The King of Diamonds: A Tale of Mystery and Adventure

But a lawyer, not Lord Vanstone's, sent her a check for the larger amount, and, at a subsequent interview, affirmed the statements made by her unreliable relative.

So she went back to her caste, and her caste welcomed her with open arms, and the dear woman thanked Providence for the decree that her daughter might now accept the attentions of any man, no matter how rich he might be, for she saw the drift of Philip's wishes, and, if Evelyn were married to him, surely all their previous trials might be deemed fortunate.

She little dreamed that imperious Philip had ordered matters his own way.

It was not to his thinking that his bride should come to him from the genteel obscurity of Maida Crescent. He would give her a great position, worthy of the highest in the land, and it was better for her that he should woo and win her from the ranks of her order.

It should not be imagined that he was hasty in his decision. To his mind, Evelyn and he were known to each other since they were children. It was not by the wayward caprice of chance that he met her on the night of the meteor's fall, nor again, that he came to her assistance a second time after the lapse of years.

It was his mother's work. He was faithful to her memory – she to her trust. Never did his confidence waver. On the day that Evelyn consented to marry him he showed her his mother's photograph, and told her his belief.

The girl's happy tears bedewed the picture.

"A good son makes a good husband," she murmured. "Mamma says I have been a good daughter, and I will try to be a good wife, Philip."

Apparently these young people had attained the very pinnacle of earthly happiness. There was no cloud, no obstacle. All that was best in the world was at their feet.

Some such thought flitted through Philip's active brain once when Evelyn and he were discussing the future.

"Of course we will be busy," he said, laughing. "You are such an industrious little woman – what? Well – such an industrious tall woman – that the days won't be long enough for all you will find to do. As for me, I suppose I must try and earn a peerage, just to give you your proper place in society, and then we will grow old gracefully."

"Oh, Philip," she cried, placing her hands on his shoulders. "We met once as children for a few minutes. Fate ordained that we should meet again under strange circumstances. We were separated for years. Can fate play us any uncanny trick that will separate us again?"

"Well, sweetheart, fate, in the shape of Wale, is coming for me at six. Unless you wish me to send for my man and dress here – "

"Sometimes I cannot quite credit my good fortune," she said, softly. "Tell me, dearest, how did you manage to live until you were twenty-five without falling in love with some other girl?"

"That is ridiculously easy. Tell me how you managed to escape matrimony until you were twenty-two and you are answered."

"Philip, I – I liked you that night I saw you in the square. You were a woe-begone little boy, but you were so brave, and gave me your hand to help me from the carriage with the air of a young lord."

"And I have cherished your face in my waking dreams ever since. You looked like a fairy. And how you stuck up for me against your uncle!"

"Tell me, what did you think of me when you saw me standing disconsolate in the park?"

Tell, tell, tell – it was nothing but sweet questions and sweet assurances that this pair of turtle doves had been seeking each other through all eternity.

Their wedding was fixed for the middle of July. Sharp work, it may be said, but what need was there to wait? Mr. Abingdon was greatly pleased with Philip's choice, and urged him to settle down at the earliest possible date.

Mrs. Atherley, too, raised no protest. The sooner her beloved daughter was married, the more rapidly would life resume its normal aspect; they would not be long parted from each other.

The young people had no housekeeping cares. Philip's mansions were replete with all that could be desired by the most fastidious taste. His yacht was brought to the Solent, so that they could run over to Portsmouth on a motor car to inspect her, and Evelyn instantly determined that their honeymoon in Etretat should be curtailed to permit them to go for a three-weeks' cruise around the British coast.

This suggestion, of course, appealed to Philip. Nothing could be more delightful. He whispered in Evelyn's ear that he would hug her for the idea at the first available opportunity.

One morning, a day of June rain, a letter reached Philip. It bore the printed superscription, "The Hall, Beltham, Devon," but this was struck out and another address substituted. It was written in a scrawling, wavering hand, the caligraphy of a man old and very ill. It read:

"My Dear Philip: I am lying at the point of death, so I use no labored words to explain why I address you in such manner. I want to tell you how bitterly I regret the injustice I showed to your dear mother and my sister. If, of your charity, you will come to my bedside, and assure a feeble old man of your forgiveness, I can meet the coming ordeal strong in the certainty that Mary Anson will not refuse what you have given in her behalf.

