James Hutchings came out of his stupor.

"Why, L-L-Lizzie, you must let me p-p-put up our b-b-banns tomorrow," he stammered.

"Be off!" said Elizabeth, stamping her foot. "We can talk about that later."

When she came from her bath Olivia sent Elizabeth to tell Holloway that she would dine with Mr. Flexen and Mr. Manley that evening. She had a sudden desire to see more of Mr. Flexen, to weigh him as an antagonist.

Mr. Flexen was somewhat surprised to receive the information; then, considering the terms on which Olivia had been with her husband, he found her action natural enough. After all, she was not a woman of the middle class, bound to make a pretence of grieving for a wholly unamiable bully. Also, he was pleased: to dine with so charming a creature as Olivia would be pleasant and stimulating. In the course of the evening his wits might rise to the solution of his problem. Moreover, it would be odd if he did not gain a further, valuable insight into her character.

He was yet more surprised to find James Hutchings, still rather pale and haggard, but quite cool and master of himself, superintending the waiting of Wilkins and Holloway at dinner. Also, he liked the way in which he spoke to Olivia and looked at her. To Mr. Flexen, James Hutchings had the air of the authentic faithful dog. He was inclined to a better opinion of him.

Plainly, too, Olivia had learned that tongues were wagging against him, and had taken this way of checking them. It was a generous act. At the same time, he could very well believe that Olivia might, unconsciously of course, be on the side of the murderer of such a husband.

Thanks to Mr. Manley's invaluable sense of what was fitting, there was no constraint about the dinner. He had decided that they were three people of the world dining together, and the fact that there had been a murder in the house three days before and a funeral in the morning should not be allowed to impair their proper nonchalance. At the same time, decorum must be preserved; there must be no laughter.

Accordingly he took the conversation in hand, and kept it in hand. Mr. Flexen was somewhat astonished at the ability with which he did it; now and again he felt as if, personally, he were performing feats on the loose wire, but that, thanks to Mr. Manley, he was not going to fall off. They talked of the usual subjects on which people who have not a large circle of common acquaintances fall back. They all three abused the politicians with perfect sympathy; they abused the British drama with perfect sympathy; with no less perfect sympathy they abused the Cubists and the Vorticists and the New Poets. Mr. Flexen had an odd feeling that they were behaving with entire naturalness and propriety; that their real interest was in the politicians, the British drama, the Cubists, the Vorticists and the New Poets, and not at all in the fate of the murderer of the late Lord Loudwater. After a while he found himself vying earnestly with Mr. Manley in an effort to display himself as a man of at least equal insight and intelligence.

Olivia did not talk much herself. She never did. But she displayed a quickness of understanding and soundness of judgment which stimulated them. All the while she was watching and weighing Mr. Flexen. He never once perceived it. Plainly enough, the talk did her good. She had come to dinner looking, Mr. Flexen thought, rather under the water. Before long she was looking, as she had resolved to look, her usual self. When, at a few minutes to nine, she left them, she was looking the most charming and sympathetic creature in the world, and, what was more, a creature without a care.

When the door closed behind her, she seemed to have taken with her a good deal of the brightness of the room. Mr. Flexen dropped back into his chair and frowned. In the silence which fell he wondered. Plainly she was free enough from care now.

"But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire—"

Then Mr. Manley said, in a tone almost insolent: "If you think she murdered that red-eyed bull in a china shop, you're wrong. She didn't."

Mr. Flexen did not resent his tone. Indeed, before he could speak, it flashed on him that if she had done so, and Justice was depending on him himself to bring her to it, it was depending on a somewhat frail reed. He liked Mr. Manley for his readiness to fight for her cause.

He laughed gently and said: "I wasn't thinking so. I was only wondering." Then his eyes on Mr. Manley's face turned very keen, and he said: "I believe you know a good deal more about the affair than I do, if you liked to speak."

It seemed to him that for a moment Mr. Manley's desire to make himself valued struggled with his desire to be accurate.

Then the young man shook his head and said in a tone of surprise: "But what nonsense! You know so much more about it than I do. Why, you must have all the threads in your hands by now. I never even dreamt of the Daily Wire's mysterious woman."

"Not quite all—yet. But they're coming all right," said Mr. Flexen, with a confidence he was far from feeling.

James Hutchings, coming into the room to fetch cigarettes for Olivia, interrupted them.

"I'm glad to see you back again, Hutchings," said Mr. Manley in a tone of hearty congratulation. "Your going away for a trifle after all the years you've been here was a silly business."

"Thank you, sir," said Hutchings gratefully.

When Hutchings had gone, Mr. Flexen said: "It's all very well your talking, but it was you who suggested that Lady Loudwater was a woman of strong primitive emotions with a strain of Italian blood in her."

"I never suggested for a moment that she was a woman of primitive emotions," Mr. Manley protested with some vehemence.

"But the emotions of all women are primitive," said Mr. Flexen.

"Not the emotion excited in them by beauty," said Mr. Manley with chivalrous warmth. "And, hang it all! Does she look like a woman to commit murder?"

"Not on her own account, certainly," said Mr. Flexen.

"And on whose account should she commit murder?" cried Mr. Manley.

Mr. Flexen shrugged his shoulders.

"I said you knew ten times as much about the business as I do," said Mr. Manley in a tone of triumph.



CHAPTER XIV

Mr. Flexen awoke next morning hopeful of news of the mysterious woman. But the letters addressed to him at the Castle and those brought over from the office of the Chief Constable at Low Wycombe brought none. After breakfast, still hopeful, he telephoned to Scotland Yard. No information had reached it.

He perceived clearly that the case was at a deadlock till he had that information. He was sure that it would come sooner or later, possibly from the neighbourhood, more probably from London. It was always possible that Mr. Carrington might discover that some other lawyer had handled an entanglement for Lord Loudwater. In the meantime, his work at the Castle was done. He had exhausted its possibilities. There was no reason why he should not return to his rooms at Low Wycombe. After having conferred with Inspector Perkins, he decided to leave one of the two detectives to continue making inquiries in the neighbourhood. He told James Hutchings that he would like his clothes packed, and went to the rose-garden to taken his leave of Olivia and thank her for her hospitality.

He found her looking very charming in a light summer frock of white lace with a few black bows set about it, and he thought that she seemed less under a strain than she had seemed the day before. He told her that he was returning to Low Wycombe; she expressed regret at his going, and thanked him for his efforts to clear up the matter of Lord Loudwater's death. They parted on the friendliest terms.

As he came away, Mr. Flexen thought it significant that, though she had thanked him for his efforts, she had made no inquiry about the result of them. It might be that she dreaded to hear that they were on the way to be successful.

He observed that James Hutchings, who watched over his actual departure, seemed less pale and haggard than he had been the night before. He could well believe that he was glad to see him going without having had him arrested.

As he drove through the park he told himself that Lady Loudwater and Mr. Manley between them would probably break down any case the police might bring against any one but the mysterious woman, and they might break down that. For his part, he was not going to give much time or attention to it till the mysterious woman had been discovered, and he did not think that he would be urged by Headquarters to do so after he had sent in his report, for, mindful of what he had told them of the unsatisfactory nature of Dr. Thornhill's evidence, Mr. Gregg in the Daily Wire and Mr. Douglas on the Daily Planet were dealing with the case in a half-hearted manner, though they were still clamouring with some vivacity for the mysterious woman.

As Mr. Flexen came out of the park gates he met William Roper on the edge of the West wood, stopped the car, and walked a few yards down the road to talk to him out of hearing of the chauffeur.

"I gather that you haven't told any one of what you saw on the night of Lord Loudwater's death; or I should have heard of it," he said.

"Not a word, I haven't," said William Roper.

"That's good," said Mr. Flexen in a tone of warm approval. "It might spoil everything to put people on their guard."

He was more strongly than ever resolved to prevent, if he could, the gamekeeper from setting afoot a scandal about Lady Loudwater which could be of no service to the police or any one else.

"Everybody says as James Hutchings did it, sir," said William Roper.

"H'm! And what do they say about the mysterious lady the papers are talking about—the lady you saw?"

"Oh, they don't pay no 'eed to 'er—not about 'ere, sir. They know Jim Hutchings," said William Roper contemptuously.

"I see," said Mr. Flexen.

