Sudden death, or, My lady the wolf

Front matter

wey i i

NM

Koy it al il

Prologue

THE MuRDER on THE CLIFFS

THE DRAMA.

Gorpon LEIGH Tur Mysterious Cry .

THE LOcKET .

THE Fascinating CHILD AN EventTFUL EVENING Lapy Masri Taxs *Mumpo SHakes a Paw”

A LittLe SPiItFrrre Cross Purposes

LOVE OR JEALOUSY ?

THe UNSPEAKABLE ili lV

CHAP.

oie AT.

LY.

XS

». OGY,

CONTENTS.

“Quite Grown-ue Now”

PuzzLepD DECIDEDLY

Hopes anp Fears

Diamond cut Dramonp

Fack To Fact

“WHEN YOU'VE CAUGHT HER”

UNMASKED

Conclusion

SUDDEN DEATH.

PROLOGUE.

Chapter I. The Murder On The Oliffs

“ Are you asleep, Buchanan?” inquired Archer, suddenly sitting up and brushing the grass from his coat.

But Buchanan didn’t answer. ‘To tell the truth J—for I am Buchanan—was far too comfortable to have any desire to move, and I hoped that Archer would think I was really asleep and leave me to bask in silence.

I might have known better, however.

“ Are you asleep, Buchanan?” repeated Archer in a louder key at the same time very rudely and childishly throwing a handful of dry grass over my face. ‘‘ Why don’t you answer a fellow ? ”

B

“T wish to goodness you were,’ I replied irritably for I hated being disturbed.

“Well, you do look pretty comfortable,” he continued, yawning.

bel should be if I didn’t feel quite so like a baked potato.”

“ Yaw—w—m ! yes, it is hot,” Recon ed Archer at the end of another prodigious yawn. “Wella suppose we ought to be moving, don’t you know.”

To this suggestion I made no reply.

“ Come, old chap,’’ continued my tormentor, “ I’m off. You had better come too.”

“ Shan’t,”’ sleepily.

“ Politeness always was your forte. Come, it is half-past four. We shall be just in time for tea.”

“ Dash tea ! 7

“Think what Lady Laura will say when she finds her cavalier is missing.”

“ Don’t care ! ”

“ Nay, but this is rank blasphemy. Just imagine if the Beauty heard you utter that highly disrespectful and mutinous remark ! ”

“Why don’t you go if you want to?” I cried thoroughly exasperated and turning round to meet his face very angrily and impressively. Somehow the sight of that smiling, good-humoured face made all my irritation vanish precipitately, and with a lazy laugh I rolled over resting my chin on my hands so that I could look at him sideways without having to crane my neck almost to dislocation. “Have you made out that yacht you came up to look at ?”’ I inquired sternly.

“No,” he replied mournfully.

THE MURDER ON THE CLIFFS. 3

“ Why not, when you specially came up to do so and loaded yourself with those precious glasses on purpose ? ””

“loo much trouble,” replied Archer, yawning again, and then much to my relief he threw himself full length on the ground once more. ‘Thankful for small mercies I dismissed him entirely from my thoughts, and took to blinking dreamily at the cliffs opposite without any very clear consciousness of anything except that there were cliffs opposite.

Unfortunately, however, I must explain where we were exactly in order that you may understand the events which followed.

Imagine a semicircular cove or creek, deeply indented in the coast-line, and continuing landwards in a valley or coombe, as the natives would call it, which ran in a sloping hollow far away ascending gradually to the distant hills. On either side the cove and coombe were flanked by lofty cliffs, which, though rising quite precipitously from the water’s edge and the shining, pebbly beach, sloped more gently inland in a long curve which sank down naturally from one side in a huge ellipse extending upwards with unbroken regularity to the other.

We were perched on the precipitous cliffs on the right side of the cove. At our back the rough downs stretched away on a level for about a quarter of a mile and then dropped down again into a cove and coombe very similar to the one I have described. In front of us, rising rugged and steep from the water, were the cliffs on the opposite side of the cove. Below and between were the shining waters swaying and murmuring over dark forests of seaweed and plashing with musical regularity on the white pebbles of the dazzling beach.

