: The Turnpike House by Hume Fergus - England Fiction; Murder Investigation Fiction; Mystery fiction

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rms tore along at a furious rate. She did not know where she was going; she had no goal. All that she desired was to get away from the thing which lay in the darkness of that poor room. Horror was behind her; danger before. And she ran on, on through the mists and the gloom, pursued by the Furies. Like hounds on the track, they drove her along the lonely roads until the mists swallowed her up; and these, growing ever more dense, blotted out the woman, blotted out the country, blotted out the Turnpike House. But what they could not blot out was that silent room where a dead man lay. Better had they done so; better had they obliterated that evidence of evil from the face of the earth. But what had been done in the darkness had yet to be shewn in the light; and then--but the woman fled on wearied feet, fled, ever fled through the gloom, and the friendly mists covered her escape.

And so did the ruined Turnpike-House become possessed of its legend. For many a long year the horror of it was discussed beside winter fires. The place was haunted, and the ghost had walked first upon that very night, when the woman, bearing the child, had fled away into the darkness.

It was Christmas-time, many years after the events narrated in the previous chapter, and the snow not only lay thick on the ground but was falling heavily from a leaden sky. A strong wind which rose with the coming of the night drove through the leafless trees of the park and clashed iron music from among their frozen boughs.

Beyond the red brick wall which encircled Hollyoaks Park the frozen road ran straight to the village of Westham, and the one street of that hamlet was crowded with people returning homeward laden with purchases for the next day.

But if it was wintry out of doors, within the mansion of Mr. Cass all was colour and warmth and tropical leafage. The merchant's mother had been an Andalusian, and perhaps some far-off strain of Moorish blood had constrained her son to build his house on Moorish lines. When Mr. Cass, some twenty years ago, had bought Hollyoaks from the decayed county family who then owned it, the manor-house had been but lately destroyed by fire. The purchaser found a pleasant country, a beautiful park, but no place where he and his family could lay their heads. So he proceeded to erect what the countryside called "Cass's Folly"--a true Moorish dwelling-place such as one finds in Seville and Cordova. A series of low buildings clustered round a central court, or, as it would be called in Spain, a patio. This, in deference to the English climate, had been roofed in with glass and turned into a winter garden. The roof was protected against the elements by a close iron frame-work, which was yet sufficiently open to admit the light. But it is rarely that the sun shines with full strength in the Midlands; so it happened that this garden was usually pervaded by a fascinating twilight.

This large space was filled with tropical foliage; palms rose tall and stately from an undergrowth of oddly-shaped plants with serpentine and hairy foliage interspersed with brilliant flowers. What with the diapered pavement, the white marble pillars of the corridor, and all this tropical fecundity, the spectacle was brilliant and strange to English eyes.

This striking interior, however, made a special appeal to the emotions of a tall, slim young man who was seated in a lounging-chair beside the pool. He had arrived from London only two hours before, after an uncomfortable journey in the cold. He remembered his last Christmas spent at Hollyoaks, when he had arrived much about the same time and had been greeted with the same splendour. Then he had been a stranger; now he was well known to the Cass family, best of all to the youngest daughter of the house. But where was she now? Why was she not here to greet him?

His colour came and went now as he thought of the girl he was about to meet, the girl who was all the world to him. He tugged nervously at his small golden moustache, and his blue eyes blinked at the dazzling colours of the flowers. But there was something about the boy--for he was no more than twenty-three--which brought conviction that his spirit was more manly than his looks would have one believe. His air was resolute; his figure, though slim, was athletic; yet withal he was nervous and emotional in the extreme. And, after all, this was how it should be, for Neil Webster's fame as a violinist of rare promise was well known. Already he had made a name for himself both in England and America.

With such a temperament it was not wonderful that he should love Ruth Cass, who also was of a highly sensitive nature. Neil thought of her now with an intensity inspired by the memory of the joy she had been to his appreciative eye when, last Christmas, he had seen her for the first time.

As the young man sat there wrinkling his brows in the effort to recall completely the memory of Ruth's first appearance, a side door opened and she herself appeared. With light steps she stole forward, and laying her gloved hands upon his eyes she laughed out of sheer joy.

"Who is it?" she asked, gaily. "I give you three guesses."

Neil turned, took her hands and kissed them. "As if I needed more than one," he said, with light reproach. "I should not be a true lover did I not guess your presence even without seeing you."

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