The Lady of North Star
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“A penny for your thoughts, Joy.”
Joy prevaricated a little. “I was thinking what a strange coil life is!” she answered.
“In what way?”
“Well, the last person I spoke to, before I left North Star to come to England, was Roger Bracknell!”
“Roger Bracknell!” echoed her hostess in surprise.
“Yes, he is in the Mounted Police, and, in the way of duty, he came to North Star, three days or so before I left.”
“That is an odd coincidence,” was the comment. “What did you think of him, my dear?”
Joy answered with reserve. “He seemed to be very nice – a gentleman, you know.”
Her hostess smiled. “Yes, Roger is that – the right sort, as my husband would say. He, at any rate, will never disgrace the Bracknell clan, for he is at the opposite pole from his cousin Dick. What did he look like?”
“Like a mounter!” answered Joy quickly.
“A mounter! Don’t talk slang, Joy. Interpret, please.”
“Well,” answered Joy smilingly, “a mounter is a member of the Royal North West Mounted Police, who are as fine a body of men as you may find from one end of the Empire to the other.”
“And therefore Roger Bracknell is a fine man, hey?”
“He struck me as being so!” answered Joy composedly. Her friend glanced at her with shrewd eyes. “Hum!” she said. “You are very discreet, my dear Joy. Now you know that the truth is that Roger Bracknell is a man who takes the eye, a handsome man in fact, and why you should be reluctant to own up – ”
“Own up! What do you mean?” interrupted Joy, her face growing suddenly scarlet.
“Nothing,” laughed her friend, “except that Roger Bracknell is a man to whom few women could be as indifferent as you pretend to be. But I must cut this conversation short. There’s Adrian Rayner looking for you, and coming this way. I’ll send him on to you.”
“Please don’t,” cried Joy; but her hostess only laughed, and as she walked towards the young man Joy fled to her room.
Late into the night she considered the possibilities which had presented themselves to her mind at the mention of Roger Bracknell’s possible succession to Harrow Fell, and in the morning she rode to the post office in the neighbouring country town, and there dispatched two cablegrams, one to Roger Bracknell, care of the Police Commissioner at Regina, explaining to him the circumstances, and one to the Commissioner himself asking for the whereabouts of Corporal Bracknell, prepaying a reply. Three days later the reply reached her in London.
“Corporal Bracknell reported as missing. Supposed lost.”
When she received it, she was greatly distressed, and rather hurriedly made up her mind to return at once to North Star. Why she should do so, she did not make clear even to herself; and when Adrian Rayner pressed her for her reason, she was covered with confusion.
“Joy,” he protested, “you must not do anything so foolish. You have fulfilled the terms of your father’s will to the letter, and now your place is here in England. We all want you here! I want you more than any one else on earth. Do you understand?”
She gave him no reply to the question, but he explained further, leaving her no room for doubt. “I love you, Joy. I loved you when you were here in England three years ago. I loved you at North Star. I love you more madly than ever, now. Will you marry me?”
“I can’t,” she said. “Don’t press me, Adrian.”
“But why can’t you?” he asked ruthlessly. “At least you owe me a reason for refusal. I wonder if that reason has anything to do with this foolishness of returning to North Star.”
She was a little startled by the acuteness of his conjecture, and did not immediately reply. He smiled a trifle grimly, and then continued. “If it has, you can dismiss that reason from your mind for good. Dick Bracknell is dead.”
“Dick Bracknell! What – ”
Her voice faltered as she met his gaze. “Yes,” he answered. “Dick Bracknell, alias Koona Dick. He was your husband, wasn’t he? You married him down at Alcombe, didn’t you?”
“How do you know?” she asked quiveringly.
“That is a private matter,” he replied. “Just as your marriage was private; and just as the manner of your husband’s death must be kept private for the good of us all.”
“What … what do you mean, Adrian?” she asked in a trembling voice, her face ghastly with sudden terror.
“I mean that I know who shot Koona Dick,” he answered slowly.
