THE HOUSE IN CHARLTON CRESCRENT – Murder Mystery Classic. Annie Haynes
said curtly. "Now, with regard to the servants, they have all been shadowed for the past week, but so far nothing suspicious has been observed with regard to any of them."
"I don't suppose there would be," Bruce said thoughtfully. "And a legacy, not likely to be an inordinately large one, seems an inadequate motive for a secret poisoner. No, the only person who has any strong reason to desire Lady Anne's death is John Daventry. But—"
He stopped and began apparently to trace out the pattern of the table-cloth before him. Misterton's eyes strayed to the open window, thence to the garden below. Presently he started and leaned forward.
"Who is that girl, Cardyn?"
Cardyn's eyes followed his.
"Miss Margaret Balmaine," he said quickly.
"Phew!" the other drew his lips together in a whistle. "H'm! good-looking girl enough. But she would look more in accordance with her surroundings in the chorus of an opéra bouffe than in Lady Anne Daventry's house. Yes, I should say an inquiry into her past might be interesting."
There was a strange gleam in Cardyn's eyes as he stood up and watched the movements of the tall, golden-haired girl, who was moving about, in and out among the flower-beds on the lawn. She wore a short, straight, white silk frock, much abbreviated as to the skirt, practically sleeveless and lownecked. The lines of her slim figure, thus revealed, were beautiful, so was also the shape of her boyish-looking shingled golden head. Her hair was of the gold beloved by artists, but it, as well as the pink and white complexion and the lustre shaded eyes, owed much of its beauty to art. Opposite to her, flashing about with something in her hands, which she was refusing to give up, was a child, a long-legged girl, about twelve, who, in her frock of bright delphinium-blue looked like a butterfly among the plants.
"Maureen Fyvert, Lady Anne's younger niece," Cardyn explained. "She is a terribly spoilt child. And I believe one of her principal delights is teasing Miss Balmaine, who doesn't understand chaff in the least. I hope her sister will be able to keep her in better order when she comes."
"I fancy the sister must have arrived," Misterton said, listening.
They heard Lady Anne go out of her room by the door in the corridor. Downstairs in the hall people were talking loudly. Cardyn unlocked a drawer, took out a fat notebook with a patent clasp, and handed it to Misterton.
"I want you to glance through this and see what I have been doing. All in cipher, of course."
Just at this moment there came a shriek from the garden:
"No, no! you shall not have it! I am going to show it to Dorothy."
"Give it to me this minute, you naughty child!" There was an unmistakable sound of tears in Miss Balmaine's voice.
Cardyn saw that Maureen was brandishing a piece of paper about, while taking care to keep a flower-bed between herself and Miss Balmaine.
"I should like to look at that," he said quickly. He hurried out of the room and downstairs to the garden.
There was a group of people in the hall, but he did not turn his head as he ran through. Outside he caught the child, Maureen, from the back and snatched the picture from her hand almost before she knew he was there. He had time to see that it was a sketch of a fair-haired girl in water-colours, who bore a striking resemblance to Miss Balmaine, and underneath was written in a clear masculine handwriting, with which he had become oddly familiar of late, "Daisy Melville, April, 19—"
It was only a glance he had as he went forward, while Maureen, with an angry exclamation sprang up trying to tear it from his hands.
"This is your property, I believe, Miss Balmaine," he said as he held it out over Maureen's head.
That young lady gave a howl of rage.
"I call that frightfully mean of you, Mr. Cardyn!"
She wriggled away from Cardyn and ran towards the door.
"Anyway, he had a good look at it before he gave it to you," she called back mischievously. "I believe he is in love with you, Margaret! He is always asking questions about you!"
Then, a most unusual thing with Bruce Cardyn, he suddenly lost his temper.
"Damn!" he exclaimed. "I beg your pardon, Miss Balmaine, but really that child—"
"Please say it again for me." Margaret Balmaine laughed. She had rapidly recovered her selfpossession, though her breathing was still quickened, and her blue eyes were sparkling with anger. "Maureen is simply intolerable. Any language about her is excusable. Lady Anne ought really to get a holiday governess for her if she stays away from school. She is always about with the housemaid, Alice, which is not good for her. But I suspect she will be better when Dorothy is at home."
She broke off as Maureen came out again, clinging to the arm of a tall girl at sight of whom Bruce Cardyn rubbed his eyes in amazement. A tall girl in a long motoring coat, a pull-on hat over her chestnut-hair—hair which had been bobbed once and which was now allowed to curl at its own sweet will round the pretty smiling face with its brown eyes and its colour coming and going; and there was, in spite of the difference in everything—age, expression and colouring—a distinct likeness to Lady Anne.
The eyes opened wide now with an expression as astonished as those of Bruce Cardyn. She did not even glance at Miss Balmaine who had rolled up the sketch in her hand and was now coming towards her.
"You!" she exclaimed. "You!"
"You!" Bruce Cardyn echoed blankly. "I did not know that you—"
"I am Dorothy Fyvert." The girl held out her hands to him with a pretty welcoming gesture. "And you—"
"I am Bruce Cardyn—Lady Anne Daventry's secretary," the man interrupted as he bent low over the outstretched hands.
"But, Dorothy, Dorothy, do you know him?" Maureen burst in, shaking her sister's arm up and down in her excitement. "Because, when I told you I did not like him—not even as well as I had liked Mr. Branksome—you never said—"
Miss Fyvert touched her small sister rebukingly. "Hush! Maureen, darling. It is not at all kind to say you do not like people. And you will have to like Mr. Cardyn very much because he saved my life once!"
"O—h!" Maureen's eyes were wide with excitement now. "Dorothy, you don't mean—you can't mean that he is the man who climbed up and got you out of the fire!"
"At Lady Barminster's—yes!" Dorothy answered, her pretty eyes smiling at the young man. "How often I have wanted to thank you!" she went on. "It does seem strange that we should meet at last—here—like this!"
"It does, indeed!" Cardyn responded, thinking she little knew how strange.
"I am so glad—" Dorothy was beginning when she was interrupted by a cry from the house.
"Dorothy! Dorothy! where are you?"
"Here, here!" the girl called back. She smiled again at Cardyn. "At any rate I shall see you again soon. We shall not lose sight of one another now."
Cardyn saw that quite a crowd of young people seemed to take possession of her altogether.
He felt a curious sense of depression as he followed more slowly and made his way back to the little study where Monsieur Melange was still poring over the miniatures.
"Zis—zis, is very fine. I see too a likeness—a resemblance to ze Lady Anne," he said as Cardyn came in.
The younger man realized at once that some one was in Lady Anne's room. He sat down and hastily scribbled a line on a scrap of paper and handed it to Monsieur Melange.
"Find out as soon as possible what is known of the past of a young actress called Daisy Melville, probably playing in Sydney in the summer of last year."
Chapter IV