CHAPTER IV.

MR. CHARLES PLACKETT IS PUZZLED.

"Mind, Ella, you have promised to come to me in London during the autumn, and to stay for a fortnight at least," had been Mrs. Carlyon's last words to her niece when she was leaving Heron Dyke: and, in making the promise, Ella Winter had fully intended to fulfil it. But the autumn was drawing to a close, Christmas would be here before long, and the visit had not been paid. Circumstances had prevented it.

But in those circumstances there seemed to be a lull now; and Mrs. Carlyon took advantage of it. She wrote a pressing letter to Ella. The cold weather was setting in, she said, her cough was becoming troublesome, and she had nearly made up her mind to go to Hyeres; but nothing would induce her to go anywhere, until she had seen her niece again.

By return of post Mrs. Carlyon received an answer. Ella would pay the visit at once. On the following day she and Maria Kettle, whom she begged leave to bring with her, would quit the Hall for Bayswater.

Change, as Miss Winter knew, would be good for Maria. It might not be amiss for herself. Truth to tell, Miss Winter had been more disturbed by her friend's positive assertion of having seen Katherine Keen, than she cared to acknowledge even to her own mind. Maria Kettle had a fund of practical good sense, she was not at all romantically inclined; and Ella could not pooh-pooh her account, strange though it might be, as she probably would have done that of an uneducated or superstitious person.

Maria's account did not stand alone: it was impossible for Miss Winter not to recall how strongly it was corroborated. She herself had never forgotten her visit to Katherine's room, when she found the face of the looking-glass so mysteriously covered up. There had followed the positive assertions of the two maids, Ann and Martha, that they had seen Katherine--and both of them had known her well--looking down at them over the balusters of the gallery. After that came Mrs. Carlyon's fright; although in her case no face had been seen, but only the presence of a mysterious something which had brushed past her in the dusk and vanished. Neither could Betsy Tucker's revelation, that she had heard footsteps in the corridor outside her bedroom on the night of the storm, and had seen the handle of her door turned, and the fright to the girl in consequence, be entirely ignored: for after it came to Miss Winter's ears, she had made inquiries of her servants, and could not learn that any one of them had been in the corridor that night. They had all been too much terrified by the storm, they declared, to quit their beds. Ella did not, would not, think much of this incident. The old house was full of strange noises, especially in stormy weather, and she herself, by giving way to her fancies, could readily have got into the way of believing that she heard footfalls and whispers and rustlings, for which she could not account, almost every night of her life.

But the strange assertion made by Maria Kettle was a very different matter; Ella could not help attaching more weight to it than to all that had gone before: and the extraordinary belief of poor Susan Keen, that her sister was alive and in the house, occurred unpleasantly to her mind. Could it be? Could it by any possibility be true that Katherine Keen was still alive, that she was hiding somewhere in the old Hall, and came out into the dark corridors on occasion to frighten people? Was it in very truth she herself, and not her spirit, that had been seen at different times? Ella's heart ached as it had never ached before. No, not even when the girl disappeared and could nowhere be found; though from that day life had never been quite the same to her. The dreadful uncertainty as to what had become of Katherine had added tenfold to the pain of losing her, and now, after the lapse of so long a time, it seemed as if the uncertainty would never be cleared up. But what if she had been alive all this time; alive, and close by? What if she had never quitted the roof of the Hall? Ella Winter's good sense urged her to reject such a theory as utterly untenable, certain difficulties presenting themselves palpably before her; but it urged her equally to reject that other theory of supernatural visitations. Between the two she knew not what to think. That Katherine had really been seen the evidence seemed conclusive. But had she been seen in the flesh, or in the spirit?

When a problem is put before you, which you find it impossible to solve, however anxious to do so, it is sometimes wise to lay it by for a while and turn the attention to other things, trusting to "the unforeseen" to do for you what you cannot do for yourself. Thus did Ella Winter in the present case. She was puzzled and distressed; and was growing a little bit nervous besides. Appetite failed; the long dark nights oppressed her, sleep gave place to wakeful restlessness, and she began to be afraid of sleeping alone. Therefore it was with a sigh of relief that she answered Mrs. Carlyon's invitation: and for the first time in her life she was not sorry to lose sight of the chimneys of Heron Dyke as the carriage whirled her and Maria Kettle away to the station.

