The Secret of the Tower - Hope, Anthony
THE SECRET OF THE TOWER
BY ANTHONY HOPE
1919
AUTHOR OF "THE PRISONER OF ZENDA," "RUPERT OF HENTZAU," ETC.
CONTENTS
I. DOCTOR MARY'S PAYING GUEST
II. THE GENERAL REMEMBERS
III. MR. SAFFRON AT HOME
IV. PROFESSIONAL ETIQUETTE
V. A FAMILIAR IMPLEMENT
VI. ODD STORY OF CAPTAIN DUGGLE!
VII. A GENTLEMANLY STRANGER
VIII. CAPTAIN ALEC RAISES HIS VOICE
IX. DOCTOR MARY'S ULTIMATUM
X. THAT MAGICAL WORD MOROCCO!
XI. THE CAR BEHIND THE TREES
XII. THE SECRET OF THE TOWER
XIII. RIGHT OF CONQUEST
XIV. THE SCEPTER IN THE GRAVE
XV. A NORMAL CASE
XVI. DEAD MAJESTY
XVII. THE CHIEF MOURNERS
XVIII. THE GOLD AND THE TREASURE
CHAPTER I
DOCTOR MARY'S PAYING GUEST
"Just in time, wasn't it?" asked Mary Arkroyd.
"Two days before the--the ceremony! Mercifully it had all been kept very
quiet, because it was only three months since poor Gilly was killed. I
forget whether you ever met Gilly? My half-brother, you know?"
"Only once--in Collingham Gardens. He had an _exeat_, and dashed in one
Saturday morning when we were just finishing our work. Don't you
remember?"
"Yes, I think I do. But since my engagement I'd gone into colors. Oh, of
course I've gone back into mourning now! And everything was
ready--settlements and so on, you know. And rooms taken at Bournemouth.
And then it all came out!"
"How?"
"Well, Eustace--Captain Cranster, I mean. Oh, I think he really must have
had shell-shock, as he said, even though the doctor seemed to doubt it!
He gave the Colonel as a reference in some shop, and--and the bank
wouldn't pay the check. Other checks turned up, too, and in the end the
police went through his papers, and found letters from--well, from her,
you know. From Bogota. South America, isn't it? He'd lived there ten
years, you know, growing something--beans, or coffee, or coffee-beans, or
something--I don't know what. He tried to say the marriage wasn't
binding, but the Colonel--wasn't it providential that the Colonel was
home on leave? Mamma could never have grappled with it! The Colonel was
sure it was, and so were the lawyers."
"What happened then?"
"The great thing was to keep it quiet. Now, wasn't it? And there was the
shell-shock--or so Eustace--Captain Cranster, I mean--said, anyhow. So,
on the Colonel's advice, Mamma squared the check business and--and they
gave him twenty-four hours to clear out. Papa--I call the Colonel Papa,
you know, though he's really my stepfather--used a little influence, I
think. Anyhow it was managed. I never saw him again, Mary."
"Poor dear! Was it very bad?"
"Yes! But--suppose we had been married! Mary, where should I have been?"
Mary Arkroyd left that problem alone. "Were you very fond of him?"
she asked.
"Awfully!" Cynthia turned up to her friend pretty blue eyes suffused in
tears. "It was the end of the world to me. That there could be such men!
I went to bed. Mamma could do nothing with me. Oh, well, she wrote to you
about all that."
"She told me you were in a pretty bad way."
"I was just desperate! Then one day--in bed--the thought of you came. It
seemed an absolute inspiration. I remembered the card you sent on my
last birthday--you've never forgotten my birthdays, though it's years
since we met--with your new address here--and your 'Doctor,' and all the
letters after your name! I thought it rather funny." A faint smile, the
first since Miss Walford's arrival at Inkston, probably the first since
Captain Eustace Cranster's shell-shock had wrought catastrophe--appeared
on her lips. "How I waited for your answer! You don't mind having me, do
you, dear? Mamma insisted on suggesting the P.G. arrangement. I was
afraid you'd shy at it."
