The Sign of the Stranger. Le Queux William

was in secret, but about five minutes later I heard the door open again, and the stranger, with heavy tread, walk firmly to the door.

      “You won’t forget the name,” he called back to Warr in a strange hard voice just before he went forth. “Richard Keene – K-e-e-n-e.”

      “I’ve promised. Trust me,” was the innkeeper’s response, while a moment later the shabby stranger’s form cast a long shadow across the sanded tap-room and vanished.

      “That’s a queer customer?” I remarked to Warr when he returned to me, for I had come down to pay him an account. “I don’t like the look of him somehow.”

      “Neither do I,” the landlord answered. “At first I took him for a burglar spying around to ascertain who was at home up at the Hall, but I’ve formed a very different conclusion during the past five minutes. He isn’t a burglar, but he’s somebody who evidently knows Lady Lolita.”

      “Knows her?” I exclaimed, surprised. “What do you mean? What did he tell you in private?”

      “Nothing. He asked me to render him a service by giving a letter in secret to her ladyship, and as recompense gave me this.” And opening his hand, Warr showed me a sovereign. “Something fresh, this!” he added. “A tramp who gives sovereign tips;” and he laughed very heartily to himself.

      I did not join in his laughter, for on being handed the letter I saw it was inscribed to her ladyship and marked “Private” in a neat educated hand, and sealed with black wax with an unfamiliar coat-of-arms bearing a coronet and many quarterings.

      “He told me also to tell her that Richard Keene has returned, and said that she would understand. Strange, ain’t it?” observed the landlord, with a long pull at his clay.

      “Very. If you wish, I’ll undertake the responsibility of giving Lady Lolita this letter and delivering the message,” I said.

      “No. I’ll have to come up to the Hall myself,” was the innkeeper’s reply. “The chap actually compelled me to take a solemn oath to deliver it into no other hands but her own!”

      “Then it must contain something of supreme importance, otherwise it might surely have been sent by post,” I remarked suspiciously.

      “Yes, I feel sure it does. Did you notice how the fellow’s face changed when he saw her drive past? He went as white as a ghost. He’s a mystery – that he is.”

      “He is, without a doubt,” I said. His announcement that Richard Keene had returned seemed to convey some covert threat. I recollected the tone in which he had uttered the name as he had crossed the threshold, and it caused me to ponder deeply – very deeply.

      Little, however, did I dream of the terrible significance of that name; little did I at that moment anticipate the strange events that were to follow – that remarkable mystery of real life which proved so tantalising, so bewildering and so inscrutable.

      Chapter Two

      Concerns Lady Lolita

      I strolled back up the long beech avenue to the Hall, apprehensive and puzzled. The stranger’s manner, his curious expression when he had spoken of Lolita, and the bold way in which he had sent her the announcement of the return of Richard Keene were ominous. What, I wondered, did the letter contain, sealed as it was with the arms of some noble house?

      I scented mystery in it all; mystery that somehow concerned myself. Why? Well, I will confess to you now – at the very outset. I, although but a paid servant of the Stanchesters, like any of that army of footmen and grooms, loved Lady Lolita in secret, and although no word of affection had ever passed between us, I nevertheless felt that her interests were my own.

      My position was, I admit, a unique one. Lolita and I had been friends ever since our childhood days in India, when her father held the highest official position in the East and mine was his confidential assistant, and now, her brother having succeeded, she seemed to regard me as a harmless and necessary director of things in general. Very frequently I was invited to luncheon or to dinner, and treated always as one of the family, even though I was but a paid dependant. Yes, both the young Earl and his sister were extremely kind and considerate, and surely I had no cause for complaint, either in matter of salary, which was a handsome one, or in that of social standing.

      So thoroughly had I mastered all the details of the great estate during the haughty old Earl’s lifetime that I suppose my existence was necessary for the well-being of my college friend who had so suddenly found himself a millionaire. Indeed, he had admitted to me that he had never met several of his estate agents in various parts of the country, therefore I had the absolute control of them and generally superintended the revenue and expenditure, an office which entailed considerable work, inasmuch as besides Sibberton, the family possessed Stanchester House, that big white mansion in Park Lane, Stanchester Castle in Warwickshire, Dildawn and its great deer-forest in Argyllshire, Chelmorton Towers in Sussex, and the Villa Aurora on the olive-clad hill above San Remo.

      Sibberton Hall was, however, the seat which the young Earl preferred, and where he usually spent the few weeks of summer between the season at Cowes and that of the moors. As I came up the straight shady avenue of ancient beeches which met overhead for more than a mile, the magnificent façade of the splendid old place with its countless windows, its towers and high twisted chimneys stood in the soft crimson haze of the brilliant afterglow, its delicate traceries and marvellous architecture giving it almost the appearance of an illustration from some fairy tale. Built in the early days of Elizabeth by the first Earl of Stanchester, her celebrated minister, it was in the form of a quadrangle with wings abutting from the sides and ending at the extremities in towers, while its princely proportions were such as to place it among the largest and most notable family mansions in the country.

      The last rays of sunset flashed upon its many windows as I emerged from the avenue, and then passing across the level lawns and ancient bowling-green, I entered the great hall with its wonderful ornamental fireplace and stands of armour, and proceeded along one corridor after another to the cosy room in the west wing which served me as study.

      From the window where I stood for a moment in deep reflection I commanded a view for several miles across the great level park which was some ten miles in extent, and where, in the distance, rose another low, old-fashioned Jacobean building with clock-tower, the kennels of the Earl’s famous foxhounds. My room was an old-fashioned one, like everything else in that fine mansion. Lined from floor to ceiling with books and in the centre a big writing-table, it had been given over to me by the old Earl when I had first entered upon my duties ten years before. The floor was of oak, polished like a mirror, and over the arched chimney was carved in stone the greyhound courant of the Stanchesters, with the date 1571.

      I glanced at severed notes that had been dropped into the rack in my absence, and then casting myself into an easy chair lit a cigarette and continued my apprehensive reflections.

      The summer dusk darkened into night, and having a quantity of correspondence to attend to, I went to the room I sometimes occupied, changed, dined alone, and then about nine o’clock returned to my study to finish my work.

      Not a sound penetrated there. That wing was but little used, for above was the long picture-gallery with the dark old family portraits by Vandyke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Kneller, and others, as well as priceless examples of Gainsborough, Turner, Hobbema, and the world-famous Madonna of Raphael. The room had been given to me so that I should not be disturbed by visitors who, owing to the enormous proportions of the place, usually wandered about hopelessly lost in their attempt to reach their rooms without a servant as guide.

      The name of Keene was puzzling me. Somehow I had a distinct and vivid recollection of having heard it before, but in what connexion I could not recollect, although I had been racking my brains ever since I had left the village inn. I took down the old address-book used by my predecessor, but there was no entry there. No, I felt somehow that I had heard the name outside my connexion with the family, but where, or in what circumstances, I could not for the life of me remember.

      My hands were clasped behind my head, and with my work cast aside, I was smoking vigorously, when there came a low tap at the door, and in response to my permission to enter,