The Crimson Blind

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"Which man we have got to find, Bell."

"Granted. We will bait for him as one does for a wily old trout. The fly
shall be the Rembrandt, and you see he will rise to it in time. But
beyond this I have made one or two important discoveries to-day. We are
going to the house of the strange lady who owns 218 and 219, Brunswick
Square, and I shall be greatly mistaken if she does not prove to be an
old acquaintance of mine. There will be danger."

"You propose to go to-night?"

"I propose to go at once," Bell said. "Dark hours are always best for
dark business. Now, which is the nearest way to Longdean Grange?"

"So the House of the Silent Sorrow, as they call it, is to be our
destination! I must confess that the place has ever held a strange
fascination for me. We will go over the golf links and behind Ovingdean
village. It is a rare spot for a tragedy."

Bell rose and lighted a fresh cigar.

"Come along," he said. "Poke that Rembrandt behind your books with its
face to the wall. I would not lose that for anything now. No, on second
thoughts I find I shall have to take it with me."

David closed the door carefully behind him, and the two stepped out into
the night.

CHAPTER XIII

"GOOD DOG!"

Two dancing eyes of flame were streaming up the lane towards the girls, a
long shadow slanted across the white pathway, the steady flick of hoofs
drew nearer. Then the hoofs ceased their smiting of the dust and a man's
voice spoke.

"Better turn and wait for us by the farm, driver," the voice said. "Bell,
can you manage, man?"

"Who was that?" Enid whispered. "A stranger?"

"Not precisely," Ruth replied. "That is Mr. David Steel. Oh, I am sure
we can trust him. Don't annoy him. Think of the trouble he is in for
our sakes."

"I do," Enid said, drily. "I am also thinking of Reginald. If our dear
Reginald escapes from the fostering care of the dogs we shall be ruined.
That man's hearing is wonderful. He will come creeping down here on those
large flat feet of his, and that cunning brain will take in everything
like a flash. Good dog!"

A hound in the distance growled, and then another howled mournfully. It
was the plaint of the beast who has found his quarry, impatient for the
gaoler to arrive. So long as that continued Henson was safe. Any attempt
to escape, and he would be torn to pieces. Just at the present moment
Enid almost hoped that the attempt would be made. It certainly was all
right for the present, but then Williams might happen along on his way to
the stables at any moment.

The two men were coming nearer. They both paused as the dogs gave tongue.
Through the thick belt of trees lights gleamed from one or two windows of
the house. Steel pulled up and shuddered slightly in spite of himself.

"Crimson blinds," he said. "Crimson blinds all through this business.
They are beginning to get on my nerves. What about those dogs, Bell?"

"Dogs or no dogs, I am not going back now," Bell muttered. "It's
perfectly useless to come here in the daytime; therefore we must fall
back upon a little amateur burglary. There's a girl yonder who might have
assisted me at one time, but--"

Enid slipped into the road. The night was passably light and her
beautiful features were fairly clear to the startled men in the road.

"The girl is here," she said. "What do you want?"

Bell and his companion cried out simultaneously: Bell because he was so
suddenly face to face with one who was very dear to him, David because it
seemed to him that he recognised the voice from the darkness, the voice
of his great adventure. And there was another surprise as he saw Ruth
Gates side by side with the owner of that wonderful voice.

"Enid!" Bell cried, hoarsely. "I did not expect--"

"To confront me like this," the girl said, coldly. "That I quite
understand. What I don't understand is why you intrude your hated
presence here."

Bell shook his handsome head mournfully. He looked strangely downcast and
dejected, and none the less, perhaps, because a fall in crossing the down
had severely wrenched his ankle. But for a belated cab on the Rottingdean
road he would not have been here now.

"As hard and cruel as ever," he said. "Not one word to me, not one word
in my defence. And all the time I am the victim of a vile conspiracy--"

"Conspiracy! Do you call vulgar theft a conspiracy?"

"It was nothing else," David put in, eagerly. "A most extraordinary
conspiracy. The kind of thing that you would not have deemed possible out
of a book."

"And who might this gentleman be?" Enid asked, haughtily.

"A thousand pardons for my want of ceremony," David said. "If I had not
been under the impression that we had met before I should never have
presumed--"

"Oh, a truce to this," Bell cried. "We are wasting time. The hour is not
far distant, Enid, when you will ask my pardon. Meanwhile I am going up
to the house, and you are going to take me there. Come what way, I don't
sleep to-night until I have speech with your aunt."

