me how to play, then," he asked me, and I laughed.

"Good Lord man, you aren't a child, to be shown what to do. Make a fuss with Mabel, and show her--as she deserves to be shown--that she is the one woman in the world for you."

"So she is, so she is. I love her no end. Upon my soul I do."

"You have not shown that by your actions," I replied dryly; "if your love was so ardent you certainly would not be daunted by a single refusal."

Weston sighed. "I don't understand girls," he confessed.

"You certainly don't, my friend. However, if you are willing to make another attempt, ask Mabel down to see your airship."

"She won't come: she can't come."

"Why not? It isn't a long journey."

"From Italy it is," he said dolefully. "Lady Denham and her niece have been in Florence for some weeks. Lady Denham wrote and told me they were going."

"Oh, she wrote you, did she? That shows that, now Marr is off the scene, Lady Denham will favor your suit. Cannington's at Florence also. I got a letter from him a few days ago. The whole party are coming back to England for Christmas, as Lady Denham virtuously intends to spend the festive season at her country house in the good old English fashion."

"It's a fortnight to Christmas," ruminated Weston anxiously. "I wonder if Lady Denham would ask me down."

"I am quite sure she would. Men with thirty thousand a year are not easily picked up. Marr, the millionaire," I laughed when I said this, "having sheered off, Lady Denham will be delighted if her niece will marry you."

"But Mabel doesn't love me for my money, I hope."

"No. She's too decent a girl. You will be a lucky man if you win her. Lord knows what she can see in you, Weston. You're not handsome, not entertaining, and your mind generally floats in the clouds with your blessed airship."

Weston laughed, in no wise offended. "I'll tell you what," he said after a pause, "I'll wire Cannington asking him to bring his sister down here when they return to England."

"Won't a letter do? Why are you in such a hurry?"

"I haven't time to write a letter," confessed Weston candidly, "a wire is just as good, if more expensive. But if they come down I can then show Mabel the airship and ask her to use it with me for the honeymoon. She can't mistake that offer."

"It's an odd one, but she certainly can't," I answered laughing.

The consequence of this conversation was that Weston sent his telegram, and then promptly forgot all about it in the interest of his infernal aerial tramp. Cannington did not reply, so I wrote him a long letter, detailing my conversation with the inventor, and pointing out that Lady Mabel was the dream of the little man's life. So she was, in a way, although Weston had a queer method of showing it. My letter crossed another one from Cannington, and I learned that the party had returned to England sooner than was expected. Thus Weston's wire to Florence had not reached Lady Mabel. I posted another explanation to Cannington, and Weston, during the course of the week before Christmas, received a hasty note from the boy, saying that he was bringing down his sister to see--me. This made Dicky furious.

"Good Lord!" he grumbled, "are you in love with Mabel?"

"Considering that I have introduced you to my future wife, how can I be?"

"Then why does Cannington bring her to see you, confound you?"

"Because you have behaved badly to his sister."

"I haven't. I asked her to marry and she----"

"Very rightly refused to have you. Weston, you are a complete ass. Leave me to arrange this matter, and when you get the chance throw yourself at Mabel's feet and let her trample on you."

"I'll do whatever you like," said Weston, who was about as much in love as a man divided between science and humanity well could be.

The result of my efforts came about in due course. Cannington appeared on the scene in a walking kit, along with his sister, and announced that they were stopping at the Buckingham Hotel, Tarhaven, for a few days. The boy looked very well after his foreign tour, and Lady Mabel was as blooming as a rose. Weston being as usual in his yard attending to his darling airship, I gave Cannington and the girl afternoon tea, and we had a long chat, which included news on both sides.

"Mabel got an offer from an Italian count," said Cannington gaily.

"And I refused," replied Mabel. "I have made up my mind to be an old maid."

"You look like the sort that become old maids," I retorted, admiring her fresh comeliness, "and Weston will have a word to say to that."

Mabel set her mouth obstinately. "I sha'n't accept Dicky," she said, with a fine access of color; "he seems to think he has only to ask and to have."

"Well, then, he found that he asked and didn't get," I said teasingly; "he has been punished enough, Mabel, and loves you desperately. He can't get on with his work for thinking of you. Accept him, my dear girl, and then, the matter being settled, he can attend to his work."

