The Bungalow Mystery (18 page)

“Yes, sir.” The footman hesitated. “Mrs. Hollingsworth has sent word, sir, that the sick lady is that obstinate, she declares she must see Dr. Lavington. Dr. Arnold has been twice to-day, but she cannot content herself with him, and she is getting into such a state about it that she has frightened them all. Mrs. Hollingsworth thought, sir, that you might be so good as to walk down and explain things.”

“Bother the woman!” Roger exclaimed irritably as he sat up. “Well, if I must, I suppose I shall have no peace unless I go. Who came up, William?”

“Mrs. Hollingsworth's daughter, sir.”

A gleam of mirth lighted up Roger's eyes.

“What, the one I saw you walking with on Sunday? Don't let me keep you from her, William. Tell her I will come round and talk to Mrs. Vonnerhart as soon as I can.”

“I am sure, sir—” The footman retreated, scarlet and embarrassed.

Roger stood up and proceeded to change his shooting-jacket for a more professional-looking coat. He only waited to put some statistics in order that he was preparing for his evening's work, and then, reflecting that since another visit to Mrs. Vonnerhart appeared to be inevitable, he might as well get it over at once, started across the park.

The Courtenay Arms was a pretty, old-fashioned inn. Its thatched roof and quaint mullioned windows had been the subject of many a sketch. The front was left untouched, as it had stood for a couple of hundred years or more, but at the back, yielding to Mrs. Hollingsworth's entreaties, Sir James's predecessor had built a new kitchen suited to modern requirements, and thrown out a pretty bay-window from the long, low parlour.

At first nobody seemed to be about; even the bar was deserted. Roger walked in. The sound of his feet on the stone passage soon brought Mrs. Hollingsworth out, however.

“Ah, Dr. Lavington, I do call this good of you!” she cried as she bustled forward. “Ever since Dr. Arnold called, and I told her it was your wish that he should attend her, we have not had a moment's peace with Mrs. Vonnerhart. She will hardly be decently civil to him, say what I will. Dr. Lavington should attend her, she said—Dr. Lavington and no one else. At last to-day I was forced to send up to you just to pacify her like.”

“Perhaps I had better go up at once, then,” Lavington said, turning towards the staircase. “I shall tell her she must be content with Dr. Arnold though; this sort of thing will not do.”

Mrs. Vonnerhart was sitting by the open window in a big easy chair, propped up by pillows. Her breathing, though considerably easier, was still laboured. Her dark, hollow eyes lighted up when she saw Roger.

‘‘Ah! Dr. Lavington, this is good of you!” she said faintly. “I told Mrs. Hollingsworth I would have you sent for.” Slowly she turned her black eyes upon Roger. “Do you know why I came to Oakthorpe?”

"No!” The prejudice which Roger had unconsciously conceived towards her on their first meeting strengthened rather than abated as he waited, watching her expression the meanwhile in the clearer light. “That hardly concerns me, does it?” he went on, as she made no response.

“I came to see you.” Her eyes, with their unpleasantly-secretive expression, were fixed full upon his face as though to mark the effect of her words.

“To see me?” For one moment Roger doubted whether he had heard aright. “I don't understand you, Mrs. Vonnerhart. Surely I have never had the pleasure—”

“You have never seen me before,” the sick woman interrupted. “But when you hear my name, none the less, you will know why I have come—why I must see you.”

Lavington felt thoroughly mystified. For a moment he wondered whether her mind was wandering; but no, her tones, though hoarse and low, by reason of her difficult breathing, were steady and controlled; her eyes met his fully, sanely.

“Your name!” he echoed lamely. “I don't think that I ever heard it before.”

“No.” The woman gave a hard little laugh. “You called me Vonnerhart just now, following Mrs. Hollingsworth's example. I suppose that is as near as those country yokels can get. You will know it as soon as you hear it, Dr. Lavington. I have no reason for concealing it, for keeping my whereabouts a secret—it is Von Rheinhart!”

“Von Rheinhart!” Roger's lips mechanically formed the words; his hands gripped the back of the chair he was leaning upon. His brain was in a whirl. Who was this woman? What was her connection with the dead man who was murdered in The Bungalow? Bewildered though he was, he retained some recollection of having heard at the inquest that Rheinhart had no near relatives. Certainly none of them had come down to the funeral.

