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- Herausgeber: Al-Mashreq eBookstore
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
Exit the Skeleton by Herbert Adams is a spine-chilling mystery that will have you guessing until the very end. When a seemingly ordinary house becomes the scene of a gruesome murder, the local inspector is thrust into a web of dark secrets and buried pasts. As more skeletons—both literal and figurative—emerge, the race to uncover the truth intensifies. Each new clue leads to more questions, and the culprit could be anyone in this tightly-knit community. Will the inspector solve the mystery before the next victim is claimed, or will the killer continue to strike from the shadows? A must-read for fans of classic whodunits with a sinister twist.
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Table of Contents
Exit the Skeleton
CHAPTER I - MOTHER AND DAUGHTER
CHAPTER II - THE CLAIM
CHAPTER III - UNCLE ROBERT
CHAPTER IV - DISAPPEARANCE!
CHAPTER V - ROGER BENNION'S CALL
CHAPTER VI - "I KNOW WHO DID IT!"
CHAPTER VII - S.O.P.
CHAPTER VIII - REPORTS AND RUMOURS
CHAPTER IX - MR. PURSEY IS NOT SYMPATHETIC
CHAPTER X - VALERIE MEETS HEDLEY
CHAPTER XI - BRUCE INVESTIGATES
CHAPTER XII - VADNY
CHAPTER XIII - BYNG PLACE
CHAPTER XIV - JUST IN TIME
CHAPTER XV - DOMESTIC INTERLUDE
CHAPTER XVI - BEN'S HERO
CHAPTER XVII - VADNY AT HOME
CHAPTER XVIII - BABY FOUND!
CHAPTER XIX - MR. PURSEY UNBENDS
CHAPTER XX - BEN GETS BUSY
CHAPTER XXI - BEN ORGLES UNMASKED
CHAPTER XXII - JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON?
CHAPTER XXIII - BRUCE'S CLUE
CHAPTER XXIV - BEN'S GOOD WORK
CHAPTER XXV - ANOTHER LETTER
CHAPTER XXVI - PEGGY'S STORY
CHAPTER XXVII - MARRIAGE BY BLACKMAIL
CHAPTER XXVIII - THE THREE GOBLINS
CHAPTER XXIX - REVELATION
CHAPTER XXX - A HERO'S DEATH?
CHAPTER XXXI - IN HIS OWN RIGHT
Landmarks
Table of Contents
Cover
Exit the Skeleton
CHAPTER I - MOTHER AND DAUGHTER
AMABEL LEIGH woke as her daily helper, elderly and stout, entered the room with the tray.
"Mornin', dearie. Ten o'clock to the tick and here's yer brekfus'. A nice kipper, seein' as it's Wednesday. Three letters for yer; two of 'em bills by the look of it. Hope the other makes up. No news in the papers. Strike in Belfast, sudden death of a Cab'net Minister, airyplane crash in America, but no news what is news. I'll get yer bath in 'arf a hour."
"You are very good to me, Croonie."
"Good to them as is good to me. That's my motter; always has been."
Croonie put the tray on a bedside table, straightened the coverlet and pulled back the curtains. She seemed reluctant to go. She generally enjoyed a little chat, and this morning there was a special reason for one. Everybody called her Croonie. It was, not a nickname as many supposed, nor had it any reference, ironic or otherwise, to her evident lack of a singing voice. It was simpler than that. She had married a man named Croonie, who had left her when she ceased to support him in the manner to which he felt himself entitled.
"So Miss Valerie got back all right," she said.
"You have seen her?"
"Threw her arms round me the minute I got here, she did, and kissed me. 'Good to be home, Croonie,' she said. My word, she has shot up, taller 'n you now and nearly as pretty as you was at her age."
"Prettier, I hope."
"She'll never be that, if she lives to a nundred. 'Tell Mummie I'll be back soon,' she says, and out she pops. A young man, I 'spose, but her only home yesterday and early in the mornin'. She said somethin' about bathin' the Serpentine. There's the dratted bell. Bath ready in a' nour, dearie."
She bustled from the room. Amabel knew she was lucky to have such a faithful servitor and friend. Croonie had been a dresser at the theatre when they first met. Now her mornings were spent at the flat, where she let herself in at eight o'clock on the tick, as she put it. She sometimes "obliged" other ladies in the afternoon, or for an occasional party, but her one job supplied her needs and she did not believe in work for work's sake.
