Collected works of j s f.., p.810
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 810
Charlesworth nerved himself to the task of seeing or endeavouring to see Miss Torrance and made his way through plantations of pine and larch to the great buildings on the hillside. He was soon lost in a maze of quadrangles, courts, and what not, but eventually a friendly gardener showed him the way to the head-mistress’ lodge. And there, upon reflection, he sent in to Miss Torrance, enclosed in an envelope, his official card. He had an idea that this would gain him an audience, and he was not mistaken. Within a few minutes he was shown into a waiting-room and told that Miss Torrance would come to him — and almost at once Miss Torrance came.
Charlesworth inspected Miss Torrance with deep interest: it seemed to him that any woman who could run an establishment of that size and extent must be a truly remarkable specimen of her sex. And in expecting to see something remarkable, Charlesworth was not disappointed. Miss Torrance was one of those women who in certain circumstances become heads of great religious communities, and in others of big businesses, and in still others, of vast movements: she was the type that controls, organizes, rules. But Charlesworth saw that she was approachable.
“You have read, of course, Miss Torrance, of the mysterious death of Sir Charles Stanmore, of Aldersyke Manor, recently?” he asked when he had apologized for calling without an appointment. “I am engaged in attempting to clear up the mystery, and from certain information that has come into my hands, I believe that you can give me some assistance. May I ask a direct question? Did you ever know Sir Charles Stanmore?”
Miss Torrance, who had been inspecting her visitor with an air of interest, bowed her head at once.
“Yes!” she answered. “Quite well, at one time. I knew him as the guardian of a girl we had here for four or five years — Irene Fawdale.”
“Your reply simplifies matters a good deal, Miss Torrance,” said Charlesworth. “You perhaps saw that Miss Fawdale’s name occurred in the newspaper accounts of Sir Charles Stanmore’s death?”
“I saw that she was referred to as Sir Charles’ secretary,” replied Miss Torrance. She smiled a little. “I was rather surprised at that!”
“Why, may I ask?” inquired Charlesworth.
“From my recollection of her, and my knowledge of her acquirements, I shouldn’t have thought Irene Fawdale capable of discharging the duties of secretary to anyone!” answered Miss Torrance, still smiling.
“Not — accomplished enough?” suggested Charlesworth. “Not clever enough?”
“Oh, she was clever enough! But — well, that is my impression. I don’t exactly identify her with what one means when one uses the word secretary. Perhaps she developed secretarial qualities after leaving me.”
“I am particularly anxious to get all the information I can about Miss Fawdale,” said Charlesworth. “It — it is necessary. Anything you can tell me will be treated as a confidential communication, Miss Torrance. To begin with, was she placed at your school by Sir Charles Stanmore?”
“Yes — oh, yes. Sir Charles Stanmore came to me some little time before he brought her here and made all the necessary arrangements.”
“Did he tell you who she was?”
“Yes. He said she was his ward. Her father and mother were dead. The father, I understood, had died either before she was born or soon after; the mother, too, had not long survived Irene’s birth. I forget the exact details, but that is the impression I have. The father and mother had been friends of Sir Charles Stanmore, and he had charged himself with the care of the child.”
“And I suppose he paid the cost of her education here?”
“Oh, yes! My recollection is that he spent a great deal of money on her. She had everything she wanted — that is, everything she was permitted to have, here. In the holidays I should say she had a great deal more than any girl of that age ought to have. But I had nothing to do with that — she spent her holidays with Sir Charles Stanmore.”
“You think he spoilt her?”
“I am sure of it. I used to tell him so, but it had no effect. He came here to see her so often that I had to stop that. It was difficult — he struck me as being the sort of man who will have his own way.”
“I’m given to understand that he was, Miss Torrance. I’m also told that Miss Fawdale is a good deal like that. Did you notice it?”
