The Betrayal - E. Phillips Oppenheim (the snowy day read aloud txt) 📗

a greeting at me. I stood cap in hand before her. It was the first time we had met since I had taken up my abode at the "Brand."

"Good-morning, Mr. Ducaine," she said. "You need not look at me as though I were a ghost. I always walk before breakfast in the country."

"There is no better time," I answered.

"You look as though you had been up all night," she remarked.

"I had work to finish," I told her.

She nodded.

"So you would have none of my advice, Mr. Secretary," she said softly, coming a little nearer to me. "You are already installed."

"Already at work," I asserted.

She glanced towards the "Brand."

"I hope that you are comfortable," she said. "A couple of hours is short notice in which to make a place habitable."

"Grooton is a magician," I told her. "He has arranged everything."

"He is a wonderful servant," she said thoughtfully.

A white-winged bird floated over our heads and drifted away skywards.
She followed it with her eyes.

"You wonder at seeing me so early," she murmured. "Don't you think that it is worth while? Nothing ever seems so sweet as this first morning breeze."

I bowed gravely. She was standing bareheaded now at the edge of the cliff, watching the flight of the bird. It was delightful to see the faint pink come back to her cheeks with the sting of the salt wind. Nevertheless, I had an idea in my mind that it was not wholly for her health's sake that Lady Angela walked abroad so early.

"Tell me," she said presently, "have you had a visitor this morning?"

"What, at this hour?" I exclaimed.

"There are other early risers besides you and me," she said. "The spinney gate was open, so some one has passed through."

I shook my head.

"I have not seen or heard a soul," I told her. "I have just finished some work, and I am on my way up to the house with it."

"You really mean it?" she persisted.

"Of course I do," I answered her. "Grooton is the only person I have spoken to for at least nine hours. Why do you ask?"

She hesitated.

"My window looks this way," she said, "and I fancied that I saw some one cross the Park while I was dressing. The spinney gate was certainly open."

"Then I fancy that it has been open all night," I declared, "for to the best of my belief no one has passed through it save yourself. May I walk with you back to the house, Lady Angela? There is something which I should very much like to ask you."

She replaced her hat, which she had been carrying in her hand. I stood watching her deft white fingers flashing amongst the thick silky coils of her hair. The extreme slimness of her figure seemed accentuated by her backward poise. Yet perhaps I had never before properly appreciated its perfect gracefulness.

"I was going farther along the cliffs," she said, "but I will walk some of the way back with you. One minute."

She stood on the extreme edge, and, shading her eyes with her hand, she looked up and down the broad expanse of sand—a great untenanted wilderness. I wondered for whom or what she was looking, but I asked no question. In a few moments she rejoined me, and we turned inland.

"Well," she said, "what is it that you wish to say?"

"Lady Angela," I began, "a few weeks ago there was no one whose prospects were less hopeful than mine. Thanks to your father and Colonel Ray all that is changed. To-day I have a position I am proud of, and important work. Yet I cannot help always remembering this: I am holding a post which you warned me against accepting."

"Well?"

"I am very curious," I said. "I have never understood your warning. I believe that you were in earnest. Was it that you believed me incapable or untrustworthy, or—"

"You appear to me," she murmured, "to be rather a curious person."

I bent forward and looked into her face. There was in her wonderful eyes a glint of laughter which became her well. She walked with slow graceful ease, her hands behind her, her head almost on a level with my own. I found myself studying her with a new pleasure. Then our eyes met, and I looked away, momentarily confused. Was it my fancy, or was there a certain measure of rebuke in her cool surprise, a faint indication of her desire that I should remember that she was the Lady Angela Harberly, and I her father's secretary? I bit my lip. She should not catch me offending again, I determined.

"You must forgive me," I said stiffly, "but your warning seemed a little singular. If you do not choose to gratify my curiosity, it is of no consequence."

"Since you disregarded it," she remarked, lifting her dress from the dew-laden grass on to which we had emerged, "it does not matter, does it? Only you are very young, and you know little of the world. Lord Ronald was your predecessor, and he is in a lunatic asylum. No one knows what lies behind certain unfortunate things which have happened during the last months. There is a mystery which is as yet unsolved."

I smiled.

"In your heart you are thinking," I said, "that such an unsophisticated person as myself will be an easy prey to whatever snares may be laid for me. Is it not so?"

She looked at me with uplifted eyebrows.

"Others of more experience have been worsted," she remarked calmly.
"Why not you?"

"If that is a serious question," I said, "I will answer it. Perhaps my very inexperience will be my best friend."

"Yes?"

"Those before me," I continued, "have thought that they knew whom to trust. I, knowing no one, shall trust no one."

"Not even me?" she asked, half turning her head towards me.

"Not even you," I answered firmly.

A man's figure suddenly appeared on the left. I looked at him puzzled, wondering whence he had come.

