Chapter II: Part 2

I had plenty of spare time on my hands, and so it became my custom to drop in two or three times a week, and smoke a pipe and chat with Paul Dene. His conversation was always interesting, and the gentle resignation with which he bore his terrible affliction quickly won my heart. But I am not ashamed to confess that my frequent journeys to Oak Tree Road were also largely influenced by my desire to see Dorcas Dene, and hear more of her strange adventures and experiences as a lady detective.

From the moment she knew that her husband valued my companionship she treated me as one of the family, and when I was fortunate enough to find her at home, she discussed her professional affairs openly before me. I was grateful for this confidence, and frequently I was able to assist her by going about with her in cases where the presence of a male companion was a material advantage to her. I had upon one occasion laughingly dubbed myself her "assistant," and by that name I was afterwards generally known. There was only one drawback to the pleasure I felt at being associated with Dorcas Dene in her detective work. I saw that it would be quite impossible for me to avoid reproducing my experiences in some form or other. One day I broached the subject to her cautiously.

"Are you not afraid of the assistant one day revealing the professional secrets of his chief?" I said.

"Not at all," replied Dorcas (everybody called her Dorcas, and I fell into the habit when I found that she and her husband preferred it to the formal "Mrs. Dene"); "I am quite sure that you will not be able to resist the temptation."

"And you don't object?"

"Oh, no, but with this stipulation, that you will use the material in such a way as not to identify any of the cases with the real parties concerned."

That lifted a great responsibility from my shoulders, and made me more eager than ever to prove myself a valuable "assistant" to the charming lady who honoured me with her confidence.

* * * * * * *

We were sitting in the dining-room one evening after dinner. Mrs. Lester was looking contemptuously over the last number of the "Queen", and wondering out loud what on earth young women were coming to with their tailor-mades and their bicycle costumes. Paul was smoking the old briar-root pipe which had been his constant companion in the studio when he was able to paint, poor fellow, and Dorcas was lying down on the sofa. Toddlekins, nestled up close to her, was snoring gently after the manner of his kind.

Dorcas had had a hard and exciting week, and had not been ashamed to confess that she felt a little played out. She had just succeeded in rescuing a young lady of fortune from the toils of an unprincipled Russian adventurer, and stopping the marriage almost at the altar rails by the timely production of the record of the would-be bridegroom, which she obtained with the assistance of M. Goron, the head of the French detective police. It was a return compliment. Dorcas had only a short time previously undertaken for M. Goron a delicate investigation, in which the son of one of the noblest houses in France was involved, and had nipped in the bud a scandal which would have kept the Boulevards chattering for a month.

Paul and I were conversing below our voices, for Dorcas's measured breathing showed us that she had fallen into a doze.

Suddenly Toddlekins opened his eyes and uttered an angry bark. He had heard the front gate bell.

A minute later the servant entered and handed a card to her mistress, who, with her eyes still half closed, was sitting up on the sofa.

"The gentleman says he must see you at once, ma'am, on business of the greatest importance."

Dorcas looked at the card. "Show the gentleman into the dining-room," she said to the servant, "and say that I will be with him directly."

Then she went to the mantel-glass and smoothed away the evidence of her recent forty winks. "Do you know him at all?" she said, handing me the card.

"Colonel Hargreaves, Orley Park, near Godalming." I shook my head, and Dorcas, with a little tired sigh, went to see her visitor.

A few minutes later the dining-room bell rang, and presently the servant came into the drawing-room. "Please, sir," she said, addressing me, "mistress says will you kindly come to her at once?"

When I entered the dining-room I was astonished to see an elderly, soldierly-looking man lying back unconscious in the easy chair, and Dorcas Dene bending over him.

"I don't think it's anything but a faint," she said. "He's very excited and over-wrought, but if you'll stay here I'll go and get some brandy. You had better loosen his collar--or shall we send for a doctor?"

"No, I don't think it is anything serious," I said, after a hasty glance at the invalid.

As soon as Dorcas had gone I began to loosen the Colonel's cravat, but I had hardly commenced before, with a deep sigh, he opened his eyes and came to himself.

"You're better now," I said. "Come--that's all right."

The Colonel stared about him for a moment, and then said, "I--I--where is the lady?"

"She'll be here in a moment. She's gone to get some brandy."

"Oh, I'm all right now, thank you. I suppose it was the excitement, and I've been travelling, had nothing to eat, and I'm so terribly upset. I don't often do this sort of thing, I assure you."

Dorcas returned with the brandy. The Colonel brightened up directly she came into the room. He took the glass she offered him and drained the contents.

"I'm all right now," he said. "Pray let me get on with my story. I hope you will be able to take the case up at once. Let me see--where was I?"

He gave a little uneasy glance at me. "You can speak without reserve before this gentleman," said Dorcas. "It is possible he may be able to assist us if you wish me to come to Orley Park at once. So far you have told me that your only daughter, who is five-and-twenty, and lives with you, was found last night on the edge of the lake in your grounds, half in the water and half out. She was quite insensible, and was carried into the house and put to bed. You were in London at the time, and returned to Orley Park this morning in consequence of a telegram you received. That is as far as you had got when you became ill."