Amabel drank her tea and attacked her kipper. She did not immediately open her letters; there was plenty to occupy her thoughts. Few would have supposed that her pleasant bedroom had for many years been the connubial nest of an intemperate cabman and his tempestuous spouse. Yet such was the case. An enterprising speculator, with some skill as an architect, had purchased a mews that was falling into decay and had transformed it into a select colony of small flats. Outside, pebble-dash had disguised the old brickwork; and inside, modern fitments and pretty lattice windows had transformed stalls and coach-houses with the rooms over them into suites, each with two bedrooms, a lounge, a tiny kitchenette and a bathroom. The name, Russell's Mews, had burgeoned into Dowton Close and, the position being near to South Kensington station, many fortunate persons with some fashionable or aristocratic aspirations had secured homes in a convenient locality at a moderate rent. Amabel's was on the first floor.
Her bedroom looked larger and more lofty than was actually the case, for the bed was low and the furniture small. The suite in Canadian white maple and the cheerful chintz hangings were suggestive of a country cottage rather than a London mews. The only picture on the walls was a framed caricature of herself; clever but cruel. It had appeared in an illustrated paper and she had persuaded the artist to let her have the original, thereby starting a firm friendship. She said she hung it where it was to keep her humble.
Breakfast finished, she opened the letters. The bills she tossed aside; they were as she had expected. But the third missive, that Croonie had hoped would bring luck, brought instead a look of anger to her face. Not that it was entirely unexpected, but a thing that is foreseen can be unpleasant when it comes, especially if it destroys what faint vestige of hope there may be that it will not come. It was from a firm of solicitors in Gray's Inn.
'Dear Miss Legh,
'As you may be aware, the play Lucky in Love, produced by Mr. Greg Dobson, has been a failure. You will remember you guaranteed the production up to a sum of two thousand pounds.
'We regret to have to inform you that the total losses are nearly three times that amount. At the moment we are unaware of Mr. Dobson's precise whereabouts. If you can give us his present address we shall be glad. In the mean time perhaps you will let us have the amount of your guarantee.
'Yours faithfully,
'Wilson, Son & Willowby.'
"So Greg has bolted," she muttered. "How like him! What a fool I was!"
Two thousand pounds! She had thought she was onto a winner. Things had gone wrong from the start. Greg was too lavish in every direction; repeated delays; the illness of the leading man. Then the first night and the awful reviews. Empty houses! "Give it time," Greg had said. So the losses piled up.
No use blaming anyone. She was confident she knew a good thing and she was wrong.
She put her hand under her pillow and pulled out a crumpled page from a gossipy Sunday journal. One paragraph was marked. It was headed: Lucy BAXT. She had marked it; she had read it many times before.
'The estate of Sir Lionel Cradon, the former Iron King, late of Westbourne House, Sloane Street, provides the comfortable sum of two hundred thousand pounds after the demands of the Treasury have been satisfied. Of this, half is left to his infant son, the interest to accrue until he is twenty-one, to effect insurances against future death duties, so that a clear £100,000 may follow the title. The widow has the income on the residue for life and then it also reverts to little Sir Lionel, who is nearly one year old.'
There was a rap at the door.
"Hullo, darling! Can I come in?"
Without waiting for a reply the door was opened and a young girl entered. She was tall and slender, with fine eyes, a rather wide mouth with perfect teeth, good features and a clear skin tanned by the sun and the sea. Very like the mother lying on the bed, though brimming over with health and happiness. Amabel hastily pushed the papers she had been reading under the cover of the bedclothes.
"Darling, I have had a gorgeous swim with Bruce. Oh, it is good to be home!" She kissed her mother and sat on the edge of the bed.
"I thought your friend's name was Roger."
"No, darling. It was Roger--Roger Bennion--who brought me home. I told you all about it last night, but I expect I was too excited for you to make sense of it. It was all so wonderful! He and his wife Ruth are the grandest people I ever met."
"And I suppose they thought me a neglectful mother."
"Indeed they did not! I told them how marvellous you had been to me. Those schools in France and Switzerland and then the gorgeous year with Uncle Fred in New Zealand, before I really settle down. Of course, they understood I could not be with you when you were on tour and all that! They have seen you act and are longing to meet you They were simply sweet to me!"
"How did you meet them?"
