“Do you happen to know any radio firms?” he asked quickly.
“Well,” she replied, “I happen to know one of the B.B.C., and I daresay I could get you an introduction to several of the big retail houses, which might be of advantage to you.”
“Very well, Etta,” he said, “I’m open for business.”
“On one condition, Rupert,” she said, with a woman’s clever cunning. “That you make no inquiry as to my present position or mode of life. I live honestly, of that I assure you. And my reputation for honesty may serve you well in the near future. I’ll stir heaven and earth for you, in order to make atonement for my damnable behavior in the past, and to put you upon a proper and prosperous business footing in the future. Is that a bargain?”
For a few minutes he remained silent. Then he said: “You’re a clever little witch, Etta. You look prosperous, and you probably are. We swam on the same tide before, and if you can help me, then we’ll do so again—on the tide which must bring us both to fortune.”
“Ah, Rupert!” she cried wildly, looking into his eyes. “I knew that you would forgive me. All these years I’ve been filled with bitter remorse, and have shed many tears over—over you and how disgracefully I treated you”; and then, bowing her head over his hand, she burst into quick sobs.
“I—I’ll try and recover your good opinion of me,” she went on, her tears rolling down her cheeks. “I—I know I’m a worthless woman; a woman who has wrecked the life of a great, strong, self-willed man. But it was your overbearing attitude to the world that led me to it. I—I—was mad. I set out to allure you—to cheat you, to throw you into the melting-pot—and I succeeded. At first I was full of glee. I escaped to Valparaiso and then across to Australia. Afterwards I got back to London, and in the American papers I read the account of your trial and your condemnation. I prayed for you. I could not sleep at night for thinking of you in your prison cell, because I had treated you so, and it was all my fault, Rupert,” she cried, taking him by both shoulders and looking straight into his eyes. “I’m a woman. We women are mostly weird creatures. We can’t control ourselves. Sometimes we grow to hate those whom we really love, and sometimes we love those whom we hate the most. We are the weaker sex—and perhaps I am the weakest of them all.”
Rupert Kimball, the well-dressed American, whom none in England would dream to be a gaol-bird recently released from St. Louis convict prison, turned from the window slowly.
“I accept all you say, my dear girl,” he said hesitatingly. “But what I want to know is, how you are living so prosperously. That sable coat of yours intrigues me.”
“I do a little business in French model frocks and lingerie,” she said, with the first excuse which arose to her lying lips. “This coat isn’t mine. I only wear it as an advertisement.”
“Then you are on a commission basis?”
“Yes. We are both in business. So why not let us work together?”
“But you are very reticent regarding yourself, Etta,” he said.
“I have to be. After all, I don’t want my wretched past to be raked up, any more than you do, eh? So the least we say about each other the better. Let’s unite our forces instead of being enemies, and let’s make money. I’ll help you in your wireless business. I know I can.”
He walked back to her from the window.
“Now,” he said, suddenly halting in front of her, “are you playing the straight game, Etta? If you’re not, then, by God! I’ll send you to twenty years. You know what I mean—the proofs I have against you and your accursed hanger-on Belton, or Ashe, or whatever he now calls himself.”
“Oh! I haven’t seen him for years, my dear old bean,” laughed Etta. “He treated me rottenly, as all men of his low-down class treat women. When he saw the red light he turned tail and scooted. He left me in Valparaiso, and a jolly good job too. He was no good, anyway. He hadn’t the courage of a flea.”
“Exactly what I thought. But I believed he would have stuck to you,” said Kimball. “Tell me how you have fared while I’ve been all that time in the penitentiary”; and he stood before her, for the first time realizing that she looked not a year older than when he last saw her in their flat, before he went out on that snowy day with an iron bar as a walking-stick to waylay the unsuspecting messenger of the United States Allied Bank.
“Oh, I’ve managed to scrape along. I’ve formed a good many friendships with people with money, better-class people in London. Hence I’ve lots of influential friends, and will be able to help you in your new venture.”
“Not married yet, eh?”
“Married!” she laughed scornfully. “Take me for an idiot? No, I’ll never be a man’s domestic slave. Let other women have the worry of a home and children, but not for me.”
Then, seizing her opportunity, she held out her hand to him, asking: “Won’t you really forgive me, Rupert? I promise that in future I will stand your friend.”
“Do you actually mean that?” he demanded fiercely. “Can I trust you?”
The woman’s face relaxed into one of those sweet smiles that men had found, to their cost, so alluring.
“Yes, Rupert. You may now,” she said, and made a motion as though to put her lips to his.
“No. I don’t want your kisses, thank you,” he said in a hard, abrupt tone. “I’d rather be without them.” But, taking her hand, he added in a quieter tone: “We’ll be friends, as you wish it. But you’ll have to prove your friendship towards me before I wholly forgive you for the ruin you’ve brought upon me. You told me you’ve just come back from Switzerland. Do you live there nowadays?”
“Sometimes,” she answered. “Sometimes I live at a cottage on the Thames. But I’m always a wanderer—just as I’ve ever been.”
“And you call yourself Wilcox—a widow, I presume?” And he grinned.
“Yes,” she laughed, inwardly wondering what he would think and how he would act if he knew her true position in London Society, at the same time fearing lest he should discover her rank and title. She saw that at all hazards he must not know that she, the Snakey Toulmin of the cross-Atlantic gang, had married an English peer.
Nevertheless, much elated at the successful manner in which she had appeased the man who had come to England to expose and prosecute her, she took his hand, and in gratitude, kissed it again and again.
Yet it was only to gain time, she knew. His enemy, Albert Ashe, had sworn to be even with him if he ever dared to put foot on British soil.
She knew that the threats of the man whose strange career had included masquerading as her butler in West Halkin Street, were never idle ones.
So an hour later she went out to the railway station and sent him a telegram with two words only: “Forgiven—Etta.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE ROOF OF THE WORLD
In early February the winter sports season at Gurnigel was already on the wane.
The four hundred odd people in the great big hotel de luxe had dwindled down to about three hundred, all of them English, yet the gaieties both day and night proceeded merrily under the direction of the genial and ever-popular manager, whose chief object was to know each of his visitors personally and see that they were looked after by his efficiently-trained staff.
The Swiss have ever been the best hôteliers in the world. Wherever you go in either hemisphere, you know that if you decide upon a Swiss-managed hotel you will be comfortable at moderate expense.
So it was at Gurnigel. The many petty jealousies and little bickerings between the English clientèle often caused the amiable director to retire to his chalet at night and clench his fists in desperation. And well he might. He held an onerous and responsible position, and no one knew his troubles more intimately than the old artist Mr. Gordon Mitchell, who almost daily sat in his private office and held counsel with him.