"'Er ladyship and Colonel Grey, they still spends a lot of their time in the East wood pavilion. But now 'er ladyship's a widder, it's nobody's business but their own, I reckon," said William Roper.

"Of course not, of course not," said Mr. Flexen quickly, pleased to find that the ferret-faced gamekeeper attached so little importance to it. "I suppose people about here see that."

"They don't know about it. Nobody knows about it but me, and I don't tell everything I sees unless there's something to be got by it. A still tongue makes a wise 'ead, I say," said William Roper, with a somewhat vainglorious air.

"Quite right—quite right," said Mr. Flexen heartily. "Many a man's tongue has lost him a good job."

"You're right there, sir. But not me it won't," said William Roper with emphasis.

"I can see that. You've too much sense. Well, I shall keep in touch with you, and when the time comes you'll be called on. Drink my health. Good day," said Mr. Flexen, giving him half-a-crown.

He walked back to the car, pleased to have done Olivia the service of closing William Roper's mouth, at any rate for a time. He would talk, of course, sooner or later, probably sooner. But he might have closed his mouth for a fortnight.

William Roper walked on to the village and went into the "Bull and Gate." The village was simmering in a very lively fashion. The return of James Hutchings to his situation at the Castle was a fact with which it could not grapple easily. It was bewildered and annoyed.

William Roper had not, as he had assured Mr. Flexen, told what he had seen on the night of the murder of Lord Loudwater, but he had been dropping hints. He dropped more. He was a supporter of the theory that James Hutchings was the murderer because he desired to oust the father of James Hutchings from his post as head-gamekeeper. That was the reason also of his belief in James Hutchings' guilt. He was beginning to enjoy the interest he awakened as the storehouse of undivulged knowledge. When Mr. Flexen had supposed that he would remain silent for a fortnight, he had overestimated both his modesty and his reticence.

Later in the day the village was further upset by the behaviour of James Hutchings himself. He came into the "Bull and Gate" with an easy air, showed himself but little more civil than usual, and told the landlord that he had just arranged that the parson should publish the banns of his marriage with Elizabeth Twitcher on the following Sunday. The village was staggered. This was not the way in which it expected a man who would presently be tried and hanged for murder to behave.

In all fairness to James Hutchings, it must be said that he would not have acted with this decision of his own accord. Elizabeth had bidden him to it, urging that a bold front was half the battle. However grave her own doubts of his innocence might be, she was resolved that such doubts should, if possible, be banished from the minds of other people. Under her influence he was already becoming his old self as far as looks went. A shade of his usual ruddiness had come back; he was losing his haggardness.

With the going of Mr. Flexen there came a lull. His departure was a relief to Olivia, to Colonel Grey, and to James Hutchings. Doubtless he was still working on the case; but, working at a distance, he seemed less of a menace. All three of them seemed less under a strain. Olivia and Grey spent their hours together in a less feverish eagerness to make the most of them.

Even Helena Truslove, when Mr. Manley told her that Mr. Flexen had left the Castle, said that she was very pleased to hear it. She looked very pleased. Mr. Manley's sense of what was fitting restrained him from asking her the reason of this pleasure. He had, indeed, no great desire to hear the reason of it from her own lips. It was enough for him to guess that she was the mysterious woman. He felt no need of her full confidence.

The Castle seemed to be settling down to its old round, the quieter for the loss of Lord Loudwater. His heir in Mesopotamia had been informed of his death by cable. But no cable in reply had come from him. Mr. Manley remained at the Castle as secretary to Olivia, who was making preparations leisurely to leave it and settle down in a flat in London. Colonel Grey was recovering from his wound with a passable quickness. James Hutchings had come to look very much his old self. Thanks to the shock he had had and thanks to Elizabeth, he wore a more subdued air, and was much more amiable with his fellow-servants.

The Daily Wire, the Daily Planet, and the rest of the newspapers had let the Loudwater mystery slip quietly out of their columns. Mr. Flexen was waiting with quiet expectation for information about the unknown woman. Since the advertisement the papers had given her had failed to produce that information he had a London detective working on the life in London, before his marriage, of the murdered man. Mr. Carrington had found nothing among Lord Loudwater's papers in the office of his firm to throw any light on the matter.

The chief actors in the affair regarded the quiet turn it had taken with a timorous satisfaction. Not so William Roper; William Roper was thoroughly dissatisfied. He had been willing enough to hold his tongue, because by so doing his unexpected and damning appearance at the trial would be the more dramatic and impressive. But he was impatient to make that appearance, and chafed at the delay. Also, his prestige was waning. The village was losing interest in the mystery, and it no longer looked to him to drop hints as the holder of the secret. That did not prevent him from dropping them. He would bring up the subject of the murder in order to drop them. His acquaintances who wished now to talk about other things found this practice tiresome. They did not hide this feeling. Matters came to a climax one evening in the bar of the "Bull and Gate."

William Roper dragged the subject of the murder into a conversation on the high price of groceries, and then, as usual, hinted at the things he could say and he would.

John Pittaway, who had been leading the conversation about the high price of groceries, turned on him and said with asperity: "I don't believe as there's anything you can tell us as we don't know, or you'd 'ave told it afore this fast enough, William Roper."

"That's what I've been thinking this long time," said old Bob Carter, who had for over forty years made a point of agreeing with the most disagreeable person at the moment in the bar of the "Bull and Gate."

"Isn't there? You wait an' see. You wait till the trial," said William Roper.

"Trial? There won't be no trial. 'Oo's a goin' to be tried? They ain't agoin' to try Jim 'Utchings. It's plain that 'er ladyship 'as set 'er face against that. And, wot's more, they can't 'ave much to try 'im on, or they'd 'ave to do it, in spite o' wot she said," said John Pittaway in yet more disagreeable accents.

William Roper was very angry. This was not to be borne. Indeed, if John Pittaway were right, and there was to be no trial, where was his dramatic and impressive appearance at it? He had better be dramatic and impressive now.

"Who said as they were goin' to try Jim 'Utchings? I never did," he growled. "There was other people went to the Castle that night besides Jim 'Utchings, and that mysterierse woman the papers talked about."

"An' 'ow do you know?" said John Pittaway in a tone of most disagreeable incredulity.

"I know because I seed 'em," said William Roper.

"Saw 'oo?" said John Pittaway.

Then the whole story he had told Mr. Flexen burst forth from William Roper's overcharged bosom, the story with the embellishments natural to the lapse of time since its first telling. No less naturally in the course of the discussion which followed, he told also the story of the luckless kiss in the East wood, and the landlord pounced on that as the cause of the quarrel between Lord Loudwater and Colonel Grey at Bellingham. William Roper supported his contention with an embellished account of the interview with Lord Loudwater in which he had informed him of that kiss.

It was, indeed, his great hour, not as great as the hour he had promised himself at the trial, not so public, but a great hour.

He left the "Bull and Gate" at closing time that night a man, in the estimation of all there, whose evidence could hang four of his fellow-creatures, the great man of the village.

Next morning the village was indeed simmering, and the scandal rose and spread from it like a stench. That very afternoon Mr. Manley heard it from Helena Truslove, and the next morning Mr. Flexen received two anonymous letters conveying the information to him, and suggesting that Colonel Grey and the Lady Loudwater had between them made away with her husband. It is hard to say whether Mr. Manley or Mr. Flexen was more annoyed by William Roper's blabbing.

But there was nothing to be done. The scandal must run its course. Mr. Flexen did not think that it would find its way into the papers, local or London. None the less, he was alive to the danger that a sudden heavy pressure might be put on the police, and he might be forced to take ill-advised action, start a prosecution which would do Lady Loudwater infinite harm, and yet end in a fiasco which would leave the mystery just where it was. The one bright spot in the affair was that Lord Loudwater appeared to have left no friends behind him who would make it their business to see that he was avenged. As long as that avenging was everybody's business it was nobody's business.

Elizabeth Twitcher was no less disturbed than Mr. Flexen. She felt that Olivia ought to be informed of what was being said that she might be able to take steps to meet the danger. She took counsel with James Hutchings, who could not help feeling relieved by this diversion of suspicion, and he agreed with her that Olivia should be informed of the scandal at once. But it was an uncommonly unpleasant task, and she shrank from it.

