Comes a Stranger (7 page)

None the less, though all this was very interesting, Bobby was not sorry when the tour of inspection drew to an end. There were so many things he wanted to say to Olive, and so far he had hardly a chance to be alone with her for more than a few minutes at a time. He had managed to wangle permission to leave duty early and had got down here in good time, before lunch indeed and with a strong hope that he might get an invitation to have that meal at Wynton Lodge. But when he rang up from the village inn, the Wynton Arms, to announce his arrival, instead of the invitation to lunch he had so optimistically hoped for, he merely received the information that Miss Kayne and Miss Farrar were lunching out.

So he had been obliged to get his meal at the Wynton Arms in the little, low-beamed dining-room, in the company of Mr. Adams, the stooping, dim-eyed scholar in horn rimmed spectacles who had, it appeared, quarrelled so violently with Mr. Broast, and of the tall young American who, like Mr. Adams, had discovered from local gossip that Bobby was connected with Scotland Yard and had tried, not very successfully, to engage him on the subject of police work.

Now therefore that this duty tour of the Kayne library seemed to be drawing to a close, Bobby began to indulge in hopes that he might soon get a chance to have Olive to himself for a little. He was due back in town that night, but there was no need to make too early a start, so there was still time they could spend together if opportunity were permitted, and then they heard once more Miss Perkins's apologetic giggle.

“Oh, I'm so sorry,” she said as she fluttered towards them through the shadows that lay so thickly and so heavily in this home of learning and of gloom, “Briggs has just brought a memo from Miss Kayne It's a message from Sir William Winders, Miss Kayne took down when he rang up. He says he is going to run over in the car after dinner, and he wants to be sure of finding you disengaged.”

“Oh, very well,” Mr. Broast answered, though Bobby thought he looked for the moment a little annoyed or disturbed, as if this proposed visit were not too welcome. “I'll ring him later perhaps. There are several letters I ought to write to-night,” he added in a vexed tone.

“Yes, Mr. Broast,” said Miss Perkins, and fluttered away again into the shadows from which she had emerged.

They were indeed so heavy now that Mr. Broast had to produce his pocket torch to light Bobby and Olive to the door, and Bobby thanked him very much and said how interesting it had all been, and when they were safely outside, with the heavy fireproof door closed behind them, Olive said with some surprise in her voice:

“I've hardly ever known Mr. Broast be so nice and take such trouble.”

“Didn't look so awfully amiable,” observed Bobby, “when he saw me with that Milton. Did he think I was going to pinch the thing?”

“I expect so, darling,” Olive answered cheerfully. “He did look furious, didn't he? He's always in a panic about fire or burglary or visitors—especially visitors. He suspects them all, like cats in a dairy. He's got a revolver somewhere for protection against burglars, and I'm sure he would use it.”

“Has he though?” said Bobby. “Hope he's got a licence. I thought he was never going to stop showing us things—awfully interesting of course, but I came along to see you, not a lot of old junk.”

“Bobby,” protested Olive, horrified at this description of treasures and rarities famous all the world over. She added: “Ever since he heard about you, he has been calling himself a detective. I expect that's why he was so nice.”

Bobby felt a little doubtful whether ‘nice' was quite the word.

“Got a temper of his own,” he remarked. “Looked as if there had been been a good old row with those other two.”

“There's always some sort of upset when it's Inspection,” Olive told him. “He hates it so, and then it takes him away from his work and he has to answer all sorts of questions. They would be only too glad to catch him tripping. They are always as rude to each other as they can be, especially Mr. Broast to Mr. Nat, because Mr. Nat doesn't know anything about it, and so Mr. Broast gets chances to score off him. I expect that's what's happened to-day, and why Mr. Nat went off in such a paddy. All Mr. Nat wants is to sell, so he can get his share of the money.”

“Would Miss Kayne consent? Has she the power?”

“I think Mr. Nat says they could apply to the Courts for permission, I don't know exactly. He's tried to talk her over and Mr. Broast was simply furious. Of course, if anything happened to her, it would be different. He would have a much stronger position then.”

