"I'm worried about Miss Hartland, Lord John," she began. "A sweet girl, but I'm afraid she's being silly! Do you know what she goes to New York for so often?"

"I didn't know she did go often," I said.

"Well, she does. She's taking lessons in hypnotism or something and I believe she's paying a lot of money. A circular came to her about a course of lectures, claiming that the _will_ could be strengthened, and any object in life accomplished. That caught poor Helen. She simply ate up the lectures, and became a pupil of the man who gave them.

That's why her salary's gone as soon as she gets it--and sooner! Poor child, I'm sorry. The thing she _ought_ to want, she won't take. The thing she does want she can't have, if she spends every cent trying to gain 'hypnotic power.'"

"What does she so violently want, if it's permitted to ask?" I inquired.

Mrs. Edson looked at me in a queer, sidewise way. "You'd only be cross if I told you," she said. So instead of repeating the question, I asked another. "Who is the professor of hypnotism who gives Miss Hartland lessons?"

"I can't remember," the landlady replied. "I saw the circular, but that was some time ago, and I've forgotten. Now, the child won't talk about him."

The thought of Rameses sprang into my mind. I recalled the mystery of Helen's summons to America. Could it be possible that Doctor Rameses had wanted a "cat's-paw" for some new chestnuts to be pulled out of the fire? What would Helen Hartland's poor little paw avail him for that work? I went on wondering. But the ways of the Egyptian were past finding out--or had been, up to date. It was within the bounds of possibility that thinking to compromise me, he had sought in England a girl--preferably an actress--whom I had known; within the same bounds that he might have induced her to cross the sea, in the hope that, once on this side, we might play his game. So far-fetched an idea would never have come into my head, had not Mrs. Edson mentioned the circular, and the professor of hypnotism. But once in, I couldn't get it out. I determined to take the next chance to catechise Helen.

It arrived by accident, or I thought so, believing myself a free agent; instead of which I was a fly blundering into a spider's web.

From Maida Odell and from the elderly waiter who had looked over the parapet at a man in a broad-brimmed hat, I have since obtained threads which show how the web was woven: but some disastrous days were to pa.s.s first.

During this time I heard nothing from Maida, but I had memories to comfort me, and it was good to feel how few miles were between us.

Strange that, few as they were, no telepathic thrill was able to warn me of what was happening behind the high garden walls of the Sisterhood House!

Maida has told me since, how the Head Sister called her one day for a talk. "I want to make a little journey and try to do a little good,"

the grey-veiled lady said in the deep voice which Maida had once thought sweet as the tones of a 'cello. "I should like you to go with me, but--there is a reason why perhaps you would rather I took someone else. Still, I feel bound to give you the choice, as you are my dearly-loved and trusted friend through _everything_."

"Why should I want you to take someone else, Sister?" Maida asked.

"Because--a man who would steal you away from us if he could, is often at the place where we must go. He visits the young English girl I am asked to help; and I fear that his interest in her is not for her good.

Now, dear child, don't be angry with me for saying this! I don't ask you to believe. I tell you only what I hear from my philanthropic friend in New York who enables us to do some of our best work. I wish he would let his name be mentioned, but even his right hand is never allowed to know what the left hand doeth! In any case the girl is in difficulties, as this doer of n.o.ble works hears from one of his a.s.sistants. She is an actress who sings in a gay, rowdy sort of hotel frequented by sportsmen and their friends. I am requested to offer her a home here, if she chooses to come, and eventually to send her back to England at the expense of the Sisterhood funds. Now you see why I spoke. You shall go or stay, as you wish."

Once Maida had thought all the Head Sister's precepts and acts beyond criticism. But things had pa.s.sed in Sisterhood House which had slightly--almost imperceptibly--broken the crystal surface of perfect trust. She found herself wondering: "Why does Sister advise me not to think of Lord John? Why does she hint horrid things of him, yet take me where we may meet?"

There was no answer to this question in Maida's mind, but she said that she would go with the Head Sister on the "mission": and in her heart she hoped that we might meet. She had been tried and tested before, and again she was loyal in thought.

