The girl faced him, her eyes flashing.
“And what do my affairs concern my aunt, or even you, I ask?” she cried. “You’ve told me your worn-out old story before—how you love me and all that. But I’ve never believed you. Why, my dear man, you pretend to love a dozen girls at the same time. What woman could ever trust a man with your reputation?”
“You are extremely polite, I must say,” was his angry response.
“I merely tell you to keep your hands off me, and that I desire none of your detestable love-making.”
“But why are you so intent on marrying this doctor fellow, Sibell?” he asked in a more kindly voice. “Do you really think you are suited to each other? You love life and gaiety, while he is a steady, plodding, studious fellow, who must sooner or later bore you stiff.”
“Oh, don’t argue!” she said. “Just give me back my ring and let me go. What will Moyna think if I’m down here so long?”
“Think!” he laughed. “Why, nothing! Girls don’t think nowadays; they just act as their will directs them. It is Victorian to think.”
“But do let me get back, I beg of you, Gussie,” she cried.
“Gussie!” he echoed in gratification. “I like to hear you call me by that name. You’ve always been so studiously formal and called me Mr. Gretton. Do let me have a kiss—just one—in return for your ring.”
“I refuse! It isn’t fair of you to make such a condition when you know so well the whole circumstances of my engagement,” protested the girl.
“But you look so sweet to-night that I can’t resist, even at the risk of incurring your anger,” he said, and suddenly, ere she was aware of it, he had gripped her and was raining hot kisses upon her unresponsive lips.
Suddenly, with a supreme effort, she struck him a blow full in the face, which caused him to release his hold, and then, like a tigress, she fought, until at last, breathless and overcome, she sank half-fainting into an arm-chair.
He held a glass of water to her dry lips as she lay back inert, her boudoir cap awry, her eyes half closed, dazed and semi-conscious.
A few moments later she felt him take her hand and gently slip the ring upon her finger.
Then she heard his voice, sounding as though afar off.
“Sibell,” he whispered into her ear, “I’m a brute! Forgive me! Do—I beg of you! I—I lost my head. I—I didn’t know what I was doing! I’m a damned blackguard to have kissed you against your will. I apologize. Tell me that you will forgive me and—forget to-night,” he begged of her, on his knees in supplication.
For some time she remained silent, then slowly her eyes became fixed upon his countenance in a strange, stony stare.
“You have no right to have treated me so!” she declared in a hard, bitter tone. “I came here to you in desperation to get my ring, because I feared that my fiancé might miss it. What would he have said had he discovered it in your possession?”
“Quite true,” said the man. “What indeed would Otway say if he ever knew that you had been here for over half-an-hour!”
She stood rigid. Then she cried:
“God! I never thought of that! Let me go, you swine! Let me get back at once—at this moment, before anyone sees me.” Then, turning to him suddenly, she put her arms out, and said breathlessly: “If you want my forgiveness, Gussie—let me go. Peep outside and see that no one is in the corridor.”
“Don’t be afraid, child! There’s nobody about at this hour—only the night-watchman, who carries his tell-tale clock around at every hour, which registers his tour of the hotel.” Then, as he raised her slim hand and kissed it with studied courtesy, he asked: “Am I forgiven? Say, yes.”
“You will be if you let me go. Look at the time. What will Moyna think?”
“She’ll think nothing if she’s the sport I take her to be,” he replied, with a man’s usual selfish disregard for the woman he may so easily compromise.
Without a sound he advanced to the door, drew back the bolt, and peeped out.
“Nobody!” he whispered. “Good night, my dear Sibell! When we meet again let us both forget this meeting, I beg of you.”
Next instant she was in the corridor, dishevelled, for in her excitement she had not looked at herself in the glass. Over the thick carpet she passed silently in her slippers until, just as she came to the stairs, two figures suddenly emerged from the shadows.
One man was a porter in uniform, and the other she recognized in a flash.
She heard the words, hard and hoarse:
“Sibell! Now that I have watched I know it is true! I thought they lied to me, but now I know that you do not belong to me—but to that swine!”
The speaker was Brinsley Otway!
CHAPTER XXVII.
BY WIRELESS
A month had gone by—for Sibell a month of dark anxiety, shattered hopes, a terrible blank despair, which had shattered her nerves, poor child.
Constant appeals made to Brinsley had exacted nought, for he had refused to see her; all her explanatory letters had been returned unopened, which added to her despondency. A dozen times she had been to Golder’s Green, but he had always been “out”; frantic telegrams had had no effect in inducing him to grant her even a moment’s interview. He had cut her out of his life.
Moyna Lascelles, sniggering and artificial after expressions of regret, had gone to Yorkshire on a visit to a mythical cousin, while Gussie Gretton, to whom Sibell wrote telling him of the tragic dénouement of the incident of the ring, had come quickly to her side, apologizing most deeply, and trying to console her.
Old Gordon Routh, in whom his ward was compelled to confide, extended to her his deepest sympathy, and made pretence of writing himself strongly to Otway.
The girl’s lover, who had been so devoted, remained obdurate. He had heeded that secret warning sent to him anonymously by one of Etta’s friends. He had watched the girl enter Gretton’s room, and, with the hotel valet, had stood concealed outside for over half-an-hour, when he had caught her creeping back in her nightdress. What further proof of her infidelity was wanted? He had watched with his own eyes, and, consumed by most intense hatred for his rival, he would listen to no extenuating circumstance or excuse.
Little did the poor fellow know of the deep and dastardly conspiracy on the part of Etta Wyndcliffe and the man Ashe, or that long ago Gussie Gretton had made the ex-decoy of trans-Atlantic card sharpers a firm offer of five thousand or more on the day he married Sibell.
The girl had come into money, but that made the sensuous man-about-town all the more keen, and he had increased his commission. Therefore it was not surprising that old Routh, suspecting the truth of the secret arrangement with Etta, welcomed him to Cookham in order that he should make pretence of sympathy and perhaps bring off the coup.
Sibell hated the fellow the more she saw of him. Her dire position was entirely due to him. One afternoon, as he sat in the little cottage drawing-room, she told him so. Coward that he was, he at once placed the onus upon her, declaring that it was her fault alone that she had gone to his room at that hour, when she might have so easily waited till the morning.
“By the way,” he asked suddenly, “how long have you known that gay young friend of yours, Moyna?”
“Marigold Ibbetson, an old schoolfellow of mine at Cheltenham, introduced her to me at Cannes. She was with a friend of Brinsley’s—an air-pilot named Cranston.”