Mrs. Carlyon had a surprise in store for her niece, as Ella discovered on the second evening after her arrival in London. Knowing her aunt's fondness for company, but being herself in no humour to enjoy it, Ella had pleaded for no large parties during her stay; that they should dine quietly _en famille_, and spend rational evenings. To this Mrs. Carlyon had readily agreed, stipulating, however, that the rule should be relaxed in favour of two or three people who might be called friends of the family.

"In short, my dear," Mrs. Carlyon had said, when talking of it the day of Ella's arrival, "I promise not to introduce you to a single stranger except one."

"Except one!" repeated Ella.

"Yes, except one. A very nice old gentleman who is between sixty and seventy years old. You won't surely object to _him!_"

Ella laughed. She thought she must not hold out against any gentleman of that age, but rather welcome his acquaintance.

But Miss Winter was very considerably taken aback when, on the following evening, her aunt led her up to a little, lean, finical-looking old man, who wore the attire of a bygone age, a brown wig, a long bottle-green coat, and curiously fine-frilled cambric linen, and introduced him: "Mr. Gilbert Denison of Nunham Priors."

For a moment or two Ella could find no word to say. She had unconsciously pictured Mr. Denison as a very truculent sort of individual; as what her uncle would have been with all the more disagreeable points of his character intensified; as a man who employed spies, and who would shrink from nothing in his endeavours to do his kinsman harm. Yet here before her she saw a very harmless-looking old gentleman indeed, with a puckered-up, comical, yet honest and kindly face, and dark, vivacious eyes that seemed brimming over with amusement at her evident discomfiture.

Mr. Denison took her hand with an old-world air of gallantry, and touched it with his lips.

"Enter the First Robber," he said, with one of his whimsical smiles. "I hope my ferocious appearance does not frighten you, young lady. You will get used to me better by-and-by, my dear. Why do you look so surprised? I cannot tell you how pleased I am to meet you."

He made room for her on the sofa by his side.

"Say now, I am not the sort of looking person you expected to find."

Ella smiled charmingly. Somehow she had taken a great and sudden fancy to him.

"I had always thought of you as being so different," she said.

"As an ogre, no doubt," he rejoined, with a comical nod. "I know. Poor Gilbert! he had his curious fancies, and one of them was to abuse me: I'm as sure of that as if I'd heard him. My dear, I cannot tell you how pleased I am to meet you. Confess now, that you had expected to see some dangerous kind of fellow in me: one that bites, eh?"

"No, indeed," returned Ella. "I am surprised because I had no expectation of seeing you."

"And you find me a worse hobgoblin than you imagined?"

"I do not find you one at all," she said, taking the place beside him.

"Well, well; a certain personage is said not to be so black as he is painted; let us hope that it will prove so in the present case. Ah! what a pity it is that Frank's not here to-night!" he added, abruptly.

"Your son, Mr. Denison?" asked Ella, her serious dark-blue eyes bent full upon him.

"Yes, my son; my will-o'-the-wisp, my ne'er-do-weel, the plague of my life," answered Mr. Denison. In his short, sharp sentences, and abrupt turns, Ella was put strongly in mind of her uncle.

"I should have been greatly pleased to meet him," she said. "Is he away from home?"

"Away from home!" exploded the old gentleman. "He's nearly always away from home. I never know to a thousand miles where to lay my finger on him. He might be a gipsy for restlessness. He is always gadding about from Dan to Beersheba. An incorrigible young fellow--a rolling stone that will never rest anywhere. I wish to goodness he would get married to some woman who knew how to tame him and make him settle down at home!"

Ella felt amused; her face showed it. Mr. Denison shook his head and frowned.

