“This well was used from 935 to 1794. It was filled in by the present owners of the property in May, 1914, 135 cartloads of rock and gravel being used for the purpose.”
It was a pleasant occupation, standing by that ancient well and picturing the collar serfs and barefooted peasants who through the ages had stood where she was standing. As she came out of the bushes she saw the pale-faced Olga Crewe.
Margaret had not spoken either to the Colonel or to the clergyman; either she had avoided them, or they her. Olga Crewe she had not seen, and now she would have turned away, but the girl moved across to intercept her.
“You are the new secretary, aren’t you?”
Her voice was musical, rather alluring. “Custardy” was Margaret’s mental classification.
“Yes, I’m Miss Belman.”
The girl nodded.
“My name you know, I suppose? Are you going to be terribly bored here?”
“I don’t think so,” smiled Margaret. “It is a beautiful spot.”
The eyes of Olga Crewe surveyed the scene critically.
“I suppose it is—very beautiful, yes, but one gets very tired of beauty after a few years.”
Margaret listened in astonishment.
“Have you been here so long?”
“I’ve practically lived here since I was a child. I thought Joe would have told you that: he’s an inveterate old gossip.”
“Joe?” She was puzzled.
“The cab driver, news-gatherer and distributor.”
She looked at Larmes Keep and frowned.
“Do you know what they used to call this place, Miss Belman? The House of Tears—the Château des Larmes.”
“Why ever?” asked Margaret.
Olga Crewe shrugged her pretty shoulders.
“Some sort of tradition, I suppose, that goes back to the days of Baron Augernvert, who built it. The locals have corrupted the name to Larmes Keep. You ought to see the dungeons.”
“Are there dungeons?” asked Margaret in surprise, and Olga nodded. For the first time she seemed amused.
“If you saw them and the chains and the rings in the walls and the stone floors worn thin by bare feet, you might guess how its name arose.”
Margaret stared back toward the Keep. The sun was setting behind it, and silhouetted as it was against the red light there was something ominous and sinister in that dark, squat pile.
“How very unpleasant!” she said, and shivered.
Olga Crewe laughed.
“Have you seen the cliffs?” she said, and led the way back to the long wall, and for a quarter of an hour they stood, their arms resting on the parapet, looking down into the gloom.
“You ought to get someone to row you round the face of the cliff. It’s simply honeycombed with caves,” she said. “There’s one at the water’s edge that tunnels right under the Keep. When the tides are unusually high they are flooded. I wonder Daver doesn’t write a book about it.”
There was just the faintest hint of a sneer in her tone, but it did not escape Margaret’s attention.
“That must be the entrance,” she said, pointing down to a swirl of water that seemed to run right up to the face of the cliff.
Olga nodded.
“At high tide you wouldn’t notice that,” she said, and then, turning abruptly, she asked the girl if she had seen the bathing pool.
This was an oblong bath, sheltered by high box hedges and lined throughout with blue tiles; a delightfully inviting plunge.
“Nobody uses it but myself. Daver would die at the thought of jumping in.”
Whenever she referred to Mr. Daver it was in a scarcely veiled tone of contempt. She was not more charitable when she referred to the other guests. As they were nearing the house, Olga said, apropos of nothing:
“I shouldn’t talk too much to Daver if I were you. Let him do the talking: he likes it.”
“What do you mean?” asked Margaret quietly, but at that moment Olga left her side without any word of farewell and went toward the Colonel, who was standing, a cigar between his teeth, watching their approach.
The House of Tears!
Margaret remembered the title as she was undressing that night, and, despite her self-possession, shivered a little.
IV
The policeman who stood on the corner where Bennett Street meets Hyde Lane had the world to himself. It was nearing three o’clock on a chilly morning of early fall. The good and bad of Mayfair slept—all, apparently, except Mr. J. G. Reeder, Friend of the Law and Terror of Criminals. Police Officer Dyer saw the yellow light behind the casemented window and smiled benevolently.
The night was so still that when he heard a key turn in a lock, he looked over his shoulder, thinking the noise was from the house immediately behind him. But the door did not move. Instead he saw a woman appear on the top doorstep five houses away.
“Officer!”
The voice was low, cultured, very urgent. He moved more quickly toward her than policemen usually move.
“Anything wrong, miss?”
Her face, he noticed in his worldly way, was “made up”; the cheeks heavily rouged, the lips a startling red for one who was afraid. He supposed her to be pretty in normal circumstances, but was doubtful as to her age. She wore a long black dressing gown, fastened up to her chin. Also he saw that the hand that gripped the railing which flanked the steps glittered in the lights of the street lamps.
“I don’t know—quite. I am—alone in the—house and I—thought I heard—something.”
Three words to a breath. Obviously she was terrified.
“Haven’t you any servants in the house?”
The constable was surprised, a little shocked.
“No. I only came back from Paris at midnight—we took the house furnished—I think the servants I engaged mistook the date of my return. I am Mrs. Granville