"That part of it is rather sad. You see, Ruth was to have had a baby. She asked me to call her Ruth--she is not a great deal older than I am. But she was in a car smash and that ended it. She was terribly ill for a long time, but she is all right now."
"Was her husband driving the car?"
"Rather not. There would have been no accident if he had been. He is super. Thinks and acts quicker than any one I have ever met. It was another woman. He simply adores Ruth, and when she was well enough he took her to New Zealand for the voyage."
"But why did he bring her home on a coal barge?"
Valerie laughed gaily.
"Not a coal barge, darling. A cargo boat. They send meat and butter and all sorts of things to England. The boats are beautifully kept. The journey is slower than by the liners, and Major Bennion thought the extra time would be good for Ruth. He had got to know Uncle Fred and he said if I would come back with them they would pay my fare and everything else. He wanted there to be someone on the boat about Ruth's age to keep her company. You see, they only take about a dozen passengers and you never know who there will be."
"Why do they trouble about passengers at all if they can only take so few?"
"I asked Bruce that. He says it is to maintain morale. The officers are more likely to mind their table manners if there are strangers, especially women, aboard. Of course, you do not have the gaieties of the cruisers--that is why the Bennions preferred it--but there is lots of deck space for games."
"And now," Amabel said, "tell me about Bruce."
"Bruce Kelsall," Valerie replied. "He is third officer, the nicest boy I ever met."
"You met him this morning?"
"We had a swim in the Serpentine. I didn't know you could do that till he told me. I am bringing him here soon. You will love him."
"Do you love him?" the mother asked.
"He is terribly nice and very good-looking."
"You are not engaged or anything like that?"
"Oh, no, darling," Valerie said quite frankly, though she flushed a little. "We are too young."
"You are, much too young. It is not very happy to be married to a sailor, and I do not think third officers are well paid. What are his people?"
"He hasn't any, poor lamb. At least he has an uncle, but I don't suppose he'll be much good to him, although he does own a block of flats, Westbourne House in Sloane Street."
"Where?" asked Amabel sharply.
"Westbourne House, Sloane Street. Do you know it?"
"I used to know someone who lived there."
"This old uncle--his name is Pursey--lives there on the top floor among the boxrooms. At least Bruce says he has made himself a sort of flat and he is a kind of recluse and never sees anyone. Quite a weird old man and I think he is a miser. Bruce means to look him up as they have only one another in the world, but it is a case of no expectations."
"Anyway, dear, I shall be glad to see your Bruce." Valerie kissed her.
"I know you will like him. Oh, it is good to have a mummie again! You are glad I am back?"
"I have always looked forward to it."
"Then we come to the serious part, darling. You have done so much for me. Now you are going to ease off and I shall help you."
"How will you do that?" Amabel smiled.
"Of course I won't be much good at first, but if I go to the academy I ought soon to be able to keep myself and that will be something."
"What academy?"
"Dramatic art," Valerie said.
Her mother did not immediately reply. The girl went on: "Don't say I am no good, darling. It is what I have always wanted."
"Of course I don't say you are no good," Amabel answered slowly. "I am only wondering what is best for you. The fees at these academies are fairly high and there is no guarantee of steady employment."
"You have always done pretty well, Mummie. I know I can never be so wonderful as you, but I'll make a jolly good try."
"My case is rather exceptional," her mother said. "I am not boasting; I have little to boast of; but I had a chance and I took it. I have been sixty years old for the past twenty years and I shall probably be the same for the next twenty--when I shall really get there."
"I know. I told Ruth your real age and she would hardly believe me. She thought you must be so much older."
"When I was a girl I had a small part in a play, and one of the principals, an elderly woman, was knocked down on her way to the theatre. She had no understudy and I took the part--I always enjoyed playing old people and I suppose I did it pretty well. Anyway, they kept me at it, and after that I had other parts of the same sort. In most casts there is an old aunt, a grandmother or a frost-bitten spinster and I have played them all. Not big parts, but necessary to the plot. Sometimes sweet and sometimes sour. Make-up was important, but the voice and the slow movements almost more so. I studied it until they said I was more genuine than the real thing! As a result I never achieved fame, but I am always in a job. The trouble with the academies is that they have to turn out a genius every year or every term. What happens to them? A few keep going, but there are new geniuses coming from the same machine to take their places. The stage is cluttered with would-be Juliets, Ophelias and St. Joans, and once you have been a star you do not care to play the parlour-maid!"