"Now, why couldn't Frank have married you, for instance?" he suddenly asked, after a brief pause.

This amused her more. "Dear Mr. Denison, I fear it would be altogether beyond my powers to tame so inveterate a roamer," she quietly said.

"Not at all--not at all. You are just the sort of woman to do it."

It seemed rather doubtful to Ella whether this ought to be taken as a compliment.

"It would have been so satisfactory, you know, to have had all the property in a nutshell--yours and mine," added the old gentleman. "Not that Frank need covet money: I shall be able to leave him some. But Heron Dyke ought to have been his--after me; he is nearer to it than you are. My dear, you have too much good sense, as I can see, to take offence at an old man's crotchets, and I am speaking to you as friend speaks to friend."

"I hope you will always so speak to me," warmly interrupted Ella.

"So I wish Frank could have known you--and taken a fancy to you, my dear. But I fear it is too late in the day to hope for anything so desirable. Frank never was particularly wise, and I have a sort of suspicion that what he would call his affections are engaged elsewhere: have thought it for some little time."

"Then I'm sure there can be no chance for me," cried Ella, merrily.

"Well, well; anything's better than his bringing over a black woman for a wife, and that's what I used to be afraid of at one time," continued Mr. Denison, nodding his head and his brown wig.

"I hope Frank will find his way back home in spring," he resumed, after a pause. "If you are in town about that time, Mrs. Carlyon and I must contrive to bring the pair of you together. There may be a chance yet. I don't suppose the young dog has forgotten how to make himself agreeable to the ladies, and he is considered not at all ill-looking--very much like what I was when younger."

This tried Ella's gravity a little. "As I think I said before, I shall be pleased to make your son's acquaintance," she said, demurely.

"But whether Frank comes home or not, my dear, I must have you down at Nunham in spring. You will find many things there that you have never seen before and will have little opportunity of seeing elsewhere. You are intelligent as well as sensible, and I feel sure that you will be interested."

Next to picking up a bargain in the auction-rooms, nothing delighted Mr. Denison more than to secure an appreciative listener while he descanted on the rarity and value of some of his favourite curiosities; and this he found in Ella. Ella on her part was very glad to have met him. He was a man to esteem and like, despite his eccentricities: and she felt thankful to know that the breach in the family, which had existed so many years, was healed at last. Her face flushed as she recollected that if the fear, tormenting her latterly, had grounds, Heron Dyke was not hers, but Mr. Denison's.

She did not see him again during her stay in London, for he went away to Nunham Priors. Ella was by no means certain, had he remained, that she should not have imparted to him all her doubts and fears. He and she were alike honest, wishing always to act rightly.

Her own stay in London only extended to a week: she did not like to spare more time from home at present. The week passed pleasantly and quickly; and both she and Maria Kettle returned to the Hall in better health and spirits than they were in when they quitted it.

Gossip in remote hamlets and small country towns, more especially if the subject of it be some well-known personage, grows and spreads with a rapidity unknown to the rankest tropical weed, and Nullington was no exception to the rule. It had now become matter of common talk in the town, that there was something mysterious and unexplained with regard to Squire Denison's death. How or whence such an idea originated, or what the mysterious something might be, people did not care to ask; and if they did there was nobody to answer. Facts that are only half known, or that are wildly guessed at, have always more fascination for ordinary minds than uncompromising truths that stand boldly out in the light of day, and which anyone can examine for themselves.

The Nullingtonians seized on the rumour with avidity, and one may be sure that it suffered nothing from loss or diminution in its transit from mouth to mouth. It was not long in reaching the ears of Nixon, the agent whom Mr. Plackett had formerly employed to report to him respecting the state of Mr. Denison's health, and the general progress of matters at the Hall. Nixon had been away from Nullington for a time, possibly prosecuting inquiries elsewhere, and these rumours greeted him on his return. Putting aside any pecuniary benefit he might gain, Nixon was naturally a man of prying and inquisitive disposition; nothing pleased him better than worming out the secrets of other people. He went about the town asking guarded questions of this person and the other, trying to put the various fragments of gossip together and trace them to their fountain-head. Altogether, he contrived to make out something like a coherent whole: upon which he favoured the London firm, Messrs. Plackett, Plackett and Rex, with a long and confidential letter.

