On the following morning, about twelve o’clock, Emily, Mrs. Mason’s stout maid-of-all-work, showed a tall, well-dressed man into Hugh’s frowsy little sitting-room where he sat reading.
He sprang to his feet when he recognized his visitor to be Charles Benton.
“Well my boy!” cried his visitor cheerily. “So I’ve found you at last! We all thought you were on the Continent, lying low somewhere.”
“So I have been,” replied the young man faintly. “You’ve heard of that affair at Monte Carlo?”
“Of course. And you are suspected—wanted by the police? That’s why I’m here,” Benton replied. “This place isn’t safe for you. You must get away from it at once,” he added, lowering his voice.
“Why isn’t it safe?”
“Because at Scotland Yard they know you are somewhere in Kensington, and they’re hunting high and low for you.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Harpur, one of the assistant Commissioners of Police, happened to be in the club yesterday, and we chatted. So I pumped him as to the suspected person from Monte Carlo, and he declared that you were known to be in this district, and your arrest was only a matter of time. So you must clear out at once.”
“Where to?” asked Hugh blankly.
“Well, there’s a lady you met once or twice with me, Mrs. Bond. She will be delighted to put you up for a few weeks. She has a charming house down in Surrey—a place called Shapley Manor.”
“She might learn the truth and give me away,” remarked Hugh dubiously.
“She won’t. Recollect, Hugh, that I was your father’s friend, and am yours. What advice I give you is for your own good. You can’t stay here—it’s impossible.”
The name of The Sparrow was upon Hugh’s lips, and he was about to tell Benton of that mysterious person’s efforts on his behalf, but, on reflection, he saw that he had no right to expose The Sparrow’s existence to others. The very house in which they were was one of the bolt-holes of the wonderfully organized gang of crooks which Il Passero controlled.
“How did you know that I was here?” asked Hugh suddenly in curiosity.
“That I’m not at liberty to say. It was not a friend of yours, but rather an enemy who told me—hence I tell you that you run the gravest risk in remaining here a moment longer. As soon as I heard you were here, I telephoned to Mrs. Bond, and she has very generously asked us both to stay with her,” Benton went on. “If you agree, I’ll get a car now, without delay, and we’ll run down into Surrey together,” he added.
Hugh glanced at the tall, well-dressed man of whom his father had thought so highly. Charles Benton, in spite of his hair tuning grey, was a handsome man, and moved in a very good circle of society. Nobody knew his source of income, and nobody cared. In these days clothes make the gentleman, and a knighthood a lady.
Like many others, old Mr. Henfrey had been sadly deceived by Charles Benton, and had taken him into his family as a friend. Other men had done the same. His geniality, his handsome, open face, and his plausible manner, proved the open sesame to many doors of the wealthy, and the latter were robbed in various ways, yet never dreaming that Benton was the instigator of it all. He never committed a theft himself. He gave the information—and others did the dirty work.
“You recollect Mrs. Bond,” said Benton. “But I believe Maxwell, her first husband, was alive then, wasn’t he?”
“I have a faint recollection of meeting a Mrs. Maxwell in Paris—at lunch at the Pre Catalan—was it not?”
“Yes, of course. About six years ago. That’s quite right!” laughed Benton. “Well, Maxwell died and she married again—a Colonel Bond. He was killed in Mesopotamia, and now she’s living up on the Hog’s Back, beyond Guildford, on the road to Farnham.”
Hugh again reflected. He had come to Abingdon Road at the suggestion of the mysterious White Cavalier. Ought he to leave the place without first consulting him? Yet he had no knowledge of the whereabouts of the man of mystery whom he firmly believed was none other than the elusive Sparrow. Besides, was not Benton, his father’s closest friend, warning him of his peril?
The latter thought decided him.
“I’m sure it’s awfully good of Mrs. Bond whom I know so slightly to invite me to stay with her.”
“Nothing, my dear boy. She’s a very old friend of mine. I once did her a rather good turn when Maxwell was alive, and she’s never forgotten it. She’s one of the best women in the world, I assure you,” Benton declared. “I’ll run along to a garage I know in Knightsbridge and get a car to take us down to Shapley. It’s right out in the country, and as long as you keep clear of the town of Guildford—where the police are unusually wary under one of the shrewdest chief constables in England—then you needn’t have much fear. Pack up your traps, Hugh, and I’ll call for you at the end of the road in half an hour.”
