Mystery at the Rectory. Dorothy Fielding

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      "The milkman, of course! He told cook. Cook told Margery who brings in my tea. Well, I wanted the engagement broken off, as you know, but hardly like this I can't understand it! Poor Anthony!"

      She stopped as Doris, looking herself again, came in.

      "Where's Olive?" she asked. "I want that letter from Dick that you gave her, Grace."

      "And John wants to break some bad news to her."

      "Bad news? Is Anthony ill? Was that what you meant just now? I'm afraid I was too wrapped up about Dick to care what had happened to any one else." She was facing the rector.

      "It'll be a shock to you too, though," he said now. "Revell is dead, Doris."

      She stared at him open-mouthed.

      "It seems that he has accidentally shot himself," he explained. "Weir-Opie has just told me. He thinks Anthony was cleaning his revolver and did something awkward—a bullet went through his temple."

      "How awful!" breathed Doris. "What will that poor girl do? What a dreadful thing for her!"

      "I want to tell her at once. Weir-Opie wonders if she knew that Anthony was back last night."

      "Back? But he's away rock-climbing surely. How could he be back! You don't mean—" her tone grew more shocked still "—that it happened at The Causeway?"

      He nodded gravely. "In the drawing-room there. I don't know more myself."

      "I'll find her," Doris volunteered. "And I'll let the letter stand over for the time being."

      For a moment the rector wished that he could also let her break the news to Olive. But with all her attractiveness, Doris was not a religious woman at all. And in moments such as this, the only consolation was that which religion had to offer. It might, probably would, fail, but there was no other.

      The two women left him, and a minute later Olive came in, looking very confident and smiling.

      Avery stepped forward and took her hand.

      "My dear girl," he said in a very kind voice, for after all she was engaged to the dead boy. After all a smile and a pat, or even a jarring laugh might mean little. "Prepare yourself for bad news. Very bad news. Sit down here—" and then he told her just what the Chief Constable had told him. It seemed to turn her to stone. Before her pallid silence Avery was at a loss, for it had some unexpected quality in it that he felt, but could not name. Of personal grief, as he expected to meet it, there was practically none.

      Had she not loved Anthony then? Had she only accepted him as what he was, in one sense, a marvellous stroke of luck? The rector had had his doubts on that score since yesterday, but he had told himself that it was not fair to probe too deeply into her motives.

      "Major Weir-Opie wonders whether you would let him ask you a few questions," he went on.

      She made for the door without a word. The Major turned at her entry with some apprehension. But a glance at her tearless face relieved him. He looked at her with secret curiosity. Anthony Revell was a young man who could have married any one, and he had chosen this girl, Olive Hill, a companion here at the rectory. True, Anthony Revell had always seemed quite unconscious of his position as fortune's favourite, a country life and books had always seemed to attract him more than the smart world, but even so, he was a prize in the matrimonial market, and this white-faced girl had won it. She was, he saw, quite pretty, but still—and then she raised her eyes.

      "Anything's possible with those eyes," he thought, meeting them full on. They were so intelligent. They seemed to be asking something of him...or trying to suggest something to him...The Major felt touched. He expressed his sincere sympathy with her in her great loss. Then he asked if she knew about Revell's return to his house some time last night after ten o'clock?

      She said that she only knew what the others knew, that Anthony was joining a friend and his sister rock-climbing, as the three had arranged months before. Anthony's engagement to her was to be publicly announced on his return. The delay in doing this was her wish.

      "Now, Miss Hill," the Chief Constable went on, "had he any valuables in the house? Anything that would especially attract thieves?"

      "He had lots of cups," she said, after a long silence.

      He cocked his head to one side. Cups nowadays, with silver at the price it was—not much temptation, besides Major Weir-Opie had an idea that Revell sent his silver to the bank when he left his house for any length of time, and he was leaving for a fortnight, wasn't he?

      Except for the cups, Olive seemed to have no suggestion to make.

      "You're wearing no ring," he went on a little anxiously. Tears must be near, he did not want to start the flood. "I wondered whether by any chance he would have the ring he meant to give you at the house? Would that be possible?"

      She said that she did not think it likely. He intended to bring her the ring on his return. A London firm was setting it.

      And then, since she could not apparently help him with any information, Major Weir-Opie left. Olive, palely composed, held out a hand which he found icy to the touch. She turned at once and went up to her room, locking herself in.

      Weir-Opie hurried away.

      The rector walked up and down his study. No need now to raise the question of Grace's terrible accusation. No need for him to prevent the marriage now. He felt the sincerest pity for Olive, and yet she baffled him.

      He had his car sent round; he must call at once on Lady Revell. But when nearly at the flagstaff he had his man take the turning to The Causeway, where the tragedy had happened. The house, a large one, lay isolated but for one cottage on the winding road, the cottage where lived the unsatisfactory Captain Byrd, or Mr. Byrd as he preferred to be called.

      The door of The Causeway was standing open. A policeman rose from his chair in the hall and saluted as the rector stepped in. Jamieson, the young butler whom Byrd had got Anthony to try, and who was doing well, came forward, his face working.

      "They sent word," he explained. "I came up at once, sir—not that I can do anything now—but at least I'm here."

      "The other servants?"

      "No need for them to come back, the Major says, till the inquest to-morrow, sir."

      The rector stepped into the room, the drawing-room which had been turned by Jamieson and the gardeners into a sort of chapel. It had a raised part at one end and there, on a draped bed, lay a long, motionless figure covered with a beautiful Chinese rug.

      The rector spent a quarter of an hour beside the dead boy, then he let himself out and continued along the road to The Flagstaff. This was a big house which stood behind high walls. It had, unlike the homely Causeway, regular entrance gates, and a lodge beside them. There was quite a sweep up to the front door, of a size that suggested that nothing under a Rolls or a Bentley could ever stop here. There were footmen. There was a butler. There was a general air of exalting the fussiness of life, that had always amused the rector, for the Admiral had considered anything less than a dozen servants as squalor. Small wonder that Gilbert lent a discreet ear—when his mother was out of the way—to some of Byrd's stinging words, Byrd whose theory was that no man should serve another, except the latter were a cripple or over the age of ninety. Anthony, with the excuse of СКАЧАТЬ