32 chapters
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32 chapters
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
The two ships, pursuer and pursued, quaintly shaped, with heavy, flapping sails, lay apparently becalmed in a sort of natural basin formed by the junction of two silently flowing, turgid rivers—rivers whose water was thick and oily, yellow in colour, unpleasant to look at. The country through which they passed was swamp-riven and desolate, though in the far distance were rice fields and the curiously fashioned roofs of a Chinese village. The sun beat down upon the glasslike water. The air was wi
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
Wu Ling, the trader, Chinese representative of the great house of Johnson and Company, at home and amongst his merchandise, was strangely installed. He sat in the remote corner of a huge warehouse, packed from floor to ceiling with an amazingly heterogeneous collection of all manner of articles. There were bales of cotton and calico goods from Manchester, woollens from Bradford, cases of firearms from Birmingham, and six great crates of American bicycles in the foreground. A Ford automobile stoo
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
“Well,” Claire exclaimed, laughing at Gregory Ballaston across the table, “how have you enjoyed your dinner?” “Immensely,” he answered, with enthusiasm. “Have you ever dined more strangely?” “I don’t think I have,” he confessed. “It was most frightfully kind of your uncle to ask me. I was never so surprised in my life.” “Nor I,” she admitted candidly. “To tell you the truth, when we all came together in the warehouse this afternoon, it seemed to me from his manner that you were not particularly
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
At very nearly the hour of his former visit, Gregory Ballaston entered the warehouse of Messrs. Johnson and Company, on the following morning. Wu Ling, seated at his table, waved away the stolid-looking native foreman to whom he was giving orders, and glanced enquiringly at his visitor. “Ship not gone?” he asked. “We don’t sail until the afternoon,” Gregory reminded him. “Haven’t got all our fresh stores shipped, or something. I came back to have a talk. Do you mind?” Wu Ling’s gesture was nonco
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
“Steward,” Gregory asked him, standing up in the centre of his stateroom, his hands behind his back, “do I look drunk?” The steward was used to eccentric passengers and answered as though the question were an entirely reasonable one. “For a young gentleman as hasn’t moved out of his stateroom for two days, and ’as had a good deal more to drink than to eat,” he pronounced, “you look wonderful, sir.” “Fetch me a whisky and soda, then.” “Certainly, sir.” The man withdrew, closing the door behind hi
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
“Perkins,” Gregory demanded, as he struggled into his dinner coat a few nights later, “what should you think if I told you to drop that grinning piece of wooden monstrosity there into the sea?” The steward glanced doubtfully over his shoulder at the Image. “It’s a damned ugly piece of goods, sir,” he admitted, “but I shouldn’t make away with it like that. It’s very likely valuable. They give no end of money sometimes for genuine bits of stuff from China way.” Gregory straightened his tie and loo
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
The doctor, a few days later, paused in his morning promenade and took a vacant place by Claire’s side. He made a few commonplace remarks about the voyage, and then leaned confidentially towards her. “Miss Endacott, I want to speak to you for a moment, if I may, about young Ballaston.” The sensitive lips quivered a little. Nevertheless she had self-control. “Well, Doctor?” “I don’t exactly know what has happened, of course,” he went on, “but you two were such pals at first, and now one can’t hel
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
In the morning Gregory awoke after a wonderfully sound sleep. It was still very early. There was a delightful pearly light in the sky, visible through his open porthole. The glitter of the barely risen sun lay faint upon the ocean. He remained for a few minutes, breathing quietly, trying to recall the events of the night before. They came back to him with a shock, followed by an immense sense of relief. He remembered what he had done without a thought of regret. He had cast away the fruits of hi
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
It was in a sense a dinner of celebration at Ballaston Hall in which these four men were concerned, although, with the exception of one guest, it was a family party. At the head of the table sat Sir Bertram; thin, long and hard-jawed, with brilliant dark eyes, almost black, lips and mouth sometimes cruel, sometimes humorous, a famous spendthrift, an occasional libertine, but without a doubt a great sportsman. On his left, Gregory, an almost startling reproduction of his father, but with uncertai
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
Ralph Endacott, erstwhile professor of Oxford University and partner in the great Oriental house of Johnson and Company, now an English country gentleman, sat before wide-flung French windows leading out on to the lawn, sunken gardens and miniature park of the Great House at Market Ballaston. In front of him was an oak writing table upon which were pen and ink and a steel-clamped coffer, apparently of great age but attached to which was a modern Bramah lock. Upon the blotting paper were a few sh
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
If at times Mr. Endacott seemed a little out of his milieu at Ballaston Hall that evening, Claire, on the other hand, was an instantaneous and gorgeous success. In the Jacobean banquetting hall where she sat at her host’s right hand, her fresh, girlish beauty, with its additional charm of a constant and piquant enthusiasm, seemed in exquisite contrast to her majestic but gloomy surroundings; the great, dimly lit room, the stately rows of oil paintings, the cumbersome but magnificent furniture, i
