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

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      Chapter XV

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      “Ah, If I only knew! It may be that it is my own mother coming to see me, and I, her daughter, know nothing about it!”

      “Well, it will soon be settled one way or the other,” remarked Mavis prosaically. “Mrs. Leparge said she would be here early in the morning, and it is nearly eleven now.”

      Hilda turned and caught her hands.

      “Suppose she is not a nice woman, Mavis? suppose she should say that I am her daughter and take me away with her, and it should be all a lie—I should not be able to contradict her.”

      Mavis disengaged herself a little coldly. Since the preceding evening there had been a shade of aloofness in her manner towards Hilda, which so far did not seem to have made itself felt by the other girl.

      “Surely you cannot imagine that Arthur would let her interfere with you in any way without having given him full proofs of her claim?”

      “He might imagine she had,” said Hilda hopelessly. “Yet they might be forged or something of that kind, might they not? I am very ignorant, Mavis, but the mere thought of this interview frightens me.”

      “Don’t think of it then,” Mavis advised. “Let us talk of something else. What do you think of the very palest shade of blush pink for the gown I am to wear at the Tenants’ Ball?”

      Hilda threw a quick glance at her betokening anything but amiability, but she made no comment as she dried her eyes and came to the table where Mavis was idly turning over fashion papers.

      “Pink is your colour, there is no doubt, and if you had it veiled with some of Lady Laura’s exquisite lace—Mavis, there is a carriage!”

      Mavis sprang up.

      “Come along,” she cried as she swept both Hilda and the fashion-papers into the conservatory. “You know mother and Arthur want to see her first.”

      It was a quiet-looking, middle-aged woman, in a widow’s conventional garb, who rose when Lady Laura and her son entered.

      Lady Laura glanced searchingly at the somewhat worn features, at the pale, red-rimmed eyes and weak-looking mouth. Certainly if this were Hilda’s mother she in no wise resembled her daughter, she decided.

      “You, I am sure you understood that I could not remain away, Lady Laura,” she began, dashing straight into her subject without offering any preliminary greeting whatever. “The agents I employed wanted me to wait to send photographs, to ask for them from you, but I could not. I felt that I must come straight off as soon as I heard of the poor child’s whereabouts without telling them anything about it. She will remember her mother when she sees her, I said.”

      “Still, I am sure you will recognize that we must ask you a few questions before we allow you to see her,” Lady Laura said courteously. Checking her son with a look as he was about to speak, she invited her visitor to sit down and then went on more slowly, “Will you tell me some of your reasons for thinking that Hilda is your daughter?”

      “The name, the description, everything tallies,” the other said excitedly. “Lady Laura, you are not going to tell me that she is not my child after all, that I have been deceiving myself with false hopes?”

      “No; on the contrary,” Lady Laura said with polite interest, “I think all the probabilities point to Hilda being your daughter. But will you tell me a little of the circumstance under which you lost her?”

      Mrs. Leparge passed her handkerchief over her dry lips.

      “I can only tell you the facts of the case as they were related to me by the schoolmistress in whose charge I left her, for you must understand that I was abroad; it has been so dreadful to me that I have known nothing—that I have had to rely upon others for everything. She—Miss Chesterton—told me that before Hilda’s disappearance, though unknown to her at the time, it had been a matter of common talk that some man staying at one of the big hotels on the front—did I tell you she was at Brighton?—was always watching for Hilda and following her about when they were out for their walks; they called him ‘The Unknown’ and joked about him, as schoolgirls will. But when—when she went away they remembered it.”

      “Surely they had the man traced?” Arthur interposed, his face looking hot and wrathful. “Though I do not for one moment believe that this is—”

      “They made inquiries at once,” Mrs. Leparge went on. “He had been known at the hotel as Mr. James Duncan, and his only address given in the books was West Kensington. No such name appears in the directory, and the hotel authorities admit having some reason to believe it to be assumed, but they speak of him as a man apparently possessed of great wealth, and I am convinced that he decoyed my poor darling away.”

      “What a dreadful thing!” said Lady Laura, shuddering. “I wonder there was not more said about it in the papers.”

      “Oh, Miss Chesterton was like all schoolmistresses!” said Mrs. Leparge impatiently. “She thought first of the credit of the school—my poor Hilda came distinctly second. Lady Laura, when may I see her? You do not realize my anxiety or you would not delay our meeting.”

      “One more question,” said Lady Laura, detaining her as she would have risen. “When did this happen? When did your daughter leave her school?”

      “On the 29th of May. She was missing when the names were called in the evening, and has never been heard of since.”

      “And it was the 6th of June when we found Hilda in the park, was it not, Arthur?” said Lady Laura, turning to her son. “That would leave a week unaccounted for, but still it seems probable.”

      Sir СКАЧАТЬ