Chapter III: Part 3

In the meantime Bernard Boyne had been startled by the ringing of the bell, yet in the full knowledge that Mrs. Felmore could hear nothing. That secret alarm had, as a matter of fact, been installed with his own hands about two months before, with its switch concealed in the upstairs room.

On hearing it, he instantly flung off his white cloak and dashed headlong down the stairs.

In the hall, however, he halted and burst out laughing.

"Fool you are, Bernard!" he exclaimed aloud to himself. "Yes, you are getting more nervous every day!"

The reason of this was because close to the front door sat Mrs. Felmore's black cat, waiting to be let out for the night.

"Ah, pussy!" he exclaimed. "So it is you who ran silently down the stairs and set off the gong, eh?"

And, opening the door, he let out the cat, saying:

"Out you go, Jimmy, and don't do it again."

Then he reascended the stairs to the locked room, perfectly satisfied with the solution of what a few moments before had caused him very considerable alarm.

No intruder would be tolerated in that dingy house--the house of great mystery.

He carried in his hand a small bottle of meat extract which he had taken from the sideboard in the parlour, and was fully satisfied that it was the cat who had set off the alarm.

As Gerald and Marigold sat side by side in the train, they could not converse because of the noise, but at Earl's Court, where they changed, the girl for Wimbledon Park and her lover bound in the opposite direction, Marigold halted on the platform, and said:

"I feel worried about auntie, Gerald. There's something wrong in that house. Don't you think so?"

"Frankly, I do," was the young man's reply. "That he sets an alarm when he visits the mysterious person concealed in that locked room is in itself a most remarkable feature of the affair, which is one we must certainly probe to the bottom."

"But Mr. Boyne is such a nice man. Everyone speaks so well of him. In all Hammersmith I don't think he has a single enemy, save those who are jealous of his local popularity. And there are always such."

"As I've said before, Marigold, the men who are deep schemers always take care to establish a high reputation locally. This Mr. Boyne has, no doubt, done so with some ulterior motive."

"And that motive we mean to find out," said the girl decisively.

"We will," he said, in a hard voice. "I feel confident that we are on the track of some very sensational affair."

"Who can be the person who is hiding?"

"Ah! that remains to be seen. It is evidently someone who dare not show his face--not only in the light of day, but even at night."

"But why does Mr. Boyne wear that hideous robe with slits for the eyes?" asked Marigold, bewildered, as they walked to the stairs.

"At present, I can't imagine. But we shall know the truth very soon, never fear," the young man replied. And then, lifting his hat politely, he shook her hand, and they parted after a very adventurous evening.

As Gerald Durrant travelled back to his home, he reflected deeply upon the whole affair. Though he had not dared to mention the fact to Marigold, he was more deeply in love with her than ever. She was the most dainty and most beautiful girl he had ever met. She was chic to the finger-tips, and among the many girl clerks he met daily she was outstanding on account of her refinement, her modesty, and the sweet expression always upon her countenance.

Yet the problem which she had put forward to him was certainly an inscrutable one. Boyne, the highly respectable, hard-working insurance agent, lived in that dingy and rather stuffy house surrounded by meagre comfort which, in itself, betokened modest means. For every penny Bernard Boyne gained he worked very hard. Insurance agency is not highly-paid, for everything is nowadays cut to a minimum, while since the war the cost of living has soared.

Nevertheless, as he sat in the train taking him westward, he examined the facts. Boyne employed as housekeeper a woman who was stone-deaf. Why? Was it because the person confined behind that stout door upstairs sometimes shouted and made noises which would have attracted the attention of any person who possessed the sense of hearing?

That this was so he was convinced. Had it not been proved by Boyne carrying food to the mysterious person who was his captive, or who remained in voluntary concealment?

If the latter, why did he disguise himself each time he paid him a visit?

No. Somebody was held there captive against his will, and the reason of the wearing of that cloak was in order that the captor should remain unknown and unidentified. Truly, there was an element of sensationalism in the whole affair!

He was, however, determined to get to the bottom of it. Marigold had, in her perplexity, consulted him, and he had given his aid. Now, having witnessed what he had, he meant to carry the affair through, and solve the mystery of Bernard Boyne and his locked room in Hammersmith.

It occurred to him that perhaps by watching Boyne's movements he might learn something of interest. The unfortunate part of it was that in his position he was engaged all day, and could never have any time to devote to the affair till six or seven o'clock. Nevertheless, he had made a firm resolve to discover the reason of that locked room, and the identity of the person concealed within.

Supposing the person to be some relative who was insane, or whose personal appearance was too horrible to be seen in public--and there are all sorts of human monstrosities living in concealment in London--then there could be no reason why Boyne should hide his face when visiting him. No. Somebody was held there, a prisoner in solitary confinement.

He recollected the heavy door, and the light beneath. Did they not tell their own tale?

"London contains many mysteries of crime," he said to himself as he alighted at the station and strolled home. "And here is one, I feel sure. Boyne is playing some clever game. Perhaps he seeks to inherit property belonging to the person whom he holds in captivity, and whose death may indeed have been registered!"

Such a case--and more than one--was on record. Cases of people presumed by the law to be dead, yet they were still alive, held in confinement by those who benefited by their money.

Durrant, who had read deeply of the mysteries of crime, recollected the case of Mrs. Marvin, of Hounslow; of George Charles Pepper, of Richmond; or Doctor Heaton, of Curzon Street; the celebrated case of the sisters Tredgold, and others, all of whom were concerned in the holding in bondage of those whose fortunes they secured.

