Annie Haynes Premium Collection – 8 Murder Mysteries in One Volume. Annie Haynes

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      Mrs. Rankin's comely face was pale and anxious. She went over and took the seat Sir Anthony drew up for her, near Lady Carew, and clasped Judith's hand in hers. Crasster stood by Sir Anthony on the hearthrug. Furnival and Lawrence occupied seats nearer the door, placed so that they had a good view of the faces of the other three.

      "If Lady Carew will begin—" Furnival said, glancing at Sir Anthony.

      The firelight gleamed on Judith's delicate face, shone on the masses of pale gold hair, gave for a moment a fictitious colour to the transparent skin. She drew herself up among her cushions, bracing herself for the ordeal that awaited her. Her fingers caught convulsively at Mrs. Rankin's hand, her eyes sought Anthony's. It was to him she was telling the tale, it was to him that she must vindicate herself! Her voice was very low and trembling when she began, it gathered strength as she went on.

      "I was very young when I married Cyril Stanmore, entirely in ignorance of his real character, and so friendless that I had no one to warn me that he was only a professional gambler. Our quarrels arose from the fact that when I did discover how his money was obtained I refused to help him to be a party to his schemes.

      "Everything culminated on the night he told me I had never been his wife at all, that our marriage had been illegal. That night I left him for ever. Chance had made me acquainted with Canon Rankin. I knew his kindly character. I told him my miserable story, and appealed to him for help. He took me to his own home, placed me in Mrs. Rankin's care, and promised to find me work.

      "Finally he suggested that I should act as his daughter's governess until I had had time to live down the past, to obtain a satisfactory reference for the future. How kind both he and Mrs. Rankin were to me in that terrible time no words of mine could ever tell! Finally, when there was no more work for me with them, they procured me an engagement at Heron's Carew. When I was going to marry Sir Anthony Carew, I did not tell them, because I knew that they would want me to tell him the secret of the past, and I couldn't—I couldn't put my happiness away from me with my own hands. I had heard, as I believed, of Cyril Stanmore's death before I left Canon Rankin's, therefore, his sudden appearance on the steps of St. Peter's, was a double shock to me. When he ordered me to come to his flat I was too bewildered to know what I ought to do—too overwhelmed to do anything but obey. When I got there—I had taken my husband's pistol to protect myself with—he, Stanmore, mocked at me, took it from me, and threw it down. Then I rubbed against the switch, and put out the electric light. In the darkness a shot was fired, I heard a fall and a groan. It was a long time before I could find the switch, but I could hear some one in the room, some one breathing heavily—"

      She paused and drank feverishly some water that Mrs. Rankin handed to her. Then with a shuddering glance round the circle of expectant faces, she went on.

      "When I did find the light," she whispered, "there was no one there but Cyril Stanmore and myself. When I saw that he was dead I was too terrified to do anything, or give the alarm. No one would believe me, I thought; everybody would think I had shot him. I hurried away."

      Her voice sank into silence.

      Inspector Furnival had been busy making notes in his pocket-book; he looked up now.

      "You were not alone when you left the block of flats, Lady Carew; a man came down the stairs with you?" he paused suggestively.

      Judith looked at him with wide-open, amazed eyes. "You know that too. But he—I met him on the stairs outside the flat; he had known me in the old time—and he turned with me and walked with me to the entrance."

      A spasm of fear that momentarily contorted her face, that caught her throat, making her voice husky and dry, did not escape the sharp-witted inspector's notice.

      "Will you tell us his name, Lady Carew. Can you say why, when the police were searching high and low to discover the identity of the visitor to the flat, he did not come forward to say he had met you?"

      There was a long pause. Judith's eyes turned about from side to side. The inspector waited, holding his pencil pointed over his notebook. Mrs. Rankin's mouth quivered painfully as she chafed the cold hand she held. At last Lady Carew spoke.

      "I suppose he was sorry for me!" she said faintly. "He had been a great friend of Stanmore's in the old time. I—I used to think then that he made Stanmore worse, that he was his evil genius, but perhaps—when he knew what had happened that night—he was sorry for me!"

      "His name?" the inspector questioned, writing rapidly.

      Judith hesitated again; she put up her handkerchief to her lips, she glanced across at Anthony. He was not looking at her.

      "I—I knew him as Jermyn Leigh," she stammered at last.

      "And you parted from him at the entrance to the flats, you say?" the inspector went on quickly. "You must pardon my putting these questions, Lady Carew; if this tangle is ever to be straightened out, we must have the truth and the whole truth now. Have you ever seen this man—Jermyn Leigh—since he left you that night?"

      "Y—es!" the word fell across the listening silence.

      Sir Anthony stood perfectly motionless. Crasster gave a quick inaudible exclamation as he leaned forward.

      The inspector waited. "Where?" he questioned at last. "In London, or since you came down to Heron's Carew?"

      "Since we came down to Heron's Carew!" She seemed to repeat his words mechanically. "Yes, yes, he is here, though I never thought—I never dreamt of such a thing till I saw him—" Her voice failed her; she caught her breath.

      "Ah, yes," the inspector assented. "The name by which he is known here, please."

      Judith looked at him; for a minute her lips seemed to move inaudibly.

      "He is Lord Chesterham."

      "Chesterham!" The exclamation burst from Crasster.

      Sir Anthony did not stir; Mrs. Rankin, as if moved by some sudden impulse of pity, leaned forward and kissed Judith's pale cheek.

      A little satisfied smile played round the inspector's mouth as he made another entry in his book.

      "He would recognize you when he met you down here of course?"

      "Oh yes, yes; he knew me!" Judith said faintly. "He promised to keep silence if—if I would not try to stop his marriage," she went on feverishly. "But now—now I can't any longer."

      "Thank you, I think that is all for the present." The inspector wore a curiously triumphant expression as he looked up. "Sir Anthony, will you gives us your help? Please tell us what you know of the night's doings."

      Sir Anthony glanced up.

      "It is so; little I know, as I told you, inspector. I picked up a paper that Lady Carew dropped, having on it Warden's address, and the hour at which she was to be at the flat. Sometimes now, it seems to me, looking back, that the very suspicion that my wife had made an appointment with another man drove me mad. I went to the flats at the time named; I waited in a doorway opposite, and I saw my wife go in, and come out again after some time. Then I went in. A man was standing in the vestibule; it struck me that he was watching Lady Carew, he was smiling to himself as he looked after her, but I had only a very cursory glimpse of him. I went up to the flat, but, of course, I could not get in. Of the tragedy itself I know nothing."

      "Did you recognize Chesterham as the man СКАЧАТЬ