The Grassleyes Mystery E-Book

E. Phillips Oppenheim

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

This is another great novel by Edward Phillips Oppenheim, the prolific English novelist who was in his lifetime a major and successful writer of genre fiction including thrillers and spy novels, and who wrote over a 100 of them. When David Granet asks for a place to stay „within a twenty-mile radius of either Nice or Cannes”, he does not anticipate the trouble that he finds at the Manoir of Lady Grassleyes. The Lady of the manor is dead when he arrives, and the will is disputed. Granet gets himself drawn into an ugly dispute between the estate agent and Lady Grassleys’ niece. At stake is the land, the fortune, and a mysterious wealth in botanical formulas.

Leseprobe

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER I

Mr. Frank Woodley looked up from the ledger which he was studying, rose to his feet and approached the mahogany counter behind which he and his desk were entrenched. He was an elderly man with unkempt grey hair, a tired expression and various irregularities of toilet accounted for by the heat wave then prevailing from the Estérels to Monte Carlo. Business was uncertain at this time of the year with the firm of Spenser & Sykes, the well-known house-agents, and Mr. Woodley, the manager, scarcely expected a client of interest.

“What can I do for you, sir?” he enquired of the caller who had summoned him.

The latter leaned a little forward. His back was towards the door, through which the sunlight was streaming. He was a lean, broad-shouldered man of apparently between thirty and thirty-five years of age, with firm features, clear grey-blue eyes and resolute expression.

“I am looking for an apartment,” he announced. “I do not wish to go to an hotel. I would not consider an ordinary boarding-house. But I should prefer some sort of service.”

“In the town of Nice?” Mr. Woodley asked.

“Certainly not,” was the concise reply. “I wish to be somewhere within a twenty-mile radius of either Nice or Cannes, but I also wish to be entirely in the country. I have a great deal of research work to do and it is my habit to seek as much seclusion as possible.”

The manager scratched his chin thoughtfully. His visitor’s calm, decisive manner of speech was in its way impressive, but his appearance, when closely studied, was a little puzzling. He was a youngish man and looked like a worker, Mr. Woodley decided. He certainly had not the air of a pleasure seeker or a lounger through life.

“What name, sir?” he asked, drawing a printed form towards him.

The other hesitated.

“Is it necessary for me to give my name before you can tell me whether you have anything likely to suit me?”

“It is usual, sir.”

“My name is Granet, then. David Granet.”

“And your nationality?”

“British.”

The manager returned to the desk at which he had been seated and turned over some leaves of the opened ledger.

“We have any number of apartments to offer,” he confided, bringing over the volume and laying it on the counter. “Quite half of these are in the country or in the suburbs. Do you wish a farm or garden?”

“Nothing that requires outside service. I want quietude and reasonable proximity to the sea, if possible.”

“Might I ask what price you are willing to pay?”

“If I can find what I am looking for price is not a matter of import. I do not want the trouble of housekeeping. I do not desire the company of my fellows. I wish, in short, to pursue my own life in my own fashion.”

Mr. Woodley looked his possible client up and down. Again he scratched his chin thoughtfully.

“Of course I don’t know, sir,” he said, “but there are one or two farms up in the mountains where they let off part of their premises to boarders, but they none of them speak any English–”

“I can speak French,” the other interrupted, “but, as I have already told you, I do not wish to be a boarder. I possess a small car so I have no objection to being some little distance away.”

“There is the Manoir of Lady Grassleyes, of course,” the manager reflected, taking off his pince-nez and wiping the lenses.

“Well what about it?”

“Lady Grassleyes is a widow whose husband was in the Indian Civil Service. She has a rather lonely but very beautiful estate about thirty kilometres away. It is entirely in the country and is at least twenty kilometres from the sea.”

“If it is a guest house it would be no use to me.”

“It is not a guest house in the ordinary sense of the word,” the manager said. “Lady Grassleyes has built six bungalows in the woods around the Manoir. Each is provided with the ordinary accessories of life. You can either have your own servant or be looked after from the Manoir and have your meals sent down from there. There are no public rooms and the inhabitants of the bungalows are only expected to visit the Manoir on business or by special invitation.”

“Are any of the bungalows let?”

“Most of them, I think, sir.”

“What rent does Lady Grassleyes ask?”

