Red Money

"What's that about migration of tribes?" asked Mrs. Belgrove, who was in a good humor, as she had won largely at bridge. "You don't mean those dear gypsies at Abbot's Wood do you, Lord Garvington? I met one of them the other day – quite a girl and very pretty in a dark way. She told my fortune, and said that I would come in for a lot of money. I'm sure I hope so," sighed Mrs. Belgrove. "Celestine is so expensive, but no one can fit me like she can. And she knows it, and takes advantage, the horrid creature."

"I wish the tribe of gypsies would clear out," snapped Freddy, standing before the fire and glaring at the company generally. "I know they'll break in here and rob."

"Well," drawled Silver, who was hovering near, dressed so carefully that he looked more of a foxy, neat bounder than ever. "I have noticed that some of the brutes have been sneaking round the place."

Mrs. Belgrove shrieked. "Oh, how lucky I occupy a bedroom on the third floor. Just like a little bird in its tiny-weeny nest. They can't get at me there, can they, Lord Garvington?"

"They don't want you," observed Miss Greeby in her deep voice. "It's your diamonds they'd like to get."

"Oh!" Mrs. Belgrove shrieked again. "Lock my diamonds up in your strong room, Lord Garvington. Do! do! do! To please poor little me," and she effusively clasped her lean hands, upon which many of the said diamonds glittered.

"I don't think there is likely to be any trouble with these poor gypsies, Mrs. Belgrove," remarked Lady Agnes negligently. "Hubert has told me a great deal about them, and they are really not so bad as people make out."

"Your husband can't know anything of such ragtags," said Miss Greeby, looking at the beautiful, pale face, and wondering if she really had any suspicion that Pine was one of the crew she mentioned.

"Oh, but Hubert does," answered Lady Agnes innocently. "He has met many of them when he has been out helping people. You have no idea, any of you, how good Hubert is," she added, addressing the company generally. "He walks on the Embankment sometimes on winter nights and gives the poor creatures money. And in the country I have often seen him stop to hand a shilling to some tramp in the lanes."

"A gypsy for choice," growled Miss Greeby, marvelling that Lady Agnes could not see the resemblance between the tramps' faces and that of her own husband. "However, I hope Pine's darlings won't come here to rob. I'll fight for my jewels, I can promise you."

One of the men laughed. "I shouldn't like to get a blow from your fist."

Miss Greeby smiled grimly, and looked at his puny stature. "Women have to protect themselves from men like you," she said, amidst great laughter, for the physical difference between her and the man was quite amusing.

"It's all very well talking," said Garvington crossly. "But I don't trust these gypsies."

"Why don't you clear them off your land then?" asked Silver daringly.

Garvington glared until his gooseberry eyes nearly fell out of his red face. "I'll clear everyone to bed, that's what I'll do," he retorted, crossing the room to the middle French window of the drawing-room. "I wish you fellows would stop your larking out there," he cried. "It's close upon midnight, and all decent people should be in bed."

"Since when have you joined the Methodists, Garvington?" asked an officer who had come over from some twelve-mile distant barracks to pass the night, and a girl behind him began to sing a hymn.

Lady Agnes frowned. "I wish you wouldn't do that, Miss Ardale," she said in sharp rebuke, and the girl had the sense to be silent, while Garvington fussed over the closing of the window shutters.

"Going to stand a siege?" asked Miss Greeby, laughing. "Or do you expect burglars, particularly on this night."

"I don't expect them at all," retorted the little man. "But I tell you I hate the idea of these lawless gypsies about the place. Still, if anyone comes," he added grimly, "I shall shoot."

"Then the attacking person or party needn't bother," cried the officer. "I shouldn't mind standing up to your fire, myself, Garvington."

With laughter and chatter and much merriment at the host's expense, the guests went their several ways, the women to chat in one another's dressing-rooms and the men to have a final smoke and a final drink. Garvington, with two footmen, and his butler, went round the house, carefully closing all the shutters, and seeing that all was safe. His sister rather marvelled at this excessive precaution, and said as much to her hostess.

"It wouldn't matter if the gypsies did break in," she said when alone with Lady Garvington in her own bedroom. "It would be some excitement, for all these people must find it very dull here."

"I'm sure I do my best, Agnes," said the sister-in-law plaintively.