"I would not mind being a parlour-maid," Valerie said in a low voice. "What else can I do?"
"Some girls take up domestic science and get good appointments."
"I knew a girl who did that," Valerie cried. "She had the most wonderful diplomas. She could make the most marvellous dishes, she could control an enormous staff and cater for hundreds. Then she married a man who was something in a bank and she had to do her own chores, darn his socks, cook his kippers. What a waste!"
"No doubt she was a good wife and was happy. What about a secretarial career? Your knowledge of French would be useful and shorthand and typing are easily learnt. The fees are small and there are always good jobs to be had."
Valerie jumped up and went to the window. There were tears in her eyes and it was some moments before she turned round and spoke.
"What is the matter, Mummie darling? You are somehow different. Is there any trouble you have not told me about? Are we dreadfully poor?"
"Of course not," Amabel said. "I only want you to be happy: The theatre can be very disappointing."
"But I want it. It is in my blood."
"You shall have what you want."
Valerie threw her arms round her and kissed her.
"Thank you, darling! I won't disappoint you. I swear it."
The door opened and Croonie's head appeared. "S'pose you know yer bath's gone cold? I'll run another."
CHAPTER II - THE CLAIM
A modern flat could be tucked away in a single room of one of the mansions of a former generation. The designer, however, of Westbourne House had been more generous with space than others of his fraternity. He had planned only two flats on a floor and each flat had some really large rooms. Even so, a tenant like Sir Lionel Cradon (to whom rent was of little consequence) found it pleasant to take an entire floor to accommodate his establishment.
Amabel Legh had passed up and down Sloane Street often enough to be familiar with the outward appearance of Westbourne House, but she had never actually called there until the day after her daughter returned to live with her. She hesitated a moment and then she pushed the swing doors and found herself in a marble hall. A porter was sitting on an oak seat.
"Lady Cradon?" she said.
"First floor," he replied, without getting up. He was a middle-aged man, pasty-faced, wearing dark uniform trousers, a sleeved waistcoat, but no coat or cap. His brown, close-cropped hair did not improve his appearance. He was by no means the smart liveryman one might have expected in the afternoon at such an address.
"Is she at home?" Amabel looked at him with a cold hauteur she knew well how to assume.
"I believe she is." He rose slowly to his feet.
"Then perhaps you will either find out or will take me to her."
He made no reply, but led the way to the elevator. His attitude showed that he thought people could well manage to get to the first floor by themselves, or might at least work the automatic lift.
After her husband's death Lady Cradon had considered the advisability of giving up one of her two flats. It would be a simple thing to brick up the openings that united them and half the accommodation would be ample for herself and her baby son. She had not instructed the agents to take any steps in the matter, but had mentioned it tentatively to some of her friends. Already there had been enquiries for it, and when she had an unknown caller she thought it was probably a friend of a friend wanting a home.
The door was opened by a maid and Amabel was shown into a spacious sitting-room, luxuriously furnished with soft settees and costly rugs and having many valuable ornaments and pictures. Lady Cradon was seated at a small writing- table. She rose as her visitor entered. A handsome woman in the mid-thirties, her ladyship was dressed in a plain but expensive grey costume and wore a necklace of real pearls of considerable size.
"You are Lady Cradon?" Amabel said, seeing that the door had been closed.
"I am."
"So, in a way, am I. It is rather a strange and perhaps a painful story that I have to tell you, but I hope you will realise that my intentions are friendly."
Lady Cradon stared at her. She was not a particularly intelligent, but she flattered herself she could generally manage her own affairs. No name had been mentioned, yet she thought the face of her caller was not entirely unfamiliar.
"Won't you sit down?" she said coldly.
Amabel did so and for a moment they regarded one another in silence.
"I am generally known as Amabel Legh. I am at present appearing at the Regal Theatre, but I have been in a good many plays. You may have seen some of them."
Lady Cradon had. She knew the name quite well. It accounted for the sense of semi-recognition.
"I thought Miss Amabel Legh was considerably older," she said.
Amabel smiled. "On the stage I am. I am generally given elderly parts."
There was another moment of silence. In a far corner an old grandfather clock was ticking. That was the only sound.
"Your husband, Sir Lionel, never mentioned me?"