“The rent of the one I am offering you, including use of furniture, crockery, plate and linen, is eight mille a month.”

“That seems a good deal, but I should like a card of inspection,” Granet decided.

“We have none, sir. If you thought seriously about the place you would have to apply at the Manoir. Lady Grassleyes does not care to let one of her bungalows until she has had a personal interview with the applicant.”

David Granet scoffed audibly.

“What business is it of hers who I am so long as I pay my rent and keep to myself?” he demanded. “I can give you a banker’s reference, of course.”

“I am sorry, sir,” the manager regretted. “Lady Grassleyes’ instructions are definite. She will only let after a personal interview. The bungalows, you will understand, although they have been carefully built out of sight of the Manoir, are in the park. Madame offers privacy to her tenants. It is not unnatural that she should require to know something about them. If you would care for the address–”

“Hand it over.”

“I have not only the address, sir,” Woodley pointed out as he took a card from a drawer, “but you will find here a small plan which shows you the route to be followed. I hope that we shall hear from you again.”

David Granet nodded.

“You certainly shall, one way or the other,” he promised as he pocketed the card and turned away.

*     *

*

Outside, the Promenade des Anglais was thronged with the usual half-clad crowd of bathers and loungers in pyjamas, shorts and every variety of beach suit. The blazing sun flashed upon a million wavelets; heads bobbed here and there in the sea; speed-boats were darting about in every direction. David Granet paused for a moment, looking across the road at the gay scene. Then he walked a few paces and stepped into a formidable-looking roadster which was parked against the kerbstone. He glanced at the card which he had drawn from his pocket, handled his starting button and gears with the air of an expert and within half an hour was gliding up the very attractive private way which led to his destination. The Manoir itself was an exceedingly picturesque stone building of Provençal type, red-tiled, admirably restored and set in the midst of precipitous terraces of blossoming shrubs, climbing roses and dark cypresses. He could see no definite trace of the bungalows but the park was everywhere dotted with coppices and small woods which afforded excellent shelter for buildings of that kind. He drew up before the heavy front door of the Manoir with its wrought-iron clampings and huge-ringed handle, alighted from the car and rang the bell. For a moment or two nothing happened. He heard the deep, mellow echoes of his summons die away in the distance. Then he was suddenly aware of a curious sound–the sound of pattering footsteps upon a stone floor. They came nearer every second. David Granet, who was a man accustomed to unusual situations, felt a slight tension of his limbs. The patter of footsteps ceased, the door was smoothly opened. In place of the breathless servitor he had imagined, a carefully dressed butler, wearing a white-linen coat and black trousers, with smooth-shaven, dusky complexion and the slightly oblique eyes of the Oriental, stood looking at him gravely.

“Is Lady Grassleyes at home?”

The man bowed. He held the door a little wider open.

“If monsieur will enter–” he invited. “The name, if you please?”

“Does it matter about my name?” Granet asked, stepping across the threshold. “I have called about one of the bungalows on the estate which I understand is to let.”

The man smiled suavely.

“Milady will prefer to receive your card.”

Granet drew a case from his pocket, took out a card and handed it to the man, who, without glancing at it, placed it carefully in the middle of a silver tray, ranged with several others upon a black-oak chest. He pointed to a straight-backed chair which stood against the wall.

“If gentleman will seat himself I will seek milady. Sometimes it is her pleasure to let a bungalow. Sometimes she finds them all full. If gentleman will please wait?”

Granet looked at him with searching eyes.

“You speak English very well.”

“Either English or French, whichever monsieur desires,” was the smooth reply. “If gentleman will be so kind as to sit down?”

Granet did as he was bidden. He watched the butler cross the spacious hall with its rough stone walls and disappear, walking now in slow and dignified fashion, down a long passage. There was no suggestion of haste about his movements. Granet looked after him with a puzzled frown upon his forehead. He recognized the type without difficulty. The man was without a doubt half Malayan, half Chinese from the northern provinces. But his neck was short, his body almost corpulent. He showed no signs of one likely to be fond of exercise yet those pattering footsteps had been the footsteps of a trained runner. Granet, on the whole a matter-of-fact person, shrugged his shoulders and left the puzzle to solve itself. Indeed, he had no alternative. The butler had returned and was bowing before him.

