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Title: Behind the bronze door
Author: Le Queux, William
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Behind the bronze door" ***
BEHIND THE BRONZE DOOR
[Illustration: Thoroughly frightened, she turned away as the sound of
the weird knocker shattered the ghostly stillness.]
BEHIND
THE BRONZE DOOR
BY
WILLIAM LE QUEUX
AUTHOR OF “THE VOICE FROM THE VOID”
FRONTISPIECE BY
G. W. GAGE
NEW YORK
THE MACAULAY COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1923,
BY THE MACAULAY COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE EPIDEMIC OF MYSTERY 9
II HUSBAND, WIFE--AND ANOTHER 17
III THE HIDDEN SCANDAL 30
IV THE BRONZE FACE 41
V BEHIND THE DOOR 52
VI CORA HARTSILVER’S CONFESSION 61
VII CONCERNS “DEAR JESSICA” 72
VIII IN WHICH A DISCOVERY IS MADE 81
IX BEFRIENDING A REPORTER 91
X A PARAGRAPH FOR THE PAPERS 104
XI HUSH MONEY 112
XII YOOTHA’S PRESENTIMENT 122
XIII BOX NUMBER THIRTEEN 133
XIV CONCERNS A NECKLACE 142
XV SOME CROOKED QUESTIONS 153
XVI GATHERING CLOUDS 163
XVII “NOBODY MUST KNOW” 173
XVIII WHAT DR. JOHNSON KNEW 182
XIX WITHOUT A STAIN 194
XX CONCERNS A RUMOR 205
XXI THE LITTLE HORSES 215
XXII ANOTHER MYSTERY MAN 226
XXIII A FRIEND INDEED 236
XXIV THE TIGHTENING GRIP 247
XXV THE CITY OF SMILES 257
XXVI SUNSET LOVE 266
XXVII AGAINST THE WIND 276
XXVIII NUMBER FIFTEEN 286
XXIX A MESSAGE FROM YOOTHA 291
XXX BLENKIRON’S NARRATIVE 301
XXXI CONCLUSION 307
BEHIND THE BRONZE DOOR
BEHIND THE BRONZE DOOR
CHAPTER I.
THE EPIDEMIC OF MYSTERY.
“Isn’t this terrible, Henry? Where is it going to end?”
“Isn’t what terrible?--and where is what going end?”
“Why! Haven’t you read to-night’s paper?”
“No.”
“Here it is; read that!” and handing her husband the _Evening
Herald_ Mrs. Hartsilver indicated with her finger a paragraph in the
“stoppress” headed: “Another Society Tragedy,” and stated that a
well-known baronet had been found shot in his bedroom in circumstances
of great mystery.
Certainly the series of tragedies which had taken place during the past
eight months in what is called “Society,” had been most puzzling.
First, Lord Hope-Cooper, the fifth peer, held in high esteem by all
his friends and acquaintances, owner of Cowrie Park in Perthshire,
Leveden Hall in Warwickshire, and one of the finest houses in Grosvenor
Square, had drowned himself in the beautiful lake at Cowrie, apparently
for no reason and without leaving even a note of farewell for Lady
Hope-Cooper, with whom he was known to be on the best of terms--they
had been married eight years.
Then Viscount Molesley, a rich bachelor of three-and-twenty, an owner
of thoroughbreds and well-known about town and in sporting circles,
had been found shot in his bedroom one morning, an automatic pistol on
the floor beside him, and in the grate the ashes of some burnt papers;
apparently he had shot himself after receiving his morning letters.
Following close upon these tragedies had come the sudden death of
the Honorable Vera Froissart, Lord Froissart’s younger daughter, in
mysterious circumstances. She had been found dead in the drawing-room
in her father’s house in Queen Anne’s Gate, and at the inquest the
jury had returned a verdict of “death due apparently to shock.” Then
the death of a rather notorious ex-Society woman, Madame Leonora
Vandervelt, who had been divorced by three husbands--she had thrown
herself out of a fourth-floor window at a fashionable West End hotel.
Then the death by poisoning of an extremely prosperous stockbroker of
middle-age, owner of two financial journals. And after that four or
five more tragedies of the same nature, the victim in nearly every case
being a man or woman of high social standing and large income.
“Exactly the way Molesley made away with himself,” Henry Hartsilver
observed dryly as he laid down the paper after reading the report of
the discovery of Sir Stephen Lethbridge’s body in his bedroom at Abbey
Hall in Cumberland.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“You may think me hard and unsympathetic, my dear,” he went on,
addressing his wife, “but these people who make away with themselves
leave me cold. Such tragedies don’t excite my pity--they arouse in me
only a feeling of contempt.”
He paused, then continued:
“Now, look at me. _You_ know how I began life, though I sometimes try
to forget it, as I hope others do. My parents were poor, and I received
only a moderate education; but I had grit and determination and I won
through. And look at me to-day. All who know me look up to and respect
me. I’m a self-made man and not ashamed to own it, though I don’t crow
about it on the housetops as some of these plebeians do. Though I come
of the people, I pride myself on being one of Nature’s gentlemen, and
what can you want more than that--eh? We can’t choose our parents, or
I might have chosen parents like yours, my dear--blue blood through
and through. And that was one reason why I married you. I think I have
told you this before. I made up my mind when I was still a lad that the
woman I made my wife should be a lady in the true acceptation of that
often misapplied word, and the first time I met you--you remember that
day, eh, my dear?--I recognized the type, and then and there I decided
that you were the lady for me!”
He lay back in the big arm-chair, slipped his thumbs into the armholes
of his waistcoat, and looked at his young wife with an expression of
extreme self-satisfaction.
“But, Henry,” she said, wincing, “what has all that to do with this
calamity? You forget that I knew poor Stephen Lethbridge. Abbey Hall is
close to my old home, and Stephen and I were children together. I can’t
help feeling upset.”
“I understand that quite well, but the feeling is one you ought to
fight against, my dear Cora. A man who deliberately commits suicide,
no matter what his social status may be, and no matter what the reason
or reasons may be which prompt him to commit the rash act, is guilty
of a grave wrong, not to himself alone, but to the whole of the
community. Heaven knows I have had difficulties, almost unsurmountable
difficulties, to contend with in my time, yet the bare thought of
self-destruction never entered my imagination.”
Henry Hartsilver had been married three years. A common, self-centered
person, endowed with exceptional shrewdness and with considerable
commercial acumen, he had begun life as a jerry-builder in a small
country town. Then war with Germany had been declared, and realizing at
once what so many failed to realize, namely that such a war must last
for years at least, Hartsilver had seized the opportunity he saw spread
out before him of amassing money quickly and in large lump sums by
securing by divers means building contracts for our Government.
Thus, long before the war ended, he found himself a rich man. Then,
anxious to gratify his second ambition, he set to work to look about
for a woman of good social standing to become his wife; the thought
that any woman to whom he might propose might decline the honor of
marrying him did not occur to him.
Consequently he was not surprised, nor did he appreciate the
honor conferred upon him, when the only surviving daughter of a
well-connected country gentleman accepted his offer of marriage. True,
the war had reduced her already impoverished father almost to penury,
and in addition both her brothers had been killed in action early in
the war, so that when she accepted him she felt that she did not now
much care what became of her. Her mother had been dead many years, and
her father she literally worshipped. What she never admitted, even to
herself, though in her heart she knew it to be the truth, was that by
marrying Henry Hartsilver she would be able to provide her father with
a comfortable income in his declining years. And since his sons’ death
he had aged very rapidly.
Hartsilver was now in his forty-sixth year, his wife just
seven-and-twenty. They had no children, but that did not prevent
Hartsilver’s everlasting complaint to his wife that he considered
himself deeply aggrieved at the Government’s neglect in failing to
confer a title upon him.
“Just think, my dear,” he had said to her more than once, “what you
would feel like if I made you ‘my lady!’ Shouldn’t we be able to crow
it over our friends, eh? And to think of the sums I gave to war
charities! Well, we must live in hope!”
Fortunately his wife’s tact, possibly also the sense of humor which
she possessed, prevented her from becoming annoyed with him when he
spoke like that, and making the sarcastic rejoinder which she sometimes
longed to utter. Though she could not accuse herself of having married
him for his money, that being the last thing she cared about, she yet
felt that she had in a way married him under false pretenses, for
certainly she knew that, but for her anxiety to add to her father’s
happiness and comfort, this common, self-satisfied, and self-righteous
person was one of the last men she would have linked herself to for
life.
Presently he spoke again.
“You know, my dear Cora,” he said, linking his fingers across his ample
chest, “although of course, it distresses me that you should grieve for
this man Lethbridge, yet I don’t quite appreciate your feeling what I
can only suppose is a sort of affection for the fellow--you, a married
woman. Somehow it seems--it seems not quite the right thing. A woman,
when she marries, should have no thought for other men, at least of all
thoughts of a--er--friendly nature. Now, consider for a moment, and
tell me if your better nature does not tell you so itself.”
Cora Hartsilver winced, but her husband did not notice it. He did
notice, however, when a moment later she smiled.
“You seem amused, my dear,” he said dryly. “May I ask what amuses you?”
“Oh nothing, Henry, nothing at all,” she answered quickly, then bit her
lip. “It was only something I happened to think of just then.”
“Ah, then it was something. Then why say it was ‘nothing?’ You should
always be truthful, Cora, always absolutely truthful, in even the
smallest matters. And what did you ‘happen to think of just then?’”
“I can’t remember now. It’s gone. Anyway it was nothing of consequence.
May I have that paper again, Henry?”
“Certainly,” he answered, shrugging his shoulders. Then, as he handed
it to her, he said:
“Tell me what you know about Sir Stephen Lethbridge. I know him only by
name.”
“Well, I have not seen him for a year or two,” she replied carelessly.
“Indeed, I think not since our marriage. He came to the wedding, if you
remember.”
“I don’t remember. But go on.”
“He was in the Gunners. He went out to France in 1914, and was home on
sick leave when we were married. He used to be rather fond of me, I
believe.”
Henry’s mouth opened. He stared at his wife in astonishment.
“Really, Cora----” he began, but she went on without heeding him.
“I heard not so long ago that he had got into rather a bad set.
Somebody told me that the things he had seen out in France seemed to
have unsettled his brain--I know that happened in other cases too.
But he was a man who would never, I am quite sure, have done anything
dishonorable. Oh, I wish I knew,” she exclaimed, carried away by a
sudden emotion. “I do wish I knew what made him kill himself!”
“I wouldn’t worry about him, my dear Cora, if I were you,” her husband
remarked coldly. “Probably he was mentally unsound, mad--‘potty’ as the
boys say, Those scenes in the trenches must have been extremely trying.
And yet--had I been younger and able to join the colors----”
He stopped and stared. Cora, lying back on the settee, was laughing
hysterically.
CHAPTER II.
HUSBAND, WIFE--AND ANOTHER.
Cora Hartsilver was preparing to go out next morning, when she was told
that “Miss Yootha Hagerston would like to see her.”
“Oh, ask her to come up!” she exclaimed. “And Jackson----”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“If Mr. Hartsilver should come in while I am out, he had better be told
that I shall not be in for lunch.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Jackson, the maid, went downstairs with a look of mild amusement in her
eyes. She had been in the Hartsilvers’ service two years, and was fond
of expressing her opinion to the other servants on the subject of what
she called her master and mistress’s “matrimonial _mésalliance_.”
“I give them another year,” she had observed to the cook only the night
before, “and that will see the end of it. However a lady like her came
to marry that--that old woman of a husband of hers fair beats me.”
“Not so much of the ‘old woman,’” the cook had answered sharply--she
showed signs of age herself. “But I do agree with you, Mary,
nevertheless. Ah, well, the old feller’s got the money-bags, and that
goes a long way when it comes to marryin’, I always says. I never did
hold with these love and cottage matches, nor I never shall. I’ve had
some of it, I can tell you, and I have told you before now, but seein’
as my poor old man lies in Carlisle churchyard, _nil nisi bonus_. Isn’t
that how they put it? And he had his good points for all he was poor as
a rat, that I will admit.”
Yootha Hagerston was one of Cora’s oldest and dearest friends, the one
friend, indeed, of whom she had for years made an intimate confidant.
Yootha was not married, but that was not due to any lack of suitors,
for the proposals she had had were numerous. She was a very pretty
girl, about two years younger than Cora: tall, slim, extremely
graceful, and with a face full of expression. She was one of those
girls who attract through their personality rather than by the beauty
of their features. The look in the large intelligent eyes betrayed her
temperamental nature. She lived alone in an unpretentious flat near
Knightsbridge, which she had taken two years before, after leaving her
home near Penrith owing, as she put it, to the “impossible sort of life
my people expected me to lead, boxed up in the country and with nothing
on earth to do.” The truth was that her stepmother disliked her, and
that her father was intemperate. Yootha was the youngest of three
children; her two brothers were serving oversea.
When she entered Cora’s bedroom, Cora came forward and kissed her
fondly.
“You dear thing,” she exclaimed. “I am so glad you have come. I have
not seen you for a week. Where in the world have you been?”
“Oh, my people have been in town. You know what that means.”
“Indeed I don’t! Your people? You mean your father and mother?”
“Stepmother, if you please,” Yootha corrected. “For goodness’ sake
don’t insult my mother’s memory. Yes, they both came up unexpectedly,
and for what do you think?”
“I give it up.”
“To try to persuade me to go home!” and Yootha laughed merrily. “Can
you see me back in the old homestead with its memories of my happy
childhood’s days, and by contrast the atmosphere which prevails there
now? No, thank you! And why do you think they wanted me back again,
Cora?”
“Oh, stop asking conundrums.”
“Because some busybody has been telling my father that the way I live
in my bachelor flat is not _comme il faut_, if you please, and so he
thinks--or says he thinks--that I may end by bringing the family name
into disrepute. Just think of that! Now, if you ask me, I will tell you
what I believe the true reason is. On my twenty-fifth birthday I come
into some money from a defunct aunt, my father’s only sister--quite a
nice little sum safely invested--and I am pretty sure my stepmother
hopes to induce me to make over a portion of the nest egg to her, or
to my father. You have no idea how amiable she was, and my father too.
Couldn’t make enough of me or do too much for me. The money comes to me
in five months’ time.”
“But didn’t they know before that you would inherit it?”
“Apparently not. I knew nothing about it myself until a few weeks ago,
and I purposely didn’t tell you then because the lawyer who wrote to
me--he is a friend of mine--asked me to say nothing about it just yet.
He told me about it more or less in confidence--said he thought I might
like to know.”
“So you are not going back to Cumberland?”
“My darling Cora, what a question!”
“Oh, I am glad!” Hartsilver exclaimed. “I don’t know how I should
live if you went away. You are the only friend I have; you are, really.
Tell me, did your father or mother--I beg your pardon ‘stepmother’--say
anything about Stephen Lethbridge? You have read about the tragedy, of
course.”
“Indeed I have, and I at once thought of you. Yes, they were full of it
last night. My father said he saw Stephen less than ten days ago, and
was struck by the change that had come over him.”
“How--‘change’?”
“He said he looked years older than when he saw him a month ago, and
he mentioned the fact to my stepmother at the time. Then he said that
strange-looking people had been staying at Abbey Hall lately.”
“Men or women?”
“Men. There were rumors, too, my father said, that Stephen had become
financially embarrassed.”
“Really? But he was so well off, or supposed to be.”
“I know. That adds to the mystery. I suppose there was a woman, or
women, in the case. I see in to-day’s paper that an inquest will be
held.”
Cora did not answer. She was staring out of the window towards Regent’s
Park--the house was in Park Crescent--with troubled eyes, as though her
thoughts were miles away.
“Don’t fret, Cora,” her friend said at last. “I know you were fond of
him, and that he was fond of you, but----”
“Oh, don’t, don’t speak like that,” Mrs. Hartsilver exclaimed hastily,
pressing her fingers to her eyes. “It is all too terrible, I can’t
bear to think of it; and yet I can’t help thinking about it and
wondering--wondering----”
Yootha Hagerston encircled her friend with her arm, and kissed her
warmly.
“I know--I know,” she said in a tone of deep sympathy. “No, we won’t
talk about it. Did Henry refer to it at all?”
“Henry!”
The tone betrayed utter contempt, almost hatred.
“Oh, yes, Henry referred to it all right. At least I drew his attention
to the report in last night’s paper, and--oh, you should have heard
him! I felt I wanted to scream. I longed to strike him. He has no
heart, Yootha, no sympathy for anything or any one. I wonder sometimes
why I go on living with him. He said he felt only contempt for any man
who took his life, no matter in what circumstances!”
Like many another, Henry Hartsilver had succeeded in supplying himself
with petrol during the war, and as his limousine sped slowly down Bond
Street a little later that morning with his wife and Yootha Hagerston
in it, officers home on leave who noticed it wondered if people at home
actually realized what was happening on the Western front.
“More profiteers’ belongings!” a captain in the Devons, limping
painfully out of Clifford Street, observed grimly. “I sometimes wish
the Boches could land a few thousand troops here to give our folk a
taste of the real thing. Who’s that they are talking to? I seem to know
his face.”
For the car, after slowing down, had stopped owing to the traffic
congestion, and a tall, good looking, well-groomed man who could
not have been more than seven-and-twenty, had raised his hat to its
occupants and now stood on the curb, talking to them.
“Know him!” the officer’s companion answered; he was a gray-haired man
who looked as if he had been a sportsman. “Probably you do know him--I
wonder who doesn’t. It’s Archie La Planta, one of the most popular men
in town, some say because he’s so handsome, but I expect it’s largely
because he is such a good matrimonial catch.”
“Why isn’t he serving?”
“Oh, ask me another, Charlie. Why are half the youths one meets not
serving? They’ve managed to wangle it somehow. Haven’t you ever met
him?”
“Not to the best of my recollection. You see, I’ve been in France three
years. But I am sure I have seen him somewhere.”
“Here he comes. I’ll introduce you. He knows everybody worth knowing,
and is quite an interesting lad.”
La Planta was about to cross the street, when he caught sight of his
friend on the pavement, hesitated an instant, then waited for his
friend and the wounded officer to come up.
“’Morning, Archie,” the man exclaimed who had told Captain Preston who
La Planta was. “Preston, let me introduce Mr. La Planta.”
The two men bowed formally to each other.
“Archie, who are those two ladies to whom you were talking, if you
don’t mind my asking?” his friend said a moment later.
La Planta told him.
“You must have heard of Henry Hartsilver,” he added. “You won’t find
a list of contributors to any public war charity in which his name
doesn’t appear--mind, I emphasize the _public_. Mrs. Hartsilver is his
wife, a charming woman.”
“Oh, that bounder,” the first speaker observed. “Yes, I know all about
him; one of our profiteers!”
“Exactly, and a quite impossible person in addition. Which way are you
going?”
The three progressed slowly, owing to Preston’s limp, along the
pavement, in the direction of Piccadilly. Preston hardly spoke. He was
almost morose. The reason was that La Planta’s personality repelled
him. Why it repelled him he could not explain. It was one of those
natural repulsions which all of us have experienced regarding certain
persons, and that we are at a loss to account for.
“Where are you both lunching?” La Planta asked as they approached
Piccadilly.
“Nowhere in particular,” Preston’s companion, whose name was Blenkiron,
replied.
“Well, why not lunch with me at the Ritz, and I’ll introduce you to
Mrs. Hartsilver and her friend. They have promised to meet me there
at one o’clock. It is about the only place where one can get anything
decent to eat. You will find both ladies charming.”
It was then noon, and La Planta, saying that he had an appointment at
his club, left them after arranging that they should all meet at the
Ritz at one.
“I am not attracted by the fellow,” Captain Preston remarked some
moments later. “I would sooner have lunched with you alone, George. Who
and what is he?”
Blenkiron shrugged his shoulders.
“What he is, we know--a man of leisure and of fortune. Who he is,
whence he comes...?”
He made an expressive gesture.
“And, after all, what does it matter? Who knows who half the people are
whom one meets everywhere to-day? They can afford to do you well, they
do do you well, and that is all that most people care about. Though ‘La
Planta’ is not precisely a British name, the man looks, and evidently
is an Englishman. He has a great friend, indeed, two great friends, who
are almost always with him. Profane people have nicknamed the three
‘The Trinity.’ One is a man called Aloysius Stapleton, the other is a
young widow--Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson, a perfectly lovely creature; heaven
knows what her dressmaking bills must come to.”
“Or who pays them?”
“Charlie, that is unkind of you, what the women call ‘catty.’ Why
should we conclude that she doesn’t pay her own bills?”
“And why should we conclude that she does? Well, I shall be interested
to meet Mrs. Hartsilver at lunch presently. I don’t think I have ever
before met the wife of a profiteer.”
In spite of the Food Comptroller’s regulations, the luncheon supplied
at the Ritz lacked little. It was the second day of our great
offensive, August 9th, 1918, but a stranger looking about him in the
famous dining-room, where everybody seemed to be in the best of spirits
and spending money lavishly, might have found it difficult to believe
that men were being shot down, mangled, tortured, and blown to pieces
in their thousands less than two hundred miles away. Captain Preston
thought of it, and of the striking contrast, for that morning he had,
while at the War Office, listened on the telephone to the great
bombardment in progress. And that perhaps was the reason he looked
glum, and why he was, as Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson afterwards remarked to
La Planta as they drove away together, “a regular wet blanket right
through the whole of lunch.”
Aloysius Stapleton, though not distinguished-looking, was one of
those men who, directly they begin to talk, rivet the attention of
their hearers. Forty-two years of age, he did not look a day over
thirty-five, and in addition to being an excellent conversationalist,
his knowledge of men and women was exceptional. He had traveled several
times round the world, or rather, as he put it, zig-zagged over it more
than once. He appeared to possess friends, or at least acquaintances,
in every capital in Europe, also in many American cities and in far-off
China and Japan. The only country he had not visited, he observed that
day at lunch, was New Guinea, but he meant to go there some day to
complete his education.
“Were you ever in Shanghai?” Preston inquired carelessly, looking him
straight in the eyes across the table. As this was only the second time
Preston had spoken since they had sat down to lunch, everybody looked
towards him.
“Yes,” Stapleton answered, meeting his gaze. “I was there twice, some
years before the war.”
“I stayed there several months in 1911,” Preston said, “and I believe I
met you there. Your face seemed familiar to me when I was introduced to
you just now----” he was about to add that he had just remembered it
was in Shanghai he had seen La Planta before, but he checked himself.
“Were you there in the autumn, and did you stay at the Astor Hotel?”
Stapleton asked.
“I did, and in the autumn.”
“Then no doubt we did meet, though I can’t at the moment recollect the
occasion.”
For a couple of seconds the two men looked hard at each other. It was
rather a curious look, as though each were trying to read the other’s
character. The conversation was changed by Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s
saying suddenly:
“What is everybody going to do after lunch, I wonder?”
And then, as nobody seemed to have any fixed plans, she went on:
“Why don’t you all come to a little party I am giving? Just a few
intimate friends. We shall play bridge, and several well-known artists
will come in later and have promised to sing. It would be nice of you
if you would all come.”
There was a strange expression, partly cynical and partly of contempt,
in Captain Preston’s gray eyes as Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson stopped
speaking. The sound of the terrific slaughter which he had listened
to an hour or two before, and which must be in progress still, he
reflected, rang again in his ears. And here in London, in the London
which, but for the heroism of our troops and their allies, and the
unflagging watchfulness of the nations’ navies, might already have been
running in blood, these people, especially Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson and
her friends Stapleton and La Planta, seemed to have no thought except
for amusement and for themselves.
“Good heavens,” he muttered, as presently they all rose from the table.
“I wish the Boches could get here just to show them all what war and
its atrocities are like! Well, perhaps they may get here yet.”
The only member of the party who had really interested him had been
Cora Hartsilver, and that was due perhaps to the fact that La Planta
had told him that she had lost her brothers in the war. Yootha
Hagerston, too, he had rather liked; the “atmosphere” surrounding
both these women was quite different he at once realized, from the
“atmosphere” of Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson and the men who, so Blenkiron had
told him, were her particular friends.
And yet, before he had been long in Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s beautifully
appointed house in Cavendish Square, its luxury and the sense of ease
and comfort the whole of her entourage exhaled began to have its effect
upon him. He was not a card-player, but music at all times appealed to
him intensely, and as he lay back among the cushions in a great soft
arm-chair which Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson had specially prepared for him,
and listened with rapt attention to Tchaikowsky’s wonderful “None but
the Weary Heart,” sung with violin obligato, those thoughts of the
horrors he had witnessed “out there,” which so perpetually haunted
him, faded completely from his mind, and even the dull, throbbing pain
in his injured leg became for the time forgotten.
At last the music ceased, and he became conscious of conversation in
subdued tones at his elbow. The speakers were late arrivals, and as he
caught the name “Hartsilver” his attention became focused on what was
being said.
“A terrible affair--and his wife over there, talking, knows nothing
about it as yet.”
“When did it happen?”
“About midday. It must have been premeditated, because when he was
found dead in his bath he had opened an artery with a razor.”
CHAPTER III.
THE HIDDEN SCANDAL.
During the nine months which had passed since Henry Hartsilver had been
found dead in his bath, many things had happened. The war was over, and
people were already beginning to forget the discomfort, for some the
misery, of those five long years. In London the wheels of life, their
spoke having been removed, were slowly beginning to revolve once more.
The thousands who had “done their bit,” and become impoverished in
consequence, were many of them cursing the impetuosity which had led
them to forget their own interests in their anxiety to help to avenge
the outrages in Belgium and France, and to save their own country from
possible disaster. On the other hand many thousands of men and women
who before the war had been struggling small traders, now contemplated
with a feeling of smug satisfaction their swollen bank balances, and,
while thanking heaven there had been a war, began to adopt a style
of living which, though it ill became them, gratified their vanity
enormously.
“I ’aven’t reelly decided if me boy shall go to Eton or to ’Arrow,” was
the observation Captain Preston had overheard while inspecting cars
at the motor exhibition one afternoon in late April, and the remark
had made him metaphorically grind his teeth. For he detested the war
profiteers as a race almost as deeply as he hated “conscientious”
objectors. Indeed, since the war had ended he had regretted more than
ever that the Huns had failed to land here.
The London season was now beginning, and the traffic congestion in the
streets was admitted by all to be greater than at any period before
the war. Enormous cars blocked the main thoroughfares, sometimes for
hours at a time, yet everywhere was talk of poverty among people of
education and of culture, who a few years previously had been in good
circumstances. And among the many rich people in the West End few now
entertained more lavishly than Aloysius Stapleton and the man who
seemed to be his shadow--young Archie La Planta.
“Then you have decided that it shall be at the Albert Hall,” Mrs.
Mervyn-Robertson said as she thoughtfully blew a cloud of smoke towards
the ceiling, “and you want me to act as hostess? Well, I won’t.”
“You won’t? But why not?”
“It wouldn’t do, Louie,” she answered with decision, addressing
Aloysius Stapleton, who, seated near her on a settee in the
drawing-room in her house in Cavendish Square, had been discussing
arrangements for a great _bal masqué_.
“I really can’t see why; can you, Archie?” and he looked across at La
Planta.
“You wouldn’t,” Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson said dryly, before La Planta
could reply. “I think men are the dullest things, I do really. Though
our many ‘friends’ profess always to be so fond of us, and so pleased
to see us, any number of the women hate me, if the truth were known.”
“They are simply jealous.”
“It’s the same thing. I know the things they have said about me, and
that they say still. Or if they don’t say them they imply them, which
is worse. No, I refuse to be your hostess; also I consider you ought
to get somebody of more importance, some woman of established social
standing, of high rank, if you want the ball to be a big success. There
are plenty of people who do like me, of course, but at least they know
nothing about me, who I am or where I come from, and though that may
not count with the majority of men and women in our large circle of
acquaintance, it counts a good deal with some--they become inquisitive
after a time and start making inquiries in all sorts of directions.
Mrs. Hartsilver and her friend Yootha Hagerston are making inquiries of
that sort now. Do you know that they have gone so far as to instruct a
personal inquiry agency to find out all about me?”
“I did hear something of the sort,” Stapleton said. “But why worry?
There is nothing it can say against you.”
“You mean the agency?”
“Yes.”
“But it can invent things, and readily will if it thinks it worth
while.”
“Lies can’t be proved to be truth,” La Planta said, who for some
moments had not spoken.
“Indeed!” Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson exclaimed with a little laugh. “Perhaps
when you grow older you will change your opinion,” she added. “You are
more ingenuous than I thought you were, Archie!”
There were several visitors present, and soon conversation drifted to
other topics. After a little while, however, somebody inquired, turning
to Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson:
“You were speaking some minutes ago of Mrs. Hartsilver. Was anything
ever discovered about her husband--I mean, why he put an end to
himself?”
“I believe nothing. If anything had been discovered I should probably
have heard, as I know many people who were friends of his. A verdict of
‘suicide while temporarily insane’ was returned at the inquest, if you
remember.”
“Yes,” the woman who had inquired said thoughtfully. “Yet he was one of
the last men one would have looked upon as insane. I should have called
him absolutely ‘all there.’”
“You never know,” Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson replied, pouring out a cup of
tea. “People one considers sane seem nowadays to go mad in the most
astonishing way. Look at the terrible list of suicides during the
last year of the war, beginning with Lord Hope-Cooper and Viscount
Molesley. Of course Madame Leonora Vandervelt’s tragedy was not
so surprising--she had had such a remarkable career--but poor Vera
Froissart’s suicide gave us all a terrible shock.”
“You knew her intimately, didn’t you?”
“My dear, she was one of my closest friends. And the jury pretended
that she had died of ‘shock!’ Girls of that age don’t die of shock. My
belief is that she had some private love affair and--but there, I must
not say more.”
“You don’t mean that?”
“Indeed I do. And my suspicion is not based on supposition only.
Soon after her death I heard definite rumors, which emanated from
trustworthy sources.”
“How dreadful! I hope they didn’t reach her father.”
“I hope so too. He looked dreadfully altered when I met him the other
day, but Vera’s sad end no doubt accounts for that.”
A minute or two later the visitor with whom Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson had
been conversing rose to go. Other visitors followed her example, among
them La Planta.
“I am dining to-night with Mrs. Hartsilver,” he said carelessly as they
shook hands.
“Oh!”
A look of sudden interest had come into Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s eyes.
“You will tell me if she says anything about me?” she added hurriedly
under her breath.
“Of course I will. Shall I see you to-morrow?”
“Do. I shall be shopping in Bond Street in the morning. Why not meet me
at Asprey’s at twelve?”
“I will. By the way, Captain Preston inquired for you this morning,
when I met him in Regent Street.”
“Captain Preston?” Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson repeated with a puzzled look.
“Who is he? I seem to remember the name.”
“Don’t you recollect my introducing him to you about nine months ago?
We all had lunch together at the Ritz--Louie was there, and Mrs.
Hartsilver and Yootha Hagerston, and afterwards we went on to your
house to play bridge and listen to music, and so on.”
“Of course, now I remember perfectly. A deadly dull person, wasn’t he?”
“He had been badly wounded and was only just out of hospital. You will
find him less dull now, I think.”
“Possibly, but I am not very anxious to renew the acquaintanceship. He
is one of the people one prefers to drop.”
“He wouldn’t like to hear that,” La Planta answered with a laugh. “It
struck me he was greatly attracted by you that day, but tried not to
show it.”
“Then don’t tell him,” Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson said lightly. “Good-by
then--and twelve to-morrow at Asprey’s.”
As Archie La Planta stepped into his car strange thoughts came to him.
They were thoughts which would have astonished most of his friends,
though not Stapleton or the friend whose house he had just left.
At his chambers in the Albany he rang for his servant.
“James, bring me some telegram forms,” he said as the man entered. “And
where is my ‘Who’s Who’?”
For some minutes he studied a page in “Who’s Who” carefully. Then, when
James reëntered with the forms, he said:
“And now I want ‘Debrett.’ Why don’t you leave my books of reference
where I always put them?” he added sharply.
“Mr. Stapleton looked in this morning, sir,” the man answered, “and
wanted your ‘Who’s Who’ and ‘Debrett’ in a hurry, to refer to; said he
hadn’t time to go home, sir. So I let him have them and he left them on
the piano.”
For some moments La Planta sat at his escritoire writing out two
telegrams.
“Send these off at once, James,” he said to his servant, who stood
waiting at his elbow. “Both are very important.”
Then, going over to the full-length mirror, he carefully lit a cigar in
front of it, set it going, and stretched himself out in a long fauteuil
with his back to the French window.
He was soon deep in thought.
Suddenly his reverie was interrupted by the sound of the door-bell
ringing.
“Hullo, Preston!” he exclaimed, as a moment later the footman announced
the captain, who came limping into the room. “This is a pleasant
surprise. Come and sit over here,” and he rolled an armchair towards
him.
“Thanks,” his visitor answered. “I hope I am not intruding?”
He let himself slowly down into the big chair, then laid his stick
beside it on the carpet.
“I wanted to see you rather particularly, La Planta,” he said, when
they had exchanged one or two commonplace remarks. “So I looked up your
address in the ‘Red Book’ and came along. I tried to get you on the
telephone, but the operator declared she could get no reply.”
“She always does,” the young man answered dryly. “I have been seated
beside the telephone at least half an hour and the bell has not even
tinkled.”
“So much the better, perhaps, as I have found you in. Now, what I want
to see you about is Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson.”
“Yes? I was at her house less than an hour ago.”
“Do you mind if I ask if you know much about her--who she is, where
she comes from, and all that sort of thing? Please don’t think me
inquisitive. You may think it cool of me to ask you this, but I have a
reason for wanting to know.”
“Naturally, or you wouldn’t ask,” La Planta replied quickly.
“I believe she is a friend of yours.”
“I believe she is. Do you mind telling me, Preston, the reason you need
the information?”
“Not in the least. A friend of mine, Lord Froissart, whose daughter
died suddenly over a year ago, tells me that his daughter was rather
intimate with Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson, but knew nothing about her--that
is to say, who her parents were and so on. His daughter’s death has
rather preyed upon his mind, and he seems to suffer under what I take
to be a delusion that Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson could throw some light on
the cause of death if she chose. Consequently he has been worrying
a good deal about the lady, and, when I dined with him last night,
he asked me as a particular favor--I am an old friend of his--if I
would try to interview you on the subject, and ask you to tell me Mrs.
Mervyn-Robertson’s past history, if you know it. I said I would, though
it is not a task I greatly relish as I am sure you will understand.”
La Planta did not answer for some moments.
“Yes, Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson was a great friend of Vera Froissart,”
he said at last, “and I don’t suppose any of Vera’s friends was more
upset at her sudden death than Mrs. Robertson was. The astonishing
delusion you speak of--Froissart’s apparent belief that Mrs. Robertson
has some knowledge or suspicion of what brought about the tragedy--is,
of course, the result of an unhinged mind. As for my telling you Mrs.
Robertson’s private history, though I quite see how you are placed,
I consider that to go into a family affair of that sort would, under
existing conditions, be a breach of confidence on my part. Also, what
bearing could such knowledge have on Mrs. Robertson’s knowing why Vera
Froissart ended her life, as she undoubtedly did? Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson
is a friend whose acquaintance I made some years ago under rather
romantic circumstances, and to you I don’t mind saying that she has
made me her rather close confidant. This I can tell you, however--she
is a woman who has from first to last met with many misfortunes, and
been persistently misunderstood.”
For a minute both men were silent.
“And is that all you are prepared to tell me about her?” Preston said
suddenly, in rather a hard voice.
“That is all.”
“In that case, La Planta,” Preston bent down to get his stick, “perhaps
I had better go.”
“Perhaps you had.”
The wounded man looked up quickly, as though something in the young
man’s tone had stung him, and their eyes met. It was little more than a
glance which passed between them, yet the swift transference of thought
from each to the other warned Preston to be on his guard against this
polite, suave youth who was popularly said to be the most sought after
bachelor in London; and in the same way La Planta knew on the instant
that before him stood a man who might, under certain conditions, prove
a formidable adversary.
“Good afternoon,” Captain Preston said, as he put on his hat in the
hall.
“Good evening,” La Planta replied with frigid courtesy.
Then James, who had returned from the telegraph office, opened the door
and the captain limped slowly up the Albany towards Vigo Street.
By the time Preston reached Regent Street, Archie La Planta had
succeeded in getting through on the telephone to Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson,
and was telling her what had just occurred. When he stopped speaking,
he heard her give a gay little laugh.
“Didn’t I say this afternoon,” she exclaimed, “that he was one of the
people whose acquaintance I preferred to drop?”
CHAPTER IV.
THE BRONZE FACE.
Though Archie La Planta had met Cora Hartsilver frequently since the
Armistice, he did not know her intimately, and had therefore been
rather surprised at her asking him to dine. He concluded that she
must be giving a dinner party, so when on the evening Preston had
called to see him, he arrived at the big house in Park Crescent, he
was astonished to find that Yootha Hagerston was to be the only other
guest. Then and there his quick brain began to act and, while carrying
on light conversation with the two ladies, he kept asking himself what
reason Mrs. Hartsilver could have had for inviting him.
She had an excellent cook who had been with her since her marriage,
and the little dinner was irreproachable. La Planta, an epicure to his
fingertips, had realized this at once, and towards the end of the meal
he began to feel at peace with the world at large.
“It is awfully good of you to have invited me to a nice, friendly
little dinner like this,” he remarked presently, looking his hostess
straight in the eyes across the table. “I don’t like big dinner
parties, you know, and was half afraid you might have a lot of people
to-night.”
“I never give big dinner parties if I can help it,” Cora answered,
“though one has to sometimes. Like you, I prefer an informal little
gathering, just one or two friends with whom one can exchange ideas. So
many people are colorless, don’t you find? And dull people bore me to
death. Let me pass you the port.”
It was ’48 port which had belonged to her late husband. La Planta
poured himself out another glass, and presently his gaze became fixed
upon the widow. It had never struck him before, he thought, what a
pretty woman she was.
“When are we going to see your charming friend again?” Yootha presently
said carelessly. “I do think her so attractive.”
“Which charming friend is that?”
“Why, Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson, of course. Who else could it be?”
At once La Planta was on the alert. The words flashed back into his
partly bemused brain: “Mrs. Hartsilver and her friend Yootha Hagerston
are making inquiries about me now. Do you know that they have gone so
far as to instruct a personal inquiry agency to find out all about me?”
Could that be the reason he had been invited to dine? Were they going
to try to find out from him something about Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson,
though perhaps with greater tact than Preston had displayed?
He pulled himself together, and answered:
“I am sure Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson would like to meet you at any time.”
Then he added as an afterthought: “Though she has many acquaintances,
she has comparatively few friends.”
“Do you think she would dine with me one night if I invited her?” Mrs.
Hartsilver asked quickly. “We have met only casually.”
“I am sure she would. She is not one of those people who stand always
on ceremony. Like most people who have traveled, she takes a broad view
of life.”
“Oh, has she traveled a lot?” Yootha asked. “How interesting. Tell
me--where has she been?”
“Rather you should say, ‘Where has she not been?’ She has been almost
everywhere, I believe.”
“I do think she is lovely, don’t you?” Yootha persisted. “If I were a
man I should be head over heels in love with her.”
“Some men are,” La Planta answered in an odd tone. “But she doesn’t
care about men, I think. I mean in a general way.”
“Did you say she had been in China?” Yootha suddenly asked abruptly.
“I didn’t--but she has been. She was in Shanghai a good while.”
“She is a widow, I am told,” Cora presently hazarded.
“Yes.”
“Did you know her husband?”
“No. He died several years ago.”
“But you have known her a good while?”
“Only a year or two.”
“Is she entirely English? I sometimes think----”
“Yes?”
“I was only going to say she sometimes gives me the impression that she
has a foreign strain.”
“If Australians are ‘foreigners,’” La Planta said lightly, “then she
has a ‘foreign’ strain, because her parents were Australians--they were
sheep farmers in Queensland.”
“You don’t say so. That no doubt accounts for the queer expressions she
sometimes uses. They were rich people, no doubt.”
“Well off, I fancy, but not enormously rich.”
“Then her fortune, I take it, came to her from her husband?”
La Planta had been answering more or less mechanically, for the wine he
had drunk had dulled, to some extent, his ordinarily keen intelligence.
Now, all at once, he seemed to become alive again.
“You seem greatly interested in Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s private life,
Mrs. Hartsilver, and you too, Miss Hagerston,” he said suddenly.
“Oddly enough a man you know, in fact it was I who introduced him to
you, called to see me only an hour ago for the express purpose of
cross-questioning me with regard to the same lady. Merely a coincidence
no doubt, but a singular coincidence.”
His tone, as he said this, resembled the tone he had adopted whilst
addressing Preston, though it was not quite so marked. Mrs. Hartsilver
and Yootha Hagerston winced nevertheless, and presently they changed
the subject.
He joined them in the drawing-room about ten minutes later, and half
an hour or so afterwards took his departure rather abruptly. Though he
had drunk more than was good for him, he knew he had not said anything
that he would wish to recall. He walked leisurely down Portland Place
in search of a taxi, then decided to walk home.
In Regent Street, as he passed into the halo of light shed down by a
street lamp, he came face to face with Stapleton.
“Why Archie,” the latter exclaimed, “I was just thinking of you. Aren’t
you dining with Mrs. Hartsilver?”
“I was,” La Planta answered, “but she and Yootha Hagerston rather bored
me, so I came away early.”
“Wasn’t it a dinner party?”
“No, only those two.”
“Only the two! Then why were you invited?”
“I don’t know, but I think I can guess. Come along home with me. There
are one or two things I want to talk to you about.”
At first Stapleton hesitated, alleging that he had an appointment, but
finally he decided to do as his friend suggested.
Two telegrams lay awaiting La Planta in his sitting-room, and after
reading them he handed them to Stapleton.
As Stapleton read the second, he raised his eyebrows.
“Curious, isn’t it?” he asked.
“I think not. I expected as much.”
“Won’t it upset your calculations?”
“Not necessarily.”
A tantalus and syphons stood on the table. Without saying more,
Stapleton mixed himself a brandy and soda. Then he took a cigar from La
Planta’s box.
“One or two things have happened lately,” he said at last, “which
rather puzzle me. And the last is why those women should have asked you
to dine alone with them.”
“No puzzle about that,” Archie answered, then went on to explain how
Mrs. Hartsilver and Yootha Hagerston had obviously tried to pick his
brain regarding Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson and her past life.
“Strange,” Stapleton said thoughtfully. “That fits in with something
that was said to me within the last hour. You know that little Jew who
lends money to his friends--Levi Schomberg?”
“By name.”
“I know him only slightly, but we walked along Jermyn Street together
just now--he was bound for the Turkish baths--and he warned me to be
on my guard against ‘Hartsilver’s widow’--said she was a ‘designing
woman,’ as I might presently find out, and added that she was trying,
for a reason which he stated, to get a case up against--well, you can
guess whom.”
“What sort of case?”
“A scandalous case. So, putting two and two together, I can only
suppose that Cora Hartsilver is either jealous of our friend, or that
for some reason she bears her a grudge.”
For a little while they continued talking.