"Of course, you do, you poor dear," said the other, kissing her. "But Garvington always asks people here who haven't two ideas. A horrid, rowdy lot they are. I wonder you stand it."

"Garvington asks those he likes, Agnes."

"I see. He hasn't any brains, and his guests suit him for the same reason."

"They eat a great deal," wailed Lady Garvington. "I'm sure I might as well be a cook. All my time is taken up with feeding them."

"Well, Freddy married you, Jane, because you had a genius for looking after food. Your mother was much the same; she always kept a good table." Lady Agnes laughed. "Yours was a most original wooing, Jane."

"I'd like to live on bread and water for my part, Agnes."

"Put Freddy on it, dear. He's getting too stout. I never thought that gluttony was a crime. But when I look at Freddy" – checking her speech, she spread out her hands with an ineffable look – "I'm glad that Noel is coming," she ended, rather daringly. "At least he will be more interesting than any of these frivolous people you have collected."

Lady Garvington looked at her anxiously. "You don't mind Noel coming?"

"No, dear. Why should I?"

"Well you see, Agnes, I fancied – "

"Don't fancy anything. Noel and I entirely understand one another."

"I hope," blurted out the other woman, "that it is a right understanding?"

Agnes winced, and looked at her with enforced composure. "I am devoted to my husband," she said, with emphasis. "And I have every reason to be. He has kept his part of the bargain, so I keep mine. But," she added with a pale smile, "when I think how I sold myself to keep up the credit of the family, and now see Freddy entertaining this riff-raff, I am sorry that I did not marry Noel, whom I loved so dearly."

"That would have meant our ruin," bleated Lady Garvington, sadly.

"Your ruin is only delayed, Jane. Freddy is a weak, self-indulgent fool, and is eating his way into the next world. It will be a happy day for you when an apoplectic fit makes you a widow."

"My dear," the wife was shocked, "he is your brother."

"More's the pity. I have no illusions about Freddy, Jane, and I don't think you have either. Now, go away and sleep. It's no use lying awake thinking over to-morrow's dinner. Give Freddy the bread and water you talked about."

Lady Garvington laughed in a weak, aimless way, and then kissed her sister-in-law with a sigh, after which she drifted out of the room in her usual vague manner. Very shortly the clock over the stables struck midnight, and by that time Garvington the virtuous had induced all his men guests to go to bed. The women chatted a little longer, and then, in their turn, sought repose. By half-past twelve the great house was in complete darkness, and bulked a mighty mass of darkness in the pale September moonlight.

Lady Agnes got to bed quickly, and tired out by the boredom of the evening, quickly fell asleep. Suddenly she awoke with all her senses on the alert, and with a sense of vague danger hovering round. There were sounds of running feet and indistinct oaths and distant cries, and she could have sworn that a pistol-shot had startled her from slumber. In a moment she was out of bed and ran to open her window. On looking out she saw that the moonlight was very brilliant, and in it beheld a tall man running swiftly from the house. He sped down the broad path, and just when he was abreast of a miniature shrubbery, she heard a second shot, which seemed to be fired there-from. The man staggered, and stumbled and fell. Immediately afterwards, her brother – she recognized his voice raised in anger – ran out of the house, followed by some of the male guests. Terrified by the sight and the sound of the shots, Lady Agnes huddled on her dressing-gown hastily, and thrust her bare feet into slippers. The next moment she was out of her bedroom and down the stairs. A wild idea had entered her mind that perhaps Lambert had come secretly to The Manor, and had been shot by Garvington in mistake for a burglar. The corridors and the hall were filled with guests more or less lightly attired, mostly women, white-faced and startled. Agnes paid no attention to their shrieks, but hurried into the side passage which terminated at the door out of which her brother had left the house. She went outside also and made for the group round the fallen man.

"What is it? who is it?" she asked, gasping with the hurry and the fright.

"Go back, Agnes, go back," cried Garvington, looking up with a distorted face, strangely pale in the moonlight.

"But who is it? who has been killed?" She caught sight of the fallen man's countenance and shrieked. "Great heavens! it is Hubert; is he dead?"

"Yes," said Silver, who stood at her elbow. "Shot through the heart."

CHAPTER IX.

