“Feared Mr. Tilmet has contracted measles. Will not be able to arrive in London for another fortnight.”
“Feared Mr. Tilmet has contracted measles. Will not be able to arrive in London for another fortnight.”
“Thank God for measles!” wailed Diana.
Bobbie wiped his streaming forehead.
“I’ve a good mind to take the remainder of this money away,” he said, “I don’t like it being in the house.”
For answer, she opened the drawer of the desk and took out the black-muzzled Browning.
“Burglars are my specialty,” she said.
“Would you mind putting that lethal weapon away?” said Bobbie. “What a bloodthirsty little devil you are!”
“I am,” said Diana. “There’s murder in my bones at this particular moment. Yes, Eleanor?”
“Are you going to see Mr. Superbus?”
“I didn’t know he was here. Ask him to come in, will you?”
Mr. Superbus came, in his stately, senatorialfashion, and was introduced to Bobbie. It was obvious he sought a very private interview indeed, but Diana explained in what relationship Bobbie stood.
“I’m sorry to have missed Mr. Selsbury,” said Julius. “Information having come to me last night through my secret agent about a certain party.”
“You mean Double Dan?”
Diana reacted instantly. For the moment she hadn’t a care in the world.
“It’s no laughing matter, miss.” Mr. Superbus shook his head, and invited, with a wave of the hand, bent forward to see his feet and sat down slowly. “No, it isn’t any laughing matter, ma’am—miss. If he walked in at that door”—he pointed—“made up for the part, you’d think it was your father.”
Diana raised a protesting hand.
“May I explain, in passing, that Mr. Selsbury is not my father?”
Julius graciously indicated that she had his permission.
“Dan is wonderful! I was telling my good lady only this morning that, if she sees a fellowlooking like me trying to get into the house when I’m supposed to be away, she must make him take his shirt off—I’ve got a lucky mole on my shoulder, miss—ma’am—miss. Why moles are supposed to be lucky I’ve never discovered.”
Diana turned to Bobbie.
“This is rather alarming.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Bobbie. “Lots of people have moles.”
“Don’t be absurd. I mean Double Dan.”
“But why should he come here?” asked Bobbie, well aware that the contents of the safe, such as they were, justified a visit. But it was Mr. Superbus who answered.
“That’s what they all say, but there’s always a reason, miss. My good lady said to me ‘Why should he come here?’ but I pointed out that—what’s in that safe? Any valuables there?” He pointed to the wall.
“Nothing very much,” said Diana hastily. “Tell us some more about this person, Mr. Superbus.”
Mr. Superbus smiled to himself.
“I’m the greatest living authority on him,” he said modestly, “that’s what I am! He’s a veryplausible fellow, and works with a girl. Whether or not—well, let’s say it’s his wife. She wangles the information out of the fellow that Dan is going to rob. Do you see?”
Diana nodded.
“I see. She’s a sort of decoy who gets to know the victim.”
“Know him! Well, I should say she did, miss—it would be much easier to tell you everything if you was ma’am.”
“Well, imagine I am,” smiled Diana. “She gets to know him very well?”
Mr. Superbus nodded.
“I should say so! She starts a hand-holding friendship, if I might describe it.”
“But surely not always?” interrupted Bobbie. “She didn’t catch old Mendlesohn that way? He must be sixty-five!”
Mr. Superbus was amused.
“Sixty-five! Why, of course she did! The sixty-fivers are the worst. They’re easy. Mind you, there’s nothing more than a high-class friendship in it, if I may use the word. The people she likes to get hold of are the thinkers—she’s got a classy line of language. You know the sort of stuff that highbrows talk.”
“A soul, in fact?” smiled Diana. “Does she represent herself as being married?”
He nodded.
“Yes, there’s always a husband in the background. Sometimes he lives abroad, sometimes he’s in a lunatic asylum, but he’s mostly out of the way.”
Bobbie staggered and caught hold of a chair for support. Happily, Diana did not notice his wan excitement.
“And then what happens?” she asked, a little nervous as to whether Mr. Superbus was still confounding “miss” with “ma’am.”
“Well, she lures him away,” said Mr. Superbus. “There’s no other word for it. Shelureshim away. And whilst they’re away, up comes Double Dan with all the dear departed’s little tricks—his voice, his funny little ways, which the girl has been studying and passing on to Dan. You understand, miss? I’ve collected all this information myself. It’s a coop with me. ‘Coop’ is French for ‘cop.’”
“And the girl?” asked Diana.
“Oh, she gets away too—pretends her husband’s come back unexpectedly from foreign parts; but she does it so that the fellow can’t return home. Usually he’s told people that he’s going away for a fortnight or so, and naturally, he doesn’t want to come back.”
“How perfectly disgusting!” said Diana with a wry face.
“That’s what I say,” said Mr. Superbus earnestly. “Having allowed a gentleman to go so far——”
“At any rate, we need not have any fear about Mr. Selsbury,” said Diana with a quiet smile.
Evidently Mr. Superbushadfears about Mr. Selsbury. He looked around in his mysterious way, and then:
“He’s gone out of town, hasn’t he?”
Diana nodded.
“For any length of time?”
“For a week,” said Diana.
Superbus rubbed his chin.
“It’s rather a delicate matter, but I am a family man, ma’am—miss. Has he gone away on business—no chance of a——?”
“Of a what?”
“Of a lure?”
Diana laughed softly.
“Absolutely no chance.” Diana was thinkingquickly. “What sort of a woman would this be—his confederate, I mean—pretty?”
“Handsome is as handsome does,” replied Julius.
“Are you going, Bobbie?”
Bobbie was following the detective from the room.
“Yes, I’ve got to see a man,” he said a little incoherently.
There was still time to catch Gordon, and he was resolved to take the risk.
With Bobbie out of the way, the girl rang the bell, and, when Eleanor came, she found her mistress at the writing-table, blotting an envelope.
“Put your hat on, Eleanor, and deliver this letter to the Marble Arch Hotel. Take a taxi.”
“Yes, madam,” said Eleanor in surprise.
“Ask to see Mr. Dempsi.”
Diana made an attempt to be unconcerned, and failed dismally.
