Crime at Tattenham Corner (18 page)

Pamela had decided weeks ago that nothing should induce her to go abroad with her stepmother. Nevertheless she had been conscious of a distinct feeling of pique when it became apparent that Lady Burslem in no wise desired her society. The only point upon which Lady Burslem had insisted was that Pamela should take with her Wilmer, who had been maid to the first Lady Burslem, and after her death Pamela's personal attendant.

Fond as Pamela was of Wilmer, she was inclined to think that the woman was old-fashioned, and that she would have preferred some one more modern as her maid at the Stanmore-Greens'. Lady Burslem, however, had been adamant on the point, and Pamela had been compelled to yield. And now that she was at Fallock Castle, as the Stanmore-Greens' place was called, after a day among a big house-party every member of which was entirely unknown to her, Pamela was conscious of a feeling of warmth and gladness when she found Wilmer waiting for her, all her things laid out just as she liked them, and the maid anxious to pet and cosset her just as she had done in her childish days.

But Pamela had been a week at Fallock now, and she was beginning to feel quite at home. To-night Mrs. Green was giving what she called a small dance, but which seemed to include not only everybody in the immediate neighbourhood but everybody within motoring distance. Pamela was looking forward to it enormously. Her pleasures had necessarily been circumscribed since her father's terrible death. She had all a healthy young girl's love of dancing and pleasure, and the natural reaction from the long period of doubt and fear through which she had passed in 15 Porthwick Square.

She was wearing a lovely frock to-night, one that she had chosen at a great man dressmaker's just before leaving town. It was of white crepe covered almost all over with the most exquisite embroidery in seed pearls and silver. It came just below her knee; white silk stockings had replaced the nude, and the silver shoes had buckles of real diamonds. Her silver girdle was caught up on one side with a bunch of silver flowers and in the heart of each one, like a dewdrop, there was set a tiny brilliant. Her only ornament was a great rope of pearls which had been her father's last birthday present.

Wilmer had set her shingled hair perfectly; and one of Pamela's charms was the beautiful poise of her small head on her long neck like the stem of a flower. It would not have been in a girl's nature not to feel a touch of gratification as, on entering the ballroom, she caught sight of her full-length reflection in a long mirror in the wall opposite.

Mrs. Green caught her hand.

“I am a little worried – how sweet you look, darling! – but the most awkward contretemps has happened. Do tell me you won't mind.”

Pamela laughed. “I am sure I shall not,” she said gaily. “Don't look so upset, Sadie dear. What has happened?”

“Just the last thing in the world I should have thought possible,” Mrs. Green declared dramatically. “You know I asked the Mackintoshes to bring their house party to-night?”

“Yes, I think so,” Pamela said doubtfully. “You have told me such a lot of people were coming, you know, Sadie darling, that I am a little muddled. Do you mean that the Mackintoshes have cried off?”

“Cried off! No, indeed, I wish they had! You – you really won't mind, Pam?” Mrs. Green caught Pamela's hand and gazed up in her face, with an imploring expression that made the girl laugh. “It is some one they are bringing with them.”

“Of course I shall not mind,” Pamela said comfortingly. “Do you mean that they are bringing someone who is not quite – quite –”

“Oh, heavens, no! It isn't that. What should I care – what would anybody care about that? And it is not a her – or a she – I don't know which you call it at all. It is a man.”

“A man!” Pamela's face was a blank. “Why should I mind meeting a man? What has he done – broken the seventh commandment or the tenth?”

“No, no. It is worse than that. It is –”

Mrs. Stanmore-Green paused and gazed round as if for inspiration. “It is no use beating about the bush,” she said at last. “It is Sir Charles Stanyard. There it is out, and you can say what you like to me.”

“I don't want to say anything,” Pamela turned rather white. “It is unfortunate, for us both. But it cannot be helped. And of course it is not your fault. I expect I was bound to meet him some day. Now that I know he will be here I can keep out of his way.”

They had no time for more. Mr. Stanmore-Green was claiming his wife's attention and their guests were beginning to arrive. 

