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This carefully crafted ebook: "The Green Ribbon (A Classic British Mystery)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents. Edgar Wallace (1875-1932) was an English writer. As well as journalism, Wallace wrote screen plays, poetry, historical non-fiction, 18 stage plays, 957 short stories and over 170 novels, 12 in 1929 alone. More than 160 films have been made of Wallace's work. Excerpt: "He was right. Somewhere in London the name of the horse the astute Mr. Trigger had sent to two thousand clients was known. A frantic effort was made to reach the course in time, telephone and tic-tac man signaled a warning thirty seconds after the race had started — which was thirty seconds too late."
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The Green Ribbon
(A Classic British Mystery)
Table of Contents
Chapter I
Walking up Lower Regent Street at his leisure, Mr. Luke saw the new business block which had been completed during his absence in South America and paused, his hands thrust into his trousers pockets, to examine the new home of the wealth-bringer.
On each big plate-glass window of the first and second floor were two gilt T’s intertwined, and above each a green ribbon twisted scroll in t form of a Gordian knot.
He grinned slowly. It was so decorous and unostentatious and businesslike. No flaming banners or hectic posters, no shouting lithographs to call attention to the omniscience of Mr. Joe Trigger and his Transactions. Just the two gilt T’s and the green ribbon that went so well with the marble doorway and the vista of little mahogany desks and the ranks of white glass ceiling lamps above them. It might have been a bank or a shipping office. He took a newspaper out of his pocket and opened it. It was a sporting daily and on the middle page was a four-column advertisement:
TRIGGER’S TRANSACTIONS
Number 7 will run between September 1st and 15th. Subscribers are requested to complete their arrangements before the earlier date.
Books will close at noon on August 31st and will not be reopened before noon September 16th.
Gentlemen of integrity who wish to join the limited list of patrons should apply:
The Secretary, Trigger’s Transactions, Incorporated At the Sign of the Green Ribbon, 704 Lower Regent St., W.1.
He read the few words which occupied so large a space, folded up the paper, replaced it in his pocket and resumed his walk.
“Gentlemen of integrity” was the keynote of Mr. Trigger’s business. It was much easier to join an exclusive West End club than to enrol your name in Mr. Trigger’s card indexes.
He came to Piccadilly Circus and crossed over, glancing at the big clock in a jeweller’s window. Mr. Luke prided himself upon his perfect timing: he had a margin of five minutes.
There is a restaurant in Wardour Street which enjoys a very good supper trade, but attracts few patrons at the lunch hour, since lunchers prefer the noise and bustle of a busy diningroom rather than the discreet seclusion of a private room. There are no less than three entrances to his small establishment and Mr. Luke knew them all. He wasn’t quite certain of the room, however, but a waiter, who thought he was a fourth and expected member of the luncheon party, showed him the door of the apartment.
He went in without knocking, and three men, who were sitting over the little luncheon table, looked up simultaneously. One was a redfaced giant of a man, with broad shoulders and a mop of grey hair. The second was also a big man, sallow-faced and as gloomy as his sober suit. The third was fat and small, with the tiniest black eyes that ever looked from so expansive a face.
“Good morning and God bless this congregation,” said the visitor, closing the door softly behind him and dropping into the vacant chair.
“Rustem can’t come: his boat’s held up by fog in the channel. Why he doesn’t come overland is a mystery to me. If I had his money—”
“Listen, Luke, who the hell asked you to come in?” exploded the big, redfaced man.
“Nobody, Doctor,” said Mr. Luke.
He was lean and brown, a lithe and lanky figure of a man with smiling eyes and an air of boredom.
“Nobody asked me to come in. Hello, Trigger,” he addressed the fat little man. “How go the Transactions. That’s a posh office of yours. I nearly went in to get a folder. I thought you’d like to hear that I’d got back from the Golden South. Cheerio, Goodie! How are you? Goin’ to Doncaster or a funeral?”
The sallow-faced Mr. Goodie said nothing but looked pleadingly from one to the other of his companions.