“If he kisses the letter, or anything like that—you mustn’t be surprised. He is very impulsive: he might even kiss you,” she added.
Eleanor stiffened.
“Indeed, miss?”
“He won’t mean anything by it.” Diana was tremulously diplomatic. “He always kisses people when he sees them. I—I shouldn’t be surprised if he kissed me when he calls—we’re old friends, and people do that sort of thing in—in Australia.”
“Indeed, madam?” said Eleanor, her interest in the British Empire awakened.
“I’m afraid Mr. Selsbury wouldn’t understand,” Diana went on lightly. “Men are rather narrow. If you told him——”
“I should never dream of telling Mr. Selsbury, madam,” said Eleanor indignantly.
The girl came in dressed before she went.
“I beg your pardon, Miss Ford, but it has just occurred to me,” she said hesitantly. “If this foreign gentleman should kiss me, might I be bold enough to ask you not to mention it to Trenter?”
“You may rely on me, Eleanor,” said Diana firmly. “We women must stand together.”
She watched the girl through the window till she was out of sight, then flopped back in her chair. The papers stood in a rack at her hand, unopened, unread. She reached out and found one, but there was no drama that could quite over-shadow that which was being played out in her heart.
She heard a tap and looked round. It was not at the door; it seemed to be at the stained-glass window. There was a little window square, level with the ledge, which could be opened and closed as a casement, and against this she saw the shadow of a head, and, with her heart thumping wildly, walked across the room.
“Who is there?” she asked.
Then came a voice that chilled her to the marrow.
“Don’t you know me, beloved?”
“Mr. Dempsi!” she gasped. “You mustn’t come here, really you mustn’t! My—my Uncle Isaac isn’t at home, and I can’t receive you.”
With an effort of will she jerked open the window and looked down upon a bearded face and eyes that shone. A wide-brimmed sombrero at the back of his head; hanging from his shoulders, a long black cape. He might have stepped from an opera.
“I—I can’t see you now, really I can’t! Won’t you call next Wednesday week?”
So that was Dempsi! She remembered dimlysome resemblance to the bare-faced boy she had known. Perhaps that wild glitter of eye, that furious gesticulation.
“Diana,” he breathed, “I’ve come back from the grave to claim you!”
“Yes, yes, but not now,” she said, in an agony of apprehension. “Go back to your grave till three o’clock. I’ll see you then.”
The shadow disappeared. How had he got there? Curiosity. Opening the window an eighth of an inch, she saw him scaling the wall with an agility which would have been admirable in any other conditions. Slowly she walked up the stairs to her room, closed and locked the door behind her, and sat down heavily on her bed.
Once upon a time her aunt had carefully loaded a shot-gun designed for this same Dempsi. Tears came into her eyes.
“Dear auntie!” she half-sobbed. “You understood men so well!”
Gordonhesitated a little time before the mirror in his bedroom at the hotel, the razor poised in his hand, his cheeks crisp with lather. There is no more solemn act undertaken by man than destruction of such facial landmarks (if the term be allowed) as are represented by cultivated hair. There is something so irrevocable, so tremendous in self-destruction of whiskers, that it is amazing so few great poets have utilised the theme.
Setting his jaw, Gordon attacked with a firm hand, the bright blade flashed in the pale sunlight ... the deed was done. Rubbing his face clean of lather, he gazed in surprise at the result. His appearance was wholly changed. It would not be extravagant to describe it as improved. Those two flickers of the razor had made him ten years younger.
“Boyish!” exclaimed Gordon, neither in despair nor pleasure, yet with something of both emotions.
Until then he had not seen the suit, that fashionable grey check with a little red in it. Hisfirst impression of the pattern had mellowed with time....
“My God!” breathed Gordon.
He was not a profane man. Once Diana had wrung from him such an expression, but Diana and her startling point of view was the mildest of provocation compared with the horror that lay unfolded on the bed.
As a length of cloth it had called for attention. It was humanly impossible to pass it by without some such comment as “That is rather unusual.” But in the piece it had dignity; there was a suggestion of weavers’ genius and ingenuity.
As a suit, embellished with a saucy waist, and with buttons that were in themselves a quiet smile.... Gordon felt a trickle of something at his temples and requisitioned his handkerchief. He could not possibly wear this. The alternative, for a short sea voyage, was a black morning coat and top hat—equally impossible.
Time was flying. He put on the trousers. They did not look so bad ... he dressed.
Standing before the long glass in the wardrobe, he looked and wondered. One thing was certain: not his dearest friend would recognise him—and his overcoat would hide much. The reflectionof this new Gordon Selsbury fascinated him.
“How do you do?” he asked politely.
The figure in the mirror bowed gravely. He was a perfect stranger to Gordon, a young bookmaker, Gordon thought, and was growing interested when he realised with a shock that it was himself. Packing hastily, he rang the bell three times for the valet. If you rang twice the porter came, once, the chambermaid. So he rang three times. The chambermaid appeared. Happily the hotel is a house of call. Guests come overnight and leave in the morning. Nobody recognises anybody except under the urgent promptings of lawyers’ clerks, supported by the visitors’ book. Ten per cent of the staff was permanently giving evidence at the law courts.
“The valet,” said Gordon and, when that individual appeared, gave instructions regarding the grip containing his discarded suit and hat-box. It occurred to him at that moment that one does not journey to Scotland in a top hat, and he was rather glad that Diana had been out when he left.
“I want these things to be kept in the hotel cloak-room,” said Gordon. “I will be back next Friday night and collect them.”
Now the valet knew him; had seen him, not atthe hotel, but at a very select club in Pall Mall where the man had been a waiter before the craze for improvement had driven him to the brushing of odd people’s odder clothing.
“Excuse me, sir, you’re Mr. Selsbury, aren’t you?”
Gordon went red.
“Yes, I am Mr. Selsbury,” he said with a touch of hauteur. His signature in the visitors’ book was unintelligible. The reception clerk thought it was Silsburg.
“I don’t think I should leave your bag in the hotel, sir,” said the valet gravely.
Something of authority upon the ritual of adventure, he spoke with the best of intentions.
“Next Friday particularly we’ve got a big dinner here—to one of the Colonial Premiers. The hotel will be full of people—you don’t want to meet anybody you know?”