"Yes--yes!" exclaimed the Colonel, "but I am quite well again now. When I arrived at home this morning shortly before noon I was relieved to find that Maud--that is my poor girl's name--was quite conscious, and the doctor had left a message that I was not to be alarmed, and that he would return and see me early in the afternoon.

"I went at once to my daughter's room and found her naturally in a very low, distressed state. I asked her how it had happened, as I could not understand it, and she told me that she had gone out in the grounds after dinner and must have turned giddy when by the edge of the lake and fallen in."

"Is it a deep lake?" asked Dorcas.

"Yes, in the middle, but shallow near the edge. It is a largish lake, with a small fowl island in the centre, and we have a boat upon it."

"Probably it was a sudden fainting fit--such as you yourself have had just now. Your daughter may be subject to them."

"No, she is a thoroughly strong, healthy girl."

"I am sorry to have interrupted you," said Dorcas; "pray go on, for I presume there is something behind this accident besides a fainting fit, or you would not have come to engage my services in the matter."

"There is a great deal more behind it," replied Colonel Hargreaves, pulling nervously at his grey moustache. "I left my daughter's bedside devoutly thankful that Providence had preserved her from such a dreadful death, but when the doctor arrived he gave me a piece of information which caused me the greatest uneasiness and alarm."

"He didn't believe in the fainting fit?" said Dorcas, who had been closely watching the Colonel's features.

The Colonel looked at Dorcas Dene in astonishment. "I don't know how you have divined that," he said, "but your surmise is correct. The doctor told me that he had questioned Maud himself, and she had told him the same story--sudden giddiness and a fall into the water. But he had observed that on her throat there were certain marks, and that her wrists were bruised.

"When he told me this I did not at first grasp his meaning. 'It must have been the violence of the fall,' I said.

"The doctor shook his head and assured me that no accident would account for the marks his experienced eye had detected. The marks round the throat must have been caused by the clutch of an assailant. The wrists could only have been bruised in the manner they were by being held in a violent and brutal grip."

Dorcas Dene, who had been listening apparently without much interest, bent eagerly forward as the Colonel made this extraordinary statement. "I see," she said. "Your daughter told you that she had fallen into the lake, and the doctor assures you that she must have told you an untruth. She had been pushed or flung in by someone else after a severe struggle."

"Yes!"

"And the young lady, when you questioned her further, with this information in your possession, what did she say?"

"She appeared very much excited, and burst into tears. When I referred to the marks on her throat, which were now beginning to show discoloration more distinctly, she declared that she had invented the story of the faint in order not to alarm me--that she had been attacked by a tramp who must have got into the grounds, and that he had tried to rob her, and that in the struggle, which took place near the edge of the lake, he had thrown her down at the water's edge and then made his escape."

"And that explanation you _do_ accept?" said Dorcas, looking at the Colonel keenly.

"How can I? Why should my daughter try to screen a tramp? Why did she tell the doctor an untruth? Surely the first impulse of a terrified woman rescued from a terrible death would have been to have described her assailant in order that he might have been searched for and brought to justice."

"And the police, have they made any inquiries? Have they learned if any suspicious persons were seen about that evening?"

"I have not been to the police. I talked the matter over with the doctor. He says that the police inquiries would make the whole thing public property, and it would be known everywhere that my daughter's story, which has now gone all over the neighbourhood, was untrue. But the whole affair is so mysterious, and to me so alarming, that I could not leave it where it is. It was the doctor who advised me to come to you and let the inquiry be a private one."

"You need employ no one if your daughter can be persuaded to tell the truth. Have you tried?"

"Yes. But she insists that it was a tramp, and declares that until the bruises betrayed her she kept to the fainting-fit story in order to make the affair as little alarming to me as possible."

Dorcas Dene rose. "What time does the last train leave for Godalming?"

"In an hour," said the Colonel, looking at his watch. "At the station my carriage will be waiting to take us to Orley Court. I want you to stay beneath my roof until you have discovered the key to the mystery."

"No," said Dorcas, after a minute's thought. "I could do no good to-night, and my arrival with you would cause talk among the servants. Go back by yourself. Call on the doctor. Tell him to say his patient requires constant care during the next few days, and that he has sent for a trained nurse from London. The trained nurse will arrive about noon to-morrow."

"And you?" exclaimed the Colonel, "won't you come?"

Dorcas smiled. "Oh, yes; I shall be the trained nurse."

The Colonel rose. "If you can discover the truth and let me know what it is my daughter is concealing from me I shall be eternally grateful," he said. "I shall expect you to-morrow at noon."

"To-morrow at noon you will expect the trained nurse for whom the doctor has telegraphed. Good evening."

I went to the door with Colonel Hargreaves, and saw him down the garden to the front gate.

When I went back to the house Dorcas Dene was waiting for me in the hall. "Are you busy for the next few days?" she said.

"No--I have practically nothing to do."

"Then come to Godalming with me to-morrow. You are an artist, and I must get you permission to sketch that lake while I am nursing my patient indoors."

* * * * * * *

It was past noon when the fly, hired from the station, stopped at the lodge gates of Orley Park, and the lodge-keeper's wife opened them to let us in.