“This room is private,” roared Dr. Blanter, his face purple with rage. “We don’t want any damned policemen here. Get out!”
Mr. Luke looked round the table. “Enough sin here to stock hell for years,” he agreed pleasantly. “What’s the conference about? Fixin’ up the Doncaster programme? What’s the swindle, Trigger! I like your new place in Regent Street — green ribbon appliqued on the window. True lovers’ knot — that’s an idea.”
Dr. Blanter, who by his attitude and speech proclaimed himself the dominant member of the party, succeeded in controlling a temper which was not always susceptible to control.
“Now, see here, Sergeant—”
“Inspector,” murmured the other. “Promoted for exceptional merit and devotion to duty.”
“I’m sorry, Inspector.” Dr. Blanter swallowed something. “I don’t want to make any trouble for you or for myself. You’ve no right whatever to force yourself upon me or any of these gentlemen. I don’t want to know you — policemen are all very well in their place—”
“They have no place, no home, nobody loves ‘em,” said Mr. Luke sadly.
“Been on vacation, Mr. Luke?” The stout Trigger sought to infuse a little geniality into the discussion.
“Yes, South America. Nice country — you ought to go there, Doctor.”
“I daresay,” Doctor Blanter forced a smile, “but I’m a busy man, old boy. I’m trying to get a living out of racing and so are these gentlemen—”
“I could get a living out of racing, too.”
Mr. Luke had a maddening trick of breaking into the conversation and spoiling the most carefully prepared speeches. “I could have had a thousand a year from you for not being too observant.”
“Have you ever found us — me out in any dirt?” demanded the doctor, his voice rising. “Have you ever known me to put a foot wrong? Look here, Luke, I’m getting a little bit sick of you and your interference. Tomorrow I’m seeing the Chief Commissioner and there’s going to be trouble!”
“Trouble? What have you been doing? Just mention my name to the Commissioner and all will be well.”
Dr. Blanter leaned back in his chair.
“Well, what is it? “ he asked, resigned.
Luke shook his head. “Nothing, just being a bogey man to scare naughty boys into being good boys. Thought you’d like to know I was around — active and intelligent. What’s going to win the Leger, Mr. Trigger?”
The stout little man forced a smile. There were beads of perspiration on his forehead which he did not attempt to remove. Possibly he did not wish to advertise his perturbation, though such an advertisement was unnecessary.
“Burnt Almond looks like the pea,” he said conversationally.” They’re pretty sweet on his chance at Beckhampton, and they know I shan’t have a bet on the race.”
“Wise man.” Luke nodded approvingly. “Betting is a curse. It has ruined more homes than the talkies.”
He got up laboriously from his chair.
“What is Transaction No. 7? One of Goodie’s?”
The sallow-faced man shook his head. “No, Mr. Luke; at least, I hope not. Mr. Trigger is too good a friend of mine to use — um — information I give to him for his — um — business.”
“He’s a ‘gentleman of integrity’ too, is he?” Luke smiled, moved at snail’s pace to the entrance, and stood there for a moment, the edge of the door in his hand.
“I’m around — that’s all,” he said and went out, closing the door noiselessly.
None of the three spoke until —
“Take a screw outside, Trigger,” said the doctor, and the fat man made a reconnaissance.
“He’s crossing the street.” Mr. Goodie was staring out of the window which commanded a view of the thoroughfare below.
“Lock the door; sit down. What the hell’s he come here for?” rumbled the doctor. “That fellow makes me sick!”
“Rustem hasn’t come back then?” asked Trigger. “His clerk said he’d be in this morning. Pity we didn’t ring him up.”
Dr. Blanter marked something and made a silencing gesture. “Now about this horse, Goodie—” he began, and thereafter they were not interrupted.
Chapter II
There used to be a brass plate on the door of Mr. Rustem’s office inscribed:
Arthur M. Rustem, Solicitor, Commissioner of Oaths.
One day the plate was unscrewed and there was substituted one that was smaller and less imposing.
