Afternoon Tea Mysteries Vol Three Page 3

  At the end of the village, Kristen came suddenly into view of a large, handsome, red-brick mansion. It presented a wide frontage to the road, from which it lay back amid extensive pleasure grounds. On the right hand, and a little in the rear of the house, stood what seemed to be large and commodious stables, and immediately adjoining these stables was a low-built, red-brick shed, that had evidently been recently erected.

  That low-build, red-brick shed excited Kristen’s curiosity.

  “Is this house called North Cape?” she asked of a man, who chanced at that moment to be passing with a pickaxe and shovel.

  The man answered in the affirmative, and Kristen then asked another question: could he tell her what was that small shed so close to the house—it looked like a glorified cow-house—now what could be its use?

  The man’s face lighted up as if it were a subject on which he liked to be questioned. He explained that that small shed was the engine-house where the electricity that lighted North Cape was made and stored. Then he dwelt with pride upon the fact, as if he held a personal interest in it, that North Cape was the only house, far or near, that was thus lighted.

  “I suppose the wires are carried underground to the house,” said Kristen, looking in vain for signs of them anywhere.

  The man was delighted to go into details on the matter. He had helped to lay those wires, he said: they were two in number, one for supply and one for return, and were laid three feet below ground, in boxes filled with pitch. These wires were switched on to jars in the engine-house, where the electricity was stored, and, after passing underground, entered the family mansion under its flooring at its western end.

  Kristen listened attentively to these details, and then took a minute and leisurely survey of the house and its surroundings. This done, she retraced her steps through the village, pausing, however, at the “Postal and Telegraph Office” to dispatch a telegram to Inspector Garamond.

  It was one to send the Inspector to his cipher-book. It ran as follows:

  “Rely solely on chemist and coal-merchant throughout the day.—K. C.”

  After this, she quickened her pace, and in something over three-quarters of an hour was back again at her hotel.

  There she found more of life stirring than when she had quitted it in the early morning. There was to be a meeting of the “Surrey Stags,” about a couple of miles off, and a good many hunting men were hanging about the entrance to the house, discussing the chances of sport after last night’s frost. Kristen made her way through the throng in leisurely fashion, and not a man but what had keen scrutiny from her sharp eyes. No, there was no cause for suspicion there: they were evidently one and all just what they seemed to be—loud-voiced, hard-riding men, bent on a day’s sport; but—and here Kristen’s eyes travelled beyond the hotel court-yard to the other side of the road—who was that man with a bill-hook hacking at the hedge there—a thin-featured, round-shouldered old fellow, with a bent-about hat? It might be as well not to take it too rashly for granted that her spies had withdrawn, and had left her free to do her work in her own fashion.

  She went upstairs to her room. It was situated on the first floor in the front of the house, and consequently commanded a good view of the high road. She stood well back from the window, and at an angle whence she could see and not be seen, took a long, steady survey of the hedger. And the longer she looked the more convinced she was that the man’s real work was something other than the bill-hook seemed to imply. He worked, so to speak, with his head over his shoulder, and when Kristen supplemented her eyesight with a strong field-glass, she could see more than one stealthy glance shot from beneath his bent-about hat in the direction of her window.

  There could be little doubt about it: her movements were to be as closely watched to-day as they had been yesterday. Now it was of first importance that she should communicate with Inspector Garamond in the course of the afternoon: the question to solve was how it was to be done?

  To all appearance Kristen answered the question in extraordinary fashion. She pulled up her blind, she drew back her curtain, and seated herself, in full view, at a small table in the window recess. Then she took a pocket inkstand from her pocket, a packet or correspondence cards from her letter-case, and with rapid pen, set to work on them.

  About an hour and a half afterwards, White, coming in, according to his promise, to report proceedings, found her still seated at the window, not, however, with writing materials before her, but with needle and thread in her hand with which she was mending her gloves.

  “I return to town by the first train tomorrow morning,” she said as he entered, “and I find these wretched things want no end of stitches. Now for your report.”

  White appeared to be in an elated frame of mind. “I’ve seen her!” he cried, “my Annie—they’ve got her, those confounded Sisters; but they sha’n’t keep her—no, not if I have to pull the house down about their ears to get her out.”

  “Well, now you know where she is, you can take your time about getting her out,” said Kristen. “I hope, however, you haven’t broken faith with me, and betrayed yourself by trying to speak with her, because, if so, I shall have to look out for another deputy.”

  “Honour, Miss Carter!” answered White indignantly. “I stuck to my duty, though it cost me something to see her hanging over those kids and tucking them into the cart, and never say a word to her, never so much as wave my hand.”

  “Did she go out with the donkey-cart to-day?”

  “No, she only tucked the kids into the cart with a blanket, and then went back to the house. Two old Sisters, ugly as sin, went out with them. I watched them from the window, jolt, jolt, jolt, round the corner, out of sight, and then I whipped down the stairs, and on to my machine, and was after them in a trice and managed to keep them well in sight for over an hour and a half.”

  “And their destination to-day was?”