Miss Torrance turned the rings on her white fingers, looking sidewise at them. “Oh, well!” she replied. “If you really want to know what I thought of Irene Fawdale, especially as she grew older, I will tell you. She was a very masterful, self-opinionated, and in a certain degree, intensely selfish girl, who allowed nothing to come between her and her desires, if she could help it, and I think Sir Charles Stanmore, instead of trying to eradicate this side of her character, helped to develop it. I warned him of that, too, but he only laughed at me. From what little I saw of him, I think he was rather a strange man.”
“He certainly did some strange things,” agreed Charlesworth. “But Miss Torrance, there is another and a very important question that I want to ask you. You say that Miss Fawdale was here four or five years? I’m told that she was about eighteen or nineteen years of age when she first went to live at Aldersyke Manor, and that she went there from your school. So — she would be about fourteen when she came to you. But — where had she been before? Who, if her father and mother were dead, had brought her up? Do you know anything about that?”
“Yes,” replied Miss Torrance, readily. “I do! Irene Fawdale, from three years old was entirely brought up by a clergyman and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Penney. Mr. Penney is vicar of Chandow St. Martin, in Kent.”
“Was she placed with them by Sir Charles Stanmore?” asked Charlesworth, “or were they relations?”
“That I do not know,” said Miss Torrance. “All I know is that she had lived with them and been educated by them from a mere child of three until she came here. Sir Charles Stanmore told me that much himself; as for Irene, I never remember hearing her mention them.”
“Odd, that, wasn’t it, Miss Torrance?” suggested Charlesworth. “You’d have thought she’d have some recollections — —”
“It wasn’t odd — in her,” interrupted Miss Torrance. “Irene Fawdale, during the time I knew her, showed herself to be an unusually self-centred young person. There was but one being in the world for her — herself!”
“I gather that you didn’t like her?” said Charlesworth.
“Frankly, I didn’t!” replied Miss Torrance, candidly. “Though I had no complaint to make as regards her conduct. She kept the rules of the school, and did her work, and there was nothing against her. But I formed my own opinion of her character and that was that she was selfish and egotistical to an unusual degree.” She paused, with an inquisitive smile. “And now,” she continued, “as I have told you all I know, tell me something, if you please. What is all this about? For you are, you tell me, a detective, — a detective — eh?”
“I told you that there is a great deal of mystery centring in Sir Charles Stanmore’s death, Miss Torrance,” replied Charlesworth. “According to the medical evidence he was poisoned — and there’s nothing to show that he poisoned himself!”
“Then — murder?” questioned Miss Torrance.
“Something uncommonly like it!” said Charlesworth. “Yes — probably murder!”
“You don’t surely suspect Irene Fawdale?” exclaimed Miss Torrance. “Her — benefactor!”
Charlesworth shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know whom to suspect!” he answered. “There were two or three people in the house who could have poisoned Stanmore, but in each case there seems every reason why he or she shouldn’t! It’s got to be solved, however, and one thing helps another. As regards Miss Fawdale, I want to know who she is. Will you oblige me with Mr. Penney’s full address, ma’am? — I must try him next.”
He went away with the clergyman’s address in his pocket and finding that Chandow St. Martin was easily accessible from his present whereabouts went on there by an afternoon train and towards evening presented himself at the vicarage door. And here after sending in his professional card he found as speedy admittance as at Rithendene and presently was in the presence of an elderly man who regarded him with even more curiosity than Miss Torrance had shown, and so far from being reticent at once betrayed an eagerness to talk which made Charlesworth wonder; Charlesworth, indeed, had no chance of asking questions before Mr. Penney began to ask them himself.
“Have you called on me in relation to this Sir Charles Stanmore case?” he asked, as he pointed his visitor to a chair. “I see you are of the detective force. Just so! — we have read a great deal about the case in the newspapers — most mysterious, and if I may say so, most interesting! And extremely interesting to my wife and myself, because we have seen Miss Irene Fawdale’s name mentioned. Now Miss Fawdale, as a child, was in our care for some years!”