"Not a bit! I should have liked to have you anyhow, but I can make you
much more comfortable with the P.G. money. And your maid too--she looks
as if she was accustomed to the best! By the way, need she be quite so
tearful? She's more tearful than you are yourself."
"Jeanne's very, very fond of me," Cynthia murmured reproachfully.
"Oh, well get her out of that," said Mary briskly. "The tears, I mean,
not the fondness. I'm very fond of you myself. Six years ago you were a
charming kitten, and I used to enjoy being your 'visiting governess'--to
say nothing of finding the guineas very handy while I was waiting to
qualify. You're rather like a kitten still, one of those blue-eyed
ones--Siamese, aren't they?--with close fur and a wondering look. But you
mustn't mew down here, and you must have lots of milk and cream. Even if
rations go on, I can certify all the extras for you. That's the good of
being a doctor!" She laughed cheerfully as she took a cigarette from the
mantelpiece and lit it.
Cynthia, on the other hand, began to sob prettily and not in a noisy
fashion, yet evidently heading towards a bout of grief. Moreover, no
sooner had the first sound of lamentation escaped from her lips, than the
door was opened smartly and a buxom girl, in lady's maid uniform, rushed
in, darted across the room, and knelt by Cynthia, sobbing also and
exclaiming, "Oh, my poor Mees Cynthia!"
Mary smiled in a humorous contempt.
"Stop this!" she commanded rather brusquely. "You've not been deceived
too, have you, Jeanne?"
"Me, madame? No. My poor Mees--"
"Leave your poor Mees to me." She took a paper bag from the mantelpiece.
"Go and eat chocolates."
Fixed with a firm and decidedly professional glance, Jeanne stopped
sobbing and rose slowly to her feet.
"Don't listen outside the door. You must have been listening. Wait till
you're rung for. Miss Cynthia will be all right with me. We're going for
a walk. Take her upstairs and put her hat on her, and a thick coat; it's
cold and going to rain, I think."
"A walk, Mary?" Cynthia's sobs stopped, to make way for this protest. The
description of the weather did not sound attractive.
"Yes, yes. Now off with both of you! Here, take the chocolates, Jeanne,
and try to remember that it might have been worse."
Jeanne's brown eyes were eloquent of reproach.
"Captain Cranster might have been found out too late--after the wedding,"
Mary explained with a smile. "Try to look at it like that. Five minutes
to get ready, Cynthia!" She was ready for the weather herself, in the
stout coat and skirt and weather-proof hat in which she had driven the
two-seater on her round that morning.
The disconsolate pair drifted ruefully from the room, though Jeanne did
recollect to take the chocolates. Doctor Mary stood looking down at the
fire, her lips still shaped in that firm, wise, and philosophical smile
with which doctors and nurses--and indeed, sometimes, anybody who happens
to be feeling pretty well himself--console, or exasperate, suffering
humanity. "A very good thing the poor silly child did come to me!" That
was the form her thoughts took. For although Dr. Mary Arkroyd was, and
knew herself to be, no dazzling genius at her profession--in moments of
candor she would speak of having "scraped through" her qualifying
examinations--she had a high opinion of her own common sense and her
power of guiding weaker mortals.
For all that Jeanne's cheek bulged with a chocolate, there was open
resentment on her full, pouting lips, and a hint of the same feeling in
Cynthia's still liquid eyes, when mistress and maid came downstairs
again. Without heeding these signs, Mary drew on her gauntlets, took her
walking-stick, and flung the hall door open. A rush of cold wind filled
the little hall. Jeanne shivered ostentatiously; Cynthia sighed and
muffled herself deeper in her fur collar. "A good walking day!" said Mary
decisively.
