The Heath Hover Mystery

“I suppose you’ve been into Clancehurst, Miss Seward,” he said. “Do you find the shops there fairly satisfactory?”

“Oh yes – on the whole. It’s a jolly little place and has a ripping old church.”

“‘Old stones,’” thought the guest to himself, with a smile. Then aloud, “I hear you’re a great antiquarian, Miss Seward.”

“I don’t know about that, but I’m awfully keen on old architecture, and old art in general.”

“You’ve got a kindred spirit then, dear,” said Mervyn. “Mr Varne has come over to look at some of our antiquities. He went into ecstasies over the door,” with a nod behind him in that direction, and a very humorous look crinkling round the corners of his eyes.

“Did you?” turning to the stranger, in her bright, brisk, natural manner. “Yes, it’s awfully quaint – but – there’s a something about it. Did you go into the old cellar? You did?” as she read the affirmative on the faces of both men. “Well, didn’t it give you the cold shivers? I can tell you it did me, the two or three times I’ve been into it. There must be a spook hidden away down there, but thank goodness that door is thick enough and heavy enough to keep it there.”

“But I thought spooks were traditionally independent of such trifles as bolts and bars, Miss Seward,” said Varne with an amused smile.

“Of course. It’s the moral effect, I suppose, for it’s difficult to imagine anything being able to get through such a solid mass of oak as that. But it’s a splendid old door.”

She had shed her outer furs and had sat down to table. Helston Varne was watching her keenly, though of course not seeming to do so. Whatever mystery Mervyn was mixed up in, this girl was entirely outside it, even as he had imparted to Nashby, and more than ever now was that opinion confirmed. And with that sop to professionalism he dismissed the same, and fell to giving himself up to studying the rare, fascinating personality, thus unexpectedly unfolded before him. But he turned the conversation on to what he saw was a very congenial topic with her, and soon she got launching Ruskin at him; and, glowing with her subject, talked not a bit as though she had never known of his existence half an hour ago. Mervyn, the while, his sense of humour thoroughly tickled – although somewhat grimly so – was observing the pair, with an inward twinge of dissatisfaction, which, as his said sense of humour entirely enabled him to realise, was essentially selfish. For his guest was an exceptionally good-looking man, who talked with knowledge, and well, moreover; and had – what for want of a better definition he defined as – a way about him. And thinking thus, the side of the other’s visit which had been with him all the morning and up till now, seemed to slide into a back seat. What had ousted it was the consciousness of how Melian seemed to be “cottoning” to the engaging stranger.

Then in the glow of a discussion which she was thoroughly enjoying, she got up suddenly to move some of the things.

“The old woman who usually looks after us is shamming again, Mr Varne. At least, she isn’t really shamming, but I always tease her by telling her she is,” Melian explained. “So I’m afraid it’s a case of taking things as they are.”

Helston Varne at once scented a chance of further insight. Now he could get, at first hand, what was rumoured at second – the reason why Mervyn never kept indoor servants. But immediately he felt ashamed of the thought. Professionalism under these circumstances could go hang; under them, if he couldn’t sink the “shop,” when could he? In fact, if it came to that he would.

Just then, taking advantage of the door being open, the little black kitten made its way in and jumped up on Melian’s lap as she sat down again.

“No, no, pooge-pooge, not on the table,” she said decisively, restraining a move on the part of the little thing to jump up there. “Uncle Seward has got you into bad ways – in fact, thoroughly spoiled you – and now you’ll have to get out of them.”

“What a jolly little fluffy ball,” said Helston Varne, thinking what a picture was here before him, these two graceful creatures, the human and the animal, every movement on the part of either one that of perfect prettiness and grace.

“Do you like them, then?” Melian asked, flashing her bright glance at him.

“Yes, if only they would stay small.”

“I’m so glad. But I think this one will, there are kinds, you know, that never grow large, and I like them best that way myself.” And then she launched forth into another favourite topic, and here again Varne met her on her own ground, and with knowledge. And here again Mervyn was observant, and had misgivings.

Now all of a sudden something he had been puzzling over took light, and it was caused by a casual remark on the part of this somewhat strangely formed acquaintance.