The tall man, who sat back in the easy-chair with his long legs crossed before the fire, grunted. A strange thought had arisen in his mind. He had never told Sibell the truth, that on the day he had met her at the Cecil he had received a mysterious telegram signed “Richard,” telling him that if he stayed at the hotel in question that night he would meet Sibell and a girl friend who were both at a loose end.
Upon that message he had acted. He was now wondering who his friend “Richard” might be. He knew many men by that name, and one day he would no doubt discover the identity of the giver of such welcome news.
“Why do you ask about Moyna?” inquired the girl, noticing that he seemed very preoccupied.
Then, of a sudden, and for the first time, those words of the masked cavalier at Gurnigel, who had uttered that strange warning, recurred to her.
“Nothing,” he replied. “I merely wondered whether you knew her very well.”
“It was all a sinister plot!” cried Sibell next moment, starting to her feet wildly and pushing back her fair hair. “I see it all, now!—a plot to part Brinsley from me! I was warned—and yet, I never heeded it. I’ve been an absolute fool!”
“A plot, my dear Sibell! How could it be?” he asked in surprise, also springing to his feet.
“It was—my God, it was! I was ignorant, but my enemies took advantage of my innocence, and have brought all this to me! That man who warned me,” she added. “Oh, if I only could know who he is!” And she wrung her hands in desperation.
“What man? Dear child, do tell me. Even if you hate me, confide in me. We’ve been friends for a good many years, haven’t we?”
“A—a man who warned me of the plot. And I’ve been blind to it—blind until this moment.”
“Well, at least tell me how you received the warning,” Gretton begged of her.
She stood against a chair, swaying to and fro, for at that moment she had become half hysterical, and in a few brief sentences related to him what had happened at the gay masked ball at the winter sports, and the sudden disappearance of her gallant cavalier.
Gretton questioned her closely, but she knew nothing more than what has already been related in these pages.
“But if there was a plot, how could that stranger possibly know?” queried Gretton reflectively. “And, further, why should there be any plot? If you fell in love with young Otway, that is surely your own affair, and his. I admit, my dearest Sibell, that for a long time I’ve been very fond of you, and I am still, but surely you don’t suspect me of having any hand in any plot?”
“Oh, I can’t think! I can’t act—now that I have lost Brin!” cried the white-faced girl in despair. “I have come into an inheritance which is accursed. Yes, trebly accursed! Of that I am now confident!”
“How?” he asked.
“Is there not a curse placed upon the Guest House—a curse of many years ago, probably in the days of Cardinal Wolsey? I am doomed to live there, and my life wrecked! I hate the very name of the place after all the terrible things that have happened there. And yet—yet, if I do not live in that awful place, I lose my inheritance!”
Augustus Gretton, his countenance heavy and thoughtful, crossed the room and looked gloomily out upon the small garden, with its early spring flowers discernible in the dusk, and the grey chill river beyond.
He was bewildered, perhaps for the first time in his hectic life. He was indeed quiet, seeing light through the cloud of mystery, for he recollected that Satanic bargain he had made with Sibell’s aunt, the dance fiend who was a peeress, the bargain which had been raised to twenty thousand pounds if he married her. He had offered a price for the girl’s body, as an Arab sheik would offer, because he was wealthy, and his money could buy all that he desired in the wealth-eager world of London, wherein religion is to-day surely a mockery, and morals a ridiculous farce with the curtains drawn down.
“I—I can’t bear you any more, Gussie—please forgive me,” the frantic girl said, suddenly putting her hands upon his shoulder. “Do go. I beg of you. If you were a girl you’d know. You are my friend, so you’ll go and leave me to think. My God! I’d rather drown myself in the river down there beyond the lawn than carry on any further. I—I’m desperate! Don’t you see? We were both of us fools, Gussie—idiotic fools. But I mean to discover who engineered us both into this plight of which that mysterious man, the cavalier, warned me, a thousand miles away,” she added determinedly.
“Then you will really forgive me?” said the man, with a true expression of sympathy. “Do regard me, Sibell, not as the horrible hog you think me. I’m sorry, awfully sorry that I kissed you in my room, but—but really you were so sweet and charming that you were irresistible. And, after all, you never kissed me—you never have.”
“What can I say?” replied the distracted girl, who stood before him in her smart golfing kit.
“Only say, Sibell, that you forgive me, and let’s cry quits,” the man said earnestly in a low, persuasive voice.
“Quits! And then?” asked the girl, for she was of strong and determined will, a fact that her aunt, Etta Wyndcliffe, the seller of souls, had never realized. The woman, adventuress as she was, had merely regarded her as a very pretty, fair-haired débutante, to be sold in the marriage market to the highest bidder, with of course big profit to herself, just as she had sold others, and as she had decided with the old hunchback guardian, Routh, beside that calm sea upon those Belgian dunes in the previous summer.
That same afternoon, as Sibell, in the fast-falling dusk, sat with the rich, thick-lipped sensualist who coveted her, a strange, tragic scene was in progress in mid-Atlantic, where in the aftermath of a sudden storm the sea ran high, causing the great liner on its way from Southampton to New York to roll heavily.
The captain, a thick-set, round-faced, cheery man, was having his tea alone in his cabin, as was his wont, when the ship’s doctor suddenly entered.
“Have a cup, Dayne?” asked the well-known Atlantic commander. “We’re in for another spell, I think.”
The doctor, a sharp-featured, narrow-faced, black-moustached man, who had been on the Ciceronic for five years, sank into the other chintz-covered chair set before the fire and, with a word of thanks, said:
“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid there’s to be a death on board.”
“A death! That’s unfortunate. A passenger?”
“Yes, sir. A Mr. Rupert Kimball, United States subject of St. Louis. He was quite well on the first day out. Has a lady friend on board—a Mrs. Wilcox. Took ill last night with heart, and I’m afraid he won’t last very long.”
“Any relatives to wireless to?” asked the captain sharply, pouring out the doctor’s tea.
“I believe the lady is sending a message.”
“Will he last till we get over?” asked the captain, who, like all seafaring men, hated a death on the voyage. He had a caul on board in secret, as all men do who go down to the sea in ships. The secret caul is supposed to give sailors immunity from disaster, even though a corpse be carried to port. Yet they never speak about it.
“I don’t know. The poor chap seems to be in the last stage of angina, and of course in such condition one can never tell.”
“Bad luck, doc,” said the captain, filling his big briar pipe, for at that hour he always indulged in a smoke privately. It was the one hour of the whole long day which he held sacred to himself, sacred from passengers, worries, or official complaints. In that daily tea-hour he became master of himself, as well as of the great thirty-thousand tonner which carried the mails so regularly between Southampton and New York. That was his one hour’s leisure in the day’s run.