“So I have been given to understand, sir, and that is why I called on you,” said Charlesworth. “I am doing all I can to clear up the mystery of this case, and I want to know all I can get to know about Miss Fawdale’s antecedents — —”
“You don’t mean to say that you suspect her!” exclaimed Mr. Penney. “Dear, dear! — that would be a most terrible thing! Her guardian — —”
“I can’t say that Miss Fawdale is suspected, sir,” interrupted Charlesworth. “But there is a mystery connected with the exact relations of Miss Fawdale with Sir Charles Stanmore which, if solved, may throw some light on the circumstances of his death. I hear — I heard, as a matter of fact, from Miss Torrance of Rithendene School — that Irene Fawdale lived several years in your house, as a child. That is so, I suppose?”
“That is so — quite right,” assented Mr. Penney. “She was in our care from the time she was three years old until she was fourteen, when Sir Charles Stanmore removed her to Rithendene. I will tell you the circumstances. At the time Irene Fawdale came to us, my wife and I had one child — our only child, to be exact, for we have never had another — who was then nearly four years of age. We thought we should like our little daughter to have a companion of her own age; this, as you see, is a very lonely, out-of-the-way place, and there were no children in the village of whom she could make playmates. There was also — I am being very frank with you, because of your profession — a monetary consideration. This is not a rich living — far from it! — and I was not a rich man. We thought that if we could get a little girl to share our own little one’s home and be educated with her by a first-class governess, it would be to the mutual advantage of — ourselves and whoever came into the arrangement. So we inserted an advertisement in The Times, saying what we wanted and what we offered. It was answered, almost at once, by Sir Charles Stanmore.”
“In his own name?” inquired Charlesworth.
“Oh, certainly — in his own name! The letter, I remember, was written from his office in Lincoln’s Inn Fields — I have a very good memory. Well, I replied to him, and he came down to see us. He told us that he was guardian of a little girl of three whose father and mother were both dead and that what we offered was exactly what he wanted for her. I may as well tell you that he was most generous about terms — as a matter of fact he increased the amount which we had named, saying that we were too modest, and that he wished the child to have every care and attention. We exchanged references, the matter was settled, and within a week or two Sir Charles brought Irene to us — to this house. She was then, as I say, three years old. Sir Charles had told us that her father and mother had died in France, and that she had spent the three years of her infancy in France. But we were no little surprised considering her English parentage to find, on her arrival, that the child did not know one word of English! She could only speak French!”
CHAPTER XVII. THE ROSEWOOD DESK
THERE WAS SOMETHING in Mr. Penney’s manner as he spoke these last words which attracted Charlesworth’s attention, and he looked at his informant inquiringly.
“You seem to think that a curious circumstance, sir?” he said. “Now, as the child had been brought up in France, it seems to me a natural consequence. Probably she’d never heard English spoken.”
“But — of English parentage?” replied Mr. Penney. “And we know that Sir Charles had visited her from time to time in France — why had he never talked English to her?”
“Most likely because he spoke French as well as he spoke English,” said Charlesworth, smiling. “Reasonable explanation, I think, sir!”
“Well, well!” said Mr. Penney. “We thought it a very strange thing that a child born of English parents should know nothing of its own language! However, there was the fact. Irene did not know one word of English. But with her came a French nurse-maid, a superior sort of woman whom Sir Charles had engaged in Paris to look after the child. At his special request, and of course at his expense this woman remained here three years. Now there was another matter that we thought strange. This nurse, Aimée Forart, knew nothing whatever about the child’s antecedents! All she knew was that a few days before Sir Charles Stanmore brought her and the child over to England he engaged her services in Paris, through an agency. He interviewed her at some fashionable hotel there, was very particular about her attainments and references, offered her what we considered almost absurdly high wages, and extracted a promise from her that she would remain with Irene in England for at least a year. As a matter of fact she remained three.”