“Have you been in India?” he interrupted, abruptly.

“Yes, a little.”

“Where?”

“In the North West Provinces, and the Northern border.”

“Strange how things come back,” went on Mervyn. “Now your name is a bit uncommon, and I’ve been racking my brain box over it. Do you happen to be related to Varne Coates, who was Commissioner at Baghnagar?”

“Yes. He’s rather a near cousin of mine.”

“Look at that now. He used to be one of my greatest friends. Small world this after all.”

“Yes, isn’t it? Well, Mr Mervyn, that only adds to the pleasure of making your acquaintance – in such an accidental manner.”

For the life of him Mervyn could not restrain the ghost of a queer smile, for he knew there was nothing at all accidental about the matter, and the worst of it was the other knew that he knew it. As for that other he greatly rejoiced over this discovery, for he owned to himself that Melian Seward’s personality was almost unique in his experience; and, in short, and done into plain English, he wanted to see her again. As regarded the matter to clear up which he had come there, why it could go hang, or if he went on with it at all it would be simply and solely for his own satisfaction and in nowise to help Nashby or any of his kind. As to which he was in nowise bound – for as we have said before, he had come there in the light of an “outside” man, and was responsible to nobody.

And then, in the light of this newly discovered mutual acquaintance, a new sense of good fellowship, of cordiality seemed to spring up between the two men – likewise the conversation was now transferred to them. Mervyn warmed up with old recollections of places and people; most of the former and some of the latter of which were known to his guest, and Melian perforce had to do listener, which she did not in the least mind. It was not until the fading of the afternoon light that Varne suddenly awoke to the fact that in the capacity of unknown stranger he might have been there quite long enough.

“Oh no. Make your mind easy of that head,” Mervyn answered, as he said as much. “Look in again if you’re prolonging your stay. Have another ‘peg’ before you start. No? A weed then?”

Helston Varne lighted a cigar, and they went with him as far as the sluice. Mervyn, walking behind, did not fail to observe that this time no notice was taken of that one stone. The other did not even step on it. This, to his mind, suggested two solutions. Either his guest was off the scent, or, in the capacity of a new friend he did not intend to follow up his investigations. Whichever solution it was that held good it was equally satisfactory to Mervyn.

“Well, what do you think of that for a specimen?” he said, as Melian and he turned back to the house.

“He’s rather a good sort, and miles out of the ordinary,” answered the girl. “He can talk.”

“Yes. You’ve met your match in that accomplishment, certainly.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean in that way. I mean he can talk sense. Talk about things, and all that, and it’s more than can be said for most people one runs against. I wonder if he’ll come over again.”

“I don’t.”

The dry meaning of the tone, the quizzical look, earned for the speaker a playful pinch on the arm.

“Don’t be prophetic, Uncle Seward, especially with regard to a perfect stranger.”

“Perfect – eh? H’m – ha! Still I think we haven’t seen the last of – Perfection. Good name that. Meanwhile, I shall have to find out something about him over and above his relationship with my old pal Varne Coates, before asking his intentions.”

This earned for the speaker another pinch – a harder one this time, and the chaff and raillery flowed on. And John Seward Mervyn was conscious of feeling very happy, very contented. This element of youthfulness and bright spirits was just that in which his solitary life had been lacking. Then it had been supplied; and again and again, every hour of late he had blessed the chance which had supplied it.

But with this complacent consciousness, there was this evening ever so slight a misgiving, and – while he candidly owned to himself his motive was a selfish one – he hoped their newly found acquaintance would, for any reason or none, come no more.

Chapter Seventeen

Of some Talk on a Road

The year had dawned more and more into daylight if not correspondingly into warmth, and for Melian life had become more of a settled thing at Heath Hover. So far she was content, but a dreadful suspicion was coming upon her that she might not be always content. She had a sort of instinctive longing for work again, and that for its own sake – to be doing. And in this quiet, rather lonely life, there was no scope for such.

She had no friends of her own age or sex. Two or three of both had called, on learning of her presence at Heath Hover, but with the best intentions there was nothing about them to appeal to the girl from any point of view. They were just well-meaning, commonplace people of the most ordinary and commonplace type.

