CHAPTER I

The 4.15 from Victoria to Lewes had been held up at Three Bridges in consequence of a derailment and, though John Lexman was fortunate enough to catch a belated connection to Beston Tracey, the wagonette which was the sole communication between the village and the outside world had gone.

“If you can wait half an hour, Mr. Lexman,” said the station-master, “I will telephone up to the village and get Briggs to come down for you.”

John Lexman looked out upon the dripping landscape and shrugged his shoulders.

“I’ll walk,” he said shortly and, leaving his bag in the station-master’s care and buttoning his mackintosh to his chin, he stepped forth resolutely into the rain to negotiate the two miles which separated the tiny railway station from Little Tracey.

The downpour was incessant and likely to last through the night. The high hedges on either side of the narrow road were so many leafy cascades; the road itself was in places ankle deep in mud. He stopped under the protecting cover of a big tree to fill and light his pipe and with its bowl turned downwards continued his walk. But for the driving rain which searched every crevice and found every chink in his waterproof armor, he preferred, indeed welcomed, the walk.

The road from Beston Tracey to Little Beston was associated in his mind with some of the finest situations in his novels. It was on this road that he had conceived “The Tilbury Mystery.” Between the station and the house he had woven the plot which had made “Gregory Standish” the most popular detective story of the year. For John Lexman was a maker of cunning plots.

If, in the literary world, he was regarded by superior persons as a writer of “shockers,” he had a large and increasing public who were fascinated by the wholesome and thrilling stories he wrote, and who held on breathlessly to the skein of mystery until they came to the denouement he had planned.

But no thought of books, or plots, or stories filled his troubled mind as he strode along the deserted road to Little Beston. He had had two interviews in London, one of which under ordinary circumstances would have filled him with joy: He had seen T. X. and “T. X.” was T. X. Meredith, who would one day be Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department and was now an Assistant Commissioner of Police, engaged in the more delicate work of that department.

In his erratic, tempestuous way, T. X. had suggested the greatest idea for a plot that any author could desire. But it was not of T. X. that John Lexman thought as he breasted the hill, on the slope of which was the tiny habitation known by the somewhat magnificent title of Beston Priory.

It was the interview he had had with the Greek on the previous day which filled his mind, and he frowned as he recalled it. He opened the little wicket gate and went through the plantation to the house, doing his best to shake off the recollection of the remarkable and unedifying discussion he had had with the moneylender.

Beston Priory was little more than a cottage, though one of its walls was an indubitable relic of that establishment which a pious Howard had erected in the thirteenth century. A small and unpretentious building, built in the Elizabethan style with quaint gables and high chimneys, its latticed windows and sunken gardens, its rosary and its tiny meadow, gave it a certain manorial completeness which was a source of great pride to its owner.

He passed under the thatched porch, and stood for a moment in the broad hallway as he stripped his drenching mackintosh.

The hall was in darkness. Grace would probably be changing for dinner, and he decided that in his present mood he would not disturb her. He passed through the long passage which led to the big study at the back of the house. A fire burnt redly in the old-fashioned grate and the snug comfort of the room brought a sense of ease and relief. He changed his shoes, and lit the table lamp.

The room was obviously a man’s den. The leather-covered chairs, the big and well-filled bookcase which covered one wall of the room, the huge, solid-oak writing-desk, covered with books and half-finished manuscripts, spoke unmistakably of its owner’s occupation.

After he had changed his shoes, he refilled his pipe, walked over to the fire, and stood looking down into its glowing heart.

He was a man a little above medium height, slimly built, with a breadth of shoulder which was suggestive of the athlete. He had indeed rowed 4 in his boat, and had fought his way into the semi-finals of the amateur boxing championship of England. His face was strong, lean, yet well-moulded. His eyes were grey and deep, his eyebrows straight and a little forbidding. The clean-shaven mouth was big and generous, and the healthy tan of his cheek told of a life lived in the open air.

There was nothing of the recluse or the student in his appearance. He was in fact a typical, healthy-looking Britisher, very much like any other man of his class whom one would meet in the mess-room of the British army, in the wardrooms of the fleet, or in the far-off posts of the Empire, where the administrative cogs of the great machine are to be seen at work.

There was a little tap at the door, and before he could say “Come in” it was pushed open and Grace Lexman entered.

If you described her as brave and sweet you might secure from that brief description both her manner and her charm. He half crossed the room to meet her, and kissed her tenderly.

“I didn’t know you were back until—” she said; linking her arm in his.

“Until you saw the horrible mess my mackintosh has made,” he smiled. “I know your methods, Watson!”

She laughed, but became serious again.

“I am very glad you’ve come back. We have a visitor,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows.

“A visitor? Whoever came down on a day like this?”

She looked at him a little strangely.

“Mr. Kara,” she said.

