Otway took from one of the shelves a heavy, parchment-bound tome, and found it to be an old treatise on Roman law, while next to it was an early folio edition of Shakespeare. As a lover of books, sight of them appealed to him, and he said:
“Before these are sold I would love to go through them. This Shakespeare, though not the first folio, is evidently of considerable value.”
“You’ll be choked with dust, darling,” she replied. “Wait until they clean down the place. Isn’t it awful? Look at the cobwebs.”
They took a final glance around the dingy little room, where the light struggled in through the dirt-encrusted windows, which could not be opened because their frames had rotted. Hence the place smelt close and musty.
“When cleaned and redecorated it will be most charming,” her lover reassured her. “I can’t think what has given rise to the belief that this is a house of evil. It certainly has been neglected, and, as in many other houses all over the country, people have died suddenly here, but the evil is, I feel certain, only imaginary—the result of some ill-natured local gossip that has grown into tradition.”
Had he known of the sudden and unaccountable manner in which Mr. Gray had been attacked he would certainly not have expressed such an opinion. But happily for the lovers, the occurrence was being kept a profound secret.
They ascended the broad oak staircase, on which the thick-pile carpet still remained, though it was in holes in many places, showing the wood beneath. In the great drawing-room the lovers found much to interest them as they made a tour of inspection of the spacious apartment. At once they saw that the furniture, though sadly out of repair, was genuinely antique, and that the pictures were of considerable value. Near the centre of the room stood the ancient armchair upholstered in faded crimson velvet to which Mr. Gray had staggered when he had been so mysteriously seized with illness, and the young doctor, knowing nothing of the occurrence, remarked upon the handsome Renaissance carving of its short, bulbous legs.
Together the pair stood at the dingy, weather-stained old windows gazing down upon the big, neglected garden, where the weeds grew breast high and the leaves were floating down from the ancient trees. By its successive owners that room had been kept practically the same as it was in Henry the Eighth’s time, except that the carpets and some of the furniture had been renewed by the father of the last owner on his marriage; an apartment full of objects of art, the atmosphere of which was that of the days of the Great Cardinal and possibly one of the most carefully preserved rooms in the whole Kingdom.
From room to room they passed, ascending to the bedrooms and servants’ quarters just as Mr. Gray and his assistants had done. They saw the ancient four-poster bedsteads, with their hangings of faded and time-stained chintz, the genuine Chippendale washstands and mirrors, the old fire-screens of needlework, and cushions worked in colored wools by hands that had crumbled to dust two centuries ago.
Wherever they went they raised dust, causing Sibell to sneeze violently, and by each thing they touched their hands became blackened, the girl remarking that her gloves were already ruined.
After nearly a couple of hours they descended, and, having chatted with the fat caretaker Farmer—who made no mention of Askew’s experience on the previous night, as he treated it as mere imagination—they left and returned to London, where, after dining together at the Trocadero, Otway saw his sweetheart off to Cookham from Paddington.
Next day the young doctor, having arranged with his friend Tarrant to look after his practice, set out early for the Guest House and spent the whole of the day in the great lawyer’s close-smelling library going through his books. Already an expert from a well-known West End dealer in rare books was there at the invitation of the auctioneers, a snuffy, white-bearded old gentleman named Ebenezer Tewe, and together they dusted and examined the title-pages and condition of volume after volume.
Some of them Mr. Tewe set aside as valuable, and others which took Otway’s fancy he, in turn, put away from the others. One treasure Otway found, which Mr. Tewe agreed was extremely valuable, was a vellum-bound volume of copies of the secret archives of Venice under the Doges concerning unknown poisons, how they were concocted, how they were used to remove the enemies of the ancient Republic of Venice, and the fees paid by the Republic to the secret assassins.
As a research worker in the field of toxicology, Brinsley Otway seized upon it, while Mr. Tewe agreed that it was one of the most unique and valuable of all the volumes in the library.
“There are only three copies extant,” said the snuffy old bibliophile. “One is in the Bodleian, the other in the French National Library, and the third is in private hands in America. It was sold at Sotheby’s for £6,300, and unfortunately went across the Atlantic. The compilation of it must have meant a lifetime of delving into the faded parchments in the archives of Venice.”
“The old Italian language will puzzle me, but the Latin part is quite easy,” Otway said, highly delighted with his fortunate find.
Throughout the day the two men worked together in the close little room, regardless of the half-inch of dust everywhere. Mr. Tewe identified several rare early printed books from the Nüremberg and Venetian presses, while with them was a file of Punch, from its earliest number down to 1883, together with the first six years of the issue of The Times, bound in calf, in a dozen volumes.
But the majority of the books were out-of-date law treatises, practically worthless to-day, though among them was a manuscript book upon English heraldry, with illuminated coats-of-arms, written in the crabbed and faded hand of Sir William Segar, Garter King of Arms in the reign of James the First.
Without thought of lunch, so absorbed were they, they continued their investigations until the light faded, and then Otway, having packed up the precious volume of Venetian archives, together with two or three other books, ascended the broad staircase to speak with the auctioneer’s representative, who was in the upper drawing-room.
Afterwards he left and hurried back across London to the small, red-brick, corner house of jerry-built type in the Finchley Road where he carried on his practice.
Old Mrs. Mobbs, his housekeeper, handed him several telephone messages from patients which she had given over to Dr. Tarrant, who lived farther up the road and who was going on a fortnight’s holiday, during which time Otway had promised to look after his practice.
In the cosy little bachelor sitting-room his modest dinner was laid, a single cover, for he usually ate a chop at nine o’clock, when the last of his suburban patients had left the surgery.
He was in the act of eating a peach, which he had taken from a plate on the sideboard, after untying the parcel of books which he had brought from the Guest House, when he was suddenly seized by an unusual faintness.
For a few seconds he stood rigid. The peach fell from his nerveless fingers. Then, crossing to the mahogany sideboard, he poured out unsteadily some brandy and swallowed it. It burned his throat. At the same moment he was seized by a violent fit of shivering. Convulsions shook his strong frame, while excruciating pains shot through his extremities. He stood as one transfixed, when a sudden spasm shot through his heart, and the glass fell from his fingers and was smashed to fragments.
Instantly he realized that the symptoms were such as he had never observed before. He held his breath and set his teeth. Then, with a supreme effort, and his eyes starting from his head, he managed to utter a sharp cry which brought his old housekeeper hurriedly into the room.
“I—I’m very ill!” he gasped. “Fetch Dr. Tarrant! Quick! Tell him that—that—I——”
But, alas! the sentence remained unfinished, for the poor fellow reeled and fell senseless upon the carpet, yet another victim of that mysterious evil influence which pervaded the long-closed house at Hampton Court.
CHAPTER V.
SHADOWS
Called by telephone, Dr. Tarrant hurried along to his young colleague Otway, whom he found stretched upon the carpet, a cushion having been placed beneath his head by the faithful housekeeper, Mrs. Mobbs. The portly old woman, in her neat black, was naturally greatly agitated. The practitioner fell upon his knees and unloosened the stricken man’s collar.
