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It struck me as curious when, after leaving Tracy and Rayne together, I was driving the signorina across the moors to Overstow, that while he hesitated to allow Tracy to go there, yet it was safe for the young Italian woman. I knew that Benton was still making eager inquiries, and I also knew that Rayne was full of gravest apprehensions. Rudolph Rayne was playing a double game!
Arrived at the Gare du Nord, Lola was met by an elderly Englishwoman whom I recollected as having been a guest at Overstow, and after hurried farewells drove away in a car, while we took taxis across to the big hotel at the Gare de Lyon. There we dined, and at half-past eight joined the Marseilles express upon which was a single wagon-lit.
As for Rayne, he was often out shooting over neighboring estates, for he was a good shot and highly popular in the neighborhood, while at Overstow itself there was some excellent sport to which now and then he would invite his local friends. Rayne possessed a marvelous personality.
Slackening speed as we came near the lodge, I was about to stop to let Paul alight to open the gates, beyond which stretched the long winding avenue of tall trees, when a man came running out of the lodge and made haste to throw the gates open. My first surprise on our arrival at Overstow Hall and I was to have many more surprises before I had been long in Mr.
We arrived back at Overstow Hall just before midnight, and he and Duperré held a long conversation before retiring. Of its nature I could gather nothing. As for Lola, she retired at once very cramped and tired.
From Duperré, who arrived three days after I had got to Overstow, I gathered that Rayne had suddenly been called away to the Continent on one of his swift visits, "on a little matter of business," added Vincent with a meaning grin. We were smoking together in the great old library, when I told him of my narrow escape on Clifton Bridge. "Yes," he said. "Benton is always trying to get at us.
The whole of the following morning Duperré and Rayne were closeted together, while afterwards I drove Duperré into York, where from the telegraph office in the railway station he sent several cryptic messages abroad, of course posing to the telegraph clerk as a passing railway passenger. Rayne never sent important telegrams from the village post-office at Overstow, or even from Thirsk.
To both uncle and niece it presented fresh scenes such as neither had before seen, and I realized that old Mr. Lloyd had become brighter and far more cheerful than when with us at Overstow.
About noon I strolled with Rayne out along the wide terrace which ran in front of the house overlooking the great park, whereupon he said: "We'll leave here to-morrow, Hargreave. Duperré is at Overstow. Write to him this afternoon and tell him to send me a wire recalling me immediately upon urgent business." "We've finished here, eh?" I asked meaningly.
We had all spent a delightful time at Overstow. Rayne had given two big shoots at which several well-known Yorkshire landowners had been present, while I had taken a gun, and Lola, Madame and several other ladies had walked with us. Lola and I were frequently together, and I often accompanied her on long walks through the autumn-tinted woods.
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