Up to now, Inkston had not impressed Cynthia Walford very favorably. It
was indeed a mixed kind of a place. Like many villages which lie near to
London and have been made, by modern developments, more accessible than
once they were, it showed chronological strata in its buildings. Down by
the station all was new, red, suburban. Mounting the tarred road, the
wayfarer bore slightly to the right along the original village street;
bating the aggressive "fronts" of one or two commercial innovators, this
was old, calm, serene, gray in tone and restful, ornamented by three or
four good class Georgian houses, one quite fine, with well wrought iron
gates (this was Dr. Irechester's); turning to the right again, but more
sharply, the wayfarer found himself once more in villadom, but a
villadom more ornate, more costly, with gardens to be measured in
acres--or nearly. This was Hinton Avenue (Hinton because it was the
maiden name of the builder's wife; Avenue because avenue is genteel).
Here Mary dwelt, but by good luck her predecessor, Dr. Christian Evans,
had seized upon a surviving old cottage at the end of the avenue, and,
indeed, of Inkston village itself. Beyond it stretched meadows, while
the road, turning again, ran across an open heath, and pursued its way
to Sprotsfield, four miles distant, a place of greater size where all
amenities could be found.
It was along this road that the friends now walked, Mary setting a brisk
pace. "When once you've turned your back on the Avenue, it's heaps
better," she said. "Might be real country, looking this way, mightn't it?
Except the Naylors' place--Oh, and Tower Cottage--there are no houses
between this and Sprotsfield."
The wind blew shrewdly, with an occasional spatter of rain; the withered
bracken lay like a vast carpet of dull copper-color under the cloudy sky;
scattered fir-trees made fantastic shapes in the early gloom of a
December day. A somber scene, yet wanting only sunshine to make it flash
in a richness of color; even to-day its quiet and spaciousness, its
melancholy and monotony, seemed to bid a sympathetic and soothing welcome
to aching and fretted hearts.
"It really is rather nice out here," Cynthia admitted.
"I come almost every afternoon. Oh, I've plenty of time! My round in the
morning generally sees me through--except for emergencies, births and
deaths, and so on. You see, my predecessor, poor Christian Evans, never
had more than the leavings, and that's all I've got. I believe the real
doctor, the old-established one, Dr. Irechester, was angry at first with
Dr. Evans for coming; he didn't want a rival. But Christian was such a
meek, mild, simple little Welshman, not the least pushing or ambitious;
and very soon Dr. Irechester, who's quite well off, was glad to leave him
the dirty work, I mean (she explained, smiling) the cottages, and the
panel work, National Insurance, you know, and so on. Well, as you know, I
came down as _locum_ for Christian, he was a fellow-student of mine, and
when the dear little man was killed in France, Dr. Irechester himself
suggested that I should stay on. He was rather nice. He said, 'We all
started to laugh at you, at first, but we don't laugh now, anyhow, only
my wife does! So, if you stay on, I don't doubt we shall work very well
together, my dear colleague,' Wasn't that rather nice of him, Cynthia?"
"Yes, dear," said Cynthia, in a voice that sounded a good many
miles away.
Mary laughed. "I'm bound to be interested in you, but I suppose
you're not bound to be interested in me," she observed resignedly.
"All the same, I made a sensation at Inkston just at first. And they
were even more astonished when it turned out that I could dance and
play lawn tennis."
"That's a funny little place," said Cynthia, pointing to the left side
of the road.
"Tower Cottage, that's called."
"But what a funny place!" Cynthia insisted. "A round tower, like a
Martello tower, only smaller, of course; and what looks just like an
ordinary cottage or small farm-house joined on to it. What could the
tower have been for?"
"I'm sure I don't know. Origin lost in the mists of antiquity! An old
gentleman named Saffron lives there now."
"A patient of yours, Mary?"
"Oh, no! He's well off, rich, I believe. So he belongs to Dr. Irechester.
But I often meet him along the road. Lately there's always been a younger
man with him, a companion, or secretary, or something of that sort, I
hear he is."
"There are two men coming along the road now."
"Yes, that's them, the old man, and his friend. He's rather striking
to look at."