David had drawn a little aside. By a kind of instinct Ruth Gates
followed him. A shaft of grey light glinted upon her cycle in the grass
by the roadside. Enid and Bell were talking in vehement whispers--they
seemed to be absolutely unconscious of anybody else but themselves.
David could see the anger and scorn on the pale, high-bred face; he
could see Bell gradually expanding as he brought all his strength and
firm power of will to bear.

"What will be the upshot of it?" Ruth asked, timidly.

"Bell will conquer," David replied. "He always does, you know."

"I am afraid you don't take my meaning, Mr. Steel."

David looked down into the sweet, troubled face of his companion, and
thence away to the vivid crimson patches beyond the dark belt of foliage.
Ever and anon the intense stillness of the night was broken by the
long-drawn howl of one of the hounds. David remembered it for years
afterwards; it formed the most realistic chapter of one of his most
popular novels.

"Heaven only knows," he said. "I have been dragged into this business,
but what it means I know no more than a child. I am mixed up in it,
and Bell is mixed up in it, and so are you. Why we shall perhaps know
some day."

"You are not angry with me?"

"Why, no. Only you might have had a little more confidence in me."

"Mr. Steel, we dared not. We wanted your advice, and nothing more. Even
now I am afraid I am saying too much. There is a withering blight over
yonder house that is beyond mere words. And twice gallant gentlemen have
come forward to our assistance. Both of them are dead. And if we had
dragged you, a total stranger, into the arena, we should morally have
murdered you."

"Am I not within the charmed circle now?" David smiled.

"Not of our free will," Ruth said, eagerly. "You came into the tangle
with Hatherly Bell. Thank Heaven you have an ally like that. And yet I am
filled with shame--"

"My dear young lady, what have you to be ashamed of?"

Ruth covered her face with her hands for a moment and David saw a tear or
two trickle through the slim fingers. He took the hands in his, gently,
tenderly, and glanced into the fine, grey eyes. Never had he been moved
to a woman like this before.

"But what will you think of me?" Ruth whispered. "You have been so good
and kind and I am so foolish. What can you think of a girl who is all
this way from home at midnight? It is so--so unmaidenly."

"It might be in some girls, but not in you," David said, boldly. "One has
only to look in your face and see that only the good and the pure dwell
there. But you were not afraid?"

"Horribly afraid. The very shadows startled me. But when I discovered
your errand to-night I was bound to come. My loyalty to Enid demanded it,
and I had not one single person in the world whom I could trust."

"If you had only come to me, Miss Ruth--"

"I know, I know now. Oh, it is a blessed thing for a lonely girl to have
one good man that she can rely upon. And you have been so very good, and
we have treated you very, very badly."

But David would not hear anything of the kind. The whole adventure was
strange to a degree, but it seemed to matter nothing so long as he had
Ruth for company. Still, the girl must be got home. She could not be
allowed to remain here, nor must she be permitted to return to Brighton
alone. Bell strode up at the same moment.

"Miss Henson has been so good as to listen to my arguments," he said. "I
am going into the house. Don't worry about me, but send Miss Gates home
in the cab. I shall manage somehow."

David turned eagerly to Ruth.

"That will be best," he said. "We can put your machine on the cab, and
I'll accompany you part of the way home. Our cabman will think that you
came from the house. I shan't be long, Bell."

Ruth assented gratefully. As David put her in the cab Bell whispered to
him to return as soon as possible, but the girl heard nothing of this.

"How kind--how kind you are," she murmured.

"Perhaps some day you will be kind to me," David said, and Ruth blushed
in the darkness.

CHAPTER XIV

BEHIND THE BLIND

There was a long pause till the sound of the horse's hoofs died away.
Bell was waiting for his companion to speak. Her head was partly turned
from him, so that he could only watch the dainty beauty of her profile.
She stood there cold and still, but he could see that she was
profoundly agitated.

"I never thought to see the day when I should trust you again," she said;
"I never expected to trust any man again."

"You will trust me, darling," Bell said, passionately. "If you still care
for me as I care for you. _Do_ you?"

The question came keen as steel. Enid shivered and hesitated. Bell laid a
light hand on her arm.

"Speak," he said. "I am going to clear myself, I am going to take back
my good name. But if you no longer care for me the rest matters
nothing. Speak."

"I am not one of those who change, God pity me," Enid murmured.

Bell drew a long, deep breath. He wanted no assurance beyond that.