“Doing her duty, no doubt, sir?” suggested Charlesworth.
“She was certainly a very admirable servant,” assented Mr. Penney in his simplest manner, “and, I am bound to say, relieved us of a great deal of responsibility: we were sorry when she left, for she was a woman of very good manners who spoke Parisian French perfectly, with a really cultured accent, and our own little girl learnt that language from her to such purpose that her French is, as one might say, that of a native. Oh, yes — this arrangement was a very good one.”
“And, I suppose, while your little daughter was learning French from the nurse, Irene was learning English from the governess engaged by you and Mrs. Penney?” suggested Charlesworth.
“Ye-es!” replied Mr. Penney, dubiously. “Irene, of course, picked up English, but I am bound to say that, first, she was very slow in doing so, and second, she appeared to have a curious dislike to the language, and in fact, to anything English. We thought that odd, in view of the fact that her parentage was English. The truth is that the child, I suppose because she’d passed her first three years in France, seemed to be French to the core! It was difficult to think of her as English.”
Charlesworth was beginning to grasp the worthy clergyman’s limitations. But he wanted more information.
“Well, sir,” he said, “Miss Irene Fawdale remained with you until she was fourteen years of age. She was growing up by that time. What was your impression of her character? What remains in your mind about her?”
Mr. Penney shook his head, sadly.
“I regret to say that as years passed on, Irene did not improve upon acquaintance,” he said, with a mournful inflection. “She was a very wilful child, and her wilfulness increased rather than lessened. She was selfish, too — her selfishness, indeed, was her worst feature. And, I think, ungrateful. Of her ingratitude, I can give you a marked example. My wife, our daughter and myself always showed Irene the greatest kindness, and, as far as she would permit it, affection, all the time — eleven years, remember! — that she was with us. Yet, from the moment in which Sir Charles Stanmore removed her from our care and took her to that of Miss Torrance, she never wrote any one of us one letter or remembered us in any way! She was — I must use a quite new-fashioned term — self-centred.”
Charlesworth made no comment on this; it was all of a piece, he reflected, with what he had already heard from Miss Torrance. He rose to go.
“So you know nothing whatever, sir, of Irene Fawdale’s antecedents before she came to you?” he asked as a last question. “Nothing?”
“Nothing!” replied Mr. Penney.
“Nor from where in France she was brought to you?”
“Only that Sir Charles Stanmore brought her and the nurse, Aimée Forart, from Paris.”
“Did the child never mention the name of any place she’d lived in?” suggested Charlesworth. “You say that Aimée Forart first saw her in a fashionable hotel in Paris. But whence had she come?”
“I cannot say!” replied Mr. Penney. “She may have spoken of some place she had known and of people she had known to her nurse, but you see neither Mrs. Penney nor myself speak the French language, so we shouldn’t understand. No! — beyond what I have told you I know nothing.”
Charlesworth returned to town, and next morning called on Gilford, to whom in confidence he communicated the result of his labours — so far.
“Um!” observed Gilford, cynically. “That, to me, sounds like the first chapter of a queer story! But you know I never knew Stanmore as a young man. Never knew him — personally, I mean — at all until I entered into partnership with him twenty years ago. There’s one thing strikes me, however, about this story of yours, Charlesworth. According to what Stanmore told these people you’ve been interviewing, this girl, Irene, was the orphan daughter of one Fawdale and his wife. Now the other day, being a bit curious about certain things, I turned up Stanmore’s record in the Baronetage — he was the second baronet, you know; his father got the baronetcy for some civic business or other, I forget what — and I found out that Stanmore’s mother, the first Lady Stanmore, was a Miss Fawdale. Here you are,” he continued, reaching across his desk for a portly volume. “There it is! His mother, you see, was Georgina Fawdale, only daughter of Samuel Fawdale, of Climpingwell Park, Dorsetshire. So — no doubt this girl is, as he made out, some relation, of whom he was left in charge.”