"Here is your good friend, Colonel Mostyn Ray," she remarked, with a note of banter in her tone. "What about him?"

"Not even Colonel Mostyn Ray," I answered. "The notes which I take with me from each meeting are to be read over from my elaboration at the next. Nobody is permitted to hold a pen or to make a note whilst they are being read. Afterwards I have your father's promise that not even he will ask for even a cursory glance at them. I deliver them sealed to Lord Chelsford."

Ray came up to us. His dark eyebrows were drawn close together, and I noticed that his boots were clogged with sand. He had the appearance of a man who had been walking far and fast.

"You keep up your good habits, Lady Angela," he said, raising his cap.

"It is my only good one, so I am loth to let it go," she answered. "If you were as gallant as you appear to be energetic," she added, glancing at his boots, "you would have stopped when I called after you, and taken me for a walk."

His eyes shot dark lightnings at her.

"I did not hear you call," he said.

"You had the appearance of a man who intended to, hear nothing and see nothing," she remarked coolly. "Never mind! There will be no breakfast for an hour yet. You shall take me on to Braster Hill. Come!"

They left me at a turn in the path. I saw their heads close together in earnest conversation. I went on towards the house.

I entered by the back, and made my way across the great hall, which was still invaded by domestics with brushes and brooms. Taking a small key from my watch-chain, I unfastened the door of a room almost behind the staircase, and pushed it open. The curtains were drawn, and the room itself, therefore, almost in darkness. I carefully locked myself in, and turned up the electric light.

The apartment was a small one, and contained only a few pieces of heavy antique furniture. Behind the curtains were iron shutters. In one corner was a strong safe. I walked to it, and for the first time I permitted myself to think of the combination word. Slowly I fitted it together, and the great door swung open.

There were several padlocked dispatch-boxes, and, on a shelf above, a bundle of folded papers. I took this bundle carefully out and laid it on the table before me. I was on the point of undoing the red tape with which it was tied, when my fingers became suddenly rigid. I stared at the packet with wide-open eyes. I felt my breath come short and my brain reeling. The papers were there sure enough, but it was not at them that I was looking. It was the double knot in the pink tape which fascinated me.

CHAPTER X AN EXPRESSION OF CONFIDENCE

I have no exact recollection of how long I spent in that little room. After a while I closed the door safe, and reset the combination lock with trembling fingers. Then I searched all round, but could find no traces of any recent intruder. I undid the heavy shutters, and let in a stream of sunshine. Outside, Ray and Lady Angela were strolling up and down the terrace. I watched the latter with fascinated eyes. It was from her that this strange warning had come to me, this warning which as yet was only imperfectly explained. What did she know? Whom did she suspect? Was it possible that she, a mere child, had even the glimmering of a suspicion as to the truth? My eyes followed her every movement. She walked with all the lightsome grace to which her young limbs and breeding entitled her, her head elegantly poised on her slender neck, her face mostly turned towards her companion, to whom she was talking earnestly. Even at this distance I seemed to catch the inspiring flash of her dark eyes, to follow the words which fell from her lips so gravely. And as I watched a new idea came to me. I turned slowly away and went in search of the Duke.

I found him sitting fully dressed in an anteroom leading from his bedroom, with a great pile of letters before him, and an empty postbag. He was leaning forward, his elbow upon the table, his head resting upon his right hand. Engrossed as I was with my own terrible discovery, I was yet powerfully impressed by his unfamiliar appearance. In the clear light which came flooding in through the north window he seemed to me older, and his face more deeply lined than any of my previous impressions of him had suggested. His eyes were fixed upon the mass of correspondence before him, most of which was as yet unopened, and his expression was one of absolute aversion. At my entrance he looked up inquiringly.

"What do you want, Ducaine?" he asked.

"I am sorry to have disturbed your Grace," I answered. "I have come to place my resignation in your hands."

His face was expressive enough in its frowning contempt, but he said nothing for a moment, during which his eyes met mine mercilessly.

"So you find the work too hard, eh?" he asked.

"The work is just what I should have chosen, your Grace," I answered. "I like hard work, and I expected it. The trouble is that I have succeeded no better than Lord Ronald."

My words were evidently a shock to him. He half opened his lips, but closed them again. I saw the hand which he raised to his forehead shake.

"What do you mean, Ducaine? Speak out, man."

"The safe in the study has been opened during the night," I said. "Our map of the secret fortifications on the Surrey downs and plans for a camp at Guilford have been examined."

"How do you know this?"

"I tied the red tape round them in a peculiar way. It has been undone and retied. The papers have been put back in a different order."

The Duke was without doubt agitated. He rose from his chair and paced the room restlessly.

"You are sure of what you say, Ducaine?" he demanded, turning, and facing me suddenly.

"Absolutely sure, your Grace," I answered.

He turned away from me.

"In my own house, under my own roof," I heard him mutter. "Good God!"

I had scarcely believed him capable