The Crimson Blind

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"Very well," Cross said, after a little hesitation. "Good-night."

Bell went on his way homeward with plenty of food for thought.

He stopped just for a moment to light a cigar.

"Getting towards the light," he muttered; "getting along. The light is
not going to fail after all. I wonder what Reginald Henson would say if
he only knew that I had been to the hospital and recognised our mutual
friend Van Sneck there!"

CHAPTER XXIII

INDISCRETION

The expression on Henson's usually benign countenance would have startled
such of his friends and admirers as regarded him as a shining light and
great example. The smug satisfaction, the unctuous sweetness of the
expansive blue eyes were gone; a murderous gleam shone there instead. His
lips were set and rigid, the strong hand seemed to be strangling the
bedclothes. It wanted no effort of imagination to picture Henson as the
murderer stooping over his prey. The man had discarded his mask
altogether.

"Oh," he said, between his teeth, "you are a clever fellow. You would
have made an excellent detective. And so you have found out where Van
Sneck is?"

"I have already told you so," Littimer said, doggedly.

"How many days have you been hanging about Brighton?"

"Two or three. I came when I heard that Chris was ill. I didn't dare to
come near the house, at least not too near, for fear of being seen. But I
pumped the doctor. Then he told me that Chris was dead, and I risked it
all to see the last of her."

"Yes, yes," Henson said, testily; "but what has this to do with
Van Sneck?"

"I was looking for Van Sneck. I found that he had been here. I discovered
that he had left his rooms and had not returned to them. Then it occurred
to me to try the hospital. I pretended that I was in search of some
missing relative, and they showed me three cases of bad accidents, the
victims of which had not been identified. And the third was Van Sneck."

Littimer told his story with just the suggestion of triumph in his voice.
Henson was watching him with the keenest possible interest.

"Do you know how Van Sneck got there?" he asked.

Littimer nodded. Evidently he had heard most of the story. Henson was
silent for some little time. He was working out something in his mind.
His smile was not a pleasant one; it was nothing like his bland platform
smile, for instance.

"Give me that black book," he said. "Do you know how to work the
telephone?"

"I daresay I could learn. It doesn't look hard."

"Well, that is an extension telephone on the table yonder worked in
connection with the main instrument in the library. I like to have my own
telephone, as it is of the greatest assistance to me. Turn that handle
two or three times and put that receiver to your ear. When the Exchange
answers tell them to put you on to O,017 Gerrard."

Littimer obeyed mechanically, but though he rang and rang again no answer
came. With a snarling curse Henson dragged himself out of bed and crossed
the room, with limbs that shook under him.

He twirled the handle round passionately.

"You always were a fool," he growled, "and you always will be."

Still no reply came. Henson whirled angrily, but he could elicit no
response. He kicked the instrument over and danced round it impotently.
Littimer had never seen him in such a raging fury before. The language of
the man was an outrage, filthy, revolting, profane. No yelling, drunken
Hooligan could have been more fluent, more luridly diffuse.

"Go on," Littimer said, bitterly. "I like to hear you. I like to hear the
smug, plausible Pharisee, the friend of the good and pious, going on like
this. I'd give fifty years of my life to have just a handful of your
future constituents here for a moment."

Henson paused suddenly and requested that Littimer should help him into
bed.

"I can afford to speak freely before you," he said. "Say a word against
me and I'll crush you. Put out a hand to injure me and I'll wipe you off
the face of the earth. It's absolutely imperative that I should send an
important telephone message to London at once, and here the machine has
broken down and no chance of its being repaired for a day or two. Curse
the telephone."

He lay back on his bed utterly exhausted by his fit of passion. One of
the white bandages about his throat had started, and a little thin stream
of blood trickled down his chest. Littimer waited for the next move. He
watched the crimson fluid trickle over Henson's sleeping-jacket. He could
have watched the big scoundrel bleeding to death with the greatest
possible pleasure.

"What was Van Sneck doing here?"

The voice came clear and sharp from the bed. Littimer responded to it as
a cowed hound does to a sudden yet not quite unexpected lash from a
huntsman's whip. His manliness was of small account where Henson was
concerned. For years he had come to heel like this. Yet the question
startled him and took him entirely by surprise.

"He was looking for the lost Rembrandt."

