The Project Gutenberg eBook of The house of evil
Title: The house of evil
Author: William Le Queux
Release date: March 31, 2025 [eBook #75760]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited, 1927
Credits: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer
THE
HOUSE OF EVIL
BY
WILLIAM LE QUEUX
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
LONDON AND MELBOURNE
1927
CONTENTS
THE HOUSE OF EVIL
CHAPTER ONE
“Hugh, old man, you’re growing as close as an oyster. This is twice this week you have dined out, leaving me solitary, and refused to tell me what you are up to. I wonder what it is you have got up your sleeve?”
Two young men were strolling down the lovely Promenade des Anglais at Nice. The elder, the Honourable Hugh Craig, was twenty-seven; Leonard Lydon, his companion, about six months younger.
They had been fast friends at Harrow, where Craig had risen to be the Head of the School, and afterwards at Balliol, and the friendship had continued after they left Oxford till the present time.
Craig, the youngest son of Viscount Clandon, was a member of an old aristocratic family which, for generations, had been closely connected with the government of the country. Several of the heads of it had sat in the Cabinets of their day and generation; other members had filled high civil and military posts in England and its Dependencies. Hugh himself was in the diplomatic service, and was enjoying a brief holiday with his friend on the lovely Côte d’Azur.
Leonard Lydon was of humbler stock than his aristocratic companion. His father, a wealthy Liverpool merchant, had risen from small beginnings. He had laid the foundations of his fortune very early in his career, so that he was able to give his numerous family the advantage of a liberal education. Each of his five sons was sent to a public school, and subsequently either to Cambridge or Oxford.
The Liverpool merchant had died a couple of years ago, leaving behind him a handsome fortune, half of which was left to his widow for life, the other half divided between the five sons and four daughters.
The two elder sons inherited the business, as well as their share of the private fortune. As there were nine persons to divide the half of the total amount, nobody received a very huge sum, but enough to bring in a comfortable income.
After taking his degree at Oxford, Leonard had become deeply interested in wireless research, and had studied until he became a full-blown radio engineer, a profession which he followed in the Admiralty during the later years of the War. After peace he joined an American Wireless Communication Company which had a branch in England. At the time this story opens, he had been appointed this Company’s chief engineer and designer. As he was in receipt of a handsome salary, his financial position was a very comfortable one.
His friend, Hugh Craig, was not so well off as himself. His family, though very ancient, was poor for its position. He was still in the lower grades of the diplomatic service, and his private income was a small one. But the Clandon influence would later on be sure to secure for him a snug post. He was, however, better off than a good many members of impoverished families, as he had been left a moderate legacy of a few thousands by a near relative.
When his friend rallied him upon his secretive mien, Hugh gave one of his disarming and diplomatic smiles.
“I expect you’ll learn all about it in good time, my dear fellow. You know I was always rather a reticent sort of chap, fond of making a mystery of small things.”
Lydon laughed. “That’s one of the truest things you have ever said, Hugh, and nobody who didn’t know you thoroughly, like myself, would ever guess it. On the surface, you give the impression of being one of the frankest men living. That appearance of yours will be one of the greatest assets to you in your career. How easily it will enable you to hoodwink people when you want to!”
Hugh Craig smiled in his turn. “From all I can learn this peculiar characteristic has run in the Clandon family for generations. I suppose that is why so many of us have taken so readily to statecraft and diplomacy.”
That evening, Leonard Lydon dined by himself at the Hôtel Royal, as he had done a couple of nights ago. During the progress of his solitary meal, he speculated a good deal upon the cause of his friend’s absence. Of an ordinary man, the man whose type he had met in scores, he would have said there was undoubtedly a woman at the bottom of it.
But Hugh Craig, good-looking, self-possessed and débonnaire, with that smiling, charming manner, was by no means an ordinary man. Even as a boy he had been a complex character, and the transition to manhood had deepened the complexity.
Intimately associated as they had been all these years, Lydon was forced to confess that he knew very little of the inner personality of his friend, the part which he hid so successfully from the world under that smiling, débonnaire mask.
Did he care greatly about women? Did he care at all about them? For the life of him, Leonard could not give a definite answer to that question. As was natural on the part of such young men, they had often lightly discussed the other sex together. But out of these conversations nothing of a hidden vein of romance had been revealed by Craig. His comments might have been those of a rather cynical philosopher of twice his age.
Only once had he made any remark bearing directly upon himself, which might be taken to represent his well-considered opinions on the subject, and on this occasion he had spoken with more gravity than was his wont when the conversation touched upon the themes of love and marriage.
“No man who intends to make a career for himself should ever commit the folly of falling in love,” he had said. “Because the chances are ten to one that he will fall in love with the wrong person. Marry for sound, sensible reasons perhaps. Even then I think I should postpone the step as long as possible, so far as I am individually concerned.”
Lydon, whose temperament was rather of the romantic kind, looked the surprise he felt.
“But surely you will marry some day, Hugh? Not too early perhaps, but when you have got a comfortable post?”
The answer came very deliberately. “It might be an absolute necessity of the position. But putting that on one side, I feel no great yearning for the married state. If I were the eldest son, it would be necessary for me to provide an heir; but the Clandons are so prolific, they are not likely to die out for want of representatives.”
On the whole, Lydon would have said, from these and other remarks dropped by the calm, smiling young diplomatist, that Hugh Craig was very little attracted by women, and the last man in the world to be capable of a grand passion.
But he was not at all sure. During the long term of their friendship, Hugh had so often surprised him by sudden revelations of a side of his character totally unsurmised, that he could not reckon upon him with any degree of certainty.
It was just on the cards that he had suddenly met a woman who had the power to stir his languid pulses. And Lydon had always suspected that, deep down under that placid exterior, there was something volcanic slumbering which would one day burst into flame. If Hugh ever did love, it was more than probable he would love with an unreasoning ardour.
If there was a woman, who was she? Where had they met? The two young men had been so much together during their stay at Nice, that opportunity did not seem to have offered itself very abundantly. And one thing was quite certain. If Hugh had a serious love affair, nobody would be told about it till the very last moment. Secretiveness about his personal concerns was the keynote of his character.
Having finished his dinner, Lydon went into the lounge. He had not been there long when the Stormont family came in. It consisted of Howard Stormont, a stout, rubicund, clean-shaven man of about fifty, who bore his years gaily; his niece, Gloria, a pretty, blue-eyed, fair-haired girl with a slender, graceful figure, and his widowed sister, Mrs. Maud Barnard, a woman who dressed in a rather extravagant style.
