Why?
Well, unfortunately, you need not expect anything.
Not anything? gasped the young man, blankly. Then am I penniless?
The solicitor nodded, and opening a paper he had held behind him on entering, said,
When you had left the room half-an-hour ago Sir John expressed a desire to make an addition to his will, and entirely against my inclination made me write what you see here. He signed it while still in his right mind, the two doctors witnessing it. It is scarcely a professional proceeding to show it to you at this early stage, nevertheless, perhaps, as you are the son of my old friend, and it so closely concerns your future welfare, you may as well know the truth at once. Read for yourself.
George took the paper in his trembling fingers and read the six long lines of writing, the ink of which was scarcely yet dry. Three times he read them ere he could understand their exact purport. The cold formal words crushed all joy from his heart, for he knew, alas! that the woman he loved could never be his.
It was the death-warrant to all his hopes and aspirations. He could not now ask Liane to be his wife.
With set teeth he sighed, flung down the will upon the table with an angry gesture, and casting himself again into his armchair, sat staring straight before him without uttering a word.
In addition to being cruel and unjust the codicil was certainly of a most extraordinary character. By it there was bequeathed to my son George Basil Stratfield the sum of one hundred thousand pounds on one condition only, namely, that within two years he married Mariette, daughter of a certain Madame Lepage, whose address was given as 89, Rue Toullier, Paris. If, however, it was discovered that Mariette was already married, or if she refused to accept the twenty thousand pounds that were to be offered her on condition that she consented to marry his son, then one-half the amount, namely, 50,000 pounds, was to be paid by the executors to George, and the remaining 50,000 pounds, together with the 20,000 pounds, was to revert to his elder brother.
It certainly is a most extraordinary disposition, old Mr Harrison reflected aloud, taking up the will again, and re-reading the words he had written at his dead clients dictation.
How does my father think I can marry a woman Ive never seen? cried the son. Why, the things absolutely absurd. He must have been insane when he ordered you to write such a preposterous proposal.
No, he was entirely in his right mind, answered the elder man, calmly. I must confess myself quite as surprised as you are; nevertheless, it is certain that unless you offer marriage to this mysterious young person you will obtain nothing.
It is my fathers vengeance, the son cried, in a tone full of bitterness and disappointment. I desire to marry Liane, the woman I adore, and in order to prevent me he seeks to bind me to some unknown Frenchwoman.
Well, in any case, effort must be made to find her, Harrison observed. You surely will not let fifty thousand pounds slip through your fingers. There is a chance that she is already married, or that she will refuse the twenty thousand pounds which I shall be compelled to offer her.
But I will only marry Liane, George cried, impetuously.
My dear young man, yours is a mere foolish fancy. You cannot, nay you must not, render yourself a pauper merely because of this girl, who happens to have attracted you just for the moment. In a years time you will regard the matter from a common-sense point of view. Your proper course is to give up all thought of the young lady, and unite with me in the search for this mysterious Mariette Lepage.
I decline to abandon Liane, George answered with promptness. If I am a pauper, well, I must bear it. My ruin is, I suppose, the last of my fathers eccentricities. Im the scapegoat of the family.
It is, nevertheless, my duty to advise you, the elder man went on, standing before the empty fireplace with his arms folded. In any case I shall be compelled to find this woman. Have you never heard your late father speak of any family of the name of Lepage?
Never. He has not been out of England for twenty years, therefore I suppose its someone he knew long ago. What could have been his object?
As far as I could glean it was twofold. First, he believed that the fact of having left this sum just beyond your reach would cause you intense chagrin; and, secondly, that if you did not marry this unknown woman, you will still be unable to marry the girl against whom he held such a strange deep-rooted objection.
Why did he object to her, Harrison? Tell me confidentially what you know, urged the young man earnestly.
I only know what he told me a few days ago, the solicitor replied. He said he had ascertained that you had taken many clandestine walks and rides with Liane Brooker, and he declared that such a woman was no fitting wife for you.
Did he give any further reason? the other demanded.
None. He merely said that if you declined to abandon all thought of her you should not have a penny.
And he has kept his word, observed George, gloomily.
Unfortunately it appears so.