Then a happy thought came to James Hutchings, and he said: "Look here: let Mr. Manley do it. He's her ladyship's secretary, and it's the kind of thing he'll do very well. He's a tactful young fellow."

"It would be a blessing if he did," said Elizabeth with a sigh. She paused and added: "You do speak differently about him to what you used to."

"Yes. I made a mistake about him like as I did about some other people," said James Hutchings, with a rather shame-faced air. "He behaved very well about seeing me here the night the master was murdered and saying nothing to the police about it. An' then he congratulated me very handsomelike on coming back as butler before Mr. Flexen."

"He would do it better than I should," said Elizabeth.

"Then I'll speak to him about it," said James Hutchings.

He paused a while to kiss Elizabeth, then went in search of Mr. Manley. He learned from Holloway that he had come in about twenty minutes earlier and was in his sitting-room. He went to him and found him looking through the MS. of the play he was writing, with an unlighted pipe in his mouth.

"If you please, sir, I thought I'd better come and tell you that they're saying in the village that Colonel Grey kissed her ladyship in the East wood on the afternoon of his lordship's death, and his lordship was informed of it and quarrelled with Colonel Grey and then her ladyship, and she and Colonel Grey made away with his lordship," said James Hutchings.

"I've heard something about it," said Mr. Manley, frowning, and he struck a match. "Who set this absurd story going?"

"William Roper, one of the under-gamekeepers, sir."

"William Roper? Ah, I know—a ferret-faced young fellow."

"Yes, sir. And we was thinking that her ladyship ought to know about it so as she can put a stop to it at once, and you were the proper person to tell her, sir," said James Hutchings.

On the instant Mr. Manley saw himself discharging this unpleasant but important duty with intelligence and tact, and he said readily: "I was thinking of doing so, and now that I know the lying rascal's name I can do it at once. The sooner this kind of thing is stopped the better."

"Thank you, sir," said Hutchings, and with a sigh of relief he left the room.

He had reached the top of the stairs when the door of Mr. Manley's room opened; he appeared on the threshold and said: "Will you send some one to tell William Roper to be here at nine o'clock tonight? And it wouldn't be a bad idea to drop a hint to any one you send that William Roper has got himself into serious trouble."

Mr. Manley thought quickly.

"Very good, sir," said James Hutchings, and he hurried down the stairs.

Mr. Manley did not see Olivia at once, for she was still in the pavilion in the East wood. But as soon as she returned, he sent a message by Holloway to her, that he wished to see her on important business. Holloway brought word that she would see him at once.

He found her in her sitting-room, gazing out of the window, and she turned quickly at his entrance with inquiring eyes.

"It's a rather unpleasant business, and the sooner it's dealt with the better," said Mr. Manley in a brisk, businesslike voice. "One of the under-gamekeepers has been spreading a scandalous and lying story about you and Colonel Grey, something about his kissing you in the East wood on the afternoon of Lord Loudwater's death, and he has gone on to suggest, or assert—I don't know which—that you and Colonel Grey had a hand in Lord Loudwater's death."

The blow she had been expecting had fallen, and Olivia paled and her mouth went dry.

"Which of the under-gamekeepers is it?" she said calmly but with difficulty, for her tongue kept sticking to the roof of her mouth.

"A ferret-faced, rascally-looking fellow, called William Roper," said Mr. Manley with some heat. Then, to save her the effort of speaking, he went on: "Of course you'd like him discharged at once. The sooner these people understand that their excitement about Lord Loudwater's death is not going to be held an excuse for telling lying stories the better. You will not be troubled by any more of them."

Olivia looked at him with steady eyes. She had recovered herself and was thinking hard. Mr. Manley's certainty about the right method of dealing with the matter was catching. It was better to show a bold front and at once. There was no time to consult Antony Grey.

"Yes. You're quite right, Mr. Manley. Gentle measures are of no use with this kind of scandal-monger. William Roper must be discharged at once," she said quietly.

"Perhaps you would like me to deal with him? It's rather a business for a man," Mr. Manley suggested.

"Yes, if you would," she said in a grateful tone.

"I will, as soon as I can get hold of him," said Mr. Manley cheerfully. "He'll make no more mischief about here," He went out of the room briskly.

His confidence was heartening. When the door closed behind him Olivia sobbed twice in the reaction from the shock of his announcement. Then she recovered herself and went quietly to her bath. She observed Elizabeth's sympathetic manner as she dressed her hair. Evidently all the servants as well as the villagers were talking about her. But for its possible, dangerous consequences, she was indifferent to their talk. She was now wholly absorbed in Grey; he was the only thing of any importance in her life.

Mr. Manley ate his dinner with an excellent appetite. He was pleased with the brisk, almost brusque, manner in which he had dealt with the matter of William Roper, in his interview with Olivia. If he had shilly-shallied and hummed and hawed about the scandal, it would have been so much more unpleasant for her. He thought, too, that his practical, common-sense attitude to the business would probably help her to take it more easily, and he was sure that he had advised the best measure to be taken with William Roper.

He was smoking a cigar in a great content, when at nine o'clock Holloway brought him word that William Roper had come. Mr. Manley bade him bring him to him at a quarter-past. He felt that suspense would make William Roper malleable, and he intended to hammer him. At thirteen minutes past nine he composed his face into a dour truculence, an expression to which the heavy conformation of the lower part lent itself admirably.

William Roper, looking uncommonly ill at ease, was ushered in by James Hutchings himself, and the butler had improved the thirteen shining minutes he had had with him by increasing to a considerable degree his uneasiness and anxiety.

Mr. Manley did not greet William Roper. He stood on the hearth-rug and glowered at him with heavy truculence. William Roper shuffled his feet and fumbled with his cap.

Then Mr. Manley said: "Her ladyship has been informed that you have been spreading scandalous reports in the village, and she has instructed me to discharge you at once." He walked across to the table, took the sheet of notepaper on which he had written the amount due to William Roper, dipped a pen in the ink, and added: "Here are your wages up to date, and a week's wages in lieu of notice. Sign this receipt."

He dipped a pen in the ink and held it out to William Roper with very much the air of Lady Macbeth presenting her husband with the dagger.

William Roper was stupefied. Mr. Manley, truculent and dramatic, cowed him.

"I never done nothing, sir," he said feebly.

"Sign—at once!" said Mr. Manley, gazing at him with the glare of the basilisk.

"I ain't agoing to sign. I ain't done nothing to be discharged. I ain't said nothing but what I seed with my own eyes," William Roper protested.

"Sign!" said Mr. Manley, tapping the receipt like an official in a spy play. "Sign!"

He was too much for William Roper. The conflict, such as it was, of wills ceased abruptly. William Roper signed.

Mr. Manley pushed the money towards him as towards a loathed pariah. William Roper counted it, and put it in his pocket. He walked towards the door with an air of stupefied dejection.

"Also, you are to be off the estate by twelve o'clock tomorrow. Loudwater is not the place for ungrateful and slanderous rogues," said Mr. Manley.

William Roper stopped and turned; his face was working malignantly.

"We'll see what Mr. Flexen's got to say about this," he snarled, went through the door, and slammed it behind him.



CHAPTER XV

Olivia came that night to her tryst with Grey in a great dejection. She perceived clearly enough that the instant discharge of William Roper would not stop the scandal, and she was desperately afraid of the results of it. The hope which had sprung up in her mind on reading in the Daily Wire the story of her husband's quarrel with an unknown woman died down. This was a far more important matter, and she could not see how the police could fail to act on William Roper's story.

She found Grey waiting for her with his wonted impatience, and presently told him about William Roper.

"This is the very thing I've been fearing," he said with a sudden heaviness.

"It will certainly force Mr. Flexen's hand," she said.

"I don't know—I don't know," he said more hopefully. "Flexen struck me as being the kind of man to act just when it suited him, and I expect that he had known all along anything William Roper had to tell."

"Yes, he did. Twitcher told me that Roper had an interview with him on the afternoon after Egbert's death," she said, catching a little of his hopefulness.

"Well, if he hasn't done anything about it so far, there's no reason why he should act immediately the story becomes common property," he said in a tone of relief.

"No—no," she said slowly. Then she sobbed once and cried: "But, oh, this waiting's so dreadful! Never knowing what's going to happen and when—feeling that he's lying in wait all the time."

"It is pretty awful," he said, drawing her more closely to him and kissing her.