His inclination led him to go direct to Scotland Yard, and reveal what he had heard and seen, but Marigold had urged him to refrain from doing so until they had investigated further. She held Mr. Boyne in such high esteem, and her aunt held such a comfortable post, that she was most reluctant to put any suspicions before the police. It was in accordance with the girl's wishes that he did not go straight to the Criminal Investigation Department. Yet he knew too well that the police, who discover so many "mare's nests" daily, are slow to move until a tragedy occurs. And then it is often too late, for the perpetrators of the crime have vanished, either abroad, or into one or other of the criminal bolt-holes which are ever open to those who know.

The public never realise that in the great underworld of London there are people who make a living--and a very good one, too--by successfully concealing for weeks, months, nay, years, those for whom the emissaries of Scotland Yard are in search. The clever criminal knows of these burrows where he can live quite cosily, and surrounded by comforts, defying all police inquiries until the hue and cry has died down, and then as a stoker-fireman, or in some menial capacity, he gets abroad a free man--free to enjoy the proceeds of his crimes.

At first Gerald Durrant had suspected Bernard Boyne to be one of those obliging persons who offer safe asylum to criminals, but the wearing of that ghostly cloak by the owner of the house dispelled any such theory.

No. As he entered the house, after that exciting evening, he was firmly convinced that Boyne held somebody--man or woman--in captivity.

And he intended, at all hazards, to learn the truth.

*CHAPTER VIII*

*ON LOCH LOMOND*

A bright brilliant day on glorious Loch Lomond, which, with its wooded islands, is one of the most picturesque of all the Scottish lakes.

The grey little steamer, which that morning had left Balloch Pier at the southern end of the loch, was slowly threading its way through the green islets in the afternoon sunshine. Crowded as it always is in fine weather with visitors from the south, all full of admiration as at every turn there came into view fresh aspects of the woods and mountains around Ben Lomond, standing high and majestic, Ben Vane, Ben Vorlick, the twin peaks of Ben Cruachan, and the tent-shaped Ben More.

The silent grandeur of the loch, where in the deep waters, smooth as glass, the heron fishes undisturbed, is always impressive. Even on that unusually clear autumn day--for mists and rains are more often than not drifting up and down that twenty-five miles or so of picturesque water, which is sometimes as wide as five miles--those who had come up from Edinburgh or Glasgow to make the trip, stood open-mouthed at the ever-changing scene as the steamer wended its way up the loch after leaving the remote little village of Luss.

Among those on board, seated in a deck-chair and enjoying the beautiful afternoon, was a well-dressed woman of middle-age, with auburn hair, and rather sad-faced, but very well preserved. Once or twice her maid, a short, stout little Scotchwoman, whose speech was that of a Glaswegian, came to wait upon her, afterwards retiring to another part of the boat.

The lady's eyes were fixed upon the gorgeous panorama. Beside her chair was a well-worn dressing-bag in dark-green cover, which showed that she was not a mere day traveller, but had come to Loch Lomond to stay at one of the unpretentious lakeside hotels, of which there are several at Tarbet and at Inversnaid. Though she was greatly enjoying the scenery, it was not in the least fresh to her. Indeed, Mrs. Morrison, of Carsphairn, was an annual visitor to Loch Lomond, staying a fortnight each year at the little hotel at Ardlui, a spot which her late husband had loved so well.

Though an extremely wealthy man, the summer attractions of Harrogate, Dinard, Aix, or Ostend, had never appealed to him. Bluff and hearty, he loved Loch Lomond in the days of his prosperity just as when, in his youth, he used to save his coppers to enable him to have a one-day trip from Glasgow each summer--red-letter days in his otherwise grey workaday life.

It had, indeed, been in his mind to build a fine summer residence on the shore of the loch at Ardlui, and he had actually bought the site--one that gave a magnificent view of Ben Lomond and a wide-reaching expanse of the lake--when a sudden illness cut him off, and his wife was left to mourn his loss.

Augusta Morrison was thinking of the last occasion when she and her devoted husband had come for the annual fortnight at Ardlui, and of how daily they walked to the site on the mountain-side where their new home was to be.

That was four years ago. Yet each year she never failed to pay her pilgrimage to the spot which they both so loved.

A young couple, evidently Londoners, seated beside her, had been reading aloud from a guide book the legend of the rocky Craig Royston, where there is a cave known locally as "Rob Roy's Prison," and then, full of admiration, had turned to the splendid view afforded of the mountains around Arrochar.

Just then the steamer slackened, and after some shouting from the captain, was moored to the pier at Inversnaid, the little loch-side village with its wooded mountains beyond. There most of the passengers left the boat to cross by coach or motor that ridge which lies between Loch Lomond and Loch Katrine, Inversnaid being one of the points of departure from Loch Lomond to the Trossachs. Therefore, when the boat went on to the head of the loch at Ardlui, there remained but few passengers.

At last the steamer drew up at the quaint little landing-stage, the postal official brought out the last bag of mail for delivery, and, Mrs. Morrison's maid collecting up all their belongings, they both waited until the paddles had ceased to revolve.

Scarcely had the widow risen from her chair, when a big, burly Scot presented himself, and, touching his cap, respectfully bade the lady welcome.

"Ah! so you're here still, McIntyre!" remarked the widow pleasantly.

