The Mortover Grange Affair/Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
FAMILY HISTORY
It needed but one glance at the faces of Mr. Patello and his wife to convince Wedgwood that they were there on some urgent business, and at the nature of that business he made a shrewd guess. Before they had dismissed their cab-driver he was at their side: Mr. Patello stared at sight of him, Mrs. Patello let out an exclamation which showed her sharpness of perception.
"Mr. Wedgwood? You're surely never going where we are—to Netherwell?" she gasped. Then before he could answer, she gripped his arm. "You've heard something?" she said. "Bad news?"
"Can't say if it's bad news or not, Mrs. Patello," replied the detective. "I've just seen a telegram from your daughter at Mortover Grange. She wires that strange things are happening there. And so—I'm going there! And I suppose you are?"
"We've had a telegram from Mattie, too," said Mrs. Patello. "It came an hour ago. She begged us to go there at once———"
"Show it to him," interrupted Mr. Patello.
Wedgwood glanced quickly at the crumpled message which Mrs. Patello produced from her bag. He noticed that it had been sent off from Netherwell at half-past eight that morning.
Do please come here at once something wrong here frightened to stay come immediately Mattie.
"What can you make of it, Mr. Wedgwood?" asked Mrs. Patello anxiously. "Was there more in the telegram you saw just now?"
"No!" replied Wedgwood. "Practically the same. You're doing right in going down there."
"Such a way to go, and such a time to wait!" sighed Mrs. Patello. "We set off at once, but now there isn't a train till twelve twenty-five—twenty minutes yet. And the uncertainty—who knows what mayn't be happening!"
"Who was the telegram sent to that you saw, sir?" asked Mr. Patello. "I wasn't aware that my daughter knew anybody in your line."
"It was to a solicitor, Mr. Patello," replied Wedgwood. "Mr. Curtoise, of Portugal Street. He wired to Mortover Grange this morning enquiring about a Mr. Levigne, whose name you may have heard before. Your daughter answered the wire. She said that Mr. Levigne who was at Mortover Grange yesterday left there at five o'clock yesterday afternoon in company with Mrs. Clagne and that they were to have returned at seven. They hadn't returned when she wired this morning, and she asked Mr. Curtoise if he was Mr. Levigne's solicitor to go down there, as strange things were happening."
"Is he going, then?" asked Mrs. Patello.
"I don't know. But I am," said Wedgwood. "We'll go down together. Something's going on there that seems to have upset your daughter. This Mr. Levigne, now—do you know anything of him?"
"I've heard his name from my sister, Mrs. Clagne," replied Mrs. Patello. "He's a London man that has something to do with this colliery business. I know my sister went to see him about it one night when she was staying with us."
"He's a director," said Mr. Patello. He glanced about him with a dismal, woe-begone expression. "It's to be hoped there's nothing gone wrong about that colliery!" he added, mournfully. "When one's got money in a thing———"
"No use anticipating evil," said Wedgwood. "I don't think we shall find it's that. And it's very evident your daughter was all right this morning, or she couldn't have sent off those telegrams."
"What do you think it can be, then?" asked Mrs. Patello. "Mattie's a sensible girl, Mr. Wedgwood, and she wouldn't send for us like that unless there was a reason."
But Wedgwood refrained from expressing an opinion, though he was not without one. He suggested that they should get their tickets and find a comfortable place in the train; after all, he pointed out, Mr. and Mrs. Patello were doing all they could in responding so promptly to their daughter's summons. He himself, having found his companions quiet quarters went into a smoking-compartment close by, to think. And one result of his cogitations was that when the journey was half accomplished he went back to Mr. and Mrs. Patello. Mr. Patello was asleep in one corner; Mrs. Patello sat, still anxious and thoughtful, in another: Wedgwood sat down by her.
"I want to ask you a question, Mrs. Patello," he said. "Just a little matter that's crossed my mind. Does your sister possess a valuable diamond ring?"
Mrs. Patello started, staring at her questioner.