“Oh!” she gasped, her hand over her heart in a wild endeavour to stay its fierce beating. “Oh! what – what – ”
“There is no need for you to be other than frank with me. I saw the whole thing. I saw you get that message. I followed you into the woods. You took a gun with you, and you hid in the trees where you could see your husband arrive. I saw the flame of your shot, and that same second Dick Bracknell fell in the snow. Mark you, I do not blame you. Dick Bracknell was worthless and – ”
“But oh!” sobbed Joy with horror in her face. “You are mistaken. It is not true. I never – ”
“Why try to bluff me, Joy? I say I saw you and if you were not the person who killed Dick Bracknell, why did you make no mention of what had occurred when you returned to the Lodge? That is not the way of innocence.”
Joy did not reply. Her face was buried in her hands and she was sobbing convulsively. Rayner looked at her with shrewd eyes, then after a moment resumed in an altered tone —
“As I have said, Joy, my dear, I do not blame you; I even went out of my way to help you that night.”
“You … you went – ”
“Exactly, I saw that policeman find Dick’s body, and afterwards leave it, and go towards the Lodge. I knew that things might be awkward if the truth came out, so I disposed of the body.”
“You disposed of the body?” She lifted her head suddenly, and through her tears looked at him incredulously.
“Yes,” he answered airily. “It is difficult to prove a crime if there is no evidence of it, so I removed the material evidence, to the utter confusion of any theory that Corporal Bracknell might have formed.”
“But how? What – ”
“I carried it away, and dropped it through an ice-hole in the river. It will never be found until the ice breaks up in the spring, and then it is not at all likely. I took a little risk, I know; but I did it for your sake, believe me, Joy, quite as much as for my own.”
“I do not understand how it affected you,” faltered the girl.
“Perhaps not,” answered Rayner suavely. “But you have heard the reason. I loved you. I wanted to marry you, even at that time I wanted you; for I recognized that you were distraught when you – ”
“Oh please! Please! Do not say it!” she cried.
“Very well,” he answered. “I will not. But you understand the position, and I think you will agree that knowing what I know there are not a great number of men who would wish to marry you.”
“And why should you?” she asked quickly.
“Again because I love you.”
She sat there in silence, staring absently at a vase of chrysanthemums on the table, and seeing them not at all. In her mind she was again living through the horror of that night at North Star, searching for something that would give the lie to Adrian Rayner’s statement. And suddenly she remembered something. That sled which had halted in the wood. Who had been with it? Her gaze moved quickly from the vase to her cousin’s face, and on it she surprised a cynical, calculating look that stirred deep distrust in her.
“You say you dropped Dick Bracknell’s body through the ice? It was rather a long way to the river. How did you get it there?”
For one second Rayner hesitated. He was not sure of the bearing of the question, but after the brief hesitation he answered, “I carried it, of course.”
Joy had marked the hesitation, and to her came the swift realization that he was lying. She marked his slim form, and remembered Dick Bracknell’s height and bulk, and the sudden conviction deepened. But she gave no hint of it to Rayner, who stood watching her, sure that he could bend her to his will. She offered no comment on his reply, but thoughtfully twisted a ring upon her finger, while her mind sought for a way out of her immediate difficulty.
“Well, Joy,” he asked, “you will marry me?”
She rose abruptly from her chair. “No,” she said on a sudden impulse. “Not on the evidence of Dick’s death that you offer. I cannot consider – ”
“You are not wise!” he interrupted. “You are in my hands, remember.”
“Oh, but you mistake me,” she cried. “I am not saying that I will never marry you. I am only saying that the evidence of Dick’s death is not sufficiently convincing.” She lifted a hand as he would have interrupted her. “No! Let me finish. When we left Corporal Bracknell at North Star, he knew that I was Dick’s wife, and he undertook to find out what had become of Dick’s body. There was some one else in the woods at North Star that night, some one who probably witnessed all that occurred. That person, I fancy, Roger Bracknell means to find. And when I have heard that man’s story – ”
“You shall certainly hear it, for I will find that man myself. I will drag him across the world to tell it to you.”
He spoke vehemently, passionately, but in his bearing there was something besides vehemence and passion. His face had gone white, and in his eyes was a furtive look. Joy noticed these signs, but gave no indication of having done so.
“You!” she cried, “you will go? What will you be able to do?”
“Yes,” he answered sharply. “I will go. I will do what your bungling corporal has not been able to do. I will bring you proof of Dick Bracknell’s death. I will find that man who was in the wood, if there was a man – ”
“There is no question of that,” she broke in. “I found his trail, and Corporal Bracknell found it too. I believe he followed it – ”
“Ah!”