Both he and the doctor were near neighbors and lived with their wives in Southampton, and naturally began to chat about home affairs, when of a sudden there came a knock at the cabin door, and the head purser entered, saying:
“Sorry, sir. May I speak a moment with you, doctor?”
Dayne rose instantly, swallowed the tea the captain had poured out, and walked unsteadily outside, for the ship was rolling heavily.
“I’m afraid that gentleman, Mr. Kimball, is very bad,” said the man in uniform with a strong American accent. “The lady has just sent for you. She says he’s dying!”
The ship’s doctor, hurrying along the deck, swiftly descended to the sick man’s stateroom, where he found the dark-eyed, well-dressed woman standing beside her sick friend’s bed, as she had done for the past forty hours.
“I believe poor Rupert is dead!” she whispered, her face blanched and staring. “A few moments ago he raised himself with a great effort and insisted upon kissing me. Then fell back—and I’m afraid he’s gone!”
And, unable to control herself, she burst into a torrent of tears.
It did not take Dr. Dayne long to ascertain the truth. Rupert Kimball was dead. He had succumbed to heart disease!
Tenderly, after making certain that life no longer existed, he drew the sheet across the dead man’s face, and then led the deceased’s friend silently from that little white enamelled stateroom, with its narrow brass bed.
The woman staggered away, but he, turning the other way, did not observe that the look on her face was more of horror than of distress.
Half an hour later the wireless operator tapped out a message to an address at St. Louis in the United States, announcing the sudden death of the passenger, but the truth was kept from everyone on board at the captain’s request to Mrs. Wilcox, therefore dinner and dancing proceeded, with the usual nightly gaiety, as it ever does on a trans-Atlantic liner.
Etta Wyndcliffe dared not venture into the saloon, but commanded her meal to be brought to her in her cabin, where alone she sat, her mouth half-open, staring at her closed porthole, in front of which that little silken curtain of pale-green swayed with the ship’s roll.
“I wonder! I wonder!” she whispered to herself in a low voice, scarce above a whisper. She had not dressed for dinner, and passed the tempting dishes untouched. The man who had come between herself and fortune lay dead in the stateroom above.
Albert Ashe was anxiously awaiting news. She knew he was waiting for the result of their clever scheme, the removal of their enemy by means which should leave no trace.
She pretended to eat, and then at last, after the sweets were served, she rose and placed both hands into her hair in desperation.
“Yes!” she cried aloud hoarsely. “I must arouse no suspicion. I must remain calm! I must play my part as his friend—yes, play it to the end.”
So, putting on her coat, she left her cabin and ascended to the wireless office, where the young operator sat with the telephones upon his ears.
He smiled, and, removing one of the ’phones from his ear, heard her say in a low, tremulous voice.
“I—I want to send a very urgent message.”
“Yes, madam,” replied the polite young Marconi operator in uniform, indicating the desk and pad of forms.
Upon one she wrote a message which she addressed to:
“Thomas, Regent Palace Hotel, London. Poor Rupert has died suddenly from heart disease. Am desolate. Inform mother. Have wired St. Louis.—Wilcox.”
And within a few minutes the operator, with his hand upon his key, tapped out the anxiously awaited news to Albert Ashe, who was purposely at the hotel in question under the name of Sidney Thomas.
The sinister plot of the Guest House and its weird influence was perhaps unequalled in the annals of the world’s crimes.
Only Etta and her accomplice knew. The truth was on the day before she and Rupert Kimball sailed, she had, still posing as Mrs. Wilcox, hired a car from a garage and driven her unwanted friend down to Hampton Court, taking him, out of curiosity, to the Guest House, about which there had been so much gossip.
Previously she had related to him the strange stories, and gave him to read the article in the Richmond and Twickenham Times. It had intrigued him; hence their visit there.
They passed through the house by permission of the foreman of the decorators, and his only comment was:
“Well, it seems a very charming old house for any newly-married couple to live in. That blue and grey scheme in the drawing-room is really very artistic. An old house like this would be snapped up at a very huge price in America, wouldn’t it? I’m glad to have seen it.”
Then, after remaining there half an hour, during which time they visited all the rooms, they re-entered the hired car and drove back by way of Kew and Hammersmith to London.
Poor fellow! Rupert Kimball, whatever might have been his past, never in all his innocence dreamed of the poison shadows that had fallen upon him—that mysterious evil which only five days later resulted in his death from natural causes.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
A DEADLOCK
Lady Wyndcliffe had returned from America and was staying for two days at the Myrtles.
Sibell had been compelled to describe to her aunt that unfortunate incident at the hotel in London, and how she had suddenly become parted from Brinsley. Etta became furious, and declared that the sole blame should be taken by Gretton.
“Gussie always was an ass! He ought to have known better,” cried the well-preserved woman, who, after a week in New York, where her friend had been buried, had hastened back to London, travelling, of course, in the name of Mrs. Wilcox. “I sympathize with you, my dear Sibell,” she went on. “Can’t you make it up with Brinsley?” she asked, puffing at her eternal cigarette, as they sat in the little drawing-room.
“He will not reply to any of my letters, nor will he consent to see me,” said the girl despondently. “He has a locum now at Golder’s Green, and has gone back to his mother’s.”
“H’m!” grunted the adventuress who bore such an honorable name. “Well, it’s rather natural, after all, isn’t it? No man would stand seeing with his own eyes his fiancée in déshabille creeping out of a man’s bedroom at three o’clock in the morning, would he?”
“I suppose not. But he won’t hear the truth.”
“The truth, my dear Sibell, is pathetic. Owing to your own foolish action in going down to Gussie’s room at that hour, you’ve brought all this upon yourself. As far as I can see, your engagement has been entirely broken off, eh?”
“It has, no doubt,” said Sibell tearfully. “What am I to do, auntie? Do advise me.”
The dark-haired woman remained silent for a few moments in order to impress her niece. Then, looking her straight in the face very earnestly, said:
“There is only one thing to do, my dear. And I strongly advise it. Gussie is devoted to you—you know that well. He is frantic about you, and has written three letters to me. He loves you quite as well as Otway ever did. You’ve lost Otway—accept Gussie.”
“Never!” she cried, stamping her little foot in desperation. “I’ll never marry him!”
“But just pause for a moment. Don’t get into a temper, dear, because I want to give you sound advice. Gussie is very rich, and, with your own fortune, think what you both could do! In a moment you would figure in Society and move in the best circles, and, further,” she added, again pausing and remembering the clause of the will by which part of Henry Dare’s fortune would revert to Gordon Routh, “have you never thought that if you cared you need not live in that accursed Guest House? If you liked to marry Gussie you could forego this evil inheritance left you by your Uncle Henry.”
The point had never occurred to her, and, admitting it, she sat for a few minutes very calm and thoughtful.