"Yes, Mistress Morrison, David McIntyre never leaves Ardlui," laughed the man, who acted as porter, boots, and general factotum to the Tillychewan Arms Hotel.

Mistress and maid walked ashore, and were very soon at the little hotel facing the loch, a very cosy, unpretentious place, where one could get excellent food, and go mountaineering and fishing to one's heart's content.

On the threshold Mrs. Morrison was greeted enthusiastically by the proprietor's wife, a stout, homely woman, and very soon the widow from Kirkcudbrightshire and her maid were installed in the rooms she annually occupied, both of which gave magnificent views of water and mountains.

At Ardlui the daily steamer waits for an hour and a half, and then returns to Balloch, where the express for Glasgow is waiting. Therefore, when the siren sounded and the boat left on its return journey, the little place relapsed into its lethargy of rural solitude and remoteness from the stress of the southern world.

The hotel, half covered with creeper, stood in its well-kept garden, which ran down to the lake. It was not quite full of visitors. The guests, however, were all of the better class, mostly Glasgow merchants and their wives, with a couple of families from London, and the usual youthful, well-dressed idler which one finds in every hotel the world over.

At dinner, as Mrs. Morrison sat alone in a corner by the window overlooking the loch, now crimson in the sunset, she glanced around, but none of her fellow-visitors appeared to be very interesting. The only person who attracted her was one woman who, seated alone, was apparently taking no interest in anyone, for she had propped up before her the _Glasgow Herald_, which had just arrived by the steamer, and was absorbed in it.

Augusta Morrison raised her eyes again, and saw that the woman was exceedingly well, though very quietly, dressed, while there was about her a distinct air of refinement. She also noticed that she possessed very remarkable hair.

Suddenly the eyes of the two women met, and the widow, a little confused for she had been staring hard, turned to look out of the window.

An hour later, when the well-dressed woman had gone out for an after-dinner stroll in the direction of the landing-stage, Mrs. Morrison inquired her name of the proprietor's wife.

"Oh!" replied the other. "She's a very nice lady from London. She has never been up here before. She's a Mrs. Pollen."

Then, referring to the visitors' book, she added: "She lives in Upper Brook Street, London. She came here about four days ago."

"Is she making a long stay?"

"She took her rooms for a fortnight," was the woman's reply. "She seems quite nice," she added.

Mrs. Morrison, of Carsphairn, agreed, and then, getting a wrap, went out into the garden where several of the other visitors were sitting on the verandah, as the dull red afterglow deepened into twilight.

With one of the women she got into conversation, and, taking the empty chair next to her, remained there chatting for nearly an hour. Then, just as darkness was falling, Mrs. Pollen, in a short skirt and carrying a little ash walking-stick, re-entered the garden and sank into a seat in the corner to rest.

Next morning after breakfast--the usual Scotch breakfast with cold grouse and scones--Mrs. Morrison again strolled out into the sunlit garden after Mrs. Pollen, and broke the ice.

At first Mrs. Pollen preserved a somewhat dignified attitude. She spoke in her best Mayfair manner, and it was apparent that she considered herself socially superior to the widow, who, by her speech, was so palpably Scotch.

"No," said Ena, "I have never been in Scotland before. I find it most delightful up here, but rather dull when one is alone, as I am."

"I, too, am alone, except for my maid," replied the widow. "But I love this place. It is so quiet and out of the world. Besides, the scenery is as grand as any in Scotland. I'm Scottish, and I've travelled the whole country through with my husband. He was always enchanted with Ardlui. Indeed," she added, "we bought a site for a home out here at the back--where one has a lovely view--but unfortunately he died before he gave the order to build the place."

"How very unfortunate," said Ena Pollen, with quick sympathy, and in pretence that she knew nothing whatever of her fellow-guest's identity, or of her past, whereas she knew every fact of importance concerning her. "I live in London, and though I travel a good deal, mostly on the Continent or in Egypt, I must say that I think Loch Lomond really beautiful. I took a long ramble by the lochside yesterday afternoon, and found it most enjoyable."

"Ah!" said Mrs. Morrison. "You must take the trip over to Stronachlachar and up Katrine. It is quite pretty, but not so grand as this. Besides, there are always too many trippers in the Trossachs. But while you are here you must really go across and see Ellen's Isle."

And so the pair, seated in the garden with the sunlit waters at their feet, gossiped on, and quickly became good friends.

That same evening, indeed, Mrs. Morrison invited the lady from London up to her sitting-room to take coffee after dinner, and there they sat gossiping and smoking cigarettes until it was time to retire.

When Ena Pollen gained her room she locked the door, and, flinging herself into a small easy chair, exclaimed beneath her breath:

"Thank Heaven! That's over! The first few hours when one cultivates a friendship are always full of pitfalls. A word in the wrong place, and the person one seeks to know may instantly conceive a strong dislike. In this case, however, the woman has approached me. It was a good job I got up here first."

Ena Pollen was much fatigued by the recent rapid journeys to and fro to Scotland, over to Paris and back, and then north again to Loch Lomond. She was, however, a cosmopolitan, and had travelled very extensively ever since she had been left a widow ten years earlier. Her husband had been a solicitor, whose practice was in Bedford Row, but after his death she had embarked upon an adventurous career which had culminated in her association with Bernard Boyne and his wife.

That association had brought her considerable wealth--sufficient, indeed, to allow her, through payments from Boyne and his wife, to live in an expensive flat and indulge in jewellery, furs, smart frocks, and all that appealed to her natural vanity.

