Mrs. Braxfield herself opened the door of Woodland Cottage to Mr. Fransemmery, and making out his identity by the light of the lamp in her hall, bade him enter in tones of warm welcome. “Never rains but it pours!” she exclaimed, as she ushered the visitor towards her parlour. “I’ve got one caller already, and now here’s another; glad to see you, Mr. Fransemmery!”
Mr. Fransemmery stepped into a well-lighted, cosy sitting-room, and found himself staring at Blick. Blick smiled and nodded; he recognized the newcomer as the bland and spectacled gentleman who had acted as foreman of the jury at the recent inquest. Mr. Fransemmery, of course, knew who Blick was. He hesitated on the threshold.
“If you’re talking business matters—” he suggested.
“Not at all!” exclaimed Mrs. Braxfield. “This young gentleman—too young, I tell him, to have such a job as he has!—simply came to ask me what he calls a pertinent question about my evidence the other morning. I’m a very good-tempered woman, as you well know, Mr. Fransemmery, or I might have given his question another name, and called it impertinent! What do you think he wanted to know, Mr. Fransemmery? If I was certain that the man I saw on the hill-side the morning of the murder was Mr. John Harborough? The idea!”
Blick, who looked very much at home in an easy chair, gave Mrs. Braxfield a whimsical glance.
“Well, you haven’t told me yet if you were certain!” he said.
Mrs. Braxfield bridled.
“I’m not so old that I’ve lost the use of my eyes, my lad!” she exclaimed. “I can see as well as you can!—better, for anything I know.”
“It was very early in the morning,” remarked Blick. “The light was uncertain—I’ve learned that there was a good deal of mist about on the hill-sides—Hobbs, the man who found Guy Markenmore’s body, says that about here it was very misty indeed that Tuesday morning——”
“How does he know?” demanded Mrs. Braxfield sharply. “Was he about here at that time—four o’clock?”
“He was about here an hour and a half later, and if it was misty at five-thirty it would be still more so at four-fifteen,” retorted Blick. “Now, if it was—as it was!—misty you might easily mistake one person for another, Mrs. Braxfield. And, at that time you referred to in your evidence, there was a man, closely resembling Mr. Harborough in height, build, and general appearance—I don’t refer to facial resemblance—who was somewhere in this immediate neighbourhood.”
“What man?” asked Mrs. Braxfield suspiciously.
“Baron von Eckhardstein,” said Blick. “That’s a fact!”
Mrs. Braxfield turned to Mr. Fransemmery, who had been standing during the exchange of words, and pointed him to an easy chair, opposite that in which Blick sat. She took another, between the two men.
“Oh!” she said. “So he was up here, was he? That foreign man, staying at Mrs. Tretheroe’s? Oh! Indeed! Well, I never saw him!—the man I saw was Mr. Harborough. To be sure, now to think of it, that foreigner is about Mr. Harborough’s height and figure.”
“Now that you think of it again, don’t you think that you may have been mistaken?” suggested Blick. “Don’t you think that the man you saw may have been von Eckhardstein, and not Harborough? Come, now!”
“No!” said Mrs. Braxfield. “You won’t come it over me, young man! I’ve been in a law-court before today, and you’re suggesting answers to your witness. The man I saw, and that I spoke about in that witness-box was John Harborough! Do you think that I shouldn’t know a man who’s been well known to me ever since he was that high? Ridiculous!”
“You hadn’t seen Harborough for seven years,” said Blick.
“What’s seven years out of thirty-five?” retorted Mrs. Braxfield, with scorn. “I remember John Harborough being born, there at Greycloister. I tell you it was him that I saw on Tuesday morning—of course it was! It is ridiculous, isn’t it, Mr. Fransemmery?”
Mr. Fransemmery, utterly puzzled to know what all this was about, glanced at the detective.
“I—er—thought that Mr. Harborough fully admitted that he was up this way on Tuesday morning about four o’clock?” he observed.
“Mr. Harborough did; Mr. Harborough was up here,” agreed Blick. “There’s no question of that. But, so was another man—von Eckhardstein. It’s all—for me—a question of exact times and places. I thought that Mrs. Braxfield might have been mistaken, but as she was not, I can only congratulate her on her excellent eyesight! Oh, by the way, Mrs. Braxfield,” he added, with a smile. “There’s another matter—a pleasanter one—-on which I must congratulate you! I heard in the village, just before I came up, of the event which you had announced. I wish your daughter every happiness in her new station; from what I’m told she’ll fill it admirably.”
