“The Lezaire Mystery”

Thames Star, Volume LIX, Issue 16643, 13 November 1925, Page 3

“The Lezaire Mystery”

By MAJOR ARTHUR-GRIFFITHS. (Author of “The Brand of th e Broad Arrow,” Etc., Etc.)

CHAPTER VII. A FIRST PASSAGE OF ARMS. “You don’t'know boys, my dear Lady Lezaire, so well as I do,” St. Evelyn laughed again, and good-humouredly. “I'm ready to back my plan against yours any day.” Lady Lezaire gave him a look ol sour displeasure, but made no reply. “Come, Carysfort, and look at the nags. You shall try Sennacherib, if you like, round the yard.” “You are a brick Colonel —J like you,” cried Carysfort; “and we’ll have a talk with the keeper about the coverts. We might have a little pothunting, you and I, this afternoon.” “Carysfort, Mr. Lewisham” (a neighbouring curate, who came daily to perform the thankless and unprofitable task of teaching the young baronet) “will be here in half an hour,” said Lady Lezaire. “Have you prepared for him?” But Carysfort was already out of earshot, bounding lound St. Evelyn like a dog just let loose from his chain. Thev went out into the great courtyard, ‘on their way to the stable-yards beyond. Suddenly Carysfort left St. Evelyn’s side and ran off to slip his arm familiarly into that of another lad who was walking ahead of them. St. Evelyn came up with the two boys at the doorway of tha hunting stable. “This is Hubert,” said Carysfort, by way of introduction.

“6h!” remarked St. Evelyn, carelessly, but he bent his eyes keenly upon the new-comer. A slouching, slipshod youth, older probably than he looked; there was a strong line of black down upon hig upper lip, indicating that he might be three or four-ancl-twenty, even more, but his manner and appearance were those of sixteen. Round shoulders took from his height, which was about the medium; very small sharp features gave a childish look to a naturally small face. Straight wiry looking black hair straggled over a low projecting forehead, under which gleamed two black, shifty, restless little eyes, generally cast down, for their owner had a strong objection to look you in the face. His whole aspect—his loose undecided gait, his shy, shrinking manner, his weak and constantly averted face, and his sullen and abrupt speech —was decidedly unprepossessing. “Oh!” repeated St. Evelyn, “and what is Hubert’s other name?” “Hubert Podifat is my name,” said the youth, reluctantly, as though the admission was likely to harm him. “And, pray, what do you do with yourself by daylight?” went on the Colonel. Hubert Podifat hung his head, and looked stupidly stolid, as though he did not understand the question. “Hubert is my particular friend,” said Carysfort, answering for him. “We go about together, fishing, shooting, hunting, ratting—any larks. Hubert’s up to everything, I can tell you." “Is he?” said the Colonel, with rather a sneer in his tone; “but that will do for Master Hubert. Come, Carysfort, and look at the horses. We will have a saddle put on Sennacherib, and then you can try him.” Hubert Podifat slunk away, but he remained in the far corner of the yrrd while Carysfort and Colonel St. Evelyn were together, and the moment St. Evelyn turned to go back to the house he rejoined Carysfort with the eagerness of an insepjarable friend. The Colonel had been recalled by a

OUR SERIAL STORY

message to the effect that Lady Lezaire wished to speak to him. He found her in the library with a Hushed face. There was decided anger in her Tone when she began. “Can it be possible, Colonel St. Evelyn, that what Peters, my coachman ,tells me is true?” sho said,—“that you have taken upon yourself to alter arrangements I had made, and moved your horses into other stables?”

“It is perfectly true,” replied St. Evelyn, calmly. “Then may I ask how you dared—’ St. Evelyn interrupted her. “One moment, Lady Lezaire,” said he. “It is perhaps as well we should have an explanation. I should like to ask you at once whether you deliberately wished to put an affront upon me.” “I do not understand you.” “Has your treatment of us since we arrived been an affront —or worse? We come here as your guests-—your own daughter, and I, your son-in-law, —and what do we find? Although the Hall is absolutely empty, you lodge us in the worst rooms in the house ” “That is not the case,” interrupted Lady Lezaire, hotly. “Rachel has been making mischief.” “Every one knows that the tapestry room, where you put us, is only used when the house is quite full; and you are well aware, Lady Lezaire, that the apartment is especially distasteful to my wife.” “i am mistress here, and I will put my guests whore .1 choose,” said Lady Lezaire. “Quite so; but that does not remove the affront. Then as regards the stabling; there are no end of vacant stalls, —1 saw them with my own eyes this morning—yet you would have allowed my horses to run all sorts of risks in the very worst, the dampest, the darkest and most unwholesome stable at the Hall.” “1 never asked you to bring ycur horses down here.” “Pardon me! It was understood that I was to hunt, or I should never have presumed to look for mounts m vour stables.” “You have taken a great liberty, I think, and I must insist that you will not again interfere with any orders I may give,” said Lady Lezaire, hoping that the argument might now end. But St. Evelyn had more to say. “1 should not dream of setting up my authority against yours, but 1 repeat that I am entitled to more consideration than I have received. It is very unpleasant to me to have to assert myself, but 1 feel that I am .bound to do so if I am. to take mv propei place. I cannot look after your son’s interests if I am to bo treated fts a mere cipher You insist —so must I. “What do vou insist on?” asked Lady Lezaire,’a, little cowed by his masterful tone. “On not being humiliated and made to appear small before all the servants and retainers. I have not come down here as a poor relation, to pick up the crumbs and be satisfied with any small scraps of civility that you may throw to me. T claim to be of some consequence at the Hall, and I must insist upon being so treated.” “It is quite a mistake to suppose that, T wish to affront you,’ said Lady Lezaire. now quite crestfallen. “I am quite ready, T assure you, to do anything in my power to make your stay pleasant.” “Thank you extremely, Lady Lezaire. I will take you at your word. Perhaps you will tell the housekeeper to move us into the blue suite in the south wing; as to my horses, I have

