Free The Bungalow Mystery by Annie Haynes Page B

he was stooping, trying to reach it.
    Roger stepped forward. He was about to speak, but something in his friend’s expression restrained him.
    Courtenay’s thin nervous face was contorted by an ugly sneer.
    As Roger hesitated, the lean, yellow hand clutched the white oblong packet and raised it triumphantly. Something fell out. It looked like a curl of yellow hair, Roger thought. Another moment he saw he was right. It was a lock of long, golden hair. It curled round Courtenay’s fingers like a living thing. With an oath he stooped forward, his face transformed by rage and aversion, loathing even, and held it up, still coiling and twining itself over his fingers. Then, with a shudder of horror, he hung it from him, right into the heart of the fire.
    Roger woke up suddenly to the fact that Courtenay had forgotten that he was in the room, that he believed himself to be alone. He stepped back, and caught his heel on some piece of furniture.
    Courtenay started; his face, convulsed as it had been by a very passion of emotion, smoothed itself out in a wonderful fashion.
    Roger was resolutely averting his eyes from the fire-place where, to his fancy, the shining curl was winding round the flames as it had twisted round Courtenay’s fingers.
    There was a faint smell of burnt hair in the air.
    â€œAh, yes. You are dining at the Rectory to-night, aren’t you? I’d forgotten.”
    Courtenay’s voice sounded very tired and far-away now. He leaned his head back against the cushions.
    â€œI should have a nap if I were you, old fellow,” Roger said quickly, as he made his way to the door. “Sleep over Duvarnois, and see what you think of him then.”
    â€œWell, it sounds absurd. I have been doing nothing but sitting in this chair all day, but I believe I am tired.”
    â€œAll right, old fellow. I will look you up presently.”
    Courtenay’s air of languor did not deceive Roger for a moment. He knew that as soon as the door closed behind him the head would be raised, all the exhaustion would disappear, and the invalid would give himself up to the contemplation of the memories that had been evoked by the sight of the gleaming golden hair.
    Roger could not help speculating as to whom it could have belonged; that some history was attached to it he could not doubt after the scene he had witnessed. For some time now, too, he had seen reason to doubt Courtenay’s attachment to Miss Luxmore. It seemed to him that, terrible though his injuries were, they formed no adequate reason for his refusal to even answer his former fiancée’s letters. Roger fancied that the yellow curl might explain much, and he felt a throb of pity for the girl who was herself so faithful.
    And then a startling thought came to him. Where had he seen such yellow hair before? Ah, he remembered only too well!
    Roger Lavington found his thoughts constantly wandering in the direction of Elizabeth Luxmore during the week that elapsed after the school-treat.
    Elizabeth Luxmore’s great dark eyes haunted him, her extraordinary likeness to the girl who had masqueraded at Freshfield as Zoe seemed so absolutely inexplicable. Sometimes Roger told himself that he must be the victim of some hallucination, that, unconsciously even, his thoughts must have reverted to the Bungalow murder, and that he had exaggerated some chance resemblance. It was impossible that Lord Luxmore’s daughter could be related in any way to the trembling, terrified girl he had found at The Bungalow.
    Nevertheless, the fact that he was asked to meet Lord Luxmore and his youngest daughter at the Rectory to-night was responsible for his acceptance of the invitation. Much as he disliked the Marchands, they greeted him effusively. There were a retired colonel and his daughter, and a couple of clergymen with their meek, shabby wives. Roger was introduced to each in turn, and gathered that, with the exception of the Luxmores, the party was now