“I heard him cry out, and rushed in to find him suddenly attacked. He could hardly speak,” the woman explained. “He managed to tell me to ring you up, and then he fell on the floor.”
The doctor was busy unbuttoning the young man’s clothes and feeling his pulse and the region of the heart. He could discover no pulsation, and, as far as he could judge, Brinsley Otway appeared to be already dead. There was no sign of any flicker of life. The heart, indeed, had ceased to beat!
He straightened himself and held his breath. Even to him, a medical man of long practice, the affair came as a complete shock.
“But what can have happened?” he asked breathlessly. “Tell me exactly what happened—every detail,” he urged.
“I don’t know, doctor,” replied the bewildered woman. “He’s been away all day down at Hampton Court, as you know. He gets back just before half-past seven, when I had his dinner ready. He says to me, ‘I won’t have it for ten minutes,’ and comes in here. I saw him untying that parcel of books on the sideboard just as I passed to go to the kitchen, and then I suddenly heard him cry out. I dashed in just in time to see him collapse.”
“Did he drink anything?” asked the doctor, rising and going to the sideboard, where the package of old books lay open.
The broken glass on the floor aroused his suspicions.
“Did he go into the dispensary?” asked Tarrant, suddenly recollecting that he might have gone there on his return, fagged and tired, and mixed himself a cocktail from the many bottles there, for he dispensed his own mixtures.
“No, doctor. He didn’t go along the passage at all,” declared the woman. “I know he never passed the kitchen door.”
“Nor did he go upstairs, eh? He simply came straight into this room.”
“Yes, doctor. He came straight in here after he hung his hat in the hall.”
Dr. Tarrant crossed to the telephone and rang up Dr. Randall, another of his colleagues, an old practitioner who lived close by in a new street off the Finchley Road.
Then again he fell upon his knees beside the inert form of Brinsley Otway. The patient lay there with half-closed eyes, his face white as marble and his hands cold and stiffening.
Again and again the doctor sought for signs of life, but failed to discover any. Respiration had ceased, and with it the pulsations of the heart. The attack was most mystifying, for he had never before come across such inexplicable symptoms.
Randall was an old-fashioned, white-headed doctor of the highly pedantic type, who, rather rusty and out of date in his medical methods, concealed his ignorance, like so many others, by constantly referring to his Cambridge days and making the most of his knowledge of the classics. Patients of unimportance he did not take the trouble to impress, simply doling out innocuous pills and draughts, and trusting that the poor people would not worry him further. But his better-class patients he always took great pains to impress by his ’Varsity speech and manner.
As a matter of fact, he was utterly unable to diagnose such a case, leaving Tarrant, who was nearly twenty years younger and much more up to date, to solve the mystery.
Dr. Randall’s car, as it happened, was standing at his door; therefore, on receiving the call, he at once sprang in, and in five minutes was round at Otway’s.
When he saw the prostrate man he became instantly grave, and, after hearing briefly from Tarrant what had occurred, his clean-shaven, white-fringed face assumed a very grave expression. In contrast to Tarrant—who was an alert, dark-haired man of forty, and enjoyed a very wide and lucrative practice in the district—old Randall went about with an assumed air of superiority which caused him to be very much disliked, hence his practice had greatly fallen off.
“Heart disease,” Tarrant exclaimed after a long examination. “Angina—without a doubt!”
“That’s exactly my opinion,” said Randall, though he really held no opinion, being ready to agree with anything his friend might suggest.
“He probably walked home from the station too quickly,” Tarrant said. “He complained to me about a month ago of sharp pain in the chest, which he put down to acute indigestion. On feeling ill he apparently took some brandy,” he added, smelling the broken glass.
Together they lifted the inanimate form of their young colleague upon the old leather-covered couch, and placed his head upon a pillow.
At that moment Dr. Tarrant noticed a half-eaten peach lying upon the floor beneath the little table in the window.
“Why, he’s been eating!” he exclaimed, picking it up and examining it curiously. “I wonder if this has anything to do with the attack?”
“Oh, doctor, he’s eaten one of them there peaches!” exclaimed the old housekeeper. “I meant to tell him about them when he came in, but it went right out of my head. They were brought by a young woman who said she came from a firm in the West End, and, as they were addressed to my master and marked ‘perishable,’ I opened them and put them on a plate. There was no name of who sent them. Perhaps he ordered them. He orders things himself sometimes, and they are delivered.”
The two doctors exchanged puzzled glances.
“We had better have this analysed,” Tarrant said, holding in his hand the half-consumed fruit, which still retained the stone, and regarding it with a puzzled expression.
He placed it upon one of the clean plates upon the dining-table and put it aside, together with the other four ripe peaches.
“He may be poisoned!” suggested Randall. “But if so, it acted uncommonly quick.”
“When I saw him, only a minute before, he had just untied the string of the parcel, so he must have been taken ill almost instantly after biting the fruit.”
“Exactly. He did not have time to eat it all,” remarked Tarrant. “That is, perhaps, as well, for it may furnish us with the truth concerning the mystery.”
Turning again, he glanced at the white-faced figure lying so prostrate and still, and drew a deep sigh. He liked Brinsley Otway. Indeed, everyone liked the smart, up-to-date young fellow who was such a good friend to his charity patients, and so often attended the poor without taking a fee. There were times, too, when in a poverty-stricken home his hand went into his pocket and pulled out half a crown as “a present for the children.” And the starving mother knew not that that coin he gave often deprived him of his box of his favorite brand of Egyptian cigarettes.
“Don’t you think, doctor, that we ought to let Miss Dare know?” suggested the stout old woman, who had been gazing upon her young master’s marble face. “Poor girl, I’m afraid the shock will kill her! She’s such a sweet little thing, and they’re so devoted to each other. It’s a sin that the awful truth should be told her. But it must be.”
“Yes, my good woman,” said Dr. Randall in his best ’Varsity manner. “But it must be. Alas! that our love idylls never last. It is the same everywhere—the broken column of happiness and the realization that all earthly bliss is only a pipe-dream.”
“Well, call Miss Dare,” Tarrant said. “I know her quite well. She helped us at the piano in a concert for the blind held at Hampstead a few months ago.”
Mrs. Mobbs gave him the telephone number, and he at once telephoned to Cookham. Briefly he explained who he was, and told her that Otway had been taken rather queer, and suggested that she should come up to London at once to see him.
He heard her voice in reply, asking in anxiety what was the matter with him. But Dr. Tarrant answered in a calm, even voice:
“He’s had a rather nasty heart-attack through hurrying from the station, and he is asking for you.”
“I’ll come at once,” she replied breathlessly, and, after some further inquiries, rang off.
It was past ten o’clock when Sibell, hurrying, her big blue eyes anxious, alighted from a taxi in the Finchley Road. Entering her lover’s room, she found him lying upon the frayed old couch, the two doctors kneeling by his side, while standing near, watching the prostrate man, was the faithful old housekeeper.
As she entered, Dr. Tarrant, recognising her, rose to his feet and greeted her in a whisper.
