The Heath Hover Mystery Page 10

in that mouldy box on wheels, andin the dark at that. Her earlier life had been a sufficiently happyone. She had seen a great deal of the world and developed her artisticinstincts. Then had come losses; and speculations, instead of mendingthings, made them worse. Her father was lacking in the businesscapacity, while her other parent was under the impression that one poundsterling was endowed with the purchasing power of three, and actedconsistently upon that conviction. So means dwindled till there wasvery little left.

  Things had reached this point when one day her father started off on arailway journey to a place some hours distant. He was mysterious as tothe object of it, but declared that they would none of them be the worseif it failed, whereas if it succeeded, they would be considerably thebetter. He seemed in a hopeful mood, and in fairly good spirits, andwhen at the big, dingy terminus, where she was seeing him off, he handedher a couple of accident insurance tickets, which he had just purchased;he seemed fairly bubbling over with fun.

  "See these?" he had said. "All right. They cost a shilling apiece, andrepresent 1,000 pounds apiece if I'm--er--totally smashed up. So, yousee, I'm more valuable to you dead than alive. I used to think it wasthe other way about. But take care of them, I've signed them, and all,so it'd be quite safe. Put them away carefully. Two thousand pounds,remember."

  "I've a great mind to tear them across and throw them on to the line,"the girl had answered, looking at him with filling eyes and quiveringlips. But he laughed gaily.

  "Don't do that, little one. They cover minor injuries too, only thosemean less dibs. You know. So much a leg, so much an arm, so much afinger--and so on. It's a rum world--and you never can tell. So stickto those tickets till I come back. Now, good-bye, my darling littleone. Here, let go--the train's moving, by George!"

  She was very nearly tightening her hold, so that it would be physicallyimpossible for him to free himself until the train had gone, but she didnot. With eyes blinded with tears she waved to him from the platform ashe leaned half out of the window watching to see the last of her, and hewas gone. Yet he would be back the day after to-morrow at the latest.She had often seen him off on such journeys before.

  "I _am_ a little fool," she said to herself as she walked away.

  About two hours later, when in the middle of its longest non-stop run,Marston Seward fell from the train.

  There were headlines in the evening paper posters, but somehow or otherMelian did not notice these. It was not until the next day, when theyopened their morning paper, that the tragedy rose up and hit thembetween the eyes--name, description, everything, for by this timeidentification had been easily obtained. Melian hardly knew how shelived through that stunning blow--perhaps because it was a stunning one.But the shock was too much for her mother--the shock only, for therewas little if any affection between her and the dead man. Brain feversupervened and she died.

  Her illness made an alarming inroad into the scanty resources remainingto them. Hard material necessities had to be met. Hitherto the girlhad shrunk with shuddering horror from turning to account those fatalinsurance tickets, the price of her father's blood. She could not claimit. Oh God! the thought of it? But she might have spared herself anyqualms on this head. The railway company flatly and uncompromisinglyrepudiated all liability. The insurance was against _accident_ notsuicide. They were in a position to prove, and to prove indisputablythat for any one to have fallen from the particular coach of whichSeward was an occupant, and that by accident, was a sheer impossibility.The door handles were all in good order; if anything, rather stiff toturn than otherwise. They could prove too, that the said door handleswere properly secured at the last station the train had passed through.And worst of all, they were in a position to produce a platforminspector who had passed the pair at the moment of the utterance ofthose fatal words: "You see, I'm more valuable to you dead than alive.I used to think it was the other way about." The official had heard thewords distinctly, and after the tragedy had himself voluntarily comeforward with the information. At the time they had struck him asuttered jokingly, but in the light of the subsequent event they took ona far different aspect. In short, Seward had bungled the wholebusiness. He died as he had lived, and his last act was one ofperfectly inexcusable bungle. "More valuable to you dead than alive,"had been his words, and in the result his daughter was left alone in theworld, as nearly as possible penniless.