“Milady will see gentleman,” he confided smiling. “Please to follow.”

Granet rose to his feet and followed his squat but dignified guide across the stone hall, down the passage until they arrived at a black-oak door. The servant threw it open, standing on one side to allow Granet to pass.

“The gentleman to see bungalow, milady,” he announced.

He disappeared, closing the door behind him. Granet made his way across the long room, austere and melancholy in its furnishings, but, as he could not fail to notice even in those few moments, filled with some very beautiful Provençal pieces. At a writing-table at the end of the room a woman was seated in a high-backed chair. She was wearing a black-silk dress buttoned up to her throat. Her hair was also black, streaked with grey; she was thin, almost angular; she wore steel-rimmed spectacles; her head had fallen a little forward as though she were asleep. Granet halted a few feet from the desk and looked at her with growing curiosity.

“Lady Grassleyes,” he said quietly, “my name is Granet. I have called to see you about one of your bungalows.”

Even as he spoke, however, he knew that with whomever he might discuss the matter of this bungalow it was improbable that it would ever be with the woman at the writing-table. She had not looked up as he had spoken or offered him any sort of welcome. He was a man of swift perception and from the first he felt convinced that she was dead.

CHAPTER II

Doctors, gendarmes, the Sub-Commissioner of Police from Nice, the matron of a neighbouring hospital, nurses in the garb of Sisters of Mercy, the Curé from the church which stood in the grounds–all finished with at last. It seemed to David Granet that he had explained his visit to a dozen different people, but there were still statements to be made and questions to be answered. At last he managed to escape and make his way to the spot where he had left his car. He was about to press the self-starter when he heard the sudden fluttering of skirts. He turned unwillingly around. He was confronted by a young woman who had apparently issued hurriedly from the house. In her distracted state, with the horror still in her eyes, he scarcely realized for a moment that she had been one of the little gathering of people who had been questioned by the Sub-Commissioner. Then he remembered his first start when in answer to a question she had admitted that she was Lady Grassleyes’ niece. She was a young woman of a very different type, and she was very beautiful.

“Mr. Granet, if you please,” she begged, “do not go away for a moment. May I speak to you?”

“Certainly,” he answered. “I was only hurrying off because I thought there was nothing left for me to do–”

“Is it true,” she interrupted breathlessly, “that you came to see about taking one of the bungalows?”

“Well, it was rather my idea,” he admitted. “I was going to look at one, at any rate.”

The girl shivered.

“Please come back into the house for a moment or two.”

“Certainly.”

She led him back into the hall, down the long corridor and into a small apartment which seemed to be behind the room into which he had originally been shown, and from which it was separated by two steps and a closed door. It was evidently her own sanctum. The most modern thing he had seen in the place, a typewriter, stood on a prim little writing-table in the window recess, and opposite was a small-sized grand piano. There were flowers everywhere in abundance. She forgot to ask him to sit down. Immediately she had secured the door she began to talk to him. There was subdued excitement in her tone, speculation in her eyes.

“Mr. Granet,” she asked, “what really made you come here to-day?”

“My dear young lady, I have told you already,” he declared. “I have been wandering about France in my car and I thought I would find a very quiet spot in which to work for a time. I am one of those people, you see, who appreciate tranquillity.”

The girl looked at him curiously. Their eyes met. She was still under the stress of emotion, her breasts rising and falling as though she had been hurrying. Her puzzled but tortured eyes seemed to be asking him a question.

“Tranquillity,” she murmured. “It is a hard thing to find. I thought that I should find it here–and now–this.”

“Your aunt’s sudden death must have been a great shock to you, of course,” he said sympathetically.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Anything like that is always terrible,” he went on quietly. “I think I heard you tell the doctor that you had never known her ill.”

“Never,” she replied. “On the contrary she has had, for the last few years, wonderful health. She took great care of herself, lived according to a régime of her own, concocted her own medicines all from herbs of her own growing, and never saw a doctor.”

“Is she the only relative you have out here?”

“The only one.”

“Are any of the occupants of the bungalows your special friends?”

“I scarcely know their names. Lately there have been many changes and I have only been out here a little more than two years.”

Granet looked at her gravely.

“It seems to me,” he ventured, “–forgive me if I am impertinent–that you are rather young to be left alone after a shock like this.”

