The Silent House by Fergus Hume (ebook reader android .TXT) 📕

"Yet you were so confident of doing more than I," said Lucian quietly.

Link turned sulkily, after the fashion of a bad loser.

"I did my best," he retorted gloomily. "No man can do more. Some crimes are beyond the power of the law to punish for sheer lack of proof. This is one of them; and, so far as I can see, this unknown assassin will be punished on Judgment Day—not before."

"Then you don't think that Signor Ferruci is guilty?" said Diana.

"No. He has had nothing to do with the matter; nor has Mrs. Vrain brought about the death in any way."

"You cannot say who killed my father?"

"Not for certain, but I suspect Wrent."

"Then why not find Wrent?" asked Diana bluntly.

"He has hidden his trail too well," began Link, "and—and——"

"And if you did find him," finished Denzil coolly, "he might prove himself guiltless, after the fashion of Mrs. Vrain and Ferruci."

"He might, sir; there is no knowing. But since you think I have done so little, Mr. Denzil, let me ask you who it is you suspect?"

"Dr. Jorce of Hampstead."

"Pooh! pooh!" cried Link, with contempt. "He didn't kill the man—how could he, seeing he was at Hampstead on that Christmas Eve midnight, as I found out from his servants?"

"I don't suspect him of actually striking the blow," replied Lucian, "but I believe he knows who did."

"Not he! Dr. Jorce has too responsible a position to mix himself up in a crime from which he gains no benefit."

"Why! what position does he hold?"

"He is the owner of a private lunatic asylum. Is it likely that a man like him would commit a murder?"

"Again I deny that he did commit the crime; but I am certain, from the very fact of his friendship with Ferruci, that he knows more than he chooses to tell. Why should the Italian be intimate with the owner of a private asylum—with a man so much beneath him in rank?"

"I don't know, sir. But if you suspect Dr. Jorce you had better see him when he comes back from his holidays—in a month."

"Where is he now?"

"In Italy, and the Count has gone with him."

Diana and Lucian looked at one another, and the former spoke: "That is strange," she said. "I agree with Mr. Denzil, it is peculiar, to say the least of it, that an Italian noble should make a bosom friend of a man so far inferior to him in position. Don't you think so yourself, Mr. Link?"

"Madam," said Link gravely, "I think nothing about it, save that you will never find out the truth. I have tried my best, and failed; and I am confident enough in my own power to say that where I have failed no one else will succeed. Miss Vrain, Mr. Denzil, I wish you good-day."

And with this bragging speech, which revealed the hurt vanity of the man, Mr. Link took his departure. Lucian held his peace, for in the face of this desertion of a powerful ally he did not know what to say. Diana walked to the sitting-room window and watched Link disappear into the crowd of passers-by. At that she heaved a sigh, for with him—she thought—went every chance of learning the truth, since if he, an experienced person in such matters, turned back from the quest, there could assuredly be no help in any one not professional, and with less trained abilities.

Then she turned to Lucian.

"There is nothing more to be done, I suppose," said she, sighing again.

"I am afraid not," replied Lucian dismally, for he was quite of her opinion regarding the desertion of the detective.

"Then I must leave this unknown assassin to the punishment of God!" said Diana quietly. "And I can only thank you for all you have done for me, Mr. Denzil, and say"—she hesitated and blushed, then added, with some emphasis—"say au revoir."

"Ah!" ejaculated Denzil, with an indrawn breath of relief, "I am glad you did not say good-bye."

"I don't wish to say it, Mr. Denzil. I have not so many friends in the world that I can afford to lose so good a one as yourself."

"I am content," said Lucian softly, "that you should think of me as your friend—for the present."

His meaning was so unmistakable that Diana, still blushing, and somewhat confused, hastened to prevent his saying more at so awkward a moment. "Then as my friend I hope you will come and see me at Berwin Manor."

"I shall be delighted. When do you go down?"

"Within a fortnight. I must remain that time in town to see my lawyer about the estate left by my poor father."

"And see Mrs. Vrain?"

"No," replied Diana coldly. "Now that my father is dead, Mrs. Vrain is nothing to me. Indirectly, I look upon her as the cause of his death, for if she had not driven both of us out of our own home, my father might have been alive still. I shall not call on Mrs. Vrain, and I do not think she will dare to call on me."

"I'm not so sure of that," rejoined Lucian, who was well acquainted with the lengths to which Mrs. Vrain's audacity would carry her; "but let us dismiss her, with all your other troubles. May I call on you again before you leave town?"

"Occasionally," replied Diana, smiling and blushing; "and you will come down to Berwin Manor when I send you an invitation?"

"I should think so," said Denzil, in high glee, as he rose to depart; "and now I will say——"

"Good-bye?" said Miss Vrain, holding out her hand.

"No. I will use your own form of farewell—au revoir."

