Read Ebook: Beknopte handleiding voor eigenaars van kleine tuinen by Witte Henrick

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Ebook has 714 lines and 38757 words, and 15 pages

Of course Lillian and Dan took every advantage of the opportunity, seeing that Mrs. Bolstreath was sympathetic enough to close her eyes to their philanderings. They talked all the way to the Curtain Theatre; they talked all through the musical comedy; and talked all the way back to the house at Hampstead. Mrs. Bolstreath, knowing that the young couple would not have another opportunity for uninterrupted love-making, and being entirely in favor of the match, attended to the stage and left them to whisper unreproved. She did not see why Dan, whom Lillian had loved since the pair had played together as children, should be set aside in favor of a dry-as-dust barrister, even though he had lately come into a fortune and a title. "But, of course," said Mrs. Bolstreath between the facts, "if you could only invent a perfect flying-machine, they would make you a duke or something and give you a large income. Then you could marry."

"What are you talking about, Bolly darling?" asked Lillian, much puzzled, as she could not be supposed to know what was going on inside her friend's head.

"I shall make heaps and heaps of money," said Dan, sturdily; "aviation is full of paying possibilities, and the nation that first obtains command of the air will rule the world. I'm no fool!"

"You're a commoner," snapped Mrs. Bolstreath quickly, "and unless, as I said, you are made a duke for inventing a perfect aeroplane, Lord Curberry is certainly a better match for Lillian."

"He's as dull as tombs," said Miss Moon with her pretty nose in the air.

"You can't expect to have everything, my dear child."

"I can expect to have Dan," retorted Lillian decidedly, whereat Dan whispered sweet words and squeezed his darling's gloved hand.

"Well," said Mrs. Bolstreath, as the curtain rose on the second act, "I'll do my best to help you since I believe in young love and true love. Hush, children, people are looking! Attend to the stage."

Dan and Lillian did their best to follow her advice and sat demurely in their stalls side by side, watching the heroine flirt in a duet with the hero, both giving vent to their feelings in a lively musical number. But they really took little interest in "The Happy Bachelor!" as the piece was called, in spite of the pretty girls and the charming music and the artistic dresses and the picturesque scenery. They were together and that was all they cared about, and although a dark cloud of parental opposition hovered over them, they were not yet enveloped in its gloom. And after all, since Mrs. Bolstreath was strongly prejudiced in their favor, Lillian hoped that she might induce Sir Charles to change his mind as regards Lord Curberry. He loved his daughter dearly and would not like to see her unhappy, as she certainly would be if compelled to marry any one but Dan. Lillian said this to Mrs. Bolstreath and to Dan several times on the way home, and they entirely agreed with her.

"Although I haven't much influence with Sir Charles," Mrs. Bolstreath warned them, "and he is fond of having his own way."

"He always does what I ask," said Lillian confidently. "Why, although he was so busy this evening he saw Mrs. Brown when I pleaded for her."

"He couldn't resist you," whispered Dan fondly, "no one could."

Mrs. Bolstreath argued this point, saying that Lillian was Sir Charles's daughter, and fathers could not be expected to feel like lovers. She also mentioned that she was jeopardizing her situation by advocating the match, which was certainly a bad one from a financial point of view, and would be turned out of doors as an old romantic fool. The lovers assured her she was the most sensible of women and that if she was turned out of doors they would take her in to the cottage where they proposed to reside like two turtle doves. Then came laughter and kisses and the feeling that the world was not such a bad place after all. It was a very merry trio that alighted at the door of Moon's great Hampstead mansion.

Then came a shock, the worse for being wholly unexpected. At the door the three were met by Marcus Penn, who was Moon's secretary. He looked leaner and more haggard than ever, and his general attitude was that of the bearer of evil news. Dan and Lillian and Mrs. Bolstreath stared at him in amazement. "You may as well know the worst at once, Miss Moon," said Penn, his lips quivering with nervousness, "your father is dead. He has been murdered."

A COMPLETE MYSTERY

It was Mrs. Bolstreath who carried Lillian upstairs in her stout arms, for when Penn made his brusque announcement the girl fainted straight away, which was very natural considering the horror of the information. Dan remained behind to tell the secretary that he was several kinds of fool, since no one but a superfine ass would blurt out so terrible a story to a delicate girl. Not that Penn had told his story, for Lillian had become unconscious the moment her bewildered brain grasped that the father she had left a few hours earlier in good health and spirits was now a corpse. But he told it to Dan, and mentioned that Mr. Durwin was in the library wherein the death had taken place.

"Mr. Durwin? Who is Mr. Durwin?" asked Dan trying to collect his senses, which had been scattered by the dreadful news.

"An official from Scotland Yard; I told you so after dinner," said Penn in an injured tone, "he came to see Sir Charles by appointment at nine o'clock and found him a corpse."

"Sir Charles was alive when we left shortly after eight," remarked Dan sharply; "at a quarter-past eight to be precise. What took place in the meantime?"

"Obviously the violent death of Sir Charles," faltered the secretary.

"What evidence have you to show that he died by violence?" asked Halliday.

"It is impossible that a complete stranger should poison Sir Charles," interrupted Dan impatiently, "she would not have the chance."

"She was alone with Sir Charles for thirty minutes, more or less," said Penn tartly; "she had every chance and she took it."