Between us and the downs which crowned the summit of the cliffs opposite, the distance was about a quarter of a mile as the crow flies. It was quite easy, therefore, had we been wide awake enough, to see any living creatures which might be moving about over there and to form a very good idea of what they were doing. Had we been inspired, however, by a desire to make our way across, we should be obliged to follow the line of the cliffs we were standing on, inland for some distance until the descent became less precipitous, and then scrambling down the rough slope, hasten across the boulder-strewn bottom of the coombe, struggle breathlessly up amid brambles and_ blackberry bushes on the other side, and then turn our steps seaward again until we exactly faced the place we had started from. Or instead of descending so soon we might make the journey easier by continuing farther inland on our side until we struck the high road across the coombe—a longer way round, it is true, but a far easier and possibly quicker one in the end.

Therefore, though there was really only a quarter of a mile of distance between us and the cliffs opposite, for practical purposes there was a journey of about two miles round and that by no means an easy or agreeable one.

A panorama of inexpressible loveliness, a scene which would have driven a painter wild with envy, perhaps one of the most beautiful views in that home of the beautiful, South Devon. That was

THE MURDER ON THE CLIFFS. 5 what we might have been gazing at with rapture had it burst on us for the first time. But we knew it well, Archer and I. We had not come up on the downs with any views with regard to the picturesque, but merely for a walk; and when we actually arrived at the edge of the cliffs where Archer originally intended to make observations seawards, the heat and glare of the August sun, the balmy fragrance of the air, the soothing warmth of the dry grass on which we stretched ourselves, and the exertion of the hot walk, all combined with such a soporific effect that I lay in a sort of semi-doze for Heaven knows how long until Archer so very inopportunely recalled me to animation.

Strange to think how different it might have been had he let me doze on. On what trifles hang the destiny of a life!

After the scenery come the persons, I suppose. Who was Archer? that is the question, is it not? and still more important, what was he like?

Well, he was not exactly an Adonis. I think I should describe him best if I said that he was a good fellow and looked it all over; but that was all. Most people considered him decidedly plain at first ; but he shared with Jack Wilkes the lucky characteristic that after the first five minutes no woman ever thought any more about his looks. He was usually known as that “ charming Mr. Archer.” Even his own sex, who have secretly as great a dislike to men who are exceptionally successful with women as the latter towards a new beauty, liked him as a rule and said he was a “ good sort.’’ He was especially popular with boys, chiefly, I think, because he never laughed at them for precocious assumption of manhood and never treated them contemptuously as children.

He was fair and tall—face considerably tanned by exposure to all sorts of weather; figure drawn on a large scale which betokened and not untruly great muscular strength; most important of all, however, there was a superlative effect about him which it is impossible to describe and which can only be expressed by the word “ distinction.”

A. keen sportsman, who rode straight, shot straight, and talked straight. An enthusiastic traveller, who had gone in search of sport to all sorts of outlandish places. A regular town man, who could doff his country tastes with his country garments and lounge through the Park with as bored an expression on his face as if life to him were a perpetual round of variations of ennwur. <A fellow who one could thoroughly rely on not only from a moral point of view but also because his opinion was usually worth having.

In short, a man to know—and a very useful friend to a young man who wanted to be pushed about in a good-natured way.

That’s Charles Archer exactly!

