The Lost Mr. Linthwaite/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
THE LILAC PRINT GOWN
Instead of turning into the open door of the tavern, Brixey, with no more than a passing glance at it, walked forward along the side street, to the gates of the Priory grounds. It was then ten o’clock, and already nursemaids, in charge of children and perambulators, were beginning to seek the shade of the belts of trees or the sunlight which lay gaily over the open lawns.
Once inside Brixey stood and took a comprehensive glance around him. He had heard of this place as a popular resort of the townsfolk, and he wanted to get an idea of its general situation and appearance. He found himself contemplating a wide expanse of green, evidently used as to one part of it, for cricket, as to another, for lawn tennis.
From where he stood, and all round the farther side, ran a thick belt of woodland through certain open spaces in which he caught glimpses of the town walls.
In one of these open spaces, between the trees he save the little postern gate in the walls which Crabbe had indicated on the ordnance map; beyond it he saw water shining in the sun. That, of course, he said, was the sheet of water that he had heard of more than once. And near him lay the path, which, according to Jim Empidge, Mr. Linthwaite would have taken if he had followed out his intention of walking to the old ruin known as Mardene Mill.
But Brixey's immediate attention fixed itself on the ruins of the old Priory, which stood on a plateau between the belt of woodland and the open lawns. He had turned over a local guide to Selchester as he breakfasted, and he knew these ruins to be the remains of a house of the Augustinian canons, and one of the best preserved monuments of antiquity in the south of England.
The high, square tower stood intact; much of the roofless church was uninjured; a good deal of the surrounding cloister was left. Part of the cloister he at once saw to be in use as a modern dwelling; a cheery curl of blue smoke was rising skyward from a tall chimney in its squat roof. There was an ornamental garden laid out in front of. this, and in it a tall, dark-faced man, somewhat gipsyish in appearance, was busily planting out flowers from an array of red pots which stood ranged near him.
Brixey had learnt from the guide-book that there was a small museum housed in these old rains, and he presently crossed the lawn and made towards a door on the carved posts of which hung a framed placard whereon the terms of admission were inscribed.
The man in the garden looked up as he passed, and gave an unconcerned reply to Brixey’s observation that the morning was fine; evidently he set Brixey down as another specimen of the tourist tribe. But as Brixey approached the entrance to the museum, the door of the house was opened, and a young woman stepped out and stood waiting his approach.
Brixey had done no more than glance at the gipsy-looking man in the garden, but he looked at this young woman hard and long. She was, he said to himself, well worth looking at. Moreover, as she stood there on the steps before the museum door, quietly waiting, she showed no indisposition to be looked at, and Brixey used his power of observation to the full as he slowly drew near.
A tallish, slender, lissom young woman, apparently twenty-four to twenty-five years of age, brown-haired, brown-eyed, pretty in a piquant and provoking fashion, dressed in a lilac print gown, the only ornament of which was a knot of gay ribbon at an open throat; a quietly elusive, demure expression about the corners of a pair of red lips; a watchful air about the half-shaded eyes—these were the matters which Brixey took in and immediately drew some conclusions from.
Here, he thought, was a young person who had her wits about her, and probably knew very well how to use them.
"Do you wish to see the museum, sir?" asked the young woman, as he walked towards the steps. "It’s not supposed to be open till half-past ten, but I can let you in if you like."
"You're the caretaker, I suppose?" suggested Brixey.
The young woman indicated the man working in the garden.
"My father's the caretaker," she answered. "I'm at home to help him. Those are what most people come to look at—the Roman remains."
Brixey cast a glance at the glass-topped show-cases which ran down one side of the ancient room.
"And this place was the refectory of the old monks who lived here," continued the young woman, "Built about 1380, they say—that's all I know. Except," she added, evidently wishing to be gracious, "that that old boat was dug out of Selchester Harbour some years ago—they say it's over two thousand years old."
"Ought to be dry enough to make good firewood by now, then," observed Brixey.
"You don't care for old things, I see?" said the young woman.
"Not so much as for young ones," replied Brixey with a bold glance. "Bit dullish here for anybody like you, isn't it?"
The young woman, who showed no disposition to remove herself, gave the visitor a glance of intelligence.
"Oh, well, we get other people than old antiquaries to see us sometimes," she answered, "Besides, I haven't been home so very long. I've lived in London a good deal."
"My spot," said Brixey, who was rapidly reckoning up his new acquaintance. "Ah, there's nothing like London, is there? What were you doing there?"