Mitchell was a man of world-wide repute who had no axe to grind. He very naturally treated the conspiracy against himself by a few nobodies as the result of disappointed ambitions. “People pay their little round sums to a tourist agency, and expect to be regarded as little tin gods,” was how he expressed it to his intimates.
One day Sibell, who had grown friendly with the smiling, round-faced old bachelor, was sitting at tea with him and her financé, when she said:
“Do you know, I’d love to see a glacier. I’ve read lots about them, but I’ve never seen one.”
“Well, Miss Dare, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t. Why not take the train up to the Little Scheidegg, and go out upon the Eiger Glacier? That would give you a very good idea of what a glacier is like.” Then, turning to Otway, he said: “I have to go up to the Scheidegg the day after to-morrow, and I’ll escort you both, if you like. You’ll want a guide. Why not take John? He’s excellent at glacier work—that is, if you can induce him to leave here for three days.”
The idea appealed to the young pair.
“Your aunt put you both in my charge before she went away, you know,” Mr. Mitchell laughed. “So I make no excuse for the suggestion. You want to go on a glacier, so I’m ready to take you there. The Eiger Glacier is close to the Jungfrau, beneath it, as a matter of fact, and will give you perhaps the best idea of glaciers you can get in Switzerland.”
“But what is a glacier really like?” asked the girl in her ignorance.
“Imagine a sea of ice with huge fissures in it on every hand, cracks hundreds of feet deep—all pure grey-green ice—the ice of ages,” answered Mr. Mitchell, who, in his younger days, had been an ardent Alpine climber. “Sometimes, if you are lucky enough to see an ice avalanche, you witness one of the most stupendous alterations of Nature. You see the ice edge of a gigantic glacier of countless ages break away and fall with thunder over a precipice, the great ice boulders bounding from rock to rock down thousands of feet until they become pulverized, and, like white powder, stream down like swift-moving rivers out of the ravines, into the valley below. The sight of a great ice-avalanche is one of the most awe-inspiring scenes in the world, hundreds of thousands of tons of the remains of the ice age breaking from the edge of the dangerous glaciers to be hurled into space with irresistible force, carrying everything before them. It is usual for all glaciers to move forward some eight or ten inches each day, and as they move, they form deep and dangerous crevasses, sometimes two hundred feet deep, terrible death-traps for the Alpinist who climbs.”
“How wonderful!” said the girl. “I’d love to see a glacier and go on it.”
“Well, I am ready to take you both,” said the grey-haired old Alpine climber. “So if you like to fix it, I’m quite game to go to Interlaken, and then up the Wengern Alp to Scheidegg.”
They decided to go, and two days later took train up the delightful valley of Lauterbrunnen, and there by the rack and pinion mountain line for a further four thousand feet, climbing on the face of the Alps past the popular winter-sports village of Wengen up to Wengern Alp and Scheidegg.
As they sat together upon a seat at the lonely little mountain halt, with the dark Trummelbach Valley between them, and beyond, the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau, with the Schneehorn and a dozen other finely poised peaks, with their glaciers, black rocks, and fields of eternal snow forming a wonderful panorama, they suddenly heard a roar.
“Avalanche!” cried Mr. Gordon Mitchell, springing to his feet. “Look! Several!”
Then across from the valley came an increasing thunderous roar of ice-avalanches from the glaciers of the Kühlauenen, the two Bandlauenen, and from the deeply-cleft Giessen and the Lammlaui in rapid succession, while, from one or other of the five narrow gullies in the black rocks, the steam of ice, ground to powder, poured forth, raising great clouds of dust. It was a unique sight and never to be forgotten, for they were face to face with Nature, witnessing the irresistible force of the mighty, grinding glaciers, as they slowly moved down towards the valley, until in the ages to come the last relics of the Ice Age will have vanished and left their traces upon the ice-worn rocks through which they have passed.
Have you ever seen an avalanche? The warm wind, known in the Alps as the Föhn, is probably blowing. The glaciers and snowy sides of the mountains are slowly thawing. We hear ominous cracking sounds deep in the crevasses if we happen to be on the glacier, while water is everywhere trickling across the surface of the ice, for under the Föhn the snow is gradually disappearing.
As the trio watched, the roar slowly died away.
“Look!” cried Sibell, pointing to another glacier high up near the summit before them. “There’s another! Oh, what a wonderful sight!”
Of a sudden Nature trembled as though in expectation. They held their breaths instinctively, when, in a few seconds, they saw great walls of ice collapse, detaching themselves from the glacier and toppling over the edge of a precipice, followed by rumbling, a blustering, and then a deafening roar, as from the lowest part of the glacier the ice smashed in its fall, and poured through the funnels of rock, far down into the valley, just as it has done for thousands of years, and as it will for yet more thousands. The thundering of the avalanche is the angry voice of the Giants disturbed from their winter silence by the presence of man. It was an awe-inspiring sight, the memory of which would live with them always.
That night they spent at the comfortable Bellevue Hotel at Scheidegg, over seven thousand feet above the sea, and, looking from their windows, saw deep in the valley the lights of gay Grindelwald twinkling thousands of feet below.
After sunset a keen frost set in, as it always does at that altitude. Scheidegg is, par excellence, the resort of the practised skier, who can run down to Grindelwald or to Wengen without danger, and it is consequently very popular, for the snow up there is always good when often impossible at lower heights.
After dinner the well-known artist sat with his two young friends over the big log fire in the hall, all three smoking cigarettes with their coffee and kirsch discussing the morrow’s adventure on the Eiger Glacier.
“I’m getting most excited!” cried Sibell. “Fancy walking out upon a glacier!”
“Yes, but it is not without a certain element of danger,” remarked Mr. Gordon Mitchell, who had had a good deal of experience in glacier work, and who had picked up his ice-axe at the well-known Hôtel du Lac in Interlaken, where he kept it from year to year. Sibell and her lover had borrowed axes from the hotel in which they had taken shelter for the night, and they had been greatly interested in the strongly-made implements, with their hafts of ash and hatchets of finest steel, upon which human life so often depends in the Alps.
While they were enjoying the warmth of the fire and chatting with half a dozen skiers of both sexes who, like themselves, were going on an expedition in the morning, the smart Swiss hotel manager entered, and, addressing Mr. Mitchell, whom he knew well as a devotee of winter sports, said:
“John, the guide, has just telephoned from Gurnigel that he has unfortunately hurt his ankle while giving a lesson this afternoon. Somebody ran into him, so he cannot come up in the morning. I propose to telephone to Amacher and Stutz down in Wengen to come up by the first train. Both are good guides of the Jungfrau and they know the glacier well.”
“Excellent!” said Mr. Mitchell. “I’ve had Amacher before, up to the Guggi Hut and also to the summit of the Breithorn and on other tours. He’s a first-class fellow. Thanks, if you’ll get them both for us, I’ll be obliged.”