To a certain extent – a large extent – her uncle made up for the want of such companionship. He was a companionable man, given intelligent and sympathetic company, and this he found to the full in her. There was hardly a subject under the sun that they did not thresh out together, and grim old haunted Heath Hover seemed to shake its dry bones into new life with the constant stream of talk and laughter which now echoed from its walls.

“Why, you’ve put back the clock a quarter of a century for me, dear,” he declared. “I feel that much younger. Isn’t that something for you to have done?”

And she had agreed, wholesouledly; and yet, there would obtrude that thought, of late, that she was doing nothing with her life.

By this time her uncle had come to regard her with a sort of idolatry. His capacity for affection had become utterly atrophied for want of an object upon which to expend any of it. Such few acquaintances or relatives as he had he cared nothing about. If he had been well off they would have discovered fast enough that they cared about him, he used to tell himself cynically; and who shall say untruly. He had become self-centred, even morose at times – just content to groove on through life to the end; thankful – if he ever thought of being thankful for anything at all – that there was nobody to worry him. He had allowed himself to be worried at times in his life, and looked back to such times with a mental shudder, which was when the spirit of thankfulness was evolved.

But now here was such an object, and it had promptly captured the whole of his capacity for affection and was expanding it every day. There was everything in it that appealed – the sweet, refined beauty of the child, the sunny lightheadedness, the naïve untrammelled appreciation of all that appealed to him – the sheer youthful enjoyment of life – well, he had not lived in vain. And he made an idol of her more and more every day.

So they rambled together, drove long drives together, talked together; indeed, not a wish of hers was left ungratified where it lay within his power to gratify it, and she, knowing the extent of such power, never dreamed of looking beyond it. And the curious part it of was that he, watching her with furtive and solicitous jealousy, found that she was by no means tiring of this mode of life.

Once or twice he had suggested she should ask some girl friend to come and pay her a visit, as a relief from one incessant old fogey, but she had not been in the least responsive. There was no such “relief” required, she had answered spontaneously. She was quite happy as they were. She would like to get Violet Clinock, when the latter could come, but that would not be yet. Meanwhile she was quite jolly as they were.

To Mervyn this reply came with an undashed feeling of relief. Stay – not altogether undashed perhaps, for he was old enough to know that a year or two at the outside in the ordinary course of things would be all that should remain to him of this idyllic time. Why, only to look at the child! Were all the best years of her life to be wasted, mewed up in a lonely old country corner! And with this idea came one that had just hooked itself, not altogether pleasantly, on to his mind – and it spelt Helston Varne.

For the latter had availed himself of his invitation to “come again.” He had “come again,” only to the extent of three times, but Mervyn had not been slow to mark a certain very complete sympathy, as of ideas in common, that had sprung up between him and Melian, and that from the very first. They talked animatedly on every subject, several outside his own sphere of knowledge, and in short, seemed thoroughly to have taken to each other. And Helston Varne was a remarkably fine looking man.

Mervyn had set afoot enquiries with regard to Helston Varne, and in the result had elicited that whatever line the latter was pursuing at the present moment – and he very much more than supposed the nature of that line – at any rate he was not dependent upon its results in any way. He was, in fact, well off – almost wealthy. The inducement to take it up at all was probably the sheer sporting instinct. So far, this conclusion was, from a certain point of view, satisfactory. And Helston Varne was a near relation of his old and intimate friend, Varne Coates of Baghnagar.

Personally, he liked the man. John Seward Mervyn was a shrewd, keen judge of character, and studying this one closely, his verdict was “quite all right.” He noted too with a modicum of dry amusement that the “investigation” element was entirely absent during his subsequent visits. Incidentally, what Inspector Nashby thought of it was quite another matter, as to which Mervyn did not give two thoughts. And after those three visits, Helston Varne had left the neighbourhood, now some three weeks ago.

