Chapter V: Part 5

"My opal! But how did it get there?"

Henry Judd cleared his throat. "I--er--I rather think, Rosy, my girl, you must have put it there yourself."

Someone got up from the table and blundered out into the air. It was Naomi Carlton-Smith. Mr. Quin followed her.

"But when? Do you mean--"

Mr. Satterthwaite watched her while the truth dawned on her. It took over two minutes before she got it.

"You mean last year--at the theater."

"You know," said Henry apologetically. "You _do_ fiddle with things, Rosy. Look at you with the caviar today."

Miss Nunn was painfully following out her mental processes. "I just slipped it in without thinking, and then I suppose I turned the box about and did the thing by accident, but then--but then--" At last it came. "But then Alec Gerard didn't steal it after all. Oh!"--a full-throated cry, poignant, moving--"how dreadful!"

"Well," said Mr. Vyse, "that can be put right now."

"Yes, but he's been in prison a year." And then she startled them. She turned sharply on the Duchess. "Who is that girl--that girl who has just gone out?"

"Miss Carlton-Smith," said the Duchess, "was engaged to Mr. Gerard. She--took the thing very hard."

Mr. Satterthwaite stole softly away. The snow had stopped. Naomi was sitting on the stone wall. She had a sketchbook in her hand, and some colored crayons were scattered round. Mr. Quin was standing beside her.

She held out the sketchbook to Mr. Satterthwaite. It was a very rough affair--but it had genius. A kaleidoscopic whirl of snowflakes with a figure in the center.

"Very good," said Mr. Satterthwaite.

Mr. Quin looked up at the sky. "The storm is over," he said. "The roads will be slippery, but I do not think there will be any accident--now."

"There will be no accident," said Naomi. Her voice was charged with some meaning that Mr. Satterthwaite did not understand. She turned and smiled at him--a sudden dazzling smile. "Mr. Satterthwaite can drive back with me if he likes."

He knew then to what length desperation had driven her.

"Well," said Mr. Quin, "I must bid you good-by."

He moved away.

"Where is he going?" said Mr. Satterthwaite, staring after him.

"Back where he came from, I suppose," said Naomi in an odd voice.

"But--but there isn't anything there," said Mr. Satterthwaite, for Mr. Quin was making for that spot on the edge of the cliff where they had first seen him. "You know you said yourself it was the world's end."

He handed back the sketchbook.

"It's very good," he said. "A very good likeness. But why--er--why did you put him in fancy dress?"

Her eyes met his for a brief second.

"I see him like that," said Naomi Carlton-Smith.

THE VOICE IN THE DARK

"I am a little worried about Margery," said Lady Stranleigh. "My girl, you know," she added.

She sighed pensively. "It makes one feel terribly old to have a grown-up daughter."

Mr. Satterthwaite, who was the recipient of these confidences, rose to the occasion gallantly. "No one could believe it possible," he declared with a little bow.

"Flatterer," said Lady Stranleigh, but she said it vaguely and it was clear that her mind was elsewhere.

Mr. Satterthwaite looked at the slender white-clad figure in some admiration. The Cannes sunshine was searching, but Lady Stranleigh came through the test very well. At a distance the youthful effect was really extraordinary. One almost wondered if she were grown up or not. Mr. Satterthwaite, who knew everything, knew that it was perfectly possible for Lady Stranleigh to have grown-up grandchildren. She represented the extreme triumph of art over nature. Her figure was marvelous, her complexion was marvelous. She had enriched many beauty parlors and certainly the result was astounding. Lady Stranleigh lighted a cigarette, crossed her beautiful legs, encased in the finest of nude stockings, and murmured:

"Yes, I really am rather worried about Margery."

"Dear me," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "what is the trouble?"

Lady Stranleigh turned her beautiful blue eyes upon him. "You have never met her, have you? She is Charles's daughter," she added helpfully.

If entries in _Who's Who_ were strictly truthful, the entry concerning Lady Stranleigh might have ended as follows: _hobbies: getting married_. She had floated through life shedding husbands as she went. She had lost three by divorce and one by death.

"If she had been Rudolf's child I could have understood it," mused Lady Stranleigh. "You remember Rudolf? He was always temperamental. Six months after we married I had to apply for those queer things--what do they call them? Conjugal whatnots, you know what I mean. Thank goodness it is all much simpler nowadays. I remember I had to write him the silliest kind of letter--my lawyer practically dictated it to me. Asking him to come back, you know, and that I would do all I could, etc., etc., but you never could count on Rudolf, he was so temperamental. He came rushing home at once, which was quite the wrong thing to do, and not at all what the lawyers meant."

She sighed.

"About Margery?" suggested Mr. Satterthwaite, tactfully leading her back to the subject under discussion.

"Of course. I was just going to tell you, wasn't I? Margery has been seeing things, or hearing them. Ghosts, you know, and all that. I should never have thought that Margery could be so imaginative. She is a dear good girl, always has been, but just a shade--dull."

"Impossible," murmured Mr. Satterthwaite with a confused idea of being complimentary.

"In fact very dull," said Lady Stranleigh. "Doesn't care for dancing or cocktails or any of the things a young girl ought to care about. She much prefers staying at home to hunt instead of coming out here with me."

"Dear, dear," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "She wouldn't come out with you, you say?"

"Well, I didn't exactly press her. Daughters have a depressing effect upon one, I find."

Mr. Satterthwaite tried to think of Lady Stranleigh accompanied by a serious-minded daughter and failed.

"I can't help wondering if Margery is going off her head," continued Margery's mother in a cheerful voice. "Hearing voices is a very bad sign, so they tell me. It is not as though Abbot's Mede were haunted. The old building was burned to the ground in 1836, and they put up a kind of early Victorian château which simply cannot be haunted. It is much too ugly and commonplace."