They had struck up a slight acquaintance with the two young men, chiefly with Lydon, who was a very cosmopolitan fellow. Craig had not taken greatly to the party, being a person of very fastidious taste. When he talked them over with his friend, he admitted that Gloria was a remarkably pretty girl, “would have been quite worth cultivating if she had possessed different relatives.” The rubicund Howard Stormont he declared to be an aggressive type of profiteer, and Mrs. Barnard he evidently considered to be an unrefined, over-dressed woman.
Lydon did not take this severe view of the uncle and aunt. Mrs. Barnard was a trifle flamboyant in dress perhaps, but she was also exceedingly amiable and good-natured. Stormont’s manners were possibly too hearty for perfect refinement, but he was a genial, cheery fellow, and full of a shrewd wit.
As for Gloria, Leonard though he had never come across a more charming girl. In the few chats they had enjoyed together when Craig happened to be absent, she had told him a good deal about herself. Her parents lived in China, where her father held a high position in one of the European banks. As the climate did not suit her, she had made her home with her uncle, the rubicund Howard Stormont and his widowed sister, at Effington in Surrey.
He also learned that, like many modern young women, she was an athletic girl, passionately fond of all outdoor games and sports. As he was no mean athlete himself, he admired her the more for this fact, which rather surprised him, as her appearance did not suggest any particular robustness, but rather the reverse.
Presently Mr. Stormont went away to write some letters, and soon after Mrs. Barnard followed him. The young people were left alone.
“What has become of your friend, Mr. Craig?” the girl asked him. “This is the second time this week he has left you to dine in solitary state. I feel quite sorry for you.”
She had a very sweet, musical voice. In fact Lydon thought everything about her was dainty and refined, far above the average.
The young man smiled. “Yes, Craig has been very mysterious the last few days. He goes off on his own, and he won’t tell me a word about it. He parries all hints with his usual diplomatic ability and sang-froid. You can’t ruffle him, you know.”
“I should say it would be quite impossible,” was Miss Stormont’s answer. “You are very great friends, are you not? I have often wondered why.”
“What is it that causes you to wonder?” asked Leonard.
Miss Stormont blushed a little at being called upon to explain her rather unguarded remark.
“You seem such exact opposites. You are perfectly open, impulsive, not to say impetuous. If asked for your opinion, you blurt it out at once, sometimes without very deep thought, if you will forgive me for saying so, as I have often known you to alter or modify it as you go along. Mr. Craig is so different. Behind that smiling urbanity is an intense reserve, a profound caution. Somehow, if you ask him a straightforward question, his answer is so fenced about with subtleties that you don’t feel satisfied.”
Lydon laughed heartily. The girl was very frank, even to the point of indiscretion. But she had certainly judged his friend pretty shrewdly. Even those who loved him and admired his very considerable gifts were forced to admit that there was a good deal of the Jesuit about this young descendant of diplomatic ancestors.
They had the longest talk they had ever enjoyed together that evening in the almost empty lounge.
As she prattled gaily along, with that frankness which was natural to her, he learned a good deal about the rubicund Howard Stormont himself. He was engaged in business, a very busy man and possessed of boundless energy. He was not fond of London life, and so far as was compatible with his business interests, played with great gusto the rôle of country gentleman. He had purchased a charming place some five years ago, and was never happier than when strolling around Effington village in his country tweeds, and chatting familiarly with the inhabitants.
This estate had been acquired from an impoverished and hard-living young sprig of the nobility, a grandson of the Earl of Sedgemere, who had originally owned the fine seat known as Effington Hall. Under his short tenure, the revenues which should have gone to the upkeep of the property had been diverted to gambling and riotous living. The once big estate had been disposed of bit by bit.
Stormont, the wealthy man of business, had soon altered this. The mansion and estate had been vastly improved, and pretty Effington village had been renovated out of all recognition. Upon the completion of his purchase, he had given a donation of five hundred pounds towards the restoration of the exquisite thirteenth-century church with its grey square tower, such a well-known landmark in the Surrey landscape. In the “county” he was highly respected for his generosity and magisterial work, for very soon after his purchase of Effington he had been put upon the roll of Justices of the Peace for the county of Surrey.
So, somewhat to his surprise, Lydon learned that this homely, rather commonplace-looking man, whom his friend Craig described as an aggressive profiteer, was a person of importance in business circles, and not altogether undistinguished in the more select sphere of county life.
“I enjoy travelling very much,” she told the young man, after she had furnished him with these details of her uncle’s biography. “But my happiest time is at Effington with the dear dogs and horses. I know everybody in the place, and the hours seem to go as if they were minutes.”
“You seem to me rather a lucky girl,” remarked her companion, “and I expect you are spoiled by both uncle and aunt.”
Miss Stormont admitted with a pretty smile that he was not very far out in his guess. Howard Stormont was one of the most generous and easy-going men alive, and nobody could be more indulgent towards youth than Mrs. Barnard. She was very young in spirit herself, and preferred the society of her juniors to more staid company. They indulged her in every reasonable wish, and kept open house and practised an almost lavish hospitality.
No wonder, thought Lydon, that the county had taken them to its bosom. And although Craig had conceived a quite pronounced dislike for both the man and his sister, Lydon, less fastidious and critical, thought them very delightful people. Stormont was probably a self-made man, but he detected in neither him nor his sister any offensive signs of the newly-rich. He was not a snob, as affable to a waiter as he would have been to a duke, and never bragged. Mrs. Barnard was perhaps a trifle too flamboyant and juvenile in her attire for a woman of her years, but this, after all, was a very venial weakness.
The tall, elegant girl he considered perfection; he could not see in her anything that he would have wished altered. And so she was the adopted daughter of a wealthy man! It was not much use allowing his feelings to stray in that direction. Howard Stormont would certainly have different views for her future. His friend Craig perhaps, with that fine old family record behind him, might have been considered favourably. But what had he, Leonard Lydon, a man of moderate income and no particular position, to offer such a peerless girl? Better put the idea out of his head with the least possible delay.
Still, it was very delightful sitting there and chatting to her. She talked to him as if she had known him for years, and there was not the faintest symptom of coquetry about her. She seemed a perfectly frank and open girl and quite free from conceit, unconscious that her undeniable personal charms were bound to work havoc on the opposite sex. She was not one of those sophisticated modern maidens who are always out for conquest and admiration.
They sat there for a long time, as neither Howard nor his sister reappeared. Presently Craig returned from his mysterious visit and came into the lounge in search of his friend. It struck Lydon, who could read him more easily than most people, that, in spite of the urbane mask which he so rarely removed, he was preoccupied and gloomy.