"Your sorrowing uncle,"Philip Morland."

With this piteous epistle was inclosed another.

"Dear Mr. Anson: I join my earnest supplication to my husband's that you will console his last hours with a visit. He blames himself for what has happened in the past. Yet the fault was more mine than his – far more. For his sake I willingly admit it. And I have been punished for my sin. Ruined in fortune, with my husband at death's door, I am indeed a sorrowing woman.

"Yours faithfully,"Louisa Morland."

The angular Italian handwriting of the second letter recalled a faded script in his safe at that moment. The address in each case was a village on the Yorkshire coast, a remote and inaccessible place according to Philip's unaided recollection of the map. "Grange House" might be a farm or a broken-down manor, and Lady Morland's admission of reduced circumstances indicated that they had chosen the locality for economy's sake.

These appeals brought a frown of indecision to Anson's brow. His uncle, and his uncle's wife, had unquestionably been the means of shortening and embittering his mother's life. The man might have acted in ignorance; the woman did not.

Yet what could he do? Refuse a dying relative's last request! They, or one of them, refused his mother's pitiful demand for a little pecuniary help at a time when they were rich.

And what dire mischance could have sunk them into poverty. Little more than two months had passed since Sir Philip Morland was inquiring for his – Philip's – whereabouts through Messrs. Sharpe & Smith with a view toward making him his heir.

Was the inquiry Lady Morland's last ruse to save an encumbered estate? Why was all pretense of doubt as to his relationship swept aside so completely?

He glanced again at the address on the letter, and asked a servant to bring him a railway guide. Then he ascertained that if he would reach Scarsdale that day he must leave London not later than noon. There was a journey of nearly seven hours by rail; no chance of returning the same night.

He went to the library and rang up Sharpe & Smith on the telephone.

A clerk assured him that Mr. Sharpe, who attended to Sir Philip Morland's affairs, had been summoned to Devonshire the previous day.

"To Devonshire!" cried Philip. "I have just received letters from Sir Philip and Lady Morland from Yorkshire."

"Mr. Sharpe himself is puzzled about the matter, sir. Lady Morland wrote from Yorkshire, but told him to proceed to Devonshire without delay."

"Has there been some unexpected development affecting the estate?"

"I am sorry, sir, but you will see I can hardly answer any further questions."

Of course the clerk was right. Philip had hardly quitted the telephone when a note reached him by hand from Evelyn: "Please come at once. Must see you."

He was at Mount Street in three minutes.

Evelyn looked serious and began by holding out a letter to him. He recognized Lady Morland's writing.

"Philip – those people – who behaved so badly to your mother – "

"Have they dared to trouble you?"

"Oh, it is so sad. Your uncle is dying. They are wretchedly poor; an unforeseen collapse. See." And she read:

"Of your pity, Miss Atherley, ask your affianced husband to come to us, and to help us. I want nothing for myself, but the mere sight of a few checks to pay tradespeople, doctor and the rest will soothe Sir Philip's last hours. He is a proud man, and I know he is heartbroken to think he is dying a pauper among strangers."

So it ended as might be expected. Philip wired to Grange House, Scarsdale, to announce his coming. Accompanied by his valet, he left King's Cross at twelve o'clock, but his parting words to Evelyn were:

"See Mr. Abingdon after luncheon, dear, and tell him what I am doing. I will return to-morrow; meanwhile, I will keep you informed by telegraph of my movements."

After leaving the main line at York there was a tiresome crawl to the coast, broken by changes at junctions – wearying intervals spent in pacing monotonous platforms.

At last the train reached Scarsdale at twenty minutes to seven. A few passengers alighted. The place was evidently a small village not given over to the incursions of summer visitors.

A tall man, with "doctor" writ large on his silk hat and frock coat, approached Philip.

"Mr. Anson?"

"Yes."

"I am Dr. Williams. I have brought you a letter from Lady Morland. Perhaps you will read it now. I expect it explains my errand."

"Sir Philip is still living?"

"Yes, but sinking fast."

Anson tore open the note. It was brief.