Mr. Satterthwaite coughed. He was wondering why he was being told all this.

"I thought perhaps," said Lady Stranleigh, smiling brilliantly upon him, "that _you_ might be able to help me."

"I?"

"Yes. You are going back to England tomorrow, aren't you?"

"I am. Yes, that is so," admitted Mr. Satterthwaite cautiously.

"And you know all these psychical research people. Of course you do, you know everybody."

Mr. Satterthwaite smiled a little. It was one of his weaknesses to know everybody.

"So what can be simpler?" continued Lady Stranleigh. "I never get on with that sort of person. You know--earnest men with beards and usually spectacles. They bore me terribly and I am quite at my worst with them."

Mr. Satterthwaite was rather taken aback. Lady Stranleigh continued to smile at him brilliantly.

"So that is all settled, isn't it?" she said brightly. "You will go down to Abbot's Mede and see Margery, and make all the arrangements. I shall be terribly grateful to you. Of course, if Margery is _really_ going off her head, I will come home. Ah! here is Bimbo."

Her smile from being brilliant became dazzling.

A young man in white tennis flannels was approaching them. He was about twenty-five years of age and extremely good-looking.

The young man said simply, "I have been looking for you everywhere, Babs."

"What has the tennis been like?"

"Septic."

Lady Stranleigh rose. She turned her head over her shoulder and murmured in dulcet tones to Mr. Satterthwaite, "It is simply marvelous of you to help me. I shall never forget it."

Mr. Satterthwaite looked after the retreating couple.

_I wonder_, he mused to himself, _if Bimbo is going to be number five_.

* * * * *

The conductor of the Train de Luxe was pointing out to Mr. Satterthwaite where an accident on the line had occurred a few years previously. As he finished his spirited narrative, the other looked up and saw a well-known face smiling at him over the conductor's shoulder.

"My dear Mr. Quin," said Mr. Satterthwaite. His little withered face broke into smiles. "What a coincidence! That we should both be returning to England on the same train. You are going there, I suppose."

"Yes," said Mr. Quin. "I have business there of rather an important nature. Are you taking the first service of dinner?"

"I always do so. Of course it is an absurd time--half-past six, but one runs less risk with the cooking."

Mr. Quin nodded comprehendingly. "I also," he said. "We might perhaps arrange to sit together."

Half-past six found Mr. Quin and Mr. Satterthwaite established opposite each other at a small table in the dining car. Mr. Satterthwaite gave due attention to the wine list and then turned to his companion.

"I have not seen you since--ah, yes--not since Corsica. You left very suddenly that day."

Mr. Quin shrugged his shoulders. "Not more so than usual. I come and go, you know. I come and go."

The words seemed to awake some echo of remembrance in Mr. Satterthwaite's mind. A little shiver passed down his spine--not a disagreeable sensation, quite the contrary. He was conscious of a pleasurable sense of anticipation.

Mr. Quin was holding up a bottle of red wine, examining the label on it. The bottle was between him and the light but for a minute or two a red glow enveloped his person.

Mr. Satterthwaite felt again that sudden stir of excitement. "I too have a kind of mission in England," he remarked, smiling broadly at the remembrance. "You know Lady Stranleigh, perhaps?"

Mr. Quin shook his head.

"It is an old title," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "a very old title. One of the few that can descend in the female line. She is a baroness in her own right. Rather a romantic history really."

Mr. Quin settled himself more comfortably in his chair. A waiter, flying down the swinging car, deposited cups of soup before them as if by a miracle. Mr. Quin sipped it cautiously.

"You are about to give me one of those wonderful descriptive portraits of yours," he murmured, "that is so, is it not?"

Mr. Satterthwaite beamed on him.

"She is really a marvelous woman," he said. "Sixty, you know--yes, I should say at least sixty. I knew them as girls, she and her sister. Beatrice, that was the name of the elder one. Beatrice and Barbara. I remember them as the Barron girls. Both good-looking and, in those days, very hard up. That was a great many years ago--why, dear me, I was a young man myself then." Mr. Satterthwaite sighed. "There were several lives then between them and the title. Old Lord Stranleigh was a first cousin once removed, I think. Lady Stranleigh's life has been quite a romantic affair. Three unexpected deaths--two of the old man's brothers and a nephew. Then there was the _Uralia_. You remember the wreck of the _Uralia_? She went down off the coast of New Zealand. The Barron girls were on board. Beatrice was drowned. This one, Barbara, was among the few survivors. Six months later old Stranleigh died and she succeeded to the title and came into a considerable fortune. Since then she has lived for one thing only--herself! She has always been the same, beautiful, unscrupulous, completely callous, interested solely in herself. She has had four husbands, and I have no doubt could get a fifth in a minute."

He went on to describe the mission with which he had been entrusted by Lady Stranleigh.

"I thought of running down to Abbot's Mede to see the young lady," he explained. "I--I feel that something ought to be done about the matter. It is impossible to think of Lady Stranleigh as an ordinary mother." He stopped, looking across the table at Mr. Quin.

"I wish you would come with me," he said wistfully. "Would it not be possible?"

"I am afraid not," said Mr. Quin, "but, let me see--Abbot's Mede is in Wiltshire, is it not?"

Mr. Satterthwaite nodded.

"I thought as much. As it happens, I shall be staying not far from Abbot's Mede, at a place you and I both know." He smiled. "You remember that little inn, The Bells and Motley?"

"Of course," cried Mr. Satterthwaite, "you will be there?"