And, while they talked, interesting events were in progress not far
away.
“The house with the bronze face,” as it was called by people living
in the neighborhood, was situated in a quiet street just off Russell
Square. It had acquired that curious appellation owing to its front
door being made conspicuous by a huge old Florentine bronze knocker
representing a woman’s laughing face. The face was really that of a
bacchante, and a very wicked-looking bacchante at that, and many were
the stories told about the house in consequence. Some said the woman’s
face possessed a lurid significance, and that within those portals....
Another rumor often credited was that the face could cast a spell
over those who sought to probe its history, and that on more than one
occasion persons who had entered the house had never come out again.
Those were, of course, foolish legends, yet the fact remained that
an atmosphere of mystery surrounded the house with the bronze face.
Obviously at some period it had been a private residence. Now it was
ostensibly the headquarters of a private inquiry agency which had
sprung into existence shortly before the war, and was known to be
patronized by many fashionable and rich people.
It was nearly midnight, and in a comfortably furnished office in the
middle of the building, so that no light showed in the street outside,
a venerable-looking old gentleman and a handsome young woman, the
latter with a semitic cast of countenance, sat side by side examining
some documents.
A shaded electric reading-lamp on the table gave the only light in the
room, and the documents lay in the ray which it shed immediately in
front of them.
Neither spoke. Both were working rapidly. First the old man would take
a document off the pile, read through it carefully, then pass it to
his companion, who, after quickly scanning its contents, would make
a marginal note or two, and then docket it. Thus they continued in
silence for over half an hour, when the pile of papers came to an end.
The man leant back in his chair, stretched himself, and yawned.
“We have had about enough of this, eh, Camille?” he said, turning with
a curious expression to his companion.
“Not half!” she answered with a foreign accent, which made the slang
sound quaint. “_Après minuit_,” she added, glancing at her wrist-watch.
“I call it crewel.”
“Never mind; it can’t last,” he said. “Or at least it won’t if I have
much to do with it. Give me one of your chipre cigarettes.”
She took a cigarette herself and lit it, then handed him her case.
The room in some respects resembled a boudoir rather than an office,
but hung on its walls were charts marked with colored chalks. In all
there were eight of these charts, and below each was a row of numerals.
At one end of the room the framed portrait of a dark man with curly
hair and a waxed mustache, a man obviously a foreigner, stood on the
overmantle. In a corner near by were stacked twenty or more japanned
tin boxes which might have been deed boxes, though none bore any name,
while at the opposite end, close to the window, were several luxurious
fauteuils, a comfortable settee, some occasional tables and Chippendale
chairs. No sound of any sort found its way into the room.
The man rose in silence, and began slowly to pace the floor. Suddenly
he stopped.
“This case interests me a good deal, Camille,” he said at last. “I feel
sure she must have married the man.”
“_Naturellement_,” the woman answered with a shrug. “And now she
wish--how you say--to be rids of him?”
“Rid of him, not ‘rids.’ But why?”
“_Ma foi_, you ask me one more. He has much money, _hein_?”
“It would seem so, judging by the sums he spends.”
“_Alors naturellement._ What else?”
“But proofs of the marriage have to be obtained, or she doesn’t get the
money.”
“Oh, the proof can be obtained. I obtain him.”
“And what if----”
He stopped abruptly. Both looked quickly towards the door. For some
moments neither spoke. No sound broke the perfect stillness.
“_Qu’est-ce que ca?_” the woman asked in a nervous undertone, putting
her hand on his arm. Both were still staring at the closed door.
“Wait, and I will see.”
He rose, but the woman clutched him.
“No, no,” she exclaimed hoarsely, “you must not go out there!”
“Indeed, I must, and I am going.”
He tried to shake her off, but she only tightened her hold.
“If you must--here,” and as she spoke she produced from under her skirt
a small automatic pistol, pressed forward the safety-bolt, and slipped
the weapon into his hand. Then she released him.
Noiselessly he stepped across the room on the thick carpet, placed his
hand carefully on the door handle, turned it very slowly and gently
drew open the door.
As he did so a streak of light, as if from an electric torch, shone
into the room. The old man hurried out on to the landing with wonderful
agility, but the light had vanished. He switched on the electric lamp
at the head of the stairs. Nowhere was anybody visible.
Glancing quickly in every direction, and with his finger on the trigger
of the automatic, he crept cautiously down the stairs. Presently the
woman, who had now ventured a little way down the stairs after him,
heard him moving in the hall. Soon she heard the spring baize door,
which opened on to a passage leading to the kitchen quarters, open with
a squeak, then shut with a dull thud.
For a minute she waited, hardly breathing. There could be no doubt that
somebody besides themselves must be in the house. Yet how could anybody
have entered, seeing that since early in the evening both front and
back doors had been securely bolted and locked?
She was trying to summon courage enough to follow her companion, when a
sound just behind her made her turn with a cry of alarm.
CHAPTER V.
BEHIND THE DOOR.
A tall, slim man of aristocratic appearance, dressed in a tweed
suit and with his hat on, stood at the head of the stairs. He had a
walking-stick in his right hand, in his left an extinct electric torch.
“I think you will remember me, Madame Lenoir,” he said quietly.
The woman stared hard at him for a moment, then a look of recognition
spread over her face.
“Ha, Milord Froissart!” she exclaimed in a tone of relief. “Ha, but you
frightened me, you frighten us both. But how did milord come in? And
what is it you want so late at night?”
“I want to see your partner, Alix Stothert. Why has he gone downstairs?”
“To see who might be there, milord. We thought we heard somebody in the
house, so he go down to search about. And it was only you? Then why did
you not say?”
“Because when he opened the door I saw a pistol in his hand, so I
thought he might shoot before he recognized me. Listen, I hear him.”
The baize door in the hall had opened and shut again, and Stothert now
stood at the foot of the stairs, looking up in amazement.
“Lord Froissart!” he exclaimed. “Well, of all the wonders!”
He came quickly up the stairs, and a minute later the two men and
Camille Lenoir were together in the room from which Stothert and his
companion had just emerged.
“This is a most perplexing thing,” Stothert said, as he pushed a chair
towards the ‘visitor.’ “I wish you would tell me, first of all, how you
got in, Lord Froissart.”
“Certainly. I came to see you this afternoon about six o’clock, and
when I arrived at the house I found the door open--some workmen were
attending to your electric light in the hall. I walked in, meaning
to come up to your office, but I went a floor too high, took a wrong
turning off the landing, and found myself in a passage along which I
wandered until I came to a door which I opened and passed through,
still trying to find your office. It is a heavy mahogany door, and as I
shut it behind me the handle came off in my hand. While trying to refit
the handle I accidentally pushed the metal stem through the socket in
the door, and at once I realized I was a prisoner, for the passage led
into a room from which there is no other outlet.”
He paused a moment, and then continued:
“When I found it impossible to open the door by any means, I hammered
on it with my stick, and shouted. In fact I made all the noise I could,
but apparently you didn’t hear me.”
“Certainly we did not,” Stothert answered. “That room is a long way
off, and there are several doors between it and the landing. How did
you get out eventually?”
Lord Froissart held out his walking stick.
“With the help of this,” he said. “In desperation I finally set to work
to grind the ferrule square by rubbing it on the hearthstone in that
room--I fear I have disfigured the stone, but that, of course, I will
make good. It was a long job, I can assure you--and it ruined my stick.
Here, take your torch,” he added with a laugh, as he handed it to him.
Stothert and his companion looked considerably relieved.
“A most unfortunate mishap,” the former remarked, with a quick glance
at the woman. “And you gave us quite a fright,” he added. “We thought
burglars had broken in.”
“Well, I thought so too, for some minutes,” Froissart said lightly. “Do
you always work as late as this, if it is not an impertinent question?”
He looked about the room. “I see you have been hard at it.”
“No, we rarely work late, but to-night we had on hand rather an urgent
matter. And may I ask, m’lord, what you wished to see me about when
you came here this afternoon? Oh, excuse me, you surely must be hungry
after your long imprisonment--I feel that indirectly I am to blame for
the mishap. Camille,” he turned to the woman, “go and see if you can
find something for Lord Froissart to eat. I am afraid m’lord there is
not much in the house.”
“Please don’t trouble about food on my account,” Froissart urged. “I
really am not hungry, and the blunder was my fault. And now, with
regard to the matter I wanted to see you about. You remember, of
course, the sad affair of my poor daughter’s death?”
“Quite well. The papers were full of it, which must have caused you
pain.”
“It did--great pain. It seems to me that the newspapers have no
consideration for people’s feelings--they have no delicacy, no mercy.”
“I fully agree with you.”
“Well now, in spite of the jury’s verdict that my daughter died of
shock, it must have been patent to you, and I fear also to others, that
the poor child took her life. Why she should have done so has puzzled
me ever since, for I can think no reason which might have prompted her
to do it. She had, however, a friend, I may say a great friend, of whom
it now appears that nobody knows anything except that she is apparently
a very well-to-do woman. Strange rumors concerning her have been
repeated to me of late, and putting two and two together, it seems to
me possible that this friend of hers might, if she wished to, be able
to solve the mystery. Now, why won’t she? Can you tell me that?”
“Who is the woman, m’lord?” Stothert asked. “Anything you tell us will,
of course, be considered private and confidential.”
“Yes, please consider this private. The woman you will probably know.
Her name is Mervyn-Robertson.” Stothert and his companion exchanged
a meaning glance. “Ah, I see you do know her,” Lord Froissart said
quickly.
“Indeed we do, m’lord, that is to say, by name. We know a lot about
her.”
“And is what you know favorable, or is it--er--the other thing?”
“Certainly ‘the other thing.’ More than that we must not say. And so
you wish us to find out who and what she is, where she comes from, and
so forth?”
“If you can.”
“That will not be difficult. Already we can tell you that her
birthplace was Australia; also that her parents were sheep farmers in
Queensland.”
“Oh! That sounds quite respectable.”
“It sounds respectable, but....”
“Yes?”
“Things, you know, are not always what they sound. Are you likely,
m’lord, to attend the big ball to be given at the Albert Hall on the
twenty-ninth of this month?”
“I had not heard of it. Who is giving the ball?”
“Mr. Stapleton and Mr. La Planta, though I believe they don’t
themselves know who will act as hostess. They are friends of Mrs.
Mervyn-Robertson, as you probably know.”
“Yes, I have heard of them, though I don’t know them personally. I
recollect we happened to speak of them when I came here to consult you
about my poor daughter’s death. I hoped then that your wide knowledge
of what is happening privately among well-known people soon might
succeed in throwing light on the cause of that terrible tragedy, but
unfortunately you were not able to do so. And now tell me--why do you
wish to know if I am likely to attend this ball? Surely you must know
that I never go out now?”
“It might be to your advantage, m’lord, to do so on this occasion,
though why it might be I must not tell you yet. More, m’lord. I would,
if I may, urge you to attend it.”
“Of course if you think it will serve some good purpose, Stothert.”
“I don’t merely think so, I am almost sure it would. I believe it might
indirectly help us in our investigations concerning Miss Froissart’s
strange death.”
“In that case I certainly will go.”
“And you will advise us in advance of the costume you will wear? Please
don’t fail to do that. A mask and fancy costume are to be obligatory, I
hear.”
When Lord Froissart had gone, Stothert and his partner breathed more
freely. It was true that their “firm” calling itself the Metropolitan
Secret Agency, had obtained a wonderful reputation for getting
secret information about people’s private lives, but rumors were
rife regarding the methods it employed to achieve its aim. Women of
high station, anxious to rid themselves of their husbands; husbands
desiring to prove their wives’ alleged infidelity, and many others, now
almost invariably went straight to the Metropolitan Secret Agency, or
“the house with the bronze face” as Society people too had come to call
it, and generally within a week the Agency would put them in possession
of enough indisputable evidence to damn the suspected party irrevocably
and forever.
Certainly the amount the Agency knew about the private lives and
affairs of more than half the peerage was astonishing. How they came by
it all was a problem which rival agencies tried in vain to solve, and,
having failed to solve it, some would proceed to vent their spleen by
spreading false stories concerning the house with the bronze knocker,
its inmates, and the way the business carried on there was conducted.
Not that either Stothert or his French partner cared in the least what
was said about them. As the former was fond of remarking: “They can
say what they like about us, but they can’t prove the truth of even a
single statement.”
As Lord Froissart drove homeward in a taxi, his thoughts became
centered on the house with the bronze face, and its strange tenants.
The Metropolitan Secret Agency had been in existence less than three
years, yet already it was looked upon as the premier inquiry agency in
London. Though it never advertised, everybody in Society knew of its
existence, and the rapidity with which it supplied information, which
was invariably accurate, was common talk.
Then, who were Stothert and his companion, Madame Camille Lenoir? He
had been told that they had come to London together and started their
strange business without friends or introductions. Had they other
partners? And if so, who were they? Madame Leonora Vandervelt, the
beautiful adventuress who had committed suicide by throwing herself out
of an hotel window, had been convicted on each of the three occasions
she had appeared in the divorce court on evidence supplied by the
Metropolitan Secret Agency. Twice the well-known Society woman, Mrs.
Mervyn-Robertson, had visited the house with the bronze face with
reference to thefts of some of her valuable jewelry, and each time the
thief had been caught within a fortnight. Then her friend Stapleton
when his Fiat car was stolen while he was choosing shirts at Wing’s in
Piccadilly--this fact mentioned in Court created some amusement--had
gone direct to Bloomsbury and interviewed Alix Stothert, with the
result that both car and thief had been traced to Llandudno, and the
thief arrested there while actually in the car.
That and a dozen similar examples of the Metropolitan Secret Agency’s
amazing efficiency occurred to him, and the more he thought about the
Agency, the more he marveled. Another question he asked himself was why
the Agency should have rented that big house in Bloomsbury, seeing that
their offices in it occupied apparently no more than four rooms, the
rest of the house being in consequence empty and waste space. When he
had lost himself in the house that afternoon he must have wandered,
he reflected, into a dozen rooms or more, not one of which was even
furnished, though nearly all had carpets. On the previous occasion when
he had visited the Agency, he had seen six or eight clerks apparently
hard at work, but the only people in authority were Stothert and the
rather common Frenchwoman.
And the more he thought, the more puzzling the problem seemed to be.
Not the least astonishing thing was that the partners should have
found it necessary to continue working so late at night after probably
working hard all day. He had, like most people, heard rumors about the
house, including the story that people were seen to enter it who never
came out again, but to such legends he paid no heed. He had just asked
himself if it might not be advisable to deal carefully with this man
and woman who treated him always with so much deference and outward
courtesy, when the taxi drew up at his house in Queen Anne’s Gate.
CHAPTER VI.
CORA HARTSILVER’S CONFESSION.
Though Yootha Hagerston had now inherited the little fortune left to
her by her aunt, she had not thought it necessary to change her mode
of living, or even to move from her flat near Knightsbridge into more
expensive quarters, as one or two of her snobbish-minded acquaintances
had told her they supposed she would do.
Of late she had, however, changed in some ways, as many people had
noticed. She seemed pensive, at times quite _distraite_, and this gave
rise to various conjectures among her many casual acquaintances. By
some it was hinted that “there must be a man in the case,” though none
could think who the man could be, as Yootha was not by any means fond
of men’s society; on the contrary, she often freely admitted that the
conversation of most young men, and even middle-aged men, bored her
considerably.
“Yootha Hagerston will never marry--mark my words,” a woman who had
known her “since she was so high,” observed sententiously one day. She
lived in the neighborhood of Yootha’s home in Cumberland with a crushed
creature she called a husband, and had always strongly disapproved
of what she called “the girl’s abominable independence” in deserting
the stagnation of her native village to live her own life in London.
“What is more,” the woman used sometimes to add, “I should not be a bit
surprised if one day we heard some deplorable story about her. It’s
just what the Bible says, ‘Bring up a child and away it do go,’ and the
Bible speaks the truth every time, you know.”
It was this futile person who had first hinted to Yootha’s parents that
it was not _comme il faut_ for a daughter of theirs to live a bachelor
life in London, and it was on the strength of her having said so that
Yootha’s father had spoken as he had done on the occasion of his visit
to London with his wife some months before, when they had tried to
induce Yootha to go back with them to Cumberland.
“I wish you would tell me, Yootha darling, what is the matter with you
these days.”
The speaker was her dear friend, Cora Hartsilver, and as she spoke she
encircled the girl with her arm and pressed her cheek to hers.
“Don’t you think you might tell just little me?” she went on coaxingly,
as Yootha tried feebly to disengage herself. “Haven’t we always
exchanged secrets, and confided in each other implicitly? Don’t say
there is nothing the matter, because I can see that you have something
on your mind. I have noticed the change in you for weeks, and others
have noticed it too. Who is it, my darling? Or perhaps--you will let me
give one little guess?”
“Cora, what nonsense you talk!” the girl answered quickly. “I am
perfectly well, I have never been better, and there is nothing at all
on my mind.”
“On your word of honor?”
“On my word of----”
She stopped abruptly.
“Ah, I knew that like Washington you couldn’t tell a lie,” Cora
laughed. “Well, then, may I make my little guess?”
“Oh, guess anything you like, if it gratifies a whim!” Yootha
exclaimed, coloring slightly. “I suppose you are going to say that you
think I am in love! Why do married women always imagine that every
girl they meet is bound to be in love? It’s a perfectly rotten notion.
Men as a rule bore me stiff, as I have often told you. The majority
of the men I meet, except a few in Bohemian circles, seem not to have
half-a-dozen original ideas of their own.”
“Isn’t that rather tautologic? Well, yes, many men are dull, that I
admit, but all are not dull, even those who don’t live, or, so far as I
know, even mix in what you call Bohemian circles. Also there are men,
you know, who to some appear dull, but to others....
“Do you remember a little lunch party at the Ritz some time before the
Armistice, Yootha?” she went on. “We were invited by Archie La Planta,
and among the people he introduced to us was a man who to most of us
seemed unutterably dull--beautiful Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson, for instance,
had difficulty in concealing the fact that this man bored her
intensely, and yet I am convinced that even that day Captain Charlie
Preston attracted you in a way you had never before been attracted by
anyone, and----”
She stopped for her friend’s expression had suddenly completely
changed. She was looking up at Cora now with shining eyes, while her
lips, slightly parted, quivered a little as her breath came rather
quickly. Then all at once, as though acting on impulse, she gripped
Cora’s wrists.
“Who told you?” she asked in a quick undertone. “I thought nobody even
suspected.”
“Naturally you would. Women in love always think, and often do,
the wrong thing. Good heavens, Yootha, I’ve known it for months! I
suspected it the first time you and he met, that day at the Ritz, and
the only thing I am surprised at is that you should have kept me in
ignorance--or so you thought--all this time. Has he said anything yet?”
“Said anything? Of course not! What a question to ask!”
“Yes, I suppose it is silly to ask a girl if a man who is obviously in
love with her has asked her to----”
“Say that again!” Yootha interrupted excitedly. “Do you really mean it?
Do you really think that----”
“Well, go on--think that he really loves you? I don’t merely think it.
I know it.”
“How? Has he told you?”
“Oh, Yootha, we spoke a moment ago about people being dull. You, I
think, are the most obtuse person I have ever met.”
Thus they continued to talk, and the girl, having at last fully
admitted the truth, ended by baring her soul to the woman who had so
long been her friend. Now, without fear or reticence, she told Cora
Hartsilver that she had fallen madly in love that day at lunch at the
Ritz with the wounded officer who had, during the whole meal, hardly
spoken at all.
But it was at Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s “at home” afterwards, she went
on to explain, when they had sat together listening to Tchaikowsky’s
“None but the Weary Heart,” that the full flood of her affection had
poured forth. It had poured forth in silence, for naturally she had not
dared on such short acquaintanceship, to allow her feelings to betray
themselves. And ever since that afternoon the pain of her love for the
wounded man whom she had pitied perhaps almost as much as she loved
him, had continued to increase.
While conversing the two women who were such friends had been together
on a settee. Now, all at once, Cora Hartsilver became strangely silent.
Yootha looked at her in surprise for some moments.
“Why, Cora, what has come over you?” she said suddenly, moving closer
to her. “You are not put out at what I have told you, are you?”
“Put out? Indeed no,” and as she spoke she unconsciously laid her
hand upon the girl’s and held it rather tightly. “No, I was only
thinking--it was only something that----”
She caught her breath, and Yootha heard her sob.
“Cora, Cora,” she exclaimed. “Oh, do tell me what is the matter! What
is it you are thinking of?”
Their arms were about each other now, their faces pressed together.
Then, suddenly, Cora Hartsilver broke down, and began to cry piteously.
“It is something I meant never to tell anybody,” she said when at last
Yootha had succeeded in comforting her to some extent. “But what you
have told me about your love for Captain Preston has brought it all
back afresh. If I tell you, will you promise on your word never to tell
a living soul?”
“Of course I will. I promise now, and on my word. What is it, Cora? I
have confided in you completely, so surely you can confide in me? You
know I can keep a secret, don’t you, dear? Now tell me all about it.”
For some moments Cora remained silent, at intervals mopping her eyes
with her pocket-handkerchief. Then at last she said, speaking in a low
tone:
“You remember Sir Stephen Lethbridge?”
“Remember him? Why, of course.”
“Yootha, I was dreadfully in love with him! I was in love with him when
I married, and after my marriage my love for him increased so that I
hardly knew what to do.”
“But why have you never told me this before, dear? I had not the
slightest suspicion. Did Henry suspect anything?”
“No. But then Henry was extraordinarily obtuse. When I read in the
newspaper the account of the tragedy, he was in the room, but I managed
to conceal my feelings and to speak and act as though nothing unusual
had occurred. How I did it I don’t know. And next day when we all
lunched at the Ritz, the day Captain Preston was introduced to you, I
showed nothing, did I? Yet my heart was almost breaking.”
She paused a moment, and then continued:
“And that day--Henry died! Oh, if only he had died a little sooner,
before poor Stephen had made away with himself--just think, Yootha, I
might have saved Stephen, he might be alive to-day, and----”
She broke down suddenly and began to sob again piteously. Minutes
passed before her friend succeeded in calming her once more.
“But how could you have saved his life even if Henry had died sooner?”
Yootha said presently in a puzzled tone.
“Why, a week before, Stephen had written begging me to come to him. He
was in great trouble, he declared, something he could not explain in
a letter, or, as he put it, ‘dared not explain.’ We had been friends
from childhood, as you know, and he had, when a boy, told me many of
his secrets. But of course I couldn’t go. What excuse could I have made
to Henry? You know the sort of man Henry was, and how he thought it a
wife’s ‘duty’ to have no secrets from her husband. Somehow when I got
that letter from Stephen the tone in which he wrote frightened me. The
thought actually flashed through my mind that he might be contemplating
something dreadful, though I did not suspect--that.”
“Did he know you were in love with him?”
“Yes, he had known it a long time. Also he looked on me as his best
friend. What has worried me so since his death is the thought of what
can have made him shoot himself. I had heard rumors of his mixing with
undesirable people; spending more money than he ought. Those rumors may
not have been true. Even if they were, that could not be a reason for
him to take his life. I feel convinced that what made him do it was
something he was going to tell me.”
“Your saying that, Cora, reminds me of Lord Froissart. I hear
that he is moving heaven and earth to find out why Vera ended her
life--everybody knows that she did end it. I hear he thinks there was
some mystery; also I am told--though this may not be true--that he
fancies Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson knows the reason. She and Vera were very
intimate.”
“Oh, Yootha,” Mrs. Hartsilver exclaimed, now fast recovering from her
outburst of grief. “I meant to have told you that Lord Froissart is
coming here this evening. I kept it secret at first, because he is
bringing, at my request, Captain Preston with him. I meant to spring
Captain Preston upon you as a surprise, because, as I have told you, I
knew all along you were in love with him.”
Yootha could hardly contain herself. In her ecstasy of delight she drew
her friend to her and kissed her.
“How perfectly sweet of you, Cora,” she cried. “And how exactly like
you that is, always trying to give people pleasure. How soon will they
be here?”
“Lord Froissart is dining at his club, and Captain Preston is dining
with him. Lord Froissart said he would bring him along after dinner.”
And so it came about that three days after the incidents which had
occurred in the house with the bronze face, Lord Froissart, Captain
Preston, Cora Hartsilver and Yootha Hagerston were gathered together in
Cora’s drawing-room in her house in Park Crescent.
Though at first the conversation of the four was commonplace and
conventional, by degrees, as was inevitable, it drifted to a subject
in which all were deeply interested. Lord Froissart had been relating
as much as he deemed it advisable to tell them about his unpleasant
experience in the house with the bronze face, when Cora suddenly asked:
“Might not the Metropolitan Secret Agency be able to discover some clue
which would lead to the mysteries being cleared up which surround the
many strange deaths that have occurred within the past year or so? You
and I both have cause, Lord Froissart, to wish that something could be
done in that respect.”
For a moment nobody spoke. Mrs. Hartsilver and Lord Froissart had known
each other some years, and once before, about a month previously, they
had spoken about this.
“Well, as you have broached the subject,” he said at last, “I don’t
mind telling you now that my visit to the house in question was made
for the purpose of consulting Stothert on that very point. The series
of tragedies that has occurred is so remarkable that one cannot help
thinking there must have been some reason for it. And if I may say so,
Mrs. Hartsilver, your husband’s death was, in my opinion, the most
astonishing of all. I can say with truth that if anybody had asked me
to pick out from among my many acquaintances the man I considered the
least likely to make an attempt on his life, I should unhesitatingly
have named poor Hartsilver. Self-destruction was a thing we once spoke
about, and he appeared to have a horror of the bare thought of it.”
“I wonder, Mrs. Hartsilver,” Captain Preston said slowly, and as
he spoke he fixed his great gray eyes upon her, “if you can tell
me anything about this woman whose name seems to be on everybody’s
lips, and whose portrait we see in all the picture papers--this Mrs.
Mervyn-Robertson?”
A tense silence followed.
“I am afraid I cannot,” Cora said, after a pause. “People say she is
of Australian extraction, and that her father was a sheep farmer.”
“I have heard that, too,” Lord Froissart said quickly.
“Therefore three of us have heard it, and presumably from different
sources. Yet this afternoon a friend of mine, George Blenkiron, who
has lived twenty years in Australia and knows the up country and
down, assured me that there is no sheep farmer of the name of either
Robertson or Mervyn-Robertson out there, nor ever has been within his
recollection.”
“But Mervyn-Robertson is surely her husband’s name?” Yootha said.
“Quite right. Oddly enough, however, her maiden name was Robertson.
Blenkiron knew that much, though he doesn’t live in London, or mix much
in London society. He found it out quite by accident, and in rather a
curious way.”
CHAPTER VII.
CONCERNS “DEAR JESSICA.”
Jessica Mervyn-Robertson was a remarkable woman. Tall, with a
wonderful figure, she looked even taller than she actually was owing
to her splendid bearing. Graceful in her every movement, wherever
she went she focused attention. Her hair was of that peculiar shade
of auburn blending into copper which seems, when the sun or the rays
of artificial light strike it, to be shot with golden red. Her pale
complexion contrasted oddly with the natural crimson of her lips, and
when she looked at you there was an expression in her deep-set, almost
green eyes which few men could resist. And yet perhaps what people
noticed most about her was the curious intonation of her voice, a voice
never forgotten by any man or woman who had once heard it. Had she been
a singer she would have been a rich contralto.
She had appeared in London for the first time some years before this
story opens, and within a few months had made hosts of friends. At that
time she had a suite of apartments at Claridge’s, where she entertained
largely and on a lavish scale. Though nobody could say for certain
whence she came, or from what source she derived her fortune, people
of rank and others of social standing flocked to her receptions in
their hundreds. She was said to have a husband, though no one had ever
seen him, and nobody seemed in the least to care who or what he might
be. People were satisfied to take so alluring a woman as they found
her, and so popular had she become before the end of her first year in
London, and so fashionable were her social functions, that not to know
Jessica Mervyn-Robertson was to admit that you were _hors concours_.
Aloysius Stapleton she had met for the first time, so people said,
on Gold Cup day at Ascot about nine months after she had settled in
London. Stapleton had for several years been a man about town; he was
a well-to-do bachelor with a flat in Sandringham Mansions, Maida Vale,
and a small place in the country, near Uckfield, whose calling in life
seemed to be the quest of pleasure and nothing else. Certainly he had
no profession, nor, apparently, had he need of one. Wherever people
belonging to _le monde ou l’on s’amuse_ were to be found gathered
together, there you would meet “Louie” Stapleton, dressed always in the
height of fashion and ever ready to entertain friends by inviting them
to dine or lunch, taking them to the theater, or even asking them to
spend week-ends with him at his place, “The Nest,” in Sussex.
A day or two after Froissart and Preston, Cora Hartsilver, and Yootha
Hagerston had spent the evening together at Cora’s house in Park
Crescent, Jessica Mervyn-Robertson, accompanied by Stapleton and Archie
La Planta and several other friends, sat in a box at the Alhambra
watching the Russian Ballet, then the fashionable attraction.
It was the first night of Scheherezade, and the house was packed.
Beautiful women gorgeously gowned, and men immaculately dressed crowded
every box, and filled the stalls to overflowing. In every direction
diamonds and other precious gems sparkled, and as the orchestra began
the wonderful overture the audience, which had been talking volubly
in anticipation of the silence which they knew must follow, became
gradually hushed.
The ballet ended, and the usual buzz of conversation followed. So
worked up had the audience become by the terrible scenes of lust,
followed by carnage, that several women in the stalls were laughing
hysterically. An elderly man in the box adjoining Jessica’s, who
obviously came from the provinces, and was witnessing Russian Ballet
for the first time, could be heard expostulating in a north country
accent against “such shows being permitted in a civilized land.”
“And look at the clothes they wear--or rather don’t wear!” he went on,
warming to his subject. “I maintain such shows should be put down by
law. If I had known it would be like this I should not have brought
you, my dear,” this to a faded woman, obviously his wife. “What has
become of the censor that a ballet like this is allowed?”
People in the theater exclaimed “Hush!” while in the boxes adjacent
there was much tittering. In spite of his protests, however, he
remained, and the next ballet apparently met with his approval.
Somebody knocked at the door of the box occupied by Mrs.
Mervyn-Robertson and her party, and La Planta got up to see who it was.
After an exchange of whispers with the attendant, he went out and shut
the door.
When the second ballet ended, and he had not returned, Jessica showed
signs of uneasiness.
“What can have become of Archie?” she said to Stapleton, who sat beside
her. “Do you know who wanted him?”
“No. I am going out for a minute, so I will ask the attendant.”
But when he succeeded in finding the attendant, she told him that the
inquiry had been for Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson. The gentleman to whom she
had given the message had said he would attend to it, and had gone into
the foyer.
“Did he take his hat?” Stapleton asked.
“No, he came out just as he was.”
“Then he cannot have left the theater. If you should see him will you
tell him, please, that I have gone down to the foyer to find him?”
But La Planta was not in the foyer. Nor, apparently, was he anywhere
else in the theater. Asked if a gentleman without a hat had gone out of
the theater within the last half hour, the commissionaire replied that
he had been absent a little while, so would not like to say.
La Planta had not returned to the box when Stapleton got back there,
nor did he return at all. Jessica, told by Stapleton that the inquiry
had been for her, looked at him oddly, but made no comment.
As usual, Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson--or as all her friends called her,
Jessica--entertained her theater guests at supper at her house in
Cavendish Square after the performance. Both she and Stapleton expected
that La Planta would put in an appearance there, but he did not.
It was quite a big supper-party, for people kept arriving in cars until
past one o’clock, so that when at last it came to an end, the guests
grouped about the card tables in the room adjoining, playing “chemmy”
and other games, numbered over thirty.
“What can have become of him?” Jessica said to Stapleton in an
undertone as she drew him aside. “And without his hat, too. I can’t
imagine where he can have gone, or who it can have been who inquired
for me. Archie ought to have told me!”
“I have telephoned twice to the Albany, but can get no reply.”
“You wouldn’t, at this time of the night.”
“Why not? He has an extension to his man’s bedroom.”
“Then do ring again, Louie. I am anxious about him.”
This time Stapleton was more successful, for after two futile attempts
the operator got through, and a sleepy, rather irritated voice asked
huskily:
“Hello! hello! Who is that ringing?”
“It’s Mr. Stapleton, James. I am sorry to wake you up, but can you tell
me if Mr. La Planta has come in?”
“If you will please to hold on, sir,” the voice replied in a different
tone, “I will ascertain and let you know.”
For some minutes Stapleton waited with the receiver glued to his
ear. He was beginning to think the man had gone to sleep again, when
suddenly he heard him returning. He sounded as if he were running.
“Are you there, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. La Planta is lying on his sofa, sir, fast asleep. I’ve called him
and shaken him, but he won’t wake up. The light in his room was full
on. He must have been drugged or something. He is breathing very heavy,
very heavy indeed, sir. I’m going to ring up the doctor.”
“No, don’t do that. I’ll come round at once and see him; the doctor may
not be wanted. Be ready to let me in as soon as I arrive.”
The card-players still grouped about the little tables were busy with
their games. In a small room beyond the drawing-room could be heard the
rattle of the little marble as it spun merrily round in the well of the
roulette, and a voice murmuring at intervals: “_Faites vos jeux_,” and
“_Rien n’ va plus_.”
Jessica came forward as she saw him approaching.
“Come into the hall,” he said in a low tone, “and I will tell you.”
In a few words he explained to her what had happened.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he ended. “I will go there now, and will ring you
up and report progress.”
Taxis were waiting in Cavendish Square, and within five minutes he
alighted at the Albany.
La Planta’s face was very pale. He lay with lips slightly parted,
breathing heavily. His eyelids were but half closed, and though
Stapleton drew one of them up, the sleeper did not awake.
“Obviously doped,” he said to James, who stood by with a frightened
look.
He bent over his friend until their faces were very close.
“And I think I know with what,” he added, thinking aloud. “You have no
idea, James, how long he had been in?”
“None at all, sir. I didn’t know he was in until you rang me up.”
“There is no need to send for a doctor,” Stapleton said, as he
straightened himself. “It is nothing dangerous. His pulse is strong,
and he will sleep off the effects of the drug. By the way, did anybody
call to see him, or ring him up, while he was out this evening?”
“Nobody called, sir, but a lady rang him up.”
“A lady? At about what time?”
The man thought for a moment.
“As near as may be, I should say it was nine o’clock, sir.”
“Anybody you know? Did she give any name?”
“No, sir. It was not a voice I recognized.”
“Leave any message?”
“No, sir. Just asked where Mr. La Planta was, and I told her at the
Alhambra. Then she asked who was with him, and I said you and Mrs.
Mervyn-Robertson I knew for certain, and I said I fancied there were
others. Then she said ‘Thank you’ and rang off, sir.”
Suddenly a thought struck Stapleton, and he slipped his hand into his
friend’s pockets. But apparently nothing was missing. From the breast
pocket he withdrew a wallet containing notes, and from the trousers
pocket a handful of silver.
Then he went to the telephone and rang up Jessica. But the voice which
answered was not hers.
“Ask Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson to come to the telephone, please,” he said.
“Is that Mr. Stapleton?”
“Yes.”
“John speaking, sir, the footman. I am afraid she can’t, sir. She has
been taken suddenly ill.”
“Ill! How? In what way?”
“She fainted dead off, sir, not five minutes after you had gone.”
Stapleton paused for an instant. All at once an idea flashed in upon
him.
“John!”
“Sir?”
“Is anybody near the telephone? Can anybody hear you speaking?”
“One moment, sir.”
Stapleton heard a door being quietly closed.
“Nobody can hear me now, sir.”
“Then tell me--don’t speak loud--did Mrs. Robertson take anything, I
mean drink or eat anything, after I had gone out just now?”
There was a brief pause, then:
“Yes, sir, she drank a glass of champagne at the sideboard.”
“Was anybody with her? Or near her? Did anybody ask her if she would
have a glass of wine?”
“Well, yes, sir. A gentleman asked her. I happened to be near. And I
did notice that a lady was by when she drank it. They each had a glass
of wine.”
“Do you know the lady and gentleman?”
“I know them well by sight, sir, but not their names. They have been to
supper before; once or twice, I think, but they don’t often come.”
“Do they come together?”
“I think so, sir.”
“And you could describe their appearance to me?”
“Certainly, sir.”
“Thank you, John. Of course you will say nothing of all this to
anybody. You won’t forget that?”
“You can rely upon my absolute discretion, sir.”
“Good. I shall be back at Cavendish Square within an hour, and I will
see you then.”
CHAPTER VIII.
IN WHICH A DISCOVERY IS MADE.
It was past four in the morning when Aloysius Stapleton got back to
his flat in Sandringham Mansions, Maida Vale. After remaining with La
Planta nearly an hour, he had gone back to Cavendish Square, where he
found Jessica still unconscious, her symptoms being somewhat similar
to Archie’s, though her brain, while she slept, seemed to be active.
Several times she had, he was told, murmured incoherently, and twice
she had spoken several words. Even when he arrived there her lips kept
quivering at intervals, as if she were dreaming.
“How long ago did the guests leave?” he inquired of her maid.
“The last few of them have not been long gone,” she answered, “not
above twenty minutes.”
“Do you know which were the last to go?”
“I don’t, sir. I only heard them leaving. Ought she not to be put to
bed now, as you don’t wish the doctor to be sent for?”
“Yes, take her upstairs. She will be all right in the morning.”
“I sincerely hope so. She is never taken this way--never.”
The maid spoke almost reproachfully, as though Stapleton were in some
way responsible for her mistress having fainted.
“Send John to me,” he said to her sharply.
When Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson had been carried up to her bedroom,
Stapleton took the footman into the dining-room and shut the door.
“Now, tell me,” he said, “who were the last to leave to-night?”
The young footman described them. Yes, he admitted that among them were
the two guests, the man and the woman, who had been with Jessica while
she drank champagne at the sideboard, but he did not know their names.
Stapleton’s brain worked rapidly while he mechanically undressed in his
flat in Sandringham Mansions. There could be no doubt, in his opinion,
that the hand that had drugged La Planta had also drugged Jessica. In
addition, he felt convinced that whoever had done it had been among the
guests at Cavendish Square that evening. But who could it have been,
and with what object had he, or she, committed the despicable act?
After ascertaining by telephone next morning that both Archie and
Jessica had recovered and were once more in their right senses, he
drove in his car first to the Albany.
Archie, wrapped in an elaborate dressing-gown of Japanese corded
silk, was having breakfast in his bedroom. He looked unusually pale,
Stapleton thought directly he entered, and there were dark marks under
his eyes.
“I wish you would tell me, Louie,” Archie said, “what happened to me
last night, and how I managed to come away from the Alhambra without
my hat. I might have imagined I had drunk too much--had there been
anything to drink.”
“I can tell you nothing, because I know nothing,” Stapleton answered,
and went on to explain how they had suddenly missed him from the box,
and what had happened afterwards.
“Who was it brought the message for Jessica, and why did you leave the
box without delivering it to her?” he ended.
His friend drew his hand across his forehead then pressed his fingers
on his eyes, as though trying to remember.
“I am sorry, Louie,” he said at last, “but I have not the faintest
recollection of receiving any message, or of leaving the box. I can
remember the ballet, or rather the first part of it. After that my mind
is a blank. The next thing I remember is waking up this morning and
feeling very rotten. I feel at sixes and sevens still.”
Not until lunch time was Stapleton able to see Jessica, and then
she complained of a headache and of feeling utterly limp. When he
questioned her she replied that she had no recollection of drinking
champagne at the sideboard, or even of talking to him after supper. She
remembered her anxiety about Archie, she said, and coming home in the
car, and Stapleton sitting beside her at supper, and _chemin de fer_
and roulette being played. But there her memory stopped.
“That is as I expected,” Stapleton said when she had ceased speaking.
“Your symptoms are similar to Archie’s. I should say, therefore, that
you were both doped with the same drug, one effect of which apparently
is to deaden memory not from the time it is taken, but from a little
while before it is taken. I think it is clear that the individual who
came to the Alhambra with a message for you intended, by some means,
to give you the drug then. But Archie took the message, went out, and
presumably met the person who brought it. Then, having failed to see
you, this person succeeded in drugging Archie, came on here--he, or it
may have been a woman, was evidently among your guests--and actually
drugged you in your own house. Now the question is--why was it done?
and by whom?”
“I can’t imagine.”
“Have you missed anything? Is your jewelry intact, and are your other
valuables safe?”
“I hope so. I haven’t looked.”
“Then you had better look at once.”
And then it was the discovery was made that the safe in her boudoir
had been opened and ransacked. It had contained, in addition to a rope
of priceless pearls and a quantity of uncut diamonds, four thousand
five hundred and sixty-eight pounds in Bank of England notes, Treasury
notes, and cash, moneys kept there for banking the roulette and the
other games of chance frequently played at her house. The lot had
vanished, and the safe had been relocked and the key replaced in the
little bag which Jessica always carried concealed about her person.
Unless a duplicate key had been employed, which seemed hardly probable.
Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson was in despair; yet she did not make a scene
or become hysterical as so many women would have done in the
circumstances. On the contrary, she kept her wits about her, and
remained singularly calm.
Just then John, the footman, entered the room with some letters.
“Well, what am I to do about it?” she said to Stapleton, controlling
her voice.
“We can’t do better than consult the Metropolitan Secret Agency,” he
answered. “If they can’t help us I don’t believe anybody can. Have you
the numbers of the notes?”
“No.”
“The Agency may be able to trace the pearls, anyhow. There are only a
few places in England and on the Continent where stolen pearls of that
sort can be disposed of, and Stothert was telling me only the other day
that he knows the whereabouts of every receiver of stolen goods in this
country, and on the Continent, too.”
The footman, having delivered the letters, retired, closing the door
behind him.
Stapleton and Jessica looked at each other oddly.
“Let us go and find Archie,” she said, preparing to rise. “You say he
told you he might remain at home?”
But at that moment the door opened, and the footman, entering again,
announced:
“Captain Preston and Mr. Blenkiron.”
Jessica bit her lip. Then, as the visitors came in, she received them
with her dazzling smile.
“How glad I am to see you after all this time,” she exclaimed. “Mr.
Stapleton was speaking of you not five minutes ago, and I asked him
what had become of you both--I thought you must have left town.”
“I am rarely in town,” Blenkiron said. “I live in the country, you
know.”
“So you do. I had forgotten. But you, Captain Preston, I never see you
anywhere. Don’t you live in town?”
“Yes, but I rarely go about; my leg is such a handicap, you see. We
happened to be passing, so I suggested our calling on the chance
of finding you at home. I have not been here since you gave that
delightful musical At Home--eight or nine months ago it must have
been--but I shall never forget the way your friend sang Tchaikowsky’s
‘None but the Weary Heart.’ It was too gorgeous.”
“Are you so fond of music? You are not like most soldiers.”
“The one thing I love.”
“The _one_ thing?” she laughed mischievously. “That I can hardly
believe!”
For an instant their eyes met. Hers were laughing, mischievous still.
His had grown suddenly hard.