She shook her head.

“I am not so young as I seem,” she confided. “And it is not only the shock. I am afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“Why I am telling you this I don’t know,” she said, restlessly rolling and unrolling her handkerchief. “But I am afraid.”

He smiled reassuringly.

“You will get over that. I understand the feeling perfectly. Whatever any one may say, sudden death, when we come face to face with it, is terrible.”

The girl’s fingers were still tearing at her handkerchief. Granet leaned forward and took it from her. She allowed him to do so quite meekly.

“Can’t you understand,” she faltered, “she doesn’t look in the least like a dead person to me? I have seen several and they were not–like that.”

“But you must remember,” he pointed out, “that she has been examined by two doctors. They both of them pronounced life extinct.”

“I know,” she confessed, “but I cannot help it. I know she had lost all her colour–I know that she did not seem to be breathing–and yet–I do not believe it.”

“You must really try to fight those nerves,” he insisted. “There are many means of testing whether a person is actually dead or not and your aunt’s regular medical attendant is with her now. I wish you would take my advice and go and lie down quite quietly and put these last hours out of your mind. One of the Sisters of Mercy who helped to move your aunt looks a kind sort of person. Would you like her to come and talk to you?”

“I should hate it. If you really want to help me you can do it another way.”

“Of course I want to help you,” he assured her quite truthfully. “You have only to tell me how.”

“You came to look at a bungalow,” she said eagerly. “Let me show it to you. My aunt would have sent me with Pooralli to go over it with you. Please come and see it.”

Granet smiled at her kindly.

“Of course I will do that. Whether the place is kept on or not there is not the slightest harm in my looking at the bungalow.”

The girl drew a long breath of relief. She clutched him by the arm and led him out through the front door into the avenue. She pointed across the park.

“The one my aunt would have offered you is called ‘The Lamps of Fire.’ You will find there are always fire-flies there at night.”

“Picturesque, at any rate,” he remarked. “What about that butler fellow who let me in? He is standing over there looking as though he wanted to come with us.”

She glanced across in the direction her companion had indicated but she only shook her head.

“It is not necessary for him to come,” she declared. “I have all the keys. I can tell you the price my aunt would have asked and give you all the particulars.”

Granet hesitated.

“Don’t you think,” he suggested, “that it would be better for me to come up sometime to-morrow? Your butler is looking a little disappointed.”

She laid her fingers upon his arm.

“Pooralli does not understand,” she confided. “Please do as I wish. It is only a few minutes’ walk. It will take you no time at all. The bungalow is just behind the acacia trees … it is a bachelor bungalow … you are not married?”

“No, I am not married.”

“How do you manage about your domestic arrangements?” she asked as they started off together.

“I permit myself generally,” he admitted, “the luxury of a servant. Sometimes I have fits of economy and do everything for myself. Is this the place?”

“Yes, this is it,” she replied. “It is almost my favourite amongst the bungalows.”

They had turned the corner round a little coppice of closely growing acacia trees whose blossoms lay like snow upon the ground and whose sweetness filled the air. In front of them, surrounded by a rustic paling, was a low building fashioned of the stone of the neighbourhood, with ancient red tiles and windows opening outwards. A small garage stood by its side. There was no attempt at a formal garden but wild flowers grew almost to the front door.

“It is delightfully situated, at any rate,” Granet remarked.

“I do hope you will like it,” she murmured, unlocking the front door.

They passed through a small hall, a pleasant lounge-library and a dining-room with plain but massive furniture. Behind the one room there was a simply furnished bedroom; behind the other a kitchen leading to outhouses.

“There is a bathroom beyond the bedroom,” the girl told him, “and there is a servant’s bedroom in case it is required. There is a telephone with an extension to the Manoir and we have a good cook who supplies things if they are wanted. On the other hand,” she went on anxiously, “if you are used to doing things for yourself there is every facility. The kitchen stove is small but modern. The price of the bungalow furnished is eight mille a month. Any service from the Manoir is, of course, extra.”

“Isn’t it rather a bother sending the food down here, for instance?”

“My aunt has always been very peculiar,” she explained. “She never had the tenants near the house if she could help it and yet she insisted upon visiting every bungalow once a month and collecting the rent herself. Pooralli or his brother will serve your meals if you do not bring a servant of your own. They have a funny habit of running wherever they go and you will be surprised how quickly they get over the ground.”