“Kara? How long has he been here?”

“He came at four.”

There was nothing enthusiastic in her tone.

“I can’t understand why you don’t like old Kara,” rallied her husband.

“There are very many reasons,” she replied, a little curtly for her.

“Anyway,” said John Lexman, after a moment’s thought, “his arrival is rather opportune. Where is he?”

“He is in the drawing-room.”

The Priory drawing-room was a low-ceilinged, rambling apartment, “all old print and chrysanthemums,” to use Lexman’s description. Cosy armchairs, a grand piano, an almost medieval open grate, faced with dull-green tiles, a well-worn but cheerful carpet and two big silver candelabras were the principal features which attracted the newcomer.

There was in this room a harmony, a quiet order and a soothing quality which made it a haven of rest to a literary man with jagged nerves. Two big bronze bowls were filled with early violets, another blazed like a pale sun with primroses, and the early woodland flowers filled the room with a faint fragrance.

A man rose to his feet, as John Lexman entered and crossed the room with an easy carriage. He was a man possessed of singular beauty of face and of figure. Half a head taller than the author, he carried himself with such a grace as to conceal his height.

“I missed you in town,” he said, “so I thought I’d run down on the off chance of seeing you.”

He spoke in the well-modulated tone of one who had had a long acquaintance with the public schools and universities of England. There was no trace of any foreign accent, yet Remington Kara was a Greek and had been born and partly educated in the more turbulent area of Albania.

The two men shook hands warmly.

“You’ll stay to dinner?”

Kara glanced round with a smile at Grace Lexman. She sat uncomfortably upright, her hands loosely folded on her lap, her face devoid of encouragement.

“If Mrs. Lexman doesn’t object,” said the Greek.

“I should be pleased, if you would,” she said, almost mechanically; “it is a horrid night and you won’t get anything worth eating this side of London and I doubt very much,” she smiled a little, “if the meal I can give you will be worthy of that description.”

“What you can give me will be more than sufficient,” he said, with a little bow, and turned to her husband.

In a few minutes they were deep in a discussion of books and places, and Grace seized the opportunity to make her escape. From books in general to Lexman’s books in particular the conversation flowed.

“I’ve read every one of them, you know,” said Kara.

John made a little face. “Poor devil,” he said sardonically.

“On the contrary,” said Kara, “I am not to be pitied. There is a great criminal lost in you, Lexman.”

“Thank you,” said John.

“I am not being uncomplimentary, am I?” smiled the Greek. “I am merely referring to the ingenuity of your plots. Sometimes your books baffle and annoy me. If I cannot see the solution of your mysteries before the book is half through, it angers me a little. Of course in the majority of cases I know the solution before I have reached the fifth chapter.”

John looked at him in surprise and was somewhat piqued.

“I flatter myself it is impossible to tell how my stories will end until the last chapter,” he said.

Kara nodded.

“That would be so in the case of the average reader, but you forget that I am a student. I follow every little thread of the clue which you leave exposed.”

“You should meet T. X.,” said John, with a laugh, as he rose from his chair to poke the fire.

“T. X.?”

“T. X. Meredith. He is the most ingenious beggar you could meet. We were at Caius together, and he is by way of being a great pal of mine. He is in the Criminal Investigation Department.”

Kara nodded. There was the light of interest in his eyes and he would have pursued the discussion further, but at the moment dinner was announced.

It was not a particularly cheerful meal because Grace did not as usual join in the conversation, and it was left to Kara and to her husband to supply the deficiencies. She was experiencing a curious sense of depression, a premonition of evil which she could not define. Again and again in the course of the dinner she took her mind back to the events of the day to discover the reason for her unease.

Usually when she adopted this method she came upon the trivial causes in which apprehension was born, but now she was puzzled to find that a solution was denied her. Her letters of the morning had been pleasant, neither the house nor the servants had given her any trouble. She was well herself, and though she knew John had a little money trouble, since his unfortunate speculation in Roumanian gold shares, and she half suspected that he had had to borrow money to make good his losses, yet his prospects were so excellent and the success of his last book so promising that she, probably seeing with a clearer vision the unimportance of those money worries, was less concerned about the problem than he.

“You will have your coffee in the study, I suppose,” said Grace, “and I know you’ll excuse me; I have to see Mrs. Chandler on the mundane subject of laundry.”

She favoured Kara with a little nod as she left the room and touched John’s shoulder lightly with her hand in passing.

Kara’s eyes followed her graceful figure until she was out of view, then:

“I want to see you, Kara,” said John Lexman, “if you will give me five minutes.”

“You can have five hours, if you like,” said the other, easily.

They went into the study together; the maid brought the coffee and liqueur, and placed them on a little table near the fire and disappeared.