But Littimer's surprise was as nothing to Henson's amazement. He lay flat
on his back so that his face could not be seen. From the expression of it
he had obtained a totally unexpected reply to his question. He was so
amazed that he had no words for the moment. But his quick intelligence
and amazing cunning grasped the possibilities of the situation. Littimer
was in possession of information to which he was a stranger. Except in a
vague way he had not the remotest idea what Littimer was talking about.
But the younger man must not know that.

"So Van Sneck told you so?" he asked. "What a fool he must have been! And
why should he come seeking for the Rembrandt in Brighton?"

"Because he knows it was there, I suppose."

"It isn't here, because it doesn't exist. The thing was destroyed by
accident by the police when they raided Van Sneck's lodgings years ago."

"Van Sneck told me that he had actually seen the picture in Brighton."

Henson chuckled. The noise was intended to convey amused contempt, and it
had that effect, so far as Littimer was concerned. It was well for Henson
that the latter could not see the strained anxiety of his face. The man
was alert and quivering with excitement in every limb. Still he chuckled
again as if the whole thing merely amused him.

"'The Crimson Blind' is Van Sneck's weak spot," he said. "It is King
Charles's head to him. By good or bad luck--it is in your hands to say
which--you know all about the way in which it became necessary to get
Hatherly Bell on our side. All the same, the Rembrandt--the _other_
one--is destroyed."

"Van Sneck has seen the picture," Littimer said, doggedly.

"Oh, play the farce out to the end," Henson laughed, good-humouredly.
"Where did he see it?"

"He says he saw it at 218, Brunswick Square."

Henson's knees suddenly came up to his nose, then he lay quite flat again
for a long time. His face had grown white once more, his lips utterly
bloodless. Fear was written all over him. A more astute man than Littimer
would have seen the beads standing out on his forehead. It was some
little time before he dared trust himself to speak again.

"I know the house you mean," he said. "It is next door to the temporary
residence of my esteemed friend, Gilead Gates. At the present moment the
place is void--"

"And has been ever since your bogus 'Home' broke up. Years ago, before
you used your power to rob and oppress us as you do now, you had a Home
there. You collected subscriptions right and left in the name of the
Reverend Felix Crosbie, and you put the money into your pocket. A certain
weekly journal exposed you, and you had to leave suddenly or you would
have found yourself in the hands of the police. You skipped so suddenly
that you had no time even to think of your personal effects, which you
understood were sold to defray expenses. But they were not sold, as
nobody cared to throw good money after bad. Van Sneck got in with the
agent under pretence of viewing the house, and he saw the picture there."

"Why didn't he take it with him?" Henson asked, with amused scorn. He was
master of himself again and had his nerves well under control.

"Well, that was hardly like Van Sneck. Our friend is nothing if not
diplomatic. But when he did manage to get into the house again the
picture was gone."

"Excellent!" Henson cried. "How dramatic! There is only one thing
required to make the story complete. The picture was taken away by
Hatherly Bell. If you don't bring that in as the _denouement_ I shall be
utterly disappointed."

"You needn't be," Littimer said, coolly. "That is exactly what did
happen."

Henson chuckled again, quite a parody of a chuckle this time. He could
detect the quiet suggestion of triumph in Littimer's voice.

"Did Van Sneck tell you all this?" he asked.

"Not the latter part of it," Littimer replied, "seeing that he was in the
hospital when it happened. But I know it is true because I saw Bell and
David Steel, the novelist, come away from the house, and Bell had the
picture under his arm. And that's why Van Sneck's agent couldn't find it
the second time he went. Check to you, my friend, at any rate. Bell will
go to my father with Rembrandt number two, and compare it with number
one. And then the fat will be in the fire."

Henson yawned affectedly. All the same he was terribly disturbed and
shaken. All he wanted now was to be alone and to think. So far as he
could tell nobody besides Littimer knew anything of the matter. And no
starved, cowed, broken-hearted puppy was ever closer under the heel of
his master than Littimer. He still held all the cards; he still
controlled the fortunes of two ill-starred houses.

"You can leave me now," he said. "I'm tired. I have had a trying day, and
I need sleep; and the sooner you are out of the house the better. For
your own sake and for the sake of those about you, you need not say one
word of this to Enid Henson."

Littimer promised meekly enough. With those eyes blazing upon him he
would have promised anything. We shall see presently what a stupendous
terror Henson had over the younger man, and in what way all the sweetness
and savour of life was being crushed out of him.

He closed the door behind him, and immediately Henson sat up in bed. He
reached for his handkerchief and wiped the big beads from his forehead.

