The Mystery Queen
Fergus Hume
Fergus Hume
The Mystery Queen
CHAPTER I
A STRANGE VISITOR
"A penny for your thoughts, dad," cried Lillian, suppressing a school-girl desire to throw one of the nuts on her plate at her father and rouse him from his brown study.
Sir Charles Moon looked up with a start, and drew his bushy gray eye-brows together. "Some people would give more than that to know them, my dear."
"What sort of people?" asked the young man who sat beside Lillian, industriously cracking nuts for her consumption.
"Dangerous people," replied Sir Charles grimly, "very dangerous, Dan."
Mrs. Bolstreath, fat, fair, and fifty, Lillian's paid companion and chaperon, leaned back complacently. She had enjoyed an excellent dinner: she was beautifully dressed: and shortly she would witness the newest musical comedy; three very good reasons for her amiable expression. "All people are dangerous to millionaires," she remarked, pointing the compliment at her employer, "since all people enjoy life with wealth, and wish to get the millionaire's money honestly or dishonestly."
"The people you mention have failed to get mine, Mrs. Bolstreath," was the millionaire's dry response.
"Of course I speak generally and not of any particular person, Sir Charles."
"I am aware of it," he answered, nodding and showed a tendency to relapse into his meditation, but that his daughter raised her price for confession.
"A sixpence for your thoughts, dad, a shilling-ten shillings-then one pound, you insatiable person."
"My kingdom for an explicit statement," murmured Dan, laying aside the crackers. "Lillian, my child, you must not eat any more nuts or you will be having indigestion."
"I believe dad has indigestion already."
"Some people will have it very badly before I am done with them," said Sir Charles, not echoing his daughter's laughter; then, to prevent further questions being asked, he addressed himself to the young man. "How are things going with you, Halliday?"
When Sir Charles asked questions thus stiffly, Dan knew that he was not too well pleased, and guessed the reason, which had to do with Lillian, and with Lillian's friendly attitude towards a swain not overburdened with money-to wit, his very own self-who replied diplomatically. "Things are going up with me, sir, if you mean aeroplanes."
"Frivolous! Frivolous!" muttered the big man seriously, "as a well-educated young man who wants money, you should aim at higher things."
"He aims at the sun," said Lillian gaily, "how much higher do you expect him to aim, dad?"
"Aiming at the sun is he?" said Moon heavily, "h'm! he'll be like that classical chap who flew too high and came to smash."
"Do you mean Icarus or Phaeton, Sir Charles?" asked Mrs. Bolstreath, who, having been a governess, prided herself upon exceptional knowledge.
"I don't know which of the two, perhaps one, perhaps both. But he flew in an aeroplane like Dan here, and came to grief."
"Oh!" Lillian turned distinctly pale. "I hope, Dan, you won't come to grief."
Before the guest could reply, Sir Charles reassured his daughter. "Naught was never in danger," he said, still grim and unsmiling, "don't trouble, Lillian, my dear. Dan won't come to grief in that way, although he may in another."
Lillian opened her blue eyes and stared while young Halliday grew crimson and fiddled with the nut-shells. "I don't know what you mean, dad?" said the girl after a puzzled pause.
"I think Dan does," rejoined her father, rising and pushing back his chair slowly. He looked at his watch, "Seven-thirty; you have plenty of time to see your play, which does not begin until nine," he added, walking towards the door. "Mrs. Bolstreath, I should like to speak with you."
"But, dad-"
"My dear Lillian, I have no time to wait. There is an important appointment at nine o'clock here, and afterwards I must go to the House. Go and enjoy yourself, but don't" – here his stern gray eyes rested on Dan's bent head in a significant way-"don't be foolish. Mrs. Bolstreath," he beckoned, and left the room.
"Oh!" sighed the chaperon-governess-com