“But I could never marry Mr. Gretton, auntie—never!” she declared at last. “I don’t love him—especially after that night at the Cecil!”
“Then all I can say is that you’re a silly little fool,” declared Lady Wyndcliffe. “I’ve met so many of your romantic temperament—girls I’ve taken round Society. But very soon romance gets knocked out of them by their daily disillusions, and they end by making marriages of convenience, and money makes up for what men call love.”
“You sneer at love, auntie,” cried the girl reproachfully.
“Indeed, I don’t, dear,” the woman replied. “I only say that the girl who marries for love nowadays suffers a silly martyrdom of jealousy, for in these hectic days a man is seldom, if ever, true to a woman, either before marriage or after.”
“Even though you have had wide experience, auntie, I refuse to believe it to be the general rule.” Then of a sudden, she remarked: “It’s a lovely afternoon. I’m going to take ‘Tiz-oh’ for a walk,” indicating her sweet little Pekingese, who, hearing his name, rose, stretched himself, and came waddling towards her.
Five minutes later the girl went forth into the glorious spring afternoon with her pet at her heels.
Already the beautiful Thames valley was clothed in its freshest green, the orchards were white with blossom, the birds in full song, and the sky cloudless as she swung along, a smart, well-set-up figure in her beige jumper-suit and close-fitting black hat.
From her usually bright, open countenance all the sunshine of life had died out. Pale, hollow-eyed, and despairing, her face gave a true index to her perplexed state of mind.
As she strode along blindly, she was reflecting upon her aunt’s suggestion that, Brinsley having forsaken her, she should at once accept Augustus Gretton’s offer, and take her place in Society with the smart house in Upper Brook Street which was Gussie’s.
As Etta had pointed out, with her artful insidiousness, Gussie was well-known in London, and already the Conservatives had tried three times—on account of his ability to contribute to the Party funds—to induce him to put up for a borough constituency. The Borough of Guildford was suggested, and after that Bournemouth, and then West Hartlepool. But man-about-town that he was, and gossiper at his club, with his perfect English—for indeed no better English is spoken than in a West End club—political bickering had never appealed to him.
As she swung along the long, damp road, stick in hand and her pet Pekingese beside her, she reflected deeply upon her position.
Brinsley, to whom she was devoted, whose every word had been her law, whose lips she had met in those hot, fevered caresses, whose hugs had thrilled her with a sensation that had become her delirium of delight, had now cast her aside as worthless, and had gone away.
She had now to decide whether to accept her uncle’s fortune and live alone in that ancient house of evil at Hampton Court, or live with Gretton as her husband, a mockery of life of up-to-date gaiety—a hollow sham such as many a girl might enjoy.
Which should she choose? As she went along that dull, muddy road in her thick golfing brogues and swinging her ash stick, she thought it all over.
Now and then “Tiz-oh” her Peke lagged behind, and she would whistle him to come to heel. In her walk she became self-absorbed. Her aunt had put before her the most difficult of all the problems in her young life.
She had passed the Ferry Hotel, that riverside resort so popular in summer, with its pretty lawn and landing-stage, which was usually so gay with its punts and riverside folk, yet on this early spring afternoon was deserted and forlorn.
At the door stood a youngish, clean-shaven man in a dark blue rain-coat, erect and smart, with something of the appearance of a ship’s officer. His grey felt hat was set at an angle, and as she passed, he was so entirely engaged in lighting his cigarette in the wind that he scarcely looked up at her. The glance was only a momentary one, but sufficient to cause him to become the more intent upon lighting his cigarette.
Sibell, in her distracted state, did not give the young fellow another glance, but continued down the road. He was no doubt one of the many Thames lovers who, year in and year out, stay at the Ferry.
The young man turned back into the hotel, and, on second thoughts, entered the coffee-room and ordered his tea. Then he took up an old illustrated paper and began to read.
Just as the neat waitress brought in the tray, heavy footsteps were heard descending the stairs, and into the room came a man who had been staying there for the past three days, taking long walks about the country-side, a hale and hearty old gentleman named Mr. Herbert Smee, who came from Northampton, and was a retired leather merchant.
“Nice afternoon, sir!” cheerily exclaimed the younger man, whose name was Gleeson, and who was a commercial traveller. “I was just going for a stroll, but thought I’d first have my tea.”
“So am I,” replied the rather short old man. “May I come out with you?”
“Certainly,” was the younger man’s reply, for Mr. Smee had, during the two days they had been fellow-guests there, struck him as an extremely intelligent and well-informed old fellow, possessed of a vast amount of learning. His business, he understood, had taken him abroad a great deal, especially to the East and to the centres of the trade in hides.
After tea they strolled out together, when, in about half an hour, they met Sibell with her dog returning. As she passed, the younger man gave her an inquiring glance, but at the same time he kept a watchful eye upon his companion’s grey face. The elder man, though he pretended not to notice her, had turned somewhat pale, and then halted for a moment in pretence of searching his pockets for his pipe, but in reality in order to recover himself from that unexpected meeting, which young Gleeson had so cleverly engineered.
Presently they returned to the pleasant little village, passing beyond their hotel, and continued on for a further quarter of an hour, when, from the gate of the Myrtles, there emerged Sibell, accompanied by her aunt, who wore a handsome fur coat, both women walking in their direction.
The men were discussing a film which both had seen in London, when Gleeson suddenly interrupted the other by saying:
“Here comes a very handsome woman. Don’t you think so? I wonder who she is?”
“Who knows?” grunted the old man, whose face clouded instantly, and his watchful companion was intrigued to notice his disguised anxiety to avoid her.
After another twenty minutes or so they returned to the Ferry, where, in the hour before dinner, they sat smoking and gossiping.
Meanwhile at the Myrtles Etta Wyndcliffe, who had suddenly remembered an engagement in London, was busily packing in order to leave directly after dinner.
The presence at Cookham of that little old fellow and his companion had alarmed her.
She had recognized the stranger staying at the Ferry as Albert Ashe’s mysterious friend, a Mr. Pearson.
What was he doing at Cookham? That was the point which puzzled her. And who was the smart, alert man who appeared to be his bosom friend?
Before ten o’clock that night she was at Paddington, and, having taken a room at the Great Western Hotel in the name of Mrs. Wilcox, she at once drove to Ashe’s rooms in St. James’s.
Having previously telephoned from her room in the hotel, she found the man anxiously awaiting her.
In a few quick, breathless sentences she told him of her encounter, while he stood aghast.
“What the devil is he doing down there? Why?” he cried, surprised. “And who can his companion be? Suppose Sibell has recognized him?”
“She hasn’t. They’ve never met. Unless she remembers him at Cannes.”