“I’m awfully sorry to have disturbed you, Miss Dare,” he said, “but I thought it my duty to do so.”
“Is he alive?” gasped the white-faced girl, bending to the rigid face of the man she loved. His collar and tie had been removed, and he lay there fully dressed, his eyes closed as one dead.
“He is still breathing,” replied the elder of the two doctors. “His seizure is most unaccountable. He was in the act of eating a peach, it seems, when he suddenly collapsed.”
“There was nothing wrong with the fruit, I hope,” cried the distressed girl. “I bought them in Regent Street this afternoon, and sent them to him.”
“Ah! I’m glad we know that!” remarked Dr. Randall. “We were told by Mrs. Mobbs that a strange woman had left them.”
“I forgot to put in my card,” Sibell said. “But will he recover?” she asked breathlessly.
“We are doing our best for him,” answered Tarrant, whom she had met once before. “His heart is unfortunately very weak.”
“But what can be the cause?”
“The symptoms are those of sudden failure of the heart,” was the reply.
“Then his illness has nothing to do with the fruit?” she asked eagerly.
“Probably not. I will send the rest of the peach he was in the act of eating, with the others in the basket and the broken glass, to Sir George Orelebar to be analysed as soon as I can. Then we shall know the truth. Of course he may be poisoned, but I do not anticipate it.”
Sibell breathed more freely, and for a long time stood staring at the unconscious man, whose countenance was white as marble. The doctors, with their stethoscopes, knelt and listened constantly to his breathing. She watched their faces. Once that of Dr. Randall assumed a graver expression.
“No! Don’t!” she shrieked, laying her trembling fingers upon his arm. “No. For God’s sake—don’t tell me he’s dying!”
The white-haired old doctor shook his head gravely, and replied:
“A flicker of the fire of life is still discernible, but whether he will pull through we cannot yet tell. It is a serious attack—very serious indeed.”
At that moment Dr. Tarrant’s big-built Irish chauffeur burst into the room and handed his master a tiny phial with a glass stopper for measuring drops. Instantly Randall poured out some water into a small glass, to which he very carefully added ten drops of the drug. Afterwards he held it to the light, examining it critically, and, while Tarrant held up Otway’s head, the other forced the draught between his teeth; and, the helpless girl stood watching.
The whole tragic affair was most puzzling. The girl had flung off her coat and hat, and, in a sleeveless gown of black georgette trimmed with silver, which made her neck and arms look like alabaster, she again sank upon her knees, and, as they laid his head back upon the pillow, she bent forward and kissed his cold, hard face in front of them all.
The room was warm even to stuffiness, so the window was opened, and through it came the chimes of the church in the Finchley Road as the clock struck the hour.
Would he live? The scene was pathetic. Of all the crowd of medical students at Guy’s, Brinsley Otway had been one of the most popular. He was certainly the leading light of the Medical School, and in preparation of charity “rags” he was always full of new ideas for “stunts.”
“I fear it is a case of mitral incompetence of the heart,” remarked Dr. Tarrant in a low voice to his companion. “The symptoms are very evident; there is the feeble pulse, œdema of the lower extremities, and anasarca.”
“Where there is mitral incompetence there is usually some pulmonary congestion,” remarked the other. “That condition appears to be absent.”
Sibell heard, but did not understand their argument.
“Is it very critical?” she asked.
“Very,” replied Tarrant. “We had better place him on his bed.”
Quickly the bed upstairs was arranged by Sibell, and the two men, assisted by Mrs. Mobbs, carried him in, when Sibell left while they undressed him.
The poor girl was beside herself with grief. With blanched face and clenched hands, she paced the narrow passage feverishly. She blamed herself for sending him that fatal peach. Would he be spared to her? If he died, then her future life would be a blank, for she could never love again. Brinsley was her ideal; she worshipped him as a god.
She remained there during the night, but there was no improvement in her stricken lover’s condition. The two doctors remained with him till two o’clock, when Tarrant left, carrying with him the remainder of the peach, and the fruit which had not been eaten.
Hour after hour, with her lover’s coat wrapped about her bare shoulders, the girl sat near the patient’s bed, while Mrs. Mobbs made tea for Randall and herself. Time after time the girl tenderly smoothed the unconscious man’s pillow, and ever and anon kissed his cold, white brow.
“Is mitral incompetence of the heart very serious?” she asked Tarrant when he returned to relieve his colleague.
“Very serious indeed, Miss Dare,” replied the collapsed man’s friend. “Few people recover, but we hope that Brinsley, being in such good health, will get through it.”
“What is the use of being pessimistic, sir?” remarked Mrs. Mobbs. “We can’t afford to lose the young master, and, moreover, we’re not going to do so,” she added vehemently.
“The crisis is from twelve to fifteen hours after the attack. That will be before mid-day,” he said.
The girl, with weary, deep-set eyes, waited till five o’clock, but, as there was no sign of returning consciousness, though Tarrant declared that he was still living, she went into an adjoining room and cast herself upon the bed, where she dropped off to sleep, thoroughly exhausted.
At three o’clock that afternoon Dr. Tarrant, having driven to Kensington, stood in the laboratory of Professor Orelebar, the well-known Government analyst, whose evidence was so often taken in criminal cases.
“The peaches you brought this morning show no sign whatever of contamination,” declared the shrunken little man in a black coat which seemed several sizes too large for him. “I have submitted them to every known test, but I have failed to establish any evidence which could lead to the supposition of poisoning. We have worked all day upon it, and Professor Grant entirely agrees with me. The glass contained pure brandy.”
Dr. Tarrant thanked the famous adviser to the Home Office, and, as he walked back to the High Street, Kensington station, he became fully convinced that the young man’s condition was due to heart trouble.
Sibell lived through an interminable week of dread and uncertainty.
She went to stay with her aunt, Lady Wyndcliffe, in West Halkin Street, but each day she went to Finchley Road, yet her lover still lay unconscious, watched by a nurse and Mrs. Mobbs, Dr. Tarrant visiting him thrice each day. The report, alas! was always the same. The patient showed no sign either of improvement or returning consciousness. He lay motionless and white in that small, darkened room, hovering hour by hour between life and death.
Dr. Orlando Snow, a bald-headed Harley Street specialist, was brought by Dr. Tarrant one afternoon, and, standing by the inanimate form lying there so blanched and still, he heard from him exactly how he had been discovered, while the housekeeper described the distress which Sibell was suffering.
“She comes here every day and sits in tears. Poor girl, she’s inconsolable! It must be a terrible blow for her,” said the sympathetic Mrs. Mobbs.
“It must be,” replied the specialist. “I wonder what caused the attack?”
“Heart—mitral incompetence; that’s my diagnosis,” said Tarrant.
Snow was silent for a few moments, his eyes fixed upon the immobile countenance of the patient. Then he made his own examination, and agreed entirely with the general practitioner.
“Serious?” asked Tarrant.
“Very. I don’t like his condition at all,” the grey-bearded specialist answered gravely. “But he may just pull through”; and he gave several directions to doctor and nurse.