"He did not. My husband was not interested in the theatre."
"That unfortunately, is true," Amabel said slowly. "I do not want to shock you, but it is best to get to the point." She took a paper from her bag. "This is a photographic copy of the certificate of marriage between Lionel Cradon and myself. As you will see, the ceremony took place just twenty years ago at a register office in Manchester, where you can, of course, see the original."
She handed the paper over and Lady Cradon mechanically took it. That she was shocked was true enough, but she did not at first realise its full significance. There was no doubt what it purported to be. Lionel Edward Cradon, widower, aged forty-one, and Amy Isabel Legh, spinster, aged twenty-one. It was all in the usual form.
"This--this is not you. It is Amy Isabel Legh."
"I was christened Amy Isabel and at first I was billed in that way. When I went to America they thought Amabel better. In some of my contracts both names are used. I can show you them if you like."
Lady Cradon did not reply. Her mind did not seem to be working properly. She looked first at the paper and then at the woman who had handed it to her. She did not want to believe it. Could it be true?
"Perhaps I had better explain how it happened," Amabel said. "I am in part to blame. There need be no hard feelings anywhere; it is only a matter for arrangement."
Still Lady Cradon did not speak. It was too stupendous a thing to be comprehended so suddenly. Lionel had loved her--she was convinced of that. Was it credible that he had deceived her? She shrank from the thought. He had always been so honest, so dependable.
"I was twenty when met him. I suppose I was attractive and he wanted to marry me. I was on the stage and, as you just said, he was not interested in the theatre. In fact he had had a Puritan upbringing and he disapproved of it. But that did not lessen his urge to marry me. He did it secretly, convinced that after the wedding he would be able to persuade me to give it up. But I could not. It was my life, and, of course, he was not particularly rich then. The wealth and the title did not come till many years later. He would not tell his friends and relations that he had married an actress, and he did all he could to bring me to his way of thinking. We lived together as opportunity offered, but with such a fundamental difference between us we were not particularly happy.
"Please do not think I am blaming him. He was a good man and was in most things very kind, but we really had little in common. If his business talk bored me, no doubt my stage chatter bored him. It is no use going into that. I see you still have that grandfather clock; I was with him when he bought it. He was crazy on clocks. I sometimes wondered if he still liked having his back scratched as he did when I was with him. Poor soul; he had rather an irritable skin."
Lady Cradon stiffened. She resented these personal comments, yet they carried some conviction, for they were true.
"The trouble came," Amabel went on, "when I was invited to join a company to tour America. Lionel objected, but I was determined to go. And I did. I said if I was not a success, I would come back and try to settle down to the sort of life he wanted. Then I was killed. Not actually, of course, but he thought I was. I do not know what steps he took to verify the fact, or if he was more relieved than sorry. Anyway, the blame was mine."
She paused. Lady Cradon was watching her, breathing heavily, saying nothing.
"What happened was that our company chartered a motor coach to take us from town to town, as they did in those days, and on one of our first runs the coach was wrecked. Some of us were killed, some concussed and all more or less injured. In the confusion my name was included among the dead and the news was cabled to England. Lionel did not question its truth, though actually I was not very badly hurt.
"Of course it was wrong of me, but I dreaded going back to the life he wished. Amy Isabel Legh was dead but Amabel Legh was born. I was tempted to change my mind again when I found I was to have a baby, but I met some very kind friends and I let things remain as they were. I was lucky. I have heard of similar cases where the baby was lost after such an accident, but probably things were more advanced. My baby was a girl, and when she was old enough to ask about it I told her her father had been an American actor who had died."
"Perhaps you told her the truth," Lady Cradon muttered.
Amabel looked at her for a few moments in silence.
"I thought you might say that," she said quietly, "but I hoped you would not. I have tried to speak without bitterness or reproach to anyone but myself. But I do not have to reproach myself with that. My little Valerie was a sweet child, and after a time we returned to England. I did not see Lionel. Amabel Legh appeared in a good many plays, but, as the theatre had no appeal for him, he would not connect her with his lost Amy Isabel--even if he heard of, her, which I do not suppose he did."
"You mean that Sir Lionel never heard this preposterous story of yours?"
"Can you call it preposterous in view of the marriage certificate, which you will naturally verify? But I did not mean that at all. Lionel did hear of it, but not until after he had married you. I saw him and I told him. He, of course, did not question it. How could he? I had changed very much. But it put him in a very difficult position. He had committed bigamy. However innocent he may have been, that in the eyes of the law was the fact."