“Why, thank you, I think she will, and I’m much obliged to you,” responded Mrs. Braxfield. “But that’ll be so much Greek to Mr. Fransemmery—you don’t know what he’s talking about, Mr. Fransemmery, do you?
“I—I think I do, Mrs. Braxfield,” replied Mr. Fransemmery. “I—the fact is, just before coming out, I had a visit from Miss Markenmore. She told me that her brother, now Sir Henry Markenmore, was married to your daughter, and that he intends to make public announcement of the fact to his kinsfolk and his solicitor tomorrow, after the sad ceremony of which we are all aware is over. But—er—I understood that no other announcement had yet been made?”
“Did you?” exclaimed Mrs. Braxfield, a little contemptuously. “No doubt you would—from Valencia Markenmore! But they have me to reckon with, Mr. Fransemmery, and I intend that my daughter, Lady Markenmore, shall occupy her rightful position tomorrow! She’ll get home here tonight from London, where she’s been staying with friends—I expect her from Selcaster station about eleven o’clock. She’s coming by the last train, and tomorrow morning she’ll assume her proper place at Markenmore Court. As to whether she attends the funeral ceremonies of Sir Anthony and Mr. Guy she and her husband, Sir Harry, can decide; I’m nothing to do with that, Mr. Fransemmery. What I have to do with is making sure that my daughter, now that she is Lady Markenmore, is in her proper position as mistress of Markenmore Court when its late master is carried out for burial!”
Mr. Fransemmery made no immediate reply. He was conscious now that the ground had been cut from under his feet; there was no chance of fulfilling his promise to Valencia. Evidently, the new Lady Markenmore’s mother had assumed responsibility, mounted her high horse, and had her own way.
“I sincerely hope the young people will be happy,” he said lamely. “I—er—trust so!”
“Be their own fault if they aren’t!” declared Mrs. Braxfield sharply. “What’s to prevent it? I shan’t! I’ve been uncommonly good to them—especially to him; far more so than most mothers would have been in similar circumstances, I assure you, Mr. Fransemmery. You don’t know everything!”
“I know next to nothing, ma’am,” protested Mr. Fransemmery. “I am just acquainted with the bare fact of the marriage.”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Mrs. Braxfield. “I don’t mind your knowing, and I don’t mind this young man knowing, stranger though he is——”
“I’ve been trying to say good-bye for the last ten minutes,” said Blick good-humouredly. “But you were so engrossed with your family affairs that you didn’t notice I’d risen, Mrs. Braxfield. I wasn’t lingering to listen—out of curiosity.”
“Never said you were!” retorted Mrs. Braxfield. “Sit down again—as you’re concerned in Guy Markenmore’s affairs, you’re concerned in his brother’s, my son-in-law. I said I didn’t mind your knowing the facts of this marriage—I don’t mind anybody knowing; it’s not my fault that it hasn’t been open. It was like this, Mr. Fransemmery. You know that my daughter is a very pretty, very graceful, highly accomplished girl. She gets her good looks from my family—all our women have been distinguished for their good looks, though I say it myself.”
“You may safely and justly say it for yourself, ma’am!” murmured Mr. Fransemmery. “As I have frequently observed.”
“I join in Mr. Fransemmery’s sentiments, Mrs. Braxfield,” added Blick with a bow. “Precisely what I was thinking!”
“Well, I’ve worn very well,” said Mrs. Braxfield complacently. “We all do—and as I say, my daughter has inherited the family good looks. And as for her accomplishments—well, if she isn’t a well-educated young woman, it’s her own fault. She went to the Girl’s High School at Selcaster from being ten until she was fifteen; then she’d two years at the very best boarding-school I could hear of in London, and she finished off with twelve months in Paris. Cost me no end of money, I can tell you, her education did! And having brought her up like that, well, I sold my business at the Sceptre and retired here, so that the girl would have proper surroundings. And it was not so long after coming here, Mr. Fransemmery, that I found out that she and young Harry Markenmore were sweet on each other, and meeting in these woods and so on. I wasn’t going to have that going on unless I knew what it all meant, and what it was going to lead to, so I had it out with him. Then he got me to consent to an engagement, though he persuaded me to let him keep that secret from his father and sister for a while. And in the end he g............