The White Lie. William Le Queux
“Ah, I wonder!” remarked the slim, well-set-up, flying officer. “A mere tramp doesn’t kill a fellow of Dick Harborne’s hard stamp in order to rob him of his cycle.”
“No. There’s something much more behind the tragedy, without a doubt,” declared the local Justice of the Peace. “Let’s hope something will come out at the inquest. Personally, I’m inclined to think that it’s an act of revenge. Most probably a woman is at the bottom of it.”
Barclay shook his head. He did not incline to that opinion.
“I wonder with what motive he cycled so constantly over to this neighbourhood from Norwich or Beccles?” exclaimed Goring. “What could have been the attraction? There must have been one, for this is an out-of-the-world place.”
“Your theory is a woman. Mine isn’t,” declared the lieutenant, bluntly, offering his friend a cigarette and lighting one himself. “No, depend upon it, poor old Dick was a man of mystery. Many strange rumours were afloat concerning him. Yet, after all, he was a real fine fellow, and as smart an officer as ever trod a quarter-deck. He was a splendid linguist, and had fine prospects, for he has an uncle an admiral on the National Defence Committee. Yet he chucked it all and became a cosmopolitan wanderer, and—if there be any truth in the gossip I’ve heard—an adventurer.”
“An outsider—eh?”
“Well—no, not exactly. Dick Harborne was a gentleman, therefore he could never have been an outsider,” replied the naval officer quickly. “By adventurer I mean that he led a strange, unconventional life. He was met by men who knew him in all sorts of out-of-the-world corners of Europe, where he spent the greater part of his time idling at cafés and in a section of society which was not altogether reputable.”
“And you say he was not an adventurer?” remarked the staid British landowner—one of a class perhaps the most conservative and narrow-minded in all the world.
“My dear fellow, travel broadens a man’s mind,” exclaimed the naval officer. “A man may be a cosmopolitan without being an adventurer. Dick Harborne, though there were so many sinister whispers concerning him, was a gentleman—a shrewd, deep-thinking, patriotic Englishman. And his death is a mystery—one which I intend to solve. I’ve come over here again to-day to find out what I can.”
“Well,” exclaimed Goring, “I for one am hardly satisfied with his recent career. While he was in the Navy and afloat—gunnery-lieutenant of one of His Majesty’s first-class cruisers—there appears to have been nothing against his personal character. Only after his retirement these curious rumours arose.”
“True, and nobody has fathomed the mystery of his late life,” admitted Barclay, drawing hard at his cigarette and examining the lighted end. “I’ve heard of him being seen in Cairo, Assouan, Monte Carlo, Aix, Berlin, Rome—all over the Continent, and in Egypt he seems to have travelled, and with much more means at his disposal than ever he had in the ward-room.”
“There are strange mysteries in some men’s lives, my dear Barclay. Harborne was a man of secrets without a doubt. Some of those secrets may come out at the inquest.”
“I doubt it. Poor Dick!” he sighed. “He’s dead—killed by an unknown hand, and his secret, whatever it was, has, I believe, gone to the grave with him. Perhaps, after all, it is best.”
“The police are very busy, I understand.”
“Oh, of course! The Norfolk Constabulary will be very active over it all, but I somehow have an intuition that the crime was one of no ordinary character. Dick must have dismounted to speak to his assailant. If he had been overthrown his machine would most probably have been damaged. The assassin wanted the motor-cycle intact to get away upon. Besides,” he added, “the victim took over an hour to cover the three miles between North Walsham and the spot where he was found. Something unusual must have occurred in that time.”
“Well, it can only be left to the police to investigate,” replied the tall, country squire, thrusting his hands into his jacket pockets.
“They won’t discover much—depend upon it,” remarked the naval officer, who, as he strolled at his friend’s side, presented the ideal type of the keen, British naval officer. “Dick has been the victim of a very carefully-prepared plot. That is my firm belief. I’ve been making some inquiries at the Grand Hotel, and learn that Dick came over from Norwich on his motor-cycle at nine o’clock yesterday morning for some purpose, and idled about Mundesley and the neighbourhood all the day. The head-waiter at the hotel knew him, for he had often lunched there. But yesterday he evidently came here with some fixed purpose, for he seemed to be eagerly expecting somebody, and at last, a little before two o’clock, a young lady arrived by the motor-bus from Cromer. They describe her as a neat, dark-haired, good-looking young person, rather well-dressed—and evidently a summer visitor. The pair walked about the village, and then went down to the beach and sat upon deck-chairs to chat. They returned to the hotel at half-past three and had tea together, tête-à-tête, in a small sitting-room. The waiter tells me that once, when he went in, suddenly, she was standing up, apparently urging him to act in opposition to his own inclinations. Her attitude, he says, was one of unusual force, it being evident that Dick was very reluctant to give some promise she was endeavouring to extract from him. She left again by the motor-bus for Cromer just after four.”
“Ah! There you are! The woman!” exclaimed the owner of Keswick Hall, with a smile. “I thought as much.”
“I don’t think she had anything to do with the affair,” said Barclay. “The police this morning obtained a detailed description of her—just as I have done—and they are now searching for her in Cromer, Runton, and Sheringham, believing her to be staying somewhere along this coast. She was dressed in a pale blue kit of a distinctly seaside cut, so the police are hoping to find her. Perhaps she doesn’t yet know of the tragic fate that has befallen poor Dick.”
“I wonder who the girl can be? No doubt she’d be able to make a very interesting statement—if they could only discover her.”
“I think she left Cromer last night,” Noel Barclay suggested to his companion.
“She would, if she were in any way implicated. Perhaps she has already gone!”
“No, I don’t agree. I believe she is still in ignorance.”
“What, I wonder, was the motive for their meeting here—in this quiet, out-of-the-world little place?” asked Goring. “If he wanted to see her, he might have motored to wherever she was staying, and not have brought her over here in a motor-bus. No, it was a secret meeting—that’s my opinion—and, as it was secret, it probably had some connection with the tragedy which afterwards occurred.”
The two men were now close to the “Gap,” or steep, inclined cart-road which ran down to the sands. On their right, a little way from the road, stood a small, shed-like building where the rocket life-saving apparatus of the Board of Trade was housed. In front, the roadway, and indeed all down the “Gap” and across the sands to where the waves lapped the shore, had been recently opened, for upon the previous day the shore end of the new German telegraph-cable connecting England with Nordeney had been laid. At that moment, while the cable-ship, on its return across the North Sea, was hourly paying out the cable, a German telegraph engineer was seated within the rocket-station, constantly making tests upon the submerged line between the shore and the ship.
Up from the trench beside the rocket-house came the cable—black, coiled, and snake-like, about three inches in thickness—its end disappearing within the small building.
“Been inside to-day?” asked Goring, just as they were passing.
“No. Let’s see how they are progressing,” the other said; and both turned into the little gate and asked permission to enter where the tests were being made.
Herr Strantz, the German engineer, a dark-haired, round-faced, middle-aged man, came forward, and, recognising the pair as visitors of the previous