"Then lead the way," he said. "I have come at the right time; I have been
looking for you everywhere, and I find you in the hour of your deepest
sorrow. When I knew your aunt last she was a cheerful, happy woman. From
what I hear now she is suffering, you are all suffering, under some
blighting grief."

"Oh, if you only knew what that sorrow was, Hatherly."

"Hatherly! How good the old name sounds from your lips. Nobody has ever
called me that since--since we parted. And to think that I should have
been searching for you all these years, when Miss Ruth Gates could have
given me the clue at any time. And why have you been playing such strange
tricks upon my friend David Steel? Why have you---What is that?"

Somebody was moving somewhere in the grounds, and a voice shouted for
help. Enid started forward.

"It is Williams coming from the stables," she said. "I have so arranged
it that the dogs are holding up my dear cousin, Reginald Henson, who is
calling upon Williams to release him. If Reginald gets back to the house
now we are ruined. Follow me as well as you can."

Enid disappeared down a narrow, tangled path, leaving Bell to limp along
painfully in her track. A little way off Henson was yelling lustily for
assistance. Williams, who had evidently taken in the situation, was
coming up leisurely, chuckling at the discomfiture of the enemy. The
hounds were whining and baying. From the house came the notes of a love
song passionately declaimed. A couple of the great dogs came snarling up
to Bell and laid their grimy muzzles on his thighs. A cold sensation
crept up and down his spine as he came to a standstill.

"The brutes!" he muttered. "Margaret Henson must be mad indeed to have
these creatures about the place. Ah! would you? Very well, I'll play the
game fairly, and not move. If I call out I shall spoil the game. If I
remain quiet I shall have a pleasant night of it. Let us hope for the
best and that Enid will understand the situation."

Meanwhile Enid had come up with Williams. She laid her hand imperiously
upon his lips.

"Not a word," she whispered. "Mr. Henson is held up by the dogs. He must
remain where he is till I give you the signal to release him. I know you
answered his call, but you are to go no farther."

Williams assented willingly enough. Everything that tended to the
discomfort of Reginald Henson filled him with a peculiar and
deep-seated pleasure.

"Very well, miss," he said, demurely. "And don't you hurry, miss. This is
a kind of job that calls for plenty of patience. And I'm really shocking
deaf tonight."

Williams retreated leisurely in the direction of the stables, but his
malady was not so distressing that he failed to hear a groan and a
snarling curse from Henson. Enid fled back along the track, where she
found Bell standing patiently with a dog's muzzle close to either knee.
His face was white and shining, otherwise he showed no signs of fear.
Enid laid a hand on the head of either dog, and they rolled like great
cats at her feet in the bushes.

"Now come swiftly," she whispered. "There is no time to be lost."

They were in the house at last, crossing the dusty floor, with the motes
dancing in the lamp-light, deadening their footsteps and muffling the
intense silence. Above the stillness rose the song from the drawing-room;
from without came the restless murmur of the dogs. Enid entered the
drawing-room, and Bell limped in behind her. The music immediately
ceased. As Enid glanced at her aunt she saw that the far-away look had
died from her eyes, that the sparkle and brightness of reason were there.
She had come out of the mist and the shadows for a time at any rate.

"Dr. Hatherly Bell to see you, aunt," Enid said, in a low tone.

Margaret Henson shot up from the piano like a statue. There was no
welcome on her face, no surprise there, nothing but deep, unutterable
contempt and loathing.

"I have been asleep," she said. She passed her hand dreamily over her
face. "I have been in a dream for seven long years. Enid brought me back
to the music again to-night, and it touched my heart, and now I am awake
again. Do you recollect the 'Slumber Song,' Hatherly Bell? The last time
I sang it you were present. It was a happy night; the very last happy
night in the world to me."

"I recollect it perfectly well, Lady Littimer," Bell said.

"Lady Littimer! How strange it is to hear that name again. Seven years
since then. Here I am called Margaret Henson, and nobody knows. And
now _you_ have found out. Do you come here to blackmail and rob me
like the rest?"

"I come here entirely on your behalf and my own, my lady."

"That is what they all say--and then they rob me. You stole the
Rembrandt."

The last words came like a shot from a catapult. Enid's face grew colder.
Bell drew a long tube of discoloured paper carefully tied round a stick
from his pocket.

"I am going to disprove that once and for all," he said. "The Rembrandt
is at present in Lord Littimer's collection. There is an account of it in
to-day's _Telegraph_. It is perfectly familiar to both of you. And, that
being the case, what do you think of this?"