Mr. Quin nodded. "For a week or ten days, possibly longer. If you will come and look me up one day, I shall be delighted to see you."

And somehow or other Mr. Satterthwaite felt strangely comforted by the assurance.

* * * * *

"My dear Miss--er--Margery," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "I assure you that I should not dream of laughing at you."

Margery Gale frowned a little. They were sitting in the large comfortable hall of Abbot's Mede. Margery Gale was a big, squarely built girl. She bore no resemblance to her mother, but took entirely after her father's side of the family, a line of hard-riding country squires. She looked fresh and wholesome and the picture of sanity. Nevertheless, Mr. Satterthwaite was reflecting to himself that the Barrons as a family were all inclined to mental instability. Margery might have inherited her physical appearance from her father and at the same time have inherited some mental kink from her mother's side of the family.

"I wish," said Margery, "that I could get rid of that Casson woman. I don't believe in spiritualism, and I don't like it. She is one of these silly women that run a craze to death. She is always bothering me to have a medium down here."

Mr. Satterthwaite coughed, fidgeted a little in his chair and then said in a judicial manner, "Let me be quite sure that I have all the facts. The first of the--er--phenomena occurred two months ago, I understand."

"About that," agreed the girl. "Sometimes it was a whisper and sometimes it was quite a clear voice, but it always said much the same thing."

"Which was?"

"'_Give back what is not yours. Give back what you have stolen._' On each occasion I switched on the light, but the room was quite empty and there was no one there. In the end I got so nervous that I got Clayton, Mother's maid, to sleep on the sofa in my room."

"And the voice came just the same?"

"Yes, but--and this is what frightens me--Clayton did not hear it."

Mr. Satterthwaite reflected for a minute or two. "Did it come loudly or softly that evening?"

"It was almost a whisper," admitted Margery. "If Clayton was sound asleep, I suppose she would not really have heard it. She wanted me to see a doctor."

The girl laughed bitterly. "But since last night even Clayton believes," she continued.

"What happened last night?"

"I am just going to tell you. I have told no one as yet. I had been out hunting yesterday and we had had a long run. I was dead tired and slept very heavily. I dreamed--a horrible dream--that I had fallen over some iron railings and that one of the spikes was entering slowly into my throat. I woke to find that it was true--there was some sharp point pressing into the side of my neck and at the same time a voice was murmuring softly, '_You have stolen what is mine. This is death._'

"I screamed," continued Margery, "and clutched at the air but there was nothing there. Clayton heard me scream from the room next door where she was sleeping. She came rushing in, and she distinctly felt something brushing past her in the darkness, but she says that, whatever that something was, it was not anything human."

Mr. Satterthwaite stared at her. The girl was obviously very shaken and upset. He noticed on the left side of her throat a small square of sticking plaster. She caught the direction of his gaze and nodded.

"Yes," she said, "it was not imagination, you see."

Mr. Satterthwaite put a question almost apologetically, it sounded so melodramatic. "You don't know of anyone--er--who has a grudge against you?" he asked.

"Of course not," said Margery, "what an idea."

Mr. Satterthwaite started on another line of attack. "What visitors have you had during the last two months?"

"You don't mean just people for week-ends, I suppose? Marcia Keane has been with me all along. She is my best friend and just as keen on horses as I am. Then my cousin Roley Vavasour has been here a good deal."

Mr. Satterthwaite nodded. He suggested that he should see Clayton, the maid. "She has been with you a long time, I suppose?" he asked.

"Donkey's years," said Margery. "She was Mother's and Aunt Beatrice's maid when they were girls. That is why Mother has kept her on, I suppose, although she has got a French maid for herself. Clayton does sewing and pottering little odd jobs."

She took him upstairs and presently Clayton came to them. She was a tall, thin old woman with gray hair neatly parted, and looked the acme of respectability.

"No, sir," she said in answer to Mr. Satterthwaite's inquiries, "I have never heard anything of the house being haunted. To tell you the truth, sir, I thought it was all Miss Margery's imagination until last night. But I actually felt something--brushing by me in the darkness. And I can tell you this, sir, _it was not anything human_. And then there is that wound in Miss Margery's neck. She didn't do that herself, poor lamb."

But her words were suggestive to Mr. Satterthwaite. Was it possible that Margery could have inflicted that wound herself? He had heard of strange cases where girls apparently just as sane and well balanced as Margery had done the most amazing things.

"It will soon heal up," said Clayton. "It's not like this scar of mine."

She pointed to a mark on her own forehead. "That was done forty years ago, sir. I still bear the mark of it."

"It was the time the _Uralia_ went down," put in Margery. "Clayton was hit on the head by a spar, weren't you, Clayton?"

"Yes, miss."

"What do you think yourself, Clayton?" asked Mr. Satterthwaite. "What do you think was the meaning of this attack on Miss Margery?"

"I really should not like to say, sir."

Mr. Satterthwaite read this correctly as the reserve of the well-trained servant. "What do you really think, Clayton?" he said persuasively.

"I think, sir, that something very wicked must have been done in this house, and that until that is wiped out there won't be any peace."

The woman spoke gravely, and her faded blue eyes met his steadily.

Mr. Satterthwaite went downstairs rather disappointed. Clayton evidently held the orthodox view, a deliberate "haunting" as a consequence of some evil deed in the past. Mr. Satterthwaite himself was not so easily satisfied. The phenomena had only taken place in the last two months. Had only taken place since Marcia Keane and Roley Vavasour had been there. He must find out something about these two. It was possible that the whole thing was a practical joke. But he shook his head, dissatisfied with that solution. The thing was more sinister than that. The post had just come in and Margery was opening and reading her letters. Suddenly she gave an exclamation.