"You are the nurse for Miss Maud, I suppose, miss?" she said, glancing at Dorcas's neat hospital nurse's costume.

"Yes."

"The Colonel and the doctor are both at the house expecting you, miss--I hope it isn't serious with the poor young lady."

"I hope not," said Dorcas, with a pleasant smile.

A minute or two later the fly pulled up at the door of a picturesque old Elizabethan mansion. The Colonel, who had seen the fly from the window, was on the steps waiting for us, and at once conducted us into the library. Dorcas explained my presence in a few words. I was her assistant, and through me she would be able to make all the necessary inquiries in the neighbourhood.

"To your people Mr. Saxon will be an artist to whom you have given permission to sketch the house and the grounds--I think that will be best."

The Colonel promised that I should have free access at all hours to the grounds, and it was arranged that I should stay at a pretty little inn which was about half a mile from the park. Having received full instructions on the way down from Dorcas, I knew exactly what to do, and bade her good-bye until the evening, when I was to call at the house to see her.

The doctor came into the room to conduct the new nurse to the patient's bedside, and I left to fulfil my instructions.

At "The Chequers," which was the name of the inn, it was no sooner known that I was an artist, and had permission to sketch in the grounds of Orley Park, than the landlady commenced to entertain me with accounts of the accident which had nearly cost Miss Hargreaves her life.

The fainting-fit story, which was the only one that had got about, had been accepted in perfect faith.

"It's a lonely place, that lake, and there's nobody about the grounds, you see, at night, sir--it was a wonder the poor young lady was found so soon."

"Who found her?" I asked.

"One of the gardeners who lives in a cottage in the park. He'd been to Godalming for the evening, and was going home past the lake."

"What time was it?"

"Nearly ten o'clock. It was lucky he saw her, for it had been dark nearly an hour then, and there was no moon."

"What did he think when he found her?"

"Well, sir, to tell you the truth, he thought at first it was suicide, and that the young lady hadn't gone far enough in and had lost her senses."

"Of course, he couldn't have thought it was murder or anything of that sort," I said, "because nobody could get in at night--without coming through the lodge gates."

"Oh! yes, they could at one place, but it'ud have to be somebody who knew the dogs or was with someone who did. There's a couple of big mastiffs have got a good run there, and no stranger 'ud try to clamber over--it's a side gate used by the family, sir--after they'd started barking."

"Did they bark that night at all, do you know?"

"Well, yes," said the landlady. "Now I come to think of it, Mr. Peters--that's the lodge-keeper--heard 'em, but they was quiet in a minute, so he took no more notice."

That afternoon the first place I made up my mind to sketch was the Lodge. I found Mr. Peters at home, and my pass from the Colonel secured his good graces at once. His wife had told him of the strange gentleman who had arrived with the nurse, and I explained that there being only one fly at the station and our destination the same, the nurse had kindly allowed me to share the vehicle with her.

I made elaborate pencil marks and notes in my new sketching book, telling Mr. Peters I was only doing something preliminary and rough, in order to conceal the amateurish nature of my efforts, and keep the worthy man gossiping about the "accident" to his young mistress.

I referred to the landlady's statement that he had heard dogs bark that night.

"Oh, yes, but they were quiet directly."

"Probably some stranger passing down by the side gate, eh?"

"Most likely, sir. I was a bit uneasy at first, but when they quieted down I thought it was all right."

"Why were you uneasy?"

"Well, there'd been a queer sort of a looking man hanging about that evening. My missus saw him peering in at the lodge gates about seven o'clock."

"A tramp?"

"No, a gentlemanly sort of man, but he gave my missus a turn, he had such wild, staring eyes. But he spoke all right. My missus asked him what he wanted, and he asked her what was the name of the big house he could see, and who lived there. She told him it was Orley Park, and Colonel Hargreaves lived there, and he thanked her and went away. A tourist, maybe, sir, or perhaps an artist gentleman, like yourself."

"Staying in the neighbourhood and examining its beauties perhaps."

"No; when I spoke about it the next day in the town I heard as he'd come by the train that afternoon; the porters had noticed him, he seemed so odd."

I finished my rough sketch and then asked Mr. Peters to take me to the scene of the accident. It was a large lake and answered the description given by the Colonel.

"That there's the place where Miss Maud was found," said Mr. Peters. "You see it's shallow there, and her head was just on the bank here out of the water."

"Thank you. That's a delightful little island in the middle. I'll smoke a pipe here and sketch. Don't let me detain you."

The lodge-keeper retired, and obeying the instructions received from Dorcas Dene, I examined the spot carefully.

The marks of hobnailed boots were distinctly visible in the mud at the side, near the place where the struggle, admitted by Miss Hargreaves, had taken place. They might be the tramp's--they might be the gardener's; I was not skilled enough in the art of footprints to determine. But I had obtained a certain amount of information, and with that, at seven o'clock, I went to the house and asked for the Colonel.

I had, of course, nothing to say to him, except to ask him to let Dorcas Dene know that I was there. In a few minutes Dorcas came to me with her bonnet and cloak on.

"I'm going to get a walk while it is light," she said; "come with me."

Directly we were outside I gave her my information, and she at once decided to visit the lake.

