the head-waiter in the restaurant to which hetherwick and rhona repaired every sunday immediately upon her arrival now knew these two well by sight, and forming his own conclusions about them, always reserved for them a table in a quiet and secluded corner. hither they now proceeded, and had scarcely taken their accustomed seats before rhona plunged into her story.
"i expect you want to know what it's all about, so i won't keep you waiting," she said. "it was on friday—friday morning—that it happened, and i half thought of writing to you about it that evening. then i thought it best to tell you personally to-day—besides, i should have had to write an awfully long letter. there are things to explain; i'd better explain them first. our arrangements down there at riversreade, for instance. they're like this: lady riversreade and i always breakfast together at the court, about nine o'clock. at ten we go across the grounds to the home. there we have a sort of formal office—two rooms, one of which, the first opening from the hall, i have, the other, opening out of it, is lady riversreade's private sanctum. in the hall itself we have an ex-army man, mitchell, as hall-porter, to attend to the door and so on. all the morning we are busy with letters, accounts, reports of the staff, and that sort of thing. we have lunch at the home, and we're generally busy until four or five o'clock. got all that?"
"every scrap!" replied hetherwick. "perfectly plain."
"very well," continued rhona. "one more detail, however. a good many people, chiefly medical men and folk interested in homes and hospitals, call, wanting to look over and to know about the place—which, i may tell you in parenthesis, costs lady riversreade a pretty tidy penny! mitchell's instructions as regards all callers are to bring their cards to me—i interview them first; if i can deal with them, i do; if i think it necessary or desirable, i take them in to lady riversreade. we have to sort them out—some, i am sure, come out of mere idle curiosity; in fact, the only visitors we want to see there are either medical men who have a genuine interest in the place and can do something for it, or people who are connected with its particular inmates. well, on friday morning last, about a quarter to twelve, as i was busy with my letters, i heard a car come up the drive, and presently mitchell came into my room with a card bearing the name dr. cyprian baseverie. instead of being an engraved card as, by all the recognised standards, it should have been, it was a printed card—that was the first thing i noticed."
"your powers of observation," remarked hetherwick admiringly, "are excellent, and should prove most useful."
"thank you for the compliment!—but that didn't need much observation," retorted rhona with a laugh. "it was obvious. however, i asked mitchell what dr. baseverie wanted; mitchell replied that the gentleman desired an interview with lady riversreade. now, as i said before, we never refuse doctors, so i told mitchell to bring dr. baseverie to me. a moment later dr. baseverie entered. i want to describe him particularly, and you must listen most attentively. figure, then, to yourself a man of medium height, neither stout nor slender, but comfortably plump, and apparently about forty-five years of age, dressed very correctly and fashionably in a black morning coat and vest, dark striped trousers, immaculate as to linen and neckwear, and furnished with a new silk hat, pearl-grey gloves and a tightly rolled gold-mounted umbrella. incidentally, he wore a thin gold watch-chain, white spats and highly polished shoes. got that?"
"i see him—his clothes and things, i mean," assented hetherwick. "fashionable medico sort, evidently! but—himself?"
"now his face," continued rhona. "imagine a man with an almost absolutely bloodless countenance—a face the colour of old ivory—lighted by a pair of peculiarly piercing eyes, black as sloes, and the pallor of the face heightened by a rather heavy black moustache and equally black, slightly crinkled hair, thick enough above the ears but becoming sparse and thin on the crown. imagine, too, a pair of full, red lips above a round but determined chin and a decidedly hooked nose, and you have—the man i'm describing!"
"um!" said hetherwick reflectingly. "hebraic, i think, from your description."
"that's just what i thought myself," agreed rhona. "i said to myself at once, 'whatever and whoever else you are, my friend, you're a jew!' but the creature's manner and speech were english enough—very english. he had all the well-accustomed air of the medical practitioner who is also a bit of a man of the world, and i saw at once that anybody who tried to fence with him would usually come off second-best. his explanation of his presence was reasonable and commonplace enough: he was deeply interested in the sort of cases we had in the home, and desired to acquaint himself with our methods and arrangements and so on. he made use of a few technical terms and phrases which were quite beyond my humble powers, and i carried in his card to lady riversreade. lady riversreade is always accessible when there's a doctor in the case, and in two minutes dr. baseverie was closeted with her."
"that ends the first chapter, i suppose?" said hetherwick. "interesting—very! a good curtain! and the next?"