“Poor Brinsley,” exclaimed Tarrant. “I do hope he’ll pull through.
“The whole affair is a complete mystery,” Tarrant remarked. Then, lowering his voice to a confidential whisper, he added: “Œdema of the lower extremities, anasarca, and all that.”
“Yes; were it not for Orelebar’s declaration that there was nothing wrong with the peaches, I should suspect poisoning,” declared the great specialist.
“But Mrs. Mobbs now admits that when the peaches were left she ate one of them from the basket. She suffered no ill-effects. Therefore why was Otway taken suddenly ill when eating one of them some hours later?”
“He only ate half,” the specialist pointed out. “The other half and the stone have been analysed by Orelebar and Grant, both great experts in poisons, and have been declared to be quite sound and good, without traces of any toxic substance. Yet I repeat that, if it were not for the symptoms of heart-trouble, I should certainly suspect poison.”
None, not even Sibell herself, had any knowledge of the strange experience which had befallen the auctioneer, Mr. Herbert Gray, while inspecting the Guest House, or the serious illness that had followed. Some evil influence was at work at the House on the Green. But what was it?
CHAPTER VI.
MISTRESS AND MAN
More than a fortnight elapsed before Brinsley Otway had sufficiently recovered to get up and sit by the window. Thin and pale, a mere shadow of his former self, he had been very near death, yet, thanks in a great measure to the attention of the nurse who had come from the Middlesex Hospital to attend him, and the constant care of Dr. Tarrant and Sibell, he had slowly struggled back to life.
Sibell’s joy knew no bounds when she heard that her lover was at last out of danger. She visited him daily, brought him all sorts of delicacies, and sat with him for hours while the nurse went out for her daily relaxation.
Each afternoon they were alone, and often sat locked in each other’s arms, he raining kisses upon her full red lips.
“You have been given back to me by God, my darling!” she one day whispered to him, her slim, tender hand smoothing the dark hair from his brow. “I constantly prayed that your life might be spared. And God has answered my appeal.” And she gazed into his countenance with the lovelight in her big blue eyes.
He drew down her head and kissed her upon the lips for the thousandth time, unable to utter the thoughts which arose within him. Hand in hand they sat together for fully five minutes without speaking. The fire burned brightly, and the place was warm and cosy that chilly autumn day, for outside it was dark and rainy, with the eternal honking of the motor traffic below in the Finchley Road.
“I hope the doctors will be able to cure you, entirely,” the girl said, with serious apprehension. “Does Dr. Tarrant think you might have another sudden attack?”
“He thinks it improbable. My heart is quite normal, and it only remains for me to gain weight. He says I’m to have a holiday. But where can one go in England at this time of year?” he asked.
She reflected for a moment.
“Aunt Etta wants to take me to the Riviera in the second week in November. Uncle Edward is going to New York. Why not come out with us?” she suggested.
“A good idea! I’d be delighted, if I could arrange for a ‘locum.’ But your aunt might not approve,” said the young man.
“I’ll suggest it to her to-night. I feel sure she’d love to have you. They have a sweet villa at Cannes—a delightful place on the hill. Do come!” she cried enthusiastically. “The sunshine and flowers and blue sea will soon put you right again, dear. And, besides,” she added with a delightful smile, “I don’t want to be parted from you for four whole months. It would seem an eternity.”
“Don’t you, darling?” he laughed, stroking her fair shingled hair. “Well, ascertain your aunt’s views.”
“I will. And, if she agrees, I’ll book you a berth on the Blue Train we are travelling by. Ashe, and Bevan, my aunt’s maid, are going with us. Ashe is invaluable. Aunt Etta never travels without him. Uncle Edward has some business in New York for a company of which he is a director. He is to join us for a few weeks before we come home at the end of March.”
Old Mrs. Mobbs brought up their tea, which Sibell poured, and, after a cosy meal by the fireside, they both smoked cigarettes until the nurse returned to take up her duties. Then Sibell put on her smart fur coat, and, with a silent kiss in secret, bade him farewell.
At West Halkin Street she found the Countess alone, reading in a corner of the drawing-room, a handsomely-furnished apartment on the first floor, and at once suggested that Brinsley might go to Cannes with them.
Lady Wyndcliffe stirred in her chair, and, looking over her book, replied:
“I’ll ask your uncle, and hear his opinion, dear. Do you mean that he should be our guest—or go to an hotel?”
“Why, be our guest—if he could, auntie. If we are alone, we can go to so few places. If Brinsley is with us, he can take us to dances and all sorts of shows. It was, as you know, horribly dull last year till we met Mr. Lavis.”
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s true I like the air on the Riviera. It always agrees with me. But the people are such a horribly mixed lot. The world and the half-world rub shoulders, and the former imitate the latter, till one can scarcely discern the dividing-line,” her aunt said with an air of utter boredom.
Lady Wyndcliffe had shown herself much better disposed towards her niece since she heard the news of her great inheritance.
“Yes, auntie. But it’s often very amusing on the Riviera—if you have a man to take you about. And Brinsley is such an excellent dancer—which you admit.”
“He is. I like dancing with him,” her aunt declared. “Of course if I can persuade your uncle to let him go with us, I certainly will.”
“Thank you, auntie dear,” cried the delighted girl. “I’ll go up and take off my things.”
And she ran to her room full of eager anticipation of a merry time with Brinsley amid the gaiety of the Azure Coast, with its palms and olives, its blue seas and flower-scented zephyrs.
They dined alone en famille at the polished oval table with shaded candelabra, and an epergne of great chrysanthemums as a centre-piece. In the dim light Ashe, the discreet, obsequious butler, a clean-shaven man whose hair was edged with silver, moved silently in the shadows of the luxuriously-furnished room, and served them with that soft voice and deftness characteristic of the perfect family retainer.
Lady Wyndcliffe, who had been out at a charity matinée that afternoon, gossiped about it during the meal.
Afterwards a friend of hers, a Mrs. Hall-Carew, who lived in Curzon Street, called for Sibell and took her to the theatre, while later on, Lord Wyndcliffe, a bald-headed, heavy-faced man, went out to play bridge with some friends in Mount Street, leaving his wife alone.
The slim, handsome woman sat for a full quarter of an hour pondering, her brows knit, her elbows on her knees, her chin resting upon her hands, gazing at the carpet.
“I wonder if it would be quite safe?” she pondered.
Presently, as though in sudden decision, she rose and pressed the bell.
The door opened a few minutes later and the exemplary Ashe entered, closing the door quietly after him.
“Well?” he asked abruptly. “What’s the matter now?”
His manner was completely different from the polite, well-mannered butler who had served dinner. He was self-possessed and arrogant, more as though he were master of the house and the Countess a menial.
“I was just going out,” he said gruffly. “What do you want?”
“I want to talk to you, Albert,” said the woman in a low-cut sleeveless black gown embroidered with silk flowers around the hem and corsage. “Sit down.”
“What about?” he snapped. “Don’t let us carry on that discussion of this morning. I’m fed up with the whole damned thing!”
