The Heath Hover Mystery

Violet stared at the paragraph and read it through again. Now it all came back. She had read about it before, but it had not fixed itself upon her memory. Even the name had failed to effect this then for she had not seen Melian for some time, and in the busy life she led, “out of sight out of mind” could not but hold good to a certain extent. But now the name seized her attention at once. “Seward Mervyn?” And she knew that Melian’s second name was Mervyn, Clearly this must be a relation. And the doctor had asked her about Melian’s relations.

She read no more of the paper. Her shrewd, busy little brain was at work. This must be a relation, probably an uncle or a cousin. Clearly her duty was to communicate with him. Clancehurst was only about an hour and a half from London. The day was young – should she go down herself and interview him personally? But against that she did not care to leave her friend alone at this stage. Should she write? Perhaps that would be the best course. But she had better question Melian first as to her relative, while saying nothing about any intention on her part to communicate with him. Having thus decided, she went up to her friend’s room, taking the paper with her.

Melian was awake, but drowsily so. Her blue eyes were wide open, but had a pathetic and lack-lustre look, and her hair, partly loosened, made a tumbled halo of gold against the pillow. Yes, she had slept well – she said – only rather wished she could go on sleeping for ever.

“By the way,” went on Violet, casually, after having talked a little about things in general. “Have you got a relation named Seward Mervyn?”

“Oh yes! He’s my uncle. He’s out in India.”

“Is he? Well have you any other relation of the name?”

“No. Not that I know of. In fact I can’t have – or I should have known it.”

“Well then, this one isn’t out in India at all. He’s in England, and not very far from London at that. In fact, only about an hour and a half by rail, if as much.”

Melian stared, then raised herself on one elbow.

“What on earth are you talking about, Violet?” she said. “I tell you he’s in India.”

“Well, people come back from India sometimes, don’t they?”

“Yes. But I’ve no interest in this one, nor he in me. He has never shown any at any rate. I don’t want him to either. He wasn’t at all nice to my father. He disapproved of his sister marrying him, and, in fact, he disapproved of him entirely. No. I couldn’t bring myself to be civil even if I were to see him.”

“Have you ever seen him?”

“No.”

The word jerked out fiercely. Violet Clinock could see that her friend was getting excited, and that was bad.

“Then don’t be in too great a hurry to pass judgment. Life is – I’m not going to say, ‘too short,’ as the silly old chestnut runs, when if anything it’s long enough – but too busy, too hard, to keep grinding away at ancient grievances, even if they are not entirely or partly imaginary. It’s just possible that this relation of yours may have been a bit misunderstood. Anyway give him the benefit of the doubt.”

“Where did you say he is?” said Melian listlessly.

“Clancehurst – or near it, rather,” glancing again at the newspaper. “Heath Hover, they call his place.”

“That sounds rather nice,” murmured the invalid.

“It’s a jolly part of the country I can tell you,” went on Violet, emphatically. Her plot seemed somehow to look hopeful. “I’ve been near that part, and I’d give something for a week or two down there now with my bike, even though it is winter. The glow of the heather, and the green and gold of the waving woods is something to see, I tell you.”

“In winter?” smiled Melian artlessly.

“No, you goose. I’m talking about summer and autumn.”

“Oh!”

“Shall I read you the paragraph?”

“Yes, do.”

The other did so, and then went on to tell her all about the original mystery, which now came back to her memory. Melian listened, and grew more and more interested.

“It’s funny how the thing should have escaped my attention,” she said. “But I didn’t see the papers regularly at the Carstairs’. Sometimes a day or two would go by – or even longer.”

Melian grew no better. Violet could not stay in to look after her every day, for she was entirely dependent upon her work, and were she to lose this, why then they would both be in the same boat. So during the day she was dependent on the slatternly landlady – who though well meaning and kind according to her lights, was yet slatternly, and very vulgar in her ideas. So the girl would lie there by the hour, feeling too weak and listless even to read, with no more cheering a prospect to look out upon than a vista of black chimney stacks and chimney cowls, taking weird shapes against the grey murk of the London sky. And what was there to cheer her? Nothing. Even when she did get well her small savings would have vanished, or dwindled to vanishing point, in the incidental expenses of her illness alone, apart from the liquidation of her medical attendant’s claim. The girl felt very wretched, very despairing, as she lay there day after day in her loneliness. And in the evening when her friend returned and tried to cheer her, the process grew more and more difficult.