Craig was too well-bred a gentleman to be absolutely rude to anybody, much less to an attractive young woman. He addressed a few polite remarks to Miss Stormont, but it was not difficult to see his mind was elsewhere while he was making them. His presence seemed to have a rather chilling influence on both young people. Miss Stormont evidently was affected by it, for, after a very brief interval, she rose and bade them good night, saying that she must go and look after her relatives.
The young men smoked together for about half an hour, and during this time the conversation between them was desultory and fitful. Lydon was more sure than ever that his friend had something on his mind, but in spite of their close intimacy he did not venture to question him. Craig had a chilling manner of repelling confidences which it required a very callous man to put up with. If he did not think fit to unbosom himself, wild horses would not drag anything from him. When he had finished his cigar, he rose and rather abruptly intimated he was going to bed. Lydon stayed a little longer, thinking of Gloria Stormont and her exquisite charm, and then followed his example.
In the morning he came down rather late to breakfast, and was surprised to see the Stormont family in the hall, in the act of departure. The portly man addressed him in his usual breezy and genial manner.
“Glad to have a chance of saying good-bye to you. Amongst my letters this morning, I found one summoning me back to England on urgent business that brooks no delay. Very pleased to have come across you. The world is small, I expect we shall meet again some day. Come along, Maud. Gloria, hurry up.”
There were hasty hand-shakes. Gloria smiled very sweetly and flushed just a little as she bade him farewell. Lydon felt his spirits sinking very low at her departure. He went into the dining-room and found Craig half-way through his breakfast. He imparted the news to his friend.
Craig made the very briefest comment. “I suppose you will miss her. You seemed on very good terms when I came upon you last night. Well, my dear chap, perhaps it is better. A very undesirable family, although I admit the girl is vastly different from her uncle and that overdressed aunt.”
Leonard did not make any reply to this unkind speech. He knew his friend too well. He was not a man of violent likes or dislikes; but when once he formed an unfavourable opinion of anybody, nothing would ever alter or modify it. Howard Stormont and his widowed sister were anathema to him, and anathema they would remain till the end of the chapter.
They were staying on for the best part of another week, and during that period the young men were together the greater part of the time. But on several occasions Craig absented himself for short intervals, giving no explanation of his movements.
And one day, by the merest chance, Leonard saw him in a side street, engaged in conversation with a shabby, rather furtive-looking foreigner. As they were too occupied to notice him, he soon removed himself from their neighbourhood.
He had come across a few acquaintances at Nice, and Craig a great many. But this shabby furtive-looking foreigner was not the sort of companion suitable for the fastidious young diplomatist. Clearly there was some mystery going on, which his friend was carefully hiding from him. Probably it might be connected with his diplomatic business, but Lydon had an uncanny idea that a woman was at the bottom of it, whatever it was.
Never did he forget that early morning of the day which they had fixed for their departure. In the evening, Craig had gone out to dinner for the third time during their stay. Lydon went to the masked ball at the Casino, and returned early in the morning. He concluded that Craig had come home and gone to bed, knowing that his friend would not leave the Casino till late.
He was about to undress when he was called to the telephone by the police, who gave him alarming news. Would he go at once to the Villa des Cyclamens at Mont Boron, as his friend Mr. Craig was dangerously ill?
He had felt a little nettled the last few days by what he considered Craig’s unfriendly reticence; but when he received this message, all his old affection for the staunch comrade of so many years returned in full force. As soon as possible he was at the Villa des Cyclamens of which he now heard for the first time.
CHAPTER TWO
Great was his astonishment at finding the pretty villa overlooking the moonlit Mediterranean in possession of the police, amongst whom he observed the shabby furtive-looking man whom he had seen talking to Hugh in the side street of Nice.
The chief official approached him and addressed him in excellent English. “We sent you a rather guarded message, Mr. Lydon, as we felt we could break the news better to you when you came here. A very terrible tragedy has occurred.”
Lydon held his breath. He knew now that the mystery about Hugh Craig’s frequent disappearance which had so puzzled him was about to be solved by this bland, courteous official.
“A terrible tragedy?” he faltered. “In Heaven’s name what has happened?” The man proceeded to explain. “This house is tenanted by a Madame Makris, a widow. Her husband was a Greek merchant, she is an Englishwoman. She lived here with her daughter, Mademoiselle Elise Makris, the only child of the marriage. Mademoiselle and your friend, Mr. Hugh Craig, were very close friends; according to the mother’s statement, they were more than friends, very devoted lovers. It seems a few days ago they had a violent quarrel—I am still quoting Madame Makris—the cause of which was not divulged. To-night Mr. Craig dined here, and after dinner he and the young lady went and sat on the veranda, according to their usual custom on the occasions when he visited the house.”
Lydon interrupted with a question. “There are only three nights on which he has dined away from the hotel where we were staying together. I suppose he paid several day visits?”
“Madame Makris tells me hardly a day has passed that he did not come here, staying for longer or shorter periods. The young people have known each other for some five years. Well, the mother upon those occasions did not intrude herself very much; she left the lovers alone as much as possible. She followed her usual course this evening, occupying herself in writing letters and attending to her household accounts.
“Suddenly she was startled by the sound of shots proceeding from the veranda where Mr. Craig and her daughter were seated. She rushed hastily from the room in which she was sitting and was horrified at the sight which presented itself. Mademoiselle was bleeding from a wound in the neck. After shooting her, the young man turned the pistol on himself and sent a bullet through his brain. The young woman was still alive, Mr. Craig was dead when she reached him. The second shot had done its work instantaneously.
“Madame Makris at once rang up the police. We came with a doctor and Mademoiselle was taken to the hospital behind the railway station. For the unfortunate young man nothing could be done. After Madame had made her statement to us, we telephoned to you to come up.”
Dazed as he was by the tragic occurrence, Lydon could grasp the fact that, although Hugh had never breathed to his friend a word of his secret connection with the denizens of the Villa des Cyclamens, he had been perfectly frank with them as to his relations with Lydon. Otherwise, how did Madame Makris know that they were staying together at the same hotel?
So the volcano which he had always suspected was slumbering under that placid exterior had suddenly burst into flame with these awful consequences to Elise Makris and the man himself.
“Can Madame suggest any explanation of this frenzied act?” was Lydon’s next question.
The courteous official shook his head. “Madame says she knows nothing, that the whole thing is inexplicable to her.”
“Mademoiselle Makris is in the hospital, you say. Do they give any hope of her recovery? Is the wound a serious one?”
“Very serious, I am told,” was the reply. “They can pronounce no definite opinion at the moment. From what I can gather she seems to be hovering between life and death. Perhaps you would like to see the body; we have laid it in one of the bedrooms?”
