XXVIII
THE RETURN
His friends would scarcely have picked out Mr. Ned Cromarty of Stanesland as likely to make a distinguished actor, but they might have changed their opinion had they heard him breezily announce himself as Mr. Dawkins from Liverpool and curse the Scottish railways which had lost his luggage for him. It is true that the landlord looked at him a trifle askance and that the landlady and her maid exchanged a knowing smile when he ordered a room for his niece Louisa, but few people shut up in a little country inn with such a formidable looking, loud voiced giant, would have ventured to question his statements openly, and the equanimity of Mr. Dawkins remained undisturbed.
"Sit right down, Louisa!" he commanded when dinner was served; and then, addressing the maid, "You needn't wait. We'll ring when we need you."
But the moment she had gone he checked a strong expression with an effort.
"Dam—confound it!" he cried. "I ought to have remembered to say grace! That would have given just the finishing touch to the Uncle Ned business. However, I don't think they've smelt any rats."
Cicely smiled faintly and then her eyes fell and she answered nothing. Their only other conversation during dinner consisted in his expostulations on her small appetite and her low-voiced protests that she wasn't hungry. But when it was safely over, he pushed back his chair, crossed his knees, and began:
"Now, Louisa, I'm going to take an uncle's privilege of lighting my pipe before I begin to talk, if you don't mind."
He lit his pipe, and then suddenly dropping the rôle of uncle altogether, said gently:
"I don't want to press you with any questions that you don't want to answer, but if you need a friend of any sort, size, or description, here I am." He paused for a moment and then asked still more gently: "Are you afraid of me?"
For the first time she let her long-lashed eyes rest full on his face and in her low voice, she answered:
"Partly afraid."
"And partly what else?"
"Partly puzzled—and partly ashamed."
"Ashamed!" he exclaimed with a note of indignant protest. "Ashamed of what?"
"The exhibition I've made of myself," she said, her voice still very low.
"Well," he smiled, "that's a matter of opinion. But why are you afraid?"
"Oh," she exclaimed. "You know of course!"
He stared at her blankly.
"I pass; I can't play to that!" he replied. "I honestly do not know, Miss Farmond."
Her eyes opened very wide.
"That's what I meant when I said I was puzzled. You must know—and yet!"
She broke off and looked at him doubtfully.
"Look here," said he, "some one's got to solve this mystery, and I'll risk a leading question. Why did you run away?"
"Because of what you have been doing!"
"Me been doing! And what have I been doing?"
"Suspecting me and setting a detective to watch me!"
Ned's one eye opened wide, but for a moment he said not a word. Then he remarked quietly:
"This is going to be a derned complicated business. Just you begin at the beginning, please, and let's see how things stand. Who told you I was setting a detective on to you?"
"I found out myself I was being watched."
"How and when?"
She hesitated, and the doubtful look returned to her eyes.
"Come, Louisa!" he said. "No nonsense this time! We've got to have this out—or my name's Dawkins!"
For the first time she smiled spontaneously, and the doubtful look almost vanished. Just a trace was left, but her voice, though still very low, was firmer now.
"I only discovered for the first time the wicked suspicion about poor Malcolm," she said, "when I met a gentleman a few days ago who told me he had heard Malcolm was arrested for the murder of Sir Reginald."
"But that's not true!" cried Ned.
"No, and he admitted it was only a story he had heard at the hotel, but it suddenly seemed to throw light on several things I hadn't been able to understand. I spoke to Lady Cromarty about it, and then I actually found that I was suspected too!"
"Did she tell you so?"
"Not in so many words, but I knew what was in her mind. And then the very next day I caught the same man examining the library with Bisset and I saw him out of the window follow Lady Cromarty and speak to her, and then I knew he was a detective!"
"How did you know?"
"Oh, by instinct, and I was right! The position was so horrible—so unbearable, that I went in to see Mr. Rattar about it."
"Why Rattar?"
"Because he is the family lawyer and he's also investigating the case, and I thought of course he was employing the detective. And Mr. Rattar told me you were really employing him. Are you?"
There was a pleading note in this question—a longing to hear the answer "No" that seemed to affect Ned strangely.
"It's all right, Miss Farmond!" he said. "Don't you worry! I got that man down here to clear you—just for that purpose and no other!"
"But" she exclaimed, "Mr. Rattar said you suspected Malcolm and me and were determined to prove our guilt!"