That evening, however, she felt worn out. The strain of ingratiating herself with Mrs. Morrison of Carsphairn, whom she found to be an exceedingly shrewd woman, had been considerable, and this, combined with the fact that she had taken a long walk that afternoon, had utterly fagged her.

From a tiny silver tube with a cap upon it, which she took from her dressing-case, she extracted a single little white tabloid, and swallowed it.

"I wonder--I wonder if we shall really be successful?" she murmured to herself. "There must be no slip this time--no recurrence of that unfortunate contretemps in the Martin affair. Phew! That was a narrow shave. I was in Melun only just in time. A few days later, and all chance of dispelling suspicion would have gone!"

She reflected how on more than one occasion they had sailed very near the wind--far too near to be pleasant--and how they had narrowly escaped a closer inquiry. Lilla, however, was always fearless, even when her husband expressed doubts. It was she, indeed, who was the moving spirit of the whole affair, for she went about in her circle of society with her eyes and ears ever open until she saw an opportunity to put into motion that deadly machinery which, worked with such subtle cunning, never failed to increase their bank balance.

She stood at her window as the full moon rose over the loch, transforming the scene into a veritable fairyland, and here she remained in deep reflection. She was contemplating the course she should pursue when she met Mrs. Morrison on the morrow. Already they had become friends, the widow from Kirkcudbrightshire being, of course, in entire ignorance that the pleasant woman from London had come to Ardlui for the sole purpose of making her acquaintance. Ena Pollen was possessed of a cunning that few women possess unless they are adventuresses. She saw that she must allow this Mrs. Morrison to seek her society. Already she realised that the Scotch widow had been greatly attracted by her conversation; hence she decided that on the morrow she must not be too eager to meet and chat with her.

She was in no mood for sleep, therefore she pulled down the blind, and seating herself at a little table in the room, penned a letter which she addressed to "B. Braybourne, Esquire, 93, Pont Street, London," and in the course of which she wrote:

"_Things are going even better than I expected. Mrs. M., who made the first advance, is extremely affable to me. I hope that within a week or ten days I can be back in London. Mrs. M., on leaving here, is going to Brighton to visit a niece, so I may see something of her. Do not write here, as I may be leaving any day. I have had a letter from Emery. It was sent to Upper Brook Street, and fortunately enclosed to me in an envelope. It would have been unfortunate if it had come here addressed to Mrs. M.! Would it not? But do not be alarmed! I have given instructions that no letters are to be forwarded in future._"

Next day after breakfast she went out to the post-box and there dropped in the letter, so that it would leave by the afternoon steamer for the south. And after she took a long walk alone along the loch-side, under Ben Voirlich, as far as the little village of Inveruglas, and thence up the Inveruglas water, a pretty stream which comes rushing down through the woods from Loch Sloy. And there in the cool shade she at last sat down upon a moss-grown boulder and took out a book and read.

She was playing a waiting game, and one that succeeded, for as she rose from her table after lunch, Mrs. Morrison came up to her, saying:

"Why, wherever have you been, Mrs. Pollen? I've been seeking everywhere for you."

"Have you?" she asked quite innocently. "I've been for a walk to the Inveruglas water."

"Oh! Isn't it delightful there in the woods?" said the widow. "I've been there often. We used to go and picnic there sometimes--right on up Loch Sloy. It is very grand and lonely up there, and the view in all directions is superb."

"I've only been in the woods at the bottom of the mountain," the Red Widow replied.

"Well, I was going to ask you whether, if you haven't anything better to do, you would drive with me up Glen Falloch to Crianlarich," said Mrs. Morrison.

"I shall be most delighted," replied Ena. "I'm sure it is awfully good of you."

"Well, as we are both alone, it will be a pleasure for me to have your company," Mrs. Morrison assured her.

Therefore at three o'clock they left in a carriage which took them away into the picturesque glen for six miles or so, past the little village of Inverarnan, until they reached that pleasant little spot Crianlarich, sheltering beneath the high Ben More at the head of the narrow Glen Dochart, with Loch Fay beyond.

They wandered about the heather gossiping on all sorts of subjects, the Red Widow telling her a number of purely fictitious stories about herself and her travels, while Mrs. Morrison told her much about the happiness of her own married life.

"I have never cared to enter society because, while my husband lived, it never attracted me," she said, as they sat together upon a rock among the heather whence they had a magnificent view up Glen Dochart. "My husband hated it. He was a self-made man. A baronetcy was offered him, but he refused it. He did not agree with the system whereby donations to party funds makes an honest man a pinchbeck gentleman."

Ena laughed.

"True!" she declared. "I admire Mr. Morrison for his outspokenness."

"Well, that is why I never entered society," Mrs. Morrison said, with a sigh.

"But why don't you see a little more of life?" Ena suggested. "You appear, from what you say, to be buried alive at Carsphairn!"

"I see but very few people, but I take a great interest in the estate, and I have a few shooting parties--mostly friends of my late husband."

"Why not come to London for a month or so? Go to the theatres and restaurants, and have an enjoyable time? I do, and I find that I'm amused and meet many interesting people. You are going to Brighton. Why not remain in London for a bit after your visit there?" the Red Widow suggested. "I know a good many people, and I think you would have a nice time. Besides, you would do shopping also. Paris and London are the only places where one can buy anything decent to wear nowadays."

