Annie Haynes Premium Collection – 8 Murder Mysteries in One Volume. Annie Haynes
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Название: Annie Haynes Premium Collection – 8 Murder Mysteries in One Volume
Автор: Annie Haynes
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 9788075832535
isbn:
“What particular bent has your mind taken this morning, may I ask?” said Arthur, seating himself beside Hilda.
Hilda did not move when he laid his hand over hers; her eyes still looked listlessly in front of her.
“I do not think I shall ever find my mother; I do not think I shall ever recover my memory,” she said hopelessly in a low monotonous tone. “Arthur, you must let me go away now. I will—”
“You will stay here,” Sir Arthur interrupted. “What did Dr. Grieve tell you the other day? It is only a matter of time, and then you will be restored to your mother and your friends. Do not talk of going away, Hilda. What should I do without you?” He raised her cold hand to his lips as he spoke.
It was the first open caress on which he had ventured in his mother’s presence, and that lady frowned.
“As for finding Hilda’s mother,” she said shortly, “I am inclined to think that she has no near relatives; it is inconceivable that if she had, some inquiry about her should not have been made before now, as Mrs. Leparge says.”
“At any rate,” Mavis interposed,” I do not think that Hilda has had any loss in discovering that Mrs. Leparge is not related to her. I took a dislike to her at once.”
“To Mrs. Leparge!” Lady Laura echoed in surprise. “Oh, Mavis, my dear, how absurd! I thought her particularly charming.”
“I did not!” Mavis maintained stoutly. “I did not like her face one little bit; and she had such a curious sidelong way of looking at one. Never once did she meet a glance fully. Didn’t you notice it?”
“No, I did not!” replied Lady Laura tartly. “I think you are becoming very fanciful, Mavis. You should try to cure yourself of it, child; it is a very bad habit. I was feeling too sorry for the poor woman’s disappointment to criticize her. Poor thing, it is too terrible for her, after being so hopeful.”
Mavis was not to be disposed of so easily, and her brown eyes looked mutinous.
“Mrs. Leparge’s eyes were quite dry, though she put her handkerchief to them so much. I noticed them,” she said sceptically. “And I thought the way she was talking to Hilda was rather a curious one. Still it doesn’t matter; we shall not be likely to see any more of her in future.”
“No; but it is very wrong to allow oneself to be prejudiced against people by absurdities like that—things that probably exist only in your own imagination,” Lady Laura said severely.
Poor lady, she was feeling distinctly out of gear with the whole world this morning. Her hope had been that with Hilda’s belongings some barrier to her marriage with Sir Arthur might have been discovered, and, disappointed of this, it was a relief to vent her vexation upon some one.
“Garth says that that sort of thing is an instinct given us for our protection!” Mavis retorted. “He says that he has known of cases in which it has proved—”
Sir Arthur burst into a brotherly laugh.
“Oh, Garth says!” he mimicked. “But Garth is not quite such an authority to all of us as he is to you, my dear Mavis.”
Chapter XVI
“Well, it is about as queer a go as I ever heard of. I can’t see daylight in it at all yet, but one thing I am clear about, that there’s more in the affair than meets the eye—a great deal! Some of us will be surprised before we hear the last of it, I’m thinking!” Superintendent Stokes stroked his chin thoughtfully as he looked up at the Manor House. “I just wonder if it was her or not?”
Lost in thought, he remained stationary for a few minutes. The night was dark and cloudy; little scuds of rain beat in the superintendent’s face every two or three minutes; a mild westerly wind was rising and rustling the leaves.
Suddenly there was a quick step behind him, a strong hand was laid on his shoulder.
“What are you doing here, my man?”
Superintendent Stokes wrenched himself free.
“I beg your pardon, Sir Arthur!” he said as he recognized his assailant.
“Oh, is it you, Stokes? Why are you prowling about here at this time of night? I am sure I don’t know what people may be taking you for if they see you. Anyhow, you may be quite sure that they will be pretty well scared. Have you heard the latest reports—that Mary Marston haunts the shrubbery and grounds? My sister and Miss Hilda”—Arthur brought out the Christian name with some hesitation; it was distinctly awkward, he often found, to have to speak of some one without a surname—“both declare they saw her the other night. I don’t believe I could get either of them in the shrubbery after midnight for a king’s ransom.”
The superintendent nodded, still surveying the lighted windows of the house before him.
“Ay, I have heard of the ghost, Sir Arthur! I reckon there is not many in Lockford that haven’t, as far as that goes. About the young ladies, I think you are mistaken, Sir Arthur. I am pretty well sure I saw one of them not many minutes ago.”
“What, here alone in the dark!” Sir Arthur exclaimed incredulously. “You are out this time, Stokes; I am sure my sister would not venture—”
Superintendent Stokes paused a moment before speaking and scraped up the dry leaves into a little heap at his feet.
“I didn’t say it was Miss Hargreave,” he said in a deliberate tone at last, “and I didn’t say she was alone.”
There was a pause. Sir Arthur’s face was very stern.
“What do you mean, Stokes?”
The superintendent took off his cap and held up his face to the cool, damp air with a sigh of relief.
“I saw somebody out here a quarter of an hour ago, Sir Arthur, somebody talking to a young man; I am pretty sure that it was the strange young lady. I wondered at the time what she was doing out here.”
“A quarter of an hour ago!” Arthur exclaimed wrathfully. “Why, a quarter of an hour ago I was sitting with the ladies myself before I came out for a smoke, so I know that it is a mistake!”
“A quarter of an hour, more or less, I take it to be, Sir Arthur, though I did not look at my watch,” the superintendent returned stolidly. “But if she was with you it could not have been the young lady—wearing a dark dress she was, and I thought I caught the gleam of her yellow hair.”
“Miss Hilda has a long clinging white thing on to-night.”
“Seems as it couldn’t be her, then,” concluded the superintendent. “Must have been one of the maids out with her young man, I suppose. It was this business of the ghost that brought me up here, Sir Arthur. To my mind it wants looking into.”
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