I can’t describe myselfas I have sketched Archer; you must gather an idea of me as best you can. The little I can tell you is this: my name is Douglas Buchanan, usually known as “ Jack,’’—Douglas being voted “ too much of a mouthful.” My father is Sir Douglas Buchanan of Liviotdale, Perthshire, a tall, muscular, red-haired Scotchman with a constitution like that of a horse and an infinite

THE MURDER ON THE CLIFFS. a contempt for everything that is not Scotch. My mother was a beautiful dark-haired, dark-eyed Irish girl, and whatever good looks I may happen to possess were certainly transmitted to me through her. Disrespectful as the observation may seem, I must confess that I never gaze upon my “ Governor’s”’ face without returning a silent thanksgiving to Providence that I do not take after him in personal appearance. But after all my taste may be bad, for not only did he contrive to inspire the warmest affection in my mother’s tender breast, but at the mature age of fifty, ten years after her untimely death, when age had certainly not improved his appearance or his temper, and he was additionally handicapped by an incumbrance,—that is, me,—he was once more successful in the lists of Hymen.

I must confess I never had such a high opinion of him after his second marriage as before. It 18 ignominious to see one’s Governor tied to the apron-strings of a tiny, fragile creature who looks as though a breath would blow her away, and to know that she turns him round her little finger with the greatest ease and keeps him at her side like a great dog to fetch and carry for her. It is ignominious I repeat, even though one knows that she is very good to him, and that itis very good for him, and that since she came into the family we live in a much more civilized way than we did, and among other things invariably take a house in Town for part of the season. The result, however, is, that I cannot help looking on the Governor with a certain amount of pity for his weakness which naturally lowers him a trifle in my opinion. She and I get on very well as it happens, for she has no children and the property is entailed ; but, somehow, Liviotdale doesn’t seem the same to me as in the dear old times that are past and gone for ever; so I seldom go there now. My life is spent in consequence in a very roving fashion, stopping a week here with one friend, a month there with another, anon crossing the Channel and moving about from hotel to hotel through the length and breadth of Europe; but I always go home for the shooting, and as invariably come up to Town when my people are there in order to take advantage of the bedroom which is always at my disposal.

AmTJrich? No, not in the modern sense of the term, but extremely comfortably off and thank Heaven entirely independent of my family. I think my step-mother and I get on in consequence far better than we should if she knew that my visits were usually attended by the extraction of cash from her husband’s pocket. As it is she is generous and kind and I think really likes me. And I like her as well as I can.

My travels had led me this year at the close of the London season down into Devonshire to stay with the Tottenhams, old friends of mine, who owned a long roomy white house buried in umbrageous trees and surrounded by almost continental scenery at least four or five miles from anything in the shape of a town.

The house was not far from where we were standing, but quite out of sight removed from our gaze by the sweep of the hills, for it nestled cosily amid

THE MURDER ON THE CLIFFS. g thick masses of verdure on the slope which descended into the coombe at our back, which was almost exactly similar to the one opening before us save that the cliffs on the farther side were neither so lofty nor so steep.

There was a large party staying in the house as well as ourselves but the almost tropical heat had been too much for the ladies. They voted it too hot to do anything, and so attired in marvellous works of art which they called tea-gowns were lying down dozing comfortably over the latest novel, swinging lazily in hammocks, or in fact anything which would involve only the hollowest pretext of doing something; and so no doubt they would continue till the mystic hour of tea.

So Archer and I came out on our own account.

** Buchanan ! ”

There was that fellow Archer at it again.

“ Buchanan, I say, Jack, do you hear?” he repeated.

““ Oh, do shut up,” I replied angrily.

“ Jack! Do yousee those people over there? I wonder what they are up to.”

“People! ’”’ I ejaculated in surprise, recalling my scattered senses suddenly and looking vaguely round, “where? oh, I see. Yes, I wonder where they’ve sprung from.”

Two dark figures moving slowly over the downs opposite and apparently advancing to the edge, that was what attracted my attention.

“That Iam afraid,” returned Archer somewhat sarcastically, “we are not likely to find out unless you feel inclined to walk round and inquire. A much more reasonable question is, what are they going to do?”

“Hqually impossible to answer,’ briefly.

“Tam not so sure about that. At least if you were to take these glasses and focus our unknown friends you might find out something. But I suppose that is far too much trouble.”