She clung tightly to him, quivering.

"The only thing to do is to stick it out, and when the time comes—if it comes—put up a good fight. I think we shall," he said in a cheering tone.

"Of course we will," she said firmly, gave herself a little shake, and relaxed her grip a little.

He kissed her again, and they were silent a while, both of them thinking hard.

Then he said: "Look here: let's get married."

"Get married?" she said.

"Yes. The more we belong to one another the better we shall feel."

"But—but won't there be rather an outcry at our marrying so soon?" she said.

"Oh, if people knew of it, yes. But I don't propose that they should. We'll get married quite quietly. I'll get a special licence. The padre of my regiment is in Town, and he'll marry us. I can find a couple of witnesses who'll hold their tongues. We can get married in twenty-four hours. Will you?"

"Yes," she said firmly.

His surprise at her ready assent was drowned in the joy it gave him.

The next morning at half-past nine Mr. Manley rang up Mr. Flexen at his office at Low Wycombe.

When he heard his voice he said: "Good morning, Flexen. A young fellow of the name of William Roper will be calling on you this morning. I expect you know all he has to say already. But do you see anything to be gained by his making a pestiferous, scandal-mongering nuisance of himself?"

"I do not. I will say a few kind words to him," said Mr. Flexen grimly.

Mr. Manley thanked him and rang off. Then he sent Hutchings down to the village to let it be known that any one who let William Roper lodge in his or her cottage would at once receive notice to quit it. He thought it improbable, in view of the general unpleasantness of William Roper, that he would be called on to carry out the threat.

William Roper had already started to pay his visit to Mr. Flexen. Mr. Flexen kept him dangling his heels in his office for three-quarters of an hour before he saw him. This cold welcome allowed much of William Roper's sense of his great importance in the district to ooze out of him.

Mr. Flexen emptied him of the rest of it. He greeted him curtly, heard his story with a deepening frown, and abused him at some length for a babbling idiot, and sent him about his business. William Roper returned to his mother's cottage to find that her only object in life was to get him out of her cottage then and there. She had conceived the idea that the whole affair was a plot to have a good excuse for giving her notice to leave that cottage. She knew well that it was the opinion of all its other inhabitants that the village would be much better without her and that there were very good grounds for it.

William Roper perceived with uncommon clearness the truth of Mr. Flexen's assertion that he was a babbling idiot. His dream of outing William Hutchings from the post of head-gamekeeper and filling it himself was for ever shattered, and he had been the great man of the village for little more than fourteen hours, ten of which he had spent in sleep. He cursed the hour in which he had espied that luckless kiss, and too late perceived the folly of a humble gamekeeper's meddling with the affairs of those who own the game he keeps.

The next morning Elizabeth observed that her mistress was another creature, almost her old self indeed. The air of strain and oppression had, for the time being at any rate, gone from her face. She moved with her old alertness. She even smiled at Elizabeth's strictures on the treacherous William Roper.

After breakfast she bade Elizabeth pack a trunk for her, since she was going to London that afternoon and would spend the night, perhaps two or three days, there. Also, she chose, with frowning thoughtfulness and no little changing of mind, the frocks she would take with her, and discussed carefully with Elizabeth the changes necessary to give them a sufficiently mourning character.

Elizabeth was indeed pleased with the change in her mistress. She ascribed it to the influence of Colonel Grey.

In the afternoon Olivia went to London and drove from Paddington to Grey's flat. She found him awaiting her with the most eager expectation. He had bought the special licence; the chaplain of his regiment and a wounded friend were coming at seven o'clock. After they were married, they would all four dine together, and, later, he and she would return to his flat.

They had tea, and then he showed her some of the beautiful things, for the most part ivory and jade, which were his most loved possessions. She admitted frankly that she had to learn to appreciate and admire them as they deserved. But she was sure that she would learn to do so.

She found the flat of a somewhat spartan simplicity after Loudwater Castle, Quainton Hall, and the houses to which she was used. But she also found that it had been furnished with a keen regard for comfort. In particular, she observed that the easy chairs, which were the chief furniture of the sitting-room, were the most comfortable she had ever taken her ease in.

At seven o'clock the padre and Sir Charles Ross, Grey's wounded friend, arrived. After they had talked for a few minutes, making Olivia's acquaintance, the padre married them. Henderson, Grey's valet, a tall, spare Scot with rugged features who in the course of his seven years' service had acquired, in his manner and way of speaking, a curious and striking likeness to his master, was the second witness.

It was wholly characteristic of Olivia that she felt no slightest need of the supporting presence of a woman. Yet, for all the unfamiliar simplicity of the scene, the ceremony did not lack dignity, or impressiveness. At the end of it Olivia felt herself very much more the wife of Antony Grey than she had ever felt herself the wife of Lord Loudwater.

They dined in a private dining-room at the "Ritz," and Olivia found the dinner delightful. The three men, after some desultory talk about common friends and the ordinary London subjects, fell to talking about their work and their fighting in France. She was most pleased by the evident respect and admiration with which the other two regarded her husband. It was a new experience for her to be married to a man for whom any one showed respect.

At a few minutes past ten she and Grey went home to his flat. They preferred to walk.

Olivia did not return to Loudwater for three days. Grey did not return till the day after that. Then they again spent much of their time in the pavilion in the East wood, and since Olivia was careful not to replace William Roper, no one knew of their meetings. Every week they went to London for two days. They lived in an absorption in one another which left them little time to be troubled by fears of the danger which hung over them. The scandal about them ran the usual nine days' course. Then, since no new development of the Loudwater case arose to give it a fresh, active life, it died down.

About a fortnight after their marriage Mr. Manley retired from his post of secretary and went to London. A few days later he married Helena Truslove at the office of a registrar, and they established themselves in a furnished flat at Clarence Gate, while they furnished a flat of their own. Mr. Manley found himself, under the influence of domesticity, the stimulation of life in London, and the society of the intelligent, writing his new play with all the ease and vigour he had expected.

Mr. Flexen was beginning, somewhat gloomily, to think it probable that the problem of the death of Lord Loudwater would have to be set among the unsolved problems which have at different times baffled the police. Then, before he had quite lost hope, there came a letter from Mr. Carrington. It ran:

"Dear Mr. Flexen,

"I received this morning a letter from Mrs. Marshall, of 3, Laburnum Terrace, Low Wycombe, asking me, as the agent of the present Lord Loudwater, to have some repairs made to the house in which she is his lordship's tenant. We have never handled this property; we did not even know that it belonged to the late Lord Loudwater. If you can find the man who managed it for him, he may be able to give you the information you want.

"Yours faithfully,

"C.R.W. CARRINGTON."

In ten minutes Mr. Flexen was at 3, Laburnum Terrace; in a quarter of an hour he had learned that Mrs. Marshall had paid her rent to Mr. Shepherd, of 9, Bolton Street, Low Wycombe; in twenty minutes he had learned from Mrs. Shepherd that her husband was in Mesopotamia, and that she had not heard from him for two months. In half an hour from the time he read Mr. Carrington's letter he was in the train on his way to London. To get in touch with Captain Shepherd in that distant and backward land was a matter for Scotland Yard. No acting Chief Constable would do so without considerable delay.

He drafted the telegram in consultation with one of the commissioners, who himself set about the business of getting it through to Captain Shepherd and receiving his answer to it. Then he returned to Low Wycombe. Three days later came a letter from Scotland Yard to inform him that Captain Shepherd was in an out-of-the-way district in the north of Mesopotamia, and that there must be a delay of days before he received the telegram and sent his answer to it. Mr. Flexen possessed his soul in the patience of a man who was sure that he was going to get what he wanted.

A few days later, on a Saturday, his work took him to Loudwater, and he called on Olivia. He found her a different creature. She had lost her air of being under a strain, and save that her eyes were at first anxious, she showed herself wholly at her ease with him. He came away assuring himself that she was one of the most charming women he had ever met. He took it that she still met Colonel Grey in the pavilion in the East wood, and that after a decorous lapse of time they would marry. He thought Colonel Grey uncommonly fortunate.

Then he again wondered what had so perturbed them when he had been at the Castle inquiring into the death of Lord Loudwater. What did they know of the mystery? What part had they played in it?