"Thank you for your prompt kindness. Dr. Williams will drive you to the house. If you have brought a servant he might take your luggage to the Fox and Hounds Inn, where Dr. Williams has secured rooms for you. I regret exceedingly we have no accommodation here, but, in any event, you will be more comfortable at the inn."

He looked at the doctor. In a vague way, his voice recalled accents he seemed to recognize.

"Is there a telegraph office here?"

"Yes. We pass it. It closes at eight."

"I will not be back from the Grange House before then?"

"Hardly. It is a half-hour's drive."

"Thank you. You will stop a moment at the telegraph office?"

The doctor hesitated.

"There is so little time. Is it of great importance? Of course – "

"Oh, I know what to do. Green – take my traps to the Fox and Hounds Inn. Then go to the telegraph office and send a message in my name to Miss Atherley, saying: 'Arrived. Sir Philip worse.' That is all."

Anson's valet saluted and left them. Dr. Williams said cheerfully:

"That disposes of a difficulty. Are you ready, Mr. Anson?"

They entered a ramshackle dogcart, for which the doctor apologized.

"These hills knock one's conveyances to pieces. I am having a new cart built, but it will be done for in a couple of years. Out in all weathers, you see. To carry you I had to leave my man at home."

The doctor himself seemed to be young and smart-looking. Evidently Scarsdale agreed with him, if not with his vehicles. The horse, too, was a good one, and they moved through a scattered village at a quick trot.

They met a number of people, but Dr. Williams was talking so eagerly to his companion that he did not nod to any of them.

As the road began to climb toward a bleak moorland he became less voluble, more desirous to get Anson to speak. Philip thought that the doctor listened to him with a curious eagerness. Probably Sir Philip and Lady Morland impressed him as an odd couple; he would be anxious to learn what sort of relative this was who had traveled from London to see them.

Philip was in small humor for conversation. He looked forward to an exceedingly unpleasant interview, when his lips would utter consoling words to which he must strive to impart a genuine and heartfelt ring; that would need an effort, to say the least.

The road wound its way through pines and heather, but ever upward, until the trees yielded to an unbroken range of open mountain, and the farms that nestled in nooks of the hillside disappeared wholly.

Glimpses of the sea were caught where a precipitous valley tore a cleft in the land. On a lofty brow in front Philip saw a solitary and half-dismantled building.

"Is that the Grange House?" he inquired.

"Yes."

"Why on earth did two old people, one of them an invalid, select such a lonely residence?"

"That has been puzzling me for days."

"How long have they been here?"

"I cannot say. I was only called in four days ago."

They passed a policeman patrolling his country beat. The doctor gave him an affable smile. The man saluted promptly, but looked after them with a puzzled air. He continued to watch them at intervals until they reached the Grange House.

Anson noticed that the track, it was a gate-guarded bridle path now, mounted steadily to the very threshold.

"The place stands on the edge of a cliff," he said.

"Yes. It was built by some recluse. The rock falls sheer, indeed slopes inwards to some extent, for three hundred feet."

"Some day, I suppose, it will fall into the sea?"

"Probably, but not in our time. Here we are. Just allow me to hitch the reins to the gatepost."

He jumped lightly out of the dogcart.

"Are there no servants?"

"Only an old woman and her daughter. They are busy at this hour."

Philip understood that a meal might be in preparation. He hoped not; personally, he could not eat there.

Dr. Williams pressed the latch of an old-fashioned door. He whispered:

"Be as quiet as possible. He may be asleep; if he is, it will not be for long, poor fellow."

Indeed the doctor himself betrayed some slight agitation now. He perspired somewhat, and his hand shook.

Anson followed him into a somber apartment, crudely furnished, half dining room, half kitchen. Though the light of a June evening was clear enough outside, the interior of the house was gloomy in the extreme. There were some dark curtains shrouding a doorway.

"Lady Morland is in there," murmured the doctor, brokenly. "Will you go to her?"

Philip obeyed in silence. He passed through the curtains. It was so dark that he imagined he must be in a passage with a door at the other end.

"Can't I have a light?" he asked, partly turning toward the room he had just quitted.

In the neglected garden at the landward front of the Grange House the horse stood patiently on three legs, ruminating, no doubt, on the steepness of hills and the excellence of pastures.