Pamela was claimed for the first dance by Tom Murray, a young man staying in the house with whom she had struck up a great friendship. Large as the ballroom was it was soon full, for Mrs. Green had been catholic in her invitation and the neighbourhood was quite ready for a little gaiety.

More than once Pamela looked round, wondering whether her arch-enemy, as she called Sir Charles Stanyard to herself, was present. She had no idea what he was like, but after some doubt she pitched upon a tall, thin young man with a dark, saturnine face as being the most like her idea of Stanyard. Young Murray found her distraite and almost dull, quite unlike his previous experience of her. He began to chaff her upon her inattention, but got little response, and was almost regretting his choice of a partner when the band struck up “Paul Jones”, and for a minute they were separated.

As Pamela danced round in the circle she saw that the dark, saturnine man was getting quite near her, and made up her mind that at all hazards she must be prevented from falling to his lot. Then she glanced farther on, and she almost stood still in her amazement. Surely it was Dick Leyton dancing round and almost obviously trying to manoeuvre himself opposite her. Gladly Pamela did her little best to help, and was rewarded by finding herself in his arms for the waltz.

But the circle was going round again and the moment with Leyton was over. Pamela's pallor had gone.

She had not the faintest idea as yet what the feeling was that dyed her cheeks red and made her eyes bright and shining, and she told herself it was only because she was anxious to frustrate Stanyard's designs that she determined to find herself opposite Leyton again. When the band stopped he smiled down at her.

“Luck has favoured me enormously to-night.”

“Has it?” Pamela was suddenly tongue-tied.

“Has it?” he mimicked. “I should rather think it has. Now, how many dances are you going to give me? The next?”

“No. I am engaged,” Pamela murmured. “I – I am engaged for all the dances.”

“Then we will have some extras and you shall give them all to me,” he said audaciously. “But first of all I have a confession to make to you. Will you promise me absolution beforehand?”

“Yes, I think I will. I don't fancy you would do anything very bad,” Pamela said with an adorable upward smile.

His face suddenly became grave.

“What will you say when I tell you that I am frightened, very frightened?”

Pamela's smile deepened. “I shall say –”

She was interrupted by the dark, saturnine man who had come up to them and was shaking hands with her companion.

“Stanyard, my dear fellow, will you introduce me?” 

Stanyard!” Pamela stared at her escort, whose face had distinctly deepened in hue beneath its tan. Her newly gained colour faded.

“You – you are Sir Charles Stanyard!” she gasped. “Not – not him?”

“Not me, certainly,” said the dark one cheerfully. “I shouldn't mind if I was Stanyard at the present moment.”

“I think you would be rather sorry for yourself if you were,” the real Charles Stanyard said grimly. “Miss Burslem, this is Lord Corder, the greatest ass I know. Now, be off with you, Corder! You have done as much harm as you can for one evening.” He turned Lord Corder round as he spoke.

That young man extricated himself from Stanyard's grasp with an injured air.

“I haven't a notion what you are talking about, old thing. I wanted to ask Miss Burslem to give me a dance. I thought –”

“Well, you can't. So be off and ask some one else,” Stanyard said with a sudden accession of heat, as Pamela began to show distinct signs of attempting to escape from them both. “Can't you see when you are not wanted, you fool?”

“I beg your pardon.” Lord Corder disappeared with an air of offended dignity.

Stanyard turned to Pamela. “Will you ever forgive me – now that you know?”

“Why did you tell me your name was Leyton?” 

Pamela inquired icily. “Not” – with a contemptuous laugh – “that I am surprised that you do not want to own to being Sir Charles Stanyard. I think in your place I should be ashamed of it too.''

“I am not in the least ashamed of it,” the man declared, holding his head high. “And my name is Richard Leyton. Charles Richard Leyton Stanyard. You must let me tell you how it was. I did not know your name either that morning we met in the Park. But I was just about to tell you mine when you suddenly blurted out that Charles Stanyard was the man you hated most on earth. Then, I must own it to you, I was a coward. I thought I would try and make you like me before I told you I was Stanyard. You don't know how much I had thought and dreamed of you since our first meeting. And I felt sure that if I told you I was Charles Stanyard then you would turn me down – you would have no more to do with me. And – and I could not face that.”