"Well, now, however could you know that?" she exclaimed. "To be sure, she does—a very valuable one!"
"Heirloom, perhaps?" suggested Wedgwood.
"Well, it was left her by her husband, Mr. Clagne," replied Mrs. Patello. "Clagne, he was a jeweller, and in a very nice way of business, too, when he died. He died very suddenly, did Clagne, but of course Janet got all he had, I've heard that Clagne got that diamond ring a bargain; he always wore it himself while he lived, and when he died Janet took to wearing it herself, though it's a gentleman's ring. Of course, she only wears it on special occasions. Now how did you come to know about it?"
"Oh, I've just heard that she had one," replied Wedgwood, with affected carelessness. "I suppose she had it on her finger when she came to stay with you a short time ago?"
"She had—and I gave her a warning about it," replied Mrs. Patello. "The stone had got loose in its setting. 'You'll be losing that, Janet,' I said. 'You take my advice and get it reset.' It was quite wobbly, you see—seemed to me as if it might slip out any minute. And that would have been a fine loss!"
"Did she take your advice?" asked Wedgwood.
"I don't know—I can't remember seeing her wearing it after that," answered Mrs. Patello. "But she's the sort of woman who wouldn't tell you if she did take your advice about anything. Close! She may have taken it to get reset while she was in London, of course."
"Not many jewellers knocking around in the Mortover Grange neighbourhood, to be sure!" remarked Wedgwood. "Mrs. Clagne's been at the Grange a long time, hasn't she?"
"A great many years," assented Mrs. Patello. "You might say, indeed, that she's one of the family, she's been so bound up in it. There were reasons. You see, just about the time that Janet lost her husband, Stephen Mortover lost his wife; they died, Clagne and Mrs. Stephen, within a few weeks of each other. And both Stephen and Janet were left with small children to bring up—Stephen had a boy, this present young Philip, and Janet had a boy, Walter. They were both about the same age, those two children. Well, now, Stephen, he was a shiftless sort of man; no good at all, and certainly not fit to bring up a motherless infant. So Janet took Philip away with her to where she was then living so that she could bring him up with her own boy. So, of course, she's been his foster-mother all his life."
"Where is her own son, then?" asked Wedgwood. This family history, not at all pertinent at first, was beginning to interest him. "Isn't he living?"
"No, he died, poor child, at a very early age," replied Mrs. Patello. "In fact, very soon after she took young Philip to live with them. Croup it was—went very sudden. Of course, I'd left those parts then—I never saw him, except when he was a mere one-month's baby: I only heard of these things. But Janet said he was a fine little fellow. To be sure, croup makes very short work of young children!"
"So I understand," said Wedgwod. "So I suppose she kept young Philip with her?"
"Never left her—or she never left him," assented Mrs. Patello. "He lived with her until he was several years old; then she went to become housekeeper at Mortover Grange, and of course he went back there with her. They've never been parted, those two."
Wedgwood remained silent awhile, following out a train of thought.
"How old was that child when he died—the child Walter?" he asked suddenly.
"Fifteen months," replied Mrs. Patello. "Sad age—just when they get interesting!"
"And Philip—how old was he?"
"Same age, almost to a day. I never saw him—at that time, I mean—but I've heard that the two boys were as like as two peas!" continued Mrs. Patello, becoming sentimentally reminiscent. "Might have been twin-brothers, I was told!"
"And now your sister wants young Philip Mortover to marry your daughter?" asked Wedgwood. "Family arrangement, eh?"
"It's been discussed, between us, Mr. Wedgwood—and of course, as things have turned out, it would be a good match for Mattie, as far as money's concerned. But now there's the question of this girl who claims to be Matthew Mortover's daughter! How is that matter going, Mr. Wedgwood?
"I may be better able to tell you more about that, Mrs. Patello, if and when I get hold of this man Levigne," replied the detective. "I fancy he's in possession of information that I should like to get! Papers!"
"And you think he's down at Mortover Grange?" asked Mrs. Patello.
"I think so! I think your daughter's wire to the solicitors implied that he's there."