Mr. Rustem was on vacation at the time, was, in point of fact, staying at the Danielli, where he occupied a handsome suite commanding a view of the Grand Canal and the beauty which is Venice.
He had received the news in the form of a telegram which ran:
YOUR CASE HEARD IN COURTS TO-DAY. STARKER ARGUED CASE BRILLIANTLY BUT JUDGE ORDERED YOUR NAME STRUCK OFF ROLLS. REGARDS, PILCHER.
He was eating an ice cream on the Piazza of St. Mark when the telegram was brought to him by the hotel courier. He read it through without the least sign of emotion, and, calling for a telegraph form, wrote:
CHANGE DOOR PLATE TO A.M. RUSTEM. THANKS.”
He gave five lire to the messenger and went on eating his ice cream. He was not distressed by a happening which before now has driven philosophical lawyers to suicide.
It had been a foregone conclusion that the court would strike him off; he had been lucky to escape a prosecution. A great fuss to make over a miserable few thousand pounds extracted from a silly old woman’s estate. She was dead anyway, and her heirs were stuffy people in the Midlands who were so rich that it was indecent of them to make a fuss at all, especially as the money had been refunded. But there it was; the Law Society had adjudged him guilty of unprofessional conduct in making irregular investments with trust funds, and the brass plate must go.
He administered only one other estate and that was so unimportant that it was hardly worth while to a man who was worth considerably over a hundred thousand pounds and had an assured income of ten thousand a year. Why on earth he had allowed himself to fool around with the Apperston funds heaven knew.
A month later he came back to London, approved the plate on the door and passed into his luxuriously furnished office. Mr. Pilcher, his clerk, greeted him with a grin of welcome. Mr. Pilcher was a young man, a sharp, h’less young man, who wore an air of prosperity not usual in solicitors’ clerks. He enjoyed a good salary, made quite a lot of money on the side from betting, patronised Mr. Rustem’s own tailor; they shared a common hosier and went to the same barber, for Mr. Pilcher had taken his employer as a model and hoped one day that he would own an expensive car and be in so strong a 6nancial position that he could a6ord to be struck off the rolls without blinking.
“Had luck, Pilcher; I’d better transfer your indentures to Doberry and Pank,” was Mr. Rustem’s greeting.
He sat down and glanced at the urgent correspondence awaiting him.
Pilcher’s small and homely face twined into a contemptuous smile.
“What’s good enough for you, guv’nor, is good enough for me. I’m chucking the law.”
He pronounced it “lore.” Mr. Rustem had long since given up all attempts to purify his subordinate’s English.
“Chucking the lore, are you?” murmured Rustem goodnaturedly. “Well, you’re wise. There’s nothing in it and you stand to be shot at all the time. ‘Phone to Gillett’s and ask them to send a manicurist over — the blonde one — what’s her name? Elsie.”
“She’s on her ‘olidays,” said Pilcher, “but there’s a new girl — a peach.” He went to the outer office to telephone. Mr. Rustem frowned and smiled through his correspondence. He smiled rather readily, this very goodlooking man of forty. He did not look forty.
His olive skin was flawless and unlined. His black hair, brushed back from his forehead, was thick and polished. His linen was immaculate, his clothes perfectly cut — no man had even seen him wear the same suit two days in succession. It was generally believed that he was of Oriental origin: “Rustem” was distinctly a name that came from Southern Europe. He had many traits which were more peculiarly Eastern — as a linguist, for example he was unique in his profession.
Old Pervin, K.C. (that untidy cynic) once said: “Rustem could suborn witnesses in ten languages and blackmail in twenty.”
As a youth he had been the lifeboat of every big swindler in the country, securing acquittals in the face of overwhelming evidence. There was not a professional thief in Europe who had not, at some time or other, sat vis-à-vis this youthful looking man and “told him the strength.” He had defended murderers and sold their confidences to newspapers after they were well and truly hanged. His big safe had held stolen property worth thousands of pounds against its illegal owner’s release from prison. When Mrs. Lamontaine was acquitted of poisoning her husband, she came to Arthur Rustem’s office and he showed her the packet of arsenic he had taken after a private search from a secret draw in her desk. If the police had found this packet, she would have gone to the gallows. It cost Mrs. Lamontaine half the little fortune she inherited from her husband to buy his services and the other half to buy his silence, for she was ignorant of the fact that a murderess cannot be tried twice for the same offence.