“This won’t do,” said the doctor, one morning, coming into Violet’s little sitting-room with a very grave face. “Is there nowhere that Miss Seward could go to for a complete change of air and scene?”

Violet shook her head sadly. She thought of the dwindling purse, and of her friend’s sinking despondency. She thought also of her friend’s pride. And then an idea came to her.

“There is only one thing I can think of, doctor,” she said suddenly, “and even that may bring forth nothing. But if I tell you, it is entirely in confidence you understand.”

“Why that of course,” answered the doctor. He was a youngish man, very hardworking, in a hard-worked and poorly paying practice, and like most members of his profession had more than an ordinary share of intelligent human sympathy. He guessed pretty accurately at one of the causes for worry which kept back his patient upstairs – in fact the main cause – and had been puzzling how to hint, delicately, that so far as he was concerned, that cause need not count.

Then Violet told him of the existence of Melian’s unknown relative and how the girl refused to communicate with him, through some notion of – probably mistaken – pride. At the mention of the name and locality Dr Barnes brightened up at once.

“By George, so that’s her relative!” he said. “I should think I had heard of that case. Why it was a puzzler – baffled all our people most effectually. It isn’t likely to be forgotten either in the profession. Here is a man who dies suddenly and mysteriously, and even our experts can find no definite cause of death. But, there. I’m talking ‘shop.’ Let’s get back to Miss Seward. She ought certainly to make herself known to this relative of hers – he seems a kind sort of man if only by the way he has interested himself in the burial of this unknown stranger. Her uncle too. That’s near enough. Make her write to him. I tell you in all seriousness that she is getting into a very critical state. The only thing for her is a thorough change of air and scene. You know what a hydra-headed beast ‘flu’ is, and its Protean after effects. Well, a splendid type of girl like Miss Seward is far too scarce to spare any effort to save from possible week of that sort. You must make her write to him.”

“But if she won’t? She’s got a pretty strong will of her own, I can tell you.”

The doctor looked at her for a moment in silence. Then he said:

“In that case write yourself.”

Violet clapped her hands.

“Good – and good again?” she cried. “Just the very thing I’d thought of doing, and now I’ve got your authority behind me, why, I will.”

Again the doctor looked at her in silence for a moment. Then he said:

“I will take upon myself to advise you further, Miss Clinock. Do so at once, on your own responsibility. Say nothing to our patient – and so spare her the worry of argument and counter-argument, which would be in the last degree bad for her at this stage. She will thank you for it afterwards, believe me; and then, if the answer should not be satisfactory, which I can hardly think – she will be spared that additional disappointment too. But I tell you, purely professionally, that a change to a quiet country place like Clancehurst, and its pure, splendid air, would be the saving of her. Good-bye. I needn’t look round to-morrow unless you send for me.”

“I’ll do it at once, this very night,” answered Violet briskly. “Good-bye, doctor. You have taken something of a weight off my mind.”

The next day Violet Clinock took “off,” though not without some qualms of trepidation. She had been taking several “off” of late, and her employers were getting a bit short. They were rather “fed up” with her sick friend and the absences entailed, and half hinted that a typing secretary unburdened with sick friends was more in their line, and in fact plenty were there ready and waiting. But Violet was shrewd enough to know her own value, which was really considerably beyond that of salary received. However, she fingered the reins delicately.

That day she devoted to Melian, and the general cheering of her up. The next or the one after that, at the furthest, should bring a reply to her diplomatically, but at the same time very humanly, expressed missive to a perfect stranger.

“You must buck up, Melian,” she would say. “Why, if the worst came to the worst didn’t old Carstairs say that he would be a friend to you if ever you were in want of one?”