"You are really very good, Mrs. Pollen, to offer to entertain me in London," she declared. "Of course, I have other engagements, but----"

"Oh, but those can be broken. If you are going to Brighton, make a stay in London on your return. I live in Upper Brook Street. Do you know it?"

"Oh yes. I once, long ago, had a friend who lived there. I know it quite well."

"I have only a small flat, otherwise I would offer you hospitality."

"Oh--no," said the widow. "I can easily stay at the Carlton, the Ritz, or somewhere."

"Then think it over," said the pleasant woman from London.

"Yes, I will," replied the other. "We have many things in common, I believe, and I am sure that we shall be good friends."

"I'm delighted to hear that your thoughts coincide with my own. I make very few new acquaintances; I have so many old friends."

"And I make none. Not that I'm at all exclusive, I hope. But the majority of women I meet I find too shallow and frivolous, and they don't attract me."

"Then I consider myself highly honoured!" laughed Ena, as the pair rose to walk back to the Crianlarich Hotel to tea.

And while Mrs. Morrison of Carsphairn, ignorant of what was in progress, believed that she really had found a delightful friend--a woman after her own heart--the Red Widow smiled within herself, highly gratified at her success.

*CHAPTER IX*

*A GENTLEMAN NAMED GREIG*

The days passed pleasantly enough at Ardlui. Mrs. Morrison and her newly-found friend usually went walking or driving together over the heather-clad mountains, or along the loch-side, so remotely picturesque and silent.

One day she received an offer--through a firm of estate-agents in Edinburgh--from a well-known cotton-spinner in Oldham to rent Carsphairn furnished for a year. It was a most tempting offer, and Mrs. Morrison showed the letter to her friend.

"If I were you, I would accept it," Mrs. Pollen urged. "It would do you good to travel, to see London life a little, and go over to Paris and to Nice in winter. I could not vegetate always on a Scottish estate, much as I love the country."

"I confess I feel half inclined to accept. Lately I have felt very lonely and dull at Carsphairn, and now with winter in front of us I should, I agree, be far more happy with a little amusement."

"Of course," said Ena, as they were walking together near the hotel. "You are going to Edinburgh next week, so I would write to the agents and say that you will call upon them."

"Very well, I will," said Mrs. Morrison. "You are coming to Edinburgh, too, aren't you?"

"Just for a couple of days before I return to London."

"Then we will travel together, and stay at the Caledonian," said Augusta Morrison.

And so it was agreed.

That Ena had successfully ingratiated herself with Mrs. Morrison was proved by a letter she wrote that day to her niece at Brighton, in which she said:

"_I have met an exceedingly nice woman here--a Mrs. Pollen, who lives in Upper Brook Street, London. I will ask her down to Brighton while I am with you. She has persuaded me to spend a little time in London after I leave you, and I think the change will do me good. I am contemplating letting Carsphairn furnished for a year, and spending the winter first on the Riviera, and later in Egypt. I make few friends, as you know, but I am sure you will like Mrs. Pollen. She is very often at the Metropole, at Brighton. Next week we go to Edinburgh together, and after I have done my business there I shall come straight to you._"

Ena, with her innate cunning, had been quick to realise the open friendship which her companion had extended towards her. This somewhat surprised her, for a woman is the enemy of every other woman. Few women ever see beauty or good qualities in another.

Only a few days before Ena went north, she was discussing the point with Lilla Braybourne over tea in the latter's drawing-room.

"Women see in every other female thing a potential rival, my dear Lilla," she had said. "That is what makes my task so hard. Every woman defends herself against every other woman, fully confident that the hand of the female world is raised against her."

"I think I agree," was Lilla's reply. "I've hardly ever known a woman to admire the good looks of another of her sex. Curious, isn't it? But it's quite true what you say. Pussies lap tea and scandal everywhere, and even a female saint too often uses her crown of thorns to scratch."

"Yes," laughed the handsome adventuress. "I heard it said the other day that to the woman of thirty the girl of eighteen is a crime, and that to-day's fashion is to look sixteen if you're sixty, and to collar your daughter's lovers if they are not wide awake enough to prevent you. That's what makes it so hard for me."

"Few women can attract women, Ena. You are one of them. You deserve the O.B.E. for it."

"But it is a most difficult and often dangerous undertaking," she declared; "and, after all, the O.B.E. has been given for less."

By the least lapse of the tongue or a too eager appearance to scrape up an acquaintanceship would, Ena knew, alienate Mrs. Morrison for ever. The widow's reverence for her departed husband was the saving clause. She had professed deep sympathy, and in the delightful fiction she had told about her own life and "dear Peter," her late husband, she had attracted Augusta as one of the few women who were womanly.

Who was it said that modern love starts in Heaven and ends in the Sunday newspaper? Ena's philosophy was always amusing. She scoffed at love, at life, at beauty, at everything. Indeed, on that very day as she walked with Mrs. Morrison she had caused her to laugh heartily by referring to some woman friend of hers who lived at Surbiton as "one of those women who shine with virtue and the cheapest sort of complexion soap."

Ena Pollen had a caustic tongue as far as her own sex was concerned, yet she could assume such a suave, sweet manner towards women as entirely to disarm them.

It was so in Mrs. Morrison's case. As the warm, delightful days went on, they were inseparable, exchanging intimate details of their own careers, and fast becoming firm friends.

The arrival of the steamer from Balloch each afternoon was the chief excitement, and by it visitors to the hotel came and left.