“Stutz was one of those who climbed with Prince Chichibu of Japan last season,” said the hotel manager. “The Prince is a wonderful climber, he says, as well as a good skier. Everyone in the Oberland admired him when he was in Mürren. A pity he had to leave to return to Japan under such tragic circumstances.”
“Yes. Everyone knows what a real winter sportsman he is,” remarked the old Alpinist. And then the conversation turned upon the daring exploits of the Imperial Japanese Prince in the Bernese Alps.
That night a blizzard raged, one of those blinding snowstorms which arise in the high mountains so suddenly and abate so rapidly, yet are so dangerous to those who may be caught in them without shelter. The railway watchmen on duty, seeing the rapidly increasing drifts, telephoned down to Lauterbrunnen to set the snow-ploughs at work in order to keep open communication with the world below. So all night the electric ploughs were slowly going up and down to keep the road clear, though it was impossible to keep open that section of a couple of miles between Scheidegg and the Eiger Gletscher station, where the tunnel enters the mountain and climbs to the Jungfrau.
Hence, when Sibell—rising early and putting on her mountain kit, consisting of a waterproof wind-jacket and breeches, thick woollen stockings and her heavily nailed climbing-boots, which differed in many respects from those built for ski-ing—appeared below in the hall, she met Mr. Mitchell, who said:
“The line is blocked, so we’ll have to walk to the glacier. Amacher and Stutz are here having breakfast, and they are packing their rucksacks for us.”
Just then Brinsley put in an appearance, and the three went into the salle-à-manger to a substantial English meal of ham and eggs, which the popular artist had specially ordered as a preliminary to the day’s expedition.
Later the two guides joined them in the hall. Amacher, a short, thick-set man, dark and ill-shaven, with that keen eagle’s look in his great blue eyes which seems inborn in the mountain guide, approached and greeted Mr. Mitchell.
“Grüss Gott, Herr Mitchell!” he exclaimed, putting out his big, hard hand. He wore a battered round felt cap with his snow-glare glasses around the band, and over his shoulder a coiled safety-rope of best and strongest hemp, while suspended from his wrist was his trusty ice-axe, that had saved his life in a dozen or so tight corners when climbing.
“Goin’ across the glacier to-day, eh?” he asked in his kind of parrot-English. He was one of the bravest guides of that perilous range, and always acted as director of the search-party of guides who were ever ready to risk their lives to save those reported missing upon mountain or glacier.
“Yes, Fritz. We want you to take us on the glacier. My friends here are anxious to see the crevasses—the deep ones.”
The sturdy, sun-tanned Swiss—brown-faced because of the reflection of the glaring sun upon the ice—replied:
“All right, Herr Mitchell.” And then he introduced the tall, thin, wiry man who stood behind him, as Hans Stutz. The guide, proud of the bronze badge with the white enamelled cross on his chest, which showed him to be approved and licensed by the Swiss Alpine Club, smiled and lifted his peaked cap and wished them “Good morning, gentlemen and lady.”
He, too, had his rope on his shoulder, his well-filled rucksack upon his back, and his ice-axe ready for the crossing of the treacherous glacier.
“The weather is none too good,” Fritz mentioned to Hans in Swiss-German, and Mr. Mitchell, understanding the remark, asked at once, “Look here, Amacher, is there any danger?”
“Oh, no,” laughed the guide. “If the weather turns bad we can get back again. We will go by the safe route and show the lady and gentleman the deep crevasses. There are lots of them just now—after the Föhn. We’ve got the food in our rucksacks. Shall we go?”
The others assented, for all were ready dressed.
“Walk very slowly, mees, over the snow,” Amacher advised, taking the girl’s arm. “You have a long way to go and hard walking. Just easy—easy—so!” And he slowed down and made her walk his pace. “You see, we are climbing another thousand feet, before we get to the glacier, and you must not be fatigued before we get there. If you hear noises, great cracklings, water running far below and look down into the darkness, don’t get frightened. Hans and I are with you. We know the glacier from boys.”
“I trust in you,” said the girl, placing her gloved hand upon his strong arm, while Brinsley was walking with the tall Stutz.
“No danger. Not at all,” Amacher said. “I am guide. Trust me, mees.”
“I do, Amacher,” she said, and they went along up the steep hill, following the railway lines and passing the kennels of the grey wolf Uke Arctic dogs kept there, until at last they reached the moraine, that beach of stones and débris left by the Ice Age, while beyond it lay an undulating mass of square miles of ice, full of treacherous ice-bridges across wide and fatal crevasses, yawning chasms from twenty to three hundred feet deep.
At the edge of the ice they paused. It seemed to them—as it really was—the roof of the world.
The guides removed their rucksacks from their backs to rest, and Sibell, at Amacher’s invitation, seated herself on one of them and had a cigarette her lover offered her.
The sky had changed. From the howling blizzard of early morning the bad weather had abated, and now the sun shone so brightly in a cloudless sky that Amacher and Stutz had put down their glare-glasses over their eyes as precaution, though their charges felt no inconvenience.
Already it was noon, so it was decided to have a sandwich before venturing out upon the glacier. Weatherwise, Amacher scanned the mountains around, and in a low voice remarked in his native Swiss-German to his fellow-guide: “Bad weather coming, friend Hans.”
“Yes,” replied Stutz. “We won’t go very far. Up to the corner, if it’s narrow enough to get them over.”
Mr. Mitchell, who understood only very little Swiss-German, for it is a language which few Englishmen have ever been able to master, believed it to be a joke between the two guides, for both men laughed.
A few minutes later Amacher uncoiled his rope and began to make mysterious turns and knots in it as he placed it over Sibell’s shoulders, naturally thrilling her with the idea of mountaineering in the high Alps.
Having securely roped her around her waist, and putting a hitch over her shoulder, he gave her several coils of slack to hold and then roped her to her lover in the same way, and afterwards to Mr. Mitchell, while he roped himself to one end of the file, and Stutz fastened on the other.
“Now,” he said warningly, “be careful. I go first and prick the snow with my axe. Watch me, all of you, and put your feet exactly in the steps I have made. Now—off!”
And they went out upon the snow-covered glacier in single file, Amacher in front picking his way very carefully, fearful of stepping upon a thin crust of snow concealing some deep crevasse.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE DEVIL’S PARADE
At first the way across the undulating virgin snowfield, upon which here and there showed dark, jagged lines—those terrible fissures in the ice—looked easy, and Sibell, in her ignorance, wondered why the dark-spectacled Amacher, with his coil of slack rope in his hand and bending intent upon his path, should carefully prick the snow with his axe and feel what seemed always to be firm ground.
She was next to him, about four yards behind, with Brinsley third, and Mr. Mitchell and Hans following. On every hand she heard from deep down below the rippling of water, the slow melting of the eternal ice which ran into the dark, deep-cut valley of the Trummelbach, that mysterious narrow split in the mountains which leads away through Lauterbrunnen, where the stream has, through countless ages, fed the deep lake of Brienz, and which, in due course, through the fast-flowing Aar, feeds the mighty Rhine across Europe to the Dutch coast.