“Pooh! He didn’t mean it. It was only something to say – a sort of well rounded figure of speech to get rid of me comfortably,” announced Melian cynically – her illness and growing straits had rendered her cynical. “And even if he did, that old cat of his would soon want to know the reason why, I can tell you.”

“I don’t know. Very likely she has come round, since she’s had time to think things over.”

“Come round! Let her come round – or square. Turning one out like that – at an hour’s notice and all about nothing. They’re a cad crowd anyhow, and as the old chestnut says – you can’t look for anything from a pig but a grunt. But even they may find their own turn come next. Old Carstairs’ job isn’t such a cocksure business, but very much ‘up to-day down to-morrow.’ I’ve heard him say so himself many a time, and give instances of it too.”

“Well dear, it’s a rum world, and to quote another moss-grown chestnut – you never know your luck. Now I’ve got a notion things are going to turn for you, and in a little while you’ll be all on the up grade.”

Melian did not answer. Even the up grade indicated meant a dreary vista of unceasing drudgery, giving the best of her life – her young life – to the totally unappreciated service of other people, and that for a mere living wage. Surely she was cut out for something rather different. But her friend would not allow her to get into a despondent vein. She switched the topic of conversation off to other matters, and her efforts were rewarded, for the invalid forgot the standing woes and grievances, and being of an imaginative temperament, soon found herself talking brightly, and even laughing. Decidedly here was a marked improvement, concluded the watcher, thankfully.

In due course, and exactly to the time Violet had calculated, came a letter. The girl’s eyes brightened as they lit upon the Clancehurst postmark on the large square envelope, and she could only just restrain herself from rushing into her friend’s room, after the early morning postal delivery.

“Melian, here’s a letter for you,” – throwing it down on the bed.

“Letter? What? I’ve no one to get letters from – unless it’s another from that silly little booby, Dicky Carstairs,” she added bitterly. “Only, how should he write to me here? Oh, I suppose it’s only one of the deferred answers to one of my applications. ‘Will write and let you know.’ You know the rigmarole – ‘Mrs Stick-in-the-mud is exceedingly sorry’ – and all that sort of thing. Well, let’s see.”

The while Violet had been on tenter-hooks lest the other should spot the Clancehurst postmark, and perhaps decline, in her absurd pride, to open the letter at all. But Melian tore open the envelope leisurely and listlessly, and then her brows contracted as she took in the contents of the large square sheet – and the excited watcher saw a flush of red suffuse the sweet, delicate face. This was what she read.

“Heath Hover, Near Clancehurst.

“My dear Melian, —

“I am deeply distressed, and more than glad at what I hear about you; the first that you have been so ill, the second that it has given me the opportunity of coming into touch with you at all. I had no idea where you were – I have not been very long back from India, remember – and neither you nor anybody else has ever communicated with me, or given me any information at all with regard to you. But I am only too thankful that now – though late in the day – I have such.

“Now I am losing no time in writing to say that you must pack up and come to me here, at once, and make this your home for as long as ever you like to make it so. I am getting an old man and am quite alone, so it may be dull for you, but at present, anyhow, a whiff of pure, fresh, country air, on top of that beastly London fog in winter, may well set you up after your illness. Although winter, you will enjoy it as a contrast to town smoke, I should think. So wire or write the train I shall expect you by at Clancehurst, and I will be there to meet you. There are reasons why I cannot leave home at present, so am unable to come up to town personally to fetch you, as I should otherwise have been glad to do.

“Believe me, my dear child, —

“Your affectionate uncle, —

“John Seward Mervyn.

“PS. Illness involves expense. You will accept a trifle towards such.”

Two five pound notes remained in the envelope. The long white fingers took them out, and even in the act the girl appreciated the delicacy which should have placed them there until the letter should first have been read. She handed the letter to Violet, while the tears began to well forth from her wearied blue eyes.

“Hurrah!” cried the latter, having read it. “This uncle of yours is a brick, Melian – a real hard, cemented brick.” Then growing serious. “Such a sweet letter too. There, I told you better times were coming, didn’t I?”

“You had no business to have written to him. I never told you you might,” was the weakly reproachful reply.