Soon after he had left her Olivia went to London to spend the week-end with her husband. But she did not go in her wonted joyful mood. She tried to thrust it out of her mind; but Mr. Flexen's visit had brought back her old fear. Grey at once perceived that she was not in good spirits, and he was a little alarmed. He had firmly kept his thought from the danger which still hung over them. Now he caught from her something of her uneasiness. But he would not yield to it, and by the end of dinner he had, for the while at any rate, banished it from both their minds.

Then when he awoke that night, quietly, at the turning hour, he heard Olivia crying very softly.

He put his arm round her and said seriously "What is it, darling? What's the matter?"

"Oh, why ever did you kill him?" she wailed. "He—he wasn't worth it. And I'd have come to you without. And we might have been so happy!"

Grey, with a start, sat bolt upright, and in a tone of the last astonishment stammered: "K-K-Kill him? Me? B-B-But I thought you k-k-killed him!"

He had never been so taken aback in his life.

Olivia sat bolt upright in her turn.

"Me?" she said in an astonishment fully as great as his. "No, I didn't."

Then with one accord they clung to one another and laughed tremulously in an immeasurable relief.

Then Olivia said: "And you didn't mind? You married me when you actually thought I'd murdered Egbert?"

"Oh, Egbert!" said Grey in a tone of contempt which placed the late Lord Loudwater definitely as a person the murder of whom was neither here nor there. Then he added: "But, hang it all! You married me when you actually thought I'd murdered him."

"I thought you did it for my sake," said Olivia.

"I thought you did it for mine—to get me out of a mess. Though I'll be shot if I believe I should have cared if you'd done it entirely on your own account. Not that you could."

"Oh, Antony, how very fond of one another we must be!" said Olivia in a hushed voice.

It was after breakfast next morning that Olivia, who stood before the window, smoking a cigarette and watching the passers-by, turned and said: "But if neither you nor I murdered Egbert, who did?"

"The mysterious woman, I suppose," said Grey, with very little show of interest in the matter.

"But I never believed that there was any mysterious woman, I thought the papers invented her," said Olivia.

"So did I," said Grey. "But it's beginning to look to me as if there might have been one."

"I wonder who she can be?" said Olivia.

"A barmaid, I should think," said Grey, in a tone which placed definitely the late Lord Loudwater as a lover.

"You certainly do dislike Egbert," said Olivia, in a dispassionate tone of one stating a natural fact of little importance.

"I do," said Grey.

"It's odd how little I remember him," said Olivia thoughtfully. "But then I was always trying to forget him unless he was actually in the room with me. And then I was always trying not to see him."

"I remember the way he treated you," said Grey sternly.

Olivia smiled at him.

"I hope to goodness the police never do find that wretched woman!" he said.

Olivia frowned thoughtfully. Then she smiled again.

"I don't think it would be much use if they did," she said. "I told Mr. Flexen that I heard Egbert snoring about twelve o'clock. I didn't; but I thought that as you went away about half-past eleven, it would make it safer for you. I could always stick to it, if we thought it right."

"And I told Flexen that I didn't hear him snoring at about half-past eleven, and I did. I thought it would make it safer for you."

"Well, we are—" said Olivia, and she laughed.

Then of a sudden her eyes sparkled and she cried: "But if you heard him snore at half-past eleven that lets the mysterious woman out. She went away at a quarter-past."

"By Jove! so it does," said Grey.

Three days later, driving back in the evening from Rickmansworth to Low Wycombe, Mr. Flexen passed Grey on his way home from an afternoon's fishing. He stopped the car, and as Grey came up to it he perceived that he was looking uncommonly well, though his limp appeared to be as bad as ever. He was not only looking well, he was also looking happy, wholly free from care.

They greeted one another and Mr. Flexen said: "By Jove! you are looking fit!"

"Yes, I'm all right again," said Grey. Then he frowned and added: "But the nuisance of it is that I shall always have this confounded limp."

"You get off more lightly than a good many men I know," said Flexen sadly.

"Yes. I'm not grousing much," said Grey.

There came a pause, and then Grey said: "I've been rather hoping to come across you. When you questioned me about my doings on the night of Loudwater's death, you asked me whether I heard him snore as I went through the library, going in and out of the Castle, and for reasons which seemed quite good to me at the time I told you I didn't. As a matter of fact, he was snoring like a pig when I came out."

Mr. Flexen looked at him hard, thinking quickly. Then he said softly: "My goodness! That would be half-past eleven!"

"Close on it," said Grey.

"Well as a matter of fact, I didn't believe you," said Mr. Flexen frankly. "In my business, you know, one acquires a very good ear for the truth."

Grey laughed cheerfully and said: "I expect you do."

"All the same, I'm glad to have it for certain," said Mr. Flexen, smiling at him. "Well, I must be getting on; let me give you a lift as far as Loudwater."

Grey thanked him and stepped into the car.

When he had set him down, Mr. Flexen drove on in frowning thought. Colonel Grey was speaking the truth, and in that case neither James Hutchings nor the mysterious woman had committed the murder, unless they had deliberately returned for the purpose. He did not believe that James Hutchings had returned; he thought it improbable that the mysterious woman had returned.

Even more important was the fact that this admission of Colonel Grey assured him that neither he nor Lady Loudwater had committed the murder. Grey had evidently lied to shield her. He had no less evidently learned that she did not need shielding. That admission had not at all simplified the problem.

The next morning Scotland Yard telegraphed to him the reply to its cable to Captain Shepherd. It ran:

Loudwater allowed Mrs. Helena Truslove Crest Loudwater six hundred a year and gave her Crest.

He had the mysterious woman at last!

He drove over to the Crest at once and learned from the caretaker that Mrs. Truslove was now living in London in a flat at Clarence Gate. He could not get away from his work till the afternoon, and it was past half-past four when he knocked at the door of her flat.

The maid led him down the passage, opened the door on the right, and announced him.

Helena was sitting beside a table on which afternoon tea for two was set. She looked surprised to hear his name.

"Mrs. Truslove?" he said.

"I was Mrs. Truslove," she said, rising and holding out her hand. "But now I am Mrs. Manley. You know my husband. He will be so pleased to see you again. I'm expecting him every minute."

Mr. Flexen was for a moment conscious of a slight sensation of vertigo. The mysterious woman was the wife of Herbert Manley!

He could not at once see the bearings of this fact, but ideas, fancies and suspicions raced one another through his head.

He checked them and said in a somewhat toneless voice: "I shall be delighted to see him again. Have you been married long?"

"Rather more than a fortnight." said Helena. "But do sit down. My husband will be so pleased to see you again. He has a great admiration for you."

Mr. Flexen sat down and unconsciously stared hard at her. Ideas were jostling one another in his head.

"We won't wait for him. I'll have the tea made at once," she said, bending forward to press the bell-button.

"One moment, please," he said in his crispest, most official voice. "I've come to see you on a very important matter."

"Oh?" she said quickly, frowning. Then she looked at him with steady eyes.

"Yes. You know that I am investigating the Loudwater case, and I have received information that you are the mysterious lady who visited Lord Loudwater on the night of his death and had a violent quarrel with him."

"We began by quarrelling," she said quietly.

"Began by quarrelling?" said Mr. Flexen.

"Yes. I'd better tell you the whole story, and you'll understand," she said in a matter-of-fact voice. "Rather more than two years ago I was engaged to be married to Lord Loudwater. He broke off our engagement and married Miss Quainton. I was not going to stand that, and I was going to bring a breach of promise action against him. He didn't want that, of course. It would most likely have stopped his marrying Miss Quainton. So he agreed to make over the Crest, my house just beyond Loudwater, to me, and pay me an allowance of six hundred a year."

"This was two years ago?" said Mr. Flexen.

"Yes," said Helena. "But stupidly, though I had the house properly made over to me, I didn't have a deed about the allowance. And a few days before he committed suicide—"

"Committed suicide?" Mr. Flexen interrupted.

"Of course he committed suicide. Didn't Dr. Thornhill say that the wound might have been self-inflicted? Besides, poor Egbert had a most frightful temper."

"But why should he commit suicide?" said Mr. Flexen.

"He may have been upset about Lady Loudwater and Colonel Grey. Why, I'm quite sure that it would drive him mad—absolutely mad for the time being. I know him well enough to be sure of that."

"Yes—yes," said Mr. Flexen slowly. "It's a tenable theory, doubtless. But about your quarrel with him."

