The Secret of the Tower   By: Anthony Hope (1863-1933)

BY ANTHONY HOPE

1919

AUTHOR OF "THE PRISONER OF ZENDA," "RUPERT OF HENTZAU," ETC.

CONTENTS

I. DOCTOR MARY'S PAYING GUEST

II. THE GENERAL REMEMBERS

III. MR. SAFFRON AT HOME

IV. PROFESSIONAL ETIQUETTE

V. A FAMILIAR IMPLEMENT

VI. ODD STORY OF CAPTAIN DUGGLE!

VII. A GENTLEMANLY STRANGER

VIII. CAPTAIN ALEC RAISES HIS VOICE

IX. DOCTOR MARY'S ULTIMATUM

X. THAT MAGICAL WORD MOROCCO!

XI. THE CAR BEHIND THE TREES

XII. THE SECRET OF THE TOWER

XIII. RIGHT OF CONQUEST

XIV. THE SCEPTER IN THE GRAVE

XV. A NORMAL CASE

XVI. DEAD MAJESTY

XVII. THE CHIEF MOURNERS

XVIII. THE GOLD AND THE TREASURE

CHAPTER I

DOCTOR MARY'S PAYING GUEST

"Just in time, wasn't it?" asked Mary Arkroyd.

"Two days before the the ceremony! Mercifully it had all been kept very quiet, because it was only three months since poor Gilly was killed. I forget whether you ever met Gilly? My half brother, you know?"

"Only once in Collingham Gardens. He had an exeat , and dashed in one Saturday morning when we were just finishing our work. Don't you remember?"

"Yes, I think I do. But since my engagement I'd gone into colors. Oh, of course I've gone back into mourning now! And everything was ready settlements and so on, you know. And rooms taken at Bournemouth. And then it all came out!"

"How?"

"Well, Eustace Captain Cranster, I mean. Oh, I think he really must have had shell shock, as he said, even though the doctor seemed to doubt it! He gave the Colonel as a reference in some shop, and and the bank wouldn't pay the check. Other checks turned up, too, and in the end the police went through his papers, and found letters from well, from her, you know. From Bogota. South America, isn't it? He'd lived there ten years, you know, growing something beans, or coffee, or coffee beans, or something I don't know what. He tried to say the marriage wasn't binding, but the Colonel wasn't it providential that the Colonel was home on leave? Mamma could never have grappled with it! The Colonel was sure it was, and so were the lawyers."

"What happened then?"

"The great thing was to keep it quiet. Now, wasn't it? And there was the shell shock or so Eustace Captain Cranster, I mean said, anyhow. So, on the Colonel's advice, Mamma squared the check business and and they gave him twenty four hours to clear out. Papa I call the Colonel Papa, you know, though he's really my stepfather used a little influence, I think. Anyhow it was managed. I never saw him again, Mary."

"Poor dear! Was it very bad?"

"Yes! But suppose we had been married! Mary, where should I have been?"

Mary Arkroyd left that problem alone. "Were you very fond of him?" she asked.

"Awfully!" Cynthia turned up to her friend pretty blue eyes suffused in tears. "It was the end of the world to me. That there could be such men! I went to bed. Mamma could do nothing with me. Oh, well, she wrote to you about all that."

"She told me you were in a pretty bad way."

"I was just desperate! Then one day in bed the thought of you came. It seemed an absolute inspiration. I remembered the card you sent on my last birthday you've never forgotten my birthdays, though it's years since we met with your new address here and your 'Doctor,' and all the letters after your name! I thought it rather funny." A faint smile, the first since Miss Walford's arrival at Inkston, probably the first since Captain Eustace Cranster's shell shock had wrought catastrophe appeared on her lips. "How I waited for your answer! You don't mind having me, do you, dear? Mamma insisted on suggesting the P.G. arrangement. I was afraid you'd shy at it."