Mr. Pilcher came back.
“The girl’s coming over,” He said. “She’s a bit refined — but she won’t last ten minutes with you, guv’nor.”
Mr. Rustem smiled at his tribute to his fascinations and turned to his papers.
“Edna Gray,” he tapped a letter, “that’s the girl who came into old Gray’s property, isn’t she?”
Mr. Pilcher nodded.
“She’s been up once — there’s one for you, Mr. Rustem. Pretty! Gawd bless my life, she’s a picture. And a lady! Young? About twenty-two, I should think.”
Mr. Rustem heard without a great deal of interest. Pilcher’s standards of beauty were notoriously odd: he had deceived his employer before by enthusiastic descriptions which were never quite realised in the flesh.
“I want to get rid of this Gray estate,” he said. “It isn’t worth more than a few thousand. She is sole heiress, isn’t she?”
Pilcher agreed. “I’ll get the schedule,” he said.
He came back with a foolscap folder and Rustem glanced through its contents. “Gillywood Farm — um. I’d forgotten that — but Goodie has fifteen years’ unexpired lease. Longhall House, where is that?”
“On the farm, don’t you remember? About ten acres. You tried to get old Gray to lease it with Gillywood, but he wouldn’t. He was born there or something.”
Mr. Rustem nodded and smoothed his little black moustache absently.
“She might lease it,” he suggested. “Mr. Goodie spoke about it the last time I saw him. Naturally he doesn’t want anybody there overlooking the training ground—”
“The gallops are hers, too,” interrupted the clerk. “About a thousand acres of downland. Gray only gave a five-years lease of ’em and that’s nearly expired.”
Mr. Rustem closed the folder and looked thoughtful.
“It’s curious that I should have forgotten all about it — but I’ve been so used to bossing the estate that I’ve almost forgotten it was the property of somebody else.”
In this sentence he epitomised his attitude toward all trusts.
“No, that must stay in our hands obviously. Pretty, is she?”
“As a picture,” repeated the other with relish. “Not a big girl — on the small side. English, too. I mean, though she’s lived in South America she’s not a bit foreign. And she’s got heaps of stuff. Old Gray was her uncle, wasn’t he?”
Mr. Rustem believed so. He was interested now. He knew little about the late Donald Gray, except that he lived in the Argentine and owned cattle ranches. Mr. Rustem had never met him — the English estate of the dead man had been handled by his late partner in the days when the law firm of Rustem was called Higgs, Walton, Strube and Rustem, and was a respectable business.
“Yes — she’s probably rich. These South American ranchers are millionaires, some of them. Pretty, eh?”
The arrival of the manicurist suspended the discussion, and Mr. Rustem was so engrossed in the mental discussion of the Grey estate that he made no effort to challenge her refinement.
“What makes you think she’s rich,” he asked when the girl from Gillett’s had gone.
Pilcher smiled. “She’s got a Rolls, suite at the Berkeley, an’ she’s so ‘aughty. You know what I mean. I tried to get friendly, asked her ‘ow she liked England an’ whether she’d come over to get a nice husband—”
Mr. Rustem stared at him coldly.
“Oh, you did, did you? What a lousy little pup you are, Pilcher! Got all fresh and friendly, did you? I suppose you didn’t ask her what she was doing that evening?”
Pilcher smiled: he was not hurt. Quite a number of people had tried to hurt the feelings of this young man without any conspicuous success.
“All wimmin are alike to me,” he said with easy contempt. “No, as a matter of fact, I didn’t. She’s one of these cold women. Hard as nails, I’ll bet you. No, I just passed the time of day.”
“Phone her and tell her Mr. Rustem has come back especially from the Continent to see her and ask her when it will be convenient for her to call.”