"A few days before he died he talked about halving my allowance. And, of course, I was frightfully annoyed about it. I wanted to have it out with him—I meant to—but I knew that he'd never let me get near him, if he could help it. But I knew, too, that he sat in the smoking-room every evening after dinner, and generally went to sleep. You know everything about every one in the country, you know. And I determined to take him by surprise, and I did. We did have a row, for I was frightfully angry. It seemed so mean. But he stopped it by telling me that he had instructed his bankers—we have the same bankers—to pay twelve thousand pounds into my account instead of allowing me six hundred a year."

There was just the faintest change in her voice as she spoke the last sentence, and it did not escape Mr. Flexen's sensitive ear. He thought that the whole story had been rehearsed; it sounded so. But she spoke the last sentence just a little more quickly. The rest of the story rang true, or, at any rate, truer.

"Twelve thousand pounds," he said slowly. "And did Lord Loudwater tell you when he instructed his bankers?"

"No. But it must have been that very day. The letter must have been in the post, in fact, for two mornings later I received a letter from the bank telling me that they had credited me with that amount—the morning after the inquest, I think it was."

"I see," said Mr. Flexen, and he paused, considering the story. Then he said: "And were you surprised at all at his doing this?"

"Yes, I was," she said frankly. "It didn't seem like him. But since I've wondered whether he had made up his mind to commit suicide and wished to leave things quite straight."

It was a plausible theory, but Mr. Flexen did not believe that Lord Loudwater had committed suicide.

"I suppose that your husband knows all about it?" he said at random.

"He may, and he may not. He hasn't said anything to me about it," she said.

"Then we may take it that he did not write the letter of instruction to the bankers," said Mr. Flexen.

"Oh, he might have done and still have said nothing about it. He has a very sensitive delicacy and might have thought it my business and not his. I haven't told him about the twelve thousand pounds yet. I don't bother him about business matters. In fact, I'm going to manage his business as well as my own."

"And he didn't know about the allowance?" said Mr. Flexen.

"Oh, yes, he did. I told him all about that," said Helena quickly.

Mr. Flexen paused, considering. He seemed to have learnt from her all she had to tell.

There came the sound of the opening of the door of the flat and of steps in the hall. Then the door of the room opened, and Mr. Manley came in. Mr. Flexen's eyes swept over him. He was looking cheerful, prosperous, and rather sleek. His air had grown even more important and assured.

He greeted Mr. Flexen warmly and beamed on him. Then he demanded tea. But Mr. Flexen rose, declared that he must be going, and in spite of Mr. Manley's protests went. It had flashed on him that he might just catch Mr. Carrington at his office.



CHAPTER XVI

Mr. Flexen did find Mr. Carrington at his office, and Mr. Carrington's first words were:

"Well, have you found the mysterious woman?"

"I've found the mysterious woman, and she's now Mrs. Herbert Manley," said Mr. Flexen.

Mr. Carrington stared at him, then he said softly: "Well, I'm damned!"

"It does explain several things," said Mr. Flexen dryly. "We know now why she was so hard to find—why there was no trace of her relations with Lord Loudwater, no trace of Shepherd's managing the Low Wycombe property among his papers, why there were no pass-books."

Mr. Carrington flushed and said: "The young scoundrel had us on toast all the while."

"Toast is the word," said Mr. Flexen.

"I never did like the beggar. I couldn't stand his infernal manner. But it never occurred to me that he was a bad hat. I merely thought him a pretentious young ass who didn't know his place," said Mr. Carrington.

"I'm not so sure about the ass," said Mr. Flexen.

"No—perhaps not. He certainly brought it off for a time, and shielded her as long as it lasted," said Mr. Carrington slowly.

"She didn't need any shielding," said Mr. Flexen.

"Do you mean to tell me that she didn't murder Loudwater?"

"She did not. You don't murder a man who has just given you twelve thousand pounds," said Mr. Flexen.

"Twelve thousand pounds?" said Mr. Carrington slowly. Then he started from his chair and almost howled: "Are you telling me that Lord Loudwater gave this woman twelve thousand pounds! He never gave any one twelve thousand pounds! He never gave any one a thousand pounds! He never gave any one fifty pounds! He couldn't have done it! Never in his life!"

His voice rose in a fine crescendo.

"Well, perhaps it was hardly a gift," said Mr. Flexen, and he told him Helena's story.

At the end of it Mr. Carrington said with dogged, sullen conviction: "I don't care, I don't believe it. Lord Loudwater couldn't have done it."

"But there's the letter from her bankers," said Mr. Flexen. "And I suppose you can trace the twelve thousand pounds."

Mr. Carrington started and said sharply: "Why, that must be where the rubber shares went to."

"What rubber shares?" said Mr. Flexen.

"We can't lay our hands on a block of rubber shares Lord Loudwater owned. The certificate isn't among his scrip—he kept all his scrip at the Castle—he wouldn't keep it at his bank. Those rubber shares were worth just about twelve thousand pounds."

"Well, there you are," said Mr. Flexen.

"No, I'm not, I tell you I don't believe in that gift—not even in the circumstances. Lord Loudwater would a thousand times rather have gone on paying the allowance—as little of it as he could. There's something fishy—very fishy—about it, I tell you," said Mr. Carrington vehemently.

"And where did the fishiness come in?" said Mr. Flexen.

Mr. Carrington was silent, frowning. Then he said: "I'll—I'll be hanged if I can see."

Mr. Flexen rose sharply and said: "There's only one point in the affair where it could have come in as far as I can see. I should like to examine Lord Loudwater's letter of instruction to his bankers."

"By George! You've got it," said Mr. Carrington.

"Well, can we get a look at it?" said Mr. Flexen.

"We can. Harrison, the manager, will stretch a point for me. He knows that I'm quite safe. Come along," said Mr. Carrington.

"At this hour? The bank's been closed this two hours," said Flexen.

"He'll be there. It's years since he got away before seven," said Mr. Carrington confidently.

He told a clerk to telephone to the bank that he was coming. They found a taxicab quickly, drove to the bank, entered it by the side door, and were taken straight to Mr. Harrison.

He made no bones about showing them Lord Loudwater's letter of instructions with regard to the twelve thousand pounds. Mr. Carrington and Mr. Flexen read it together. It was quite short, and ran:

"GENTLEMEN,

"I shall be much obliged by your paying the enclosed cheque from Messrs. Hanbury and Johnson for L12,046 into the account of Mrs. Helena Truslove.

"Yours faithfully,

"LOUDWATER."

"Rather a curt way of disposing of such a large sum," said Mr. Flexen, taking the letter and going to the window.

"It was the way Lord Loudwater did things," said Mr. Harrison.

"Yes, yes; I know," said Mr. Carrington. "Some things."

They both looked at Mr. Flexen, who was examining the letter through a magnifying glass.

He studied it for a good two minutes, turned to them with a quiet smile of triumph on his face and said: "I've never seen Lord Loudwater's signature. But this is a forgery."

"A forgery?" said the manager sharply, stepping quickly towards Mr. Flexen with outstretched hand.

"I'm not surprised to hear it," said Mr. Carrington.

"Well, the signature is not written with the natural ease with which a man signs his name," said Mr. Flexen, giving the letter to Mr. Harrison.

Mr. Harrison studied it carefully. Then he pressed a button on his desk and bade the clerk who came bring all the letters they had received from Lord Loudwater during the last three months of his life and bring them quickly.

Then he turned to Mr. Flexen and said stiffly: "I'm bound to say that the signature looks perfectly right to me."

"I've no doubt that it's a good forgery. It was done by a very clever man," said Mr. Flexen.

"A first-class young scoundrel," Mr. Carrington amended.

"We shall soon see," said Mr. Harrison, politely incredulous.

The clerk came with the letters. There were eight of them, all written by Mr. Manley and signed by Lord Loudwater.

The manager compared the signatures of every one of them with the signature in question, using a magnifying glass which lay on his desk.

Then, triumphant in his turn, he said curtly: "It's no forgery."

"Allow me," said Mr. Flexen, and in his turn he compared the signatures, again every one of them.

