II
THE BUTLER’S PANTRY
The man whom Braxfield thus addressed, and who, in spite of the well-remembered signal on the pantry window was the last person in the world he had thought of seeing, turned a sharp, inquisitive, suspicious glance down the narrow passage, which opened on the main corridor of the house. It shifted just as sharply to the old butler’s amazed and troubled face—and the question that followed on it was equally sharp.
“The rest of ’em—in bed?”
Braxfield was beginning to tremble. In the old days, he had often let Guy Markenmore in, late at night, at that very door; the thrice-repeated tap was an arranged signal between them. And in those days he had had that very question put to him more times than he could remember. It had not troubled him then, but now, hearing it again, after the questioner’s unexplained absence of seven years, it frightened him. Why did the heir to the Markenmore baronetcy and estates come sneaking to his father’s house, late at night, seeking secret entrance, obviously nervous about something? Braxfield looked at him doubtfully.
“Gone to their rooms, Mr. Guy,” he answered. “Or—they may be in your father’s. Sir Anthony’s about—at his end, sir.”
Again Guy Markenmore looked along the passage. While he looked, Braxfield looked at him. He had altered little, thought Braxfield. He had always been noted since boyhood, for his good looks: he was still good-looking at thirty-five; tall, slim, dark, intense of gaze; the sort of man to attract and interest women. But he looked like a man who had lived hard; a man who had seen things on the seamy side of life, and there was a sinister expression about his fine eyes and the lines of the mouth, scarcely concealed by a carefully kept dark moustache, which would have warned watchful observers to put little trust in him. Eyes and lips alike were wary and keen as they turned again on the butler.
“Come on to your pantry, Braxfield,” he said quietly. “Fasten that door.”
He walked rapidly up the passage and turned into the corridor when he had issued the order: when the butler, after discharging it, followed him, he stood just within the pantry, holding the door in his hand. And after Braxfield, still upset and wondering, had entered, Guy put the door to and turned the key.
“Look here!” he said in a low voice, motioning Braxfield to the fireside and its cheery blaze, “I want to know something—I thought I saw somebody as I came along. You’ll know. Is John Harborough home again?”
Braxfield felt his perceptions quicken at the tone of this question. He nodded, searching Guy’s face.
“Yes, sir!” he answered. “Came home today—this very afternoon.”
“Has he been here?” demanded Guy.
“Yes, sir—this evening.”
“Why? What did he come for?”
“He’d heard your father was ill, Mr. Guy—he came to ask about him.”
“Did he mention me?”
“Not—not to my knowledge, sir. He—he saw Mr. Harry and Miss Valencia.”
“Has he come back for—for good? To settle down?”
“I understand that he has, sir.”
Braxfield was wondering what these questions meant, and his face showed his wonder. But Guy’s face had become sphinx-like. He turned away from the butler, took off his smart hat, overcoat, and gloves, threw them into an easy chair in a corner, and drawing a case from his breast-pocket, selected a cigar, and leisurely lighted it. Braxfield knew enough of cigars to know that that was an expensive one; he knew, too, that as far as appearances went the lost son, of seven years’ silence had not come home like a prodigal. Guy was dressed in the height of fashion; his grey tweed suit, bearing the unmistakable stamp of Savile Row, stood out in striking contrast to the worn and ancient garments in which Harry Markenmore went about the old place. And on the hand which raised a match to the cigar glittered a fine diamond ring, acting as a sort of keeper to another ring, of curious workmanship and appearance, on the third finger.
“Look here!” said Guy again. “Another question. I’ve heard that Mrs. Tretheroe—who was Miss Veronica Leighton—is in these parts again. Is that so?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Braxfield. “She’s come back, too—quite recently. She’s taken the Dower House, Mr. Guy—you know, sir, at the bottom of our park. She took it a month or so ago, from Mr. Harry—he acts in everything now, sir—and she’s moved into it.”
“She took it?” exclaimed Guy, with emphasis on the personal pronoun. “She! What? … is Colonel Tretheroe dead, then?”
“Died out in India, sir—so I’m given to understand—a year since,” answered Braxfield. “So—she returned home and came looking for a house about here, and, as I say, has got our Dower House. And she looks no older, Mr. Guy—not a bit! Handsomer than ever, sir.”
Braxfield was regaining his confidence, and his tongue. He wanted to talk, now.
“They say she’s a very wealthy young widow, Mr. Guy,” he went on. “Colonel Tretheroe, he left her everything—and he was a rich man, I’m told. Seems like it, too—she’s got a fine staff of servants, and she’s spent a lot of money on the house already, and is spending more. Got a house-party there just now—London people I believe. Seems inclined to enjoy herself, I think, sir.”
“Are there any children?” asked Guy.
“No children, sir,” replied Braxfield. “Never been any, so I’m told.”
Guy looked around at the familiar features of the old butler’s sanctum. Nothing seemed to have changed. His glance rested on the decanter which Braxfield had set on the table just before hearing the tap at the window.
“Give me a drink, Braxfield,” he said suddenly. “I guess you’ve some of our old whisky left, even after seven years. And some soda-water. Get one yourself—it’s a long time since you and I had a drink together—though we’ve had many a one in this very room in the old days!”
He laughed cynically as he lifted the glass which Braxfield presently handed to him—but there was no answering laugh from the old butler. Braxfield, indeed, respectfully raising his own glass with a murmured expression of his good wishes, seemed inclined to become sentimental.
“It is a very long time, sir,” he said. “Yes, a very long time, Mr. Guy! But I humbly trust it’s over, sir—I hope you’re coming home for good.”
“Then your hopes are doomed to disappointment, Braxfield,” replied Guy, with another cynical laugh. “I’m not! No more Markenmore Court for me. I’ve done very nicely without it and I don’t propose to grow cabbages here when I can grow more profitable things elsewhere. No, Braxfield. I’m not coming back.”
“But, Mr. Guy—your father?” said the old butler. “He can’t last long, sir. And—the title—and the estates, Mr. Guy!”
“I can’t help succeeding
