LITMIR.BIZ

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I do anything else for you now than merely dropping you at the roadside station? I am on my way to Stamford.”

      “No,” she sighed; “you can do nothing more at present. Only deny that you have ever met me.”

      Her words puzzled me. At one moment I wondered if she were not some clever woman who was abducting the lad, and by whose plausible tale I was being led into rendering her assistance. And yet as I stood with my back to the fire gazing at her as she sat, I recognised a something about her that told me she was no mere adventuress.

      Upon her finger was a magnificent ring—a coronet of fine diamonds that flashed and sparkled beneath the lamp-light, and when she smiled at me her face assumed a sweet expression that held me in fascination.

      “Cannot you tell me what has occurred?” I asked at last, in a quiet, earnest voice. “What is the nature of the sensation that is imminent?”

      “Ah no!” she answered hoarsely. “You will know soon enough.”

      “But, mademoiselle, I confess I should like to meet you again in London, and offer you my services. In half an hour we shall part.”

      “Yes, we shall part; and if we do not meet again I shall always remember you as one who performed one of the greatest services a man can perform. To-night, m’sieur, you have saved my life—and his,” she added, pointing to the little lad at her side.

      “Saved your lives? How?”

      “You will know one day,” was her evasive reply.

      “And who is he?”

      “I regret that I am not permitted to tell you,” she answered.

      At that instant heavy footsteps sounded in the hall, and gruff voices exchanged greetings.

      “Hark!” she gasped, starting to her feet in alarm. “Is the door locked?”

      I sprang to it, and, as the waiting-maid had left it slightly ajar, I could see the new-comers. I closed it, and slid the bolt into its socket.

      “Who are they?” she inquired.

      “Two men in dark overcoats and soft felt hats. They look like foreigners.”

      “Ah! I know!” she gasped, terrified, her face blanched in an instant.“Let us go! They must not see me! You will help me to escape, won’t you? Can I get out without them recognising me?”

      Was it possible that she had committed some crime, and they were detectives? Surely this adventure was a strange and mysterious one.

      “Remain here,” I exclaimed quickly. “I’ll go out and prepare the car. When all is ready, I will keep watch while you and the boy slip out.”

      I went forth into the pelting rain, took off the rugs from the seats, and started the motor. Then returning, and finding no one in the passage—the two men having evidently passed on into the tap-room—I beckoned to her, and she and the lad stole softly along and out into the roadway.

      In a moment they were both in the car, and a few seconds later we were tearing along the broad road out of Stilton village at a pace that might have cost me a five-pound fine.

      What was the forthcoming “sensation”? Why was she flying from the two strangers?

      She feared we might be followed, therefore I decided to drive her to Peterborough. We tore on through the biting wind and driving rain, past Water Newton and Orton, until we drew up at the Great Northern Station at Peterborough, where she descended, and for a moment held my hand in a warm grasp of heartfelt thankfulness.

      “You must thank this gentleman,” she said to the lad. “Recollect that to-night he has saved your life. They meant to kill you.”

      “Thank you, sir,” said the little lad simply, holding out his hand.

      When they had gone I remounted and drove away to Barnack, utterly dumbfounded. The fair stranger, whoever she was, held me in fascination. Never in all my life had I met a woman possessed of such perfect grace and such exquisite charm. She had fled from her enemies. What startling event had occurred that evening to cause her and the lad to take to the road so ill-prepared?

      What was the “sensation” which she had prophesied on the morrow? I longed for day to dawn, when I might learn the truth.

      Yet though I chatted with the grooms and other outdoor servants at Barnack during the next day, I heard nothing.

      Over the dinner-table that evening, however, old Colonel Cooper, who had driven over from Polebrook, near Oundle, related to the guests a strange story that he had heard earlier in the day.

      “A mysterious affair has happened over at Buckworth, near the Great North Road, they say,” he exclaimed, adjusting his monocle and addressing his hostess and Bindo, who sat on her right. “It seems that a house called ‘The Cedars,’ about a mile out of the village, has been rented furnished by some foreigners, a man named Latour and his wife and son, whose movements were rather suspicious. Yesterday they received three visitors, who came to spend a week; but just before dinner one of the servants, on entering the drawing-room, was horrified to find both her master and mistress lying upon the floor dead, strangled by the silken cords used to loop up the curtains, while the visitors and the little boy were missing. So swiftly and quietly was it all done,” he added, “that the servants heard nothing. The three visitors are described as very gentlemanly-looking men, evidently Frenchmen, who appeared to be on most intimate terms of friendship with their hostess. One of them, however, is declared by the groom to be a man he had met in the neighbourhood two days before; therefore it would seem as though the affair had been very carefully planned.”

      “Most extraordinary!” declared Bindo, while a chorus of surprise and horror went around the table. “And the boy is missing with the assassins?”

      “Yes; they have apparently taken him away with them. They say that there’s some woman at the bottom of it all—and most probably,” sniffed the old Colonel. “The foreigners who live here in England are mostly a queer lot, who’ve broken the laws of their own country and efface their identity here.”

      I listened at the open door with breathless interest as the old fellow discussed the affair with young Lady Casterton, who sat next him, while around the table various theories were advanced.

      “I met the man Latour once—one day in the summer,” exclaimed Mr. Molesworth, a tall, thin-faced man, rector of a neighbouring parish. “He was introduced to me at the village flower-show at Alconbury, when I was doing duty there. He struck me as a very pleasant, well-bred man, who spoke English perfectly.”

      I stood in the corridor like a man in a dream. Had I actually assisted the mysterious woman to abduct the child? Every detail of my adventure on the previous night arose vividly before me. That she had been aware of the terrible tragedy was apparent, for without doubt she was in league with the assassins. She had made me promise to deny having seenher, and I ground my teeth at having been so cleverly tricked by a pretty woman.

      Yet ought I to prejudge her when still ignorant of the truth, which she had promised to reveal to me? Was it just?

      Next day, making excuse that I wished to test the car, I ran over to the sleepy little village of Buckworth, which lay in a hollow about two miles from the sign-post where I had been stopped by Clotilde. “The Cedars” was a large, old-fashioned house, standing away from the village in its own grounds, and at the village inn, where I called, I learned from the landlord many additional details of how the three mysterious visitors had arrived in a station-fly from Huntingdon, how eagerly Mr. Latour had welcomed them, and how they had disappeared at nightfall, after accomplishing their object.

      “I hear it said that a woman is at the bottom of it all,” I remarked.

      “Of course we can’t say, sir,” he replied; “but a little while ago Mr. Latour was seen several times by men working in the fields to meet, down at Alconbury Brook, a rather handsome, dark young lady, and walk with her.”

      Was that lady Clotilde?

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