Then he said: "As I said, it's an uncommonly good forgery. You see that the bodies of the letters are all written with the same pen, a gold-nibbed fountain-pen; the signatures are written with a steel nib. It cuts deeper into the paper, and the ink doesn't flow off it so evenly. The forged signature is written with the same kind of nib as the genuine ones. Also, the bodies of the letters are written in a fountain-pen ink—the 'Swan,' I think. The signatures are written in Stephens' blue-black ink. The forged signature is also written in Stephens' blue-black ink. No error there, you see."

"You seem to know a good deal about these things," said Mr. Harrison, rather tartly.

"Yes. I've been a partner in Punchard's Agency—you know it; we've done some work for you—for the last two years. I didn't need this kind of knowledge for my work in India. I only made a special study of forgery after joining the agency. A private inquiry agency gets such a lot of it," said Mr. Flexen.

"Well, and if there's an error in these details, where is it? It's not in the signature itself," said Mr. Harrison.

"Indeed, it is," said Mr. Flexen. "It's an uncommonly good signature too. The 'Loud' is perfect. But the 'water' gives it away. The forger had evidently practised it a lot. In fact, he wrote the 'Loud' straight off. But the 'water' has no less than five distinct pauses in it—under the microscope, of course—where he paused to think, or perhaps to look at a genuine signature, the endorsement on the cheque very likely."

Mr. Harrison sniffed ever so faintly, and said: "Of course, I've had experience of handwriting experts—not very much, thank goodness!—and you differ among yourselves so. It's any odds that another expert will find those pauses in quite different places from you, or even no pauses at all."

Mr. Flexen laughed gently and said: "Perhaps. But he ought not to."

"There you are. And when it comes to a jury," said Mr. Harrison, and he threw out his hands. "Besides, if you got your experts to agree, you'd have to show a very strong motive."

"Oh, we've got that—we've got that," said Mr. Carrington with conviction.

"Well, of course that will make it easier for you to get the jury to believe your handwriting experts rather than those of the other side," said Mr. Harrison, without any enthusiasm. Then he added, with rather more cheerfulness: "But you never can tell with a jury."

"No; that's true," said Mr. Flexen quickly. "I'm sure we're very much obliged to you for showing us the letter."

There was nothing more to be done at the bank, and having again thanked Mr. Harrison, they took their leave of him. He showed no great cordiality in his leave-taking, he was looking at the matter from the point of view of the bank. The bank preferred to detect forgeries itself—in time.

As they came into the street, Mr. Carrington rubbed his hands together and said in a tone of deep satisfaction: "And now for the warrant."

"Warrant for whom?" said Mr. Flexen in a tone of polite inquiry.

"Manley. The sooner that young scoundrel is in gaol the better I shall feel," said Mr. Carrington.

"So should I," said Mr. Flexen. "But I'm very much afraid that for Mr. Manley it's a far cry to Holloway. We have no case against him whatever—not a scrap of a case that I can see."

"Hang it all! It's as plain as a pikestaff! He's engaged to this woman—this Mrs. Truslove—who has a nice little income. He hears that her income is to be halved; and we know that if an allowance begins by being halved, as likely as not it will be stopped altogether before long. He saw that clearly enough. Then in the very nick of time this cheque comes along. He sends it to the bank with this letter of instructions, and murders Lord Loudwater so that he cannot disavow them. What more of a case do you want?"

"I don't want a better case. I only want some evidence. It's true enough that Mrs. Manley told me that she told Manley that Lord Loudwater proposed to halve her allowance. But where's the evidence that she talked to him about it? She'd deny it if you put her into the witness-box, and you can't put her into the witness-box."

"Husband and wife, by Jove! Oh, the clever young scoundrel!" cried Mr. Carrington.

"And that halving of the allowance is the beginning of the whole business. Manley had made up his mind to marry a lady with a fixed income—indeed, they were probably already engaged. Loudwater upsets the arrangement. Manley restores the status quo by means of this cheque and the murder of Loudwater. Of course, he hated Loudwater—he admitted as much to me—more than once. But if Loudwater had played fair about that allowance, he'd be alive now. Having established the status quo, Manley promptly marries the lady, and closes the mouth of the only person who can bear witness that the allowance was in danger and he had any motive for murdering Loudwater."

Mr. Carrington ground his teeth and murmured: "The infernal young scoundrel!" Then he broke out violently: "But we're not beaten yet. Now that we know for a fact that he murdered Loudwater and why, there must be some way of getting at him."

"I very much doubt it," said Flexen sadly. "He's an uncommonly able fellow. I don't believe that he's taken a chance. He wears a glove and leaves the knife in the wound, so that there are no bloodstains. And consider the cheque. The bank wouldn't have honoured Loudwater's own cheque, the cheque of a dead man, but the stock-broker's cheque goes through as a matter of course."

"Of course," said Mr. Carrington.

"And he has kept the business so entirely in his own hands. If we had run in any one else, he'd have come forward and sworn that he heard Loudwater snore after Roper had seen that person leave the Castle. I'm beginning to think that he's one of the most able murderers I ever heard of. I certainly never came across one in my own experience who was a patch on him," said Mr. Flexen.

"Don't be in such a hurry to lose hope. There must be some way of getting at him—there must be," said Mr. Carrington obstinately.

"I'm glad to hear it," said Mr. Flexen in a tone of utter scepticism.

They walked on, Mr. Flexen reflecting on Mr. Manley's ability, Mr. Carrington cudgelling his brains for a method of bringing his crime home to him. At the door of his office Mr. Flexen held out his hand.

"Come along in. I've got an idea," said Mr. Carrington.



CHAPTER XVII

Mr. Flexen shrugged his shoulders with a sceptical air. He had not formed a high opinion of Mr. Carrington's intelligence. However, he followed him into his office and sat down, ready to give him his best attention.

Mr. Carrington wore a really hopeful expression, and he said: "My idea is that we should get at Manley through Mrs. Manley."

"I'm not at all keen on getting at a man through his wife," said Mr. Flexen rather dolefully. "But in this case it's manifestly our duty to leave nothing untried. Murder for money is murder for money."

"I should think it was our duty!" cried Mr. Carrington with emphasis.

"And there are three innocent people under suspicion of having committed the murder. Fire away. How is it to be done?" said Mr. Flexen.

"The new Lord Loudwater must bring an action against Mrs. Manley for the return of that twelve thousand pounds on the ground that it was obtained from the late Lord Loudwater by fraud—as it certainly was," said Mr. Carrington, leaning forward with shining eyes and speaking very distinctly.

"I see," said Mr. Flexen. But his expression was not hopeful.

"Once we get her in the witness-box we establish the fact that Lord Loudwater had made up his mind to halve her allowance, for she'll have to give the reason for her visiting him so late that night; and so we get Manley's motive for committing the murder also established."

"I see. But will you be able to use her evidence in the first trial at the second?" said Mr. Flexen doubtfully.

"That's the idea," said Mr. Carrington triumphantly.

"You think it can be worked?"

"We can have a jolly good try at it," said Mr. Carrington, rubbing his hands together, and his square, massive face was rather malignant in its triumph.

Mr. Flexen did not look triumphant, or even hopeful.

"But will you get the new Lord Loudwater to bring this action?" he said.

"Why, of course. There's the money for one thing, and when he sees how important it is from the point of view of getting at Manley, he can't refuse," said Mr. Carrington confidently.

"There isn't the money—not necessarily. He might get back the twelve thousand pounds and have to pay Mrs. Manley six hundred a year for forty or fifty years. She's a healthy-looking woman," said Mr. Flexen. "I take it that the late Lord Loudwater had property of his own against which she could claim."

"Oh, of course, she could do that," said Mr. Carrington, and there was some diminution of the triumphant expression.

"She would," said Mr. Flexen. "Then you'll have to get over his objection to incurring a considerable amount of odium. It will look bad for a man of his wealth to try to recover from a lady a sum of money to which every one will consider her entitled."

"Oh, but it was obtained by fraud," said Mr. Carrington.

"If you were sure of proving that, it would make a difference in the way people would regard it. But you're not sure of proving it—not by a long chalk. And you can't assure your client that you are. There'll be a lot of conflicting evidence about that signature, as Harrison pretty clearly showed. If you don't prove it, your client will be landed with the costs of the case and incur still greater odium."

"Ah, but he is bound to take the risk to bring his cousin's murderer to justice," said Mr. Carrington.

"Is he?" said Flexen dryly. "What kind of terms was he on with his murdered cousin?"