“Was Pooralli the butler who opened the door for me?”

“Yes. He is a strange little man but he is a wonderful servant and I believe quite honest. My aunt brought him from Burma, also his younger brother whom you have not seen.”

“Supposing I take the bungalow for a month. I think I should like it here.”

“I should be very glad if you did,” the girl said earnestly. “I should like you to come very much.”

Granet was a simple man in some ways and he asked her a blunt question.

“Why is it so important to you that I come here? The rent cannot make very much difference. I should think these bungalows, at the price you are asking, ought to let very easily.”

“It is not the money,” she assured him. “It is very difficult to tell you.”

“Come along, why do you think you would like me for a tenant? I hate mysteries.”

There was a sudden flash of that uneasy light in her eyes. It was a warm afternoon but he almost fancied she was shivering.

“If you hate mysteries you had better stay away,” she told him with a little tremor in her tone. “You see, I want you to come here but I won’t have you come under false pretences.”

“Why should there be mysteries?” he asked patiently.

“My aunt’s collapse is a mystery,” she declared, a note of passion throbbing in her voice. “She was perfectly well a few hours ago. Her life has always been a mystery, though. Sometimes all these people who occupy the bungalows seem like living mysteries to me. I don’t know what they came for, I don’t know why they stay on. I don’t know why my aunt drove round once a month in her old-fashioned carriage to collect the rents when she had an agent. And perhaps the greatest mystery of all is that I don’t know whether they loved her or whether they hated her…. There, I have told you a great deal. Will you come or not? Please come!”

Granet drew a card from his pocket and scribbled on the back. He also counted out some mille notes.

“There is my name and a banker’s reference,” he said. “And eight mille for my first month.”

“It is not necessary,” she assured him with tears in her eyes.

“I prefer it so,” he replied. “And listen, will you please pay a little attention to a word or two of advice from a stranger?”

“I will listen to it from you–yes–but you must not mind my saying this. I do not feel that you are the ordinary sort of stranger at all.”

“I am very glad. You know, you are really just a little dazed, aren’t you? It is a terrible thing to have happened–to lose any one like that so suddenly. You scarcely believe it yourself. Now, if I were you, when you get back to the Manoir I should go and talk to your aunt’s own physician. He will probably explain things to you a little more clearly. Some of the strongest people in the world, you know, have their own special weakness which no one–not even themselves, sometimes–knows anything about. It is not the worst way of quitting this world, after all.”

“My aunt’s physician is not a very sympathetic person,” she told him. “I wonder whether you know him–Dr. Bertoldi?”

Granet shook his head.

“I have never stayed long enough in these parts to need a doctor.”

“Dr. Bertoldi and my aunt were never very good friends,” she confided. “My aunt was very clever with herbs. She has, I believe, some wonderful things in her garden. She has cured quite a number of people of slight ailments. I don’t think the doctor likes it.”

“Rather dangerous things to meddle with–herbs,” he observed.

“That is what Dr. Bertoldi used to say. He was very angry one day when my aunt told him that she could cure more headaches in an hour than he could in a lifetime!”

“A self-respecting practitioner would no doubt find that trying,” Granet agreed.

“Well, I shall certainly do as you say. I shall go and talk to him immediately you have left. When are you coming in?”

“The day after to-morrow, if that suits you,” he replied. “We all have to come to some sort of enquiry up at the Manoir to-morrow. Perhaps you would rather I put off moving in for a short time.”

“If I had a preference at all,” she confided, “I should like you to move in to-night.”

He hesitated. There was something strangely appealing about that anxious light in her eyes.

“Well, there’s really nothing against it so far as I am concerned,” he decided. “The only thing is, I haven’t made up my mind yet whether to bring a servant or not.”

“Come to-night, please!” she cried eagerly. “Do not bother about a servant, but perhaps, just for to-night, you had better have your dinner before you come.”

“No difficulty about that,” he agreed. “Suit me better, in fact. It will take me some time to pack.”