The expression on Rayner’s face, as the interjection broke from him, was one of mingled chagrin and fear. Joy noticed it, and it set her wondering again. Then quite suddenly she remembered something. Roger Bracknell had asked her if Adrian Rayner knew of her marriage with her cousin. She had answered that he did not, but he had known all the time! The significance of the question had not made itself felt at the time, but now it broke on her with startling force, and Rayner saw that something had happened to which he had no clue.
“What is it?” he asked sharply.
“Nothing!” she answered evasively. “But in view of all the circumstances I think I shall return to North Star myself before long.”
He was about to reply when there came an interruption. Miss La Farge entered the room.
“The car is waiting, Joy, and we are behind time. We really must be going if Mr. Rayner can excuse you.”
“Right, Babette. Cousin Adrian was just about to go, as we have finished our discussion, I believe.”
Rayner nodded. “Yes,” he said. “We have finished, and I am going. But I shall see you again, Joy, very shortly, certainly before I go to the North.”
Joy nodded and making his adieu Adrian Rayner passed out of the room.
CHAPTER XIV
MISSING
“MR. RAYNER is going to the North?” questioned Miss La Farge.
“Yes, he is going to Canada – and so am I, as early as possible. You will not mind accompanying me, Babette.”
“Mind! I shall be more than glad to get back to the silent North. This noisy London gets on my nerves, and the smell of the streets is horrible. It is petrol everywhere. The place reeks of it, and after the aromatic spruce woods the air here is like poison. I shall rejoice to go, and to hear the bell of the moose again in place of hideous motor horns.”
She looked at Joy, as she spoke, and there was a question in her eyes. Joy nodded.
“Yes, I will tell you why we go. My cousin Adrian has just asked me to marry him – ”
“Indeed! But I am not surprised. The signs of the weather have been unmistakable for a little time. And of course he does not know of Dick Bracknell!”
“But he does! He has known all the time. He even stooped to use his knowledge so as to bring pressure upon me.”
“How shameful!”
“Yes! But that is of small moment. Don’t you see the significance of the fact that he had knowledge of my marriage? He was aware of it all the time, and as you know he made love to me. Even at North Star – ”
“Yes! Yes! But you do not think that he fired the shot which – ”
“I do not know what to think! I am going to find out. Of one thing I am sure, and that is that cousin Adrian is afraid of what Corporal Bracknell may discover. And Corporal Bracknell has disappeared. He may have learned much that I want to know, and something may have befallen him. He may even be dead, but if he is alive we must find him before Cousin Adrian does. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I think I do! You have grown afraid of what Mr. Rayner may do.”
“I do not trust him. I cannot after – ” She broke off. “I am my own mistress now. There is no need that I should consult any one as to my comings and goings. We will go down to the steamship offices at once. We will not waste even a moment.”
An hour later they entered the office of a famous shipping company in Cockspur Street, and there inquired for a boat sailing for the Dominion.
“There is the Argonaut. She sails from Liverpool in three days. I believe there are vacancies.” The clerk turned away and presently came back with a list in his hand.
“The accommodation is limited, I find. There are only a couple of cabins-de-luxe – ”
“We will take them!” said Joy promptly.
“Thank you! What names, Miss?”
The names were given, and within ten minutes the transaction was completed, and Joy left the office with the tickets in her handbag. Just as her car started a taxi approached from the opposite direction, almost collided with it, and it was only by a decidedly dangerous swerve that an accident was averted. The taxi-driver glanced round at his passenger as if expecting a rebuke, but to his relief the man was leaning far back in the corner as if anxious to avoid observation. The vehicle drew up at the shipping offices, and the passenger left the taxi and entered the offices. He was Adrian Rayner.
The clerk who had completed Joy’s business attended to him and listened to his request.
“Sorry, sir! The last two cabins on the Argonaut have just been taken. There isn’t a vacant berth in the ship.”
Rayner considered. He had not the slightest doubt that Joy Gargrave and her foster-sister had taken those cabins, for he had seen them leaving the offices. A dark frown came on his face, which the clerk misinterpreted for disappointment. An idea occurred to him.
“You are in a hurry, sir?” he inquired
“Yes,” answered Rayner shortly.