She examined the scene of the accident carefully, and I pointed out the hobnailed boot marks.

"Yes," she said, "those are the gardener's probably--I'm looking for someone else's."

"Whose?"

"These," she said, suddenly stopping and pointing to a series of impressions in the soil at the edge. "Look--here are a woman's footprints, and here are larger ones beside them--now close to--now a little way apart--now crossing each other. Do you see anything particular in these footprints?"

"No--except that there are no nails in them."

"Exactly--the footprints are small, but larger than Miss Hargreaves' --the shape is an elegant one, you see the toes are pointed, and the sole is a narrow one. No tramp would have boots like those. Where did you say Mrs. Peters saw that strange-looking gentleman?"

"Peering through the lodge gates."

"Let us go there at once."

Mrs. Peters came out and opened the gates for us.

"What a lovely evening," said Dorcas. "Is the town very far?"

"Two miles, miss."

"Oh, that's too far for me to-night."

She took out her purse and selected some silver.

"Will you please send down the first thing in the morning and buy me a bottle of Wood Violet scent at the chemist's. I always use it, and I've come away without any."

She was just going to hand some silver to Mrs. Peters, when she dropped her purse in the roadway, and the money rolled in every direction.

We picked most of it up, but Dorcas declared there was another half-sovereign. For fully a quarter of an hour she peered about in every direction outside the lodge gates for that missing half-sovereign, and I assisted her. She searched for quite ten minutes in one particular spot, a piece of sodden, loose roadway close against the right-hand gate.

Suddenly she exclaimed that she had found it, and, slipping her hand into her pocket, rose, and, handing Mrs. Peters a five-shilling piece for the scent, beckoned me to follow her, and strolled down the road.

"How came you to drop your purse? Are you nervous to-night?" I said.

"Not at all," replied Dorcas, with a smile. "I dropped my purse that the money might roll and give me an opportunity of closely examining the ground outside the gates."

"Did you really find your half-sovereign?"

"I never lost one; but I found what I wanted."

"And that was?"

"The footprints of the man who stood outside the gates that night. They are exactly the same shape as those by the side of the lake. The person Maud Hargreaves struggled with that night, the person who flung her into the lake and whose guilt she endeavoured to conceal by declaring she had met with an accident, was the man who wanted to know the name of the place, and asked who lived there--_the man with the wild eyes._"

_IV. THE SECRET OF THE LAKE_

"You are absolutely certain that the footprints of the man with the wild eyes, who frightened Mrs. Peters at the gate, and the footprints which are mixed up with those of Miss Hargreaves by the side of the lake, are the same?" I said to Dorcas Dene.

"Absolutely certain."

"Then perhaps, if you describe him, the Colonel may be able to recognise him."

"No," said Dorcas Dene, "I have already asked him if he knew anyone who could possibly bear his daughter a grudge, and he declares that there is no one to his knowledge. Miss Hargreaves has scarcely any acquaintances."

"And has had no love affair?" I asked.

"None, her father says, but of course he can only answer for the last three years. Previously to that he was in India, and Maud--who was sent home at the age of fourteen, when her mother died--had lived with an aunt at Norwood."

"Who do you think this man was who managed to get into the grounds and meet or surprise Miss Hargreaves by the lake--a stranger to her?"

"No; had he been a stranger, she would not have shielded him by inventing the fainting fit story."

We had walked some distance from the house, when an empty station fly passed us. We got in, Dorcas telling the man to drive us to the station.

When we got there, she told me to go and interview the porters and try and find out if a man of the description of our suspect had left on the night of the "accident."

I found the man who had told Mr. Peters that he had seen such a person arrive, and had noticed the peculiar expression of his eyes. This man assured me that no such person had left from that station. He had told his mates about him, and some of them would be sure to have seen him. The stranger brought no luggage, and gave up a single ticket from Waterloo.

Dorcas was waiting for me outside, and I gave her my information.

"No luggage," she said; "then he wasn't going to an hotel or to stay at a private house."

"But he might be living somewhere about."

"No; the porters would have recognised him if he had been in the habit of coming here."

"But he must have gone away after flinging Miss Hargreaves into the water. He might have got out of the grounds again and walked to another station, and caught a train back to London."

"Yes, he might," said Dorcas, "but I don't think he did. Come, we'll take the fly back to Orley Park."

Just before we reached the park Dorcas stopped the driver, and we got out and dismissed the man.

"Whereabouts are those dogs--near the private wooden door in the wall used by the family, aren't they?" she said to me.

"Yes, Peters pointed the spot out to me this afternoon."

"Very well, I'm going in. Meet me by the lake to-morrow morning about nine. But watch me now as far as the gates. I'll wait outside five minutes before ringing. When you see I'm there, go to that portion of the wall near the private door. Clamber up and peer over. When the dogs begin to bark, and come at you, notice if you could possibly drop over and escape them without someone they knew called them off. Then jump down again and go back to the inn."

I obeyed Dorcas's instructions; and when I had succeeded in climbing to the top of the wall, the dogs flew out of their kennel, and commenced to bark furiously. Had I dropped I must have fallen straight into their grip. Suddenly I heard a shout, and I recognised the voice--it was the lodge-keeper. I dropped back into the road and crept along in the shadow of the wall. In the distance I could hear Peters talking to someone, and I knew what had happened. In the act of letting Dorcas in, he had heard the dogs, and had hurried off to see what was the matter. Dorcas had followed him.