“Yes. But I’ll want a dress suit and lots of other things if I’m going to stay at a country house,” the young man demurred.
“Rot! You can get all you want in Aldershot, Farnham or Portsmouth. Come just as you are. Mrs. Bond will make all allowances.”
“And probably have her suspicions aroused at the same time?”
“No, she won’t. This is a sudden trip into the country. I told her you had been taken unwell—a nervous breakdown—and that the doctor had ordered you complete rest at once.”
“I wish I had stayed in Monte Carlo and faced the charge against me,” declared Hugh fervently. “Being hunted from pillar to post like this is so absolutely nerve-racking.”
“Why did you go to that woman’s house, Hugh?” Benton asked. “What business had you that led you to call at that hour upon such a notorious person?”
Hugh remained silent. He saw that to tell Benton the truth would be to reopen the whole question of the will and of Louise.
So he merely shrugged his shoulders.
“Won’t you tell me what really happened at the Villa Amette, Hugh?” asked the elder man persuasively. “I’ve seen Brock, but he apparently knows nothing.”
“Of course he does not. I was alone,” was Hugh’s answer. “The least said about that night of horror the better, Benton.”
So his father’s friend left the house, while Hugh sought Mrs. Mason, settled his bill with her, packed his meagre wardrobe into a suit-case, and half an hour later entered the heavy old limousine which he found at the end of the road.
They took the main Portsmouth road, by way of Kingston, Cobham and Ripley, until in the cold grey afternoon they descended the steep hill through Guildford High Street, and crossing the bridge, instead of continuing along the road to Portsmouth, bore to the right, past the station, and up the steep wide road over that long hill, the Hog’s Back, whence a great misty panorama was spread out on either side of the long, high-up ridge which in the sunshine gives such a wonderful view to motorists on their way out of London southward.
Presently the car turned into the gravelled drive, and Hugh found himself at Shapley.
In the chintz-hung, old-world morning-room, lit by the last rays of the declining sun, for the sky had suddenly cleared, Mrs. Bond entered, loud-voiced and merry.
“Why, Mr. Henfrey! I’m so awfully pleased to see you. Charles telephoned to me that you were a bit out of sorts. So you must stay with me for a little while—both of you. It’s very healthy up here on the Surrey hills, and you’ll soon be quite right again.”
“I’m sure, Mrs. Bond, it is most hospitable of you,” Hugh said. “London in these after the war days is quite impossible. I always long for the country. Certainly your house is delightful,” he added, looking round.
“It’s one of the nicest houses in the whole county of Surrey, my boy,” Benton declared enthusiastically. “Mrs. Bond was awfully lucky in securing it. The family are unfortunately ruined, as so many others are by excessive taxation and high prices, and she just stepped in at the psychological moment.”
“Well, I really don’t know how to thank you sufficiently, Mrs. Bond,” Hugh declared. “It is really extremely good of you.”
“Remember, Mr. Henfrey, we are not strangers,” exclaimed the handsome woman. “Do you recollect when we met in Paris, and afterwards in Biarritz, and then that night at the Carlton?”
“I recollect perfectly well. We met before the war, when one could really enjoy oneself contentedly.”
“Since then I have been travelling a great deal,” said the woman. “I’ve been in Italy, the South of Spain, the Azores, and over to the States. I got back only a few months ago.”
And so after a chat Hugh was shown to his room, a pretty apartment, from the diamond-paned windows of which spread out a lovely view across to Godalming and Hindhead, with the South Downs in the blue far away.
“Now you must make yourselves at home, both of you,” the handsome woman urged as they came down into the drawing-room after a wash.
Tea was served, and over it much chatter about people and places. Mrs. Bond was, like her friend Benton, a thorough-going cosmopolitan. Hugh had no idea of her real reputation, or of her remarkable adventures. Neither had he any idea that Molly Maxwell was wanted by the Paris Surete, just as he himself was wanted.
“Isn’t this a charming place?” remarked Benton as, an hour later, they strolled on the long terrace smoking cigarettes before dinner. “Mrs. Bond was indeed fortunate in finding it.”
“Beautiful!” declared Hugh in genuine admiration. Since that memorable night in Monte Carlo he had been living in frowsy surroundings, concealed in thieves’ hiding-places, eating coarse food, and hearing the slang of the underworld of Europe.
It had been exciting, yet he had been drawn into it against his will—just because he had feared for Dorise’s sake, to face the music after that mysterious shot had been fired at the Villa Amette.