The assumption that he was privy to the clandestine character of Gordon’s movements made the visitor incapable of protest.
“Tell me the train you’re coming by; I’ll meet you at the station with the grip—I’ll put it straight away into the railway parcels office,” said the valet gently, almost tenderly.
Gordon could think of no improvement on this method; at the same time, the valet must be under no misapprehension.
“Thank you—er——”
“Balding—I used to be a waiter at the Junior University Club, sir.”
“Yes, of course. I think your idea is an excellent one. The fact is, I’m leaving London on a ... mission, and I have to be very careful ... thousands of pounds are involved.”
“I see, sir.”
Balding was so serious as to be almost plaintive. He had met gentlemen at the hotel in similar circumstances, onlytheyhad said that they were in the secret service.
“Thank you, sir ... very kind of you, I’m sure.”
Balding slipped the note into his waistcoat pocket indifferently.
“I’ll take this now, sir.” He lifted the grip from the bed. “Will you be coming by the first or the second continental on Friday? Ostend four-thirty, Paris eight-thirty.”
“Four-thirty,” said Gordon.
The die was cast. He gathered the second and smaller grip, paid his bill at the desk and went out.It was chiming the quarter before eleven when he entered Victoria Station; the train left at twelve. There was no need to rush for seats. He had his Pullman reservation in his pocket. Happily the day was raw, the sun and rain alternately, blustering wind all the time. He could turn up the collar of his greatcoat. On the indicator board he read:
“Wind N. N. W. Sea moderate to rough. Visibility good.”
“Wind N. N. W. Sea moderate to rough. Visibility good.”
He was glad, at any rate, that the visibility was good.
And then he looked around for Heloise. They had arranged to meet for the briefest space of time.
At ten minutes to eleven, he grew restive, was on the point of picking up his valise, when he saw her hurrying toward him, glancing furtively behind. And there was something in her face that made his breath come a little more quickly.
“Follow me into the waiting-room!”
She had passed him with this muttered message. Like a man in a dream, Gordon picked up his bag and followed. The big waiting-hall wasnearly empty, and to its emptiest corner she led him.
“Gordon, a dreadful thing has happened.” Her agitation communicated itself to his unquiet bosom. “My husband has returned unexpectedly from Kongo. He is following me ... he is mad—mad! Oh, Gordon, what have I done!”
He did not swoon; rather, he experienced all the sensations without losing consciousness.
“He swears I have transferred my affections, and says he will never rest until he stretches the man dead at my feet. He said he would do dreadful things ... he is a great admirer of Peter the Great.”
“Is he?” said Gordon. It seemed a futile question to ask, but he could think of nothing else. And he was not a little bit interested in Mr. van Oynne’s historical leanings.
“Gordon, you must go on to Ostend and wait for me,” she said rapidly. “I will come as soon as possible ... oh, my dear, you don’tknowhow I’m feeling!”
Gordon was so immensely absorbed in his own feelings that he made no effort of imagination.
“Didn’t you tell him that our ... our friendship was just ... spiritual?” he asked.
Her smile was faint and sad and shadowy. A ghost who had overheard a good one in a smoking-room might have laughed as hilariously.
“My dear ... whowouldbelieve that? Now hurry, I must go.”
Her little hand trembled for a second on his arm and she was gone.
He picked up his bag, it was curiously heavy, and followed her into the station. She was nowhere in sight. A porter stretched a suggestive hand toward his baggage.
“Continental train, sir ... have you got a seat?”
Gordon looked up at the clock. It wanted five minutes of eleven.
“Eleven-five the boat train, sir,” said the porter.
“Eleven-five? I thought it was eleven,” said Gordon numbly.
“There’s plenty of time, sir.”
Still Gordon stood, motionless. For some extraordinary reason his mind had refused to function; he was wholly incapable of decision or movement. The engine of his faculties had gone cold and refused to start.
“Get me a cab, please.”
The mechanism of the request saved him.
“Yes, sir.”
The bag was taken from his unresisting hand. He followed the porter to the busy courtyard, pathetic in his helplessness.
“Where shall I tell him to go, sir?”
The porter stood invitingly, the cab door in his hand, a friendly smile on his face. He had not yet been tipped.
“Scotland,” said Gordon hollowly.
“Scotland—you mean Scotland Yard?”
This touched the spring: all the wheels in Mr. Selsbury’s mind began revolving at once.
“No, no—to the Grovely Hotel. Thank you very much.”
The gratuity that Gordon crushed into the outstretched hand was munificent, princely. One glance at its value and the porter staggered against the door, closed it with a strangled “Grovely!” and the cab rattled out of the station precincts.
At that moment Bobbie Selsbury was engaged in a frenzied seat-to-seat search for his erring brother.
Gordon was cooler now, though not out of danger. He could think: he could also for themoment inhibit thought. A jealous and revengeful husband, probably armed, certainly homicidal, and a student of Peter the Great and his methods, could not be wholly inhibited. Gordon wondered whether in his library he had a really frank and unexpurgated history of Peter.
The hotel linkman opened the door of the cab, professionally pleased at his return.
“Keep the cab,” warned Gordon. He was by no means certain that he was capable, unaided, of calling another.
At the desk of the reception clerk he recovered his key and the right to its employment, and carrying his bag to his room, rang the bell three times for the valet. The porter answered him, but not by mischance, as was proved.
“Balding is off duty, sir,” he explained. “He goes off at eleven on Saturdays.”
“When will he be back?”
“On Monday, sir. We have a whole day every second week. Is there anything I can get you, sir?”
Gordon shook his head. He only wanted his bag and his lost respectability. Removing his overcoat, he looked at himself in the glass.
“That isn’t me,” he said brokenly.
His appearance had changed, even in the short space of time elapsing between this and his last inspection.
The type was hideously familiar. He had seen it once in a vulgar film where everybody chased everybody else. He remembered that the heroine wore white stockings and black boots.
