CHAPTER XXIX

THE MAN WITH THE THUMB AGAIN

Chris gave Henson one swift searching glance before her eyes dropped demurely to the ground. Lord Littimer appeared to be taking no heed of anything but his own annoyance. But quick as Chris had been, Henson was quicker. He was smiling the slow, sad smile of the man who turns the other cheek because it is his duty to do so.

"And when does Dr. Bell arrive?" he asked.

"He won't arrive at all," Littimer said, irritably. "Do you suppose I am going to allow that scoundrel under my roof again? The amazing impudence of the fellow is beyond everything. He will probably reach Moreton Station by the ten o'clock train. The drive will take him an hour, if I choose to permit the drive, which I don't. I'll send a groom to meet the train with a letter. When Bell has read that letter he will not come here."

"I don't think I should do that," Henson said, respectfully.

"Indeed! You are really a clever fellow. And what would you do?"

"I should suffer Bell to come. As a Christian I should deem it my duty to do so. It pains me to say so, but I am afraid that I cannot contravert your suggestion that Bell is a scoundrel. It grieves me to prove any man that. And in the present instance the proofs were overpowering. But there is always a chance--a chance that we have misjudged a man on false evidence."

"False evidence! Why, the Rembrandt was actually found in Bell's portmanteau."

"Dear friend, I know it," Henson said, with the same slow, forgiving smile. "But there have been cases of black treachery, dark conspiracies that one abhors. And Bell might have made some stupendous discovery regarding his character. I should see him, my lord; oh, yes, I should most undoubtedly see him."

"And so should I," Chris put in, swiftly.

Littimer smiled, with all traces of his ill-temper gone. He seemed to be contemplating Henson with his head on one side, as if to fathom that gentleman's intentions. There was just the suspicion of contempt in his glance.

"In the presence of so much goodness and beauty I feel quite lost," he said. "Very well, Henson, I'll see Bell. I may find the interview diverting."

Henson strolled away with a sigh of gentle pleasure. Once out of sight he flew to the library, where he scribbled a couple of telegrams. They were carefully worded and related to some apocryphal parcel required without delay, and calculated to convey nothing to the lay mind. A servant was despatched to the village with them. Henson would have been pleased had he known that the fascinating little American had waylaid his messenger and read his telegrams under the plea of verifying one of the addresses.

A moment or two later and those addresses were carefully noted down in a pocket-book. It was past five before Chris found herself with a little time on her hands again. Littimer had kept her pretty busy all the afternoon, partly because there was so much to do, but partly from the pleasure that he derived from his secretary's society. He was more free with her than he had been with any of her s.e.x for years. It was satisfactory, too, to learn that Littimer regarded Henson as a smug and oily hypocrite, and that the latter was only going to be left Littimer Castle to spite the owner's other relations.

"Now you run into the garden and get a blow." Littimer said at length. "I am telling you a lot too much. I am afraid you are a most insinuating young person."

Chris ran out into the garden gaily. Despite the crushing burden on her shoulders she felt an elation and a flow of spirits she had not been conscious of for years. The invigorating air of the place seemed to have got into her veins, the cruel depression of the House of the Silent Sorrow was pa.s.sing away. Again, she had hope and youth on her side, and everything was falling out beautifully. It was a pleasanter world than Chris had antic.i.p.ated.

She went along more quietly after a time. There was a tiny arbour on a terrace overlooking the sea to which Chris had taken a particular fancy.

She picked her way daintily along the gra.s.s paths between the roses until she suddenly emerged upon the terrace. She had popped out of the roses swiftly as a squirrel peeps from a tree.

Somebody was in the arbour, two people talking earnestly. One man stood up with his back to Chris, one hand gripping the outside ragged bark of the arbour frame with a peculiarly nervous, restless force.

Chris could see the hand turned back distinctly. A piece of bark was being crumbled under a strong thumb. Such a thumb! Chris had seen nothing like it before.

It was as if at some time it had been smashed flat with a hammer, a broad, strong, cruel-looking thumb, flat and sinister-looking as the head of a snake. In the centre, like a pink pearl dropped in a filthy gutter, was one tiny, perfectly-formed nail.

The owner of the thumb stepped back the better to give way to a fit of hoa.r.s.e laughter. He turned slightly aside and his eyes met those of Chris. They were small eyes set in a coa.r.s.e, brutal face, the face of a criminal, Chris thought, if she were a judge of such matters. It came quite as a shock to see that the stranger was in clerical garb.

"I--I beg your pardon," Chris stammered. "But I--"

Henson emerged from the arbour. For once in a way he appeared confused, there was a flush on his face that told of annoyance ill suppressed.

