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27 chapters
THE VISITOR'S SHADOW.
THE VISITOR'S SHADOW.
Randal Bellamy's country house was a place of pleasant breakfasts. From the dining room the outlook was delightful; grass, flowers and sunshine, with the host's easy charm, made it almost as easy for Theophilus Caldegard to drink his tea fresh, as for his daughter Amaryllis not to keep her host, Sir Randal, waiting for his coffee. This morning, while she waited for the two men, the girl, remembering that this was the eighteenth of June, was surprised by the ease with which the five weeks of her
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THE HEN WITH ONE CHICK.
THE HEN WITH ONE CHICK.
Under the cedar tree on the south lawn of Bellamy's garden sat Amaryllis Caldegard. On the wicker table at her side lay a piece of needlework half-covering three fresh novels. But when the stable-clock on the other side of the house struck noon, it reminded her that she had sat in that pleasant shadow for more than an hour without threading her needle or reading a line. Her reflections were coloured with a tinge of disappointment. Although her life, passed in almost daily contact with an affecti
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"HUMMIN' BIRD'S WESKIT."
"HUMMIN' BIRD'S WESKIT."
At a quarter past two that afternoon, Amaryllis, with her bull-dog, set out for a walk. Her father was in the laboratory, ostensibly at work, and Sir Randal, beaming expectant, had driven off to St. Albans. Tea-time, or even dinner was early enough, thought Amaryllis, to meet the new-comer; and then, in spite of the mixture of bewilderment, pride and regret which oppressed her, she remembered the words of the American in the Cape Town bar: "Eyes blue as a hummin' bird's weskit." "How absurd!" sh
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COFFEE.
COFFEE.
Randal Bellamy at fifty was the most successful patent lawyer of his day. He had taken silk before he was forty, and for many years had enjoyed, not only the largest practice, but a distinction unrivalled in his own country and unsurpassed in the world. Such a man's knowledge in physics, chemistry and biology, though less precise, is often wider than that of the individual specialist. His friendship with Theophilus Caldegard, begun at Cambridge, had lasted and grown stronger with the years. On t
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AMBROTOX.
AMBROTOX.
Amaryllis found her father and Sir Randal at the breakfast-table. "I'm so glad I'm not the laziest," she said, as she took her seat. "I'm afraid you are, my dear," replied her father. "Dick's fetching his car from Iddingfield," explained Randal. The air was torn by three distinct wails from a syren. "How unearthly!" said Amaryllis, with her hands to her ears. "That's Dick," said his brother. "He would have a noise worse than anyone else's." Dick came in from the garden. "Morning, Miss Caldegard,
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AMARYLLIS.
AMARYLLIS.
A little after noon on the following day, Amaryllis and Dick Bellamy, followed by Gorgon with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, entered the hall by the front door, clamouring for drinks, to find Caldegard swearing over a telegram. "What's the matter, dad?" she asked. "Sir Charles Colombe," replied her father. "He will be deeply indebted if I will call at the Home Office at one-thirty p.m. I should think he would be! If the message had been sent in time I could have caught the twelve thirty-fi
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PERFUME.
PERFUME.
Search of house and grounds was fruitless. Before half-past eleven the rainstorm was over, and a bright moon lighted the brothers and the men-servants to the discovery of just nothing at all. Except to give an order, or make a suggestion, neither Bellamy spoke until they stood alone together in the hall. They looked at each other like men who from dreams of hell have waked to find it. Then the elder groaned, beside himself. "The poor girl!" he said. "To think of her ill-used—murdered, perhaps!"
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THE SWINE THAT STANK.
THE SWINE THAT STANK.
When Amaryllis left her bedroom, having laid Melchard's letter on her table, she had intended returning at once to pleasant and frivolous conversation with Dick Bellamy. For to-night she was nervous—a little unstrung, it may be, by the pain she had given to his brother; and Dick, with his quiescent vitality, his odd phrases and uncompromising directness of expression, seemed to her at that moment the most restful companion in the world. If she could only get him started, he might amuse and inter
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THE POLITICAL COVES.
THE POLITICAL COVES.
For the better part of their journey to town Caldegard and Randal Bellamy ate their hearts in silence. The road was good, and they had it almost to themselves. As they were nearing London, Caldegard spoke. "Bellamy," he said, "that brother of yours won't stop at killing if——" "He'll begin with it," replied Randal, "if he gets a fair chance." "It gives me unreasonable hope," said Caldegard. "Men who've trusted Dick would call your hope reasonable." "Yet he's sent us after Ambrotox," complained th
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THE GREEN FROCK.