; seeu to them already.” i Thus, in her first engagement with I her, son’s guardian, Lady Lezaire had 1 tried to stand to her guns, but had : been utterly worsted in the fight. | CHAPTER VJII. I HUBERT’S PARENTAGE. ! Colonel St. Evelyn was well received in the county. He got a good character in the county as a shrewd, sensible man of business, and this gained him the good will of the Lord Lieutenant, who, as soon as. it was possible, placed him on the Commission of the Peace. St. Evelyn lost no time i» appearing at sessions, and sat regularly on the bench; he-freely offered himself for committees on jails, highways, lunatic asylums, anything and everything in which he might be useful, and liis services were gladly accepted. He was soon known and appreciated as an excellent county magistrate, practical, fairly well informed, and never afraid of hard work.

The popularity he speedily won was, however, more particularly traceable to liis thoroughly sportsmanlike character. One of his first acts on arrival at the Hall was the transmission of a substantial cheque to the Master as his subscription to the hounds. This was followed by his appearance in the hunting-field, admirably mounted and turned out, at the very first meet after he camp down; and from that time he rode well to the front on every possible occasion. They liked this in the county. The Thorpe hounds were a little too near to town, and the neighbourhood was apt to he inundated by Londoners, who were often keener and better mounted than members of the hunt. Thus any one who, like St. Evelyn, was ready to maintain the sporting reputation of the resident gentry, was sure to lie approved of.

Again, St.. Evelyn, who bv degrees had established an ascendency over Lady Lezaire which she was powerless to resist, had arranged several shoot-ing-parties in the young baronet’s name, at which the neighbouring squires were made free of the Straddlethorpe coverts in a liberal fashion that had long been unknown. St. Evelyn was generally voted a good sort of chap, and a decided acquisition to the county. , One day there was a large dinnerparty at the Hall. The hounds had drawn blank that afternoon at no a”'at distance from Straddlethorpe, and two or three men who were to stay at the i Hall had ridden over there with St. ! Evelyn. Young Sir Carysfort was with them. On arriving at the stables 1 lie had jumped off his horse and had run quickly across to where Hubert Podifat was standing, waiting for him, as it seemed. The bov slipped his arm into that of his friend, and they went off together in close confabulation. “Who’s that chap?” asked old Mr. Etherly of Etherly—a hard-riding, red-faced country squire, who had lived all his life in the Thorpeshire country. / i “A fellow named Hubert Podifat, or some such name,” replied the Colonel. “I know nothing about him, except that he is far too thick with Carysfort Lezaire to please me.*’ 5 “He’s still hanging about here, then? How strange!” “Who is he? Where does he come from? Do vou know him?” i

“Of course. Don’t you? It was a great mistake, I always said, allowing him to run about the Hall. But Lezaire : —Sir Percy, I mean—the last baronet, i you know, always took his own wav.” ;

“But, my clear Mr. Etherly, you haven’t told me who this Hubert Podifat is.”

“That’ll keep, Colonel. To-night, in the smoking-room, you shall hear. This place is too public.” Late that night, when ofi] Mr. Etherly had at least one bottle of ’34 port under his belt, and was enveloped i in the smoke of a full-flavoured “par- 1

taga,” St. Evelyn reminded him of his promise. . • “Hubert Podifat,” said Mr. Etherly, rolling his cigar round in his mouth, “is the putative son of Podifat, who was under-keeper here in Sir Percy’s time.” “Putative? Who was liis real father, then?” “No one knows for certain. But 1 never had the smallest doubt that 'the honour belonged to Sir Percy Lezaire.” “Can it be possible? And the mother?” “There was the mystery. No one ever saw her, or heard of her even. Sir Percy. must have kept his liaison uncommonly close. When Podifat came to live at Straddiethorpe—he had the North Lodge—-he was called a widower. He certainly brought no wife with him—only this one brat of a bov.” “Hubert?” “Precisely. He was a rank black--guard, was Podifat, who had knocked up and down the world a great deal in his time—in America, Canada, everywhere—an idle, drunken, good-for-nothing rogue, who lounged in the alehouse all day, and was the secret ally of poachers by night.lt was a wonder that Sir Percy put up with him for an hour. That was what raised suspicions, in fact.” “It was thought that the fellow had some hold over Sir Percy, I suppose?” “Just so. You see, Straddiethorpe in those days was as well managed a place as any in the shires, and Sir Percy would not have tolerated such a disreputable person as Podifat, not for hour, if he had been a able to help himself. “But there must have been moro reason than that for imputing the boy’s parentage to Sir Percy.” “The notion was first put about I _ believe.- by the man Podifat. He was a garrulous, gossoping, scandalous scoundrel, and for a long time no one thought much of what he said. But tlie fellow was so persistent ; his story never varied, so that people began to think there was something in it.” “Particularlv when taken in connection with Sir Percy’s forbearance?” “Exactly Then something else cropped up to justify the first suspicions. Podifat went utterly to the bad. He was apprehended on a serious charge—night poaching .complicated with manslaughter—and he left the country, not entirely of his own accord.” “As a convict, in fact?” (To he continued.'