But I was wide-awake and eager now. [Even at that distance I could tell that one of the figures was that of a woman and I always felt interested in anything that wore a petticoat. Besides, a sort of reaction had set in and my laziness had vanished entirely.

I took the glasses and adjusted them with a certain amount of curiosity. It was such an out-ofthe-way place that I was rather astonished that any one should be there at all. But then they might with equal reason have been astonished to see us. Perhaps after all it was only some of our own party who had developed unsuspected energy after we went; perhaps people staying at Rooklands, a place about a mile off; or possibly merely some adventurous and active visitors from the town which was not so far off from that side as from ours. Anyhow I felt curious to see what the woman was like—she might repay inspection.

The result was decidedly disappointing. After a long and careful look during which I expect I didn’t improve the glasses by screwing them up and down rather recklessly in the hope of getting a better focus, I was obliged to confess that I couldn’t see very much.

I replied

THE MURDER ON THE CLIFFS. ee

“ Can’t you see her face ? ” said Archer, who had been watching me impatiently.

“Not distinctly,—she is too far off. I think she is dark, but she may be any colour for all I know.”

“Can you see how she’s dressed?”

“ Yes, dark-blue or black yachting sort of dress, with a very visible white waistcoat, man’s yachting cap and large red parasol.”

“ Ah, that is what I have been wondering over. I saw she was carrying a thing that looked like a red flag, and it didn’t strike me that it was a parasol. Any more ?”

“ Good figure.”

‘* Ah, smart little craft.”

“Not very little I should say. Decidedly tall, for she is taller than the man and he can’t be a dwarf. Smart enough though, I believe you; as far as I can tell she looks as smart not to say rakish a craft as I have seen for some time.”

“ Cuts out Lady Laura?”

“Tt is quite a different style. The fair Laura is distinctly plump in build, not to say buxom; her enemies might even call her fat, poor thing! and insinuate that her figure is solely due to tight-lacing. Besides, she is undeniably fair. This woman I am certain is dark and looks as though she hadn’t an ounce of spare flesh to carry. One of those figures you know that run in long curves and don’t require any pulling in.”

“ Just my style,” ejaculated Archer with a smile. “Goon. What is her face like? ”’

“Ah, that I can’t tell. It looks very misty at this distance. Besides, she keeps on moving ib. She appears to be chattering away tremendously.”

“Give them to me and let me try,” he cried eagerly, half rising and holding out his hand.

“ Wait a minute. Now I have got her,” as they reached the edge of the cliff and she turned her profile towards me. “ Very dark, I think; black hair certainly. JI believe she is going to thump that little wretch. I wouldn’t be him for something; she must be pretty strong with such a grand contour.”

“Do give me the glasses,’”’ urged Archer.

“ Just wait a minute. I am almost sure that she has large dark eyes and aquiline features. Why, she has actually punched his head; serve him right too. My God!——” And as the last ejaculation escaped in shrill horror from my lips the glasses fell from my nerveless grasp.

An awful shriek of despair rang through the air startling the echoes far up the coombe. The woman had suddenly before my very eyes hurled the man over the cliff. I sprang to my feet almost dizzy with horror, my eyes riveted on the fearful sight.

Chapter II. Half Washed-out Tracks

He fell with horrible velocity, the body striking against the rocks and bounding from crag to crag.

Then came a loud splash and all was over. A broad ripple spread in ever-widening circles across the placid surface of the cove and that was all. The sun shone as brightly, the waves rippled on the beach with the same eternal ebb and flow, all nature smiled on us as sweetly as before. No one would have thought that a horrible crime had stained the peaceful beauty of the scene and marred the hues of paradise with the foul stains of hell.

Scarcely a minute had really elapsed since I was lying lazily on the grass coolly criticising the appearance of the wretch who had committed this dreadful deed ; but it seemed as though an illimitable gulf of time separated the careless dreamer of so short a space before from the horrified, appalled witness of that hideous murder.