  Alone! Yes--for she had no relations, except one, away in India, andfor certain reasons the last person on earth to whom she would applyunder any circumstances whatever. She had no real friends, onlyacquaintances who could be of no great service to her, but eventually,thanks to the inherent spirit and pluck which buoyed her up, she managedto find means of supporting herself. And all this had befallen rathermore than two years previously to when we first see her, being, more orless politely, shown the door at the Villa Carstairs.

  Now, shut up in the mouldy darkness of the slow, Jolting vehicle, it allcame back to her again, and she had to hurriedly brush away the warmtears which the recollection--always vivid--had evoked, as the cab drewup with a jolt at her friend's lodgings. But she met with what she mostneeded, a cordial welcome. Even the cabman, a rubicund old fellow witha bulbous nose and a rumbling voice, forebore to claim so much as apenny over his legal fare when he caught a full view of her face underthe street lamp, and a gratuity of threepence, smilingly tendered, wasmet by a hearty "Thankee kindly, missie."

  Cumnor Lodge, the Carstairs villa, though dull and heavy outside, withinwas characterised by a considerable degree of solid comfort. But thisnarrow hallway and the nondescript combination of smells ofsink-cum-cabbage, with a slatternly landlady and a still more slatternlyservant, waiting to give a hand upstairs with the luggage as well as tosatisfy a natural curiosity as to what the visitor would be like, struckher with a very real chill. Would it be her lot to inhabit such aplace, was the thought that instinctively shot through her mind? Butthe impression was partly neutralised when she found herself within herfriend's tiny but snug sitting-room, with its bright fire, and hissingkettle, and tea and its appurtenances all so dear to the feminine eye.Violet Clinock was a bright, pleasing type of girl, with dark hair, andhonest grey eyes, not exactly pretty, but rather near being so. Butwith all her natural cheerfulness, there was intertwined an impressionof one who was perfectly well able to take care of herself. In fact sherather prided herself upon this, and upon being an independent bachelorgirl who could always make her own way. She was a country parson'sdaughter--one of many--under which circumstances she flattered herselfshe had done the right thing in striking out on her own.

  "This shop's rather dingy in the daytime, dear," she explained as thetwo were seated comfortably in the really cosy little room, and the teaand muffins and other things dear to the feminine appetite were in fullforce. "But I'm not much here in the daytime, and at night, once I getinside it doesn't matter. The main thing is it's cheap--very. Notnasty either, for I do every mortal thing for myself. Heaven help me ifI left it to anybody else. Well, I've been saving up, with an eye torunning a typing shop on my own. It isn't my ambition to remain forever in a position to take orders from other people, I can tell you.Well, and why did you leave your last crowd? Had a row?"

  "Sort of. It takes two to make a row, and there wasn't much of that onmy side," answered Melian. "I just let the old woman talk, but shedidn't get what she wanted. I got the key of the street instead--so,here I am. By the way," she added, waxing grave. "I don't know whereI'm going to be. That's a pair of shoes of another pattern."

  "Oh, with all your high accomplishments," laughed the other. "Why anyone would jump at you."

  "Would they? They're welcome to skip, then. But even `highaccomplishments' are no good without references."

  "Without references? But you can get--Oh, I see. The old cat won'tgive you any."

  Melian nodded.

  "The beastly old cat!" pronounced Violet. "She ought to be compelledto."

  "Wel
l, she can't be, and that's all I've got to do with it. So thereyou are."

  "Let's see. You're no good at our job, are you, Melian?" said theother, drumming the tips of her fingers together meditatively.

  "Unfortunately I've never learned it."

  "That's a pity." In her romantic little soul she was beginning to weavea web of destiny for Melian, and the meshes thereof were glittering. Asecretarial post in some flourishing office, and if her beautiful frienddid not promptly enslave an opulent junior partner, why then it was herown fault. But then, unfortunately, her said "beautiful friend" hadnever learned typing.

  They chatted on, about everything and