“Some one told me the other day,” Blenkiron happened to remark, “that
you lived at one time in Queensland, Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson. I have
been a great deal in Australia. Was it long ago?”
“Longer than I like to think about,” she answered. “I was a girl when
my parents sent me home.”
“You mean to England?”
“Yes.”
“What town were you in, or near, when you lived in Queensland?”
“Monkarra--if one can call it a town,” she answered.
“Indeed! I know Monkarra. I have been there several times. I wonder I
never met you or your people.”
“Australia is a big place, Mr. Blenkiron.”
“But its population is small, and Monkarra, as you say, is only a
hamlet. Some one told me your father’s name was Robertson.”
“People seem to have been talking a lot to you about me,” she said
quickly.
“And can you be surprised?”
The words conveyed two meanings, and Jessica turned the conversation.
“As you are fond of music,” she said to Preston, “you must honor me
again with your company the next time I have any. Men, for the most
part, are such Philistines. The only ‘music’ they seem to care for is
comic opera and ragtime.”
She talked more or less mechanically, for all the while her thoughts
were running on the loss she had just sustained. One by one her guests
of the previous night passed in review through her mind. Each was in
turn carefully considered, then dismissed as being above suspicion in
connection with the theft.
Then, suddenly, for no apparent reason, she thought of Cora
Hartsilver, and of her husband who had killed himself. Quickly Yootha
Hagerston followed--she rose into the vision of her imagination with
extraordinary distinctness. Both women she disliked, she reflected;
and she was sure that they disliked her. And now she remembered being
told--yes, Archie La Planta had told her--that Captain Preston admired
the girl. Archie had said that Preston “admired her extremely.”
And that girl, and Preston himself, also Cora Hartsilver, had been
trying--this Archie had also told her--to extract information from him
concerning herself and her past. Could it be mere coincidence that
Preston and his friend Blenkiron had called unexpectedly like this--the
first time they had ever called--and that Blenkiron should have asked
her questions about Australia? Who could have told him, she wondered,
that her father’s name was Robertson?
“Talking of Australia,” Blenkiron’s voice held her, “your father has
been dead a good many years, I suppose?”
“Ten years,” she heard herself saying; and unconsciously she wondered
why she said it.
“And your mother?”
“I was quite a child when she died.”
“And they lived at Monkarra?”
“My father did. My mother died in Charleville.”
“Strange,” Blenkiron was speaking to himself, “I should not have met
your father, or your mother, during the years I was in Queensland.”
“But why should you have met them? What were you doing in Australia?”
“I did all sorts of things there. I prospected for gold for some
years; and for years I was working on a railway--engineering work, you
understand; and then for a time I was sheep farming out there. It is,
in my opinion, the one country on earth.”
“And yet you have settled in England.”
“Because my interests are all in England now. The war made such a
change.”
Suddenly Preston rose.
“I must be going, Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson,” he said. “I hope you will
invite me the next time you have music.”
“Indeed I shall not forget--that is, if I have your address. Shall I
write it down?”
She went over to the escritoire, and he followed her.
“Thirty-three, Q., Fig Tree Court, Temple,” he said, and she made a
note of it.
He limped slowly down the stairs, supporting himself on his stick, and
Blenkiron followed.
As they made their way into Oxford Street, Blenkiron spoke.
“A clever woman--a damned clever woman,” he said. “And what a presence!
What a personality! Did you notice that to every question I put to
her she had an answer--pat! Yet I don’t believe a word she said, or
that she or her parents were ever in Australia. There is some mystery
about that woman, and about that fellow Stapleton who is always in her
pocket.”
They had turned into Oxford Street, when Blenkiron suddenly caught his
companion by the sleeve.
“Look,” he said, “there goes young La Planta, on his way to see our
friends. That lad, too, I have grave doubts about!”
CHAPTER IX.
BEFRIENDING A REPORTER.
Though several weeks had passed, no trace had been discovered of Mrs.
Mervyn-Robertson’s missing property. For reasons of her own she had
prevented any mention of the robbery being made in the newspapers, and
apparently even the Metropolitan Secret Agency had this time failed to
make good.
Preparations were in progress for the great ball to be given at the
Albert Hall by Aloysius Stapleton and his friend, young La Planta,
and as Jessica still said she preferred not to act as hostess on that
occasion, Stapleton had succeeded in enlisting the services of a
well-known peeress who, helped by friends of her own, would receive his
guests on the eventful night.
It was expected that “all London” would be there, and as the ball had
been organized by Stapleton and La Planta ostensibly in aid of some
charitable object, the newspaper press had laid itself out to give
plenty of publicity.
“If I had arranged to make it a private ball,” Stapleton observed
to Jessica one evening, “it would have cost me an enormous sum, and
hundreds who have now bought tickets would not have done so. I was
right to take your advice--you remember telling me the way to make a
ball of this sort an unqualified success, and at the same time run it
at other people’s expense, was to make it a ‘charity’ concern; get the
newspapers to print columns of fancy stories about it and publish lists
of names of people with titles likely to be present; and let it be
known that women of high social standing would receive the guests. That
advice was excellent, Jessica. There has been such a rush for tickets
that if it continues we shall have to stop selling.”
“Have I ever given you bad advice?” Jessica asked with a smile. “In
matters of this sort, and for that matter in most cases, a clever
woman’s advice is the safest advice to follow. You have not yet asked
me what I am going to wear. It is too late now to tell you. But this I
can say--my dress will surprise you.”
“I don’t want to be surprised.”
“Naturally. Nobody does. But I have a reason for wanting to surprise
you at your own ‘charity’ ball,” and she laughed. “You will find out
why, later. Have you any idea what Cora Hartsilver and her precious
friend, Yootha Hagerston, intend to wear?”
“Not the slightest. How should I? And why should their dresses interest
you?”
“They do interest me, and that is sufficient. If you have not enough
acumen to guess the reason, I don’t think much of your intellectual
foresight,” and she laughed again in her deep contralto voice.
Meanwhile Jessica Mervyn-Robertson and Cora Hartsilver met often at
receptions, dances and other social functions, and, though outwardly
friendly, each knew the other secretly hated her.
At a lunch party in Mayfair during the first days of June there had
been talk about Ascot, and Jessica had mentioned casually that on Gold
Cup Day fortune invariably favored her. Twice, she said, she had found
herself at the end of the day much richer than in the morning, “and in
other ways,” she added, “Gold Cup Day has helped me towards happiness.”
“Would it be too much to inquire what the other ways were?” Cora, who
sat near her at the angle of the table, said lightly. “I can’t see how
good fortune could come to anybody on a race day except through the
actual racing unless----”
“Unless what?” Jessica asked quickly, with an odd look, as Cora checked
herself.
“Well, one might happen to meet somebody whom afterwards one might come
to like very much,” Cora replied with a far-away look.
One or two people, happening to remember they had heard somewhere that
Jessica had first become acquainted with Aloysius Stapleton at an Ascot
meeting, smiled.
“I agree,” Jessica said with exaggerated indifference. “But the same
thing might happen to anybody anywhere--say at lunch at the Ritz, or at
one of my own musical At Homes, or at----”
She was interrupted by one of the men at the end of the table who, not
seeing she was engaged in conversation, inquired if she would make one
of the party he meant to drive down to Ascot on his coach.
“It is rather short notice, Mrs. Robertson,” he added, “but until this
morning I had not actually decided to go down. Do say ‘Yes’ if you have
not made other arrangements.”
“I shall be delighted to come,” she answered after a moment’s
hesitation. “I suppose you mean Gold Cup Day?”
“Yes, Gold Cup Day. That is good of you. Then it is settled?”
“Lucky again!” Cora Hartsilver said with a curious laugh. “I shall end
by becoming superstitious myself. Will you give me all the winners on
Gold Cup Day, Jessica?”
“Oh, then you will be there?”
“If I am lucky, too.”
“And I suppose Yootha with you? Oh! but I needn’t ask,” she ended with
a malicious little laugh.
The luncheon came to an end just then, which was as well, for the
two women were each awaiting an opportunity to deal the other
metaphorically a blow between the eyes. For weeks past their hatred had
been smoldering. To-day it had come near to bursting into flame.
When Cora met Yootha that afternoon, she at once told her of her
passage-of-arms at lunch with Jessica Robertson, and of Jessica’s
hardly veiled sneer at their friendship.
“Why let that annoy you, Cora dear?” Yootha exclaimed. “Heaven knows
why the woman dislikes you so, or why she dislikes me, as I know she
does. I expect the truth is she has heard that we are trying to find
out who she is. And I mean to go on trying, until I do find out.”
“And I am with you. I am as certain as that I am standing here that
she is an impostor of some sort, though up to the present she and her
friends, Stapleton and La Planta, have been clever enough to hide the
truth. Has it never struck you as strange, Yootha, that not a word got
into the papers about the theft of her jewelry and things, though all
one’s friends knew about it? What has made me think of that now is that
I was told this morning by a friend of mine who writes or edits, or
does something for some paper--no, you don’t know him--that Stapleton
and Jessica Robertson both moved heaven and earth to prevent the affair
being reported in the press.”
“But why?”
“Exactly--but why? I was wondering if she could have some reason for
not wanting her name to get into the papers, but as one sees it in all
the ‘social columns’ every day----”
“That may have been the reason, nevertheless. The jewelry, et cetera,
were, if you remember, apparently stolen by one of her guests that
night, and possibly she suspects one of them and is afraid of the
scandal which would follow if he, or she, were convicted of the theft.
Indeed, I can’t think what other motive she can have had for not
wanting anything to be said in the papers about the crime.”
“I wonder,” Cora said thoughtfully.
They would probably have been surprised if they had known that Captain
Preston, too, who of course had also heard of the robbery, had been
puzzling his brain to account for Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s aversion from
press publicity in connection with the robbery.
“I tell you it’s devilish odd, George,” he had said to his friend
Blenkiron only the night before, as the two sat smoking together in
his rooms in Fig Tree Court, “that woman and her dear friend Stapleton
being so desperately anxious to keep the affair out of the papers. If
you or I were burgled should we care a button if the facts were made
public or not? Would anybody else whose house was burgled object to
the fact being known? Then why this hush-hush movement on the part of
Jessica Robertson and her friends--young La Planta, too, helped to keep
it quiet.”
“Who told you?”
“Harry Hopford. He was with me in Flanders a long time, and I came
across him in Whitefriars only the other day--he is back on his
newspaper again. He said the steps that woman and her two friends took
to prevent mention being made in the papers of the robbery at her house
during one of her night parties, aroused a good deal of conjecture in
Fleet Street. Some of the reporters were actually paid to say nothing
about it. He told me so himself.”
For some moments both were silent.
“She must have had some strong motive for wanting to hush it up,”
Blenkiron said at last.
“That is what I say. Now, what can the reason have been? I tell you
again, George, there is more behind those people than anybody suspects.
And who are they? And where do they come from? You can try as you like,
but you won’t find out.”
“I certainly don’t believe Mrs. Robertson’s story that her father
was a sheep farmer in Queensland. I know every town and village in
Queensland, have known them over twenty years, and it is impossible
that if her father had been sheep farming out there, even in a small
way, I should not have known him, at any rate by name.”
“It seems that the police were not notified of the theft. Only the
Metropolitan Secret Agency was told about it, and for a wonder it
failed to discover a clue. You know how clever that Agency is in
running thieves to earth. I am told it hardly ever fails, though there
are queer rumors as to the methods it employs to catch criminals.”
It was Harry Hopford, though Preston did not know it, who had told Cora
Hartsilver about the hushing up in the press. They were not intimately
acquainted; Hopford had met Cora at a dance one night which he was
attending professionally, and afterwards they had recognized each other
at the Chelsea Flower Show and engaged in conversation. Thus neither
Hopford nor Cora suspected that the other was acquainted with Captain
Preston.
It so happened that, some days after this conversation, Hopford had
occasion to call to see Stapleton to obtain from him some facts about
the approaching ball at the Albert Hall. Being, as all journalists
have to be, of an inquisitive disposition, he referred incidentally to
the theft of jewelry and notes from Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s house in
Cavendish Square, and casually inquired if the stolen property had been
recovered.
“I am sure I don’t know,” Stapleton answered quickly. “What makes you
think I should know?”
“I thought you might,” Hopford replied calmly, “as you are acquainted
with the lady and were at supper at her house on the night of the
robbery.”
“Who told you I was there?”
“Oh, the press generally knows these things.”
“‘The press,’ as you call it, is a damned nuisance at times,” Stapleton
said sharply. “I suppose a report of that robbery would have appeared
in every paper if Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson had not asked the editors
to refrain from giving her undesirable notoriety. I can’t think why
newspapers always want to publish detailed reports of crimes. Such
reports do a lot of harm, I am sure--a lot of harm.”
“The papers wouldn’t publish the reports if the public was not anxious
to read them,” Hopford replied with assurance. “You should blame the
public, Mr. Stapleton, not the press.”
“Nothing ever did appear about that robbery, did it?” Stapleton asked,
looking at the young reporter rather oddly.
“Not so far as I am aware.”
Stapleton remained silent for a minute. He seemed to be thinking.
“Are you ever in need of money, my lad?” he inquired suddenly.
Hopford laughed.
“Show me the journalist who isn’t,” he said. “Why?”
“Supposing I made it worth your while----”
“Yes?”
“Well, it’s like this--by the way, what’s your name?”
“Hopford--Harry Hopford.”
“Come and sit down, Hopford--here, have a cigar. Now then, I am in
a position to be able to do you a good turn now and again, in other
words, to benefit you pecuniarily, if in return you will do as I
suggest and at the same time keep absolutely silent about it. Don’t
think I am going to ask you to do anything terrible. I am not,” and he
smiled.
“I dare say it could be managed,” Hopford answered dreamily, as he
began to enjoy the cigar. “Hadn’t you better tell me exactly what it is
you want me to do, then I shall be able to give you a straightforward
answer at once. Anything you may tell me I shall, of course, consider
confidential.”
“That’s the spirit; that’s the way I like to hear a young fellow talk.
Well now, listen.”
Stapleton glanced towards the door to see that it was shut, then
continued:
“There are several things you may be able to do for me from time to
time, and the first is this. I am practically certain I know who took
the diamonds and the notes, and the rest of the stuff stolen that
night, and though naturally I don’t intend to mention the lady’s name,
I can hint at it. I believe the thief--yes, thief--to be a young widow
whose husband died in tragic circumstances nine or ten months ago--he
was found dead in his bath one morning; possibly you recollect the
affair.”
“I ought to, seeing that I was sent to the house the same day to
obtain particulars of the tragedy. The house is not far from Portland
Place--am I right?”
“Quite.”
“So the widow was among Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s guests at supper that
night?”
“She was not. She was not even invited. Yet I have a good reason for
supposing she was admitted, though the hostess never saw her.”
“Would that have been possible?”
“Certainly. There was a great crush. At one time during the night one
could hardly force one’s way through it, and it was then the widow was
admitted, the footman believing her to be an invited guest.”
“Could you get me an interview with the footman?”
“Quite impossible, my dear fellow. Besides, it may not have been the
footman who admitted her. That was merely my conjecture. It may have
been one of the other servants.”
“The butler, for instance.”
“No, not the butler.”
“And you are sure that she was there? You saw her?”
“No, no; don’t jump at conclusions. I didn’t see her--myself.”
“Then who did?”
“That I must not tell you. It would be unwise.”
“I have promised to respect your confidence.”
“Quite so, or I should not have told you what I have. But names, you
know, are sacred things. If I mentioned names it would be impossible
for me afterwards to swear I had not done so, should an occasion for
taking the oath, by some unforeseen chance, arise.”
“I see your point. Well, can you, without committing yourself, hint to
me the reason you believe the lady, whose identity you have practically
revealed to me, ransacked Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s safe? Was it, should
you say, for the intrinsic value of the things stolen, or was there
some deeper reason?”
“Such as?”
“Documents, compromising letters, anything of that sort?”
“I am afraid I must not answer that either. You see, one has to be so
careful. My idea in telling you as much as I have is that you should,
without, of course, making any definite statement, hint in your paper
that the crime was committed by a young widow well known in Society;
you might go so far as to say the widow lost her husband in tragic
circumstances comparatively recently, and you might also work in some
fancy padding of your own. You could add that you had obtained your
information from a trustworthy source.”
“Meaning you.”
“Of course. Who else?”
“And what terms do you propose?”
“That I must leave to you to suggest.”
“I would sooner the offer came from you, Mr. Stapleton.”
Stapleton hesitated a moment, then:
“Would a ten-pound note about meet the case? You see, you score by
getting what I believe you call a ‘scoop’ for your paper.”
“And run the risk of being fired if the lady hinted at should think fit
to bring an action against my paper. Oh, no, Mr. Stapleton, I am not
out to take sporting chances for the sake of pocketing a tenner. If you
had said eighty or a hundred pounds I might--I say might--have felt
tempted to take a chance, but a tenner----”
He rose, preparatory to leaving.
“Wait a minute, Hopford, wait a minute,” Stapleton exclaimed, trying to
conceal his eagerness as he laid a hand on the lad’s shoulder to detain
him. “I asked you to name a sum, remember--I have no idea what terms
are usual in such cases. Sit down again and I may, after all, be able
to meet your wishes.”
With assumed reluctance the reporter sank back into the chair from
which he had just risen, and for another ten minutes he and Stapleton
continued to converse. And when, finally, the former left the house, he
carried in his breast-pocket five new ten-pound notes, and chuckled as
he thought of Stapleton’s promise to hand him five more notes on the
publication of the scoop.
CHAPTER X.
A PARAGRAPH FOR THE PAPERS.
“Fifty pounds easily earned,” Hopford murmured as he strolled along
Maida Vale, looking about him for a taxi. “I thought all along that
fellow was hot stuff, in spite of the way the papers cocker him up. And
so he wants people to think Mrs. Hartsilver committed, or at any rate
had a hand in, that theft? What a blackguard! Now, I wonder why he owes
her a grudge? Yes, he must owe her a grudge, and a pretty bad one, or
he would never go so far as that.”
Quickly his train of thought ran on. There was not an empty taxi
in sight, so he decided to walk part of the way. One thought led
to another. Solutions to the problem which puzzled him suggested
themselves, only to be dismissed one after another as improbable. Then
suddenly an idea occurred to him. Could there be another woman in the
case? Some woman who was jealous of Mrs. Hartsilver?
Instantly the name Jessica Robertson rose to his lips. Why, of course,
that must be it! At a loss to suspect any of her guests of having
robbed her safe, she would take the opportunity, if opportunity
occurred, of casting suspicion on the widow who lived in Park Crescent,
and whose beauty and personality rivaled her own. Stapleton’s
partiality for Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson was common talk. She, no doubt,
had hinted her desire to him, and he had happened to remember it while
being interviewed on the subject of the approaching ball.
So far, so good. A mystery to a newspaper reporter is like red meat
to a tiger. Hopford felt that he had struck a mystery now which might
develop later into a scandal. Then he remembered that at the Chelsea
Flower Show he had met Mrs. Hartsilver. He must become friendly with
her, and then he would play his cards.
He entered his office with a light heart. Those five ten-pound notes
would be most useful, but what gratified him most was the thought
of the news “story” he felt he was on the track of. Not the “story”
Stapleton had hinted at. From the first he had not had the slightest
intention of using that. Even if it possessed a grain of truth, which
he doubted, that was not the sort of stuff he wanted for his paper,
while to set out deliberately to wreck a woman’s good name on no
evidence in return for payment, was not to be countenanced for a moment.
No, he would never see that second fifty pounds. And, so thinking, he
sighed.
“Hullo, what’s up?” asked a colleague who sat near him. “Got the hump
or something?”
“Oh, shut it!” Hopford snapped. “I’m dog tired.”
“For that matter so am I, but I don’t groan over it,” his neighbor
rapped back. “And yet I well might, after reporting two inquests and a
cremation in one afternoon.”
Hopford laughed.
“Never mind,” he said. “Yesterday you attended two parades of
_mannequins_, one in swimming suits. You told me so yourself, so you
haven’t much to grumble at.”
For some minutes both went on writing, turning out their “copy” at a
great pace.
“Odd thing this suicide--what?” Hopford’s friend remarked as he laid
down his fountain pen at last and pinned his sheets of copy together.
“What suicide?” Hopford inquired, while his pen ran swiftly on.
“You haven’t heard? Everybody is talking about it in the clubs, though
none of the evening papers has the story. I got details at the Junior
Carlton, where I dined to-night. Lord Froissart belongs there.”
“Froissart! You don’t mean that Lord Froissart has committed suicide!”
Hopford exclaimed, stopping in his work and looking up.
“Why, yes. His body was found at the foot of the cliffs at Bournemouth
about six o’clock this evening. Nobody saw him go over, apparently, but
while I was at the Junior Carlton the man I was dining with, a friend
of Froissart’s, got a telegram from a friend in Bournemouth saying
that an open letter had just been found in the dead man’s pocket, in
which he confessed that he was about to take his life. My friend says
Froissart never really got over the shock of his daughter’s suicide--it
was suicide in her case, too, of course. He also said that of late
Froissart had been looking terribly ill and worried. It’s a good story,
anyhow, and I think I have more facts than any other morning paper
will get hold of. Lucky I happened to be dining with a man who knew
Froissart intimately--what?”
Next day the papers were full of the tragedy. Lord Froissart had, it
seemed, left his house in Queen Anne’s Gate about eleven o’clock in
the morning, the time he usually went out. He had called to see his
lawyers, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, shortly before noon, and remained
there about three quarters of an hour. From there he had gone,
apparently on foot, to the Metropolitan Secret Agency, “the house with
the bronze face,” and after interviewing Mr. Alix Stothert, head of
that concern, had lunched alone at Frascati’s. He had caught the three
thirty-seven train to Bournemouth, and after that nothing more was
known until his body had been found at the foot of the cliffs by some
children, who had at once run home and told their parents, who, in
turn, had notified the police. All this the newspapers had succeeded in
ferreting out before their late editions went to press.
The report written by Hopford contained certain intimate and exclusive
details, however. Lord Froissart had stayed late at the Junior Carlton
the night before, writing one letter after another. A waiter of whom he
had inquired at what times fast trains left for Bournemouth said he had
thought his lordship seemed “excitable and nervy.” Before leaving the
club, he added, deceased had pressed a five pound note into his hand,
greatly to his surprise, for he had never before known Lord Froissart
to infringe the club rules.
In addition this report stated that the writer knew for a fact that
Lord Froissart had on several occasions recently spoken about suicide,
a subject in which he appeared suddenly to evince a deep interest.
Further, he had asked a friend of the writer’s, two days previously,
if he had any idea what height the highest cliffs at Bournemouth were,
and if he had ever heard of any one committing suicide by jumping off
them. A sealed letter found on the body was addressed in deceased’s
handwriting to his elder and only surviving child, the Honorable Mrs.
Ferdinand-Westrup, then living in Ceylon with her husband, who was a
tea planter. No motive could be assigned for Lord Froissart’s having
taken his life, though the shock of his daughter’s death the year
before might have unhinged his mind.
Some days later the usual verdict was returned--“Suicide whilst
temporarily insane,” and within a fortnight the tragedy had been
virtually forgotten.
By all except one or two people. Captain Charles Preston remembered it;
so did Cora Hartsilver, and so did Yootha Hagerston. And the reason
they remembered it was this.
Lord Froissart died quite a rich man. His sole heir ought by rights to
have been his daughter, Mrs. Ferdinand-Westrup. Instead, the bulk of
his fortune and property were left to an individual of whom nobody,
apparently, had ever heard--a Mrs. Timothy Macmahon, described as the
widow of Timothy Macmahon of Cashel, Co. Tipperary, and the will, which
was not yet proved, had been executed on the morning of the very day
of the tragedy, at the offices of Messrs. Eton, West and Shrubsole,
solicitors, of Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
Now those solicitors, as Preston happened to have heard from his
servant, whose brother was a clerk in Eton, West and Shrubsole’s
office, were solicitors also to Jessica Mervyn-Robertson. A
coincidence, perhaps, as Preston said to Cora Hartsilver a day or two
after Froissart’s death, yet in his opinion a curious coincidence.
And when, ten days later, Hopford succeeded in obtaining an interview
with Cora Hartsilver, and told her of his interview with Aloysius
Stapleton, and what Stapleton had tried to induce him to hint at in the
newspaper--feeling it his duty to tell her, he had no hesitation in
breaking faith with Stapleton--events in the life of Aloysius Stapleton
began to look peculiar.
But still Stapleton and his intimate friends, Archie La Planta and
Jessica Mervyn-Robertson, were to be met everywhere. Still their
movements were chronicled almost daily in the social columns of the
London press, while their portraits appeared frequently in the weekly
periodicals.
But perhaps nowhere was Jessica so much noticed as at Ascot. The daily
and the weekly papers had apparently laid themselves out to give her as
much publicity there as possible. She was seen in her car arriving on
the course, accompanied by half a dozen friends, among them of course
Stapleton and La Planta. She was seen walking on the course; she was
seen in the paddock congratulating the owner of the winner of the Gold
Cup; she was seen smiling at a duchess and shaking hands with a peer;
she was seen conversing with a foreign premier.
Then the fashion papers “featured” her costumes--the gown she wore
on the first day of the meeting, on the second day, and so on; the
gowns she wore on different nights at the opera; the gowns she wore
at Hurlingham, at Ranelagh, at the Military Tournament at Olympia, at
the Richmond Show, on her houseboat above Henley until at last even
her friends began seriously to ask one another who this woman was who,
coming from nowhere, and unknown, had thus conquered London Society by
her charm, her personality, and her beauty, but most of all, perhaps,
by her lavish display and her extravagance.
And naturally people who were not her friends, women more especially,
whispered. Others, when her name was mentioned, would smile
significantly; smiles which did more harm than the whispers. For though
nothing could be openly said against her, yet her would-be detractors
were glad to insinuate evil.
That friend of hers, for instance, Aloysius Stapleton, why was he
always at her heels? There might, of course, be no harm in the
relationship; but on the other hand there might be harm, and as there
might be there probably was. That was the attitude many adopted towards
her who nevertheless accepted her hospitality and were glad to be
invited to her receptions--receptions which certainly were the talk of
all the town. Yet, curiously enough, she had refused to act as hostess
at the great ball to take place at the Albert Hall; more, she had
declined to be included among the society hostesses who would receive
the three thousand or more guests that night.
Why was that?
It was Hopford who asked the question, and he put it to Captain
Preston. In short, while the social world of London for the most part
worshiped at the shrine of the mysterious Jessica Mervyn-Robertson,
Captain Preston, Hopford, Cora Hartsilver, Yootha Hagerston and George
Blenkiron were banding themselves together--a little group of skeptics
determined to find out who Jessica actually was, and who her friends
were.
Perhaps had they known the sensation the approaching great ball at the
Albert Hall held in store for them they would have hesitated before
meddling with the affairs of Jessica Mervyn-Robertson, the idol of
London Society.
CHAPTER XI.
HUSH MONEY!
You would think, judging by the newspapers, that the great balls which
take place periodically in London at the Albert Hall and elsewhere
presented scenes of wild delight approaching revelry. Many, in reality,
are deadly dull affairs, and respectable beyond words, while others
are so crowded that dancing becomes an impossibility. Of course there
are always people who like to be “seen everywhere” in order to give
their friends the impression that they are “in the swim” of London
life, fashionable and otherwise. Such folk you will usually find to be
_poseurs_ of a peculiarly unintelligent type, the sort of men and women
who are never natural, never “themselves” as it is called, and who act
and talk always to impress those who may see or hear them.
Among the three thousand or more men and women who had bought tickets
for the great ball organized and ostensibly to be given by Aloysius
Stapleton and young Archie La Planta, were hundreds of people of that
type, the class of individual who, before the war, loved to squander
money and still more to let folk see how recklessly they squandered it.
Stapleton, who knew his world, had purposely advertised his ball with
a view to what he called “roping in” these people by making a great
to do regarding the many well-known social representatives who would
be present, in addition to theatrical stars and other more or less
Bohemian folk.
What he went nap on, however, were the social representatives. Like
most people who move about he had noticed that since the war the glamor
which in pre-war days enveloped well-advertised stage folk had faded
considerably, and that, owing possibly to the sudden rise to affluence
of profiteers and their wives and other beings of common origin and
snobbishly inclined, men and women of birth and breeding and real
distinction now held the limelight almost entirely.
“I think I can say without conceit that it will be the most talked of
event of its sort, not only of the present season, but of any season
for years past,” he observed complacently to Jessica, some days before
the great night, “and I will admit that for that I am largely indebted
to you, Jessica. By the way, I wish you would tell me what your dress
is to be.”
“Why waste time trying to make me tell you what I have already told you
I am not going to tell you?” Jessica asked, as she lay back in a great
soft fauteuil and blew a cloud of smoke into the middle of the room.
“You will see enough of it on the night, I can assure you. Our supper
party ought to be a great success,” she added, changing the subject.
The telephone on the escritoire rang, and she went over to answer it.
“It is the Metropolitan Secret Agency,” she said a moment later. “They
want to speak to you.”
Stapleton picked up the receiver, and as he did so the door opened and
a middle-aged little man with a semitic cast of countenance was shown
in.
It was the Hebrew, Levi Schomberg, who, Stapleton had told La Planta
some weeks before, “lent money to his friends.” He had told him at the
same time that Schomberg had warned him against “Hartsilver’s widow” on
the ground that she was a designing woman.
Stapleton had difficulty in concealing his annoyance at Levi’s arrival
just as he was on the point of conversing with the house with the
bronze face, and after replying to one or two questions which the
Agency put to him he hung up the receiver and went across to Schomberg,
with whom he shook hands.
“I need an extension to this house badly,” he said pointedly to
Jessica. “You might remind me to-morrow to see about it.”
But Levi did not, or pretended that he did not note the point of that
observation.
“And to what do I owe the honor of this visit?” Stapleton asked as he
pushed an arm-chair towards Schomberg. “Is it business this time, or
pleasure? And why have you come here instead of to my flat?”
“Some of each, and a little of both,” the little man answered with a
grin. “You guess what I come about, no doubt?”
“Not being mentally incapacitated as yet, I do,” Stapleton answered,
biting his lip. “I think you might have waited until after the ball on
Thursday night,” he added in a tone of annoyance.
“Several thought that when I approached them to-day,” the Jew said
slyly. “But, as I ask them, why after the ball instead of now? What is
the matter with now? Isn’t now good enough?”
“Well, out with it. How much do you want this time?”
“Eight thousand. Only eight thousand--this time.”
Stapleton glared at him, and had anybody caught sight of Jessica at
that moment he would have had difficulty in believing her to be the
same woman, so distorted with fury had her face become.
“Eight thousand!” Stapleton exclaimed. “It’s preposterous--I haven’t
the money.”
Levi Schomberg made a little click with his tongue, which might have
meant anything.
“I am sorry to hear that, Louie,” he said carelessly. “Is it not
strange that though you appear always to have unlimited cash to fling
about, yet whenever I call to see you the cupboard is bare? Still, I
need that sum, and you know that what I need I always end by getting,
even if in order to get it I am forced to tighten the screw. Come now,
when can you hand it to me? Shall we say to-morrow at twelve, at the
same place as before?”
Stapleton had begun to pace the floor. Jessica, her fingers twitching
nervously, watched him with an evil expression. It was easy to see that
for some reason the man and the woman, usually so self-possessed, were
in their visitor’s power.
Thus a minute or two passed. Then, all at once, Stapleton came to a
halt and, turning sharply, faced Levi Schomberg.
“If I give you that sum, say on Friday--to-day is Tuesday--will you
undertake, in writing, to stop this persecution?”
“In writing? Oh, no. Besides, I could not, in any case, promise to
stop what you are pleased to call ‘this persecution,’ for where else
should I go for the money? My demands are not exorbitant, Louie, judged
by the length of your purse. Were you less rich, my requests would be
moderated in proportion to your income. That, as I think you know, is
my invariable rule. I find out exactly what my ‘client’s’ income is
from all sources, and I regulate my tariff accordingly. That is only
fair and just. May I take it then that on--Friday----”
“Get out of my sight!”
“No, don’t say that, don’t employ that tone,” the little Jew went on,
in no way disconcerted. “I have news to give you--good news, Louie,
think of that!”
He crossed his legs, and lay back in his chair. Then, thrusting his
hands deep into his trousers pockets, he said:
“Louie--and Jessica,” glancing at each in turn, “you will be happy
to hear that though secret inquiries are being made about you on all
sides, nothing, as the newspapers say, ‘has as yet transpired.’”
“Who has been making inquiries?” Jessica asked quickly.
“Why, who but the lady to whom you are so devoted--Cora Hartsilver,
also her shadow, Yootha Hagerston, also a Captain Preston, also a young
journalist named Hopford, and lastly a friend of the lot, whose name
is Blenkiron. Those five have set themselves the task of discovering
all about both of you, and about Archie, and I should not be surprised
if presently they hit upon the right trail. If they don’t hit it they
won’t fail for want of trying, and if by some mishap the _douceur_ I
have mentioned should go astray on Friday----”
“Good heavens, Levi, you wouldn’t do that--you couldn’t!”
Jessica had sprung to her feet and, abandoning her habitual calm,
seemed beside herself.
“Naturally I wouldn’t do it, though I disagree with you that I
couldn’t, Jessica,” the little man said in his even tones, partly
closing his eyelids as though to get her profile in better perspective.
Jessica looked relieved.
“Always supposing,” he went on, “you keep your part of the bargain.”
“Bargain!” Stapleton exclaimed. “I never made a bargain. You wanted me
to, but I refused--we both refused. You can’t have forgotten that!”
“I forget everything I don’t wish to remember,” Levi replied, his
eyes now only slits. “Jessica, you look very beautiful to-day--more
beautiful than you have ever looked, or than I have ever seen you look.
I am not surprised that London raves about you.”
He rose before she could reply, and extended his hand, which she took
reluctantly. He held it a moment longer than the occasion seemed to
warrant, then dropped it.
“On Friday, then,” he said, addressing Stapleton. “On Thursday night we
may not meet, you will both be so very busy, or should I say so much in
demand? Unless of course you invite me to join your party. So good-by
for the moment.”
Stapleton did not go down to see him out, nor did he ring for the
servant. Instead, he shut the door directly the little man had left the
room.
The front door slammed, and still the two sat in silence. At last
Jessica said in a metallic voice:
“What are we to do, Aloysius?”
“There is nothing to be done,” he answered. “We must go on paying, and
paying, until----”
“Until what?”
Suddenly his expression changed. Then, after a pause, he said:
“Supposing Levi were to die unexpectedly; how convenient it would be,
Jessica.”
Their eyes met, and he knew that the same thought had just occurred to
Jessica.
“People die suddenly of all sort of common complaints,” he went on.
“Heart failure, apoplexy, stoppage of the heart’s action, natural
causes----Supposing he died of a natural cause,” he added in an
undertone.
“Supposing! Well, it would mean one Hebrew less in the world.”
“And many thousands of pounds left in our pockets which, under
existing conditions, will have to come out of them.”
“It is worth considering.”
“Certainly.”
“As long as he remains alive, remember, we shall be subjected to
repetitions of the sort of visit he has just paid us.”
And, while they talked, Levi Schomberg, threading his way along the
crowded pavement of Oxford Street, had but one thought in his mind.
Jessica.
He had always admired her, but now she had completely bewitched him.
Surely--surely with the woman in his power, and with Stapleton, too,
in his power, anything and everything should be possible? But how set
about it? What would be his best and most direct mode of attack?
Another thought came to him. Where was Mervyn-Robertson? He knew the
fellow was not dead, but what had become of him, and in what corner of
the world was he at that moment? If only he could find out, Robertson
himself might be employed in some capacity to achieve his end. When
he had last heard of Robertson, some years before, the man had been
in dire straits, and when a man of his type and way of living came to
be in dire straits, he reflected, he generally remained in that state
until the end of the chapter.
Then there was Mrs. Hartsilver. Hating Jessica, and striving all she
knew to find out all about her, she might serve sooner or later as a
useful lever. When two women, both beautiful, and both moving in the
same social circle, come to entertain a bitter enmity for each other,
anything may happen, or be made to happen, he reflected. And Jessica
had other enemies as well among “the people who count,” he remembered.
Yes, with the aid of a little tact, a little ingenuity----
People passing glanced at him in astonishment, wondering why he smiled.
He wandered into the Park at Marble Arch, for it was a beautiful
afternoon and the sight of the trees in full foliage always appealed to
his artistic eye. Scores of cars containing people obviously of leisure
kept rolling past, and as he watched them his imagination wove romances
round some of the occupants of the cars. Among the faces many were
familiar to him; he recognized two of his clients.
A self-satisfied smile parted his lips.
“Who would think, to look at them,” he said aloud, “they would not have
a shilling in the world if I chose to foreclose? Yet there are folk who
no doubt envy them, and tradesmen who would not hesitate to give them
credit--big credit--unlimited credit. Fools, oh, what fools there are!
Was it not Thackeray who wrote that ‘long customs, a manly appearance,
faultless boots and clothes and a happy fierceness of manner’ would
often help a man as much as a great balance at his bankers?”
“How true!” he went on murmuring to himself. “Here in London a man or
a woman need only dress in the height of fashion in clothes they never
pay for, and hire a big car and pretend they own it, and be seen in
good society, and the world bows down before them and craves to do them
homage. Look at Stapleton and that young ass Archie La Planta, and a
dozen others--to say nothing of Jessica.”
“Ah, Jessica!”
CHAPTER XII.
YOOTHA’S PRESENTIMENT.
Meanwhile Yootha Hagerston was secretly becoming more and more enamored
of Captain Preston. It was the first time in her life she had ever
really cared for any man; until now she had followed the fashion
prevalent among many women of pretending to consider love and deep
affection “all nonsense” and the hall-mark of a weak intelligence. She
had come to know his movements and had discovered some of his haunts,
with the result that she rarely missed an opportunity of meeting him
“by chance.”
And, though he would not have admitted it, even to himself, Preston
had for some weeks past been singularly attracted by Yootha. He had
liked her that day he had met her for the first time, at lunch at
the Ritz and afterwards at Jessica’s musical At Home, though the
woman who had most interested him then had been Yootha’s friend, Cora
Hartsilver. But now it was different. There was something about the
girl, apart from her looks, which appealed to him. What it was he could
not have explained. It might have been her sympathetic nature, or her
personality, or her temperament; in any case he felt strangely drawn
towards her every time they met.
On the lovely July afternoon Levi Schomberg had called to see Jessica
and Stapleton, and had afterwards wandered into the Park, Yootha
was on the river with Preston. A friend of his whose home was at
Pangbourne had, he had told her, on being suddenly ordered abroad,
told him he could, during his absence, make use of his punt if ever he
felt inclined to; though Preston had himself just rented a house-boat
which was moored close to Maidenhead. Until now he had not felt
inclined; punting alone is a dull form of amusement, and Preston had
comparatively few friends in London. Then one day, while thinking of
Yootha, the idea had occurred to him that she might like a river picnic
from time to time, and he had hinted as much to her; Pangbourne was
more solitary than Maidenhead he reflected.
They were in a narrow estuary--it was not a backwater--with the punt
moored to a tree, and for some moments neither had spoken. No sound,
save of birds singing in the woods around, broke the almost perfect
stillness. The air was sultry, as though thunder were in the air.
“How fortunate I should have accepted La Planta’s invitation to lunch
at the Ritz that day last August,” Preston said suddenly. “I did not
want to lunch with him, I remember, but now I am glad I did.”
“Why are you glad?” she asked, looking across at him. She was lying in
the stern, propped up with cushions, and made a pretty picture in her
big hat and the becoming boating frock which revealed her figure.
He gazed at her without answering. Then, as if to conceal his
embarrassment, he began to light his briar.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he replied awkwardly, tossing the match into the
water. “That was the first time I met you, if you remember.”
If she remembered! Could she ever forget? That was the thought which
flashed into her brain, but she did not utter it. Instead, she said
carelessly:
“So it was. And the first time you met Jessica, too, wasn’t it?”
He made an impatient movement.
“Please don’t remind me of that. Every time I think of that woman I
feel positively vicious.”
“I thought that day,” Yootha continued, after a pause, “that you had
eyes for nobody but Cora. You do like Cora, don’t you?”
“Of course I like her, though not, perhaps, as much as you like her.
Nobody could help liking her--nobody who counts.”
“I am glad you say that. In my opinion she is the one woman in the
world. I simply worship her, and always have. She is so true, so
absolutely free from insincerity. You never met her husband, I think?”
“No--fortunately.”
“Why fortunately?”
“From what I have heard about him he must have been a terrible
outsider. Was she very unhappy with him?”
“Very. They ought never to have married. Myself, I hated him. He was
so selfish, so self-satisfied, in short such a bounder. I ought not, I
suppose, to say that of a dead man, but I can’t help it. He was odious.
I know you would have thought so had you known him.”
Preston went on sucking at his pipe for some moments, without speaking.
Presently his eyes met Yootha’s. He tried to look away, but could not.
And then, all at once, the girl gave a curious little laugh. It was so
unlike her to laugh apparently at nothing, that Preston laughed too.
“What are we both laughing at?” she exclaimed, suddenly recovering. She
had colored unexpectedly, and Preston noticed that the hand which hung
over the side of the punt trembled.
“I can’t think,” he said. “I fancy I was laughing because I feel so
happy.”
“Do you really,” she asked, and he saw that her chest rose and fell
beneath the flimsy material she wore. “I wonder why?”
“Your cigarette had gone out,” he remarked inconsequently. “Try one of
mine. I think you will like them.”
He stood up in the punt, and, balancing himself carefully, stepped over
to where she lay. Then, kneeling beside her, he held out the case which
he had produced from his pocket.
He sat close to her when he had lit her cigarette. Somehow her
proximity seemed to agitate him. He wanted to speak, to go on
conversing on ordinary topics, as they had been, but words refused to
come.
And at that instant a drop of rain splashed upon the punt. Without
their noticing it the sky had become overcast. Heavy drops followed in
quick succession, and then, without warning, a flash almost blinded
them, and on the same instant a peal of thunder crackled overhead and
all around them like rifle fire.
When they had set out, early in the afternoon, the sky had been
cloudless, so that neither had coats or wraps. Just in time Preston
snatched up his jacket and flung it over Yootha, a moment later rain
came down like a shower in the tropics.
Pulling the punt in closer under the bank to get what shelter was
obtainable, Preston looked down anxiously at his companion to whom his
thin jacket afforded but scant protection. She was smiling up at him
and looked perfectly contented, save for her anxiety about his getting
drenched.
And still the rain poured down. Judging by the sky, it was not going to
stop very soon. Flash after flash lit up the surrounding fields, and
the thunder pealed almost incessantly. And then all at once, to add to
their discomfort, wind began to rise.
That storm, as some may remember, was said to be the worst London had
known for twenty years. It lasted throughout the night and well on into
the following morning, wreaking havoc in the metropolis and in the
provinces, and particularly up the Thames valley.