“By Jove! They must never meet, eh? We had one damned narrow escape with the dear, departed Rupert. We don’t want to risk a second.”
“I’ve been persuading Sibell to marry Gussie,” said the woman, casting off her furs wearily. “She’s an obdurate little simpleton, for any other girl but her would jump at the chance, thereby giving us all the commission we want and making everybody happy, even doddering old Gordon himself. But life is so full of disappointments, annoyances, and—well, narrow escapes, eh? my dear Albert!”
“And how does the girl take it?” asked the ex-butler, as he helped himself to a drink from the decanter on the sideboard.
“Resentful at first, but, after due reflection, she’s rather inclined to change her views. We must not allow her to make it up with Otway at all costs,” the woman added.
“That she’ll never do. I’ve made friends with the doctor who is looking after his practice, a fellow named Lancaster, and you bet I gave the young lady a great character for honesty. I saw that my words sank in, and I know he’ll let out what he has learnt from a reliable source—myself. I urged him to keep the secret, but he’s a blithering young idiot, and I know he’ll tell Otway at the first opportunity.”
“That’s all very well, Albert. But things are rapidly coming to a crisis. Where do we really stand?”
“We stand in with Gordon, don’t we?—not with old Pearson, surely.”
“I don’t know so much about that. He might very easily be in the cart with all three of us if we’re not very careful, you know! It’s a desperate game we are now playing!”
“There! You’ve got the wind up again—you silly fool!” said the man.
“Why do you say that? I didn’t have it on that terrible voyage to New York! I played the game—That you must admit.”
“Then play it again,” urged the man, with a weird grin. “We’ve gone so far, and we can’t turn back now. Sibell must marry Gussie Gretton—she has to—or, by heaven, we shall both be up at the Old Bailey. So the future is up to you. Up to you! You hear that?” he cried in a hard, decisive voice.
The woman placed her hands over her ears to shut out his fierce and unholy demands.
CHAPTER XXIX.
FURTHER MYSTERY
Next morning, readers of the Daily Express were much intrigued by a paragraph below a heavy head-line, “The House of Mystery,” which appeared in that journal.
Albert Ashe’s habit was to have the paper brought by the man with his early tea, and as he lazily scanned it, his eye caught the heading. He read it through, then, springing suddenly from his bed, he crossed to the telephone near the door and rang up Mrs. Wilcox at the Great Western Hotel.
In a few moments he was put through to her.
“Listen, Etta! Get the Daily Express and read what’s there. Have your breakfast first, and then come over here to me,” he said guardedly.
“What’s in the paper? Anything wrong?” asked the woman in quick apprehension.
“I can’t tell you on the ’phone. Just get the paper and read it. See you later.” And he rang off. His full face was pale and his hands trembling, for he was evidently terrified at what he had read.
He sat upon the side of his bed in his pyjamas and reread as follows.
“For some months great curiosity and much controversy have been evoked by the reopening of an ancient mansion, the Guest House, at Hampton Court—so called because it was used by Cardinal Wolsey to house his guests when, with his boundless hospitality, they overflowed from Hampton-Court Palace. It’s romantic history, and the reason its late owner closed it years ago, has already been told in the Daily Express, but some entirely inexplicable occurrences have lately happened there from time to time which have led the local residents to regard it as a House of Evil.
“After a recent auction sale, in which the whole antique contents were cleared at enormous prices, a firm of decorators—Messrs. Hudson & Brown, of Hammersmith—were given orders to entirely renovate and redecorate the place, so that it might be refurnished and rendered fit for the new proprietress—a young lady who benefited under the will—to take up her residence there. Following the reopening of the place, after being closed for over thirty years, there were curious circumstances. Several men were unaccountably taken ill, and, after a critical period, recovered, while in one case, at least, a victim of the evil influence, a caretaker and ex-police-constable named Farmer, died mysteriously—all being affected by some fatal disease of the heart.
“The latest mystery connected with these premises, upon which a sinister influence appears to rest, occurred at four o’clock yesterday afternoon, when, the redecoration of the premises being near completion, a French-polisher named Burton, living at the Mall, Hammersmith, while at his work upon the main staircase, suddenly collapsed, and within five minutes expired.
“The police were at once notified, and the body was, in due course, removed to the mortuary, where an inquest will be held.”
“Damn it! What next!” ejaculated Ashe, and then with hard, serious face he shaved and dressed, ready to meet the woman to whom he had posed as servant at West Halkin Street.
An hour later she stood in his room.
“Well? You’ve seen it, eh?” he exclaimed. “The poor devil died, and now there’ll be yet another inquiry! Suppose Sibell goes there and she gets affected! What about her marriage, and what about us? She has to be protected: you’ll admit that?”
“Of course, my dear Albert,” replied the handsome woman standing at the window and looking aimlessly down upon the dull, narrow West End thoroughfare. “What I’m working for is the amalgamation of the two fortunes. If we can do that, we can screw up Gussie to almost any figure we like. Sibell must not be frightened into giving up her inheritance, as she very well may be. If so, Gordon Routh will reap all the benefit of our constant labors. And we can’t afford that, eh?”
“I see in the same paper that Wyndcliffe is coming home on the Homeric,” he said.
“Not yet. I cabled to him yesterday saying that I was bored with London, and would join him next month, and go across to California with him. I’m getting him to buy an orange ranch there to keep him employed. So his return here is only paper talk. The further he is out of the way the better. Don’t you agree?”
“Of course I do, my dear girl. This occurrence last night is, however, most unfortunate, as it brings another official inquiry, and the more the public curiosity is aroused, the more insecure our position. The girl’s a damned little fool not to marry Gussie straight away and cut that young bug-hunter out of it. She must—she must!” he cried vehemently.
“Yes, Albert,” declared the woman, “I agree that she must, for the sake of all of us.”
“But what do you suspect to be the true secret of the Guest House? I ask you that,” he demanded.
“My dear Albert, I tell you quite frankly that I’m just as much in the dark as you are. It’s horrible—demoniac, one might say.”
He paused.
“Well, don’t, for heaven’s sake, let us take any risks ourselves.”
“I shan’t, because I’m a woman,” she said. “You may—as a man.”
“God help me, I hope not. But I tell you that, after reading this report, I’m absolutely afraid to enter the place,” Ashe said.
“Lots of other people are, too. This affair of the man Burton is absolutely amazing! Yet, if no woman has been affected, why should not Sibell be immune? That’s a problem.”
“But has it never occurred to you that the girl Forrester, whom Henry Dare was about to marry years ago, was taken ill there, and died mysteriously?”