He looked at her curiously. Her whole attention seemed suddenly to have wandered. She had become more tense. She was standing quite still, her head turned away from him, bent as though listening. He, too, heard the same strange sound as he had heard when waiting outside the front door earlier in the afternoon. He glanced out of the window. A curious figure was approaching the bungalow in a curious manner. It was Pooralli, wearing his white coat, black trousers and small patent-leather shoes–Pooralli, running steadily but without any sign of effort.

“Heavens, does he always do this?” Granet exclaimed.

“Ever since I’ve known him,” the girl answered. “I have never been East myself but my aunt always told me that he came from a tribe, half Chinese, half Malayan, called ‘The Running Footmen.’”

Pooralli came to a standstill just outside. Granet, anticipating his companion’s intention, pushed open the window for her.

“Pooralli,” she announced, “this gentleman has taken the bungalow we are in.”

The man bowed politely.

“Gentleman has made good choice,” he said. “We shall do our best to make him comfortable.”

“He will move in to-night,” the girl went on.

“A wise thing is well done quickly,” Pooralli murmured. “I will send down the necessary articles. Meanwhile, Miss Grassleyes, the doctor wishes to see you before he leaves. He ask many questions.”

“I’ll come at once.”

Pooralli turned round after a little bow to Granet and at exactly the same pace commenced his run back to the Manoir. His short legs, with their peculiar action, covered the ground with amazing speed. Granet looked after him in wonder.

“You certainly possess the most original butler in the world, Miss Grassleyes,” he declared.

She smiled. Pooralli had already disappeared, as they crossed the strip of park land and came in sight of the house.

“He is a very remarkable creature,” she agreed. “My aunt was very fond of him.”

They walked side by side to where Granet had left his car.

“How long has Pooralli been in Lady Grassleyes’ employ?”

“Eighteen or twenty years.”

“An old servant,” Granet reflected. “He has probably lost a mistress with whom he has been since a boy, yet how callous he seems! Don’t you think so, too?”

“He is more than callous,” she said quietly. “I do not think he has ever felt anything in his life. Even my aunt used to say of him that he had no vices, no virtues, no love in his nature and no hate. There are very few left of his race. In Burma or Siam they command higher wages than a European can ask. They say that if you wish for a perfectly run household you must seek for one of ‘The Running Footmen.’”

Granet installed himself in the driving seat of his car. His finger lingered for a moment on the self-starter. She leaned towards him. For the first time he realized how suddenly and completely a woman’s expression can change. The strained look was gone; her lips had grown softer; her eyes had lost their fear.

“I have said so little,” she whispered. “I can say no more. But will you remember, please, that I am grateful? You are the first person who has ever done just what I asked out of simple kindness. I shall never forget, and I shall tell you now–ask no questions, please, but perhaps you will understand a little later–there is something about the place–somebody–some people who terrify me. There is something going on behind my back which I do not understand. With you near I shall have no more fear.”

She stepped back and for once in his life Granet was entirely wordless. She waved her hand, he touched his hat and drove off. As he turned into the main road from the avenue he slackened speed and looked back over his shoulder. She was still standing where he had left her–a slim, motionless figure watching his retreating car.

“It seems to me,” he muttered as his foot sought the accelerator once more, “that I’m probably doing a damned silly thing and that I’m certainly a damned silly fool to feel so glad about it!”

CHAPTER III

David Granet, for the second time that day, pushed open the swing door of the premises occupied by Spenser & Sykes and made his way to Mr. Woodley’s desk. The manager looked up from his books, recognized his caller and rose to his feet.

“Good evening, Mr. Granet,” he said. “I’m afraid that I sent you out to Grassleyes on a fool’s errand.”

“Not at all,” Granet answered. “I like the place. I came in to tell you that I have taken a bungalow there.”

Woodley stared at him over the counter.

“Didn’t you hear–” he began.

“The sad news about Lady Grassleyes? Yes, I was there apparently a few minutes after it happened.”

“She was alive when you got there? Did you have any conversation with her?”

“None at all. I was received by the quaintest-looking butler I ever saw and when we got into her room she was sitting at her desk in a perfectly natural attitude–but so far as I could see stone dead.”

“God bless my soul!” the manager exclaimed, mopping his forehead. “You will excuse me, Mr. Granet. This is rather a blow. We have just heard the news, of course, but to think that you should have seen her! An important client of ours–Lady Grassleyes. A great shock for Mr. Spenser.”

