What's Bred in the Bone (Murder Mystery Novel). Allen Grant

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      CHAPTER VI. — TWO STRANGE MEETINGS.

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      “Mrs. Hugh Holker, at home, Saturday, May 29th, 3 to 6.30. Chetwood Court; tennis.”

      Cyril Waring read it out with a little thrill of triumph. To be sure, it was by no means certain that Elma would be there; but still, Chetwood Court was well within range of Tilgate town, and Montague Nevitt felt convinced, he said, the Holkers were friends of the Cliffords and the Kelmscotts.

      “For my part,” Guy remarked, balancing a fragment of fried sole on his fork as he spoke, “I’m not going all that way down to Chetwood merely to swell Mrs. Holker’s triumph.”

      “I wouldn’t if I were you,” Cyril answered, with quiet incisiveness. He hadn’t exactly fallen in love with Elma at first sight, but he was very much interested in her, and it struck him at once that what interested him was likely also to interest his twin brother. And this is just one of those rare cases in life where a man prefers that his interest in a subject should not be shared by any other person.

      Before Saturday, the 29th, arrived, however, Guy had so far changed his mind in the matter, that he presented himself duly with Nevitt at Waterloo to catch the same train to Chetwood station that Cyril went down by.

      “After all,” he said to Nevitt, as they walked together from the club in Piccadilly, “I may as well see what the girl’s like, anyhow. If she’s got to be my sister-in-law—which seems not unlikely now—I’d better have a look at her beforehand, so to speak, on approbation.”

      The Holkers’ grounds were large and well planted, with velvety lawns on the slope of a well-wooded hill overlooking the boundless blue weald of Surrey. Nevitt and the Warings were late to arrive, and found most of the guests already assembled before them.

      After a time Guy found himself, to his intense chagrin, told off by his hostess to do the honours to an amiable old lady of high tonnage and great conversational powers, who rattled on uninterruptedly in one silvery stream about everybody on the ground, their histories and their pedigrees. She took the talking so completely off his hands, however, that, after a very few minutes, Guy, who was by nature of a lazy and contemplative disposition, had almost ceased to trouble himself about what she said, interposing “indeeds” and “reallys” with automatic politeness at measured intervals; when suddenly the old lady, coming upon a bench where a mother and daughter were seated in the shade, settled down by their sides in a fervour of welcome, and shook hands with them both effusively in a most demonstrative fashion.

      The daughter was pretty—yes, distinctly pretty. She attracted Guy’s attention at once by the piercing keenness of her lustrous dark eyes, and the delicate olive-brown of her transparent complexion. Her expression was merry, but with a strange and attractive undertone, he thought, of some mysterious charm. A more taking girl, indeed, now he came to look close, he hadn’t seen for months. He congratulated himself on his garrulous old lady’s choice of a bench to sit upon, if it helped him to an introduction to the beautiful stranger.

      But before he could even be introduced, the pretty girl with the olive-brown complexion had held out her hand to him frankly, and exclaimed in a voice as sunny as her face—

      “I don’t need to be told your friend’s name, I’m sure, Mrs. Godfrey. He’s so awfully like him. I should have known him anywhere. Of course, you’re Mr. Waring’s brother, aren’t you?”

      Guy smiled, and bowed gracefully; he was always graceful.

      “I refuse to be merely MR. WARING’S BROTHER,” he answered, with some amusement, as he took the proffered hand in his own warmly. “If it comes to that, I’m Mr. Waring myself; and Cyril, whom you seem to know already, is only my brother.”

      “Ah, but MY Mr. Waring isn’t here to-day, is he?” the olive-brown girl put in, looking around with quite an eager interest at the crowd in the distance. “Naturally, to me, he’s THE Mr. Waring, of course, and you are only MY Mr. Waring’s brother.”

      “Elma, my dear, what on earth will Mr. Waring think of you?” her mother put in, with the conventional shocked face of British propriety. “You know,” she went on, turning round quickly to Guy, “we’re all so grateful to your brother for his kindness to our girl in that dreadful accident the other day at Lavington, that we can’t help thinking and talking of him all the time as our Mr. Waring. I’m sorry he isn’t here himself this afternoon to receive our thanks. It would be such a pleasure to all of us to give them to him in person.”

      “Oh, he is about, somewhere,” Guy answered carelessly, still keeping his eye fixed hard on the pretty girl. “I’ll fetch him round by-and-by to pay his respects in due form. He’ll be only too glad. And this, I suppose, must be Miss Clifford that I’ve heard so much about.”

      As he said those words, a little gleam of pleasure shot through Elma’s eyes. Her painter hadn’t forgotten her, then. He had talked much about her.

      “Yes, I knew who you must be the very first moment I saw you,” she answered, blushing; “you’re so much like him in some ways, though not in all. … And he told me that day he had a twin brother.”

      “So СКАЧАТЬ