A.E.W. Mason - The Summons

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"It's much the more difficult question of the two," Hillyard agreed.
"But we will go back to the first one. How did the news reach the
_Harpoon_ office yesterday night? Perhaps you can guess?" and he looked
towards Harry Luttrell.

Luttrell, however, was at a loss.

"It's beyond me," he replied, and Martin Hillyard understood how that
one morning at the little hotel under the Hog's Back had given to him
and him alone the key by which the door upon these dark things might be
unlocked.

"The news arrived in the form of a letter marked urgent, which was
handed in by the chauffeur of a private motor-car just after midnight.
Of the time there is no doubt. I saw the editor myself. The issue would
already have gone to press, but late news was expected that night from
France, and the paper was waiting for it. Instead this letter came."

A look of bewilderment crept into the faces of the group about the
table.

"But who in the world could have written it?" cried Sir Chichester in
exasperation.

"It was written over your name."

"Mine?"

The bewilderment in Millie Splay's face deepened into anxiety. She
looked at her husband with a sudden sinking of her heart. Had his foible
developed into a madness? Such things had been. A little gasp broke from
her lips.

"But not in your handwriting," Hillyard hastened to add.

"Whose then?" asked Harry Luttrell suddenly.

"Stella's," answered Hillyard.

A shiver ran from one to the other of that small company, and discomfort
kept them silent. A vague dread stole in upon their minds. It was as
though some uncanny presence were in the room. They had eaten with
Stella Croyle in this room, played with her out there in the sunlit
garden, and only one of them had suspected the overwhelming despair
which had driven her so hard. They began to blame themselves. "Poor
woman! Poor woman!" Millie Splay whispered in a moan.

Sir Chichester broke the silence.

"But we left Stella here when we went to Harrel," he began, and Hillyard
interrupted him.

"There's no doubt that Stella sent the message," he said. "Your car,
Mrs. Brown's and Luttrell's, were all used to take us to Harrel. One car
remained in your garage--Stella's."

"But there wouldn't be time for that car to reach London." Sir
Chichester fought against Hillyard's statement. He did not want to
believe it. He did not want to think of it. It brought him within too
near a view of that horrid brink where overtried nature grows dizzy and
whirls down into blackness.

"Just time," Hillyard answered relentlessly, "if you will follow me.
Joan certainly returned here last night--that I know, as you know. But
she was back again in the ball-room at Harrel within a few minutes of
ten o'clock. She must have left Mrs. Croyle a quarter before ten--that,
at the latest."

"Yes," Millie Splay agreed.

"Well, I have myself crossed Putney Bridge after leaving here, within
ten minutes under the two hours. And that in the daytime. Stella had
time enough for her purpose. It was night and little traffic on the
road. She writes her letter, sends Jenny with it to the garage, and the
car reaches the _Harpoon_ office by twelve."

"But its return?" asked Sir Chichester.

"Simpler still. Your gates were left open last night, and we returned
from Harrel at four in the morning. Stella's chauffeur hands in his
letter, comes back by the way he went and is home here at Rackham an
hour and a half before we thought of saying good-bye to Mrs. Willoughby.
That is the way it happened. That is the way it must have happened,"
Hillyard concluded energetically. "For it's the only way it could have
happened."

Luttrell, though he had been a listener and nothing else throughout
Martin's statement, had cherished a hope that somehow it might be
discovered that Stella had died by an accident. That she should die by
her own hand, in this house, under the same roof as Joan, and because of
one year which had ended at Stockholm--oh, to him a generation
back!--was an idea of irrepressible horror. He could not shake off some
sense of guiltiness. He had argued with it all that day, discovering the
most excellent contentions, but at the end, not one of them had
succeeded in weakening in the least degree his inward conviction that he
had his share in Stella's death. Unless her death was an accident,
unless, using her drug, she fell asleep and so drifted unintentionally
out of life! He still caught at that hope.

"Are you sure that the handwriting was Stella's?" he asked.

"Quite. I saw the letter."

"Did the editor give it to you?"

"No, he had to keep it for his own protection."

"That's a pity," said Harry. A pity--or a relief, since, without that
evidence before his eyes, he could still insist upon his pretence.

"Not such a great pity," answered Martin, and taking a letter from his
pocket he threw it down upon the table, with the ghost of a smile upon
his face. "What do you think I have been doing during the last two
years?" he asked drily.