“Funny sort of business,” observed Bobby. “I suppose there's never been any talk of Miss Kayne marrying, has there?”

Olive stopped and stared at him.

“Bobby,” she asked in a small, slightly-awed voice, “you do ask such funny questions.”

“Why, what's there funny about that?” he asked, puzzled, puzzled, too by something indefinable in Olive's tone.

“It's just—” she said and paused. “It's because—” she said again and paused once more. “Somehow,” she said slowly, “you always ask just the questions that count.”

“Does that count?” he asked. “If it does, I didn't know.”

Olive was still looking at him a little strangely.

“I suppose it's being a detective,” she said. “I suppose things must come together in your mind and then you ask just the one question that matters.”

“My dear girl,” Bobby protested, “I don't in the least know what you are talking about.”

“Yes, that's just it,” Olive explained. “You don't know, you couldn't know, and all the same… Bobby, Miss Kayne told me something. It's a sort of secret, she doesn't want anyone else to know.”

“Olive,” said Bobby gravely, “you must remember I am a man under authority. Anything told me—”

But Olive laughed and interrupted, giving his arm an affectionate squeeze.

“You old silly,” she said, “it's nothing to do with that sort of secret. Only it's so funny you should ask that just when I was thinking about it. Because Miss Kayne began to talk about our being engaged and she wanted to know if I was awfully happy, and of course I said I was—Bobby, be quiet, of course I had to say that, even if I was breaking my heart in secret, when I am most likely—Bobby, when you've quite finished, and if you don't, I shan't say another word. She said she had been engaged, too, once, and, well, it's rather sad and I did feel so sorry for her. She said the man she was engaged to was awfully clever and wrote wonderful letters and lovely poetry in them, But her father didn't approve, and then he died—I mean the man she was in love with. And she fretted so much her father always wanted to burn the letters, and so to keep them safe she buried them.”

“Buried them?”

“Yes, that's the secret, in a tin box, in a waterproof wrapping. Now she thinks she would like to dig the up and have them published in a book. She thinks they were such lovely letters and some of the poetry so beautiful, they oughtn't to be lost. So she told me whereabouts she buried them, that's the special secret I'm not to tell anyone, even you, until she makes up her mind. Only she said if anything happened to her or anything special happened, then I was to tell you and ask you to help me get them and you and I are to decide.”

“Morbid sort of idea,” Bobby said. “Reminds one of Rossetti burying his poems with his wife and then digging them up again.”

“Oh, it's not like that,” Olive exclaimed. “This isn't a grave.”

“Good thing, too,” said Bobby, “only what does she mean—we're to decide. Decide what?”

“Publication, that's what she said. About publication,” Olive answered.

“Well, it's about the rummiest idea I ever heard of,” Bobby grumbled. “I don't see why she picks on you for the job either. Why can't she do it now herself, or put it in her will or something?”

Olive had no explanation to offer, and Bobby, a little tired of the Kayne library and everything connected with it, was glad to direct the conversation to more personal matters.

They managed to secure an hour or two to themselves, and then came dinner. It proved but a dull meal. Miss Kayne hardly spoke, and Mr. Broast, talkative as he had been in the library, was not equally taciturn, though Bobby caught now and again sharp glances thrown at him with that curious intensity of expression of or expectation he had seemed to detect before.

Presently, however, a reason came out. Mr. Broast believed he had caught sight of someone prowling about in the grounds near the library where no stranger had any right to be, and he was very worried. He had called out, but whoever it was had vanished without making any reply. A burglar in his opinion. Perhaps that Mr. Adams staying at the village inn. Mr. Broast had had his doubts of Mr. Adams from the first, and now he felt them more than justified.

“Told me he was connected with the University of Nebraska,” said Mr. Broast darkly. “No credentials to show, though. In my opinion, he had never been near any University in his life. He wanted to see the Mandeville leaves, wanted to photograph them. Delighted, of course, to give every facility to anyone from any university of standing, but then, is he? Or is he wanting to see what he can pick up? What do you think, Mr. Owen?”

