“And dear Lord Guilleroy,” chimed in Mrs. Greenhow, in her soft, purring voice, “has started for Paris immediately. The young man has such a vast amount of energy, and thinks he can do the work of the police better than they can do it for themselves.”
“That’s hardly a fair way of putting it, Clare,” interrupted Mr. Golding irritably; “he is working heart and soul with the police, and thinks it advisable that someone representing me should be in Paris, in case an emergency should arise; also he wants himself to question Dulau respecting my daughter’s sudden appearance and disappearance in the Paris streets. Guilleroy,” here he turned to Loveday, “is devotedly attached to my daughter, and—why, Dryad, what’s the matter, old man? down, down! Don’t growl and whine in that miserable fashion.”
He had broken off to address these words to the Newfoundland, who, until that moment, had been comfortably stretched on the hearthrug before the fire, but who now had suddenly started to his feet with ears erect, and given a prolonged growl, that ended in something akin to a whine.
“It may be a fox trotting past the window,” said Mrs. Greenhow, whipping at the dog with her lace handkerchief. But Dryad was not to be so easily subdued. With his nose to the ground now he was sniffing uneasily at and around the heavy curtains that half draped the long French windows of the room.
“Something has evidently disturbed him. Why not let him out into the garden?” said Loveday. And Mr. Golding, with a “Hey, Dryad, go find!” unfastened the window and let the dog out into the windy darkness.
Dinner was a short meal that night. It was easy to see that it was only by a strong effort of will that Mr. Golding kept his place at table, and made even a pretence of eating.
At the close of the meal Loveday asked for a quiet corner, in which to write some business letters, and was shown into the library by Mr. Golding.
“You’ll find all you require here, I think,” he said, with something of a sigh, as he placed a chair for her at a lady’s davenport. “This was René’s favourite corner, and here are the last flowers she gathered—dead, all dead, but I will not have them touched!” He broke off abruptly, set down the vase of dead asters which he had taken in his hand, and quitted the room, leaving Loveday to the use of René’s pen, ink, paper, and blotting-pad.
Loveday soon became absorbed in her business letters. Time flew swiftly, and it was not until a clock on the mantelpiece chimed the hour—ten o’clock—that she gave a thought as to what might be the hour for retiring at the Hall.
Something else beside the striking of the clock almost simultaneously caught her ear—the whining and scratching of a dog at one of the windows. These, like those of the dining-room, opened as doors into an outside verandah. They were, however, closely shuttered, and Loveday had to ring for a servant to undo the patent fastener.
So soon as the window was opened Dryad rushed into the room, plastered with mud, and dripping with water from every hair.
“He must have been in the stream,” said the footman, trying to collar the dog and lead him out of the room.
“Stop! one moment!” cried Loveday, for her eye had caught sight of something hanging in shreds between the dog’s teeth. She bent over him, patting and soothing him, and contrived to disentangle those shreds, which a closer examination proved to be a few tattered fragments of dark blue serge.
“Is your letter-writing nearly ended, Miss Brooke?” asked Mr. Golding, at that moment entering the room.
For reply, Loveday held up the shreds of blue serge. His face grew ashen white; he needed no explanation; those shreds and the dripping dog seemed to tell their own tale.
“Great heavens!” he cried, “why did I not follow the dog out! There must be a search at once. Get men, lanterns, ropes, a ladder—the dog, too, will be of use.”
A terrible energy took possession of him. “Find, Dryad, find!” he shouted to the dog, and then, hatless and thin-shoed as he was, he rushed out into the darkness with Dryad at his heels.
In less than five minutes afterwards the whole of the menservants of the house, with lanterns, ropes, and a ladder long enough to span the stream, had followed him. The wind had fallen, the rain had ceased now, and a watery half-moon was struggling through the thin, flying clouds. Loveday and Mrs. Greenhow, standing beneath the verandah, watched the men disappear in the direction of the trout stream, whither Dryad had led the way. From time to time shouts came to them, through the night stillness, of “This way!” “No, here!” together with Dryad’s sharp bark and the occasional distant flash of a bull’s-eye lantern. It was not until nearly half an hour afterwards that one of the men came running back to the house with a solemn white face and a pitiful tale. He wanted something that would serve for a stretcher, he said in a subdued tone—the twofold oak screen in the hall would do—and please, into which room was “it” to be brought?—
On the following evening Mr. Dyer received a lengthy dispatch from Miss Brooke, which ran as follows:—
“Langford Hall.
“This is to supplement my telegram of an hour back, telling you of the finding of Miss Golding’s body in the stream that runs through her father’s grounds. Mr. Golding has himself identified the body, and has now utterly collapsed. At the present moment it seems rather doubtful whether he will be in a fit state to give evidence at the inquest, which will be held tomorrow. Miss Golding appears to be dressed as she was when she left home, with this notable exception—the marquise ring has disappeared from the third finger of her left hand, and in its stead she wears a plain