And it was a storm which Preston and Yootha Hagerston are not likely
to forget, for it broke down the barrier of reserve between them so
effectually that by the time they got home that evening in a car--which
Preston with great difficulty succeeded in chartering--they were to all
intents engaged.
Thinking over, next day, the events of the previous afternoon, Preston
smiled at the thought of all that had occurred. Had anybody told him
in the morning that within four-and-twenty hours he would be engaged
to be married, he could have laughed the speaker to scorn. Yet, as so
often happens, the seemingly impossible had come about, and he began
seriously to review the situation.
Yes, he was happy. Very happy. Of that he felt convinced. Often in his
time he had met a girl with whom he thought he might be happy should
she consent to become his wife, but he had never felt sufficiently sure
of himself to propose. And now he thanked heaven for that diffidence,
for he knew the only woman in the world he had ever really wanted as a
wife was Yootha Hagerston.
They did not meet again until the following afternoon. He had
telephoned about noon to ask if she would have tea with him at his
rooms in Fig Tree Court, and her reply was what might have been
expected.
“My darling,” he exclaimed, folding her in his arms and pressing
her lips to his as they met in the little passage which his servant
called “the hall.” “If you knew how happy you have made me, how I now
realize that for weeks past I have wanted you to become mine--mine for
ever----”
He stopped, for she was sobbing, clinging to him as though she could
never let him go.
“What is it? What is the matter?” he exclaimed in alarm, raising her
face from his shoulder and trying to look into her eyes. “Why are you
crying, Yootha?”
And then, all at once, he realized that her tears were tears of
happiness.
“Only one thing makes me anxious, Charlie,” she said later, after
tea, “and that is that something may come between us--and prevent
our marriage. I don’t know why, but I have a presentiment, a sort of
feeling--oh, I can’t explain, I don’t know what it is, I hardly know
what I am saying I feel so happy, so absolutely and perfectly happy.
But can we hurry on the wedding, dearest? Couldn’t we be married by
special license, or something. I don’t want to wait a day longer, not
an hour longer than is absolutely necessary. Life is so uncertain, you
know, and such strange and unlooked-for things sometimes happen. Tell
me, Charlie, must we go to the ball Thursday night?”
“At the Albert Hall? I am afraid I must, darling, because I have made
up a party, as you know. Don’t you want to go? I thought you were
looking forward to it.”
“I was, but now I would rather not go. Still, if you must go, of
course, I’ll come with you. But I shall be glad when it is over. I
can’t think why, but the thought of that ball now seems somehow to
frighten me. It didn’t until we became engaged.”
But Preston soon dispelled her fancies. She was excited, he said,
unstrung. “What could happen to anybody at a ball at the Albert Hall?”
he exclaimed, laughing. He had been in hotter places in France and had
come through all right--except for that bit of shrapnel in his leg.
Yes, he agreed with her that it would be best for the news of their
engagement not to be announced until her parents had been informed.
“How do you think they will take it?” he asked. “Will they be pleased,
or not?”
“Probably not,” she answered lightly. “At least, if they are pleased,
it will be the first time they have ever approved of anything I have
done on my own initiative. And then there is the question of money.
I have a small income of my own, as you know, and lately I inherited
a comfortable little nest egg, and my stepmother naturally hopes
that in the ordinary course of events I may some day make over some
of my capital to her and to my father. Our marriage will dispel that
delusion,” and she laughed.
“You say naturally,” Preston said, “but I think it most unnatural she
should think anything of the sort.”
“Ah, you don’t know my stepmother. But let us change the subject.
Whenever I begin to think about my stepmother something unpleasant is
sure to happen. Don’t think me superstitious. I am not, as a rule, but
on that point I am extremely superstitious, because what I say has
often happened.”
As they came out into Fleet Street, a little later, they met Hopford
hurrying to his office.
“Sorry I can’t wait,” he said, “but I’ve got hold of something rather
good to-day, something which will interest you both, by the way, and I
have to write the story before seven. See you at the ball on Thursday,
I suppose?”
“You have promised to have supper with us there,” Preston said with a
laugh.
“So I have! I shouldn’t have forgotten it on Thursday night, you may be
sure. It ought to be a festive evening.”
He raised his hat and turned down Whitefriars Street, and Preston
looked about for a taxi. But there was not one to be seen which was
disengaged.
Presently he glanced at his watch.
“I have to meet a man in Bloomsbury at six o’clock,” he said, “and
it is now half-past five. Would you care to walk that far with me,
darling?”
She answered that she would “adore to,” and so it came about that, on
turning out of Russell Square, Preston pointed out a house to her on
the opposite side of the street.
“That is a house you must often have heard about,” he said. “They call
it the house with the bronze face. It is the headquarters of the famous
Metropolitan Secret Agency.”
Yootha looked across at it with interest.
“What a horrible knocker!” she exclaimed. “Isn’t the face awful? I
have heard Cora and the others speak about the place. She went there
recently, as you know, to try to find out about Jessica, and she
expects to hear soon. She described the knocker to me then. No wonder
it has given the house a curious reputation--I mean the stories that
are told about it. But they are all nonsense, I suppose?” she ended,
looking at Preston.
“Of course they must be, though the fact that Lord Froissart called
there on the morning of the day he committed suicide has probably
given the tales about the house a fresh lease of life. I can’t stand
superstitious people, can you? I am glad you are not superstitious,
dearest.”
Yootha laughed uneasily.
“It’s a gloomy, depressing-looking house, anyway,” she said, changing
the subject as she glanced back at the door. “And it has a mysterious
look. But I think a detective agency always sounds mysterious.”
“The people who run the Secret Agency must be extraordinarily clever,”
Preston said. “The number of criminals they have brought to book is
said to be very large, though the agency has not been in existence many
years. I heard a rumor some days ago that they are now hot on the scent
of the thieves who stole Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s jewels out of her safe
during one of her evening parties.”
“Mr. Hopford seems to be very interested in that affair,” Yootha
observed. “Now, I wonder if he had heard anything about it when we met
him in Fleet Street? He said what he was going to write would be of
interest to us both.”
They had now arrived at the house where Preston had an appointment. An
empty taxi was passing, and he hailed it.
“Then we shall meet Thursday night,” he said, when he had handed Yootha
into the taxi and shut the door. “Cora is going to call for me in her
car at ten o’clock, and we shall pick you up on our way to the ball.”
CHAPTER XIII.
BOX NUMBER THIRTEEN.
Of all the balls that have been given at Albert Hall within the past
ten or twelve years, none has approached in its splendor, or in the
luxury of its appointment and setting “the pageant worthy of Ancient
Rome,” as some of the newspapers termed it, which took place in July,
1919.
The whole of the interior of the vast building had been painted and
decorated in an amazingly artistic manner, and utterly regardless of
expense. All the seasons were presented in turn in a gigantic panorama,
which depicted also the most daring love scenes described in the
well-known classics. True, a few London journals and many provincial
papers clamored to know why so huge a sum should have been spent on
“decking out” one great ball-room, seeing that the ball had been
organized “ostensibly in aid of charity,” but the cavillers received
no answer. Heckled on the point by a Parliamentary representative of
advanced Socialistic views, Stapleton calmly replied that “if you set
out to make money you must spend money to make it,” an argument which
proved its soundness when the accounts came to be totaled up and an
enormous sum was handed to charity.
Long before the night every ticket had been sold. Nor could another
be obtained for love or money. By midnight the immense circle of boxes
sparkled with a blaze of diamonds, worn, on that occasion, not by
decrepit dowagers, as is the case so often at the Opera, but for the
most part by young and extremely beautiful women. Indeed, it was safe
to say that literally everybody who was anybody attended at the Albert
Hall that night, though as the faces of all were concealed by masks
which they were at liberty to wear throughout the night if so inclined,
even detectives would have been unable to say who was present and who
absent had they been ordered to make a report.
Preston’s party, which included Cora Hartsilver and Yootha Hagerston,
Harry Hopford, George Blenkiron, and about a dozen more, occupied a box
only six boxes away from Jessica Mervyn-Robertson’s. Her party, too,
numbered about a dozen, and her first appearance in the hall created a
sensation which few present that night are likely to forget.
Her dress! In the first place, of what did it consist? Certainly of
very little, but that little----
A great mottled snake with enormous eyes which, as the rays of the
electroliers caught them, assumed chameleon tints, becoming now a jet
black, now a sea green blending into different shades, now golden
copper, now blood red....
That was the impression which first struck the beholder as Jessica came
towards him.
In reality the “gown” was a mottled skin which fitted like a glove,
and from a distance conveyed the impression that it was covered with
real scales. But a closer inspection showed that the skin ended
half-way up the chest and back, the “scales” design being continued on
the bare flesh and painted thereon so marvelously that where skin ended
and flesh began could be discerned only with difficulty. The great
chameleon eyes which at first riveted the attention of all beholders
were on the mask itself, which hid her face entirely, and exactly
resembled the head of a giant puff adder. Indeed, Jessica’s costume, if
costume it could be called, was by far the most bizarre in the whole
of that vast assemblage, where weird and decadent gowns were plentiful
enough.
“Who can the woman with that horrible snake costume and the
extraordinary eyes be?” Yootha said as she leaned forward in Preston’s
box and scanned the astonishing vision through her opera glasses. “Have
you ever seen anything more abominable, Charlie?”
“A good many of the dresses here are abominable, in my opinion,”
Preston answered, “and plenty of the men’s costumes might with
advantage have been scrapped. Look at that creature over there with
nothing on, apparently, but a woman’s silk swimming suit. I wonder what
he did during the war, or if he did anything?”
“You do harp on that, Charlie,” Yootha said almost impatiently. “After
all, the war is over, so what does it matter what people wear at a
costume ball, so long as their costumes are not obviously indecent or
decadent, like that woman’s snake skin. Look, she is coming towards us.”
Escorted by male companions, the mottled snake approached. They were
close to Preston’s box now, and as they passed they walked more slowly
and stared up through their masks apparently straight at his party. A
little shudder ran through Yootha. Why, she did not know, and as it did
so the horrible chameleon eyes turned from copper to deep crimson.
“I must, at any cost, find out who that is,” Hopford murmured. “I
already have my suspicion; the attitude that tall man with her is
standing in now is quite familiar.”
“Oh, do find out,” Yootha exclaimed. “I am dying to know. Why, they
have that box close to ours,” she added as Jessica and her companions
joined the remainder of their party. “The box attendant will surely be
able to tell you, Mr. Hopford.”
“The little man at the back is unmistakable, anyhow,” Hopford said as
he kept his eyes riveted on the party. “Twenty masks couldn’t disguise
him! It’s Levi Schomberg, the Jew moneylender, who is said to lend
thousands to all the ‘best’ people in Society, cabinet ministers not
excepted. There shouldn’t be much difficulty in finding out now,” and
rising, he excused himself and left the box.
He soon found the attendant of the box occupied by Jessica and her
party, and, having slipped some money into the man’s hand he asked him
if he would tell Mr. Levi Schomberg that he was wanted.
“And who shall I say, sir?” the attendant inquired, looking into the
eyes which fixed him through the mask.
“Say a ‘gentleman,’ and that it is important.”
In a minute the attendant returned, accompanied by the little Jew who,
dressed as a troubadour, presented a far more grotesque figure than he
supposed.
“Yes?” he said as he came up. “You wish to speak to me? Who are you?”
He had not removed his mask, and the little black eyes seemed to burn
with curiosity behind it.
“I am sorry to disturb you,” Hopford said, “but _The Evening Herald_
wants to know if it would be possible to obtain a flashlight photograph
of Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson in the striking gown she is wearing to-night.”
Schomberg snorted.
“I am certain,” he answered, “that Mrs. Robertson would not consent to
be photographed by the _Evening Herald_ or any other paper, so it would
be useless for me to ask her.”
He was about to turn away, when he checked himself.
“Why did you ask for me instead of for Mrs. Robertson?” he asked
sharply.
Hopford laughed.
“I leave that conundrum to you to answer,” he said. “Good night, Mr.
Schomberg,” and he went off elated at his success, while the Jew stood
looking after him with a scowl which his mask concealed.
Hopford had suspected from the first the identity of the “snake
woman,” as people now called her; the dress was being greatly talked
about. Now he would be able to enlighten Yootha Hagerston; also in his
paper next day he would, he told himself, boldly name the wearer of the
very daring costume.
As the night wore on, the noise and merriment increased. Certainly no
Albert Hall ball had ever been less decorous. The most modern and the
most peculiar dances followed one another in quick succession. Yet
though the floor looked packed it was not unduly crowded.
Blenkiron stood apart with his friend, Captain Preston, whose wounded
leg precluded his dancing.
“I should like to possess a sum equivalent to a year’s interest on the
value of all the diamonds and other jewelry here to-night,” he said
lightly. “It would set some of us up for life!”
“And the war was supposed to have impoverished the nation!” Preston
observed dryly. “This sort of show isn’t much in my line, George.”
“Or in mine. But Cora is enjoying it, and Yootha too. Smart of Hopford
to have discovered the identity of the woman in the snake costume--eh?
I bet she’ll be annoyed when she sees her name in his paper to-morrow.”
“You think so? Why?”
“My dear fellow, would any woman with the least self-respect not be
ashamed to let it be known she wore a dress like that in public?”
“A woman with the least self-respect--yes. But has Jessica the least
self-respect?”
“Well, we know nothing against her, do we? We only think we have
reason to suspect she may not be--well, all she poses to be. Queer her
entertaining that Jew moneylender, don’t you think?”
“She may have a reason.”
“A woman with her income!”
“How do we know what her income is? Plenty of people with no money at
all spend recklessly. She may be up to her ears in debt, and her friend
Stapleton, too. The slim man talking to Stapleton is, I suppose, La
Planta.”
They looked in the direction where two men, masked like the rest, were
engaged in earnest conversation.
“I have not yet overcome my aversion from that young man,” Preston said
as he watched them. “Every time I speak to him I feel he rings untrue.
Ah, here come Yootha and Harry.”
Yootha, flushed with the night’s excitement, had probably never looked
better. Her eyes shone with pleasure, for Hopford was an excellent
dancer. It was nearly two in the morning now, and the revels were at
their height.
Presently the band struck up the newest Jazz, a wild combination of
almost every sound capable of being produced by musical and unmusical
instruments, a sort of savage discord in many keys which clashed and
blared to the accompaniment of human cries and trombone laughter.
Carried away by what passed for music, the dancers who now thronged
the floor performed the strangest evolutions. Some, locked in a
close embrace, seemed oblivious of all but their own emotions as they
gyrated in never-ending circles; others, barely touching, went through
contortions which in any other place and under any other circumstances
would have shocked some beholders, filled some with disgust, and
convulsed the remainder with amusement.
It was in the middle of this performance that a strange thing occurred.
Happening to look in the direction of Jessica’s box, now temporarily
deserted, Preston noticed two men in it. One he quickly recognized by
his costume to be Levi Schomberg; the other....
“George,” he said, turning to Blenkiron, “that thin man bending over
Levi Schomberg--the fellow dressed as a troubadour we decided must be
Schomberg, didn’t we?--is that La Planta, do you think?”
Blenkiron looked in the direction indicated.
“Hopford declared him to be La Planta,” he said.
“Well, what is he doing--I mean Schomberg, the man sitting down?”
Blenkiron watched him for some moments.
“He’s drunk, I should say,” he answered.
“Drunk! Not a bit of it. Look at his attitude.”
“It certainly is queer. Ah, La Planta has left him now. He is going out
of the box. I can see Jessica outside waiting for him.”
As Blenkiron stopped speaking, the man whom they believed to be La
Planta, accompanied now by the mottled snake, walked quickly into the
corridor behind the boxes, and were lost to sight.
Levi Schomberg, meanwhile, remained seated in the box. Bent forward,
and resting against the velvet balustrade, he appeared to be gazing at
the crowded floor. None noticed him, apparently, but Preston and George
Blenkiron, whose complete attention he now held.
“Strange,” Blenkiron said at last, “how motionless he is. He has not
stirred for fully five minutes.”
They went on looking. When some more minutes had passed, and the figure
still remained motionless, Preston linked his friend’s arm in his own.
“Let us go and see if he is ill,” he said. “I am sure something is
amiss with him.”
They went up the staircase and round to the back of the boxes until
they reached the box they sought. The door was shut. After knocking
several times, and receiving no answer, they went in search of the
attendant.
“There is a gentleman alone in Box Thirteen,” Preston said, “who
appears to be ill. We have knocked repeatedly, but can get no reply.”
“A friend of yours?” the attendant inquired.
“We know him, yes.”
The Jazz band was blaring still as Preston and Blenkiron passed into
the box, closely followed by the attendant. They spoke Schomberg’s
name, but he did not reply. Then they went over to him, and Blenkiron
put a hand upon his shoulder.
Still he made no response. Now thoroughly on the alert Preston stripped
off Schomberg’s mask, then jumped back with a start.
To all it was at once obvious that the little Hebrew was dead!
CHAPTER XIV.
CONCERNS A NECKLACE.
“Look at that drunken ass being carried out of his box.”
The speaker stood beside his partner on the floor of the hall, fanning
her with an ostrich plume.
The girl laughed.
“Why can’t you men keep sober?” she said, only partly in jest. They
remained watching Levi and those assisting him until the group passed
out of the box and was lost to sight.
Others had watched him too, and because the conclusion they had all
jumped at was that the fellow, whoever he might be, had drunk too much,
the incident of his sudden death caused no commotion, and the ball went
on as gaily as though nothing untoward had occurred.
Stretched on a sofa in the secretary’s office, Schomberg lay strangely
stiff, seeing that he could not have been dead over half an hour. A
doctor had been discovered among the dancers, and, dressed to resemble
a well-known comedian, he presented a ludicrous figure as he bent
over the dead man, listening through his stethoscope. Presently he
straightened himself and shook his head.
“Quite dead,” he said. “Who is he? Does anybody know anything about
him?”
He looked about at the various people standing by.
“It’s Levi Schomberg,” Preston said. “He was one of Mrs.
Mervyn-Robertson’s guests. It was her box we found him in.”
“Mervyn-Robertson? You mean the woman they call Jessica?” the doctor
asked with a curious look.
“Yes.”
“May I ask if she is a friend of yours?”
“I know her to speak to,” Preston answered, “so does my friend here,
but I can’t say she is a friend of ours. To what do you attribute
death, doctor?”
“I can’t say at off-hand. Heart, most likely; the heat and general
excitement may have induced the final attack. We must communicate with
his friends. Are they here?”
“I believe so. I don’t know Schomberg myself.”
“I thought the attendant said you were both friends of his.”
“We told the attendant we knew him, to get into the box. We could see
from the hall that something was amiss with him.”
“How could you? Hadn’t he a mask on?”
“Yes, but we had discovered his identity early in the evening.”
“Indeed? You will forgive my asking, but what made you take so much
interest in this man whom you say you knew only by sight?”
Preston hesitated. Then he said awkwardly:
“Nothing in particular.”
“Oh, come,” the doctor exclaimed, “you must have had a reason. Nobody
tries to discover who disguised people are for no reason. You had
better tell me.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Well, as you put it that way, I had better tell you there are one or
two curious features surrounding this man’s death. On the face of it he
would appear to have died of natural causes, but certain points tend to
dispel that theory. For instance, _rigor mortis_ would not have set in
so quickly had death been due to natural causes, such as stoppage of
the heart’s action. There will have to be an inquest.”
The authorities having been notified of the occurrence, about half an
hour later Preston and Blenkiron, accompanied by the doctor, whose name
was Johnson, returned to the hall. None of the revelers had as yet
left, apparently, for the floor was as thronged with dancers as when
they had been there last.
“Point me out the box where he was found, will you?” Johnson said
presently.
“That is the one,” Blenkiron replied, indicating it, “next to the box
with the woman with scarlet plumes.”
“There are people in it now,” Johnson observed. “Do you know who they
are? Why, one of them is that snake woman everybody has been talking
about.”
“We are under the impression, though we don’t know for certain,”
Preston replied guardedly, “that the snake woman is Mrs.
Mervyn-Robertson herself, and that the man talking to her is called
Stapleton.”
“Do you mean Aloysius Stapleton, the organizer of this ball?”
“Yes.”
“Well, if Schomberg was one of their party they apparently have not
heard what has happened, and somebody ought to tell them.”
“Hadn’t you better tell them, Doctor Johnson?”
“I suppose I must. And as you and your friend rendered ‘first aid’ you
had better come with me to confirm my statements.”
Jessica and the woman and the three men with them still wore their
masks, though some of the dancers had now discarded theirs. When Doctor
Johnson and his companions were admitted to the box, Jessica and her
friends were in the highest spirits. Jessica herself was laughing
loudly, while two of the men had become uproarious. The doctor had sent
in his card and asked if he might speak to Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson alone,
but she had sent out word that he had better come into the box.
“Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson, I believe?” he said, addressing her.
“Now, who told you that, Doctor Johnson?” she exclaimed, still
laughing, and her friends laughed too. “All night I have tried to
retain my incognita, but people one after another have penetrated
it. Sit down and have some champagne, won’t you?” and she pushed a
chair towards him. He saw at once that she herself had drunk as much
champagne as was good for her.
“Thank you very much,” he said, “but I won’t, if you will excuse me. I
would sooner have said in private, Mrs. Robertson, what I have to tell
you, but as you have insisted on my coming in I must tell it to you
here. One of your guests to-night was, I believe, a Mr. Schomberg?”
“Yes,” she answered. “Why, what has become of him?” she added, looking
round. “We have not seen him for quite a long time. Mr. Johnson you
might introduce your friends,” as Preston and Blenkiron still stood in
the background.
“I will in a moment. But first I have some rather dreadful news to
break to you, Mrs. Robertson. You must brace yourself for a shock. Mr.
Schomberg has died suddenly. He died here, in this box, less than an
hour ago.”
At once everybody grew solemn. The party became hushed.
“Levi--_dead_!” Jessica gasped after a pause. “It is impossible. He was
here only just now, and quite well!”
“An hour ago,” Johnson corrected. “I was sent for, and I found Mr.
Schomberg lying on the sofa in the secretary’s office, dead.”
“But where did he die? And who found him?”
“As I say, he died in this box, where he was found by these two
gentlemen, whom I think you know,” and he turned to the masked figures
at his elbow, “Mr. Blenkiron and Captain Preston.”
As his name was mentioned, it struck Preston that Jessica gave a little
start. He told Blenkiron afterwards, however, that he could have sworn
she did.
Jessica bowed.
“But how did you come to be in this box?” she asked, looking up at them
from where she sat.
“I must apologize for our having intruded, Mrs. Robertson,” Preston
said, “but how it happened was this,” and he went on to explain how he
and Blenkiron, noticing that the masked man sitting alone in her box
appeared to be unwell, had obtained admittance to the box.
“That was most kind of you,” Jessica said when he stopped speaking.
“But really this news is too terrible. I can’t realize it. Poor Levi!
And he seemed so well to-night, and in such excellent spirits.”
She stopped abruptly.
“I wonder who it was sent in to see him early in the evening?” she
said after a pause. “He seemed put out when he came back, and didn’t
volunteer to tell anybody what was amiss, so of course I couldn’t ask
him. But he got all right again a little later.”
“That would hardly have any bearing on the cause of death, Mrs.
Robertson.”
It was Johnson who spoke. He was looking hard at her through the holes
in his mask. Apparently through forgetfulness he had not taken it off.
“No, of course it wouldn’t,” Jessica answered mechanically. Her
thoughts seemed to be far away. “Tell me, Doctor Johnson,” she said
suddenly, in a different tone, “to what cause do you attribute his
sudden death?”
“At first I attributed it to natural causes, but afterwards I changed
my opinion,” he replied in measured tones.
He was still looking hard at her.
“And what made you change your opinion?”
“One or two things which would take too long to explain. No doubt the
actual cause will be arrived at during the inquest.”
“There will be an inquest, then?”
Preston fancied her voice trembled a little.
“In the circumstances there will have to be.”
“You mean you think he took his life--and by poison?”
“Oh, no, Mrs. Robertson, you mistake me. But there is no need to go
further into the matter now. You would like, I dare say, to view the
body presently.”
“Must I?”
“Certainly not, unless you wish to. I thought perhaps you might wish
to.”
“I would much sooner not. The whole thing has upset me terribly, as I
am sure it has upset us all.”
She leant forward, poured herself out a glass of champagne, and emptied
the glass at a draught.
“Captain Preston and Mr. Blenkiron,” she said, “do help yourselves, and
you too, Doctor Johnson. I am sure this affair must have given you all
a shock.”
Once more Preston and his friend were mingling in the gay throng.
Doctor Johnson had left them after thanking them for their services and
saying they would no doubt be called to give evidence at the inquest. A
little group at one of the tables in the big supper-room were talking
in animated tones, and Preston happened to overhear scraps of their
conversation.
“Yes, a woman has been arrested ... was arrested ten minutes ago ...
the pearls were found in her possession. The man with her ... became
furiously indignant, declared he had been with her all the night. Then
she was confronted with the owner of the necklace, who swore she had
sat beside her at supper ... the thief, or alleged thief, is quite a
girl ... yes, I was standing by when they took her mask off....”
“Who is she? Have you any idea?” somebody asked.
“None at all. You can stake your life though, that at a show of this
sort there are bound to be professional crooks about. Look at the
diamonds here to-night! They must run into fortunes and fortunes. Well,
here’s luck to us all, and I hope....”
That was as much as Preston heard and it did not interest him greatly.
Since leaving Jessica’s box he had been looking for Yootha, whom he
had seen last with Cora Hartsilver. But their box was now empty, from
which he concluded they were all dancing. Hopford, too, he had not come
across for some time. Preston knew that Hopford and Yootha were engaged
for several dances.
In the crowd Preston had lost sight of Blenkiron, and he now threaded
his way alone and aimlessly through the little groups of dancers
clustered together and resting. The band had become more riotous
than ever, the dancing more extravagant and grotesque. And all the
while, as he made his way along, he kept thinking of Schomberg and his
strange death. Again he saw the masked young man stooping over the
seated figure bent forward in the box and apparently leaning against
it. The figure had not moved then, neither had it moved during the
minutes which elapsed before he and Blenkiron had gone up to the box
to ascertain if anything were amiss. Could Schomberg already have been
dead when the slim man stood bending over him? If so, then why had the
latter not sent for a doctor, or raised the alarm?
And that slim young man, according to Hopford, had been La Planta.
Perhaps, though, Hopford had been mistaken. Then he thought of Jessica.
How surprised and distressed she had appeared to be when Doctor Johnson
had broken to her the news of Schomberg’s death. That she should be
was, of course, only natural in the circumstances, and yet----
What had become of Yootha? Where in the world had she got to? And
Cora, too, and Hopford? Perhaps Hopford had gone back to the office of
his newspaper; he had said he might have to go.
In vain he watched the dancers--swaying, revolving, always revolving,
until the scene made him dizzy. But he saw no sign of Yootha, or of any
of his party. At intervals he glanced at the box they had occupied, but
it remained empty. He was getting sick of the whole thing, and longed
to get back home. But he could not go home without first seeing Yootha.
He felt he had seen less of her that evening than he had hoped to do;
but then she loved dancing, and he would, he told himself, have been
a bear to prevent her dancing because himself unable, owing to his
wounded leg, to dance at all.
Suddenly his spirits rose. He had caught sight of Hopford ... he was
some way off.... Ah, there he was again! Wandering, he appeared to be
in search of some one. And at that instant Hopford saw him.
“Charlie, for heaven’s sake--I have been hunting for you everywhere,”
Hopford exclaimed when at last they came together. “An awful thing has
happened--it will give you a big shock, but I implore you not to worry,
because I am positive all will come right in the end. Cora knows about
it and is with Yootha now.”
“Yootha? Where is she, Harry? I have been trying to find her for the
last half an hour or more.”
“I can well believe that,” Hopford answered. “Now listen, Charlie, and
don’t get upset. A woman had her pearl necklace stolen to-night, and
the necklace has been found in Yootha’s vanity bag, and so--well, of
course they had to arrest her.”
“Arrest her! _Arrest Yootha?_”
“Why yes. You see the pearls were found in her possession. Have you
heard about Levi Schomberg, and----”
“Hang Levi Schomberg!” Preston cried out. “What the devil does Levi
Schomberg matter--forgive me, Harry, here, take me to Yootha at once
and let me see the police myself about this ridiculous trumped-up
charge!”
CHAPTER XV.
SOME CROOKED QUESTIONS.
During the week which followed the papers gave special prominence to
two items of news which interested their readers greatly. One was the
strange death of Levi Schomberg, with an account of events which had
immediately preceded it, and a record of his past career; the other was
the arrest of Yootha Hagerston on a charge of stealing a pearl necklace
owned by a woman named Marietta Stringborg, wife of Julius Stringborg,
described as “formerly of Shanghai, spirit merchant, but now of Upper
Bruton Street, London, and The Retreat, Maidenhead.”
Schomberg’s death, it seemed, was of rather a mysterious character, and
the inquest lasted a considerable time. In the opinion of the coroner
it had been due to natural causes, but Doctor Johnson strongly opposed
that theory and advanced several significant points in his endeavor to
disprove it.
First, there was the peculiarity of _de rigor mortis_ having set in
so soon; then the fact that all the organs were obviously healthy;
then the singular appearance of the eyes, which, the doctor declared,
had not resembled the eyes of a dead man when first he had examined
the body; and, lastly, the condition of the blood. Very emphatically
he maintained that the blood had an unusual tint. This might, he
admitted, easily have been overlooked; yet it undoubtedly existed, and
he was at a loss to account for it. He admitted that the condition of
the blood seemed healthy.
The coroner was one of those rather pig-headed men, who, having
expressed an opinion, are loth in any circumstances to alter it. In any
case, it was obvious to Preston and Blenkiron from the first that the
coroner was not favorably disposed towards Doctor Johnson, and that
every suggestion the latter made he endeavored to controvert.
“I confess,” he observed pompously, when Johnson had pointed out very
clearly why in his opinion death had not been due to natural causes,
“that I completely fail to follow your line of argument. Furthermore,
what possible reason could any person or persons have had for wishing
to hasten the death of so respectable a citizen as deceased appears to
have been, in spite of his unsavory calling? In my opinion the idea
that death was due to other than natural causes is preposterous. Had
the unfortunate man taken poison, or had poison been administered,
traces of it must have been found. As it is, no trace of any sort of
poison has been discovered, and therefore, if you will forgive my
speaking bluntly, Doctor Johnson, I consider that your speculations are
hypercritical--or let us say beside the mark.”
Johnson shrugged his shoulders.
“In that case,” he replied, “I have nothing further to say.”
“Quite so. I am glad to hear you say that.”
Johnson opened his mouth as if about to speak again; then changed his
mind and remained silent. “What is the use,” was his mental comment,
“of arguing with such a person?”
And so, after all, a verdict of “death from natural causes” was
returned, and Johnson, feeling extremely dissatisfied, left the Court
accompanied by Blenkiron and Captain Preston.
It was the second of these two incidents, however, which had interested
Preston far more than the first, had, indeed, engrossed almost the
whole of his attention since the night of the ball--the arrest of
Yootha Hagerston. Though finally acquitted, she had undergone intense
mental suffering during the time she had been kept under observation.
And naturally people had talked. Many, in fact, had not yet finished
talking. Among the latter was Jessica Mervyn-Robertson.
Perhaps the truth of the old saying that “if you throw mud enough,
some of it is sure to stick,” had never been better illustrated than
in connection with Yootha’s arrest on a charge of theft. Women in
particular discussed the affair, and during such discussions eyebrows
were raised significantly, and there were plenty of little smiles which
implied more than any spoken words could have done.
“Had she been a poor woman, instead of what we call a lady,” the
hackneyed observation was trotted out again, “she would be in prison
now, my dear,” a faded creature who had always toadied to rich people
observed to Jessica during a few moments’ conversation they had in Bond
Street one morning. “Mrs. Stringborg is a friend of yours, isn’t she?”
Jessica replied that she had known her for some years.
“And what does she think about it?”
Jessica raised her eyebrows. Then, after an instant’s pause, she said
cryptically:
“She doesn’t think.”
The faded woman nodded.
“I understand,” she purred. “She knows.”
Jessica smiled. It was one of the significant smiles referred to, more
deadly than spoken words.
And so they parted, Jessica with a smile upon her lips, and hatred
still in her heart, the other woman reveling in her good fortune at
having had this assurance, as she chose to consider it, direct from a
friend of Marietta Stringborg’s, that though Yootha had been acquitted
she was guilty.
And Yootha?
Already she began to feel the draught in the mental atmosphere. Plenty
of her friends remained true to her, of course, not giving a second
thought to the suggestion that the pearls had been taken by her, but
there were others....
Highly strung and extremely sensitive, she felt the difference in the
“atmosphere” at every turn. The quick glances towards her and then away
from her; the glances followed by whispers, and the whispers sometimes
by smiles; the slight _hauteur_ of folk who up till then had greeted
her always with effusion; the sudden crossing from her side of the
street to the other by acquaintances who noticed her approaching--these
and similar incidents affected her intensely, causing acute pain.
“It is too dreadful,” she exclaimed one night on her return with her
friend, Cora Hartsilver, to the latter’s house in Park Crescent after
the Opera. “I have been miserable to-night--miserable. I felt during
the whole performance as if all the audience was staring at me, saying
one to another: ‘There she is, that is the girl so much talked about
who was charged with the theft of the necklace at the Albert Hall
ball.’ And it was not all imagination, dear, for I distinctly heard
my name whispered twice by people a row or two behind us. And then,
did you see Jessica? She saw me directly we entered the theater, and I
saw her turn in her box and speak to her friends and at once they all
gathered nearer to hear what she had to say--while we walked down to
our seats they all stared at me as hard as they could.... I felt like a
criminal, Cora. I feel like a criminal still....” and throwing her arms
impetuously about her friend with her head on her shoulder she began to
cry bitterly.
Cora consoled her as best she could, while in her own heart fury
burned. It was fury at the thought, at the conviction she felt, that
this injustice was not the outcome of misfortune, but that the whole
thing had been deliberately planned, and that the person who had
planned it had been none other than Jessica. And why did Jessica hate
Yootha so? There could, she told herself be but one reason--it was
because Yootha was her friend. Jessica would, no doubt, have liked to
cast suspicion of the robbery on herself, but, unable to do that, she
had stabbed her through her friend. And, so thinking, Cora ground her
teeth. More determined than ever did she become at that moment to find
out everything about Jessica Mervyn-Robertson, and if possible shame
her in the eyes of the world forever.
“Don’t cry, my darling,” she said, as she gently stroked Yootha’s hair;
Yootha’s arm still encircled her. “I have had a letter to-night from
the house with the bronze face, and they are leaving no stone unturned
to run the thief to ground. They ask me to call with you as soon as
possible, as there are certain further questions they wish to put to
you. Also, they say, they have something important to show you.”
“Let us go to-morrow morning,” Yootha exclaimed, looking up, and
mopping her eyes. “And we might take Charlie with us; he will come if
we ask him, I am sure.”
“I was about to suggest that,” Cora answered. “We will ring him up now.
He said he would be back in town to-night, didn’t he? And it isn’t
midnight yet.”
But the telephone remained silent.
Consequently they went alone next morning to the office of the
Metropolitan Secret Agency.
The room into which they were shown was the office where Alix Stothert
and Madame Camille Lenoir had been working late on the night Lord
Froissart had so unexpectedly made his appearance; only now in
the rooms adjoining many clerks were at work, and typing machines
clattered. Only Stothert was in the room, and he looked up as they
entered. Then, as he rose, he removed the eyeshade from his forehead.
“Good morning,” he said solemnly. “Won’t you sit down?” and he waved
his hand in the direction of two chairs.
“I asked you to call,” he went on at once, coming straight to the
point, “because I wish to put one or two questions to Miss Hagerston
verbally. Will you tell me, please,” he turned to Yootha, “how long you
have been engaged to be married to Captain Preston?”
The girl started.
“Who told you we were engaged?” she exclaimed, coloring. “Our
engagement has not yet been announced in the papers.”
“I am aware of that, but it is our business to know things before they
are made public. How long, Miss Hagerston?”
“Ten days. But has this any bearing on the theft of the pearl necklace?”
“Indirectly--yes. And you made his acquaintance at lunch at the Ritz on
August the ninth of last year, I think?”
“Yes.”
“Since then you have met him frequently, I take it?”
“No, only of late.”
“And for some time you have been friendly with a young man named Harry
Hopwood, a newspaper correspondent?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘friendly.’ I have met him from time to time.”
“Now, there is a well-known Society woman with whom you and Mrs.
Hartsilver are both acquainted--Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson. A little while
ago you may remember, you and Mrs. Hartsilver came here to ask us to
make private inquiries about Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s past life. Since
then Mr. Hopford has called here on a similar mission, and Captain
Preston and a Mr. George Blenkiron have done the same. We have found
out certain things about the lady which we have reported to you all
separately; other things we have found out which for private reasons
we deem it inadvisable to tell you, at any rate for the moment. We
should like to warn you, however, that the lady referred to has many
influential friends, and we would venture to advise you to attempt as
little as possible to pry into her private life. She is a dangerous
woman, a very dangerous woman, though this, naturally I tell you in
strictest confidence.”
“Thank you,” Yootha answered. “And now can you throw any light at all
upon the mystery of the stolen pearls?”
“I am coming to that. You no doubt heard some time ago of a robbery of
jewelry and bank notes from a safe in Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s own house
in Cavendish Square, though nothing about it appeared in the papers?”
“Yes, everybody seemed to know about that at the time.”
“Everything stolen that night was covered by a special insurance. Now,
the pearl necklace with the theft of which you were unjustly charged
was also covered by a special insurance, and the policy was made out
by the Company which insured Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s jewelry. Madame
Marietta Stringborg, to whom the stolen pearl necklace found in your
possession belonged, is a friend of Mrs. Robertson--they met first
in Shanghai some years ago. These may have been coincidences, of
course----”
As Yootha did not answer, Cora said:
“Do you mean to imply that there may have been----”
“I imply nothing,” Stothert interrupted, “but----”
He pressed twice an electric button on the table, and almost at once a
handsome young woman with a Semitic caste of countenance entered. It
was Camille Lenoir.
“My partner,” Stothert said, by way of introduction. “Camille,” he
looked up at her from where he sat, while she remained standing,
“do you remember what Lord Froissart said to you the last time he
came here--it was the morning of the day on which he took his
life--concerning recent heavy insurances effected in respect to
diamonds with the insurance company of which he was a director?”
“Yes,” she replied, “he said he believed that some owners of valuable
jewelry were insuring such jewelry and then planning bogus robberies,
that is to say arranging for insured property to be ‘stolen’ by persons
who eventually would return the property to the insurer after the
insurance money had been paid.”
“Collusion, in short,” Cora said. “Mr. Stothert says he implies nothing
regarding Mrs. Robertson, yet--yes, I follow you both.”
“No, come here, please.”
As he spoke, Stothert unlocked and pulled open a drawer in the roll-top
desk at which he sat. From it he took a small sealed packet, broke the
seals, unfolded it, and revealed a splendid pearl necklace.
“This is Madame Stringborg’s necklace,” he said. “The necklace found in
your possession, Miss Hagerston, was made of imitation pearls.”
CHAPTER XVI.
GATHERING CLOUDS.
Henley week is said to be fine once in eight years, so presumably it
was an eighth year, for the weather was perfect.
Captain Preston, an old blue, had made a point of attending the
historic regatta ever since he had been at school; then had come a gap,
due to the war, and then the regatta had been once more held.
To celebrate the event, also because he thought Yootha would like it,
Preston had this year rented a houseboat which he kept moored near
Maidenhead. Several times before they were engaged Yootha had spent
a day with him on this boat, though he had not even then made up his
mind to propose to her. But now the boat was moored at Henley, for the
regatta week, and he had asked a few of his friends to come and lunch
on board any day they felt inclined to. It was his intention then to
announce his engagement, and to present them to his future wife.
None of his friends, however, put in an appearance. Some telegraphed
their inability at the last moment to get out of town; others stayed
away without sending an excuse.
Preston was surprised.
“Curious,” he said thoughtfully, as he shook the ashes out of his pipe
about lunch time on the second day of the regatta. “I thought some of
them would turn up to-day. Cooper and Atherton are down here, I know,
because I saw them in a punt together half an hour ago.”
Yootha, lying back near him in a deck chair, partly concealed by the
overhead awning, did not reply.
“You seem silent to-day, my darling,” he said after a pause. “Is
anything the matter?”
He bent down as he stopped speaking, and peered under the awning.
The troubled look in her eyes disconcerted him.
“Darling, what is it?” he asked anxiously. “Is something worrying you?”
“Not worrying me, exactly,” she answered, with rather a wan smile,
“only----”
“Yes? Only what?”
“I think I can guess why your friends have stayed away. It isn’t hard
to guess.”
“Isn’t it? Well, I wish I knew the reason--ah----”
His expression had suddenly changed.
“So now you know,” she went on. “Personally I am not surprised. You
know how people have cold-shouldered me since that dreadful affair at
the ball. Now it has become known we are engaged, people want less than
ever to meet me. Had you been here alone, your friends would probably
all have come to lunch.”
“‘Friends,’ you call them?” Preston exclaimed with a black look. “They
are no longer friends of mine, I can assure you, if they are that sort.”
“Oh, I don’t blame them,” Yootha answered with a hard smile. “One has
to pay the penalty of notoriety, even though the notoriety may have
come unsought. I dare say I shall live it down,” and she gave a little
shrug.
A tiny boat was sailing past, and the young man seated in the stern of
it hailed Preston.
“Can I come aboard a moment?” he called out. “I want to speak to you.”
“Come along,” Preston answered, though without enthusiasm, for the
young man was Archie La Planta. Half a minute later the little boat was
alongside.
“I hope I am not intruding,” La Planta said, discovering suddenly, or
pretending to discover, that nobody else besides Yootha was aboard.
“I heard you had a luncheon party. By the way,” he added, “have I to
congratulate you? I heard the news only to-day.”
“Thanks,” Preston said, concealing the annoyance the unlooked-for
intrusion caused him. “Who told you we were engaged?”
“Oh, one or two people. That last race was a fine finish--what?”
“Very. Did you say there was something you wanted to ask me?”
“One or two things. The first is a message from Jessica. She wants to
know if you and Miss Hagerston will come to tea on her houseboat--it’s
that big boat, _The Apex_, disguised to look like a warship, with guns
and all complete. They’ve a jolly party aboard and Jessica says she
would love to see you both. I was instructed not on any account to let
you say ‘No,’” and he laughed.
Preston did not answer for a moment.
“What do you say, Yootha?” he said at last, with a significant look
which she understood. “Shall we go, or shan’t we?”
“I should like to go,” she replied, taking her cue from his expression.
“Have you had lunch, Mr. La Planta?”
“In point of fact I have not,” he said carelessly, and lit a cigarette.
“Then you had better stay and lunch,” Preston put in. “Others may drop
in presently.”
“Awfully good of you,” La Planta said quietly. “The second thing I want
to ask is whether you happen to have seen Madame Camille Lenoir of the
Metropolitan Secret Agency anywhere about to-day. I know she is here,
with friends, and I want particularly to catch her.”