Archer, like myself, had risen hastily in horror, and for a moment we remained spell-bound, staring 13 stupidly at the murderess, who was standing at the edge of the cliff looking down into the grave of her victim. Was she waiting for the body to reappear, or what?

Suddenly she raised her head and looked in our direction. She evidently saw us for the first time, for she drew back sharply as if startled by an unexpected sight. ‘Then, as if recognising the utter impossibility of detection at such a distance and the futility of our beginning a pursuit without giving her a start of several hours at least, she appeared to grow calmer and advanced once more to the edge of the cliff as though in defiance and derision of our powerlessness. J even fancied that I could hear a peal of mocking laughter ringing faintly in the air. But no, that must have been imagination—she was surely too far off for her laughter to reach my ears. And yet sound travels far on a calm, clear day like that.

I seized the glasses which had fallen at my feet and levelled them again, straining my eyes in the vain hope of obtaining some distinct impression of the woman’s face which might enable me to recognise her again or at least to give a description which would lead to her identification and arrest.

For a few minutes she stood motionless, looking straight at me, while I strained my eyes in vain.

“‘ Here, you try!” I cried hoarsely, handing them to Archer, who seized them and levelled them with feverish haste. 7

It almost seemed as if the woman realized the meaning of the action, for a sudden change came

HALF WASHED-OUT TRACKS. 15 over her. She averted her face quickly, and stretching out her arms towards us as if shaking her fist ‘In defiance and fury, ran away over the downs. I watched her eagerly, but she never stopped or turned, and at last she disappeared from our sight behind the rising sweep of the banks in the distance.

Then Archer drew a long breath and turned towards me.

“Well, did you see her face?’? I inquired anxiously.

“No; she ran off before i had got the right focus. But I noticed one thing which is worth remembering—she ran uncommonly well. I never saw a girl move so gracefully before, and as she was obviously

running without any care of her personal appearance it is a very good test. J expect, Buchanan, she must be a very fine woman. I never saw such a figure. What could have tempted her to such a brutal murder ? ”

“ We had better go back and rouse the country as soon as possible, hadn’t we?” I suggested. “‘ We can talk on the way.”

“Right you are. Come along. But she’s got enough start to get clear away easily enough if she plays her cards with anything like skill.”

“But the waistcoat and parasol.” I gasped at intervals. We were now pounding down the hill at break-neck pace. ‘They are awfully conspicu- Ons

“Oh, she will drop the latter in a ditch and get rid of the former some way or other,” answered Archer much more composedly—he was in much better training. ‘ Trust a woman not to be stumped by such trifling details as those when her neck is at stake.”’

The rest of the journey was accomplished in silence—I felt I must husband my breath or I should be left ignominiously behind. In a very short time after our arrival mounted men were scouring the lanes and highways in all directions.

So well did we work that the whole district was soon in an uproar, and long before the police had decided what should be their course of action, every one in that part of the country from the village postmasters and innkeepers, great dignitaries in their way, to the casual rustic and the porters at the tiny stations, were all on the alert for the appearance of any one at all approaching the description which we gave them.

She never came, however, I may as well add. But the search became so hot, especially after the Government reward was offered, that an unlucky girl, who went about the country to.give singing lessons, was stopped no less than three times in the same week at different stations simply because she wore a blue serge dress and a white waistcoat, though she was fair, short, and decidedly plump in appearance and in no way answered to the description of the murderess.

On our return we found that the body of the murdered man had been recovered, and J must confess that I took partin the examination that ensued with strange feelings of curiosity. Should we find anything that would reveal the cause of the murder ? I am sure that every face in the room reflected the

HALF WASHED-OUT TRACKS. uy:

same thought unless my own thoughts misled my imagination.

It was all doomed to disappointment, however. Much indeed was found, but little to the purpose.