"Well, I must say I didn't expect you to ask that question," said Mr. Carrington pettishly. "What kind of terms was the late Lord Loudwater likely to be on with his heir? They hated one another like poison."

"I thought as much," said Mr. Flexen. "And what kind of a man is the new man—anything like his dead cousin?"

"Oh, well, all the Loudwaters are pretty much of a muchness. But the present man is a better man all round—better manners and better brains," said Mr. Carrington.

"Better brains, and you think he'll be willing to celebrate his succession to the peerage by a first-class scandal of this kind, a scandal which may bring him this money, but which will certainly bring odium on him?" said Mr. Flexen.

"When it's a case of bringing a murderer to justice," said Mr. Carrington obstinately.

"The murderer of a man he hated like poison? I should think that he'd want to see his way pretty clear. And it isn't clear—not by any means. For there's precious little chance of Mrs. Manley's giving Lord Loudwater's threat to halve her allowance as the reason of her visit to him that night. In fact, there's no chance at all. Manley will see to that. Once attack the genuineness of that signature, and you open his eyes to his danger. She'll come into the witness-box with quite another reason for that visit, and a good reason too. Manley will find it for her," said Mr. Flexen with conviction. "But there's the quarrel. She can't get over that quarrel," said Mr. Carrington stubbornly.

"She'll deny the quarrel. It's only Mrs. Carruthers' word against hers. Besides, Mrs. Carruthers heard what she did hear through a closed door. It will be so easy to make out that she made a mistake."

"You seem to take it for granted that Mrs. Manley will commit perjury at that young scoundrel's bidding," snapped Mr. Carrington.

"I take it for granted that she'll be a woman fighting to save her husband. And I'm also sure that there'll be precious few mistakes in tactics made in the fight. I think that all you'll get out of the trial will be a strong presumption that Lord Loudwater committed suicide. I'd bet that that is the line Manley will take. And she'll make a thundering good witness for him. She's a good-looking woman, with plenty of intelligence."

Mr. Carrington gazed at him with unhappy eyes. His square, massive face had lost utterly its expression of triumph.

"But hang it all!" he cried. "What are we going to do? Knowing what we know, we can't sit still and do nothing."

"I can't see anything we can do," said Mr. Flexen frankly, and he rose. "You have demonstrated that Manley's position is impregnable."

He took his leave of the dejected lawyer.

Outside Mr. Carrington's office he stood still, hesitating. He could have caught a train back to Low Wycombe, but he could not bring himself to take it. He could not at once tear himself away from London and Mr. Manley. He must sleep on the new facts in the Loudwater case. He went to his club, engaged a bedroom, and dined there.

Mr. and Mrs. Manley dined at their flat. Mr. Manley talked during dinner with elegance and vivacity. The maid brought in the coffee and went back to the kitchen.

As he lighted his wife's cigarette, Mr. Manley said in a careless tone: "What did Flexen want to see you about?"

Helena gave him a full account of her interview with Mr. Flexen, his questions and her answers.

"I guessed that you were the Daily Wire's mysterious woman," he said. "I saw how frightened you were when it came out. But, of course, as you didn't say anything about it, I didn't."

"That is so like you," she murmured.

"One human being should never intrude on another," said Mr. Manley with a noble air.

"It might be your motto," she said, looking at him with admiring eyes. She paused; then she added: "And I was frightened—horribly frightened. I couldn't sleep. I was going to tell you about it, but I didn't like to. You gave me no opening. Then the letter came from my bankers—about the twelve thousand pounds—and it made it all right. It made it clear that I had no reason to murder Loudwater."

"Of course," said Mr. Manley. "But in the event of any new developments, I should not admit that Lord Loudwater talked of halving your allowance, or that you quarrelled with him. In fact, I shouldn't let Flexen interview you again at all. In an affair of this kind you can't be too careful."

"I won't let him interview me again," said Helena with decision.

Mr. Flexen did not try to interview her again. But at eleven the next morning he called on Mr. Manley. He had very little hope of effecting anything by the call, though he meant to try. But he had the keenest desire to scrutinize him again and carefully in the light of the new facts he had discovered.

Mr. Manley kept him waiting awhile in the drawing-room; then the maid ushered him into Mr. Manley's study. Mr. Manley was sitting at a table, at work on his play. He greeted Mr. Flexen with a rather absent-minded air.

Mr. Flexen surveyed him with very intent, measuring eyes. At once he perceived that he had rather missed Mr. Manley's jaw in giving attention to his admirable forehead. It was, indeed, the jaw of a brute. He could see him drive the knife into Lord Loudwater, and walk out of the smoking-room with an ugly, contented smile on his face.

He had little hopes of bringing off anything in the nature of a bluff; but he said, in a rasping tone: "We've discovered that the signature of Lord Loudwater's letter of instructions to his bankers to pay that cheque for twelve thousand pounds into your wife's account was forged."

Mr. Manley looked at him blankly for a moment. There was no expression at all on his face. Then it filled slowly with an expression of surprise.

"Rehearsed, by Jove!" murmured Mr. Flexen under his breath, and he could not help admiring the skilful management of that expression of surprise. It was so unhasty and natural.

"My dear fellow, what on earth are you driving at? I saw him write it myself," said Mr. Manley in an indulgent tone.

"You forged it," snapped Mr. Flexen.

Mr. Manley looked at him with a new surprise which changed slowly to pity. Then he said in such a tone as one might use to an unreasonable child: "My good chap, what on earth should I forge it for?"

"You knew that he was going to halve Mrs. Truslove's allowance. You were bent on marrying a woman with money. You took this way of ensuring that she had money, forged the letter, and murdered Lord Loudwater," said Mr. Flexen on a rising inflexion.

"By Jove! I see what you're after. It shows how infernally silly a schoolboy joke can be! Lord Loudwater never talked of halving my wife's allowance. That was an invention of mine. I told her that he was doing so just to tease her," said Mr. Manley firmly, with a note of contrition in his voice.

Mr. Flexen opened his mouth a little way. It was a superb invention. It left Mrs. Manley free to go into the witness-box to tell the story she had told him. It knocked the bottom clean out of Carrington's case.

"What really happened was that Lord Loudwater was grousing about the allowance—at being reminded every six months that he had behaved like a cad. I suggested that he should pay her a lump sum and be done with the business. He jumped at the idea. The cheque had come from his stockbrokers that morning; he directed me to write that letter of instructions to his bankers; I wrote it, and he signed it. There you have the whole business."

"I don't believe a word of it!" cried Mr. Flexen.

Mr. Manley rose with an air of great dignity and said: "My good chap, I can excuse your temper. It was an ingenious theory, and it must be very annoying to have it upset. But I'm fed up with this Loudwater business. I've got here"—he tapped the manuscript on the table—"a drama worth fifty of it. Out of working hours I don't mind talking that affair over with you; in them I won't."

Mr. Flexen rose and said: "You're undoubtedly the most accomplished scoundrel I've ever come across."

"If you will have it so," said Mr. Manley patiently. Then he smiled and added: "Praise from an expert—"

They turned to see Mrs. Manley standing in the doorway, her lips parted, her eyes dilated in a growing consternation.

She stepped forward. Mr. Flexen slipped round her and fairly fled.

She looked at Mr. Manley with horror-stricken eyes and said: "What—what did he mean, Herbert?"

"He meant what he said. But what it really means is that I won't let him hang that wretched James Hutchings," said Mr. Manley with a noble air.

* * * * *

Three months later, on the first night of Mr. Manley's play, Colonel Grey came upon Mr. Flexen in the lounge of the Haymarket, between the second and third acts. Both of them praised the play warmly, and there came a pause.

Then Colonel Grey said: "I suppose you've given up all hope of solving the problem of Loudwater's death."

"Oh, I solved it three months ago. It was Manley," said Mr. Flexen.

"By Jove!" said Colonel Grey softly.

"Not a doubt of it. I'll tell you all about it one of these days," said Mr. Flexen, for the bell rang to warn them that the third act was about to begin.

In the corridor Colonel Grey said: "Queer that he should have dropped down dead in the street a week before this success."

"Well, he was discharged from the Army for having a bad heart. But it is a bit queer," said Mr. Flexen.

"The mills of God," said Colonel Grey.

"Looks like it," said Mr. Flexen.

THE END