Havelock nodded.
“One,” he said. “Miss Sybil Lansdown, and, of course, her mother, though in law Miss Lansdown would be regarded as the heir to the property, supposing Lord Selford died without issue.”
He took up the letter from the table, and his eyes ran over the written page.
“I’m almost inclined to send you to Damascus with the money,” he began, but Dick shook his head.
“No, sir.” He was emphatic. “I’ve had one chase after this young man, and that is enough to last me for a lifetime. During the years he’s been abroad has he had much money from you?”
“The greater part of five hundred thousand,” replied Havelock quietly. “Generally for the purchase of estates, the deeds of which have never come to me. I have complained about this once or twice, but he has assured me that the title deeds were in good keeping.”
“One question I want to ask you before I go,” said Dick, after turning the matter over in his mind. “Is it possible that these letters are forgeries?”
“Absolutely impossible,” replied Havelock. “I know his handwriting and its peculiarities as well as—indeed, better than—I know my own. I can assure you that not two years ago he wrote one of the letters I have in my file under my own eyes.”
“He could not be impersonated?”
“Absolutely not. He is rather a thin-faced, sandy-haired man, who speaks with a little lisp. And the better to identify him, he has a round red patch—a birthmark—on his cheek, just below his ear. I have thought of all these possibilities. He might be impersonated, he might be held to ransom, or have fallen into the hands of some unscrupulous gang which was bleeding him. In fact, if I had not seen him at intervals during the past years, I should have become seriously alarmed. But there it is! If he chooses to wander about the world, I have no power to stop him, and his hobby is not so reprehensible that I can invoke the aid of the law to pin him down in England and keep him here. You are sure you would not like to take the trip to Damascus?”
“Perfectly sure,” answered Dick immediately. “I can think of nothing I want to do less!”
Two disturbing factors had come into the life of Sybil Lansdown, and she found it difficult to concentrate her mind even upon rare editions or those inanimate volumes which once had seemed so interesting.
In one case the library helped to enlarge her knowledge. She collected all the literature available upon the history of the old county families, but there was little about Selford, except in one volume, written by a priest, which told, in too lurid detail, the story of Sir Hugh’s many sins. Sybil closed the book hastily when it became a little too detailed.
“I’m afraid we are not a nice family,” she said, as she put the volume back on its high shelf.
There was nothing in the library that could help her unravel her feelings about Mr. Martin. Sometimes she thought she liked him very much indeed; at other times she was equally certain that he annoyed her. She wished she had not gone to the Selford tombs, and that there had been no cause for her laying her head on his breast, or fluttering to his arms in a panic induced by ghastly carvings and a fortuitous flicker of lightning.
Women were very rare visitors to the library, and when, in the slackest part of the afternoon, a lady walked into her room she was a little astounded. A short, stout woman, with a face which did not err on the side of softness, she was expensively dressed, though her voice belied her elegant appearance, for it was a little coarse and somewhat strident.
“Are you Miss Lansdown?” she asked.
Sybil rose from her chair.
“Yes, I am Miss Lansdown. Do you want a book?” she asked, thinking, as was sometimes the case, that the woman had called on behalf of one of the subscribers.
“No, I don’t read books,” was the disconcerting reply. “A lot of rubbish and nonsense, that put ideas in people’s heads—that’s what books are! If he didn’t read so much, he’d be a cleverer man. Not that he isn’t a gentleman born and bred,” she added hastily, “and a nicer gentleman to deal with I’ve never known. You can take it from me, miss, that that man couldn’t think wrong. He may have made a mistake—we’re all liable to make mistakes. But he’s not the sort of man who’d put his ’and to anything that wasn’t fair and square.”
Sybil listened in astonishment to this mysterious paean of praise, directed she knew not whither.
“Perhaps you—er—”
“My husband,” said the lady with dignity. “I am Mrs. Bertram Cody.”
Sybil’s mind flew over the index of members without recalling anybody who bore that name.
“Dr. Cody’s wife,” said the woman. “Have you got a chair where I can sit down?”
With an apology Sybil drew a chair forward and placed it for the visitor.
“My husband knew your father very well, miss. In fact, they were good friends years and years ago. And he said to me this morning—my husband, I mean: ‘If you’re going to town, Elizabeth, you might pop in at Bellingham’s Libr’ry,’ and he gave me the address; I’ve got it written down on a bit of paper.”
She searched a very expensive bag and produced a small card.
“Yes, there it is, in his own ’andwriting.”
She showed the girl a scrawl which told her nothing.
“My husband said: ‘Go in and see Miss Lansdown and ask her if she’ll come down to tea, and I can tell her something very interesting about her father that she never