The conversation between those two at Sisterhood House took place the day after my talk with Mrs. Edson. And while Maida and the Head Sister discussed the short journey they planned to make, I was probably dashing off a hasty letter to Helen Hartland. "I want to see you," I wrote, "about something rather important. Please send a line in answer, and tell me at what time I may call to-morrow afternoon."

In answer to this, Helen replied that she would see me at five o'clock.

"I'm very unhappy," she added. "I know you want me to go back to England, and I believe you're _afraid_ of me. I think you are cruel, but I'm thankful you're coming to see me of your own free will."

I should have been dumbfounded at this morbid nonsense, if the thought of Rameses hadn't been haunting my mind. If he were the power behind the throne in this business, he might have stuffed the girl with false ideas about me, or else actually have hypnotised her to write in this unbalanced fashion.

I had been in my hangar, or flying, most of the day, and came to the hotel half an hour before the appointment, to make myself tidy for a call. Looking out from the window I saw a grey automobile flash by and slow down as if to stop at the door. Whether it did stop or no, I couldn't be sure, as I could not see so far; nor should I have been interested had the thought not flashed through my head that it looked like the car which belonged to Sisterhood House.

Nothing seemed less likely than that it should come to the Aviation Park Hotel: and there were many autos of that make and colour on Long Island. I thought no more about it, little dreaming of the surprise Doctor Rameses' genius had prepared for Maida and for me. Now I ask myself where was my prophetic soul wandering at that moment? Perhaps it was searching for Maida: but it would only have to look close at hand to see her walking in to the hotel in the adorably becoming costume of the Grey Sisterhood. The inevitable Head Sister was with her, of course: but not in command, according to custom. Even before starting, she had complained of a headache, and Maida had suggested putting off the expedition: but the sufferer refused such self-indulgence. During the drive to the hotel, she was speechless with pain, and Maida, who had never seen the strong, vital directress in such a condition, was anxious. "I'm afraid we must take a room in the hotel for a while, where I may lie down until I'm able to see Miss Hartland," the Head Sister said as the grey car drew up at the door.

Maida was thankful for this concession, but surprised that she should be told, in a faint voice, to engage the best room in the house. The Head Sister was usually spartan in her ways, setting an example of self-sacrifice to all those under her care.

Maida obeyed without comment, however, and the big room adjoining Helen Hartland's, with the double doors between, was given to the two ladies of the Grey Sisterhood.

These happenings--and certain developments which followed quickly--I learned long afterwards from Maida's own lips, when we were putting "two and two together." From the elderly Austrian who acted as a waiter in the roof-garden I forced another part of the same story, hearing from him that he had been one of Rameses' many servants. This I succeeded in doing too late to pull myself out of the pit which was waiting (at this very moment) for me to tumble into it. Nevertheless there was satisfaction later in knowing that my researches had never strayed from the right track.

It had been raining that day, I remember--an unlucky thing for the aviation "fans," come from far and near to see a new way of looping the loop demonstrated by two American pupils of mine, and myself: a lucky thing for the most daring experiment ever attempted by Doctor Rameses.

People were walking about between nights, with umbrellas held low over their heads to protect them the better from a straight, steady downpour. Thus, roofed with wet silk domes they could see little except their own feet and each other. It was only when something happened aloft that it was worth while to unroof themselves: and at such moments all attention was concentrated on the sky. The air-show was a good one. Soaked enthusiasts rushed to the hotel for a "quick lunch" and drinks and rushed away again, or congregated on the roof with sandwiches in their hands. Waiters in the roof-restaurant walked with chins up: and there was a moment when one of their number--old Anton, the Austrian--was able to lure even the kitchen staff, cooks and all, out of doors for a few minutes. By a weird decree of fate, it was a flight of mine that they were invited to desert duty in order to witness!

