Death in the Castle (3 page)

“Control yourself, Wells,” Sir Richard said sternly. “Stop running. Breathe deeply twice and then speak like a rational creature.”

“Really, Wells,” Lady Mary supplemented. “You’ll have an apoplexy and then what’ll we do? So inconsiderate of you!”

“Grandfather, how can you?” Kate said reproachfully. She went to him and reaching him, she brushed back a stray wisp of his white hair. “Stop now—there’s a dear! Do what Sir Richard says. Breathe—that’s right—once again … Now—tell us who’s lost?”

“His car’s—still here—he’s gone,” Wells gasped.

“Whose car?”

“The American.”

The young men exchanged looks. “Is the car a dark green?” one of them inquired.

“It is,” Wells said.

The young man turned to his comrades. “It’s him.”

“Think of him getting here like that, ahead of the train! And over these winding roads.”

“He drives like crazy, if he doesn’t see a cathedral.”

Sir Richard held up his hand for silence. Instinctively they obeyed. “Do you mean to say,” he inquired slowly, “do you mean to say that the—the fellow who arrived here ahead of the lot of you is Mr. John P. Blayne?”

“Who else?” one of the young men replied.

“But he’s lost,” Lady Mary put in.

“Nonsense,” Sir Richard said with decision. “We must find him. We’ll all scatter. At the end of half an hour we’ll meet in the great hall and compare notes if we haven’t found him.”

“But what does he look like?” Kate demanded.

“Like nobody I have ever seen before,” Wells groaned.

“Oh, come now,” a young man objected. “He’s a typical American—tall, brown hair, blue eyes—”

“Brown eyes,” a second young man said.

“Well, eyes, anyway—wearing a gray suit—wasn’t it gray, fellows? No? Well, anyway a suit. Probably a red tie.”

“And I told him to stay at the service door,” Wells moaned. “ ‘Can’t I get out and look about a bit?’ he asks. ‘No!’ I tell him. ‘You stay where you are,
if
you please, young chap, until I get my orders!’ When I went back, he’d gone, clean as a whistle. I shouted for him and heard nothing but the bird in the big oak tree that mocks me when I call the kitchen cat.”

Kate turned to Sir Richard with an air of pretty authority. “Sir Richard, dear, you and Lady Mary must go and sit down in the hall and wait for us. Grandfather, you make them a cup of tea and drink one yourself in the pantry. The rest of us—” her dark eyes swept over the four young men—“the rest of us will find him. And mind you don’t trample the flower beds, you young chaps, and don’t break the yew branches to look through. The great hall’s inside the great door here when you return, and stay there, if you please. Don’t go wandering about inside the castle until I come back.”

“Yes, ma’am,” a young man said.

“Yes,
ma’am
—yes, ma’am—just as you say, ma’am.”

They filed away making great pretense of obedience and Wells turned unsteadily and disappeared into the great door.

Lady Mary went to Kate and touched her cheek with a light kiss. “Thank you, my dear!”

“Ah, what would we do without you?” Sir Richard muttered. His head was pounding again in beats of pain.

“Come with me, my dears,” Kate said in her richly comforting voice.

She stepped between them, and with an arm of each she led them toward the hall, talking all the while.

“I’m very cross, you know—this American, how dare he make such a disturbance? I asked the other chaps why he hadn’t come on the train with them properly as he said he would and they just shrugged their shoulders.”

She shrugged her shoulders elaborately to illustrate, glancing up to Sir Richard on her right then to Lady Mary on her left. They were not smiling as she meant them to, so she went on with determined cheerfulness.

“The stories they told me about him! He drives a motor like a devil, won’t have a chauffeur, they said—but he’ll stop for hours in some old cathedral and they don’t know where he is.” Kate tossed her head. “And to think that I got up an hour earlier than I needed to this morning to have the castle looking nice! All that cleaning and dusting, though why I want to make a good impression on him when it’s to sell the castle—” Suddenly she had lost her tone of gay defiance. “Oh dear, oh dear, I do love this old place!” she said wistfully.

They were in the great hall now. She walked them straight through it into their own sitting room beyond and there she settled them in their chairs. Once she could get behind their backs she wiped her eyes hastily with her handkerchief and tidied the books on the table as she talked.