* * * * * * *

At nine o'clock next morning I found Dorcas waiting for me.

"You did your work admirably last night," she said. "Peters was in a terrible state of alarm. He was very glad for me to come with him. He quieted the dogs, and we searched about everywhere in the shrubbery to see if anyone was in hiding. That man wasn't let in at the door that night by Miss Hargreaves; he dropped over. I found the impression of two deep footprints close together, exactly as they would be made by a drop or jump down from a height."

"Did he go back that way--_were there return footprints_?"

I thought I had made a clever suggestion, but Dorcas smiled, and shook her head. "I didn't look. How could he return past the dogs when Miss Hargreaves was lying in the lake? They'd have torn him to pieces."

"And you still think this man with the wild eyes is guilty? Who can he have been?"

"His name was Victor."

"You have discovered that!" I exclaimed. "Has Miss Hargreaves been talking to you?"

"Last night I tried a little experiment. When she was asleep, and evidently dreaming, I went quietly in the dark and stood just behind the bed, and in the gruffest voice I could assume, I said, bending down to her ear, 'Maud!'

"She started up, and cried out, 'Victor!'

"In a moment I was by her side, and found her trembling violently. 'What's the matter, dear?' I said, 'have you been dreaming?'

"'Yes--yes,' she said. 'I--I was dreaming.'

"I soothed her, and talked to her a little while, and finally she lay down again and fell asleep."

"That's something," I said "to have got the man's Christian name."

"Yes, it's a little, but I think we shall have the surname to-day. You must go up to town and do a little commission for me presently. In the meantime, pull that boat in and row me across to the fowl island. I want to search it."

"You don't imagine the man's hiding there," I said. "It's too small."

"Pull me over," said Dorcas, getting into the boat.

I obeyed, and presently we were on the little island.

Dorcas carefully surveyed the lake in every direction. Then she walked round and examined the foliage and the reeds that were at the edge and drooping into the water.

Suddenly pushing a mass of close overhanging growth aside, she thrust her hand deep down under it into the water and drew up a black, saturated, felt hat.

"I thought if anything drifted that night, this is where it would get caught and entangled," said Dorcas.

"If it is that man's hat, he must have gone away bareheaded."

"Quite so," replied Dorcas, "but first let us ascertain if it is his. Row ashore at once."

She wrung the water from the hat, squeezed it together and wrapped it up in her pocket-handkerchief and put it under her cloak.

When we were ashore, I went to the lodge and got Mrs. Peters on to the subject of the man with the wild eyes. Then I asked what sort of a hat he had on, and Mrs. Peters said it was a felt hat with a dent in the middle, and I knew that our find was a good one.

When I told Dorcas she gave a little smile of satisfaction.

"We've got his Christian name and his hat," she said; "now we want the rest of him. You can catch the 11.20 easily."

"Yes."

She drew an envelope from her pocket and took a carte de visite from it.

"That's the portrait of a handsome young fellow," she said. "By the style and size I should think it was taken four or five years ago. The photographers are the London Stereoscopic Company--the number of the negative is 111,492. If you go to Regent Street, they will search their books and give you the name and address of the original. Get it, and come back here."

"Is that the man?" I said.

"I think so."

"How on earth did you get it?"

"I amused myself while Miss Hargreaves was asleep by looking over the album in her boudoir. It was an old album, and filled with portraits of relatives and friends. I should say there were over fifty, some of them being probably her school-fellows. I thought I _might_ find something, you know. People have portraits given them, put them in an album, and almost forget they are there. I fancied Miss Hargreaves might have forgotten."

"But how did you select this from fifty? There were other male portraits, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes, but I took out every portrait and examined the back and the margin."

I took the photo from Dorcas and looked at it. I noticed that a portion of the back had been rubbed away and was rough.

"That's been done with an ink eraser," said Dorcas. "That made me concentrate on this particular photo. There has been a name written there or some word the recipient didn't want other eyes to see."

"That is only surmise."

"Quite so--but there's a certainty in the photo itself. Look closely at that little diamond scarf-pin in the necktie. What shape is it?"

"It looks like a small V."

"Exactly. It was fashionable a few years ago for gentlemen to wear a small initial pin. V. stands for Victor--take that and the erasure together, and I think it's worth a return fare to town to find out what name and address are opposite the negative number in the books of the London Stereoscopic Company."

* * * * * * *

Before two o'clock I was interviewing the manager of the Stereoscopic Company, and he readily referred to the books. The photograph had been taken six years previously, and the name and address of the sitter were "Mr. Victor Dubois, Anerley Road, Norwood."

Following Dorcas Dene's instructions, I proceeded at once to the address given, and made enquiries for a Mr. Victor Dubois. No one of that name resided there. The present tenants had been in possession for three years.

As I was walking back along the road I met an old postman. I thought I would ask him if he knew the name anywhere in the neighbourhood. He thought a minute, then said, "Yes--now I come to think of it there was a Dubois here at No. --, but that was five years ago or more. He was an oldish, white-haired gentleman."