“Why not pop round and see her—” began Pilcher.
“Do as you’re told, you poor little rat,” said Mr. Rustem without emotion. Pilcher did as he was told, leaving Mr. Arthur Rustem to the consideration of a problem.
He had hardly time to marshal certain conflictions of interest before Pilcher was back, his mean face beaming.
“Coincidence. She’s—” He jerked his head towards the outer office.
“Miss Gray?”
Pilcher nodded.
“She’s got an old boy with her — foreigner.”
Rustem thought for a while.
“Will you ask her to come in?” he said.
Pilcher went to the door, opened it and closed it again. “What about the old boy?”
“If he wants to come in, he must come in,” said Rustem with admirable patience.
Pilcher disappeared and returned in a short while, ushering in the visitor with an elaboration of politeness which might have passed as an example of old world courtesy, but probably did not. Rustem stood by his desk, very sleek, very much the man of affairs, wondering whether that unfortunate dispute of his with the Law Society was the reason for this visit.
For once Pilcher had not lied. This lady was more than pretty — she was beautiful even to so discriminating and fastidious a connoisseur as Arthur Rustem. The suns of South America had not destroyed a complexion which was without fault, her figure was completely satisfying. He began to take a new interest in the Gray estate. A grave-eyed young woman, very self-possessed, utterly oblivious of the physical attractions of her agent.
“Mr. Rustem?”
Before he could do more than nod:
“I am Edna Gray, Donald Gray’s niece. My banker wrote to you from Buenos Aires and my uncle’s lawyer …”
Mr. Rustem had seen her seated, had glanced Pilcher out of the room. Now he himself sank into the deep chair and was giving her his profound and deep attention.
“Naturally I remember,” he said, in his best family lawyer style. “Your estates in England, Miss Gray, are not very extensive, but they are, I think, valuable, and you would be well advised to hold them, although I have received one or two tempting offers, especially in regard to the Gillywood Farm. I think the Longhall estate you might very well have—”
“I have come to see you about Longhall,” she said. “I intend living there and I understand that part of my grounds has been used by my tenant, Mr. Goodie.”
Rustem frowned. “Of course!” he nodded quickly. “I am afraid I am responsible for that. Mr. Goodie asked permission to use the barns and the stables—”
“That’s all right.” Her smile was quick and rather sweet. Her incisive and businesslike tone was not quite in tune with her romantic possibilities. “Only he can clear out now, because I want to go down there and put the place in order. Who has the keys?”
Rustem was staggered by the decisive note and thought it was a moment to assert himself.
“Mr. Goodie has the keys. I can get them in a day or two,” he said. He shook his head. “ But I am not so sure that you will like Longhall, Miss Gray. Have you seen the place?”
She shook her head. “It is rather a rambling sort of house, and, I am inclined to think, not very healthy. You would perhaps be better advised — I am speaking more as a lawyer than an estate agent—”
“But you aren’t a lawyer, are you, Mr. Rustem? “ There was nothing offensive in the question, unless her innocence was assumed. “I understood that you had left the practice of the law,”
He recovered himself quickly and smiled. “There was a little disagreement between myself and the Law Society, but nothing of any great consequence,” he said airily. “We have a rather old-fashioned code in this country, and it is very easy to step over the edge.”
He was angry with himself, to find that he was apologising to this pretty stranger, more angry that he, who invariably led all situations, and had held his own in some that were infinitely delicate, should find himself floundering behind. If she had been less pretty it would have been more easily borne; he would, at any rate, have been spared the confusion which was now his. She gave him little chance to recover.
“Where is Mr. Goodie now?”
“He has, I believe, gone to Doncaster,” said Mr. Rustem, a little ruffled. “I was to have met him yesterday, but my arrival in England was delayed by fog. Doncaster is a town in the north of England—”
“I know where Doncaster is,” she said. Again that smile came and went. “He has the keys? “ She looked thoughtfully at the carpet. “There’s a race meeting, isn’t there — of course, the St. Leger. I may go up and see him. Do you know where he’s staying?”
