cut flowers about the house. Then she practised for an hour, solely out of a sense of duty, for she was no musician. Directly the time was up, she closed the piano with a sigh of relief, and spent the rest of the time before two o'clock reading a rather stupid novel. After luncheon she made a call several miles off, driving herself in a light-brown cart, and played several sets of tennis, having for her partner a very mild and brainless young curate. At dinner-time she and her father met again, and when he entered the room he had two slips of orange-colored paper in his hand.
"Well, what news?" she inquired.
He handed the telegrams to her without a word, and she glanced them through. The first was from the bankers.
"To Guy Davenant Thurwell, Esq., Thurwell Court, Northshire.
"We consider Mr. Brown a desirable tenant for you from a pecuniary point of view. We know nothing of his family."
The other one was from his lawyers.
"To Guy D. Thurwell, Esq., Thurwell Court, Northshire.
"Mr. Brown is a gentleman of means, and quite in a position to rent 'Falcon's Nest.' We are not at liberty to say anything as to his antecedents or family."
"What am I to do?" asked Mr. Thurwell, undecidedly. "I don't like the end of this last telegram. A solicitor ought to be able to say a little more about a client than that."
Helen considered for a moment. She was so little interested in the matter that she found it difficult to make up her mind either way. Afterwards she scarcely dared think of that moment's indecision.
"Perhaps so," she said. "All the same, I detest Mr. Chapman. I should vote for Mr. Brown."
"Mr. Brown it shall be, then!" he answered. "Douglas shall write him to-morrow."
A fortnight later Mr. Bernard Brown took up his quarters at Falcon's Nest.
CHAPTER II
THE MURDER NEAR THE FALCON'S NEST
"I call it perfectly dreadful of those men!" Helen Thurwell exclaimed suddenly. "They're more than an hour late, and I'm desperately hungry!"
"It is rank ingratitude!" Rachel Kynaston sighed. "I positively cannot sit still and look at that luncheon any longer. Groves, give me a biscuit."
They were both seated on low folding-chairs out on the open moorland, only a few yards away from the edge of the rugged line of cliffs against which, many hundreds of feet below, the sea was breaking with a low monotonous murmur. Close behind them, on a level stretch of springy turf, a roughly improvised table, covered with a cloth of dazzling whiteness, was laden with deep bowls of lobster salad, pâtes de foie gras, chickens, truffled turkeys, piles of hothouse fruit, and many other delicacies peculiarly appreciated at al fresco symposia; and, a little further away still, under the shade of a huge yellow gorse bush, were several ice-pails, in which were reposing many rows of gold-foiled bottles. The warm sun was just sufficiently tempered by a mild heather-scented breeze, and though it flashed gayly upon the glass and silver, and danced across the bosom of the blue water below, its heat was more pleasant than oppressive. The two women who sat there looked delightfully cool. Helen Thurwell especially, in her white holland gown, with a great bunch of heather stuck in her belt, and a faint healthy glow in her cheeks, looked as only an English country girl of good birth can look—the very personification of dainty freshness.
"There go the guns again!" she exclaimed. "Listen to the echoes. They can't be far away now."
There was a little murmur of satisfaction. Every allowance is to be made for such a keen sportsman as Mr. Thurwell on the glorious twelfth, but the time fixed for the rendezvous had been exceeded by more than an hour.
"I have reached the limit of my endurance!" Rachel Kynaston declared, getting up from her seat. "I must either lunch or faint! As a matter of choice, I prefer the former."
"They will be here directly, miss," Groves remarked, as he completed the finishing touches which he had been putting to the table, and stepped back a little to view the effect. So far as he was concerned they might come any time now. For once his subordinates had not failed him. Nothing had been forgotten; and, on the whole, he felt that he had reason to be proud of his handiwork.
He glanced away inland again, shading his eyes with his hand.
"They'll be coming round the Black Copse in five minutes," he said, half to himself. "James, get the other chairs out of the wagon."
Rachel Kynaston was still standing up looking around her. Suddenly her eyes fell upon a quaintly built cottage, perched upon the edge of the cliff about a mile away.
"I meant to ask you before, Helen," she exclaimed. "Who lives in that extraordinary-looking building—Falcon's Nest, I think you call it?"
She moved her parasol in its direction, and looked at it curiously. A strange-looking abode it certainly was; built of yellow stone, with a background of stunted fir trees which stretched half way down the cliff side.
Helen Thurwell looked across at it indifferently.
"I can tell you his name, and that is all," she answered. "He calls himself Mr. Brown—Mr. Bernard Brown."
"Well, who is he? What does he do?"
Helen shook her head.
"Really, I haven't the least idea," she declared. "I do not even know what he is like. He has been there for two months, and we haven't seen him yet. Papa called upon him, but he was out. He has not returned the call! He—oh, bother Mr. Brown, here they come! I'm so glad!"
They both got up and looked. Rounding the corner of a long plantation, about half a mile away, were several men in broken line, with their guns under their arms; and a little way behind came three keepers, carrying bags.
Rachel Kynaston looked at them fixedly.
"One, two, three, four, five," she counted. "One short. I don't see Geoffrey."
Helen moved to her side, and shaded her eyes with her hand. On the fourth finger a half hoop of diamonds, which had not been there three months ago, was flashing in the sunlight.
"Neither do I," she said. "I wonder where he is."
Her tone was a little indifferent, considering that it was her fiancé who was missing. But no one ever looked for much display of feeling from Helen Thurwell, not even the man who called himself her lover. Indeed, her unresponsiveness to his advances—a sort of delicate composure which he was powerless in any way to break through—had been her strongest attraction to Sir Geoffrey Kynaston, who was quite unused to anything of the sort.
The men quickened their pace, and emptying their guns into the air, soon came within hailing distance. On that particular day of the year there was only one possible greeting, and Helen and her companion contented themselves with a monosyllable.
"Well?"