"Well, I wish we were there!" sighed Mrs. Patello. "I'm that anxious about Mattie———"
Wedgwood pointed to the scene outside the carriage windows.
"Don't be surprised if we're delayed," he said. "There's evidently been a lot of snow here, and we're still south of Derby. What it may be like north of it, and in those valleys we're going to, I can't guess. It's a wild, savage country that, Mrs. Patello—striking enough in spring, summer and autumn, but in winter—ah! I don't relish facing the last bit of our journey."
"Well, I wish we were there!" repeated Mrs. Patello. "When one's anxious———"
But the getting there was not to be as speedy as Mrs. Patello could have wished. The express was late at Derby: the local train to Netherwell was nearly an hour late in starting; it was twice held up in its journey through the wild country which it had to traverse, and the evening had set in and darkness long fallen when Wedgwood and his companions, starved to their bones, turned out at Netherwell amidst what seemed to be a world of snow.
"You'll not get any conveyance of any sort to take you that way to-night, sir!" said a porter of whom Wedgwood enquired as to means of getting to Mortover Grange. "I don't think anything could get through! It's been snowing like this, and sometimes worse, ever since noon yesterday—thirty hours continuous, now—and they say those roads up Mortover way are ever so many feet deep! There's been no cabs, traps, or anything of that sort here all day long."
Wedgwood glanced in the light of the feeble lamps at his two companions.
"We must get there!" said Mrs. Patello.
"If I have to walk, I must get there!"
"I'm afraid you couldn't walk, m'm," answered the porter. "Wildest part of all this country is that! And it's nearer four miles than three."
"We'll go down to the hotel," said Wedgwood. "They may be able to suggest something there."
The boots at the hotel remembered Wedgwood and welcomed the sight of him again. But he shook his head when sounded on the chance of getting a conveyance. Impossible! he said, to get to Mortover Grange on a night and in a storm like that; he, like the porter, had heard that the valley roads were choked with snow. Still, if it was as imperative as all that, he'd do his best. And Wedgwood, counselling Mr. and Mrs. Patello to thaw themselves and get some refreshment while they waited, installed them by the coffee-room fire, and left them for the smoking-room, where the young lady behind the bar was as quick to recognize him as the boots had been. The detective, over a glass of whisky, chatted to her awhile about the weather they had had up there since his previous visit, and quietly led the way to a question—had Mr. Levigne been there again lately?
"He was in here yesterday morning, fairly early," she answered. "Before this snow started. Come from London by a very early train, I think."
"Staying here, then?" asked Wedgwood.
"No, he's not staying here, this time," replied the barmaid. "He only came in for a few minutes, to have a drink. He'd a cab waiting for him at the door—going to the colliery, I suppose."
Wedgwood presently left the hotel and made his way to the police-superintendent who started at sight of him.
"Hullo!" he exclaimed. "I was just thinking of you! I say—I believe there's something wrong over there at Mortover Grange. You heard anything—is that what brings you down this awful weather?"
"What have you heard?" demanded Wedgwood.
"Just this! A man—a cattle-drover—came here about four o'clock and said he'd come from that direction, and as he passed Mortover Grange a girl came out to him and asked him if he was going to Netherwell if he'd tell the police that Mrs. Clagne, Mr. Mortover and Mr. Levigne all went out from there late yesterday afternoon and had never come back. That's all."
"Have you sent over?" asked Wedgwood.
"In this storm? Impossible! The roads are blocked!" said the superintendent.
"I'm going!" said Wedgwood. "That's what I've come for!"
He lingered a few minutes, discussing matters, and then hurried back to the hotel. The boots had found a man, owner of a cab and two stout horses, who would do his best to get the party as far as he could along the road, but couldn't promise to reach Mortover. And presently Wedgwood and his companions set off, and for two hours floundered through the drifting snow. In the end they had to walk, half-buried at every step, and the evening was merging into night when at last Wedgwood discovered the gate of Mortover Grange and saw the old house against the sky, but all in darkness.