"Which of them?"
"The old man, of course. I haven't looked at the secretary. Cynthia, I
believe you're beginning to feel a little better!"
"Oh, no, I'm not! I'm afraid I'm not, really!" But there had been a
cheerfully roguish little smile on her face. It vanished very promptly
when observed.
The two men approached them, on their way, no doubt, to Tower Cottage.
The old man was not above middle height, indeed, scarcely reached it; but
he made the most of his inches carrying himself very upright, with an air
of high dignity. Close-cut white hair showed under an old-fashioned
peaked cap; he wore a plaid shawl swathed round him, his left arm being
enveloped in its folds; his right rested in the arm of his companion, who
was taller than he, lean and loose-built, clad in an almost white (and
very unseasonable looking) suit of some homespun material. He wore no
covering on his head, a thick crop of curly hair (of a color
indistinguishable in the dim light) presumably affording such protection
as he needed. His face was turned down towards the old man, who was
looking up at him and apparently talking to him, though in so low a tone
that no sound reached Mary and Cynthia as they passed by. Neither man
gave any sign of noticing their presence.
"Mr. Saffron, you said? Rather a queer name, but he looks a nice old man;
patriarchal, you know. What's the name of the other one?"
"I did hear; somebody mentioned him at the Naylors'--somebody who had
heard something about him in France. What was the name? It was something
queer too, I think."
"They've got queer names, and they live in a queer house!" Cynthia
actually gave a little laugh. "But are you going to walk all night,
Mary dear?"
"Oh, poor thing! I forgot you! You're tired? We'll turn back."
They retraced their steps, again passing Tower Cottage, into which its
occupants must have gone, for they were no longer to be seen.
"That name's on the tip of my tongue," said Mary in amused vexation. "I
shall get it in a moment!"
Cynthia had relapsed into gloom. "It doesn't matter in the least,"
she murmured.
"It's Beaumaroy!" said Mary in triumph.
"I don't wonder you couldn't remember that!"
CHAPTER II
THE GENERAL REMEMBERS
Amongst other various, and no doubt useful, functions, Miss Delia Wall
performed that of gossip and news agent-general to the village of
Inkston. A hard-featured, swarthy spinster of forty, with a roving,
inquisitive, yet not unkindly eye, she perambulated--or rather
percycled--the district, taking stock of every incident. Not a cat could
kitten or a dog have the mange without her privity; critics of her mental
activity went near to insinuating connivance. Naturally, therefore, she
was well acquainted with the new development at Tower Cottage, although
the isolated position of that dwelling made thorough observation
piquantly difficult. She laid her information before an attentive, if not
very respectful, audience gathered round the tea-table at Old Place, the
Naylors' handsome house on the outskirts of Sprotsfield and on the far
side of the heath from Inkston. She was enjoying herself, although she
was, as usual, a trifle distrustful of the quality of Mr. Naylor's smile;
it smacked of the satiric. "He looks at you as if you were a specimen,"
she had once been heard to complain; and, when she said "specimen," it
was obviously beetles that she had in mind.
"Everybody knows old Mr. Saffron--by sight, I mean--and the woman who
does for him," she said. "There's never been anything remarkable about
_them_. He took his walk as regular as clockwork every afternoon, and she
bought just the same things every week; her books must have tallied
almost to a penny every month, Mrs. Naylor! I know it! And it was a very
rare thing indeed for Mr. Saffron to go to London--though I have known
him to be away once or twice. But very, very rarely!" She paused and
added dramatically, "Until the armistice!"
"Full of ramifications, that event, Miss Wall. It affects even my
business." Mr. Naylor, though now withdrawn from an active share in its
conduct, was still interested in the large shipping firm from which he
had drawn his comfortable fortune.
She looked at him suspiciously, as he put the ends of the slender white
fingers of his two hands together, and leant forward to listen with that
smile of his and eyes faintly twinkling. But the problem was seething in
her brain; she had to go on.
