“Rather a pity you didn’t point him out to me,” I remarked, very much puzzled. “I, too, have a faint idea that I’ve seen him somewhere. It may have been that when I’ve walked with you he has followed us.”
“Most likely,” was the young Earl’s reply. “He evidently had some fixed purpose in watching my movements, but what it could be is an entire mystery. During the last fortnight I was in town I always carried my little revolver, fearing—well, to tell you the truth, fearing lest he should make an attack upon me,” he admitted with a smile. “The fact was, I had become thoroughly unnerved.”
This confession sounded strange from a resolute athletic man of his stamp whom I had hitherto regarded as utterly fearless and possessing nerves of iron.
“And now,” he went on, “the fellow is found murdered within half a mile of the house! Most extraordinary, isn’t it?”
“Very remarkable—to say the least,” I said reflectively. “The police will probably discover who and what he is.”
“Police!” he laughed. “What do you think such a fellow as Redway could discover, except perhaps it were a mug of beer hidden by a publican after closing-time? No, I agree with Pink, we must have a couple of men down from London. It seems that Pink has found the print of a woman’s shoe at the spot, while in the dead man’s hand was grasped a piece of white fur. The suspicion is, therefore, that some woman has had a hand in it. I think, Willoughby, you’d best run up to London and get them to send down some smart man from the Criminal Investigation Department. Go and see my friend Layard, the Home Secretary, and tell him I sent you to obtain his assistance. He’ll no doubt see that some capable person is sent.”
I suggested that he should write a note to Sir Stephen Layard which I would deliver personally, and at once he sat down and scribbled a few lines in that heavy uneven calligraphy of his, for he had ever been a sad penman.
The net seemed to be slowly spreading for Lolita, yet what could I do to prevent this tracking down of the woman I loved?
The mystery of the man’s movements in London had apparently thoroughly aroused the young Earl’s desire to probe the affair to the bottom. And not unnaturally. None of us care to be followed and watched by an unknown man whose motive is utterly obscure.
So I was compelled to take the note and promise that I would deliver it to Layard that same evening.
“I mean to do all I can to find out who the fellow was and why he was killed,” the Earl declared, striding up and down the room impatiently. “I’ve just seen Lolita, who seems very upset about it. She, too, admits that she saw the man watching me at Ranelagh, at the bazaar, and also at other places.”
“I wonder what his motive could have been,” I remarked, surprised that her ladyship should have made such a statement.
“Ah! That we must find out. His intentions were evil ones, without a doubt.”
“But he didn’t strike you as a thief?” I asked.
“Not at all. He was always very well-dressed and had something of a foreign appearance, although I don’t believe he was a foreigner.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I heard him speak. His voice had rather a Cockney ring in it, although he appeared to ape the Frenchman in dress and mannerisms, in order, I suppose, to be able to pass as one.”
“An adventurer—without a doubt,” I remarked. “But we shall know more before long. There are several facts which may afford us good clues.”
“Yes, in the hands of an expert detective they may. That’s why we must have a man down from London. You go to town and do your best, Willoughby, while I remain here and watch what transpires. The inquest is fixed for to-morrow at three, I hear, so you had better be back for it. The Coroner will no doubt want your evidence.” And with that we both walked out together into the park, where the constabulary were still making a methodical examination of the whole of the area to the left of the great avenue.
I had intended to obtain another interview with Lolita, but now resolved that to keep apart from her for the present was by far the wisest course, therefore I accompanied the Earl as far as the fateful spot, and then continued my way home in order to lunch before driving to Kettering to catch the afternoon express to St. Pancras.
In the idle half-hour after my chop and claret, eaten by the way with but little relish, I lounged in my old armchair smoking my pipe, when of a sudden there flashed upon me the recollection of the ring I had secured from the dead man’s hand. I ran up to my room, and taking it from the pocket of my dress-waistcoat carried it downstairs, where I submitted it to thorough and searching examination.
It was a ring of no ordinary pattern, the flat golden scarabaeus being set upon a swivel, while the remaining part of the ring was oval, so as to fit the finger. I put it on, and found that the scarabaeus being movable, it adapted itself to all movements of the finger, and that it was a marvellously fine specimen of the goldsmiths’ art, and no doubt, as I had already decided, a copy of an antique Etruscan ornament.
The thickness of the golden sacred beetle attracted me, and I wondered whether it could contain anything within. Around the bottom edge were fashioned in gold the folded hairy legs of the insect just showing beneath its wings, and on examining them I discovered, to my surprise, that there was concealed a tiny hinge.
Instantly I took a pen-knife and gently prised it open, when I discovered that within it was almost like a locket, and that behind a small transparent disc of talc was concealed a tiny photograph—a pictured face the sight of which held me breathless. I could not believe my eyes.
Revealed there was a portrait of Lady Lolita Lloyd, the woman I loved, which the dead man had worn in secret upon his finger!
Chapter Eight.
Wherein I Make Certain Discoveries.
Alas! how I had, in loving Lolita, quaffed the sweet illusions of hope only to feel the venom of despair more poignant to my soul.
During the journey up to London my thoughts were fully occupied by the discovery of what that oddly-shaped ring contained. That portrait undoubtedly linked my love with the victim of the tragedy. But how? I believed myself acquainted with most, if not with all, of her many admirers, and if this unknown man were an actual rival then I had remained in entire and complete ignorance.
As the express rushed southward I sat alone in the compartment calmly examining my own heart and analysing my own feelings. Hope gilded my fancy, and I breathed again. I found that I loved, I reverenced woman, and had sought for a real woman to whom to offer my heart. Inherent in man is the love of something to protect; his very manhood requires that his strongest love should be showered on one who needs his strong arm to shelter her from the world, with all its troubles, all its sorrows, and all its sins. I wanted a companion, pure, loving, womanly; one who would complete what was wanting in myself; one