Leonard went to the chamber, and gazed upon the pallid features of the friend whom he had last seen in full health and strength. As he stood there, looking down on the rigid form, he felt overcome by the memories of their long association. They had been intimate so many years.
A little under the age of fifteen they had foregathered at Harrow, drawn together by that strange attraction which sometimes unites totally opposite temperaments. They had gone up form by form in company. Hugh the mental superior, beating his friend at the last lap of all, and attaining the proud position of Head of the School. In the same year they had been put into the cricket eleven and had done battle against Eton at Lord’s. At Balliol, whither they both proceeded, the intimacy grew stronger, and here again history repeated itself. They both represented their University in cricket against Cambridge, as they had represented Harrow.
And now this life, so full of promise and opportunity, had been blotted out by his own rash act. And, even more terrible, Hugh Craig had gone to his last account with the sin of murder, or at least attempted murder, on his soul. What terrible thing was it that had so unhinged his mind?
The police had found the pistol clutched firmly in his dead hand. This fearful deed, then, was not due to some sudden temptation of the moment. It must have been premeditated or he would not have taken a loaded weapon with him to this peaceful villa. When Hugh had bade his friend good-bye, he must have had murder, and afterwards self-destruction, in his mind.
When the young man had left the death-chamber, he inquired after Madame Makris, and was informed that she was prostrated with grief, as was quite natural. He exchanged a few words with the furtive-looking man whom he had seen talking to Hugh in the side street a short time ago.
“I saw you together the other day,” he said, “but you did not see me, and I hastened as quickly as possible out of sight, as I did not wish to appear to be spying upon my friend. Do you know anything that can throw light upon this?”
The shabby individual lowered his eyes as he answered. “No, monsieur, I am sorry to say, nothing. My acquaintance with Monsieur Craig was very slight.”
If the man was not actually lying, it was obvious there was nothing to be got out of him. Lydon impatiently asked him if he was one of the regular police. To this question he replied that he was not, that he followed the profession of private inquiry agent, as it would be called in England. That he was naturally in the course of his business frequently in communication with them, and that having heard of the terrible tragedy at the Villa, he had begged permission to accompany them there.
Later on, Lydon put himself into communication with the dead man’s family, and Hugh’s elder brother came over to Nice at once to superintend the arrangements. Geoffrey Craig, a rather severe-looking man, who held a minor Governmental post, was as much bewildered by the catastrophe as Lydon himself. He had never heard of the Makris family in connection with his brother.
Hugh Craig was buried in the beautiful English cemetery out beyond the Magnan, what time the girl whom he had tried to kill was lying between life and death in the hospital.
Lydon was obliged to defer his departure for a few days in consequence of these tragic happenings. Before he left he called upon Mrs. Makris, who was now sufficiently recovered to receive him.
She was a stoutly-built, rather over-dressed woman, with a face which still showed traces of good looks. He had been told by the police she was an Englishwoman, and her thoroughly British accent confirmed the fact. But he had a shrewd suspicion that Jewish blood ran in her veins.
While he was waiting in the pretty salon of the Villa des Cyclamens for the unhappy mother, he noticed upon a writing table a gorgeous carved sapphire made into a pendant, the stone worn upon the breastplate of the High Priest of the Hebrews as the sign of Issachar. He rather marvelled that such a valuable article was allowed to lie there. In the distraction occasioned by the tragedy, it was of course possible that neither Madame Makris nor any other member of the household had heeded it.
The Jewish-looking woman bore upon her still good-looking face the deep traces of her grief. When Lydon murmured a few words of sympathy, the ready tears fell immediately.
“My darling Elise was all the world to me; we were devoted to each other,” she said in a broken voice. “And this state of suspense is awful. Two whole days have passed, and still they are not certain whether she will live or die.”
Lydon again expressed his deep sympathy. “I have been very terribly shocked too, although I cannot for a moment pretend to compare my feelings with yours. Hugh Craig and I have been friends from boyhood, and I should have judged him the last man in the world to have given way to such an awful impulse. Have you no inkling of the cause which led to such an unexpected catastrophe?”
Madame Makris shook her head, a head covered with thick dark hair in which there was not a trace of grey, in spite of her years, which might have been anything from forty-five to fifty.
“Not the slightest, Mr. Lydon. There had been some disagreement between them a little time previously, for I discovered my poor girl in tears after he had left. I pressed her to tell me the reason of her agitation, but she parried all my efforts to extract the truth from her. She assured me it was quite a trifling matter, and that she would not have been affected by it, except for the fact that she was in low spirits.”
“May I ask, madame, if they had known each other for long?”
“Some few years,” was the answer. “There was no regular engagement between them, but it was understood that they would marry as soon as they could. Elise was always rather reticent on the subject, but I gathered that there was some difficulty in the way with regard to Mr. Craig’s family. It was a very old and honourable one, and it was expected of him that when he did marry he would choose somebody of his own order. We are, of course, quite middle-class people, and by no means wealthy. My husband was a merchant.”
Lydon pointed to the writing-table. “That is rather a valuable thing to leave lying about, if I may say so, madam.”
The dark-haired woman looked at it with an air of indifference. “I had forgotten it in the preoccupation of my great trouble. It belongs to Elise. Her uncle, Monsieur Lianas, gave it to her on her twenty-first birthday. She was wearing it when the tragedy occurred. I only brought it back from the hospital this morning, and heedlessly laid it down there. But you are quite right; it is too valuable to be left lying about. I will lock it up directly. Heaven knows if my poor child will ever wear it again,” she concluded with a burst of tears.
Leonard went back to England the next day, very sad at heart at the loss of his lifelong friend. He pondered much over the meagre information that Madame Makris had given him. The young people had known each other for some years. There had been no formal engagement between them, but it was an understood thing they were to be married as soon as they were in a position to do so.
And during those years, although they had met so frequently, Craig had never dropped a word about Elise or her mother to his friend. So strange a silence passed beyond the bounds of ordinary reticence. There must be some reason for it, most likely some mystery behind it. He could quite understand that Hugh might find some difficulty in reconciling his family to his marriage with a foreigner of no particular position. But it was strange that a man should be in love and never say anything about it to his closest friend.
As was natural under such painful circumstances, his thoughts of Gloria Stormont had been temporarily pushed into the background; but after a little, when the first violence of the shock had passed away, her charming image again recurred to him.
What a beautiful girl she was, and how delightfully unaffected! Was it likely he would ever come across her again? Her uncle had spoken of it as a probability when he remarked that after all the world was a small place.