“I can’t bear for strangers to see the castle except when it’s at its best—it’s what he is, that American, only a stranger—and I wish he’d stayed at home. Ah well, I shan’t hurry myself for him anymore, wherever he’s wandering.”

“Stop worrying yourself, Kate,” Lady Mary said mildly, “and tell Wells to bring us some tea. I feel quite faint.”

“He’ll bring it, my lady, and if you’ll excuse me, I will go about the grounds and see that the men aren’t tearing everything to bits.”

She left them, stopping in the hall to look at herself in the mirror, for after all she’d been through she had no doubt that she wanted tidying herself. The image in the mirror was on the whole satisfactory however, her cheeks pink from being angry and her hair curling with the damp morning air. Feeling better after what she saw, she went out into the grounds again, down the gravel walk toward the yews.

He’d be there, perhaps, for they were famous, those great yews carved and trimmed in the shape of marching elephants. She looked down the long vista, the gigantic shrubs towering above her head, but no one was there. … He’d be in the rose garden, maybe, and thither she went but he was not there nor in the spinney beyond the kitchen gardens and the henhouses. She decided to go to the lake and see if he might be wandering in the forest beyond, calculating on the value of the trees and adding up his profits for cutting them down. That indeed she felt she could not bear, for the oaks were huge and worth a fortune, only not enough, Sir Richard had often said, to save the situation.

Suddenly she saw him. He was walking toward the lake, not from the wood, but down the slope of the lawn. Yes, it could be none but the American, a tall, lean man in a dark gray suit, but much younger than she had thought he would be. His step was easy and carefree as though he already owned the land upon which he walked. Sure of him self, was he? Kate asked herself as she followed him silently, staying near enough to a tree here and there so that she could slip behind it if he turned. She’d follow and see what he did and where he went when he thought nobody was watching him.

To her surprise, he went nowhere. He stood at the lake’s edge for minutes and then sat himself down on the grass comfortably as though he meant to spend the day. He was staring at something in the lake but what? Suddenly he threw back his head and gave a shout of laughter. She was mystified. Why was he laughing all by himself? Drunk, maybe, perhaps not quite right in the head? She tiptoed over the grass until she stood almost behind him. He was actually talking to himself!

“That’s it, fella! Be careful now—you’ll choke—a spider is a mean thing to swallow!”

No—yes! He was talking to a frog! There on a lily pad a huge green bullfrog sat in the sun, its red thread of a tongue flicking in and out.

“Whatever are you doing?” she asked severely.

He gave a start and leaped to his feet.

“Trespassing, that’s what,” she went on, looking him over from head to foot. He was even taller than she thought and she tilted her head at an absurd angle to meet his eyes—blue eyes, they were, but on the gray side; he had a good mouth, it was firm and yet—pleasant was the word.

He was the American, of course, and she could have wished he weren’t so handsome. He had a nice smile, too—shy and friendly at the same time and good white teeth showing through it.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Though I am here on business of a sort, so perhaps you’ll forgive me,”

She tried to look prim. “It’s not for me to forgive or not. The castle belongs to Sir Richard and Lady Mary.”

“I hope the frog goes with the castle. He has such a proprietary air.”

He was making jokes, was he? Well, she would have back at him by pretending she didn’t know who he was, though there was no mistaking him with that dark gray suit and red tie.

“If you’ve come to sell something,” she said unsmiling, “then take yourself off. We never buy anything here at the castle. Just keep straight up the path and you’ll come to the gate and beyond that the highway direct to London.” She walked away and stopped. She’d been a bit too harsh, perhaps? “You may have the frog if you like,” she called to him over her shoulder. “I hate frogs,” she added.

He was after her at once. “May I come with you? I’ve lost my way, I’m afraid, and I left my car somewhere.”

She had to down him. “You shouldn’t have come into the grounds without permission.”

“Well, you see—”

“I don’t see! I still say it’s trespassing!”

They faced each other, eyes gazing into eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said and turned away.

She let him walk twenty yards or so and then she called again. Oh, she could be wicked, too, a cat playing with a mouse! “Did you happen by any chance to see an old man wandering about? We’ve lost him.”