The two Alpine guides, their eyes painful because of the constant sun-glare, presented a goggled appearance as Amacher every now and then halted, retraced his steps carefully, whereupon the others turned and went backward until he again struck out at a different angle.
Below, the lovers heard ominous crackings as the ice, ever-shifting day and night in all the seasons, slowly moved towards the valley, at one season going down and at the other shrinking and remaining nearly where it was in the season before.
For nearly two hours they went along, their progress being very slow, but Fritz Amacher never took undue risks. The safety of those in his charge was always his first consideration. Dozens of tales were related in the little cafés in the mountain villages of his courage and heroism out on the mountains; of his experience with two young Englishmen in winter when, overtaken by a blizzard, they were compelled to spend the night under a rock on the other side of the glacier, and only because he gave them his own rations of food and red wine, and starved himself, were they able to exist until the dawn.
Gordon Mitchell had heard many stories of his gallant heroism, and how often he had faced death, while nearly as many stories were told of Hans Stutz. Indeed, Alpine guides are recognized all over the world as the finest and most reliable type of Europe.
They had been walking for over two hours, often taking wide turns to avoid those deep fissures in the ice which yawned to mysterious darkness.
Sometimes Amacher would hurl a big stone into one of them, when it could be heard bounding from side to side of the crevasse, long after it had disappeared into the darkness down hundreds of feet into the abyss.
Presently he paused and looked around, as though puzzled. They had wandered upon a spot surrounded on all sides by open fissures, and, though the guide went to and fro, he could not discover again the narrow snow-ridge over which they had crossed, and which was evidently the entrance to what was an impasse.
His keen eye, however, discovered a spot where two big open crevasses were joined by only a narrow, jagged gap, which was as deep as the rest, and there remained nothing for it but to descend and cut steps in the side of the glacier to the narrowest point where they could swing themselves across.
For him and Stutz it was mere child’s play, but to the inexperienced, horrifying and perilous.
Gordon Mitchell, as a practised Alpinist, at once realized Amacher’s intention. At the guide’s order all held the rope taut while he descended, and, swinging his axe, deftly and quickly cut deep steps in the ice, sprang across to the opposite side, and then cut two steps, which enabled him to climb to the opposite edge of the ice-wall.
Planting himself well back, he took up the slack of rope and then called to Sibell to follow.
“Go slowly, miss,” he cried. “Have your ice-axe ready, and grip the edge with it, as I did,” he urged. “Very slowly down, and you’ll find it quite easy,” he cried. “We’ve got hold of you. You can’t fall.”
“Oh, I’m so terrified!” cried the girl breathlessly, for, indeed, the appearance of that dark, grey-green, yawning abyss open to an unknown depth was sufficient to strike terror to the heart of any novice.
“Keep cool, dear!” cried Brinsley. “I’m holding you.”
Thus encouraged, the girl turned her face boldly to the descending wall of ice and, kneeling, drove the head of her axe deeply into the ice, and slowly lowered herself by its shaft until her foot touched the step. Then, slowly again, she descended to the next step, and, without daring to glance into the fatal depths below, she swung herself across, helped by Amacher’s rope, to the opposite side of the great fissure, and then clambered up, helping herself with her axe to scramble to the top.
“There!” she cried triumphantly, waving her axe to her lover. “That was all right, wasn’t it?”
“Bravo!” cried the old artist. “Most excellent! Very plucky indeed!”
“Now, Brin!” she cried. “It’s your turn. I’ll hold you.”
But Amacher advanced to the rope between her and her lover, saying in a kindly tone:
“No, miss. You must allow me”; and, taking an expert hitch with the rope, he leant back and held it taut while the young doctor emulated the feat of his fiancée.
He managed to descend safely, but in swinging across to the other side of the crevasse his foot slipped, and next instant he was held dangling on the rope, held fast in readiness by the guide and Mr. Mitchell.
Sibell shrieked when she saw his peril, but Alpine ropes are made of the best hemp, and are as carefully attended to in the guide’s chalet as is his own bed, therefore there is no danger of snapping under any sudden strain.
For a few seconds Otway, thoroughly alarmed, of course, and winded by the sudden strain of the rope upon him, struggled, but quickly he regained his foothold, and was soon hauled up by the ever-watchful Amacher.
For a few moments he could not breathe, but the Swiss guide supported him, took some brandy from his rucksack, and made him swallow it, and in a few minutes he was all right again.
“By Jove!” he exclaimed, as soon as he could gain breath, while Sibell still held his arm. “I don’t want that experience again! I thought I’d gone! My foot slipped from the step.”
“Never mind,” laughed Amacher in his cheery way, peering at him through his dark glasses. “You’re over all right.”
Afterwards the guide shouted across:
“Come on, Herr Mitchell!”
And, taking the rope from the young man, he held it while the practised climber came nimbly down, crossed, and clambered up to them. And afterwards the tall Hans swung himself over without the slightest difficulty.
They soon resumed their way, walking in Indian file as before; Amacher testing every yard of the way with his axe, now and then halting and turning to avoid danger, until at last they found themselves upon a part of the glacier which he knew was free from crevasses, so they halted, opened their rucksacks, and finished their luncheon, which all found very welcome, especially the cakes of plain chocolate without which no Alpine lunch is complete.
Afterwards, the winter sun declining, they set their faces towards the distant moraine—débris of stones and rock brought down by the glacier through the ages—to the spot whence they had started, arriving there just as the pale-rose afterglow began to tint the high-up snows of the towering Jungfrau.
Before dusk they were back, warming themselves by the welcome log-fire of the hotel, the lovers thrilled by their first experience upon a glacier.
“I wouldn’t have missed to-day for worlds!” Sibell declared enthusiastically, and then, when they were alone, she whispered: “Brin, when we are married, let us come up here, high above the earth and far from the haunts of men, for our honeymoon. Think how lovely it is here, face to face with Nature in a land unspotted by the hand of man. I love it—every moment of it!”
“Yes, my darling,” he said, kissing her fondly upon her lips.
Suddenly, as he held her in his arms, he felt her shiver.
“I hope you haven’t caught a chill, darling!” he said anxiously. “You’re cold!”
“No, really I’m not, Brin. I honestly am not. I just shivered. I don’t know why. That’s all.”
But in her heart she knew why. At that moment of her enthusiasm for the high Alps a black shadow had fallen across her memory.
Her thought was of that elegant masked cavalier who had disclosed to her a secret which that cryptic message in The Times had ordered her to conceal from the man she loved.
There was a plot to part them! Could they ever be parted? Was not her whole future life bound up in Brin’s? Was he not all in all to her?