"So the danger has come at last," he muttered. "I am face to face with
it, and I knew I should be. Hatherly Bell is not the man to quietly lie
down under a cloud like that. The man has brains, and patience, and
indomitable courage. Now, does he suspect that I have any hand in the
business? I must see him when my nerves are stronger and try and get at
the truth. If he goes to Lord Littimer with that picture he shakes my
power and my position perilously. What a fool I was not to get it away.
But, then, I only escaped from the Brighton police in those days by the
skin of my teeth. And they had followed me from Huddersfield like those
cursed bloodhounds here. I wonder--"

He paused, as the brilliant outline of some cunning scheme occurred to
him. A thin, cruel smile crept over his lips. Never had he been in a
tight place yet without discovering a loophole of escape almost before he
had seen the trap.

A fit of noiseless laughter shook him.

"Splendid," he whispered. "Worthy of Machiavelli himself! Provided always
that I can get there first. If I could only see Bell's face afterwards,
hear Littimer ordering him off the premises. The only question is, am I
up to seeing the thing through?"

CHAPTER XXIV

ENID LEARNS SOMETHING

Reginald Hensen struggled out of bed and into his clothing as best he
could. He was terribly weak and shaky, far more weak than he had imagined
himself to be, but he was in danger now, and his indomitable will-power
pulled him through. What a fool Littimer had been to tell him so much
merely so that he might triumph over his powerful foe for a few minutes.
But Henson was planning a little scheme by which he intended to repay the
young man tenfold. He had no doubt as to the willingness of his tool.

He took a bottle of brandy from a drawer and helped himself to a liberal
dose. Walker had expressly forbidden anything of the kind, but it was no
time for nice medical obedience. The grateful stimulant had its
immediate effect. Then Henson rang the bell, and after a time Williams
appeared tardily.

"You are to go down to Barnes and ask him to send a cab here as soon as
possible," Henson said. "I have to go to London by the first train in
the morning."

Williams nodded, with his mouth wide open. He was astonished and not a
little alarmed at the strength and vitality of this man. And only a few
hours before Williams had learnt with deep satisfaction that Henson would
be confined to his bed for some days.

Henson dressed at length and packed a small portmanteau. But he had to
sit on his bed for some little time and sip a further dose of brandy
before he could move farther. After all there was no hurry. A full hour
was sure to elapse before the leisurely Barnes brought the cab to the
lodge-gates.

Henson crept downstairs at length and trod his catlike way to the
library. Once there he proceeded to make a minute inspection of the
telephone. He turned the handle just the fragment of an inch and a queer
smile came over his face. Then he crept as silently upstairs, opened the
window of the bathroom quietly, and slipped on to the leads. There were a
couple of insulators here, against the wire of one of which Henson tapped
his knuckles gently. The wire gave back an answering twang. The other
jangled limp and loose.

"One of the wires cut," Henson muttered. "I expected as much. Madame Enid
is getting a deal too clever. I suppose this is some suggestion of her
very astute friend David Steel. Well, I have given Mr. Steel one lesson
in minding his own business, and if he interferes further I shall have to
give him another. He will be in gaol before long charged with attempted
murder and robbery with violence, and so exit Steel. After that the girl
will be perhaps chary of seeking outside assistance. And this will be the
third I have had to get rid of. Heavens! How feeble I feel, how weak I
am. And yet I must go through this thing now."

He staggered into the house again and dropped into a chair. There was a
loud buzzing in his ears, so that he could hardly hear the murmur of
voices in the drawing-room below. This was annoying, because Henson
liked to hear everything that other folks said. Then he dropped off into
a kind of dreamy state, coming back presently to the consciousness that
he had fainted.

Meanwhile Frank Littimer had joined Enid in the drawing-room. The house
was perfectly quiet and still by this time; the dust-cloud hung on the
air and caused the lamps to burn with a spitting blue flame. Enid's face
looked deadly pale against her black dress.

"So you have been seeing Reginald," she said. "Why--why did you do it?"

"I didn't mean to," Frank muttered. "I never intended him to know that I
had been in the house at all. But I was passing his room and he heard me.
He seemed to know my footsteps. I believe if two mice ran by him twice in
the darkness he could tell the difference between them."

"You had an interesting conversation. What did he want to use the
telephone for?"

"I don't know. I tried to manipulate it for him, but the instrument was
out of order."