"A week after the armistice Mr. Saffron went to London by the 9.50. He
traveled first, Anna."
"Did he, dear?" Mrs. Naylor, a stout and placid dame, was not yet stirred
to excitement.
"He came down by the 4.11, and those two men with him. And they've been
there ever since!"
"Two men, Delia! I've only seen one."
"Oh yes, there's another! Sergeant Hooper they call him; a short thickset
man with a black mustache. He buys two bottles of rum every week at the
_Green Man_. And--one minute, please, Mr. Naylor--"
"I was only going to say that it looks to me as if this man Hooper were,
or had been, a soldier. What do you think?"
"Never mind, Papa! Go on, Miss Wall. I'm interested." This encouragement
came from Gertie Naylor, a pretty girl of seventeen who was consuming
much tea, bread, and honey.
"And since then the old gentleman and this Mr. Beaumaroy go to town
regularly every week on Wednesdays! Now who are they, how did Mr. Saffron
get hold of them, and what are they doing here? I'm at a loss, Anna."
Apparently an _impasse_! And Mr. Naylor did not seem to assist matters by
asking whether Miss Wall had kept a constant eye on the Agony Column.
Mrs. Naylor took up her knitting and switched off to another topic.
"Dr. Arkroyd's friend, Delia dear! What a charming girl she looks!"
"Friend, Anna? I didn't know that! A patient, I understand, anyhow. She's
taking Valentine's beef juice. Of course they _do_ give that in drink
cases, but I should be sorry to think--"
"Drugs, more likely," Mr. Naylor suavely interposed. Then he rose from
his chair and began to pace slowly up and down the long room, looking at
his beautiful pictures, his beautiful china, his beautiful chairs, all
the beautiful things that were his. His family took no notice of this
roving up and down; it was a habit, and was tacitly accepted as meaning
that he had, for the moment, had enough of the company, and even of his
own sallies at its expense.
"I've asked Dr. Arkroyd to bring her over, Miss Walford, I mean, the
first day it's fine enough for tennis," Mrs. Naylor pursued. There was a
hard court at Old Place, so that winter did not stop the game entirely.
"What a name, too!"
"Walford? It's quite a good name, Delia."
"No, no, Anna! Beaumaroy, of course." Miss Wall was back at the
larger problem.
"There's Alec's voice. He and the General are back from their golf. Ring
for another teapot, Gertie dear!"
The door opened, not Alec, but the General came in, and closed the door
carefully behind him; it was obviously an act of precaution and not
merely a normal exercise of good manners. Then he walked up to his
hostess and said, "It's not my fault, Anna. Alec would do it, though I
shook my head at him, behind the fellow's back."
"What do you mean, General?" cried the hostess. Mr. Naylor, for his part,
stopped roving.
The door again! "Come in, Mr. Beaumaroy--here's tea."
Mr. Beaumaroy obediently entered, in the wake of Captain Alec Naylor, who
duly presented him to Mrs. Naylor, adding that Beaumaroy had been kind
enough to make the fourth in a game with the General, the Rector of
Sprotsfield, and himself. "And he and the parson were too tough a nut for
us, weren't they, sir?" he added to the General.
Besides being an excellent officer and a capital fellow, Alec Naylor was
also reputed to be one of the handsomest men in the Service; six foot
three, very straight, very fair, with features as regular as any romantic
hero of them all, and eyes as blue. The honorable limp that at present
marked his movements would, it was hoped, pass away. Even his own family
were often surprised into a new admiration of his physical perfections,
remarking, one to the other, how Alec took the shine out of every other
man in the room.
There was no shine, no external obvious shine, to take out of Mr.
