Louis Tracy

“ A string of horses and moor ponies returning from exercise crossed a level pasture at the head of the loch. The letter–carrying groom was clattering down the broad carriage drive toward the distant station, and a couple of gardeners were cutting and rolling the green carpet of grass in front of the house.
“He talks of buyin’ this property,” communed the Honorable Billy, who was thirty–five and had never earned a penny in his life. “Can’t be ten years older than me, though he looks sixty, bein’ podgy. ”

“ Captain Warden knows what you are doing. He probably guesses every item of the business you and the Count were discussing so long and earnestly with Mr. Baumgartner in the library before lunch. Oh, please don’t interrupt”—for Figuero, driven beyond the bounds of self–control, was using words better left to the Portuguese tongue in which they were uttered—“I am not concerned with your plots. They never come to anything, you know. If either Count von Rippenbach or Mr. Baumgartner had your history at their finger’s ends as I have, they would drop you like a hot cinder. ”

“ We know from Peter that Figuero saw us together that morning, and your Portuguese friend evidently recognized me at once. But Mr. Baumgartner’s pointed reference to Langton as my destination was rather puzzling. How does it strike you? I expect my news will prove rather in the nature of a thunderbolt, and that is usually a very striking article. I assure you I am somewhat shaken myself. Mrs. Laing’s personal attributes remind one of those galvanic batteries you see at fairs in the country—the more you try to endure her magnetic influence, the greater your collapse. ”

“ Sometimes there comes to the aid of evil–doers a fiend who contrives opportunities where human forethought would fail. Rosamund, embarked on a well–nigh desperate enterprise, suddenly found the way smoothed by Baumgartner’s wholly unexpected announcement that business considerations compelled him to leave Lochmerig forthwith. ”

“ Figuero recently? I mean the dark–skinned man who came here yesterday.”
Yes, he had just left the library with the master and another gentleman. Rosamund rose at once. If she were not greatly mistaken, Evelyn’s harmless–looking postscript had given her a clue to the mystery of Figuero’s presence in Baumgartner’s house. She knew her West Africa, and the bad repute of Oku was one of her clearest memories. Yet she turned back at the door, took Evelyn’s letter from her pocket, copied a portion of it, and locked the original in her jewel case. ”

“ To an unscrupulous woman, such an arrangement offered the means to do ill deeds that makes ill deeds done. Rosamund, ready to dare anything now to save herself from contumely, actually set out to find Evelyn and taunt her into an admission that she had written to Warden.
“Miss Dane is not in the house, madam,” said the London footman on duty at the door. “She went out some time since—in that direction,” and he pointed toward the glistening firth that brought the North Sea into the heart of Inverness.
Mrs. Laing pouted prettily. ”

“ The groom grinned as he pocketed half–a–crown. Some ladies were easy pleased, to be sure. Even Billy Thring, experienced hunter of gilded brides, was bewildered by Mrs. Laing’s excited manner.
“Seems to me I’ve made a killin’,” he mused when she gushed herself away. “I s’pose old Baumgartner can be relied on. He is all there as a rule when he talks dollars an’ cents, but he’s a perfect rotter every other way. ”