The letter brought down Mr. Charles Plackett, Nixon meeting him by appointment at the railway station. The two had some private conversation together.

"What we cannot understand in your report is this one item," observed Mr. Charles Plackett: "that Miss Winter herself suspects some fraud has been at work, and is as anxious to have matters investigated as we could be."

"I assure you, sir, I believe it to be so," affirmed Nixon. "My information on this point came from a sure source."

"Well, I intend to go to see her," said Mr. Charles Plackett.

Nixon opened his eyes.

"To go to see her, sir! What, at Heron Dyke?"

"Yes. Why not? It is the only step I can take: and, whether it brings forth fruit or not, I shall at any rate see how the land lies with regard to herself. If she is, as you think, anxious for the investigation, she is a good and honourable young lady; that's all I can say."

Mr. Charles Plackett took a fly and drove over to Heron Dyke. He sent in his card to Miss Winter, and was at once admitted. Ella was alone. Maria Kettle had returned to the Vicarage, and Mrs. Toynbee was not yet back from London. Ella knew that the Placketts were Mr. Denison's solicitors, and she supposed this gentleman had come to bring her some message from him. That idea, however, was at once dispelled.

"I am come here this morning, Miss Winter, upon rather a curious errand," began Mr. Plackett in his cheerful, chirruping way. "But before going any farther, it may be as well to say that I am come without the knowledge of my esteemed client, Mr. Denison, of Nunham Priors. In fact I am adopting a most unusual course with a lawyer; I am venturing to intrude upon you entirely on my own account."

Miss Winter bowed. "I shall be pleased to hear anything that you may have to communicate," she said frankly.

Mr. Plackett paused. "I am somewhat non-plussed in what way to begin," he confessed, with a smile.

"A difficulty, I should imagine, that does not often arise with gentlemen of your profession," observed Ella, courteously.

The little lawyer laughed. "I believe you are not far wrong there, Miss Winter. Perhaps my best plan will be to plunge at once _in medias res_. I may say, then, that some disquieting rumours have reached our ears--and when I say 'ours,' in this instance I mean my own--having reference to certain events which took place in this house during your absence abroad. The events I allude to are the illness and death of the late Mr. Denison. What we have heard would almost lead us to imagine that deception of some kind, if not fraud itself, was at work in the case; and--and----"

He paused. Ella waited.

"Frankly speaking, Miss Winter, I have heard a report that these rumours have reached yourself; and I am here to ask you--but pray do not answer the question unless you feel fully at liberty to do so--whether that is a fact?"

"Yes, it is," she freely answered. "I have heard the rumours."

"Ah! Just so. Thank you very much for your frankness. I presume, however, that you attach very little importance to them?"

"On the contrary, I attach very considerable importance to them. I do not say they are true--far from it; on the other hand, I do not know but they may be. The doubt renders me very uneasy."

"Really now! I'm sure there are not many young ladies like you, for truth and candour. But--pardon my presumption--may I ask whether you have been able to trace the rumours to any foundation? Perhaps you have not tried to do so?"

"I have tried," replied Ella. "I have used every effort to track them back to their source, though it is not much, of course, that it lies in my power to do."

"And the result,--if I may dare to ask it?"

"There is no result. None. I cannot discover whether they are worthy of belief, or whether they are fabrications. That certain unnecessary precautions were observed during my late uncle's illness--green baize doors put up to shield him from the household; friends never admitted to him; a mysterious kind of professional nurse had down from London to attend him--is true. But those about him, Dr. Jago and old Aaron Stone, explain all this away with perfect plausibility."

Charles Plackett mused. "No, of course not; there was not much you could do," he remarked, apparently speaking to himself.