He walked halfway back. “Lost him?”

“Yes.”

“How does he look?”

“I’ve never seen him to know who he was.”

“Then how can you say you’ve lost him?”

“Not I, exactly! He came to see Sir Richard—about the castle. We’re rather glad he’s lost.”

“Glad?”

“Yes, but I suppose he must be found.” She walked toward him. “Come along—you may as well join in the search now that you’re here. He’s a sort of monster, you know.”

“Monster?”

“Yes, with money,” and in the way she said “money” was all her passionate defense of the castle.

They were walking side by side. Accidentally, of course, she was not looking at him, but he stealing looks at her; she continued absently, as if it did not matter what she said to a transient, a wanderer, who had no business here and could not be concerned.

“He wants to buy the castle.”

“Really?”

“Yes, for a museum. We love the castle and we loathe him.”

“Then why do you sell the castle?”

“It’s not mine. It belongs to the family. But I’ve lived here all my life. My father was born here. So was my grandfather.”

She stopped and sighed. “But why should we bother to find him? I’ve looked everywhere. Perhaps he’s gone away. I hope he has. And I’ll take you to the service entrance.”

“Thank you.”

They walked in silence for a moment until she saw the car. Yes, it was a green car.

“This is your motorcar?”

“Yes.”

“Nice—”

She looked at it carelessly and turned away, “Well—good-bye.”

“Would you—”

“Yes?”

“I shouldn’t ask but—now that I’m here—”

“What?”

“I do want to see the inside of the castle. I’ve heard about it. An ancient man was here but he couldn’t let me go in.”

“That was my grandfather.”

“You don’t look a bit like him!”

“How could I?”

“Then will you—”

He smiled at her and she tried not to smile back. “Will you go away at once if I let you see the castle?”

“If you want me to—”

“I won’t take you to the part where the family lives, you know.”

“Of course not.”

“Very well, then—but only for a bit.”

With elaborate deceit she began the tour she knew so well. There was no one in the kitchens, no one in the pantry. She led him up a small winding staircase to a narrow passage, and then up still another staircase to small old rooms above, talking as she went.

“This is the original part of the castle. Queen Elizabeth was the one who built it bigger. Shakespeare was here, they say, and here he showed the Queen his
Midsummer Night’s Dream.
And quite recently, Charles Dickens was here.”

“Recently?”

“Only a century ago—that’s nothing—”

“How does this part connect with the rest?”

“There’s a passage here. Be careful! That’s a trapdoor.”

She drew him aside hastily. He looked down and saw at his feet a heavy iron ring in a rotting floor.

“Trapdoors everywhere,” she explained. “They lead straight down to the dungeons.”

“Dungeons?”

“The castle was a royal seat for five hundred years, and kings and queens are always putting people in dungeons, it seems—or used to. You could have fallen for miles, you know.”

“Not really miles?”

“I daresay you would think it miles if you were falling.”

They laughed together unexpectedly and something warm was in the laughter. Now it was she who stumbled suddenly on a warped board and he caught her.

“Careful there—”

She drew away from him. “I’m quite all right, thank you. I know the castle, probably better than anyone. I used to explore it as a child.”

“Weren’t you ever frightened?”

“Not really—I felt safe here. I was accustomed to being alone. And they were always kind to me.”

“They?”

“Sir Richard and Lady Mary.”

Why was she telling him all this? Like as not he was laughing at her. She glanced at him and saw no difference in the smiling eyes. But the joke was ended for her. She put out her hand frankly.

“Of course I know who you are, Mr. Blayne. I can’t think why I’ve been—mischievous!”

His mouth twitched—ah, it was a good mouth, sensitive and warm.

“I haven’t been quite honest, either, I’m afraid,” he said.

“But you couldn’t know me,” she exclaimed.

“No, but I’ve had a hunch—”

“Hunch?”

“An idea—a conviction—all along, that you knew who I was and why I was here.”

“Oh—”

“So now that we’ve both confessed and are honest again, will you tell me who you really are?”

She looked him straight in the eyes. “I’m Kate.”

“Kate? Kate who?”

“Kate Wells, the maid.”

“Miss Kate Wells,” he said slowly, looking down into her flushed face.