And a fortnight later, Howard Stormont’s prophecy was fulfilled. Lydon suddenly made up his mind to run down for a week-end to the Metropole at Brighton. As he ascended the steps of the well-known hotel about an hour before dinner-time, the first person he encountered in the vestibule was the genial Stormont, looking more prosperous and rubicund than ever.
Nothing could have been more hearty than the greeting Lydon received.
“Well met, my dear fellow, glad to see you. I said it would not be long before we ran across each other again. My sister and Gloria are with me. Are you alone? Good, you must join our table. Well, as soon as you have settled about your room, let us celebrate the occasion with a cocktail. Good old Metropole, you can’t beat it. I’m not very busy just now, so we’re here for a week. My sister is a bit run down, and the sea breezes will set her up.”
What a good-hearted fellow he was, Lydon thought. Gloria had said of him he was one of the kindest and most generous of men. Over their cocktails the young man told him of the tragic happenings at the Villa des Cyclamens. But Stormont had read it in the papers. Of course it was impossible that anything could be kept quiet in the case of a man of Hugh Craig’s position.
“A very mysterious affair, and I suppose nobody will ever know the rights of it,” he remarked when Leonard had communicated all the details he knew, which, as we know, were somewhat meagre. “Well, I cannot say I ever took very kindly to your poor friend, for the reason probably that he took very little pains to conceal his dislike of me. But it is a terrible ending to a promising career. I suppose, in the course of time, he would have ended up as an ambassador. The Clandon family have a knack of falling into soft jobs. Now, you won’t see the womenfolk before dinner, as they are in their rooms, and I shan’t mention I have met you. When you walk up to our table it will be a pleasant surprise for them. We all took a great fancy to you at Nice.”
The young man had no reason to complain of his welcome at the hands of the two ladies when he met them at dinner. Mrs. Barnard told him it was a most agreeable surprise, and although Gloria did not make flattering speeches, she flushed prettily and her eyes looked very bright when she shook hands with him.
They spent a very delightful evening together. Early the next morning Stormont expressed his intention of taking his sister a long motor drive, with a view of getting as much fresh air as possible; they would be back to luncheon.
“You two young people can do what you like with yourselves,” he said gaily. Certainly, he was a most complaisant person. Lydon was rather surprised that he should throw them into each other’s society like this. Surely he must have ambitious views for his niece’s future. And he could not help wondering what it was his friend Hugh had seen in the man which made him dislike him so intensely. Little vulgarisms in speech and manner peeped out now and again, but surely those were not enough to account for such a fierce aversion, more especially as Craig, in spite of his aristocratic lineage, was rather a democratic sort of fellow at heart, and a thorough cosmopolitan.
The two, thus dismissed to their own resources, went on to the West Pier, where they sat for some little time, then they walked up and down the Parade for a couple of hours, till it was time to return to the hotel. During these happy and precious moments Leonard felt that he was making great headway with the charming girl. She talked to him with as much freedom as if they had been friends of old standing. She told him all about her uncle’s place, Effington Hall, and of her mode of life there. According to her account, it was a very beautiful place, with lovely gardens, and the rather commonplace-looking Howard Stormont appeared to dwell in great luxury, with a large retinue of servants. As he listened, he wondered if he would ever be asked to join the numerous company which the owner invited there.
Stormont did not seem to mind his enjoying the girl’s society on a casual visit to the seaside, but would he draw the line at the familiarity born of a long stay in a country house? Had he been in the uncle’s place, he was inclined to think he would.
His visit did not terminate with the week-end. He stayed on another couple of days, being pressed to do so by Stormont himself during this extension of time. The brother and sister left the young couple very much to themselves, and Lydon made splendid running with Gloria. So much so that, before he left, she had promised to run up to town from Effington soon after they returned there, and lunch with him in town.
Lydon had suggested it with rather a shamefaced air. “I don’t feel I have the cheek to ask you in front of your uncle and aunt after such a short acquaintance,” he explained. “I expect they would think it confounded impertinence on my part.”
Gloria had blushed very becomingly when she answered him. “Well, one cannot be quite sure. They are pretty modern, considering all things, but perhaps not quite so modern as you and I. I often run up to shop; it is really no distance from London. I will give you good notice when I am coming, and I can tell them about it later when we have all got to know each other better.”
Lydon went back to London very delighted that the girl liked him well enough to take the bold course of meeting him secretly. In due course, when he went in to breakfast in his comfortable chambers at Ryder Street, he found the expected note from Miss Stormont appointing two days later for their luncheon.
There was another letter from the well-known firm of Shelford & Taylor, solicitors in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, asking him to give them a call, as they wished to hand him a communication from one of their clients.
He knew these people had attended to the affairs of most of the members of the Clandon family, Hugh included. Greatly wondering, he called on them that morning, and was received by the head of the firm, who handed him a bulky letter.
“This was received from our client, and your friend, the Honourable Hugh Craig, very shortly after the terrible tragedy, with instructions to hand it to you after the lapse of a certain period which has now expired. I am filled with curiosity to know if this letter, dispatched to us on the morning of the day on which this awful thing occurred, throws any light upon the affair.”
Leonard read slowly through the long communication, and, laying it down, met the inquiring gaze of the solicitor.
“Yes,” he said, in a sad voice. “This reveals the motives which impelled him to attempt the life of Elise Makris, and make an end of his own. I will tell you.”
CHAPTER THREE
“First, I will read you the opening sentences of the letter,” said Leonard. And this is what he read:
“To you, my very dear friend, whose friendship has been one of the most pleasurable things in my life, to the memories of which I look back with a feeling of great tenderness as I pen these lines, the last I shall ever write upon earth, I reveal the secret of the tragedy which will shortly take place. In Nice the affair will, naturally, be a nine days’ wonder. Nice, this fair and lovely city of aristocratic crookdom, where vice and virtue rub shoulders at every hour of the twenty-four, and where the cleverest criminals of the world congregate in the pursuit of their nefarious calling! Nice, where I first met the only woman who ever stirred my pulses, who made me realize the meaning of ardent, overmastering love! When you read these words, perhaps you will smile at the idea of the cautious diplomatist, the rather cynical young man of the world, confessing to being violently in love. But it is the truth. I had passed unscathed up to a few years ago, indifferent to the charms of the many beautiful women I had met in my own country and elsewhere, until I made the acquaintance of Elise Makris. Then suddenly I realized, poor fool as I was, that I had found my ideal. To me she stood for the perfection of womanhood.
“To-night I am going to kill her, because she has betrayed my faith in her, because I have proved she is base and unworthy. And when I have accomplished this justifiable vengeance, there is nothing left for me but to end my own life. By the time you receive this letter the nine days’ wonder will have died out, and the memory of Hugh Craig will only linger in the hearts of one or two faithful friends like yourself. The details I am about to relate will not interest the world, but you are at perfect liberty to communicate them to anybody you think it may concern.”