"An old gentleman--Victor Dubois!"

"Ah, no--the old gentleman's name was Mounseer Dubois, but there was a Victor. I suppose that must have been his son as lived with him. I know the name. There used to be letters addressed there for Mr. Victor most every day--sometimes twice a day--always in the same hand-writing, a lady's--that's what made me notice it."

"And you don't know where M. Dubois and his son went to?"

"No, I did hear as the old gentleman went off his head, and was put in a lunatic asylum; but they went out o' my round."

"You don't know what he was, I suppose?"

"Oh, it said on the brass plate, 'Professor of Languages.'"

I went back to town and took the first train to Godalming, and hastened to Orley Court to report the results of my enquiries to Dorcas.

She was evidently pleased, for she complimented me. Then she rang the bell--we were in the dining-room--and the servant entered.

"Will you let the Colonel know that I should like to see him?" said Dorcas, and the servant went to deliver the message.

"Are you going to tell him everything?" I said.

"I am going to tell him nothing yet," replied Dorcas. "I want him to tell me something."

The Colonel entered. His face was worn, and he was evidently worrying himself a great deal.

"Have you anything to tell me?" he said eagerly. "Have you found out what my poor girl is hiding from me?"

"I'm afraid I cannot tell you yet. But I want to ask you a few questions."

"I have given you all the information I can already," replied the Colonel a little bitterly.

"All you recollect, but now try and think. Your daughter, before you came back from India, was with her aunt at Norwood. Where was she educated from the time she left India?"

"She went to school at Brighton at first, but from the time she was sixteen she had private instruction at home."

"She had professors, I suppose, for music, French, etc.?"

"Yes, I believe so. I paid bills for that sort of thing. My sister sent them out to me to India."

"Can you remember the name of Dubois?"

The Colonel thought a little while.

"Dubois? Dubois? Dubois?" he said. "I have an idea there was such a name among the accounts my sister sent to me, but whether it was a dressmaker or a French master I really can't say."

"Then I think we will take it that your daughter had lessons at Norwood from a French professor named Dubois. Now, in any letters that your late sister wrote you to India, did she ever mention anything that had caused her uneasiness on Maud's account?"

"Only once," replied the Colonel, "and everything was satisfactorily explained afterwards. She left home one day at nine o'clock in the morning, and did not return until four in the afternoon. Her aunt was exceedingly angry, and Maud explained that she had met some friends at the Crystal Palace--she attended the drawing class there--had gone to see one of her fellow students off at the station, and sitting in the carriage, the train had started before she could get out and she had had to go on to London. I expect my sister told me that to show me how thoroughly I might rely upon her as my daughter's guardian."

"Went on to London?" said Dorcas to me under her voice, "and she could have got out in three minutes at the next station to Norwood!" Then turning to the Colonel, she said, "Now, Colonel, when your wife died, what did you do with her wedding ring?"

"Good heavens, madam!" exclaimed the Colonel, rising and pacing the room, "what can my poor wife's wedding ring have to do with my daughter's being flung into the lake yonder?"

"I am sorry if my question appears absurd," replied Dorcas quietly, "but will you kindly answer it?"

"My wife's wedding ring is on my dead wife's finger in her coffin in the graveyard at Simla," exclaimed the Colonel, "and now perhaps you'll tell me what all this means!"

"To-morrow," said Dorcas. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll take a walk with Mr. Saxon. Miss Hargreaves' maid is with her, and she will be all right until I return."

"Very well, very well!" exclaimed the Colonel, "but I beg--I pray of you to tell me what you know as soon as you can. I am setting spies upon my own child, and to me it is monstrous--and yet--and yet-- what can I do? She won't tell me, and for her sake I must know--I must know."

"You shall, Colonel Hargreaves," said Dorcas, going up to him and holding out her hand. "Believe me, you have my sincerest sympathy."

The old Colonel grasped the proffered hand of Dorcas Dene.

"Thank you," he said, his lips quivering.

* * * * * * *

Directly we were in the grounds Dorcas Dene turned eagerly to me.

"I'm treating you very badly," she said, "but our task is nearly over. You must go back to town to-night. The first thing to-morrow morning go to Somerset House. You will find an old fellow named Daddy Green, a searcher in the inquiry room. Tell him you come from me, and give him this paper. When he has searched, telegraph the result to me, and come back by the next train."

I looked at the paper, and found written on it in Dorcas's hand:

"_Search wanted._ Marriage--Victor Dubois and Maud Eleanor Hargreaves--probably between the years 1890 and 1893--London."

I looked up from the paper at Dorcas Dene.

"Whatever makes you think she is a married woman?" I said.

"This," exclaimed Dorcas, drawing an unworn wedding-ring from her purse. "I found it among a lot of trinkets at the bottom of a box her maid told me was her jewel-case. I took the liberty of trying all her keys till I opened it. A jewel-box tells many secrets to those who know how to read them."

"And you concluded from that----?

"That she wouldn't keep a wedding-ring without it had belonged to someone dear to her or had been placed on her own finger. It is quite unworn, you see, so it was taken off immediately after the ceremony. It was only to make doubly sure that I asked the Colonel where his wife's was."