"There is such a thing as desertion," Lady Cradon said.
"I told him that," Amabel replied. "He could bring an action for divorce against me and no doubt he would have won it. He could then remarry you. But to do all that he would have had to admit his bigamy. There would probably have been no penalty, but he hated the publicity. And it did not improve matters that his former wife, still living, was an actress. He saw another way out."
"What was that?" was the swift enquiry.
"This, of course, was before your baby was born. I believe you were married some years before that happened?"
"Eight."
"Exactly. Lionel may have thought he was unlikely to have a son to inherit his title. My Valerie certainly could not do so. He thought it simplest to pay me to hold my tongue."
"He paid you?"
"He did. Quite a substantial sum."
"Then why have you come to me?"
"He left me and his daughter nothing in his will. Legally I am Lady Cradon."
"Then who am I?"
"I suppose," Amabel said coldly, "you are Miss Eleanor Patwick. Your little boy is Lionel Patwick."
"How dare you say to me?" the lady cried, her face suffused with anger.
"I am not responsible for the law." Amabel was still quite calm. "I have made some enquiries and it seems to me there should be enough for us all. If I were to claim my rights I should be Lady Cradon, but I do not want to be Lady Cradon. I would far rather be who I am. There is no doubt my daughter could not inherit the title, so there is nothing in that. I see no reason why we should not keep this thing to ourselves. They say there is a skeleton in every cupboard. Let us leave it there. Give me twenty thousand pounds and I swear no one shall ever hear a word of it from me."
"Twenty thousand pounds!"
"I do not think I am putting the figure too high. If I made my claim I should be entitled to more than that as Lionel's widow. I believe he left nearly half a million before tax was paid. You might get something; it would depend on the wording of the will. Your wee son would get nothing, as he was not born in wedlock. There is another thing. The title would pass to Andrew Cradon, Lionel's brother. I happen to know Andrew quite well, although he has not the remotest idea that I am his sister-in-law. He has always thought he should have had the baronetcy. He was the younger brother, but he did, or thought he did, most of the work of the firm that led to the award. He got an O.B.E. He is terribly keen on this Society of Peacemakers he has started. He would value the title for that. How much do you suppose he would pay me if I took him my story?"
"Andrew hates me," Lady Cradon muttered.
"I don't know that he hates you," Amabel said, "but I doubt if he loves you. For a good many years he was his brother's heir. Even when Lionel married--or thought he married--you, there was still a long gap before any offspring appeared. Then, just before his death, your baby arrived. Is it surprising Andrew was peeved? I do not want to go to him. I do not want to be Lady Cradon. I do not want to stir up a lot of unpleasantness about Lionel. But I do want twenty thousand pounds. Is not my offer a fair one?"
"I have not got twenty thousand pounds," Lady Cradon moaned.
"You could get it."
"But I can't. Mr. Angell explained it all to me most carefully. The money is not mine; it is held by trustees. He is a trustee. All I get is the income, and that, after tax is paid, is not such a great deal."
"I have stated my terms," Amabel said coldly. "I do not ask for an immediate reply. You will want time to check what I have told you. You may wish to consult Mr. Angell. Is he a solicitor?"
Lady Cradon nodded.
"Perhaps you had better consult someone else. The trustee-solicitor will probably say my claim must be investigated and he will not pay you anything until that is done. Then, of course, I should be compelled to stand on my rights and your son will lose everything. A solicitor could not make a bargain about a title. But if we come to a private arrangement, known only to you and myself, it could all be happily settled. I do not want to force you into any thing. There may be someone you could consult in absolute confidence. I am quite willing to wait for a few days."
"What must I do? What must I do?" Lady Cradon spoke in the same moaning fashion. She could not disbelieve the story she had heard, yet she could not run the risk of losing everything for herself and her baby.
At that moment the door opened and a nurse came in with a bundle in her arms.
"Oh, I am sorry," she murmured. "I did not know you were engaged. I have just brought baby in."
"Is this the wee Sir Lionel?" Amabel asked, getting up to inspect the little man, who regarded her with blue eyes and gave her an approving coo. "What a sweet baby!"
"Take him to the nursery, Florrie," Lady Cradon said. "I will come presently."
