Annie Haynes Premium Collection – 8 Murder Mysteries in One Volume. Annie Haynes
the coming of another storm.
Plainly now they all heard the sound of which Mavis spoke—the sound of a horse being urged up the avenue at its fullest speed.
With some instinct of impending calamity Mavis turned pale.
“What can it be?” she said.
“The fish for to-morrow’s breakfast miscarried,’’ Arthur said lightly.
“A messenger in hot haste with a brief for me,” Garth suggested.
Arthur moved back and shut the window.
“Probably a message from some of the tradespeople with respect to the arrangements for next week; but I don’t know why we should all stand still to listen to the not unwonted sound of a horse in the drive,” ironically.
“It is unusual at this time of night,” Mavis said.
“Well, we shall soon know what it is,” Garth began.
Hilda laid her hand on her lover’s arm.
“Arthur, suppose it should be some one come for me?” with a little sob in her throat.
“Then I shall not let them take you away,” he responded playfully, with a loving glance at the girl’s flushed cheeks.
Meanwhile the cart had stopped at the front door, thereby disposing of Sir Arthur’s suggestions, and there was a loud, insistent peal at the bell.
No one spoke; in the silence the sound of a low-voiced altercation in the hall was plainly audible, and just as Sir Arthur, with an indistinct murmur, moved towards the door, it was opened, and Jenkins, looking curiously disturbed appeared.
“If you please, Sir Arthur,” hesitating and stammering, “could you speak to Mr. Grimes, the butcher?”
“Grimes, the butcher!” Arthur exclaimed. “Well, it sounded like a butcher driving, I must say. What does he want with me, Jenkins? Something wrong with his accounts?”
The butler paused.
“No, I don’t fancy it is anything of that, Sir Arthur. He—he is waiting in the hall if you could speak to him just for a minute.”
Arthur glanced at him curiously a moment.
“Oh, I’ll come!” he said in an altered tone. “Garth—”
Lady Laura put him aside.
“What is it, Jenkins? Something is wrong, I’m sure. Not Miss Dorothy—”
A momentary expression of relief crossed Jenkins’ face.
“Oh, no, my lady, it is nothing of that kind!”
“Some private affair of Grimes’s, I expect.” Sir Arthur moved forward.
Lady Laura checked him.
“Then what is it, Jenkins? Speak out!”
The man glanced round as if for inspiration.
“Your ladyship heard that dreadful crash of thunder before the rain began—you saw the lightning?”
“Yes, yes, certainly I did!” Lady Laura said impatiently.
“Do you mean that it has struck something?”
“It struck the Lovers’ Oak, my lady—broke a big branch off.”
Lady Laura drew a deep breath of relief.
“Was that all, Jenkins?—There was no one there, was there?” she went on, her fears taking a new direction. “Nobody was hurt?”
“No, my lady; nobody was hurt,” Jenkins said. “The tree was struck. That was all, my lady.”
Garth, watching the man closely, saw that his eyes were glancing uneasily, appealingly, at his master, that his face had an odd look.
“All!” Sir Arthur echoed with a laugh which had something forced in its merriment. “Quite enough, too, I should think, Jenkins! Will the destruction of the Lovers’ Oak mean misfortune to the lovers who have plighted their troth beneath its branches and drunk from the Wishing Well, do you think?”
“I couldn’t say, I am sure, Sir Arthur.” The man’s stiff lips smiled in an unmirthful fashion at his master’s pleasantry. “Grimes, he came straight away as soon as he heard of it to tell you, Sir Arthur.”
“Ah, well, I will come and speak to him, then.” At the door Arthur turned with an imperceptible sign to Garth. “We will bring you all the details in a moment, mother.”
With a murmured apology to Lady Laura, Garth followed Jenkins.
Chapter XIX
As the door closed behind them, Sir Arthur’s manner changed.
“Well, Jenkins, out with it! What do all these mysterious signals portend?”
The butler’s face looked white and scared.
“If you please, Sir Arthur, I couldn’t speak of it before the ladies, but it—but Mr. Grimes there will tell you about it better than I can, Sir Arthur.”
Grimes, the Lockford butcher, was standing, cap in hand, near the front door. He was a big, burly man with a thick neck like one of his own oxen; ordinarily his great, clean-shaven face was of a cheerful rubicund hue, but to-night it looked grey, save that in places there were curious purple patches.
He touched his forehead.
“It—I am afraid it is a bad business, Sir Arthur! Mr. Jenkins has likely told you how the Lovers’ Oak has been struck by lightning—it has broke away the biggest branch altogether—”
“Yes, yes, I have heard all this!” Sir Arthur interrupted impatiently. “But, though I am sorry enough about the old tree, I can’t understand for the life of me why you should all look so tragic about it. If there is anything else to hear, man, tell us without any more beating about the bush.”
Mr. Grimes looked around and scratched his head doubtfully.
“It is an awful thing, Sir Arthur,” said Grimes, after a pause. “As soon as we saw that flash of lightning and heard the thunder we come out, me and my missis, and looked about us; then young Bill Grogram brought us word as it was the Lovers’ Oak as was struck, and we went up to see it, me and a few more. We found the oak was split right down, Sir Arthur, and what we never knowed before at Lockford, speaking for myself, it was hollow, Sir Arthur.”
“Well, there is nothing so astonishing about that,” said Sir Arthur irritably, “nothing to be so tragic over, that I can see, Grimes. A tree of great size, and an old tree such as that was, often is hollow.”
“Ay!” said Grimes slowly, mopping his head with his red handkerchief, and moving his feet about uneasily. “It—it wasn’t its being hollow as startled us, Sir Arthur, but—but there was something inside.”
“What sort of something?” asked Sir Arthur, his tone catching some of the awe in the butcher’s. “What on earth do you mean, Grimes?”
“There was something inside, Sir Arthur,” the man repeated slowly and ponderously. “Something—somebody, I ought to say, poor thing! Somebody as must ha’ been made away with and put down there to be out of the way. They are saying down in the village—they are saying as it’s that poor young woman that’s been missing from the Manor since last June—Mrs. Marston’s daughter, down at Lockford!”
“What?” Arthur’s quick, horrified exclamation went unheeded as a hoarse, strangled shriek rang out behind him, and he turned to see Hilda with ashen face and straining eyeballs falling back apparently in violent hysterics.
With some curiosity as to