“As you are such an old and confidential friend of the Clandon family, Mr. Shelford,” said the young man when he had finished reading this preliminary portion of the letter, “I feel quite justified in reading to you what my poor, unfortunate friend has disclosed to me.”
From the astounding narrative to which Mr. Shelford listened, he learned the following remarkable facts: Mrs. Makris, the mother of Elise, a very beautiful young woman, had posed, ever since Craig knew her, as the widow of a Greek merchant who had left her comfortably off. Her late husband’s fortune was settled upon her for life, she told him, and her daughter would inherit it at her death.
It was on Craig’s last visit to Nice, and then only towards the end of it, that his suspicions concerning the truth of her story were aroused. Elise had addressed to him by mistake a letter intended for somebody else, a letter of a most suspicious character, betraying her acquaintance with a very questionable set of people. When he asked her for an explanation, her replies were evasive and unsatisfactory, so much so that he at once came to the conclusion that both the girl and her mother were quite different from what they seemed.
He did not at once break off with her, wishing to test the truth of his suspicions. For this purpose he secured the services of a private inquiry agent, without doubt the shabby furtive-looking man to whom Leonard had seen him talking in that quiet side street.
This man soon discovered the horrible fact that both the woman and her daughter were connected with a well-known gang of international crooks. Elise, with her beauty and charm, was one of their most useful decoys, and under another name had served a term of imprisonment a short time before Craig had made her acquaintance. The woman Makris had never been married, so he alleged; the girl was her illegitimate daughter, the father having been a member of the same gang. To the young man, whose affections she had captured, Elise had represented herself as a model of simplicity and purity. As they did not see each other very frequently, it was the more easy for her to maintain the double rôle of sweetheart to him and the clever decoy of these unscrupulous scoundrels. But for her own carelessness in putting the wrong letter into the envelope directed to him, Craig had made up his mind to marry her privately and tell his family afterwards.
“A most astounding story,” was the remark of the shrewd and experienced lawyer when the narrative was finished. “Poor fellow, one cannot but pity him in spite of the fact that he took the law into his own hands. The discovery of her baseness must have overthrown his reason. How deceptive are appearances. One would have judged him the last man in the world to be swayed by violent passions. Clearly the mind must have given way under the shock.”
“There are some rather obscure hints that he had been subjected to blackmail, and that through this man he employed, he was able to trace it to her agency. That of course would have a maddening effect upon any man in a similar position.”
Mr. Sheldon knitted his brows. “I wish he had been a little more explicit on that point. We do not know whether this girl is alive or dead. When Hugh’s brother left Nice, she was hovering between life and death in the hospital to which they had taken her. If she has recovered, I should very much like to find the young woman, although it doesn’t appear that it would serve any very useful purpose if I did.”
Lydon also expressed his wish that, if she had escaped her lover’s vengeance, Elise Makris, the decoy of blackmailers, should be found. Mr. Shelford promised to instruct his agent in Nice to make inquiries at once.
The tragedy had cast a deep shadow over Lydon. Even the prospect of meeting again with Gloria Stormont could not restore him to his old cheerfulness, nor blot out the memory of those sinister happenings at the peaceful-looking Villa des Cyclamens.
Gloria looked very charming and radiant when she arrived at Waterloo Station, where Leonard was awaiting her.
“It was a little indiscreet of us to arrange meeting here,” she said with a blush as they shook hands. “Somebody who knew me might have travelled in the same train; that would have been awkward. It was silly of me to overlook that.”
“And equally silly on my part,” replied the young man. “Well, on a future occasion, we must avoid a similar mistake. Well, now about lunch. I was going to suggest the Berkeley or the Savoy. But perhaps we had better get off the beaten track?”
Miss Stormont agreed. Several people she knew frequented both these popular places. They finally went to a excellent restaurant in the Strand.
They had a very enjoyable time together. There was not a trace of coquetry about her, but she seemed to envisage the situation with perfect frankness. If Lydon had not been attracted by her, he would not have asked her to lunch. If she had not been equally attracted by him, she would not have accepted his invitation. They might therefore take for granted the fact of their mutual attraction, and not pretend an embarrassment they did not feel.
When they parted, and he pressed for another meeting, she consented quite readily, adding, “I hope, however, we shall not have to keep up this sub-rosa business very long. Uncle was speaking last night of you and saying how much he liked you. You can guess how difficult it was to keep myself from blushing. I suggested that as he liked you so much, why did he not ask you to pay a visit? He did not exactly adopt the suggestion at once, but I’m sure the idea is germinating in his mind and will presently blossom forth.”
Lydon looked the delight he felt. “So you think I may receive a formal invitation to go down to Effington. That would be very pleasant. In the meantime our engagement for next week holds good.”
“Most certainly,” was the girl’s unaffected answer. He put her in a taxi and directed the driver to take her to Waterloo Station. It was not safe for him to go with her, much as he would have liked to do so. At this hour of the day some of the early birds might be returning home, and at this stage of the proceedings it was not politic for Miss Stormont to be seen by any of her neighbours in the company of a good-looking young man.
The next week when he met her, almost the first words she said were, “Have you heard from Uncle Howard?”
He answered that he had not, and she proceeded to explain: “Well, the idea has blossomed. Two days ago at breakfast, he announced solemnly to auntie and myself that he was going to write to you at the address in Ryder Street you gave him, and ask you down for a week-end. To-day is Wednesday; you ought to have had the letter by now. But perhaps he didn’t intend to ask you for this week-end but the next. Uncle is very impetuous in some things but slow-moving in others. And if it is for the following week, naturally he wouldn’t be in a hurry.”
It was, however, this week-end that the genial Stormont had fixed in his mind. When Lydon went home that night the precious letter was awaiting him, having arrived by a midday post. If Mr. Lydon had no previous engagement, would he spend next Saturday to Monday, or, if possible, Tuesday, at Effington? If so, Stormont would meet him at Waterloo by a certain train and they would go down together.
Of course, he sent an immediate reply. So, at last, he was made free of Effington; he would see his beloved Gloria in her own home, and be able to feast his eyes upon her for several hours. If Howard Stormont was as unconventional as his appearance and manners proclaimed, there would be an end of the sub-rosa meetings. In these advanced days, when the chaperone is nearly as extinct as the dodo, he would be able to ask her openly to lunch with him when she came up to London to do her shopping. It was a great step gained.
On the Friday before his visit, he had a summons from Shelford, the solicitor, who had heard from his agent in Nice.
