E. Phillips Oppenheim - Crime & Mystery Collection - 110+ Thrillers & Detective Tales in One Volume (Illustrated Edition)

The Duchess looked across at Florence with an icy gleam in her eyes.

“So this is your price!” she exclaimed.

The Dean rose to his feet with dignity.

“Your Grace,” he said, “if you take that attitude—”

The Duke intervened.

“My wife forgot herself,” he apologised. “Anything is better than what might have happened. My dear,” he went on, taking Florence’s hand, “let me wish you happiness. Geoffrey, I congratulate you.”

Geoffrey patted his father on the back and whispered in his ear. The Duke nodded.

“I will see my lawyer to-morrow,” he promised.

“You shall have a town house and an adequate allowance.”

Captain Faulkener rose to his feet; Goade followed his example. The Duke looked at the latter anxiously.

“Under these circumstances, sir,” he said, “I presume that no further action on your part will be necessary.”

“I am in Miss Followay’s hands,” Goade replied.

“And I,” she murmured, “have made terms with the enemy.”

LORD GEOFFREY clambered into the car going home and seated himself between Goade and his fiancée.

“Goade,” he confided, “you were damned good.”

“I was what?” Goade enquired.

“Damned good,” Lord Geoffrey repeated. “You played the Scotland Yard sleuth marvellously. Difficult people mine, but you scared them all right.”

Goade pinched Flip’s ear for a moment.

“You two young people,” he remarked, “did quite well. There were times when I scarcely realised myself that the whole thing was a plant.”

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FROM the depths of the sylvan repose and the almost uncanny quiescence of the winding lane which curled its way around the side of Tanton Beacon and dropped into the valley beyond, Goade, in his little car, still hot and puffing with the long climb, passed suddenly into an atmosphere of drama. The last turn had brought into view a prosperous-looking farmhouse, built of grey stone with low, mullioned windows overgrown with ivy, and red-tiled roof, soft with age. The place had an air of prosperity. There were at least a dozen fat stacks, a large orchard, the trees of which were laden with fruit, a well-kept looking farmyard, a row of labourers’ cottages at a decent distance. In the lane just outside the front gate stood a tall man, dressed in farmer’s homespun clothes, breeches and gaiters, a man of somewhere about fifty years of age, ruddy of complexion, at times, perhaps, benevolent of appearance, but just now a man possessed by an ungovernable fit of rage. His right hand gripped a riding whip by the butt. There was murder in his blue eyes as he gazed at the man who was standing a few yards away, close to a small yellow caravan from which he had apparently descended. The latter’s black hair, his olive complexion, his lounging, self-assured bearing, were all characteristic of the gipsy. He stood with his back to the broken window of his caravan, and, though he seemed not to have troubled to put himself into an attitude of defence, his eyes were stealthily watching the farmer. Goade, his brakes smelling hot from the long and winding descent, drove on a few more yards, and came then perforce to a standstill as the caravan, one wheel of which was already in the ditch, blocked the way. As he sat there for a moment, he realised that the two men who had first engaged his attention were not the only persons concerned in the little drama. A couple of farm labourers, looking sheepishly ill at ease, were standing a few yards away from the caravan, and, farther in the background, leaning upon the gate and looking out upon the scene with apparent amusement, was a tall, largely made woman, with smoothly brushed black hair and flashing brown eyes. She wore a rose-coloured gown—a strange piece of colouring in the landscape of greens and golds. Her lips, parted now in a lazy smile, were almost unnaturally scarlet. She had the air of a pleased onlooker, and she appeared to view Goade’s arrival with disfavour. The latter, with a little sigh, descended from his car. For a brave man—a man who had never shirked a fight when it was necessary—he disliked disturbances of all sorts. His superficial apprehension of what was passing seemed to him to presuppose a commonplace and sordid little tragedy. The farmer had probably married a gipsy, and this was one of her former companions come to beg, borrow, blackmail, or perhaps to revisit an old sweetheart. Flip, trotting importantly at her master’s heels, and sensing something unusual, glanced from side to side as though to realise its cause, permitting herself a short bark of enquiry. Goade translated her curiosity into words.

“Is there any trouble here?” he asked. “There is scarcely room for me to pass.”

“If those men of mine had the guts of rabbits,” the farmer declared angrily, “they’d topple his bloody caravan into the ditch and make room.”

The supposed gipsy turned towards Goade with a whimsical smile.

“You perceive,” he remarked, “that for no reason I can imagine I have become an object of distaste to this worthy farmer. I never saw him before. I cannot conceive in what manner I can have offended him. Yet on my applying at the house for assistance—you see I have had the misfortune to get one of my wheels in the ditch traversing this abominable lane—I seem to have stumbled into a veritable hornets’ nest. You appear to be a reasonable person, sir. Ask him yourself in what way I have offended. Ask Madame there, who mocks me from the gate, whether she has ever seen me before. Ask those two clumsy-looking louts hanging about behind why they refuse to help restore my—shall I call it caravan?—to a state of equilibrium.”

Goade stared at the speaker for a moment without reply. His attire was homely enough, but after all the tweed coat was well-cut, and the remnants of a shabby tie were suggestive of some well-known colours. His shirt, though of coarse flannel, was clean; the knickerbockers and shoes, although ancient, might well have been those of a country gentleman. More significant still, the voice with its slight drawl was most distinctly the voice of a person of culture.

“What’s wrong?” Goade asked the farmer. “Why don’t you let your men help move the wagon?”

The woman suddenly lifted the latch of the gate and strolled out. She walked with delightful freedom and a faint swaying of the hips suggestive of foreign origin. Goade watched her in unwilling admiration.

“I will tell you,” she said. “My husband spends half his days and nights in terror of the gipsies. Why, I do not know, for I am one and they are people without evil in their hearts. And yet I do know. Shall I tell these gentlemen, John?”

“You can tell them what you damn well please,” the farmer answered surlily.

“My husband has no manners,” she sighed, “and his temper is bad. Now I will tell you why he becomes furious when a gipsy passes the house.”

She paused for a moment. She had addressed herself at first to Goade. Now she turned from him and her eyes sought the eyes of the other man.

“A year ago,” she recounted, “there came along this way an old woman telling fortunes—a poor old soul she was, but with those things in her which none can understand. It was harvest time and my master there was merry. He would have his fortune told and mine, and he heard what I think has sometimes made his life a torture to him. The woman told him that the day would come when I should leave his roof, and the man who carried me away would be one of my own race.”

Again she paused, and her eyes, as she laughed across at the stranger of the caravan, were aflame with a curious light. There was mockery and challenge there, also a shade of wistfulness. She shrugged her shoulders.