"But how could she induce Sir Charles to drink poison?"

"Here!" Dan roughly pushed the secretary aside, becoming impatient of the scrappy way in which he detailed what had happened. "Let me go to the library for myself and see what has happened. Sir Charles can't be dead."

"It's twelve o'clock now," retorted Penn stepping aside, "and he's been dead quite three hours, as the doctor will tell you."

Before the man finished his sentence, Dan, scarcely grasping the situation, so rapidly had it evolved, ran through the hall, towards the back of the spacious house, where the library was situated. He dashed into the large and luxuriously furnished room and collided with a police officer, who promptly took him by the shoulder. There were three other men in the room, who turned from the corpse at which they were looking, when they heard the noise of Halliday's abrupt entrance. The foremost man, and the one who spoke first, was short and stout and arrayed in uniform, with cold gray eyes, and a hard mouth.

"What's this--what's this?" he demanded in a raucous voice. "Who are you?"

"How do you know that Sir Charles has been murdered?" asked the officer sternly.

"I found the body," interrupted one of the other men, who was tall and calm-faced, with a bald head and a heavy iron-gray moustache, perfectly clothed in fashionable evening-dress, and somewhat imperious in his manner of speaking. "I had an appointment with Sir Charles at nine o'clock and came here to find him, as you now see him"--he waved his hand toward the desk--"the doctor will tell you how he died."

"Mrs. Brown!" gasped Dan, staring at the heavy, swollen body of his late guardian, whom he had dined with in perfect health.

The three men glanced at one another as he said the name, and even the policeman on guard at the door looked interested. The individual in uniform spoke with his cold eyes on Dan's agitated face. "What do you know of Mrs. Brown, Mr. Halliday?" he demanded abruptly.

"Don't you know that a woman of that name called here?"

"Yes. The secretary, Mr. Penn, told us that Miss Moon induced her father to see a certain Mrs. Brown, who claimed that her son had been drowned while working on one of the steamers owned by Sir Charles. You saw her also, I believe?"

"I was in the hall when Miss Moon went to induce her father to see the poor woman. That was about a quarter-past eight o'clock."

"And Mrs. Brown--as we have found from inquiry--left the house at a quarter to nine. Do you think she is guilty?"

"I can't say. Didn't the footman see the body--that is if Mrs. Brown committed the crime--when he came to show her out? Sir Charles would naturally ring his bell when the interview was over, and the footman would come to conduct her to the door."

"I came at nine o'clock," interrupted the baldheaded man imperiously, "to keep my appointment. The footman told Mr. Penn, who took me to Sir Charles. He knocked but there was no answer, so he opened the door and we saw this." He again waved his hands towards the body.

"Does Mr. Penn know nothing?" asked Halliday, doubtfully.

"No," answered the other. "Inspector Tenson has questioned him carefully in my presence. Mr. Penn says that he brought Sir Charles his spectacles from the dining-room before you left for the theatre with the two ladies, and then was sent to his own room by his employer to write the usual letters. He remained there until nine o'clock when he was called out to receive me, and we know that Mr. Penn speaks truly, for the typewriting girl who was typing Sir Charles's letters to Mr. Penn's dictation, says that he did not leave the room all the time.

"May I look at the body?" asked Dan approaching the desk, and, on receiving an affirmative reply from Durwin, bent over the dead.

The corpse was much swollen, the face indeed being greatly bloated, while the deep scratch on the nape of the neck looked venomous and angry. Yet it was a slight wound to bring about so great a catastrophe, and the poison must have been very deadly and swift; deadly because apparently Sir Charles had no time to move before it did its work, and swift because he could not even have called for assistance, which he surely would have done had he been able to keep his senses. Dan mentioned this to the watchful doctor, who nodded.

"I can't say for certain," he remarked cautiously, "but I fancy that snake-poison has been used. That will be seen to, when the post-mortem is made."

"And this fly?" Halliday pointed to an insect which was just behind the left ear of the dead man.

"Fly!" echoed Inspector Tenson in surprise, and hastily advancing to look. "A fly in November. Impossible! Yet it is a fly, and dead. If not," he swept the neck of the corpse with his curved hand, "it would get away. H'm! Now I wonder what this means? Get me a magnifying glass."

There was not much difficulty in procuring one, as such an article lay on the desk itself, being used, no doubt, by Sir Charles to aid his failing sight when he examined important documents. Tenson inspected the fly and removed it--took it to a near electric light and examined it. Then he came back and examined the place behind the left ear whence he had removed it.

"It's been gummed on," he declared in surprise--a surprise which was also visible in the faces of the other men; "you can see the glistening spot on the skin, and the fly's legs are sticky." He balanced the fly on his little finger as he spoke. "I am sure they are sticky, although it is hard to say with such a small insect. However," he carefully put away the fly in a silver matchbox, "we'll have this examined under a more powerful glass. You are all witnesses, gentlemen, that a fly was found near the wound which caused Sir Charles Moon's death."

"And the scent? What about the scent?" Dan sniffed as he spoke and then bent his nose to the dead man. "It seems to come from his clothes."

"Scent!" echoed Durwin sharply and sniffed. "Yes, I observed that scent. But I did not take any notice of it."

"Nor did I," said the doctor. "I noticed it also."

"And I," followed on the Inspector, "and why should we take notice of it, Mr. Halliday? Many men use scent."

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