“I have not noticed her in any of the boats.”
Archie La Planta made a little gesture of annoyance.
“How tiresome,” he said. “Several people have caught sight of her
to-day, but nobody can tell me where she is to be found. By the way,
has the house with the bronze face found anything out as yet about the
pearl necklace?”
“Nothing as yet, but they seem hopeful. They think that in a week or
so they may be able to tell me something.”
“Good. Stothert is not an optimist, and would not have told you that
unless he had good reason to.”
He turned to Yootha.
“By the way, I have not seen you since the ball,” he said. “And for
that matter I didn’t see you at the ball, because I couldn’t identify
you. That was a rotten experience you had--perfectly disgraceful to
treat you as they did. I hear it made you quite ill, and I am not
surprised. I hope that by now you have quite recovered?”
“Thank you,” she answered, and in spite of her effort to speak
naturally she could not prevent a certain coldness from betraying
itself in her voice.
“Yes, I have recovered--though I don’t think all my friends have!”
“Indeed? I think I don’t follow you.”
“Oh, it’s of no consequence,” she replied, flushing slightly; then she
changed the subject.
Jessica was surprisingly genial and friendly when she greeted Yootha
and Captain Preston on her houseboat a couple of hours later. Preston
had availed himself of her invitation for a reason which he had not
yet confided to Yootha, though, had he known it, the same reason had
prompted Yootha to ask La Planta if he had lunched.
They knew that in spite of the olive branch now held out by Jessica,
at heart Jessica’s dislike of them both had become, if anything,
intensified since the affair at the ball, and that her hatred of Cora
too had increased. Though not addicted to crediting gossip, so many
little remarks of Jessica’s concerning themselves had been repeated to
them by different people that they could not turn an entirely deaf ear.
All sorts of well-known people were on Jessica’s houseboat. Some Yootha
had met, and to many of the remainder she and Preston were introduced.
Indeed so friendly did everybody appear to be that presently she began
to feel quite happy and at home--the reverse of what she and Preston
had anticipated.
And of all aboard, none made himself more agreeable to Yootha and to
Captain Preston than Archie La Planta. If anything, he rather overdid
it, for he took the trouble to present several people whom they found
extremely boring. They had been aboard perhaps half an hour, when
Yootha suddenly heard her name spoken, and, turning, found herself face
to face with a dark, very intelligent-looking man approaching middle
age.
“Let me introduce Doctor Johnson,” Stapleton said. “Johnson--Miss
Hagerston.”
The doctor looked at her keenly, smiling as he raised his hat.
“Our common friend, Captain Preston, has several times mentioned your
name,” he said. “Is he with you to-day?”
“Why, yes,” Yootha answered. “He was here a minute ago. Have you only
just come aboard?”
“No, I have been here the whole afternoon, but for the last hour I have
been what I suppose is called ‘’tween decks,’ settling the nation’s
affairs with some of my cronies whom I don’t often have an opportunity
of meeting,” and he smiled. “Stapleton tells me, Miss Hagerston,
that you and Preston are engaged. May I be allowed to offer my
congratulations? I should like to congratulate you both very sincerely.”
Yootha colored as she looked over his shoulder.
“Thank you so much,” she said. “I feel as if we had met before; Charlie
has told me so much about you.”
“Well, though I have known him quite a short time, you will forgive my
saying that I like him immensely. Yet, but for the unfortunate affair
of that man’s death the other night, I suppose I should not have had
the pleasure of meeting him, or possibly you. Ah, here he comes.”
For five minutes or more the three remained in conversation, though
their talk was mostly commonplace. There were subjects all three would
have liked to broach, but to have done so amid that _entourage_ would
have been impolitic.
“Yootha and I are dining _tête-à-tête_ on my houseboat,” Preston said
after a while. “If you are not engaged, couldn’t you join us--if you
will take potluck? Do say you will, Johnson.”
Johnson reflected for some moments.
“I should like to very much,” he said at last. “It is most kind of
you.”
“Capital! Then that is arranged.”
A diversion was created by the approach of a motor-launch with a party
of masked entertainers, while the string quartette in the bows played a
popular air. As it came near it slowed down, then stopped alongside.
“Oh, those people are splendid,” Jessica exclaimed. “They were here
yesterday and played for us during lunch. Louie,” she turned to
Stapleton, “make them give us an entertainment now.”
The entertainment lasted a long time, so that Preston and Yootha were
unable to leave the houseboat, as they had been about to do when the
launch came in sight. When at last the entertainment ended they sought
out their hostess.
“But surely you are not going?” Jessica exclaimed, holding Yootha’s
hand. “We are only just beginning to enjoy ourselves! Can’t you both
stay to dinner? We want to drink your health, you know,” and she
laughed in her deep and musical voice.
“So good of you,” Yootha answered, though all the while her instinct
told her that beneath this show of friendship and hospitality there
lurked some sinister motive, “but we have a friend dining with us on
our boat.”
“Ah, in that case I suppose there is nothing further to be said,”
Jessica replied. “But I am very disappointed. Come to lunch to-morrow,
will you? And you too, Captain Preston, make her bring you with her.”
But Preston excused himself on the plea that he expected friends to
lunch.
“Sometimes, though, friends don’t turn up,” Jessica said
inconsequently. “If they don’t, mind you come, both of you.”
A few minutes after they had gone a man rowed up rapidly in a dinghy.
“Can I speak to Captain Preston, please?” he asked. “I am his servant.
I have just come from his house-boat.”
He had addressed La Planta, who, leaning against the rail, had been
watching him approach.
“Is it anything important?” La Planta inquired, eyeing the man coldly.
“It is.”
“Well, Captain Preston and Miss Hagerston have just left. You must have
passed them.”
“Have they gone back to the boat?”
“I expect so. They went down stream.”
Borne along the water came the strains of a revue waltz played further
down the river by the string quartette.
Preston’s servant pulled the dinghy round, then started to row back.
And La Planta, blowing rings of cigarette smoke, watched him, with a
look of amusement, growing smaller and smaller in the distance.
At last he straightened himself. Most of the guests had now left.
Barely a dozen remained. Some one touched his elbow, and he turned.
“Well?” Stapleton said.
La Planta nodded.
“Quite satisfactory,” he answered.
“And when will he receive it?”
La Planta glanced down at his wrist-watch.
“He may have got it already. I am glad that fellow missed him, though I
can’t think how he managed to. What fools people like Preston and that
girl of his and Cora Hartsilver and the rest of them are to pit their
wits against ours!”
“Preston is no fool, Archie. Nor, for that matter, is Cora.”
But La Planta made no reply. Instead, he shrugged his shoulders, then
tossed his cigarette into the water with a gesture of contempt.
CHAPTER XVII.
“NOBODY MUST KNOW!”
Preston’s servant, an ex-soldier who had served under him in France,
returned to the houseboat, but neither Preston nor Yootha had arrived.
The man looked about him, puzzled. Then, concluding that his master
must have been detained by friends on his way back, he began to attend
to his work.
But when an hour had passed, and still Preston did not return, he went
outside and scanned the river with his master’s field-glasses. It was
past seven, and he had dinner nearly ready. It would be annoying if his
master stayed away for dinner without giving him warning.
Presently a boat stopped alongside, and its sole occupant got out and
came aboard.
“Captain Preston about?” he inquired breezily. “I am dining with him.”
“Dining with him, sir?”
“Yes. Hasn’t he told you?”
“He has not been here since four o’clock, sir. He and Miss Hagerston
went out to tea and have not been back since. I have an important
letter for him and wish he would return.”
It was now Johnson’s turn to look puzzled.
“I met him and Miss Hagerston at tea,” he said at last, “and they
invited me to come and dine. I can’t understand it. Anyhow, I had
better wait.”
“If you would, sir. As he has invited you to dine he is bound to be
back soon.”
Johnson looked again at the man.
“Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”
“Yes, sir, at Fig Tree Court.”
“Of course. I remember.”
He lay back in the deck-chair which he had taken, lit a cigarette, and
began carelessly to focus the boats on the river through Preston’s
binocular.
At eight o’clock the man came back.
“Hadn’t I better serve your dinner, sir?” he inquired tentatively. “I
am sure the captain would not like you to be kept waiting. Something
important must have detained him, sir, for he is always punctual to the
moment, and of course there being no telephone----”
“Thank you, but I will wait a little longer. If he is not back by
half-past eight perhaps I will have something to eat, as I can’t get
anything anywhere else now.”
“Thank you, sir,” and the man retired with noiseless tread.
But at half-past eight neither Preston nor Yootha had returned, nor had
they by half-past nine. Johnson had waited until nine, then had eaten a
light meal and gone away.
The ex-soldier was becoming anxious.
He pulled out of his pocket the long envelope addressed to his master,
which had been brought by a man in flannels who had appeared to him a
gentleman and had assured him the letter was most urgent and must be
delivered at the earliest possible moment.
“I wonder if this would throw some light on it?” he said aloud, as he
eyed the envelope suspiciously. “So help me, I’d like to know.”
It was a gorgeous night, without a breath of air, and as warm as in the
tropics. As the man stood on the deck of the house-boat smoking a cigar
and with his hands in his pockets, his thoughts traveled back to the
many hardships he and his master had endured together in France during
the three years he had served under him; of the tight corners they had
more than once found themselves in; and of his master’s extraordinary
coolness in moments of extreme crisis.
“Ah, if they was all like him,” he said reflectively, “we should have
an army, and no mistake!”
For, like many another British Tommy who had been face to face with
death alongside his officers, the fellow worshiped Preston. In such
high esteem did he hold him, indeed, that sometimes his friends would
grow weary of hearing “Captain Preston’s” many virtues extolled by the
faithful servant, and curtly bid him “shut up.”
It was nearly eleven when the man, half-dozing in a deck-chair, heard
his name called. Instantly he sprang up.
“Yes, sir? That you, sir? Nothing the matter, I hope, sir?”
In the moonlight Preston and Yootha Hagerston could be seen standing
together on the bank.
“Are you alone, Tom?” Preston asked. His voice had a curious timbre.
“Yes, sir. Doctor Johnson came to dinner, sir, but as you had not
returned by nine o’clock I gave him dinner alone, sir.”
“You did quite right.”
After speaking a few words under his breath to Yootha, Preston came
aboard alone, leaving her standing on the bank.
“Tom,” he said in a low tone; “Miss Hagerston is in rather an
embarrassing position. Things have happened which have prevented her
returning to town with Mrs. Hartsilver, who was to have met her after
leaving her friends, and there isn’t a bed to be had anywhere, and of
course the last train to London has gone. There is nothing for it but
for Miss Hagerston to sleep here, but nobody must know about it, you
understand. Now, what can we arrange?”
Tom rubbed his chin. Then suddenly he looked up.
“I can sleep on deck, sir, in a deck-chair; very nice on a night like
this. Then if you would sleep in my quarters, Miss Hagerston could have
your quarters and be completely cut off, sir.”
Preston reflected.
“That seems the only solution,” he said at last. “But, as I say--nobody
must know.”
“Nobody shall know, sir.”
“Right.”
He turned, and called to Yootha to come aboard. Then he told her of the
arrangement.
She was pale, and looked greatly worried. There were dark marks under
her eyes, and a casual acquaintance who had met her in the afternoon
would hardly have believed her now to be the same woman. She was silent
and _distraite_.
“To-night’s adventure seems like a horrid nightmare,” she exclaimed a
little later, suddenly gripping Preston’s arm. “What is it makes people
so horrible, Charlie? All to-day we were so happy, and now----”
She stopped abruptly, and a sob choked her. Preston put his arms about
her, kissing her at first gently, then passionately, on the lips.
“My little girl mustn’t fret,” he murmured. “I know it is all dreadful,
but it will pass. We think now there is no way of escape, because we
can see none, but we shall find a way. My darling must leave everything
to me and place implicit confidence in me.”
But though he spoke thus his heart was heavy. And on the top of it all
here was Yootha alone with him in his house-boat for the night. True,
nobody need know, but the risk of discovery existed, and so long as
it existed there was danger, especially in view of his and Yootha’s
experience during the past few hours. Blackmailers he had for years
looked upon with loathing, and always he had told himself that should
he by any extraordinary mishap ever render himself open to blackmail
he would then and there face the music, attack his attacker, thrash
him if need be, do anything and everything sooner than accede to any
scoundrel’s proposals.
And yet here he was hemmed in with Yootha and on the point of becoming
an unwilling accessory to another’s blackmail in order to shield, not
himself only--that, he told himself, he never would have done--but the
woman he loved to distraction, and to protect her honor. The prospect
was too awful, and, as he thought about it now, racking his brain to
find a way out of the net which had been so cleverly drawn around them
both, every way seemed blocked, and a cold perspiration broke out all
over him.
Silently he kissed Yootha once more as she bade him good night, and for
several minutes they remained locked in each other’s arms.
When he was alone again, Tom came to him. In his hand was a large,
rather bulky gray envelope.
“This was brought for you, sir, about six o’clock, and as it is marked
very urgent I took the dinghy and rowed to the boat where you had gone
to tea, but the gentleman told me you had just left.”
“What gentleman?”
“I don’t know his name, sir, but----”
And he described his appearance.
“La Planta,” Preston said aloud, with a frown. Then he took the letter
and went below to read it by the light of the lamp, leaving Tom on
deck.
About two minutes later the ex-soldier stopped abruptly in his work of
folding up the deck-chairs, and listened. No sound was audible.
“Strange,” he murmured. “I could have sworn I heard a groan.”
Stepping very quietly, he crept down the few steps, then peered into
his master’s cabin, the door of which stood half open.
Preston, seated with his elbows on the table, his head resting between
his hands, was staring at some letters spread out in front of him. Thus
he remained for several moments, motionless, though from where Tom
stood his heavy breathing was audible.
Tom gave a light knock on the door, then entered.
Preston gave no sign.
“Is there anything more I can do for you, sir, before I go to bed?” the
man asked.
Preston did not reply. He still made no sign, and seemed unconscious of
the other’s presence.
Tom was about to repeat the inquiry, when all at once Preston collapsed
in a heap, his head falling forward heavily on to the table.
Instantly his servant sprang to his assistance. Thinking he must
have fainted, though never before had he known him to faint, the man
loosened his collar, then ran quickly away and returned with water with
which he began to bathe his master’s temples and the back of his neck.
Thus he continued for some minutes, at the end of which time Preston
began slowly to recover consciousness. Soon he looked into Tom’s face,
then gripped his hand tightly.
“Tom,” he exclaimed in a hoarse whisper. “I have had bad news, very bad
news. I may be in great difficulties soon, and you are about the only
man who will then be able to help me. I can trust you implicitly, eh,
Tom?”
He gave the man a searching look, with an expression in his eyes which
Tom had never seen there before. Though only his servant, Tom had come
to be looked upon by Preston, who had so often faced death with him, as
a personal friend.
“I think so, sir,” he answered grimly. “Do you feel a little better
now, sir?”
“Yes, I’m all right. Tell me who handed you the letter you gave me just
now?”
Tom described the appearance of the man in flannels.
“Did he say anything?”
“No, sir. Only asked me to be sure to give it to you the moment you
returned, as it was very urgent. I was to give it to you myself, sir.”
He turned, opened a little cupboard in the corner, and took out a
tantalus and a siphon.
“You had better drink this, sir,” and he handed his master a stiff
brandy and soda.
“Thank you, Tom.”
When he had emptied the tumbler, Preston looked better.
“Miss Hagerston must know nothing about my being taken ill,” he said.
“She shall not, sir.”
“Or that I received a letter brought by hand.”
“She shall not, sir.”
“Tom, is my little automatic anywhere about?”
The man glanced at him suspiciously. A thought had flashed into his
mind, but the next moment he had dismissed it, and replied:
“Yes, sir, I have it.”
“Keep it loaded, will you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And now you can go to bed, Tom. I hope you will manage to sleep on
that chair.”
“We have both of us slept in worse places than that, sir,” and he
smiled grimly at the recollection. “Will you be all right now, sir?”
“Quite all right. I think the heat upset me. Good night, Tom.”
“Good night, sir.”
“The heat!” Tom murmured as he rolled himself up in his blanket in the
deck-chair. “I _don’t_ think!”
CHAPTER XVIII.
WHAT DOCTOR JOHNSON KNEW.
There had been several rather startling suicides during the season
which was now ending, of men and women of social standing, and in every
case the usual verdict had been returned. The events had created a
certain amount of interest; theories to account for the tragedies had
been advanced; then the nine days’ wonder had subsided and London life
had gone on again as usual.
When, however, no less than seven men and five women of high rank and
apparently without a care in the world had ended their lives within
the first three weeks of July, the newspapers had begun to agitate
to know the reason of this epidemic of suicides which exceeded even
the epidemic of 1918, when Lord Hope-Cooper, Viscount Molesley, the
Honorable Vera Froissart, Madame Leonora Vandervelt, Sir Stephen
Lethbridge, Henry Hartsilver, and others, had died by their own hand.
In Society, too, everybody had begun to talk. The mystery of Lord
Froissart’s suicide comparatively recently, when his body had been
found at the foot of the cliffs at Bournemouth, had never been solved.
Now the hot weather was held by some to be responsible for the series
of tragedies, but this theory was not general. Interviewed on the
subject of the “epidemic” several eminent psychologists and scientists
expounded their views in more or less complex language, the meaning of
which most people failed to grasp.
Indeed, the majority of those interviewed endeavored to convince
the public that the series of tragedies was due to whatever cause
they themselves happened to be interested in. Thus the spiritualists
had theories concerning “souls” and “vampires” and the vengeance of
people long dead; ecclesiastics were perfectly certain the prevalence
of suicide was due to men’s, and especially to women’s, sinful way
of living; followers of certain unconventional physicians’ views
on eugenics attributed the outbreak to the effects of “unwholesome
environment,” though in what way the dead people’s environment had been
unwholesome they did not explain; while advocates of early Victorianism
were ready to “prove” that the tragedies would have been unthinkable in
their young days.
All such speculation of course led nowhere, and served only to increase
anxiety as well as alarm. The theory which enlisted most adherents was
that folk lavishly endowed with this world’s goods were in the habit of
exercising so little self-control that eventually their minds became
affected, and finally unbalanced. This was, to some extent, the view
held by Doctor Johnson, and he told Blenkiron as much when, happening
to meet him one day at his club, their conversation drifted to the
prevalent topic.
“I am anxious about our common friend, Charlie Preston,” Blenkiron said
presently. “Have you seen him lately?”
“Not since Henley week,” Johnson replied. “What is the matter with him?”
“I am certain he has something on his mind; he appears to me to have
changed enormously within the last week or so.”
“In what way?”
“All the ‘vim’ seems to have gone out of him. He seems to be always
preoccupied, always thinking--thinking. Often when I speak to him he
doesn’t answer; in fact I don’t believe he hears. He used not to be
like that.”
“He is engaged to be married.”
“I know, but I am positive that isn’t the reason. If it is, heaven
prevent my ever becoming engaged!” and Blenkiron smiled rather grimly.
“Then to what do you attribute it?”
“I don’t attribute it. There is nothing to which I can attribute it.
But I tell you this in confidence, Johnson--if I heard that Charlie
Preston had become another victim to the suicide epidemic I should not
be surprised.”
“You don’t say so! He is one of the last men I should have thought
capable of that. When could I see him, I wonder? I should like to have
a talk with him, after what you say.”
“Why not ask him to lunch one day? Oddly enough, Johnson, Miss
Hagerston, whom he is to marry, has greatly changed too. This is not
imagination on my part, I can assure you.”
But before Johnson could invite Preston to lunch, something happened.
This was a visit which Johnson received from Cora Hartsilver; she had
become acquainted with him about the time when Yootha was in trouble
regarding the pearl necklace.
Cora had made an appointment by telephone, and during the afternoon she
called.
“I have come to see you,” she said, “about my friend, Miss Hagerston,
who tells me she had the pleasure of meeting you at Henley.”
“Yes, and I had the pleasure of congratulating her upon her engagement.
She is not indisposed, I hope?”
“Indeed she is, seriously indisposed, though not in the way you mean.
She is mentally indisposed, if I may put it so.”
“I am sorry to hear that. Can you give me a few particulars?”
“Well, she is staying with me at present, and has been since Henley
week. She asked me if she might come to stay with me because she could
no longer sleep at night in her flat--she got frightened and had
terrible nightmares, she said. That she has something on her mind I
am absolutely convinced; yet though we are such intimate friends she
positively refuses to tell me anything, though she as good as admits
that she is worried. So I thought I would take the liberty of asking
your advice without telling her.”
“Hadn’t I better see her?”
“I think not, at least not yet. Your calling to see her would arouse
her suspicion, because I have asked her once or twice to let me ask a
doctor to call, and each time she has strongly opposed the suggestion.”
“Is she unhappy at the thought of her approaching marriage?”
“Indeed no! She is terribly in love. In fact, I tremble to think what
would happen to her if any mishap befell Captain Preston. So strongly
do I feel on that point that sometimes I wonder if she has some secret
cause to believe that some mishap may befall him. He seems greatly
worried too.”
“So I understand.”
“Why, who told you?”
“His great friend, Blenkiron.”
“Well, Doctor Johnson, what do you suggest?”
For a minute the doctor did not answer.
“You say the change in Miss Hagerston dates from Henley Regatta?” he
said at last.
“From the morning of the third day. She went to the Regatta on the
second day only. She went with Captain Preston.”
“That was the day I met them both on Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s
house-boat. They were then both in the best of spirits, apparently, and
looked radiantly happy.”
Again he pondered, his brow slightly contracted.
“Where did Miss Hagerston sleep that night?” he asked suddenly.
This was a question Cora had not expected. She colored violently. Then
she said awkwardly:
“Oh, at her flat in Knightsbridge, I suppose.”
“You don’t know for certain?”
“No. How should I?”
“You say that you and Miss Hagerston are great friends, Mrs.
Hartsilver, so I thought that probably you would know. She did not, I
suppose, spend the night on Preston’s house-boat?”
“How could she, Doctor Johnson, alone with him!”
The doctor looked at her keenly, but she would not meet his gaze.
“Why not be frank with me, Mrs. Hartsilver,” he said, lowering his
voice. “She did spend the night on the boat with him, and you know it.”
Cora looked terribly alarmed.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, doctor,” she exclaimed, “don’t let anybody
know! Think what would be said, the inference that would be drawn,
especially as they are engaged. I will be frank with you, then. I was
with friends at Henley, and Yootha was to have met me at ten o’clock
at night, and we were to have returned to town together. But she did
not meet me, and I, thinking she must have gone back to London alone,
returned with my friends. As soon as I got home I rang up her flat, and
her maid said she had not come in; the maid was sitting up, awaiting
her. I was dreadfully upset, and blamed myself for having missed her.
“Next morning, about noon, she came to my house, looking very ill and
worried. She said that she and Captain Preston had forgotten all about
the time until it was too late to meet me, also by then the last train
had gone. Captain Preston tried everywhere to find a bed for her, but
there was not one to be had. Finally there was nothing for it but for
her to return with the captain to his house-boat, where he gave her his
bed and slept himself in his servant’s bed, while his servant slept
outside in a deck-chair. That is what she told me, and I believe every
word, because she couldn’t lie to me. There was no harm in it at all,
believe me, there was not, but of course it would not do for people
to know. Nobody knows but you and Captain Preston’s servant, a man
absolutely to be trusted not to talk.”
“And Miss Hagerston’s maid. At least she knows that her mistress did
not come home.”
Johnson began to pace the room.
“Of course I shall treat what you have just told me as strictly
confidential,” he said, “but the fact remains that we don’t know
what happened during the time Preston and Miss Hagerston left Mrs.
Mervyn-Robertson’s house-boat, and the time, late at night, when they
returned to his own house-boat.”
“What do you imply?” Cora asked sharply, drawing herself up.
“Forgive me if I have conveyed a wrong impression,” Johnson said,
stopping in his walk. “I assure you I did not mean to imply what
you think. Nothing was further from my mind. No, my thoughts were
traveling in quite a different channel. Tell me, Mrs. Hartsilver,
are Miss Hagerston and Captain Preston now on terms of intimacy
with Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson? They appeared to be the other day, and
I was surprised, because I was under the impression that their
acquaintanceship with her had for some time past been, how shall I put
it--rather strained?”
“Indeed it was more than rather strained,” Cora answered quickly.
“Mrs. Robertson detests Yootha almost as much as she detests me, and
I think I am safe in saying that she bears Captain Preston no love at
all. As we are speaking in confidence I may as well tell you that Miss
Hagerston, Captain Preston, myself, and one or two others have for
some months past suspected Jessica Mervyn-Robertson and her friends,
Mr. Aloysius Stapleton and Mr. Archie La Planta, of being impostors
of some sort, if nothing worse; we have reasons for suspecting this.
Consequently we have been making private inquiries about them of the
Metropolitan Secret Agency and other sources, and this, I think, they
have got to know. Captain Preston and Yootha accepted their invitation
to tea on their house-boat chiefly out of curiosity, I believe, and
were greatly surprised at the exceptionally friendly reception accorded
them. I think they made a mistake in associating with Mrs. Robertson at
all in the circumstances.”
Johnson smiled.
“As that is so, Mrs. Hartsilver, perhaps you will admit me to your
little group which suspects ‘Mrs. Jessica’ and her two satellites of
not being all that they seem to be. Tell me, wasn’t Captain Preston in
Shanghai at one time?”
“Yes, I have heard him say so.”
“Well, from the middle of 1910 to the end of 1912 I practiced in
Hong Kong. Englishmen, as I dare say you know, become very clannish
when exiled in places of that sort. I used to visit Shanghai rather
frequently, where I had a _locum tenens_, and if Mrs. Jessica and a
notorious young woman named Angela Robertson are not the same--oh, but
they are the same, I am perfectly positive they are. Stapleton, too,
lived in Shanghai for a while--that must have been in 1911. He made
the Astor Hotel his home, remember, and though I only saw him once or
twice, and never met him to speak to, my _locum tenens_ had all sorts
of extraordinary stories about him, and my _locum_ was not a man to
heed idle gossip.”
“Stapleton and Fobart Robertson--the adventurer whom Mrs. Jessica
married--were hand in glove at that time. Then one day Fobart Robertson
found Shanghai too hot to hold him--and if you had ever been in
Shanghai, Mrs. Hartsilver, you would know how hot that must have
been--and left hurriedly, whereupon Stapleton calmly stepped into
his shoes and became to all intents Mr. Robertson--at the club they
nicknamed him ‘Fobart’s understudy.’ It created something of a scandal
amongst the British population, but in the East the morals of most
Europeans are on a lower plane than over here, and after a while the
_liaison_ came to be winked at, so that Angela Robertson was once more
received as she had been when living with her husband, and Stapleton,
being well-to-do and extremely hospitable, and consequently popular,
was no longer cold-shouldered. Other friends of Angela Robertson’s
in Shanghai were, I remember, Mrs. Stringborg--yes, the woman whose
necklace was removed--and a queer fellow called Timothy Macmahon. It
was Macmahon’s widow to whom Lord Froissart left all his property, if
you remember. Does all this interest you, Mrs. Hartsilver, or am I
boring you?”
“Boring me!” Cora exclaimed. “I am thrilled! Captain Preston knows
nothing of all this, I suppose?”
“Not so far as I am aware. Of course it would not do for me to say
outside what I have just told you in confidence. Having no evidence in
support of my statements I might get myself into serious trouble, to
say nothing of ruining my practice.”
“Oh, but you will tell Captain Preston?”
“I would sooner you told him, Mrs. Hartsilver.”
Cora smiled.
“So that if either of us should get into trouble it would not be you?”
“Precisely,” Johnson replied with a laugh. He was silent for some
moments.
“And now you may think what I am about to say is strange, Mrs.
Hartsilver, but I have rather keen intuition, and something seems to
tell me that whatever happened to Preston and Miss Hagerston that
evening at Henley, which apparently upset them, Angela Robertson and
Stapleton had a hand in it. The idea may sound ridiculous, but that is
my strong impression.”
“But what can have happened to them, doctor?”
“I have no idea--at present. Can’t you induce Miss Hagerston to tell
you? You and she are such friends.”
“I am afraid not, but I will try.”
“Supposing, for instance, that in the ardor of their love for each
other they should have been discovered in some apparently compromising,
though in reality quite harmless situation--and been blackmailed. Such
things happen oftener than you might suppose; not that I suppose you
ever think about such things.”
Cora glanced at him with an expression of horror.
“Is that really so?” she asked.
Johnson nodded.
“Almost any man or woman, not excepting the most virtuous, may under
certain circumstances get let in for blackmail, and the wonder to me
is that more are not blackmailed. Look at this so-called ‘epidemic’
of suicide that everybody is talking about and that the papers are
full of. My private opinion is that some, at any rate, are victims of
blackmail, who have taken their lives to escape public exposure.”
“But blackmailed by whom?”
“Ah, there you have me. The whole thing reads to me as though the
victims, if blackmailed, were charged by the same person, or it may
have been by members of some gang, or an organization of some sort.
Don’t you remember the series of suicides which took place a year
ago and that--oh, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Hartsilver. I had quite
forgotten.”
“Pray don’t apologize, Doctor Johnson. I am most interested in what you
say. I wonder--I wonder if poor Henry----”
“I knew your husband slightly, Mrs. Hartsilver, and I must say I was
amazed when I read of the tragedy. The last man--the very last man----”
“So everybody said. Blackmail! Now I wonder if----”
Unconsciously she stopped, for strange thoughts, reflections, memories
of little incidents, were crowding in upon her. Then quickly her train
of thought shot away into a different channel. The man she had loved so
dearly, young Sir Stephen Lethbridge--the whole of the terrible affair
came back to her, as though it had happened the day before.
“Exactly the way Molesley made away with himself,” again she heard her
husband’s voice, unemotional, cold as ice. And in Viscount Molesley’s
room a quantity of burnt papers, she remembered reading, had been found
in the grate and scattered beside the body.
CHAPTER XIX.
WITHOUT A STAIN.
Alix Stothert, the mysterious manager of the Metropolitan Secret
Agency, lived in the house with the bronze face, on the top floor, and
so did his partner, the woman known as Madame Camille Lenoir.
They were a sinister couple, of whom nobody seemed to know anything,
and the police, when questioned concerning them, as they had been
on more than one occasion, refused to make any statement. That the
police looked upon them with no favorable eye was generally admitted
by those in a position to know, and the inference naturally drawn was
that Scotland Yard was jealous of the Metropolitan Secret Agency’s
extraordinary success in making discoveries which led to the arrest of
criminals while the police failed to obtain even clues.
They lived a strange life, apparently, for the door leading into the
suite of rooms which they occupied was always kept locked--it had two
Yale locks--and no servants or other helpers were ever admitted.
The sitting-room, “living-room” would have been a better name for it,
had three telephones, and a metaphone which connected with their office
on the first floor. It had also a tape-machine, and in Stothert’s
bedroom was a speaking tube which went down to the back entrance of the
house and was so arranged that Stothert could be spoken to from a blind
alley off the narrow little street. On to this blind alley the door
opened.
Stothert and Camille Lenoir were alone in their living room about ten
o’clock one night during the first week of August, when the speaking
tube whistled shrilly in the room adjoining. At once the man got up
and went into the bedroom to find out who wanted him. For only a few
seconds he listened. Then he spoke one word, pushed the whistle in
again, and rejoined his partner.
“They are hot on the trail of Jessica,” he said calmly, as he seated
himself again, and readjusted the eye-shade which he had taken off when
he went into the next room. “I believe in the end they will prove her
undoing, and Stapleton’s.”
“Shall you warn her?” the woman asked anxiously.
“Certainly not. It is no concern of ours.”
“How do you mean--no concern of ours?”
“In the circumstances. Had she treated us differently----”
“I understand. And whom has she mostly to fear?”
“Preston. He is so clever, and has such foresight and imagination, that
Stapleton and La Planta may find themselves presently on the horns of a
dilemma of their own creating.”
After a minute’s pause, during which he seemed to be thinking deeply,
he unhooked the receiver from the transmitter on the table at his
elbow, and waited with it pressed to his ear, without asking for any
number.
“Please come here at once,” he said suddenly, speaking into the
transmitter.
“Yes, most important.”
“Yes, without any delay.”
Then he replaced the receiver, relit his pipe, which had gone out,
picked up a newspaper and began carelessly to scan its headlines.
“I see Preston’s wedding is to take place shortly,” he said presently.
“Perhaps,” his companion observed significantly.
“Hulloa!” Stothert exclaimed suddenly, “have you seen this, Camille?
Levi Schomberg’s body is to be exhumed.”
The woman sprang up from her chair, and leant over Stothert’s shoulder
to read the startling announcement. It was contained in two lines in
the stop press. No reason for the exhumation was given or hinted at.
“Alix, that will discomfort our friend,” she said with a grin. “And
Jessica and Stapleton too. I wonder who brought that about.”
“That Doctor Johnson, you may depend. He was much upset, as I told you,
at his opinion at the inquest being turned down by the coroner. This
may have an interesting sequel, not calculated to set Jessica’s mind at
rest.”
“And may strengthen Preston’s hand. I believe that, all along, he and
Blenkiron have suspected La Planta.”
They went on talking about the exhumation and what it might eventually
lead to, until the whistle of the speaking tube interrupted them once
more. After answering it Stothert pressed a button in the wall, and
waited. A minute later the door of the room opened and a woman entered.
Young and very pretty, she was dressed apparently for a ball or a
reception. She shut the door after her, then without ceremony went over
and sat down in a big arm-chair near the two occupants of the room,
neither of whom had risen or greeted her when she entered.
“What do you want?” she asked curtly, addressing Stothert.
“We want you to find out as soon as possible, to-night if you can,
where Mrs. Timothy Macmahon is now, the woman to whom Lord Froissart
left his fortune which should have been inherited by his elder
daughter, Mrs. Ferdinand Westrup. When last we heard of Mrs. Macmahon
she still resided in Cashel, County Tipperary. Where are you going
to-night?”
“To a reception in Berkeley Square,” and she mentioned the name of her
hostess. “You have put me to great inconvenience by making me come here
at this hour.”
Stothert shrugged his shoulders.
“We are all put to inconvenience at times,” he said. “You surely did
not expect me to make an exception in your case? People of higher
social standing than you have been put to inconvenience on our
account.”
“Shall I ring you up if I discover the woman’s whereabouts?” his
visitor inquired, changing the subject.
“If you please. Also you will notice if any people of interest to us
attend the reception. And take this.” He handed her a sealed envelope.
“Its contents you can read when you have left here.”
For fully five minutes after the pretty visitor had gone, Stothert sat
in silence, sucking thoughtfully at his pipe. His companion, apparently
still thinking about the announcement in the newspaper, made no attempt
to interrupt him. Suddenly he turned to her and removed his pipe from
his mouth.
“Froissart’s death was most unfortunate,” he said, “most unfortunate.
I particularly wanted him to attend the Albert Hall ball, and he was
going to on our advice, if you remember.”
“Not more unfortunate than Sir Stephen Lethbridge’s death,” Camille
Lenoir answered, “or, for that matter, Leonora Vandervelt’s. We have
to face these setbacks. Still, nobody up to the present suspects our
methods.”
“Up to the present--no. But don’t be too confident. The police would
ask nothing better than to be able to find out all about us, and how
we work, and then let us down in order to get back on us. If the true
verdict had been brought in regarding Vera Froissart’s death, and the
cause of her suicide, it would have been a bad day for us. I shall not
be sorry when we cut adrift from this business. There are times when
the excitement of carrying on becomes too tense for a man of my age.”
His companion smiled.
“How you keep on about your age,” she said. “You may be getting on
physically, but how many men of your age possess your clear brain and
your clear intelligence? I don’t look forward to the Schomberg inquiry,
I can assure you. What can they suspect? And who can have applied for
the exhumation? Not his relatives, I am sure. They were too anxious to
inherit his estate to be likely to want inquiries to be made. And I am
not of your opinion that Johnson and Blenkiron made the application.”
Nobody, listening to Camille then, would have believed her to be
the common French woman familiar to clients of the Metropolitan
Secret Agency. For now, closeted with her partner in their private
sitting-room, she spoke excellent English, while her foreign accent was
barely perceptible.
The telephone bell rang, and Camille answered it. Then she pressed her
palm on the transmitter.
“Preston,” she said laconically. “He wants to speak to you at once.”
Stothert took the instrument.
“That you, Captain Preston?” he asked.
“No, I can’t see you to-night.”
“Yes. Almost any time to-morrow would suit me.”
“I am sorry. I have no further news as yet, but I hope to have some
soon.”
“Oh, yes, we are getting on famously, and on the right line, I feel
sure. By the way, I take it the announcement of your approaching
marriage in to-day’s papers is official?”
“It is. Then I congratulate you. Good night, Captain Preston.”
“He has not read the announcement about the exhumation, apparently,
and it was no affair of mine to tell him,” Stothert remarked, when he
had rung off. “We must tell him something soon about Jessica, if only
to keep him quiet. By the way, Stapleton told me recently that Levi
Schomberg had hinted to him more than once that Mrs. Hartsilver was a
designing woman. What can Schomberg’s reason have been for saying what
we know to be manifestly untrue?”
“Probably the same reason which prompted him to make other false
statements,” Camille replied. “We may learn that, and other curious
things concerning Levi at the inquiry.”
The news that apparently some mystery surrounded Levi Schomberg’s death
aroused considerable comment. Though rarely seen in public places, he
had been well known to a comparatively large circle of London Society,
and had borne, rightly or wrongly, the reputation of being the most
“accommodating” man of his calling in London.
This reputation had been due possibly to the fact that his knowledge
of the class for which he catered had been exceedingly deep, also
that he happened to be an excellent judge of character and of human
nature. Thus where he would politely refuse to accommodate A, B and C,
with a loan, no matter how small, to D, E and F, though in no better
circumstances and with no better security to offer, he would readily
advance quite large sums, instinctively knowing them to be people who
would eventually repay the loans of their own accord, also the heavy
interest which he charged, even though before doing so they might need
to renew their bills perhaps several times.
“Odd thing, this exhumation of Schomberg’s body,” Blenkiron remarked
carelessly as he stood chatting with La Planta at the corner of Brook
Street one morning. “What do you make of it, Archie?”
“Don’t ask me,” La Planta replied quickly. “I only hope I shall not be
dragged in to give evidence. I begin to wish to heaven I had not met
Schomberg that night, but Louie would invite him.”
“I wish you had been present at the inquest,” Blenkiron went on. “Your
documentary evidence left several points undecided, as the coroner
clearly explained. I believe if those points had been cleared up this
exhumation business would never have come about.”
“Yes. I now wish, too, that I had been there, though I congratulated
myself at the time on being out of it all. The doctor, you see,
wouldn’t let me out of bed--I had such a bad chill. What is your theory
concerning the cause of death?”
“Oh, I have no theory,” Blenkiron answered. “The coroner attributed
death to natural causes, so I stand by his decision.”
“That is exactly my argument,” La Planta said hurriedly. “Yet I
meet fellows who declare they thought all along there was something
‘fishy,’ as they call it, about the poor fellow’s death, though you
may depend on it the ‘fishiness’ would never have occurred to them if
this exhumation had not been ordered. The police, I hear, were notified
privately that there were certain doubts as to the cause of death.”
Yet when the inquiry did take place, the report was not wholly
satisfactory. Though no traces of any sort of poison could be found,
the condition of the remains was declared to be abnormal.
There is no need to go into details. The next startling announcement
was that Archie La Planta had been arrested.
At once the newspapers focused the attention of the public on the
unhappy young man, and then for the first time the searchlight of
notoriety illuminated as much of his past life as the press was able to
rake up. Indeed, it came as rather a shock to some of his friends to
find that apparently nothing was known about him prior to his arrival
in London some years previously.
Questioned on this point during his cross-examination, La Planta
admitted having spent some years of his life in the East, also that he
had known Stapleton in China. The question put as a trap: “Did you
ever borrow money from deceased?” he emphatically negatived.
“Now can you,” asked the cross-examiner a little later, “account for
the fact that some drops of a very rare perfume, the name and nature
of which I need not for the moment specify, were found on the left
sleeve of the fancy tunic you wore at the Albert Hall ball, and that
some of the same perfume was discovered on the fancy dress suit worn by
deceased that night?”
“Certainly,” La Planta answered without an instant’s hesitation. “I had
a little phial of the perfume with me at the ball, and as Mr. Schomberg
told me he liked the scent very much I gave him a little. In fact I
sprayed it on his clothes myself.”
“And where did you obtain the perfume? I understand it is not to be had
in London.”
“Quite true. I have to get it from abroad.”
“‘Abroad,’ is a big place, Mr. La Planta,” the examining counsel
observed dryly. “May I ask you to be more definite in your statement?
Perhaps you will tell me from what town or place ‘abroad’ it is, or
was, sent to you?”
“Shanghai.”
“Shanghai! Indeed! This is most interesting. And who sends it to you
from Shanghai? May I have his--or her--name and address?”
At once La Planta scribbled on a scrap of paper which he then handed to
counsel for the prosecution.
When the latter had conferred in undertones with his solicitor, he
continued:
“Are you aware, Mr. La Planta, that this perfume may not be legally
sold or bought in this country without a special license, also that to
import it is illegal, owing to its being, in addition to a perfume, an
extremely potent drug possessing peculiar properties?”
“I am aware of that.”
“And yet you deliberately imported it?”
“I did.”
To all present in Court it was obvious examining counsel was becoming
annoyed at La Planta’s frank and unhesitating replies to questions
meant to disconcert him. For nearly two hours the examination
continued, and when at last it ended the witness left the Court
“without a stain upon his character” so far as the Jew’s death was
concerned.
CHAPTER XX.
CONCERNS A RUMOR.
Preston had impatiently awaited the result of La Planta’s
cross-examination, and the verdict disappointed him. For secretly
he felt convinced still that even if the young man had not directly
connived at the money-lender’s death, yet that he could throw light on
the cause of death if he wished to.
“I cannot help thinking,” he said to Yootha while they were discussing
the mystery on the day after La Planta’s acquittal, “that he knows
something too concerning what happened at Henley regatta. I have
felt that all along. And had he been found guilty of conniving at
Schomberg’s death we might have been in a position to escape from what
now threatens us. However, I believe that in the end we shall be able
to snap our fingers at the people who are trying to blackmail us, so
you must try to cheer up, my darling.”
They were sitting out on the heather under the shadow of the Sugarloaf
Mountain in Monmouthshire, where they had been staying for a fortnight
at the Angel Hotel in Abergavenny, and, but for the development which
threatened they would have been completely happy. As it was, when
they succeeded in forgetting what the future might hold for them, the
hours were the happiest they had ever spent. It was now August, but
Monmouthshire is one of the few counties which holiday makers seem
consistently to overlook in spite of its lovely scenery, with the
result that the picturesque moors were almost deserted.