"Mother is too absurd," she said. "Do read this." She handed the letter to Mr. Satterthwaite.

It was an epistle typical of Lady Stranleigh.

_Darling Margery_ [she wrote],

_I am so glad you have that nice little Mr. Satterthwaite there. He
is awfully clever and knows all the big-wig spook people. You must
have them all down and investigate things thoroughly. I am sure
you will have a perfectly marvelous time and I only wish I could
be there, but I have really been quite ill the last few days. The
hotels are so careless about the food they give one. The doctor
says it is some kind of poisoning. I was really very ill._

_Sweet of you to send me the chocolates, darling, but surely
just a wee bit silly, wasn't it? I mean, there's such wonderful
confectionery out here._

_By-by, darling, and have a lovely time laying the family ghosts.
Bimbo says my tennis is coming on marvelously. Oceans of love_,

_Yours, Barbara._

"Mother always wants me to call her Barbara," said Margery. "Simply silly, I think."

Mr. Satterthwaite smiled a little. He realized that the stolid conservatism of her daughter must on occasions be very trying to Lady Stranleigh. The contents of her letter struck him in a way in which obviously they did not strike Margery.

"Did you send your mother a box of chocolates?" he asked.

Margery shook her head. "No, I didn't. It must have been someone else."

Mr. Satterthwaite looked grave. Two things struck him as of significance. Lady Stranleigh had received a gift of a box of chocolates and she was suffering from a severe attack of poisoning. Apparently she had not connected these two things. Was there a connection? He himself was inclined to think there was.

A tall, dark girl lounged out of the morning room and joined them. She was introduced to Mr. Satterthwaite as Marcia Keane. She smiled on the little man in an easy good-humored fashion.

"Have you come down to hunt Margery's pet ghost?" she asked in a drawling voice. "We all rot her about that ghost. Hello, here's Roley."

A car had just drawn up at the front door. Out of it tumbled a tall young man with fair hair and an eager, boyish manner.

"Hello, Margery," he cried. "Hello, Marcia! I have brought down reinforcements." He turned to the two women who were just entering the hall. Mr. Satterthwaite recognized in the first one of the two the Mrs. Casson of whom Margery had spoken just now.

"You must forgive me, Margery dear," she drawled, smiling broadly. "Mr. Vavasour told us that it would be quite all right. It was really his idea that I should bring down Mrs. Lloyd with me."

She indicated her companion with a slight gesture of the hand. "This is Mrs. Lloyd," she said in a tone of triumph. "Simply the most wonderful medium that ever existed."

Mrs. Lloyd uttered no modest protest; she bowed and remained with her hands crossed in front of her. She was a highly colored young woman of commonplace appearance. Her clothes were unfashionable but rather ornate. She wore a chain of moonstones and several rings.

Margery Gale, as Mr. Satterthwaite could see, was not too pleased at this intrusion. She threw an angry look at Roley Vavasour, who seemed quite unconscious of the offense he had caused.

"Lunch is ready, I think," said Margery.

"Good," said Mrs. Casson, "we will hold a séance immediately afterward. Have you got some fruit for Mrs. Lloyd? She never eats a solid meal before a séance."

They all went into the dining room. The medium ate two bananas and an apple, and replied cautiously and briefly to the various polite remarks which Margery addressed to her from time to time. Just before they rose from table, she flung back her head suddenly and sniffed the air. "There is something very wrong in this house; I feel it."

"Isn't she wonderful," said Mrs. Casson in a low, delighted voice.

"Oh! undoubtedly," said Mr. Satterthwaite dryly.

The séance was held in the library. The hostess was, as Mr. Satterthwaite could see, very unwilling; only the obvious delight of her guests in the proceedings reconciled her to the ordeal.

The arrangements were made with a good deal of care by Mrs. Casson, who was evidently well up in those matters. The chairs were set round in a circle, the curtains were drawn, and presently the medium announced herself ready to begin.

"Six people," she said, looking round the room. "That is bad. We must have an uneven number. Seven is ideal. I get my best results out of a circle of seven."

"One of the servants," suggested Roley. He rose. "I will rout out the butler."

"Let's have Clayton," said Margery.

Mr. Satterthwaite saw a look of annoyance pass over Roley Vavasour's good-looking face.

"But why Clayton?" he demanded.

"You don't like Clayton," said Margery slowly.

Roley shrugged his shoulders. "Clayton doesn't like me," he said whimsically; "in fact, she hates me like poison." He waited a minute or two but Margery did not give way. "All right," he said, "have her down."

The circle was formed. There was a period of silence, broken by the usual coughs and fidgetings. Presently a succession of raps were heard and then the voice of the medium's control, a Red Indian called Cherokee.

"Indian Brave says you good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Someone here very anxious speak. Someone here very anxious give message to young lady. I go now. The spirit say what she come to say."

A pause and then a new voice, that of a woman, said softly, "Is Margery here?"

Roley Vavasour took it upon himself to answer.

"Yes," he said, "she is. Who is that speaking?"

"I am Beatrice."

"Beatrice? Who is Beatrice?"

To everyone's annoyance the voice of the Red Indian Cherokee was heard once more: "I have message for all of you people. Life here very bright and beautiful. We all work very hard. Help those who have not yet passed over."

Again a silence and then the woman's voice was heard once more: "This is Beatrice speaking."

"Beatrice who?"

"Beatrice Barron."

Mr. Satterthwaite leaned forward. He was very excited. "Beatrice Barron who was drowned in the _Uralia_?"

"Yes, that is right. I remember the _Uralia_. I have a message--for this house--_Give back what is not yours_."

"I don't understand," said Margery helplessly. "I--oh, are you really Aunt Beatrice?"