And then the two girls, the ill one and the well – the ill one because she was ill – the well one out of sympathy, had a good cry together, and there was much hugging and they were happy.

Chapter Nine

The Arrival

John Seward Mervyn was seated within the same armchair in which we first saw him gazing at the mysterious and shadowy door in the corner – but now it was the middle of a brilliant winter forenoon – and he was occupied in the reperusal of two letters, not bearing even date, for one was that of Violet Clinock informing him of his niece’s existence and illness, while the other was from his niece herself.

Comparing this with the former epistle he smiled to himself. Violet’s glowing description of her friend, and her multifold attractions, both physical and mental, amused him. He was gratified, too, that his niece should prove neither unattractive nor a fool. Melian’s missive, on the other hand, struck him as rather strained and stiff as to style, but then, she had been ill, and likewise was he not a perfect stranger to her?

How would the experiment work, he was speculating? If satisfactorily, why should she not make her home with him altogether? He was not so young as he used to be, but there was plenty of “go” in him yet, and he was not deficient in ideas; perhaps she might not find him quite such an old bore as she probably expected to find. He gathered from her friend’s letter that she had gone through no particularly glowing times, nor were there any likely to be in store for her; and life here, quietly, and at any rate for a while, might be the very thing to make the girl happy, dull under ordinary circumstances as such life might be.

There was one point, however, as to which he was not without secret misgiving. By this time no doubt was left in his own mind as to there being something about this house that was not about other houses; and which, for want of a better word, he described to himself as an “influence.” He had experienced it himself, when sitting alone of an evening, and even in broad daylight. Sounds, too, shadowy, vague, and explicable by no natural or material cause – again as to such there could be no two opinions. And this girl who was coming had been ill, and naturally her nerves would not be at their best. It would be ghastly if she were to undergo the shock of some sudden fright.

With this in view he himself occupied the room he had destined for her, until she should arrive. But absolutely nothing untoward occurred to disturb him, either waking or sleeping. Further, he got hold of old Joe and his ancient spouse, and charged them by every consideration likely to carry weight, that they were on no account – by word, nod or wink – to let fall the slightest hint to the visitor as to there being any stories afloat about Heath Hover at all.

“I’ll not nabble, b’lieve me, Mus’ Mervyn,” old Judy had said, clicking her Punch-like profile together, “I don’t b’lieve in nabbling on things like they. Folkses finds ’em out soon enough – ”

“If there’s anything to be found,” supplied the master. “Here there isn’t, you understand, Judy?” And the old woman declared that she did, and Joe emphasised the statement by a brace of emphatic nods.

The fact was that strict fealty to their employer came entirely within this old couple’s interests, for he remunerated them at rather more than double the rate of earnings they could have obtained from any other source or sources. John Seward Mervyn was shrewd, though poor. When he had to lay out money he did so to the best of advantage, and in the proper quarter.

The mysterious end of the mysterious stranger had been very much of a nine days’ wonder. It had puzzled the police, and, more important still, perhaps, it had puzzled the doctors. There had been an inquest of course, and a great deal of disagreement among doctors. Mervyn’s evidence was perfectly straight and to the point; given so straightforwardly too, that none who heard entertained the slightest doubt as to its thorough exhaustiveness; and his narrative of the rescue of the stranger in the freezing midnight, only for the latter to meet his death so mysteriously but a few hours later, created something of a sensation. But the official mind listened to it all with some reserve and the official mind, as represented by Inspector Nashby and the expert from Scotland Yard, resolved to keep a continuous but furtive eye – and that for sometime to come – upon the goings out and comings in of Mr John Seward Mervyn.

Old Joe Sayers, too, gave his evidence with straightforwardness, but that he was constantly harking back, with the suspicious persistency of the countryman, to the fact that he had never seen the deceased when alive. Likewise when he began to “feel his feet,” he volunteered again the opinion which we heard him enunciate to his master, that “folks as gets on the ice, middle of Plane Pond, middle of the night, etc, bean’t up to no good;” a remark whose naïveté drew forth a great laugh, and likewise an admonition from the coroner that the witness should not volunteer opinions containing an imputation of motive until he was asked for it – which admonition for the most part was sheer Sanscrit to old Joe.