One afternoon the steamer brought a short, round-faced little man, very well-dressed, whose speech showed that he came from Glasgow. He had a suit-case with him, and took the one room which happened to be disengaged, giving the name of John Greig. He was an alert-looking business man, probably a Glasgow merchant out for a few days' relaxation from the eternal bustle of Sauchiehall Street.

He sat alone at dinner, and once or twice glanced in the direction of the two ladies who sat together in the window, for Mrs. Morrison had now joined Mrs. Pollen. Both were better dressed than the other visitors, especially Ena, who wore a semi-evening frock and a jade-coloured velvet band in her red hair.

After dinner the visitor strolled alone in the garden until he found a man to chat with, the pair sitting smoking in the moonlight until it became time to retire.

When John Greig reached his room he flung himself into a chair, and beneath his breath, remarked:

"By Jove! She's a handsome woman, too! But she's not Joan Eastlake. That's my belief. Nevertheless, now I'm here, I may as well make quite certain."

And he took out a final cigarette from his case and smoked it reflectively before he turned in.

Next day he was about early at the loch-side, and though he contrived to arouse no suspicion in the minds of either those connected with the hotel or any of his fellow-visitors, he kept casual observation upon the pair. Now and then he would accidentally be so close in their vicinity as to be able to overhear scraps of their conversation. Yet so cleverly did he do this, and so utterly uninterested did he appear to be, that even Ena, who was ever suspicious of eavesdroppers and persons watching, failed to realise the intense interest which she had evoked in the little round-faced man.

The following day Ena accompanied her friend on a trip across to Loch Katrine, but the stranger idled about the hotel and wrote letters. After lunch, however, at the hour when the small establishment was quietest, the curiosity of anyone watching him would certainly have been aroused. His actions were truly a little peculiar.

At about three o'clock that afternoon, having ascertained that none of the servants were about, he slipped silently to Mrs. Pollen's bedroom, the door of which was unlocked, and, entering quickly, closed the door after him. Then, walking straight to a big dressing-case which lay upon a chair near the window, he took out a bunch of keys and tried one after the other in an effort to open it.

He failed, none of the keys would fit.

"If I force it she'll suspect," he murmured. "No, I must give it up for the present--curse it!"

Then he made a tour of the room, opened the wardrobe, and examined the contents of several drawers, but though some expensive jewellery was there, he cast it aside in contempt.

Mr. Greig did not want jewels. It was evident that he was in search of something else far more interesting. But that lock upon the dressing-case was an unusually good one, and had defied all his many keys.

There was but one course to pursue, and that was to retreat to his own room, which he did in great disappointment and chagrin.

That evening he watched the two women on their return. His movements were those of a practised watcher. He was unobtrusive, disinterested in everything save the picturesque surroundings, and behaved as though he had no interest whatever in any person in the hotel.

That evening, while in the garden after dinner, he found himself sitting on a seat beside Mrs. Morrison, and ventured to address a remark to her regarding the glorious sunset.

What more natural than in a few moments Ena and her friend were chatting affably with the new-comer.

"This is my first visit to Scotland," Ena declared, though it was a falsehood, "and I'm delighted with it. My views--those of a Londoner--have entirely altered concerning Scotland and the Scottish people. I don't agree now with the ridicule cast upon them."

"I'm very glad of that," declared Mr. Greig. "In the south you don't really understand us, I think. And perhaps we here don't quite understand you. National prejudices are very hard to break down."

"They are. But you see the majority of the English never come north. They view the Scottish people by the ridicule cast upon them by performers on our music-halls. It is unfortunate, but it is a fact."

"Never mind," laughed the pleasant-faced man from Glasgow. "Our national pride is never hurt by those amblers on the stage who wax fat upon the profits of their mimicry. We only laugh at it up here, I assure you," he declared to Mrs. Pollen.

The conversation drifted naturally to the fact that Mrs. Morrison told him her name, which was Scottish, and the identity of her late husband, so well known in Glasgow.

"Oh! I knew your husband quite well, Mrs. Morrison," declared John Greig, for no shrewder or more well-informed person was there between the Lowlands and Cromarty. "I knew him twenty years ago. Do you recollect Mr. Buchanan, who had an office in St. Vincent Street, Glasgow, and with whom he went into partnership? Mr. Buchanan died about four years ago. I went to visit him once at that beautiful house of his on Loch Rannoch."

"Then you knew Mr. Buchanan!" cried Mrs. Morrison. "He was a dear fellow. My husband was devoted to him. Together they built up the works."

"I know. Everyone in commercial circles in Glasgow knows how closely they worked together, and, Mrs. Morrison, I may tell you that not a worker on the Clyde has any but good words for your husband and his partner. The conditions of work in your husband's place at Govan were always ideal. We hear much of labour trouble in these post-bellum days, but if all works were like your husband's there would be little to grumble at."

"It is awfully good of you to pay such a tribute to my husband's regard for his employees," said Mrs. Morrison, much gratified. "He and I often discussed their welfare, and I always agreed with him that labour should be duly paid and there should be no sweating. We have Socialist propaganda on the Clyde to-day, but is it at all astonishing in view of the high prices, of Government muddle and waste, and the advancement into society by the King's favour in the shape of 'honours' of bare-faced swindlers and those who escape under the more euphonious name of profiteers?"

"Ah! I'm glad that you have realised the deadly peril of Britain, Mrs. Morrison," Greig said. "As a business man in Glasgow--I am an exporter to the East--I know much of what is transpiring among the Socialists, and I know the deadly peril of Britain to-day."

