The Secret House Part 16

"I would rather walk down," he said.

He wanted to be better acquainted with this house, to have a larger knowledge of its topography than the ascent and descent by means of an electric lift would allow him. Dr. Fall offered no objection, and led the way down the red carpeted stairs.

"I am well acquainted with people of unsound mind," T. B. went on, "especially that section of the insane whose lunacy takes the form of dropping their aitches."

"You are being sarcastic at my expense," said the other, suddenly turning to him with a lowered brow. "I think it is only right to tell you that, in addition to being Mr. Moole's secretary, I am a doctor."

"That is also no news to me," smiled T. B. "You are an American doctor with a Pennsylvania degree. You came to England in eighteen hundred and ninety-six, on board the _Lucania_. You left New York hurriedly as the result of some scandal in which you were involved. It is, in fact, much easier to trace your movements since the date of your arrival than it is to secure exact information concerning Mr. Moole, who is apparently quite unknown to the American Emba.s.sy."

The large face of the secretary flushed to a deep purple.

"You are possibly exceeding your duty," he said, gratingly, "in recalling a happening of which I was but an innocent victim."

"Possibly I am," agreed T. B.

He bowed slightly to the man, and descended the broad steps to the unkempt lawn in front of the house. He was joined at the gate by the two men he had brought down. One of these was Ela.

"What did you find?" asked that worthy man.

"I found much that will probably be useful to us in the future," said T.

B., as he stepped into the fly, followed by his subordinate.

He turned to the third detective.

"You had better wait here," he said, "and report on who arrives and who departs. I shall be back within a couple of hours."

The man saluted, and the fly drove off.

"I have one more call to make," said T. B. Smith, "and I had better make that alone, I think. Tell the flyman to drop me at Little Bradley Rectory."

Lady Constance Dex was not unprepared for the visit of the detective.

She had seen him from the window of her room, driving past the rectory in the direction of the Secret House, and he found her expectantly waiting him in the drawing-room.

He came straight to the heart of the matter.

"I have just been to visit a man who I understand is a friend of yours,"

he said.

She inclined her head.

"You mean Mr. Moole?"

"That is the man," said the cheerful T. B.

She thought for a long time before she spoke again. She was evidently making up her mind as to how much she would tell this insistent officer of the law.

"I suppose you might as well know the whole facts of the case," she said; "if you will sit over there, I will supplement the information I gave you in Brakely Square a few days ago."

T. B. seated himself.

"I am certainly a visitor to the Secret House," she said, after a while.

She did not look at the detective as she spoke, but kept her gaze fixed upon the window and the garden without.

"I told you that I have had one love affair in my life; that affair,"

she went on steadily, "was with George Doughton; you probably know his son."

T. B. nodded.

"It was a case of love at first sight. George Doughton was a widower, a good-natured, easy-going, lovable man. He was a brave and brilliant man too, famous as an explorer as you know. I met him first in London; he introduced me to the late Mr. Farrington, who was a friend of his, and when Mr. Farrington came to Great Bradley and took a house here for the summer, George Doughton came down as his guest, and I got to know him better than ever I had known any human being before in my life."

She hesitated again.

"We were lovers," she went on, defiantly,--"why should I not confess to an experience of which I am proud?--and our marriage was to have taken place on the very day he sailed for West Africa. George Doughton was the very soul of honour, a man to whom the breath of scandal was as a desert wind, withering and terrible. He was never in sympathy with the modern spirit of our type, was old-fas.h.i.+oned in some respects, had an immense and beautiful conception of women and their purity, and carried his prejudices against, what we call smart society, to such an extent that, if a man or woman of his set was divorced in circ.u.mstances discreditable to themselves, he would cut them out of his life."

Her voice faltered, and she seemed to find difficulty in continuing, but she braced herself to it.

"I had been divorced," she went on, in a low voice; "in my folly I had been guilty of an indiscretion which was sinless as it was foolish. I had married a cold, rigid and remorseless man when I was little more than a child, and I had run away from him with one who was never more to me than a brother. A chivalrous, kindly soul who paid for his chivalry dearly. All the evidence looked black against me, and my husband had no difficulty in securing a divorce. It pa.s.sed into the oblivion of forgotten things, yet in those tender days when my love for George Doughton grew I lived in terror least a breath of the old scandal should be revived. I had reason for that terror, as I will tell you. I was, as I say, engaged to be married. Two days before the wedding George Doughton left me without a word of explanation. The first news that I received was that he had sailed for Africa; thereafter I never heard from him." She dropped her voice until she was hardly audible.

T. B. preserved a sympathetic silence. It was impossible to doubt the truth of all she was saying, or to question her anguish. Presently she spoke again.

"Mr. Farrington was most kind, and it was he who introduced me to Dr.

Fall."

"Why?" asked T. B. quickly.

She shook her head.

"I never understood until quite lately," she said. "At the time I accepted as a fact that Dr. Fall had large interests in West Africa, and would enable me to get into communication with George Doughton. I clutched at straws, so to speak; I became a constant visitor to the Secret House, the only outside visitor that extraordinary domain has ever had within memory. I found that my visits were not without result.

I was enabled to trace the movements of my lover; I was enabled, too, to send letters to him in the certainty that they would reach him. I have reason now to know that Mr. Farrington had another object in introducing me; he wanted me kept under the closest observation lest I should get into independent communication with George Doughton. That is all the story so far as my acquaintance with the Secret House is concerned. I have only seen Mr. Moole on one occasion."

"And Farrington?" asked T. B.

She shook her head.

"I have never seen Mr. Farrington in the house," she replied.

"Or Montague Fallock?" he suggested.

She raised her eyebrows.

"I have never seen Montague Fallock," she said slowly, "though I have heard from him. He, too, knew of the scandal; he it was who blackmailed me in the days of my courts.h.i.+p."

"You did not tell me about that," said T. B.

"There is little to tell," she said, with a weary gesture; "it was this mysterious blackmailer who terrified me, and to whose machinations I ascribe George Doughton's discovery, for now I know that he was told of my past, and was told by Montague Fallock. He demanded impossible sums.

I gave him as much as I could, almost ruined myself to keep this blackmailer at bay, but all to no purpose."

She rose and paced the room.