AFTERWARDS

With amazing and sinister rapidity the news spread that a burglar had been shot dead while trying to raid The Manor. First, the Garvington villagers learned it; then it became the common property of the neighborhood, until it finally reached the nearest county town, and thus brought the police on the scene. Lord Garvington was not pleased when the local inspector arrived, and intimated as much in a somewhat unpleasant fashion. He was never a man who spared those in an inferior social position.

"It is no use your coming over, Darby," he said bluntly to the red-haired police officer, who was of Irish extraction. "I have sent to Scotland Yard."

"All in good time, my lord," replied the inspector coolly. "As the murder has taken place in my district I have to look into the matter, and report to the London authorities, if it should be necessary."

"What right have you to class the affair as a murder?" inquired Garvington.

"I only go by the rumors I have heard, my lord. Some say that you winged the man and broke his right arm. Others tell me that a second shot was fired in the garden, and it was that which killed Ishmael Hearne."

"It is true, Darby. I only fired the first shot, as those who were with me will tell you. I don't know who shot in the garden, and apparently no one else does. It was this unknown individual in the garden that killed Hearne. By the way, how did you come to hear the name?"

"Half a dozen people have told me, my lord, along with the information I have just given you. Nothing else is talked of far and wide."

"And it is just twelve o'clock," muttered the stout little lord, wiping his scarlet face pettishly. "Ill news travels fast. However, as you are here, you may as well take charge of things until the London men arrive."

"The London men aren't going to usurp my privileges, my lord," said Darby, firmly. "There's no sense in taking matters out of my hands. And if you will pardon my saying so, I should have been sent for in the first instance."

"I daresay," snapped Garvington, coolly. "But the matter is too important to be left in the hands of a local policeman."

Darby was nettled, and his hard eyes grew angry. "I am quite competent to deal with any murder, even if it is that of the highest in England, much less with the death of a common gypsy."

"That's just where it is, Darby. The common gypsy who has been shot happens to be my brother-in-law."

"Sir Hubert Pine?" questioned the inspector, thoroughly taken aback.

"Yes! Of course I didn't know him when I fired, or I should not have done so, Darby. I understood, and his wife, my sister, understood, that Sir Hubert was in Paris. It passes my comprehension to guess why he should have come in the dead of night, dressed as a gypsy, to raid my house."

"Perhaps it was a bet," said Darby, desperately puzzled.

"Bet, be hanged! Pine could come openly to this place whenever he liked. I never was so astonished in my life as when I saw him lying dead near the shrubbery. And the worst of it is, that my sister ran out and saw him also. She fainted and has been in bed ever since, attended by Lady Garvington."

"You had no idea that the man you shot was Sir Hubert, my lord?"

"Hang it, no! Would I have shot him had I guessed who he was?"

"No, no, my lord! of course not," said the officer hastily. "But as I have come to take charge of the case, you will give me a detailed account of what has taken place."

"I would rather wait until the Scotland Yard fellows come," grumbled Garvington, "as I don't wish to repeat my story twice. Still, as you are on the spot, I may as well ask your advice. You may be able to throw some light on the subject. I'm hanged if I can."

Darby pulled out his notebook. "I am all attention, my lord."

Garvington plunged abruptly into his account, first having looked to see if the library door was firmly closed. "As there have been many burglaries lately in this part of the world," he said, speaking with deliberation, "I got an idea into my head that this house might be broken into."

"Natural enough, my lord," interposed Darby, glancing round the splendid room. "A historic house such as this is, would tempt any burglar."

"So I thought," remarked the other, pleased that Darby should agree with him so promptly. "And I declared several times, within the hearing of many people, that if a raid was made, I should shoot the first man who tried to enter. Hang it, an Englishman's house is his castle, and no man has a right to come in without permission."

"Quite so, my lord. But the punishment of the burglar should be left to the law," said the inspector softly.

"Oh, the deuce take the law! I prefer to execute my own punishments. However, to make a long story short, I grew more afraid of a raid when these gypsies came to camp at Abbot's Wood, as they are just the sort of scoundrels who would break in and steal."

"Why didn't you order them off your land?" asked the policeman, alertly.

"I did, and then my brother-in-law sent a message through his secretary, who is staying here, asking me to allow them to remain. I did."