For some minutes they remained silent. The quietude of the countryside,
the almost oppressive heat, the wonderful landscape which unfolded
itself before them, stretching away to the silvery river Usk visible
some miles down the valley, seemed in harmony with their mood. And then
presently, gently placing his arm about her, Preston drew Yootha closer
to him and pressed his lips to hers.
“My darling,” he murmured, “whatever happens, believe me I shall love
you always--always. Doesn’t it seem strange that for all these years
we should not have met, and that then we should have become acquainted
by the merest chance? Supposing I had not happened to wander into Bond
Street that morning, just a year ago--it was the ninth of August, the
date of the opening of our great offensive on the Western front--and
that I had not been with George, who knew La Planta, and that La Planta
had not invited us to lunch with him at the Ritz we should probably be
strangers still! I believe I fell in love with you that day, Yootha;
certainly you attracted me in the most extraordinary way directly we
were introduced--you and your delightful friend, Cora.”
“And yet during the whole lunch you spoke hardly a word, and Jessica
thought you dull and stupid, I remember,” she exclaimed, laughing. “I
know, because I heard her say so to Aloysius Stapleton.”
“I dare say I was dull and stupid. I certainly felt dull, but
several months of hospital life are not calculated to sharpen one’s
intelligence, are they? As for Jessica, from the moment I set eyes on
her something in her personality repelled me, though afterwards, at her
house, when we had that lovely music, I felt for the first time less
antagonistic. But if I knew her twenty years I should never get to like
her, or, indeed, trust her. Doesn’t she affect you in that way?”
“Not in that way, precisely, though I have never liked her, as you
know. I have somehow felt all the time that she and Stapleton and La
Planta were playing some deep game, and I believe they are playing it
still, whatever it may be. How odd she should have invited us to tea on
her house-boat that day at Henley, and been so amiable, and yet that so
soon afterwards----”
She checked herself abruptly, and nestled closer to her lover. The
pressure of his strong arm seemed to give her confidence, restore her
courage. After all, she reflected, so long as they were together, what
could anything matter? And then, carried away suddenly by her emotion,
she flung her arms about his neck and kissed him again and again.
The sun was setting when at last they rose and prepared to go back to
the village, a couple of miles distant, where they had left their car.
“Why,” Preston said, suddenly producing a letter from his pocket,
“I forgot to tell you, dear, I received this from George just before
we came out. He is staying in town during August, as I think I told
you, and he says he has been again to the house with the bronze face.
While there he was informed that Mrs. Timothy Macmahon, to whom Lord
Froissart left his fortune, is now in London and has a strange story
to tell. Stothert told George that Mrs. Macmahon was greatly upset on
hearing that Froissart had bequeathed everything to her, and that she
is anxious to transfer the greater part of the fortune to Froissart’s
rightful heir, his eldest daughter, Mrs. Ferdinand Westrup, who lives
with her husband in Ceylon. Mrs. Macmahon admits, he says, that she was
on terms of intimacy with Froissart, who used to visit her in Cashel,
her home in Tipperary, but she declares that was no reason for him to
leave his entire fortune to her, especially as she has a comfortable
income of her own.”
He unfolded the letter and read parts of it aloud to Yootha as they
strolled along the heather. The paragraph which interested her most,
ran as follows:
“... Stothert also told me Mrs. Macmahon had told him that
Froissart, for some time before he took his life, had been
threatened with exposure of his private life if he refused
to continue to pay increasingly large sums of money to
certain persons who were persecuting him....”
Yootha put her hand impulsively on her lover’s arm.
“Charlie!” she exclaimed, “that is exactly what Cora told me she
thought might have been the reason of Lord Froissart’s suicide. She had
heard rumors of his intimacy with some woman in Ireland, and that there
was possibility of a big scandal, and she also told me Lord Froissart
possessed such a sensitive nature that she could not imagine what would
happen if the scandal ever came to a head. And now I have an idea.
Don’t you think it possible Vera Froissart may have discovered her
father’s secret, and that the shock of the discovery may have driven
her, for very shame, to end her life?”
For some moments Preston did not answer. Then he said:
“My darling, I don’t think that. What I think far more likely is that
Vera may intentionally have been enlightened concerning her father’s
unfortunate infatuation for Mrs. Macmahon, and herself have been
blackmailed by the very people who afterwards blackmailed her father,
in which case the same scoundrels are indirectly responsible for the
death of both father and daughter. More, I now suspect the person or
persons who threatened Froissart and his daughter may be the people now
threatening us if we refuse to intimidate Cora in the way they wish us
to.”
Yootha stopped in her walk, staring speechless at her companion.
“Good heavens!” she exclaimed at last. “How can such wretches be
allowed to live?”
Then her imagination began to work with extraordinary rapidity. She
thought of Cora’s secret love for Sir Stephen Lethbridge, who had shot
himself a year before; of Lord Hope-Cooper, who had drowned himself
in the lake of his beautiful park at Cowrie Hall, in Perthshire; of
Viscount Molesley, Leonora Vandervelt and others, whose mysterious
suicides had so startled London Society, also of the well-known men
and women who had, quite recently, ended their lives apparently for no
reason. Was it possible all these people had been driven to desperation
by the same means and finally in a fit of temporary insanity, destroyed
themselves?”
Suddenly she caught her breath.
Henry Hartsilver, the husband of her friend, Cora--her dearest friend!
No breath of scandal concerning him had ever been whispered, and yet----
A sentence she had read in a novel flashed back into her mind: “The
private lives of most men are sealed books to all but their companion,
or companions, in guilt.”
Had Hartsilver’s private life been a sealed book to Cora, whose habit
it had been, she remembered, to jest about her husband’s extraordinary
respectability?
She clutched her lover’s hand, and stopped again in her walk.
“Charlie!” she exclaimed in an access of emotion, “if ever, after we
are married, you grow tired of me--I want you--I want you to----”
Something seemed to choke her, and Preston caught her in his arms.
“Yootha, Yootha, my own darling!” he exclaimed huskily. “What are you
saying? What are you thinking about? How can you imagine for a single
instant I could grow tired of you, the one woman in the world I have
ever loved! Don’t say what you were trying to, whatever it may have
been. I don’t want to hear it. It pains me when you talk like that, my
precious! You don’t--you can’t suppose I should be such a monster as to
think of any woman but you?”
“Oh, but promise--you will promise--if you feel your love for me
fading, no matter how little, to tell me about it? I couldn’t bear
to think you pretended to love me when all the time you knew in your
heart that in spite of yourself you were growing tired of me. So many
men grow tired of their wives. Oh, yes, I have seen it again and again
among my own friends--they marry, they love each other truly for a
little while, then their love begins to cool, and then--oh, my darling,
the bare thought of that possibility makes me feel faint and ill,” and
she began to sob bitterly as she lay listless in his arms.
It was now nearly dark, and they were still a long way from the
village. Preston tried to comfort her, assuring her again and again of
the impossibility of his ever growing tired of her, or indeed loving
her less, but for a long time she remained in deep depression.
And while this was happening Doctor Johnson and George Blenkiron were
dining together at the former’s house in Wimpole Street.
They had become extremely friendly since their first meeting at the
ball at the Albert Hall, owing partly to the fact of their having
interests in common, and it was but natural that during dinner mention
should be made of their common friend, Preston.
“I still feel anxious about Charlie Preston,” Blenkiron happened to
remark. “He has changed greatly of late, yet won’t say what is the
matter. To-day I heard an odd story to the effect that he has got
himself into some sort of trouble. And yet I can’t think what. He is
not a man who runs after women; rather, he is inclined to shun them. On
the other hand he is not in monetary difficulties, that I know for a
fact.”
“Where did you hear the story?” Johnson asked.
“At the club. Several men seemed to have heard it, yet all were vague
as to the nature of the alleged trouble. I do hope, Johnson, he has not
done anything foolish. He is such a good fellow.”
“The last man to do anything foolish, I should say,” the doctor
replied. “I like to trace to their source the origin of vague stories,
because often they do much mischief though quite devoid of foundation.
Couldn’t we, between us, find whence this rumor emanates?”
“I think it should be possible. I will see what can be done to-morrow.”
Blenkiron was fortunate next morning in coming face to face with the
member of the club who had first told him the story, or the story so
far as it went.
Briefly, the rumor was that Captain Preston had been talking too freely
about a certain lady--this was the new version--that he had been taken
to task by an intimate friend of hers, also a member of the club, and
that an action threatened unless Preston agreed to apologize in writing
for what he had stated, and, in addition, agreed to pay a considerable
sum to the man who brought the charge.
“Who told you all that?” Blenkiron inquired carelessly.
“Told me? I’m sure I don’t remember,” his informant replied quickly.
“It is common talk. You will hear about it everywhere.”
“Still, one ought to know who started it, because, personally, I don’t
believe a word of it. Preston is not a man to talk indiscreetly,
especially about a woman.”
The other shrugged his shoulders.
“I give it, of course, merely for what it is worth,” he said. “I don’t
vouch for the accuracy of everything I hear.”
“Then why repeat it as if it were solemn truth? I’d be more careful if
I were you, Appleton,” Blenkiron went on. “There’s a thing called the
law of slander.”
Appleton stared.
“If Preston is a friend of yours,” he stammered, “I suppose I ought to
apologize.”
“I think so too,” Blenkiron answered.
But in spite of his endeavor during the day to find who had first
started the story, he failed to get any information. Many of his
acquaintances had heard the rumor, but none could remember where.
Yet one person could have enlightened him. Jessica, scheming to destroy
the happiness of those she knew to be striving to discover the secret
of her past life, had now no scruple as to what methods she might
employ to achieve her end. And for some weeks events had been occurring
which, she now realized, threatened to jeopardize her position in
Society, and indeed her own safety and that of her faithful companions.
“Louie,” she said to Stapleton--they were at _déjeuner_ with La
Planta on the terrace of the Royal Hotel at Dieppe, “don’t you think
it time we put a check to the activities of Cora Hartsilver and her
energetic admirers? I am growing tired of being harassed by their
over-persistency. If our plan fails with Preston and Yootha Hagerston
regarding her, I suggest that more repressive measures be resorted to
at once. And I don’t mind admitting now, that I believe Charles Preston
is going to prove too much for us.”
CHAPTER XXI.
THE LITTLE HORSES.
The re-opening of the Casino at Dieppe in 1919 was the signal, as some
may remember, for an outbreak of gambling for very high stakes. This
was attributed partly to the natural reaction of public feeling after
the roulette tables and the _petits chevaux_ had been so long _hors
concours_, and partly to the fact that during the war many acquired a
taste for speculation who previously had looked upon even a sixpenny
lottery as ungodly.
Among the regular frequenters of the Casino during August of 1919 was
a very handsome Englishwoman, accompanied almost always by a tall,
undistinguished-looking man of middle-age, and by a good-looking, well
groomed young fellow of twenty-six or so. Night after night this trio
would arrive between eight and nine o’clock, seat themselves whenever
possible at the same _petits chevaux_ table, until the Casino closed.
What attracted attention to them was the large sum they invariably
staked at every turn of the wheel which set the horses “running”; the
recklessness of their play, and their extraordinary luck. Time and
again they would come out of the Casino many hundreds, and sometimes
many thousands of pounds richer than when they had gone in, and
usually an _agent de police_ would meet them at the entrance and
accompany them across to their hotel to prevent any possibility of
their being robbed.
Dieppe at that time was one of the few French seaport towns which could
be visited by English folk without their being compelled first of all
to comply with endless formalities, so that English people foregathered
there in their thousands. It was not surprising, therefore, that when
Jessica and her friends had been a week or two in the town they should
suddenly come face to face in the Casino with no other than Captain
Preston and his future wife.
Instantly Jessica extended her hand.
“I won’t say it is odd meeting you here,” she exclaimed, as she shook
hands with Yootha, “because one does nothing but run across friends all
day and every day, but I must say I did not expect to meet you, for I
heard you were both in Monmouthshire.”
“We left Abergavenny two days ago,” Yootha answered quickly, “and
arrived here last night. Isn’t this a delightful place? I’ve never been
here before.”
“Is anybody with you?” Jessica asked.
“An aunt of mine had arranged to come, but at the last moment she was
detained through illness.”
Though she felt exceedingly uncomfortable at meeting Jessica again,
after all that had occurred, she deemed it wiser to appear friendly
than to cut the woman--her secret wish. Jessica, on the other hand,
seemed really glad to meet Yootha Hagerston once more, and Captain
Preston, and when they had conversed for a little while she inquired
where they were staying, and then invited them to dine, an invitation
they naturally felt compelled to accept.
The Royal Hotel was crowded with well-dressed people, many of whom went
across to the Casino after dinner, among them Jessica, her friends, and
her two guests.
“I have been so lucky at _petits chevaux_ lately,” Jessica said as they
all passed in. “I don’t want to influence you in any way, Yootha, but
if you and Captain Preston like to play my game I believe you will win.
During the three weeks I have been playing I have come away a loser
only three times, and not on one occasion a heavy loser. I am between
three thousand and four thousand pounds to the good on my three weeks’
play, and Louie and Archie won several thousands each. And yet not one
of us has any system. It is just pure luck.”
“I don’t think Yootha will play,” Preston, who had overheard Jessica’s
remark, cut in.
“Oh, but why not, Charlie?” the girl exclaimed in a tone of
disappointment. “I have been looking forward so much to playing, though
of course I am not going to gamble.”
Jessica laughed, and in the laughter was a note of pity, approaching
disdain.
“Naturally if Captain Preston forbids you to play, you won’t play,” she
said lightly.
“Indeed you are mistaken, Jessica,” Yootha said piqued. Then she turned
to Preston.
“I am going to play, Charlie,” she said, “and you will see that I shall
win!”
“That’s the spirit,” Jessica laughed, only partly in jest. “And yet if
you lose, dear, you won’t blame me, I hope.”
Preston bit his lip, but said nothing more. Directly he had said that
Yootha wouldn’t play, he had realized his want of tact. No woman likes
to be thwarted, least of all before acquaintances, and by the man she
is going to marry. Had he remained silent she would, he felt sure, have
said of her own accord that she preferred not to play.
He lit a cigar and stood watching the game while Jessica found seats at
the table and made Yootha take the vacant one beside her. Stapleton and
La Planta stood just behind.
“Give me your money,” Jessica said in an undertone to the girl. “I will
add it to my own, and then we shall be backing the same horses and my
luck, if I have any, will be yours too.”
With a growing feeling of excitement, Yootha produced from her handbag
a roll of paper money, counted it carefully, and handed it to her
companion.
“That is all I can afford,” she whispered. “You’ll do the best you can
with it, won’t you? I do so want to win.”
“Oh! that is plenty,” Jessica answered, as she picked up the notes, and
after counting them, placed them on top of her own sheaf.
Then, for some minutes, she watched the play closely.
“Now I am going to start,” she said suddenly, and pushed a heap of
paper on to one of the names of the horses.
The little horses spun around, passing one another, some gradually
dropping back, others overtaking, the leaders. Then came the monotonous
“_Rien n’va plus_” from the croupier; the horses began to slacken
speed, went slower and slower--stopped.
Jessica had lost.
“This time we double,” she said under her breath to Yootha, and pushed
more money on to the name from which her former stake had just been
raked.
Again the horses spun round; again the croupier droned; again they
slowed down--and stopped.
Jessica had lost again.
“Had we better go on?” Yootha asked anxiously. “Or why not try another
horse?”
“Nonsense,” Jessica answered impatiently. “You have lost only a trifle.
I have lost fifty pounds. Now watch.”
She backed the same horse again, and this time the heap of notes was
much bigger. The race started. For more than a minute the little horses
kept changing their positions, then they moved slower and finally
stopped.
Yootha uttered an exclamation of delight. The horse Jessica had backed
had won!
A great pile of money, as it seemed to the girl, was pushed towards
Jessica by the croupier, and at once she passed some of the pile
towards her.
The next time the horses started the sum staked by Jessica was much
bigger, and she won again. Again she staked, and again she won; and
again; and yet again. The crowd gathered about the table began to
murmur. It grew excited when Jessica, backing different animals, won
three times more in succession.
By that time Yootha was panting with excitement. Jessica, as soon as
she had realized that her luck still prevailed, had gone practically
nap every time with Yootha’s money as well as her own. Yootha’s breast
rose and fell, her lips were parted, her eyes shone strangely as she
watched her companion staking and winning now on almost every race.
If she lost once she won twice. If she lost twice she won generally
three or four times directly afterwards. Yootha, with her winnings
piled in front of her, was about to speak to Jessica, when her eyes met
Preston’s. Her lover, standing facing her on the opposite side of the
table, was calmly smoking his cigar. He made no movement, nor did his
expression betray either approval or disapproval. He merely looked hard
at her without smiling.
“Make Captain Preston come and sit near us,” Yootha heard Jessica
saying. “He looks so sad there alone. Doesn’t he ever play? Has he no
vices at all? Take my advice, Yootha--think twice before marrying a man
who boasts that he has no vices!”
“But he doesn’t boast anything of the sort--he doesn’t boast at all,”
Yootha retorted, nettled, for again Jessica’s tone annoyed her. She
caught Preston’s eye once more and made a sign to him; but he only
shook his head and smiled rather coldly.
“You must teach him to play after you are married, dear,” Jessica said.
“I know that he has played,” and she smiled oddly. “Look at the sum you
have amassed to-night through taking my advice. Now I am going to stake
again four times, and, after that, win or lose, we stop.”
She staked heavily, and lost; then staked heavily again, and won three
times in succession.
Then she rose, and Yootha did the same, and at once other players took
their seats.
Yootha was beside herself. Though the sum she had won was small by
comparison with the amount won by Jessica, to her it seemed a lot,
perhaps because she had never played before.
“Let us go back and win some more,” she exclaimed excitedly, casting a
furtive glance backward at the table they had just left. “I do love it
so! Are you always as lucky as that, Jessica?”
In the excitement of the moment she seemed quite to have forgotten her
aversion for Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson; she had even forgotten her lover’s
presence until he suddenly approached.
“Was I not right not to take your advice?” she said to him gaily. “You
ought to have played, Charlie, you really ought. You have no idea what
fun it is.”
“Haven’t I?” he answered, looking down at her. “I wish I hadn’t--I
should be a rich man to-day.”
“Yes,” Jessica cut in with a curious laugh. “I have been told that
years ago Captain Preston lost thousands on the turf and at cards.”
Yootha saw her lover make a little gesture of annoyance and at once she
changed the subject.
At supper in the Casino they were joined by Stapleton and La Planta,
who had disappeared while Yootha and Jessica were playing. When they
were half-way through the meal, Yootha’s gaze became fixed on a man
at supper with friends at a table close by. Presently she turned to
Preston:
“I know that man so well by sight,” she said, “but can’t remember
who he is, or where I have seen him before. Haven’t we both met him
somewhere?”
Preston cast a hasty glance in the direction indicated. The person
referred to was a sleek, well-nourished man with black, rather curly
hair, and a carefully waxed moustache. Yes, he too had seen him
before--but where?
And then all at once he remembered. He had not seen him before, but he
had seen his portrait. It hung, quite a large picture, in Stothert’s
office in the house with the bronze face.
He told Yootha so.
“So it does!” she exclaimed. “That is how I remember the face. I wonder
who he is?”
“You wonder who he is?” Jessica inquired; she had overheard only the
last sentence.
“That dark man at supper over there,” and she indicated his whereabouts
with her eyes.
“Oh, that is Monsieur Alphonse Michaud,” Jessica replied at once. “A
remarkable character, according to all accounts. He is the director,
and I suppose proprietor of the Metropolitan Secret Agency in London.”
“That man is? But I thought Mr. Stothert and the woman called Camille
Lenoir were the directors.”
Jessica laughed.
“Have some more lobster, dear,” she said. “No, Stothert and Lenoir are
merely managers, just salaried people like other managers. But when
have you been to the Metropolitan Agency?”
“I went there at the time of that horrible affair at the Albert Hall
ball, when they thought I had stolen Mrs. Stringborg’s necklace. I
can’t bear to think of it, even now. It seems like a nightmare still.”
“Of course--I had forgotten. By the way, was that mystery ever cleared
up?”
“I believe not. The whole thing was most singular.”
“Didn’t the Metropolitan Agency find out anything? They are generally
so clever.”
“Nothing of importance,” Yootha answered quickly. “Oh, yes, that is
the man,” she said, looking again at the dark-haired stranger who had
just risen from supper with his friends, three flashily-dressed women.
“There is no mistaking him. The portrait is a striking likeness.”
When Yootha and Preston were alone again, the girl returned to the
subject of her play.
“It _is_ so exciting, Charlie,” she exclaimed. “I must try my luck
again to-morrow, I really must. In some ways Jessica is a wonderful
woman; she tells me she nearly always wins, so that by doing just what
she does----”
“You seem suddenly to have taken a fancy to Jessica,” her lover
interrupted. “I never thought you would do that, dear.”
“Nor did I, Charlie,” she replied at once. “And I haven’t exactly taken
a fancy to her, only I think--well, I think we have misjudged her to
some extent.”
“After the things you know she said about Cora?”
“I don’t actually know she said them, because I didn’t hear her say
them. After all, we were only told she said those things, and you know
how people exaggerate.”
Preston was silent.
“I wish you wouldn’t play again, darling,” he suddenly exclaimed
earnestly. “You have no idea how the craving to play can get hold of
you. I hoped so much to-night that you would lose.”
“Hoped that I should lose!”
“Yes, so that you wouldn’t want to play again; so that you would grow
disgusted with the game before it had time to get a hold on you.”
“Ah! I know why that was,” she exclaimed, her brow clearing. “Jessica
said that years ago you lost a lot of money. No wonder you hate playing
now. I understand your being disgruntled. How much did you lose,
Charlie? And why did you never tell me? And who told Jessica?”
“I lost almost every shilling I had,” Preston answered, lowering
his voice. “Otherwise I should be a rich man to-day, instead of
comparatively a pauper. The gambling fever caught me first when I was
staying in Port Said, with friends, and I was very lucky. It increased
and increased until, though I lost again and again, I became absolutely
reckless. I think the craze for gambling is the worst form of
affliction that can befall any man. But I overcame it in the end, and
because I overcame it when too late I want you to overcome it before
you go further.”
Yootha looked up into his face, and patted his cheek playfully.
“Charlie,” she said, “I am going to play to-morrow--just to-morrow.
I promised Jessica I would. And now I promise you that if I lose
to-morrow I will never play again. Will that satisfy you? You know I
always keep my promises.”
“I suppose it will have to satisfy me,” her lover answered, kissing
her. “But I hate your becoming intimate with Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson--you
don’t know how I hate it. She is not the right companion for you at
all.”
“Oh, don’t be anxious,” Yootha replied, smiling. “I can look after
myself, I assure you.”
CHAPTER XXII.
ANOTHER MYSTERY MAN.
“You will let me, won’t you?” Jessica said coaxingly.
She was addressing Yootha, begging her to let her take the place of
the aunt who had been detained at the eleventh hour, and act as her
chaperone during Yootha’s stay at Dieppe.
“I know there have been times when you and Cora have not thought well
of me, I never knew quite why,” she went on, “and I should like you to
be able to assure Cora that she formed a wrong opinion of me. I always
think someone must have told her things, and so prejudiced her against
me.”
Thus Yootha, always generously disposed, also impressionable and ready
to forgive an injury, fancied or otherwise, was soon talked over by
the clever woman. Indeed, the girl went so far as to persuade herself
that she and Cora and Preston, and the others who had tried so hard to
discover Jessica’s antecedents, had suspected her unjustly. And now
on the top of it all had come Jessica’s introduction of Yootha to the
Casino with its _petits chevaux_, Yootha’s subsequent elation at her
success, and Jessica’s extraction of the promise from her that she
would play again with her next day.
“Though I have been lucky all along, I have never been as lucky as
I was to-night,” she said to Yootha as they parted for the night. “I
believe you are my mascot, and to-morrow we will prove if you are or
not!”
Next night Preston excused himself. He said the Casino bored him; in
reality he could not bear Jessica’s company, or the sight of Yootha
gambling. To have opposed Yootha’s wish further than he had done would,
he knew, have been unwise; she might have turned upon him and said
things she would afterwards have regretted saying. So with a major in
the Gunners, whose acquaintance he had made at the Royal Hotel, and who
had been through the war, he started off for an evening walk up the
hill to the back of the town as soon as Jessica and Yootha had gone
across to the Casino, where they were to meet Stapleton and La Planta.
It was one of those warm, balmy nights, the air perfectly still,
which we enjoy so rarely in this country. By the time Preston and his
companions had reached the summit of the steep ascent the moon, in
its second quarter, was shining down across the streets and houses,
imparting to the city the aspect of a toy town, and illuminating
the sea for many a mile beyond it. As they sat contemplating the
picturesque panorama their gaze became focused on the lights of the
Casino.
“Don’t you play at all?” the major, whose name was Guysburg, inquired
as he lit a fresh cigar and offered one to Preston.
“Not now,” Preston answered dryly. “I played too much in my time;
games of chance and backing horses bit me hard when I was almost a boy.”
The major laughed.
“Boys will be boys,” he said lightly, as he puffed at his cigar.
“And fools will be fools,” Preston retorted. “I was one of the fools
who ‘made their prayer,’ and have regretted it ever since.”
“Yet you have no objection to your future wife’s playing? That seems to
me strange.”
“Indeed, I have the strongest objection,” Preston answered quickly,
in a strange voice. “I have been through the mill, and I know what
it means when the craving to gamble gets a grip on you which, try as
you will, you can’t shake off. Unfortunately Miss Hagerston met an
acquaintance here yesterday--that tall, handsome woman--you must have
noticed her--who last night induced her to play, and they won a lot
of money. Miss Hagerston became so exultant that she promised Mrs.
Mervyn-Robertson she would play with her again to-night, and nothing I
could say would dissuade her. I can only hope that to-night their luck
will be reversed, and then Miss Hagerston will see the folly of the
whole thing.”
For a minute the major did not reply. Then he said abruptly:
“Who are the two men who are always in Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s
company--I think you said that was her name?”
“Just friends. They are constantly with her in London too, where she
is well-known in Society; some say there is no romance or scandal
associated with their friendship; others say there is.”
For a long while they conversed on various topics, and particularly
about the war. Presently the major said:
“I noticed a person in the hotel to-day who had a curious reputation
before the war--a man called Michaud, Alphonse Michaud. Have you ever
heard of him?”
“Odd, your asking that,” Preston answered. “He was pointed out to me
last night at supper at the Casino--a dark man, rather Jewish looking,
with black wavy hair.”
“That’s the fellow. He was mixed up in several shady affairs some
years before the war, and I understand he is now ‘commander-in-chief’
of a most successful inquiry agency in London, with branches on the
Continent and abroad. I suppose it is the old idea, ‘set a thief to
catch a thief,’” and he laughed.
“What do you know about him?” Preston asked, suddenly interested.
“How the Metropolitan Secret Agency is so successful in ferreting out
secrets in people’s private lives has long puzzled London Society, also
the London police, and I have often heard it hinted that the Agency in
question of which I now understand Michaud is the moving force, has
recourse to questionable methods to obtain its information.”
“That I can believe,” Major Guysburg answered, “if Michaud has to
do with it. Mind, he is an extraordinarily clever man. One ramp he
was generally supposed eight or ten years ago to have had a hand in
concerned the insurance of some valuable stones owned by a diamond
merchant whose place of business is in the Kalverstraat in Amsterdam--I
formerly lived near Rotterdam. Within six months after the insurance
had been effected the stones disappeared from the merchant’s safe,
and to this day nobody knows how the robbery was carried out--the
merchant kept the key of his safe on him day and night. The opinion
in Amsterdam, however, was that Michaud, who had insured the stones
and who was paid the insurance under protest, was himself the thief.
Oh, but there were other queer doings in which he was said to be mixed
up, but they would take too long to tell. Incidentally he was supposed
at one time to have in his possession a remarkable drug, a sort of
perfumed poison, with most peculiar attributes--it was said that the
drug, properly administered, rendered people unconscious, and left
their minds a blank after they recovered consciousness, from a period
before they inhaled it.”
Preston became greatly interested.
“Tell me, major,” he said, “did you read the report recently of the
exhumation of the body of a Jew who died suddenly, and under rather
mysterious circumstances, at a ball at the Albert Hall?”
“No. I am not a great newspaper reader.”
“Well, naturally I was interested in the affair because I and a friend
of mine found the man dead in one of the boxes during the ball,” and he
went on to give Major Guysburg a brief account of what had occurred
that night. “Why I am interested in what you say about that peculiar
drug is that the man who was believed to know something about the
Jew’s death, or rather what caused it, admitted having imported from
Shanghai, for his own use only, he said, a drug apparently similar
to the one you have just mentioned--it may, indeed, have been the
identical drug.”
“Shanghai, did you say? Why, I remember now that is the place where the
drug I have told you about was supposed to have come from.”
“How strange! And there was another affair when apparently some drug
of the sort was used, but on that occasion the victim was La Planta
himself.”
“La Planta! The name sounds familiar. Now where have I heard that name
before?”
He racked his brain for a minute, but in vain.
“La Planta,” Preston said, “was the man believed to know something of
the cause of the Jew’s death, but nothing could be proved against him.
You may be surprised to hear that La Planta is the younger of the two
men constantly with the woman we have just been speaking about, Mrs.
Mervyn-Robertson.”
“Indeed? Then are the lady and her two friends acquainted with Michaud?”
“No, they know him only by sight.”
“Ah! I remember where I have heard of La Planta before,” Guysburg
exclaimed suddenly. “He represented an insurance company in Amsterdam
and was called upon to give expert opinion at the time of the diamond
robbery I have told you about. Yes, and the company he represented,
I remember, was directed by the late Lord Froissart, who committed
suicide some time ago.”
“Really this is remarkable, Major Guysburg,” Preston exclaimed. “You
and I meet at haphazard, we happen to go for a walk, and we find that
we each know several things in which the other is directly interested,
and which seem to fit into each other like bits of a puzzle. Are you
staying long in Dieppe? I should like to talk over several matters with
you, and my future wife would be interested to hear what you have just
told me.”
“And I should be most pleased to tell her. My intention at present is
to stay here a week or ten days longer. After that I may go to New
York.”
It was late when they arrived back at the Royal, where both were
staying, but Yootha had not yet returned from the Casino. Nor had Mrs.
Mervyn-Robertson come back, they were told at the office. They had
just turned to go into the vestibule when they came face to face with
Alphonse Michaud, accompanied by the three women Preston had seen him
with the night before.
“Most remarkable thing I have ever known,” he was saying. “That woman
seems to bewitch the tables.” He turned to the hotel manager who was
passing.
“Tell me,” he said, “do they often break the bank at your Casino?”
“Break the bank?” the manager repeated with a smile. “I have been here
twenty-two years and can remember only one occasion when the bank
failed; that must have been fifteen or more years ago, and the man who
broke it was the son of Don Carlos--a little while previously he had
won sixty thousand pounds at Monte Carlo and taken that sum away. Has
any one broken the bank to-night?” he ended with a laugh.
“Yes, that tall, handsome woman staying here who is generally
accompanied by two men--one a middle-aged man, the other a youth. Who
is she?”
“You must mean Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson,” the manager answered. “You don’t
mean to say that she has broken the bank!”
“She has indeed. She and her two friends and a girl with them sat down
to roulette between half-past eight and nine, and luck pursued them
from the very outset. We have been watching them for a long time, and
I never saw anything like their luck. The mere fact of their backing
a number seemed to make the number come up. After a little while the
crush round the table became so great that few besides those seated
were able to play at all. Finally the croupiers declared the bank was
broken, and that there would be no more play to-night.”
“You will forgive my speaking to you,” Preston cut in, “but are the
people you speak of returning to the hotel now, do you happen to know?
They are friends of mine.”
Michaud looked hard at him.
“Were you not with them at supper at the Casino last night?” he
inquired. “I am sure I saw you there.”
“Quite likely. I was with them.”
“Yes, they are probably on their way back by now. They were waiting,
when I saw them last, for additional police escort,” and he laughed.
“You ought to have been with them to-night, sir,” he added. “You have
missed the opportunity of a lifetime, because they all back the same
numbers, so that you would probably have done the same.”
He had hardly stopped speaking when a car drew up at the hotel
entrance, and Jessica and her party alighted, accompanied by two police
officials.
Preston saw at once that Yootha was almost hysterical. She kept
laughing at nothing, and talking at a great pace the greatest nonsense.
In addition to her bulging bag, she had slung on her arm a common sack
tied at the top with string. Directly she saw her lover she rushed up
to him, flung her arms about his neck, and kissed him passionately in
front of everybody.
“Allow me to congratulate you, ladies and gentlemen,” Michaud said with
a profound bow. “I have been watching your play all the evening, and
your luck is the most astonishing thing I have ever seen. I expect the
Casino will be glad to see the last of you,” and he laughed, “but only
the Casino,” and he ogled Yootha. “Good night, ladies and gentlemen.”
He turned to Preston, “Good night to you, sir,” and with his three
companions, who had been standing by looking rather sour, he passed
through the vestibule and disappeared.
For a quarter of an hour the party, which now included Preston and
Major Guysburg, remained in the vestibule talking over the exciting
evening. Now and again guests returning from the Casino would come up,
apologize for speaking, and then offer their congratulations. The only
two who remained calm, and apparently unaffected by what had happened,
were Preston and the major.
When Preston kissed Yootha good night in the corridor before they
parted for the night, he looked down at her sadly.
“My darling,” he said, “have you forgotten what happened that night at
Henley? The day is approaching when it will be necessary for us to do
one thing or the other regarding Cora, and of course there is only one
thing we can do.”
“How do you mean--‘only one thing’?”
Preston gazed at her, speechless.
“Jessica,” Yootha went on, “was talking to me about Cora this evening,
and hinted to me things about her which, if they are true, would
tempt me never to speak to her again. I am inclined to think we
have overrated Cora, and that her alleged friendship is not wholly
disinterested.”
CHAPTER XXIII.
A FRIEND INDEED!
While the events described in the preceding chapter were taking place
in Dieppe, Cora Hartsilver was visiting friends who had a place in
Jersey, near Gorey. They were people she had known intimately before
her marriage, friends of Sir Stephen Lethbridge whom she had loved so
terribly even after her marriage, but she had not seen them since her
husband’s death, though several times they had asked her to stay with
them.
She was glad to be out of London at last. The place had begun to pall
on her soon after the Armistice, also her friend, Yootha Hagerston,
seemed gradually to have changed in her manner towards her in a way
she could not exactly describe, but which she felt. She did not blame
Yootha for this change, though secretly she resented it. She attributed
it to her friend’s engagement, and hoped that after her marriage Yootha
would become her old self again, for she could not believe that her
long affection for her could have cooled.
One morning among her correspondence she found a registered letter
which mystified and disconcerted her exceedingly. Unsigned, and with no
address, it ran as follows:
“The writer possesses nine letters written by you to the late Sir
Stephen Lethbridge, and five written by Sir Stephen to you, _after
your marriage to the late Henry Hartsilver_. The former are dated
respectively ----” here followed the dates, also the addresses from
which the letters had been written. “The latter are dated ----” and
then came another list.
“These documents,” the letter continued, “are wholly compromising, and
photographic prints of them all will be posted in registered envelopes
to the whole of your circle of personal friends and acquaintances
unless six thousand pounds is paid to me on or before the first
of October next. This is no vain threat, and if the contents of
these documents have faded from your memory the writer can send you
photographic prints to confirm the accuracy of the statements contained
in this letter.
“Reply at once by advertisement in the personal column of _The Morning
Post_, and sign it ‘A. B.--from Y. Z.’”
* * * * *
Cora stared at the letter for a minute, then read it through again.
Written on a typewriter, it had been posted, according to the postmark,
in the London West Central district. The letters to which it referred
she remembered only too well. They were all the letters she had written
to Sir Stephen and that he had written to her during the time she had
been married and while her husband was alive.
She was alone in her room, and she sat down on the bed and began
to think. Who in the world could have obtained possession of those
letters, especially those she had received? Some servant? Mentally she
reviewed the various servants who had been in her employment during the
past years, but none seemed the sort likely to steal letters or attempt
to levy blackmail.
Then, all at once, she remembered Yootha’s telling her long ago,
one day when they had been talking in confidence about poor Stephen
Lethbridge’s sad end, that her father had told her that strange-looking
men and women had been in the habit of visiting Sir Stephen at Abbey
Hall, in his place in Cumberland, shortly before his death. She
wondered now, as she had wondered then, who those people could have
been, and why they had visited Sir Stephen.
But that, after all, she now reflected, was not of moment. What did
matter was that her letters should be in the keeping of someone
determined to do her an injury which would affect the whole of her
future life if she refused to buy them back at the sum named in the
letter she held in her hand.
For a quarter of an hour or more she sat there, pondering deeply. She
had received in the course of her life several hard knocks, and not
once had her spirit failed her. It came back to her now that Stephen
had more than once warned her to be more careful about what she put in
writing; but then, she reflected, had he not himself been almost as
reckless every time he wrote to her? Both were emotional by nature;
both were highly imaginative, and they became carried away by their
feelings when in correspondence with each other.
That her anonymous correspondent had not exaggerated when he declared
the letters to be “wholly compromising,” she well knew. Indeed, at
the recollection of some of the violent love passages they contained
she shuddered. What would become of her, she wondered feverishly, if
those passages, written in her handwriting, or Sir Stephen’s, were to
become public property? Oh, how mad she had been to write such things,
she exclaimed aloud. The one drop of comfort in her bitterness was the
reflection that Henry no longer lived, that he would never know.
Henry!
As she spoke her husband’s name a strange thought flashed in upon her.
The mystery of his suicide had never been fathomed, nor had she ever
succeeded in puzzling out even a possible solution to the problem, and
now, all at once----
Her brain began to work with extraordinary rapidity. During his
lifetime he had often read her curtain lectures which had bored her
almost to distraction--he had never tired of impressing upon her his
views regarding married women who carried on flirtations, and his
opinion in general upon a wife’s duties to her husband. At first,
when he had spoken thus, her conscience had cried aloud, and she had
believed herself a hypocrite and not fit to be married to any honest
man, seeing that she loved Stephen Lethbridge so madly.
Then, as time went on, she had succeeded in smothering her conscience
by reminding herself that Henry had married her in reality against
her will, therefore that she had a right to love Stephen if she
chose. Later, she had gone a step further by cultivating the habit of
analyzing her feelings calmly and dispassionately, and contrasting
her lack of affection for her husband with her all-consuming passion
for Sir Stephen, and more than once when so engaged she had secretly
wondered what would happen to Henry, and for that matter to herself,
should Henry by any terrible mishap discover her deep secret.
“I believe,” she recollected saying to herself once, “he would either
kill Stephen and me, or end his own life.”
And now in a flash the thought had come to her--could Henry have,
by some means, become aware of her hypocrisy, of the mental double
life she had been leading, and in a moment of frenzy at his sudden
disillusionment deliberately have ended his existence? And if so, was
it possible the writer of the anonymous letter she had just received
had been the person to impart that information to her husband,
presumably in the hope of extorting blackmail by threatening to make
the facts public, and that Henry had in consequence taken his life?
A terrible thought, yet the longer she dwelt on it the more plausible
the theory appeared to her to be. Quite likely, too, she reflected,
that if this were so the scoundrel, foiled in his first attempt to
extort payment for the letters, would presently make another attempt,
but that before doing so he would let a reasonable period elapse.
This discovery, as she believed it to be, and the reflection that
now she must either pay the sum demanded or stand disgraced before
everybody she knew, drove her almost frantic. In her agony of mind she
began to pace the room, trying in vain to evolve some means of escape
from her unknown persecutor.
Then she began to ask herself whom she could consult, of whom she
could take counsel? And again there was nobody. Had the matter been
one of less delicacy, less secret, she knew several people, intimate
friends others, to whom she would readily have unbosomed herself. But
to admit to anyone, even her dearest friend, that she had virtually
been carrying on an intrigue, even an harmless intrigue, while married,
she felt would be impossible. Besides, would anybody, not excepting her
dearest friend, believe the intrigue to have been harmless?
Suddenly she stopped pacing the room. She had read in the Jersey paper
that morning that on the previous day a Doctor Johnson--the Doctor
Johnson whom she had before consulted on very secret matters--had
arrived from Weymouth by the ss. _Ibex_ and gone to the Brees Hotel.
The news had afforded her extreme satisfaction, and she had said to
herself at once that they must meet again. Now she remembered how kind
and considerate he had been on the occasions when she had sought his
advice. Also he was a doctor, and doctors were accustomed to receiving
confidences which they never, in any circumstances, disclosed, she
reflected. Supposing she were to approach him with reference to this
dreadful affair, tell him exactly what had happened, how, though
married, she had been hopelessly, though harmlessly, in love with the
late Sir Stephen Lethbridge, and if then she were to show him the
letter she had received that day threatening her with blackmail----
Somehow she felt she would be able to trust him implicitly, and that
his advice would be sound, so on the following afternoon, after
telephoning that she wished to see him particularly, she called at the
Brees and was at once shown up.
The doctor was frankly glad to see her, and gratified when he found
that she wished to consult him on an unprofessional matter.
“I had a letter from Preston the other day,” he said, when they had
conversed for a few minutes, “and he seems to have recovered his health
and spirits considerably. I suppose you know that Jessica and her
inseparables are staying at the hotel in Dieppe where he is; but you
may not have heard that they and Miss Hagerston succeeded between them
in breaking the bank at the Casino some nights ago.”
“I had not heard that Jessica was there at all,” Cora answered. “But
then I have not heard from Yootha since she went there--she wrote to me
last from Monmouthshire. But surely you are mistaken, doctor, in saying
that she helped Jessica and her friends to break the bank? Yootha was
barely on speaking terms with Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson the last time she
wrote to me.”
“Indeed I am not mistaken, Mrs. Hartsilver,” Johnson replied with an
odd look. “Between ourselves, I rather wish I were, because, as you
know, I am not partial to that woman. Preston told me in his letter
that she and Miss Hagerston had suddenly become extraordinarily
friendly, and he seemed a good bit upset about it. They all met by
accident at the Royal Hotel, it seems, and Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson
induced Miss Hagerston to play with her at the tables at the Casino,
and they had the most amazing luck--even before they broke the bank.
Miss Hagerston, he says, has become bitten by the gambling mania, and
you know what that means--or perhaps you don’t; I hope you don’t.”
It was some time before Cora could brace herself to broach the subject
on which she had come to consult Doctor Johnson. She had been silent
for a minute, feeling extremely embarrassed, when suddenly she said:
“I have come to see you, Doctor Johnson, to ask your advice on a matter
I feel I couldn’t speak about to anybody else, and of course you will
treat what I am going to say as strictly confidential. Doctor, I am in
very great trouble.”
“I am sorry to hear that,” he answered quietly. “I take it you mean
mental trouble.”
“Yes. Perhaps before I say more you had better read this,” and quickly
producing the anonymous letter from her bag, she handed it to him.
He read it through calmly, his face immobile. Then he read it again.
After that he folded it and handed it back to her.