Not the least strange side of the investigation lay in the fact that no amount of enquiry was able to elicit any information whatever as to the previous movements of the stranger. The heavy snowfall which had supervened upon the arrival of the doctor and the police inspector at Heath Hover had lasted a couple of days, and had utterly obliterated all and every trace. Further, none of the dwellers in the neighbourhood – whether in village or scattered cottages – could be found to speak as to having noticed any stranger at all, let alone one bearing the slightest resemblance to the circulated descriptions. The man might have appeared out of nowhere. So the verdict was an open one, and the man was buried at the expense of Mervyn and a few more who came forward with subscriptions toward that end – as we have said.

Mervyn sat scanning the two letters, as though to make the utmost he could out of every word and line of each. In his heart of hearts he felt rather impatient. His was not such an eventful life but that the impending arrival of a girl relative – and that an attractive one, he had reason to believe – should not inspire some modicum of pleasurable anticipation. What would she be like, all round, he found himself, for the fiftieth time, wondering?

There was a slight movement beside him. The little black kitten had leaped on to the table, and sat there purring softly, its green gold eyes staring roundly out of a little ball of fluffiness. Then, with one light, scarcely perceptible, movement it transferred itself to his shoulder and sat there, purring louder and more contentedly than ever.

“Ah, poogie?” he said, pressing the little fluffy ball against his ear. “You’ll have some one else to love now. I wonder if she will though. Yes, of course she must.”

The light waggonette, which, with the cart, constituted the sole wheel motive power at Heath Hover, swung easily over the hardened snow; but once under way, Mervyn felt himself beset with misgivings. What on earth had he been thinking about – or rather not been thinking about – to bring an open conveyance to meet a girl who was just recovering from an attack of “flu” and a fairly hard one at that? In the cloudless sunniness of the day this was a side of things he had entirely overlooked. Well, he would leave his own conveyance at Clancehurst and charter a closed fly.

But when he reached the station, the 2:57 from Victoria was just signalled. The station was busy and bustling as usual, and he did not care to risk not being there when his niece arrived. So he left the trap in charge of a hanger-on and went on to the platform.

Quite a number were getting out of the train as it drew up, nearly punctual to time. For a moment he felt bewildered, and was moving rapidly among the alighting passengers, scanning each face. But none seemed to answer the description given by Violet Clinock’s glowing pen, as to her friend’s outward appearance.

Then he became aware of being himself a centre of interest. A girl was standing there, looking intently at him – a girl, plainly dressed, with a pale face and golden hair framed in a wide black hat, and her straight carriage and erectly held head made her look taller than she actually was. As he turned, an exclamation escaped her, and the colour suffused her cheeks, leaving them paler than before. And the look in her eyes was positively a startled one. Small wonder that it was so, for, standing there in the hurrying throng, Melian Seward almost thought she was looking at her dead father.

The likeness was extraordinary. The same face, the same features, even the cut of the grizzling, pointed beard; the same height, the same set of the shoulders. Good Heavens! The farewell on the terminus platform, the joke about the insurance ticket – small wonder that she should have reeled unsteadily as though beneath a shock. Mervyn made a hasty step forward, both hands extended.

“My dear child, there is no mistaking you,” he said warmly. “You have the regular Mervyn stamp. But you are not looking at all the thing,” with a glance of very great concern. “Well, well, we’ll soon put that right here. Come along now. Porter, take this lady’s things. Come and show him what you’ve got in the van, dear.”

He took her arm, and Melian, who had not expected anything like so affectionate a welcome, felt in her present tottery state inclined to break down utterly. This he saw, and kept her answering questions about herself, and other things, the while the luggage was being got out and taken across.

“You will have to get outside of a hot cup of tea, dear, while they are loading up the things,” he said, leading the way to the refreshment room. “Oh, and by the by – ” For the idea had come back to him, and now he put it to her that she would not be up to a five mile drive in an open trap, so it would only mean a little longer to wait while he went across to the inn opposite and ordered a closed one. But opposition met him at once.