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
Sir Bertram, very lithe and debonair in his grey flannels and Panama hat, issued from his front door, whistled to dogs who seemed to come to him from all directions, and, humming snatches of music from an almost forgotten Italian opera, stepped down from the terrace and strolled across the park, keeping as far as possible in the shade of the great oak trees. Arrived at the boundary he vaulted over the stile, exchanged greetings right and left as he passed down the village street, and, turning al
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
That evening Endacott, in response to an urgent summons, rose somewhat reluctantly from his chair under the cedar tree, finished his coffee and offered a grudging explanation of his departure. “Your aunt has sent in to say that she wishes to see me particularly,” he confided to Claire. “Just the hour of the day when I like to rest!” “What a pity!” she murmured. “Shall I come with you?” He shook his head. “No need for two of us to go on a fool’s errand,” he grumbled. He crossed the lawn, passed d
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
It was only after he had shown her around the picture gallery on the following Sunday afternoon that Claire properly appreciated Henry Ballaston. She listened to his last little dissertation—stiff perhaps and a trifle pedantic, and yet in its way eloquent—as to a supposed Romney, with something more than interest, almost enthusiasm. Here was a man who spoke from his heart of things he loved, and a man whom no one in the world, meeting him casually, would have suspected of possessing such a thing
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
Endacott laughed cynically but not altogether unkindly when Claire had finished her carefully prepared little speech that night after dinner. Their coffee had been served as usual out of doors under the cedar tree and Claire had returned with her uncle to the study, still pleading the cause which the events of the afternoon had made to her almost vital. He went at once to the sideboard and helped himself to a whisky and soda. “It is fortunate, Claire,” he said, “that I am a person of even temper
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
Gregory, on presenting himself at the Great House on the following morning, received the news of Mr. Endacott’s absence with marked interest. “Gone to London, has he?” he observed. “That means that you’re left alone for the day.” “Scarcely a tragedy,” she smiled. “There’s my aunt across the way whom I must go in and see some time, a perfectly delightful new piano that only arrived this morning, dozens of books to read and, if I feel energetic enough, I am going to practise mashie shots with the
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
Endacott, although abstracted, seemed for him to be in an almost genial frame of mind when he obeyed the summons of the evening gong and, meeting Claire in the hall, waited to enter the dining room with her. “A tiring day, Uncle?” she asked him. “Not particularly,” he answered. “I made only two calls. Phillpots kept me some time at the British Museum, or I could really have caught the earlier train.—How is the piano?” “I haven’t tried it,” she admitted. “Your aunt all right to-day?” “More confes
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
The new tenant of the Great House, installed within twelve months of its dramatic vacancy, issued one evening through the small postern gate, set in the red brick wall which encircled his gardens, into the village street. This was his first appearance since he had taken up his residence in the neighbourhood, and he was consequently an object of absorbed interest to such few loiterers as were about. An elderly roadmender, who was making half-hearted assaults upon a broken piece of road with a pic
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
Mr. Johnson subsided once more into the easy-chair from which he had risen. “This is most amazing!” he exclaimed. “A murder in the Great House only twelve months ago!” “It do seem most unaccountable, sir,” the grocer ventured, “that you never heard about it.” “I was abroad at the time and until a month or so ago,” Mr. Johnson explained, “and it is astonishing how you lose touch with things altogether after a while. I sometimes didn’t open an English newspaper for a week at a time.—Well, well,” h
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
Mr. Peter Johnson, on the following morning, was indulging in the harmless occupation of practising mashie shots with a dozen golf balls over some shrubs upon the front lawn of the Great House, when Morton, his newly engaged butler who had arrived a few days before from a registry office at Norwich, sallied through the garden door, followed by a young lady. Mr. Johnson promptly abandoned his diversion and came forward. “Miss Besant to see you, sir,” the servant announced. Mr. Johnson, without co
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
At half-past twelve on the following morning Mr. Peter Johnson, dressed in a blue serge suit and patent shoes—a costume which, after much deliberation, he deemed suitable for the enterprise on which he was bent—mounted his two-seated car, drove through the village, exchanging polite greetings with one or two of his recent acquaintances, and, after a moment’s wait at the lodge gates, proceeded at a subdued pace along the winding road which crossed the park and up through the great avenue to the f
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