"I will not keep you," Amabel remarked, putting a card on a table. "There is nothing more to say. No doubt I shall hear from you in a few days. That is my address."
CHAPTER III - UNCLE ROBERT
Lady Cradon felt outraged, bewildered and frightened. Surely no woman could experience anything more appalling than to be suddenly told her marriage was no marriage, her son illegitimate, and the fortune and title she thought hers belonged in law to others. She meant to fight, but how was she to do it? What her visitor had said about Godfrey Angell she felt to be true. He was a stern stickler for probity. If she told him of the rival claim he would insist on a full investigation. If he found the claim could be substantiated, would he--could he--resist it? Would he even agree to the compromise Miss Legh had suggested? Might he not regard it as a fraud on the public? She shrank from going to him, yet to whom else could she turn? To tell the story to another might put herself completely in that person's power. Surely, surely, there must be some way out. Every thing could not come to an end so suddenly after so many years.
Amabel had no sense of disquiet as she left the flat. All had happened as she had expected, perhaps a little less stormily than she had feared. It was a pity the money was tied up with trustees, but she did not doubt that Lady Cradon, after she had gone carefully into the matter, would manage to realise enough to satisfy her.
She did not use the lift but walked down the stairs. When she reached the hail she heard two men talking. One was the porter, the other a bronzed, broad-shouldered young fellow in the early twenties. A third man, standing by the lift gate, she took to be an assistant porter.
"I am sorry, Mr. Kelsail, but it is quite impossible for you to see him without an appointment. He is probably asleep and there would be no answer if you went to the door," She heard the porter say this. His manner was more deferential than it had been when addressing herself.
"Is there no one looking after him?"
"My wife does for him, but she is out."
"I could come in the morning."
"I should not do that, sir. Mr. Pursey does not get up very early. If you come in the afternoon at this time I will tell him to expect you and I do not doubt he will see you."
"Very well, I will come then. How is he?"
The porter hesitated. "I think his health is quite good, but he does not go out very much, except for a stroll in the evening."
At that moment Amabel stepped forward. "Is it Mr. Bruce Kelsall?" she asked.
"It is," the bronzed young man said in surprise. Then he looked at her. "Are you--can you be--Valerie's mother?"
"I can be and I am," she smiled.
"Oh!" Perhaps he was a little embarrassed. "Are you going out? May I come with you?"
"1 would like you to. I have just been calling on Lady Cradon."
"Thank you." Then he called to the porter, who had joined his assistant, "Strawn, tell my uncle I'll be along tomorrow afternoon."
"Very good, sir."
Bruce opened the door and he and Amabel went out.
"I have heard quite a lot about you from Valerie," she said pleasantly.
"I hope you don't mind my taking her out a bit while I am in London? I really have no friends here, but I want to see my uncle before I sail again. Do you know him?"
"Not at all. I have never been to the flats until this afternoon, when I had a matter of business to discuss with Lady Cradon. Your uncle is the owner of the block, isn't he?"
"Yes, but he keeps out of the way. Leaves things to the porter."
"Rather eccentric?"
"He always has been, but he seems to be getting worse. He lives alone in the top of the building, and according to Strawn, who has been here for years, he hardly sees anybody. He was my mother's brother and I know she would have liked me to look him up."
"Of course she would," Amabel said. "You are in the Navy?"
"The Merchant Navy."
"Why not the Royal Navy?"
"Not good enough," he grinned. "I went to the naval college, but there are not a lot of vacancies, and unless you pass almost at the top of the list Her Majesty does not want you. I was two places down."
"Bad luck," Amabel said, "but you meant to go to sea, all the same?"
"Oh yes, rather!"
"You come of a sea-faring family?"
"My father commanded a ship that was torpedoed in the early days of the war. My grandfather married a Norwegian lady who had Viking blood in her veins. A great-great-great-grandfather was a very successful pirate. He somehow got away with it, and settled down in Cornwall and was highly respected. It must have been a grand life!"
He had a merry way of speaking, and Amabel liked him. "No hidden treasure in some remote corner of the world that you can recover?" she smiled.
"Never heard of it."
"Well, so long as your motto is not 'Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine,’ we ought to be friends."
"That is jolly decent of you. You don't mind about me and Val?"
"Not within the limits mentioned."
"Thanks awfully. I say, ought I to call you Miss Legh or Mrs. Legh?"