"Why did Sir Hubert send that message, my lord?"

"Hang it, man, that's just what I am trying to learn, and I am the more puzzled because he came last night dressed as a gypsy."

"He must be one," said Darby, who had seen Pine and now recalled his dark complexion and jetty eyes. "It seems, from what I have been told, that he stopped at the Abbot's Wood camp under the name of Ishmael Hearne."

"So Silver informed me."

"Who is he?"

"Pine's secretary, who knows all his confidential affairs. Silver declared, when the secret could be kept no longer, that Pine was really a gypsy, called Ishmael Hearne. Occasionally longing for the old life, he stepped down from his millionaire pedestal and mixed with his own people. When he was supposed to be in Paris, he was really with the gypsies, so you can now understand why he sent the message asking me to let these vagrants stay."

"You told me a few moments ago, that you could not understand that message, my lord," said Darby quickly, and looking searchingly at the other man. Garvington grew a trifle confused. "Did I? Well, to tell you the truth, Darby, I'm so mixed up over the business that I can't say what I do know, or what I don't know. You'd better take all I tell you with a grain of salt until I am quite myself again."

"Natural enough, my lord," remarked the inspector again, and quite believed what he said. "And the details of the murder?"

"I went to bed as usual," said Garvington, wearily, for the events of the night had tired him out, "and everyone else retired some time about midnight. I went round with the footmen and the butler to see that everything was safe, for I was too anxious to let them look after things without me. Then I heard a noise of footsteps on the gravel outside, just as I was dropping off to sleep – "

"About what time was that, my lord?"

"Half-past one o'clock; I can't be certain as to a minute. I jumped up and laid hold of my revolver, which was handy. I always kept it beside me in case of a burglary. Then I stole downstairs in slippers and pajamas to the passage, – oh, here." Garvington rose quickly. "Come with me and see the place for yourself!"

Inspector Darby put on his cap, and with his notebook still in his hand, followed the stout figure of his guide. Garvington led him through the entrance hall and into a side-passage, which terminated in a narrow door. There was no one to spy on them, as the master of the house had sent all the servants to their own quarters, and the guests were collected in the drawing-room and smoking-room, although a few of the ladies remained in their bedrooms, trying to recover from the night's experience.

"I came down here," said Garvington, opening the door, "and heard the burglar, as I thought he was, prowling about on the other side. I threw open the door in this way and the man plunged forward to enter. I fired, and got him in the right arm, for I saw it swinging uselessly by his side as he departed."

"Was he in a hurry?" asked Darby, rather needlessly.

"He went off like greased lightning. I didn't follow, as I thought that others of his gang might be about, but closing the door again I shouted blue murder. In a few minutes everyone came down, and while I was waiting – it all passed in a flash, remember, Darby – I heard a second shot. Then the servants and my friends came and we ran out, to find the man lying by that shrubbery quite dead. I turned him over and had just grasped the fact that he was my brother-in-law, when Lady Agnes ran out. When she learned the news she naturally fainted. The women carried her back to her room, and we took the body of Pine into the house. A doctor came along this morning – for I sent for a doctor as soon as it was dawn – and said that Pine had been shot through the heart."

"And who shot him?" asked Darby sagely.

Garvington pointed to the shrubbery. "Someone was concealed there," he declared.

"How do you know, that, my lord?"

"My sister, attracted by my shot, jumped out of bed and threw up her window. She saw the man – of course she never guessed that he was Pine – running down the path and saw him fall by the shrubbery when the second shot was fired."

"Her bedroom is then on this side of the house, my lord?"

"Up there," said Garvington, pointing directly over the narrow door, which was painted a rich blue color, and looked rather bizarre, set in the puritanic greyness of the walls. "My own bedroom is further along towards the right. That is why I heard the footsteps so plainly on this gravel." And he stamped hard, while with a wave of his hand he invited the inspector to examine the surroundings.

