The Brightener

Terry and I threw each other a look as I said, "Give Captain Burns time to go; then bring the person here."

Terry went at my command, but not far; he was ordered to the public parlour – to toy with Books of Beauty. Of course it was old Hedwig Kramm who had come.

Her eyes darted hawk glances round the room, seeming to penetrate the chintz valances on chairs and sofa! She announced that the son of Lord Scarlett was lost. Search was being made. She had called to learn if I had seen him.

"Why do you think of me?" I inquired arrogantly.

The boy had been noticed peeping out of the window when I walked in the garden. He had said that I was "a pretty lady," and that he wished he were down there with me. He would get me to take him in my motor, if I had one.

I shrugged my shoulders. "I can't tell you where he is," I said, "and even if I could, why should I? Let Lord and Lady Scarlett call, if they wish to catechise me."

"They cannot," objected the old woman. "Her ladyship is prostrated with grief. His lordship is with her."

"As they please," I returned. "I have nothing more to say – to you."

The creature was driven to bay. She loved the "venomous little brute!" "Would you have something more to say if they did come?" she faltered. "Something about the child?"

"I might," I drawled, "rack my memory for the time when I saw him last."

"You do know where he is!" she squealed.

"I'm afraid," I said, "that I must ask you to leave my room."

She bounced out as if she'd been shot from an air gun!

It was ten o'clock, but light enough for me to see her scuttling along the road as I peered through the window. When she had scuttled far enough, I called to Terry.

"The Scarletts are coming!" I sang to the tune of "The Campbells." "Whether it's maternal instinct or a guilty conscience or what, Madame Defarge has guessed that I've got the child. She'll be doubly sure when Kramm reports my gay quips and quirks. To get here by the shortest and quietest way, the Scarletts must pass your lodgings. The instant you see them, take Jones and race to Dun Moat. When you reach there you'll know what to do. But in case they hide the girl as a Roland for my Oliver, I'm going to play the most beautiful game of bluff you ever saw."

"I wish I could see it!" said Terry.

"But you'd rather see Cecil! You'd better start now. It's on the cards that the Scarletts came part way with Kramm to wait for her news."

Whether they had done this or not, I don't know. But the effect on Terry of the suggestion was good. And certainly the pair did arrive almost before it seemed that Kramm's short legs could have carried her to Dun Moat.

They gloomed into my sitting room like a pair of funeral mutes.

"My servant tells me you have seen my son," the woman I had known as Lady Scarlett began.

"She has imagination!" I smiled.

"You mean to say you have not seen him?" blustered Fox-face Père.

"I say neither that I have nor that I haven't," I replied. "The little I know about the child inclines me to believe he wasn't too happy at home, so why – "

"Oh, you admit knowing something!" The woman caught me up like a dropped stitch in her knitting. "I believe you've got the child here. We can have you arrested for kidnapping. The police – "

I laughed. "Have the police ever seen the little lamb? If they have, they might doubt the force of his attraction on a woman of my type. And you have no proof. But I'll let the local police look under my bed and into my wardrobes, if you'll let them search the suite you occupy at Dun Moat on proof I can produce."

"What are you hinting at?" snapped the late Lord Scarlett. "Do you intimate that we've hidden our own child at home and come to you with some blackmailing scheme – "

"No," I stopped him. "I don't think you're in a position to try a blackmail 'stunt.' My 'hints,' as you call them, concerned the real Lady Scarlett; the legitimate daughter of your elder brother Cecil, and his namesake."

As I flung this bomb I sprang up and stood conspicuously close to the old-fashioned bell rope.

The man and woman sprang up also. The former had turned yellowish green, the latter brick-red. They looked like badly lit stage demons.

"So that's it!" spluttered the German wine merchant's daughter, when she could speak.

"That's it," I echoed. "Now, do you still want to call the police and charge me with kidnapping? You can search my rooms yourselves if you like. You'll find nothing. Can you say the same of your own?"

"Yes!" Scarlett jerked the word out. "We can and do say the same. Do you think we're fools enough to leave the place alone with only Kramm on guard, if we had someone concealed there?"

"Ah, the cap fits!" I cried. "I didn't accuse you. As you said, I merely 'hinted.'"

I scored a point, to judge by their looks. But they had scored against me also. I realized that my guess had not been wrong. There was a secret hiding-place to which the garden court suite had access. That was one reason why the Scarletts had chosen the suite. By this time Terry Burns was there, with Kramm laughing in her sleeve while pretending to be outraged at his intrusion. If only I were on the spot instead of Terry, I might have a sporting chance to ferret out the secret, for I – so to speak – had been reared in an atmosphere of "hidie-holes" for priests, cavaliers, and kings, of whom several in times of terror had found asylum at our old Abbey. But Terry Burns was an American. It wasn't in his blood to detect secret springs and locks!

