At the sound of the shot, Mabel came running in. She saw the snake on the floor, stared from his sister to Joan, from Joan to her white-faced father.
"That horrible man—he tried to kill Letty!" She was shrill in her misdirected fury.
"Shut up!"
When Stephen Narth snarled that way there was an end to hysteria. He became the dominant giver of household laws.
"Shut up, all of you—damn you!...none of you has the sense of Joan. Get up!"
Letty rose untidily, staggered, her eyes pleading for sympathy.
"It was a snake." He stared down at the writhing thing with ludicrous solemnity. "Ugh! Throw that beast out of the room—use the tongs. Did he shoot it, Joan? I didn't see him use a pistol."
She shook her head.
"Nor I—I just heard the shot and that was all."
Mr Narth pointed to the snake; the butler, tongs in hand, was snapping the ends tremblingly.
"He said 'Hell's bells,'" nodded Joan gravely.
The girls looked at their father.
"Who was he—a tramp, daddy?" asked Letty.
Mr Narth shook his head.
"Clifford Lynne," he said, and they gasped in unison. That scarecrow! Letty's proper indignation overcame her more feminine emotions.
"That ...! Was he the man you wanted me...us ...?"
He glanced significantly at Joan. She was at the open window, her eyes shaded by a white hand from the glare of the afternoon sun. At the moment the butler was staggering to the lawn, a rope-like object gripped at the end of the tongs, Clifford Lynne came over the hedge, one leg after another in a flying leap, his absurd whiskers flowing all ways. He stopped at the sight of the snake.
"Yellow head!" he said thoughtfully. "Yellow head—what a lad!"
Letty dropped her voice as the queer man came leisurely into the room, his hands thrust into his pockets.
"Has anybody seen a Chink about here?" he asked.
Letty and Mabel spoke together, though he was addressing the one person in the ornate library who was neither obviously palpitating or patently fearful.
"Chinamen—two?" he said thoughtfully. "I thought so! Moses!"
He walked to the window and stared out. Then he came back to the table, lifted the cottonwool gingerly from the box, layer by layer.
"Only one, by gum! But what a perfect houndski!"
He peered out into the sunlit garden.
"Thought they'd use a knife. These fellows can throw a knife wonderfully. One of 'em killed a foreman of mine a year ago from a distance of a hundred and twenty yards."
He was addressing Joan, and his voice was friendly and conversational.
"Did you catch him?" she asked.
The bearded man nodded.
"Got him on the law and order side of the mountains and hanged him. A nice fellow in many ways," he mused, "but temperamental. There is only one way to deal with a temperamental coolie, and that is to hang him."
He was looking at Letty now, and she regarded his views on temperament as ill-timed, if not actually insulting. He saw her rosebud lips curl up in a smile, but did not feel uncomfortable.
"You?" he asked.
She started.
"No—I—I mean, what do you mean?"
She knew very well what he meant. Clifford Lynne could broadcast thought, and in the tenseness of the moment her receptivity was particularly good.
"I've got to marry somebody."
He glanced now at Mabel Narth, darkly red, her baby blue eyes malignant with the contempt she felt.
"Neither my sister nor I is the lucky girl," she said with a certain malicious sweetness. "You ought to know Joan..." She glanced round at Mr Narth. "Father!"
Awkwardly enough he introduced the girl.
"Oh!"
Just "Oh!" It might have meant disappointment or relief or just surprise.
"Well—I am here. Ready for the——" He hesitated for a word. Joan could have sworn that the word he almost used was "sacrifice," but he changed it to "occasion."
"Old Joe Bray is dead," said the stranger. "I suppose you know that? Poor old lunatic! It would have been better for a lot of people if he had died six months ago. A dear old soul, a great old sportsman, but slightly mad."
Again he addressed Joan. She could observe him now, for he was emerging from the blinding flash of his dramatic arrival. Close upon six feet in height, even his nondescript clothing could not disguise a fine physique. The face was tanned a deep mahogany. His straggling beard was as brown as his long hair and his rather shaggy eyebrows. This bearded man was alive—every inch of him. That was her first impression—his immense vitality. She glanced down at his shapeless shoes; they were home-made, she guessed, and whilst one was fastened with a thin piece of hide, the other lace was of string, and unravelled string at that.