He was unjust cruelly unjust! George protested. I strove hard at the Bar, and had already obtained a few briefs when he recalled me here to be his companion. He would not allow me to follow my profession, yet he has now cast me adrift without resources.
You certainly have my entire sympathy, the old lawyer declared, kindly. But dont take the matter too much to heart. The woman may be already married. In this case you will receive fifty thousand.
Georges face relaxed into a faint smile.
I have no desire to hear of or see the woman at all, he answered. Act as you think fit, but remember that I shall never offer her marriage never.
She may be a pretty girl, suggested the elder man.
And she may be some blear-eyed old hag, snapped the dead mans son. It is evident from the wording of the clause that my father has heard nothing of either mother or daughter for some years.
Thats all the more in your favour; because if she is thirty or so, the chances are that she is married. At all costs we must discover her.
The whole thing is a confounded mystery, George observed. Who these people are is an enigma.
Entirely so, the solicitor acquiesced. There is something exceedingly mysterious about the affair. The combined circumstances are bewildering in the extreme. First, the lady you admire bears a French name, next your father hates her because of some fact of which he is aware regarding her family, and thirdly, in order to prevent you marrying her, he endeavours by an ingenious and apparently carefully-planned device, to induce you to wed a woman whose existence is unknown to us all. He was not a man who acted without strong motives, therefore I cannot help suspecting that behind all this lies some deep mystery.
Mystery! Of what character?
I have no idea. We must first find Mariette Lepage.
My future wife, laughed George bitterly, rising wearily from his chair.
Yes, the woman who is to receive twenty thousand pounds for marrying you, repeated the solicitor smiling.
No, Harrison, declined the young man as he moved slowly across the room with head slightly bent. Ill never marry her, however fascinating she may be. Liane is pure and good; I shall marry only her.
And opening the door impatiently he snatched up his cap, strode along the hall, and out to where his man held the bay mare in readiness.
And opening the door impatiently he snatched up his cap, strode along the hall, and out to where his man held the bay mare in readiness.
Ah, well! Harrison muttered aloud when he was alone. We shall see, young man. We shall see. I thought myself as shrewd as most men, but if Im not mistaken theres a mystery, strange and inexplicable, somewhere; a mystery which seems likely to lead to some amazing developments. Its hard upon poor George, very hard; but if my client was so foolish as to desire the family skeleton to be dragged from its chest his kith and kin must of necessity bear the consequences.
With a word to Morton, most exemplary of servants, George sprang into the saddle, and a moment later was galloping down the long straight avenue. The brilliant afterglow had now faded, dusk had fallen, and he feared that Liane, having kept the appointment, would have left disappointed and returned home. Therefore he spurred the mare onward, and was soon riding hard towards the unfrequented by-road known as Cross Lane.
With a heavy heart he told himself that he must say good-bye to love, good-bye to hope, good-bye to ambition, good-bye to all of life except the dull monotonous routine of empty days, and a restless empty heart.
I cant tell her Im a pauper, he murmured aloud, after galloping a long way in dogged silence. Shell know, alas! soon enough. Then, when the truth is out, shell perhaps discard me; while I suppose I shall go to the bad as so many fellows have done before me. Of what use am I without the means to marry? To love her now is only to befool her. Henceforth Im sailing under false colours. Yet I love her better than life; better than anything on earth. Im indeed a beggar on horseback!
And he laughed a hollow bitter laugh as he rode along beneath the oaks where the leafy unfrequented lane dipped suddenly to pass below the railway, the quiet lonely spot where, unobserved, he so often met his well-beloved. So engrossed had he been in his own sad thoughts that the stumbling of the mare alone brought him back to a consciousness of things around. The light had paled suddenly out of the evening atmosphere; the gloom was complete. Eagerly he looked ahead, half expecting to catch a glimpse of her well-known neat figure, but in disappointment he saw her not. It was too late he knew. She had evidently waited in vain, and afterwards returned to the village when the dusk had deepened.
Still he rode forward, the mares hoofs sounding loudly as they clattered beneath the archway, until suddenly, as he emerged on the other side, a sight met his gaze which caused him to pull up quickly with a loud cry of dismay.
