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

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ himself a short laugh.

      “I can’t say as I do—not as ghosts, Sir Arthur, but they have a value of their own in a case like this disappearance of Nurse Marston.”

      “I believe Nurse Marston is hiding somewhere, and coming out at night to frighten people,” Sir Arthur cried wrathfully. “Let me catch her, that is all, and I will—”

      Stokes so far forgot his dignity as to emit a low whistle.

      “What on earth has put that in your head, Sir Arthur? Mary Marston is not in hiding at Lockford—not alive,” he said significantly. “You can take my word for that.”

      Sir Arthur shrugged his shoulders.

      “Well, I am not inclined to accept the ghost theory.”

      “I never believed in a ghost yet, and I don’t think that I am going to start now,” said the superintendent placidly.

      “Bless you, man! What do you think then? If it was neither Mary Marston in the flesh nor in the spirit, what was it?”

      “Was there anything at all, Sir Arthur?” The superintendent’s tone was oddly eager, or so the young baronet fancied.

      “Oh, as to that, I do not fancy there can be any question!” he said decidedly. “My sister is not a likely person to imagine anything of the kind, and she saw her distinctly.”

      “Umph! Well, it is a strange case, and I don’t know what to make of it,” said Stokes. “I should be glad to clear it up, if only for Mrs. Marston’s sake; the old woman is fretting herself to death for her daughter.”

      “I have sometimes thought that she may have been persuaded into taking some long journey and lost her memory in the same sort of way as Miss Hilda has,” Sir Arthur went on meditatively.

      Dark though it was, Stokes gave a quick glance towards him.

      “Perhaps she may, Sir Arthur,” he assented placidly. “But about this ghost; I should like to watch for it a bit longer, if you have no objection. I have a fancy that, if I could see it, it might clear things up for me a bit.”

      “Well, watch as long as you like,” Sir Arthur agreed as he walked away. “I shall be glad to hear the result if you meet with any. Good night.”

      “Good night, Sir Arthur!”

      Left alone, Superintendent Stokes judiciously stepped behind a clump of trees.

      “I don’t suppose I could be seen—it is too dark,” he remarked inwardly. “Still, one never knows.”

      He had been standing there for some little time when he caught a whiff of tobacco and heard footsteps on the path. They stopped short of his hiding-place, and as the Superintendent peered forth cautiously he heard a woman say:

      “No, I wouldn’t come a step farther, not if it was ever so, Jim. I daren’t. I should be frightened I might see her again.”

      “More silly you!” The superintendent fancied the voice was not very brave. “We’ll stay here then. Now, Minnie, I want you to promise me that as soon as this jollification is over you will be ready for me.”

      “Oh, I don’t know, Jim! I can’t promise!”

      The superintendent, looking a little farther, fancied that the girl was crying. He had his own private disappointment too, for it seemed to him that the man before him was the one whom, but a few minutes before, he had seen talking to the girl he had taken for Hilda.

      “I suppose it must have been this one all the time,” he soliloquized. “Yet I made sure it was the other. Well, well! A bit of a hint won’t do Sir Arthur any harm, anyway.”

      He paid a little attention to the pair on the path; very soon he had gathered that the man was pleading for a speedy marriage, which the girl was tearfully refusing, but all this was not particularly interesting to Stokes, with his mind full of a different subject. He had allowed his fancy to travel along an obscure path, and was knitting his brows over a difficult problem he had encountered, when a sentence spoken by the girl roused him effectually from his absorption.

      “I can’t do it, Jim,” Minnie was saying in a voice broken by sobs. “I can’t bring myself to it, not until we know what became of her—Nurse Marston.”

      “Haven’t I told you times without number that that has got nothing to do with us where Nurse Marston went?” was the man’s reply, impatiently spoken. “You have got to let that alone and make up your mind, Minnie.”

      “Ah, it is all very well, but I can’t get it out of my head that if it hadn’t been for me she might have been alive and well now.”

      A rough exclamation broke from the man.

      “Be quiet about it, can’t you? I tell you what, Minnie, many a time of late you have pretty near made me lose my patience with you.”

      “I can’t help that,” the girl wailed. “It—you don’t know how I have been taking on, Jim. I have just sat down and cried and felt like a murderess.”

      “The more silly you, then,” the man said angrily, “What call have you got to say as she is dead, if you come to that, much less as you have anything to do with it?”

      “Ah, I have deceived myself long enough!” the girl murmured, with a sob. “I have tried to persuade myself as she would come back again all right after a while, and all the time something was whispering to me that she never would. Now that I have seen her I am sure. You won’t shake me, Jim. She pointed at me! I have never known what it is to have one moment’s peace, and I don’t expect to any more. I wish I was dead, I do!”

      “Ugh! Ghost!” the man said contemptuously. “Why should she point at you, pray? You go out and imagine things and then put yourself into this state about them.”

      “I didn’t imagine that,” the girl asseverated. “No, I saw her plain enough. It wasn’t to say dark, and there she stood. Alice Brown saw her too—she told you she did. As to why she pointed at me—you know, Jim, you know!”

      “I don’t know what you are driving at,” was the sullen answer.” It is my belief as this is all an excuse, Minnie, and the truth of the matter is that you are hankering after that Greyson still.”

      “I am not—you know I am not!” Minnie cried indignantly. “It is only—”

      “Well, if you are sure,” the man said slowly, “I promised not to tell, but I can trust you, Minnie. Listen!”

      There was a pause; the superintendent, craning forth a little further, could just make out through the darkness that the two heads were close together, that the girl was whispering to her lover. A not unreasonable disappointment overtook him; it might be that the very clue to the mystery which he was seeking lay there at his hand, and he was unable to avail himself of it. At length, while he was still impatiently chafing at his inability to hear, Minnie laughed aloud.

      “So that was it?”

      “That was it,” the man replied. “Now, Minnie, don’t you go fidgeting yourself over it again.”

      “Oh, СКАЧАТЬ