  “Wootton Hall.”

  “Ah, just as I expected.”

  “Just as you expected?” echoed White.

  “I forgot. You do not know the nature of the suspicions that are attached to this Sisterhood, and the reasons I have for thinking that Wootton Hall, at this season of the year, might have an especial attraction for them.”

  White continued staring at her. “Miss Carter,” he said presently, in an altered tone, “whatever suspicions may attach to the Sisterhood, I’ll stake my life on it, my Annie has had no share in any wickedness of any sort.”

  “Oh, quite so; it is most likely that your Annie has, in some way, been inveigled into joining these Sisters—has been taken possession of by them, in fact, just as they have taken possession of the little children.”

  “That’s it!” he cried excitedly; “that was the idea that occurred to me when you spoke to me on the hill about them, otherwise you may be sure—”

  “Did they get relief of any sort at the Hall?” interrupted Kristen…

  “Yes; one of the two ugly old women stopped outside the lodge gates with the donkey-cart, and the other beauty went up to the house alone. She stayed there, I should think, about a quarter of an hour, and when she came back, was followed by a servant, carrying a bundle and a basket.”

  “Ah! I’ve no doubt they brought away with them something else beside old garments and broken victuals.”

  White stood in front of her, fixing a hard, steady gaze upon her.

  “Miss Carter,” he said presently, in a voice that matched the look on his face, “what do you suppose was the real object of these women in going to Wootton Hall this morning?”

  “Mr. White, if I wished to help a gang of thieves break into Wootton Hall tonight, don’t you think I should be greatly interested in procuring from them the information that the master of the house was away from home; that two of the men servants, who slept in the house, had recently been dismissed and their places had not yet been filled; also that the dogs were never unchained at night, and that their kennels were at the side of the house at which the butler�
��s pantry is not situated? These are particulars I have gathered in this house without stirring from my chair, and I am satisfied that they are likely to be true. A the same time, if I were a professed burglar, I should not be content with information that was likely to be true, but would be careful to procure such that was certain to be true, and so would set accomplices to work at the fountain head. Now do you understand?”

  White folded his arms and looked down on her.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked, in short, brusque tones.

  Kristen looked him full in the face. “Communicate with the police immediately,” she answered; “and I should feel greatly obliged if you will at once take a note from me to Inspector Garamond at Reigate.”

  “And what becomes of Annie?”

  “I don’t think you need have any anxiety on that head. I’ve no doubt that when the circumstances of her admission to the Sisterhood are investigated, it will be proved that she has been as much deceived and imposed upon as the man, John Murray, who so foolishly let his house to these women. Remember, Annie has Mrs. Copeland’s good word to support her integrity.”

  White stood silent for awhile.

  “What sort of a note do you wish me to take to the Inspector?” he presently asked.

  “You shall read it as I write it, if you like,” answered Kristen. She took a correspondence card from her letter case, and, with an indelible pencil, wrote as follows—

  “Wootton Hall is threatened tonight—concentrate attention there. K. C.”

  White read the words as she wrote them with a curious expression passing over his handsome features.

  “Yes,” he said, curtly as before. “I’ll deliver that, I give you my word, but I’ll bring back no answer to you. I’ll do no more spying for you—it’s a trade that doesn’t suit me. There’s a straight-forward way of doing straight-forward work, and I’ll take that way—no other—to get my Annie out of that den.”

  He took the note, which she sealed and handed to him, and strode out of the room.

  Kristen, from the window, watched him mount his bicycle. Was it her fancy, or did there pass a swift, furtive glance of recognition between him and the hedger on the other side of the way as he rode out of the court-yard?

  Kristen seemed determined to make that hedger’s work easy for him. The short winter’s day was closing in now, and her room must consequently have been growing dim to outside observation. She lighted the gas chandelier which hung from the ceiling and, still with blinds and curtains undrawn, took her old place at the window, spread writing materials before her and commenced a long and elaborate report to her chief at Lynch Court.

  About half-an-hour afterwards, as she threw a casual glance across the road, she saw that the hedger had disappeared, but that two ill-looking tramps sat munching bread and cheese under the hedge to which his bill-hook had done so little service. Evidently the intention was, one way or another, not to lose sight of her so long as she remained in Redhill.

  Meantime, White had delivered Kristen’s note to the Inspector at Reigate, and had disappeared on his bicycle once more.

  Garamond read it without a change of expression. Then he crossed the room to the fire-place and held the card as close to the bars as he could without scorching it.

  “I had a telegram from her this morning,” he explained to his confidential man, “telling me to rely upon chemicals and coals throughout the day, and that, of course, meant that she would write to me in invisible ink. No doubt this message about Wootton Hall means nothing—”

  He broke off abruptly, exclaiming: “Eh! what’s this!” as, having withdrawn the card from the fire, Kristen’s real message stood out in bold, clear characters between the lines of the false one.

  Thus it ran:

  “North Cape will be attacked tonight—a desperate gang—be prepared for a struggle. Above all, guard the electrical engine-house. On no account attempt to communicate with me; I am so closely watched that any endeavour to do so may frustrate your chance of trapping the scoundrels. K. C.”

