“You mean by Yeh Ling,” said the other carelessly, “I’ll buy him off. After all, it is only a freak on his part to put up a house there.”
Tab shook his head.
“You will have some difficulty in persuading him to sell,” he said quietly, “I happen to know that he is almost as keen on his house as you are on yours.”
“Stuff,” laughed Rex. “You seem to forget that I am made of money!”
Tab shook his head.
“I didn’t forget that,” he said, “but I repeat I know Yeh Ling.”
Rex scratched his head irritably.
“It will be a shame if I can’t get it,” he said. “Could you persuade him—I’ve rather set my heart on that site. I saw it once in the old days, long before I ever knew that Ursula Ardfern lived nearby and I said to myself: ‘One of these days I’ll build a house on that hill.’ How is my adored one, by-the-way?”
The opportunity which Tab had wanted.
“Your adored one is my adored one,” he said quietly. “I am going to marry Ursula Ardfern.”
Rex fell into the nearest chair, looking at him with eyes and mouth wide open.
“You lucky dog!” he said at last, and then he came to his feet with his hand outflung. “I go away on a holiday and you steal my beloved,” he said, wringing Tab’s hand. “No, I am not feeling at all bad about it—you are a lucky man. We must have a bottle on this.”
Tab was relieved, to an extent greater than he had anticipated. He had rather dreaded telling the lovesick youth that the object of his passion had agreed to bestow herself upon the best friend of the man who was responsible for their meeting.
“You are going to tell me all about this,” said Rex, busy with the wire-cutters, “and of course, I’ll be your best man and take in hand the arrangements for the swellest wedding this little village has seen in years,” he babbled on and Tab was glad to let him talk.
Presently they came back to the subject of the house. Rex made no attempt to hide his disappointment that the ideal site was taken.
“I should have given it to you, old man,” he said impulsively, “what a wedding gift for a pal! But you shall have a house that is worthy of you, if I have to build the darned thing myself! As an architect I am a failure,” he went on, “my views are too eccentric. Poor old Stott swooned at the sight of some of my designs,” he chuckled to himself. “I’m not going to give up the attempt to carry my great idea into effect,” he told Tab at parting, “I shall see Yeh Ling at the earliest opportunity. I may be able to persuade him to sell.”
Tab went down to Hertford the next afternoon and never had his bicycle moved more leisurely.
“I told Rex,” he blurted out and he saw her face fall.
“He wasn’t hurt,” said Tab, anxious to relieve her mind, “in fact, he behaved like a brick! Do you mind very much? My telling him, I mean?”
“No,” she said quietly. “He wasn’t hurt?”
Tab laughed.
“It may sound uncomplimentary to you but I am sure that Rex was only temporarily infatuated.”
He saw a smile dawning and took her face between his hands.
“If I were Rex,” he said, “I should hate Tab Holland.”
“Rex is stronger minded,” she said. “Let us go into the garden. I have been thinking things out, and I feel that there is something that you ought to know, and the longer I put it off, the harder it will be to tell.”
He followed her, carrying an armful of cushions, arranged her chair, and sat upon its arm; and then, in the most unconcerned voice, holding no hint of the tremendous statement she was to make, she said:
“I killed Jesse Trasmere.”
XXVII
He leapt to his feet.
“What?” he gasped.
“I killed Jesse Trasmere,” she repeated, “not directly, with my own hands, but I am responsible for his death, almost as assuredly as if I had shot him.” She caught his hand and held it. “How white you are! I was a brute to put it that way. In our profession we love these dramatic—no I don’t mean that, Tab.”
“Will you tell me what you do mean?”
She signalled him to sit on the footrest of the chair.
“I’ll tell you something, but I don’t think I’ll tell you any more about the murder,” she said, “and this is the something which you ought to know, and which I intended you should know. I had not the slightest intention of saying what I did. The spirit of tragedy seems to haunt me,” she said, staring straight ahead, “I was cradled in that atmosphere of violence and wickedness. I once told you, Tab, that I had been in service as a tweeny maid and I think you were startled. I went there from a public orphan’s home, an institution where little children are taught to be born old. Tab—my mother was murdered, my father was hanged for her murder!”
There was no pain in her eyes, just a little hardness. He took both her hands in his and held them.
“I don’t remember anything about it,” she went on, “my earliest recollections was the long dormitory where about forty little girls used to sleep, a very fat matron, and two iron-faced nurses, and the why and wherefore of my being at Parkingtons Institute only came to me late in life. One of the little girls had heard the matron tell the nurse, and I had to piece together the fact that I was an orphan by the act of my father and that after his trial and execution I had been sent to this home to be brought up and educated for the profession which all good little girls follow, and which had, as its supreme reward, an appointment as undercook. I was not so fortunate. I am afraid my cooking was