I ceased to depend on what Terry might do, and "fell back upon myself."

"You talk like a madwoman!" sneered Madame Defarge. But her hands trembled. She must have missed her knitting!

"Mine is inspired madness," said I. And then I did feel an inspiration coming – as one feels a sneeze in church. "Of course," I went on, "if you've hidden the poor drugged girl in that cubby-hole under the twisted chimney – "

The woman would have sprung at me if Scarlett had not grabbed her arm. My hand was on the tassel of the bell rope; and joy was in my heart, for at last I'd grabbed their best trump. If Bertie The Second was the Ace, the twisted chimney had supplied its Jack!

"Keep your head, Hilda," Scarlett warned his wife. "There's a vile plot against us. This – er – lady and her American partner have tricked us into letting Dun Moat, with the object of blackmail. We must be careful – "

"No," I corrected him, "you must be frank. So will I. We knew nothing of your secret when we came to Dun Moat. We got on the track by accident. As a matter of fact, Captain Burns saw the real Lady Scarlett at the window, and she would have called to him for help if she could. No doubt by that time she'd realized that you were slowly doing her to death – "

"What a devilish accusation!" Scarlett boomed. "Since you know so much, in self-defence I'll tell you the true history of this girl. We have taken my brother's daughter into the house. We have given her shelter. She is not legitimate. My brother was married in England before going to Australia, and his wife – an actress – still lives. Therefore, to make known Cecil's parentage would be to accuse her father of bigamy and soil the name. Hearing the truth about him turned her brain. She fell into a kind of fit and was very ill, raving in delirium for days on end. My wife was nursing her in the garden court rooms when you came with Burns and begged us to let the house. My poverty tempted me to consent. For the honour of my family I wished to hide the girl! And frankly (you ask for frankness!), had she died despite my wife's care, I should have tried to give the body —private burial. Now, you've heard the whole unvarnished tale."

"Doubtless I've heard the tale told to that poor child," I said. "At last I understand how you persuaded her to hide like a criminal while you two thoroughly cooked up your plot against her. But the tale isn't unvarnished! It's all varnished and nothing else. I'm not my grandmother's grand-daughter for nothing! What she didn't know and remember about the 'noble families of England' – especially in her own country – wasn't worth knowing! I inherit some of her stories and all of her memory. The last Lord Scarlett, your elder brother, went to Australia because that actress he was madly in love with had a husband who popped up and made himself disagreeable. Oh, I can prove everything against you! And I know where the true Lady Scarlett is at this minute. You can prove nothing against me. You don't know where your son is, and you won't know till you hand that poor child from Australia over to Captain Burns and me. If you do that, and she recovers from your wife's 'nursing,' I can promise for all concerned that bygones shall be bygones, and your boy shall be returned to you. I dare say that's 'compounding a felony' or something. But I'll go as far as that. What's your answer?"

The two glared into one another's eyes. I thought each said to the other, "This was your idea. It's all your fault. I told you how it would end!" But wise pots don't waste time in calling kettles black. They saved their soot-throwing for me.

"You are indeed a true descendant of old Elizabeth Courtenaye," rasped the man. "You're even more dangerous and unscrupulous than your grandmother! My wife and I are innocent. But you and your American are in a position to turn appearances against us. Besides, you have our son in your power; and rather than the police should be called into this affair by either side, my brother's daughter – ill as she is – shall be handed over to you when Bertie is returned to us."

"That won't do," I objected. "Bertie is at a distance. I can't communicate with – his guardian – till the post office opens to-morrow. On condition that Lady Scarlett is released to-night, however, and only on that condition, I will guarantee that the boy shall be with you by ten-thirty A. M. Meanwhile, you can be packing to clear out of Dun Moat, as I hardly think you'll care to claim your niece's hospitality longer, in the circumstances."

"We have no money!" the woman choked.

"You've forgotten what you took from Lady Scarlett. And six weeks' advance of rent paid you by Captain Burns: twelve hundred pounds. He'll forget, too, if you offer the right inducement. You could have had more from him, if you hadn't insisted on the clause leaving you free to turn your tenant out at a fortnight's notice after the first month. I understand now why you wanted it. If the girl had signed her name to a document you'd prepared, leaving her money to you – shares in some Australian mine, perhaps – it would have been convenient to you for her to die. And then – "

"Why waste time in accusations?" quailed Scarlett. "We won't waste it defending ourselves! If you're so anxious to get hold of the girl, come home with us and we'll turn over all responsibility to you."

"Very well," I said, and pulled the bell.

The woman started. "What are you doing that for?" she jerked.