While the kitchen was empty and the door open, with men's backs turned to it, Anton had given a signal. A mackintoshed figure slipped in, and finding the coast clear, made for the food elevator, which was ready to mount. Inside there was room for a man to crouch. Anton, darting into the kitchen, sent the lift up: then darted out again to tell the cook and cook's a.s.sistant a spicy anecdote about me!

There was no stop for the elevator between kitchen and roof. It was a slow traveller, and as the open front rose above the restaurant floor, the crouching man within could see at a glance what hope he had of running the gauntlet. The moment could not have been better chosen. I was in the act of doubling my loop, and everyone on the roof--guests and waiters--had crowded to the flower-fringed parapet. The lift was artistically concealed by an arbour of white painted trellis-work, as I have explained; but sharp eyes could peer between the squares overhung with climbing plants, and see all that went on upon the other side.

The crouching figure crept out, rose, and precipitated itself down the service stairway whose railed-in wall was also masked by the trellis arbour.

It could not have been long after this that I finished my work for the day, and came to the hotel, as I have said, to keep my appointment with Helen Hartland; but meanwhile there had been time for the man in the high-collared mackintosh coat to finish _his_ work also. He had not, of course, ventured to try returning by the way he came, but had run down the service stairs and walked out of the house by a side entrance.

Thanks to the rain and the umbrellas, and the call of the sky, he escaped, as he entered, without being seen. If Anton had not been compelled to betray him later, the mystery of the Aviation Park Hotel would never have been solved.

Before I went (as requested in Helen's last letter) to knock at her door, a new cause of excitement had arisen. Charlie Bridges had crashed to earth in his machine, close to the hotel, and crowds had collected round the fallen aeroplane. Those who saw the fall, were able to explain why the 'plane was scarcely injured. Bridges had been swooping at the time, so close to earth that the drop amounted to nothing: but for some curious reason he had lost control of the machine. He was far more seriously hurt than he ought to have been, for not having been strapped in, he had slid from his seat somehow, and been caught under the machine. Unconscious and suffering from concussion the "California Birdman" was carried into a ground floor room of the hotel, while a "hurry call" was sent over the telephone for the nearest doctor.

All this happened unknown to me, for the room in which I was dressing was on the opposite side of the house. Any shouts I heard, or running men I saw through the window, were only part of the ordinary show for me. At precisely five o'clock I went my way through various corridors and knocked at Helen's door, in ignorance of Charlie Bridges'

misfortune.

The door stood slightly ajar, as if Helen had left it so purposely for me: but no answer followed my knock. I tapped again more loudly, and the door fell open at my touch. No one was in the room; but close to the window, on the floor, I saw a bunch of crimson roses, wet with rain.

"Bridges!" I said to myself, with a smile.

For a moment I hesitated outside the door: yet rather than go away and miss the girl when she arrived (I imagined that she had run up to the roof), or lurk in the corridor to be stared at by pa.s.sing servants, I decided to walk into the room and wait. Probably, I thought, this was what Helen had meant, in leaving the door ajar.

If the door of the next room had opened at that instant, and Maida had looked out, the history of the wretched weeks which followed might have been different for us both. But the door remained closed, and no instinct told me who was behind it. No one saw me walk into Helen Hartland's room; and therefore no one could tell at what hour I had entered.

I did not look out of the window, or I should have seen the fallen aeroplane which must still have been on the ground. I left the flowers--red as their giver's blood--lying on the floor for Helen to find when she came: but minutes pa.s.sed and Helen did not come.

I sat down in a chair drawn up by the table and glanced at a couple of books. Both had been lent by me at Helen's request, and had my name on the flyleaf. I laid them down again impatiently on the gaudy cotton tablecloth; and took out my watch. Ten minutes after five! ... Soon it was the quarter past. I was resolving impatiently to scrawl a line on a visiting-card, and go, when I heard a slight noise, as if someone in the adjoining room were unlocking a door. I knew from Helen's description that there were two doors, with a distance of at least twelve inches between.

"Can she be using that other room, too?" I wondered: when suddenly there rang out a scream of horror, in a woman's voice. It seemed to me that it was like Maida's, though that must be a mere obsession! but I sprang to my feet, dragging off the tablecloth and bringing down on the floor books, papers, and a vase of flowers. My chair fell over also: and all this confusion in the room was afterwards used against me.