Ten minutes later, in the privacy of her little room where she had gone to change from her mountain clothes, she locked the door, and, falling upon her knees beside her bed, prayed earnestly for deliverance from the hand of her unknown enemy.
Next morning Mr. Mitchell, expert skier that he was, took Amacher with him from the Scheidegg down to Grindelwald, where they had early tea at Frau Wolter’s, or, rather, the commodious place which once belonged to the popular old lady, now, alas! dead.
That night he met the lovers at the Hôtel du Lac in Interlaken, the comforts of which are so well known to every winter-sports visitor to the Bernese Oberland, and next day they returned to Gurnigel.
Five days later they bade farewell to their friend Mr. Mitchell, and, the winter sports season being practically over, they travelled to Milan by the Simplon, and thence by the train-de-luxe which took them by way of Genoa, San Remo, and Ventimiglia along through the palms and olives to Cannes.
In Milan they had received a telegram from Sibell’s aunt to say that she had been unwell with a mild attack of influenza, suggesting that they should go to the Beau Site until she was well enough to travel and go into residence at the villa.
They obeyed the injunction, and found the sunshine and brightness of the Riviera delightful, but even on the first day after their arrival Sibell declared that the high Alps, with their wonderful germ-free atmosphere, were far more congenial than the gaiety, the artificiality, the gambling, and the vice of the much-vaunted Côte d’Azur.
It was true that she met several people she knew in that fine hotel which is the rendezvous of the best tennis-players in the world, but somehow she never seemed to have Brin to herself as she had had him in Gurnigel, amid those marvellous and romantic forest walks and extensive ski-ing fields.
To Brinsley Otway the reckless life of the Riviera was a novelty, hence she constituted herself his guide. Carnival was in full swing in Nice, so twice they went over, once to the famous ball, and once to the first Battle of Flowers, and on both occasions they had a most hilarious time.
Then she took him several times to Monte Carlo, where she initiated him into the intricacies of roulette and trente-et-quarante. Both risked modest stakes, of course, but neither won. Therefore, beyond sight of the crowds in the stuffy, unventilated rooms, the Casino did not appeal very much to either of them.
One Sunday morning, having left Cannes for Monte Carlo early, they took their cocktails in front of the Café de Paris, and afterwards went for an idle stroll in the sunshine along the world-famed Terraces.
It was eleven o’clock, the hour of the Sunday parade, and Sibell was dressed as smartly as any. All types were there—the newly rich in great plebeian force, swindlers, rogues, peers, and flappers, some women half bare and others wrapped in furs—not because it was cold, but the furs were expensive and must be exhibited—a multicolored stream which below showed a continuous flicker of light stockings and shoes, and above a struggling crowd of gaudy sunshades. From flappers in sky-blue to painted Jezebels of every age to eighty; from typical French artists in broad-brimmed hats, flowing cravats, and peg-top trousers, to staid English business men, members of Parliament, and prosperous share swindlers; from athletic young English girls with complexions that required no rouge, to dozens of overdressed, bejewelled women of all ages and all nationalities, whose names were notorious all over Europe, all were chatting together, rubbing shoulders, and enjoying the brilliant sunshine.
“This, I should take it, is the most cosmopolitan and best-dressed crowd in the world,” remarked Otway as three laughing young French girls, Parisiennes of the ultra-modern type, pushed past him in the crowd.
“Most interesting, aren’t they?” she agreed.
At that moment a well-dressed man in grey passed them, walking with a self-absorbed look, his hands behind his back and taking notice of no one. Yet, if the truth were known, he was the great François Lebeau, one of the most famous of European police officials, and his presence there denoted that observation was being kept upon some rogue or criminal lured there by the strange fascination the place always exercises over evil-doers.
Too intent in conversation were the lovers to notice that, as the man in grey passed by, he lifted his dark eyes with a momentary glance of inquiry, and then lowered them again.
On one side of that processional way, where vice flaunts on every Sabbath from eleven till half-an-hour past noon, rose a bank of palms, shrubs, and cacti, with masses of red and yellow blossoms, scented heliotropes, mimosa, and festoons of climbing geraniums, with the wonderful façade of the Casino rising high above, while on the other, beyond the white balustrade, lay, deep down, the azure sea, calm and unruffled, with the big white steam-yachts and a giant pleasure-liner lying at anchor in the little territorial waters of His Highness Prince Rouge-et-Noir.
Sibell and Brinsley were, that sunny morning, childishly happy in their own perfect love, yet had the girl but known the identity of a stranger who, having encountered them, seemed to have suddenly become interested, she would have surely again reflected upon that strange warning uttered by her masked cavalier.
The man who passed and repassed them closely several times was short of stature, with soft white hair, dressed in black, with a grey felt hat, and wore a heavy gold watch-chain. His appearance was that of a scholar, perhaps a bookworm, but something of a dandy. He carried a malacca cane, and from his neck wore a horn-rimmed monocle suspended by a rather broad black ribbon. Patent leather shoes, white spats, and yellow gloves completed his dress.
Had the caretaker at the Guest House at Hampton Court been alive, he would have instantly identified him as the mysterious Mr. Bettinson, the man who had uttered those strange incantations in the house of evil.
CHAPTER XX.
THE SHADOW
François Lebeau, the apathetic man in grey, stepped into a powerful limousine at the end of the long range of flower-beds in front of the Casino, and gave orders to the chauffeur to drive with all speed to Nice.
Prior to doing this he gave a secret signal, by blowing his nose, to a slim, dark-haired young man who had also been following him along the Terrace. The man, who was one of his most astute assistants, realized his orders, and obeyed by dropping back into obscurity in the crowd.
Along the winding Corniche, in a cloud of white dust, the powerful police-car sped with its shrieking horn with the green disc which the chauffeur had suddenly put up by means of a switch, a sign to the police patrols to allow it to proceed at whatever pace.
Meanwhile Lebeau removed his hat, revealing his domed bald head which he was always at such trouble to conceal. As chief inspector of the Paris Sûreté he was one of the most famous detectives of modern France. As a young man he had worked as a humble police-agent of the Eighth Arrondissement under the great Goron, and afterwards under Harnard, and now he was chief of the department of surveillance upon the person of the President of the Republic, and any notable foreigners, princes or others, who came to France.
Whenever the Prince of Wales put his foot upon French soil, for example, Monsieur Lebeau was always near him as his personal protector.
He sat in the corner of the roomy car as it whirled through Beaulieu, with its wealth of flowers, handsome villas, and big hotels facing the blue bay, and thought deeply.
It was indeed a strange, unheard-of mystery which, related on many sheets of pale-yellow official paper, had been placed upon his table at the headquarters of the Sûreté in Paris.