Harry pounced upon the letter and his first glance dispelled his
illusion--nay, proved to him that he had never had faith in it. For he
saw, without surprise, the broad strokes and the straight up-and-down
letters familiar to him of old. Stella had always written rather like a
man, a man without character. He had made a joke of it to her in the
time before the little jokes aimed by the one at the other had begun to
rasp.

"Yes, she wrote the letter and signed it with Sir Chichester's name."

Millie Splay reached out for the letter.

"Stella took a big risk," she said. "I don't understand it. She must
have foreseen that Chichester's hand was likely to be familiar in the
office."

"No, Millie," said Sir Chichester suddenly, and he spurred his memory.
"Of course! Of course! Stella helped me with the telephone one day this
week in the library there. I told her that I was new to the _Harpoon_."
He suddenly beat upon the table with his fist. "But why should she write
the letter at all? Why should she want her death here, under these
strange conditions, announced to the world? A little cruel I call
it--yes, Millie, a little cruel."

"Stella wasn't cruel," said Lady Splay.

"She wasn't," Hillyard agreed. "I know why she wrote that. She wrote it
to strengthen her hand and will at the last moment. The message was
sent, the announcement of her death would be published in the morning,
was already in print. Just that knowledge would serve as the final
compulsion to do what she wished to do. She wrote lest her courage and
nerve should at the last moment fail her, as to my knowledge they had
failed her before."

"Before!" cried Millie. "She had tried before! Oh, poor woman!"

"Yes," said Hillyard, and he told them all of the vague but very real
fear which had once driven him into Surrey in chase of her; of her
bedroom with the bed unslept in and the lights still burning in the
blaze of a summer morning; of herself sitting all night at her
writing-table, making dashes and figures upon the notepaper and unable
to steel herself to the last dreadful act.

Martin Hillyard gave no reason for her misery upon that occasion, nor
did any one think to inquire. He just told the story from his heart, and
therefore with a great simplicity of words. There was not one of those
who heard him, but was moved.

"Yet there were perhaps a couple of hours in her life more grim and
horrible than any in that long night," he went on, "the hours between
ten o'clock and midnight yesterday."

"Ah, but we don't know how they were spent," began Sir Chichester.

"We know something," returned Martin gravely. "I told you that that
letter was corroborated before the paragraph it contained was inserted
in the paper."

"Yes," said Lady Splay.

"Whilst they were waiting for the news from France, which did not come,
they rang you up from the _Harpoon_ office. Yes: they rang up Rackham
Park."

Harry Luttrell snatched up the letter once more from the table. Yes,
there across the left-hand corner was printed Sir Chichester's telephone
number and the district exchange.

"They were answered by a woman. Of that there's no doubt. And the woman
assured them that Stella Croyle was dead. This was at a quarter-past
twelve."

There was a movement of horror about the table, and then, with dry lips,
Millie Splay whispered:

"Stella!"

"Yes. It must have been," answered Hillyard. "Oh, she had thought out
her plan to its last detail. She knew the letter might not be enough.
So, whilst we were all dancing at Harrel, she sat alone from ten to
midnight in that library, waiting for the telephone to ring, hoping
perhaps--for all we know--at the bottom of her heart that it would not
ring. But it did, and she answered."

The picture rose vividly before them all. Harrel, with its lighted
ball-room and joyous dancers on the one side; the silent library on the
other, with Stella herself in all her finery, sitting with her haggard
eyes fixed upon the telephone, whilst the slow minutes passed.

"That's terrible," said Millie Splay in a low voice; and such a wave of
pity swept over the four people that for a long while no further word
was said. Joan upstairs in her room was forgotten. Any thought of
resentment in that Stella had used Sir Chichester's name was overlooked
by the revelation of the long travail of her soul.

"I remember that she once said to me, 'Women do get the worst of it when
they kick over the traces,'" Hillyard resumed. "And undoubtedly they do.
On the other hand you have McKerrel's hard-headed verdict, 'If these
poor neurotic bodies had any work to do they wouldn't have so much time
to worry about their troubles.' Who shall choose between them? And what
does it matter now? Stella's gone. She will strain her poor little
unhappy heart no more against the bars."

CHAPTER XXXI

JENNY AND MILLIE SPLAY

After a time their thoughts reverted to the living.

"There's Joan," said Millie Splay. "Jenny Prask hates her. She means to
drag her into some scandal."

"If she can," said Martin. He went out into the hall and returned with
the key of Stella Croyle's room. He held it up before them all.