This afternoon, Melian was walking up the hilly road in the direction of that which, crossing it at right angles, led to the hamlet of Lower Gidding. There was a sharp north easterly wind blowing, which brought the colour to her cheeks, tingeing them with the glow of health, and lending an unusually clear brightness to the blue eyes. She revelled in the exercise, walking straight from the hips with a firm elastic step. On her left was a sombre oak-wood, its gnarled leafless boughs showing a hundred fantastic – almost threatening shapes in its twilight depths. On the right a high hedge showed through its bare leaflessness and gaps here and there, a wide sweep of view over the valley beneath. Even that far inland a sea mist was creeping up from beyond the distant downs, partially blotting the fast setting sun into a blood red disc. A cottage with its low eaves and picturesque chimney stacks stood out against the murk. Then the sudden loud ting of a bicycle bell made her look up with something of a start, for she was deep in her own thoughts.

The rider was coming down the hill on the free wheel. At sight of her he clapped the brakes on sharp; so sharp, as well nigh to earn catastrophe – for himself. In a moment he was standing in the road.

“Miss Seward! Why this is an unexpected and delightful meeting, I was on my way to look up your uncle.”

“Were you? He’ll be glad. Well, we can walk back together, Mr Varne – unless, of course, you’d sooner ride,” she added, mischievously.

“Why of course I would,” he answered, in the same vein.

“Where are you from now. The usual Woodcock, Lower Gidding?”

“No. The Queen’s Head, Clancehurst, this time. You know how we used to wrangle over the shortest way out. Well, I’m still inclined to think there isn’t a hundred yards to choose between them. The one you always use seems the straightest.”

“All serene, I still stick to my opinion. The Cholgate way is the shortest,” she answered, merrily mischievous.

“Then the Cholgate way is the shortest, and there’s no more to be said,” answered Varne in the same spirit, and as he looked down into the dancing blue eyes, he came to the conclusion that he was looking upon the sweetest, most entrancing vision of girl loveliness he had ever looked upon in his life.

“Well, and what have you been doing with yourself all this time?” she said as they walked down the steep, rather stony hill.

“H’m! Various things,” he answered, unconsciously shading off his lightness of tone a little, as the ugliness of a particularly grim affair which he had been engaged upon investigating, obtruded unpleasantly at such a moment.

She sent a quick look at him, and did not pursue the subject.

“Look. There’s old Broceliande – still in the same place.”

This was a reference to the dark oak-wood, now on their right as they retraced their way. Melian was a great reader of Mallory, and during one of Helston Varne’s previous visits she had taken him for a walk through this wood, pointing out its imaginary resemblances to that legendary forest.

“Yes. It wouldn’t have moved in between, and the British Isles don’t come within the zone of seismic disturbance,” he answered. “And you haven’t discovered the ghost of old Merlin plodding about it yet?”

“No. I’ve tried to – in the dusk of a dismal evening. But that old crowd seem to have lived in sunshine and moonlight for the most part. What on earth they did with their armour and silken pavilions when it rained is a puzzler.”

Helston laughed. “Oh, one got rusty and the other draggle-tailed, I suppose,” he said. “Now, if I had made that remark you’d have been down on me like a hammer as a Goth and a Vandal, and a profane person who’d sold his birthright – for a plate of porridge, incidentally.” Then, more seriously, “And how have you been getting on?”

“Fine. This country is too perfect for anything. I just revel in it.” But then, that misgiving which had been tugging at her mind on the way out somehow recurred, and the bright, animated, speaking face was bound to show something of it. Equally, her then companion was bound to see it, and he – even he – of course was bound to put it down to the wrong cause. Had there been any further development in the mystery – in its latest form – which overhung Heath Hover, he thought? However, he answered:

“That’s right. Why you are looking twice the girl you were the first time I saw you. You have put on colour, and look in altogether splendid form.”

“Thanks. Glad to hear I’ve improved,” she answered, with a laugh. “That’s always a satisfactory item of knowledge.” Then she subsided into silence. She was thinking of two or three strange things which had happened since she saw him last – occurrences which had frightened her, utterly intangible, even more so than on that night when she had rushed downstairs in a state of scare to her uncle. But with an effort she had refrained from saying anything to the latter about them. He would only laugh at the whole thing as he had done before and suggest bats or rats, or something of the kind as an explanation. But this man somehow she felt a longing to confide in. There was something about him that seemed to render him in her eyes a very tower of strength and reliability. Had she known what his real line was she would not have hesitated – let alone could she have heard his light, easy, confident boast, when talking with Nashby: “Given time, and make it worth my while, and I’d undertake to dis-ghost every haunted house in England.”