It was a moment for Mr Narth to assert his authority. Natural circumstances made him the most important person in the room. He was not only the head of the house, but he was the principal beneficiary under the will. And this man was old Joe Bray's manager, one to be ordered rather than persuaded; the merest employee—Mr Narth's employee in prospect, for if he was inheriting old Joe's wealth, he also inherited the indubitable authority which wealth carries with it.
"Er—Mr—um—Lynne, I think this discussion of my poor cousin's—state of mind is not quite proper, and I cannot allow you to asperse his—um—revered memory without protest."
The stranger was looking at him curiously.
"Oh, you're Narth, are you—I've heard about you! You're the gentleman who speculates with other people's money!"
Stephen Narth went red and white. He was for the moment speechless. The crudeness of the statement was paralysing. Had Mr Narth been wise, he would have arrested all further comment, either by walking from the room or by a direct and tremendous rebuke.
"These things get about," said Lynne, stroking his beard. "You can't turn the light off a business like yours."
Stephen Narth got back his voice.
"I am not prepared to discuss such wanton slanders," he said. There was murder in his eyes if Clifford Lynne had ever seen murder. "For the moment it is necessary to tell you that as the sole beneficiary under Mr Bray's will and—er—proprietor——"
"In prospect," murmured Lynne, when he paused. "You feel that I ought to keep in my place? I am almost inclined to agree. Do you want me?"
He stared at Joan, his expression blank, almost fatuous. She had an odd inclination to laugh.
"Because," he went on, "if you want me I'm here and ready. The Lord knows I don't want to force my attentions upon any shrinking maiden, but there's the position. Joe said, 'Will you give me your word?' and I said 'Yes.'"
He was still staring at her thoughtfully. Did he expect an answer, she wondered. Apparently not, for he went on:
"This complicates matters—I had no idea we should annoy the Joyful Hands—but I've been and gone and done it!"
Mr Narth thought that it was a moment when he might without loss of dignity edge himself into the conversation on nearly equal terms.
"The Joyful Hands, I think you said—who on earth are the Joyful Hands?"
The stranger did not seem to resent the intrusion, and Stephen Narth had the queer sensation that the admonishment directed to him a few seconds before was in the nature of a statement of fact made without any real disapproval or malice. Clifford Lynne knew but did not condemn.
"I have taken the Lodge—the Slaters' Cottage, don't they call it?" said Clifford in his strangely abrupt way. "A weird hole, but suitable for me. I'm afraid I've made rather a mess of your carpet."
He looked down gloomily at the evidence of tragedy.
"Anyway, snakes have no right to be on carpets," he said in a tone of relief, as though he had found an unexpected excuse for the disorder he had created.
Mr Narth's face fell.
"You're staying here, are you?" he asked, and it was on the tip of his tongue to suggest that the stranger, in all his future visits, should come into the house by the servants' entrance. But something inhibited this discourteous expression. A man who could treat grand larceny as a matter of indifference, who carried on his person lethal weapons which he could draw, use and replace so quickly that no mortal eye could see his hand's movement, was not to be insulted with impunity. Instead:
"The Slaters' Cottage isn't a very nice place for you," he said. "It is little better than a ruin. I had it offered to me the other day for a hundred and twenty pounds and refused it——"
"You missed a bargain," said Cliff Lynne calmly. "It has a Tudor fireplace worth twice that amount."
He was looking absently at the girl as he spoke.
"I shouldn't be surprised if I settled down in the Slaters' Cottage," he was musing aloud. "There's a lovely scullery, where one's wife could do one's washing, and three perfectly good rooms—once the rat-holes are stopped up. Personally, I have no objection to rats."
"And I am rather fond of them," said Joan coolly, for she was quick to see the challenge and as quick to take it up.
For a second the faintest ghost of a smile showed in his eyes.