Then Lucian went out from the presence of his beloved, exulting that she had proved so kind as not to dismiss him when she no longer required his services. In another woman he would not have minded such ingratitude, but had Diana banished him thus he would have been miserable beyond words. Also, as Lucian joyfully reflected, her invitation to Berwin Manor showed that, far from wishing to lose sight of him, she desired to draw him into yet closer intimacy. There could be nothing but good resulting from her invitation and his acceptance, and already Denzil looked forward to some bright summer's day in the green and leafy country, when he should ask this goddess among women to be his wife. If encouragement and looks and blushes went for anything, he hardly doubted the happy result.

In the meantime, while Lucian dreamed his dreams, Diana, also dreaming in her own way, remained in town and attended to business. She saw her lawyers, and had her affairs looked into, so that when she went to Bath she was legally installed as the mistress of Berwin Manor and its surrounding acres. As Lucian hinted, Lydia did indeed try to see her stepdaughter. She called twice, and was refused admission into Diana's presence. She wrote three times, and received no reply to her letters; so the consequence was that, finding Diana declined to have anything to do with her in any way whatsoever, she became very bitter. This feeling she expressed to Lucian, whom she one day met in Piccadilly.

"As if I had done anything," finished Lydia, after a recital of all her grievances. "I call it real mean. Don't you think so, Mr. Denzil?"

"If you ask me, Mrs. Vrain," said Lucian stiffly, "I think you and Miss Vrain are better apart."

"Of course you defend her. But I guess I can't blame you, as I know what you are driving at."

"What about Signor Ferruci?" asked Denzil, parrying.

"Oh, we are good friends still, but nothing more. As he proved that he did not kill Mark, I've no reason to give him his walking-ticket. But," added Mrs. Vrain drily, "I guess you'll be married to Diana before I hitch up 'longside Ercole."

"How do you know I shall marry Miss Vrain?" asked Lucian, flushing.

"If you saw your face in a glass, you wouldn't ask, I guess. Tomatoes ain't in it for redness. I won't dance at your wedding, and I won't break my heart, either," and with a gay nod Mrs. Lydia Vrain tripped away, evidently quite forgetful of the late tragedy in her life.

The heritage of Diana lay some miles from Bath, in a pleasant wooded valley, through which meandered a placid and slow-flowing stream. On either side of this water stretched broad meadow lands, flat and fertile, as well they might be, seeing they were of rich black loam, and well drained, withal. To the right these meadows were bounded by forest lands, the trees of which grew thickly up and over the ridge, and on the space where wood met fields was placed the manor, a quaint square building of Georgian architecture, and some two centuries old.

Against the green of the trees its warm walls of red brick and sloping roof of bluish slate made a pleasant spot of colour. There stretched a terrace before it; beneath the terrace a flower garden and orchard; and below these the meadow lands, white with snow in winter, black in spring, with ridgy furrows, and golden with grain in the hot days of summer. Altogether a lovely and peaceful spot, where a man could pass pleasant days in rural quiet, a hermitage of rest for the life-worn and heart-weary.

Here, towards the end of summer, came Lucian, to rest his brain after the turmoil of London, and to court his mistress under the most favourable circumstances. Diana had established herself in her ancestral home with a superannuated governess as a chaperon, for without such a guardianship she could hardly have invited the barrister to visit her. Miss Priscilla Barbar was a placid, silver-haired old dame, who, having taught Diana for many years, had returned, now that the American Mrs. Vrain had departed, to spend the rest of her days under the roof of her dear pupil.

She took a great fancy to Lucian, which was just as well, seeing what was the object of his visit, and complacently watched the growing attachment between the handsome young couple, who seemed so suited to one another. But her duties as chaperon were nominal, for when not pottering about the garden she was knitting in a snug corner, and when knitting failed to interest her she slumbered quietly, in defiance of the etiquette which should have compelled her to make a third in the conversation of her young friends.

As for Lucian and his charming hostess, they found that they had so many tastes in common, and enjoyed each other's society so much, that they were hardly ever apart. Diana saw with the keen eyes of a woman that Lucian was in love with her, and let it be seen in a marvellously short space of time, and without much difficulty, that she was in love with him.

But even after Lucian had been at the manor a fortnight, and daily in the society of Diana, he spoke no word of love. Seeing how beautiful she was, and how dowered with lands and rents and horses, he began to ask himself whether it was not rather a presumption on his part to ask her to share his life. He had only three hundred a year—six pounds a week—and a profession in which, as yet, he had not succeeded; so he could offer her very little in exchange for her beauty, wealth, and position.

The poor lover became quite pale with fruitless longing, and his spirits fell so low that good Miss Priscilla one day drew him aside to ask about his health.

"For," said she, "if you are ill in body, Mr. Denzil, I know of some remedies—old woman's medicines you will call them, no doubt—which, with the blessing