"West End milliner's place for two years," replied the young woman readily. "Of course, it is dull here in Selchester; nothing doing most of the time."
"Ah, well, you get a bit of sensation now and then," observed Brixey. "What about this old gentleman's strange disappearance from the 'Mitre'? You've heard of that, I suppose?"
Brixey was keeping his eyes open, watching keenly without seeming to watch. But no more than a mere look of assent came into the demurely pretty face.
"Oh, we had a policeman asking something about that yesterday," she said. "We'd never seen anything of him."
"I heard last night that he'd been seen entering these grounds," remarked Brixey. "On Tuesday morning, that was. You don't remember seeing an elderly gentleman?"
The young woman shrugged her shoulders.
"There are a good many elderly gentlemen come into these grounds," she replied. "I don't spend my time in watching them. Neither my father nor I remember seeing this one. People cross through the wood there to get outside the town into the country. There's a queer old place outside there that these antiquaries go to see—Mardene Mill."
"Ah, I was thinking of strolling that way myself," said Brixey. "Which way does one go? I'll chuck the Roman remains for this morning—see 'em another time, perhaps."
The young woman led him outside and pointed to the postern gate in the trees.
"Straight through," she said. Then, as Brixey showed signs of moving, she gave him a demure glance. "Coming back again sometime?" she asked.
"I'm stopping in the town for a bit," answered Brixey "See you later, eh?"
He gave her a purposely admiring glance as he turned off, and she answered it with a smile and a nod as she went back into the house. Brixey passed the man in the garden with another nod, and went on through the trees and past the sheet of water, just then lively with waterfowl, and into Foxglove Lane.
"Demure and sly young party!" he mused, "Good bit of a flirt, I think. Do no harm to cultivate her acquaintance. Nor that of the dark faced gentleman who's planting out innocent flowers.
"If the poor old boy did go into those grounds, and if he did talk to Mrs. Byfield there, and if those two, father and daughter, saw that interview, and if Mrs. Byfield squared 'em to say nothing—well, I should say they could be squared!"
He went on, down Foxglove Lane, looking about him. The lane, at first running through high hedgerows, soon changed into a mere cart-track crossing an open moor. In the distance Brixey saw the ruinous walls of an ancient building which he took to be Mardene Mill. Before he had come half-way to it he encountered an elderly weather-beaten man, who, leaning on a shepherd's crook, was watching a flock of sheep.
"Morning, master!" said Brixey, coming to a halt. "Been about here long?"
"Ever since first thing, sir," answered the man with a smile. "Hereabouts, anyway."
"Seen anything of the police round this quarter?" asked Brixey. "Inspector Crabbe, for instance? Seen him?"
The shepherd pointed to some cottages which lay half a mile distant across the moor, evidently a part of Selchester that had sprung up outside the wails.
"’Tain't not ten minutes since Mr. Crabbe and one o’ they men of his druv’ back across there, sir," he replied. "Been up here they had and along the lane. I minded their hoss and trap for ’em while they was looking about. ’Twas about this here hat and umbrella what was found this morning as they come. And I knows something about that, too."
"What?" asked Brixey.
The shepherd laughed and indicated a clump of gorse that grew high by the' side of the track.
"’Twas there, master, behind that goss, as Jack Tisdale found that there hat and umbrella," he replied. "Found ’em here this daybreak, he did. All right; but if he did—and I ain’t sayin’ he didn’t, 'cause I’ve no doubt he did—if he did, they’d been put there since last night.
"I been round about here for three days along o’ them sheep, and there weren’t no hat and umbrella at that spot when I went home six o’clock yesterday, and that’s gospel truth."
"Tell Crabbe that?" asked Brixey.
"Ain’t much good ever tellin’ they chaps anything they don’t want to hear, master," replied the shepherd sardonically. "Don’t suit ’em always But I did tell ’em."
Brixey talked a little longer, and then went thoughtfully back to the town—to lounge idly in the "Mitre" until after lunch. But at four o’clock he was down at the station to meet the London express, and as it came steaming in he caught sight of Mrs. Byfield, who, like himself, had evidently come to meet it.
Seeing her, Brixey, the instant that his expected man stepped down, seized him, and without ceremony twisted him round.
"Gaffkin!" he exclaimed. "You were my uncle’s confidential clerk for ten years. Look, have you ever seen that woman there—the tall, handsome woman—in his office? Think, man!"
Gaffkin, a quiet, solemn-faced man, fixed a steady, reflective look on Mrs. Byfield.
"No, sir," he answered. "Never saw her in my life before, there or anywhere."