In the centre of the road, hidden from view until that instant, by reason of the sudden bend, a girl was lying flat with arms outstretched, her face in the thick white dust, while beside her was her cycle, left where it had fallen.
Instantly he swung himself from the saddle, dashed towards her, and lifted her up. Her straw hat had fallen off, her fair hair was dishevelled, and her dark skirt covered with dust. But there was yet another thing which held him transfixed with horror. In the dim fast-fading light he noticed that her blouse bore at the neck a small stain of bright crimson.
It was Nelly Bridson. She was rigid in death. The pallor of her refined, delicate face was rendered the more ghastly by the blood that had oozed from the corners of her arched mouth. Her small gloved hands were tightly clenched, her features haggard, convulsed and drawn by a last paroxysm of excruciating agony.
In her soft white neck was an ugly bullet wound. She had been shot by an unknown hand.
Chapter Three
We must not Marry!
George Stratfield stood aghast and horrified. It was nearly dark, but there still remained sufficient light to reveal the terrible truth that Nelly Bridson, his gay, vivacious friend, had been foully murdered. Tenderly he lifted her, and placed his hand upon her heart. But there was no movement. It had ceased its beating.
Her face, with its hard drawn features so unlike hers, was absolutely hideous in death. Her hair was whitened by the dust, while her blue eyes were wide open, staring fixedly into space with a look of inexpressible horror.
For some moments, still kneeling beside her inanimate form, George hesitated. Suddenly his eager eyes caught sight of some round flat object lying in the dust within his reach. He stretched forth his hand and picked it up, finding to his surprise that it was an exquisitely-painted old miniature of a beautiful woman, set round with fine brilliants. He held it close to his eyes, examining it minutely until convinced of a fact most amazing. This miniature was the very valuable portrait by Cosway of Lady Anne Stratfield, a noted beauty of her time, which for many years had been missing from the collection at Stratfield Court. It corresponded exactly in every particular with the description his father had so often given him of the missing portrait, the disappearance of which had always been a mystery.
He remained speechless, dumbfounded at the discovery. At length a thought flashed across his mind, that by prompt action the assassin might perhaps be discovered. He could not bear the appalled agonised gaze of those glazed, stony eyes which seemed fixed despairingly upon him, therefore he closed them and prepared to move the body to the roadside. Suddenly he recollected that such action would be unwise. The police should view the victim where she had fallen. Therefore in breathless haste he sprang again into the saddle, and tore down into Stratfield Mortimer, a distance of a mile and a half, as hard as the mare could gallop.
Quickly he summoned the village constable and the doctor. The former, before leaving for the scene scribbled a telegram to Reading requesting the assistance of detectives; then both returned with him to the spot. When they reached it they found the body still undisturbed, and a cursory examination made by the doctor by aid of the constables lantern quickly corroborated Georges belief that the unfortunate girl had been shot through the throat.
Nearly an hour the three men waited impatiently for the arrival of the detectives, speaking in hushed tones, examining the recovered miniature and discussing the tragedy, until at last the lights of a trap were seen in the distance, and very soon two plain-clothes officers joined them, inspected the body and the tiny portrait, and made a close examination of the road in every direction. In the dust they found the mark of her tyre, and followed it back beneath the railway arch and up upon the road towards Burghfield. With the rays of their lanterns upon the dust they all followed the track, winding sometimes but distinct, for about three hundred yards, when suddenly, instead of proceeding along the lane, it turned into a gateway leading into a field.
This fact puzzled them; but soon, on examining the rank grass growing between the gate and the road, they found it had been recently trodden down. There were other marks too, in the thick dust close by, but, strangely enough, these were not footprints. It seemed as if some object about a foot wide had been dragged along from the gate into the lane. Long and earnestly the detectives searched over the spot while the others stood aside, but they found nothing to serve as a clue. It was, however, evident that the unfortunate girl had approached, on her return from Burghfield, and dismounting, had wheeled her cycle up to the gate and placed it there while she rested. Here she had undoubtedly been joined by someone as the grass and weeds bore distinct traces of having been trodden upon by two different persons and then, having remounted, she rode down beneath the railway bridge, and while ascending towards Stratfield Mortimer, had been foully shot.