Mrs. Bond was most courteous to her guests, and as Hugh and Benton strolled up and down the terrace in the fast growing darkness, the elder man remarked:
“You’ll be quite safe here, you know, Hugh. Don’t worry. I’m truly sorry that you have landed yourself into this hole, but—well, for the life of me I can’t see what led you to seek out that woman, Yvonne Ferad. Why ever did you go there?”
Hugh paused.
“I—I had reasons—private reasons of my own,” he replied.
“That’s vague enough. We all have private reasons for doing silly things, and it seems that you did an exceptionally silly thing. I hear that Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo, after the doctors operated upon her brain, has now become a hopeless idiot.”
“So I’ve been told. It is all so very sad—so horrible. Though people have denounced her as an adventuress, yet I know that at heart she is a real good woman.”
“Is she? How do you know?” asked Benton quickly, for instantly he was on the alert.
“I know. And that is all.”
“But tell me, Hugh—tell me in confidence, my boy—what led you to seek her that night. You must have followed her from the Casino and have seen her enter the Villa. Then you rang at the door and asked to see her?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Why?”
“I had my own reasons.”
“Can’t you tell them to me, Hugh?” asked the tall man in a strange, low voice. “Remember, I am an old friend of your father. And I am still your best friend.”
Hugh pursued his walk in silence.
“No,” he said at last, “I prefer not to discuss the affair. That night is one full of painful memories.”
“Very well,” answered Benton shortly. “If you don’t want to tell me, Hugh, I quite understand. That’s enough. Have another cigarette,” and he handed the young fellow his heavy gold case.
A week passed. Hugh Henfrey and Charles Benton greatly enjoyed their stay at Shapley Manor. With their hostess they motored almost daily to many points of interest in the neighbourhood, never, by the way, descending into the town of Guildford, where the police were so unusually alert and shrewd.
More than once when alone with Benton, Hugh felt impelled to refer to the mysterious death of his father, but it was a very painful subject. The last time Hugh had referred to it, about a month before his visit to Monte Carlo, Benton had been greatly upset, and had begged the young man not to mention the tragic affair.
Constantly, however, Benton, on his part, would put cunning questions to him concerning Yvonne Ferad, as to what he knew concerning her, and how he had managed to escape over the frontier into Italy.
Late one night as they sat together in the billiard-room after their final game, Benton, removing the cigar from his lips, exclaimed:
“Oh! I quite forgot to tell you, Mrs. Bond has been awfully good to Louise. She took her from Paris with her and they went quite a long tour, first to Spain and other places, and then to New York and back.”
“Has she?” exclaimed Hugh in surprise. Only once before had Benton mentioned Louise’s name, then he had casually remarked that she was on a visit to some friends in Yorkshire.
“Yes. She’s making her home with Mrs. Bond for the present. She returns here to-morrow.”
As he said this, he watched the young man’s face. It was sphinx-like.
“Oh! That’s jolly!” he replied, with well assumed satisfaction. “It seems such an age since we last met—nearly a year before my father’s death, I believe.”
In his heart he had no great liking for the girl, although she was bright, vivacious and extremely good company.
Next afternoon the pair met in the hall after the car had brought her from Guildford station.
“Hallo, Hugh!” she cried as she grasped his hand. “Uncle wrote and told me you were here! How jolly, isn’t it? Why—you seem to have grown older,” she laughed.
“And you younger,” he replied, bending over her hand gallantly. “I hear you’ve been all over the world of late!”
“Yes. Wasn’t it awfully good of Mrs. Bond? I had a ripping time. I enjoyed New York ever so much. I find this place a bit dull after Paris though, so I’m often away with friends.”
And he followed her into the big morning-room where Mrs. Bond, alias Molly Maxwell, was awaiting her.
That afternoon there had been several callers; a retired admiral and his wife, and two county magistrates with their womenfolk, for since her residence at Shapley Mrs. Bond had been received in a good many smart houses, especially by the nouveau riche who abound in that neighbourhood. But the callers had left and they were now alone.
As Louise sat opposite the woman who had taken her under her charge, Hugh gazed at her furtively and saw that there was no comparison between her and the girl he loved so deeply.
How strange it was, he thought. If he asked her to be his wife and they married, he would at once become a wealthy man and inherit all his father’s possessions. True, she was very sweet and possessed more than the ordinary chic and good taste in dress. Yet he felt that he could never fulfil his dead father’s curious desire.
He could never marry her—never!
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