Apparently the invalid was enjoying the spectacle of his astonishment. She even laughed a little to herself.

“Ah, I thought I should surprise you. Yes, my name is Von Rheinhart and I am Maximilian von Rheinhart's widow.”

“His widow!” Lavington's expression was still one of blank amazement.

“I didn't know—I had no idea that he had left a widow.”

“No, I thought not.” Mrs. von Rheinhart nodded her head. “It was Maximilian von Rheinhart's pose to pass as a single man. Nevertheless, we had been married for some years when he settled at Sutton Boldon. And now, Dr. Lavington—now I think you will be able to guess why I came to Oakthorpe.”

Though the room was whirling round for Lavington, though he felt absolutely dazzled by this sudden change of all his ideas, he managed to control his features, his expression remained absolutely sphinx-like.

“I cannot say that I do.”

The feverishly-bright eyes watched his closely.

“You cannot say you do,” mockingly. “And yet, Dr. Lavington, I should think you might imagine that Maximilian von Rheinhart's widow would wish to see the doctor who was called in at her husband's death.”

“There is so little I can add to what was printed in the reports of the inquest,” Roger said slowly.

The black eyes did not relax their eager scrutiny.

“So little can you add, Dr. Lavington, you say? And yet I think—I am sure—that, if you like, you can help me to the attainment of the object that brought me down to Oakthorpe. Do you know that I have sworn to avenge my husband's murder?”

There was a moment's tense silence; not a movement, not a sound, was heard save the laboured breathing of the woman by the window. Lavington, taken all unawares as he was, girded himself up for the conflict. He felt that it was to be a war of wits between him and this woman who called herself Maximilian von Rheinhart's widow; it behoved him to play the game warily; to calculate carefully the effect of each move before the piece was touched.

He raised his eyebrows slightly.

“I understand the police are taking the matter up again, madam. May I remind you that in your condition quiet and rest are above all things needful. You must endeavour to keep your thoughts as much as possible from this subject at present, at any rate.”

“The police?” the woman echoed scornfully, clutching at the lace round the neck of her dressing- gown, as if to tear it apart, and ignoring the latter part of his speech. “The police would do nothing—see nothing—but what lay just before their faces. They have taken it for granted all this time that the girl killed at Northchester had shot my husband, and, secure in their belief, they have let the real murderess go scot-free!”

In her excitement she had raised herself; two red spots burned, hotly on her thin cheeks. Roger quietly laid her back in her chair.

“The amount of harm you may do yourself if you will not keep quiet is incalculable,” he said sternly. “I at any rate, must refuse to be a party to it. I shall decline to discuss this matter with you in any way.”

Mrs. von Rheinhart's laugh was not pleasant to hear.

“I don't think you will, Dr. Lavington. My chain of evidence is almost complete, but your testimony can supply the missing link, though whether you speak or refuse”—her voice growing emphatic—“the arrest of the real criminal is only a matter of days. Ah, you had no idea of that,” as Roger involuntarily winced. “You don't know the strength of our case. No no! Wait, Dr. Lavington. You shall not go!” clutching at his coat with one thin, yellow hand. “You shall hear what I have to say. He; was a bad man, the world says. Well, I know what Maximilian von Rheinhart was, none better, though I was only a slip of a girl when he took me from home. I trusted him and loved him as few men are trusted and loved and when he told me, at the end of a month, that our marriage had been performed in a sham registry office and that he was tired of me, I thought my heart was broken. When he left me for some newer, fairer face, there was nothing for me to do, it seemed to me, but to die. Only fear—absolute physical fear of the unknown hereafter—kept me from putting an end to my life. But kind friends were raised up for me, and miserable, heartbroken, though I was, I lived on.

“Not until afterwards did I learn that the man who professed to be Maximilian's friend had duped him, not me. The marriage was legal enough, and I was Maximilian von Rheinhart's wife. When I heard of his murder I was living at Palermo with an old lady as companion. She was dangerously ill, and as she had been very kind to me, I could not leave her. I wrote to the police when the news reached me, but I had no money—I could do nothing.” She paused and gasped for breath.