Beaumaroy, Miss Wall's puzzling, unaccounted-for Mr. Beaumaroy. The light
showed him now more clearly than when Mary Arkroyd met him on the heath
road, but perhaps thereby did him no service. His features, though
irregular, were not ugly or insignificant, but he wore a rather battered
aspect; there were deep lines running from the corners of his mouth, and
crowsfeet had started under the gray eyes which, in their turn, looked
more skeptical than ardent, rather mocking than eager. Yet when he
smiled, his face became not merely pleasant, but confidentially pleasant;
he seemed to smile especially to and for the person to whom he was
talking; and his voice was notably agreeable, soft and clear--the voice
of a high-bred man, but not exactly of a high-bred Englishman. There was
no accent definite enough to be called foreign, certainly not to be
assigned to any particular race, but there was an exotic touch about his
manner of speech suggesting that, even if not that of a foreigner, it was
shaped and colored by the inflexions of foreign tongues. The hue of his
plentiful and curly hair, indistinguishable to Mary and Cynthia, now
stood revealed as neither black, nor red, nor auburn, nor brown, nor
golden, but just, and rather surprisingly, a plain yellow, the color of a
cowslip or thereabouts. Altogether rather a rum-looking fellow! This had
been Alec Naylor's first remark when the Rector of Sprotsfield pointed
him out, as a possible fourth, at the golf club, and the rough justice of
the description could not be denied. He, like Alec, bore his scars; the
little finger of his right hand was amputated down to the knuckle.
Yet, after all this description, in particularity if not otherwise worthy
of a classic novelist, the thing yet remains that most struck observers.
Mr. Hector Beaumaroy had an adorable candor of manner. He answered
questions with innocent readiness and pellucid sincerity. It would be
impossible to think him guilty of a lie; ungenerous to suspect so much as
a suppression of the truth. Even Mr. Naylor, hardened by five-and-thirty
years' experience of what sailors will blandly swear to in collision
cases, was struck with the open candor of his bearing.
"Yes," he said. "Yes, Miss Wall, that's right, we go to town every
Wednesday. No particular reason why it should be Wednesday, but old
gentlemen somehow do better--don't you think so?--with method and
regular habits."
"I'm sure you know what's best for Mr. Saffron," said Delia. "You've
known him a long time, haven't you?"
Mr. Naylor drew a little nearer and listened. The General had put
himself into the corner, a remote corner of the room, and sat there with
an uneasy and rather glowering aspect.
"Oh no, no!" answered Beaumaroy. "A matter of weeks only. But the dear
old fellow seemed to take to me--a friend put us in touch originally. I
seem to be able to do just what he wants."
"I hope your friend is not really ill, not seriously?" This time the
question was Mrs. Naylor's, not Miss Delia's.
"His health is really not so bad, but," he gave a glance round the
company, as though inviting their understanding, "he insists that he's
not the man he was."
"Absurd!" smiled Naylor. "Not much older than I am, is he?"
"Only just turned seventy, I believe. But the idea's very persistent."
"Hypochondria!" snapped Miss Delia.
"Not altogether. I'm afraid there is a little real heart trouble. Dr.
Irechester--"
"Oh, with Dr. Irechester, dear Mr. Beaumaroy, you're all right!"
Again Beaumaroy's glance--that glance of innocent appeal--ranged over the
company (except the General, out of its reach). He seemed troubled and
embarrassed.
"A most accomplished man, evidently, and a friend of yours, of course.
But, well, there it is, a mere fancy, of course, but unhappily my old
friend doesn't take to him. He, he thinks that he's rather inquisitorial.
A doctor's duty, I suppose--"
"Irechester's a sound man, a very sound man," said Mr. Naylor. "And,
after all one can ask almost any question if one does it tactfully, can't
one, Miss Wall?"
"As a matter of fact, he's only seen Mr. Saffron twice--he had a little
chill. But his manner, unfortunately, rather, er--alarmed--"
Gertie Naylor, with the directness of youth, propounded a solution of the
difficulty. "If you don't like Dr. Irechester--"
"Oh, it's not I who--"
"Why not have Mary?" Gertie made her suggestion eagerly. She was very
fond of Mary, who, from the height of age, wisdom and professional
dignity, had stooped to offer her an equal friendship.