The Mysterious Mr. Quin

Mr. Quin settled himself more comfortably in his chair. A waiter, flying down the swinging car, deposited cups of soup before them as if by a miracle. Mr. Quin sipped it cautiously.

"You are about to give me one of those wonderful descriptive portraits of yours," he murmured, "that is so, is it not?"

Mr. Satterthwaite beamed on him.

"She is really a marvellous woman," he said. "Sixty, you know--yes, I should say at least sixty. I knew them as girls, she and her sister. Beatrice, that was the name of the elder one. Beatrice and Barbara. I remember them as the Barron girls. Both good-looking and in those days very hard up. But that was a great many years ago--why, dear me, I was a young man myself then." Mr. Satterthwaite sighed. "There were several lives then between them and the title. Old Lord Stranleigh was a first cousin once removed, I think Lady Stranleigh's life has been quite a romantic affair. Three unexpected deaths--two of the old man's brothers and a nephew. Then there was the Uralia. You remember the wreck of the Uralia? She went down off the coast of New Zealand. The Barron girls were on board. Beatrice was drowned. This one, Barbara, was amongst the few survivors. Six months later, old Stranleigh died and she succeeded to the title and came into a considerable fortune. Since then she has lived for one thing only--herself! She has always been the same, beautiful, unscrupulous, completely callous, interested solely in herself. She has had four husbands, and I have no doubt could get a fifth in a minute."

He went on the describe the mission with which he had been entrusted by Lady Stranleigh.

"I thought of running down to Abbot's Mede to see the young lady," he explained. "I--I feel that something ought to be done about the matter. It is impossible to think of Lady Stranleigh as an ordinary mother." he stopped, looking across the table at Mr. Quin.

"I wish you would come with me," he said wistfully." Would it not be possible?"

"I'm afraid not," said Mr. Quin "But let me sec, Abbot's Mede is in Wiltshire, is it not?"

Mr. Satterthwaite nodded,

"I thought as much. As it happens, I shall be staying not far from Abbot's Mede, at a place you and I both know." he smiled. "You remember that little inn, "The-- Bells and Motley'?"

"Of course," cried Mr. Satterthwaite--"you will be there?"

Mr. Quin nodded. "For a week or ten days. Possibly longer. If you will come and look me up one day, I shall be delighted to see you."

And somehow or other Mr. Satterthwaite felt strangely comforted by the assurance.

III

"My dear Miss--er--Margery," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "I assure you that I should not dream of laughing at you."

Margery Gale frowned a little. They were sitting in the large comfortable hall of Abbot's Mede. Margery Gale was a big squarely built girl. She bore no resemblance to her mother, but took entirely after her father's side of the family, a line of hard-riding country squires. She looked fresh and wholesome and the picture of sanity. Nevertheless, Mr. Satterthwaite was reflecting to himself that the Barrons as a family were all inclined to mental instability. Margery might have inherited her physical appearance from her father and at the same time have inherited some mental kink from her mother's side of the family.

"I wish," said Margery, "that I could get rid of that Casson woman. I don't believe in spiritualism, and I don't like it. She is one of these silly women that run a craze to death. She is always bothering me to have a medium down here."

Mr. Satterthwaite coughed, fidgeted a little In his chair and then said in a judicial manner--

"Let me be quite sure that I have all the facts. The first

of the--er--phenomena occurred two months ago, I understand?"

"About that," agreed the girl. "Sometimes It was a whisper and sometimes it was quite a clear voice but it always said much the same thing." "Which was?"

"Give back what is not yours. Give back what you have stolen. On each occasion I switched on the light, but the room was quite empty and there was no one there. In the end I got so nervous that I got Clayton, mother's maid, to sleep on the sofa in my room."

"And the voice came just the same?"

"Yes--and this is what frightens me--Clayton did not hear it."

Mr. Satterthwaite reflected for a minute or two. "Did it come loudly or softly that evening?" "It was almost a whisper," admitted Margery. "If Clayton was sound asleep I suppose she would not really have heard it. She wanted me to see a doctor. "The girl laughed bitterly.

"But since last night even Clayton believes," she continued.

"What happened last night?"