“Not taken ill actually in the house,” Lady Wyndcliffe retorted. “According to what we know, she was walking in Bushey Park—up the chestnut avenue one spring morning, to be exact—and suddenly she felt faint, stumbled, and fell, and was carried to the Guest House to die. Again”—and she lowered her voice to a whisper, and said—“remember that Rupert did not feel any ill-effects of his visit to the place until at sea six days later. How can anybody account for it?”
“Nobody can, my dear Etta, and nobody ever will, if we still remain astute and wary,” said the big, athletic man. “Your plan, now that Rupert doesn’t trouble us any more, is to get Sibell to marry Gretton. I’m broke to the world—and so are you, I expect. I’ve about fifty quid between myself and a Rowton House, that’s all. The landlord of this place will never be paid, I can assure you”; and he chuckled hoarsely to himself. “Men who pay landlords are fools—unless they live in hotels. Then the weekly bill on one’s dressing-table has to be settled, aye or nay.”
“What are we to do, Albert?” the woman asked eagerly.
“Wait and see what the coroner’s jury have to say; and let’s hope that Sibell doesn’t see the case in the papers. If so, she’ll be more scared than ever.”
“Perhaps it will induce her to throw up the inheritance and fall into Gussie’s ready embraces. I only hope so.”
“Heavens! So do I,” laughed the man. “We must wait, my dear girl, and that’s all. But we must also find out from the old man first why he is at the Ferry at Cookham, and, secondly, who is the friend who walks with him there.”
“I’m a bit suspicious of that young fellow,” declared the woman. “And yet the old man is the most clever and elusive person I’ve ever met—and I’ve met a few men in my time. You know what I mean?”
After that Ashe nodded, and his visitor, swallowing a liqueur brandy which he poured out for her, wished him a merry adieu, and left him.
The report of the mysterious death of the workman Burton was seen by Gordon Routh, who at once showed it to his ward, hoping thereby, as Etta hoped, that it would bring her to a decision to forgo her evil inheritance and accept Gussie.
The girl read the account and shuddered. The Guest House was, indeed, a house of death, and hers was only a fatal inheritance.
Was she to share the same fate as Henry Dare’s fiancée in the Victorian days? She reflected that the innocent girl who, like herself, was in a few days to be a bride, had not been taken ill in the house, but outside, in the public park close by. Again, it was more than curious that, though so many women had entered the house since its reopening, viewing its contents and attending the three-days’ sale, no one had suffered any deleterious effect.
Two days later the result of the inquest was reported. The man Burton had died of a heart attack, revealed by the post-mortem examination, hence, to the public, the affair was no longer a mystery.
On that day Etta, who was pretending to Sibell to be staying with some friends at Hampstead, went down to the Myrtles to remain for a couple of nights, her real object being at all hazards to induce the girl to accept Gretton. Sweet and lovable as was Sibell’s nature, she was also a girl of strong and determined will. Once she made a decision, it was almost impossible to persuade her otherwise. She had lost the one and only love of her life, therefore she felt that she could never simulate affection for any other man than Brinsley, her ideal, her soul-mate, and the controller of her destiny.
Hour by hour she sat in that dull country cottage, with the old hunchback ever working out his eternal “systems” of roulette and trente-et-quarante. In those hours she dissected her own soul, becoming more and more convinced that marriage with Gretton was utterly impossible.
When her aunt very discreetly broached the subject after dinner, while they were alone, she told her quietly and frankly that her unalterable decision was to remain single.
“What, live alone in that awful place?” cried her aunt. “Why, my dear Sibell, it would be all too impossible! You’re absolutely mad to think of such a thing! And then, if you don’t live there, you will be compelled to relinquish your fortune!”
“As a matter of fact, I’ve already decided to live there, and discover the cause of this strange evil which appears to pervade the place,” was the girl’s calm, well-thought-out reply. “Already I have given orders for the carpets, and a portion of the furniture. I’ve given the people carte blanche to furnish it up to three thousand pounds. That will be a beginning.”
“But surely you won’t live alone there?” her aunt said, her eyes staring as she suddenly realized that not only her fat commission, but Routh’s share, were also slipping from them.
“I can hire a companion. Lots of girls are fond of adventure. I know one who was at school with me at Cheltenham.”
“Well, my dear, I tell you frankly that I’d be scared out of my wits if I had to live in such an awful tomb. Satan himself seems to dwell there.”
“My dear auntie,” replied the girl, “you don’t understand! Now that I’ve lost Brin I’ve lost all interest in everything in life, except to solve the problem of that house of evil,” she went on in a hard, despairing tone quite unusual to her. “In three weeks the house will be finished in readiness for me. I made up my mind over a week ago. Old Martha, who was Mrs. Sherwood’s servant at Ripley before her death, is coming as my housekeeper, and she is engaging the servants.”
Etta’s alert mind was quickly at work.
“You’ll surely want a man in the house, dear, if you really intend to embark upon this curious housekeeping,” she said. “Why not let me try and find Ashe? He was an excellent man. I fear I was rather peevish with him that day when I dismissed him so abruptly. I’ve been sorry ever since.”
“Well, you said all sorts of nasty things against him, auntie,” remarked the girl. “But certainly I know him, and perhaps, after all, he’d be better than a stranger. I wonder where he is.”
“Oh, I’ll find out,” replied her aunt quickly. “You really can’t do better than engage him, if you are actually going to set up house alone. I expect the agency in Marylebone Street from which I engaged him will know. He’s awfully loyal, and such an excellent man at table. It will be funny, when I come as your guest, that he will wait upon me, won’t it?”
CHAPTER XXX.
THE PLOT
In the dreary weeks which followed, while Sibell waited for her home to be prepared, she often stayed at a small private hotel in Cork Street, where she had lived in the London Season with her hunchbacked guardian, old Routh.
She had engaged as companion a girl named Edith Pearman, who, on leaving Cheltenham, had become a governess in a private school at Scarborough, and welcomed her old school-friend’s proposition. A well-educated girl of a somewhat severe, angular exterior, she wore horn-rimmed glasses, as a school-mistress should, yet, at heart, she was a most cheerful, laughing optimist, and, having learnt all about her friend’s bitter disappointment, consoled her.
Meanwhile, Gussie Gretton, prompted by Lady Wyndcliffe of course, was constant in the renewal of his attentions. He came round to Cork Street daily to take her out in his car for one or two runs to places, where they lunched and chatted, but all with little satisfaction to the ardent lover. Sibell was, of course, entirely ignorant of the vile compact which her go-ahead aunt had made, and simply regarded the elegant man’s desire to please as the natural outcome of his responsibility for Otway’s parting from her.
