Valentine - Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 1, September 17, 1927

FROM WHENCE SPRUNG THAT SINISTER AFFINITY BETWEEN THE MASTER AND THE BEATING HOOVES OF AN UNSEEN HORSEMAN RIDING TO THE TOWER?

“Murder is a word with an ugly sound.”

Barrington Bryan’s dark face wore a faint suggestion of a sneer as he spoke. He lay back in the armchair in which he was seated, and watched Sacha narrowly. He saw the last traces of blood ebb from her cheeks.

“It is not true.”

Her whispered words sounded loud in the intense silence. Far away, in Park Lane perhaps, they heard the rumble of an omnibus. Barrington raised his shoulders in a slight shrug.

“God knows,” he said, “you had excuse enough. Orme might have driven any woman to murder. He must so have driven any man as hopelessly in love with you, his wife, as Dick Lovelace.”

The words fell with calculated deliberation, like blows. Sacha sprang to her feet and stood facing her tormentor. Her eyes, suddenly, were filled with wild fear.

“Dick had nothing to do with it. I swear that Dick had nothing to do with it. Oh, God!”

Barrington leaned forward. His dark eyes glowed now, and the cruel expression on his face was intensified.

“It doesn’t matter in the least what you swear,” he declared coldly. “ Facts are facts.”

Sacha tottered and grasped the back of a chair to support herself. In an instant he had come to her side.

“It is in your power to save him,” he exclaimed in low tones. “ If you marry me, nobody will ever know — anything.”

She did not reply. She stood with her eyes half closed, like a tall lily which the winds have bruised. He glanced admiringly at the frock she wore, a calyx of tissue of gold about the white petals of her shoulders.

“Well?”

“I... I can’t marry you.”

“You mean that you have promised to marry Dick Lovelace?”

His tones thrilled with passion. His rather cold face had assumed a brutal expression. She did not speak.

“You shall never marry him! My God, Sacha, I wall have no mercy if you refuse me. No mercy — no pity. Within a single week the death of your husband will be the talk of the whole world—”

He stopped suddenly. The girl had sunk down on her knees on the floor. The light from the electric lamps kindled the living gold of her hair, so that he gasped at the sight of it. He bent over her and whispered in her ear:

“I love you, Sacha, as I have never loved any woman in my life.”

Again she remained unresponsive. He reached out and took her hand. He repeated:

“It is in your power to save him.”

Suddenly she stood up. She faced him again, and he saw her lips were bloodless.

“Why should you wish to break my heart?” she asked simply. “To kill me?”

“My dear Sacha, it is my heart against yours.”

He laughed as he spoke, adding, “Hearts are not so easily broken as you think.”

They heard the sound of a car approaching along Green Street. The car came to the door.

A moment later the buzz of the bell announced a visitor. Barrington started.

“Who can that be?”

He strode to the window and raised a corner of the blind. Then he turned back to Sacha.

“Well,” he demanded, “which is it to be— Yes or No?”

He drew close to her. She raised her eyes to his eyes, and saw, written therein, the doom of the man she loved.

She bowed her head so that he might not read in her face the desperate resolution to which she had come.

“I will marry you,” she whispered.

They heard steps ascending the stairs. The door of the little drawing-room was opened. A maid announced:

“Mr. Dick Lovelace.”

Dick Lovelace entered the room quickly. He saw Barrington Bryan, and immediately stiffened as a man stiffens at the sight of a snake. He came to Sacha and took the hand she extended to him.

“Forgive me,” he apologized, “for this intrusion, but Lord Templewood is seriously ill. May I see you a moment in private?”

His voice had a hard, strained ring, as though, already, the — presence of Barrington had poisoned all the anticipated happiness of his visit. His cheeks, Sacha noticed, were paler than usual.

“Of course, we can go to the dining room—”

The girl’s voice faltered in spite of herself. She glanced at Barrington, whose expression had become bitterly hostile as she spoke.

“You will excuse me?” she asked.

He bowed, and turned away, so that Dick might not have the chance further to ignore his presence. They left him with the blind in his hand, looking out into the wet street. Dick closed the dining room door behind him in a manner which proclaimed eloquently his desire that it should remain closed for ever against the man upstairs.

“Your uncle’s mind,” he announced abruptly, “is giving way.”

He was standing in the middle of the floor with his slouch hat crushed in his hand. The hard light was still in his eyes. Sacha came to the mantelpiece and rested a bare arm on it. She did not speak.

“Dr. Andrews of Redden says that a specialist must be called in at once — tonight. He thinks that Lord Templewood may have to be certified as insane. As Lord Templewood’s agent, it was my duty to come to you.”

Dick’s tones had become sterner as he proceeded, perhaps because he recalled the fact that, though he had written to Sacha already about her uncle’s mental condition, she had not answered his letter. His voice held an accusing note as he added:

“You are what lawyers call his ‘ next of kin.’ Your consent to the certification may be necessary. I think you must accompany me back to The Black Tower to-night, after we have seen the specialist, Dr. Hailey of Harley Street, and asked him to come down to Leicestershire at once.”

He paused. She realized vaguely that he was challenging her. She dared not meet his eyes. A sense of weakness, profound and overwhelming, caused her to turn away from him and set her elbows on the mantelpiece to keep herself from falling. He mistook that movement, perhaps, for emotion caused by his bad news.

“Ninon Darelli, the medium, is with Lord Templewood,” he stated. “She has not left him for three days now. He will scarcely permit her out of his sight though, I think, to do her justice, that she wants to get back to London to her clairvoyant business. He says that her presence alone saves him from the horseman whom he hears every night galloping up to the door of the old house.”

Sacha started. Then she turned and contracted her brows as if to recall thoughts already gone straying. She murmured:

“The Horseman of Death?”

“I believe that is what he calls it, yes.”

She nodded. A strange excitement glowed in her eyes.

“He comes when somebody, some member of the family, is going to die,” she declared, as though she were stating a fact which might not be doubted.

Suddenly she came to Dick and laid her hand on his arm.

“Oh, please go yourself and get the doctor,” she whispered, “oh please, please—”

Her voice broke on the last words. He looked down into her upturned face and caught his breath in a gasp of amazement and horror.