'What did she say?'
Miss Howard made an extremely expressive grimace.
'"Darling Alfred"--"dearest Alfred"--"wicked calumnies"--"wicked lies"--"wicked woman"--
to accuse her"dear hus-band"! The sooner I left her house the better. So I'm off.'
'But not now?'
'This minute!'
For a moment we sat and stared at her. Finally John Cavendish, finding his persuasions
of no avail, went off to look up the trains. His wife followed him, murmuring something
about persuading Mrs Inglethorp to think better of it.
As she left the room, Miss Howard's face changed. She leant towards me eagerly.
'Mr Hastings, you're honest. I can trust you?'
I was a little startled. She laid her hand on my arm, and sank her voice to a whisper.
'Look after her, Mr Hastings. My poor Emily. They're a lot of sharks--all of them. Oh,
I know what I'm talking about. There isn't one of them that's not hard up and trying
to get money out of her. I've protected her as much as I could. Now I'm out of the
way, they'll impose upon her.'
'Of course, Miss Howard,' I said, 'I'll do everything I can, but I'm sure you're excited
and overwrought.'
She interrupted my by slowly shaking her forefinger.
'Young man, trust me. I've lived in the world rather longer than you have. All I ask
you is to keep your eyes open. You'll see what I mean.'
The throb of the motor came through the open window, and Miss Howard rose and
moved to the door. John's voice sounded outside. With her hand on the handle,
she turned her head over her shoulder, and beckoned to me.
'Above all, Mr Hastings, watch that devil--her hus-band!'
There was no time for more. Miss Howard was swallowed up in an eager chorus of
protests and goodbyes. The Inglethorps did not appear.
As the motor drove away, Mrs Cavendish suddenly detached herself from the group,
and moved across the drive to the lawn to meet a tall bearded man who had been
evidently making for the house. The colour rose in her cheeks as she held out her
hand to him.
'Who is that?' I asked sharply, for instinctively I distrusted the man.
'That's Dr Bauerstein,' said John shortly.
'And who is Dr Bauerstein?'
'He's staying in the village doing a rest cure, after a bad nervous breakdown.
He's a London specialist; a very clever man--one of the greatest living experts on
poisons, I believe.'
'And he's a great friend of Mary's,' put in Cynthia, the irrepressile.
John Cavendish frowned and changed the subject.
He took the path through the plantation, and we walked down to the village through
the woods which bordered one side of the estate.
As we passed through one of the gates on our way home again, a pretty young woman
of gipsy type coming in the opposite direction bowed and smiled.
'That's a pretty girl,' I remarked appreciatively.
John's face hardened.
'That is Mrs Raikes.'
'The one that Miss Howard-'
'Exactly,' said John, with rather unnecessary abruptness,
I thought of the whit-haired old lady in the big house, and that vivid wicked little
face that had just smiled into ours, and a vague chill of foreboding crept over
me. I brushed it aside.
'Styles is really a glorious old place,' I said to John.
He nodded rather gloomily.
'Yes, it's a fine property. It'll be mine some day--should be mine now by rights,
if my father had only made a decent will. And then I shouldn't be so damned
hard up as I am now.'
'Hard up, are you?'
'My dear Hastings, I don't mind telling you that I'm at my wits' end for money.'
'Couldn't your brother help you?'
'Lawrence? He's gone through every penny he ever had, publishing rotten verses
in fancy bindings. No, we're an impecunious lot. My mother's always been awfully
good to us, I must say. That is, up to now. Since her marriage, of course-' He broke
off, frowning.
For the first time I felt that, with Evelyn Howard, something indefinable had gone from
the atmosphere. Her presence had spelt security. Now that security was removed--and
the air seemed rife with suspicion. The sinister face of Dr Bauerstein recurred to me
unpleasantly. A vague suspicion of everyone and everything filled my mind. Just for a
moment I had a premonition of approaching evil.