T. Tembarom Part 86

Mr. Palford had been opening a budget of papers.

"It is evidence which is c.u.mulative, your Grace," he said. "Mr. Temple Temple Barholm's position would have been a far less suspicious one-- as you yourself suggested--if he had remained, or if he hadn't secretly removed Mr.--Mr. Strangeways."

"The last was Captain Palliser's suggestion, I believe," smiled the duke. "Did he remove him secretly? How secretly, for instance?"

"At night," answered Palliser. "Miss Temple Barholm herself did not know when it happened. Did you?" turning to Miss Alicia, who at once flushed and paled.

"He knew that I was rather nervous where Mr. Strangeways was concerned. I am sorry to say he found that out almost at once. He even told me several times that I must not think of him--that I need hear nothing about him." She turned to the duke, her air of appeal plainly representing a feeling that he would understand her confession. "I scarcely like to say it, but wrong as it was I couldn't help feeling that it was like having a--a lunatic in the house. I was afraid he might be more--ill--than Temple realized, and that he might some time become violent. I never admitted so much of course, but I was."

"You see, she was not told," Palliser summed it up succinctly.

"Evidently," the duke admitted. "I see your point." But he seemed to disengage himself from all sense of admitting implications with entire calmness, as he turned again to Mr. Palford and his papers.

"You were saying that the exact evidence was--?"

Mr. Palford referred to a sheet of notes.

"That--whether before or shortly after his arrival here is not at all certain--Mr. Temple Temple Barholm began strongly to suspect the ident.i.ty of the person then known as Strangeways--"

Palliser again emitted the short and dry laugh, and both the duke and Mr. Palford looked at him inquiringly.

"He had `got on to' it before he brought him," he answered their glances. "Be sure of that."

"Then why did he bring him?" the duke suggested lightly.

"Oh, well," taking his cue from the duke, and a.s.suming casual lightness also, "he was obliged to come himself, and was jolly well convinced that he had better keep his hand on the man, also his eye.

It was a good-enough idea. He couldn't leave a thing like that wandering about the States. He could play benefactor safely in a house of the size of this until he was ready for action."

The duke gave a moment to considering the matter--still detachedly.

"It is, on the whole, not unlikely that something of the sort might suggest itself to the criminal mind," he said. And his glance at Mr.

Palford intimated that he might resume his statement.

"We have secured proof that he applied himself to secret investigation. He is known to have employed Scotland Yard to make certain inquiries concerning the man said to have been killed in the Klondike. Having evidently reached more than suspicion he began to endeavor to persuade Mr. Strangeways to let him take him to London.

This apparently took some time. The mere suggestion of removal threw the invalid into a state of painful excitement--"

"Did Pearson tell you that? " the duke inquired.

"Captain Palliser himself in pa.s.sing the door of the room one day heard certain expressions of terrified pleading," was Mr. Palford's explanation.

"I heard enough," Palliser took it up carelessly, "to make it worth while to question Pearson--who must have heard a great deal more.

Pearson was ordered to hold his tongue from the first, but he will have to tell the truth when he is asked."

The duke did not appear to resent his view.

"Pearson would be likely to know what went on," he remarked. "He's an intelligent little fellow."

"The fact remains that in spite of his distress and reluctance Mr.

Strangeways was removed privately, and there our knowledge ends. He has not been seen since--and a few hours after, Captain Palliser expressed his conviction, that the person he had seen through the West Room window was Mr. James Temple Barholm, Mr. Temple Temple Barholm left the house taking a midnight train, and leaving no clue as to his where-abouts or intentions."

"Disappeared! " said the duke. "Where has he been looked for?"

The countenance of both Mr. Palford and his party expressed a certain degree of hesitance.

"Princ.i.p.ally in asylums and so-called sanatoriums," Mr. Grimby admitted with a hint of reluctance.

"Places where the curiosity of outsiders is not encouraged," said Palliser languidly. "And where if a patient dies in a fit of mania there are always respectable witnesses to explain that his case was hopeless from the first."

Mr. Hutchinson had been breathing hard occasionally as he sat and listened, and now he sprang up uttering a sound dangerously near a violent snort.

"Art tha accusin' that lad o' bein' black villain enough to be ready to do b.l.o.o.d.y murder?" he cried out.

"He was in a very tight place, Hutchinson," Palliser shrugged his shoulders as he said it. "But one makes suggestions at this stage--not accusations."

That Hutchinson had lost his head was apparent to his daughter at least.

"Tha'd be in a tight place, my fine chap, if I had my way," he flung forth irately. "I'd like to get thy head under my arm."

The roll of approaching wheels reached Miss Alicia.

"There's another carriage," was her agitated exclamation. "Oh, dear!

It must be Lady Joan!"

Little Ann left her seat to make her father return to his.

"Father, you'd better sit down," she said, gently pus.h.i.+ng him in the right direction. "When you can't prove a thing's a lie, it's just as well to keep quiet until you can." And she kept quiet herself, though she turned and stood before Palliser and spoke with clear deliberateness. "What you pretend to believe is not true, Captain Palliser. It's just not true," she gave to him.

They were facing and looking at each other when Burrill announced Lady Joan Fayre. She entered rather quickly and looked round the room with a sweeping glance, taking them all in. She went to the duke first, and they shook hands.

"I am glad you are here! " she said.

"I would not have been out of it, my dear young lady," he answered, "`for a farm' That's a quotation."

"I know," she replied, giving her hand to Miss Alicia, and taking in Palliser and the solicitors with a bow which was little more than a nod. Then she saw Little Ann, and walked over to her to shake hands.

"I am glad you are here. I rather felt you would be," was her greeting. "I am glad to see you."

"Whether tha 'rt glad to see me or not I'm glad I'm here," said Hutchinson bluntly. "I've just been speaking a bit o' my mind."

"Now, Father love!" Little Ann put her hand on his arm.

Lady Joan looked him over. Her hungry eyes were more hungry than ever.

She looked like a creature in a fever and worn by it.

"I think I am glad you are here too," she answered.

Palliser sauntered over to her. He had approved the duke's air of being at once detached and inquiring, and he did not intend to wear the aspect of the personage who plays the unpleasant part of the pursuer and avenger. What he said was: