CHAPTERIII.THE HIDDEN SCANDAL.
During the nine months which had passed since Henry Hartsilver had been found dead in his bath, many things had happened. The war was over, and people were already beginning to forget the discomfort, for some the misery, of those five long years. In London the wheels of life, their spoke having been removed, were slowly beginning to revolve once more.
The thousands who had “done their bit,” and become impoverished in consequence, were many of them cursing the impetuosity which had led them to forget their own interests in their anxiety to help to avenge the outrages in Belgium and France, and to save their own country from possible disaster. On the other hand many thousands of men and women who before the war had been struggling small traders, now contemplated with a feeling of smug satisfaction their swollen bank balances, and, while thanking heaven there had been a war, began to adopt a style of living which, though it ill became them, gratified their vanity enormously.
“I ’aven’t reelly decided if me boy shall go to Eton or to ’Arrow,” was the observation Captain Preston had overheard while inspecting cars at the motor exhibition one afternoon in late April, andthe remark had made him metaphorically grind his teeth. For he detested the war profiteers as a race almost as deeply as he hated “conscientious” objectors. Indeed, since the war had ended he had regretted more than ever that the Huns had failed to land here.
The London season was now beginning, and the traffic congestion in the streets was admitted by all to be greater than at any period before the war. Enormous cars blocked the main thoroughfares, sometimes for hours at a time, yet everywhere was talk of poverty among people of education and of culture, who a few years previously had been in good circumstances. And among the many rich people in the West End few now entertained more lavishly than Aloysius Stapleton and the man who seemed to be his shadow—young Archie La Planta.
“Then you have decided that it shall be at the Albert Hall,” Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson said as she thoughtfully blew a cloud of smoke towards the ceiling, “and you want me to act as hostess? Well, I won’t.”
“You won’t? But why not?”
“It wouldn’t do, Louie,” she answered with decision, addressing Aloysius Stapleton, who, seated near her on a settee in the drawing-room in her house in Cavendish Square, had been discussing arrangements for a greatbal masqué.
“I really can’t see why; can you, Archie?” and he looked across at La Planta.
“You wouldn’t,” Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson saiddryly, before La Planta could reply. “I think men are the dullest things, I do really. Though our many ‘friends’ profess always to be so fond of us, and so pleased to see us, any number of the women hate me, if the truth were known.”
“They are simply jealous.”
“It’s the same thing. I know the things they have said about me, and that they say still. Or if they don’t say them they imply them, which is worse. No, I refuse to be your hostess; also I consider you ought to get somebody of more importance, some woman of established social standing, of high rank, if you want the ball to be a big success. There are plenty of people who do like me, of course, but at least they know nothing about me, who I am or where I come from, and though that may not count with the majority of men and women in our large circle of acquaintance, it counts a good deal with some—they become inquisitive after a time and start making inquiries in all sorts of directions. Mrs. Hartsilver and her friend Yootha Hagerston are making inquiries of that sort now. Do you know that they have gone so far as to instruct a personal inquiry agency to find out all about me?”
“I did hear something of the sort,” Stapleton said. “But why worry? There is nothing it can say against you.”
“You mean the agency?”
“Yes.”
“But it can invent things, and readily will if it thinks it worth while.”
“Lies can’t be proved to be truth,” La Planta said, who for some moments had not spoken.
“Indeed!” Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson exclaimed with a little laugh. “Perhaps when you grow older you will change your opinion,” she added. “You are more ingenuous than I thought you were, Archie!”
There were several visitors present, and soon conversation drifted to other topics. After a little while, however, somebody inquired, turning to Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson:
“You were speaking some minutes ago of Mrs. Hartsilver. Was anything ever discovered about her husband—I mean, why he put an end to himself?”
“I believe nothing. If anything had been discovered I should probably have heard, as I know many people who were friends of his. A verdict of ‘suicide while temporarily insane’ was returned at the inquest, if you remember.”
“Yes,” the woman who had inquired said thoughtfully. “Yet he was one of the last men one would have looked upon as insane. I should have called him absolutely ‘all there.’”
“You never know,” Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson replied, pouring out a cup of tea. “People one considers sane seem nowadays to go mad in the most astonishing way. Look at the terrible list of suicides during the last year of the war, beginning with Lord Hope-Cooper and Viscount Molesley. Of course Madame Leonora Vandervelt’s tragedy wasnot so surprising—she had had such a remarkable career—but poor Vera Froissart’s suicide gave us all a terrible shock.”
“You knew her intimately, didn’t you?”
“My dear, she was one of my closest friends. And the jury pretended that she had died of ‘shock!’ Girls of that age don’t die of shock. My belief is that she had some private love affair and—but there, I must not say more.”
“You don’t mean that?”
“Indeed I do. And my suspicion is not based on supposition only. Soon after her death I heard definite rumors, which emanated from trustworthy sources.”
“How dreadful! I hope they didn’t reach her father.”
“I hope so too. He looked dreadfully altered when I met him the other day, but Vera’s sad end no doubt accounts for that.”
A minute or two later the visitor with whom Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson had been conversing rose to go. Other visitors followed her example, among them La Planta.
“I am dining to-night with Mrs. Hartsilver,” he said carelessly as they shook hands.
“Oh!”
A look of sudden interest had come into Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s eyes.
“You will tell me if she says anything about me?” she added hurriedly under her breath.
“Of course I will. Shall I see you to-morrow?”
“Do. I shall be shopping in Bond Street in the morning. Why not meet me at Asprey’s at twelve?”
“I will. By the way, Captain Preston inquired for you this morning, when I met him in Regent Street.”
“Captain Preston?” Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson repeated with a puzzled look. “Who is he? I seem to remember the name.”
“Don’t you recollect my introducing him to you about nine months ago? We all had lunch together at the Ritz—Louie was there, and Mrs. Hartsilver and Yootha Hagerston, and afterwards we went on to your house to play bridge and listen to music, and so on.”
“Of course, now I remember perfectly. A deadly dull person, wasn’t he?”
“He had been badly wounded and was only just out of hospital. You will find him less dull now, I think.”
“Possibly, but I am not very anxious to renew the acquaintanceship. He is one of the people one prefers to drop.”
“He wouldn’t like to hear that,” La Planta answered with a laugh. “It struck me he was greatly attracted by you that day, but tried not to show it.”
“Then don’t tell him,” Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson said lightly. “Good-by then—and twelve to-morrow at Asprey’s.”
As Archie La Planta stepped into his car strange thoughts came to him. They were thoughts whichwould have astonished most of his friends, though not Stapleton or the friend whose house he had just left.
At his chambers in the Albany he rang for his servant.
“James, bring me some telegram forms,” he said as the man entered. “And where is my ‘Who’s Who’?”
For some minutes he studied a page in “Who’s Who” carefully. Then, when James reëntered with the forms, he said:
“And now I want ‘Debrett.’ Why don’t you leave my books of reference where I always put them?” he added sharply.
“Mr. Stapleton looked in this morning, sir,” the man answered, “and wanted your ‘Who’s Who’ and ‘Debrett’ in a hurry, to refer to; said he hadn’t time to go home, sir. So I let him have them and he left them on the piano.”
For some moments La Planta sat at his escritoire writing out two telegrams.
“Send these off at once, James,” he said to his servant, who stood waiting at his elbow. “Both are very important.”
Then, going over to the full-length mirror, he carefully lit a cigar in front of it, set it going, and stretched himself out in a long fauteuil with his back to the French window.
He was soon deep in thought.
Suddenly his reverie was interrupted by the sound of the door-bell ringing.
“Hullo, Preston!” he exclaimed, as a moment later the footman announced the captain, who came limping into the room. “This is a pleasant surprise. Come and sit over here,” and he rolled an armchair towards him.
“Thanks,” his visitor answered. “I hope I am not intruding?”
He let himself slowly down into the big chair, then laid his stick beside it on the carpet.
“I wanted to see you rather particularly, La Planta,” he said, when they had exchanged one or two commonplace remarks. “So I looked up your address in the ‘Red Book’ and came along. I tried to get you on the telephone, but the operator declared she could get no reply.”
“She always does,” the young man answered dryly. “I have been seated beside the telephone at least half an hour and the bell has not even tinkled.”
“So much the better, perhaps, as I have found you in. Now, what I want to see you about is Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson.”
“Yes? I was at her house less than an hour ago.”
“Do you mind if I ask if you know much about her—who she is, where she comes from, and all that sort of thing? Please don’t think me inquisitive. You may think it cool of me to ask you this, but I have a reason for wanting to know.”
“Naturally, or you wouldn’t ask,” La Planta replied quickly.
“I believe she is a friend of yours.”
“I believe she is. Do you mind telling me, Preston, the reason you need the information?”
“Not in the least. A friend of mine, Lord Froissart, whose daughter died suddenly over a year ago, tells me that his daughter was rather intimate with Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson, but knew nothing about her—that is to say, who her parents were and so on. His daughter’s death has rather preyed upon his mind, and he seems to suffer under what I take to be a delusion that Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson could throw some light on the cause of death if she chose. Consequently he has been worrying a good deal about the lady, and, when I dined with him last night, he asked me as a particular favor—I am an old friend of his—if I would try to interview you on the subject, and ask you to tell me Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson’s past history, if you know it. I said I would, though it is not a task I greatly relish as I am sure you will understand.”
La Planta did not answer for some moments.
“Yes, Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson was a great friend of Vera Froissart,” he said at last, “and I don’t suppose any of Vera’s friends was more upset at her sudden death than Mrs. Robertson was. The astonishing delusion you speak of—Froissart’s apparent belief that Mrs. Robertson has some knowledge or suspicion of what brought about the tragedy—is, of course, the result of an unhinged mind. As for my telling you Mrs. Robertson’s private history, though I quite see how you are placed,I consider that to go into a family affair of that sort would, under existing conditions, be a breach of confidence on my part. Also, what bearing could such knowledge have on Mrs. Robertson’s knowing why Vera Froissart ended her life, as she undoubtedly did? Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson is a friend whose acquaintance I made some years ago under rather romantic circumstances, and to you I don’t mind saying that she has made me her rather close confidant. This I can tell you, however—she is a woman who has from first to last met with many misfortunes, and been persistently misunderstood.”
For a minute both men were silent.
“And is that all you are prepared to tell me about her?” Preston said suddenly, in rather a hard voice.
“That is all.”
“In that case, La Planta,” Preston bent down to get his stick, “perhaps I had better go.”
“Perhaps you had.”
The wounded man looked up quickly, as though something in the young man’s tone had stung him, and their eyes met. It was little more than a glance which passed between them, yet the swift transference of thought from each to the other warned Preston to be on his guard against this polite, suave youth who was popularly said to be the most sought after bachelor in London; and in the same way La Planta knew on the instant that before him stood a man who might, under certain conditions, prove a formidable adversary.
“Good afternoon,” Captain Preston said, as he put on his hat in the hall.
“Good evening,” La Planta replied with frigid courtesy.
Then James, who had returned from the telegraph office, opened the door and the captain limped slowly up the Albany towards Vigo Street.
By the time Preston reached Regent Street, Archie La Planta had succeeded in getting through on the telephone to Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson, and was telling her what had just occurred. When he stopped speaking, he heard her give a gay little laugh.
“Didn’t I say this afternoon,” she exclaimed, “that he was one of the people whose acquaintance I preferred to drop?”