“An unfortunate incident,” he observed as he lit a cigarette. “Have you
any idea who the writer is?”
“Not the slightest.”
“A woman, I should say, possibly in league with some man. You won’t
pay, of course.”
“But then what am I to do? Think what will happen if I don’t pay,
doctor!”
“Am I to conclude from that that the allegation is true? Did you write
the letters, and were the others written to you?”
Cora colored violently, and looked down.
“Yes,” she said, almost in a whisper.
“That is a pity,” the doctor answered. “Still Mrs. Hartsilver, even the
best of us make mistakes at times, and when a mistake has been made the
only thing to do is to think of the best way of avoiding unpleasant
consequences. I know perhaps better than you do how on occasions a
woman’s heart can temporarily overrule her brain and better judgment,
and for that reason I look leniently on what I call ‘heart influence.’
Did your husband know anything of this? You will, I am sure, in the
circumstances forgive my asking.”
“So far as I know, he knew nothing,” Cora answered quickly. “But since
receiving that letter I have wondered if he could, by some means, have
found out, or if someone can have told him, and whether--whether it can
have been that knowledge which drove him to end his life.”
“I think that is possible, Mrs. Hartsilver; yet I don’t consider you
are to blame. I have learned several things concerning your marriage,
why you married a man you never loved, and why----”
“Who told you that?” Cora interrupted. “Oh, Doctor Johnson, how did you
find out?”
“That is not of consequence, nor is the fact of your husband taking
his life of consequence now. The past is finished and done with. What
matters to-day--the only thing that matters--is what is going to happen
in the immediate future.”
He paused, and then continued:
“You say you want my advice, but if I give it I shall expect you, mind,
to follow it.”
“You may depend on my doing that.”
“Good. My advice, then, is that you do not, in any circumstances, pay
this hush money, or pay any hush money at all. The writer of the letter
you have shown me is almost for certain a professional blackmailer,
perhaps the only class of criminal to get, in this country, what
he deserves when caught. What we must do then is set a trap for
him--or her. And that I think I can do successfully, because I did it
comparatively recently with most satisfactory results in a somewhat
similar case. Do you remember Lord Froissart’s suicide, and before that
his daughter’s suicide, Mrs. Hartsilver?”
“Indeed I do.”
“Blackmail in each case, though it was never made public. I am speaking
to you now in strictest confidence; both are dead, or I should not tell
even you. Poor Vera Froissart fell madly in love with a scoundrel,
who wronged her and subsequently attempted to blackmail her. Afraid to
tell anybody, she let terror of exposure prey upon her mind until in a
moment of actual madness she made away with herself. Some time after
her death the same scoundrel approached her father, Lord Froissart,
told him why his daughter had ended her life, and threatened exposure
if Froissart refused to pay.
“Froissart paid. He paid again, and then a third time. He was not a
man of much backbone, or of strong mentality. When the blackguard to
whom he had already paid thousands came to him again for a further sum,
Froissart, believing that he must in the end be reduced to beggary
through the man’s extortions, went down to Bournemouth and threw
himself off the cliff.
“The night before he had written a number of letters at his club--the
Junior Carlton. One of those letters was addressed to me--I was his
medical adviser. In it he told me everything, and directly I had read
the letter I burnt it, as he wished me to do. This is the first time
I have revealed his secret, and it is the last time I shall speak of
it. I have revealed it to you that it may serve as a warning of what
may happen if ever you are so unwise as to pay hush money to anybody.
Froissart had mentioned the name of his persecutor, and with some
trouble I got the man arrested and convicted. He is in penal servitude
to-day, and will be for some years.”
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE TIGHTENING GRIP.
Doctor Johnson’s optimism and words of encouragement set Cora’s mind
at rest to some extent, but she still felt anxious. She did not expect
to be back in England for several weeks, and Johnson had told her that
he intended to remain in Jersey about the same length of time. What,
she asked herself, would happen meanwhile if she ignored the anonymous
letter, as he advised? True, he had pointed out that the writer of
the letter could have no desire to ruin her good name, and that she
threatened only in order to terrorize her into paying the money. If
she did not reply in the _Morning Post_, her persecutor would, he had
assured her, write her another letter before taking any action. Indeed,
he had declared that she would probably receive several letters before
the writer attempted to carry out her threat.
“And remember,” he had ended, “the more letters you get, and the more
they threaten, the more evidence you possess to help to convict the
villainess when she is arrested. Give her as much rope as possible,
then strike hard and suddenly.”
They had wandered a considerable way along the sea wall, which runs
beside the coast, one evening some days later, when Johnson happened to
remark:
“Whom do you think I ran across in the gardens at the Pomme d’Or, Mrs.
Hartsilver? Why, the young journalist, Harry Hopford. He was in high
spirits, as he generally is, and told me he had been here several days,
spending his holiday. When I mentioned that you were here too, he
became quite excited, and said he ‘did hope’ he would have the pleasure
of seeing you again. He is meeting me at the Pomme d’Or to-night. Won’t
you join us? It is a Bohemian little place, but I can call for you, and
I think you will be amused.”
But Cora explained it would be impossible, as the friends with whom she
was staying were giving a dinner party, she said, from which she could
not well absent herself.
“I only wish I could come,” she added with sincerity. “It would
amuse me more than meeting a lot of people I don’t know, and have no
particular wish to know. And I should like to see Mr. Hopford again,
too. He has always been so kind.”
Hopford was full of news when he met the doctor at the Pomme d’Or that
evening.
“Can you tell me, Johnson,” was one of his first questions, “why
Captain Preston now always carries about a loaded automatic?”
“I had no idea he did,” the doctor replied in surprise. “Who told you?”
“Well,” Hopford answered, “I happened to find it out, and in rather a
curious way. In The Mitre, off Fleet Street, the other day, I got into
conversation with quite a good fellow who had served during the war.
We had one or two drinks together, and then he mentioned incidentally
that a Captain Preston had been his company commander. When I told him
that I, too, had served under Preston, he became quite communicative.
Preston seems to be a sort of hero in his eyes. He told me all that
Preston did during the war--he has a fine record, Johnson--and then
added:
“‘They ought to put him in Ireland--he always has a loaded automatic in
his pocket.’
“I inquired the reason, and he went on:
“‘I can’t say, but during Henley regatta he told me to keep his pistol
loaded, and a week later he took to carrying it about with him.’
“The fellow had told me he was Preston’s servant.
“‘Does he expect to be attacked?’ I then asked jokingly. And he
answered quite seriously, ‘Yes, I think he does.’
“‘And by whom?’ I said, becoming interested.
“He looked about him, then replied under his breath: ‘I don’t know, but
he told me once he had met some queer folk in China, in Shanghai, and
I’ve a notion some of those folk may now be in London and have some
sort of a down on him.’”
“Did he say anything more?” Johnson inquired.
“Yes. He said he was worried about ‘the Captain,’ thought he ought
not to marry, and hinted there was a mystery of some sort about the
lady he meant to marry, meaning Miss Hagerston, of course. By the way,
Johnson, I suppose you read in the papers that Miss Hagerston and Mrs.
Mervyn-Robertson, La Planta, and Stapleton, between them broke the
bank at the Casino at Dieppe the other night?”
“I didn’t read about it, but I heard about it.”
“And that reminds me,” Hopford went on, “that I have heard queer rumors
about Preston lately. A bank clerk I know, who often gives me scraps of
exclusive news, and has never yet let me down, assures me that Preston
is being blackmailed. It’s a long story and rather complicated.”
“What, more blackmail?”
“How do you mean ‘more’ blackmail?” Hopford asked quickly, ever on the
alert for news.
“I was thinking of a case I heard of the other day,” Johnson replied,
anxious to cover his slip of the tongue.
Hopford looked at him hard.
“What the clerk told me,” he said a moment later, “was that Preston
would be driven, if not careful, to pay hush money--he mentioned a big
sum--to some woman who threatens to reveal something queer about that
beautiful Mrs. Hartsilver. I saw Preston not long ago, and thought he
looked ill and worried. Have you heard anything by any chance?”
“If I had I shouldn’t tell a journalist,” Johnson answered with a
smile. “No, not even you, Hopford.”
The lad laughed.
“And I can’t blame you,” he said, “though personally when I promise not
to print news told me in confidence I never do print it. But there are
a lot of little mysteries we both know about which have not yet been
cleared up, and somehow several seem to me to be directly or indirectly
connected with one another.
“First, there was the epidemic of unaccountable suicides between a year
and eighteen months ago, when Lord Hope-Cooper, Sir Stephen Lethbridge,
Viscount Molesley, Lord Froissart and his daughter, that queer woman,
Leonora Vandervelt, Henry Hartsilver, and half-a-dozen more put an end
to themselves apparently for no reason, and then there was the second
epidemic of the same sort only a month or two ago.
“In addition there are the queer stories concerning Mrs.
Mervyn-Robertson and her two inseparables; Levi Schomberg’s strange
death; the rumors to do with Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s husband--some
say he is alive and some say he isn’t; that affair regarding La
Planta’s being obviously drugged, though to this day nobody knows who
drugged him, why he was drugged, or even where he was drugged; Mrs.
Mervyn-Robertson’s fainting fit at her own house on the same night,
followed by the theft of her jewels; the robbery and recovery at the
Albert Hall ball of Mrs. Stringborg’s necklace; Stapleton’s anxiety
that the theft of Mrs. Robertson’s jewels should be attributed to Mrs.
Hartsilver; oh, and several other things.
“The clerk I mentioned just now also told me that at one time Archie
La Planta represented an insurance firm in Amsterdam of which Lord
Froissart was the principal director, and that before his death
Froissart had been a good deal upset at what seems to have been a trick
played upon his Company by some of the policy holders--apparently they
insured valuable jewels and uncut precious stones which subsequently
were stolen by the very men who had insured them, or rather by some
of their accomplices; but as nothing could be proved the Company had
to pay the full claim, though it did so under protest. Altogether,
Johnson, there is a good deal I want to find out, but it will be a fine
scoop for my paper if I succeed, and I feel confident I shall do so
when I get to Paris.”
“You did not tell me you were going to Paris,” Johnson said, smiling
at the lad’s enthusiasm. “Or for that matter that you meant to try to
solve the bunch of problems you have just enumerated.”
“Didn’t I?” Hopford exclaimed. “Well, that is the idea. I am here for a
short holiday, then I go to Paris where I have a friend on the staff of
_Le Matin_, an extraordinarily clever fellow with a genius for putting
together puzzles of this sort. He was in London last month, and when
in course of conversation I chanced to speak about the two epidemics
of suicide there had been among our society people, and mentioned the
names of some of the victims, he became greatly interested, and started
asking me all sorts of questions.
“He referred to the subject several times again while in town, and
finally told me that if I could go to Paris he thought he would be
able to put me on to at least one useful clue, and suggested we might
work the thing together--the subject would interest _Le Matin_ too, he
said. Thereupon I consulted my chief who, though skeptical as to the
likelihood of my succeeding, gave me leave to go to Paris for a week or
two. Tell me, Johnson, have you any friends there who might be of use
to me?”
The doctor pondered for some moments.
“Where are you going to stay in Paris?” he asked suddenly.
“I stayed at the Brighton in the Rue de Rivoli the last time I was
there,” Hopford answered, “but I thought this time of finding some
little place in Clichy--my friend lives in Montmartre. Why do you ask?”
“A friend of mine, a mental specialist--incidentally he is interested
in your sort of work, and is wonderfully shrewd in putting two and two
together--has a quaint little _appartement_ in the rather slummy Rue
des Petits Champs, near the Place Jeanne d’Arc. If you would like to
stay with him I know he would like to have you, and I feel confident
you would hit it off together. He and I shared a house in Hong Kong,
when I practiced there, and after a while I appointed him my _locum
tenens_ in Shanghai.”
“Shanghai!”
Hopford seemed suddenly interested. For several seconds he did not
speak.
“Curious coincidence that,” he said at last. “I just wanted to meet
someone who knew Shanghai, and I had forgotten you had lived in Hong
Kong.”
“The friend I speak of knows Shanghai inside out, which I am afraid I
don’t,” Johnson answered. “Shall I give you an introduction to him?”
“I wish you would, Johnson,” Hopford answered eagerly. “And under the
circumstances I should like to stay with him, if he will have me. Do
you happen ever to have known a man in Shanghai named Fobart Robertson?”
“I should say so!” his companion exclaimed. “One of the worst--a mere
adventurer. He married----”
He checked himself.
“Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson!” Hopford said excitedly.
“I didn’t say so,” Johnson replied, slightly put out by the young man’s
rapidity of thought.
“You didn’t say so, but you mean it--and you know it was so!” Hopford
observed triumphantly. “This is splendid! The parts of the puzzle are
fitting themselves in just as I expected they would. Now I wonder if
you knew another man out East, in Shanghai or Hong Kong, or some place
of that sort, whose name was Timothy Macmahon? When Lord Froissart
committed suicide he left the whole of his fortune to a Mrs. Macmahon,
who is Timothy Macmahon’s widow.”
“Yes. Macmahon, too, lived in Shanghai at one time; also Julius
Stringborg, who now lives in Upper Bruton Street, and was a spirit
merchant in Shanghai and Hong Kong when I practiced out there--husband
of the woman whose necklace was stolen at the Albert Hall ball and who
charged Miss Hagerston with the theft, if you remember. But, as I say,
my former _locum tenens_ who now lives in Paris is the man you want to
meet if you are seeking information about former British residents in
Shanghai. Before you leave Jersey I will give you a letter addressed to
him.”
“That’s awfully good of you, Johnson,” Hopford said in a tone of deep
gratitude. “You have no idea how keen I am to solve the problem of all
these mysteries, as much out of personal curiosity as from a natural
desire to score a newspaper scoop.”
For a long time they continued to converse, and the more they talked
the more deeply impressed Johnson became by the young man’s exceptional
acumen.
“If at any time you should hear any gossip concerning Mrs. Hartsilver,
Hopford,” he presently said carelessly, “you might let me know in
confidence.”
Hopford turned quickly.
“Why,” he exclaimed. “I have heard gossip about her already, and I
don’t believe a word of it. Shall I tell you what it is? Of course you
won’t repeat it.”
“Of course. What have you heard?”
The anxiety his tone betrayed was not lost upon the young journalist,
though Johnson had tried to conceal it. Instantly he concluded the
doctor must be interested in the young widow. “Yes,” he commented
mentally, “obviously deeply interested.”
“Well, what I have heard,” he said, “came from two sources, and was to
the effect that Preston and Mrs. Hartsilver were together trying to
conceal some secret of a rather scandalous nature. But, as I say, I
don’t believe a word of it.”
“From whom did you hear it?”
“From two fellows in the office--two of our reporters. As you know,
or perhaps you don’t know, reporters never give away their source of
information, and I told them both to their faces that I knew Mrs.
Hartsilver personally, and was convinced the story was a lie.”
“What did they say to that?”
“Oh, they laughed. One of them said that naturally in the circumstances
my opinion must be biased, and that subsequent events would show if the
report were true or not.”
“They won’t publish anything in the newspaper, will they?” Johnson
asked; and Hopford was again struck by the anxiety in his voice and
face.
“Set your mind at rest on that point,” he replied. “They dare not. Even
if the tale were true, to publish it might be libelous. Certainly I
will tell you at once, Johnson, if I hear anything more.”
It was nearly closing time at the Pomme d’Or, and they rose to go.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE CITY OF SMILES.
Paris has greatly changed since the war. The _bonhomie_ of the
boulevards, so marked a feature before the year 1914, has subsided a
good deal. The inhabitants, considered collectively, are more serious.
Hopford and Johnson’s friend, Idris Llanvar, with whom Hopford was
now staying, were discussing these and other matters one morning in
Paris, when they were joined by Hopford’s friend who worked for _Le
Matin_. Tall, slim, good-looking, and with the charming manner peculiar
to descendants of the old French noblesse, he raised his hat as he
approached, then apologized in excellent English for his unpunctuality.
“We had a fire at the office of _Le Matin_,” he said, “which almost
prevented the paper from coming out; but thanks to the courtesy of the
_Journal des Débats_, which afforded us facilities for printing, the
situation was saved at the eleventh hour.”
He poured himself out a glass of wine from the bottle on the
table--they were sitting outside a café on the Boulevard des
Italiens--and continued:
“I have a proposal to make to you, Hopford, and to you, too, monsieur,”
he said, turning to Idris Llanvar, “which, if it meets with your
approval, may have a rather important result. I understand from my
friend Hopford here that we three are to put our heads together to
try to make certain discoveries which, if we succeed, will create
something of a sensation when made public. I have already told Hopford
I know of certain happenings in Paris which, I believe, bear directly
on affairs which have occurred in London within the past year or two,
and more particularly recently. Now, two friends of mine belong to the
Secret Service Police of Paris, and what they don’t know concerning
the movements and methods of international criminals is, as you say in
England, not worth knowing. One is a man, the other a woman. They are
coming to me to-night, and I hope you will both come along too, so that
the five of us may discuss certain affairs. Will that suit you both?”
And so, late that night, four men and a woman, all of exceptionally
keen intelligence, endowed with the peculiar attributes which go to
the making of a clever police detective or a successful newspaper
reporter, were gathered together in a small room in one of those
quaint, low-roofed houses with which visitors to the Quartier Latin are
familiar.
The woman was an odd-looking person of about twenty-eight or
twenty-nine, with hair cut short like a man’s, a pale face, firm lips,
and dark, extremely shrewd eyes. She bore the reputation, Hopford’s
friend said, of possessing more dogged perseverance than any other
member of the Paris detective force. During the war, he told them, she
had succeeded in bringing no less than seven spies to book without any
assistance whatever, all of whom had eventually been put to death.
Hopford had finished giving the assembled party all the information
he possessed concerning the two epidemics of suicide in London; the
various thefts which had occurred in connection with this narrative;
and other matters with which the reader is acquainted, and was lighting
a fresh cigar, when the woman, after a pause, inquired:
“This Madame Vandervelt who threw herself out of the hotel window. When
did that happen?”
Hopford mentioned the date. He had all data at his fingers’ ends.
“I knew Leonora Vandervelt,” she said. “For months we shared an
_appartement_ close to the Madeleine. By that means I became intimate
with her; and eventually I discovered something I wanted to know
about her--at that time she masqueraded under an assumed name.
Finally I brought about her arrest, and she was sentenced to a year’s
imprisonment, though she deserved three years. Upon her release she
left France, and I lost sight of her. This is the first time since
then that I have heard of her. I did not know she was dead. At one
time she and Angela Robertson of Shanghai were close friends. Then
they quarreled, parted in anger, and Angela Robertson, whom you
call Jessica Mervyn-Robertson, declared in my hearing she would be
revenged--revenged for what I did not know. That, of course, was before
Vandervelt went to prison.
“When Vandervelt became suspected of larceny, I went at once to Angela
Robertson, who then lived in Paris, and placed all the facts before
her. As I expected, she jumped at the chance of getting her revenge,
and largely through the information she gave me I was able to bring
Leonora Vandervelt to book. And now you tell me Vandervelt committed
suicide. Of course I know who made her do it. It was Angela Robertson
again.”
“How do you know that?” Hopford inquired. He had listened attentively
to every word.
“No matter. You will gather that later. Do you know how Mrs. Robertson
comes to be so rich?”
“Through levying blackmail I should imagine,” Hopford answered quickly.
“As you say, through levying blackmail. She and her companions you have
told me about, Archie La Planta and Aloysius Stapleton, are three of
the most cunning and persistent blackmailers in your country. They have
practiced the ‘art’ in Continental capitals, and now reside in London
because your countryfolk are the most easy to blackmail, also because
they have much money and are easily induced to part with it. You say
she pretends to be Australian. She is not Australian, nor has she been
in Australia, though she had a married sister living in Monkarra, in
Queensland, years ago, governess to the children of a rich sheep farmer
there. When Mrs. Robertson and Stapleton left Shanghai for good they
went first to Amsterdam, where they became acquainted with Archie La
Planta, a rogue in every way, though a charming man to talk to. At
that time he was representing a British insurance company in Amsterdam.”
“Controlled by Lord Froissart,” Hopford put in.
“Yes. Controlled by the late Lord Froissart. While there,” she went on,
“La Planta was introduced to Angela Robertson and to Stapleton by a man
named Alphonse Michaud, of whose occupation the less said the better.
Finally the four lived together at an hotel in the Kalverstraat, the
name of which has for the moment escaped me.”
“That is curious,” Hopford exclaimed, “because when Mrs. Robertson and
Michaud came face to face in Dieppe the other day, they apparently did
not know each other. A friend of mine, Captain Preston, said so in a
letter to Doctor Johnson.”
“Not Captain Charles Preston who is going to marry a girl called Yootha
Hagerston?” the other detective asked quickly, now speaking for the
first time.
“That is the man,” Hopford replied. “I served under him during the war,
and I know Miss Hagerston too.”
The detective glanced across at his female colleague.
“Isn’t that a coincidence?” he said.
“Oh, coincidences never surprise me,” she answered with a shrug.
“But it points to further collusion,” the man said.
“Then I take it,” Llanvar put in, “there exists in London at the
present time, and has existed for a year or more, some sort of
organization for extorting money in considerable sums from rich and
well-known people by means of direct or indirect blackmail?”
“Not only that,” the woman answered. “I am in a position to know
that some members of the organization have levied blackmail on each
other. There is no honor among miscreants of that type. They would
blackmail their own parents if they got the chance, and could benefit.
Such people deserve life sentences. Yet in spite of the cunning and
cleverness of this particular gang I think we are on the right road to
tracking them all down now, although they do pretend to belong to the
best society, and no doubt have influential friends.”
Hopford felt elated as he wandered homeward that night, arm in arm with
his host, the mental specialist, Idris Llanvar. Each member of the
little gathering had, during the informal conference, contributed some
link, or part of a link, to the chain of evidence they were forging
between them to justify steps being taken to arrest Jessica and the
people whom they now knew beyond doubt to be her accomplices in crime.
The town of Singapore had been mentioned incidentally, and Llanvar had
provided some useful data. Angela Robertson and Fobart Robertson her
husband, Timothy Macmahon, Julius Stringborg, and his wife Marietta,
Aloysius Stapleton, and two or three more had apparently, when living
in Shanghai, formed an exclusive little clique concerning which the
strangest of rumors had been rife. The rumor most commonly credited was
that the clique was actively interested in the secret exportation of a
peculiarly potent drug said to possess several remarkable attributes.
To what country or countries they exported it, nobody had been able to
discover, but “on good authority” it was declared that high officials
in Shanghai, Hong Kong and other important ports were in the habit of
receiving heavy bribes not to notice what was happening.
Llanvar himself, he said, had once been indirectly approached by a
native acting obviously on the instructions of some European, with a
view to the possibility of his benefiting financially if, “as a matter
of form,” he would sign his name to certain documents which would be
brought to him secretly. He had pretended to consent, hoping thereby to
discover what was happening, but nothing further had transpired, from
which he concluded, he said, that the members of the clique had decided
not to trust him.
Hopford and Llanvar sat talking in the latter’s sitting-room over a
whisky and soda before going to bed. Mostly they discussed the affairs
of the evening; but from one subject to another they drifted until
presently Hopford said:
“I wonder Johnson has never married, Llanvar. He is such a good fellow,
and the sort of man women like, and he must be fairly well off.”
For some moments his host remained silent.
“Well, he wouldn’t mind my telling you, I think,” he said at last,
“but in point of fact he was badly turned down some years ago by a
girl, I think between ourselves he was fortunate not to marry. He was
terribly in love with her, though, and it took him a long time to
recover from the disappointment; I doubt if he has really recovered
from it yet. He told me all about it once, and I think the confidence
relieved his mind to some extent. It is bad to brood in complete
silence over that sort of thing.”
“Was she English?”
“Yes, a Devonshire girl. She broke it off in order to marry a viscount;
and three years after the marriage they separated. Whose fault it was
of course I don’t know, but the girl was a selfish, self-centered
little thing, and I think her husband must have been well rid of her.”
“Then you knew her?”
“Oh yes, I knew her.”
He smiled.
“She set her cap at me once, when she fancied, and I believed, I was
coming into a small fortune from my father’s sister. But my father’s
sister took a dislike to me and when she died the money went to some
missionary society. Directly the girl heard that, she found she no
longer cared for me and turned her attention to Johnson, with whom I
was living at the time, and who was already head over ears in love with
her.”
“That was out East, I suppose?”
“Yes, in Hong Kong, which we have been talking about so much to-night.
I don’t think Johnson will ever marry.”
“Don’t you? I do. In fact I am prepared to wager he will be married
within the year.”
Llanvar looked at him in astonishment.
“You don’t mean that!” he exclaimed. “Why, who is the lady?”
Then it was that Hopford proceeded to tell him about the pretty widow,
as he called her, Cora Hartsilver, and what he had noticed while in
Jersey. And they were both in Jersey still, he said, and, in his
opinion, likely to remain there some time.
“In fact, it would not surprise me at all,” he ended, “if Johnson and
Mrs. Hartsilver were to become engaged before returning to England.
Johnson has not even hinted to me that the widow attracts him, but I
have noticed his expression when he speaks of her, and, more than that,
I have noticed the way she looks at him when they are together.”
CHAPTER XXVI.
SUNSET LOVE.
Perhaps one of the chief attractions of Jersey is that even during
July, August and September, when most seaside resorts in England are
so crowded with excursionists that anything in the nature of solitude
is out of the question, you may find miles of sea-beach where hardly a
human being is in sight. Add to this that the sun shines there usually
all day and every day in summer, that the blueness of the sea resembles
the Mediterranean, that the landscapes over and seascapes around the
whole island are exceptionally beautiful, and that the inhabitants
are, for the most part, hospitable and exceedingly polite, and the
popularity of Jersey is easily accounted for.
Johnson had meant to stay there only a week or two, but more than a
month had elapsed since his arrival and he still tarried. Nor did he
express any intention of bringing his visit to a close. He had told
his newly-made friends in the Victoria Club that he had now decided to
remain “until the weather broke;” but when some days later the weather
did break, he hesitated. The reason he gave for altering his mind
was that the air suited him. Even if it had not suited him he would
probably have remained, however, seeing that he had fallen deeply in
love with the beautiful young widow who had come to him for advice, and
that his love was fully reciprocated.
It had all come about in a very curious way, yet neither had as yet
ventured to reveal to the other the secret they both cherished.
After three days’ heavy rain the weather recovered its normal
condition--blazing sun and cloudless sky--and then it was that the
doctor suggested to Cora Hartsilver that he should drive her in his car
right round the coast.
The afternoon was gorgeously fine when they set out from St. Helier,
and as they sped rapidly over the picturesque coast-road which leads
along Victoria Avenue through Villees Nouaux to Bel Royal, thence past
Beaumont with its pretty red-roofed houses nestling in the cliff behind
the hamlet, then by Le Haute Station and on towards the old-world
village of St. Aubin with streets so steep and narrow that Johnson was
forced to slow down to a mile or two an hour, they began to feel that
now at last life seemed worth living.
“There is a lovely bay a little farther on,” Johnson said as they crept
up the steady slope towards Mont Sohier. “I saw it from a boat the
other day, and have meant ever since to go there by road. It is called
St. Brelade’s Bay, and the cliffs behind it are for the most part
beautifully wooded. I suggest we should stop there a little while; I
will leave the car at the hotel. Would you like to do that?”
They were almost the first words he had spoken since they had set out,
and for some moments his companion did not answer. Then she said, and
her voice had a curious timbre, as though she were holding herself in
check:
“I will do whatever you like; the surroundings here are so exquisite
that no matter where we go it will be pleasant. Look at that purple
haze hanging like a gauze curtain over the cliffs all round the coast
and right along the shore,” and she pointed. “Did you ever see anything
so perfect? And the endless expanse of white sand with the sun’s rays
sparkling on it as far as eye can reach, and hardly a soul in sight. I
had no idea Jersey was so lovely; had you, Doctor Johnson?”
He murmured some almost inaudible reply, and, turning the corner
sharply, slowly drew up at the entrance to a garage flanked on both
sides with great bushes of hydrangeas.
“We will leave the car here,” he said, “and after tea we can explore
some of those woods on the sloping cliffs. Probably from up there the
view is even finer.”
The hotel, though the holiday season was at its height, they found
almost deserted. The hordes of trippers whose presence each had often
suffered from during August and September by the sea on the coasts of
England, were conspicuous by their absence. The few visitors wandering
on the beach were of quite a different type. They were what can most
accurately be described as people of refinement.
During tea Johnson and his companion hardly spoke. Some strange barrier
seemed suddenly to have risen up between them. Almost in silence they
afterwards strolled along the terrace, and a little later turned their
steps up a narrow, grass-grown lane which appeared to lead in the
direction of the sloping woods they sought.
The lane curved, then turned abruptly to the right. Presently it curved
again, describing almost a segment of a circle, then gradually became
narrower. The grass, too, was longer as they wandered on. Then the
branches of the trees on either side began to meet overhead, and soon
they found themselves walking through a tunnel of thick foliage.
And still neither spoke. They walked very slowly now. It was Johnson
who at last broke the silence:
“Jersey will always be associated in my mind,” he said in a low voice,
“with some of the happiest moments of my life--this wonderful afternoon
in particular.”
“Why wonderful?” Cora asked almost in a whisper, not trusting herself
to look into his face.
“Why wonderful?”
Almost unconsciously his arm stole about her, and he drew her,
unresisting, closer to him.
“Why wonderful?” he repeated.
They were standing quite still now. His arms encircled her. Her head
sank forward on his breast and she felt his face buried in her hair.
On an instant a wild wave of passionate love for him swept over her. It
was like the bursting of some great dam in her heart which for days
past she had controlled. Turning, she put her hands behind his head and
drew it down until his lips were pressed to hers. For over a minute
they remained locked in a close embrace.
“Do you really mean it?” she exclaimed at last in a feverish whisper,
disengaging herself from his strong arms. “You are not just flirting
with me? You are not doing this just to pass the time away, or because
this beautiful spot has intoxicated your brain?”
She paused.
“Can all that is happening be really true,” she exclaimed ardently. “Or
is it only a beautiful dream from which I shall presently awake?”
“It is no dream, my darling,” he murmured, taking her face between his
hands and gazing down into her lovely eyes as though they mesmerized
him.
“I want you, my dear; I want you dreadfully; you can have no idea how
I yearn for you! Yes, I ask you now if you will become my wife, for I
know you are the first woman I have ever truly loved.”
He bent forward and kissed her again passionately on the lips. As he
did so he felt her body quiver.
He had meant to return to the hotel within an hour or two, but more
than three hours had passed and still they did not go back. The sun
was setting now, and from where they sat the shadow of the trees on a
sheltered spot near the summit of the wooded cliff, a magnificent view
of the entire bay unfolded itself beneath them.
But of that both were oblivious. They could see nothing but each
other’s eyes, hear nothing but each other’s voices. The world might
have fallen in without their knowing.
The sun, which all day had blistered the scorched earth, had sunk in a
halo of gray and purple streaked with seams of gold. Dusk was fading
into darkness, and still neither moved. Cora’s head rested in his lap.
His fingers, buried in her soft hair, toyed gently with it. Again he
bent down and kissed her with all the ardor of his soul.
Night had set in when at last they rose to go. Cora felt supremely
happy. Her brief married life, when she looked back on it, now seemed
to her a nightmare; her future married life, on the contrary held
all sorts of hopes. Would she have been as happy with Sir Stephen
Lethbridge--the question came unbidden into her thoughts--as she felt
she would be with the man she had now accepted?
She dispelled the question unanswered, and at once another took its
place. The unsigned letter she had received, the threat it contained,
the identity of the writer, what of all that? Her future husband had
not even referred to it again. Could he have forgotten it in the ardor
of his wooing?
As so often happens between people in close sympathy, the thought, as
it came to her, flashed at once into his brain.
“I have been carefully considering,” he said suddenly, “the matter you
came to me about, and that has led indirectly to our engagement. You
have nothing now to fear from that, my darling. The scoundrel who sent
the letter can do her worst. Let her write to all your friends. Let her
tell them what she chooses. If she does, and they talk in consequence,
what can it matter to us? It will not affect my love for you, or your
love for me, will it? And what else is there that matters? In point of
fact, when she reads or hears of our engagement, as undoubtedly she
soon will, she will, I suspect, let the matter drop. Or she will write
to me, thinking I know nothing.”
“Then you still believe, dear, the writer to be a woman?”
“I feel convinced it must be, though, as I told you, she may have a
male accomplice. But already I have set in motion the machinery which
I hope will lead her unwittingly to reveal herself. We ought to hear
something in a week or two.”
They were now back at the hotel, and there they dined. Cora was
trembling with excitement at all that had occurred. It all seemed so
wonderful. That she should, quite by chance, have read in the newspaper
of Doctor Johnson’s arrival; that the unsigned letter should have come
about that time; that she should have thought of asking his advice;
that he should have interested himself in the matter; that their
friendship should have ripened so quickly into love, and have ended as
it had done!
Out in the night the moon was shining brightly. It lit up the bay with
a single streak of silver, which extended far out across the sea to
where the lighthouses were winking along the coast. And the atmosphere
was as warm as in the tropics.
“Must we go back to St. Helier now?” she inquired in a strained voice,
as they rose to go out. “I feel to-night as if I could never sleep
again.”
“And you need not sleep again,” he answered with a smile, taking her
hand in his, “at least until you want to. We are returning to St.
Helier, but not by the way we came. I said when we came out we would
go right round the island, but then I did not know what was going to
happen. We will telephone to the friends with whom you are staying, and
you can speak to them. You can tell them as little or as much as you
like of what has befallen you to-night. And you can say that you do not
expect to be home before midnight, or possibly even later. It should be
the most delightful drive either of us has ever had.”
Slowly the car passed up the narrow lane which led from the hotel. At
the top it turned into a wider road which branched off to the left.
The great headlight lit up the road for a hundred yards or more.
Increasing speed a little, Johnson made straight for Corbière, where
the road turned abruptly to the right. Leaving La Pulente behind them,
they traveled rapidly until they reached the village of La Thiebaut,
not far from the northern coast. And all the time they traveled they
exchanged hardly a word.
The moon had now completely risen, and as they bore round to the right
again to meet the road to Ville Bagot, the car suddenly slowed down. It
stopped, and the engine became silent.
“Is anything the matter?” Cora inquired anxiously.
No sound of any sort was audible save, in the far distance, the sea
washing up the beach.
“Nothing is the matter, my own darling,” Johnson murmured passionately,
“but I felt that on a night like this----”
And so, in the solitude of that perfect night, they renewed their vows
once more. Locked in her lover’s arms, Cora felt supremely happy. She
felt his burning kisses on her lips and face and neck, on her eyes and
on her hair.
“Darling,” she whispered back in an ecstacy at last. “I never knew
before that any one could be so happy! Oh, how I hope you will never
tire of me, that we shall live in this state of bliss right through
to the end of our lives! I feel that until now my life has been
so aimless. I have led such a butterfly existence. But it will be
different in the future, my darlingest--oh, so completely different. I
mean to do all in my power to make you the happiest man on earth, and
then....”
Thus she talked, her words of love and passion flowing like a torrent
from her lips. For the time all else but their great love was
forgotten. Even her fondness for Yootha had passed completely from her
mind.
When Johnson had driven her back to the house where she was still on
a visit to her friends, and had returned to the Brees Hotel, he found
several letters awaiting him which had arrived during the day.
One, he saw, was from Preston, and bore the Dieppe postmark. The other
came from England, and the handwriting was Blenkiron’s.
CHAPTER XXVII.
AGAINST THE WIND.
George Blenkiron wrote in his usual breezy style, and much of the news
in his letter interested Johnson greatly, in view of what Hopford and
Preston had told him, also in view of his engagement to Cora Hartsilver.
It was a long letter, and Blenkiron mentioned among other items of
news that, happening to be in the neighborhood of Uckfield, some days
before, curiosity had prompted him to seek out Stapleton’s cottage, The
Nest, which he knew to be in the vicinity.
“He calls it a ‘cottage,’” he wrote, “but in reality it is a good-sized
house, approached by a carriage drive about half-a-mile long, and
flanked on three sides by woods with thick undergrowth. The house
itself lies in a hollow, and you come upon it unexpectedly. My
intention was only to have a look at the place, but when I arrived
at it so suddenly I concluded that most likely somebody had seen me
approaching, so I went up and rang the bell, meaning to inquire if
Stapleton were at home.
“Though I rang three times, the only sound of life within was the low
growling of a dog; by the ‘woolliness’ of its growl I judged it to be a
bulldog. This rather stirred my curiosity, so I went round to the back
door, and there knocked. Again nobody came; yet I distinctly heard a
footstep just inside the door. Finally, I tried to enter, but the door
was locked.
“By then my curiosity had become thoroughly aroused, and I determined
not to go away until I had seen somebody. I therefore walked away from
the house by the road I had come, taking care not to look behind me;
then, when I could no longer be seen from the house, I turned into
the wood and made my way back among the trees until I reached a spot
commanding a view of the front door and carriage drive, but where I
myself could not be observed. The only thing I feared was that the
dog might presently be let out, when he would, I felt sure, at once
discover me.
“After about twenty minutes a smartly-dressed young woman suddenly
appeared. She came round from the back of the house, and looked about
her as though expecting somebody. A few minutes later I heard the iron
gate across the drive open and shut, and rather an old man came towards
her. They met in the middle of the drive, kissed most affectionately,
and then looked in my direction. You can imagine my astonishment when
I recognized the man. It was Alix Stothert of the Metropolitan Secret
Agency!
“Neither of them saw me, of course; nor did they suspect they were
being watched. A minute later they turned, and went towards the house.
Arrived at the front door, Stothert took a key out of his pocket,
unlocked the door and entered, followed by the young woman. The door
closed behind them, and I heard it being locked again. I waited about
an hour longer to see if anything more would happen, then I went back
into the carriage drive, walked boldly up to the house as if I had just
arrived, and rang loudly.
“It is an old house with an old-fashioned bell-pull. Again there was no
answer, or other sign of life; even the dog did not growl, from which
I concluded it had been taken into some inner room. Four times I rang,
but the place might have been unoccupied for all the notice that was
taken. So then I turned and came away. Strange, wasn’t it?
“Of course Stothert may have been there on some ordinary matter of
business; but then who was the girl--she was very dainty-looking--and
why did nobody come when I rang? I can’t help thinking something queer
is going on there.
“As I was walking back to Uckfield, a man overtook me, riding slowly
on a push bike. About a mile further on I overtook him; he appeared
to be repairing a tire. He glanced up at me casually as I passed by,
and the moment afterwards called out to inquire if I had a match about
me. I went back and gave him one, for which he thanked me with rather
unnecessary profusion, I thought, and then he offered me a cigarette,
and lit it for me. We exchanged a few words about the weather, and I
went on.
“At the railway station, two hours later, I saw him again. He was
on the platform, waiting for the train, but had no bicycle with him
then. I passed him twice, but he appeared not to recognize me, so
I did not speak to him. When I alighted at Waterloo I happened to
notice him behind me on the platform, still without his bicycle; and
when I alighted from a taxi at Cox’s Hotel, in Jermyn Street, where I
am staying, to my astonishment he was standing on the curb, about a
hundred yards along the street--I could see only his profile, but there
could be no mistaking him as he stood there staring up at a house on
the opposite side of the street. Then, for the first time, the thought
struck me that he must be shadowing me. I have not seen him since, but
I should recognize him at once if I met him.”
In another part of the letter Blenkiron told Johnson he had heard about
Jessica’s success at the tables at Dieppe, but he said nothing about
Yootha. He asked Johnson, however, if he had happened to come across
Harry Hopford, who he had been told had gone to Jersey. If he should
meet him, he ended, would he remember to ask him to write at once, as
he wished to communicate with him on a matter of importance.
Johnson refolded the letter, then opened the letter from Preston.
Preston’s communication was brief. There was no reference to his
engagement, nor to Yootha. He spoke of Jessica and her friends,
however, and again mentioned their having broken the bank.
“I am sick of this place,” he remarked towards the end of the letter.
“The town is crawling with the most impossible people--I can’t think
who they are or where they come from; holiday-makers, of course. The
chief attraction is naturally the Casino, where these holiday folk
swarm at night and seem to delight in showing how foolishly they
can squander quite a lot of money. Our countrymen and women show up
badly in a place like this, and give the French a poor opinion of the
British race. I shall probably return to London in a day or two, but my
movements will depend to some extent on circumstances.”
“On circumstances,” Johnson said aloud, as he finished reading the
letter. “Now, I wonder what those circumstances are? It is not like
Preston to conceal his reasons. He is worried about something, I am
sure. The tone of his letter shows it, and I can read between the
lines.”
He appeared to ponder for a minute.
“Strange,” he said at last. “I was under the impression that Yootha
Hagerston was still in Dieppe, and yet he makes no mention of her.”
He smiled.
“I wonder if they have quarrelled, or if----”
Suddenly his thoughts reverted to Cora; then to the contents of
Blenkiron’s letter; then to the anonymous letter Cora had received, and
finally once more to Alix Stothert.
“Of course,” he said reflectively, “that girl Stothert kissed so
affectionately in the carriage drive may have been his daughter, and
yet----”
“And he said the dog that growled sounded like a bulldog. La Planta has
one, a brindle. I wish the dog at Stapleton’s house had been let out to
pursue George, then he would have known its color!”
He smiled at the thought.
“But, after all,” his train of thought ran on, “why should La Planta’s
dog have been in Stapleton’s house? Plenty of people own bulldogs; and
for that matter it may not have been a bulldog.”
He had been singularly accurate in his conjecture that Charlie Preston
was worried. Indeed he was more than worried. At the time of writing
he had felt almost in despair at the extraordinary change that had
suddenly come over Yootha. From the night of her great success at the
tables she had become a slave to roulette. She played now with Jessica
during the afternoons as well as at night, and not infrequently in
the morning too. She could talk and think of nothing but roulette and
_petits chevaux_. At the moment her ambition was to evolve a system by
which she could never lose--a chimera pursued by many votaries of the
game, and invariably disastrous in the end.
Preston had made every endeavor to dissuade her from continuing to
play. He had assured her that in the long run she must infallibly lose
all she had won, and more; but when day after day went by and she
almost always came out a winner in the end, she felt she could afford
to disregard his advice, well-meant though she knew it to be.
But the worst had happened when one day after she had won a good deal
and Preston had again spoken to her, and had finished by trying for
the twentieth time to induce her to break her friendship with Jessica,
she had suddenly turned upon him, practically told him to mind his
own business, and ended by saying that if she were going to break any
friendship it would be her friendship with him and not with Jessica.
He had gone out that evening feeling miserable, though instinctively
knowing that in the end she must come back to him. Yes, in the end,
but how long, he asked himself, would the end be in coming? Jessica
seemed to have hypnotized her, to be able now to make her do her
bidding in any way she chose. Several times he had seen her and her two
undesirable friends and Yootha all seated together round a table on the
terrace of the hotel, smoking cigarettes and drinking what looked like
whisky and soda in full view of everybody passing.