Elise Makris was alive, wonderful to relate. For some days the doctors had entertained little or no hope. Then suddenly the tide had turned, and she had made a remarkable rally. Three days before Shelford’s letter of instructions reached Nice, she had been discharged from the hospital, still somewhat weak, but in no danger of a relapse. She had returned to the Villa des Cyclamens, which on the next day was evacuated. Madame Makris had paid up all she owed, and she and her daughter had gone away, nobody knew whither.
The agent had made some inquiries of the police, and had also found out the man employed by Craig in his researches into the past of the girl whom he had so passionately loved and found so unworthy. He gathered that she and her mother were members of a big organization belonging to the exclusive circles of what might be called aristocratic crookdom. Many of the subordinates were known to the guardians of the law under different aliases, Madame Makris, a very old offender, and her daughter being amongst them. But the chiefs of the gang, the daring spirits who engineered the great coups, remained in seclusion, men not only of great ability, but possibly of considerable wealth. They never came out into the open, and nobody could lay hands on them.
So Elise Makris, after that lucky escape from her enraged lover’s bullet, had disappeared where, in all human probability, no friend of Hugh would ever be able to find her. She and her mother had no doubt gone to another country, and would conceal their identity under other names. That of Makris had been made too public by recent events.
The only description Lydon had of her was a somewhat indefinite one, taken from the Phare du Littoral, the Nice daily newspaper. There were, however, two clues still remaining, if ever he should chance to be thrown into contact with her. She would carry to her grave the mark of her dead lover’s bullet; no surgery could obliterate that. And she would wear that remarkable carved sapphire pendant which her mother declared she always carried about with her as a mascot. By those signs he would recognize Elise Makris under whatever alias she chose to masquerade.
“That seems to close the chapter,” remarked Mr. Shelford, when he had imparted all that he had learned from his agent. “A terrible blow to the Clandon family. I saw his brother yesterday; he tells me the old people are prostrated with grief. That a man of the promise of Hugh Craig, with a brilliant future stretching in front of him, should have sought to imbrue his hands in the blood of such a shameless creature! It passes comprehension.”
On the Saturday morning Lydon met Stormont at Waterloo Station, and they travelled down to Guildford together by an early train. At Guildford they were met by a splendid Rolls-Royce car driven by one of the smartest of chauffeurs. Profiteer or not, as the case might be, Howard Stormont knew how to do things properly.
They went through a few miles of the beautiful Surrey country, till they came to some big open lodge gates. Passing through these, they drove up a broad avenue, shadowed by some splendid trees which would look magnificent later on in their summer raiment, and drew up before the low picturesque house.
The coming of the car had been heard evidently, for the hall door stood wide open to receive the owner and his guest. Behind the decorous form of the stately white-haired butler, Duncan, appeared the gaily-apparelled Mrs. Barnard, and the slim exquisite figure of the smiling Gloria.
Stormont sprang out of the car and grasped Leonard’s hand in a hearty grip. “Welcome, my dear boy, to Effington,” he said in his loud, ringing voice.
CHAPTER FOUR
There was a big dinner party in the evening, somewhat to Leonard’s disappointment. He had hoped they would have spent the first night by themselves, so that he would have an opportunity of appropriating more or less the charming Gloria. Instead of this, she would be lost to him amidst a crowd.
Perhaps it was Howard Stormont’s way of impressing a new guest. Craig had always said the man was a vulgarian at heart, and that the vulgarity was always peeping through the thin veneer of a lately-acquired refinement. Lydon was far from prepared to go this length, but he did wish his host had avoided so much ostentation the first time he sat at his table.
The house was run on very magnificent lines, and the rather overpowering sense of wealth depressed him a little. In spite of her frank and unaffected manners, it made Gloria seem very far away from him. Even if she reciprocated his feelings, how could he dare to think of taking her from such a splendid home as this to share his own very moderate fortunes?
There were about a dozen people to dinner besides himself and the Stormonts. The white-haired Duncan was assisted by four footmen. The majority of the guests were neighbours, a few obviously with the stamp of the county on them. Two married couples were London friends and had come down to dine and stay the week-end like Lydon himself. The dinner was a very lengthy affair, exquisitely cooked and served with the utmost elegance. The wines and liqueurs were of unexceptionable quality.
Lydon’s father, probably a man of greater wealth than Stormont, had lived in much the same profuse style. But Leonard had not seen a great deal of it; he had been away from home so much. His own tastes were very simple, and he had no hankerings after luxury.
To judge by Howard Stormont’s beaming countenance, as he sat at his end of the table, with a rather severe-looking “county” lady on his right, he seemed to revel in it. Lydon did not think for a moment that the man had been born to it; from many little signs he could deduce the contrary. But possibly he was one of those ambitious souls to whom magnificent surroundings seem a quite commonplace part of their environment. What to Lydon seemed ostentation only appeared to the other ordinary comfort.
And what about Gloria? Was all this wealth and luxury, these dainty, never-ending dishes, this army of deftly-trained servants an absolute necessity of her well-being, as it seemed to that of her uncle and the richly-dressed Mrs. Barnard, who beamed as benignly on their guests as her portly and rubicund brother?
Well, he did not know enough of her yet to decide. All he did know was that she looked very beautiful in some soft shimmering fabric that displayed to perfection the ivory white of her well-poised neck and rounded arms. Now and then he caught a kindly glance, speaking of more than ordinary acquaintance, from the soft, pretty blue eyes. Now and again he caught her low, sweet laugh at some remark of her neighbour.
Lydon had for his partner one of the county people, a young married woman, Mrs. Lycett, not very remarkable for good looks, but very lively and voluble. He learned afterwards that she was a very important person in her set, by reason of her various accomplishments. She was a keen and prominent golfer, a daring and fearless rider to hounds, an adept at every kind of sport.
As Lydon was no mean sportsman himself, he got on very well with this voluble person, who chattered away to him about her prowess. But all the same, Mrs. Lycett, with her vivid account of her feats in so many departments of sport, could not make up to him for Gloria. She was an athletic girl too, but she had not that slight touch of the masculine which rather disfigured Mrs. Lycett, and, above all, Gloria did not boast about her achievements. She was so distinctly feminine and lovable. Long before the protracted meal was over, Leonard found himself growing more than a little weary. He had not bargained for being thrust so suddenly into a crowd of absolute strangers. He looked back with pleasure on his two sub-rosa meetings with the beautiful girl, whose glance he only occasionally met across the big dinner-table.
After dinner the men sat for a little time to smoke a cigarette and then joined the ladies. Soon the large party split up into groups. Some went to the billiard-room, most sat down to bridge. A few clustered round the piano, where Gloria sang some very charming songs in a well-trained voice. Lydon joined this particular group, not because he was so keen on music, but from a desire to be as near to Gloria as possible.