"I know. I had a pretty shrewd idea what our cousin was going to do. You
see, I was listening at the door. Not a very ladylike thing to do, but
one must fight Henson with his own tools. When I heard him ask for the
telephone directory I ran out and nipped one of the wires by the
bathroom. Frank, it would have been far wiser if you hadn't come."

Littimer nodded gloomily. There was something like tears in his eyes.

"I know it," he said. "I hate the place and its dreadful associations.
But I wanted to see Chris first. Did she say anything about me
before--before--"

"My dear boy, she loved you always. She knew and understood, and was
sorry. And she never, never forgot the last time that you were in
the house."

Frank Littimer glanced across the room with a shudder. His eyes dwelt
with fascination on the overturned table with its broken china and glass
and wilted flowers in the corner.

"It is not the kind of thing to forget," he said, hoaresly. "I can see my
father now--"

"Don't," Enid shuddered, "don't recall it. And your mother has never been
the same since. I doubt if she will ever be the same again. From that day
to this nothing has ever been touched in the house. And Henson comes here
when he can and makes our lives hideous to us."

"I fancy I shook him up to-night," Littimer said, with subdued triumph.
"He seemed to shudder when I told him that I had found Van Sneck."

Enid started from her chair. Her eyes were shining with the sudden
brilliancy of unveiled stars.

"You have found Van Sneck!" she whispered. "Where?"

"Why, in the Brighton Hospital. Do you mean to say that you don't know
about it, that you don't know that the man found so mysteriously in Mr.
David Steel's house and Van Sneck are one and the same person?"

Enid resumed her seat again. She was calm enough now.

"It had not occurred to me," she said. "Indeed, I don't know why it
should have done. Sooner or later, of course, I should have suggested to
Mr. Steel to try and identify the man, but--"

"My dear Enid, what on earth are you talking about?"

"Nonsense," Enid said, in some confusion. "Things you don't understand at
present, and things you are not going to understand just yet. I read in
the papers that the man was quite a stranger to Mr. Steel. But are you
certain that it _is_ Van Sneck?"

"Absolutely certain. I went to the hospital and identified him."

"Then there is no more to be said on that point. But you were foolish to
tell Reginald."

"Not a bit of it. Why, Henson has known it all along. You needn't get
excited. He is a deep fellow, and nobody knows better than he how to
disguise his feelings. All the same, he was just mad to know what I had
discovered, you could see it in his face. Reginald Henson--"

Littimer paused, open-mouthed, for Henson, dressed and wrapped ready for
the journey, had come quietly into the drawing-room. The deadly pallor of
his face, the white bandages about his throat, only served to render his
appearance more emphatic and imposing. He stood there with the halo of
dust about him, looking like the evil genius of the place.

"I fear I startled you," he said, with a sardonic smile. "And I fear that
in the stillness of the place I have overheard a great part of your
conversation. Frank, I must congratulate you on your discretion, so far.
But seeing that you are young and impressionable, I am going to move
temptation out of your way. Enid, I am going on a journey."

"I trust that it is a long one, and that it will detain you for a
considerable period," Enid said, coldly.

"It is neither far, nor is it likely to keep me," Henson smiled.
"Williams has just come in with the information that the cab awaits me at
the gate. Now, then!"

The last words were flung at Littimer with contemptuous command. The hot
blood flared into the young man's face. Enid's eyes flashed.

"If my cousin likes to stay here," she said, "why--"

"He is coming with me," Henson said, hoarsely. "Do you understand? With
me! And if I like to drag him--or _you_, my pretty lady--to the end of
the world or the gates of perdition, you will have to come. Now, get
along before I compel you."

Enid stood with fury in her eyes and clenched hands as Littimer slunk
away out of the house, Henson following between his victim and Williams.
He said no words till the lodge-gates were past and the growl of the dogs
had died into the distance.

"We are going to Littimer Castle," said Henson.

"Not there," Littimer groaned--"not there, Henson! I couldn't--I couldn't
go to that place!"

Henson pointed towards the cab.

"Littimer or perdition!" he said. "You don't want to go to the latter
just yet? Jump in, then!"

CHAPTER XXV

LITTIMER CASTLE

If you had asked the first five people on the Littimer Estate what they
thought of the lord of the soil you would have had a different answer
from every one. One woman would have said that a kinder and better man
never lived; her neighbour would have declared Lord Littimer to be as
hard as the nether millstone. Farmer George would rate him a jolly good
fellow, and tell how he would sit in the kitchen over a mug of ale;
whilst Farmer John swore at his landlord as a hard-fisted, grasping miser
devoid of the bowels of compassion.