"Simon Rattar said that!"
There was something so menacing in his voice that Cicely involuntarily shrank back.
"Do you mean to tell me, honour bright, that Simon Rattar told you that lie in so many words?"
"Yes," she said, "he did indeed. And he said that this Mr. Carrington was a very clever man and was almost certain to trump up a very strong case against us, and so he advised me to go away."
He seemed almost incapable of speech at this.
"He actually advised you to bolt?"
She nodded.
"To slip away quietly to London and stay in an hotel he recommended till I heard from him. He said you had sworn to track down the criminals and hang them with your own hands, and so when I saw you suddenly come up behind me in that dark road to-night—oh, you've no idea how terrified I was! Mr. Rattar had frightened away all the nerve I ever had, and then when I thought I was safely away, you suddenly came up behind me in that dark road!"
"You poor little" he began, laying his hand upon hers, and then he remembered Sir Malcolm and altered his sentence into: "You know now that was all one infernal pack of lies, don't you?"
Though he took away his hand, she had not moved her own, and she gave him now a look which richly rewarded him for his evening's work.
"I believe every word you tell me," she said.
"Well then," said Ned, "I tell you that I got this fellow Carrington down to take up the case so that I could clear you in the first place and find the right man in the second. So as to give him an absolutely clear field, he wasn't told who was employing him, and then he could suspect me myself if he wanted to. As a matter of fact, I rather think he has guessed who's running him. Anyhow, yesterday afternoon he told me straight and emphatically that he knew you were innocent. So you've run away a day too late!"
She laughed at last, and then fell serious again.
"But what did Mr. Rattar mean by saying you had engaged the detective because you suspected Malcolm and me?"
"That's precisely what I want to find out," said Ned grimly. "He could guess easy enough who was employing Carrington, because I had suggested getting a detective, only Simon wouldn't rise to it. But as to saying I suspected you, he knew that was a lie, and I can only suspect he's getting a little tired of life!"
They talked on for a little longer, still sitting by the table, with her eyes now constantly smiling into his, until at last he had to remind himself so vigorously of the absent and lucky baronet that the pleasure began to ebb. And then they said good-night and he was left staring into the fire.
•••••••
Next morning they faced one another in a first class carriage on a homeward bound train.
"What shall I say to Lady Cromarty?" she asked, half smiling, half fearfully.
He reflected for a few minutes.
"Tell her the truth. Lies don't pay in the long run. I can bear witness to this part of the story, and to the Carrington part if necessary, though I don't want to give him away if I can help it."
"Oh no!" she said, "we mustn't interfere with him. But supposing Lady Cromarty doesn't believe"
"Come straight to Stanesland! Will you?"
"Run away again?"
"It's the direction you run in that matters," said he. "Now, mind you, that's understood!"
She was silent for a little and then she said:
"I can't understand why these horrible stories associate Malcolm and me. Why should we have conspired to do such a dreadful thing?"
He stared at her, and then hesitated.
"Because—well, being engaged to him"
"Engaged to Malcolm!" she exclaimed. "Whatever put that into people's heads?"
"What!" he cried. "Aren't you?"
"Good gracious no! Was that the reason then?"
He seemed too lost in his own thoughts to answer her; but they were evidently not unhappy thoughts this time.
"Who can have started such a story?" she demanded.
"Who started it?" he repeated and then was immersed in thought again; only now there was a grim look on his face.
"Well anyhow," he cried, in a minute or two, "we're out of that wood! Aren't we, Louisa?"
"Yes, Uncle Ned," she smiled back.
He stirred impulsively in his seat and then seemed to check himself, and for the rest of the journey he appeared to be divided between content with the present hour and an impulse to improve upon it. And then before he had realised where they were, they had stopped at a station, and she was exclaiming:
"Oh, I must get out here! I've left my bike in the station!"
"Look here," said he, with his hand on the door handle, "before you go you've got to swear that you'll come straight to Stanesland if there's another particle of trouble. Swear?"
"But what about Miss Cromarty?" she smiled.
"Miss Cromarty will say precisely the same as I do," he said with a curiously significant emphasis. "So now, I don't open this door till you promise!"
"I promise!" said she, and then she was standing on the platform waving a farewell.
"I half wish I'd risked it!" he said to himself with a sigh as the train moved on, and then he ruminated with an expression on his face that seemed to suggest a risk merely deferred.