Nearly an hour passed thus, in solemn quietude. Then a boy on a bicycle, red-faced with exertion, pedaled manfully up the hill, and through the gate.

"I hope he's here," thought he. "It's a long way to coom for nothin'."

Around his waist was a strap with a pouch bearing the king's monogram. He ran up to the door and gave a couple of thunderous knocks, the privileged rat-tat of a telegraph messenger.

There was a long delay. Then a heavy step approached, and a man opened the door, a big, heavy-faced man, with eyes that stared dreadfully, and a nose damaged in life's transit.

"Philip Anson, Esquire," said the boy, briskly, producing a buff-colored envelope.

The man seemed to swallow something.

"Yes; he's here. Is that for him?"

"Yes, sir. Any reply?"

The man took the telegram, closed the door, and the boy heard his retreating footsteps. After some minutes he returned.

"It's too late to reply to-night, isn't it?" he inquired.

"Yes, sir. It coom'd after hours, but they'd paid t' porterage i' Lunnon, so t' postmistress said ye'd mebbe like to hev it at yance. I've ridden all t' way frae Scarsdale."

Late that evening, when the protracted gloaming of the north was fast yielding to the shadows of a cloudy night, the big man from the Grange House drove into Scarsdale. He pulled up at the Fox and Hounds public house. He wanted Mr. Green.

Anson's valet came.

"Your master says you are to bring his portmanteau to the Grange House to-night. He intends remaining there. You must get the landlord to sit up until you return. It will take you an hour and a half to drive both ways."

Green was ready in five minutes. He learned that a stable boy must crouch at their feet to bring the dogcart back. It was the property of the Fox and Hounds' proprietor.

Very unwillingly the horse swung off again toward the moor. There was little conversation. The driver was taciturn, the Londoner somewhat scared by the dark loneliness.

At the Grange House they were met by Philip Anson. He stood in the open doorway. He held a handkerchief to his lips and spoke in a husky voice, the voice of one under the stress of great agitation:

"That you, Green? Just give my bag to the driver and return to the village. Here is a five-pound note. Pay your bill and go back to London by the first train to-morrow. I stop here some few days."

The astonished servant took the note. Before he could reply, his master turned, crossed a room feebly lighted by a dull lamp, and passed through a curtained doorway.

Green was staring perplexedly at the house, the kitchen, his ill-favored companion carrying Philip's portmanteau within, when he heard his master's voice again, and saw him standing between the partly drawn curtains, with his face quite visible in the dim rays of the lamp.

"Green?"

"Yes, sir."

"Here are my keys. Unlock the bag and take the keys with you. You remember the small portmanteau in my safe at Park Lane?"

"Yes, sir."

"Open the safe, get that bag, and send it to me to-morrow night by train to the Station Hotel, York."

"To-morrow night, sir?"

"Yes."

The keys were thrown with a rattle onto a broad kitchen table. Evidently Mr. Anson would not brook questions as to his movements, though his few words sounded contradictory. Green got down, unfastened the portmanteau and went back to the dogcart.

"They're queer folk i' t' grange," said the stable boy, as they drove away. "There's a barrow-night and a lady as nobody ever sees, an' a dochtor, an' a man – him as kem for ye."

"Surely they are well known here?"

"Not a bit of it. On'y bin here about a week. T' doctor chap's very chirpy, but yon uther is a rum 'un."

Green was certainly puzzled very greatly by the unexpected developments of the last few minutes, but he was discreet and well trained.

He liked his young master, and would do anything to serve his interests. Moreover, the ways of millionaires were not the ways of other men. All he could do was to hear and obey.

He slept none the less soundly because his master chose voluntarily to bury himself, even for a little while, in such a weirdly tumbledown, old mansion as the Grange House.

CHAPTER XVIII

"Revenge is Mine; I Will Repay."

"Can't I have a light?" said Philip, with head screwed round to ascertain if the doctor were following him.

Some sense, whether of sight or hearing he knew not, warned him of movement near at hand, an impalpable effort, a physical tension as of a man laboring under extreme but repressed excitement.

He paid little heed to it. All the surroundings in this weird dwelling were so greatly at variance with his anticipations that he partly expected to find further surprises.