For a young doctor, fresh from hospital, to obtain even a foothold in his profession is indeed hard enough to-day. The old and out-of-date general practitioners, who have made enough to retire upon, are mostly snappy and crusty; if his young partner is a few minutes late for “surgery” he will not fail to snarl at him.
But Brinsley had been through the mill as house surgeon at an infirmary, and had actually secured a corner house with a red lamp, as every general practitioner longs for, and had very soon, by his merry disposition and kindness to the poor, acquired quite a good practice among the good people of that London suburb, Golder’s Green.
Yet, in a single night, all his love for Sibell had been blotted out, and well it might have been in such circumstances. Poor Sibell remained disillusioned and dispirited, with one determination only—to discover the secret of that evil influence which pervaded the house wherein the guests of Cardinal Wolsey had often been entertained in those long-ago days of the full glories of Hampton Court Palace.
More than once, accompanied by her new companion, Edith, she drove down to the Guest House in a hired car, and went over the place, here and there directing the furnishers, who were busily at work. The work occupied her distracted mind.
The long drawing-room, so dull, stately, and full of a bygone atmosphere, had assumed an entirely modern aspect, with its white-bordered panels of old-rose brocade, and a rich Wilton carpet to match. Some of the best pieces of old furniture were there—the fifteenth-century credence, which Bond Street dealers had begged her to sell; the old oaken cupboard with long, wrought-iron hinges, where, upon its top, an Elizabethan helmet, deeply rusted, had been placed.
When first she entered to inspect the spacious apartment, with its long windows, she expressed delight at its transformation. In one corner stood that heavy old velvet-covered armchair of the Florentine Renaissance, into which Mr. Gray, the auctioneer, had sunk, half-insensible, when he collapsed so suddenly.
A strong smell of fresh enamel and varnish pervaded everything, each room having been redecorated and refurnished out of all recognition. Some of the old leaded diamond panes of the ancient windows had been replaced by sheets of plate glass, and on every hand there were modern conveniences—electric lights cunningly concealed in heavy white cornices, and hot-water radiators were in all the bedrooms.
As on that day she went with Edith over the place, the foreman of the furnishing house said to her, after descending from the upper floor:
“The only thing that has not been touched is the wine-cellar, Miss Dare. At Mr. Gray’s orders it has not been opened, for he has the key. He said he would consult you before any alteration is made there.”
“Yes. I will see him about it when I come to live here,” replied the girl, expressing the greatest satisfaction as to the up-to-date scheme of furnishing.
“I fear some things may appear incongruous,” said the pleasant-faced man in a black overcoat. “There are several really priceless old pieces here, mixed up with quite modern stuff—an arrangement of which a connoisseur might not approve. But we understood, Miss Dare, that what you had put aside in storage was to be used.”
“Most certainly. The house is mine,” she laughed. “It is not the house of a connoisseur.”
On her return to Cork Street she found a telephone message from her aunt awaiting her, saying that she was calling at six o’clock.
Almost punctually she arrived, and, bursting into the room in her usual impetuous way, she exclaimed:
“Oh, my dear Sibell, I’ve to-day discovered where Ashe is to be found! If you write to him to Hammond’s Registry, Goodge Street, Tottenham Court Road, the letter will find him. I’d write at once, dear, if I were you.”
Sibell promised she would, whereupon Lady Wyndcliffe said:
“You’re going to the new house on Monday week, aren’t you? Poor Gordon will be awfully lonely without you.”
“Oh, I hope to see him as my guest very often, auntie—and you also,” she declared. “I’ve just been down to Hampton Court, and the place is quite transformed—so bright and artistic. You must really come and see it.”
“I fear I can’t, dear. I’m so sorry. As you know, I’ve closed West Halkin Street while Wyndcliffe is away, and I’m going to Scotland to-morrow to visit the McKays at Dalry. But I do hope you’ll be very happy, notwithstanding that you have not chosen Gussie as a husband.”
“I might change my mind,” laughed the girl saucily. “Who knows?”
“Well, dear, I heartily hope you will, for a life alone in that house is surely no existence for you.”
And, having applied her lipstick before the mirror and rearranged her hat, she shook hands and left, saying as she went out:
“Now, mind that you write to Ashe to-night or you may lose him!”
CHAPTER XXXI.
REJUVENATION
Spring was lengthening into summer, and already the spacious garden of the Guest House, now so well kept after so many years of neglect, was full of bright flowers, while the ancient trees, including a rare “strawberry-tree,” threw a welcome shade on a sunny day.
Sibell and her boon companion, Edith Pearman, had already installed themselves for over three weeks, living quietly and comfortably, though in the long hours the girl’s thoughts were ever of her lost lover—the love of her life. The servants, under the trusted old cook-housekeeper, carried on well, but in place of the obedient Ashe—who, at the last moment, made excuses not to enter Miss Dare’s service—an erect, rather smart, and narrow-faced youngish man, named Charlesworth, had applied for the post and obtained it.
At their first interview Sibell felt just a faint suspicion that she had seen the young man before, but after long cogitation, and examining the excellent credentials from a peer who had recently died which he presented to her, she had engaged him. The fact was that they had met before, but the girl could not recall the circumstances.
Ashe had at first been most anxious to become butler to his ex-mistress’s niece, but, having talked it all over in his room in St. James’s with the former, he declared himself too nervous to live in that house.
“Remember what happened to our dear departed Rupert after you had taken him to see the place,” he said to her. “No, my dear girl, I’m not going to risk it! Are you?”
Hence, Ashe having withdrawn, Charles Charlesworth became installed in his place.
Sibell had allowed herself the luxury of a new and expensive car, with a good-looking young chauffeur named Budd; therefore, when old Gordon Routh came to his ward’s house as visitor for a week, she took him for pleasant runs down to Brighton, Bournemouth, and Guildford.
With a big bank balance and quite a new set of friends growing up around her, Sibell Dare would have been intensely happy had she still possessed the affection of the one man whom she adored.
Alas! his silence remained unbroken. He was living with his mother in the North, a disappointed, disillusioned misanthrope, from whose heart all the zest of life had been crushed.
Gussie Gretton had driven down to call. His visit had been a mere formal one to look her up, and both were careful to avoid any discussion concerning the past.
One bright afternoon he called a second time, being admitted by the quiet-mannered Charlesworth.
“Well, Sibell!” he cried cheerily as he entered the long, handsome drawing-room. “Going on all right? No spooks or devils, or that kind of unholy influence, now that all the cobwebs have been cleared away, eh?”
“Nothing,” answered the girl, laughing merrily. “I’m beginning to think, Gussie, that those various affairs were all mere coincidences. Some enemy of our family gave the place a bad name, and it has stuck to it. That’s the opinion I am beginning to form, and Mr. Routh thinks so, too.”