“Not more so than myself,” replied the woman, in a tone which one does not use towards servants. “Sit down, please, and hear calmly what I’ve got to say, Albert.”
“I’ll go and get a drink and a cigar first. I can be more attentive then”; and, laughing grimly, he descended the stairs to the dining-room. On his return he was smoking one of her husband’s choicest cigars, while in his hand he carried a glass of whiskey-and-soda.
He turned the key in the door and threw himself carelessly into an arm-chair. He said at last:
“Now, Etta, my dear, I’m all attention.”
The woman looked at him strangely. There was a curious aspect about the dark head with its poise of proud aloofness, its subtle air of distinction, and the unmoving, absorbed way it was turned to the man-servant who sat before her.
What had caused that burning melancholy in her eyes? Was it due to the subtle chiselling of her white, heavily-fringed lids? And the sorrowful lifting of her brows? Could that, too, be merely caused by exquisitely-sculptured contours? Or were they merely mute signals of a soul in distress—a distress so deep that the woman had ceased to struggle and had given herself up to terrible despair? What pitiless fate could have made her look like that?
“I see that something’s a bit wrong,” said the butler. “You were not like this at dinner. What’s the matter?”
“I’ve had bad news,” the pretty Countess said. “I wore my mask at dinner—as I am always compelled to wear it. I’ve had bad news.”
“I guessed as much,” said Ashe, holding his cigar in his fingers. “Well, let’s know the worst.”
“Rupert is coming to London!”
“Rupert!” gasped the man, starting to his feet. “By heaven! He mustn’t come—he mustn’t ever find you!”
“He will probably have a difficulty, now that I’ve changed my name and married Wyndcliffe.”
“It was a damned bad move on your part, Etta, ever to have married the old ass. I told you so at the time.”
“I know—I know!” cried the unhappy woman. “But he has been so very good to me, so what would he say if he knew the truth?”
“He will never know—provided you are discreet,” Ashe assured her, his rather bloated face set hard, and his brows knit in thought. The problem presented by his mistress’s announcement was certainly a very difficult one, a contretemps which would require the greatest tact and ingenuity to avoid successfully. He contemplated the end of the excellent cigar for a few moments.
“How do you know Rupert is coming?” he inquired suddenly.
“I had a letter from Eric Britton, in San Francisco, by this afternoon’s post, giving me warning.”
“I don’t trust that stiff Britton,” the man snapped.
“He knows nothing of my present whereabouts. He sent the letter addressed to Morgan’s Bank in Pall Mall, and they forwarded it on to Burton’s Library, in Kensington—where I am known as Mrs. Higham.”
“If Rupert is in search of you, then mind he doesn’t trace letters sent to Horgan’s Bank,” her companion said.
“I’ve already thought of that. I’ve written to the bank, asking them to send all my letters to the Poste Restante at Melbourne, as I am going on a pleasure trip to Australia. Instead of that, we are going to the Riviera.”
“That’s all right,” said the manservant. “But it would be far better to prevent Rupert from coming over to London at all. If he’s here, then there is constant danger. Think of the big stake we might so easily lose. Think of this present life, Etta—of the terrible uncertainty of it all; of the daily fear you have of Wyndcliffe discovering the truth. Reflect upon it all,” he urged, standing before her. “There must be some way out of this. And the only way out I see is to prevent him from coming over.”
“How can you do that, Albert?” asked the woman in despair. “How is it possible?”
“It wants all thinking over,” he snapped, a hard, determined expression on his countenance. “I must devise some plan. But we won’t trust that fellow Britton, for, if the worst came to the worst, he’d certainly smell a rat. And we surely don’t want that. No, you must just fade out for a bit.”
“To the Riviera, I suppose,” she said. “Sibell wants me to invite Otway. What do you think?”
The man, to whom his mistress was so familiar and confidential, hesitated for a few moments.
“Well, in the circumstances he might perhaps be useful. But I do hope they’re not too deeply in love with each other, otherwise it may cause us a good deal of trouble. You know what I mean?” he added, regarding her very strangely.
She swallowed the lump which arose in her throat, and in a low voice exclaimed:
“I know at what you are hinting. Please do not refer to it, I beg of you.”
“I won’t. I only point out that the less love existing between the pair, the better for everybody concerned,” he said. “On the other hand, I can see no reason why the young fellow should not go with you both as companion, especially as I shall not be there.”
“You’re not coming with us?” asked Lady Wyndcliffe, aghast.
“No. I shall have other matters much more important to attend to,” he replied in a mysterious manner. “I haven’t yet thought out this sudden danger which threatens. When there’s danger, you know, Etta, I’m the first to face it. It isn’t the first little alarm we’ve had by several. So just leave it to me to find a way out. We can’t go on much longer as we’ve been going. Happily for our success, Sibell knows nothing, and suspects nothing. Neither does your ass of a husband. But we are both out for money—big money—is not that so?”
“I agree,” his mistress said. “But I won’t go to Cannes without you.”
“I’ll get a good servant for you, never fear. I’ll see about it to-morrow. There’s a man named Nivern just leaving Lord Cathlake’s. He’s quite reliable, I happen to know.”
“Where shall you go?”
“I don’t know just yet. Rupert must be prevented from coming to London, and it’s no use sitting here awaiting disaster, is it? If he comes, then he must meet you or Sibell sooner or later. Therefore he is best over in America. Let’s see—it’s quite five years or more since that affair in New York.”
“Well, nobody knows about that except you,” said the woman grimly.
“No. You’ve led old Wyndcliffe up the garden very well indeed, Etta,” laughed the man, drinking deeply of his whiskey-and-soda.
“Give me twenty pounds,” he said suddenly. “I’ve had a rough week. Every horse I fancied went down.”
Without protest, the heavy-eyed woman rose, and, going to her room, returned with two ten-pound notes, which she handed to him.
“Thanks,” he said, as he crushed them into his vest pocket. “I’ll want three hundred or so to go on with when I leave. I’m just going out for an hour or two.”
And, carefully throwing his cigar-end out of the window, he turned and left.
Next morning, after breakfast, Lord Wyndcliffe and Sibell were sitting in the morning-room, the girl idling over a picture-paper, when they heard a violent altercation in the dining-room between her ladyship and the butler, Ashe.
“I’ll hear no more!” Sibell heard her aunt shout. “I will not stand your abominable insolence any longer! You are dismissed, and will leave the house this morning. You can have a month’s wages in lieu of notice, but I’ll not have you in my house another hour!”
And Lady Wyndcliffe dashed into the morning-room and burst out crying.
“Ashe has been most abominably insolent to me, dear!” she declared to her husband through her tears. “I’ve sent him away.”
“Insolent to you!” cried the man, starting angrily to his feet.
“No, dear!” she urged, her hand upon his shoulder. “Please don’t excite yourself. He’s gone to pack up. I’ll send his check into the kitchen, and we are well rid of such a fellow.”
“I’ve never liked him,” declared the Earl.
“Neither have I,” Sibell agreed. “He’s always seemed so abominably familiar, auntie.”