Darby did so with keen eyes and an alert brain. The two stood on the west side of the mansion, where it fronted the three-miles distant Abbot's Wood. The Manor was a heterogeneous-looking sort of place, suggesting the whims and fancies of many generations, for something was taken away here, and something was taken away there, and this had been altered, while that had been left in its original state, until the house seemed to be made up of all possible architectural styles. It was a tall building of three stories, although the flattish red-tiled roofs took away somewhat from its height, and spread over an amazing quantity of land. As Darby thought, it could have housed a regiment, and must have cost something to keep up. As wind and weather and time had mellowed its incongruous parts into one neutral tint, it looked odd and attractive. Moss and lichen, ivy and Virginia creeper – this last flaring in crimson glory – clothed the massive stone walls with a gracious mantle of natural beauty. Narrow stone steps, rather chipped, led down from the blue door to the broad, yellow path, which came round the rear of the house and swept down hill in a wide curve, past the miniature shrubbery, right into the bosom of the park.

"This path," explained Garvington, stamping again, "runs right through the park to a small wicket gate set in the brick wall, which borders the high road, Darby."

"And that runs straightly past Abbot's Wood," mused the inspector. "Of course, Sir Hubert would know of the path and the wicket gate?"

"Certainly; don't be an ass, Darby," cried Garvington petulantly. "He has been in this house dozens of times and knows it as well as I do myself. Why do you ask so obvious a question?"

"I was only wondering if Sir Hubert came by the high road to the wicket gate you speak of, Lord Garvington."

"That also is obvious," retorted the other, irritably. "Since he wished to come here, he naturally would take the easiest way."

"Then why did he not enter by the main avenue gates?"

"Because at that hour they would be shut, and – since it is evident that his visit was a secret one – he would have had to knock up the lodge-keeper."

"Why was his visit a secret one?" questioned Darby pointedly.

"That is the thing that puzzles me. Anything more?"

"Yes? Why should Sir Hubert come to the blue door?"

"I can't answer that question, either. The whole reason of his being here, instead of in Paris, is a mystery to me."

"Oh, as to that last, the reply is easy," remarked the inspector. "Sir Hubert wished to revert to his free gypsy life, and pretended to be in Paris, so that he would follow his fancy without the truth becoming known. But why he should come on this particular night, and by this particular path to this particular door, is the problem I have to solve!"

"Quite so, and I only hope that you will solve it, for the sake of my sister."

Darby reflected for a moment or so. "Did Lady Agnes ask her husband to come here to see her privately?"

"Hang it, no man!" cried Garvington, aghast. "She believed, as we all did, that her husband was in Paris, and certainly never dreamed that he was masquerading as a gypsy three miles away."

"There was no masquerading about the matter, my lord," said Darby, dryly; "since Sir Hubert really was a gypsy called Ishmael Hearne. That fact will come out at the inquest."

"It has come out now: everyone knows the truth. And a nice thing it is for me and Lady Agnes."

"I don't think you need worry about that, Lord Garvington. The honorable way in which the late Sir Hubert attained rank and gained wealth will reflect credit on his humble origin. When the papers learn the story – "

"Confound the papers!" interrupted Garvington fretfully. "I sincerely hope that they won't make too great a fuss over the business."

The little man's hope was vain, as he might have guessed that it would be, for when the news became known in Fleet Street, the newspapers were only too glad to discover an original sensation for the dead season. Every day journalists and special correspondents were sent down in such numbers that the platform of Wanbury Railway Station was crowded with them. As the town – it was the chief town of Hengishire – was five miles away from the village of Garvington, every possible kind of vehicle was used to reach the scene of the crime, and The Manor became a rendezvous for all the morbid people, both in the neighborhood and out of it. The reporters in particular poked and pried all over the place, passing from the great house to the village, and thence to the gypsy camp on the borders of Abbot's Wood. From one person and another they learned facts, which were published with such fanciful additions that they read like fiction. On the authority of Mother Cockleshell – who was not averse to earning a few shillings – a kind of Gil Blas tale was put into print, and the wanderings of Ishmael Hearne were set forth in the picturesque style of a picarooning romance. But of the time when the adventurous gypsy assumed his Gentile name, the Romany could tell nothing, for obvious reasons. Until the truth became known, because of the man's tragic and unforeseen death, those in the camp were not aware that he was a Gorgio millionaire. But where the story of Mother Cockleshell left off, that of Mark Silver began, for the secretary had been connected with his employer almost from the days of Hearne's first exploits as Pine in London. And Silver – who also charged for the blended fact and fiction which he supplied – freely related all he knew.