The Markenmore Mystery. J. S. Fletcher

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      The violet eyes looked sharply round the room before settling on the girl’s face. There was a question in them—her lips repeated it.

      “Your brother—Guy? Is he here?”

      “No!” answered Valencia. “He’s not!”

      Mrs. Tretheroe’s fine eyebrows drew together in a puzzled frown.

      “But—my coachman, Burton, tells me that he saw him, this evening, coming here?” she said half-petulantly. “He must be here!”

      “He isn’t,” retorted Valencia. “He’s been here—and he’s gone.”

      “Gone? Where?”

      “I don’t know,” said Valencia. “What do you want?”

      Mrs. Tretheroe laughed, and as she laughed she drew her cloak and veil about her.

      “I wanted to see him again, to be sure,” she answered defiantly. “Why not? However, I suppose he’ll come to see me tomorrow.”

      “No!” declared Valencia. “He’s gone. Back to London.”

      “There’s no train to London at this time of night, child,” said Mrs. Tretheroe. She laughed a little maliciously. Then the note in her voice turned to one of sudden knowingness. “Ah!” she exclaimed. “I see!—no doubt he’s gone to call on me, now! I’ve missed him. Bye-bye, Valencia; sorry I have disturbed you.”

      She was out of the room and flying up the corridor and across the hall before Valencia could reply; a moment later the front door closed on her. Braxfield came back.

      “Is there anything I can do upstairs, miss?” he asked. “The nurse, now?—is there anything she’ll be requiring for the night?”

      “I don’t know of anything, Braxfield, thank you,” said Valencia. She was leaving the room then, but suddenly she paused, hesitated, and turned back to the old butler. “Braxfield,” she continued, with a look of confidence, “you’ve been in our family a long time, haven’t you?”

      “Most of my life, miss,” replied Braxfield. “Footman, ten; butler, thirty years.”

      “And you know a lot of our affairs,” said Valencia. “And no doubt more than I’ve any idea of. So—I wish you’d tell me something. Was there ever any love affair between my brother Guy and Mrs. Tretheroe—when she was Miss Leighton? I want to know, Braxfield.”

      Braxfield, in his turn, hesitated. He laughed, a little nervously—the laugh, too, of a man disposed to be indulgent towards memories of old days.

      “Well, you know, miss, of course a man in my position sees and hears a good deal,” he said at last. “Miss Leighton, as she was then—Mrs. Tretheroe, as she is now—was a great beauty, and, to be sure, a good deal run after. There was talk about her and Mr. Guy—they were about together, hunting, racing, and what not. But then—there were others after her.”

      “What others?” demanded Valencia.

      “Well, miss, there was Mr. Harborough—that was here tonight,” continued Braxfield. “He seemed very much taken at one time—you were away at your school in those days, miss, or you’d recollect. Yes, there was him—in fact, people used to wonder which it was going to be—Mr. Guy or Mr. Harborough. There were others—several of ’em—but those two were what you might call first and second favourites, to all appearance.”

      “Then why didn’t she marry one of them?” asked Valencia. “Do you know, Braxfield?”

      “I don’t, miss—no, I know nothing on that point. All I do know is that all of a sudden, without notice, as it were, both young gentlemen left these parts. Mr. Guy, he went off—very sudden, indeed—and we’ve heard nothing of him till now. Then Mr. John Harborough, off he went too—travelling in foreign countries. And they hadn’t been gone long—not a fortnight, I think—before it was given out that Miss Leighton was going to be married to Colonel Tretheroe. He was in command of his regiment, miss, at Selcaster Barracks. I mind him well enough: a red-faced gentleman.”

      “Older than herself?” asked Valencia.

      “Old enough to be her father, miss. But a very wealthy gentleman. They were married here in our church, soon after that, and a bit later the regiment was ordered out to India, and, of course, she went with her husband. Queer, isn’t it, miss,” continued Braxfield, with a shy glance at his young mistress, “that these people which knew each other well in the old days, Mrs. Tretheroe and the two gentlemen, Mr. Guy and Mr. Harborough, should all turn up again—here—about the same time? What they call coincidence—though, to be sure, Mrs. Tretheroe’s been back a month or so. But those other two—both coming here tonight—it gave me quite a turn.”

      “I suppose it was mere coincidence,” said Valencia.

      She bade the old man good night and went away upstairs. At the door of her father’s room she met Harry. Sir Anthony, he said, had fallen on a light sleep; the nurse was with him, and there was nothing they could do. They turned off to their own rooms.

      “Who came to the front door?” whispered Harry as they went along the corridor.

      “Mrs. Tretheroe,” answered Valencia.

      “Mrs. Tretheroe! At this time? What did she want?”

      “Guy!”

      “Guy? Who told her he was here?”

      “Her coachman had seen him coming here.”

      “Well?” asked Harry, after a pause. “What then?”

      “I told her he’d gone. She went, then. Went in a hurry, too. Harry!”

      “What?”

      “It strikes me there’s something going on underneath these sudden reappearances. I don’t know what—but something. Mrs. Tretheroe was just mad to see Guy! And—I don’t trust her. She’s—oh, I don’t know what she is! Never mind—let’s go to bed.”

      Valencia went to bed, but it was a long time before she slept, and when at last she did sleep, her slumbers were light and troubled. She woke suddenly in the end—the grey dawn was breaking, and through her open windows she heard the hooting of owls—ominous and fearsome sound—in the woods beyond the park. Something impelled her to rise, throw up her blinds, and look out of the window. Her room faced the east; far away across the park and the low range of hills beyond the fringe of old woodland that enclosed it, a broad belt of red was slowly widening. And already thrush and blackbird were piping in the coverts, and a lark was rising from the home meadow.

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