The Sign of the Stranger. Le Queux William

it out at all. There’s a mystery somewhere – a confounded mystery.” And the young Earl thrust his hands deeply into his trousers pockets as he seated himself on the arm of a chair.

      Tall, dark, good-looking, and a good all-round athlete, he was about thirty, the very picture of the well-bred Englishman. A few years in the Army had set him up and given him a soldierly bearing, while his face and hands, tanned as they were, showed his fondness for out-door sports. He kept up the Stanchester hounds, of which he was master, to that high degree of efficiency which rendered them one of the most popular packs in the country; he was an excellent polo player, a splendid shot, and a thorough all-round sportsman. In his well-worn grey flannels, and with a straw hat stuck jauntily on his head, he presented the picture of healthy manhood, wealthy almost beyond the dreams of avarice, a careless, easy-going, good-humoured man-of-the-world, whose leniency to his tenants was proverbial, and whose good-nature gave him wide popularity in Society, both in London and out of it.

      By the man-in-the-street he was believed to be supremely content in his great possessions, his magnificent mansions, his princely bank balance, his steam yacht and his pack of hounds, yet I, his confidential friend and secretary, knew well the weariness and chagrin that was now eating out his heart. Her ladyship, two years his junior, was one of the three celebrated beauties known in London drawing-rooms as “the giddy Gordons,” and who, notwithstanding her marriage, still remained the leader of that ultra-smart set, and always had one or two admirers in her train. She was still marvellously beautiful; her portraits, representing her yachting, motoring, shooting or riding to hounds, were familiar to every one, and after her marriage it had become the fashion to regard the Countess of Stanchester as one of the leaders of the London mode.

      All this caused her husband deep regret and worry. He was unhappy, for with her flitting to and from the Continental spas, to Rome, to Florence, to Scotland, to Paris and elsewhere, he enjoyed little of her society, although he loved her dearly and had married her purely on that account.

      Often in the silence of his room he sighed heavily when he spoke of her to me, and more than once, old friends that we were, he had unbosomed himself to me, so that, knowing what I did, I honestly pitied him. There was, in fact, affection just as strong in the heart of the millionaire landowner as in that of his very humble secretary.

      “I had the misfortune to be born a rich man, Willoughby,” he had once declared to me. “If I had been poor and had had to work for my living, I should probably have been far happier.”

      At the present moment, however, he seemed to have forgotten his own sorrows in the startling occurrence that had taken place within his own demesne, and his declaration that the man now dead had followed him in London was to me intensely interesting. It added more mystery to the affair.

      “Are you quite certain that you recognise him?” I inquired a few moments later, wondering whether, if this were an actual fact, I had not also seen him when walking with the Earl in London.

      “Well, not quite,” was my companion’s reply. “A dead man’s face looks rather different to that of a living person. Nevertheless, I feel almost positive that he’s the same. I recollect that the first occasion I saw him was at Ranelagh, when he came and sat close by me, and was apparently watching my every movement. I took no notice, because lots of people, when they ascertain who I am, stare at me as though I were some extraordinary species. A few nights later on, walking home from the Bachelors’, I passed him in Piccadilly, and again on the next day he followed me persistently through the Burlington. Don’t you remember, too, when Marigold held that bazaar in the drawing-room in aid of the Deep Sea Mission? Well, he came, and bought several rather expensive things. I confess that his constant presence grew very irritating, and although I said nothing to you at the time, for fear you would laugh at my apprehension, I grew quite timid, and didn’t care to walk home from the club at night alone.”

      “Rather a pity you didn’t point him out to me,” I remarked, very much puzzled. “I, too, have a faint idea that I’ve seen him somewhere. It may have been that when I’ve walked with you he has followed us.”

      “Most likely,” was the young Earl’s reply. “He evidently had some fixed purpose in watching my movements, but what it could be is an entire mystery. During the last fortnight I was in town I always carried my little revolver, fearing – well, to tell you the truth, fearing lest he should make an attack upon me,” he admitted with a smile. “The fact was, I had become thoroughly unnerved.”

      This confession sounded strange from a resolute athletic man of his stamp whom I had hitherto regarded as utterly fearless and possessing nerves of iron.

      “And now,” he went on, “the fellow is found murdered within half a mile of the house! Most extraordinary, isn’t it?”

      “Very remarkable – to say the least,” I said reflectively. “The police will probably discover who and what he is.”

      “Police!” he laughed. “What do you think such a fellow as Redway could discover, except perhaps it were a mug of beer hidden by a publican after closing-time? No, I agree with Pink, we must have a couple of men down from London. It seems that Pink has found the print of a woman’s shoe at the spot, while in the dead man’s hand was grasped a piece of white fur. The suspicion is, therefore, that some woman has had a hand in it. I think, Willoughby, you’d best run up to London and get them to send down some smart man from the Criminal Investigation Department. Go and see my friend Layard, the Home Secretary, and tell him I sent you to obtain his assistance. He’ll no doubt see that some capable person is sent.”

      I suggested that he should write a note to Sir Stephen Layard which I would deliver personally, and at once he sat down and scribbled a few lines in that heavy uneven calligraphy of his, for he had ever been a sad penman.

      The net seemed to be slowly spreading for Lolita, yet what could I do to prevent this tracking down of the woman I loved?

      The mystery of the man’s movements in London had apparently thoroughly aroused the young Earl’s desire to probe the affair to the bottom. And not unnaturally. None of us care to be followed and watched by an unknown man whose motive is utterly obscure.

      So I was compelled to take the note and promise that I would deliver it to Layard that same evening.

      “I mean to do all I can to find out who the fellow was and why he was killed,” the Earl declared, striding up and down the room impatiently. “I’ve just seen Lolita, who seems very upset about it. She, too, admits that she saw the man watching me at Ranelagh, at the bazaar, and also at other places.”

      “I wonder what his motive could have been,” I remarked, surprised that her ladyship should have made such a statement.

      “Ah! That we must find out. His intentions were evil ones, without a doubt.”

      “But he didn’t strike you as a thief?” I asked.

      “Not at all. He was always very well-dressed and had something of a foreign appearance, although I don’t believe he was a foreigner.”

      “How do you know?”

      “Because I heard him speak. His voice had rather a Cockney ring in it, although he appeared to ape the Frenchman in dress and mannerisms, in order, I suppose, to be able to pass as one.”

      “An adventurer – without a doubt,” I remarked. “But we shall know more before long. There are several facts which may afford us good clues.”

      “Yes, in the hands of an expert detective they may. That’s why we must have a man down from London. You go to town and do your best, Willoughby, while I remain here and watch what transpires. The inquest is fixed for to-morrow at three, I hear, so you had better be back for it. The Coroner will no doubt want your evidence.” And with that we both walked out together into the park, where the constabulary were still making a methodical examination of the whole of the area to the left of the great avenue.

      I had intended to obtain another interview with Lolita, but now resolved that to keep apart from her for the present was by far the wisest course, therefore I accompanied the Earl as far as the fateful spot, and then continued my way home in order to lunch before driving to Kettering to catch the