"An individual, whom I will not name, warned me that Heron Dyke was not legally mine," resumed Miss Winter. "I was startled, as you may suppose; but I could elicit nothing further. Nothing but what I tell you--that I held Heron Dyke by fraud."

"Dear me!"

"I did not know whether to believe it, or not; I do not know now. I carried the tale to Mr. Daventry, and I spoke also to my uncle's old friend, the Vicar of Nullington. Neither of them attached the smallest credibility to the charge; they almost ridiculed it. Mr. Daventry says that nothing whatever could deprive me of Heron Dyke, save my uncle's not having lived to see his seventieth birthday. And several persons saw him and conversed with him subsequently to that date."

"I did, for one," remarked Mr. Charles Plackett. "Well, I don't see that there's much to be done. You say you will not give up the name of the individual who----"

"No," she interrupted. "And if I did give it, the end would not be answered. He--he--is no longer here; he could not be questioned."

"It is one of the most puzzling questions I ever had to do with, madam. Heron Dyke is a fine property. You would not like to give it up."

"I would give it up to-day if I were sure it were Mr. Denison's. I wish I was sure--one way or the other. If it is not mine it must be his, and he would have every right to it. Does he know of this doubt?"

"Not a word."

"I met him a short while ago, when I was in London. He came to my aunt's, Mrs. Carlyon. I took a great fancy to him."

Mr. Charles Plackett smiled. "And he took a fancy to a certain young lady--if I may say as much. He called at our office the next day, before returning to Nunham Priors. What do you think he said, Miss Winter?--that he did not so much regret the loss of Heron Dyke now, when he saw what charming hands held it."

Ella rather shrank from the compliment. "I and my interests are as nothing, Mr. Plackett, in comparison with arriving at the truth. If fraud and deception have been at work, it is to the advantage of everyone that they should be exposed and frustrated."

Mr. Plackett gazed on her glowing face admiringly. "If everyone thought and acted like you, my dear young lady," he said, "I am afraid that the occupation of us poor lawyers would soon become a thing of the past."

"That would be a catastrophe indeed," responded Ella, with a laugh.

A little more conversation ensued. One word leading to another, Ella confided to him what the servant Eliza had told her--that she had penetrated beyond the green baize doors, on one lucky occasion when they were left unguarded, and had found the Squire's rooms empty: Mr. Denison was nowhere to be seen in them. Nay, more; the rooms and the bed appeared to be unoccupied.

Mr. Plackett, though evidently much surprised, could still make nothing of it. He sat fingering his grey hair--a habit of his when in thought. Ella finished by inquiring what more she could do.

"I really fail to see at present that there is anything more you can do," he answered. "And I am quite sure that not one person in a thousand would do as much as you have already done."

"Are you sure it was my uncle you saw," she inquired, speaking on the moment's impulse, "when you were here two days after his birthday?"

Mr. Charles Plackett paused, revolving the question. "I thought I was sure," he said. "Although I had only seen Mr. Denison twice before, and that some years previously, he certainly seemed to me to be the same individual, naturally much wasted and changed by illness. One thing I perfectly remembered: the beautiful cat's-eye ring he wore. Yes, I think it could have been no other than Mr. Denison--and no other temper than his. You heard, probably, of the passion he went into?"

"And threw away his beef-tea, and broke the cup. Truly I cannot imagine anyone doing that, save my uncle."

"I must say that I have not been so thoroughly puzzled by any case for a long while," remarked the lawyer, as he rose to depart.

And puzzled Mr. Plackett was destined to remain; at least for some time yet to come. If Miss Winter had looked to benefit by his advice, she was disappointed. He had no advice of any consequence to offer. He could only thank her again for her frankness, and say that he would consult with his client, Mr. Denison, and, with her permission, write to her in the course of a few days. Then, declining refreshments, he left the Hall, much more disquieted in his mind than when he had arrived at it.

But within an hour of the lawyer's departure, Miss Winter had something else to think about than his promise to write to her. There came a telegram from Edward Conroy. He had reached London, and hoped to be at Heron Dyke on the morrow.