There were two alternatives. He might remain a prisoner in that room until Balding returned from his holiday; he could go home, get into the house unobserved and change. He had many black-tailed coats, batteries of silk hats, forests of quiet, grey-striped trousers. This idea was more attractive. Diana would lunch at one o’clock; the dining-room was across the hall from The Study. It would be a simple matter to slip upstairs, change and come down to meet the astonished eyes of Diana. How surprised she would be, and how amusing and unbending he would be!
“Didn’t expect to see me, eh? Well, the fact is, I had an important cablegram—just as I was getting into the train. My sidewhiskers? Yes, I took them off as a little surprise for you. Rather an improvement, don’t you think?”
His heart warmed to the plan, and there was aglow in the thought that the desire of the morning, that he should sleep in his own bed that night, would be gratified. And there was the companionship of Diana, hitherto an unconsidered attraction. Diana grew on him: he admitted this to himself. If Heloise did go after him to Ostend, that would be unfortunate. He hated the idea of giving her a journey for nothing. But she would not leave for a day or two, and he would find means of communicating with her....
He shuddered; for at the back of the vision of Heloise, stood the large, brutal husband who was mad, mad.
There were two hours to wait before he could put his plan into operation. He telephoned from his bedroom to a bookseller’s in the Buckingham Palace Road.
“Have you a good life of Peter the Great?” he asked.
They had two. He ordered them to be sent to him immediately. He was rather amused with himself.
He was less amused when he heard of the fate of one who had aspired to the affections of Catherine, and whose head had been placed into a largeglass jar and displayed in Catherine’s boudoir to remind her that husbands have their feelings. There was another gentleman who loved Catherine, and him Peter had hanged on a high gibbet, under which he promenaded arm in arm with Catherine. The arm and arm was a domestic touch not lost upon Gordon. On the whole, he decided thoughtfully, a profound admiration for Peter’s character would have no softening tendency upon any man, especially a man who was mad, mad.
He put away his book, drew on his overcoat, and, passing down in the elevator, found his cab still waiting, the meter bloated with charges. He had forgotten all about the cab.
At the corner of the street he paid the man and walked rapidly into Cheynel Gardens, his nose showing above the collar of his overcoat. Happily, the street was empty. He almost ran when he reached the familiar façade of his house, turned into the side passage, and, with a trembling hand, fitted the key into the lock of the back gate. Suppose it were bolted? The horrid doubt was no sooner in his mind than it was dispelled. The key turned easily, and he found himself looking up at the familiar window of his study.
Tiptoeing to the little door, he listened. There was no sound, and, with minute care to avoid making the slightest noise, he pushed his pass-key slowly in the lock, and pushed the door open a fraction of an inch. Not a sound. He opened it a little further, slipped behind the curtain which hid the door, and closed it behind him.
The room was empty, the two doors into the hall ajar. He could hear the solemn ticking of the grandfather clock on the staircase.
His first step, he had decided, must be to get into touch with Bobbie. Listening at the hall door, he heard the click of steel on china—Diana was at lunch, as he had expected. He closed first the baize, and then the inner door softly, shot a bolt and tiptoed across the room. Bless Diana for bringing the telephone into The Study!
Bobbie’s office responded. A late leaving clerk had heard the ring of the ’phone and came back to answer.
“No, sir, Mr. Selsbury is not in to-day.”
Gordon rang off without disclosing his identity, and tried Bobbie’s lodgings in Half Moon Street, with no better success. He was wasting valuable time, he realised, and Bobbie could wait. He put on the receiver and stood up, stretching himself,with an easy, happy, home-coming smile. Yes, Diana would be surprised.
He crossed the room to the hall. His hand was on the handle when, glancing round, he saw the curtain which hid the door into the courtyard move and billow. He had left the door open, he thought, and was on the point of returning to close it, when a hand came round the edge of the curtain, and he stood, frozen to the spot. Again the draperies moved, and a woman came into view. It was Heloise!
Gordon did not believe the evidence of his eyes. She was some vision conjured up by an overheated brain, a symptom of disordered nerves.
“You are not real,” he said dully. “Avaunt!”
“Gordon!”
The outstretched hands, the plea in her eyes. Gordon Selsbury stood with his back to the door.
“How did you come here?” he croaked.
“Through the garden gate—the way you came.... I followed you. Gordon, he is furious! You must protect me.”
He could only stare at her owlishly.
“You mean—Peter?” he nodded.
“Peter? No, my husband, Claude. He knows everything!” dramatically.
“Is he ... an editor?”
He was talking foolishly: nobody knew that better than Gordon; but the works were beginning to slow down again. And then she came to him and dropped both her hands on his arm.
“You want me to stay here, don’t you? You won’t turn me out ...? He followed me, but I slipped him.”
“Stay here?” Gordon hardly recognised his own voice. “Are you mad?”
She looked at him suspiciously.
“Are you married?”
“No.” And then a flashing inspiration. “Yes.”
“Yes-no,” she said impatiently. “What are you—divorced?”
“No. You see how absurd it is, Heloise.”
“You are married to Diana.” She pointed an accusing finger.
Gordon could only nod idiotically.
“You really must go,” he squeaked. “This may mean ruin for me!”
Her lips curled as she drew back, hands on hips.
“Do I get any of that ruin?” she demanded.
“You must go back to your husband.” Hisbrain was alert now. “Tell him you have made a mistake——”
“He pretty well guesses that,” she interrupted bitterly, and slowly took off her wrap.
Instantly Gordon seized it.
“Put it on, put it on!” he wailed, but she twisted herself loose.
“I will not go, I will not! Oh, Gordon, you can’t turn me out after all we’ve been to one another! After all the confidences!”
He was pushing her toward the courtyard door, a man beside himself, frenzied with fear, terrified beyond hope of succour.
“Out of the side door!” he hissed. “I will meet you in half an hour, at a teashop somewhere. Heloise, don’t you realise my reputation depends——”
It needed but this to pull the mask from her face.
“Teashop! I am to be thrown to the lions!”
He looked hard at her. Could a woman pun in such a solemn moment?
“As to your reputation,” she drawled coolly, “that sort of thing doesn’t make me get out of bed and walk round, I assure you! I will not leave this house—alone!”
Gordon covered his mouth with his hand. He was in no danger of talking. He wanted to cover her mouth with his hand, but she was too far away. It was an involuntary gesture which silenced her. She heard the knock at the door, and then Diana’s voice:
“Who is there?”
He pointed to the side door, grimacing. Heloise was adamant.
“Who’s there?” said Diana.
“Side door,” whispered Gordon frantically.
Heloise shook her head, hesitated, and then stole silently behind the curtain into the recess. It was her final compromise.
“Who is there? Who locked the door?”
Diana’s voice was urgent. Gordon straightened his coat, smoothed his hair, unlocked the door and threw it wide open.
“It’s all right, dear.” He was grinning inanely like a cat. “Ha ha—it’s only Gordon—Gord, as you would say! I’m just coming out ... here I am back again ... like a bad penny.”
In Diana’s eyes was a glitter which he did not like, and as she advanced he backed instantly before her.
“Only old Gordon—ha ha!” he said feebly.
“Very funny. I’ll laugh to-morrow,” said Diana.
The vulgarity of the ancient music-hall gag did not even arouse him.
“So it’s only old Gordon, is it?” She nodded wisely. “Sit over there—old Gordon!” She pointed to a chair.
“Now look here, my dear girl.” It was a very colourless imitation of his best manner. “The whole thing can be explained. I lost my train....”
She was opening a drawer in the writing table, slowly, deliberately, her eyes never leaving his face. When her hand came to view, it held a Browning.
Click!The jacket snapped back. It was loaded.
“What are you doing, Diana?” he squeaked again.
Her eyes were now murderous.
“Will you be good enough not to call me Diana?” she asked icily. “So you’ve come, have you? And even I, who expect most things, didn’t expect you. But, my friend, you’ve come at an opportune hour!”
“Look here, old girl—” he began.
“You can omit the familiarities.” She waved him down to his chair. “Never imagine that you will deceive me—I know you!”
“You know me?” he said hoarsely. He had come to a point where he wasn’t quite certain whether he knew himself.
“I know you,” she repeated slowly. “You’re Double Dan!”
He leapt to his feet, the pistol covering him. Waving wild hands, he strove to speak.
“You’re Double Dan,” she said, and the fire in her eyes was now ominous. “I’ve heard about you. You’re the impersonator. You and your woman confederate lure innocent men from their homes, that you can rob them.” She looked round. “Where is the woman? Doesn’t she appear on the scene, or does her work finish when the luring is completed?”
“Diana, I swear to you you’re mistaken. I’m Gordon, your cousin.”
She smiled slowly.
“You haven’t been as careful as usual, Dan. And the fact that I call you by your Christian name need not inspire you with a desire to get better acquainted. You haven’t studied him.My cousin, Gordon Selsbury, had little side-whiskers—didn’t you know that?”
“I—I had an accident. In fact,” said Gordon, “I took them off ... to please you.”
Her sneering smile chilled him through and through.
“My cousin Gordon is not the kind of man who would have an accident with his whiskers,” she said with cold deliberation. “Where is your lady friend?”
He tried to look away from the curtained recess, stared solemnly ahead of him, but involuntarily his eyes strayed to the garden door. And then Diana saw the slightest of movements.
“Come out, please,” she said.
There was no response.
“Come out, or I’ll shoot!”
The curtain grew agitated. Heloise, white of face, flew across the room, flinging herself upon Gordon’s heaving bosom.
“Don’t let her shoot me! Don’t let her shoot me!” she shrieked.
Diana looked and nodded.
“So this man is your husband!” she said.
Walking back to the door, she closed it.
“Now listen to me, Double Dan and Mrs.Double Dan, or whatever your names may be. You are here to commit a felony, and I could, if I wished, send for the police and hand you over to justice. I’m not sure that I shan’t take that course. For the moment, however, your presence is providential.”
And then, in scorn:
“Gordon Selsbury! Do you imagine Gordon Selsbury would bring a woman to this house furtively? Do you imagine he would come dressed like a third-class comedian? Never dare mention Mr. Selsbury’s name again in my presence!”
Gordon opened and closed his mouth, but no words came.
“You will stay here until I give you permission to go.”
She went to the garden gate, closed and slammed it, then came back to Gordon.
“You had a key? Give it to me,” she said curtly.
Gordon obeyed, lamb-like, watching her as she double-locked the door. And then he made his last desperate attempt.
“Diana, I can explain everything,” he said hoarsely. “I am—the fact is—I’ll tell you thetruth. I was going abroad, and the fact is, I am Gordon, although I may not seem so. I admit I’m wearing the most disgustingly loud suit, and that I have in other ways changed my appearance, but that also can be explained.”
There was a knock on the panel of the door.
“Wait,” said Diana, and walked backward to the entrance. “Who is it?”
“Eleanor, madam. A telegram.”
“Push it under the door.”
An orange envelope came into sight, and, picking it up, she tore away the cover and read the form.
“Go on,” she signalled to Gordon. “You say you are Gordon Selsbury? Tell me some more. But before you do so, listen to this:
“‘Just leaving Euston. Take care of yourself. Gordon.’
“‘Just leaving Euston. Take care of yourself. Gordon.’
“Now there need be no deception on either side. Open your heart to me, little man. Who are you—Gordon Selsbury or Double Dan?”
“Anything!” The wail of the damned.
“Gordon Selsbury or Double Dan?” she demanded inexorably.
He threw out his hands.
“Double Dan,” snarled Gordon.
Of the two alternative rôles, this seemed the more creditable.
Hehad never seen anybody as scared as Heloise was; that was the one clear impression which Gordon carried away from the interview. She, the self-possessed woman of the world, a soul, one superior to the lesser grades of humanity, seemed to have cowered and shrunk under the domination of Diana’s baleful eye. Gordon sighed, tied his baize apron a little tighter round his waist, and wondered where Trenter kept his stock of plate powder. On the whole, it was good that Trenter was away, and that he was spared the sight of his master’s humiliation. If indeed it was a humiliation to be thrust into an ill-lit pantry with instructions to clean the silver, and be ready at a moment’s notice to make himself presentable. Gordon tried again and attacked a cream-jug half-heartedly. His hands were not designed for housework. Yet he would as soon have thought of cutting his throat with a fruit knife (half-a-dozen of which awaited his attention) as disobey Diana’s imperious gesture which had sent him off to the pantry to clean silver.
He was not asleep; he had made absolutely certain of this; he was wide awake, in his shirt sleeves, a baize apron covering his detestable suit, and he was polishing a cream, or it may have been a milk jug. That fact being firmly and inevitably established, he had some basis for reasoning and wonder. Chief cause for wonder was why Diana kept him in the house at all, believing him to be Double Dan; why she did not send immediately for the police and have him taken off to the nearest lock-up. He was devoutly thankful that she hadn’t! The second cause for wonder was what had happened to the remainder of the domestic staff? Eleanor he had not seen. There was no evidence that the cook was on the premises. Here again this fact provided him with a certain amount of satisfaction—but where were they? He was to learn.
Diana made her appearance at the door of the pantry and he stared at her open-mouthed. Around her dainty waist was a broad leather belt, and, hanging by two straps, was a pistol holster, from the opening of which protruded the black handle of a Browning.
“Do you know anything about potatoes?” she asked curtly.
Gordon was ashamed to discover that he knew nothing about potatoes, except that they were vegetables.
“Have you everpeeledpotatoes?”
“I can’t remember,” he said. “When I was at school I think we used to peel potatoes——”
“I’m not interested in what happened at Borstal—that is the name of the juvenile convict establishment, isn’t it? Put that milk-jug down and come into the kitchen.”
He followed her meekly. There was no sign of the cook; Eleanor was invisible, and he learnt the reason.
“I’ve sent my servants away for a week-end holiday,” she said. “I want no scandal attaching to my cousin’s name. I will not even have it known that this attempt has been made to swindle him. You understand that you will not try to leave the house?”
“Yes,” he nodded.
“Naturally, it is impossible that I should keep up day and night watching you,” she said, “so I have asked a friend to come in and help me.”
A gleam of hope showed in Gordon’s eyes.
“A detective,” she said impressively, “a Mr. Superbus—a name, I think with which you are well acquainted.”
“That ... that ...?” spluttered Gordon indignantly.
“That,” she said.
A bell shrilled in the kitchen. She looked up at the indicator. The little disc which represented the front door was oscillating violently.
“There are the potatoes,” she pointed to them.
Gordon saluted. He was once in the army and it seemed natural to salute.
No sooner had she gone than he decided upon his course of action. He was well enough acquainted with the house to know that there was a kitchen door and for this he made. It was locked; the key had been taken away; the windows of scullery and kitchen were heavily barred against burglars. Gordon returned to his potatoes with a sigh. He sighed easily in these hours.
Again the bell rang. Diana heard it as she unbuckled the strap of her revolver belt, and put away the weapon into the hall cupboard. She hesitated a second with her hand on the doorknob, and then the thunderous rat-tat forced her to action. She opened the door. The momenthad come. Before she saw the bearded gentleman she knew he was there.
“Three o’clock!” he cried exultantly, and threw out both his hands. “Three o’clock, my bride, my dove, my life!”
“Come in,” said Diana practically.
He would have taken her in his arms, but she held him at a distance.
“The servants,” she said and swiftly eluded his embracing arms.
“In here,” she opened The Study door. “Guiseppi, you must behave—you really must. My uncle——”
“Your uncle!” He gazed at her ecstatically.
She nodded.
“In this house?”
She ought to have been warned by his fervour, but the immediate necessities of the moment threw her off her balance.
“Why, of course he’s here,” she said.
“Your uncle is here!” There was triumph in his tone, his wild eyes fixed her.
“Why ... why yes, Guiseppi,” she faltered and he closed his eyes in a rapt smile.
“Then the dream of my life is to be fulfilled. Your telephone—I may use it, yes?”
He was at the telephone before she could say yes or no. She heard him give a number, his hotel, and then:
“You will have my bags sent here at once, to Cheynel Gardens, yes? Two bags, do you not understand English? My grip, bags, send them to this place. What is the name, Cheynel? Yes, that is it, Cheynel Gardens, Number 61. You cannot mistake it. My pyjamas you will not forget. They are under my pillow.”
“Guiseppi!” she gasped. “What are you doing? Wait! You can’t stay here!”
“Yes, here, under your roof. The glory of it! It is wonderful, a fulfilment of dreams, oh my starry vision! Without your good uncle it was impossible. You have a new aunt? Ah, the poor Mrs. Tetherby! It was comical, to me tragic, yet this moment comical again!”
“But Guiseppi,” she wailed, “you can’t stay. My uncle doesn’t like people staying in the house....”
He patted her shoulder.
“We shall charm him. We shall overcome his objections! Tell me his hobby, I will speak about it. There is no subject under the sun on which I cannot speak.”
This she believed.
“Your aunt! To me your aunt! Bring her at once that I may shake her hand and kiss her on both cheeks. The aunt of Diana! Oh divine relationship!”
In a dazed kind of way Diana realized that the Italian side of Mr. Dempsi had developed to an enormous and unbearable extent. He could not keep still for a moment. Now he was at the fireplace, examining the crossed oars.
“You have learnt to row, my little Diana? That is wonderful! We shall row together upon the stream of Time, drinking the waters of Lethe and forgetting the past.”
In two strides he had reached her, gripping both her hands in his.
“Diana, do you realise how I have dreamt of all this, through the long nights in the bush, in the waste places of the Northern Territories, where I wandered seeking gold and forgetfulness and finding neither? In the silence of the native hut, broken by the little birds’ twittering in the darkness, and no other sound but the sighing of the wind—your face was there! Your exquisite memorable features, the glory of your hair, youreyes that smiled and tormented....”
He broke off abruptly.
“Your uncle ... produce him....”
Gordon had peeled his third potato when Diana staggered into the kitchen. They were big potatoes when he started to deal with them. They were very small when he had finished. It was difficult to know where the skin began and ended; he had cut deep to make sure.
At the sight of her tragic face he dropped his potato.
“Anything wrong?”
“Wrong? Everything’s wrong!” she said bitterly. “I’m going to give you your chance. I don’t like your name, Dan, and I’ve changed it. You’re Isaac!”
“Who!” he twittered.
“You’re Isaac, my uncle Isaac!”