Mr. Rustem did not know where this young lady’s tenant was staying. His interest in Mr. Goodie was not to the extent of keeping track of his movements.
Edna Gray rose unexpectedly. She was nothing if she was not abrupt.
“I should like to see you next week, Mr. Rustem, about the estate, I mean. Perhaps you will take the question up with my lawyers.”
She opened her bag and took out a card, which she laid on the table. Before Arthur Rustem could recover from his surprise she had left him with a little nod, opened the door before he could reach it, and, picking up her companion, who had been sitting gazing soberly and solemnly at a royal calendar hung on the opposite wall, she passed out into Lincoln’s Inn Fields, so quickly that Pilcher, who was checking up a schedule in his little office, did not see her go.
Edna Gray stopped on the sidewalk and looked at her companion. He was a man of some age, dressed in sober black and a soft black sombrero which would have revealed his identity in Buenos Aires, but had an eccentric look in the streets of London. A patient, sad-eyed man, older than his years.
“Well, Mr. Garcia, he was right.”
Mr. Garcia looked blank.
“Are you sure? “ he asked almost pleadingly. “It is wrong, perhaps, my dear Edna, to jump at conclusions. This man on the boat — he was, I grant you, a very pleasant gentleman but he may have made a mistake — who shall not make mistakes? You must not jump to conclusions, my dear child.”
She smiled ruefully. “I can’t get to them any other way. He is not a nice man, very sleek, very — what shall I call him? — like one of the characters in a Dickens book, very oily and suave — and dangerous. I am glad he is not my lawyer.”
She had signalled the car; it drew up noiselessly to the curb and she entered, followed by the old man. “I am going down to Berkshire to look at this home of mine,” she said determinedly. “I am sure there is some swindle in it. And then I am going to Doncaster. Will you come?”
He shook his head and pulled nervously at his little white beard. “No, my child, I must go to Germany. I simply ache to see my dear Vendina. Perhaps they will let me buy him back,” he said wistfully. “It was madness to sell. But then they told me, my stud groom, my nephew, everybody, that I am impracticable and will end in bankruptcy, but the sum offered was too good for me to refuse.”
He sighed heavily, for Vendina, by Craganour out of Vendira, was something more than a thoroughbred three-year-old that he had bred and nursed from ugly foaldom to four-year-old maturity. He was (in the eyes of Alberto Garcia) the supreme colt in the world, and when he had been sold to a German stud-farm one half of his life had been blotted out.
“Sentimentalism is stupid — I am stupid. It is generally acknowledged.” He spoke slowly with only the slightest trace of a foreign accent. “I should have raced him myself.”
He looked sadly out of the window and shook his head at some unspoken thought. “Perhaps they will let me buy him back. Think , of it, Edna, not one letter have they sent to me about him. Is he well, is he ill, did he endure the voyage, were they astonished at his beauty when he arrived at the Heras? They are completely heartless, these German buyers.”
The story of the tragic sale of Vendina was familiar to the girl. From any other person in the world these everlasting references to his lost horse would have been tiresome and boring, but she loved this old man, her uncle’s closest friend.
“Have you seen Mr. Luke?” he asked, and she almost jumped, for she too had been thinking of that shipboard acquaintance.
“No, I haven’t seen him since we left the ship.” Then suddenly, “Will you come now: it is little more than an hour’s drive. They may have the keys at the house.”
He looked at her, almost frightened — All his life old Garcia had followed the dictates of his blood — he was pure Spanish on both sides of his house. “Mañana, mañana!” he murmured.
“Tomorrow is also a day, my little friend. You must not hurry me. I am an old man and I am not used to this — hustle is the word, is it not? I must go to Germany—”
In the end there was a compromise. They lunched together at the Carlton and left for Berkshire in the early afternoon.
