He had condescended graciously to approve the house. In his leisure moments he was inclined to tap the panelling and make elaborate measurements for the possible location of a secret room, but little by little his interest in the mystery of Lord Listerdale abated. He was also less enthusiastic on the subject of the tobacconist’s daughter. Atmosphere tells.
To Barbara the house had brought great satisfaction. Jim Masterton had come home, and was a frequent visitor. He and Mrs St Vincent got on splendidly together, and he said something to Barbara one day that startled her.
‘This house is a wonderful setting for your mother, you know.’
‘For Mother?’
‘Yes. It was made for her! She belongs to it in an extraordinary way. You know there’s something queer about this house altogether, something uncanny and haunting.’
‘Don’t get like Rupert,’ Barbara implored him. ‘He is convinced that the wicked Colonel Carfax murdered Lord Listerdale and hid his body under the floor.’
Masterton laughed.
‘I admire Rupert’s detective zeal. No, I didn’t mean anything of that kind. But there’s something in the air, some atmosphere that one doesn’t quite understand.’
They had been three months in Cheviot Place when Barbara came to her mother with a radiant face.
‘Jim and I—we’re engaged. Yes—last night. Oh, Mother! It all seems like a fairy tale come true.’
‘Oh, my dear! I’m so glad—so glad.’
Mother and daughter clasped each other close.
‘You know Jim’s almost as much in love with you as he is with me,’ said Barbara at last, with a mischievous laugh.
Mrs St Vincent blushed very prettily.
‘He is,’ persisted the girl. ‘You thought this house would make such a beautiful setting for me, and all the time it’s really a setting for you. Rupert and I don’t quite belong here. You do.’
‘Don’t talk nonsense, darling.’
‘It’s not nonsense. There’s a flavour of enchanted castle about it, with you as an enchanted princess and Quentin as—as—oh! a benevolent magician.’
Mrs St Vincent laughed and admitted the last item.
Rupert received the news of his sister’s engagement very calmly.
‘I thought there was something of the kind in the wind,’ he observed sapiently.
He and his mother were dining alone together; Barbara was out with Jim.
Quentin placed the port in front of him, and withdrew noiselessly.
‘That’s a rum old bird,’ said Rupert, nodding towards the closed door. ‘There’s something odd about him, you know, something—’
‘Not fishy?’ interrupted Mrs St Vincent, with a faint smile.
‘Why, Mother, how did you know what I was going to say?’ demanded Rupert in all seriousness.
‘It’s rather a word of yours, darling. You think everything is fishy. I suppose you have an idea that it was Quentin who did away with Lord Listerdale and put him under the floor?’
‘Behind the panelling,’ corrected Rupert. ‘You always get things a little bit wrong, Mother. No, I’ve inquired about that. Quentin was down at King’s Cheviot at the time.’
Mrs St Vincent smiled at him, as she rose from the table and went up to the drawing-room. In some ways Rupert was a long time growing up.
Yet a sudden wonder swept over her for the first time as to Lord Listerdale’s reasons for leaving England so abruptly. There must be something behind it, to account for that sudden decision. She was still thinking the matter over when Quentin came in with the coffee tray, and she spoke out impulsively.
‘You have been with Lord Listerdale a long time, haven’t you, Quentin?’
‘Yes, madam; since I was a lad of twenty-one. That was in the late Lord’s time. I started as third footman.’
‘You must know Lord Listerdale very well. What kind of a man is he?’
The butler turned the tray a little, so that she could help herself to sugar more conveniently, as he replied in even unemotional tones:
‘Lord Listerdale was a very selfish gentleman, madam: with no consideration for others.’
He removed the tray and bore it from the room. Mrs St Vincent sat with her coffee cup in her hand, and a puzzled frown on her face. Something struck her as odd in the speech apart from the views it expressed. In another minute it flashed home to her.
Quentin had used the word ‘was’ not ‘is’. But then, he must think—must believe—She pulled herself up. She was as bad as Rupert! But a very definite uneasiness assailed her. Afterwards she dated her first suspicions from that moment.
With Barbara’s happiness and future assured, she had time to think her own thoughts, and against her will, they began to centre round the mystery of Lord Listerdale. What was the real story? Whatever it was Quentin knew something about it. Those had been odd words of his—‘a very selfish gentleman—no consideration for others.’ What lay behind them? He had spoken as a judge might speak, detachedly and impartially.
Was Quentin involved in Lord Listerdale’s disappearance? Had he taken an active part in any tragedy there might have been? After all, ridiculous as Rupert’s assumption had seemed at the time, that single letter with its power of attorney coming from East Africa was—well, open to suspicion.
But try as she would, she could not believe any real evil of Quentin. Quentin, she told herself over and over again, was good—she used the word as simply as a child might have done. Quentin was good. But he knew something!
She never spoke with him again of his master. The subject was apparently forgotten. Rupert and Barbara had other things to think of, and there were no further discussions.
It was towards the end of August that her vague surmises crystallized into realities. Rupert had gone for a fortnight’s holiday with a friend who had a motor-cycle and trailer. It was some ten days after his departure that Mrs St Vincent was startled to see him rush into the room where she sat writing.
‘Rupert!’ she exclaimed.
‘I know, Mother. You didn’t expect to see me for another three days. But something’s happened. Anderson—my pal, you know—didn’t much care where he went, so I suggested having a look in at King’s Cheviot—’
‘King’s Cheviot? But why—?’
‘You know perfectly well, Mother, that I’ve always scented something fishy about things here. Well, I had a look at the old place—it’s let, you know—nothing there. Not that I actually expected to find anything—I was just nosing round, so to speak.’
Yes, she thought. Rupert was very like a dog at this moment. Hunting in circles for something vague and undefined, led by instinct, busy and happy.
‘It was when we were passing through a village about eight or nine miles away that it happened—that I saw him, I mean.’
‘Saw whom?’
‘Quentin—just going into a little cottage. Something fishy here, I said to myself, and we stopped the bus, and I went back. I rapped on the door and he himself opened it.’
‘But I don’t understand. Quentin hasn’t been away—’
‘I’m coming to that, Mother. If you’d only listen, and not interrupt. It was Quentin,