Bobby suggested warning the local police constable, though privately of opinion that the stooping, blinking Mr. Adams looked little like any burglar he had ever met.

After dinner it was nearly time for Bobby to depart. He lingered as long as he dared and then started off. Olive wanted to come with him as far as the Wynton Arms, where he had left his motor cycle, but the night was dark, the road unlighted and the weather uninviting, with a faint splutter of rain beginning.

So Bobby set off alone. On his way he had to pass the building that was both the local police station and the home of the resident village constable. The door was open, and in the little room that served as an office two people were talking loudly. Bobby, wondering what was happening, stood still for a moment before going on and then the policeman, a man named Mills, who had never had to deal with anything much more serious than a theft of poultry or an unlighted bicycle lamp, came running after him.

“Beg pardon,” he said. “I saw you passing. It's Mr. Owen, isn't it? It's the talk here, belonging to Scotland Yard, up at London.”

“Yes, why?” asked Bobby, guessing that for some reason he was wanted back in town at once.

Constable Mills paused to wipe his forehead. In the light of the gas lamp above the door he looked pale and excited.

“There's a gentleman come in,” he said, “American gentleman, staying at the Wynton Arms. He says there's been murder done up at the Lodge in the library, he says he looked in and saw a dead man lying there all over blood.”

Behind Mills, framed in the lighted doorway of the little police station, stood the tall, still form of the young American who at lunch that day, at the Wynton Arms, had tried to get into conversation with Bobby about his work. To Bobby, now, it seemed there was something intent and wrought-up in his attitude as he stood there, leaning a little forward, like the gambler who, having placed his stake, watches and waits for the fall of the roulette ball. Bobby looked at his watch. He saw that it was nineteen minutes past ten. He said to the American:

“What is your name?”

“Virtue,” the other answered. “Bertram A. Virtue.”

The gas light above his head shone with a yellow radiance on his features, made indeed a kind of aureole about his head. Natural perhaps that a man who had hastened there with such a tale of violence, of death, of murder apparently, should have that tense, excited air. He was tall, well made, athletic in bearing, distinctly good looking, with his fair hair, blue eyes, fresh complexion, well-formed, regular features, though the nose, with its wide nostrils, inclined perhaps a trifle too much towards that variety known as the ‘snub'. Bobby noticed, too, that his ears were smaller than usual, with pointed tops, and were set closely to the head so that the lobes seemed almost to sink into the cheek. It is always well to pay special attention to the ears, for they are distinctive, difficult to disguise, always useful for purposes of identification. In spite of the tense restraint in which he held himself, his long, pliant fingers were restless, twisting themselves with and round each other. All this Bobby took in, as he had been trained to do, with one quick, intent look, and then he said:

“You state you saw a dead man in the Kayne library?”

“That's so,” Virtue answered.

“We had better get along there immediately,” Bobby said. “Please come, too.” He turned to Mills. “You've got a bike? Good. Anyone else here? Only your wife? Ask her to ring up your inspector at once and tell him what's happened. Don't stop her to do it yourself, let her. Get your bike out and get along to the Lodge as quick as you can. Mr. Virtue and I will follow—we'll foot it, quicker than waiting to get hold of a car. Can you run, Mr. Virtue?” Virtue nodded. “Come along then, sooner we're there, the better.”

They started to run. Hampered both by the darkness and by their own lack of familiarity with the road, they could not, however, use their best speed. Side by side they ran, their feet loud in the darkness of the night. Bobby had a fleeting thought that the sound of their running would alarm the whole village. He noticed, too, that Virtue ran easily and lightly, like a man in good condition. Half-way to the Lodge, Mills passed them, riding furiously. Three-quarters of the way to the Lodge, they found him crawling out of the ditch into which he and his cycle had gone together in the dark, head first.

“The bike's smashed up,” he said as they arrived. “I've hurt my ankle or something,” he said, trying to limp along.

“Never mind the bike,” Bobby said. “Come on as quick as you can—crawl if you can't walk. Come on, Mr. Virtue.”