He put down the knife, wiped his hands on his apron and went slowly across to her.
“I am not your uncle Isaac,” he began.
“Take offthat!” she pointed to the apron. “Put on your coat and come upstairs. Remember, you’re uncle Isaac and that terrible female—where is she?”
“How the dickens do I know where she is?” asked the annoyed Gordon.
“Wait!”
Diana flew up the stairs to the top of the house and in the spare room where she had intended putting the hired man and wife, she found Heloise sitting disconsolately on the edge of the bed, a suspicious wetness about her eyes. When the door was unlocked and flung open, the woman jumped up.
“Now, see here, Mrs. Selsbury,” she began in her high voice, “I don’t know the law of this country but you’ve no right to lock me in——”
“Do you want me to send for the police?” asked Diana, calm but menacing.
“I tell you you’re all wrong, Mrs. Selsbury,” said Heloise with great earnestness. “You’ve made the biggest mistake of your life. That poor fish is your husband.”
“I have no husband—fish, flesh, fowl or herring,” said Diana. “I never had a husband,” and then remembering, “I am a widow.”
Heloise was momentarily staggered.
“You can forget all that has happened to-day,” said Diana speaking a little wildly. “A visitor has come—he is staying in the house ... an old friend of mine ... in fact, I was once engaged to him until he died in the bush.”
“Is he here?” asked the startled Heloise.
“He is here,” nodded Diana, “and he is remaining. Obviously, I cannot allow him to stay unless I have a chaperone. You are,” she spoke deliberately, “Aunt Lizzie.”
Heloise could only look at her.
“You’re Aunt Lizzie and your wretched criminal husband, or whatever he is (I can only hope for the best) is Uncle Isaac. Go right down into the kitchen and tell him.”
“Let me get this right,” said Heloise slowly. “I am Aunt Lizzie ... you want me to be your Aunt Lizzie.... and that poor child is to be ...?”
“Uncle Isaac.”
“I haven’t gotten it right yet,” said Heloise, “this is a cinema lot ... you’re playing somep’n,” she had forgotten momentarily that she was a lady of fashion and culture. “I’m Aunt Lizzie....”
She sank under the burden that had been imposed upon her.
“You’re all crazy, that’s what. I’m an American citizen, or near American.... Toronto, but I live so close that I could throw a stone across the border. And I’m Aunt Lizzie!”
Gordonwas playing absently with potato peelings when she came in.
“You’re Uncle Isaac!” she said in a strained, hazy fashion.
“Where have you been, Heloise?”
The sight of his companion in misfortune brought him with a jerk to normal. Heloise was real, something to cling to; he forgot his resentment in the joy of seeing something that anchored him to Gordon Selsbury.
“Say Gordon, that Jane ... she’s Diana, huh?”
He nodded.
“Your wife, you never told me that?”
“She is not my wife ... she has no right here ... if I gave you cause to think I was married it was because I wanted you to go. Don’t you see what you’ve done? You’ve ruined me! If you had only kept away—if you had only kept away!” he moaned.
“She’s your widow,” she was very quiet andrestrained. He decided that she had lost her reason.
“Yes, if you like, she’s my widow,” he said soothingly. “Sit down.... I will get you a glass of water.”
“Diana!” said Heloise in wonder. “That’s your little Australian girl.... Gordon, was she a cop?”
“A what?”
“A headquarters woman! She’s got the style. Come on.”
“Where?”
“She wants us ...” said Heloise listlessly. “What’s the good of fighting, Gordon? We’re entangled in the mesh of circumstance.”
It was a favourite profundity of Heloise; he had heard her say it many times. But they were not entangled then.
Five minutes later.
A small brown-faced man was shaking Gordon by the hand, by both hands, by alternate hands. In the interval of shaking, he held hands.
“Your uncle ... and so young! And yet, he is older than he seems! And this is Aunt Lizzie!”
He kissed the patient Heloise on both cheeks.
Gordon was a dumbfounded spectator. Who was this infernal little cad, he demanded—Diana had omitted an introduction.
After a while it came.
“This, Uncle Isaac, is Mr. Guiseppi Dempsi—you remember how often I have spoken of him.”
Her steely glance was unnecessary. Gordon remembered.
“I thought he was dead.” So intense were his feelings that his voice dropped to a deep base.
It startled even himself.
“But I am alive! Rejoice, Uncle Isaac! Your little Wopsy is alive! I have come back from the shades! A syren’s sweet magic brought me across the world, yea, even through the shadows....”
He pointed with his whole hand to Diana and then.
“My bride!” he said tremendously.
Gordon looked from one to the other. “Dempsi ... bride ... bride Dempsi....”
“Perfectly ridiculous,” said Gordon and quailed under a fiendish glare from Diana.
But Mr. Dempsi was too happy to find anything in the interruption but a piece of rare good humour.
“We will have long talks, you and my uncle!” he said and beamed round on his hostess. “Tell me, little one, have I changed? Ah, but I was a boy then, a weak, vacillating ignorant boy. I did not realize that to win a woman she must be carried off her feet. To whine and wail for her, that is no good; to be diffident and timid—that is no good. To sigh at her feet bores her, to be humble arouses the greatest contempt ... women desire in men the grand manner, biff, bang, boff!”
“Uncle has to go now to ... to feed the chickens,” said Diana hurriedly.
Mr. Guiseppi Dempsi must neither biff, bang nor boff at 61 Cheynel Gardens. Dismayed she realized how broken were the reeds on which she had leant. They also were to know. She came into the kitchen after them.
“You’re no good, either of you,” she was in despair. “I suppose you’re good crooks, but that is because you haven’t the brains to be anything else. You stood like wax figures from the Chamber of Horrors and didnothing!”
“What were we supposed to do?” Gordon was stung into enquiring. “If I’d done what Iwanted to do, I’d have thrown the little wop into the street! But you’re master here. You won’t accept a perfectly simple explanation——”
“Your perfectly simple explanation doesn’t go with Aunt Lizzie,” she stopped him in her most imperial manner. “You might have deceived me but for that—be sensible, man. Iknowyou’re Double Dan. I want to use you if I can—if I can’t I’ll send for the police. I’m expecting Mr. Superbus at any moment—you will be under his eye; try to conduct yourself as an uncle would.”