The afternoon was still young when Mr. Johnson passed through the park gates of Ballaston Hall and drove slowly down the village street on his way back to the Great House. He studied the sign-post which marked the road to Norwich and hesitated. At that moment a young woman stepped out of the grocer’s shop and, recognising him, nodded in spiritless fashion. Mr. Johnson fancied that he caught an almost wistful expression as she glanced critically at his car. He drew up by the side of the cobbled p
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
Mr. Johnson found plenty of time during the journey to Norwich to exchange remarks with and take notice of his companion. The sulkiness of her expression lightened considerably with the pleasure of the rapid motion, the sense of freedom springing from this unexpected holiday. The road wound its way between hedges from which the late honeysuckle still drooped, through a tract of pleasant and varied country; corn fields where harvesting machines with their musical mechanism were at work, rich mead
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
Mr. Johnson was genuinely surprised at the expression in his companion’s face when, at the end of that drive home through the drowsy afternoon, she put out her hand to wish him good-by. He forgot her shabby little black lace hat with its two rather battered red roses, her scratched and mended gloves, the thin ready-made wrap around her linen frock. She was no longer a sulky, tired, young woman. For a single moment she was beautiful. “You have given me quite a wonderful afternoon, Mr. Johnson,” s
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
Towards half-past five in the morning Mr. Johnson was awakened from a heavy slumber by the clamorous and increasing twitter of birds in the shrubberies and gardens outside. He woke with the sensation of being exceedingly uncomfortable and of being in an entirely unaccustomed spot. He sat up, looking around him. He was on the floor of the library, his revolver, with one barrel discharged, by his side, a dried but painful cut upon his cheek bone, and with the haunting remains of a most unpleasant
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
Mr. Johnson returned to find a motor car standing outside his door and Major Holmes with a subordinate in colloquy with Morton. He led them himself to the library, showed them the door with its picked lock, the empty coffer and the window on the ground floor through which the marauder had made an easy entrance. The Chief Constable was perplexed. “You are only a sub-tenant here, I understand, Mr. Johnson?” he asked. “Only a sub-tenant,” the latter acknowledged. “And you yourself have never been i
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
So far as the countenance of so perfect a servant as Rawson could betray any expression at all, there was both welcome and a suggestion of hospitality in his manner as he received the callers. Certainly, Sir Bertram was in, Mr. Gregory was in, and Mr. Henry was in. Sir Bertram appeared almost at that moment, coming out of the gun room with a rook rifle under his arm. “Hullo, Major!” he exclaimed genially. “Glad to see you. Warned in for lunch, I hope.” “Very much obliged, Sir Bertram,” was the s
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
The Chief Constable had little to report, but his air of uneasy disquietude remained. “I think,” he announced, “that, so far as I can make out, the servants are all right. Curiously enough, however, it seems that Gregory has a key to the door in question, which he uses sometimes.” “Very probable,” Sir Bertram assented. “He likes to come and go out of the house at all times.” “I wonder when he’ll be back?” Major Holmes enquired. “He had very little to do,” his father observed. “Found himself a tr
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
“Things do be happening round about here, for sure,” Mr. Pank remarked, as he moved down the whisky bottle from its shelf. “What it all may lead to is more than a body can say, but I don’t like the look of it, Mr. Craske.” The grocer added less than his usual modicum of water to his whisky. His aspect was gloomy. So also were the aspects of Mr. Franks, the butcher, who had strolled across for news, and Walter Beavens, the wheelwright, who had come on a similar errand. “It’s almost as bad,” Mr. C
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
“Doing me well for our farewell dinner, Dad,” Gregory murmured appreciatively, as he set down his glass with a little gesture of reverence. “’70 Port.” Sir Bertram smiled pleasantly. It was not for the two footmen standing motionless at either end of the magnificent sideboard, or even for Rawson behind his master’s chair, to know that this was anything but an ordinary function. Conversation throughout the meal had taken no account of possible catastrophe. They had talked of the sporting side of
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
Mr. Johnson, that same evening, was smoking the cigar of discontent, drinking the coffee of bitterness, and sipping the brandy of fire. Around him was all the stillness and the sweetness of the summer twilight which he loved so much; stars burning in a violet sky, the breath of roses in the air, the peaceful village sounds in his ears, more lulling and soothing than absolute silence. Yet he was filled with disquietude. He rose and, with his hands in his pockets, paced the long strip of velvety l
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
Once more five men, from a safe distance behind the muslin curtains, watched the approach towards the village inn of the tenant of the Great House. This time, however, conditions were different. The strip of road lay clean and hard in the grip of a four days’ frost. There were little pools of ice near the pavement, the trees, leafless and stark, stood motionless against the clear sky. Although it was early in the afternoon the sun was already sinking beneath a bank of ominous-looking clouds. Mr.
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