I rushed to the door leading out to the corridor--which I had closed on entering--and found a swarm of people, guests and waiters, already pouring down the service stairs from the roof-garden just above.

Everyone saw me come out of Helen Hartland's room: but even if they had not seen, there was my hat with my initials in it, on the floor with the rest of the fallen things, to testify to my late presence.

As we crowded the narrow corridor, the door of the "best room" whence the scream had come, was flung wide open, and to my amazement, Maida Odell--in her grey costume of the Sisterhood--rushed out pale as a dead girl.

"Murder! A woman murdered!" she whispered rather than cried, as one strives voicelessly to shriek in a dream. Just then she saw me, and held out both hands as if for help. I pushed past everyone else and got to her: but others surged forward and she and I gave way before the crowd. A dozen men at least must have jostled into the room after us; but at the instant I hardly knew that they were there. I saw a big woman in grey drawing a veil closely round her face as she rose from a cushioned lounge: and I saw lying on the floor the body of Helen Hartland with a thin stiletto sticking in her breast--a stiletto I had lent her to use as a paper knife. I recognised it instantly in redoubled horror, though not thinking then of consequences for myself.

By this time a policeman--one of those always present on the aviation grounds--forced his way through the crowd ma.s.sed in the corridor. He got rid in summary fashion of everyone, except the two ladies, occupants of the room, myself (because I seemed to know and have some business with them) and the landlord. Another policeman who followed close on his heels, guarded the doors of the adjoining rooms, and doubtless a third busied himself in sending off frantic telephone calls.

Helen Hartland lay on her back on the pale grey carpet stained with her blood; and Maida told tremulously how the tragedy had been discovered.

The Head Sister, feeling ill, had lain down on a sofa not far from the door of communication between this room and the next. She had fancied a noise on the other side, and asked Maida to try if the door were fastened. Strangely, it was not (though Edson cut in to protest that it, and all other communicating doors were invariably locked). The door had opened as the handle turned, and to the girl's horror the figure of a dead woman--standing squeezed in between the two doors--had fallen into the room.

Hardly had the faltering explanation reached this point when a doctor arrived--the man who had been in the hotel, attending Charlie Bridges.

He examined the body, p.r.o.nounced that life had not been extinct for half an hour, and thought from the position of the weapon, that death had been caused by another hand than Helen's own.

There was, of course, no difficulty in identifying the girl, for the landlord and I were both on the spot retained to give evidence. It soon came out that Helen Hartland had told Mrs. Edson she expected a visit from Lord John Hasle, and I without hesitation admitted making it. The Head Sister chimed in, saying that she and her friend had come for the express purpose of seeing Miss Hartland and persuading her to leave "her unsuitable position." The adjoining room was entered, for it was found that the second of the double doors was unlocked. The confusion was remarked, and silence was maintained when I told how in jumping up at the sound of the scream I had thrown down a chair and pulled off a tablecloth.

The books with my name written in them were handled by the policeman who had taken charge, and by his superior who soon arrived on the scene. Letters of mine--albeit innocent ones--were unearthed. A few drops of blood were discovered on the strawberry-coloured carpet between the table and the door, as well as between the double doors, in the narrow s.p.a.ce into which the body had been thrust. Worse than all, my monogram was seen to adorn the stiletto paper-knife; and later (when I had been rather reluctantly arrested on suspicion) the last letter Helen had written turned up in my pocket. I had slipped it in and forgotten about it; but with so many damaging pieces of evidence that capped the climax. The girl accused me in so many words of wishing to get her out of the way, to send her back to England.

It seemed like a nightmare, and a stupid nightmare: one of those nightmares when you know you are awake yet cannot rouse yourself: I, John Hasle, brother and heir to the Marquis of Haslemere, lay under strong suspicion of having murdered a pretty little third-rate actress who had become troublesome to my "lordship"--Helen Hartland.