“Never mind, dear. He’s going. So we must look out for another man. Mrs. Owen Clark gave me the name of a man the other day. I’ve got his address somewhere.”
And so, an hour later, the faithful Mr. Albert Ashe, who had been nearly two years in the employ of Lady Wyndcliffe, left West Halkin Street with his luggage on a taxi-cab.
But before he went he managed to snatch a few whispered words with his mistress in her boudoir.
“When you go to Cannes, be extremely careful to hide everything from young Otway. Remember the great secret I told you the other day!”
The woman nodded, her face white to the lips.
“Well, if you hear of anything happening, keep your own counsel, and put two and two together. That’s all! Be very careful of Otway. He may be of great use to both of us. You carried out the quarrel admirably. I’ll meet you again soon, Etta! We’re out for a big stake, and we’ll win—never fear!”
CHAPTER VII.
THE MAN WITH RED HAIR
When that morning, after Ashe’s departure, Sibell’s aunt told her that she had decided to invite Brinsley to accompany them to Cannes, she at once rang him up to tell him the joyful news.
Then she put on her coat and hat and went down to the office of the International Sleeping Car Company, in Cockspur Street, where she was fortunate enough to find that a one-berth compartment on the Blue Train from Calais to Ventimiglia on the day they had booked sleepers had been cancelled, so she at once engaged it.
Otway was not yet well enough to go out, therefore she called in the afternoon and, as usual, sat with him by the fire and took tea and toast which the housekeeper brought up.
They were both enthusiastic concerning their journey south, for Brinsley had never been to the Riviera, therefore she described some of the pleasures and gaiety of winter life by the Mediterranean.
“I’m trying to persuade auntie to send out the car with Craven,” she said. “Uncle will be away, so he won’t want it. Besides, a car is so handy on the Riviera. One can run about and see one’s friends, or go over in the evening to Monte. We really must have it. I’m insisting upon it. It will be cheaper for Craven to take it across from Boulogne, than to hire one in Cannes.”
“If you use your persuasive powers upon your Aunt Etta, you’ll no doubt succeed, darling,” he said, with an affectionate hug.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” exclaimed the girl. “Ashe has gone!”
“Ashe gone!” cried her lover in surprise.
“Yes. He’s Aunt Etta’s right hand, so I don’t suppose he’ll be away from us for long,” Sibell said. “There was a row after breakfast this morning—exactly why I can’t discover—but in any case the excellent Ashe was impudent about some order he was given, so auntie simply gave him the sack at a moment’s notice, paid him up, and away he went. He was out of the house in a quarter of an hour.”
“H’m, a bit of an upset, eh?” remarked the young doctor.
“Uncle was furious, but she managed to calm him down. Isn’t it priceless? Hitherto, auntie would never have a single word said about him.”
“I’ve never liked the fellow,” declared her lover. “He always seemed to assume such superior, supercilious airs, and in his face there was a low cunning expression that always made me suspect him of robbing your uncle over the wines and cigars. When he went off duty he became the gentleman, I suppose. I met him one night at Hyde Park Corner, and he looked like a smart club man.”
“I know. I’ve seen him dressed quite elegantly when he went out. To me he was, however, always very polite and obedient. So I’ve nothing to complain about, except of his rather brusque, familiar manner towards my aunt sometimes. Several times I mentioned it, but auntie told me to take no notice, as it was only his way.”
“Well, though he used to serve me very well, and was most attentive at table when I dined at West Halkin Street, I’m rather glad he’s gone. Why I disliked him I couldn’t tell you, dearest. But I did. I can’t explain the reason. It was intuition, I think.”
“Auntie has written to a new man, and if she engages him, he’ll go to Cannes with us. He could go in the car with Craven. I’ll suggest it.”
When Sibell had kissed him and had gone, after the return of the nurse, Brinsley Otway sat in the old arm-chair with his arms folded, silent in deep thought.
The sudden and unexpected dismissal of the Earl’s faithful man, Ashe, puzzled him. Was there anything behind that violent quarrel? He himself, during the evenings spent at West Halkin Street, had not failed to notice the familiar manner in which the fellow treated Sibell’s rather go-ahead aunt. His demeanor was certainly not befitting that of a servant. Once, too, he had overheard some whispered words between mistress and man. He was alone in the study one evening, choosing a book from the shelves, and happened to be stooping down behind a small screen and thus concealed when he heard the Countess slip noiselessly into the room, followed by Ashe.
“What is that telegram you’ve just received?” demanded the man quickly in a low whisper. “Tell me the truth,” he growled threateningly.
“Here it is,” faltered the woman, apparently haunted by dread. “You need not be so fierce. It’s only from that freak Emily Taylor, who wants to come to town and stay with me.”
“Oh!” Ashe replied. “I feared it might be from him! I’m sorry. No harm done.”
And then the servant slipped out of the room, followed by his mistress.
Those strange words Otway overheard had since caused him to ponder frequently. Being on such terms as they were, it seemed more than curious that they should part after a violent altercation.
As he sat he remembered that curious conversation, every word of which had sunk indelibly into his brain. Ashe’s manner to his mistress was so deferential and obsequious at table that the conversation in question both puzzled and intrigued him. Of course he had said nothing to Sibell, but the scene at West Halkin Street which she had described caused him again to ponder.
At dinner that night, served by one of the maids, Lady Wyndcliffe, addressing her bald-headed husband across the table, said:
“I’ve seen the man recommended to me a little time ago, dear. I telephoned to him, and he came this afternoon. Quite nice and smart. A trifle younger than Ashe. He has excellent references, so I’ve engaged him. He is coming to us the day after to-morrow.”
“Good!” said his lordship, settling his dress tie. “I’m glad you gave that fellow Ashe the sack. He was always drinking my whiskey and smoking my cigars. I used to smell them when I came home at night. The fellow used to smoke in the drawing-room. I’m sure of it. Why, I came in late last night after you’d all gone to bed, and I distinctly smelt one of my cigars in the drawing-room. Been up there while we were all out, no doubt. Damn the fellow!”
“Ashe was all right if he could refrain from being insolent,” remarked his wife. “He was an excellent servant, but he had that one fault.”
“Well, auntie, we’re well rid of him, I think,” Sibell chimed in. “Let’s hope this new man will turn out well. I’d let him go with Craven in the car. Let them start three days before us.”
“Who said we were taking the car?” asked the Countess.
“Well, surely it’s cheaper to take your own bus than to hire! You know how last year we found the hire absolutely ruinous. And one can do nothing on the Riviera without a car. Besides, uncle will like it when he comes out. The run across France only costs a few pounds.”
The Earl laughed in his brainless way, remarking:
“I suppose you want it out there because you like to drive yourself, eh?”
“Well, there’s a good deal in that!” the girl admitted. “But without a car it’s simply dreadful there.”
A long argument ensued, but in the end Sibell cajoled her aunt into the idea of sending the chauffeur Craven with the car, and the new butler, to the South of France—a fact which Brinsley duly learnt over the telephone.