"Please don't go away," he said. "Mr. Merritt will think that he has alarmed you. Miss Lee, this is my very good friend and co-worker in the field, the Reverend James Merritt."

"Is Mr. Merritt a friend of Lord Littimer's?" Chris asked, demurely.

"Littimer hates the cloth," Henson replied "Indeed, he has no sympathy whatever with my work. I met my good friend quite by accident in the village just now, and I brought him here for a chat. Mr. Merritt is taking a well-earned holiday."

Chris replied graciously that she didn't doubt it. She did not deem it necessary to add that she knew that one of Mr. Henson's mystic telegrams had been addressed to one James Merritt at an address in Moreton Wells, a town some fifteen miles away. That the scoundrel was up to no good she knew perfectly well.

"Your work must be very interesting," she said. "Have you been in the Church long, Mr. Merritt?"

Merritt said hoa.r.s.ely that he had not been in the Church very long. His dreadful grin and fog voice suggested that he was a brand plucked from the burning, and that he had only recently come over to the side of the angels. The whole time he spoke he never met Chris's glance once. The chaplain of a convict prison would have turned from him in disgust.

Henson was obviously ill at ease. In his suave, diplomatic way he contrived to manoeuvre Merritt off the ground at length.

"An excellent fellow," he said, with exaggerated enthusiasm. "It was a great day for us when we won over James Merritt. He can reach a cla.s.s which hitherto we have not touched."

"He looks as if he had been in gaol," Chris said.

"Oh, he has," Henson admitted, candidly. "Many a time."

Chris deemed it just possible that the unpleasant experience might be endured again, but she only smiled and expressed herself to be deeply interested. The uneasiness in Henson's manner gradually disappeared.

Evidently the girl suspected nothing. She would have liked to have asked a question or two about Mr. Merritt's thumb, but she deemed it prudent not to do so.

Dinner came at length, dinner served in the great hall in honour of the recently arrived guest, and set up in all the panoply and splendour that Littimer affected at times. The best plate was laid out on the long table. There were banks and coppices of flowers at either corner, a huge palm nodded over silver and gla.s.s and priceless china. The softly shaded electric lights made pools of amber flame on fruit and flowers and gleaming crystal. Half-a-dozen big footmen went about their work with noiseless tread.

Henson shook his head playfully at all this show and splendour. His good humour was of the elephantine order, and belied the drawn anxiety of his eyes. Luxurious and peaceful as the scene was, there seemed to Chris to be a touch of electricity in the air, the suggestion of something about to happen. Littimer glanced at her admiringly. She was dressed in white satin, and she had in her hair a single diamond star of price.

"Of course Henson pretends to condemn all this kind of thing," Littimer said. "He would have you believe that when he comes into his own the plate and wine will be sold for the benefit of the poor, and the seats of the mighty filled with decayed governesses and antiquated shop-walkers."

"I hope that time may long be deferred," Henson murmured.

"And so do I," Littimer said, drily, "which is one of the disadvantages of being conservative. By the way, who was that truculent-looking scoundrel I saw with you this afternoon?"

Henson hastened to explain. Littimer was emphatically of opinion that such visitors were better kept at a distance for the present. When all the rare plate and treasures of Littimer Castle had been disposed of for philanthropic purposes it would not matter.

"There was a time when the enterprising burglar got his knowledge of the domestic and physical geography of a house from the servants. Now he reforms, with the great advantage that he can lay his plan of campaign from personal observation. It is a much more admirable method, and tends to avert suspicion from the actual criminal."

"You would not speak thus if you knew Merritt," said Henson.

"All the same, I don't want the privilege," Littimer smiled. "A man with a face like that couldn't reform; nature would resent such an enormity.

And yet you can never tell. Physically speaking, my quondam friend Hatherly Bell has a perfect face."

"I confess I am anxious to see him," Chris said. "I--I heard him lecture in America. He had the most interesting theory about dogs. Mr. Henson hates dogs."

"Yes," Henson said, shortly, "I do, and they hate me, but that does not prevent my being interested in the coming of Dr. Bell. And n.o.body hopes more sincerely than myself that he will succeed in clearly vindicating his character."

Littimer smiled sarcastically as he trifled with his claret gla.s.s. In his cynical way he was looking forward to the interview with a certain sense of amus.e.m.e.nt. And there was a time when he had enjoyed Bell's society immensely.

"Well, you will not have long to wait now," he said. "It is long past ten, and Bell is due at any moment after eleven. Coffee in the balcony, please."

It was a gloriously warm night, with just a faint suspicion of a breeze on the air. Down below the sea beat with a gentle sway against the cliffs; on the gra.s.sy slopes a belated lamb was bleating for its dam.