The fact that Greig had known not only her husband but his partner, Buchanan, appealed to Mrs. Morrison, with the result that he had frequent chats with her, and incidentally with her friend, Ena Pollen, whose belongings he had so carefully scrutinised in her absence.

The man from Glasgow, with his round, merry, well-shaven face, a countenance of prosperity, was a typical man of business, and he appealed to old Morrison's widow as a very nice man.

With her estimate Ena, any suspicion utterly disarmed, entirely agreed.

Pleasant, humorous, and careless in his relaxation from money-making in grim and grimy Glasgow, John Greig was an excellent fellow on holiday. His estimate of women--for he was a bachelor--coincided entirely with that of Ena Pollen.

To be frank, he had, in the course of conversation, gauged her views regarding her own sex, and he at once sought to cultivate her acquaintance upon her line of thought.

"Of course," she said next morning, as he found himself gossiping with her after breakfast, "woman ought not to work at all. No man really likes a woman who works for him. Work isn't woman's natural element, though trouble is. Work is an odious word to women."

"Really, Mrs. Pollen, your philosophy is quite upon that of my own thinking," laughed Greig. "Once a man I know declared to me that to girls business life would be a dull existence if it were not for its sly opening for an illicit romance."

"One woman writer has said, and with much truth, that petticoats, like time, were made for slaves, and that there is more virtue in a single pair of trousers than there is in a multitude of skirts," laughed Ena.

"True. Was it not the same lady author who told us that the wrong part of wrong-doing is being found out?"

"Ah! yes. And the same feminine philosopher went farther," Ena said. "She declared that the woman who thinks it wicked to buy silk petticoats and luxurious 'undies'--'because no one sees them'--is a fool; but the hedonist who frankly revels in the feel and _frou-frou_ of silk and _crepe de chine_ and mysterious lace things is as wise as Eve, who wore leaves rather than nothing, and made a tantalising mystery of herself out of the poor resources at her command."

The man from Glasgow laughed immoderately. "Really," he remarked, "you have no great admiration of your own sex, Mrs. Pollen."

"No, I have not," declared the Red Widow frankly, as they both halted and leaned over a gate which gave entrance to a great green meadow beyond which was the edge of the loch, the water of which lay like a mirror in the morning sunlight.

Up there, far removed from the life and bustle of the outer world, with all its political bickerings and its labour troubles, life was very enjoyable, and the two women who had become so friendly had quickly discovered in John Greig a man whose ideas corresponded exactly with their own--a man who had formed distinct views upon life, and who was not afraid to admit them.

At last came the afternoon of their departure for Edinburgh. They bade Mr. Greig farewell on the Pier just before the steamer started for Balloch.

Then, going on board, they waved him a farewell as the paddles began to revolve, sending out long ripples over the glassy surface of the loch.

He raised his hat with a merry laugh, but as he did so, he remarked beneath his breath:

"After all--I'm not sure, _even now_!"

*CHAPTER X*

*MORE MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES*

"Let's pull up here; it's so delightfully shady."

Marigold Ramsay, who spoke, lay back among the crimson cushions of the punt, with her eyes fixed upon the sky.

She loved the river. That Sunday afternoon was perfect, and she was enjoying the day on the river after a week's hard work in the bank.

Gerald, who was an expert with the punt-pole, was taking her up that pretty reach of the Thames which winds between Shepperton and Walton, with the long rows of poplars fringing the river bank.

They had lunched at the little riverside inn at Halliford, and were now making their way slowly up-stream. Gerald, in flannels, with coat off and sleeves upturned, placing his pole and withdrawing it without any apparent effort.

Since that adventurous night at Bridge Place they had become even closer friends. No day passed but they met. The previous two Sundays Durrant had spent with her, the first at Dorking, where they had wandered over Leith Hill and along the Surrey lanes, and the next Sunday at Brighton. This, the third Sunday, they had decided to spend together on the Thames.

As they were passing beneath a long row of trees which overhung the water, the girl, who was in white, raised herself from her couch of cushions and suggested that they should tie up the punt there.

"Certainly," he replied, and a few moments later he had secured the punt to a tree root, and, sitting down to rest, he lit his pipe.

"Do you know, Gerald, I've been thinking again about Mr. Boyne," she said. "I can't get the man out of my mind."

"Well, to tell the truth, Marigold, neither can I," replied the young man. "Ever since that night at Hammersmith I've been trying in vain to solve the mystery."

"About the person concealed upstairs," remarked the blue-eyed girl reflectively. "Yes, it's most curious."

"It's more than curious," her companion declared. "Though I haven't mentioned it to you, I've watched the house for several nights, but I must admit that I've seen nothing at all suspicious."

"Oh! Then you've been on the watch!" she cried excitedly.

"Yes, on four occasions, and all to no purpose. Last Friday I waited from nine o'clock till one in the morning, and got wet through. He returned about ten, but did not come out again."

"He was upstairs with his secret friend, I suppose," said the girl.

"No doubt. Whoever may be confined there could not exist without seeing a human face and conversing with him, even for five minutes each day, or he would certainly go mad," said Gerald. "You remember I said that Italians, who have abolished capital punishment for murder, have substituted solitary confinement. It is far more terrible. They confine the assassin in a cell in silence, without sight of a human face. Their food is placed upon a turntable which revolves into the cell, so that the prisoner never sees a face. Such torture was invented long ago in the Bastille, and in every case it drives the guilty one raving mad within five years."