The translation in French was from the report of the Metropolitan Police in London, and the story so attracted him that he had taken it home on the night of its arrival and thoroughly examined every point it contained. Indeed, as he went along, he selected a tiny key from a bunch upon his watch-chain, opened a small, cupboard-like recess in the upholstery before him, and from some files of papers there he took out the copy of the reports from London.
As the car approached Villefranche he became once more absorbed in the story, one so amazing and incredible that even he, practised police-agent that he was, felt half inclined to dismiss it as a mere fantasy, a chimera of somebody’s imagination.
Yet the Criminal Investigation Department of London never made a report without careful and thorough investigation, and, though the local subdivision of police at Hampton were unaware of it, the famous council of the C.I.D. were bent upon investigating and probing the strange secret of the long-closed Guest House.
As the car entered Nice, the chauffeur pressed a button and the green disc disappeared, while the car, to all appearances a private one, pulled up beside the chief post office, and its occupant alighted and walked to the Préfecture of Police, so as to pass unnoticed by those in the street.
He ran alertly up the stone stairs to the first floor, and, passing through an anteroom, the door of which was guarded by a detective, who saluted him, entered the private room of the Sous-Préfet.
Taking up the telephone, he asked in sharp, quick tones for conversation with Monsieur Feydit at the Sûreté in Paris.
Then, while awaiting the connection, he sat down and began to write rapidly a long report in an almost copper-plate and microscopic hand. The through express from Nice to Calais and London would leave at half-past two, and he was anxious that his message should reach Scotland Yard on the following evening. Hence his frantic hurry, for if he caught the train his message would be at Victoria soon after five o’clock on the following day.
Time was pressing. He glanced at the clock, and his pen flew rapidly over the paper. The inquiry was doubtless one of highest importance, or he would not have taken it up personally.
He had finished it and sealed it with black wax in a large blue envelope, when the telephone bell rang sharply.
“Hulloa! Monsieur Feydit, is that you?” he asked in French, in clear, calm tones.
Then, receiving an answer in the affirmative, he went on:
“Please listen, and take down the following.”
And from a slip of paper upon which he had pencilled them, he read off about fifteen words of the French police telegraphic code, all of which were repeated over the wire back from Paris.
“Très bien!” said Lebeau. “And listen further. On the train Nice-Paris-Calais reaching the Gare de Lyon at 8.40 to-morrow morning, there will be an urgent train-letter for London. Get it from the controller, and send Richaud through to London with it. He will await a reply and leave London again the same night. Advise me here of the reply by code.”
“I understand, monsieur,” came his trusty assistant’s voice across France, and then the famous detective hung up the receiver.
Afterwards he rang a bell, and, handing the sealed letter to the clerk who entered, gave him instructions to hand it to the controller of the Paris express.
Then, replacing the file of yellow papers in his pocket, he sauntered in the sunshine round to the Hôtel Negresco, where he was staying as Monsieur Ducret, rentier of Lyons, and ate a lonely and belated déjeuner.
Meanwhile the lovers had lunched at the gay Café de Paris, and Brinsley had paid a bill that was amazing for the omelette and cutlets, with petits-pois, which they had. The big, garish restaurant was crowded and noisy, as it is every day during the season, filled to overflowing with that same mixed throng which had, an hour before, disported itself along the Terrace in the sunshine.
Crooks and millionaires sat laughing and eating with cocottes and innocent flappers, while English peeresses drank vintage wines paid for by fat, uncouth food profiteers of Smithfield or Mincing Lane—for there is only one god at Monte Carlo year in and year out, and that god is Mammon.
So loud was the laughter, and so hilarious became a party at the table next to them, that conversation was rendered impossible. Two young Englishmen of the superior, military type were lunching with two over-dressed women twenty years their senior, and when the wine-card was presented to them, it became instantly obvious that the elder of the women, a painted old hag of seventy, was paying for their meal. But such sights are common at Monte—old women of fortune, imagining themselves still young, paying for the pleasures of any handsome young fellow they may meet at the tables.
The luncheons of to-day are but the aftermath of chance meetings in the Rooms on the previous night, for by a discreet loan of five louis a man often makes a female friend in a social circle to which he could never aspire otherwise.
Yes, the world Rouge-et-Noir is indeed a wonderful, mysterious world, which certainly opened the eyes of the upright, steady-going young doctor who plodded at his increasing practice in Golder’s Green.
Amid that crowd of gamblers and adventuresses, honest men and rogues, women of the haut-monde and the demi-monde, escrocs and respectable folk, they remained in ignorance of the presence of that unobtrusive little old man in black with the white hair, who had passed and repassed them several times on the Devil’s Parade.
Seated alone at a table in the corner, not far from them, he had ordered his lunch with careful selection, a meal which the maître-d’hôtel admired, for it showed the unusual discriminations of one well-versed in good food.
The old man at once became immersed in an English newspaper which he had brought with him, and apparently took no notice of anyone. Yet a careful observer would have noticed that ever and anon he cast furtive glances at the happy young pair, and that in his eyes shone a peculiar, evil glint.
That same expression in his eyes had showed when, in the big, moth-eaten drawing-room at the Guest House, poor Farmer had discovered him uttering those weird incantations, that same expression when he had plainly told the ex-policeman that he felt sympathy for him because he was doomed to die.
Little did the old man who had given his name as Bettinson dream that he had that morning been watched by one of the greatest criminal investigators in Europe. But, even had he known it, perhaps he would have laughed. He was a man who had never taken life seriously, regarding it always as a huge comedy, just as, at the moment, he regarded Sibell Dare’s affection for the young doctor as a mere passing fancy. Before that day he had never set eyes upon either of them, but now he sat close by, watching them in secret, and inwardly laughing in triumph.
At two o’clock Sibell and her well-set-up lover, whose health, after his strange attack, had been much improved by the fresh mountain air of Switzerland, had their coffee and cigarettes under one of the sun umbrellas at the café opposite, and, after a stroll to inspect the shops, wandered into the Casino.
Already the Rooms were overcrowded, for it was the height of the season, and people stood three and four deep around the roulette-tables, the novices of both sexes putting on wild stakes impossible to win, while the old gamblers stayed their hands, and now and then won a coup. The same crowd was there as in the Hôtel de Paris and on the parade—that hectic, overdressed scum of the world and the half-world, sadists and soubrettes, effeminates and escrocs, moralists and marcheurs, with well-dressed thieves of both sexes and all nationalities.
At the end table on the left—the one which for years was known as “The Suicides’ Table”—Brinsley Otway put a louis on zéro-trois and won, much to the surprise of them both.
Then he played on the first dozen and lost, and again lost on the rouge. But he won on the last dozen and en plein on twenty-two, which satisfied him for the day.
Through it all the little man in black watched the pair narrowly.
Once only he played, throwing ten louis carelessly upon the red, and won the even chance.