About ten o’clock one evening a few days later, a rather short, thick-set man in well-cut evening clothes and a five-diamond ring upon his finger entered “The Owls,” one of the small dance clubs in Wardour Street, Soho, the chief patrons of which were writers, painters, the lesser lights of the drama of both sexes, mannequins at West End shops, art students of both sexes and their models; indeed it was one of London’s centres of Bohemia—or what still remains of it nowadays.
The man, who was apparently well known, handed in his coat, signed the members’ book, and passed into the ground-floor room, at the end of which was a bar. The stuffy little place was nearly filled by a gay crowd of reckless young men and women, many of whose faces bore traces of dissipation and late nights. From the basement below came the strident strains of a jazz band mingled with gay shouts and laughter as the man, whose eyes had eagerly searched around as though expecting somebody, seated himself on a high stool at the bar and ordered a cocktail. Then he lit a cigarette, and, with one eye on the door, sat smoking and chatting to the barman, a foreigner in a white linen coat who was deftly serving drinks.
Suddenly a man entered, and, as the other waved to him in recognition, came forward.
“Hulloa, Mr. Ashe!” exclaimed the short, thick-set little man, evidently Italian from his accent. “Haven’t seen you lately, sare.”
“No, Johnnie. I’ve been away in the country,” replied the discharged butler. “Thought I’d just look in for half-an-hour. Have a drink?”
“Thank you, sare,” replied the dapper little Italian, who was maître d’hôtel at one of the smartest West End restaurants.
“You remember one day, about three weeks ago, you told me of a young man you know who lives in the same house as yourself in Guilford Street—that man who was suddenly taken ill.”
“Oh, Meester Fetherstone! Oh, yes. He’s better now.”
“It was influenza, wasn’t it?” he said, bending to him and whispering.
The little dark-eyed man raised his shoulders and pulled a wry face.
“You recollect what you told me—the conversation about detectives. There were several young men in the sitting-room that night, eh?”
“Several of them. They were discussing some secret about evil influences.”
“That’s interesting, anyway,” laughed Mr. Ashe. “They evidently know something about evil curses and such-like mysteries. Yet I don’t see why such things as curses should concern ’Varsity students. Tell me about Fetherstone.”
“All of the boys seemed most interested,” Johnnie said in English with a strong Tuscan accent. “Fetherstone comes here sometimes. He has red hair.”
“You told me about him. I wonder if he is downstairs? I’d like to be introduced to him.”
“I’ll go and see,” said the man from Leghorn, who at once went below to the dance-room. On returning a few moments later, he said:
“Meester Fetherstone is downstairs. He is dancing.”
Both drained their glasses and went below into the rather low-pitched basement, which was spacious, running as it did beneath the two adjoining houses. Around the walls were set a number of little tables at which drinks were being served, at the end was the usual platform with its jazz orchestra, while the centre of the floor was so crowded by dancers, mostly in their day clothes, that it seemed difficult to circulate.
On every hand large notices stated: “Hard-boiled shirts not allowed!” together with humorous distortions of well-known proverbs and many flags and streamers. Ashe and his companion found a table after some little difficulty, and, the dance being concluded, the Italian, whose full name was Giovanni Savini, pointed out Fetherstone, who was seated with a fair-haired, rather smartly-dressed mannequin on the opposite side of the room.
“Contrive to introduce me later on, Johnnie,” Ashe said. “Do you really think you are right?”
“I don’t know, Meester Ashe, but I have my ears open you know, and I hear a lot of discussions. My bedroom is next their sitting-room,” replied the maître d’hôtel, “and sometimes I hear very funny things.”
Ashe and Savini had been friends for a considerable time. They had first met in Paris six years before, the Italian then being a waiter at the Grand Hotel while Ashe was for some months living as guest in that colossal establishment. Then, three years afterwards, the Italian had one night served him in the Savoy in London, and they had recognised each other. The smart maître d’hôtel possessed a wide knowledge of London’s underworld; hence they were often out together late at night after the closing hour of the restaurant de luxe in the West End where the Italian was now employed.
Ashe, with his shrewd observation and acumen, had long ago discovered that his friend was, in secret, the associate of adventurers and crooks of both sexes, who brought their “pigeons” to lunch or dine at the expensive establishment where he was such an ubiquitous and obliging servitor. And, being attracted by crookdom, he had cultivated the man’s acquaintance.
Half an hour afterwards, Fetherstone’s lady friend having left him to Charleston with a white-haired and well-known portrait painter, Savini went up to him and invited him to their table, where Ashe was introduced, and the trio were soon taking drinks in the form of whiskey-and-soda served in teacups and poured from a tea-pot.
The place was now crowded by a very mixed assembly. The theatres were over, and all sorts of men and women, including many of the night-hawks of London, were shouting, laughing, drinking, dancing, and throwing serpentines to the strains of the deafening orchestra; hence conversation was difficult, and Ashe could scarcely make himself heard to the young student across the table.
The ex-butler took infinite trouble to impress Fetherstone with his air of careless bonhomie, but presently a black-haired girl, an artist’s model, came along, and, greeting the young fellow, sat down uninvited at the table and began some good-humored banter, which immensely amused both the student and the Italian.
“I like that man Ashe,” remarked Fetherstone to the Italian as they walked past the dark façade of the British Museum on the way to Guilford Street. A church clock somewhere in Bloomsbury had just struck half-past three, and the winter’s morning was frosty and bitterly cold.
“Meester Ashe is a very good friend of mine. Un buon amico,” declared Savini.
“What is he?” inquired the student.
“He does nothing. Spends a lot of money, and when he gives a leetle dinner he orders always the best. He leave it to me.”
“Yes, he’s a real decent sort,” declared the red-headed young man enthusiastically. “I’m meeting him at the Idlers on Wednesday night.”
“Ah! I am on duty that night. We have a large private party—Lord Melfort’s coming of age,” Savini said. “So I can’t join you, sare.”
“Do so another time, Johnnie,” Fetherstone urged. “Ashe is a fine fellow to spend an evening with—full of fun, isn’t he?”
Arrived at Guilford Street, they let themselves into the silent, frowsy-smelling old house and crept upstairs to their respective rooms.
On Wednesday evening, according to appointment, Fetherstone met Ashe in the obscure little club in Wardour Street, where they had several drinks, and on two occasions girls known to the light-hearted student of Bart’s carried him off to dance with them. At such establishments the girls seem mostly dance-mad, for they live a hectic, unhealthy life, often stimulated by “snow” and other deadly things which are procurable in secret on the premises—provided one has the money.
CHAPTER VIII.
MR. ASHE IS INQUISITIVE
Feigning to be tired of the deafening orchestra and the atmosphere of the Idlers, Mr. Ashe suddenly suggested that they should take a taxi to the private hotel off the Strand where he was living, and where they could have a drink and a smoke amid more peaceful surroundings. In consequence, half an hour later they were seated in deep easy-chairs before the fire in a cosy little private sitting-room in Norfolk Street, with long glasses at their elbows.
Ashe had been describing his imaginary travels in Chile, Argentine, and Brazil, and told his companion that he contemplated going on a trip up the Amazon.