"This key was found on the lawn outside the library window this morning
by Luttrell. Jenny has never referred to it since she ran downstairs
this morning crying out that the key was not in the lock. It was lying
on the hall table all through the time when Sir Chichester was
questioning her, and she said never a word about it. She was much too
clever. But she saw it. I was watching her when she did see it. There
was no concealing the swift look of satisfaction which flashed across
her face. I haven't a doubt that she herself dropped the key where it
was found."

"Nor I," Luttrell agreed with a despairing vehemence, "but we can't
prove it. Jenny Prask is going to know nothing of that key. 'No, no, no,
no!' she is going to say, 'Ask Miss Whitworth! Miss Whitworth came back
from Harrel. Miss Whitworth was the last person to see Mrs. Croyle
alive. Ask her!' It is Jenny Prask or Miss Whitworth. We are up against
that alternative all the time. And Jenny holds all the cards. For she
knows, damn her, what happened here last night."

"She did hold all the cards this morning," Hillyard corrected. "She
doesn't now. Look at this key! There was a heavy dew last night. It was
wet underfoot in the garden at Harrel."

"Yes," said Millie.

"How is it then that there's no rust upon the key?" and as he asked the
question he twirled the key so that the light flashed upon stem and
wards until they shone like silver. "No, this key was placed where you
found it, Luttrell, not last night, but this morning after the sun had
dried the grass."

"But we came home by daylight," Sir Chichester interposed. "They might
argue that Joan might have slipped downstairs before she went to bed,
with the key in her hand."

"But she wouldn't have chosen that spot in front of the library window.
She might have flung it from her window, she might conceivably have
slipped round the house and laid it under Mrs. Croyle's window. But to
place it in front of the library to which room she returned from
Harrel--no."

"Yes," said Sir Chichester doubtfully. "I see. Joan can make good that
point. Yes, she can explain that." And Millie Splay broke in with
impatience:

"Explain it! Of course. But what we want is to avoid that she should
have to explain anything, that she should be called as a witness at
all!"

There lay the point of trouble. To it, they came ceaselessly back,
revolving in the circle of their vain argument. Joan had something to
conceal, and Jenny Prask was determined that she should disclose it, and
Jenny Prask held the means by which to force her.

"But that's just what I am driving at," continued Martin. "We can't
afford to be gentle here. There's no lie Jenny Prask wouldn't tell to
force Joan into the witness box. We have got to deal relentlessly with
Jenny Prask. A woman's voice spoke from this house over the telephone to
London at a quarter-past twelve last night, and said that Stella was
dead. Whose voice? Not Joan's. Joan was having supper with Luttrell at
twelve o'clock. I saw her, others, too, saw her of course. Whose voice
then? Stella's, as we say--as we know. But if not Stella's, as Jenny
Prask says--why then there is only one other woman's voice which could
have given the news."

"Jenny's," cried Millie with a sudden upspring of hope.

"Yes, Jenny Prask's."

Millie Splay rose from her chair swiftly and rang the bell; and when
Harper answered it, she said:

"Will you ask Jenny to come here?"

"Now, my lady?"

"Now."

Harper went out of the room and Millie turned again to her friends.

"Will you leave this to me?" she asked.

Sir Chichester was inclined to demur. A few deft and pointed questions,
very clear, such as might naturally occur to Hillyard or Luttrell, or
Sir Chichester himself might come in usefully to put the polish, as it
were, on Millie's spade work. Harry Luttrell smiled grimly.

"We didn't exactly cover ourselves with glory this morning," he said. "I
think that we had better leave it to Lady Splay."

Sir Chichester reluctantly consented, and they all waited anxiously for
Jenny's appearance. That she would fight to the last no one doubted.
Would she fight even to her own danger?

Jenny came into the room, quietly respectful, and without a trace of
apprehension.

"You sent for me, my lady."

"Yes, Jenny."

Jenny closed the door and came forward to the table.

"Do you still persist in your story of this morning?" Lady Splay asked.

"Yes, my lady."

"You did not see your mistress at all after Miss Whitworth had talked
with her in the library?"

"No, my lady."

"Jenny, I advise you to be quite sure before you speak."

"I am not to be frightened, my lady," said Jenny Prask, with a spot of
bright colour showing suddenly in her cheeks.

"I am not trying to frighten you," Millie Splay returned. "But some
unexpected news has reached us which, if you persist, will place you in
an awkward position."

Jenny Prask smiled. She turned again to the door.

"Is that all, my lady?"

"You had better hear what the news is."

"As you please, my lady."

Jenny stopped and resumed her position.

"The announcement of Mrs. Croyle's death appeared in the _Harpoon_ this
morning. The news was left at the _Harpoon_ office by a chauffeur with a
private car at midnight--Mrs. Croyle's car."

