to all that I asked over the telephone. I didn't mean to, at first. My original idea was to come here unknown to all, even to you; but when I came to think over it, it seemed so disloyal, so underhanded, as if I didn't trust you in all things, always—that I simply couldn't bring myself to do it."
She looked up at him with grave sweet eyes—the eyes that had lit him back from the path to destruction, that would light him up to the gates of heaven evermore—and smiled on him, bewildered.
"I am afraid I do not follow you," she said. "I don't quite grasp what you mean. Oh!" with sudden fear, "if you thought from my cry of surprise when I recognized your voice over the telephone, that I was not glad—— Why, I was going to write to you this morning. But I expected it to be Geoffrey Clavering asking for Kathie, you know——"
The name brought a ridge between Cleek's brows as of a sudden disconcerting thought.
"Geoffrey Clavering? But he has been over here, this morning, has he not?" he asked anxiously.
"No, he has not, and that is what seems so strange," said Ailsa.
"Did he write no note to Lady Katharine then—send her no message, Miss Lorne?"
"No. I see that surprises you, Mr. Cleek, as, to be perfectly frank with you, it surprises me. I can't make it out. I know that his whole life is bound up in Kathie, as hers is bound up in him. I know that it nearly drove him frantic when he was told their engagement would have to come to an end; so one would naturally think that when there is a rumour that the man who came between them is dead——And he must have heard by this time."
"Miss Lorne, let me tell you something," said Cleek gravely. "Geoffrey Clavering does know of the murder. He has known of it since twelve o'clock last night, to my certain knowledge."
"Mr. Cleek! And yet he has made no move to communicate with Lady Katharine! But"—with sudden hopefulness—"perhaps he wishes to make absolutely sure; perhaps the identity of the murdered man is not yet wholly established! Perhaps it is not really the Count de Louvisan after all."
"It is the Count de Louvisan, Miss Lorne! That was settled beyond all question last night."
"And Geoffrey Clavering knew it then?"
"And Geoffrey Clavering knew it then—yes! The man slain is, or rather was, the one known as the Count de Louvisan; on his dead body numbers whose total make up the sum of nine were marked; and—I fancy you remember what Geoffrey Clavering threatened when the fellow went to Clavering Close last night."
Ailsa looked at him, her eyes dilating, the colour draining slowly out of her cheeks and lips. It was impossible not to grasp the significance of these two circumstances, one of which—the mysterious markings on the dead man's body—she now heard of for the first time.
"Oh, Mr. Cleek, oh!" she said faintly. "You surely can't think—— A dear lovable boy like that! You can't believe that Geoffrey Clavering had anything to do with it?"
"I hope not, for, frankly, I like the boy. But one thing is certain: if he didn't kill the man, he knows who did; knows, too, that there is a woman implicated in the crime."
"A woman! Oh, Mr. Cleek, a—a woman?"
"Yes—perhaps two women!"
"Women and—and a deed of violence, a deed of horror, like that? No! Women couldn't. They would be fiends, not women. I hold too high an estimate of my sex to let you call them that! And for him, for Geoffrey Clavering, there is but one woman in all the world! Even you shan't hint it of her! No, not even you."
"Hush! I am hinting nothing. Now that I have seen Lady Katharine I would almost as soon think evil of you as of her."
There was a little summerhouse close at hand. He saw that she was faint, shocked, overcome, and gently led her to it, loathing himself that even for one moment he had brought pain within touch of her.
"Who knows better than I how false appearances may be?" he said. "Who should be less likely to take suspicious circumstances for proof?"
"Oh, but to suspect, even to suspect, Kathie—the dearest and the sweetest girl on earth."
"Again I dispute that!" he threw back with repressed vehemence. "And again I declare that I am not swayed by facts, black as they may be, black as they undoubtedly are. If I believed, should I come here and openly tell you of these things? My duty is to the law. Should I not carry proofs there if I believed that they were proofs? But my faith is as a rock. Shall I prove it to you? Then look! I know that you will tell me the truth; and it is because of that, because in my heart I know it is a truth which you can and will face openly and with no cause for fear, that I have declined to hold this thing of sufficient importance to be called a clue, and as such to be handed over to the police. Miss Lorne—Ailsa—tell me, will you—have you ever seen this thing before?"
While he was speaking his hand had gone to his pocket and come forth tightly shut. Now he opened his closed fingers and let her see that there was a scrap of pink chiffon edged with rose coloured stitchery lying on his open palm. Her eyes, fixed earnestly upon his face heretofore, dropped to the gauzy fragment held out to her, and a ridge dug itself between her level brows.
CHAPTER NINE
BLIND GROPING
Ailsa Lorne gave a little start as she examined the fragment.
"I thought at first that it was torn from my own dress," she said frankly, looking up at him, "for, as it happens, I was wearing a pink dress, but not quite of this shade. I will show it to you if you like."
"There is no need, Miss Lorne," said Cleek, his eyes shining. "If you tell me that you were not at Gleer Cottage last night, then there is no more to be said," and with a little laugh of sheer happiness he carefully replaced the bit of chiffon in his pocketbook. "Just one more question, please, Miss Lorne. Tell me: has Lady Katharine a certain kind of bracelet to which there is attached a small capsule by a link of gold, and which smells adorably of violets?"
"Yes. Anybody that knows her could tell you that. Her father, Lord St. Ulmer, brought it to her from South America. He had her name and the St. Ulmer arms engraved upon it. At least, upon what you have called the 'capsule,' which contains some highly concentrated perfume that makes the whole room fragrant whenever she removes a tiny gold stopper from the delightful thing."
"Thank you! I supposed as much. Now will you tell me, Miss Lorne, how long it is since Lady Katharine lost that little golden capsule from her bracelet? Was it, as I am hoping, on the day when you visited Gleer Cottage in company with her, or since?"
"What a strange question. She hasn't lost it at all. At least, she has made no mention of having done so, as I am sure she would if it had been lost. Always, of course, providing it wasn't lost without her knowledge. At any rate, she wore it last night when we went to Clavering Close. I know that, because I remarked at the time that she had better let a jeweller look at it, as the ring of the scent globe was very nearly worn through."
"Was that before you left the Grange or after?"
"After—a long while after—at Clavering Close; in fact, while we were taking off our wraps preparatory to going down to