* * * * * * *

I duly repaired to Somerset House, and soon after midday Daddy Green, the searcher, brought a paper and handed it to me. It was a copy of the certificate of the marriage of Victor Dubois, bachelor, aged twenty-six, and Maud Eleanor Hargreaves, aged twenty-one, in London, in the year 1891. I telegraphed the news, wording the message simply "Yes," and the date, and I followed my wire by the first train.

When I arrived at Orley Park I rang several times before anyone came. Presently Mrs. Peters, looking very white and excited, came from the grounds and apologised for keeping me waiting.

"Oh, sir--such a dreadful thing!" she said--"a body in the lake!"

"A body!"

"Yes, sir--a man. The nurse as came with you here that day, she was rowing herself on the lake, and she must have stirred it pushing with her oar, for it come up all tangled with weeds. It's a man, sir, and I do believe it's the man I saw at the gate that night."

"_The man with the wild eyes!_" I exclaimed.

"Yes sir! Oh, it is dreadful--Miss Maud first, and then this. Oh, what can it mean!"

I found Dorcas standing at the edge of the lake, and Peters and two of the gardeners lifting the drowned body of a man into the boat which was alongside.

Dorcas was giving instructions. "Lay it in the boat, and cover it with a tarpaulin," she said. "Mind, nothing is to be touched till the police come. I will go and find the Colonel."

As she turned away I met her.

"What a terrible thing! Is it Dubois?"

"Yes," replied Dorcas. "I suspected he was there yesterday, but I wanted to find him myself instead of having the lake dragged."

"Why?"

"Well, I didn't want anyone else to search the pockets. There might have been papers or letters, you know, which would have been read at the inquest, and might have compromised Miss Hargreaves. But there was nothing--"

"What--you searched!"

"Yes, after I'd brought the poor fellow to the surface with the oars."

"But how do you think he got in?"

"Suicide--insanity. The father was taken to a lunatic asylum--you learned that at Norwood yesterday. Son doubtless inherited tendency. Looks like a case of homicidal mania--he attacked Miss Hargreaves, whom he had probably tracked after years of separation, and after he had as he thought killed her, he drowned himself. At any rate, Miss Hargreaves is a free woman. She was evidently terrified of her husband when he was alive, and so--"

I guessed what Dorcas was thinking as we went together to the house. At the door she held out her hand. "You had better go to the inn and return to town to-night," she said. "You can do no more good, and had better keep out of it. I shall be home to-morrow. Come to Oak Tree Road in the evening."

* * * * * * *

The next evening Dorcas told me all that had happened after I left. Paul had already heard it, and when I arrived was profuse in his thanks for the assistance I had rendered his wife. Mrs. Lester, however, felt compelled to remark that she never thought a daughter of hers would go gadding about the country fishing up corpses for a living.

Dorcas had gone to the Colonel and told him everything. The Colonel was in a terrible state, but Dorcas told him that the only way in which to ascertain the truth was for them to go to the unhappy girl together, and attempt, with the facts in their possession, to persuade her to divulge the rest.

When the Colonel told his daughter that the man she had married had flung her into the lake that night, she was dumbfounded, and became hysterical, but when she learned that Dubois had been found in the lake she became alarmed and instantly told all she knew.

She had been in the habit of meeting Victor Dubois constantly when she was at Norwood, at first with his father--her French master--and afterwards alone. He was handsome, young, romantic, and they fell madly in love. He was going away for some time to an appointment abroad, and he urged her to marry him secretly. She foolishly consented, and they parted at the church, she returning to her home and he going abroad the same evening.

She received letters from him clandestinely from time to time. Then he wrote that his father had become insane and had to be removed to a lunatic asylum, and he was returning. He had only time to see to his father's removal and return to his appointment. She did not hear from him for a long time, and then through a friend at Norwood who knew the Dubois and their relatives she made enquiries. Victor had returned to England, and met with an accident which had injured his head severely. He became insane and was taken to a lunatic asylum.

The poor girl resolved to keep her marriage a secret for ever then, especially as her father had returned from India, and she knew how bitterly it would distress him to learn that his daughter was the wife of a madman.

On the night of the affair Maud was in the grounds by herself. She was strolling by the lake after dinner, when she heard a sound, and the dogs began to bark. Looking up, she saw Victor Dubois scaling the wall. Fearful that the dogs would bring Peters or someone on the scene, she ran to them and silenced them, and her husband leapt down and stood by her.

"Come away!" she said, fearing the dogs might attack him and begin to bark again, and she led him round by the lake which was out of sight of the house and the lodge.

She forgot for the moment in her excitement that he had been mad. At first he was gentle and kind. He told her he had been ill and in an asylum, but had recently been discharged cured. Directly he regained his liberty he set out in search of his wife, and ascertained from an old Norwood acquaintance that Miss Hargreaves was now living with her father at Orley Park, near Godalming.

Maud begged him to go away quietly, and she would write to him. He tried to take her in his arms and kiss her, but instinctively she shrank from him. Instantly he became furious. Seized with a sudden mania, he grasped her by the throat. She struggled and freed herself.