When Edna Gray was very young she conceived a wholly unjustifiable aversion to lawyers and bailiffs. Learned writers on infant psychology would discover the foundations of her prejudice in the type of story she was permitted to read in the days of her childhood, stories in which innocent orphans and credulous widows were swindled out of their heritage by sinister men who had their musty offices in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, or surly and beetle-browed agents who, in the absence of the rightful owner of the lands, manoeuvred their employer’s property into their own possession. It was a type of story most favoured by her indolent governess, who was only too happy to conceal the limit of her competence behind the child’s own inclinations.
Edna did not like Nr. Rustem, had been prepared to dislike him even before that amusing man on the ship had expressed his opinion so libellously. She gave her impressions of the lawyer on the journey down.
“I’m sure he’s a horrible man,” she said. Old Garcia sighed.
“I did not see him — but I understand your prejudice. Alas! I myself am unreasonable about people. When that unpleasant Englishman came to take away my dear Vendina—”
She listened to the oft-reiterated story of Vendina’s sale. If she had not known otherwise, she would have thought that the old man had never bred any other horse. He had, as she knew, bred thoroughbreds all his life. But Vendina was different.
“He would follow me about like a dog. I could never bear the thought of his going into a racing stable, to be beaten by these terrible jockeys—”
“This must be the place,” she said, and slowed the car.
Gillywood Cottage was invisible from the roadway. Two high red walls, one of which, as she afterwards discovered, surrounded her own property, turned at right angles here and formed a lane which led to the cottage. The entrance to this lane was barred by a high steel gate which, to make sure of the complete seclusion of Mr. Goodie’s training establishment from even an adventurous dog, was covered with a thick wire netting.
She got out and pushed the gate; it opened, and she drove the car down the drive. At the end of fifty yards the drive turned sharply to the right and there was another iron gate, and beyond that, at a very little distance, the cottage, all white and green. This entrance was closed and locked, but there was a hanging bell, and this she pulled.
As she stood waiting, Edna looked round, puzzled. At the top of the high walls was another “run “ of wire mesh held in place by stout, steel uprights, evidently fixed in the brickwork. Looking through the bars of the gates, she saw that where the brick wall ended a fence of wire-netting began, so that the house was enclosed in a sort of huge cage.
Another curious circumstance which struck her was the heavy iron bars which covered all the windows in sight. It was more like a prison than a country house. Yet, she could admire the perfect order of the place, the weedless semicircle of gravel before the cottage, the trim lawn, the scarlet geraniums that filled green-painted tubs. To the left she saw the corner of the new stables, and beyond, the white escarpment of the quarried downs. Perrywig Caves must be there. Uncle Donald had often spoken of them, told her stories of their past mysteries. The green crest of the downs swelled over them; there were little tree-filled ravines, and, somewhere beyond, a human community, for she saw the top of a church spire.
A pleasant place. Longhall itself was out of sight behind the chestnuts which marked the southern boundaries of Gillywood Cottage. She saw the green door open and a man came towards the gate, but did not attempt to open it. He was big, bullet-headed, blue of jowl, a heavy, forbidding man who eyed her unfavourably.
“What you want?” He spoke awkwardly, like a man speaking in a foreign language.
“I am Miss Gray. I want to see Mr. Goodie — he has the keys of Longhall.”
He glowered at her stupidly, evidently he found her difficult to follow. Then he shook his head.
“No, Sen — Mister Goodie is not — she is in—” he paused to rehearse the word and she saw his lips moving. “Doncast-ro.”
“Doncaster?”
He nodded.
“Si — yes. Doncastro.” In an odd, uneasy way his face was familiar to her. She associated it with something that was ugly and a little terrifying. One fact she had learnt for certain.
“I am the owner of these lands.” She spoke this time in Spanish. “That is my house.” She pointed towards the chestnuts.
“The Señor Goodie has the keys of the house.” He blinked at her, but the expressionless face remained blank. “The patron is away, señorinetta; he has gone to buy horses in Doncastro. I am the servant of the house; I cannot speak with you.”
He walked back to the house and slammed the door. She stared angrily at its green-painted surface and went back to the car.