“Well, sir, if I may venture to suggest it to you, the Maple Leaf sails at six o’clock from Southampton. She is not a full boat, and if there is a train you might yet catch her.”
“Look at the time table, quick!” was the reply. The clerk obeyed. “There is a train in three quarters of an hour, sir. It is a slow train, but it is due in Southampton five and twenty minutes before sailing time. You should be able to do it easily, sir.”
“Then I’ll book a cabin, please. As quick as you can. I’ve some luggage to pack.”
A few minutes later he left the office, and raced to his chambers, where he kept the taxi waiting whilst he packed a small portmanteau. Then he rang up Sir Joseph Rayner at the office. It was the head clerk’s voice that replied.
“No, Mr. Adrian, Sir Joseph is out. He will not return today. Any message, sir?”
“Yes. Let him know somehow that I’m going to America this evening. Tell him I will write, and – er – Benson – remember that this piece of news is strictly private.”
“Yes, Mr. Adrian.”
He hung up the receiver, lit a cigar, and five minutes after was on his way to Waterloo.
…“What are you going to do, Joy, when we land?” As she asked the question, Miss La Farge turned from contemplating the greyness of the winter seascape and looked at her foster-sister.
“I am going straight through to Regina to find out if anything has been heard of Roger Bracknell. If they have no news of him at the barracks, then we will go North and ourselves try and learn what has befallen him. He may have news for me, as I certainly have news for him.”
“Do you mean that we shall set out to search for him?”
“Just that, Babette. We know that he was going up the river, and I have a fancy he was following a trail which I myself noticed. You and I know the country well, and with the Indian George, we could look for him. At least we may learn something about him.”
“Yes,” replied Babette thoughtfully. “And if we find him, as you say, he may have news. You may learn what really happened to your hus – ”
“Please! Please, Babette. Don’t call Dick Bracknell that. I can’t bear to think that I am bound to him at all.”
“No, and if he is dead, you are released! What do you really think, Joy?”
“I am in doubt. I have always been in doubt since that night. It was so strange that he should disappear. Sometimes I hope that – ” She stopped, and after a pause continued, “It seems too dreadful a thing to say, but I cannot help feeling it. Dick Bracknell behaved shamefully to me. Apart from all that has happened since, I can never forgive the humiliation of my marriage. It is the simple truth that I should be glad to know that I was free, even if it were by Dick’s death. But I cannot feel that he is dead. Something tells me that he is alive. That we shall yet meet – ”
“I devoutly hope not,” broke in Babette fervently, “for if we do I shall be tempted to – to – ”
“To what?” asked Joy sharply.
“To shoot him myself,” answered the other grimly.
“Babette!”
“Oh, you need not look so shocked,” continued Babette. “You and I have lived in the North, and we know that justice does not always follow the forms of law. And what is it that man Kipling says, ‘There’s never a Law of God or man runs North of fifty-three.’ We’re North of fifty-three at North Star, and a law unto ourselves. If Dick Bracknell is still alive, and came worrying you, I think that I could – ”
“Babette, you must not say it.”
“Very well, I will not. But all the same I feel that I could, for the man is worthless, mere vermin like the wolves in the North. And that woman Lady Alcombe, of whom you told me – ”
“She is dead! I learned that in England. She was killed in a motor accident.”
“It was too merciful an end for her!” said Babette quickly. “She ought to have lived to feel remorse gnawing at her heart day by day and hour by hour – ”
“Lady Alcombe was not the kind of woman to suffer that way,” said Joy slowly. “She had no heart… But here comes the rain. We shall have to go below.”
Nine days later Joy Gargrave walked across the snow to the headquarters of the Mounted Police at Regina, and asked, to see the Commissioner. He, as it appeared, was absent, and the only official immediately available was an inspector, a pleasant soldier-like man in the early thirties. To him she addressed her question.
“Can you tell me anything as to the whereabouts of Corporal Bracknell?”
The inspector looked up from her card, and flashed a keen glance at her, then shook his head.
“I am sorry, Miss Gargrave. We should be glad of news of Bracknell ourselves. He went on a journey several weeks ago, and a patrol that has come through the district where he was likely to be has heard nothing of him, though a sled was found which was unquestionably his. There were the bones of dogs also, so that things look rather black. The timber-wolves may have got him. Reports from two or three districts state they have been very savage this winter.”