The man was evidently not an Englishman. His appearance was decidedly foreign—I thought myself that there was a touch of the tarbrush in him, to judge from the low receding forehead and crisp black curly hair. Yet he was not very dark—not much darker than many Europeans of the warmer climates of the South. And in a coarse, savage, almost brutal way he was decidedly handsome—the purely animal beauty which would exercise such a strange, almost magnetic, influence on a woman whose fierce, passionate nature lacks the control of any deeply-rooted moral impulses.

The body was terribly broken and mangled of course but the face was wonderfully preserved. The eyes were wide open and glaring ; the lips were curved in a hideous sneer, as though even in the very hour of his terrible death the victim had exulted maliciously in the thought of vengeance swift to pursue and sure to find. I hate to talk of the dead in this cold-blooded analysing way, but I am endeavouring to place before you the thoughts that really occurred to me when I first saw the body laid out for examination ; and the idea which sprang at once to my brain was that this might be a man whom women would love deeply, passionately, with a love that was sport to him, but to them the bitterest degradation, ending too surely in ruin—perhaps in crime. And yet if the whole story were known in its vile details men might say that be the

C woman what she might, the man richly deserved his fate.

There was nothing to lead me to this conclusion, and yet I could not drive away the tragedy which I had conjured up after a single glance at the face of the corpse. He was probably an American, for his clothes were from a New York tailor and there was a roll of greenbacks in a pocket-book which we found in the coat-pocket. In the same pocket was a tortoise-shell card-case containing some cards bearing the words Colonel Lucien T. St. Casse, but that was all: there was no address and the pages of the pocket-book were a blank but for a few abstruse calculations in dollars. The police, however, felt that there was sufficient evidence for extending their inquiries to New York and advertising in the American papers.

There was very little result except that my suspicions were confirmed with regard to the antecedents of the man. “Colonel St. Casse”’ was well known as a thorough bad lot whose military rank was as questionable as his character. Hven the name of St. Casse was suspected to be an alias, and strenuous attempts had been made to identify in him a certain Sam Hardy, a half-caste, who was wanted for a double murder and robbery committed in New Orleans five years previously. ‘lhe colonel, however, had ended the attempt summarily by suddenly disappearing without leaving the slightest trace behind him and without paying certain bills due to confiding tradesmen of New York City. ‘The description differed in one respect—that the colonel was described as a man with a thick beard and

HALF WASHED-OUT TRACKS. 19 moustache and long, fuzzy hair, whereas the murdered man was clean shaven and close cropped; but the perruquier’s skill might readily account for the former appearance, easily dropped when a fresh disguise was desirable. There was little doubt in any one’s mind, I think, at the end, that the man who had met his fate on the Devonshire cliffs that summer afternoon was identical with the New York rowdy on whom so many dark suspicions rested.

As for the woman, she gave no sign and appeared to have vanished as completely as if she had sunk into the earth. A reward of £1,000 offered by Government produced no result. <A private reward of £100 for any clue however slight was equally inefficacious. ‘he one trace left of her presence was a handkerchief which [ found lying on the very spot where the murder was committed, just where it must have dropped,—perhaps during her flight, perhaps during the murder itself. On it were the initials “ L. H. N.,” twined together in a very peculiar monogram. Nothing was known of her in New York; nothing was heard of her by the London police. In fact, having once got clear away, there seemed to be no exact reason why she should not maintain her concealment successfully unless she was foolish enough to give herself up, which was hardly probable. .

THE DRAMA.

CHAPTER I.

GORDON LEIGH.

Five years had passed since the events related in the last chapter. I had almost forgotten them except as a disagreeable reminiscence of the past. Nothing had been heard of the woman, and the British public had had so many male murderers to pet and cry over and get up petitions and demonstrations for that I expect they were entirely oblivious of this one wretched woman. Scotland Yard remembered her, no doubt, grudgingly, but even Scotland Yard must be getting gradually callous to failure by now.

Little of importance had occurred since then. Somehow I had never been to South Devon again ; something had always prevented it, and being a villainous correspondent I had heard _ literally nothing of the Tottenhams except occasional reports at long intervals from mutual friends.