"It never left the garage last night," said Jenny fiercely.

"You know that for certain?"

"I am engaged to the chauffeur," she replied with a smile; and Millie
Splay looked sharply up.

"Oh," she murmured slowly, after a pause. "Thank you, Jenny. Yes, thank
you."

The quiet satisfaction of Millie Splay's voice puzzled Jenny and
troubled her security. She watched Lady Splay warily. From that moment
her assurance faltered, and with the loss of her ease, she lost
something, too, of her respectful manner. A note of impertinence became
audible.

"Very happy, I'm sure," she said.

"The motor-car delivered the message at midnight," Lady Splay resumed,
"and--this is what I ask your attention to, Jenny--the editor, in order
to obtain corroboration of the message before he inserted it in his
paper, rang up Rackham Park."

Lady Splay paused for Jenny's comment, but none was uttered then. Jenny
was listening with a concentration of all her thoughts. Here was a new
fact of which she was ignorant, creeping into the affair. Whither did it
lead? Did it strike her weapon from her hand? Upset her fine plan of
avenging her dear mistress's most unhappy life? She would not believe
it.

"He rang up Rackham Park--mark the time, Jenny--at a few minutes after
twelve," said Lady Splay impressively, and Jenny's uneasiness was
markedly increased.

"Fancy that!" she returned flippantly. "But I don't see, my lady, what
that has to do with me."

"You will see, Jenny," Lady Splay continued with gentleness. "He got an
answer."

Jenny turned that announcement over in her mind.

"An answer, did he?"

"Yes, Jenny, and an answer in a woman's voice."

A startled cry broke from the lips of Jenny Prask. Her cheeks blanched
and horror stared suddenly from her eyes. She understood whose voice it
must have been which answered the question from London. Before her, too,
the pitiful vision of the lonely woman waiting for the shrill summons of
the telephone bell to close the door of life upon her, rose clear; and
such a flood of grief and compassion welled up in her as choked her
utterance.

"Oh!" she whispered, moaning.

"Whose voice was it, Jenny?"

At the question Jenny rallied. All the more dearly because of that
vision, should Joan Whitworth pay, the shining armour of her young
beauty be pierced, her pride be humbled, her indifference turned to
shame.

"I can't think, my lady--unless it was Miss Whitworth's."

"I asked you to mark the time, Jenny. A few minutes after midnight. Miss
Whitworth was at that moment in the supper-room at Harrel. She was seen
there. The woman's voice which answered was either Mrs. Croyle's or
yours."

Nothing could have been quieter or gentler than Millie Splay's
utterance. But it was like a searing iron to the shoulders of Jenny
Prask.

"Mine!" The word was launched in a cry of incredulous anger. "It wasn't
mine. Oh, as if I would do such a thing! The idea! Well, I never did!"

"I don't believe it was yours, Jenny," said Millie Splay.

"Granted, I'm sure," returned Jenny Prask, tossing her head.

"But how many people will agree with me?" Millie Splay went on.

"I don't care, my lady."

"Don't you? You will, Jenny," said Millie in a hard and biting tone
which contrasted violently with the smoothness of her earlier questions.
"You are trying, very maliciously, to do a great injury to a young girl
who had never a thought of hurting your mistress, and you have only
succeeded in placing yourself in real danger."

Jenny tried to laugh contemptuously.

"Me in danger! Goodness me, what next, I wonder?"

"Just listen how your story works out, Jenny," and Millie Splay set it
out succinctly step by step.

"Mrs. Croyle never took chloroform as a drug. Mrs. Croyle had no
troubles. Mrs. Croyle was quite gay this week. Yet she was found dead
with a glass of chloroform arranged between her pillows, so that the
fumes must kill her--and Jenny Prask was her maid. A motor-car took the
news of Mrs. Croyle's death to London before it had occurred and took
the news from Rackham Park. There was only one motor-car in the
garage--Mrs. Croyle's--and Mrs. Croyle's chauffeur was engaged to Jenny
Prask, Mrs. Croyle's maid. London then telephones to Rackham Park for
corroboration of the news, and a woman's voice confirms it--an hour
before it was true. There are only two women to choose from, Mrs. Croyle
and Jenny Prask, her maid. But since Mrs. Croyle never took drugs, and
had no troubles or thoughts of suicide and was quite gay, it follows
that Jenny Prask----"

At this point Jenny interrupted in a voice in which fear was now very
distinctly audible. "Why, you can't mean--Oh, my lady, you are telling
me that--oh!"

