The Stowmarket Mystery; Or, A Legacy of Hate. Louis Tracy
villa-residences nestling in gardens.
“A bower of orchards and green lanes,” murmured the barrister as their dog-cart sped rapidly over the smooth highway.
Hume was driving. He pointed out the rectory. His eyes were eagerly searching the lawn and the well-trimmed garden, but he was denied a sight of his divinity. The few people they encountered gazed at them curiously. Hume was seemingly unrecognised.
“Here is Mrs. Eastham’s house,” he said, checking the horse’s pace as they approached a roomy, comfortable-looking mansion, occupying an angle where the village street sharply bifurcated. “And there is Beechcroft!”
The lodge faced the road along which they were advancing. Beyond the gates the yew-lined drive, with its selvages of deep green turf, led straight to the Elizabethan house a quarter of a mile distant. The ground in the rear rose gently through a mile or more of the home park.
Immediately behind the Hall was a dense plantation of spruce and larch. The man who planned the estate evidently possessed both taste and spirit. It presented a beautiful and pleasing picture. A sense of homeliness was given by a number of Alderney cattle and young hunters grazing in the park on both sides of the avenue. Beechcroft had a reputation in metropolitan sale-rings. Its two-year-olds were always in demand.
“We will leave the conveyance here,” announced Brett “I prefer to walk to the house.”
The hotel groom went to the horse’s head. He did not hear the barrister’s question:
“I suppose both you and your cousin quitted Mrs. Eastham’s house by that side-door and entered the park through the wicket?”
“Yes,” assented Hume, “though I fail to see why you should hit upon the side-door rather than the main entrance.”
“Because the ball-room is built out at the back. It was originally a granary. The conservatory opens into the garden on the other side. As there was a large number of guests, Mrs. Eastham required all her front rooms for supper and extra servants, so she asked people to halt their carriages at the side-door. I would not be surprised if the gentlemen’s cloak-room was provided by the saddle-room there, whilst the yard was carpeted and covered with an awning.”
Brett rattled on in this way, heedless of his companion’s blank amazement, perhaps secretly enjoying it.
Hume was so taken aback that he stood poised on the step of the vehicle and forgot to slip the reins into the catch on the splashboard.
“I told you none of these things,” he cried.
“Of course not. They are obvious. But tell this good lady that we are going to the Hall.”
Both the main gate and wicket were fastened, and the lodge-keeper’s wife was gazing at them through the bars.
“Hello, Mrs. Crowe, don’t you know me?” cried Hume.
“My gracious, It’s Mr. David!” gasped the woman.
“Why are the gates locked?”
“Mrs. Capella is not receiving visitors, sir.”
“Is she ill?”
“No, sir. Indisposed, I think Mr. Capella said.”
“Well, she will receive me, at any rate.”
“No doubt, sir, it will be all right.”
She hesitatingly unbarred the wicket, and the two men entered. They walked slowly up the drive. Hume was restless. Twice he looked behind him.
He stopped.
“It was here,” he said, “that the two men dismounted.”
Then a few yards farther on:
“Alan came round from the door there, and they fought here. Alan forced the stranger on to the turf. When he was stabbed he fell here.”
He pointed to a spot where the road commenced to turn to the left to clear the house. Brett watched him narrowly. The young man was describing his dream, not the actual murder. The vision was far more real to him.
“It was just such a day as this,” he continued. “It might have been almost this hour. The library windows—”
He ceased and looked fixedly towards the house. Brett, too, gazed in silence. They saw a small, pale-faced, exceedingly handsome Italian—a young man, with coal-black eyes and a mass of shining black hair—scowling at them from within the library.
A black velvet coat and a brilliant tie were the only bizarre features of his costume. They served sufficiently to enhance his foreign appearance. Such a man would be correctly placed in the marble frame of a Neapolitan villa; here he was unusual, outré, “un-English,” as Brett put it.
But he was evidently master. He flung open the window, and said, with some degree of hauteur:
“Whom do you wish to see? Can I be of any assistance?”
His accent was strongly marked, but his words were well chosen and civil enough, had his tone accorded with their sense. As it was, he might be deemed rude.
Brett advanced.
“Are you Signor Capella?” he inquired.
“Mr. Capella. Yes.”
“Then you can, indeed, be of much assistance. This gentleman is Mrs. Capella’s cousin, Mr. David Hume-Frazer.”
“Corpo di Baccho!”
The Italian was completely taken by surprise. His eyebrows suddenly stood out in a ridge. His sallow skin could not become more pallid; to show emotion he flushed a swarthy red. Beyond the involuntary exclamation in his own language, he could not find words.
“Yes,” explained the smiling Brett, “he is a near relative of yours by marriage. We were told by the lodge-keeper that Mrs. Capella was indisposed, but under the circumstances we felt assured that she would receive her cousin—unless, that is, she is seriously ill.”
“It is an unexpected pleasure, this visit.”
Capella replied to the barrister, but looked at Hume. He had an unpleasant habit of parting his lips closely to his teeth, like the silent snarl of a dog.
“Undoubtedly. We both apologise for not having prepared you.”
Brett’s smooth, even voice seemed to exasperate the other, who continued to block the library window in uncompromising manner.
“And you, sir. May I ask who you are?”
“My name is Brett, Reginald Brett, a friend of Mr. Hume’s—who, I may mention, does not use his full surname at present.”
The Italian was compelled to turn his glittering eyes upon the man who addressed him so glibly.
“I am sorry,” he said slowly, “but Mrs. Capella is too unwell to meet either of you to-day.”
“Ah! We share your regrets. Nevertheless, as a preliminary to our purpose, you will serve our needs equally well. May we not come in?”
Capella was faced with difficult alternatives. He must either be discourteous to two gentlemanly strangers, one of them his wife’s relative, or admit them with some show of politeness. An Italian may be rude, he can never be gauche. Having decided, Capella ushered them into the library with quick transition to dignified ease.
He asked if he might ring for any refreshments. Hume, who glared at his host with uncompromising hostility, and had not taken any part in the conversation, shook his head.
Brett surprised both, for different reasons, by readily falling in with Capella’s suggestion.
“A whisky and soda would be most grateful,” he said.
The Italian moved towards the bell.
“Permit