The twilight was merging into darkness now. From the sombre oak-wood with its gnarled branches which had led her to christen it Broceliande, came the crow of a belated pheasant fluttering up to roost, and the surface of Plane Pond, coming into view beneath, stared white, a long, slit-shaped eye. More than ever she felt moved to confide in him. And as if to strengthen her towards this course he suddenly said:

“Something is troubling you. I wouldn’t obtude for the world, but – you have something on your mind.”

“Why do you – why should you think that?” And the half-startled look in the wide-opened eyes, meeting his in their straight glance, confirmed him in his theory.

“Never mind,” he replied, and she was quick to notice the world of sympathetic reassurance in his tone. “I won’t press you for confidence. But remember – if at any time you feel like making it – and I don’t say it to brag, but those who know me would be able to tell you that you might make it to plenty of people who could be of less use to you. Well, if at any time you should want a friend, no matter what the nature of the worry is, you won’t hesitate to apply to me. Will you promise me that much?”

She darted a quick look up at him in the gloaming. More than ever did he seem as a very tower of strength. And then the sheer contrast seemed to suggest bathos. How absurd her shadowy imaginative fears must appear to a man of this stamp. Why, he would smile them down as a mere girlish scare of bogydom. Of course. And yet – why not chance it?

“Well? Won’t you promise that little?”

“Yes. I promise. But – ”

She was on the point of keeping that promise then and there, of telling him all, the haunting fear that hung over her in the lonely old house down yonder, at times. At times – not always – that was where the strange part of it came in; and, stranger still, not only during the hours of darkness. Sometimes in broad daylight, when she was alone, would come the chill, shuddering consciousness that there was another Presence beside her, even the stealthy sound of steps, the whisper of voices. But it would come so sporadically, with long intervals between, and otherwise life was so good, that such a strange manifestation did not avail to effect a lasting impression.

“But what?” he said.

She hesitated a moment, then the opportunity was gone. There was a clink of stones on the roadway just in front and below, then a cough, followed by another.

“Hallo, Uncle Seward!” cried the girl, as a figure loomed in sight in the fast deepening gloom. “You oughtn’t to have come out at the very dampest part of the whole day.”

“Oh don’t blow me up, child,” chuckled Mervyn, “I came to meet you. Why – who’s this? Varne, by George. You’re quite a stranger, Varne. Come along down and take pot-luck. Eh?”

“Delighted, I’m sure. I nearly collided with Miss Seward free wheeling down that abominably stony hill. I was coming over to look you up but I’ve got to catch the last train up from Clancehurst. Got something important to attend to.”

Mervyn emitted a half chuckle and turned it off into a cough. What affair was Varne on to now, he wondered? At any rate he hoped it would turn out more satisfactory than the one which had brought him down here, his own to wit.

“Oh well, Business is – biz,” he answered, “only I can’t send you over in the trap because there’s no one to drive. But there’ll be a moon. What if you get punctured, though? Eh?”

“Can’t. I’ve got unpuncturable tyres. I never take risks.”

“Quite right. Quite right. Well, here we are, I’d got a touch of sciatica, and a bit of a choke thrown in,” he went on, “and have been sticking in all day on the strength of it.”

“And then coming out at the coldest, dampest end of it,” supplied Melian severely.

Every temptation to the contrary the guest was as good as his word, and it needed some strength of mind to tear himself away, comparatively early, from that cosy lighted room with its great fire roaring up the width of the wide chimney – more so still, indeed, from the entrancing vision of that bright presence with the mass of gold-crowned hair gleaming in the lamplight. But Helston Varne was nothing if not strong.

Yet as he wheeled along under a clear moon, heading for Clancehurst, now darting through a gap of road between the blackness of sombre woods, now skimming over high, open heath, with the dimming vista of wide country spreading out beneath and beyond – of a truth he was thinking a great deal more of that same bright presence than of the important matter before him which he was hurrying back to unravel, and whereon hung tragedy. But he promised himself that it would not be long before he revisited Heath Hover.