They were at the edge of the lake. Suddenly the maniac got her by the throat again, and hurled her down into the water. She fell in up to her waist, but managed to drag herself towards the edge, but before she emerged she fell senseless--fortunately with her head on the shore just out of the water.

The murderer, probably thinking that she was dead, must have waded out into the deep water and drowned himself.

Before she left Orley Park Dorcas advised the Colonel to let the inquest be held without any light being thrown on the affair by him. Only he was to take care that the police received information that a man answering the description of the suicide had recently been discharged from a lunatic asylum.

We heard later that at the inquest an official from the asylum attended, and the local jury found that Victor Dubois, a lunatic, got into the grounds in some way, and drowned himself in the lake while temporarily insane. It was suggested by the coroner that probably Miss Hargreaves, who was too unwell to attend, had not seen the man, but might have been alarmed by the sound of his footsteps, and that this would account for her fainting away near the water's edge. At any rate, the inquest ended in a satisfactory verdict, and the Colonel shortly afterwards took his daughter abroad with him on a Continental tour for the benefit of her health.

But of this of course we knew nothing on the evening after the eventful discovery, when I met Dorcas once more beneath her own roof-tree.

Paul was delighted to have his wife back again, and she devoted herself to him, and that evening had eyes and ears for no one else--not even for her faithful "assistant."

_V. THE DIAMOND LIZARD_

I had received a little note from Dorcas Dene, telling me that Paul and her mother had gone to the seaside for a fortnight, and that she was busy on a case which was keeping her from home, so that it would not be of any use my calling at Oak Tree Road at present, as I should find no one there but the servants and whitewashers.

It had been a very hot July, but I was unable to leave town myself, having work on hand which compelled me to be on the spot. But I got away from the close, dusty streets during the daytime as frequently as I could, and one hot, broiling afternoon I found myself in a brown holland suit on the terrace of the "Star and Garter" at Richmond, vainly endeavouring to ward off the fierce rays of the afternoon sun with one of those white umbrellas which are common enough on the Continent, but rare enough to attract attention in a land where fashion is one thing and comfort another.

My favourite "Star and Garter" waiter, Karl, an amiable and voluble little German, who, during a twenty years' residence in England, had acquired the English waiter's love of betting on horse-races, had personally attended to my wants, and brought me a cup of freshly-made black coffee and a petit verre of specially fine Courvoisier, strongly recommended by Mr. James, the genial and obliging manager. Comforted by the coffee and overpowered by the heat, I was just dropping off into a siesta, when I was attracted by a familiar voice addressing me by name.

I raised my umbrella, and at first imagined that I must have made a mistake. The voice was undoubtedly that of Dorcas Dene, but the lady who stood smiling in front of me was to all outward appearance an American tourist. There was the little courier bag attached to the waist-belt, with which we always associate the pretty American accent during the great American touring season. The lady in front of me was beautifully dressed, and appeared through the veil she was wearing to be young and well-favoured, but her hair was silvery grey and her complexion that of a brunette. Now Dorcas Dene was a blonde with soft brown wavy hair, and so I hesitated for a moment, imagining that I must have fallen into a half doze and have dreamed that I heard Dorcas calling me.

The lady, who evidently noticed my doubt and hesitation, smiled and came close to the garden seat on which I had made myself as comfortable as the temperature would allow me.

"Good afternoon," she said. "I saw you lunching in the restaurant, but I couldn't speak to you then. I'm here on business."

It _was_ Dorcas Dene.

"I have half an hour to spare," she said. "My people are at the little table yonder. They've just ordered their coffee, so they won't be going yet."

She sat down at the other end of the garden seat, and, following a little inclination of her parasol, I saw that the "people" she alluded to were a young fellow of about three-and-twenty, a handsome woman of about five-and-thirty, rather loudly dressed, and a remarkably pretty girl in a charming tailor-made costume of some soft white material, and a straw hat with a narrow red ribbon round it. The young lady wore a red sailor's-knot tie over a white shirt. The red of the hat-band and the tie showed out against the whiteness of the costume, and were conspicuous objects in the bright sunlight.

"How beautiful the river is from here," said Dorcas, after I had inquired how Paul was, and had learnt that he was at Eastbourne in apartments with Mrs. Lester, and that the change had benefited his health considerably.

As she spoke Dorcas drew a small pair of glasses from her pocket, and appeared very much interested in a little boat with a big white sail, making its way lazily down the river, which glistened like a sheet of silver in the sunlight.

"Yes," I said, "it's a scene that always delights our American visitors, but I suppose you're not here to admire the beauties of the Thames?"

"No," said Dorcas, laughing. "If I had leisure for that I should be at Eastbourne with my poor old Paul. I've a case in hand."

"And the _case_ is yonder--the young man, the lady, and the pretty girl with the red tie?"

Dorcas nodded assent. "Yes--she is pretty, isn't she? Take my glasses and include her in the scenery, and then, if you are not too fascinated to spare a glance for anybody else, look at the young gentleman."

I took the hint and the glasses. The young lady was more than pretty; she was as perfect a specimen of handsome English girlhood as I had ever seen. I looked from her to the elder lady, and was struck by the contrast. She was much too bold-looking and showy to be the companion of so modest-looking and bewitching a damsel.