"the events of the second chapter," replied rhona, "took place in lady riversreade's room, and i cannot even guess at their nature. i can only tell of things that i know. but there's a good deal in that. to begin with, although dr. baseverie had said to me that he desired to see the home—which, of course, in the ordinary way meant his being either taken round by lady riversreade or by our resident house physician—he was not taken round. he never left that room from the moment he entered it until the moment in which he left it. and he remained in it an entire hour!"
"with lady riversreade?"
"with lady riversreade! she never left it, either. nor did i go into it; she hates me to go in if she has anybody with her at any time. no!—there those two were together, from ten minutes to twelve until five minutes to one. yet the man had said that he wanted to look round!"
"is there any other way by which they could have left that room?" suggested hetherwick. "another door—or a french window?"
"there is nothing of the sort. the door into my room is the only means of entrance or exit to or from lady riversreade's. no—they were there all the time."
"did you hear anything?"
"nothing! the house in which lady riversreade set up this home is an old, solid, well-built one—none of your modern gimcrack work in it!—it's a far better house than the court, grand as that may be. all the doors and windows fit—i never heard a sound from the room."
"well," asked hetherwick, after due meditation, "and at the end of the hour?"
"at the end of the hour the door suddenly opened and dr. baseverie appeared, hat, gloves and umbrella in hand. he half turned as he came out and said a few words to lady riversreade. i heard them. he said, 'well, then, next friday morning at the same time?' then he nodded, stepped into my room, closed the door behind him, made me a very polite, smiling bow as he passed my desk, and went out. a moment later he drove off in the car—it had been waiting at the entrance all that time."
"i suppose that's the end of chapter two," suggested hetherwick. "is there more?"
"some," responded rhona. "during the hour which dr. baseverie had spent with lady riversreade i had been very busy typing letters. when he had gone i took them into her room, so that she could sign them. i suppose i was a bit curious about what had just happened and may have been more than usually observant—anyway, i felt certain that the visit of this man, whoever he is, had considerably upset lady riversreade. she looked it."
"precisely how?" inquired hetherwick.
"well, i couldn't exactly tell you. perhaps a man wouldn't have noticed it. but being a woman, i did. she was perturbed—she'd been annoyed, or distressed, or surprised, or—something. i saw signs which, as a woman, were unmistakable—to a woman. the man's visit had been distasteful—troubling. i'm as certain of that as i am that this is roast mutton."
"did she say anything?"
"not one word. she was unusually taciturn—silent, in fact. she took the letters in silence, signed them in silence. no, on reflection, she never spoke a word while i was in the room. i took the letters away and began putting them in their envelopes. soon afterwards lady riversreade came through my room and went out, and i saw her go across the grounds to the court. she didn't turn up at the usual luncheon at the home, and i didn't see her again that afternoon. in fact, i didn't see her again that day, for when i went home to the court at five o'clock, lady riversreade's maid told me that her mistress had gone up to town and wouldn't be home until late that night. i went to bed before she returned."
"next morning?" suggested hetherwick.
"next morning she was just as usual, and things went on in the usual way."
"did she ever mention this man and his visit to you?" asked hetherwick.
"no—not a word of him. but i found out something about him myself on friday afternoon."
"what? something relevant?"
"may be relevant to—something. i was wondering about him—and his printed card. i thought it odd that a medical man, so smartly dressed and all that, should present a card like that—not one well printed, a cheap thing! besides, it had no address. i wondered—mere inquisitiveness, perhaps—where the creature came from. now, we've a jolly good lot of the usual reference-books there at the home—and there's a first-class right up-to-date medical directory amongst them. so i looked up the name of dr. cyprian baseverie. i say, looked it up—but i didn't do that—for it wasn't there! he's neither an english, nor a scottish, nor an irish medical man."
"foreigner, then," said hetherwick. "french, perhaps, or—american."
"may be an egyptian, or a persian, or a eurasian, for anything i know," remarked rhona. "what i know is that he's not on the list in that directory, though from his speech and manner you'd think he'd been practising in the west end all his life! anyway, that's the story. is there anything in it?"
hetherwick picked up his glass of claret by its stem and looked thoughtfully through the contents of the bowl.
"the particular thing is—the extent and quality of lady riversreade's annoyance, or dismay, or perturbation, occasioned by the man's visit," he said at last. "if she was really very much upset——"
"if you want my honest opinion as eye-witness and as woman," remarked rhona, "lady riversreade was very much upset. she gave me the impression that she'd just received very bad, disconcerting, unpleasant news. after seeing and watching her as she signed the letters i had no doubt whatever that the man had deliberately lied to me when he said he wanted to see the home and its working—what he really wanted was access to lady riversreade."