"Yes, I am your aunt."

"Of course she is," said Mrs. Casson reproachfully. "How can you be so suspicious? The spirits don't like it."

And suddenly Mr. Satterthwaite thought of a very simple test. His voice quivered a little as he spoke. "Do you remember Mr. Bottacetti?" he asked.

Immediately there came a ripple of laughter.

"Poor old Boatupsetty. Of course."

Mr. Satterthwaite was dumbfounded. The test had succeeded. It was an incident of over forty years ago, which had happened when he and the Barron girls had found themselves at the same seaside resort. A young Italian acquaintance of theirs had gone out in a boat and capsized, and Beatrice Barron had jestingly named him Boatupsetty. It seemed impossible that anyone in the room could know of this incident except himself.

The medium stirred and groaned.

"She is coming out," said Mrs. Casson; "that is all we will get out of her today, I am afraid."

The daylight shone once more on the room full of people, two of whom at least were badly scared.

Mr. Satterthwaite saw by Margery's white face that she was deeply perturbed. When they had got rid of Mrs. Casson and the medium, he sought a private interview with his hostess.

"I want to ask you one or two questions, Miss Margery. If you and your mother were to die, who succeeds to the title and estates?"

"Roley Vavasour, I suppose. His mother was Mother's first cousin."

Mr. Satterthwaite nodded. "He seems to have been here a lot this winter," he said gently. "You will forgive me asking--but is he--fond of you?"

"He asked me to marry him three weeks ago," said Margery quietly. "I said no."

"Please forgive me, but are you engaged to anyone else?"

He saw the color sweep over her face.

"I am," she said emphatically. "I am going to marry Noel Barton. Mother laughs and says it is absurd. She seems to think it is ridiculous to be engaged to a curate. Why, I should like to know? There are curates and curates! You should see Noel on a horse."

"Oh, quite so," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "Oh, undoubtedly."

A footman entered with a telegram on a salver. Margery tore it open. "Mother is arriving home tomorrow," she said. "Bother. I wish to goodness she would stay away."

Mr. Satterthwaite made no comment on this filial sentiment. Perhaps he thought it justified. "In that case," he murmured, "I think I am returning to London."

* * * * *

Mr. Satterthwaite was not quite pleased with himself. He felt that he had left this particular problem in an unfinished state. True that, on Lady Stranleigh's return, his responsibility was ended; yet he felt assured that he had not heard the last of the Abbot's Mede mystery.

But the next development, when it came, was so serious in its character that it found him totally unprepared. He learned of it in the pages of his morning paper: _Baroness Dies in Her Bath_, as the _Daily Megaphone_ had it. The other papers were more restrained and delicate in their language, but the fact was the same. Lady Stranleigh had been found dead in her bath, and her death was due to drowning. She had, it was assumed, lost consciousness and while in that state her head had slipped below the water.

But Mr. Satterthwaite was not satisfied with that explanation. Calling for his valet, he made his toilet with less than his usual care and ten minutes later his big Rolls Royce was carrying him out of London as fast as it could travel.

But strangely enough it was not for Abbot's Mede he was bound, but for a small inn some fifteen miles distant which bore the rather unusual name of The Bells and Motley. It was with great relief that he heard that Mr. Harley Quin was still staying there. In another minute he was face to face with his friend.

Mr. Satterthwaite clasped him by the hand and began to speak at once in an agitated manner. "I am terribly upset. You must help me. Already I have a dreadful feeling that it may be too late--that that nice girl may be the next to go; for she is a nice girl, nice through and through."

"If you will tell me," said Mr. Quin, smiling, "what it is all about?"

Mr. Satterthwaite looked at him reproachfully. "You know. I am perfectly certain that you know. But I will tell you."

He poured out the story of his stay at Abbot's Mede and, as always with Mr. Quin, he found himself taking pleasure in his narrative. He was eloquent and subtle and meticulous as to detail.

"So you see," he ended, "there must be an explanation."

He looked hopefully at Mr. Quin, as a dog looks at his master.

"But it is you who must solve the problem, not I," said Mr. Quin. "I do not know these people. You do."

"I knew the Barron girls forty years ago," said Mr. Satterthwaite with pride.

Mr. Quin nodded and looked sympathetic, so much so that the other went on dreamily:

"That time at Brighton now, Bottacetti-Boatupsetty; quite a silly joke but how we laughed. Dear, dear, I was young then. Did a lot of foolish things. I remember the maid they had with them. Alice, her name was, a little bit of a thing--very ingenuous. I kissed her in the passage of the hotel, I remember, and one of the girls nearly caught me doing it. Dear, dear, how long ago that all was."

He shook his head again and sighed. Then he looked at Mr. Quin. "So you can't help me?" he said wistfully. "On other occasions--"

"On other occasions you have proved successful owing entirely to your own efforts," said Mr. Quin gravely. "I think it will be the same this time. If I were you, I should go to Abbot's Mede now."

"Quite so, quite so," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "As a matter of fact, that is what I thought of doing. I can't persuade you to come with me?"

Mr. Quin shook his head. "No," he said, "my work here is done. I am leaving almost immediately."

At Abbot's Mede, Mr. Satterthwaite was taken at once to Margery Gale. She was sitting dry-eyed at a desk in the morning room on which were strewn various papers. Something in her greeting touched him. She seemed so very pleased to see him.

"Roley and Marcia have just left. Mr. Satterthwaite, it is not as the doctors think. I am convinced, absolutely convinced, that Mother was pushed under the water and held there. She was murdered, and whoever murdered her wants to murder me too. I am sure of that. That is why--" She indicated the document in front of her.