“You need not have told me lies,” Pamela said coldly. “But still it is of no consequence; it does not matter a bit. Only I don't think I want to talk to you any more – you – you who – I cannot bear it.” Her voice quivered and she turned away.

In a second Stanyard was beside her.

“You cannot go like this, Pam,” he said hoarsely. “The worst criminals have a right to be heard in their own defence. Give me five minutes – no more. Let me tell you my story myself.” 

Pamela hardened her heart against the anxious misery in his eyes, the pleading in his voice. She was shaking from head to foot with anger; her eyes were blazing with wrath as she faced him defiantly.

“What do you want to tell me – how you murdered my father?”

“No!” the man thundered. He caught her hands and crushed them in his grasp. “Now, by Heaven, you shall listen to me. I never hurt a hair of your father's head – Heaven knows I am a poor sort of a chap and I have never done any particular good in the world; but I have drawn the line at murder. Now, do you accept my word?”

Pamela hesitated; but her own heart was playing the traitor. Her hands that had been struggling fiercely quieted down and lay quivering in his.

“You wanted Perlyon to win the Derby.”

In spite of his anger Stanyard laughed aloud.

“Much good it would have done me, if I had been hanged for murdering your father! Besides, anyhow Perlyon would have won the Derby. The colt could have given Peep o' Day pounds and won. No, Perlyon was the certainty. I know it and his trainer knew it.”

Pamela's resolution was fading under the influence of Stanyard's smile, his words.

“My stepmother,” she faltered.

“Ah, yes, I dare say. I believe that people were good enough to hint that I murdered Sir John Burslem in order to marry his widow. As if I should be such a fool, as if any johnny would be such a blinkin' fool as to hang about after a girl that had given him the chuck once. And Sophie Burslem would be about the last woman I should want to marry. People must take me for a darned ass. But you know better, Pam” – holding her hands firmly in his he pressed them to his heart – “you know what woman I want to marry, don't you?”

With a sudden wrench Pamela tore her hands away. “No, I don't. How should I?”

Stanyard gave her a little push that sent her into the seat behind.

“Let me tell you, Pam. You shall listen –”

“No, I will not!” The girl put her fingers in her ears. “I will not listen to anything. I will not think of anything until my father's murderer is found.”

“Poor little girl!” The man looked down at her with eyes that were now only gravely compassionate. “Is that how you feel? But suppose the secret remains a secret to the end? Isn't it better for you to think of your father as at rest than to waste your young life dreaming of a revenge that perhaps he would not wish you to take?”

Pamela looked at him. “You know who is guilty?”

“Indeed I do not!”

Something in his tone carried conviction to Pamela, but her eyes were still fixed on his face. 

“Then – then you suspect?”

Now the man looked away and there was a subtle change in his tone. “I have no reason to suspect anyone. And if a vague, formless fancy does cross my mind sometimes – why, it counts for nothing, it means nothing.”

“You were there at Hughlin's Wood – that night,” Pamela pursued, her eyes searching his face as though they would read his very soul. “You passed when he was – there.”

“If I did, I didn't know it,” Stanyard said steadily. “I spoke to no one after I left Epsom until I got back to town, except a woman who spoke to me when I was lying under my old bus tinkering away at her. How my handkerchief got in Sir John's car, or how his cigarette-case got in mine I have no more idea than the dead.”

He was interrupted, the door was opened and Mrs. Green's pretty head was poked in.

“Pamela! I have been looking for you everywhere. Your partner is distracted. Sir Charles Stanyard!”

A smart-looking car had stopped before the door of Mrs. Jimmy's house. That lady looked out. She was seated at the window of her small lounge. She was dressed for walking and at the moment occupied with a letter that had just arrived from Scotland.

A man who had got out of the car, and was occupying himself momentarily with looking over one of the brakes, turned to the door. Mrs. Jimmy's eyes grew round. She uttered an exclamation.