“There has been the usual fuss over there, of course,” Granet confided, “but so far as the people themselves are concerned they seem to be taking it very quietly. I had to stay and be asked a few questions, naturally, but I was just on the point of leaving when a young lady, Lady Grassleyes’ niece, stopped me. She was very upset indeed but she insisted upon showing me one of the bungalows. She assured me that they would go on with the place. The bungalow was just what I wanted, so I took it. I promised, as a matter of fact, to move in to-night.”

Woodley gazed once more at his vis-à-vis incredulously.

“You are not serious, Mr. Granet!”

“Why not? If the rest of the household can take it calmly, what is it to do with me? I never heard of Lady Grassleyes before in my life. The fact that she seems to have died suddenly doesn’t make the bungalow less attractive to me. I am going to move in there to-night as soon as I have had dinner and packed my things.”

“Don’t do it, Mr. Granet! I beg your pardon, but I wouldn’t really if I were you.”

“But why not?”

The door leading into the private offices behind the manager’s reserved space was suddenly opened. A tall, good-looking man, florid and inclined towards embonpoint, made his appearance. Woodley, with a muttered word of apology, hurried towards him.

“Mr. Spenser,” he said, “this is Mr. Granet. I sent him out to look at one of Lady Grassleyes’ bungalows this afternoon.”

“Poor dear lady,” Mr. Spenser observed with a sympathetic note in his voice which was not altogether convincing. “He had to come back again, of course?”

“Not at all,” the manager replied. “He has just come to tell me that he was shown into Lady Grassleyes’ apartment, found her apparently dead in her chair and that afterwards the niece came just as he was leaving and took him to look at a bungalow and said they were going to carry on as usual. And he has taken it.”

Mr. Spenser’s expletive was both startled and forceful.

“He’ll have to give it up. He must be told so at once.”

“Perhaps you would like to speak to him yourself, sir. He seems the sort of person who knows his own mind.”

Spenser walked to the counter, introduced himself and lifted the flap.

“Mr. Granet I understand your name is. Do you mind coming into my office for just a moment?”

Granet acquiesced, following the head of the firm into a luxuriously furnished room, the walls of which were covered with photographs of most of the desirable estates on the Riviera. He accepted the chair which Spenser offered him by the side of the desk.

“This is a most tragic story, Mr. Granet,” Spenser began. “I have been away all day beyond Mentone visiting a property, and have only just heard about it. Do you mind telling me exactly what happened?”

“So far as I was concerned–nothing. I was taken by a queer Oriental butler with an absurd name to Lady Grassleyes’ room. He announced me. I said how do you do. She didn’t reply and when I looked at her I saw at once that there was something seriously wrong. I rang the bell. Back came the butler. He took one look at her and never hesitated. A queer little fellow–you have seen him, perhaps. He turned to me with his eyes blinking: ‘Milady taken bad medicine,’ he announced. ‘Gone dead.’ After that there was the usual sort of fuss. I had to stay and answer questions. I was just leaving when a young lady who said she was Lady Grassleyes’ niece stopped me and insisted upon showing me the bungalow. She explained that the place would be kept on, that the letting of the bungalows was in her hands and, to cut a long story short, I took one of them called ‘The Lamps of Fire,’ paid a month in advance and came away having promised to move in to-night.”

“To do what?”

“To move in to-night,” Granet repeated coolly. “Now one comes to think of it it is rather a queer thing that the young lady was so insistent. She seemed frightened and nervous, of course, but the bungalows are some distance from the house and she must have people of her own there. Anyway, she made such a point of it that I consented.”

The house-agent abandoned his position of nonchalant ease. He rose to his feet and with his hands behind his back walked the length of the spacious apartment and back again.

“Did the young lady give you any special reason why she wished you to move in so quickly?” he asked, pausing in front of Granet.

“Nothing definite. She did rather give me the impression that something had been going on in the Manoir which she had found disturbing and that she felt herself in a way in need of protection. I was inclined to think, at the time–I still think so really–that it was an outburst of nerves.”

Spenser was tugging hard at his moustache. He, too, seemed to be struggling with a nervous attack of a sort.

“Didn’t it seem queer to you, with all this trouble going on, that she should want to bring a stranger into it?” he demanded with a distinct note of truculence in his tone.