"It is rather confusing, isn't it? I should stick to Miss Legh for the present. If you can find a taxi we might go home and Valerie could give us tea."
"That's fine."
Valerie was surprised and undoubtedly pleased when they walked in together.
"Don't try to steal him," she said to her mother. "I found him first."
Amabel showed him round the little home while the kettle was boiling and they were soon sitting down to a merry meal.
"What a wonderful flat," Bruce said. "You must have been lucky to get it."
"I was," Amabel agreed.
"If my mother had had a place like this she might still be alive. She wore herself out trying to keep an old-fashioned home in what she thought the right way. Here you have everything you want just where you want it. Easy to do it all yourself."
"Mummie doesn't quite do that," Valerie said. "She has a ministering angel who arrives on the tick every morning and does not leave until she has seen her eat a good lunch."
"She mothers me delightfully," Amabel laughed. "She is really an old friend."
"Why is it that domestic help is so hard to get?" Bruce asked.
"There are a good many reasons for it," Amabel said. "One is that the girls did not get a fair deal in the old days and another that they prefer jobs where they have their evenings free. I am afraid the stage was partly responsible for it."
"How so, Mummie?" Valerie asked.
"In plays and at the music-halls the maids were generally depicted as illiterate and semi-imbecile, generally with adenoids. It raised easy laughs and frightened girls from their natural calling. I am hoping to do something about it."
"What can you do, darling?"
"A friend of mine, Andrew Cradon, has started what he calls the Society of Peacemakers. He doesn't touch politics, but he tries to patch up family quarrels and to settle strikes. I told him to prevent family quarrels he must get the right people to marry. He should impress on young men that they would have more chance of a happy home with a cook or a housemaid than with a girl who sold odds and ends in a shop, or did some job in a factory, or even thumped a typewriter. Better a home-trained girl than the snappiest tin-opener who ever lived."
"Wonderful! What is Mr. Cradon doing about it?"
"He wants me to give some lectures, perhaps to be broadcast. Of course, the girls must have proper conditions, and it cannot be done in a minute, but if we could get the young men to listen I believe it would not be long before the girls returned to the homes."
"You never told me!" Valerie exclaimed.
"Nothing may come of it. Mr. Cradon has his hands full."
"It sounds good to me," Bruce said. "You were seeing Lady Cradon about it?"
"Not exactly," Amabel smiled, "though it might have an indirect effect. She is related to Andrew Cradon by marriage."
"Mummie wanted me to take up domestic science instead of going on the stage. What do you think about that, Bruce?"
The young man was a little embarrassed. He wished to please them both.
"It must be awfully important for a girl to know how to run a home," he said. "On the other hand, we want good actresses and a girl with real talent--"
He left it at that. They both laughed and agreed he was right.
The following afternoon he was punctual for his call at Westbourne House. The porter was not about, but his assistant said Mr. Pursey was expecting him. He took him up in the lift and explained, as Bruce already knew, that it did not reach the top floor, the final ascent being by a narrow staircase.
Bruce went up and pressed the bell at the door that confronted him. It was speedily opened by a middle-aged woman he took to be Mrs. Strawn, the porter's wife. She was rather slovenly dressed, and his first impression was that the place was not very well looked after. The rooms may have been originally intended for boxrooms, but the conversion into a residential suite had been well carried out. He found himself in a little hall that was almost bare of furniture, though bright and airy.
"Mr. Pursey is in? I am his nephew."
"Yes, sir. He is expecting you."
She opened a door on the left. She did not announce him: that probably was unnecessary.
"Well, Uncle, how are you? I am just back from New Zealand and I thought I would like to know you were all right. I called yesterday, but I was told you were not seeing anyone."
The sole occupant of the room was an elderly man who sat huddled in a chair near the window. He appeared to be heavily built, but there was a rug over his knees. His face was florid, a fact made more notable by his thick white hair. He had heavy spectacles and was wearing a dark coat and waistcoat. His shirt had a collar attached, but it was unbuttoned and without a tie, a style of dress he had always favoured. Bruce had spoken cheerily and stepped forward to shake a limp, unresponsive hand.
"What do you want?" came in slow harsh tones.
"I want to know that you are quite well. I promised Mother I would always come to see you when I was home. You have not changed much since I last saw you."
"Your mother imagined I would leave you my money. I suppose you think that, too."