At the end of an hour you would be utterly bewildered, not knowing what
to believe, and prepared to set the whole village down as a lot of
gossips who seemed to mind everything but its own business. And,
perhaps, Lord Littimer might come riding through on his big black horse,
small, lithe, brown as mahogany, and with an eye piercing as a
diamond-drill. One day he looked almost boyishly young, there would be a
smile on his tanned face. And then another day he would be bent in the
saddle, huddled up, wizened, an old, old man, crushed with the weight of
years and sorrow.

In sooth he was a man of moods and contradictions, changeable as an April
sky, and none the less quick-tempered and hard because he knew that
everybody was terribly afraid of him. And he had a tongue, too, a
lashing, cutting tongue that burnt and blistered. Sometimes he would be
quite meek and angry under the reproaches of the vicar, and yet the same
day history records it that he got off his horse and administered a sound
thrashing to the village poacher. Sometimes he got the best of the vicar,
and sometimes that worthy man scored. They were good friends, these two,
though the vicar never swerved in his fealty to Lady Littimer, whose
cause he always championed. But nobody seemed to know anything about that
dark scandal. They knew that there had been a dreadful scene at the
castle seven years before, and that Lady Littimer and her son had left
never to return. Lady Littimer was in a madhouse somewhere, they said,
and the son was a wanderer on the face of the earth. And when Lord
Littimer died every penny of the property, the castle included, would go
to her ladyship's nephew, Mr. Reginald Henson.

In spite of the great cloud that hung over the family Lord Littimer did
not seem to have changed. He was just a little more caustic than ever,
his tongue a little sharper. The servants could have told a different
story, a story of dark moods and days when the bitterness of the shadow
of death lay on the face of their master. Few men could carry their grief
better, and because Littimer carried his grief so well he suffered the
more. We shall see what the sorrow was in time.

There are few more beautiful places in England than Littimer Castle.
The house stood on a kind of natural plateau with many woods behind, a
trout stream ran clean past the big flight of steps leading to the hall,
below were terrace after terrace of hanging gardens, and to the left a
sloping, ragged drop of 200ft into the sea. To the right lay a
magnificently-timbered park, with a herd of real wild deer--perhaps the
only herd of this kind in the country. When the sun shone on the grey
walls they looked as if they had been painted by some cunning hand, so
softly were the greys and reds and blues blended.

Inside the place was a veritable art gallery. There were hundreds of
pictures and engravings there. All round the grand staircase ran a long,
deep corridor, filled with pictures. There were alcoves here fitted up as
sitting-rooms, and in most of them some gem or another was hung. When the
full flood of electric light was turned on at night the effect was almost
dazzling. There were few pictures in the gallery without a history.

Lord Littimer had many hobbies, but not one that interested him like
this. There were hundreds of rare birds shot by him in different parts
of the world; the corridors and floors were covered by skins, the spoil
of his rifle; here and there a stuffed bear pranced startlingly; but
the pictures and prints were the great amusement of his lordship's
lonely life.

He passed along the corridor now towards the great oriel window at the
end. A brilliant sunlight filled the place with shafts of golden and blue
and purple as it came filtered through the stained glass. At a table in
the window a girl sat working a typewriter. She might have passed for
beautiful, only her hair was banded down in hideously Puritan fashion on
each side of her delicate, oval face, her eyes were shielded by
spectacles. But they were lovely, steady, courageous blue eyes, as
Littimer did not fail to observe. Also he had not failed to note that his
new secretary could do very well without the glasses.

The typewriter and secretary business was a new whim of Littimer's. He
wanted an assistant to catalogue and classify his pictures and prints,
and he had told the vicar so. He wanted a girl who wasn't a fool, a girl
who could amuse him and wouldn't be afraid of him, and he thought he
would have an American. To which the vicar responded that the whole
thing was nonsense, but he had heard of a Boston girl in England who had
a passion for that kind of thing and who was looking for a situation of
the kind in a genuine old house for a year or so. The vicar added that
he had not seen the young lady, but he could obtain her address. A reply
came in due course, a reply that so pleased the impetuous Earl that he
engaged the applicant on the spot. And now she had been just two hours
in the house.

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