For a time the conversation was general. Kara, who was a frank admirer of the comfort of the room and who lamented his own inability to secure with money the cosiness which John had obtained at little cost, went on a foraging expedition whilst his host applied himself to a proof which needed correcting.

“I suppose it is impossible for you to have electric light here,” Kara asked.

“Quite,” replied the other.

“Why?”

“I rather like the light of this lamp.”

“It isn’t the lamp,” drawled the Greek and made a little grimace; “I hate these candles.”

He waved his hand to the mantle-shelf where the six tall, white, waxen candles stood out from two wall sconces.

“Why on earth do you hate candles?” asked the other in surprise.

Kara made no reply for the moment, but shrugged his shoulders. Presently he spoke.

“If you were ever tied down to a chair and by the side of that chair was a small keg of black powder and stuck in that powder was a small candle that burnt lower and lower every minute—my God!”

John was amazed to see the perspiration stand upon the forehead of his guest.

“That sounds thrilling,” he said.

The Greek wiped his forehead with a silk handkerchief and his hand shook a little.

“It was something more than thrilling,” he said.

“And when did this occur?” asked the author curiously.

“In Albania,” replied the other; “it was many years ago, but the devils are always sending me reminders of the fact.”

He did not attempt to explain who the devils were or under what circumstances he was brought to this unhappy pass, but changed the subject definitely.

Sauntering round the cosy room he followed the bookshelf which filled one wall and stopped now and again to examine some title. Presently he drew forth a stout volume.

“‘Wild Brazil’,” he read, “by George Gathercole-do you know Gathercole?”

John was filling his pipe from a big blue jar on his desk and nodded.

“Met him once—a taciturn devil. Very short of speech and, like all men who have seen and done things, less inclined to talk about himself than any man I know.”

Kara looked at the book with a thoughtful pucker of brow and turned the leaves idly.

“I’ve never seen him,” he said as he replaced the book, “yet, in a sense, his new journey is on my behalf.”

The other man looked up.

“On your behalf?”

“Yes—you know he has gone to Patagonia for me. He believes there is gold there—you will learn as much from his book on the mountain systems of South America. I was interested in his theories and corresponded with him. As a result of that correspondence he undertook to make a geological survey for me. I sent him money for his expenses, and he went off.”

“You never saw him?” asked John Lexman, surprised.

Kara shook his head.

“That was not—?” began his host.

“Not like me, you were going to say. Frankly, it was not, but then I realized that he was an unusual kind of man. I invited him to dine with me before he left London, and in reply received a wire from Southampton intimating that he was already on his way.”

Lexman nodded.

“It must be an awfully interesting kind of life,” he said. “I suppose he will be away for quite a long time?”

“Three years,” said Kara, continuing his examination of the bookshelf.

“I envy those fellows who run round the world writing books,” said John, puffing reflectively at his pipe. “They have all the best of it.”

Kara turned. He stood immediately behind the author and the other could not see his face. There was, however, in his voice an unusual earnestness and an unusual quiet vehemence.

“What have you to complain about!” he asked, with that little drawl of his. “You have your own creative work—the most fascinating branch of labour that comes to a man. He, poor beggar, is bound to actualities. You have the full range of all the worlds which your imagination gives to you. You can create men and destroy them, call into existence fascinating problems, mystify and baffle ten or twenty thousand people, and then, at a word, elucidate your mystery.”

John laughed.

“There is something in that,” he said.

“As for the rest of your life,” Kara went on in a lower voice, “I think you have that which makes life worth living—an incomparable wife.”

Lexman swung round in his chair, and met the other’s gaze, and there was something in the set of the other’s handsome face which took his breath away.

“I do not see—” he began.

Kara smiled.

“That was an impertinence, wasn’t it!” he said, banteringly. “But then you mustn’t forget, my dear man, that I was very anxious to marry your wife. I don’t suppose it is secret. And when I lost her, I had ideas about you which are not pleasant to recall.”

He had recovered his self-possession and had continued his aimless stroll about the room.

“You must remember I am a Greek, and the modern Greek is no philosopher. You must remember, too, that I am a petted child of fortune, and have had everything I wanted since I was a baby.”

“You are a fortunate devil,” said the other, turning back to his desk, and taking up his pen.

For a moment Kara did not speak, then he made as though he would say something, checked himself, and laughed.

“I wonder if I am,” he said.

And now he spoke with a sudden energy.

“What is this trouble you are having with Vassalaro?”

John rose from his chair and walked over to the fire, stood gazing down into its depths, his legs wide apart, his hands clasped behind him, and Kara took his attitude to supply an answer to the question.

“I warned you against Vassalaro,” he said, stooping by the other’s side to light his cigar with a spill of paper. “My dear Lexman, my fellow countrymen are unpleasant people to deal with in certain moods.”

“He was so obliging at first,” said Lexman, half to himself.