"I have been making my will," she explained. "A lot of the money and some of the property does not go with the title, and there is my father's money as well. I am leaving everything I can to Noel. I know he will make a good use of it, and I do not trust Roley; he has always been out for what he can get. Will you sign it as a witness?"

"My dear young lady," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "you should sign a will in the presence of two witnesses, and they should then sign themselves at the same time."

Margery brushed aside this legal pronouncement.

"I don't see that it matters in the least," she declared. "Clayton saw me sign and then she signed her name. I was going to ring for the butler, but you will do instead."

Mr. Satterthwaite uttered no fresh protest; he unscrewed his fountain pen and then, as he was about to append his signature, he paused suddenly. The name, written just above his own recalled a flow of memories. Alice Clayton.

Something seemed to be struggling very hard to get through to him. Alice Clayton; there was some significance about that. Something to do with Mr. Quin was mixed up with it. Something he had said to Mr. Quin only a very short time ago.

Ah, he had it now. Alice Clayton, that was her name. _The little bit of a thing._ People changed--yes, _but not like that_. And the Alice Clayton he knew had had brown eyes. The room seemed whirling round him. He felt for a chair and presently, as though from a great distance, he heard Margery's voice speaking to him anxiously.

"Are you ill? Oh, what is it? I am sure you are ill!"

He was himself again. He took her hand.

"My dear, I see it all now. You must prepare yourself for a great shock. The woman upstairs whom you call Clayton is not Clayton at all. The real Alice Clayton was drowned on the _Uralia_."

Margery was staring at him. "Who--who is she then?"

"I am not mistaken; I cannot be mistaken. The woman you call Clayton is your mother's sister, Beatrice Barron. You remember telling me that she was struck on the head by a spar? I should imagine that that blow destroyed her memory, and, that being the case, your mother saw the chance--"

"Of pinching the title, you mean?" asked Margery bitterly. "Yes, she would do that. It seems dreadful to say that, now she is dead, but she was like that."

"Beatrice was the elder sister," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "By your uncle's death she would inherit everything and your mother would get nothing. Your mother claimed the wounded girl as her _maid_, not as her _sister_. The girl recovered from the blow and believed of course what was told her, that she was Alice Clayton, your mother's maid. I should imagine that, just lately, her memory has begun to return, but that the blow on the head, given all these years ago, has at last caused mischief on the brain."

Margery was looking at him with eyes of horror. "She killed Mother and she wanted to kill me," she breathed.

"It seems so," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "In her brain there was just one muddled idea--that her inheritance had been stolen and was being kept from her by you and your mother."

"But--but Clayton is so old."

Mr. Satterthwaite was silent for a minute as a vision rose up before him--the faded old woman with gray hair and the radiant golden-haired creature sitting in the sunshine at Cannes. Sisters! Could it really be so? He remembered the Barron girls and their likeness to each other. Just because two lives had developed on different tracks--

He shook his head sharply, obsessed by the wonder and pity of life.

He turned to Margery and said gently, "We had better go upstairs and see her."

They found Clayton sitting in the little workroom where she sewed. She did not turn her head as they came in, for a reason that Mr. Satterthwaite soon found out.

"Heart failure," he murmured, as he touched the cold, rigid shoulder. "Perhaps it is best that way."

THE FACE OF HELEN

Mr. Satterthwaite was at the opera and sat alone in his big box on the first tier. Outside the door was a printed card bearing his name. An appreciator and a connoisseur of all the arts, Mr. Satterthwaite was especially fond of good music and was a regular subscriber to Covent Garden every year, reserving a box for Tuesdays and Fridays throughout the season.

But it was not often that he sat in it alone. He was a gregarious little gentleman, and he liked filling his box with the élite of the great world to which he belonged, and also with the aristocracy of the artistic world, in which he was equally at home. He was alone tonight because a countess had disappointed him. The Countess, besides being a beautiful and celebrated woman, was also a good mother. Her children had been attacked by that common and distressing disease, the mumps, and the Countess remained at home in tearful confabulation with exquisitely starched nurses. Her husband, who had supplied her with the aforementioned children and a title, but who was otherwise a complete nonentity, had seized at the chance to escape. Nothing bored him more than music.

So Mr. Satterthwaite sat alone. _Cavalleria Rusticana_ and _Pagliacci_ were being given that night, and, since the first had never appealed to him, he arrived just after the curtain went down on Santuzza's death agony, in time to glance round the house with a practiced eye, before everyone streamed out, bent on paying visits or fighting for coffee or lemonade. Mr. Satterthwaite adjusted his opera glasses, looked round the house, marked down his prey, and sallied forth with a well-mapped-out plan of campaign ahead of him, a plan, however, which he did not put into execution, for just outside his box he cannoned into a tall, dark man, and recognized him with a pleasurable thrill of excitement.

"Mr. Quin," cried Mr. Satterthwaite.

He seized his friend warmly by the hand, clutching him as though he feared any minute to see him vanish into thin air. "You must share my box," said Mr. Satterthwaite determinedly. "You are not with a party?"

"No, I am sitting by myself in the stalls," responded Mr. Quin with a smile.

"Then that is settled," said Mr. Satterthwaite with a sigh of relief.

His manner was almost comic, had there been anyone to observe it.

"You are very kind," said Mr. Quin.

"Not at all. It is a pleasure. I didn't know you were fond of music?"

"There are reasons why I am attracted to _Pagliacci_."

"Ah! of course," said Mr. Satterthwaite, nodding sapiently, though, if put to it, he would have found it hard to explain just why he had used that expression. "Of course, you would be."

They went back to the box at the first summons of the bell and, leaning over the front of it, they watched the people returning to the stalls.