THE GREEN FROCK.
Seven miles south of Millsborough, just before you come to the cross-roads, whose eastern branch runs to the coast some thirty miles away, there stands, the only house in sight, a little roadside inn called "The Coach and Horses." At half-past seven on the morning of Saturday, June the twenty-first, there drew up before it a long, low two-seater car. The landlord, a sharp-faced little man with kindly eyes and a shrewd mouth, came to the door. "Looks like you've been travelling all night, sir," h
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THE WINDOW.
THE WINDOW.
When Amaryllis awoke from a sleep in which the remains of the drug Melchard had given her had happily combated the restlessness of fear, she had no memory of how she came to the room in which she found herself. Under the shock of the strange surroundings she sprang from the bed, and as her feet touched the floor, last night came back to her. She tried the door—locked! She went to the window, and had already raised the lower part until it jammed, when there came running beneath an angry woman, th
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THE STAIRS.
THE STAIRS.
The passage ended in an arch, beyond which appeared a balustrade. The corridor was wider than the archway; and Dick, having made the girl hide behind its projection, stepped delicately out upon the square landing, and looked over the rails. The staircase mounted in a single broad flight from the floor of an entrance hall larger and more pretentious than he had expected. The attempt at an appearance of comfort was a failure, but money had been spent, and a sort of bad harmony between furniture an
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THE KNIFE-THROWER.
THE KNIFE-THROWER.
With the sleeve of his shirt Dick wiped the blood from his cheek, looked down at Ockley, and then up at Amaryllis, half-way down the stair. "That's four. Where's the fifth?" he asked. "He ran out there," she answered. "You frightened him." "Come down," said Dick; and when she reached the floor, she found him kneeling by Melchard, searching his pockets. She came close and touched him on the shoulder. "Let's get out of the house—now, now!" she pleaded, lowering her voice in the presence of so much
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PENNY PANSY.
PENNY PANSY.
Dick Bellamy lifted the girl and carried her to a spot where he could lay her down with head a little lower than heels; watched her until the colour of the face improved and the breath became more regular; and then made use of her insensibility to pay his last duty to the dead. Without moving the body, he went through the pockets, finding nothing worth keeping except a few letters and a bunch of keys; for revolver cartridges there were none. For a moment he regarded the grim dagger point, decidi
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THE LIZARD.
THE LIZARD.
Pépe el Lagarto was pleading his innocence of the only thing which he counted sin, and asseverating his devotion to the only being he loved; and this, condensed, is the story to which Mrs. Brundage attached all meanings but the right one. He had been in THEIR hands, oh! many months. He did what THEY would, so long as they paid him in coca-leaf to chew, a little cocaine when the leaves ran out, and enough food to live by. THEY could get coca-leaf—but the Lizard could get it from no other. Nothing
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"THE GOAT IN BOOTS."
"THE GOAT IN BOOTS."
It was almost noon of Saturday, June the twenty-first, when a party of three halted in the shade of a few stunted hawthorns by the side of the sandy, half-made road which leads from Margetstowe village to the turnpike, which, branching from the main London Road fifteen miles to the south-west, runs north-eastward through Ecclesthorpe-on-the-Moor to the sea at the mouth of the great estuary. From this tree-clump could be seen, facing the junction of the sandy road with the metalled, the front and
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THE UNICORN.
THE UNICORN.
When Sam Bunce returned, he had a straw in one corner of his mouth, and was leading a sturdy roadster, with whom he seemed already on terms of intimacy. Mr. Dixon Mallaby, meantime, had introduced himself to Amaryllis, getting, for his pains, but the Araminta of the sun-bonnet; and Dick, when he and the ostler had harnessed Tod in his lonely distinction, went round to find her the centre of an admiring group competing, it seemed, for her company in the brake; the girl answering with "Na-ay!" "Na
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THE SERANG.
THE SERANG.
The inn stood midway in one side of the village green, which was already surrounded with walking groups as well as stationary ranks awaiting patiently the opening of the game. For Ecclesthorpe had a name in its county, owning two families of hereditary professionals, as well as a lord of the manor, who, before the war, had kept wicket in three Test Matches, while the workman's club from Millsborough, captained this year by Dixon Mallaby, a 'Varsity Blue, had already a quarter of a century's repu
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SAPPHIRE AND EMERALD.
SAPPHIRE AND EMERALD.