“I’m a writer, you know. That is why I travel so extensively,” he explained.
“It must be most interesting,” said Fetherstone, much impressed by his newly-found friend’s conversation. “Authors can travel about, but doctors never, unless they enter the service of a shipping line. But that isn’t a paying proposition. I’m going in for medicine. When you work up a practice you’re in the same corner-house for life. My father has promised, as soon as I’m fully qualified, to buy one for me. Then I shall be expected to vegetate in some country town, or perhaps in some smiling village, and remain there till I expire of sheer boredom. But I’m not going to do that, if I know it!” he declared, with a laugh.
“I should think not! Be ambitious. Set yourself out a task and achieve it against all odds. That’s the only way to success, my dear boy,” said Ashe. “Apart from the scientific interest in the practice of medicine, I should fancy the ordinary practitioner’s life to be the deadliest and dullest of all professions—even the profession of hair-cutting.”
Both men laughed.
“At Bart’s we’re quite a cheery crowd,” explained the young fellow presently. “We sometimes manage to wake up things a bit in the evening. But we all dread the time when we are passed out upon the world as ‘duly qualified.’ ”
“Yes, I must admit that an author leads an untrammelled life, going hither and thither over the face of the world just as he pleases in search of fresh material with which to interest his readers. Nowadays an author can’t afford to stay at home and write about everyday occurrences. He must hit upon some new theme, and, if he is a novelist, some fresh local color not hitherto portrayed. Novelists are spread all over the world. From the Arctic tundras to the jungles of Africa and the Far East, and from the film studios of Hollywood to the slums of that almost extinct port of Vladivostock, are hundreds of wandering writers, each collecting materials and atmosphere for new books which, sooner or later, will, in pictorial covers, be displayed in booksellers’ windows”; and then Ashe, in his well-cut evening clothes, sat back, sipped his drink, and posed as an author.
“What are you writing about just now?” asked Fetherstone, much interested.
“Well, I’m busy studying a rather unusual subject—the old mediæval curses and their results. I want to write a novel and introduce some curse so subtle that it cannot be detected.”
The young man pursed his lips. The mere mention of curses aroused his interest. He did not know the name of Ashe as a novelist, yet, being no novel-reader, it was not surprising that the name was unfamiliar.
“Well,” he said, “we hear much about curses, anathemas, and imprecations and all that sort of thing in the Middle Ages, but to-day it is all out of date. Curses are only believed in by neurotic persons whose mentality is unbalanced.”
“But those mediæval curses, and the evil placed upon old houses and persons inhabiting them, I am studying, and the ancient beliefs of some of the uncivilized countries.”
“A most interesting study, I should say,” remarked Fetherstone. “Very little is really known about them, except that there are some curiously well-authenticated cases.”
“I suppose you have studied the question, eh?” asked Ashe.
“Yes, superficially. There are several houses supposed to be haunted by evil in England, and several in France and Italy.”
“Do you happen to know anything of them?” asked his companion in an artless way.
“Oh, just a little—what I’ve read, that’s all. There are quite a lot of books on the subject,” said the red-headed man. “The tales of certain old châteaux in Hungary are, to me, of the greatest interest. Until a short time ago, though I had heard strange stories about them, as any person interested in the subject hears, I placed no credence in their claims. Now, however, my opinion has quite altered.”
“What do you mean?” asked Albert Ashe, instantly interested.
“I mean that it seems without doubt that there was an evil placed upon the Imperial Palace of Tsarskoe Selo in Russia, and in consequence the régime of the Romanoffs was brought to an end. It was due to the baneful influence of the mock monk Rasputin, who caused the illnesses of the Tsar’s young son. The monk, who was an intimate friend of the Imperial Family, would prophesy that on a certain day—perhaps in a month’s time—the boy would be seized with an illness which would prove fatal. After that his accessory, Madame Vyrubova, the Tsaritsa’s lady-in-waiting, would treat him, and surely enough on the day prophesied by the ‘Holy Father’ the lad would have a sudden seizure. Then Rasputin would pray at the stricken lad’s bedside, and the poor little fellow would regain consciousness and recover in fulfilment of Rasputin’s prophecy and mock prayers. He was the Evil Spirit of Imperial Russia.”
“A very clever bit of swindling,” laughed Ashe. “But Rasputin was one of the most remarkable charlatans in history. The downfall of Russia was due to him, wasn’t it?”
“Who knows truly? As an evil-minded scoundrel he had possession of some secret, and used it to demonstrate to the Imperial Russian Family the accuracy of his prophecies and the efficacy of what he pretended were his prayers.”
“Well, if any person learned such secret of evil he could commit any amount of crimes without being found out, for he might be even on the other side of the Equator when the tragedy occurred and nobody could connect him with it. This is a complete revelation to me,” declared Ashe, with truth. “I never knew that such things could exist.”
“Not a dozen people in the whole world know the secret evil that can be influenced by some,” the medical student alleged with equal truth.
“And you are one of them, eh?” remarked Ashe, with a mysterious smile.
“Yes. The information came to me in a very curious and confidential way from an old uncle of mine.”
“Intensely interesting,” declared Ashe, whose face had now assumed a deep, thoughtful look. “It is just the baneful influence I want to describe in my new novel. My plot just requires that one thing to complete it. I suppose the truth cannot be described. It is only known to a very few?”
“A dead secret, and hardly one which should be revealed to the public, do you think?” asked the younger man.
“Certainly not, unless in such a manner that it could not be used for evil,” Ashe said. “But could such a condition of evil be invoked here in London?”
“It can be invoked anywhere. I happen to know that there is one person capable of exercising his powers in London at the present moment!”
“Is there?” cried Ashe, with a sudden eagerness that he was unable to repress. Next moment, however, he cleverly assumed an air of unconcern. Then he laughed, and asked: “Have you ever heard of a man named Bettinson?”
“No. Bettinson? Who is he?”
“Oh, I’ve heard vaguely of him as a student of the occult. That’s all.”
He was clever enough not to press the conversation further, and Fetherstone accepted him at his own valuation, that of a writer struggling into fame.
They chatted until nearly two o’clock in the morning, when, after a final drink, they parted, and the medical student walked home to Bloomsbury through the drizzling rain.
Soon after ten o’clock on the following evening, while Mr. Ashe was smoking his cigar in a comfortable chair before the fire, in his hotel off the Strand, a page-boy brought up a card bearing the name of “Mrs. Denham.” He rose and gave orders for the lady to be shown up, whereupon Lady Wyndcliffe, a smart, erect figure, entered the room.
“I’m glad you got my message, Etta,” he said. “I couldn’t leave London before I saw you. Take off your coat and sit down.”
And he helped her off with her handsome sable coat, which had been given her by a friend on her last birthday.
“Sibell is with Otway, so I was alone when your friend rang up,” she said. “Is it very important?”
“Yes, rather. Do you know whether Otway has any friend named Fetherstone, a medical student?”
“Fetherstone? Yes, I believe he has. Why?”
“I only wanted to know if they were acquainted,” replied the ex-servant reflectively. “I have reason for wanting to know.”