Roger watched her with a certain compassion. Presently he went over to the dressing-table, and poured out a dose of the medicine Dr. Arnold had prescribed.

“Drink this!” he ordered, holding it to her lips, “and remember that I have warned you that absolute quiet—”

She caught eagerly at the glass and drank off the contents.

“Ah, that is better! That gives me new life! Absolute quiet, you say, Dr. Lavington? Well, I shall have that very soon now, when the woman who shot Maximilian von Rheinhart is brought to justice. Then—then I shall have nothing to do but rest. Don't you understand that till then I can't lie still? The very thought that she is at liberty is torture to me. All the time we were separated, after I learned the truth, I always looked forward to going back to Maximilian. Perhaps he would be poor—lonely even. I should have said to him, ‘I am your wife, Maximilian, your true and faithful wife.' I knew the old lady who had practically adopted me meant to leave me her money. I should have been rich, and Maximilian should have had a welcome from me. But she—Mrs. Scanlan—lived to last year; and Maximilian was dead; my dream was over. Do you wonder I swore the woman should be punished, that I would not rest until she had paid the penalty of her crime?”

Roger bent forward, keeping his eyes fixed on hers. “What good would that do you? It would not bring Rheinhart back to you? And, from your own showing, he was not a good man. Think what some one—man or woman—may have suffered at his hands! Think what the provocation may have been!”

“Why do you say man or woman,” Mrs. von Rheinhart demanded, “when you know, and I know, that it was a woman.”

"I do not know,” Lavington contradicted her steadily. How much she guessed of his share of the events of that long past night he could not tell; but he realized that she suspected him, at any rate, of a more intimate knowledge of the circumstances than he admitted. “I know that the police searched everywhere for a woman who was believed to have entered The Bungalow that night, but I have seen no evidence to prove that she was guilty of the murder.”

“What if I showed you some?” The pallid, clawlike hands were gripping the sides of the chair now. Those strange black eyes seemed as if they could read through his very soul.

Roger knew not how to answer while that curious gaze was upon him.

“My husband's effects were stored in London after the inquest,” she went on. “When I came back to England my first thought was to visit the place, to see what I could learn from them. First, I found documentary evidence that he had sought for me, that he had not altogether forgotten me; next, hidden away in a secret drawer that the police had apparently overlooked, I came upon a letter—a love-letter—signed by a name I knew; inside the lining of the coat he wore the night he died there was a piece of paper; it had slipped down and been unnoticed until I found it by accident; it was only a scrap—‘Yes, I accept your terms; I will be with you to-morrow at seven o'clock!'—but it was the same writing as the former note, there were the corresponding initials, and it was dated April 14th. Ah!” as Roger failed altogether to conceal the dismay with which he heard the announcement. “I thought you would see that I had more proofs than you guessed. Now, Dr. Lavington, we want your help; we want you to tell us how the murderess escaped.”

Roger rose; he saw that it was impossible to over-estimate either the importance of the discovery that had been made or the danger in which Daphne Luxmore stood, should it be her name that was attached to the incriminating paper. Away from the influence of the girl's sweet, pathetic voice, too, the glamour of her appealing eyes, it was not so easy to persuade himself that she was innocent of the crime, that the murderer of Maximilian von Rheinhart must be looked for elsewhere.

“I regret I cannot help you,” he said coldly. “I was merely concerned in ascertaining the cause of death. The hunting out and the tracking down of criminals is no part of my work, I am glad to say.”

The dark eyes still kept up their hard, unwinking stare, the thin, bloodless lips moved in a ghastly attempt to smile.

“Perhaps the helping them to escape may be, Dr. Lavington—well, I think I shall be able to do without you. I have not let the grass grow under my feet, and they tell me—the detectives I have engaged—that the arrest is only a matter of a few days.”

“Is that so? Your object will soon be accomplished, then.” This time Lavington had himself well in hand. Even the keen eyes watching him could see no faintest change in his expression. He moved nearer the door. “In the meantime, let me warn you that nothing can be worse for you than this state of nervous excitement. You should endeavour to put the whole thing out of your mind if possible. Rest both mind and body if you are to recover your health.”