"What is it?" asked Amaryllis, as Dick turned to a shout, waving his hand. "I don't want to know what he wants, so I take his antics for good byes. Come on—let's get into the thick of this lot." "Was he suspicious?" she asked, when a bend in the road had hidden "The Royal George" and even the village green. "Melchard? Yes—on general principles. No more than that—unless——" "There's that cut on your cheek, Dick," said Amaryllis. "And there's the colour of your hair, la-ass," he answered, laughing.
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A ROPE OR SOMETHING.
A ROPE OR SOMETHING.
As they reached the level of the moor and the Drovers' Track, to join which ancient road their path stretched on for yet a mile, they turned, moved by a common impulse, to look down on the green hollow which had been the nest of so great a happiness. "Emerald, you said, Amaryllis?" "And blue, Dick, from the sky." When they had tramped a half-mile or more in silence which seemed to Amaryllis very close communion, Dick spoke; for already he was feeling the stones of the world beneath their feet. "
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THE BAAG-NOUK.
THE BAAG-NOUK.
The car rushed at the slope, and the shoulder of the cutting hid it from Melchard the fraction of a second before his next shot was heard. Amaryllis took the double bend of the little cañon with an assurance which satisfied Dick of her ability. The sprint had exhausted his reserve of nervous force, for the moment slender; and he lay back in the ample seat of the tonneau scarcely more than half-conscious. The road straightening before her and still climbing, Amaryllis glanced at him over her shou
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LORD LABRADOR.
LORD LABRADOR.
The Roman causeway ran into the macadam high road from Harthborough to Timsdale-Horton almost on the level, with still a slight fall towards Harthborough, the smoke of whose chimneys was already visible. Half a mile ahead of them was a knot of men, gathered about what might have been a wheelbarrow. A quarter of a mile further, "Three men," said Dick. "Motor-cycle and side-car," said Amaryllis. "Is it another picket?" Instead of answering, Dick replied with a command: "Hold tight. Don't turn to l
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FALLING OUT.
FALLING OUT.
"Is it they?" asked Amaryllis "Two to one on," he answered. "Next compartment?" "Yes." "Did they see us get in?" "No." "Then how can they know?" "They saw the car outside, and the porter shutting this door. If they hadn't, they'd have bundled in right opposite the entrance, instead of running down the train," reasoned Dick. "Will they try to come in here, then?" she asked. "There's no corridor," said Dick. "But outside? There was a murder—I read about it——" "Take it easy, little wonder," he answ
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"KUK-KUK-KUK-KATIE."
"KUK-KUK-KUK-KATIE."
Soft, even light filled the wide entrance hall of No. — Park Lane. The single, expressionless footman appeared almost hopeful, knowing his release was near; for the time was only twenty minutes short of midnight. The road between the front door and the park railings was almost as peaceful as the houses on its one side, and the grass and trees on the other. Hardly a hoof on the wood, and but a rare motor rushing, at intervals, with soft, apologetic speed over the thoroughfare from north to south.
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WAITERS.
WAITERS.
Dick Bellamy's two letters, the one posted in York, the other in the country letter-box by the landlord of "The Coach and Horses," had been read at New Scotland Yard at about eight o'clock in the evening. The first note had contained merely the information that Alban Melchard was the man of whom Dick was going in pursuit, and Melchard's address, found that evening in the letter received by Amaryllis; the second, the few particulars concerning Melchard which he had gathered from the landlord. Sup
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PRISONER AND ESCORT.
PRISONER AND ESCORT.
Dick presented to the expectant three the same disreputable and truculent aspect which had so deeply offended Charles of Mayfair—an aspect so extraordinary as to strike speechless for a moment even the three so deeply interested in his advent. "That chair with arms," said Dick to the sergeant, "or he'll fall off." The sergeant brought it, and Dick pushed the still tipsy wretch, a bundle of false elegance deflowered, into its embrace. Then Randal, with beaming face, caught his brother by the shou
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AN INTERIM REPORT.
AN INTERIM REPORT.
Though maid to a lady accounted very fine, Suzanne, in presence of beauty unadorned, was a simple and kind-hearted enthusiast in her art. Before lunch-time next day she had done so well for Amaryllis out of Lady Elizabeth Bruffin's wardrobe, that she declared, with conviction to fill up the gap in evidence, " que mademoiselle n'a jamais pu paraitre plus seduisante, plus pimpante qu'aujourd'hui ." "How can she know that?" asked Amaryllis laughing. "Because nothing possible could be, you pretty cr
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