"look here!" exclaimed hetherwick suddenly "were you present when this man went into lady riversreade's room?"
"present? of course i was! i took him in—myself."
"you saw them meet?"
"to be sure!"
"well, then, you know! were they strangers? did she recognise him? did she show any sign of recognition whatever when she set eyes on him?"
"no, none! i'm perfectly certain she'd never seen the man before in her life! i could see quite well that he was an absolute stranger to her."
"and she to him?"
"oh, that i don't know! he may have seen her a thousand times. but i'm sure she'd never seen him."
hetherwick laid down his knife and fork with a gesture of finality.
"i'm going to find out who that chap is," he answered. "got to!"
"you think his visit may have something to do with this?" asked rhona.
"may, yes. anyway, i'm not going to let any chance go. there's enough mystery in what you tell me about the man to make it worth while following him up. it must be done."
"how will you do it?"
"you say he said that he was going there again next friday at the same time? well, the thing to do, then, is to watch and follow him when he goes away."
"i'm afraid i'm no use for that! he'd know me."
"nor am i!—i'm too conspicuous," laughed hetherwick. "if i were a head and shoulders shorter, i might be some use. but i've got the very man—my clerk, one mapperley. he's just the sort to follow and dog anybody and yet never be seen himself. as you'll say, when you've the pleasure of seeing him, mapperley's the most ordinary, commonplace chap you ever set eyes on—pass absolutely unnoticed in any cockney crowd. but he's as sharp as they make 'em, veiling a peculiar astuteness under his eminently undistinguished features. and what i shall do is this—i'll give mapperley a full and detailed description of dr. cyprian baseverie: i've memorised yours already; mapperley will memorise mine. now baseverie, whoever he may be, will probably go down to dorking by the 10.10 from here; so will mapperley. and after mapperley has once spotted his man, he'll not lose sight of him."
"and he'll do—what?" asked rhona.
"follow him to dorking—watch him—follow him back to london—find out where he goes when he returns—run him to earth, in fact. then he'll report to me—and we shall know more than we do now, and also what to do next."
"i wonder what it's all going to lead to?" said rhona. "pretty much of a maze, isn't it?"
"it is," agreed hetherwick. "but if we can only get a firm hold on a thread——"
"and that might break!" she laughed.
"well, then, one that won't break," he said. "there are several loose ends lying about already. matherfield's got a hold on one or two."
he went to see matherfield next morning and told him the story that he had heard from rhona. matherfield grew thoughtful.
"well, mr. hetherwick," he said, after a pause, "it's as i've said before—if this lady riversreade is mixed up in it, the thing to do is to go back and get as full a history as can possibly be got of her antecedents. we'll have to get on to that—but we'll wait to see what that clerk of yours discovers about this man. there may be something in it—in the meantime i'm hard at work on my own clues."
"any luck?" asked hetherwick.
"scarcely that. but, as i say, we're at work. the five-pound note is a difficult matter. given in change, of course, at vivian's night club—but they tell me there that it's no uncommon thing to change ten, twenty, and even fifty-pound notes for their customers—it's a swell lot who forgather there—and of course they've no recollection whatever about that particular note or night. still, the fact remains—that note came through vivian's, and through one of its frequenters, to granett, and i'm in hopes."
"and the medicine bottle?" suggested hetherwick.
"ah, there is more chance!" responded matherfield, with a lightening eye. "that's only a question of time! i've got a man going round all the chemists in the west central district—stiff job, for there are more of 'em than i believed. but he's bound to hit on the right one eventually. and then—well, we shall have a pretty good idea, if not positive proof, as to how granett got hold of the stuff that poisoned him."
"i suppose there's no doubt that there was poison in that bottle?" inquired hetherwick.
"according to the specialists, none," replied matherfield. "and in the glass too. what sort of poison, i don't know—you know what these experts are—so mysterious about things! but they have told me this—the stuff that settled granett was identical with that which finished off hannaford. that's certain."
"then it probably came from the same source," said hetherwick.
"oh, my notion is that the man or men who poisoned one man poisoned the other," exclaimed matherfield. "and at the same time. at least, i think granett got his dose at the same time—probably carried it off in his pocket and drank it when he got home. but—we shall trace that bottle! let me know what you find out about this man baseverie, mr. hetherwick—every little helps."
hetherwick duly coached mapperley in the part he wanted him to play, and mapperley, with money in his pockets and a pipe in his mouth, lounged off to victoria on the following friday morning. his principal saw nothing and heard nothing of him all that day.