“Well, it really seems so,” agreed her visitor, taking the cigarette she offered him. “People have declared this place to be a house of death, and some fussy old men, who call themselves antiquaries, have professed to have dug out all sorts of weird stories of its past. All uncanny, I admit; but how can people possibly come here and be affected by some evil influence which causes illness, and in more than one instance, actual death? It’s all bunkum, I say!” Then, as an after-thought, he added, “By the way, have you heard yet from Otway?”
The girl shook her head sadly in the negative, and in an instant he saw that he had approached the most painful subject in her heart.
“Do forgive me, Sibell. I’m awfully sorry that I should have referred to the past!” he hastened to say, laying his hand tenderly upon her shoulder. “I don’t forget that it was all my fault, and now I frankly tell you, my dear Sibell, that if ever I can help you in any way whatever in the future, you have only to count upon me as your friend.”
She sat up in her chair and looked into his eyes, half believing him.
At that moment the well-set-up young butler, Charlesworth, entered, carrying the big Georgian silver tea-tray, and, having arranged it, left silently and closed the door after him.
“Do you really mean that?” she asked.
“I honestly do,” he answered. “And do you know why, Sibell?” And he paused. “Well, strictly between ourselves, I believe that you’ve been the victim of some vile, damnable conspiracy, which has something to do with your inheritance. More, I do not know. That is my distinct and unalterable suspicion.”
“But why?” cried the blue-eyed girl excitedly. “Why should anyone plot against me? Surely, in all my life, I haven’t done a soul any harm!”
“Those who are innocent always suffer where greed of money is concerned,” the man replied. He had assumed a friendly and kindly attitude towards her. “That there is a plot, Sibell, I feel convinced,” he said, recollecting the vile proposition concerning commission that Lady Wyndcliffe had put to him one night at Ciro’s eighteen months before. He, as one of the most eligible bachelors in London, was reflecting upon a phase of life that he knew.
Open your morning paper and glance at the simpering Society brides in their little lace caps edged with orange blossom, smiling on the arms of their bridegrooms as they leave West End churches. Then, for a moment, reflect upon those who grace the dinner-tables of Mayfair, and reap their harvest of fat commissions each London season.
“Fewer marriage-mongers, fewer divorces,” said a candid judge in the Divorce Court not so very long ago. In the papers the Society divorce equals in attraction the Society marriage, until the commonplace would become staggered by the matrimonial chessboard of Who’s Who.
Gussie Gretton, awkward, as is every man, sat with his well-toasted tea-cake upon his lap and drank his China tea, and then, excusing himself to Sibell and to Edith, who had come in late after a walk over to Molesey, he rose, and was handed into his car by the ever-ready Charlesworth.
Sibell went to her room. She wanted to be alone to think. Already, after those few weeks, the big house, which smelt so strongly of fresh enamel and the odor of new carpets, had begun to pall upon her.
She cast herself into a soft chair, and in the dull twilight thought over Gretton’s curious suggestion that there was some desperate and most insidious plot against her in order to compel her to leave the house and refuse to live there.
Her lawyers had made it entirely plain to her that in such case, under the terms of her Uncle Henry’s will, she would have no alternative but to relinquish all claims to its benefits. She realized, too, that the only person to derive profit would be her hunchback guardian, old Gordon Routh.
That night she dined early with Edith, and afterwards went up to town in the car to a new play at Wyndham’s. Budd, the smart chauffeur, in his dark-green livery and polished gaiters, had been in the service of a queen of the variety stage, and was most polite and attentive in the wrapping of warm wraps. He had good wages and full licence to go hither and thither, save when he was wanted to drive, therefore he naturally regarded his mistress with the same solicitude as he had done the alert little lady of the music-halls who had married a peer’s son.
When the theatres had “burst”—that time-signal known to every London chauffeur or taxi-driver—he carried his charges speedily back to Hampton Court, though the night was misty.
It was late when the car drove in, but the alert Charlesworth was up to serve the girls with their cups of tea before retiring.
On the table in the dining-room lay a wire from Sibell’s aunt, which read:
“Returning to town to-morrow. Can I stay with you next Thursday for the week-end?”
The girl showed it to her companion, and agreed that they would both be delighted to have Lady Wyndcliffe as guest. Only a week before, in the London gossip of the Daily Sketch, there had been a brief paragraph that “Sadie Dexter, daughter of Issy Dexter, the great real-estate millionaire of Detroit, has been placed beneath the social wing of Lady Wyndcliffe, whose intimate circle of bright young people is so well-known, and who gives such exclusive dances in the season. Miss Dexter is a relation of Colonel Frank Dexter, who was the chief adviser to General Hughes during the Great War.”
Etta’s press-agent had been at work. He was a small, withered little old journalist who lived in a single room out at Balham and whose old-fashioned landlady took pity upon him. And yet in Fleet Street his name was one to conjure with. He made or marred reputations, because he knew exactly how to distribute dope to his pals in the various Fleet Street inns.
He could always slip a Treasury note into the hands of an outside gossip-writer on a daily newspaper, wrapped up in a paragraph. Thus who could tell of the “graft” when next day the important journal appeared with a photograph of a nobody who was being secretly boomed? So it is that, in this age of publicity, nobody of any note, and nobodies of any note, as well as the somebodies who count, from the highest to the lowest, can afford to neglect the offers of a press-agent.
In our present age of advertising, real worth hardly counts, and merit is valueless in any walk of life without a Press boom behind it, until the best-hated man or woman now becomes the most talked of and popular. Hence one dismisses most of the social gossip of the newspapers as mere inconsistent twaddle, which interests illiterate suburbia and benighted country cousins, who to-day are not so benighted as the directors of our Press seem to think. Once the Press created public opinion, but, thank heaven! the public nowadays thinks for itself—the public of whatever political views.
Sibell read the paragraph about Etta’s latest capture and smiled inwardly, wondering how much it had cost the ambitious American father. It was no affair of hers, for she had known such cases each season. After all, the title “Countess” covers such a multitude of judgment summonses and “orders of the Court.”
Nevertheless Sibell was ignorant that, though she led such a quiet, uneventful life, with Edith Pearman as her companion, very often the dark figure of a man would be in the vicinity of the Guest House after dark, waiting for hours sometimes, even from early evening, and often through the long dark watches of the night. The figure would draw back and conceal itself when any constable chanced to come along after midnight, yet the man was often there, watching the windows of Miss Dare’s room as though keeping a constant vigil upon the old-world house.
It was a haunting shadow, but it was there always—the shadow of evil or of good.
But those who lived in the newly-decorated house were completely in ignorance of that keen pair of eyes which kept an ever-vigilant watch.