William Le Queux
"The Sign of the Stranger"
Chapter One.
The Advent of the Stranger.
The shabby stranger seated himself familiarly in a nook beside the wide-open chimney of the tap-room, and stretched out his long thin legs with a sigh.
“I want something to eat; a bit of cold meat, or bread and cheese—anything you have handy—and a glass of beer. I’m very tired.”
The village publican, scanning the stranger’s features keenly, moved slowly to execute the command and lingered over the cutting of the meat. The other seemed to read the signs like a flash, for he roughly drew out a handful of money, saying in his bluff outspoken way—
“Be quick, mister! Here’s money to pay for it.” The meal was very nimbly and swiftly placed before him; and then the landlord, with a glance back at me seated in his own little den beyond, turned off the suspicion with a remark about the warmth of the weather.
“Yes, it is a bit hot,” said the stranger, a tall, thin, weary-looking man of about forty, from whose frayed clothes and peaked hat I put down to be a seafarer. “Phew! I’ve felt it to-day—and I’m not so strong, either.”
“Have you come far, sir?” deferentially inquired the innkeeper who, having taken down his long clay, had also taken measure of his customer and decided that he was no ordinary tramp.
The other stopped his eating, looked Warr, the publican, full in the face in a curious, dreamy fashion, and then sighed—
“Yes, a fair distance—a matter of ten or eleven thousand miles.”
The landlord caught his breath, and I noticed that he looked still more earnestly into the stranger’s weather-beaten face.
“Ah! maybe you’ve been abroad—to America?” he remarked, striking a match and holding it in his fingers before lighting his pipe.
“I have, and a good many other places as well,” answered the tramp thoughtfully, resting and trying the point of the knife on the hard deal table before him. “I’m a wanderer—I am, but, by Jove!” he added, “it is real good to see these green English fields once again. When I was out yonder I never thought I’d see them any more—these old thatched houses, the old church, and the windmill that generally wants a sail.”
“You speak as though you know Sibberton—” the landlord said, and then he stopped uneasily.
The customer, who saw in an instant that his slip of the tongue had nearly betrayed him, answered—
“No, unfortunately I don’t. I—well, I’ve never been in these parts before.” And from where I stood I detected by the man’s keen, dark eyes that he was not speaking the truth. The innkeeper, too, was puzzled.
“This place seems a pretty spot,” the shabby wayfarer went on. “How far is it to Northampton?”
“Twelve miles.”
The stranger sighed, glanced across at the old grandfather clock, and went on eating. There was silence after this, broken only by the buzzing of the flies against the window close to him, and the placing or adjusting of the tumblers which Warr had gravely begun to polish.
“Let’s see,” remarked the stranger reflectively at last, “if this is Sibberton, the old Earl of Stanchester lives here, I suppose?”
“He did live here, but he died a year ago.”
“And young Lord Sibberton has come into the property—eh? Why, he must be one of the richest men in England,” the fellow remarked with something of a sneer.
“They say he is,” was Warr’s reply.
Mention of the name of Stanchester caused me to prick my ears, for I had been private secretary to the old Earl and was now acting in that same capacity to the young man who had recently succeeded to the estates.
“And his sister, the fair one—Lady Lolita they call her—is she married yet?” inquired the half-famished man.
“No. She still lives with her brother and his wife up at the Hall.”
The stranger grunted, and I noticed that he smiled faintly for the first time, but just at that moment he turned and catching sight of my back through the half-opened door, started slightly and appeared to be somewhat embarrassed.
Why did he make that inquiry regarding Lolita, I wondered? My father, Sir George Woodhouse, having been an intimate friend of the old Earl’s, and his aide-de-camp when he was Viceroy of India, I had been taken into the latter’s confidential service as soon as I came down from Cambridge, and for the past ten years had lived as a careless bachelor in a pleasant old ivy-covered house at the end of the village, being treated more as one of the Stanchester family than as the millionaire landowner’s confidential secretary. The present Earl had been at Cambridge with me, and there was a strong bond of friendship between us.