At a fairly early hour in the evening, carriages were announced, and the neighbours departed, almost in a body. Only the house party was left, and after a little while the ladies took their candles, and the men adjourned to the smoking-room, a handsome apartment decorated in the Moorish style, for a final chat. The two visitors from London were elderly men, contemporaries of the host, and their conversation was chiefly about general topics in which the three were interested.
The next day, Sunday, was, on the whole, quite enjoyable. Everybody except one of the London men went to church in the morning. In the afternoon, Leonard, to his great delight, got Gloria to himself, and they went for a long walk from after lunch till close upon tea-time. No other guests were present at dinner, for which the young man was very grateful. The elderly people gravitated naturally to each other, and left the young couple very much to themselves.
They carried on a low-toned conversation at the far end of the big drawing-room. In the course of it, Leonard suggested they should soon have another lunch in town, Gloria was quite willing. “I think you can suggest it quite openly now,” she said. “As a matter of fact, you can include auntie if you like, but she will be quite certain to refuse. She has so many interests at Effington and she so loves the place, that it is difficult to drag her up to London except when she wants new clothes. And really you might pay Uncle Howard the compliment also, and, ten to one, the result would be the same. He takes a good many holidays, but when he does go to his business he works like a horse, so at least he tells us, and has no time for frivolity.”
“Works hard and plays hard,” remarked Lydon. “So far as I can judge from my short stay here, he seems to revel in the good things of life.”
Miss Stormont smiled. “You have judged him quite accurately. My dear old uncle is a perfect sybarite, a crumpled rose-leaf in his bed would disturb him acutely. He likes the best of everything, ‘the best that money can buy,’ as he puts it in his rather blunt fashion. The most perfect food, the choicest cigars, the rarest wines. Of course he has to dine out here a good deal, as he cannot affront his neighbours by refusing. But the dear man really prefers entertaining to being entertained.”
“When he entertains, he is sure of the quality, eh? He knows he won’t be put off with the second best,” laughed Lydon. “Away from home he might get an inferior vintage or an inferior cigar.”
“I am afraid he has that idea at the back of his mind,” admitted his niece.
“Well, if he should accept my invitation to lunch, I will take him to my best club and allow him to order the luncheon,” said Lydon, speaking in the same light spirit. “Well, what about Mrs. Barnard? Is she a sybarite like her brother?”
“Not in the least. Like me, her individual tastes are very simple, she likes moderate comfort, but she has no hankering after luxury. She is a frightfully energetic woman, busies herself in everything going on in the neighbourhood, local charities and so forth, and writes letters by the score. She would die of ennui if her hands were not fully occupied. And, of course, at her time of life, sport has no attraction for her. She is rather devoted to bridge, but she never plays it till the evening.”
Lydon was very pleased to hear that Gloria had simple tastes, that luxury was not essential to her. Presently he said to her: “Do you know, I have got a little whim that I should like to have just another of those quiet little meetings before we take the others into our confidence. I wonder if you would very much mind?”
Miss Stormont had one very delightful feminine trait, she was always ready to admit the supremacy of the sterner sex, and give way to them wherever it was consistent with her own dignity.
“If you very much wish it, I don’t mind in the least,” she answered sweetly. “But I would like to know the reason of this whim.”
“I am afraid I cannot give a very lucid explanation,” said the young man rather lamely. “Somehow, I seem to like you in a somewhat less gorgeous setting than this. You are housed like a Princess.”
She looked at him with comprehending eyes. “Does it oppress you just a little bit, this—this magnificence?” she asked.
“A tiny bit, I must confess,” he admitted, admiring her quickness.
She looked thoughtful. “I had rather the same feeling when I first came to live with my uncle. My father has a good position in China, but he is not of course a rich man, and our life out there was quite simple compared to this. I am rather surprised though about you. From what I am told, your father was quite a wealthy man, uncle says, much richer than himself. You must have been used to it all your life.”
“Not quite. All the time we children were at school—and my dear father gave us the best of educations, he thought that was the most priceless asset a man could bestow upon his offspring—our home was conducted upon a comfortable but perfectly modest scale. It was not till after I left Oxford that he launched out into something like this. And during those very fat years I was seldom at home. So I had really no time to grow in love with luxury.”
“I don’t know that I am really in love with it. I mean it would cause me no pain to descend to a much lower standard of living. But to uncle all this is the breath of his nostrils; he is naturally one of the most reckless and extravagant of men. He scatters money with an absolutely lavish hand. I am sure that auntie, who, of course, knows more about his affairs than I do, is often frightfully worried about it. She has often tried to dissuade him from some contemplated extravagance, but to no purpose.”
These remarks gave rise to a new train of thought in Lydon’s mind. Were things quite satisfactory at Effington? Was this army of servants of all descriptions, footmen, gardeners and chauffeurs, perfectly justifiable? If Howard Stormont was living within his income, why should his sister be worried? Was the man one of those you so often meet with, who can make money but cannot hold it? Was he living up to the hilt, and might some sudden turn of fortune’s wheel bring him headlong to the ground? He would have liked to question Gloria a little closely on the subject, but their acquaintance was too recent for him to take such a liberty. No doubt he would learn more later on.
But if it was the fact that, in his selfish desire for luxury, he was spending money as fast as he made it, and putting by nothing for a rainy day, something that had puzzled Lydon became easily capable of explanation. In this case, Gloria would not be an heiress, and her uncle had not formed any grandiose plans for her future. He would be content if she could marry a man who would keep her comfortably, and not expect any fortune with her.
And, as a result of this hypothesis, Howard Stormont fell distinctly in his estimation. He was simply living for his own gratification, oblivious of those he left behind; in Lydon’s opinion, the most contemptible conduct any man could be capable of.
On Monday morning the two elderly couples departed. The young man would have gone also, but on the Sunday night Stormont took him on one side and pressed him to stop another day, if his business engagements would permit.
“I very rarely go up on a Monday myself, unless there is something very urgent,” he had said. “And, at my age, I think I may be permitted to allow myself a little latitude. I simply love pottering about this dear old place; although I have had it for some time now, it is still a new toy to me, after being pent up in cities nearly the whole of my working life. Stop till Tuesday morning, and we will go up together.”
Lydon, nothing loath, agreed to the pleasing proposition. The Monday was the happiest day of his visit. Soon after breakfast Stormont went off on his own. Mrs. Barnard was fully occupied during the morning and afternoon, and he had Gloria practically to himself until it was time to dress for dinner.