This fact attracted Sibell’s attention, but, unaware of his identity with the mysterious Mr. Bettinson, for whom the police were in such active search, she took no further notice of the odd-looking little old gentleman.
Careful not to be seen again by the mistress of the Guest House, he travelled by the same train as they took back to Cannes, and, alighting at Nice, he entered a taxi, which took him down to the Negresco, where he passed a rather handsome bald-headed man in a snuff-colored suit who was idly smoking an excellent cigar, sipping an apéritif, and watching the gay crowd entering and leaving the afternoon dance.
Without glancing at the old man, Lebeau allowed him to pass, and then, rising leisurely, strolled towards the concierge’s desk.
The latter handed the little man in black a small registered packet, for which he signed in the name of “George Peterson,” and then, entering the lift, was whirled up to the third floor.
Next moment, at signal from Lebeau, the porter passed to him the book wherein the visitor had signed his name.
The ruse was a good one to obtain a specimen signature, for he took the book to a side-room, and there compared Mr. Peterson’s autograph with one he had on a letter which he took from his pocket-book.
A moment afterwards he put the letter away, and, with a smile of satisfaction, returned the book to the concierge.
The signatures were identical.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE GREEN BAIZE APRON
Sibell and Brinsley had been at the Beau Site at Cannes for about a fortnight, daily awaiting the arrival of Lady Wyndcliffe.
Happy in each other’s ecstatic affection, they went for long walks each day in the beautiful countryside at the back of the gay resort. Now and then they would hire a car and go for a day’s excursion up to Grasse, with its sweet-smelling fields of flowers grown for the perfume factory, or to one or other of the rock villages which lay in the higher lands between Cannes and Nice, those quaint, old-world places where at the local café one can obtain such delicious luncheons eaten outdoors in the winter sunshine.
“I begin to dread returning to Golder’s Green after this delightful time,” the young doctor said one bright, cloudless morning as they were walking arm in arm through the groves of grey, twisted olives a couple of miles or so from the town.
“But why should you go back to Golder’s Green, Brin?” asked the sweet-faced girl with some surprise. “When you are my husband I shall surely have enough for both of us.”
“I know that, darling,” he said. “But—well, I’m not the sort of fellow to exist without working. I couldn’t do it. My profession interests me, and gives me a zest in life. Not that your presence doesn’t do that,” he hastily explained, with a laugh. “But I know you understand my meaning. I must work for myself. I could never live in idleness on your money.”
“Of course I understand, Brin,” she said, squeezing his arm affectionately. “But I really don’t see why you should return to that dull, suburban spot again. Couldn’t you sell the practice, and buy one in some pleasant seaside town?”
“Yes, I might, of course, darling. But you forget that, under the terms of the will, you are compelled to live at the Guest House.”
“Ah!” she exclaimed disappointedly. “I had forgotten that.”
“I’ve been thinking a lot about it of late,” he said. “I feel that it is dangerous for you to live in that place. Some spirit of evil exists there. My own attack, after going through those books, is quite unaccountable, and then the mystery of the caretaker Farmer’s death, after the incantations of a stranger, is most inexplicable.”
“Yes,” said the girl. “Sometimes I think that all the weird stories about the old place are just legendary or gossip, and yet at others I see the dire results to those who scoff at them.”
“But the most mysterious fact of all is, that no woman entering there has ever felt any ill effect,” he remarked.
“I wonder how that is accounted for?” she asked, as they strolled slowly up a narrow path, where from between the olives they looked down upon the wide expanse of sapphire sea.
“Who knows, darling?” he asked. “This strange inheritance of yours seems to be overshadowed by some tangle of mystery—grim tragedy and death.”
“A pity they cannot find that old man Bettinson,” said the girl, smart in her brown sports kit, with a neat little brown felt hat, and carrying a comity stick with a steel spike in it. She was typically English, a lithe open-air girl fond of every sport ever since she had been at school, a graceful dancer, and a fine rider, as all the women of the D’Aires had been.
“Perhaps they may discover the old fellow one day,” remarked Otway. “But of course the police and coroner’s jury appear inclined to the opinion that the whole scene was a chimera of the dying man’s imagination. Personally I know of no human condition in which death can be brought about by a verbal curse. We hear of such things happening in the Middle Ages, and some people, even in our own enlightened age, are sufficiently superstitious to believe in the efficacy of an execration.”
“Then you think that the caretaker simply died of natural causes?” asked his fiancée eagerly.
“I believe that the verdict at the inquest must have been a true one. All sorts of fantastic tales are told by neurotic people at inquests.”
“But don’t you agree that a good many verdicts recorded of death from natural causes are untrue ones?” she asked.
“My opinion is the same as that of most men in my profession, that murder is very easily committed, and frequently goes undetected, and hence unpunished. Further,” he said, “I have an increasing dread of the evil influence which seems to spread like a pall upon any male who enters that accursed house in which you are compelled to live.”
“Really, Brin, you are making me feel quite terrified. I heard from Mr. Gray yesterday that the first day of the sale is to-morrow. He enclosed a catalogue. I’ll show it to you when we get back.”
“The sooner the place is cleared of all the old stuff the better,” Otway declared. “I’ll be glad to see the decorators in and the place refurnished for you and fit to live in, and of course half the dealers in England will be there. Mr. Gray told me that very big prices would, no doubt, be obtained for some of the furniture and tapestries. There are two authentic relics of Cardinal Wolsey which will certainly bring big money.”
“How much it all brings does not matter to me, Brin,” she said, halting in the shadows beneath the trees and looking earnestly into her lover’s face, while he bent and kissed her fondly.
“My only thought, darling, is of your own safety in that weird house,” her lover said.
“Why?” she laughed. “Have you not only a few minutes ago told me that no woman suffers there?”
“Yes. That’s one of the greatest problems,” he replied.
Throughout the whole morning they wandered, until they joined a long, white road which wound up the mountainside among the pines and ilexes, until at last they came to a small, remote village perched upon the edge of a high, precipitous rock, one of those villages which long ago were so often ravaged and burned by the Barbary pirates.
In the narrow, cobbled street they discovered a modest little café-restaurant, in which a buxom “madame” was bustling about serving her customers. Therefore they entered, and sitting down to clean napery, a bottle of white wine, and fresh sections of yard-long bread, they ordered the plât-du-jour, and enjoyed an excellent meal.
That afternoon, on re-entering the hotel, Otway obtained their letters and handed one to Sibell.
She recognised Lady Wyndcliffe’s sprawly handwriting, and after reading it, exclaimed in dismay:
“Auntie Etta has left Southampton to-day for New York. Uncle is ill and telegraphed for her.”
“Then she isn’t coming here at all?”
“No. She says we’d better return as soon as we like. Isn’t it really too bad? She doesn’t say what uncle is suffering from. But he is evidently very ill—or she wouldn’t cross the Atlantic. She’s always told me she is a terribly bad sailor.”