"How horrible!" cried the girl.

"I admit it is, but surely the punishment is far greater than that of hanging, or even the guillotine. Both are instantaneous, yet in Italy the criminal suffers all the tortures of Dante's Inferno--and deservedly so."

"Then you saw nothing?" asked Marigold.

"I fancied a lot, but I saw really nothing to increase my suspicions. One thing we know--that he is concealing some person in that locked room. Now who can the person be?"

"It may be some relative who has done something very wrong and is afraid of the police," suggested the girl.

"Agreed. It may be. But we have discussed the matter so many times that I think we should not talk further--but act," he said. "We have proved beyond doubt that Bernard Boyne is a man of mystery. Your deaf aunt, a most worthy woman, acts as his housekeeper. Why does he retain her? Merely because she is stone-deaf. Why does he want a deaf woman to wait upon him? Because there are sometimes noises in the house which would arouse the curiosity of any who chanced to overhear them."

"We must discover the identity of the person concealed," remarked the girl with the big blue eyes, as she lay back lazily among the cushions.

"We must. At all costs I intend to solve this mystery. Marigold," he said, removing his pipe from his lips and looking straight into her eyes, "my own belief is that you have discovered some very strange and startling drama of our complex London life--one which, when investigated, will prove to be astounding."

"Do you really think so?" asked the girl, looking into his handsome face.

"Yes--I do. Up to the present all our efforts have been in vain," he said. "Only one fact has been established, and that is that there is a prisoner--whether voluntary or not we cannot tell--in that creeper-covered house. We both saw Boyne creep up with food to him, while I saw his light beneath the door. Somebody is living up there in secret. Is it a man, or is it a woman? His eagerness makes me think that it is a woman. Who is it?"

"Somebody he is shielding--somebody who has committed some serious crime, who fears to show his or her face lest it be recognised by agents of Scotland Yard."

"Really, Marigold, you are very acute," he exclaimed. "We have had so many murder mysteries since the war, and in all of them the police confess their utter confusion, that the present situation fills me with great apprehension."

"I know," she said. "But why not let us begin again? Let us watch the house. I'll watch one night, and you watch the next. Surely we can by that means discover the truth. If the place is watched every night, this man Boyne must, in the end, be defeated."

"But I thought you liked Boyne?"

"Yes; he has been always very good to me. Remember that he is the owner of the place, and my aunt is his housekeeper," replied the girl.

"I quite appreciate your point," said Durrant. "But if we are to fully delve into the affair we must not be influenced by the fellow's open heart. The greatest criminals of the world have always been those who have been popular on account of their bonhomie and generosity."

The girl sat silent, her eyes fixed upon the rushes slowly waving in the stream. A motor-launch passed them, making a high wash against the bank, but she took no heed. She was still thinking of that strange occupant of the house in Bridge Place.

Three times during the past week she had, indeed, visited her aunt in an endeavour to discover something more. Boyne had been out, as usual, therefore she had been able to examine the place thoroughly. She had ascended to that locked room on each occasion, and had listened there. Once in the silence she had heard a distinct movement, a slight rustling, within.

Yet afterwards, as she had reflected, she wondered whether it had not been due to her imagination, or perhaps to a blind flapping at an open window. When one is suspicious, it is so easy to imagine queer circumstances.

"I only wish we could solve the mystery," she remarked wistfully. "It worries me. Auntie seems quite unconcerned."

"Because she has no suspicion, worthy old soul. She has no knowledge of Mr. Boyne's nocturnal visits with food to his friend."

"Why shouldn't we tell her, and then she'll be on the alert?" suggested the girl. "She might discover something."

"She might--but more probably she would be too eager, and thus put Boyne upon his guard," remarked the young fellow. "No. We must work together in strict secrecy if we intend to be successful."

"But who can he possibly be hiding?"

The young man in flannels shrugged his shoulders, and replied:

"I confess that the problem is getting on my nerves. The more I think it over the more inscrutable it becomes. Mischief is being worked somewhere. Of that I feel confident. All the actions of our friend Boyne point to it."

"But that shroud? Why does he wear it?" asked Marigold blankly.

"As a disguise, without a doubt. Perhaps the person upstairs has been confined there so long that his mind has already become deranged, as is inevitable after a long period of solitary incarceration, and Boyne now takes the precaution of adopting the simple disguise so that his friend should fail to identify him. He may have done his captive some great injury--or something."

"True; but, if he has, it was not in order to gain. Bernard Boyne is a comparatively poor man. My aunt says that he seems to have only just sufficient money to make both ends meet."

Gerald Durrant drew a long breath. Upon his countenance was an expression of doubt.

"He may pass as a poor man, and yet be rich," he remarked. "It may sound romantic, but there are many people living in the by-streets of London, successfully concealed beneath assumed names and unsuspected by their neighbours, who for years have lived a life of penury though they are really well off. And their motive is, for some reason or other, to cut themselves adrift from friends in their own sphere. Indeed, it is a well known fact that in the last days of King Edward an ex-Cabinet Minister lived for several years in seclusion in a meagre side-street near Kennington Park, as Mr. Benwell, his real identity never being suspected until, owing to his sudden death, an inquest was held, and the police, searching his papers, discovered that he was immensely wealthy and one of Britain's foremost statesmen, who was believed to be living in seclusion in Italy."