"If I accept him I shall have to be his work," said Mabel wrathfully. "I am not going to be neglected for his airship. But let us leave Dicky alone for the present. If he asks me again, I might--mind you, I don't say that I will--but I might box his ears and accept him. Meanwhile, what about Miss Monk? I am dying to see her."

"So am I," chimed in Cannington, pushing back his chair.

"One at a time, boy. Mabel, you come along with me to The Lodge and we shall see Gertrude. Then you can give me your opinion on my extremely good taste. As to Cannington, he had better look up Dicky in his yard."

"I'd rather come and see Gertrude--I mean Miss Monk."

"No. To-morrow you shall be presented. Go and talk to Dicky like a Dutch uncle--he deserves it--while Mabel and I call on Gertrude."

Cannington nodded, although I could see that he was not very well pleased with the arrangement. On the way out of the inn he tugged at my sleeve while Mabel was speaking to Mrs. Gilfin. "I say, have you learned anything more about the Mootley business?"

"Not lately," I replied in low tones. "I'll tell you all I know when we have more time. Go and see Dicky. By the way," I caught his sleeve this time, "have you heard anything of Marr?"

"Not a word. Why?" He stared wonderingly.

"Oh, nothing. Never mind."

"Mabel," I turned to the girl, "I am at your service."

Cannington shrugged his square shoulders and the three of us walked to The Lodge. Weston's yard was farther on, quite beyond the village, so I directed Cannington to go straight on, telling him that he could not miss the workshop. Then I took Mabel inside the grounds of The Lodge and up to the door. Eliza opened the door and conducted us to the drawing-room. While she went to inform her young mistress of our arrival, Mabel glanced round admiringly.

"What a charming old room!" she said delightedly; "it must have been built by William the Conqueror: all except the horrid windows."

"They are rather out of place," I admitted; "some Vandal of a Monk, put them there during the Albert period, when everything was ugly."

"I shall get Dicky to give me a room like this--without the French windows, of course," chatted Mabel.

"Oh! then you intend to marry him."

"Certainly not. I intend to box his ears if he has the cheek to speak to me again. The idea!"

"What shall I give you for a wedding present, Mabel?" I asked, laughing.

"Dicky's head on a charger," she replied promptly.

"In that case there would be no wedding. Come, Mabel, you know you love Weston and intend to marry him."

"Well, I do, on one condition."

"What is that?"

"He must burn or smash his horrid airship before my very eyes."

"Well," said I, thoughtfully and with intent, "he loves you so much that I believe he'll even do that."

"Oh, Cyrus, would he"--her eyes sparkled--"does he really love me?"

"Desperately. He's been miserable since you refused him."

"Oh, poor Dicky--" she began, but got no further, for Gertrude entered as the words left her lips and came forward with a smile.

"Lady Mabel," she said, holding out her hand, "I have no need to ask your name, as Cyrus has described you to me so often."

"Oh, we've known each other for ages," said Mabel warmly. "Cyrus is just like my elder brother. I am so glad to meet you. Cyrus told me--well, I daren't tell you what he told me, it would make him blush."

"I have not blushed since I was a baby," I retorted. "Gertrude, Lady Mabel is stopping at Tarhaven with her brother and----"

"Don't call me Lady Mabel. It's very rude. Miss Monk, why don't you keep him in better order?"

"Don't call me Miss Monk," said Gertrude, smiling. "I know you quite well from what Cyrus has told me, and, indeed, Mr. Weston."

"Oh, Dicky," Mabel blushed, "he's such a silly man, Miss--well then, Gertrude."

"Hurrah, Gertrude! you are received into the family circle," said I.

"Not until she meets Cannington," said Mabel, rising. "What a lovely, lovely room you have, Gertrude," she moved from one point to another; "it's as lovely as--you are."

"What a nice speech, Mabel."

"Yes, isn't it? I always make nice speeches, and--and--oh!" she stopped short.

"What's the matter?" asked Gertrude, seeing that her visitor was staring at a photograph in a silver frame, "that is my father."

"Your father," repeated Mabel, and my blood ran chill, for I guessed what was coming. "Why, it's a photograph of Mr. Wentworth Marr, who wished to marry me."