"Yes, it begins to look black, Jenny, but I am not at the end," Millie
Splay continued implacably. Jenny was not the only woman in that house
who could fight if her darling was attacked. "You proceed to direct
suspicion at a young girl with the statement that you never saw your
mistress after half past nine that night or helped her to undress; and
to complete your treachery, you take the key of Mrs. Croyle's door which
you found inside her room this morning, and threw it where it may avert
inquiry from you and point it against another."

Jenny Prask flinched. The conviction with which Lady Splay announced as
a fact the opinion of the small conclave about the table quite deceived
her.

"So you know about the key?" she said sullenly. And about the table ran
a little quiver of relief. With that question, Jenny Prask had delivered
herself into their hands.

"Yes."

Jenny stood with a mutinous face and silent lips. Lady Splay had
marshalled in their order the items of the case which would be made
against her, if she persisted in her lie. How would she receive them?
Persist, reckless of her own overthrow, so long as she overthrew Joan
Whitworth too? Or surrender angrily? The four people watched for her
answer with anxiety; and it was given in a way which they least
expected. For Jenny covered her face with her hands, her shoulders began
to heave and great tears burst out between her fingers and trickled down
the backs of her hands.

"It's unbearable," she sobbed. "I would have given my life for
her--that's the truth. Oh, I know that most maids serve their mistresses
for what they can get out of them. But she was so kind to me--wherever
she went she was thoughtful of my comfort. Oh, if I had guessed what she
meant to do! And I might have!"

The truth came out now. Stella Croyle had given the letter to Jenny, and
Jenny herself had taken it to the garage and sent the chauffeur off upon
his journey. She had no idea of what the letter contained. Stella was in
the habit of inhaling chloroform; she carried a bottle of it in her
dressing-case--a bottle which Jenny had taken secretly from the room and
smashed into atoms after Doctor McKerrel's departure. She had already
conceived her plan to involve Joan in so much suspicion that she must
needs openly confess that she had returned from Harrel to meet Mario
Escobar in the empty house.

"Mario Escobar!" Millie Splay exclaimed. "It was he." She turned pale.
Sir Charles Hardiman had spoken frankly to her of Escobar. A creature of
the shadows--it was rumored that he lived on the blackmailing of women.
Joan was not out of the wood then! Martin Hillyard was quick to appease
her fears.

"He will not trouble you," and when Jenny had gone from the room he
added, "Mario Escobar was arrested this morning. He will be interned
till the end of the war and deported afterwards."

Lady Splay rose, her face bright with relief.

"Thank you," she said warmly to Hillyard. "I am going up to Joan." At
the door she stopped to add, "Now that it's over, I don't mind telling
you that I admire Jenny Prask. Out-and-out loyalty like hers is not so
common that we can think lightly of it."

Martin Hillyard turned to Sir Chichester.

"And now, if you will allow me, I will open my box of cigarettes."

Harry Luttrell went back to his depot the next morning, without seeing
Joan again. Millicent Splay wrote to him during the next week. The
inquest had been confined within its proper limits. Jenny Prask had
spoken the truth in the witness box, and from beginning to end there had
been no mention of Joan or Mario Escobar. A verdict of temporary
insanity had been returned, and Stella now lay in the village
churchyard. Harry Luttrell drew a breath of relief and turned to his
work. For six weeks his days and nights were full; and then came
twenty-four hours' leave and a swift journey into Sussex. He arrived at
Rackham Park in the dusk of the evening. By a good chance he found Joan
with Millie Splay and Sir Chichester alone.

Sir Chichester welcomed him with cordiality.

"My dear fellow, I am delighted to see you. You will stay the night, of
course."

"No," Harry answered. "I must get back to London this evening."

He took a cup of tea, and Sir Chichester, obtuse to the warning glances
of his wife, plunged into an account of the events which had followed
his departure.

"I drew out a statement. Nothing could have been more concise, the
coroner said. What's the matter, Millie? Why don't you leave me alone?
Oh--ah--yes," and he hummed a little and spluttered a little, and then
with an air of the subtlest craft he remarked, "There are those plans
for the new pig-sties, Millie, which I am anxious to show you."

He was manoeuvred at last from the room. Harry Luttrell and Joan
Whitworth were left standing opposite to one another in the room.

"Joan," Harry Luttrell said, "in ten days I go back to France."

With a queer little stumble and her hands fluttering out she went
towards him blinded by a rush of tears.

CHAPTER XXXII

"BUT STILL A RUBY KINDLES IN THE VINE"

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