"That's a beautiful head," observed Mr. Satterthwaite suddenly.

He indicated with his glasses a spot immediately beneath them in the stalls circle. A girl sat there whose face they could not see--only the pure gold of her hair that fitted with the closeness of a cap till it merged into the white neck.

"A Greek head," said Mr. Satterthwaite reverently. "Pure Greek." He sighed happily. "It's a remarkable thing when you come to think of it--how very few people have hair that _fits_ them."

"You are so observant," said Mr. Quin.

"I see things," admitted Mr. Satterthwaite. "I do see things. For instance, I picked out that head at once. We must have a look at her face sooner or later. But it won't match, I'm sure. That would be a chance in a thousand."

Almost as the words left his lips, the lights flickered and went down, the sharp rap of the conductor's baton was heard, and the opera began. A new tenor, said to be a second Caruso, was singing that night. He had been referred to by the newspapers as a Yugoslav, a Czech, an Albanian, a Magyar, and a Bulgarian, with a beautiful impartiality. He had given an extraordinary concert at the Albert Hall, a program of the folk songs of his native hills, with a specially tuned orchestra. They were in strange half-tones, and the would-be musical had pronounced them "too marvelous." Real musicians had reserved judgment, realizing that the ear had to be specially trained and attuned before any criticism was possible. It was quite a relief to some people to find this evening that Yoaschbim could sing in ordinary Italian with all the traditional sobs and quivers.

The curtain went down on the first act, and applause burst out vociferously. Mr. Satterthwaite turned to Mr. Quin. He realized that the latter was waiting for him to pronounce judgment, and plumed himself a little. After all, he _knew_. As a critic he was well-nigh infallible.

Very slowly he nodded his head. "It is the real thing," he said.

"You think so?"

"As fine a voice as Caruso's. People will not recognize that it is so at first, for his technique is not yet perfect. There are ragged edges, a lack of certainty in the attack. But the voice is there--magnificent."

"I went to his concert at the Albert Hall," said Mr. Quin.

"Did you? I could not go."

"He made a wonderful hit with a shepherd's song."

"I read about it," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "The refrain ends each time with a high note--a kind of cry. A note midway between A and B flat. Very curious."

Yoaschbim had taken three calls, bowing and smiling. The lights went up and the people began to file out. Mr. Satterthwaite leaned over to watch the girl with the golden head. She rose, adjusted her scarf, and turned.

Mr. Satterthwaite caught his breath. There were, he knew, such faces in the world--faces that made history--

The girl moved to the gangway, her companion, a young man, beside her. And Mr. Satterthwaite noticed how every man in the vicinity looked--and continued to look covertly.

_Beauty!_ said Mr. Satterthwaite to himself. _There is such a thing. Not charm, nor attraction, nor magnetism, nor any of the things we talk about so glibly--just sheer beauty. The shape of a face, the line of an eyebrow, the curve of a jaw._ He quoted softly under his breath: "_The face that launched a thousand ships._" And for the first time he realized the meaning of those words.

He glanced across at Mr. Quin, who was watching him in what seemed such perfect comprehension that Mr. Satterthwaite felt there was no need for words.

"I've always wondered," he said simply, "what such women were really like."

"You mean?"

"The Helens, the Cleopatras, the Mary Stuarts."

Mr. Quin nodded thoughtfully. "If we go out," he suggested, "we may--see."

They went out together, and their quest was successful. The pair they were in search of were seated on a lounge halfway up the staircase. For the first time, Mr. Satterthwaite noted the girl's companion, a dark young man, not handsome, but with a suggestion of restless fire about him. A face full of strange angles; jutting cheekbones, a forceful, slightly crooked jaw, deep-set eyes that were curiously light under the dark, overhanging brows.

_An interesting face_, said Mr. Satterthwaite to himself. _A real face. It means something._

The young man was leaning forward talking earnestly. The girl was listening. Neither of them belonged to Mr. Satterthwaite's world. He took them to be of the "Arty" class. The girl wore a rather shapeless garment of cheap green silk. Her shoes were of soiled white satin. The young man wore his evening clothes with an air of being uncomfortable in them.

The two men passed and repassed several times. The fourth time they did so the couple had been joined by a third--a fair young man with a suggestion of the clerk about him. With his coming a certain tension had set in. The newcomer was fidgeting with his tie and seemed ill at ease; the girl's beautiful face was turned gravely up toward him, and her companion was scowling furiously.

"The usual story," said Mr. Quin very softly, as they passed.

"Yes," said Mr. Satterthwaite with a sigh. "It's inevitable, I suppose. The snarling of two dogs over a bone. It always has been, it always will be. And yet, one could wish for something different. Beauty--" He stopped. Beauty, to Mr. Satterthwaite, meant something very wonderful. He found it difficult to speak of it. He looked at Mr. Quin, who nodded his head gravely in understanding.

They went back to their seats for the second act.

At the close of the performance, Mr. Satterthwaite turned eagerly to his friend. "It is a wet night. My car is here. You must allow me to drive you--er--somewhere."

The last word was Mr. Satterthwaite's delicacy coming into play. "To drive you home" would, he felt, have savored of curiosity. Mr. Quin had always been singularly reticent. It was extraordinary how little Mr. Satterthwaite knew about him.

"But perhaps," continued the little man, "you have your own car waiting?"

"No," said Mr. Quin. "I have no car waiting."

"Then--"

But Mr. Quin shook his head. "You are most kind," he said, "but I prefer to go my own way. Besides," he said with a rather curious smile, "if anything should--happen, it will be for you to act. Good night, and thank you. Once again we have seen the drama together."

