The Lost Million. Le Queux William
romance.
The day on which I opened Mr Arnold’s strange letter was the 8th of June, therefore twelve days had to elapse before I could go down to Devonshire to meet the mysterious Mr Dawnay.
Those were hot, exciting days. Such blazing weather in June had not been experienced in London for years. It was hot by day, succeeded by oppressive, breathless evenings, with that red dust-haze seen only in our great metropolis. The Derby had been run and London hotels were crammed. The colossal Cecil, at which it was my habit to stay, was filled to overflowing by crowds of Americans, and the West End ran riot with gaiety and extravagance, as it always does each season.
Perhaps fortunately for me, for it prevented my mind being too much concentrated upon my remarkable trust, I found myself involved in some trouble concerning some land down at Upton End, and I had a number of interviews with my late father’s solicitors. A lawsuit was threatened, and it looked much as though I should be the loser by several hundreds a year.
My mother died when I was but ten, and though I was fond of a country life, yet, somehow, since my father’s decease, I had not cared for the loneliness and solitude of the quaint old house. It was certainly a delightful old place, with several oak-panelled chambers, and clinging to it were all sorts of quaint legends of Roundheads and Cavaliers. Its old bowling-green and its gardens ablaze in summer with crimson ramblers were charming; yet it was, after all, only a white elephant to me, a bachelor. So I had kept on a couple of the old servants, who together with Tucker, the head-gardener, and his assistant, kept the place going – for I had secret thoughts of letting it furnished.
My trouble over the ownership of the piece of land forming a portion of the farm attached to the house, and several other matters which had been neglected owing to my absence in Australia, kept my hands pretty full; nevertheless, I found time one evening to take a taxi up to Highgate Cemetery in order to see that the grave of my dead friend had been properly closed and put in order.
It was about six o’clock in the evening when I arrived, and there were many friends and relatives tenderly watering the flowers on the graves of their loved ones. Without much difficulty I found the newly made mound of brown earth, but to my surprise I also saw that a magnificent cross of white flowers had been laid upon it.
This I eagerly examined, but no card was attached.
Surely whoever had placed it there had mistaken the grave, for Mr Arnold possessed no friends, and I had been the only follower. His decease had not been advertised; therefore surely none could know of his death.
For a few minutes I stood there, gazing upon the emblem, and pondering.
Suddenly I saw the cemetery-keeper, and walking up to him pointed out the grave and asked him if he knew anything of the cross that had been placed upon it.
“Oh, you mean Mr Arnold’s grave, I suppose, sir,” exclaimed the man.
“How do you know it is Mr Arnold’s!” I asked.
“Well, sir, the day after the funeral a young lady came to me and inquired where a Mr Melvill Arnold had been buried. So I looked it up in the books and told her. She’s been here every day since, and put fresh flowers there.”
“A young lady! What was she like?” I inquired. “Oh, well, she’s about twenty, I should say – pretty, with dark hair, and dressed in mourning,” he replied. “She comes each day about five, generally in a private motor-car – a big grey car. The flowers cost her a tidy lot, I should think, for they’re not common ones.”
“About five o’clock!” I exclaimed. “Has she been here to-day?”
“No. And she didn’t come yesterday either,” was the man’s reply. “Perhaps she’ll come later on. We don’t close till half-past seven just now.”
So I waited in patience in the vicinity, eagerly watching for the advent of the one person beside myself and the undertaker who knew of the last resting-place of the mysterious man who had deliberately destroyed his fortune.
I wandered among the graves for a full hour, until of a sudden the cemetery-keeper approached me, and in a low voice said —
“Look, over yonder, sir! That tall young lady in black with the chauffeur carrying the wreath: that’s the lady who comes daily to Mr Arnold’s grave.”
I looked, but, curiously enough, she had turned and was leaving the spot without depositing the wreath she had brought.
“Somebody’s watching her, sir,” remarked the man, “Perhaps she recognises you. She’s taking the wreath away again!”
The chauffeur was walking close behind her along the central avenue as though about to leave the burial-ground, when of a sudden she crossed the grass to a newly made grave, and there her man deposited the wreath.
She had detected somebody watching – perhaps she had suspicion of the keeper in conversation with myself; at any rate, she resorted to the ruse of placing the wreath upon the grave of a stranger.
Fortunately, I had been able to obtain a good look at her handsome, refined features, and I decided that hers was a countenance which I should recognise again anywhere.
I looked around, but could see no one in the vicinity to arouse her suspicion – nobody, save myself.
Why did she hold me in fear? By what manner had she been aware of the mysterious man’s death, or that I had been his friend?
I watched her turn and leave the cemetery, followed by her motor-driver.
Why did she hold the dead man in such esteem that she came there each day and with tender hands placed fresh flowers upon his grave? What relation could she be? And why did she thus visit his last resting-place in secret?
Chapter Four
The Man with the Red Cravat
Of necessity I went down to Upton End in order to see old Tucker and his wife, who had acted as caretakers in my absence.
Thomas Tucker – a tall, thin, active, grey-moustached man of sixty-five – was a servant of the old-fashioned faithful school. For thirty-two years – ever since the day of his marriage – he had lived in the pretty rose-embowered lodge, and had been taken over by my father as part of the estate. Indeed, in such high esteem did the governor hold him that he was given an entirely free hand in all outside matters; while his wife – a well-preserved, round-faced woman, equally devoted to her master – was entrusted with the care of the servants and other domestic affairs.
Hence, when I found myself possessor of the place, I too reposed the same confidence in the faithful pair as my father had done. But now that he was dead and I was alone, Upton End seemed, alas! very grim and silent. True, the old place, with its quaint corners and historic associations, its dark panelling, polished floors, and antique furniture, its high box hedges, level lawns, and wealth of roses, would have delighted the artist or the antiquarian; but modern man that I was, I failed to find very much there to attract me.
It was a house built for entertainment, and was only tolerable when filled by a gay house-party. The lawns, gardens, and park were looking their best in those balmy days of June; yet as I walked about, listening to Tucker as he showed me some improvements in tree-planting and in the green-houses, I found myself already reflecting whether, after all, it was worth while keeping the place up further, now that I scarcely ever visited it.
The rural quiet of the place palled upon me – so much so, indeed, that while sitting on the wide veranda smoking in the sunset on the third evening after my arrival I made up my mind to leave again next day. This I did, much to Tucker’s regret.
The old fellow watched me climb into the dog-cart, and touched his straw hat in respectful silence. I knew how the poor old fellow hated his master to be absent.
Again in London, I waited in eager impatience until the nineteenth of the month, when I left Paddington for Totnes, in Devon. It was, I found, a quaint old town among green hills through which wound the picturesque Dart – a town with a long, steep high street, a city gateway, with shops built over the footpath, like those in the Borgo Largo in Pisa.
The Seymour Hotel,