He unrolled the paper before Enid's astonished eyes. Margaret Henson
glanced at it listlessly; she was fast sinking into the old, strange
oblivion again. But Enid was all rapt attention.

"I would have sworn to that as Lord Littimer's own," she gasped.

"It is his own," Bell replied. "Stolen from him and a copy placed by some
arch-enemy in my portmanteau, it was certain to be found on the frontier.
Don't you see that there were two Rembrandts? When the one from my
portmanteau was restored to Littimer his own was kept by the thief.
Subsequently it would be exposed as a new find, with some story as to its
discovery, only, unfortunately for the scoundrel, it came into my
possession."

"And where did you find it?" Enid asked. "I found it," Bell said, slowly,
"in a house called 218, Brunswick Square, Brighton."

A strange cry came from Enid's lips. She stood swaying before her lover,
white as the paper upon which her eyes were eagerly fixed. Margaret
Henson was pacing up and down the room, her lips muttering, and raising a
cloud of pallid dust behind her.

"I--I am sorry," Enid said, falteringly. "And all these years I have
deemed you guilty. But then the proof was so plain; I could not deny the
evidence of my own senses. And Von Gulden came to me saying how deeply
distressed he was, and that he would have prevented the catastrophe if he
could. Well?"

A servant stood waiting in the doorway with wondering eyes at the sight
of a stranger.

"I'm sorry, miss," she said, "but Miss Christiana is worse; indeed, she
quite frightens me. I've taken the liberty of telephoning to Dr. Walker."

The words seemed to bring consciousness to Margaret Henson.

"Christiana worse," she said. "Another of them going; it will be a happy
release from a house of sorrow like this. I will come up, Martin."

She swept out of the room after the servant. Enid appeared hardly to have
heard. Bell looked at her inquiringly and with some little displeasure.

"I fancy I have heard you speak of your sister Christiana," he said.
"Is she ill?"

"She is at the point of death, I understand; you think that I am callous.
Oh, if you only knew! But the light will come to us all in time, God
willing. Look at this place, look at the blight of it, and wonder how we
endure it. Hatherly, I have made a discovery."

"We seem to be living in an atmosphere of discoveries. What is it?"

"I will answer your question by asking another. You have been made the
victim of a vile conspiracy. For seven years your career has been
blighted. And I have lost seven years of my life, too. Have you any idea
who your enemy is?"

"Not the faintest, but, believe me, I shall find out in time. And
then---"

A purple blackness like the lurid light of a storm flashed into his eyes,
the lines of his mouth grew rigid. Enid laid a hand tenderly on his arm.

"Your enemy is the common enemy of us all," she said. "We have wasted the
years, but we are young yet. Your enemy is Reginald Henson."

"Enid, you speak with conviction. Are you sure of this?"

"Certain. When I have time I will tell you everything. But not now. And
that man must never know that you have been near the house to-night, not
so much for your sake as for the sake of your friend David Steel. Now I
can see the Providence behind it all. Hatherly, tell me that you forgive
me before the others come back."

"My darling, I cannot see how you could have acted otherwise."

Enid turned towards him with a great glad light in her eyes. She said
nothing, for the simple reason that there was nothing to say. Hatherly
Bell caught her in his strong arms, and she swayed to reach his lips. In
that delicious moment the world was all forgot.

But not for long. There was a sudden rush and a tumble of feet on the
stairs, there was a strange voice speaking hurriedly, then the
drawing-room door opened and Margaret Henson came in. She was looking
wild and excited and talked incoherently. An obviously professional man
followed her.

"My dear madam," he was saying, "I have done all I can. In the last few
days I have not been able to disguise from myself that there was small
hope for the patient. The exhaustion, the shock to the system, the
congestion, all point to an early collapse."

"Is my sister so much worse, Dr. Walker?" Enid asked, quietly.

"She could not be any worse and be alive," the doctor said. "Unless I am
greatly mistaken the gentleman behind you is Mr. Hatherly Bell. I presume
he has been called in to meet me? If so, I am sincerely glad, because I
shall be pleased to have a second opinion. A bad case of"--here followed
a long technical name--"one of the worst cases I have ever seen."

"You can command me, Enid," Bell said. "If I can."

"No, no," Enid cried. "What am I saying? Please to go upstairs
with Martin."

Bell departed, wonderingly. Enid flew to the door and out into the night.
She could hear Henson cursing and shouting, could hear the snarling
clamour of the dogs. At the foot of the drive she paused and called Steel
softly by name. To her intense relief he came from the shadow.