He had gone so quickly that Mr. Satterthwaite had no time to protest, but he was left with a faint uneasiness stirring in his mind. To what drama did Mr. Quin refer? _Pagliacci_ or another?

Masters, Mr. Satterthwaite's chauffeur, was in the habit of waiting in a side street. His master disliked the long delay while the cars drew up in turn before the opera house. Now, as on previous occasions, he walked rapidly round the corner and along the street toward where he knew he should find Masters awaiting him. Just in front of him were a girl and a man, and even as he recognized them, another man joined them.

It all broke out in a minute. A man's voice, angrily uplifted. Another man's voice in injured protest. And then the scuffle. Blows, angry breathing, more blows, the form of a policeman appearing majestically from nowhere--and in another minute Mr. Satterthwaite was beside the girl where she shrank back against the wall.

"Allow me," he said. "You must not stay here."

He took her by the arm and marshaled her swiftly down the street. Once she looked back.

"Oughtn't I--?" she began uncertainly.

Mr. Satterthwaite shook his head. "It would be very unpleasant for you to be mixed up in it. You would probably be asked to go along to the police station with them. I am sure neither of your--friends would wish that."

He stopped. "This is my car. If you will allow me to do so, I shall have much pleasure in driving you home."

The girl looked at him searchingly. The staid respectability of Mr. Satterthwaite impressed her favorably. She bent her head.

"Thank you," she said, and got into the car, the door of which Masters was holding open.

In reply to a question from Mr. Satterthwaite, she gave an address in Chelsea, and he got in beside her.

The girl was upset and not in the mood for talking, and Mr. Satterthwaite was too tactful to intrude upon her thoughts. Presently, however, she turned to him and spoke of her own accord. "I wish," she said pettishly, "people wouldn't be so silly."

"It is a nuisance," agreed Mr. Satterthwaite.

His matter-of-fact manner put her at her ease, and she went on as though feeling the need of confiding in someone. "It wasn't as though--I mean, well, it was like this. Mr. Eastney and I have been friends for a long time--ever since I came to London. He's taken no end of trouble about my voice, and got me some very good introductions, and he's been more kind to me than I can say. He's absolutely music mad. It was very good of him to take me tonight. I'm sure he can't really afford it. And then Mr. Burns came up and spoke to us--quite nicely, I'm sure, and Phil, Mr. Eastney, got sulky about it. I don't know why he should. It's a free country, I'm sure. And Mr. Burns is always pleasant, and good-tempered. Then just as we were walking to the Tube, he came up and joined us, and he hadn't so much as said two words before Philip flew out at him like a madman. And--Oh! I don't like it."

"Don't you?" asked Mr. Satterthwaite very softly.

She blushed, but very little. There was none of the conscious siren about her. A certain measure of pleasurable excitement in being fought for there must be--that was only nature--but Mr. Satterthwaite decided that a worried perplexity lay uppermost, and he had the clue to it in another moment when she observed inconsequently, "I do hope he hasn't hurt him."

_Now which is "him"?_ thought Mr. Satterthwaite, smiling to himself in the darkness.

He backed his own judgment and said, "You hope Mr.--er--Eastney hasn't hurt Mr. Burns?"

She nodded. "Yes, that's what I said. It seems so dreadful. I wish I knew."

The car was drawing up.

"Are you on the telephone?" he asked.

"Yes."

"If you like, I will find out exactly what has happened, and then telephone to you."

The girl's face brightened. "Oh! that would be very kind of you. Are you sure it's not too much bother?"

"Not in the least."

She thanked him again and gave him her telephone number, adding with a touch of shyness, "My name is Gillian West."

As he was driven through the night, bound on his errand, a curious smile came to Mr. Satterthwaite's lips. He thought, _So that is all it is--"The shape of a face, the curve of a jaw!"_

But he fulfilled his promise.

* * * * *

The following Sunday afternoon, Mr. Satterthwaite went to Kew Gardens to admire the rhododendrons. Very long ago (incredibly long ago, it seemed to Mr. Satterthwaite) he had driven down to Kew Gardens with a certain young lady to see the bluebells. Mr. Satterthwaite had arranged very carefully beforehand in his own mind exactly what he was going to say, and the precise words he would use in asking the young lady for her hand in marriage. He was just conning them over in his mind, and responding to her raptures about the bluebells a little absent-mindedly, when the shock came. The young lady stopped exclaiming at the bluebells and suddenly confided in Mr. Satterthwaite (as a true friend) her love for another. Mr. Satterthwaite put away the little set speech he had prepared, and hastily rummaged for sympathy and friendship in the bottom drawer of his mind.

Such was Mr. Satterthwaite's romance--a rather tepid early Victorian one, but it had left him with a romantic attachment to Kew Gardens, and he would often go there to see the bluebells, or, if he had been abroad later than usual, the rhododendrons, and would sigh to himself, and feel rather sentimental, and really enjoy himself very much indeed in an old-fashioned, romantic way.

This particular afternoon he was strolling back past the tea houses when he recognized a couple sitting at one of the small tables on the grass. They were Gillian West and the fair young man, and at that same moment they recognized him. He saw the girl flush and speak eagerly to her companion. In another minute he was shaking hands with them both in his correct, rather prim fashion, and had accepted the shy invitation proffered him to have tea with them.

"I can't tell you, sir," said Mr. Burns, "how grateful I am to you for looking after Gillian the other night. She told me all about it."

"Yes, indeed," said the girl. "It was ever so kind of you."

Mr. Satterthwaite felt pleased and interested in the pair. Their naïveté and sincerity touched him. Also, it was to him a peep into a world with which he was not well acquainted. These people were of a class unknown to him.