Scarecrow. Dorothy Fielding

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      CHAPTER IV.

       MISS BLYTHE TAKES THE NEWS ODDLY

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      As Inskipp locked the portraits into his suitcase until such time as he could get frames worthy of them, he saw Edna Blythe coming through the gate, looking her usual indifferent self.

      Inskipp hailed her and asked if he might have a word with her. She seemed startled, but she was easily startled, as he had noticed.

      "It's about Miss Rackstraw," he called when she was inside, and Edna's face lost its look of interest.

      "There's been an accident," Inskipp said. "Blythe wanted to find you, but Norbury thought the police should be told at once. Miss Rackstraw..." He told her what Blythe had told him. Blythe had spoken of the friendship between the two young women, a friendship of which Inskipp had seen no trace, but to his surprise Edna Blythe now turned an ashen face to his.

      "My brother was with her." she said in a curious, toneless voice and sank into a chair. "You're quite sure he didn't make a mistake? I mean, I suppose she really was dead—not just stunned?"

      "He said that there was no question but that she was killed outright, that neck and spine were both broken by her fall. There are some nasty places in the gorges around here," Inskipp added. Then he stopped, for Edna's face looked as though she were on the point of fainting. He started towards her, but she waved him back and ran up the stairs to her own rooms. The Blythes had a wing to themselves. Inskipp took a few turns outside on the cement path. He could not understand Edna Blythe's way of taking the accident to Florence Rackstraw. It looked, it really looked, as though she suspected that Florence had met her death in some other way than as Blythe reported it to have happened. It seemed a preposterous notion, but turning it over now in his mind, he recollected an occasion, a week or so back, when he had come on the two of them in a chestnut wood evidently disagreeing about something. Richard Blythe had moved away just as Inskipp saw the two, and for a second, as she looked after him before she caught sight of Inskipp, the latter had fancied that he had seen the look of a trapped animal on Edna Blythe's face. He had told himself at the time that the shadows of the shifting branches were responsible for the fancy. He was not so sure now. It was a horrid thought. Inskipp was far more than good natured, he had a really kind heart, and that odd impression of the woods, added to the way in which Edna Blythe had just taken the death of Florence while out with her brother, disturbed him. Her brother... Elsie Cameron had never liked Blythe...

      She and Mrs. Norbury were both still out. Edna Blythe and he were alone in the farm for the moment. He went to the foot of the stairs leading to her balcony, but when she ran down to him, it was from the stairs leading to his and the Rackstraws' rooms that she came, her suitcase in her hand.

      "I went into Florence's room just for a moment," she said, answering his look. Her face flushed. "Florence asked me to see to something for her in Nice. And it must be done at once." She spoke hurriedly, her words tumbling over each other. As a rule Edna had a drawl. She actually bit her lip for a second as she faced him.

      "I wonder—" she began. "Mr. Inskipp, I wonder—" her face was scarlet by now—"I wonder if you could let me have as much as—say—five hundred francs. I have hardly any French money."

      As it happened, Inskipp had brought from Mention the last time that he was there the equivalent of fifty pounds in francs.

      "It's just for the moment—my brother, of course, will repay it at once. I shan't get to Nice till too late for the banks," she murmured.

      Inskipp assured her that he would get her the money. She thanked him tremulously.

      "And please telephone for me to the Castellar Inn. I'm so upset I can't seem to remember my French. I want a car to take me down—at once!" Her teeth were actually chattering.

      Inskipp telephoned immediately. He was told that Miss Blythe could have the Ford, but that there was no one to drive her.

      "I'll drive myself. I don't mind. I'll be there at once. Tell him to be sure that there's plenty of petrol."

      Inskipp could not offer to take her, for, not much of a driver at any time, he could not drive a Ford at all.

      He handed her the notes and received a very grateful stammered word of thanks. Then unexpectedly she sat down at a table and began to write a short note. To her brother, she said. Meanwhile he picked up her suitcase and carried it out to the farm gates. She followed in a moment. She struck him as hardly conscious of where she was going, so long as she was making for Nice—or was that but a pretext to get away from the farm? He thought the latter, as the two now hurried on to the inn together. Some terror seemed to be urging her.

      When the Ford was ready she jumped into the driving-seat, told the inn-keeper that she would not forget about the rule of the road in France, hurriedly shook hands with Inskipp, and said that she had written a line to her brother about the five hundred francs, which would he please hand him. She produced an envelope with Richard Blythe scribbled in pencil on it.

      "I'll leave it in his room," Inskipp promised.

      She had her finger on the starter, but she took it away. "Not on any account!" she said earnestly, and again with that look of fear in her eyes. "I could have done that! Please hand it to him yourself."

      She waited for his "Certainly, since you prefer it." before she set the car in motion.

      With her eyes fixed on the road ahead of her, Miss Blythe was out of sight in a few minutes.

      She left Inskipp thoroughly uneasy. Back at the farm, he met Mrs. Norbury and Elsie, who heard the news with shocked horror. They, at any rate, did not look or act as though the fact that Richard Blythe had been alone with the dead girl had any terrible significance. On the contrary, Mrs. Norbury spoke of how great a shock it must have been for him.

      As for Mrs. Rackstraw, she dreaded to think, she said, what a blow Florence's death would be to her. And unfortunately the brother, being at the Red Caves, might not, she supposed, be home till late that night. "I suppose Mr. Blythe told his sister before my husband hurried him off?" she asked.

      Inskipp said that Miss Blythe knew of the tragedy, and had at once gone to Nice on some errand of Florence Rackstraw's. He said nothing of the extraordinary emotion which she had shown.

      Three hours passed before Norbury and Blythe returned. As Mrs. Norbury thought, the dead body of Florence had been taken to the village mortuary. She and Elsie went at once to the place to find it being transformed into a sort of chapel by the kindly people, who have that respect for death characteristic of their race, who see in it a promotion, СКАЧАТЬ