"I am here," he cried. "Do you want me?"

"Yes, yes," Enid panted. "Never more were your services needed. My sister
is dying; my sister must--die. And Hatherly Bell is with her, and--you
understand?"

"Yes," said David. A vivid flash of understanding had come to him. "Bell
shall do as I tell him. Come along."

"Hold him up, dear doggies," Enid murmured. "Hold him up and I'll love
both of you for ever."

CHAPTER XV

A MEDICAL OPINION

David Steel followed his guide with the feelings of the man who has
given himself over to circumstances. There was a savour of nightmare
about the whole thing that appealed distinctly to his imagination. The
darkness, the strange situation, the vivid streaks of the crimson
blinds--the crimson blind that seemed an integral part of the
mystery--all served to stimulate him. The tragic note was deepened by
the whine and howling of the dogs.

"There is a man over there," David whispered.

"A man who is going to stay there," Enid said, with grim satisfaction.
"It is virtually necessary that Mr. Reginald Henson should not be
disturbed. The dogs have a foolish weakness for his society. So long as
he shows no signs of boredom he is safe."

David smiled with a vague grasp of the situation. Apparently the cue was
to be surprised at nothing that he saw about the House of the Silent
Sorrow. The name of Reginald Henson was more or less familiar to him as
that of a man who stood high in public estimation. But the bitter
contempt in his companion's voice suggested that there was another side
to the man's character.

"I hope you are not asking me to do anything wrong," David murmured.

"I am absolutely certain of it," the girl said. "It is a case of the end
justifying the means; and if ever the end justified the means, it does in
this case. Besides--"

Enid Henson hesitated. David's quick perception prompted him.

"Besides, it is my suggestion," he said. "When I had the pleasure of
seeing you before--"

"Pardon me, you have never had the pleasure of seeing me before."

"Ah, you would make an excellent Parliamentary fencer. I bow to your
correction and admit that I have never _seen_ you before. But your voice
reminds me of a voice I heard very recently under remarkable
circumstances. It was my good fortune to help a lady in distress a little
time back. If she had told me more I might have aided her still further.
As it is, her reticence has landed me into serious trouble."

Enid grasped the speaker's arm convulsively.

"I am deeply sorry to hear it," she whispered. "Perhaps the lady in
question was reticent for your sake. Perhaps she had confided more
thoroughly in good men before. And suppose those good men had
disappeared?"

"In other words, that they had been murdered. Who by?"

There was a snarl from one of the hounds hard by, and a deep, angry curse
from Henson. Enid pointed solemnly in his direction. No words of hers
would have been so thrilling and eloquent. David strode along without
further questions on that head.

"But there is one thing that you must tell me," he said, as they stood
together in the porch. "Is the first part of my advice going to be
carried out?"

"Yes. That is why you are here now. Stay here one moment whilst I get you
pencil and paper... There! Now will you please write what I suggest? Dr.
Bell is with my sister. At least, I suppose he is with her, as Dr. Walker
desired to have his opinion. My sister is dying--dying, you understand?"

Enid's voice had sunk to a passionate whisper. The hand that she laid on
David's shoulder was trembling strangely. At that moment he would've done
anything for her. A shaft of light filtered from the hall into the porch,
and lit up the paper that the girl thrust upon Steel.

"Now write," she commanded. "Ask no questions, but write what I ask, and
trust me implicitly."

David nodded. After all, he reflected, he could not possibly get himself
into a worse mess than he was in already. And he felt that he could trust
the girl by his side. Her beauty, her earnestness, and her obvious
sincerity touched him.

"Write," Enid whispered. "Say, 'See nothing and notice nothing, I implore
you. Only agree with everything that Dr. Walker says, and leave the room
as quickly as possible!' Now sign your name. We can go into the
drawing-room and wait till Dr. Bell comes down. You are merely a friend
of his. I will see that he has this paper at once."

Enid led the way into the drawing-room. She gave no reasons for the
weird strangeness of the place, it was no time for explanations. As for
Steel, he gazed around him in fascinated astonishment. A novelist ever
on the look-out for new scenes and backgrounds, the aspect of the room
fascinated him. He saw the dust rising in clouds, he saw the wilted
flowers, he noted the overturned table, obviously untouched and
neglected for years, and he wondered. Then he heard the babel of
discordant voices overhead. What a sad house it was, and how dominant
was the note of tragedy.

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