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

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СКАЧАТЬ I speak truthfully, will not please you, Mavis, and—”

      “What do you mean?” Mavis asked, looking at him in astonishment. “Surely you do not mean that you do not like Hilda?—Oh, Garth, and she is so sweet and lovable!”

      Garth pulled his moustache perplexedly.

      “I don’t trust her,” he said slowly at last. “To my mind there is something about her that does not ring true, but I think she is a capital actress, Mavis.”

      Mavis drew her hand from his arm.

      “What do you mean?” she said coldly. “Garth, it is not like you to be so suspicious, and when you know how fond I am of Hilda—”

      “Ah, don’t you see that is just what makes me so anxious, because you are brought into daily contact with her?” Garth interrupted. “Mavis, you know I never liked the idea of this girl staying on at the Manor in the way she’s doing for an indefinite length of time, and now that I have seen her—”

      “Well, now that you have seen her—” Mavis repeated in displeased accents.

      “I dislike that idea more than ever,” Garth finished. “I think I could give a pretty good guess at her object in coming to you, Mavis. I wondered to-day whether you were all blind but myself. If Lady Laura were to take the course I should advise, and send her to the seaside with a nurse or an elderly woman to look after her, I would guarantee that the young lady would soon recover her memory.”

      Mavis came to a sudden stop in the middle of the pathway.

      “Which is as much as to say you think that she has not lost it at all—that she is pretending and deceiving us all!” she cried indignantly. “Oh, Garth, I did not think you would be so uncharitable!”

      Garth looked down at her flushed face tenderly.

      “I can’t help having my own opinion, Mavis. Her pleasure in finding she could play and that pretty little speech about it were all done for effect, I am certain.”

      Mavis’s mouth looked mutinous and she drew away from the hand he outstretched to her.

      “Do you imagine that you know better than the doctors?”

      “I may be a better judge of human nature than the doctor who has seen her,” Garth said quietly. “I have had a pretty wide experience of the scurvy side of things at the courts, you know, but I merely give you my opinion for what it is worth, Mavis. You may all be right and I may be entirely wrong, only I know that I hate the thought of you living with this woman seeing her every day and—Oh, can’t I make you understand how I hate it for you?”

      Meeting the appeal in his eyes, Mavis softened.

      “Silly boy!” she said with a laugh. “What harm could she do me, I should like to know, even if it were as you fancy, which I am quite sure it is not?”

      “I don’t know,” said Garth thoughtfully. “Yet I have the strangest feeling—presentiment—call it what you will—that harm will come of it. Naturally Lady Laura—none of you—can have failed to note Arthur’s growing infatuation.”

      “Ah, no. Poor boy, you are looking at everything through jaundiced eyes,” Mavis said, patting his arm, her short-lived wrath evaporating as she saw the real anxiety in his face. “Arthur thinks her very beautiful—he is painting her for his Elaine—but it is Dorothy he cares for.”

      Garth made no response, but his dark face looked unconvinced. He drew Mavis’s arm through his.

      “Don’t let us talk of it any more, Mavis. I have something much nearer my heart to say to you this morning; my father was talking to me last night. He is very anxious to see me settled, Mavis.”

      “Oh!” The swift, hot colour surged over the girl’s face; her hand fluttered restlessly and tried to draw itself away.

      Garth held it in a close, warm clasp.

      “He was speaking of ways and means, Mavis. To all intents and purposes he is putting me into poor Walter’s place and making the eldest son of me—that is, as far as the unentailed property is concerned. The title, naturally, must be Walter’s, and the secured estate and the income of the latter, after my father’s death, if we should be in ignorance of his whereabouts, will have to accumulate for him, or for his children if he should have any. My father suggests that he should make over to us the house at Overdeen—the Priory, it is called; and then—for you would not have me give up my profession, would you, Mavis?—I thought I might look out for a little house in Kensington, and you will come to me. You will not keep me waiting long, will you, sweetheart?”

      The girl’s hot face was downcast; beneath the brim of her hat Garth could only catch a glimpse of the pretty, tremulous mouth. But the warm, soft fingers clung to his now. He stooped and pressed his lips to them.

      “Oh, Mavis, my darling, my own sweetheart! How can I thank you?”

      Mavis tore herself away.

      “Oh, Garth, some one is coming—I heard the leaves rustling!” her cheeks still aflame. “And, see, what in the world has Pompey got there?”

      She darted away. Garth, his eyes fixed fondly on her, followed more slowly.

      “It is a chain,” she said. “And what is this—a little book?” taking it from the dog’s mouth. “Be quiet, Pompey! No, sir, you shall not have it,” as he sprang upon her. “I wonder who has lost this—it is evidently a notebook from a chatelaine.” She unfastened the clasp with some difficulty and looked inside. “Garth”—the colour ebbing from her cheeks—“look at this!”

      “What is it, Mavis? What is the matter?”

      Mavis held it out and pointed to the name written on the first page, her hands trembling visibly.

      Garth looked over her shoulder. The little book had evidently lain in the damp for some time; the leaves were stained and discoloured, the cover tarnished, but the inscription written in ink on the fly-leaf was still perfectly legible—“Mary Anne Marston, from Lady Davenant.”

      “Mary Anne Marston!” Garth repeated in amazement. “Why, then, this is—it must be—part of the chatelaine my mother gave Nurse Marston when she first left home! We all made her some little present, and I know this was my mother’s, for I remember well how particular she was that everything should be put on the chain that she thought could be useful to a nurse—scissors and a knife and such like. This is the notebook, certainly. But how in the world did it come here? What is frightening you, Mavis?”

      For Mavis was ghastly pale and shivering apparently with fright.

      “Don’t you see that she must have dropped it after she left our house that night?” she said in a low, awestruck tone. “Don’t you remember that the note she wrote to my mother to say she wanted to see her was written on a page torn from this very book? Look!” she turned rapidly to the end and held it out to him. “There—that is the place she tore it from! Oh, Garth, don’t you see?”

      “I see!” Garth took it from her and looked at it carefully as he turned it about. “Well, at all events this proves that she came through the Home Coppice on her way from the Manor, and so it is valuable to us as the first clue that we have been able to find since СКАЧАТЬ