"Anyway, I'm staying here. And don't be scared of losing your reputation, because I shan't call very often." He pursed his lips. "Chink! And of course the heathen saw me come in, and delivered the goods instanter! Daren't do it before, or you'd have heard the wriggler lashing out inside the box. Or he'd have died—there were no holes in the lid. I'll have to put the Dumb Friends' League on to these fellows!"
Mr Narth cleared his throat.
"Do you suggest that that reptile was sent to you—maliciously?"
Clifford Lynne turned his amused eyes upon the questioner.
"A live, poisonous snake is not my idea of a birthday present," he said gently. "And I hate Yellow Heads—they hurt!" He slapped his thigh with sudden energy and laughed. "Why, of course! Yellow snake! Fancy my forgetting that!"
Again his eyes sought the girl's.
"You're getting a pretty careless husband...I didn't get your name ... Joan, is it? I thought all the Joans were married, but perhaps I'm thinking of the Dorothys! You're about twenty-one, aren't you? All the Joans are about twenty-one, all the Patricias are seventeen, and most of the Mary Anns are drawing their Old Age Pensions."
"And all the Cliffords are on the stage," she retorted, and this time he laughed. It was a soft, musical gurgle of sound, so unlike his forbidding appearance that it seemed to be a new and a different man breaking through the outward sham and disguise of him.
"You made that up on the spur of the moment!" he said, lifting an admonitory finger. "But I deserved it."
He dived into the pockets of his nondescript coat, brought out a large gunmetal watch and consulted it.
"Not going!" he said disgustedly and, shaking, held it to his ear. "What's the time?"
"Six," said Mr Narth, recovering his voice.
"I knew it couldn't be half past twelve," said the visitor, calmly adjusting the hands. "I'll be getting back. I'm renting a place in London for the moment, but I'll be down tomorrow or the day after. Church of England?"
Joan, to whom this question was fired, nodded.
"I'm a bit that way myself," admitted Mr Lynne, "but with leaning towards incense and good music. But I admire Baptists—how they keep good on varnish and harmoniums beats me! So long, Dorothy!"
"You mean Agnes," said Joan, and her eyes gleamed again.
She held out a hand and felt her own enfolded in a strong grip. Apparently he deemed no other member of the family worthy of such a salute, and with a bright nod, which embraced them all, he walked briskly to the door and into the hall. Mr Narth thought he had gone, and was about to speak when the bearded man reappeared.
"Anybody know a man called Grahame St Clay?" he asked.
In a flash Mr Narth remembered the conversation of the morning.
"I know a Mr St Clay. I don't exactly know him, but one of my directors is a friend of his," he said.
Clifford Lynne's eyebrows rose.
"Is that so?" he said calmly. "You've never met him?"
Mr Narth shook his head.
"You might tell me tomorrow night what you think of him."
"But I'm not seeing him," said Mr Narth.
"Oh, yes, you are," said Clifford softly, and again that hint of mischief shone in his clear blue eyes. "Oh, indeed you are! St Clay! Who canonized Yellow mud?"
In another second he had gone, slamming the front door behind him. He was a man of violent habits, as Mr Narth subsequently insisted.
"Thank God, I'm not marrying him!" said Mabel, and Letty, hardly yet recovered from her swoon, murmured agreement.
Joan said nothing. She was more than a little bewildered, very interested, but not in the slightest degree frightened.
CHAPTER SIX
At the end of the drive, drawn up on the verge by the roadside, was Mr Clifford Lynne's car. 'Car' is perhaps a dignified description of a machine that he had purchased a few days previously for £35. He had left the engine running because it was his experience that failure to take this precaution might mean half an hour's work in starting. With a rattle and a clank, a groaning and a squeaking, he brought the machine to the road, drove noisily for a hundred yards, then turned along a wagon track that ran into the pines.
The end of the path brought him to the grey stone Slaters' Cottage. Every window was broken; the pathetic little portico which a pretentious owner of the '60's had added sagged dismally in the centre; a dozen slates were missing from the roof—this one-storied cottage was a picture of desolation and neglect.