“Well, darling, it is her duty, isn’t it?” Brinsley remarked. “I suppose we shall have to leave very soon.”
“And I’ll have to return to Cookham, while you go to Golder’s Green,” she said, with a deep sigh of regret. “We won’t go till next week, eh?”
“When you wish it, darling,” he said; and, after washing their hands, they returned to the big lounge for tea.
Next day proved dry and fine at Hampton Court, and long before noon the trams and trains discharged hundreds of passengers bent upon attending the important sale at the Guest House.
Long before noon the premises overflowed with the curious and those eager for bargains, for an auction sale of such genuine antiques seldom took place in the vicinity of London. Every class of dealer and amateur collector was represented, from Whitechapel, from Bond Street, from every metropolitan district came men and many women with their pockets full of Treasury notes ready for a bargain, whether a pitcher or a picture, a water-can or a whatnot, a saucepan or a sideboard.
Through the rooms the crowd surged, and the auctioneer’s men had considerable difficulty in preventing small articles from being purloined, for those loungers with big overcoats and stout women with big pockets, all ready to grab any unconsidered trifle, were there in full force, as they always are at crowded auctions.
Outside upon the roughly-cut lawn, which had not yet had time to get into condition after the clearance of thirty years of growth upon it, a number of heavy pieces of furniture and a miscellaneous collection of household goods from the ground floor had been placed, each numbered, while behind stood a rostrum upon which, punctually at noon, Mr. Gray mounted, mallet in hand.
Below sat his two clerks, while four men in green baize aprons bustled about among the throng.
Mr. Gray, in a dark-blue overcoat and bowler hat, cleared his throat, and, looking smilingly around at the mass of faces turned towards him, recognized many well-known dealers, some of whom were the most reliable and reputed in their profession.
He cleared his throat, and made a little introductory speech, in which he referred to the unique opportunity of acquiring many very fine, unrestored pieces of antique furniture and objects of art which had been in that historic house ever since the days of King Henry the Eighth and the great Cardinal Wolsey.
“Some of this furniture was, no doubt, brought across here from the Palace of Hampton Court yonder, to furnish this house as a Guest House for friends of the Cardinal,” he went on. “Therefore, gentlemen, I tell you frankly that I shall not be content with paltry prices. On some of the pieces there is naturally a reserve, and some of them will be able to be acquired by private tender afterwards. The majority of these unique lots are, however, open for your purchase, but I would implore you not to start your bidding at ridiculous figures, as it will only hamper us all and waste our valuable time. With that request, gentlemen, I propose to proceed with the sale.”
After he paused, he called to his foreman.
“Greening! Lot number one! Jacobean fire-back of Surrey iron, with the arms of the Overtons of Godalming Hall. One of the Overtons married a Miss D’Aire in 1796. How much?”
“A pound!” shouted a man at the rear.
Thirty shillings was instantly bid in two places. Then two pounds, which was increased quickly to five. At that figure the bidding ceased until somebody cried “Guineas!” And at a nod from a well-known dealer in close proximity, the auctioneer cried:
“Five pound ten is bid for the Jacobean fire-back! Any advance? Come, gentlemen!”
“Six!” sounded from somewhere, followed by “Guineas,” and then “Six-ten.”
By slow degrees Mr. Gray’s persuasive powers had effect, until ten guineas was reached.
“Going at ten guineas! Going! Gone!” And the mallet fell sharply upon the table, as he added, “Ten guineas—Mr. Sheldon.”
The next lot was a small oak gate-table in splendid condition, of Queen Anne period. Such an article, when genuine and unrestored, is always eagerly sought by dealers, as there is a ready sale for them among collectors. There are thousands of imitations and facsimiles, complete with wormholes and every sign of long usage, but specimen pieces like the one exhibited by the man in the baize apron are few and far between.
The bidding started at two guineas, and quickly rose to twenty. On every side the competition became keen. To the ordinary eye it was only a little table such as could be purchased for a pound or two at any furnishing establishment in the Tottenham Court Road, but to the shrewd, hard-headed crowd of bargain-hunters assembled in that garden it was a perfect little gem.
As such, it was eventually knocked down to a famous West End dealer for forty-two pounds ten.
A fine old oak refectory table with big, bulbous legs and a foot-rail worn by the sandals of the monks of centuries ago, which had stood in the big stone hall, was next brought forward, a heavy piece which took six men to move it. It was capable of seating quite twenty people.
“This table, no doubt, came from the suppressed monastery at Chiddingfold in Surrey,” said Mr. Gray. “The monastery was dismantled and destroyed by Thomas Cromwell. At one end of the table you will find carved the sign of the cross, with the word ‘Chyddyngforde’ and the initials ‘A de B’—Alfred de Beson, who was abbot there in 1496. Now, gentlemen, what shall we say for this unique and historic piece? Such a table does not appear in the market every day, as all of us know. Shall we start at two hundred guineas?”
And with a persuasive smile, Mr. Gray glanced around him, mallet in hand.
Suddenly he recognised a nod, and said in his quick, business-like manner:
“Two hundred and twenty pounds. Thank you, sir! Two hundred and twenty is bid for this historic piece!”
Another pause.
“Two hundred and thirty in two places! Two-forty!—fifty!—sixty!—seventy!—eighty!—ninety!—three hundred. Three hundred—thank you, sir!” And, after another pause, he went on: “Now, gentlemen, we’re not here for amusement, and we’ve a lot to get through this afternoon! Who will give three hundred and ten?”
“Ten!” came a shout. Then, from another quarter, “Fifteen,” followed by bids of “Twenty” and by five pounds the competition, mostly between the Bond Street fraternity, rose till three hundred and eighty-five pounds was bid.
“Any further bid?” asked the auctioneer. “Three-eighty-five?”
And he sipped his glass of water in order to allow the competitors time to reflect.
“Dirt cheap, gentlemen,” he cried. “You, all of you know its true value. May I say three-ninety, Mr. Deeping?” he asked, addressing a well-known dealer, who usually bought for America.
Mr. Deeping gave a nod in the affirmative.
“Three-ninety!” shouted Mr. Gray. “Any advance! Four hundred, Mr. Steen?” he inquired of the head of one of the greatest Bond Street galleries.
A nod from the stout, well-dressed man who stood smoking a cigar, and then Mr. Deeping and Mr. Steen began to bid against each other until, after a fierce fight which became highly exciting, Mr. Deeping secured it for five hundred and twenty-three pounds.
At the moment the hammer dropped sudden shouts were heard, and a great commotion took place in the back of the crowd, close to the flight of steps which led to the front door.
Mr. Gray stood in surprise, angry at the sudden interruption.
Next second, however, the attention of the crowd was diverted to the scene of the disturbance, and all turned away from the rostrum to discover what was the trouble which had so unexpectedly arisen.