Gordon writhed.
“How can I behave like an uncle when you’re setting an infernal bottle-nosed enquiry agent to watch me?” demanded Gordon hotly. “It is no crime to be an uncle, my good girl! You can’t say ‘Watch that man, he’s my Uncle Isaac!’ By your standard of ethics, an uncle may be a suspicious circumstance, but in this country it isn’t ... what excuse can you give?”
Her lips curled.
“I can say that you are weak-minded,” she said, cold-bloodedly, “and that is just what I am going to say!”
Gordon leant against the table for support.
“I’m not weak-minded,” he protested.
They waited until the sound of Diana’s footsteps had died away.
“This comes of trips to Ostend,” said Mr. Selsbury with a catch in his voice.
“If you’d gone to Ostend that couldn’t have happened,” said Heloise fiercely. “Does it occur to you that my husband has followed us and is at this moment sitting on the doorstep waiting to free your poor spirit from this earthly bondage?”
Gordon passed his hand wearily over his forehead. He was in the depths of despondency.
“I don’t care,” he said. “I don’t care about your husband. He’s probably a sensible man to whom one could explain things. Diana is so infernally sure of herself that you can’t argue with her.”
Sitting on the edge of the table, she had lit a cigarette, and was sending blue, twisting rings of smoke into the air. She did not speak for a long time, and then only to break in upon Gordon’s gloomy thoughts.
“My, I wish I was back home in my little apartment on a hundred ’n’ thoity-ninth Street!” she quavered.
Mr. Selsbury was visibly surprised. He had never heard her say “thoity” before.
Diana had come to feel unaccountably fagged. There was no adequate reason, for as a rule she was tireless; but the succession of demands upon her nervous energy was telling. She had to watch for tradesmen, she had to answer the door; a dozen times she was called from The Study to interview callers of all kinds who, obeying the large notice she had hand-printed and stuck on the kitchen door, “Please come to the main entrance: this door is not in use,” fed her with packages of grocery, baskets of meat, trays of fish. The amount of food that was consumed at No. 61 was appalling; she, at any rate, was appalled.
Toward evening, when Dempsi was fidgetting for the dinner she had forgotten to order, a man called. He was poorly dressed, unsavoury of appearance. His thin, yellow face was unshaven and he carried his head slightly askew. The sight of Diana took him aback for a moment.
“Good evening, miss,” he said, touching his cap. “I’ve called for the money.”
“Whose money?” she asked, surprised.
“Mine: I cleaned the windows yesterday.”
Then she recalled him. Heloise had complained that the man was “nosing round The Study,” and expressed doubts about his honesty and bona fides.
“Name of Stark, miss,” he said encouragingly.
“I remember.” She went in search of her bag.
When she came back, he was examining the lock of the door with professional interest. He was once a lock-maker, he offered the excuse for his curiosity. If Diana had not been wearing very soft-soled boots, the excuse would have been unnecessary.
“Mr. Selsbury not in, miss?” as she counted the money in his hand.
“No,” she said shortly.
“Mr. Trenter in, miss?”
“No.” Her eyes gleamed.
“Will Mr. Selsbury be away long—I wanted to see him about a job?”
“I don’t know when he will be back,” she said. “There are several men in the house: would you like to see one?”
His expression changed.
“No, thank you, miss.”
She closed the door on him and wondered when the Watch Dog would arrive.
There was still a lot of money in the safe. Those unaware of her obligations to Mr. Dempsi might imagine there was more.
Dempsi had wandered out of the room when she came in, and she went swiftly to the safe. It was one of those old-fashioned receptables that had, in addition to the combination, a further lock operated by a key. Gordon had once told her that the key was never used; he had once mislaid it and had to summon experts to open the door. She searched his writing-table, pulling out drawers (she opened them all without difficulty) and at last, in a small envelope inscribed gratuitously “Key,” she found what she sought.
“Thank goodness!” said Diana.
A turn of her wrist and the safe was secure even against those who by cunning or violence had obtained the code word.
Mr. Julius Superbus came importantly, descending from a taxicab and drawing out after him a large tin box, mottled red and black. He produced, also from the interior of the cab, a large scrap-book fastened about with a broad green canvas strap. He also delivered from the cab a daring golf cap. These he deposited on the sidewalk, paid the taximan his fare, climbing inside to verify what had seemed to be a preposterous statement of claim, and donated the driver sixpence. Diana in the note she had scrawled had added a P.S. “Spare no expense.”
Gathering his belongings under both arms, he went up the steps, stooped and pressed the bell with his nose, a clever little device that had once come to him as an inspiration and which in itself advertised his originality.
Diana answered the door.
“You sent for me,” said Julius simply. “I have come.”
She was obviously relieved to see him, and piloted him into the dining-room.
“Mr. Superbus, I am going to make great demands upon you, and I’m sure I shall not ask in vain. I am in the greatest trouble.”
He inclined his head.
“Have you searched all your clothes?” he asked quickly. “You’ve lost something—I know this by, so to speak, a method of my own. It’s natural to suspect servants—but do they do it, ma’am? Not once in fifty times——”
“I’ve lost nothing. Mr. Superbus, my uncle is here——”
She was doubtful as to how she should go on.Should she take him entirely into her confidence? A wild idea, but not without its advantage.
“Relations,” the Roman pronounced, “are best apart. They come, they borrow money, they eat you out of house and home, and when they go, they haven’t a good word for you. Uncles especially. Leave him to me, ma’am; I’ll put the case to him man to man. He’ll be out of this house ...” he looked at his watch—“in five minutes.”
She enlightened him briefly: her uncle was a welcome visitor; a nice man, very much like Mr. Selsbury in appearance and as young. Only ... she tapped her forehead. Mr. Superbus understood.
“Tact,” he said, “tact and humour. Let ’em think they’re havin’ their way and then the iron hand in the velvet glove—an expression I invented myself,” he appended modestly. “Leave him to me. You couldn’t come to anybody better than me, ma’am. We’ve had several lunatics in our family”—Diana stepped back a pace—“and his good lady is here?”
“Aunt Lizzie.”