Dr. Williams did not answer. Philip advanced a halting foot, a hesitating hand groping for a door.

Instantly a stout rope fell over his shoulders, a noose was tightly drawn, and he was jerked violently to the stone floor of the passage. He fell prone on his face, hurting his nose and mouth. The shock jarred him greatly, but his hands, if not his arms, were free, and, with the instinct of self-preservation that replaces all other sensations in moments of extreme peril, he strove valiantly to rise.

But he was grasped by the neck with brutal force, and some one knelt on his back.

"Philip Anson," hissed a man's voice, "do you remember Jocky Mason?"

So he had fallen into a trap, cunningly prepared by what fiendish combination of fact and artifice he had yet to learn. Jocky Mason, the skulking criminal of Johnson's Mews. Was he in that man's power?

Under such conditions a man thinks quickly. Philip's first ordered thought was one of relief. He had fallen into the clutches of an English brigand. Money would settle this difficulty, if all other means failed.

"Yes, yes," he gurgled, half-strangled by the fierce pressure on his throat.

"You hit me once from behind. You can't complain if I do the same. You sent me to a living hell for ten years – not your fault that it wasn't forever. Lie still! Not all your money can save you now. I am judge and jury, and hell itself. You are dying – dying – dead!"

And with the final words drawled into his ears with bitter intensity, Philip felt a terrible blow descend on his head. There was no pain, no fear, no poignant emotion at leaving all the world held so dear to him. There was an awful shock. A thundercloud seemed to burst in his brain, and he sank into the void without a groan.

Now, in falling, the hard, felt hat he wore dropped in front of his face. The first wild movement of his head tilted it outward, but the savage jerk given by his assailant brought the rim slightly over his skull again.

In the almost complete darkness of the passage, Mason could not see the slight protection this afforded to his victim, and the sledge-hammer blow he delivered with a life-preserver – that murderous implement named so utterly at variance with its purpose – did not reveal the presence of an obstacle.

He struck with a force that would have stunned an ox; it must have killed any man, be he the hardest-skulled aborigine that ever breathed. But the stout rim of the hat, though crushed like an eggshell, took off some of the leaden instrument's tremendous impact. Philip, though quite insensible, was not dead. His sentient faculties were annihilated for the time, but his heart continued its life-giving functions, and he breathed with imperceptible flutterings.

Mason rose, panting with excitement, glutted with satisfied hate. He lifted his victim's inert form with the ease of his great strength.

"Come on!" he shouted, and strode toward a door which he kicked open.

A step sounded haltingly in the passage. Grenier, the soi-disant doctor, livid now and shaking with the ague of irretrievable crime, stumbled after his more callous associate. Unconsciously he kicked Philip's hat to one side. He entered the room, an apartment with a boundless view of the sea.

Here there was more light than in the kitchen. The windows faced toward the northwest, and the last radiance of a setting sun illumined a wall on the right.

"Not there!" he gasped. "In this chair; his face – I must see his face!"

Mason, still clasping his inanimate burden, laughed with a snarl.

"Stop that," he roared. "Pull yourself together. Get some brandy. I've done my work. If you can't do yours, let me finish it."

"Oh, just a moment! Give me time! I hate the sight of blood. Get a towel. Bind it round his neck. His clothes! They will be saturated. And wipe his face. I must see his face."

Grenier was hysterical; he had the highly strung nervous system of a girl where deeds of bloodshed were concerned. While Mason obeyed his instructions he pressed his hands over his eyes.

"Bring some brandy, white-liver. Do you want me to do everything?"

This gruff order awoke Grenier to trembling action. He went to a cupboard and procured a bottle. Mason, having placed Anson in a chair and steadied his head against the wall, seized half a tumblerful of the neat spirit and drank it with gusto. The other, gradually recovering his self-control, was satisfied with a less potential draught.

"It will be dark soon," growled Mason. "We must undress him first, you said."

"Yes. If his clothes are not blood-stained."

"Rot! He must go into the water naked in any case. The idea is your own."

"Ah! I forgot. It will soon be all right. Besides, I knew I should be upset, so I have everything written down here – all fully thought out. There can be no mistake made then."

He produced a little notebook and opened it with uncertain fingers. He glanced at a closely written page. The words danced before his vision, but he persevered.