  That night when the moon went down behind Reigate Hill an exciting scene was enacted at “North Cape.” The Surrey Gazette, in its issue the following day, gave the subjoined account of it under the heading, “Desperate encounter with burglars.”

  “Last night, ‘North Cape,’ the residence of Mr. Jameson, was the scene of an affray between the police and a desperate gang of burglars. ‘North Cape’ is lighted throughout with electricity, and the burglars, four in number, divided in half—two being told off to enter and rob the house, and two to remain at the engine-shed, where the electricity is stored, so that, at a given signal, should need arise, the wires might be unswitched, the inmates of the house thrown into sudden darkness and confusion, and the escape of the marauders thereby facilitated. Mr. Jameson, however, had received timely warning from the police of the intended attack, and he, with his two sons, all well armed, sat in darkness in the inner hall awaiting the coming of the thieves. The police were stationed, some in the stables, some in out-buildings nearer to the house, and others in more distant parts of the grounds. The burglars effected their entrance by means of a ladder placed to a window of the servants’ stair case which leads straight down to the butler’s pantry and to the safe where the silver is kept. The fellows, however, had no sooner got into the house than the police issuing from their hiding-place outside, mounted the ladder after them and thus cut off their retreat. Mr. Jameson and his two sons, at the same moment, attacked them in front, and thus overwhelmed by numbers, the scoundrels were easily secured. It was at the engine-house outside that the sharpest struggle took place. The thieves had forced open the door of this engine-shed with their jimmies immediately on their arrival, under the very eyes of the police, who lay in ambush in the stables, and when one of the men, captured in the house, contrived to sound an alarm on his whistle, these outside watchers made a rush for the electrical jars, in order to unswitch the wires. Upon this the police closed upon them, and a hand-to-hand struggle followed, and if it had not been for the timely assistance of Mr. Jameson and his sons, who had fortunately conjectured that their presence here might be useful, it is more than likely that one of the burglars, a powerfully-built man, would have escaped.

  “The names of the captured men are John Murray, Arthur and George Lee (father and son), and a man with so many aliases that it is difficult to know which is his real name. The whole thing had been most cunningly and carefully planned. The elder Lee, lately released from penal servitude for a similar offence, appears to have been prime mover in the affair. This man had, it seems, a son and a daughter, who, through the kindness of friends, had been fairly well placed in life: the son at an electrical engineers’ in London, the daughter as nursery governess at Wootton Hall. Directly this man was released from Portland, he seems to have found out his children and done his best to ruin them both. He was constantly at Wootton Hall endeavouring to induce his daughter to act as an accomplice to a robbery of the house. This so worried the girl that she threw up her situation and joined a Sisterhood that had recently been established in the neighbourhood. Upon this, Lee’s thoughts turned in another direction. He induced his son, who had saved a little money, to throw up his work in London, and join him in his disreputable career. The boy is a handsome young fellow, but appears to have in him the makings of a first-class criminal. In his work as an electrical engineer he had made the acquaintance of the man John Murray, who, it is said, has been rapidly going downhill of late. Murray was the owner of the house rented by the Sisterhood that Miss Lee had joined, and the idea evidently struck the brains of these three scoundrels that this Sisterhood, whose antecedents were a little mysterious, might be utilized to draw off the attention of the police from themselves and from the especial house in the neighbourhood that they had planned to attack. With this end in view, Murray made an application to the police to have the Sisters watched, and still further to give colour to the suspicions he had endeavoured to set afloat concerning them
, he and his confederates made feeble attempts at burglary upon the houses at which the Sisters had called, begging for scraps. It is a matter for congratulation that the plot, from beginning to end, has been thus successfully unearthed, and it is felt on all sides that great credit is due to Inspector Garamond and his skilled coadjutors for the vigilance and promptitude they have displayed throughout the affair.”

  Kristen read aloud this report, with her feet on the fender of the Lynch Court office.

  “Accurate, as far as it goes,” she said, as she laid down the paper.

  “But we want to know a little more,” said Mr. Mutchey. “In the first place, I would like to know what it was that diverted your suspicions from the unfortunate Sisters?”

  “The way in which they handled the children,” answered Kristen promptly. “I have seen female criminals of all kinds handling children, and I have noticed that although they may occasionally—even this is rare—treat them with a certain rough sort of kindness, of tenderness they are utterly incapable. Now Sister Monica, I must admit, is not pleasant to look at; at the same time, there was something absolutely beautiful in the way in which she lifted the little handicapped child out of the cart, put his tiny thin hand round her neck, and carried him into the house. By-the-way I would like to ask some rapid physiognomist how he would account for Sister Monica’s repulsiveness of feature as contrasted with young Lee’s undoubted good looks—heredity, in this case, throws no light on the matter.”

  “Another question,” said Mr. Mutchey, not paying much heed to Kristen’s digression: “how was it you transferred your suspicions to John Murray?”