“Who is that man?” Garcia’s voice was unusually vigorous. “Surely I have seen him! Manuel Conceptione! A rascal who was on my estancia — did he seem Spanish?”
“He spoke Spanish,” she said. “I think he is a half-breed—”
“Manuel! He disappeared this year. I kicked him off the farm. A thief and worse! Here! Extraordinary.”
She had thought it a remarkable coincidence, but her mind was full of other matters at the moment. She drove the car round to the front of Longhall. The iron gates were closed but she could see the old house behind its curtain of trees. The place wore an air of neglect, weeds were growing in the gravelled drive and the grass was knee high on what she supposed was the lawn.
“I am going to Doncaster to get the keys,” she said finally.
She was rather like that; she would have started off to the utmost limits of Europe to get those keys. This glimpse of the home which was hers and had held her ancestors was necessary to fire her determination. She was rich enough to buy any estate in England, young enough for a week or two to make no difference, but too young to wait.
As the car turned back to the main road she heard an exclamation from the old man.
“Look, look!” Descending the slope of the downs was a string of horses. She counted twelve. They moved in single file and were making for the stables behind Gillywood Cottage.
“Stop, please!” She pulled up the car by the side of the road, and Garcia scrambled out.
“Beautiful — eh, Not good horses perhaps, but they have the blood! Ah, such loveliness!”
She stood by his side, watching.
“Those are Mr. Goodie’s horses, I expect,” she said. “Why don’t you come with me to Doncaster?” She chatted on until the last horse had disappeared behind a plantation.
Still her companion did not move, but stood staring at the trees which hid the walking horses.
“It was a mistake to show you any horses at all,” she laughed. “You must come to Doncaster.”
Without a word he went back to the car, and all the way to London he hardly spoke a word. Two miles from Gillywood Farm he peered out of the window.
“What place is that? “ he asked. It was a large, comfortable-looking inn, before which a motor charabanc was drawn up.
“The Red Lion,” she said humorously. “Do you want a drink? You will find there is no good Amontillado in Berkshire.”
He did not reply. The next morning when she called on him at his hotel to tell him she was leaving for Doncaster, she learned that he had left London on the night before for the country, taking with him a suitcase. So he passed out of sight and out of life. Edna never saw him again.
Chapter III
Doncaster was full, and had been full since Monday evening. Every room in the few hotels that the town possessed had been booked since midsummer. An army of visitors had taken possession of such private apartments as were available, and every other house in the Thorn Road area was occupied by strangers to the town. Monday night saw the fair ground crowded with visitors who wandered between the roundabouts and the side-shows. The same crowd filled the marketplace on Tuesday morning and gathered in thick groups about the vociferous and eloquent tipsters who offered their wares to their credulous audiences.
It was Leger week in crisp September — the last of the classic races was set for decision; the week of fascinating handicaps. North met South on common ground. The trains from Newmarket were arriving night and day discharging their blanketed passengers. Most of the big houses had been hired for the week by the notables of England; little knots of people gathered in Thorn Road to see royalty emerge in its glittering limousine; the more popular streets were full of men and women hawking the local “butterscotch.”
To Edna Gray the town was a bewildering pandemonium. There was a sort of dourness about it and yet there was a charm: stark commerce in ill-fitting gala attire. There was no blending of citizen and visitor, any more than there could be between the great racecourse which she had passed and the gaunt pit gears that stood up upon Doncaster horizon.
She had not expected either the sauvities of London or the luxuries of Buenos Aires, but it was a little shocking to arrive in a town which could offer her no hotel accommodation, and where even garage for her car was hard to find.
Yet, by good fortune, she had secured not only a bedroom but the whole of a house for her use. The house had been let to a lordly owner, but he had — said the landlady—” disappointed.” The poor woman welcomed the lady and provided garage for the dusty Rolls and sleeping space for the elderly chauffeur.
Edna was one of the people who thronged the fair ground and in the morning made her way to the sales paddock, She was in her element, for she loved horses, and, to her own amusement, found herself bidding for a beautiful Diophon yearling.