Again and again he had blamed himself for having allowed her to adopt
Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson as her chaperone. Chaperone! Why, he said
mentally, a hundred times safer she would have been with no chaperone
than with that dissolute woman to look after her, and her _dévergondé_
companions.
Two nights later, on returning to the hotel, he was handed a note
by the clerk in the office. Recognizing Yootha’s handwriting on the
envelope, he took the note up to his bedroom to read it in private. It
was short, and ran as follows:
“DEAR CHARLIE,--This is just to tell you that I am leaving
here to-morrow with Jessica and her friends. We are going
to Monte first, then probably we shall stay in Paris a
little while, and after that we shall return to London,
when I shall hope to see you. I don’t want to quarrel with
you, dear. Indeed I don’t, and I am dreadfully sorry you
should misjudge Jessica in the way you do. She is such a
good friend to me now, and I hope we shall continue to be
friends. But most of all I wish you would overcome your
prejudices against her, so that we might all be friends
together. I hate making you unhappy, as I feel I am doing,
but truly I think you are unintentionally to blame. Lots of
love, my dear.
“YOOTHA.”
“Curse the woman!” he exclaimed aloud, “and the abominable way she
has taught Yootha to gamble. Well, I suppose I can do nothing at the
moment. I only hope to heaven that at Monte the whole lot will lose
heavily, so heavily that Yootha at any rate will be brought to her
senses once and for all. Meanwhile I must try to hurry on our wedding.”
Yootha went off early next day without seeing him or even leaving a
note to wish him good-by. A week later he heard indirectly that at the
tables in Monte Carlo the four were still winning. A report reached the
Royal Hotel in Dieppe that they had won a fabulous sum. It was quite
extraordinary, everybody said. Never within the memory of the oldest
_habitués_ of the Dieppe Casino had players had such a run of luck. And
its consistency was that they all played “anyhow,” or seemed to. On
the few occasions when they had experimented with some system, they had
lost heavily--so it was said.
“Yootha, my darling,” Jessica remarked casually to her one night
towards the end of a champagne supper at which all sorts of people were
present, for their luck had brought them a whole host of “friends,”
“what has become of your knight-errant--or is he your knight-errant no
longer? I should be delighted if I heard you had thrown him over, or
even that he had thrown you over. Have you heard from him lately?”
“Not very lately,” Yootha replied quickly, with a slight frown which
Jessica did not fail to notice. “He has gone back to London, I believe.”
“‘You believe.’ That doesn’t sound promising, does it?” and she laughed
in her deep voice, though it was not a pleasant laugh. “When a man is
engaged to be married, especially to such a charming girl--a girl any
man ought to be proud to speak to, let alone be engaged to--it isn’t
very considerate of him to leave her in the lurch in the way Captain
Preston left you. And if he neglects you now, don’t you think he’s
pretty sure to begin neglecting you when you have been married a little
while?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Yootha answered awkwardly. “Men are queer animals.
I have always said so. At one time I made up my mind never to marry.”
“But changed it directly you had the privilege of meeting Captain
Preston.”
She spoke almost with a sneer.
“Not directly,” the girl said weakly, conscious that, had she drunk
less champagne and had all her wits about her, she would have said
something different, would have stood up for her lover.
Jessica edged a little closer to her.
“Why not give him up?” she murmured so that nobody but Yootha could
hear. “He has not treated you well; he has not played the game, has he
now? Just think--he is supposed to be your lover, yet after swearing,
as I am sure he has done, he has never in his life before met any woman
to approach you, he leaves you alone, lets you go roaming about the
Continent with two men and a woman he intensely dislikes, and himself
calmly returns to England without even wishing you good-by! Does that
look like true love, dear? Does it look like love at all? Supposing a
man you knew nothing about were going to marry some friend of yours,
what would you think, what would you say, if all at once he treated her
like this? Take my advice, Yootha,” she went on, speaking lower still,
“give him up. Write to him to-morrow; come up to my room and write to
him at once; saying that in view of all that has happened you have
decided to break off your engagement. He won’t break his heart--break
his heart, I should think not!--and believe me, you will one day thank
me for having saved you from marrying a man who doesn’t love you.”
As she stopped speaking she refilled the girl’s glass with champagne.
“And now listen to me,” she ended under her breath. “I have something
serious to say to you.”
CHAPTER XXVIII.
NUMBER FIFTEEN.
When Yootha awoke next morning, her head was aching badly. She had only
a confused recollection of the events of the previous night, and the
more she tried to remember exactly what had happened, the greater the
tangle became.
Her blinds were down and the room was still almost in darkness, as she
had not yet been called. For about an hour she remained in a sort of
disturbed half-sleep; then gradually she began to wonder what the time
could be. Through the open windows the sound of traffic came to her,
which made her think it must be late. She turned to look at her watch.
It had stopped at four in the morning.
She felt under her pillow for the electric bell push, and some minutes
later one of the hotel maids entered.
“What time is it?” Yootha asked.
“Close on one o’clock, miss.”
“One o’clock! But why was I not called? Why was my cup of tea not
brought?”
“I will inquire, miss,” and the maid left the room, closing the door
behind her.
Soon she returned. She said that before Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson had
left she had said that Miss Hagerston was very tired and must not be
disturbed. “How do you mean, before she left?” Yootha inquired. “Where
has she gone?”
“I have no idea, miss. She left the hotel this morning with her maid,
and the two gentlemen who were with her have gone too.”
“You mean gone away? Gone, with their luggage?”
“Yes, miss.”
Yootha started up in bed.
“But this is extraordinary!” she exclaimed. “They never said a word
yesterday about leaving. Has no message been left for me?”
“No, miss. I made that inquiry.”
A whole flood of thoughts, doubts, suspicions, surged through the
girl’s brain. Oh, if only she could remember exactly what had happened
on the previous night! But the harder she tried to concentrate her
thoughts, the more impossible she found it to remember anything. She
could recollect playing and winning in the Casino during the afternoon
and evening; after that her mind was a blank. She could not recollect
even where she had had supper, or with whom, or if she had had supper
at all!
Then, all at once, her heart seemed to stop beating. Ever since the
night she and Jessica and her friends had together broken the bank at
Dieppe, Jessica had been acting as her banker. That is to say she had
suggested that in order to save Yootha trouble--so she put it--she
would advance her money to play with, as much as she might want, and,
in return, take charge of the girl’s winnings. Every morning she had
come to Yootha and told her the exact sum she held belonging to her,
and out of it she had handed Yootha whatever sum she asked for. But
there had been no record or acknowledgment, or aught else in writing.
Yootha had placed implicit confidence in her friend and now----
She saw it all, and her mouth went suddenly dry. Jessica had left her,
taking with her the whole of the very considerable sum she, Yootha,
had won during the past weeks. Had she not been so lucky, Jessica and
her friends would no doubt have left her long before. Now, probably,
they had come to the conclusion enough money had been won by her to
make it worth their while to decamp with it. And what could she do? If
she tried to claim it Jessica would, of course, say she knew nothing
whatever about it, and perhaps declare her to be suffering from a
delusion.
Breakfast was brought to her room, but she could not touch it. Then
suddenly a feeling of terrible loneliness came over her. She realized
she was alone in Monte Carlo, where she knew nobody but people to whom
Jessica had introduced her, and whom she had no wish to meet again.
True, she had money enough to pay her fare home, but had she enough to
pay the bill at this very expensive hotel where she had been staying
already a fortnight? To offer the manager a cheque might, she felt,
lead to unpleasantness should he refuse to accept it.
She dressed as quickly as she could, and went out into the town.
The sun was shining brightly, and the band playing, and crowds of
well-dressed men and women seemed to be everywhere. She was conscious,
as she wandered aimlessly through the beautiful gardens of the Casino,
of attracting attention and admiration.
Presently her gaze rested on the entrance to the Casino. A stream of
people was passing in and out. The band was playing a jazz which she
loved, and the music stirred her pulse. For the moment the thought of
her distress rested less heavily on her mind. And then, all at once,
the gambling fever, which had temporarily subsided, began to reassert
itself. Play would be in full swing now, she reflected. She pictured
the crowd grouped around the roulette. She heard the croupier’s bored
voice droning “_Faites vos jeux_,” and “_Rien n’va plus_,” and the
rattle of the little ball as it spun merrily round in the revolving
well. Then she saw the numbers slowing down, saw them stop, and heard
the croupier calling: “_Le numéro quinze!_”
She opened her vanity bag, pulled out the money it contained, and
proceeded to count it carefully. It was all the ready money she
possessed. Certainly it did not amount to enough to settle her hotel
bill for the past fortnight, and the bill was bound to be presented
soon. She had come to look upon winning at the tables as a matter of
daily routine. Also, she yearned to play again. The Casino with its
heated atmosphere, its scented women, its piles of notes and its chink
of gold, seemed to be calling to her, beckoning her to come and fill
her depleted coffers at its generous fount of wealth, especially now
that she needed money. For a brief moment she thought of Preston, and
of their last meeting, and of his earnest warning. Then, dispelling the
disagreeable reflection, she stuffed her money back into her bag, shut
it with a snap, rose, and walked quickly in the direction of the famous
Temple of Mammon.
She had little difficulty in securing a seat. For a minute or two she
watched the play. Then she backed the number she had thought of while
in the gardens--_le numero quinze_.
It came up.
She backed it again, and once more swept in her winnings. Then she
started playing _en plein_, recklessly and with big stakes, as she had
been in the habit of doing. But her luck had suddenly changed. Again
and again she lost. She doubled, and trebled, and quadrupled her stakes.
But still she lost.
In less than half an hour she had only a single louis left, and, rising
abruptly, she walked out of the _salon_ like a woman in a dream.
A louis! Of what use was that? She went back to her hotel, and locked
herself in her room. Her brain felt on fire. She thought she was going
mad. She wanted to cry, but could not.
For an hour she lay on her bed, suffering mental agony. Then with an
effort she got up, and sent off a telegram.
CHAPTER XXIX.
A MESSAGE FROM YOOTHA.
It was seven in the morning when Preston was awakened by his servant,
Tom, and handed a telegram which had just arrived.
Before he opened it he guessed it must be from Yootha. It ran as
follows:
“I am in great trouble. Can you possibly come to me? I am
alone here and ill in bed. Jessica and the others have left
Monte Carlo. Do please telegraph a reply as soon as this
reaches you.”
Preston was not a man to deliberate. He always made up his mind at
once, and acted without hesitation.
“Is the messenger waiting?” he asked Tom, who still stood at his
bedside.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then give me a foreign telegram form.”
Swiftly he scribbled the answer.
“Give that to the boy,” he said, “and sixpence for himself, and tell
him to get back to the post office as quickly as he can. Then come back
to me.”
In a moment the man returned.
“Pack my suit-case, Tom. I am going to Monte Carlo at once.”
“For how long, sir?”
“Pack enough for a fortnight.”
He traveled through to the Riviera without stopping in Paris, and drove
direct to the Hotel X. Upon inquiring for Yootha he was told that
the doctor was with her. The hotel manager looked grave when Preston
inquired how ill she had been.
A moment later the door opened, and a solemn-faced gentleman of
patriarchal aspect entered. The manager at once introduced him to
Preston, and explained who Preston was.
“She has dropped off to sleep at last,” the doctor said. “I had to
give her a mild narcotic. She has been eagerly awaiting your arrival
since she received your wire, and I believe your presence will do her
more good than anything else. She appears to be suffering chiefly from
shock--a mental shock of some sort. Her nerves are greatly upset.”
When some hours later Yootha awoke, her gaze rested upon her lover
seated beside her bed. For a moment she fancied she must still be
dreaming. Then, with a glad cry, she sat up and stretched her arms out
to him.
“Oh, my darling,” she cried, “how good of you to have come to me! Even
when I got your telegram I feared that something might detain you. I
have had a terrible time since last we met--terrible!”
For a minute they remained locked in each other’s arms, the happiest
moments they had spent since that never-to-be-forgotten evening under
the shadow of the Sugarloaf Mountain in Monmouthshire. And then,
perhaps for the first time, Yootha realized to the full the joy of
being truly loved by a man on whose loyalty and steadfastness she knew
she could implicitly depend.
Yootha’s recovery was rapid, and in the following week Preston decided
to take her to Paris, which she was anxious to visit, never having been
there.
“You had better telegraph to your aunt and ask if she can meet us
there, as you say she is well again,” he said. “It wouldn’t do for us
to stay there alone, as long as conventions have to be considered,”
and he smiled cynically. “Which reminds me that Harry Hopford is in
Paris--I had a letter from him yesterday. I am sure he will be glad to
see you.”
And so, some days later, they arrived at the Hôtel Bristol, where they
found Yootha’s aunt awaiting them. She was a pleasant, middle-aged
woman with intelligent eyes and a sense of humor, and she greeted them
effusively.
“You don’t hesitate to make use of me when I am in health,” she said
laughingly to her niece. “I had not the least wish to come to Paris,
but now I am very glad I have come. Yes, I am well again, but I don’t
think you look as if Monte Carlo and its excitement had agreed with
you. By the way, a delightful young man called here yesterday to ask if
you had arrived. He was so pleasant to talk to that I persuaded him to
stay to lunch. He seemed to think a lot of you. His name is Hopford.”
“Harry Hopford! A capital lad. I am glad you met him. He served under
me in France and was quite a good soldier.”
“He told me he had served under you. He wants you to meet him at
an address in Clichy at nine to-morrow night. I have the address
somewhere.”
“A bit of luck for me, your coming to Paris,” Hopford said when
they met on the following night. “I particularly wanted to see you,
Preston. My inquiries and those of these friends of mine,” he had just
introduced to Preston the two Paris detectives, his friend on _Le
Matin_, and Johnson’s friend Idris Llanvar, “have succeeded in making
some astonishing discoveries concerning Jessica and her friends, and
now I am on the way to tracking Alix Stothert to his lair.”
“Alix Stothert!” Preston exclaimed. “What has he to do with it?”
“A good deal, apparently. To begin with, he appears to be a friend of
Stapleton’s, for a friend of mine in London has, at my request, been
watching Stapleton’s house near Uckfield, called The Nest. Stothert
goes there frequently, it seems; my friend believes he calls there for
letters. And the other day some fellow arrived there, knocked and rang,
and then, getting no answer, went and hid in the undergrowth in the
wood close by, and remained watching the house. While he was watching,
Stothert arrived and was met by a girl who, my friend says, is employed
by Stothert secretly, and the two went into the house. When the fellow
who had lain concealed in the wood--and been himself watched by my
friend--went back to Uckfield, my friend followed him on a bicycle, and
finally shadowed him back to London and to an hotel--Cox’s in Jermyn
Street. But, though afterwards he made inquiries at the hotel, he was
unable to find out who the fellow was.”
“George Blenkiron, when in town, generally stays at Cox’s,” Preston
said reflectively.
“Does he? Then he may know who the man is, and his name. I’ll write to
him to-morrow. It is such a small hotel.”
Hopford had also a good deal to say about Mrs. Timothy Macmahon and
her intimacy with the late Lord Froissart; about Marietta Stringborg
and her husband; about Fobart Robertson, whose whereabouts, he said,
he was likely soon to discover; and about Alphonse Michaud, proprietor
of the Metropolitan Secret Agency at the house with the bronze face.
One important fact he had already established--Michaud was intimately
acquainted with Jessica and Stapleton. Yet at the Royal Hotel in
Dieppe, Preston had told him, Jessica, Stapleton and La Planta had
openly stated that they knew Michaud only by name.
“Which confirms the suspicion I have for some time entertained,”
Hopford went on, “that Jessica and her friends are in some way
associated with the house with the bronze face.”
“There I can’t agree with you,” Preston said. “In view of all that has
happened, such a thing seems to me incredible. Why, we used to consult
the Secret Agency concerning Jessica and her past history, don’t you
remember? And they found out for us several things about her.”
“Several things, yes, but not one of the things they ‘found out’ was of
importance. It is the Agency’s business, to my belief, to hunt with the
hounds and run with the hare, and they do it successfully. Surely you
recollect Mrs. Hartsilver’s telling us how she and Miss Hagerston had
been shown by Stothert what he declared to be the actual pearl necklace
belonging to Marietta Stringborg, and saying the necklace stolen from
her at the Albert Hall ball and afterwards found in Miss Hagerston’s
possession, was made of imitation pearls? Well, I can prove that on
that occasion, as well as at other times, Stothert intentionally lied.”
“Then what is your theory?”
“That in some way, yet to be discovered, Jessica and her gang--for
they are a gang--and the Metropolitan Secret Agency, are playing each
other’s game and have played it for a long time. Incidentally I have
found out, too, that La Planta once represented an insurance company
in Amsterdam, of which Lord Froissart was chairman or director, and
that----”
“Forgive my interrupting you, Hopford,” Preston cut in, “but what
you say reminds me that I too was told, by a Major Guysburg I met in
Dieppe. He is a man you ought to meet; he was leaving for America when
we parted, but ought soon to be back, and he promised to look me up in
town on his return. And he can tell you a lot about Alphonse Michaud,
who, he assured me, at one time ran a most disreputable haunt in
Amsterdam.”
Hopford produced his notebook.
“How do you spell the major’s name?” he asked quickly, and Preston told
him.
“And where does he stay when in town?”
“At Morley’s Hotel, I believe,” and Hopford wrote that down too.
“Now for heaven’s sake don’t say ‘how small the world is,’ Preston,”
Hopford observed lightly as he replaced his notebook in his pocket,
“because that is a platitude which makes me see red. I must see
Guysburg directly he arrives in London. Certainly we are getting on. I
suppose Guysburg didn’t speak about a diamond robbery in Amsterdam from
a merchant living in the Kalverstraat, which took place some years ago?
The thief was never caught.”
Preston laughed.
“The very thing he did tell me,” he answered. “The stones had been
insured by Michaud, to whom the insurance money was paid under protest
because the idea had got about that Michaud himself, or some person
employed by him, had stolen them.”
Hopford turned to the French woman-detective, and raised his eyebrows.
“You hear that?” he said to her in French. “Isn’t it strange how
small--no, I won’t say it! Mademoiselle was employed,” he addressed
Preston again, “on that very case in Amsterdam, and feels as convinced
to-day as she did then that Michaud, aided by La Planta, spirited
away the stones. Yet nothing could be proved. There were not even
sufficient clues to justify the arrest of either of the two men. By
the way, I am trying to get mademoiselle to return to London with
me, and she hopes she will be able to. Also I have forgotten to tell
you that Idris Llanvar is a famous mental specialist practicing here
in Paris--isn’t that so, Llanvar? Years ago he was Johnson’s _locum
tenens_ in Shanghai, when Johnson practiced in Hong Kong. It was
Johnson who kindly gave me an introduction to him, when he and I met in
Jersey. Aren’t you glad, Preston, that Johnson is going to marry Mrs.
Hartsilver? I think she is such a charming woman, though I don’t know
her very well. But I met the late Henry Hartsilver once or twice--a
typical profiteer, and, I thought, a most offensive person. She was
well rid of him. Did you know Sir Stephen Lethbridge?”
Preston looked at Hopford oddly.
“What makes you suddenly ask that?” he said. “What was your train of
thought?”
“I had no train of thought, so far as I am aware,” Hopford replied.
“But there is a vague rumor in London that someone, a woman, a friend
of Stothert’s, holds certain letters written by Mrs. Hartsilver to Sir
Stephen Lethbridge, or by Sir Stephen to her, and that this woman is
trying to sell them to Mrs. Hartsilver. Incidentally, Preston, your
name has been whispered in relation to the affair, which leads me to
suspect that Mistress Jessica may not be wholly unassociated with
this latest attempt at blackmail. Llanvar had a letter from Johnson
yesterday, who is still in Jersey, and in it he alluded to the rumor,
but in very guarded language.”
Preston did not answer. His lips were tightly closed. Then, as if to
distract attention from what Hopford had just said, he produced his
cigar case and passed it round.
* * * * *
Yootha was very anxious to see, as she put it, “everything in Paris
worth seeing,” from the Bastille to the Ambassadeurs and the Cascade,
and from the Louvre to the Palais de Versailles, so during the next
few days Preston devoted himself to her entirely. The art galleries
in particular appealed to her, also the Quartier Latin with its
queer little streets of cobble stones and its stuffy but picturesque
old-world houses of which she had so often heard. Exhibitions like the
Grand Guignol and the Café de la Mort, on the other hand, she detested.
Hopford and Llanvar had dined with them once, and afterwards Hopford’s
friend on _Le Matin_ had piloted them all to various interesting
night-haunts of which English folk visiting Paris for the most part
know nothing. He had also taken them into curious caverns below the
Rue de la Harpe and streets in its vicinity, and shown them the houses
there propped up from below with enormous wooden beams where the arches
built over those old quarries have given way.
“But how come there to be quarries here at all?” Yootha had asked in
surprise.
The representative of _Le Matin_ had evidently expected the question,
for at once he had entered into a long explanation about how, when
Paris was first built, stones for building purposes had been quarried
out in the immediate neighborhood; how the City had gradually reached
the edge of those quarries, and how, in order to be able to continue to
extend the City, it had been necessary to arch the quarries over and
then erect buildings on the arches themselves.
“Of course the good folk who live in those houses above our heads,”
he laughed as he pointed upward, “have no idea that their houses are
propped up from below, and some day they may get the surprise of their
lives by finding themselves and their houses suddenly swallowed up in
the bowels of the earth.”
It was late when finally they had all separated. Then Hopford, on
arriving at Rue des Petits Champs, had found a blue telegram awaiting
him. It came from his chief, who said Hopford must return at once.
“I have most important news for you,” the message had ended.
CHAPTER XXX.
BLENKIRON’S NARRATIVE.
London was now almost full again, after its two months of social
stagnation, for October was close at hand. Already announcements
were appearing in the newspapers of balls and dances, receptions and
dinner parties, and other forms of entertainment with which people
with money to spend and no work to do endeavor to kill time. And among
the social receptions largely “featured” was one to be given by Mrs.
Mervyn-Robertson at her house in Cavendish Place in the third week in
October.
Johnson and Mrs. Hartsilver were back in town, so were Captain Preston
and Yootha Hagerston, and George Blenkiron was staying at Cox’s Hotel,
but none of the five had been invited to Jessica’s reception. The
leading London newspapers had been asked to send representatives,
however, and at his request Harry Hopford had been detailed by his
chief to attend.
Among the visitors at Morley’s Hotel, in Trafalgar Square, was a
dark man, obviously a foreigner, with black, rather oily hair and
a carefully waxed moustache, a florid complexion and a tendency to
obesity. Hopford noticed his name in the visitors’ book when he went to
inquire for Major Guysburg who, Preston had told him, had just arrived
there from America. The foreigner’s name was Alphonse Michaud.
“Major Guysburg is dining out,” Hopford was told.
He lit a cigarette, paused in the hall for a moment, then decided to
look up Blenkiron, whom he had not seen since his return to town, but
who was staying at Cox’s Hotel in Jermyn Street. On his way he called
at a flat in Ryder Street, and found a friend of his at home and hard
at work writing. It was the friend who had, at his request, watched
Stapleton’s “cottage,” The Nest, near Uckfield, while he, Hopford, had
been in Paris.
“I am on my way to see a friend at Cox’s Hotel,” Hopford said, when
the two had conversed for some moments, “quite a good fellow, name
of Blenkiron. Would you care to come along? You might run across the
person you shadowed from The Nest to Cox’s that day, you never know.”
Blenkiron was in, Hopford was told, and a messenger took his card. A
few minutes afterwards he was asked “please to come up.”
“’Evening, Blenkiron,” he said, as he was shown in. “Hope I am not
disturbing you, eh? Tell me if I am, and I’ll go away. I have brought
a friend I should like to introduce,” and he stepped aside to let his
friend advance.
Silence followed. In evident astonishment Hopford’s friend and
Blenkiron stared at each other.
“Haven’t we met before?” the latter said at last. “Surely on the road
from The Nest to Uckfield----”
The other smiled.
“Yes,” he replied. “And I followed you back to town, and to this hotel.
Afterwards I tried to find out your name, and who you were, but failed.
I hope you will forgive me, Mr. Blenkiron; but I should like you to
know I followed you at Hopford’s request.”
The three burst out laughing.
“So you, Blenkiron,” Hopford exclaimed, “are the rascal whose identity
has so puzzled us! Really, this is amusing.”
Whisky was produced, and soon all three were on the best of terms.
“Have you heard the latest about the house with the bronze face?”
Blenkiron asked presently.
“No, what?” Hopford answered eagerly.
“Alix Stothert, Camille Lenoir, and a girl of quite good family, and
well-known in Society--I am not at liberty to tell you her name--and
several others were arrested there about six o’clock this evening
for being accomplices in attempted blackmail. In connection with
the blackmail charge any number of people we know are likely to be
involved. The names of three you will, I expect, guess at once.”
“J. and Co.”
Blenkiron nodded.
“By Jove, how splendid!” Hopford exclaimed. “Who told you all this,
George?”
“The Commissioner of Police himself, so the information is accurate
enough.”
Hopford sprang to his feet.
“May I use your telephone?” he asked, as he walked quickly towards the
door. “Come and stand by me and I’ll dictate the whole story through
right away!”
“Hopford, sit down!” Blenkiron shouted imperatively, pointing to the
chair from which the lad had just risen. “Not a word of what I have
told you is to appear in the press until I authorize it. Not a word! Do
you understand?”
“But the other papers will get it,” Hopford exclaimed, with his hand on
the door handle.
“They won’t. That I promise you. The Commissioner of Police, an
intimate friend of mine, told me while I was dining with him to-night
that the whole affair is to be kept out of the papers until the entire
gang has been arrested. If you print a line now you will defeat
the ends of justice by warning the unarrested accomplices, and so,
probably, enabling them to escape. I mean what I say, Hopford. Preston,
Miss Hagerston, Johnson and Mrs. Hartsilver will be here soon--I
telephoned asking them to come as I had, I said, something important
to tell them. There will be supper, so you and your friend had better
stay.”
Hopford reflected.
“Have you room for yet one more at supper?” he asked suddenly. “Major
Guysburg, a friend of Preston’s, is at Morley’s--just come from
America. He knows a lot about a man, Alphonse Michaud, who is the
mainspring of the Metropolitan Secret Agency, and is also at Morley’s.
I have not yet met Guysburg, but Preston has explained to him who I
am, and the major is greatly interested in the movements of J.’s gang.
He should, in fact, be able to throw further light on some of the
curious happenings of the last two years.”
“Then by all means ring him up and ask him to come along,” Blenkiron
answered. “But you are mistaken about Michaud’s being at Morley’s,
Hopford, because he was one of those arrested this evening at the house
with the bronze face.”
“Michaud arrested? Good again! But what was he arrested for?”
“Attempted blackmail--same as the others. But in Michaud’s case there
is a second charge. Michaud, the Commissioner tells me, turns out to
be a regular importer, on a big scale, of a remarkable drug you have
already heard about, which is made and only procurable in Shanghai,
Canton, and Hankau. The secret of this drug belongs to one man--a
Chinaman.
“Now, sixteen years ago Michaud served a sentence of five years’
imprisonment in a French penitentiary for attempted blackmail; became,
on his release, a greater scoundrel than ever, and finally succeeded in
becoming naturalized as an Englishman. Then he went out to the East,
set up in business in Canton, and eventually scraped acquaintance with
a Shanghai wine merchant named Julius Stringborg, who introduced him
to Fobart Robertson, Timothy Macmahon, Levi Schomberg, Alix Stothert,
Stapleton, and several others, including, of course, Angela Robertson.
“Months passed, and then one day Michaud turned up in London again.
None suspected, however, that he was now engaged in secretly importing
the strange drug, for which he soon found a ready sale at a colossal
profit. Some of the properties of the drug you already know, but it
has other properties. Then, after a while he started systematically
blackmailing many of his clients, for to be in possession of the drug,
without authority, is in England a criminal offense. Not content with
that, however, he now decided, in order to be able to extend his
operations, to take into his confidence one or two of his friends.
Among those friends were Marietta Stringborg and her husband, Angela
Robertson and Timothy Macmahon. Those four formed the nucleus of a
little gang of criminals which has since increased until----”
The arrival of Preston and Yootha Hagerston, followed almost
immediately by Johnson and Cora Hartsilver, put an end to Blenkiron’s
narrative. All were now greatly excited, and eager for information
concerning the house with the bronze face and what had happened there;
so that when Major Guysburg was announced he found himself ushered into
a room where everybody seemed to be talking at once.
CHAPTER XXXI.
CONCLUSION.
The two-column article which appeared in only one London morning
newspaper created a profound sensation. Quoted in part in the evening
newspapers throughout the country, it became the principal topic of
conversation in the clubs and in the streets, but in particular in
social circles over the whole of the United Kingdom.
That the most important secret information agency in London, an
organization which had come to be looked upon as the most enterprising
and trustworthy there had ever been in the Metropolis, and which half
the peerage, to say nothing of the ordinary aristocracy, had at one
time and another consulted in confidence, should suddenly be discovered
to be nothing more than the headquarters of a nest of rogues and
blackmailers, dealt Society a terrible blow.
The blow was all the harder because clients of the so-called
Metropolitan Secret Agency knew they had poured into the ears of the
benevolent-looking old man who called himself Alix Stothert, secrets
about themselves, their relatives, and their friends, which they would
not for untold gold have related had they dreamed such secrets might
ever be revealed. And now, to their horror, it seemed that at least
a dozen well-known Society people, or rather people well-known in
Society and believed to be the “soul of honor,” were, and had been all
the time, active members of the “Agency Gang,” as it was now termed,
prominent among them being Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson, Aloysius Stapleton,
handsome young Archie La Planta, and the rich retired tradesman and his
wife, Julius and Marietta Stringborg, to name only a few.
No wonder the Metropolitan Secret Agency had always known so much about
the intimate affairs of everybody in London who “mattered,” and about
the secret concerns of rich county folk throughout the country! The
knowledge possessed by the notorious Bertha Trost of Clifford Street,
who during the war had been quietly pushed out of the country as an
“undesirable alien” had been insignificant by comparison, people said.
And the Agency’s “methods of procedure” had been extremely simple. One
of their plans had consisted in worming out of useful clients as much
private information as possible of a compromising nature, not only
about themselves, but about their acquaintances and friends, piecing it
all together, and then, at a later date, instructing some accomplice to
approach or write anonymously to the prospective victims, threatening
them with public exposure if they refused to pay heavily for secrecy.
And so cleverly was this always done that the Agency invariably
safeguarded itself against risk of discovery.
Another method of procedure, equally effective, consisted in selling
secretly, at an enormous profit, the strange Chinese drug smuggled into
the country by Alphonse Michaud, and accomplices would then threaten
with exposure persons having it in their possession.
In addition to this, Michaud and other members of the Agency Gang
would administer the drug in a particular way themselves, so that
it deadened their victims’ memory from a time prior to the period
of unconsciousness which it produced. It was, the newspaper article
declared, a most extraordinary compound, and, being colorless and
devoid of all smell, could be administered without arousing the least
suspicion of its presence. For which reasons, no doubt, some members of
the gang had gone so for as to dope other members with it, when they
saw that by doing so they could themselves benefit.
That had happened, it seemed, on the occasion when Archie La Planta
had been called out of the box at the Alhambra whilst attending a
performance of the Russian Ballet. On that night he had met a friend in
the foyer, a member of the gang, who had suggested his joining him in
a drink in his rooms, which were close by, in Charing Cross Road. La
Planta, of course, all unsuspecting, had walked across to his friend’s
rooms, yet when he had recovered consciousness in his own chambers in
Albany, all recollection of his having gone to those rooms in Charing
Cross Road and afterwards being conducted back to his own chambers by
his “friend,” had completely faded from his memory.
And the reason he had been doped that night and in that way--this the
man who had doped him confessed afterwards under cross-examination--had
been to keep him away from Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s supper party, a few
hours later at her own house, where the same ruse had been employed by
the same man, with a woman accomplice, who unseen had then taken from
her the key of her safe, which they had then rifled, taking not only
the valuables it contained, but inadvertently a packet of letters which
proved to be the letters Cora Hartsilver had written to Sir Stephen
Lethbridge, and those he had written to her. These documents Jessica
had obtained some time before, by bribery, from servants dismissed by
Cora and by Sir Stephen for inefficiency, and she had been holding them
with a view to using them some day as levers to extort money from Cora;
but the woman who had stolen them from the safe had taken that step
herself and sent Cora the anonymous letter which had reached her when
in Jersey.
And all through it was the same. To right and left clients of the house
with the bronze face and intimate friends of Jessica, of Stapleton, of
La Planta’s, of Mrs. Stringborg and her husband, and of other members
of the Agency Gang, had been secretly pilloried and made to pay, while
from time to time members of the gang had themselves been victimized
by one or other of their own traitorous accomplices, generally through
the medium of the Chinese drug. Levi Schomberg, though not a member,
had by accident been made aware of the existence of the gang, its
ramifications and its methods, a client to whom he had once advanced a
considerable sum having promised to reveal what he called “the whole
organization of an extraordinary secret society of criminals operating
in this country and on the Continent” if Levi would cancel a portion
of the debt. This the moneylender had, after some demur, agreed to do,
with the result that afterwards he had been himself able to extort
money from Jessica and Stapleton, and other members, under threats of
exposure, in precisely the same way that they levied blackmail on their
victims.
“And La Planta,” Hopford said, as he and others were talking the case
over in the reporters’ room some time after his article had appeared.
“La Planta admits that he drugged Levi Schomberg in the box at the
Albert Hall on the night of the ball, though he swears it was not his
intention to poison him. Either he mistook the dose he administered
in the whisky and soda, he says, or else Levi must have had a weak
heart--Doctor Johnson will probably have something to say about that.
La Planta declares, too, that he gave the drug on the advice of
Stapleton, who handed him the actual dose, saying it was the right
amount. Whether it was or not, I suppose we shall never know, though
Stapleton has yet to be cross-examined. And another thing we shall
probably never know is why Levi Schomberg disliked Mrs. Hartsilver so
intensely. He never missed an opportunity of maligning her when her
back was turned. Can he at one time or another have tried to extort
money from her, and failed? Or have tried to make love to her, and been
turned down? Or can he have had some reason for fearing her?”
“Talking of that, Hopford,” his colleague said, after a pause, “do
you remember the night you stood up so stoutly for Mrs. Hartsilver,
the night I told you that you must be biased in her favor because you
knew her socially? What, after all, was the truth about those rumors
concerning her and concerning Captain Preston? Did you ever find out? I
tried to, but I heard nothing more.”
“Why,” Hopford answered, “that was more of the Agency Gang’s dirty
work. They invented a scandalous story, which they put up to Preston
when he was in his house-boat during Henley week. The story would
take too long to tell--George Blenkiron got it at first hand from the
Commissioner of Police, and retailed it to me practically word for
word. The upshot was that Preston would have either to abet--assisted
by Miss Hagerston, whom, I see, he is to marry next week--an attempt to
blackmail Mrs. Hartsilver, or himself be ruined financially, which of
course would have ended his army career. Members of the gang, Blenkiron
tells me the Commissioner of Police assures him, were the originators
of those unwholesome rumors which, you remember, were common talk in
clubland.”
“But how could they ruin Preston? What had he ever done to give the
gang an opening?”
“Nothing dishonorable, of course; I don’t believe he could be
dishonorable if he tried. But it seems that years ago he backed two
bills for a brother officer whom he looked upon as a friend. The
fellow turned out to be a scoundrel; was cashiered, later became one
of the gang’s ‘creatures,’ and actually faked the bills into bills for
much larger amounts. And those faked bills were, if Preston refused
to help in the plot against Mrs. Hartsilver--it had to do with some
compromising letters she had written--to be presented for payment this
month. Poor chap! No wonder he has been looking so dreadfully ill of
late. It would be interesting to know how many suicides the Agency Gang
has been responsible for directly and indirectly. Since that night at
Henley Preston has always carried a loaded pistol in his pocket, and he
vowed he would shoot that former brother officer of his dead if ever
he met him again. And he would have done it, too, and have chanced the
consequences.
“As for that robbery of Marietta Stringborg’s necklace at the ball at
the Albert Hall, the whole thing was a bluff. The pearls were not real,
and it was Stringborg himself who took them from his wife at supper
and slipped them into Miss Hagerston’s bag. Jessica Mervyn-Robertson
had become furious at Yootha Hagerston’s determination to find out
all about her, furious, too, with Mrs. Hartsilver, and the others who
were making the same attempt--she had heard about these attempts from
Stothert, because Preston, Mrs. Hartsilver and Miss Hagerston had
several times consulted the Metropolitan Secret Agency--and she had
made up her mind to ruin them financially and socially, and indeed
that, her first attempt to disgrace Miss Hagerston, might well have
been accomplished.
“Really,” he continued, “there would seem to be no end to the
machinations to which the Agency-Gang have had recourse within the past
few years. We shall never know one-tenth of the crimes they committed
or tried to commit. Several of the gang’s members were actually staying
with Sir Stephen Lethbridge at his place in Cumberland, Abbey Hall,
as his guests, when he shot himself. By the way, I hear that Fobart
Robertson has at last been discovered, living in a garret in Lyons, and
that he is being brought over to give evidence against his wife and
Stapleton and others regarding the secret exportation of the Chinese
drug from Shanghai long ago. He ought to prove a useful witness.”
And so the clouds which had so darkened Yootha’s and Cora’s happiness,
the happiness also of Preston and of Johnson, had at last almost
rolled away. The four had arranged to be married towards the end of
the month, and already were busy buying _trousseaux_, acknowledging
letters of congratulation and the receipt of presents, and attending
to the many other matters which so engross prospective brides and
bridegrooms. George Blenkiron had promised to act as best man to his
life-long friend, Charles Preston, and the latter had decided to send
in his papers at an early date, for, though an excellent soldier, the
monotonous life of an officer in peace time would, he knew, bore him to
extinction.
Harry Hopford had asked Johnson to allow him to be his best man, “in
return,” as he put it, “for services rendered, and the way I helped
to bring about your engagement!” Johnson suspected, and Cora knew,
that Hopford himself had been greatly attracted by “the beautiful
widow,” as she was commonly called; and perhaps had the lad not had
sense enough to realize that for him to hope to marry Cora when almost
his sole source of income consisted of the salary he was paid by the
newspaper to which he was attached, and the payments he received from
miscellaneous other journals to which he contributed, was hopeless, he
might have felt tempted to press his own suit.
True, he had once gone so far as to think the matter over seriously,
carefully weighing the pros and cons, but the decision he had come to
was that Cora did not care for him sufficiently to be likely to accept
him even should he have the audacity to propose to her. The thought
that if he did propose to her and she accepted him he would, after
the marriage, be in a position to abandon his profession and live
thenceforward on her income, of course, never entered his mind.
“I pity any woman who marries a journalist or a literary man,” he
said mentally, as he considered possibilities one night over a
cigar. “We writing folk may have our good points, but I think our
chronic irritability more than outweighs them, to say nothing of our
inconstancy where women are concerned, our ‘sketchiness,’ and our lack
of mental balance. If I were a woman I would any day sooner marry a
lawyer or a stockbroker than a man who earns his livelihood by his
pen. Such people at any rate give their wives a sporting chance of
being able to live with them in peace, whereas we news seekers and
scribblers----”
He shrugged his shoulders, and smiled as he mixed himself a brandy and
soda. Yet even then he could not wholly dispel from his imagination
the picture of Cora Hartsilver. Suddenly his telephone rang, and he
unhooked the receiver.
A fire had broken out in Smithfield and was making rapid headway--a big
fire--steamers hastening to it from all directions--yes, half a column,
but a column if possible--yes, not later than midnight----
He picked up his notebook and thrust it into his pocket, switched off
the light and went downstairs. A taxi was passing as he reached the
street, and he hailed it.
“Yes,” he said, as he passed swiftly along Oxford Street, “a
journalist’s wife must have a dog’s life!”
Some days later the newspapers contained an interesting “story,”
regarding a theft of diamonds some years previously in Amsterdam
from a well-known diamond merchant whose place of business had then
been situated in the Kalverstraat. The arrest of Archie La Planta
in London in connection with the Agency Gang crimes had, it seemed,
attracted the attention of the Amsterdam police, and among the
people in England with whom they had communicated was a certain Major
Guysburg. Eventually, the story ran, Major Guysburg had been called
upon to identify two men still residing in Amsterdam, one of whom, it
then transpired, had shared lodgings with La Planta at the time of
the robbery, and had now turned King’s evidence, while the other had
once been Alphonse Michaud’s secretary. After a good deal of legal
quibbling, Michaud was proved actually to have stolen stones which he
had himself insured, and for which, after the robbery, he had been paid
his claim in full.
On the night before their wedding--for finally Cora and Johnson and
Yootha and Preston had decided to get married in London on the same
day--the two happy couples with their best men, Hopford and Blenkiron,
sat at supper in the grill of the Piccadilly. Not too near the band
played the inevitable “Dardanella”; around them supper parties
chattered and laughed loudly; waiters carrying dishes and wine hurried
hither and thither as though their lives depended upon rapidity of
action.
Presently the manager approached, a broad smile on his pleasant face.
He came up to Preston.
“At the request of Mr. Hopford,” he said, “I have just informed six
officers of the Devon Regiment, who are dining in a private room
upstairs, that you and these ladies and gentlemen are dining here; and
on Mr. Hopford’s instructions I have given them other information.”
His smile widened.
“And the officers present their compliments and wish to say they hope
you and your friends will join them in their room at your convenience.”
“What are their names?” Preston asked.
The manager told him.
“Good heavens!” Preston exclaimed. “It’s my dear old C.O., and five of
the very best--we were all in France together about the time of the
first attack on Thiepval. I haven’t seen them since.”
He turned and addressed the manager:
“Will you please say that we accept the kind invitation, and will be up
shortly? Harry, you rascal, how did you find out about these officers
dining here?”
“Quite by accident, when I was prowling in search of news this morning.
My first idea was to look up your old C.O. at once. Then I decided
it would be better, because less formal, if I sprang the news on him
to-night, while they were at dinner, that you were to be married
to-morrow, and that we were all here to-night. I knew they would be
glad to see you again.”
He looked at Yootha.
“Is anything the matter?” he asked, for she was suddenly looking sad.
“Nothing at all,” she replied with a forced smile, though her moist
eyes belied her words. “I was thinking of my brothers, both still in
Mespot, and apparently likely to remain there. I have not seen either
for over two years, and to-night I feel a longing to have them here.
Their presence would complete my happiness.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Hopford answered with twinkling eyes.
“News came through to the office this evening, just as I was leaving,
that your brothers’ regiment has been ordered home, so probably you
will find your brothers awaiting you on your return to London from
your honeymoon unless,” he smiled mischievously, “they go direct to
Cumberland to stay with your father and your stepmother!”
THE END.
Transcriber’s Note:
Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like
this_. Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent
hyphenation in the text. These have been left unchanged. Obsolete and
alternative spellings were retained. Misspelled words were corrected.
Final stops missing at the end of sentences and abbreviations were
added.
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