“It does now that I think it over,” Granet admitted frankly. “It didn’t seem so at the time.”

Spenser resumed his seat at the table.

“If you’ll allow me to give you a word of advice, Mr. Granet, I should suggest you break your promise to the young lady.”

Granet looked at him steadily.

“I am not in the habit of breaking my word, Mr. Spenser,” he said.

The house-agent seemed uneasy. His fingers were playing once more with his closely clipped moustache. It appeared to his companion, who was a keen observer of trifles, that he was finding it difficult to retain his composure.

“I should break it on this occasion,” Spenser advised, “because it is such an utterly impossible thing to ask you to do. The place must be all upside down. A newcomer just arriving would create a most embarrassing situation.”

“That’s all very well,” Granet pointed out, “but it’s their look-out, not mine. I paid the girl a month’s rent in advance and if she particularly wants me to do something a little unusual why shouldn’t I?”

“You can’t,” the other insisted abruptly. “It is quite out of the question. It isn’t even a certainty that the place will be kept on for a week. There’s an offer pending which, in the present circumstances, will probably be accepted at once.”

“Have you any authority for saying that?”

“None whatever. I perhaps should not have mentioned it. Still, you must agree with me that yours is an impossible proposition.”

“The trouble is that I have given my word to be there sometime to-night,” Granet pointed out, “and it is rather a peculiar prejudice of mine that when I have once given my word I keep it. I dare say I shall find the place in confusion, as you suggest. If so, and the young lady has changed her mind or is willing to excuse me, I shall come away.”

A message was brought to Spenser on an oblong slip of paper. He glanced at it with a frown, rose to his feet and with a muttered word of apology to his visitor left the room. It was quite ten minutes before he returned.

“Very sorry to keep you, Mr. Granet,” he explained, “but the fact of it is, this message is from Lady Grassleyes’ local solicitors. They tell me that the police have been asking some ridiculous questions and there will probably have to be an inquest, which in this country is rather a serious thing.”

“What have the doctors to say?”

“Well, it is through the local doctor that the trouble has arisen. He declares that there is not the slightest sign of any disease of any sort, that Lady Grassleyes’ heart, for instance, is perfectly sound, and that he is not disposed to sign any sort of certificate.”

Granet considered for a moment.

“There is no suggestion, I suppose, of anything in the shape of foul play?” he ventured.

Spenser leaned forward in his chair. He passed his hand through his already untidy hair.

“If the doctors cannot find a weak spot or any trace of disease in the body of an elderly woman who has never been known to have an illness in her life–why, one might suspect anything.”

“Poison or a deed of violence,” Granet pointed out, “would just as necessarily leave a trace as disease.”

“We are getting out of our depth,” the other declared with an irritable gesture. “These matters are for the specialists, whether they be doctors or police. If I have my way I shall close the estate and the bungalows pending further investigation. I do not understand,” he added, glaring across at Granet, “any one wishing to take up residence there in the present circumstances.”

“Neither do I altogether understand,” Granet rejoined coolly, “what business it is of the house-agent to interfere with his client’s actions to such an extent.”

Spenser rose to his feet.

“I shall communicate my views, at any rate, to Miss Grassleyes. In view of your attitude, Mr. Granet, however,” he continued, drawing a card from his waistcoat pocket and scrutinizing it thoughtfully, “I shall feel it my duty to make the most careful enquiries into your references.”

“Well?”

“They seem to be all right but in my opinion they need verifying.”

“Why not verify them?” Granet suggested. “There’s a Who’s Who behind you on the shelf. Mind if I smoke a cigarette?”

Spenser took no notice. Granet calmly produced his case, drew out a cigarette and lit it. He continued to smoke whilst his companion turned over the pages of the bulky Who’s Who. He closed the volume at last. There was a very different note in his voice when he spoke, but he was a tenacious man and he held to his last shred of argument.

“How do I know that you are the person described here?”

Granet looked out into the street and pointed through the window.

“Why not try the British Consul? Take you a matter of a few minutes and save you from making a fool of yourself.”

“What–Colonel Dryden?”

“Certainly. The office may be closed now but you can get him at his private house–the ‘Villa Colombe,’ I think it is.”

Spenser played his last card.

“If you are a friend of the British Consul, why did you not say so when you gave a reference?”