Inspector Stoddart's Most Famous Cases. Annie Haynes

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СКАЧАТЬ he had come down from town. A representative of the Home Office probably."

      Hilary felt suddenly startled.

      "Why should a representative of the Home Office come down here at this time of night?"

      "Ah, that you will probably know in the morning."

      Something in Skrine's voice forbade further questions. They walked up to the drawing-room window in silence. Skrine held it open; then as Hilary was about to pass through he stopped her.

      "I have thought of a way to save Wilton."

      Hilary looked up at him. Was it the moonlight, she wondered, that had made his face look ashen pale and stiff like the face of a corpse, or a mask in which only his eyes were alive; big and burning they looked in that strange pale light.

      "And I"—he seemed to bring out the words with difficulty—"give you back your promise. You will be free, quite free, when he comes to you."

      He paused, and she could see the muscles of his throat working. A feeling as of some terrible, impending catastrophe came over Hilary. In spite of Skrine's words of hope a great awe fell upon the girl. She did not speak.

      Skrine took her hands. "I have a feeling that I should like to hear you say you forgive me, Hilary."

      "Forgive you!" the girl murmured, looking into that pallid face, those pain filled eyes.

      "For what? You have always been kind to me."

      Skrine's grasp of her hand grew almost convulsive.

      "For—for everything. Say 'I forgive you,' Hilary."

      "I forgive you," Hilary murmured.

      "Thank you—"

      He seemed to be about to add something, then he stopped, almost threw her hands away, and strode off without another backward look.

      Hilary went upstairs very quietly, hoping not to wake her aunt; but just as she reached her room her aunt's door opened and Miss Lavinia came out.

      "Well, upon my word, this is a nice time for you to take your walks abroad. What have you been doing, pray?"

      Hilary did not answer. She went across to her window.

      "There are such funny lights in the churchyard, Aunt Lavinia."

      "Lights! Corpse lights, do you mean?"

      Miss Lavinia came into the room. She looked rather more extraordinary than usual in the garments in which she prepared for repose. Naturally the flimsy "nighties" beloved of the modern woman made no appeal to her. She wore thick woollen pyjamas, Jaegar make; they came right up to her neck and down to her wrists and ankles. In them, as she often said, she felt prepared for anything. Her teeth she had frankly laid aside and the front of her hair was kept in its place by divers combs, which the lady called setting it. On the top of them she had stuck a towering erection which she spoke of as a boudoir cap. She followed Hilary to the window.

      "Why, bless my life, the child is right! There are people moving about in the churchyard, and lights—torches, I believe. And they look to me—they always said I had eyes like a hawk—as if they were digging."

      "Aunt Lavinia, you couldn't see through that tarpaulin, or whatever it is they have put up." And Hilary could not help thinking that the gaslight made her aunt's face look green.

      "They haven't made it high enough this side—I wonder what they are doing?"

      Then oddly enough, considering her interest in what was going on, she drew down the blind sharply.

      "Whatever it is, it is no business of ours! Now make haste and get into bed, Hilary. If you have a headache, as you said you had, you are not going the way to improve it."

      And now Hilary became conscious that she was very tired—that the one thing she needed was sleep.

      Very quietly she undressed herself and got into bed, her aunt tucking her in with awkward, unaccustomed fingers, but with almost motherly tenderness.

      As soon as she had gone Hilary fell into a dreamless slumber, lasting far beyond her usual hour for getting up. Somewhat to her surprise her aunt stood by the window in much the same position as she had seen her the preceding evening.

      "Why, Aunt Lavinia, you've not been there all night surely?" she said stupidly.

      "Good Lord! No, of course I haven't," said Miss Lavinia, staring at her. "Don't you see I am dressed? I have had a shock this morning. I don't believe in beating about the bush, so I will tell you at once. I expect it will be one to you too—Sir Felix is dead!"

      Hilary lay and gazed at her.

      "He can't be!" she gasped at last. "I was talking to him just before I came to bed last night."

      "Well, you will not talk to him any more," her aunt said brusquely.

      Hilary was conscious of a great bewilderment and a feeling as if the bottom had fallen out of the universe rather than of any personal sorrow.

      "But what killed him? He was quite well last night."

      "I dare say he was," Miss Lavinia said slowly. "But as I said before it's no use beating about the bush and you will hear it when you get down, for the whole place is buzzing with it. Sir Felix shot himself."

      "It can't be true!" Hilary sprang up in bed with eyes of horror. "He would not do such a thing. Somebody has shot him as they shot Daddy. He—Godfather—was telling me that he had thought out a way of saving Basil—that I was not to worry any more. And now, what shall we do without him?"

      "I fancy," Miss Lavinia said very slowly, "I really fancy, for nobody has told me, that Sir Felix has not forgotten Basil Wilton."

      "But how could he—"

      "I shall answer no more questions—come downstairs and have your breakfast."

      Miss Lavinia's tone was decisive.

      Chapter XXIV

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      "Wilton will be acquitted of course," Harbord said, looking at the inspector. Stoddart nodded.

      "The prosecution will offer no evidence against him. He will leave the court without a stain on his character—that style of thing. Skrine's confession may be put in or it may not. Anyway, it will have to be made public. Wilton must be cleared of all complicity in Dr. Bastow's murder as well as Iris Wilton's."

      "I should have fought it out if I had been Skrine," Harbord said, knitting his brows. "Conviction wouldn't have been easy."

      Stoddart smiled grimly.

      "It wouldn't have been difficult. He knew they would find arsenic in Lady Skrine's body. His recognition as William Taylor was bound to follow. In fact he must have felt pretty certain that it had already taken place to account for the exhumation. In that lay СКАЧАТЬ