Joy’s face went white, but she kept herself in hand.
“Still I suppose there is a possibility that he may have escaped?”
“A bare possibility,” answered the inspector in a voice that betrayed he had little hope. Then he asked suddenly, “I wonder why you wish to find him, Miss Gargrave?”
Joy flushed at the question which to her seemed to border on impertinence.
“It is a private matter,” she answered shortly.
“Please do not be offended, Miss Gargrave. I had a reason for asking. You are the second person to make inquiry about Corporal Bracknell this week.”
“Indeed?” said Joy, growing suddenly alert.
“Yes, a gentleman came here with the same question four days ago.”
“Did you see him? Would you mind telling me what he was like?”
The inspector laughed. “There is no reason why I should not, as it is not a police matter. I can do better than give you his description. I can give you his name, for I have his card somewhere.” He fumbled among some papers on the desk, and in a moment found what he sought. “Here it is! Adrian Rayner, Albany Chambers, London.”
“Adrian Rayner!”
As Joy echoed the name, the inspector glanced at her keenly. “You knew him?”
“Yes,” she replied slowly. “He is my cousin – ”
“Indeed!” said the officer politely, and then added, “Mr. Rayner was anxious to learn where Corporal Bracknell was, but on learning that Bracknell was missing, he did not seem greatly perturbed. I gathered that Mr. Rayner was a lawyer and that it was on legal business that he wished to see Bracknell.”
To Joy it seemed as if the inspector was openly fishing for information, and for one brief moment she hesitated. Should she take him into her confidence, and tell him all? She was strongly tempted to do so, but in the end decided against it.
“Yes,” she said, rising from her chair, “he is a lawyer, and as Corporal Bracknell’s cousin has been killed in England, it is possible that legal business had brought him here. I am greatly obliged to you, Inspector Graham.” She paused, and then added, “I have a little request to make. If you receive any news of Corporal Bracknell will you send it to me at North Star?”
“Yes,” answered the inspector. “But I am afraid you will be some time in receiving it.” He smiled. “As you know, it is something more than a crow’s flight from here to your home.”
“I was thinking of a special courier,” said Joy quickly. “There will be men to be found, and the expense is nothing to me.”
“Very well,” answered the inspector, “I will see that you get whatever news reaches us at the earliest moment! We of the force are too much indebted to your late father and yourself to refuse a trifling request of that kind. There is nothing else that I can do for you, Miss Gargrave?”
Again Joy hesitated. Should she tell him what she thought was the real object of Adrian Rayner’s journey? Sitting there in that quiet room, she suddenly felt that her suspicions would sound ridiculous if put into words. After all, she had so very little to go upon.
“Thank you! There is nothing.”
A moment later, Inspector Graham stood at his window watching her cross the snow. He smiled a little to himself.
“Um!” he muttered, “if Bracknell is still alive he is in the way of being a lucky fellow.”
Ten minutes later Joy found Miss La Farge in their room at the hotel.
“Babette,” she said, “we shall have to hurry. Adrian Rayner is already here. He is four days ahead of us. We must leave Regina within an hour.”
“Yes,” answered her foster-sister, “as Mr. Rayner is evidently in a hurry, we must hurry also. Is there any news of Corporal Bracknell?”
“None, except that his sled has been found.”
“Ah! That is bad, very bad!”
“You must not think that, Babette,” cried Joy a little wildly. “We must search. I will not give up hope. I will find him.”
Her voice quivered and broke, and suddenly she buried her face in her hands. Miss La Farge looked at her for a moment with eyes brimming with sympathy. Then she took a step forward and placed her hand on her foster-sister’s shoulder.
“Joy, my dear, what is the corporal to you?”
“To me,” Joy looked up with confusion in her bearing. “How can he be anything to me? How can any man – ”
“Yet if we do not find him, it will be very bitter?”
“As bitter as death!” answered Joy, hiding her face once more.
“Then we must certainly find him,” answered Miss La Farge gravely. “And by way of a start, I will talk to the clerk about trains.”
She turned and passed from the room, leaving her foster-sister in tears. After a little time Joy looked up. An absent gaze came in her tear-stained eyes.
“If I only knew!” she whispered to herself, “if I only knew!”
CHAPTER XV
AN ENCOUNTER AT THE LODGE